News gathered 2024-02-14

(date: 2024-02-14 21:47:20)

Enhanced attention-related alertness following right anterior insular cortex neurofeedback training

date: 2024-02-16, from: ETH Zurich, recently added

Popovova, Jeanette; Mazloum, Reza; Macauda, Gianluca; Stämpfli, Philipp; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Frühholz, Sascha; Scharnowski, Frank; Menon, Vinod; Michels, Lars

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/657634 Save to Pocket

‘Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground’ Covers Some Lesser-Known Ground of Our 34th President’s Life

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

This off-Broadway hit comes to Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.

The post ‘Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground’ Covers Some Lesser-Known Ground of Our 34th President’s Life appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/eisenhower-this-piece-of-ground-covers-some-lesser-known-ground-of-our-34th-presidents-life/ Save to Pocket

Santa Barbara Wedding Resource Guide 2024

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Married S.B. photographers renew their vows, three unique S.B. wedding stories, and technology trends for your big day.

The post Santa Barbara Wedding Resource Guide 2024 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/santa-barbara-wedding-resource-guide-2024/ Save to Pocket

Embracing the Future of Weddings with New Tech Trends

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Embracing the future with new tech wedding trends.

The post Embracing the Future of Weddings with New Tech Trends appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/embracing-the-future-of-weddings-with-new-tech-trends/ Save to Pocket

Shutterbugs Celebrate Their Love, Again

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

In-demand wedding photography pros James and Jess renew their vows 10 years later.

The post Shutterbugs Celebrate Their Love, Again appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/shutterbugs-celebrate-their-love-again/ Save to Pocket

Santa Barbara Couples Recount Their Unique Nuptials

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Santa Barbara couples tell the story of a surprise ceremony, a unique venue, and two weddings at the same time.

The post Santa Barbara Couples Recount Their Unique Nuptials appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/sb-couple-stories/ Save to Pocket

2024 Santa Barbara Wedding Listings

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Married S.B. photographers renew their vows, three unique S.B. wedding stories, and technology trends for your big day.

The post 2024 Santa Barbara Wedding Listings appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/wedding-guide-listings/ Save to Pocket

Report from Amid a Strong SBIFF

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

The 39th Santa Barbara International Film Festival is in a healthy stride at mid-point, running through Saturday.

The post Report from Amid a Strong SBIFF appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/report-from-amid-a-strong-sbiff/ Save to Pocket

bouchon’s Quarter-Century of Santa Barbara Wine Country Cuisine

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Veteran proprietor Mitchell Sjerven reflects on restaurant longevity.

The post bouchon’s Quarter-Century of Santa Barbara Wine Country Cuisine appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/bouchons-quarter-century-of-santa-barbara-wine-country-cuisine/ Save to Pocket

Paging Anthony Wagner

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Whose hair do you gotta muss around here to get a mental-health treatment facility in Santa Barbara?

The post Paging Anthony Wagner appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/518043/ Save to Pocket

Three injured in West San Jose apartment fire

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

The blaze broke out Wednesday morning in the 1100 block of Oakmont Drive.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/three-injured-in-west-san-jose-apartment-fire/ Save to Pocket

North Korea running malware-laden gambling websites as-a-service

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

$5k a month for the site. $3k for tech support. Infection with malware and funding a despot? Priceless

North Korea’s latest money-making venture is the production and sale of gambling websites that come pre-infected with malware, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/north_korea_turns_to_designing/ Save to Pocket

2024 Yamaha MT-15 Adds Vibrant Life To The Naked Bike Party

date: 2024-02-15, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The compact and lightweight naked streetfighter has been refreshed in Thailand.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708714/2024-yamaha-mt15-new-colors-thailand/ Save to Pocket

Santa Barbara Unified Teachers Bang the Drum for Better Pay

date: 2024-02-15, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Tuesday’s massive march was the Santa Barbara Teachers Association’s largest action to date.

The post Santa Barbara Unified Teachers Bang the Drum for Better Pay appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/14/santa-barbara-unified-teachers-bang-the-drum-for-better-pay/ Save to Pocket

CCS basketball playoffs 2024: The matchups are set. Here’s what to know

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Archbishop Mitty girls, Archbishop Riordan boys roar into Open Division pool play after dominant regular seasons. Will anyone challenge them in the section’s top division?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/ccs-basketball-playoffs-2024-the-matchups-are-set-heres-what-to-know/ Save to Pocket

US Officials Push Back After Lawmaker Sounds Alarm on Security Threat

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

Washington — The White House along with other top officials are seeking to reassure the American public after a key lawmaker sounded alarms about a “serious national security threat” facing the United States.

In an unusual move that caught some of his fellow lawmakers by surprise, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee publicly called on President Joe Biden to declassify intelligence on the unnamed threat so that the American public and its allies could formulate a response.

Republican Representative Mike Turner declined to elaborate.  But in an email Turner reportedly sent to colleagues, shared on social media by various news outlets, he described the danger as a “foreign military destabilizing capability.” 

Several media outlets, quoting U.S. officials, reported late Wednesday that the threat involves a new Russian space-based capability.

But a U.S. official, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence, said that while the danger is significant, it is not imminent.

“The threat described does not involve an active capability that has been deployed,” the official said.

The White House also sought to downplay concerns, noting it was already set to brief lawmakers on some of the details Thursday.

“I’m confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward,” said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“We believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the United States,” Sullivan told reporters, adding he was surprised that Turner took his concerns public since they were scheduled to meet for a classified briefing Thursday.

Sullivan also defended the decision not to make the threat intelligence public, pointing both to concerns about protecting U.S. “sources and methods,” and the president’s willingness to declassify intelligence in the past.

“You definitely are not going to find an unwillingness to do that when it’s in our national security interests to do so,” he said. “This administration has gone further and, in more creative, more strategic ways, dealt with the declassification of intelligence in the national interest of the United States than any administration in history.”

Some key lawmakers also pushed back.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, called the threat “a significant one” but “not a cause for panic.”

“As to whether more can be declassified about this issue, that is a worthwhile discussion,” he added in a statement. “But it is not a discussion to be had in public.” 

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee likewise sought to allay concerns.

The committee “has the intelligence in question and has been rigorously tracking this issue from the start,” Democratic Chairman Mark Warner and Republican Vice Chairman Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“We continue to take this matter seriously and are discussing an appropriate response with the administration,” they added. “In the meantime, we must be cautious about potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for U.S. action.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson separately told reporters multiple times there is “no need for public alarm.”

“I want to assure the American people,” Johnson said. “We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-officials-push-back-after-lawmaker-sounds-alarm-on-security-threat/7488429.html Save to Pocket

In pursuit of artificial general intelligence, Meta adds Broadcom boss Hock Tan to its board

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Zuck needs silicon smarts – and the energy experience of a former Enron exec

Social networking company Meta has appointed Broadcom CEO Hock Tan to its board and added energy entrepreneur John Arnold too.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/broadcom_ceo_joins_meta_board/ Save to Pocket

‘The Big I Do’ turns 2 

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

What better way to celebrate love on Valentine’s Day, than to commemorate the start of a new union with a forever partner?  The city of Santa Clarita helped seven couples do just that, as they tied the knot in the city’s second annual “The Big I Do.”  The lucky couples included: Michael Leroy Humber and […]

The post <strong>‘The Big I Do’ turns 2</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/the-big-i-do-turns-2/ Save to Pocket

Kahkonen shines, but Sharks shut out by stingy Winnipeg Jets

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Goalie Kaapo Kahkonen made 39 saves, including 16 in the second period, but the San Jose Sharks were unable to generate any offense against the stingy Winnipeg Jets

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/kahkonen-shines-but-sharks-shut-out-by-stingy-winnipeg-jets/ Save to Pocket

Quick Charge Podcast: February 14, 2024

date: 2024-02-15, 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/quick-charge-podcast-february-14-2024/ Save to Pocket

February 14, 2024

date: 2024-02-15, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

I am at home for a short break, and Buddy and I have spent the day taking it easy, a plan I intend to continue for the next several hours. But rather than posting a picture and taking the night off, I am reposting one of my favorite pieces ever because of what it says about love, loss, humanity… and history.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-14-2024 Save to Pocket

SCV Human Trafficking Task Force visits hotels on V-Day

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

The Santa Clarita Valley Human Trafficking Task Force sought to spread love and care on Valentine’s Day with a gift for local hotels and motels — information to protect against and raise awareness about victims the group is trying to help.  The task force Wednesday was looking to support recent laws aimed at trafficking adults […]

The post SCV Human Trafficking Task Force visits hotels on V-Day  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/scv-human-trafficking-task-force-visits-hotels-on-v-day/ Save to Pocket

‘Scandal-plagued’ data broker tracked visits to ‘600 Planned Parenthood locations’

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Anti-abortion group said to have used that monitoring to push ad campaign

A pro-life group was able to specifically target visitors to nearly 600 Planned Parenthood facilities in 48 states in America with anti-abortion ads using location data from a broker called Near Intelligence, according to US Senator Ron Wyden.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/data_broker_location_abortion/ Save to Pocket

Castaic boys’ basketball headed to CIF semis, routs Godinez

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

The first-ever playoff game in Castaic High School’s gym brought countless memories as the Coyotes ran wild against the visiting Godinez Fundamental Grizzlies.   Castaic punched its ticket to the CIF Division 5AA semifinals as well as the state tournament, after beating Godinez, 93-63, snapping the Grizzlies’ 15-game win streak.   The Coyotes (17-14) played relentless defense […]

The post <strong>Castaic boys’ basketball headed to CIF semis, routs Godinez</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/castaic-boys-basketball-headed-to-cif-semis-routs-godinez/ Save to Pocket

Having impeached Mayorkas, House member heads for the exit

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Shortly after announcing that he would not be running for reelection, Green told CNN that he had “accomplished” all that he “promised he would accomplish.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/having-impeached-mayorkas-house-member-heads-for-the-exit/ Save to Pocket

Cemex sues State Water Board over permit for Santa Clara River  

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

A company looking to build the largest mine in North America just east of Santa Clarita is suing the State Water Board in its latest attempt to get a permit needed to use the Santa Clara River in its plans to extract 56 million tons of sand and gravel from Soledad Canyon.  The lawsuit means […]

The post <strong>Cemex sues State Water Board over permit for Santa Clara River </strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/cemex-sues-state-water-board-over-permit-for-santa-clara-river/ Save to Pocket

Two charged with murder in recent Antioch double shooting

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Lonnie Decker and Steven Kelly have been charged with murder and attempted murder in the Jan. 23 shooting.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/two-charged-with-murder-in-recent-antioch-double-shooting/ Save to Pocket

Slack adds AI to help users cope with chat overload

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Summarizes threads you just can’t keep up with and beefs up search

After nearly a year of testing, Salesforce-owned Slack has launched some generative AI features that may help enterprise users search, summarize, and ask questions about information in their conversations.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/slack_adds_ai/ Save to Pocket

March 6: Fifth Annual Health, Wellness Forum Focuses on AI

date: 2024-02-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce announced the details of its highly anticipated Fifth Annual Health & Wellness Forum, slated to take place on Wednesday, March 6, at 8 a.m

https://scvnews.com/mar-6-5th-annual-health-wellness-forum-focuses-on-artificial-intelligence/ Save to Pocket

Special Counsel Asks Supreme Court to Let Trump’s 2020 Election Case Go to Trial

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

washington — Special counsel Jack Smith urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to let former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case proceed to trial without further delay. 

Prosecutors were responding to a Trump team request from earlier in the week asking for a continued pause in the case as the court considers whether to take up the question of whether the former president is immune from prosecution for official acts in the White House. Two lower courts have overwhelmingly rejected that position, prompting Trump to ask the high court to intervene. 

The case — one of four criminal prosecutions confronting Trump — has reached a critical juncture, with the Supreme Court’s next step capable of helping determine whether Trump stands trial this year in Washington or whether the proceedings are going to be postponed by weeks or months of additional arguments. 

The trial date, already postponed once by Trump’s immunity appeal, is of paramount importance to both sides. Prosecutors are looking to bring Trump to trial this year while defense lawyers have been seeking delays in his criminal cases. If Trump were to be elected with the case pending, he could presumably use his authority as head of the executive branch to order the Justice Department to dismiss it or could potentially seek to pardon himself. 

Rapid response

Reflecting their desire to proceed quickly, prosecutors responded to Trump’s appeal within two days even though the court had given them until next Tuesday. 

Though their filing does not explicitly mention the upcoming November election or Trump’s status as the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, prosecutors described the case as having “unique national importance” and said that “delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict.” 

“The national interest in resolving those charges without further delay is compelling,” they wrote. 

Smith’s team charged Trump in August with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including by participating in a scheme to disrupt the counting of electoral votes in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when his supporters stormed the building in a violent clash with police. 

“The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy. A president’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law,” they wrote. 

Trump’s lawyers have argued that he is shielded from prosecution for acts that fell within his official duties as president — a legally untested argument since no other former president has been indicted. 

The trial judge and then a federal appeals court rejected those arguments, with a three-judge appeals panel last week saying, “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.” 

The proceedings have been effectively frozen by Trump’s immunity appeal, with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan canceling a March 4 trial date while the appeals court considered the matter. No new date has been set. 

Further delays possible

Trump’s appeal and request for the Supreme Court to get involved could cause further delays depending on what the justices decide. In December, Smith and his team had urged the justices to take up and decide the immunity issue, even before the appeals court weighed in. But the court declined. 

The Supreme Court’s options include rejecting the emergency appeal, which would enable Chutkan to restart the trial proceedings in Washington’s federal court. The court also could extend the delay while it hears arguments on the immunity issue. In that event, the schedule the justices set could determine how soon a trial might begin, if indeed they agree with lower-court rulings that Trump is not immune from prosecution. 

On Wednesday, prosecutors urged the court to reject Trump’s petition to hear the case, saying that lower-court opinions rejecting immunity for the former president “underscore how remote the possibility is that this Court will agree with his unprecedented legal position.” 

But if the court does want to decide the matter, Smith said, the justices should hear arguments in March and issue a final ruling by late June. 

Prosecutors also pushed back against Trump’s argument that allowing the case to proceed could chill future presidents’ actions for fear they could be criminally charged once they leave office and open the door to politically motivated cases against former commanders-in-chief. 

“That dystopian vision runs contrary to the checks and balances built into our institutions and the framework of the Constitution,” they wrote. “Those guardrails ensure that the legal process for determining criminal liability will not be captive to ‘political forces,’ as applicant forecasts.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/special-counsel-asks-supreme-court-to-let-trump-s-2020-election-case-go-to-trial-/7488369.html Save to Pocket

City leaders discuss proposed laws, frustration 

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

The Santa Clarita City Council Legislative Committee had a certain “Law & Order” theme to its agenda Tuesday, with all eight items connected to criminal justice reforms Sacramento lawmakers are considering during the current legislative term. The city’s Legislative Committee, composed of Councilman Jason Gibbs and Mayor Cameron Smyth, meets on an as-needed basis to discuss […]

The post <strong>City leaders discuss proposed laws, frustration</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/city-leaders-discuss-proposed-laws-frustration/ Save to Pocket

Apple Pushes Back On Right To Repair Bill Due To Parts Pairing

date: 2024-02-15, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://hackaday.com/2024/02/14/apple-pushes-back-on-right-to-repair-bill-due-to-parts-pairing/ Save to Pocket

Two men being sought by police suspected of Tamuning robbery, shooting

date: 2024-02-15, from: Guam Daily Post

A woman is in critical condition after allegedly being shot and robbed by two male suspects at Thai Thai Restaurant in Tamuning.

https://www.postguam.com/news/two-men-being-sought-by-police-suspected-of-tamuning-robbery-shooting/article_3bbaecf8-cb9f-11ee-8f48-5b5aca932872.html Save to Pocket

Blinken Heads to Munich Security Conference Amid US Foreign Aid Showdown

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Albania and then to Germany this week for the Munich Security Conference. Among issues he will likely face in Europe is the stalling of military aid to Ukraine in the U.S. House and former President Donald Trump’s comments threatening to abandon some NATO allies if he is reelected. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-heads-to-munich-security-conference-amid-us-foreign-aid-showdown/7488357.html Save to Pocket

They all scream for Handel’s

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream held a grand opening celebration and ribbon cutting for the new Stevenson Ranch location on Feb. 8, treating the first 50 guests to free ice cream for a year.   The Stevenson Ranch Handel’s store is the largest walk-up parlor for the brand, covering 2,800 square feet. It will offer local and […]

The post <strong>They all scream for Handel’s </strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/they-all-scream-for-handels/ Save to Pocket

CCS basketball playoffs 2024: Boys, girls first-round schedule

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Central Coast Section basketball playoffs begin this weekend across six divisions, including Open.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/ccs-basketball-playoffs-2024-boys-girls-first-round-schedule/ Save to Pocket

DA: Morgan Hill man stole $2.3m using phony business opportunities to entice investors

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

The thefts happened between January 2016 and December 2022, prosecutors allege.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/da-morgan-hill-man-stole-2-3m-using-phony-business-opportunities-to-entice-investors/ Save to Pocket

Momentum Builds in Efforts to Seize Russian Assets for Ukraine

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/momentum-builds-in-efforts-to-seize-russian-assets-for-ukraine-/7488319.html Save to Pocket

Updating Microsoft Secure Boot keys

date: 2024-02-15, from: OS News

Microsoft, in collaboration with our ecosystem partners, is preparing to roll out replacement certificates that’ll set new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Certificate Authorities (CAs) trust anchors in Secure Boot for the future. Look out for Secure Boot database updates rolling out in phases to add trust for the new database (DB) and Key Exchange Key (KEK) certificates. This new DB update is available as an optional servicing update for all Secure Boot enabled devices from February 13, 2024. ↫ SochiOgbuanya This update will replace the Windows 8-era certificates, set to expire in 2026, with new ones.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138591/updating-microsoft-secure-boot-keys/ Save to Pocket

Ukraine Group Talks Support as Kyiv Says it Sunk Another Russian Warship

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted a virtual meeting with allies on Wednesday to discuss support for Ukraine as the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion nears. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.

https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-group-talks-support-as-kyiv-says-it-sunk-another-russian-warship/7488338.html Save to Pocket

2024 King Of The Baggers Will Race Alongside MotoGP At COTA

date: 2024-02-15, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

This marks the first time the King Of The Baggers will be witnessed by an international audience.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708713/2024-kotb-cota-motogp-announcement/ Save to Pocket

North Hollywood woman arrested on suspicion of vandalism 

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

A North Hollywood woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of vandalism after allegedly throwing rocks at a vehicle, according to Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station officials.  Deputies were called to the 26400 block of Bouquet Canyon Road, near Shadow Valley Lane, on Tuesday at around 11:45 a.m. for a report of a woman throwing rocks […]

The post <strong>North Hollywood woman arrested on suspicion of vandalism</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/north-hollywood-woman-arrested-on-suspicion-of-vandalism/ Save to Pocket

The text file that runs the internet

date: 2024-02-15, from: OS News

The robots.txt file governs a give and take; AI feels to many like all take and no give. But there’s now so much money in AI, and the technological state of the art is changing so fast that many site owners can’t keep up. And the fundamental agreement behind robots.txt, and the web as a whole — which for so long amounted to “everybody just be cool” — may not be able to keep up either. ↫ David Pierce for The Verge Another thing “AI” does not respect.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138589/the-text-file-that-runs-the-internet/ Save to Pocket

Quilter’s AI design service nabs $10M to make circuit board design easier

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Claims what took weeks to do by hand, machine learning can do in hours

On Tuesday AI startup Quilter picked up $10 million in series-A funding to use a combination of machine learning and high-performance computing (HPC) to make designing printed circuit boards a less grueling and manual experience.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/quilters_ai_platform/ Save to Pocket

Virtual SoundBlaster for HDA

date: 2024-02-15, from: FreeDOS News

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2024/02/virtual-soundblaster-for-hda/ Save to Pocket

Updated Debug/X

date: 2024-02-15, from: FreeDOS News

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2024/02/updated-debugx/ Save to Pocket

Letters: Extra officers | Broad experience | Utility tax | CO2 capture | Age, wisdom | Showing hypocrisy

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for Feb. 15, 2024

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/letters-1610/ Save to Pocket

Storm-Related Tax Relief Available for Property Owners

date: 2024-02-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang is reminding property owners that property tax relief is available for those suffering damage from the recent torrent of storms

https://scvnews.com/storm-related-tax-relief-available-for-property-owners/ Save to Pocket

JEMM 5.84

date: 2024-02-15, from: FreeDOS News

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/2024/02/jemm-584/ Save to Pocket

Migrant Crossings at US-Mexico Border Fall by Half in January; What’s Next?

date: 2024-02-15, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/migrant-crossings-at-us-mexico-border-fall-by-half-in-january/7488309.html Save to Pocket

Schiavo bill seeks to increase transparency on transportation investments

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

News release  Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, has announced the introduction of the Transportation Accountability Act, Assembly Bill 2086, which will create needed transparency and accountability in California’s transportation investments, paving the way for a more efficient and equitable transportation system, according to a news release from the assemblywoman’s office.   The Greenlining Institute and TransForm […]

The post Schiavo bill seeks to increase transparency on transportation investments appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/schiavo-bill-seeks-to-increase-transparency-on-transportation-investments/ Save to Pocket

Moderation is the Key to Health Eating Habits, According to CSUN Prof

date: 2024-02-15, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Moderation is the key to sustaining healthy eating habits through the holiday season and into the new year, according to Brittany Allison, an assistant professor of food science at California State University, Northridge. 

https://scvnews.com/moderation-is-the-key-to-health-eating-habits-according-to-csun-prof/ Save to Pocket

OpenAI shuts down China, Russia, Iran, N Korea accounts caught doing naughty things

date: 2024-02-15, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

You don’t need us to craft phishing emails or write malware, super-lab sniffs

OpenAI has shut down five accounts it asserts were used by government agents to generate phishing emails and malicious software scripts as well as research ways to evade malware detection.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/openai_microsoft_spying/ Save to Pocket

Iran blames sabotage for natural gas pipeline explosion

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

In the past, Arab separatists in southwestern Iran have claimed attacks against oil pipelines. However, attacks elsewhere in Iran against such infrastructure are rare.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/iran-blames-sabotage-for-natural-gas-pipeline-explosion/ Save to Pocket

WEWIL Collaborative to host online workshop

date: 2024-02-15, from: The Signal

News release  WeWil Collaborative, a local organization that seeks to empower women with professional development, growth, and connections through workshops and community, is scheduled Feb. 23 to host an online workshop featuring internationally acclaimed photographer Vivien Killilea.  The workshop, “Mastering Your Business Through Authenticity and an Open Mind,” draws from Killilea’s experiences across diverse cultures, […]

The post WEWIL Collaborative to host online workshop appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/wewil-collaborative-to-host-online-workshop/ Save to Pocket

Letters: BART cost | ‘Affordable’ housing | Savings tax | Elect Kumar | Sweeten pay

date: 2024-02-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Mercury News Letters to the Editor for Feb. 15, 2024

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/14/letters-1609/ Save to Pocket

Three-dimensional modelling of cavitation bubble collapse using non-orthogonal multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method

date: 2024-02-15, from: ETH Zurich, recently added

Peng, Haonan; Fei, Linlin; He, Xiaolong; Carmeliet, Jan; Churakov, Sergey V.; Prasianakis, Nikolaos I.

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/657636 Save to Pocket

Programming the SunFounder GalaxyRVR Mars Rover

date: 2024-02-14, from: Stephen Smith’s blog

Introduction Last time, we gave our initial review of the SunFounder GalaxyRVR Mars Rover, this time we’ll look at how to program it. Unlike SunFounder’s PiCar or PiDog which are powered by Raspberry Pis, the GalaxyRVR has an Arduino Uno as its brain. This means writing the program in Arduino C rather than Python. It […]

https://smist08.wordpress.com/2024/02/14/programming-the-sunfounder-galaxyrvr-mars-rover/ Save to Pocket

American Cancer Society See’s Candies Fundraiser

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Valley Relay For Life of the American Cancer Society invites you to join their online Spring FUNdraiser with See’s Candies treats from now through Mar.ch

https://scvnews.com/mar-18-american-cancer-society-sees-candies-fundraiser/ Save to Pocket

Newhallywood Silent Film Festival set for this weekend

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Signal

News release  Residents have the opportunity to explore the early days of silent cinema and some of the most iconic movies ever created at the 2024 Newhallywood Silent Film Festival, featuring classic films and more at various venues this weekend in Old Town Newhall.  The city of Santa Clarita is hosting the festival Friday through […]

The post Newhallywood Silent Film Festival set for this weekend appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/newhallywood-silent-film-festival-set-for-this-weekend/ Save to Pocket

US Sanctions Iran Central Bank Subsidiary, Says It Violated Export Rules

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

washington — The U.S. on Wednesday sanctioned three people and four firms — across Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey — for allegedly helping to export goods and technology purchased from U.S. companies to Iran and the nation’s central bank. 

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the procurement network transferred U.S. technology for use by Iran’s Central Bank in violation of U.S. export restrictions and sanctions. 

Some of the materials acquired by the Central Bank of Iran were items classified as “information security items subject to national security and anti-terrorism controls” by the Commerce Department, Treasury said. 

Included in the sanctions package was Informatics Services Corp., an Iranian subsidiary of Iran’s Central Bank that most recently developed the Central Bank Digital Currency platform for the bank; a UAE-based front company, which acquired U.S. tech for the Central Bank of Iran and the front company’s CEO; and a Turkey-based affiliate firm that also made purchases that ended up in Iran. 

“The Central Bank of Iran has played a critical role in providing financial support to” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militant group Hezbollah, said Treasury Undersecretary Brian E. Nelson, adding that they were the “two key actors intent on further destabilizing the Middle East.” 

“The United States will continue to use all available means to disrupt the Iranian regime’s illicit attempts to procure sensitive U.S. technology and critical inputs,” he said. 

The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-iran-central-bank-subsidiary-says-it-violated-export-rules/7487936.html Save to Pocket

Want To Have A Say In The Future Of LA’s Trees? Here’s How

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The LAist

The region’s first holistic urban tree management plans are in the works.

https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/la-city-county-urban-forest-plan Save to Pocket

LA Street Vendors Trial Postponed: What Comes Next

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The LAist

Trial is postponed as plaintiffs hope to reach a settlement with the city of Los Angeles over “no-vending” zones

https://laist.com/news/street-vendors-trial-postponed Save to Pocket

These LA-Area Couples Celebrated Valentine’s Day By Getting Married

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The LAist

For one couple, it’s an easy date to remember. For another, it’s the wedding after a NASCAR proposal.

https://laist.com/news/valentines-day-la-couples-marry Save to Pocket

The Marshall Star for February 14, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Marshall Chief Scientist Provides Valuable Insight into NASA Moonquake Study By Jonathan Deal The Moon holds clues to the evolution of Earth, the planets, and the Sun, and a new NASA-funded study is helping scientists better understand some of the mysteries beneath the surface of our nearest cosmic neighbor. The co-author of that study is […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-february-14-2024/ Save to Pocket

‘The Woman in the Castello’ Takes Center Stage in One Story One City Program

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Public Library proudly unveils this year’s chosen masterpiece for the One Story One City program , ‘The Woman in the Castello’ by Kelsey James

https://scvnews.com/the-woman-in-the-castello-takes-center-stage-in-santa-claritas-one-story-one-city-program/ Save to Pocket

Uncle Sam Is Helping Americans Buy 675 Electric Cars a Day

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

Earlier this week, I was thinking to myself, how are we going to know how many people are actually taking advantage of the tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act?

When I put the question out on Twitter — I mean, X — I heard from Sam Hughes, a researcher inside the Treasury who pointed me to a section of the department’s website that contains data on tax credits by year. The problem is, it hasn’t been updated since 2020. But then today, as if to answer my prayers, I received a taste of the data I was looking for in my inbox.

A Treasury official shared that the IRS has received notices from car sellers indicating they sold more than 25,000 tax credit-eligible vehicles between January 1 and February 6. That’s an average of more than 675 EVs sold at a government-sponsored discount per day.

To put that in perspective, about 1.08 million cars were sold in total in the month of January, according to Cox Automotive, or about 34,840 per day. So the tax credit-supported EVs were only about 2% of the total cars sold.

But 25,000 discounted EVs is nothing to scoff at — especially since starting January 1, two big changes were made to the tax credit that made it both harder and easier for Americans to get them.

First, new rules that limit what countries the components in eligible EVs are allowed to come from had the effect of disqualifying a lot of EVs from the tax credit. As of today, only 22 models from Chevy, Ford, Rivian, Tesla, and Volkswagen qualify, according to the Department of Energy. Last year, there were 35 models.

But at the same time, car buyers were given the option to transfer the tax credit to their dealer at the point of sale. That meant the dealer could take the $7,500 discount for new EVs, or $4,000 for used EVs, directly off the price of the car. Buyers no longer have to worry about whether or not they will owe $7,500 in taxes at the end of the year, or wait around for their tax return, to get that money back.

The Treasury said it has paid approximately $135 million in advance payments to dealers for about 19,000 of the EVs sold this year.

So even with fewer options available, buyers are still taking advantage of the new instant rebate and finding vehicles that work for them. The vast majority of the EVs sold — more than 22,000 — were new cars, while just over 3,000 were used EVs.

One disheartening stat included in the data is that some 11,000 dealerships have registered with the IRS to sell tax credit-eligible vehicles. As of last year, there were just over 16,800 dealerships in the country, according to the National Automobile Dealerships Association, so that means only about 65% of dealerships can offer customers the EV tax credit. Many dealers are not yet on board with the electric revolution. They take longer to sell and require less maintenance, cutting into profits.

The Treasury official said the department was trying to increase registrations via trade association partners, webinars, and conferences.

This smidgeon of data is not enough to assess how well the tax credits are working, and I hope that after tax day, the agency releases similar information about how many people claimed other IRA-related tax credits last year.

https://heatmap.news/sparks/how-many-evs-ira Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Godot on iPad, part 6: It's time for some Menu Game Theory.

https://blog.la-terminal.net/its-time-for-some-menu-game-theory/

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111932255969332873 Save to Pocket

China’s Economic Woes May Give US Chance to Pressure North Korea, Some Experts Say

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

Washington — Some Asia experts are calling for tough new economic sanctions on China, arguing that the nation’s economic downturn makes it particularly vulnerable to pressure to crack down on North Korea’s ability to make and launder money for its nuclear weapons and missile programs. 

Other analysts argue the opposite, saying new sanctions now would make Beijing less receptive to U.S. efforts to get it to help curb Pyongyang’s weapons programs. 

“Beijing is worried that a long or deep recession would lead to political unrest,” and “that worry gives Washington greater leverage over Beijing — leverage that it didn’t have during the period of strong Chinese economic growth,” said Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016.  

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted in a report last month that China’s economy will slow from 5.2% GDP growth in 2023 to 4.6% this year, further declining into 4.1% in 2025. 

China’s manufacturing activities contracted for the fourth consecutive month in January and the country is further troubled by soaring debt in the property market and local governments. 

In an email to VOA last Friday, Stanton said the Biden administration should “increase pressure on a central government that fears any regional recession” and “designate canneries and sweatshops that employ North Korean labor.”  

Chinese factories are known to employ North Korean laborers and label products they manufactured as made in China. Approximately 3,000 North Koreans working illegally in China staged a violent protest in January over unpaid wages, according to Reuters, citing South Korea’s intelligence agency.  

In 2017, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution urging countries to repatriate all North Korean workers by December 2019 to curb Pyongyang’s ability to make income abroad that supports its weapons programs. North Korean workers remit most of their overseas earnings to the regime. 

Stanton argued that Washington should also “apply enhanced scrutiny to local bank branches in Chinese cities” that launder money for North Korea. “China always promises to cooperate if we don’t sanction its banks, but it always breaks those promises,” he said. 

China been tightening regulations on its banks that deal with Russia recently in response to strengthened U.S. sanctions on financial institutions that work with the Russian military.

Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dismissed the Biden administration’s current North Korea sanctions as “weak and ineffective.” 

“The administration should target North Korea’s revenue generation and Russian and Chinese banks, entities, and individuals aiding Pyongyang’s sanctions evasion,” he said.  

David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said North Korea still works “largely via China” to finance and acquire high-technology products for its military and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. 

Asher, who oversaw the disruption of North Korea’s illegal trading and WMD networks during the George W. Bush administration, said last Saturday via email that there is a “robust” criminal sector in China, “especially Macao and Hong Kong, where North Korean elites continue to launder money including billions of dollars generated via cybercrime.” 

But other experts are warning against sanctioning China, especially when its economy is slowing, and the U.S. is trying to get Beijing’s help to curb to North Korea’s missile launches.  

“You can twist the knob on China and try to enforce more pain in return for its support on North Korea,” said Ken Gause, senior adversary analytics specialist at the Center for Naval Analyses, in a telephone interview on Friday. 

“But that will blow up in your face because then, China would see us actively trying to harm China to get it to do something on North Korea.”

He continued, “China will not react very well to that, and we could actually make the situation much worse.”

He added that “the only way sanctions would work” is when there are “overlapping U.S. and Chinese strategic equities.”

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and WMD during the Obama administration, agreed during a telephone interview on Monday that the Biden administration may be concerned that sanctioning Chinese entities would make Beijing “less likely to cooperate on diplomatic efforts.” 

Samore, who is currently professor of the practice of politics at Brandeis University, added that even if some Chinese entities stopped doing business with North Korea because of sanctions, there could be other Chinese entities that would be willing to work with North Korea.

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-economic-woes-may-give-us-chance-to-pressure-north-korea/7487858.html Save to Pocket

Flame Burns Out on NASA’s Long-Running Spacecraft Fire Experiment

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

NASA recently concluded the final mission of its Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiment, or Saffire, putting a blazing end to an eight-year series of investigations that provided insights into fire’s behavior in space. The final experiment, Saffire-VI, launched to the International Space Station in August 2023 and concluded its mission on Jan. 9, when the Northrop […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/flame-burns-out-on-nasas-long-running-spacecraft-fire-experiment/ Save to Pocket

Suzuki USA Issues Stop Sale Order On 2024 GSX-8Rs Due To Chain Issue

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Certain bikes may have had drive chains installed that were not properly riveted.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708710/2024-suzuki-gsx8r-chain-recall/ Save to Pocket

Date set for for epic Amazon-FTC antitrust showdown

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Lina Khan may not even be in charge of watchdog by time case gets to trial, if it even goes that far

The FTC’s antitrust case against Amazon is headed to trial, though not anytime soon, with a federal judge scheduling it to begin on October 13, 2026. …

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/amazon_ftc_antitrust/ Save to Pocket

Marcia Mayeda: WeRateDogs,15/10 Foundation Partner with DACC

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

One of my favorite sites on social media is the site called WeRateDogs. WeRateDogs asks pet owners to send photos of their dogs, then posts selected photos with humorous comments

https://scvnews.com/marcia-mayeda-weratedogs15-10-foundation-partner-with-dacc/ Save to Pocket

Ken Burns Turns His Lens to Leonardo da Vinci

date: 2024-02-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

An upcoming two-part documentary will be the filmmaker’s first foray into a non-American subject matter

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ken-burns-newest-documentary-delves-into-the-life-of-leonardo-da-vinci-180983792/ Save to Pocket

Copper Wire Thefts In LA Have Skyrocketed, Affecting Rail Crossings And Internet Access. Now The City’s Creating A Taskforce

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The LAist

The L.A. City Council voted to establish an LAPD task force and a reward program to encourage people to report the crimes.

https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/la-city-council-copper-wire-thefts Save to Pocket

Ford ‘better get going on EVs,’ or it will lose out to cheaper Chinese electric cars

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Are cheaper Chinese EVs a “colossal strategic threat” poised to enter the US market? Marin Gjaja, chief operating officer for Ford’s EV unit, believes they could put them out of business.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/ford-better-get-going-or-lose-to-cheaper-chinese-evs/ Save to Pocket

Here’s how to take the sting out of the cost of installing a heat pump

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Heat pump installation has to become more affordable to make adoption more compelling in the US, but in the meantime, there are ways to mitigate that cost.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/heres-how-to-take-the-sting-out-of-the-cost-of-installing-a-heat-pump/ Save to Pocket

CDC Considers Dropping Five-Day Covid Isolation Guideline

date: 2024-02-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

While no official decision has been made, symptomatic patients might be able to stop isolating if they are fever-free for 24 hours and are beginning to feel better under the proposed change

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cdc-considers-dropping-five-day-covid-isolation-guideline-180983794/ Save to Pocket

Cabel Sasser bought some acetate records recorded by a jazz band loosely…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043976-cabel-sasser-bought-some- Save to Pocket

Is Geothermal About to Become the Solar of the 2020s?

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

Fervo Energy is getting a lot better at drilling holes. According to data presented this week at Stanford University, it took the company 71 days to drill a geothermal well back in 2022. But last year in Utah, Fervo was able to get drilling down to 21 days, despite those wells being over 2,000 feet deeper. That has reduced drilling time by 70%.

Fervo is a buzzy, well-funded, and well-connected startup out of Houston that drills wells to produce enhanced geothermal energy, a clean source of power derived from heat beneath the Earth’s surface. But whereas traditional geothermal means tapping into hot water or steam underground, Fervo drills as deep as 9,000 feet down to access hot rocks, which are far more ubiquitous, and then pumps water into them, potentially unlocking many more areas for this kind of power generation.

This week’s announcement follows a pilot project last year where the company was actually able to produce electricity. Now the challenge is producing that electricity at scale — and that requires drilling faster.

Already its new timeline is translating in dramatic cost reductions, the company says, from $9.4 million to $4.8 million per well. For its Utah site, where it might need to drill 29 wells, back-of-the-envelope math suggests that could translate into up to $130 million in savings.

“The biggest expense in drilling is time it takes to drill. The easiest way to reduce drilling costs is to drill faster,” Fervo’s co-founder and chief executive Tim Latimer told me.

Latimer’s big idea behind Fervo is not just a conceptual one about how to generate geothermal power in areas that don’t produce steam or very hot water on their own, but also about how to apply the steady improvement and cost reductions seen in the oil and gas industry to non-carbon emitting power generation that can be available 24 hours a day.

“Oil and gas drilling has become incredibly much more efficient. That’s what drove the shale revolution. We were excited about 45-day wells and now you’ll see fields where people drill wells in 10 days or less,” Latimer told me.

Some of the improvement Fervo has achieved is due to porting over specific pieces of technology from the shale industry, like polycrystalline diamond compact drillbits and using them on the harder granite that Fervo drills. “Taking something that unlocked the shale revolution and making it work for hard rock was our whole thesis,” Latimer said. And there’s just been the steady improvements that come through experience and automation. Latimer described how they figured out a standardized, automated way to pick up and set down the drill bit so that the bit isn’t damaged when drilling starts up again.

“When we think about Fervo, a lot of the things we think about is not [how to] narrowly cut costs for one well, but ‘how do we create a system where you simplify well design and make its more standardized.’”

The idea is that there can be a “learning curve” with drilling geothermal wells, dropping costs over time. “We think geothermal will be on the end of that spectrum like solar or LEDs or battery that benefits from a learning curve because we figured out a way to standardize,” Latimer said. “Fervo is a learning curve company.”

These learning curves haven’t just been seen in fracking, but famously in green energy as well, especially standardized technology like solar panels, whose costs reductions consistently outpace expert forecasts. On the flip side, other forms of emission-free power, namely nuclear power, seem to be getting more expensive over time.

Fervo has also been capturing attention — and dollars — across the green energy community because of a specific type of power that enhanced geothermal could provide: 24 hour generation.

Other forms of non-carbon-emitting energy, particularly solar and wind, only generate power either at specific times or day (when it’s sunny) or when the weather is a certain way (windy). With enough transmission and batteries, these types of intermittent generation could power substantially more of the grid than they do today, but they can’t do it all — at least while keeping costs under control.

The need for 24/7 clean power has only been amplified by the Treasury Department’s proposed rules on green hydrogen, which would make hydrogen producers prove they’re using non-carbon-emitting energy for their operations in order to qualify for subsidies.

Latimer said Fervo’s inbox “blew up” after the proposed rules went out. “We’re every hydrogen tech’s favorite supplier now,” he said. But he noted that Fervo’s appeal was by no means limited to green hydrogen.

“Round-the-clock reliable electricity that doesn’t come with carbon emissions is not a hard sell, it just has to be a cost structure that makes sense.”

Fervo’s work is especially attractive to technology companies, who have long been pioneers in procuring green energy and are now interested in being able to get it 24/7. Fervo’s Nevada projects are contracted to provide power to Google’s data centers and other infrastructure throughout the state.

While Latimer would not say what Fervo’s current costs are, he did say that for it to be competitive, it would have to get down to around $100 per megawatt-hour, about where traditional geothermal — where steam or very hot water that’s already present underground is brought to the surface — is now. The Department of Energy’s goal is to reduce enhanced geothermal costs by around 90 percent to $45 per megawatt hour by 2025. “The results show we’re on the path to already being able to provide economic projects even at that market rate,” Latimer said.

And Fervo is continuing to get attention — and dollars — from the federal government. The Department of Energy announced Tuesday that Fervo was one of three companies — the other two being Chevron and Mazama — that would receive grants for their geothermal work.

https://heatmap.news/economy/fervo-energy-tim-latimer-drilling-costs Save to Pocket

Democrats, Republicans Hold Black History Month Events With Eye on November Election

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — Black History Month, often a time to recognize the contributions of African Americans in U.S. history, was marked in the nation’s capital this week with a focus on present divides and the November election when Black turnout will be integral to the outcome.

At the White House, the Biden administration on Tuesday hosted more than two dozen family members of civil rights icons and major historical figures for a gala celebrating Black history. Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance where she praised the families and recounted the administration’s commitment to Black communities.

A few hours later, Republicans held a reception in Washington’s U Street neighborhood, a key part of Black history in the city, to celebrate former GOP (Republican) officials and activists who have engaged Black voters.

The White House has taken Black History Month as an opportunity to highlight the administration’s efforts on priorities such as education, voting rights and jobs. Republicans see a chance to win more votes from a core Democratic constituency, noting President Joe Biden’s lower popularity with Black adults and the criticism he has taken for inflation and his handling of the border.

Biden’s approval rating among Black adults was 42% in a January poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a substantial drop from the first year of his presidency.

Democrats are spotlighting Biden’s support with civil rights stalwarts and lambasting Republicans for enacting policies restricting how educators discuss race and history in the classroom.

“We know that those who don’t remember their history are doomed to repeat it,” said Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, to the families assembled at the White House. Sewell represents Selma, Alabama, where white police beat Black civil rights marchers in 1965 on a day remembered today as “Bloody Sunday.”

“At a time when extremists seek to erase our history and roll back our progress, we should take a lesson from our foremothers and forefathers,” she said.

Republicans held their own Black History Month celebration later that evening with about 100 people.

“As RNC Chair, I have made it a mission to reach out to communities and voters that we have ignored as a party,” said Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel during Tuesday night’s event. “Black voters are going to make history this November because they’re going to vote Republican at the highest level we’ve ever seen,” McDaniel predicted to applause from the audience.

The RNC intends to expand its number of community outreach centers in Black communities after the GOP primary concludes. The party has been optimistic about its chances to improve its poor margins with Black voters since Republicans made slight inroads with them in the 2022 midterm elections.

But the party’s current focus on issues like the teaching of race and history may risk mobilizing Black voters against the GOP. Republican officials in at least a dozen states have enacted policies that regulate how educators discuss topics including race, history and gender in the classroom.

“This moment in time is evidence that our history is unbannable, that teaching it is core to our progress, and that Black history is American history,” Nevada Rep. Steve Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the White House crowd.

The Biden campaign dismissed GOP Black voter outreach as insincere and noted that former President Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the GOP nomination, had dinner in 2022 with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white nationalist.

“In Donald Trump’s Republican Party, celebrating Black History Month means teaching kids that slavery benefited Black people, papering over slavery as the cause of the Civil War and sharing well-done steaks doused in ketchup with white supremacists at Mar-a-Lago,” said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. “I’m sure they’ll serve up plenty of the same at their little event.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, the Biden campaign rolled out new ads targeting Black voters by highlighting the administration’s investments in historically Black colleges and universities as well as the number of Black officeholders appointed by Biden, including Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday unveiled digital ads targeting HBCUs in battleground states that touts Biden’s record on student debt.

Democrats point to record-low Black unemployment, policies capping the cost of insulin and Biden’s cancellation of about $137 billion in student loan debt as policies they hope will boost support among Black voters. And party officials and strategists stress that its emphasis on Black voters extends beyond a single month of events.

Biden also moved to increase Black political power when he upended precedent to place South Carolina and its substantial Black population first in the party’s primary calendar. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement and a close Biden ally, co-chairs the president’s reelection campaign.

According to some of the assembled Republican activists on Tuesday night, many of whom are Black, the GOP simply lacked the sustained efforts needed to court more Black voters. Quenton Jordan, a Republican activist who won an award at the event, said that the GOP is now “putting forth an effort to capture the Black vote where in previous years, that just wasn’t the case.”

“I remember when we had a greater pool,” said Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio Republican secretary of state who received an award at the reception. “That’s why this is important. To reengage, to give our narrative and give them a choice. But first, we’ve got to show up.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/democrats-republicans-hold-black-history-month-events-with-eye-on-november-election-/7487828.html Save to Pocket

The 2024 Ypsilon Is Lancia’s First New Car In 13 Years

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

The troubled Italian brand signals rebirth with its first-ever EV.

https://insideevs.com/news/708706/2024-lancia-ypsilon-ev/ Save to Pocket

1 Person Killed, Children Among 22 Shot at Kansas City Super Bowl Parade

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

kansas city, missouri — Eight children were among 22 people hit by gunfire in a shooting at the end of Wednesday’s parade to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win, authorities said. One person was killed, identified by her radio station as a DJ. 

Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves detailed the shooting’s toll at a news conference and said three people had been taken into custody. 

“I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration should expect a safe environment,” Graves said. Police did not immediately release details about the people taken into custody or about a possible motive for the shootings. She said firearms had been recovered, but not what kind of weapons were used. 

“There’s a lot of work ahead. This is just the beginning stages,” she said. “All of that is being actively investigated.” 

It was the latest sports celebration in the U.S. to be marred by gun violence. A shooting injured several people last year in downtown Denver after the Nuggets’ NBA championship, and gunfire erupted last year at a parking lot near the Texas Rangers’ World Series championship parade. 

Radio station KKFI said in a Facebook post Wednesday evening that DJ Lisa Lopez, host of “Taste of Tejano,” was killed in the shooting. 

“This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC community,” KKFI said in a statement. 

The shooting outside Union Station happened despite more than 800 police officers who were in the building and around the area, including on top of nearby buildings, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and had to run for cover when gunfire broke out. 

“I think that’s something that all of us who are parents, who are just regular people living each day, have to decide what we wish to do about,” Lucas said. “Parades, rallies, schools, movies. It seems like almost nothing is safe.” 

Kansas City has long struggled with gun violence, and in 2020 it was among nine cities targeted by the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to crack down on violent crime. In 2023 the city matched a record with 182 homicides, most of which involved guns. 

Lucas has joined with mayors across the country in calling for new laws to reduce gun violence, including mandating universal background checks. 

Lisa Money, a resident of the city, was trying to gather some confetti near the end of the parade when she heard somebody yell, “Down, down, everybody down!” 

At first Money thought somebody might be joking. Then she saw a SWAT team jumping over a nearby fence. 

“I can’t believe it really happened. Who in their right mind would do something like this? This is supposed to be a day of celebration for everybody in the city and the surrounding area,” she said. 

Kevin Sanders, 53, of Lenexa, Kansas, said he heard what sounded like firecrackers and then people started running. After that initial flurry, calm returned, and he didn’t think much of it. But 10 minutes later, ambulances started showing up. 

University Health spokeswoman Nancy Lewis said the hospital was treating eight gunshot victims. Two were in critical condition and six were in stable condition, she said. The hospital also was treating four people for other injuries resulting from the chaos after the shooting, Lewis said. 

Lisa Augustine, spokesperson for Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said the hospital was treating 12 patients from the rally, including 11 children, some of whom suffered gunshot wounds. 

St. Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City received one gunshot patient in critical condition and three walk-ins with injuries that were not life-threatening, spokesperson Laurel Gifford said. 

Chiefs trainer Rick Burkholder said that he was with coach Andy Reid and other coaches and staff members at the time of the shooting, and that the team was on buses and returning to Arrowhead Stadium. 

“We are truly saddened by the senseless act of violence that occurred outside of Union Station at the conclusion of today’s parade and rally,” the team said in a statement. 

Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Parson and first lady Teresa Parson were at the parade during the gunfire but were unhurt. 

President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and will continue to receive updates, a White House spokesperson said. White House officials were in touch with state and local leaders, and federal law enforcement was on the scene supporting local counterparts.

https://www.voanews.com/a/shots-fired-near-super-bowl-champs-parade-several-injured-official-says/7487815.html Save to Pocket

China’s Volt Typhoon spies broke into emergency network of ‘large’ US city

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Jeez, not now, Xi. Can’t you see we’ve got an election and Ukraine and Gaza and cost of living and layoffs and …

The Chinese government’s Volt Typhoon spy team has apparently already compromised a large US city’s emergency services network and has been spotted snooping around America’s telecommunications’ providers as well.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/volt_typhoon_emergency_network/ Save to Pocket

April 20: MHF Announces New Twists in Annual Walk for Children’s Cancer

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Michael Hoefflin Foundation is committed to supporting children and families affected by cancer, is thrilled to announce its much-anticipated Annual Walk for Children’s Cancer on Saturday, Apr. 20 at Central Park

https://scvnews.com/apr-20-michael-hoefflin-foundation-announces-exciting-new-twists-in-the-upcoming-annual-walk-for-childrens-cancer/ Save to Pocket

Andy Weir’s The Martian was released in bookstores ten years ago. To…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043975-andy-weirs-the-martian-wa Save to Pocket

From Mac OS X 10.2 to macOS 10.15 – pt 2

date: 2024-02-14, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://www.geeklan.co.uk/?p=3307 Save to Pocket

Oregon just got its first offshore wind energy areas with 2.4 GW of potential

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

In a first, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has finalized two offshore wind energy areas (WEAs) off Oregon’s coast.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/oregon-offshore-wind-energy-areas/ Save to Pocket

French Government’s €100-A-Month EV Leasing Plan Falls Victim To Its Own Success

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

Demand far outstripped supply after an affordable EV leasing program received an overwhelming response.

https://insideevs.com/news/708703/france-electric-car-100-leasing-program/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

For those of you that don’t believe me that my thermostat is playing back music:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111931743778809179 Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

On my quest to drop the top-level Godot menu and replace it with native Menus, the menu on the left, has been replace with the menu on the right.

New Scene incorporates both New Scene and New Inherited Scene in one UI. And Open handles all four cases of opening things (three quick-opens and one file open).

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111931717367397647 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Why walking around in public with Vision Pro makes no sense.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/why-walking-around-in-public-with-vision-pro-makes-no-sense/ Save to Pocket

Climate Activists Stage Protest in Front of Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’

date: 2024-02-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Two men taped images of flooding in Tuscany to the Renaissance painting’s protective glass

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/climate-activists-stage-protest-in-front-of-botticellis-birth-of-venus-180983797/ Save to Pocket

Key US Lawmaker Warns of ‘Serious National Security Threat’

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

Washington — A top U.S. lawmaker is sounding an alarm about a potentially significant threat to the country’s security, publicly calling on President Joe Biden to declassify intelligence so that the American public and its allies can formulate a response. 

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Representative Mike Turner, issued a statement Tuesday warning of a “serious national security threat.” 

Turner’s statement did not elaborate on the threat, but noted he has requested that the president share the information more quickly and more widely. 

A copy of an email Turner reportedly sent to colleagues, shared on social media by various news outlets, described the danger as a “foreign military destabilizing capability.”  

Still, the White House on Wednesday sought to downplay Turner’s concerns. 

“I’m confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward,” said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. 

“We believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the United States,” Sullivan told reporters, adding he was surprised that Turner took his concerns public since they were scheduled to meet for a classified briefing Thursday. 

Sullivan also defended the decision not to make the threat intelligence public, pointing both to concerns about protecting U.S. “sources and methods,” and the president’s willingness to declassify intelligence in the past. 

“You definitely are not going to find an unwillingness to do that when it’s in our national security interests to do so,” he said. “This administration has gone further and, in more creative, more strategic ways, dealt with the declassification of intelligence in the national interest of the United States than any administration in history.” 

Some key lawmakers also pushed back. 

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, called the threat “a significant one” but “not a cause for panic.”

“As to whether more can be declassified about this issue, that is a worthwhile discussion,” he added. “But it is not a discussion to be had in public.” 

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee likewise sought to allay concerns.

The committee “has the intelligence in question and has been rigorously tracking this issue from the start,” Democratic Chairman Mark Warner and Republican Vice Chairman Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“We continue to take this matter seriously and are discussing an appropriate response with the administration,” they added. “In the meantime, we must be cautious about potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for U.S. action.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson separately told reporters multiple times there is “no need for public alarm.”

“I want to assure the American people,” Johnson said. “We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm.” 

VOA’s Katherine Gypson conributed to this report.

https://www.voanews.com/a/key-us-lawmaker-warns-of-serious-national-security-threat-/7487748.html Save to Pocket

AI won’t take our jobs and it might even save the middle class

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

MIT economist argues AI can moderate the inequalities of the Information Age

The future described in OpenAI’s mission statement, in which autonomous systems “outperform humans at most economically valuable work,” sounds like a hellscape to MIT economics professor David Autor.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/ai_wont_take_our_jobs/ Save to Pocket

Research Finds Homo Sapiens Were in Europe Years Before Neanderthals Disappeared

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

California State University, Northridge anthropologist Hélène Rougier of bones first excavated by archaeologists in Germany in the 1930s has contributed to the discovery that modern humans reached northwest Europe more than 45,000 years ago

https://scvnews.com/csun-profs-research-finds-evidence-homo-sapiens-were-in-northwest-europe-more-than-45000-years-ago-years-before-neanderthals-disappeared/ Save to Pocket

Ford Software Engineer reveals easter egg found in Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

If you drive a Ford EV, you can use this newly revealed easter egg to impress your loved ones this Valentine’s Day.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/ford-easter-egg-mustang-mach-e-f-150-lightning/ Save to Pocket

The founder of Bob’s Red Mill grain company sounds like an interesting…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043973-the-founder-of-bobs-red Save to Pocket

Since it is Ash Wednesday …

date: 2024-02-14, from: Logic Matters blog

The post Since it is Ash Wednesday … appeared first on Logic Matters.

https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/02/14/since-it-is-ash-wednesday/ Save to Pocket

@IIIF Mastodon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: IIIF Mastodon feed)

Registration for the 2024 IIIF Annual Conference is now open! A link to the registration portal, along with event and travel details, is available on the IIIF website: bit.ly/iiif-LA

https://glammr.us/@IIIF/111931575730108193 Save to Pocket

Tesla Model 3 Long Range Gets Second Price Hike This Month

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

And you’ll have to wait longer to get it.

https://insideevs.com/news/708689/tesla-model3-lr-more-expensive/ Save to Pocket

Moving to Windows 11 is so easy! You just need to buy a PC that supports it!

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

New Start Menu is a ‘game changer’ claims relentlessly cheerful vid

Microsoft is again releasing a video to entice more Windows 10 users to make the leap to the brave new world of Windows 11, with market share figures indicating the majority of customers are still reluctant to do so.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/microsoft_windows_11_plea/ Save to Pocket

Swift Collections 1.1

date: 2024-02-14, from: Michael Tsai

Karoy Lorentey (Mastodon): This feature release adds a number of new data structure implementations, along with minor changes to existing constructs.[…]Heap implements a min-max heap, backed by a native array.BitSet and BitArray are two alternate representations of a bitmap type, backed by dynamically allocated storage.TreeSet and TreeDictionary are hashed collections implementing Compressed Hash-Array Mapped Prefix […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/14/swift-collections-1-1/ Save to Pocket

Mail and Preview Working Together

date: 2024-02-14, from: Michael Tsai

Wade Tregaskis: …after I’d filled out a form PDF that was emailed to me. It had exactly the option I wanted first and foremost, to send the completed PDF back to the sender. Sure, manually digging up the completed PDF from disk and dragging it into a Mail Compose [Reply] window isn’t hard, but it […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/14/mail-and-preview-working-together/ Save to Pocket

The iMessage Halo Effect

date: 2024-02-14, from: Michael Tsai

John Siracusa: The iMessage service is not so good that it makes the iPhone more attractive to customers. It’s the iPhone that makes iMessage attractive. The iPhone gives iMessage its cachet, not the other way around. […] Today, it still feels like the iPhone is carrying iMessage. Anecdotally, both my teenage children have iPhones, but […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/14/the-imessage-halo-effect/ Save to Pocket

Fraudulent Kimi App

date: 2024-02-14, from: Michael Tsai

Wes Davis: There’s a vision testing app called Kimi sitting at number eight in the Apple iOS App Store’s trending list of free entertainment apps right now (and number 46 overall for free apps!). But it’s not an app for testing your eyesight, at least not unless you consider watching pirated movies on your smartphone […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/14/fraudulent-kimi-app/ Save to Pocket

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta saved me once and tried to kill me twice

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

I have been driving with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta for about two years now, and during that time, it saved me once and tried to kill me twice.

How should I feel about that?

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-saved-me-once-tried-to-kill-me-twice/ Save to Pocket

E-quipment highlight: Bobcat E10e excavates under St. Jerome’s in Naples

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Because it doesn’t have tailpipe emissions that can harm people and contaminate the air in enclosed spaces, electric equipment has the ability to get work done where the cost of conventional diesel or propane can’t be justified. In this case, we’re not talking about financial cost, but cultural cost – in this case, at the St. Jerome Monumental Complex in Naples, where Bobcat is putting its E10e electric mini excavator to work exploring the historic landmark.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/e-quipment-highlight-bobcat-e10e-excavates-under-st-jeromes-in-naples/ Save to Pocket

Vintage Typologies

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/vintage-typologies Save to Pocket

US Homeland Security Chief’s Impeachment Trial to Start in Two Weeks

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-mayorkas-impeachment-trial-to-start-in-two-weeks-/7487641.html Save to Pocket

Battle Of The Hollywood Censors

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Lever News

While politicians, military brass, and Chinese officials jockey to control the content of Hollywood blockbusters, experts say no one is looking out for the filmmakers themselves.

https://www.levernews.com/battle-of-the-hollywood-censors/ Save to Pocket

Mark Zuckerberg on Vision Pro

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3TkhmivNzt Save to Pocket

From Forward Presence to Forward Defense: NATO’s Defense of the Baltics

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: RAND blog

The Baltic states remain vulnerable to a potential Russian military attack due to their geography. They are watching closely as NATO begins pivoting its posture of deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/from-forward-presence-to-forward-defense-natos-defense.html Save to Pocket

NIU BQI-C3 Pro e-bike now $1,500, take up to $1,250 off Greenworks electric riding mowers, and more

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Headlining today’s top deals is the NIU BQI-C3 e-bike, which drops down to $1,500 from its usual $2,200 going rate. It comes joined by a Greenworks pre-season special on two electric riding lawn mowers, as well as this Anker 256Wh power station at its all-time low of $170. 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/niu-bqi-c3-pro-e-bike-greemworks-riding-mowers-more/ Save to Pocket

Scarbo SV Rover revealed as ‘first street-legal’ electric hypertruck with 1,000 hp

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

California-based Scarbo Vintage revealed the SV Rover, an ultra-rugged off-road monster of a vehicle. Dubbed the “world’s first street-legal hypertruck,” the SV Rover packs over 1,000 hp in all-electric form.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/scarbo-sv-rover-revealed-first-street-legal-electric-hypertruck/ Save to Pocket

Experts Recreate Looming 43-Foot-Tall Statue of Constantine Using 3D Modeling

date: 2024-02-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Although only fragments of the 1,700-year-old colossus remain, experts hope to paint a fuller picture for the public with a new installation at Rome’s Capitoline Museums

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/experts-reimagine-a-massive-43-foot-statue-of-constantine-using-3d-modeling-180983777/ Save to Pocket

Thousands of US, UK Delivery, Ride-Hailing Drivers Stop Work on Valentine’s Day

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/thousands-of-us-uk-delivery-ride-hailing-drivers-stop-work-on-valentine-s-day/7487593.html Save to Pocket

I’ll Be Back in Eastertide

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ayjay blog

https://blog.ayjay.org/ill-be-back-in-eastertide/ Save to Pocket

US Air Force’s new cyber, IT skill recruitment plan: Bring back warrant officer ranks

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Officer pay, limited command duties and writing ‘code for your country’

Skilled IT professionals considering a career change have a new option, as the US Air Force is reintroducing warrant officer ranks exclusively “within the cyber and information technology professions.” …

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/us_air_forces_new_cyber/ Save to Pocket

“Nobody solves media except temporarily”: Four indie media owners on money, sustainability, and “making cooler, weirder things”

date: 2024-02-14, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

It’s been a rough start to the new year for the news industry, between layoffs, shutdowns, sales, and strikes at news organizations across the United States. But even in the most chaotic times, there are bright spots cropping up that inform communities and celebrate the craft of writing and storytelling. A new podcast, Never Post,…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/nobody-solves-media-except-temporarily-four-indie-media-owners-on-money-sustainability-and-making-cooler-weirder-things/ Save to Pocket

Kids playing football are doing the “Brexit tackle”, which means taking out…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043972-kids-playing-football-are Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Warriors reportedly tried to unite LeBron James and Stephen Curry at NBA trade deadline. That would have been amazing. Flush both teams out of the system in one move. It's about time.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/14/golden-state-warriors-lebron-james-trade-los-angeles-lakers-reports-nba-trade-deadline Save to Pocket

The Purple Tomato

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/02/14/the-purple-tomato/ Save to Pocket

February 13, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-13-2024-29c Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Ocasio-Cortez Gives Full Support to Biden.

https://politicalwire.com/2024/02/14/ocasio-cortez-throws-full-support-to-biden/ Save to Pocket

How Finland Approaches Its New NATO Role Is a Key Decision for the New President

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: RAND blog

Finland’s presidential election is complete, and Alexander Stubb is the winner. As the president holds executive power to set foreign and security policy, as well as commanding the military, NATO countries are watching closely to see which course their newfound ally will chart.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/how-finland-approaches-its-new-nato-role-is-a-key-decision.html Save to Pocket

Authy Desktop to Reach End-of-Life on 19 March 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/2024/02/14/authy-desktop-to-reach-end-of-life-on-19-march-2024/ Save to Pocket

The CDC is considering changing its recommendation about how long to isolate…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043971-the-cdc-is-considering-ch Save to Pocket

Press Release: Keep COVID isolation

date: 2024-02-14, from: Peoples CDC blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024 CONTACT: peoplescdc@gmail.com Experts oppose CDC proposal to cut COVID isolation time  Express Concern CDC is caving to business at cost of public safety The People’s CDC, a watchdog group of public health experts and patient and disability advocates, condemned the US CDC’s announced plan to eliminate guidelines specifying… Continue reading Press Release: Keep COVID isolation

https://peoplescdc.org/2024/02/14/press-release-keep-covid-isolation/ Save to Pocket

A Floridian Sunset

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

A NASA photographer captured the sunset on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024, near the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The iconic building, completed in 1966 and currently used for assembly of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for Artemis missions, is still the only building in which rockets were assembled […]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/a-floridian-sunset/ Save to Pocket

“The Woman in the Castello” Takes Center Stage in Santa Clarita’s One Story One City Program This March!

date: 2024-02-14, from: City of Santa Clarita

‘THE WOMAN IN THE CASTELLO’ TAKES CENTER STAGE IN SANTA CLARITA’S ONE STORY ONE CITY PROGRAM THIS MARCH! Get a copy of the book at any Santa Clarita Public Library Branch The Santa Clarita Public Library proudly unveils this year’s chosen masterpiece for the One Story One City program – ‘The Woman in the Castello’ […]

The post “The Woman in the Castello” Takes Center Stage in Santa Clarita’s One Story One City Program This March! appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.

https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/02/14/the-woman-in-the-castello-takes-center-stage-in-santa-claritas-one-story-one-city-program-this-march/ Save to Pocket

Prudential Financial finds cybercrims lurking inside its IT systems

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Some company admin and customers data exposed, but bad guys were there for ‘only’ a day

Prudential Financial, the second largest life insurance company in the US and eight largest worldwide, is dealing with a digital break-in that exposed some internal company and customer records to a criminal group.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/prudential_financial_finds_cybercrims_lurking/ Save to Pocket

Biden Is on TikTok Despite Security Concerns

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

In an effort to connect to younger voters, the Biden campaign has joined TikTok. But while many users have welcomed the move, security experts and even legislators have expressed disapproval amid long-standing privacy concerns surrounding the use of the Chinese-owned app. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has details from Washington.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-is-on-tiktok-despite-security-concerns/7487429.html Save to Pocket

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: Bruce Schneier blog

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:

• I’m speaking at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2024 in Munich, Germany, on Friday, February 16, 2024.
• I’m giving a keynote on “AI and Trust” at Generative AI, Free Speech, & Public Discourse. The symposium will be held at Columbia University in New York City and online, at 3 PM ET on Tuesday, February 20, 2024.
• I’m speaking (remotely) on “AI, Trust and Democracy” at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, at noon ET on February 20, 2024. The talk is part of the 2023-2024 Beyond the Web Speaker Series, presented by The Ostrom Workshop and Hamilton Lugar School…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/upcoming-speaking-engagements-34.html Save to Pocket

Rivian (RIVN) makes another key hire ahead of R2 launch, this time from Meta

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

After hiring former Porsche and Apple executives, Rivian (RIVN) has made another key hire ahead of the launch of its new R2 electric models.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/rivian-rivn-another-key-hire-r2-launch/ Save to Pocket

This single-board computer has a 5.5 inch touchscreen display

date: 2024-02-14, from: Liliputing

Most so-called single-board computers feature a processor, memory, and other core features soldered directly to the mainboard. But if you want to actually use the computers, you typically have to plug in a few more things like a keyboard, mouse, and display. That’s not an issue with UUGear’s Vivid Unit, because this single-board PC comes with […]

The post This single-board computer has a 5.5 inch touchscreen display appeared first on Liliputing.

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NASA Telescopes Find New Clues About Mysterious Deep Space Signals

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Using two of the agency’s X-ray telescopes, researchers were able to zoom in on a dead star’s erratic behavior as it released a bright, brief burst of radio waves. What’s causing mysterious bursts of radio waves from deep space? Astronomers may be a step closer to providing one answer to that question. Two NASA X-ray […]

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Waymo services driverless car software after Phoenix truck collision

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Alphabet owned autonomous vehicle biz files voluntary recall report saying it tweaked wares via over-the-air update

Self-driving car company Waymo – a subsidiary of Google owner Alphabet – has voluntarily filed a recall report after one of its vehicles collided with a truck in Pheonix.…

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@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Sometimes I accidentally stream music to the thermostat:

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Has Offshore Wind Finally Hit Rock Bottom?

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

It has been a catastrophic 12 months for offshore wind in the United States. Several large projects have been canceled along the Mid-Atlantic, and Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has laid off hundreds of employees and canceled its dividend. Is the industry dying?

Maybe it’s actually about to turn a corner. In this episode, Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems expert and professor at Princeton University, and I discuss the future of the sector, and Jesse tries to convince me that the industry is about to bounce back.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

Here’s an excerpt of our conversation:

Robinson Meyer: Make a case to me about why offshore wind … like 2023 was the catastrophic year for offshore wind, and now it’s going to come back.

Jesse Jenkins: Yeah, that’s a great question.

I mean, I think it is worth pausing and noting that offshore wind in the United States was already pretty expensive, and is now even more expensive. So I think the contracts that New Jersey signed, for example, which are 20-year, basically fixed price contracts — they got to go up at 2% per year, which is what we thought inflation would be, but now is maybe not where it will be over the next few years, but basically fixed long term contracts — were in the $80 to $90 per megawatt-hour range, which itself is roughly double the wholesale electricity cost in the region. So we’re basically paying for twice as much for wind energy as we would pay for natural gas or coal fired power in the regional electricity mix. And that’s after a federal subsidy knocks off 30% of the upfront cost.

That sounds like a lot, right? And I think it’s fair to say that the costs that are going to be signed in the new auctions that are happening now are going to be up or above $100 per megawatt hour. So, just the interest rates alone … You know, the Fed raised interest rates by over 5% from March 2022 to August 2023. That 5 percentage point increase in the cost of capital would raise the levelized cost, or average cost of electricity alone, by about a third for any of these projects. So it’s a huge cost escalator. And of course, the underlying cost of building the projects went up by about 65%. That’s way faster, about three times faster than consumer goods went up. We all know about how much more expensive it is to buy milk or bread or fill up at the gas pump. So, that’s the case for seeing this as, you know, the bear case — that these projects are now really expensive, and maybe they’re more expensive than we’re willing to pay.

On the other hand, I think there’s three reasons that, basically every state is still committed to building out offshore wind despite those cost increases. One is that is an historic, once in a generation macro inflationary cycle, a global pandemic with all of the supply chain disruptions that came with that, followed by a war in Europe and all of the impacts on energy costs that that brought about, you know, etc., these are really unique circumstances. And so those should be behind us, right?

Hopefully we can then get back on a trajectory of building out this new industry across the region, including the supply chains and the expertise in the transmission infrastructure undersea, to bring the wind onshore. That will steadily drive down the cost. And the reason to be optimistic about that is we have seen that in Europe, right? The wind industry did follow a very significant cost decline trajectory over the 15 years or so from its birth to now, in Europe. And we’re just going to have to pay a lot of those costs here because that learning and the experience in the infrastructure and the workforce isn’t really translatable.

The second reason is just there’s not a lot of alternatives for these states. Yes, electricity is structurally more expensive in Europe. It’s also structurally more expensive all along the eastern coast because we have high population density, population centers. There’s … these are very dense populated centers close to the coast, without access to the really good wind and solar resources that we see in the U.S. interior or the West. And so what are we going to do? Are we going to continue to burn fossil fuels? That would be the cheapest thing to do in the near term, but of course has lots of long term implications, including accelerating climate change. And all of these states have committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Virginia, New Jersey, York, Massachusetts, etc. have these 100% clean energy commitments.

The full transcript is available here.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by Advanced Energy United, KORE Power, and Yale …

Advanced Energy United educates, engages, and advocates for policies that allow our member companies to compete to power our economy with 100% clean energy, working with decision makers and energy market regulators to achieve this goal. Together, we are united in our mission to accelerate the transition to 100% clean energy in America. Learn more at advancedenergyunited.org/heatmap

KORE Power provides the commercial, industrial, and utility markets with functional solutions that advance the clean energy transition worldwide. KORE Power’s technology and manufacturing capabilities provide direct access to next generation battery cells, energy storage systems that scale to grid+, EV power & infrastructure, and intuitive asset management to unlock energy strategies across a myriad of applications. Explore more at korepower.com — the future of clean energy is here.

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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Transcript: Has Offshore Wind Finally Hit Rock Bottom?

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

This is a transcript of episode two of Shift Key: Has Offshore Wind Finally Hit Rock Bottom?

Robinson Meyer: Hi, I’m Rob Meyer. I’m the founding executive editor of Heatmap News, and you are listening to Shift Key, a new podcast about climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels from Heatmap. My co-host, Jenkins: will join us in a second and we’ll get on with the show. But first, a word from our sponsor.

[AD BREAK]

Meyer: Hello, my name is Robinson Meyer. I’m the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

Jesse Jenkins: And I’m Jesse Jenkins, a professor at Princeton University and an expert in energy systems and climate policy.

Meyer: And you are listening to Shift Key, a new podcast about climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels, from Heatmap News. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what exactly is happening in the offshore wind industry. Is it hurt? Is it dying? Is it —has

Jenkins: Has it hit rock bottom?

Meyer: Has it hit rock bottom? Is it very depressed? What’s happening? And of course, we’ll share our upshifts and downshifts from the week, and I will get better at pronouncing it.

Let’s get into it. Jesse, last year was, I think it’s fair to say, a pretty catastrophic year for offshore wind, especially in the United States. That was capped last week when Orsted, which is the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced that it was cutting 800 jobs, a little less than 10% of its workforce, and suspending its dividend — it’s not going to pay anything to investors — and it was also exiting from a number of European markets, including Norway, Portugal and Spain. And not only that, but it has cut down its kind of internal target for how much offshore wind it wants to build by 2030. It had once hoped to build 50 gigawatts. Now it’s going to go closer to 35 to 38. And what’s interesting is that Orsted, you know, not profitable last year. But that was like, entirely driven by the U.S. So it would have made $2 billion in profit last year, but it took $5 billion in impairment charges — like it would have been profitable, except for its U.S. business. And its U.S. business took it as a firm from like $2 billion in the black to $3 billion in the red.

So, Jesse, let’s just start with, I think, getting listeners up to speed. What projects did Orsted cancel in the United States last year?

Jenkins: Yes. So they actually canceled several, most recently, a pair of projects that had sold contracts to Maryland. That followed a pair of projects in New Jersey, and another that would serve New York State. So I think it’s five projects in total and a couple phases of the same project in New Jersey. And those projects all were under long term contracts with state entities. And we’ll talk a lot more about the role of the states in driving the offshore wind industry here in the Atlantic states, but they basically sign long term, you know, purchase agreements with the states to buy power at a fixed price with, you know, a set escalation schedule. And they did that many years ago or, you know, before the pandemic, before the significant surge in inflation, the cost of goods that rose over the last few years — and then, just as importantly, before the increase in interest rates that the Federal Reserve used to try to combat that inflation.

And so you combine those two things, and it’s really a double whammy. The cost of cement and steel and concrete and labor and all of the specialty equipment they need to build these offshore wind projects is skyrocketing at the exact same time that the finance costs, the mortgage they have to take out to build these projects, is going up. And all that meant that they couldn’t honor their contracts and that, you know, it’s notable that they pulled out because in each of these cases, they had to incur several hundred million dollars of penalties for voiding the contracts with the state. So it’s not just the money they sunk into the projects that may not be complete, but it’s also very significant financial penalties for walking away.

Meyer: And how did they explain why they needed to … What did they blame?

Jenkins: I think it’s three issues that they have consistently pointed to. We talked about two already. One is the cost of goods and labor, going up with inflation. The second is interest rates, which have a huge impact on these projects. They’re almost all upfront cost, right, with some operation and maintenance over time, but no fuel costs. So once you get these wind farms up and running, they’re more or less free. But you got to take out a big mortgage, right? Just like you do when you buy a house. And you got to pay that back over time. And so the interest rate that you strike for those financing costs is a big determinant of how much you can afford to sell your power at and still make a profit.

And then the third factor is a peculiar one, which is the absence of very specialized ships that are used to install these giant wind turbines. And they really don’t exist in the U.S. because we’re just starting to build our industry here. The industry in Europe that has been, you know, going for several decades in the North Sea has a number of these vessels, you know, they’re in use there. We could bring them here, but we have this law called the Jones Act, which requires any vessel that is leaving a U.S. port for another U.S. destination to be a U.S. built and U.S. crewed ship, and we just don’t have any of those yet. There’s one coming soon. But that is a real challenge logistically for any of these projects.

Meyer: And let’s just, I think, as a final point, before we go into the discussion further, why is offshore wind, like, important at all? Why, as people who want to solve climate change, should we care at all about how specific offshore wind projects off the coast of New Jersey or Maryland or Rhode Island are going?

Jenkins: Yeah, I think for I mean, a couple reasons. One is that this is a big new industry that we’re trying to kind of give birth to in the region. These were some of the first large scale wind farms. Every 3,000 megawatts of wind power out there is roughly enough to supply the annual electricity needs of about a million households. So that’s a big sized city just in New York State alone, projects that were canceled by Orsted and Equinor totaled about 3 GW. So that’s enough energy for like, Queens, you know, one of the entire boroughs, right? So these are big deals in terms of the amount of supply they’re going to provide and the the local economic impact.

And so I think for the region at least — I mean, if you’re in Wyoming, you probably don’t care too much about what’s going on in the Atlantic. But all up and down the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine, states have made a real significant commitment to offshore wind, to be a major contributor to their local electricity mix and help them meet clean energy and climate goals. And, you know, and their megaprojects are big, you know, large-scale efforts, billion-dollar projects, you know, millions of households worth of energy and lots of jobs and local economic investment. And so when a project like that fails, you know, it’s kind of a big deal for the local economy, for the politics around it, for our progress towards our clean energy goals. And it’s a potential setback in our clean energy transition.

Meyer: There’s also — It’s economically important, but there’s also technical, I think what an electricity engineer would call resource related reasons why we want offshore wind. Is this right? Like it fits into the grid in a very useful way. Am I wrong about this?

Jenkins: Yeah, actually, I was just teaching a lecture on wind power to my students today, and we took a look at the Global Wind Atlas, which we can drop in the show notes. And what you can really see quite clearly is that the onshore wind potential in the Atlantic area is really quite poor. We don’t really have good locations to build wind power in Virginia or New York, near the coast at least, or in New Jersey at all. But the wind resource offshore is very good.

Wind speeds, you know, can move across the ocean. It’s very flat. There’s nothing that gets in the way. And you get a lot of frequent, wind patterns driven by the difference in temperature between the ocean and the land. So there’s all these localized effects that tend to produce a lot of energy in the morning, in the evening and overnight when it’s cooling off. And these are nice complements to solar power that produces mostly during the day. And you know, you can’t run your entire grid on one variable renewable resource, or even two. But having offshore wind complementary, you know, which is complementary to solar, and also to sometimes onshore wind patterns further inland that, you know, are separated from the ocean can really help you smooth out the variability that you have to deal with, make it easier for energy storage and, and flexible demand and more dispatchable generators to kind of fill in the gaps around it.

And there’s just really not a lot of other options in these states. Like, you know, if you want to have economic development and meet your clean energy goals with resources in your state, there’s just not a lot of other options. You can, you know, build solar, you can build nuclear power plants, or you can do offshore wind. Those are kind of your options for the Atlantic states, at least those without, you know, the large interior territories that New York has.

Meyer: So I want to come back to some of the like resource questions in a second. I will say, this is all very interesting — well, let me think about how I want to pitch this. I understand offshore wind being technically important, right? I understand how it fits into the solar mix. I understand it’s good economic development.

I found last year to be fairly … I wouldn’t say radicalizing, but I will say I kind of came out of last year being like, I don’t know if I see it anymore. Like I did start to feel like, man, is offshore wind more of a like, is it going to succeed exclusively in Europe and China, where there is more willingness to have a working coast, where electricity, especially in Europe, is just structurally more expensive? And so this technique, this way of generating electricity, kind of fits into their mix better. And so, what I’m going to ask you to do is just argue to me, like make a case for why that’s wrong. Make a case to me about why offshore wind … like 2023 was the catastrophic year for offshore wind, and now it’s going to come back.

Jenkins: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I think it is worth pausing and noting that offshore wind in the United States was already pretty expensive, and is now even more expensive. So I think the contracts that New Jersey signed, for example, which are 20-year, you know, basically fixed price contracts — they got to go up at 2% per year, which is, you know, what we thought inflation would be, but now is maybe not where it will be over the next few years, but basically fixed long term contracts — were in the $80 to $90 per megawatt-hour range, which itself is roughly double the wholesale electricity cost in the region. So we’re, you know, we’re basically paying for, you know, twice as much for wind energy as we would pay for natural gas or coal fired power in the regional electricity mix. And that’s after a federal subsidy knocks off 30% of the upfront cost.

That sounds like a lot, right? And I think it’s fair to say that the costs that are going to be signed in the new auctions that are happening now are going to be up or above $100 per megawatt hour. So, you know, they, you know, just the interest rates alone. You know, the Fed raised interest rates by over 5% from March 2022 to August 2023. That 5 percentage point increase in the cost of capital would raise the levelized cost, or average cost of electricity alone, by about a third for any of these projects. So it’s a huge cost escalator. And of course, the underlying cost of building the projects went up by about 65%. That’s way faster, about three times faster than consumer goods went up. So, you know, we all know about how much more expensive it is to buy milk or bread or fill up at the gas pump. So, you know, that’s the case for seeing this as, you know, the bear case — that these projects are now really expensive, and maybe they’re more expensive than we’re willing to pay.

On the other hand, I think there’s three reasons that, basically every state is still committed to building out offshore wind despite those cost increases. One is that is a, you know, a historic, once in a generation macro inflationary cycle, a global pandemic with all of the supply chain disruptions that came with that, followed by a war in Europe and all of the impacts on energy costs that that, you know, brought about, you know, etc., these are really unique circumstances. You know, and so those should be behind us, right? Hopefully we can then get back on a trajectory of building out this new industry across the region, including the supply chains and the expertise in the transmission infrastructure undersea, to bring the wind onshore. That will steadily drive down the cost. And the reason to be optimistic about that is we have seen that in Europe, right? The wind industry did follow a very significant cost decline trajectory over the, you know, 15 years or so from its birth to now, in Europe. And we’re just going to have to pay a lot of those costs here because that learning and the experience in the infrastructure and the workforce isn’t really translatable.

The second reason is just there’s not a lot of alternatives for these states. You know, yes, electricity is structurally more expensive in Europe. It’s also structurally more expensive all along the eastern coast because we have high population density, population centers. There’s … these are very dense populated centers close to the coast, without access to the really good wind and solar resources that we see in the U.S. interior or the West. And so what are we going to do? Are we going to continue to burn fossil fuels? That would be the cheapest thing to do in the near term, but of course has lots of long term implications, including accelerating climate change. And all of these states have committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Virginia, New Jersey, York, Massachusetts, etc. have these 100% clean energy commitments.

Meyer: Assuming those states have this durable interest in decarbonization, in some ways, like, offshore wind has to have hit rock bottom, is part of what I’m hearing. Because there are just no other options. So they could go through this tear-your-hair out frustration loop, where they go try to build more solar, and then they go try to build more nuclear, and maybe those don’t work, so then they find themselves back where they began with offshore wind. But like, even with that, they’re still going to need offshore wind. So can you just get us up to speed on, like, what’s the good news in offshore wind, I guess?

Jenkins: Yeah. And I think this is the evidence that the states are going to stay committed and are moving forward, and that we probably have hit rock bottom. So, you know, yes, the news in November and December and early January was dominated by all these cancellations. And it wasn’t just Orsted. There were others up and down the Atlantic coast. But if we look at just, you know, New York and New Jersey, there’s similar stories in other states. You know, New York State has a goal of building 9,000 MW or 9 GW of offshore wind by 2035. Again, that’s about enough, to power 3 million households. So they had a third-round contract towards the end of last year. At that point, they had contracted for about 8.3 of those 9 GW, so they were kind of almost there. Then we had these cancellations: Orsted’s, Sunrise Wind and Equinor’s Empire I and II that lost about 3 GW of that. So now they’re back to about 5 GW of the nine. New York just closed another accelerated auction. And if that, you know, contracts another roughly 3 or 4 GW, like the last round, that would get them their full pipeline of nine gigawatts of projects. And again, they have until 2035 to bring those online. So it’s sort of like, you know, three steps forward, two steps back in the near term here, but they’re continuing to move forward. We could still hit those goals.

What’s going to happen is that the buildout trajectory is going to get pushed back by a couple of years, and even some of those canceled projects could have a second lease on life because they are going to be rebid into these subsequent auctions. And we think we saw that, actually, with Orsted re-bidding one of their projects into New York’s recent auction in January, and we don’t know if they’ll win that round of auction. They have to beat out other competitive bids from other developers. That’s good. They tried to get New York to just single, to bilaterally renegotiate their existing contract and give them more money. And New York and New Jersey, you know, basically, and Massachusetts, all said no to those requests from developers. They said, look, a contract’s not worth anything if we sign it and you agree to a price and then you come back later and ask for more money. So if you want more money, you’re going to have to go out and, you know, pay the fine for not honor your contract and then rebid, and, and beat out everybody else. And if you can’t beat everybody else, that’s not in the interest of the state. So they really held the line against all of the requests from the developers to try to, you know, inflate their contracts. But some of those projects will come back in this next round. We’ll just come back at a higher price and probably a couple of years delayed.

Meyer: Let’s zoom out for a second. So we’ve been talking about the Atlantic a lot, partially I think, because you and I, listeners will discover, have a shared interest in New Jersey.

Jenkins: That’s right.

Meyer: Me, having grown up in New Jersey and you currently living in New Jersey. Let’s zoom out from New Jersey for a second. Much of the Atlantic coast is not a working shoreline in, I think, ways that parts of, say, Northern Europe are a working shoreline. But we do have working shoreline in the country. And that’s not to say that like people on the coast don’t work. It’s just like.

Jenkins: It’s a lot of tourism.

Meyer: It’s a lot of tourism. It’s a very tourism dependent industry. And so anything like these wind farms, they’re going to be close enough to be seen from the shore. They were not going to be very big, but they were going to be close enough to be seen from the shore. And you really, when you’re there, you don’t see a lot of other light industrial activities from the shore. We do have a working coastline in the U.S., though. It’s the Gulf Coast. And so why are we not like filling the Gulf Coast with offshore wind farms?

Jenkins: There’s really two main reasons why that didn’t happen. One is physics and the second is politics — I think we’ll keep coming back to those two as consistent themes in the show, physics and politics. But the first is just that, unlike the Jersey Shore or New York, you know, coastline or Virginia, where we really don’t have good wind resources onshore, Texas has an incredible wind resource onshore, including even the coastal regions quite close to the shoreline. And also the Gulf Coast, wind speeds are not as high, although it does suffer hurricanes. The average wind speeds are not as consistently high as they are in the Atlantic because it is a gulf. It’s, you know, it’s not a big open expanse of ocean the way the Atlantic is. And so the dominant wind patterns are not quite so strong. So the differential, the sort of benefit that you get from going offshore is really quite modest, if anything, in the Gulf versus a good onshore wind site. And of course, anytime you’re building in a marine environment where you have to deal with the corrosive nature of the ocean and the damaging destruction of storms and the cost of servicing and equipping, and, you know, working on wind farms and deep offshore, that’s going to be a lot more expensive. So unless you’re getting a lot more energy out of that project than you would on land, it just simply doesn’t make sense to build offshore. So that’s the kind of physics and economics.

Of course, the second reason — we talked already about the commitment to decarbonization that all of those states in the Atlantic exhibit, which is really driving the ship, so to speak. Texas, clearly, Mississippi, Louisiana, they clearly don’t have the same kind of commitment, at least at this point, to those goals. And we should say that’s really important because the Inflation Reduction Act provides significant long term tax credits for offshore wind and solar and, you know, onshore wind and all kinds of other clean electricity sources. And while those tax credits have been enough to make solar and wind onshore quite economically attractive in deep red states, right — you know, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, all over the place are building huge amounts of onshore wind and solar just based on the economics, not because of their climate or green credentials — that’s just not true for offshore wind. The tax credits alone, again, they still leave offshore wind about twice the cost of wholesale energy. And so they’re just not going to move forward without a state level commitment. And that’s really lacking in the Gulf Coast region as well.

Meyer: That’s really interesting.

[AD BREAK]

So I want to ask — there’s like a point that keeps coming up again and again here that is, like, the states play a major role. And I do think this is interesting. From a larger policy like to kind of zoom out a bit and kind of look at this as a policy question. Normally when we think about states playing a role in climate policy, there’s like one jewel, there’s like one big star when we talk about state level climate policy, and that’s California. And that’s because California, and this is not where, I’m not talking about the electricity system here. I’m talking about kind of the whole emissions picture. California has a special carve out under the law, under the Clean Air Act — like it’s written into the text that Congress passed, that California can set higher standards for certain pollutants than the rest of the country, and that any other state can join into its standards. And California does do that for a number of pollutants, including right now for carbon dioxide. I think right now about 13, 12 or 13 states sign on to its standards.

But other than that, other than California having these special powers to, like, regulate the vehicle fleet and various other things, we don’t talk about — at least I don’t think about states as being major players at the level of shaping what their resource mix looks like. Is that because I, is that because I just don’t know things? Or is that like, is that because I’m ignorant? Or is that because there is something kind of unique and interesting about offshore wind, or maybe unique and interesting about where state’s decarbonization goals are going to have to take governments?

Jenkins: I think in some ways it’s sort of a back to the future kind of thing. Yeah, I guess it changes who’s, like, who’s in the driver’s seat, right? Historically, we had vertically integrated monopoly utilities, and in much of the country that’s still the case, like in the Southeast and much of the West. But in about, you know, 60% of the country, fairly recently, like around 2000, in early 2000s, we basically restructured the markets to say, you know what, for at least generation and wholesale large power plants, and maybe also for retail sales, like who signs you up as a customer and, you know, does your billing and provide some other services, we’re going to open that part of it up to competition, and we’ll keep the wires part the network utility because that makes sense. But we’ll let the generators all compete with each other. And now the market is in the driver’s seat. And what does the market build an enormous amount of natural gas.

Meyer: I was gonna say, the market the market falls over itself to build natural gas. Yeah. The market goes to sleep and wakes up, and it’s just surrounded by extra natural gas plants that it made while it was sleeping.

Jenkins: Yeah. And bankruptcies.

Meyer: And bankruptcies. Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Jenkins: So the wisdom of the market overbuilt a huge amount of gas in an attempt to get regulated utilities for to stop overbuilding a huge amount of nuclear and coal plants. That’s a cycle we went through. And then states, again, around similar times, like, start to get more and more concerned about climate change and clean energy and reducing their exposure to what, at that point, we talked about in the last episode, were increasing natural gas prices right in the early, in the mid 2000s. And they say, you know what, we should actually take a little bit more of a hand here and shape how the market works. And they still did it in a relatively hands off way through what are known as renewable portfolio standards.

So these are basically laws that say to the utility, okay, you get to, you know, the market can shape the mix, but you have to buy a certain amount of your electricity from clean resources or a certain qualifying renewable resources. But you decide: offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, whatever. And then what changed, really, is these resource-specific procurements that we’re now seeing. And wind is the most salient, but also we’re seeing procurements of utility-scale solar in certain states.

And actually, I think the most, the most interesting one is, is the recent law passed in North Carolina by the legislature, which is basically like a resource plan in law. You know, build this many megawatts of this shut down this many megawatts of coal, build these many megawatts of offshore wind, 50% of that the utility gets to own, this much has to go to market. It’s like the legislature taking the driver’s seat now and writing through law what they want the resource mix to look like. And that’s, I think, the thing that has shifted, right. It’s the legislature driving resource procurement. And that is, that is new.

Meyer: And I think there is, like, a “Just when I got out, they pulled me back in” aspect to all of this, I think. Where, it seemed like, for reasons having to do with broader ideas floating around about how markets were smart and how what often seemed like the very corrupt nature of the kind of state regulatory and monopoly utility interface that these, you know, the states were very corrupted by the utilities, the utilities were very corrupted by the state. But I guess what I’m saying is that there was this move toward markets, and that since then, and then even with the RPS, as you said, there’s still this kind of market technology neutral, well, we’re open to all kinds of portfolios. And what we’re discovering is for reasons that mostly, I think have to do with physics, you wind up — states kind of wound up right back where they started, where it’s like, okay, well, now we’re actually. it’s just easier if we plan this.

Jenkins: I do think there’s still I mean, I think there’s some of that, I think. I think there’s a lot more politics going on here. I would shade into the story.

Meyer: By all means, yes.

Jenkins: Yes. There is some local opposition to offshore wind. There is a lot of economic, salience or political salience to being able to say to some of the working shoreline communities — which we did have long ago, right? And being able to go there and say, we’re going to build a $500 million revitalization of the port of New Bedford in Massachusetts or New London in Connecticut or Staten Island in New York or Brooklyn, where they’re building these terminals and drive a huge amount of employment and investment and revitalization in these communities. That’s why the politics of offshore wind is so attractive.

Also, because the components are so big and because the state is shaping it, they can add these riders about local benefits in manufacturing. A lot of the manufactured components for these turbines are also coming from the area. So there’s the steel piles you have to drive into the ground, called monopiles. The towers, the blades, the turbines, they’re all getting built in New York and New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere, and creating manufacturing jobs in communities that were previously depressed. And, you know, politicians can go to ribbon cuttings and point to their legislation and say, we did this right.

So I think that’s a big piece of why the legislatures are so attracted to offshore wind, is it does create a lot of jobs and a lot of investment and a lot of local manufacturing activity. And I think that’s part of why the legislature has basically decided we’re willing to pay a lot more for offshore wind than we would be for, say, a transmission line to wind in a state inland is that it might be a lot cheaper.

Meyer: Is that a good thing? I mean, I guess I just —

Jenkins: Yeah, I don’t you —

Meyer: You know me, like, I love industrial policy blah blah blah. However, I will say when you look across the U.S. and you look at projects that have been considered to be drivers of economic development in a direct way instead of an indirect way, by which I mean, like when you look at these big public projects where some of the stated top line benefits of these projects are like, creates many jobs, creates, helps three dozen small businesses. You don’t … it’s not exactly a record that like covers itself in glory. Like, you know, California high speed rail remains unbuilt. But the director, you know, like people involved with California high speed rail, sometimes they’re like, well, it’s actually been very successful because we’ve supported all these jobs and we’ve supported all these businesses. And it’s like, still, you know, this, all this economic activity. But of course, the thing hasn’t been built yet, actually doing the thing that we wanted to do, which is move people quickly from L.A. to San Francisco. Is it good that we’re looking at that? Legislatures look at offshore wind and they’re like, oh, look at all those jobs in it rather than like … yeah, yeah.

Jenkins: Yeah. I mean, let me go on the record and say, I am not a fan of resource planning by the state legislatures. I mean, I think that, you know, as a deliberative democracy, you know, democratic body or representative body, right? They have a role in representing the combined stakeholder interests. But, you know, when it comes to, when it comes to making energy policy, we all know that there are certain stakeholders who have a lot more access and a lot more influence in, you know, state legislatures than others, and are likely to sort of shift things in certain directions. And so what I have counseled — and I’ve been asked to advise state legislatures and, and policymakers in a number of contexts. And what I have advised is to say, look, you are balancing real goals here, right there. There are several different objectives we’re trying to achieve. Right? We want to reach a cleaner energy mix because we’re trying to combat climate change and reduce air pollution and improve environmental justice, and all those goals. So we want a clean mix, but also, I’m sure we’ll do an episode on this later, the electricity sector has to play a much bigger role in powering our lives in a cleaner future, right?

Meyer: Load must go up.

Jenkins: Electric cars and other industries … Yeah, yeah, there just has to be a lot more electricity generated, period, to electrify so many different things, from EVs to heat pumps to industry. Yeah. And if you do that, you know, not putting aside, you know, so that even from the climate concern, you have to worry yourself about affordability of this transition, as well. If you make electricity prices two or three times more expensive, that’s going to make it a lot harder to electrify all those industries. And it’s going to make, you know, energy costs for low income and fixed income residents go up and, you know, there’s justice implications of that. It’s going to make your small businesses and competitive businesses or businesses and competitive industries less competitive, you know, with other states. So there’s an affordability concern that’s always front and center in these conversations. And then there’s this economic development concern.

Obviously, state legislatures are historically interested in driving economic investment and in development in their state. That’s a big part of what they do. And so you’re balancing these three things, right. You know, affordability, clean energy and climate goals and in-state economic development. And I have simply recommended that you focus on the ends and not the means. So if those are your goals, let’s write into the law that you know, we’re going to have X percent clean energy and we want y percentage of that to be in state because of economic development goals. And we want to put a cost containment provision in here that says we won’t build those offshore wind or those in-state projects if it costs more than Z, because that’s how much we’re willing to pay for that insane development. And then go let the utilities or a state agency contract for whatever the cheapest way is to meet that goal, right, to maintain your affordability goals. And maybe that’s offshore wind in certain places, and maybe it’s not.

Meyer: I’m going to really mangle this concept because it is not exactly creative to describe this, but there was a Hungarian anthropologist and political economist named Karl Polanyi. It’s also a name I’m probably not saying correctly. Yeah, I’m choosing to pronounce his name like he’s a Chicago guy. Karl Polanyi, you know, down by Wabash.

Jenkins: He’s a good guy, he’s got the pizza shop.

Meyer: He, he, he has this idea of fictitious commodities, which are kind of things that you have to treat as a commodity to make the whole system work, to make the whole economy work, but are not themselves commodities. They don’t really work like actual commodities. And his big three examples are land, labor and money. He was writing during the 1940s, but it feels like electricity is one of them. I’m like, I’m, I’m adapting this idea to a situation that was not designed to apply to, but it does feel kind of like to describe the whole nature of how we think about electricity, which is this extremely important thing that mostly remains kind of mired in technical discussion, but nonetheless makes the whole world work.

Jenkins: Yeah, no that sounds about right. And I think that describes sort of the pendulum swinging back and forth. And so, you know, where I, where I do think we have opportunity here is to say, look, we have public objectives. We can, we know that these are high upfront cost, you know, capital intensive projects that once you build them, are just going to produce cheap energy for a long period of time. Right? Their marginal costs are low, and so the cost of capital is really important, and the cost to build the project is really important. Right. Those are the two determinants of how much a wind farm is going to cost. So we can use long term public contracts to drive down the cost of capital by basically guaranteeing revenue to developers so that the risk is low and they can get a low-cost loan from a bank and build the project. That’s what we’re doing with all these procurements at the state level. And we can use competitive forces like auctions to ensure that the cheapest projects are the ones we’re going to buy. And I just think we should open that up from offshore wind specifically, or rooftop solar specifically to whatever resources are built in the state that can meet our climate goals and deliver some economic development benefits at the lowest cost. And so it’s just a question of like, how do you define that market goal and harness those competitive dynamics to deliver the public policy goals? That’s what the auctions are doing.

Meyer: That’s kind of like in some ways, related to this change that is going to happen and how the Inflation Reduction Act conducts its subsidies, right? Which is since the 1980s, we’ve been in a situation where, like, we, the U.S. tax code incentivizes certain types of technology. And then starting in 2025, I believe the U.S. tax code will just incentivize all kinds of zero carbon electricity instead of calling out certain technology. It’s just saying, however you can do it, we’re going to pay you the subsidy. Yeah.

Jenkins: And also layering on a couple of other economic development objectives. Right. You have to meet prevailing wage and you have to it if you build domestic content, you get more money. And if you build energy in communities that we want to help transition, you get more money. So yeah, it’s an interesting example of that where you’re sort of layering these multiple objectives on, but still relying on the market to go deliver the lowest cost, most competitive ways to do that.

[AD BREAK]

Meyer: Let’s do downshifts first because I think we should end on an upshift.

Jenkins: That sounds good. Let’s end on the up note. So my downshift, speaking of utilities and regulation, and actually tying back to last episode winners and losers from trade, my downshift is a recent report by the Energy and Policy Institute, which is a public interest watchdog that keeps an eye on state utility regulation, on how a number of monopoly utilities, particularly those in the Southeast, where they are still vertically integrated, so they still own transmission and generation, have been routinely pushing back against efforts to build more long distance transmission, and also to organize into larger regional markets that can, you know, expand the footprint of trade across a wider area — something that’s happened in all of the competitive markets in the state and the country — in order to basically protect their turf, right? So customers in their territories would benefit from access to cheaper resources further away, and the transmission lines that could bring that power to those customers. But the utilities in these areas make their money, like most utilities, by investing capital and getting a return on those investments. And they don’t get money in somebody else’s generator. And this is an area where unless the state regulators are really acting in the public interest and leaning in here and making sure that the utility is not kind of basically abusing its control of the network to act as a monopoly, then there’s every economic incentive for the state or for the there’s every economic incentive for the utility to do that. And that’s exactly what we should expect.

Meyer: My downshift is, so we’re coming up on the first anniversary of Heatmap — that’s not my downshift.

Jenkins: It’s been that bad, huh, Rob?

Meyer: I’m very excited about that! No, no, no, my downshift is, it turns out that, as Neel Dhanesha wrote for Heatmap today, Heatmap’s first 12 months in existence more or less co-existed with the first 12 months where the Earth was 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature. So from February 2023 through January 2024, the average global temperature was 1.5 degrees C higher than what we think of as kind of the 19th century baseline. And that’s according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the EU climate data service. Now, I should say that just because we’ve had this 12-month period where temperatures were more than 1.5 C above the pre-industrial average, does not mean we have passed the so-called 1.5 C threshold, which also, we should be clear, is not a physical thing. It’s more kind of like a construct. It’s a political construct that we use to talk about when climate change starts to get very bad. So we have not passed that threshold. It is not a point of no return.

Jenkins: But it is nonetheless an ominous signpost.

Meyer: It is nonetheless an ominous sign. And of course, we pass it this year because because of El Niño, which has caused additional atmospheric warming on top of what we’re observing with climate change. But it is nonetheless, exactly, an ominous signpost.

Jenkins: Well, my, my upshift is on heat pumps, so maybe that’s why you named it Heatmap, too. Yeah. My upshift today is, is about heat pumps. Heat pumps are a magical device that allow you to move way more heat around with small amounts of electricity through the magic of the thermodynamic cycle.

Meyer: We should do an episode where you just explain how heat pumps work.

Jenkins: Magical gnomes.

Meyer: Like, how does the thermos know whether to keep the liquid hot or cold?

Jenkins: Yeah. So heat pumps are magic. There are like, 300% to 500% efficient, effectively, because you can use a little bit of electricity to move, you know, two, three, or five times as much heat around. And so that makes them a really great way to both improve energy efficiency and shift from burning fossil fuels in our basement, in furnaces, oil or gas boilers or furnaces to a clean electricity source. So that reduces air pollution. And of course, if we can produce all that electricity with clean resources, we’ve helped decarbonize home heating. So it’s a central technology in any decarbonization and environmental justice strategy, I should say, because it’s a big source of air pollution. And so my upshift is from Michael Thomas, who writes a newsletter called Distilled and is active on Twitter and shared a great thread today compiling some data on recent heat pump trends in the U.S., where he found that heat pumps have been outselling gas furnaces for the last two years in a row, in 2022 and 2023. And that I thought, most interestingly, the share of homes in the U.S. with heat pumps has gone up in 48 of 50 states over the last decade, and the most rapid progress has been driven by states that have recently taken policy action to try to accelerate adoption of heat pumps.

Maine is probably the most exciting story. They basically doubled their heat pump adoption rate in just two years. And if they kept that up, that’s crazy to hit. Yeah, and they’re actually on track to hit, yeah, to get heat pumps in every home in Maine by 2050. And there’s a reason for Maine to do this: because Maine is not on the natural gas system. So there, people in Maine are mostly heating with fuel oil and propane, which has gotten incredibly expensive over the last few years, and obviously does that periodically because of all those ups and downs and global oil prices that we mentioned on the last episode. So, yeah, Maine is an interesting case. It’s cold. A lot of people don’t think heat pumps can work in cold climates. Well, that’s definitely not true. There’s huge heat pump adoption in Scandinavian countries and in Canada. And now in Maine. You just have to design them, right? And probably also do some energy efficiency improvements to seal up your home when you do it. But yeah, we’re moving in the right direction on heat pumps.

Meyer: Home heating oil is so crazy because it’s like, imagine heating your house with gasoline.

Jenkins: Yeah, exactly. Diesel. But dirtier.

Meyer: Right. It’s so interesting. My upshift. Is that a new analysis in Carbon Brief from Lauri Myllyvirta, who is kind of one of the leading analysts of China’s greenhouse gas emissions. And he found, basically, China’s emissions may have peaked last year. That kind of, if you look at all the factors in their economy, it’s very likely China’s emissions will go down this year in 2024 compared to 2023. That, now, that’s partially — and I would say, this is suboptimal. This is not the upper part of the upshift. That’s partially because of just very soft economic activity in China. As we record this, the Chinese stock markets have basically been falling apart over the past few days. It’s that kind of softness of industrial activity matched with this massive, massive build out of renewables that is going to that that in his analysis is going to peak, lead China’s emissions to decline in 2024, and may cause them to permanently kind of subside.

And I think the other interesting aspect of this is at the same time he sees this, he also sees, I think, what people tend to notice more, which is that China’s continuing to build coal overcapacity in its power grid. It’s continuing to build a lot of new coal plants, and it kind of talks about how there is this clash coming up between the cleaner parts of the economy and the cleaner subsectors, or the new energy subsectors, versus the kind of old fossil subsectors, both of which are building, but eventually their needs will directly conflict.

Jenkins: That’s fascinating. Yeah, we should definitely do an episode on what the heck is going on in China. You know, one of those major signposts that we have to pass if we’re going to get the world on track for net zero, is peak emissions in China the world’s biggest emitter? And until China turns the corner, you know, we won’t be able to turn the corner globally to get emissions on a downward trajectory either. Most likely. So yeah, I’d be really fascinated to see are we are we nearly at that peak. That’s some encouraging signs, but we’re not quite sure yet. All right.

Meyer: Let’s, yeah, let’s …

Jenkins: Let’s leave it there and let’s come pick up the China story again in a future episode here on Shift Key.

Meyer: Here on Shift Key. You want to share your friend’s line about what our next podcast should be called?

Jenkins: Let me find that. Yeah. So a friend and early listener said, are we going to start a recurring section about emissions trading called Caps Lock? I think we have to.

Meyer: And California has to re-up its emissions trading system pretty soon, or it’s going to try to do it pretty soon.

Jenkins: So maybe we’ll have a special issue.

Meyer: Special Caps Lock edition of Shift Key. Well, thank you for listening to Shift Key. And we’ll be back next week. And in the meantime, subscribe. And please, if you have a friend, an ally, a coworker, a nemesis, a jilted lover who you think would enjoy the stimulating discussion and intelligent conversation of Shift Key. Please. Share the podcast with them and ask them to subscribe.

Jenkins: See you next week.

Meyer: Shift Key is a production of Heatmap News. The podcast was edited by Jillian Goodman. Our editor in chief is Nico Lauricella, multimedia editing and audio engineering by Jacob Lambert and Nick Woodbury. Our music is by Adam Kromelow. Thanks so much for listening and see you next week.

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B.J. Novak considers Caps for Sale & other kid’s books. “The best…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043959-bj-novak-considers-caps-f Save to Pocket

DuckDuckGo Browser adds private password & bookmark sync (no account required)

date: 2024-02-14, from: Liliputing

The key thing that sets DuckDuckGo’s search engine and web browser apart from most others is that DuckDuckGo is focused on user privacy: the company promises not to track your behavior. But that makes it tricky to offer some of the features user expect: like the ability to keep your passwords and bookmarks synchronized across […]

The post DuckDuckGo Browser adds private password & bookmark sync (no account required) appeared first on Liliputing.

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Athlete of the week Dara Tokeshi is a ‘titan of toughness’

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

Last Saturday, Feb. 3, Occidental College Women’s basketball team beat Whittier College 64-48, with shooting guard Dara Tokeshi (sophomore) on the court for a total of 36 minutes of game time: the most of any member on the team. According to Tokeshi, much of the team’s success has come from their unity, both on and off […]

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Julie Tanaka to depart from Special Collections and urges students to ‘stay curious’

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

Julie Tanaka, Director of Special Collections and College Archives, has three mantras for every Occidental student: stay curious, be open and keep asking questions. Arriving at Occidental in May 2022, she has over a decade of experience specializing in archives, special collections and rare books. Tanaka recently accepted a position at the University of Washington […]

The post Julie Tanaka to depart from Special Collections and urges students to ‘stay curious’ appeared first on The Occidental.

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Hookup culture vs the ‘Oxy statistic’: Love is still in the air for those who dare

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

The post Hookup culture vs the ‘Oxy statistic’: Love is still in the air for those who dare appeared first on The Occidental.

https://theoccidentalnews.com/features/2024/02/14/hookup-culture-vs-the-oxy-statistic-love-is-still-in-the-air-for-those-who-dare-2/2911146 Save to Pocket

DWA and Politics departments host “How Do We Talk About Palestine and Israel?” event

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

The Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) and Politics departments hosted a conversation titled “How Do We Talk About Palestine and Israel?” Feb. 6 as part of the “Contextualizing Israel/Palestine Series” of events taking place this semester. About 200 students and faculty members filled up Choi Auditorium, leading many to sit in the aisles on the […]

The post DWA and Politics departments host “How Do We Talk About Palestine and Israel?” event appeared first on The Occidental.

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Campus withstands heavy rainfall, despite anticipated threat

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

Dean of Students Rob Flot sent out an email Jan. 30 to Occidental students, faculty and staff on behalf of the college’s Emergency Response Team warning community members of the impending rain. Some concerns entailed flooding, power outages and storm debris. In the email, Flot said that the Emergency Response Team had a plan in […]

The post Campus withstands heavy rainfall, despite anticipated threat appeared first on The Occidental.

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It is Already Over

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

  Red Light It was right there. Small and fragile but the light existed— maybe only for a moment. Shining on my bare chest. Tattoos with that tinge of red. Dog tags hanging from my neck.   The underworld. The rest of existence: left to darkness. I learned a lot about war out in the […]

The post It is Already Over appeared first on The Occidental.

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Lowriding made legal: NELA keeps it low and slow

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

In Oct. 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill prohibiting bans on lowrider cars and anti-cruising ordinances. This law went into effect Jan. 1, 2024 in California. Lowriders, customized cars with lowered suspension often used for cruising, are strongly connected to Mexican American culture in East LA. In the 1980’s, cruising was banned in some […]

The post Lowriding made legal: NELA keeps it low and slow appeared first on The Occidental.

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Better late than never: transfer athletes find a home team at Oxy

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

Transferring schools halfway through one’s athletic and academic career is not how most high school athletes predict their college experience to look like. But according to Oury Diane (junior), one of the newest recruits to the men’s soccer team, making the switch from being a winger at Connecticut College to forward here at Occidental this […]

The post Better late than never: transfer athletes find a home team at Oxy appeared first on The Occidental.

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Metro Micro: The Underutilized Gem of LA Public Transport

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

A few days ago, just after 2 p.m., I stood beneath a stop sign at the edge of the Occidental campus, reading a book. It was scorching out, but I didn’t mind. I knew that in less than 10 minutes, an air-conditioned van would pick me up and carry me to the pharmacy almost a […]

The post Metro Micro: The Underutilized Gem of LA Public Transport appeared first on The Occidental.

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Mold found in Food Justice House forces residents to relocate

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)

This Spring semester, Occidental’s campus Facilities Management confirmed to Sadie Spletzer (sophomore) and their seven housemates that Food Justice House, a themed living community, was subject to a black mold outbreak. The outbreak has resulted in a temporary relocation of the residents to various vacant dorms across campus. According to Spletzer, respiratory symptoms such as […]

The post Mold found in Food Justice House forces residents to relocate appeared first on The Occidental.

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Vodafone Showcasing 5G Network-in-a-Box based on Raspberry Pi with Improved Features and New Use Cases at MWC24

date: 2024-02-14, from: Lime Microsystems news

Following on from the success of last year’s unveiling of the Raspberry Pi 5G network-in-a-box at Mobile World Congress, Vodafone is introducing a new improved version at MWC24 with numerous use cases, ranging from network coverage extension to 5G network delivery via drone. The new system will be fully compatible with Raspberry Pi 5 for … Continued

The post Vodafone Showcasing 5G Network-in-a-Box based on Raspberry Pi with Improved Features and New Use Cases at MWC24 appeared first on Lime Microsystems.

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Romanian hospital ransomware crisis attributed to third-party breach

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Emergency impacting more than 100 facilities appears to be caused by incident at software provider

The Romanian national cybersecurity agency (DNSC) has pinned the outbreak of ransomware cases across the country’s hospitals to an incident at a service provider.…

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A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do

date: 2024-02-14, from: Quanta Magazine

The post A ‘Lobby’ Where a Molecule Mob Tells Genes What to Do first appeared on Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-lobby-where-a-molecule-mob-tells-genes-what-to-do-20240214/ Save to Pocket

Lack Of Exposure, Experience Is Also Hurting EV Sales: Consumer Reports

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

Also on tap: Chrysler’s new concept touts advanced but MIA battery tech, and yes, the Sony-Honda Afeela deal is still happening.

https://insideevs.com/news/708661/consumer-reports-electric-vehicle-experience/ Save to Pocket

Virtual Stickers to Manage Replies By

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/virtual-stickers-to-manage-replies-by Save to Pocket

This Remotely Controlled Robot Will Conduct a Simulated Surgery on the International Space Station

date: 2024-02-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Robot surgeons could treat astronauts on long space missions—but they could also be used on Earth in places where surgeons aren’t present, such as rural areas or war zones

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-remotely-controlled-robot-will-conduct-a-simulated-surgery-on-the-international-space-station-180983775/ Save to Pocket

Plan de acción para la equidad 2023 de la NASA se centrará en educación STEM/CTIM

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Read this release in English here. La NASA publicó su Plan de acción para la equidad 2023 el miércoles, en el cual describe los logros clave en el aumento de la diversidad, la equidad, la inclusión y la accesibilidad en toda la agencia, y sus nuevos compromisos para continuar eliminando los obstáculos y retos injustos a […]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/el-plan-de-accion-para-la-equidad-2023-de-la-nasa-se-centrara-en-educacion-ctim/ Save to Pocket

NASA Updates Equity Action Plan, Adds Focus on STEM Education, More

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí. NASA published its 2023 Equity Action Plan Wednesday, which outlines key accomplishments in increasing equity across the agency, and new commitments to continue removing inequitable barriers and challenges facing underserved communities. “At NASA, we are committed to advancing equity to ensure our work benefits all humanity,” said NASA […]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-updates-equity-action-plan-adds-focus-on-stem-education-more/ Save to Pocket

Hyundai Kona Electric and VW ID.4 are the top EVs selling below MSRP

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

The Hyundai Kona Electric, already one of the most affordable EVs in the US, was the top-selling electric vehicle priced below MSRP last month. Volkswagen’s ID.4 was second, with Hyundai’s IONIQ models and Kia’s EV6 also selling well below MSRP.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/hyundai-kona-electric-vw-id-4-top-evs-selling-below-msrp/ Save to Pocket

43

date: 2024-02-14, from: Chris Coyier blog

Here’s a list that has 43 <li>‘s on it.

https://chriscoyier.net/2024/02/14/43-2/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

I’ve taken to cross-posting to various social media accounts, by opening a new window, creating the post in one service’s little text box, and then opening tabs for each of the others and copy-pasting. Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook. I’m getting good at it. Yesterday I did that with the piece about President Biden and how he probably would rather be doing anything than be President, for a mostly thankless country, at age 81. I imagine he has great-grandchildren he’d like to get to know. Maybe a book or two to read, maybe one to write. To get his affairs in order. At age 68 I’m trying to shed responsibility as much as possible. It’s prudent, and has a point. When I was 25 I wanted to take over the world. Now I’d just like to feel good. As you get older you are capable of more depth of feeling, in some ways, and grow more numb in others. I spent time with my father at 80, his last year. He was always a curious man, wanting to learn about anything new, but in his last days he wasn’t curious. No ambition. But he seemed okay with it, even happy at times (possibly due in part to the morphine he was allowed). Anyway, it’s always interesting to see where people react to what among the different social web networks. And in this case, the most flow came from Mastodon, by far. I would not have predicted that. And it’s good to see, that interesting ideas and perspective may have more of a future outside the networks operated by the billionaire tech companies.

http://scripting.com/2024/02/14.html#a151121 Save to Pocket

Ai and Robots

date: 2024-02-14, from: Manu - I write blog

David Pierce at The Verge just published a great long-form piece about robots.txt, the relationship between the people running websites and the people running spiders and crawlers, and what’s happening now that AI has entered the scene.

It’s a great piece and the timing is convenient for me personally because just the other day I emailed the lovely people at The Browser Company asking how can I opt out of their stupid ARC Search. They care about users and user experience and so do I so I’m sure they must have a way for me to block their new AI. I’m still waiting to get a reply…

https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/XfCsCcPWzul2eGKX Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Swift

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111930453092431377 Save to Pocket

Come to the cabaret

date: 2024-02-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Can Can Culinary Cabaret is nestled in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market. But the COVID-19 pandemic radically transformed the business, its audiences and the performers who keep the show going. Today, we’ll hear about its return to something that resembles “normal” and what that path was like for onstage storytellers and artists. We’ll also look at how U.S. inflation figures and interest rates affect economies around the globe.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/come-to-the-cabaret Save to Pocket

There’s A CHAdeMO To CCS Adapter, But I’m Not Sure I’d Use It

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

A Finnish YouTuber has an adapter that allows his CHAdeMO-equipped Nissan Leaf to charge at CCS DC fast-charging stations, but the CHAdeMO association isn’t sure if this is safe.

https://insideevs.com/news/708385/chademo-adapter-youtube-safety/ Save to Pocket

The death of the world’s best marathon runner is part of a…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043969-the-death-of-the-worlds Save to Pocket

Cattle Breeder On Trial For Manslaughter After Rider Death

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Riders and animals colliding on roads is unfortunately not new, but a legal case is unusual.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708542/rider-cow-death-manslaughter-case/ Save to Pocket

Rivian app update leaks NACS adapter design, Tesla charger interoperability

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Rivian’s new app update has been datamined, leaking some details about how the upcoming NACS connector will look and how it will interface with Tesla’s charging networks.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/rivian-app-update-leaks-nacs-adapter-design-tesla-charger-interoperability/ Save to Pocket

What Is the Governor of Iowa Hiding About a Satanic Temple Statue at the Capitol?

date: 2024-02-14, from: 404 Media Group

Kim Reynolds redacts 27 pages of public documents about the government’s response to a Baphomet display at the Iowa Capitol.

https://www.404media.co/administrative-hell-iowa-governor-redacts-public-documents-about-satanic-temple-display/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

La Terminal for VisionPro, we made it for launch day, and since we got our hands on the hardware, have polished various bits:

https://blog.la-terminal.net/la-terminal-for-vision-pro/

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111930388308998699 Save to Pocket

Solar EVs appear closer than ever – Aptera shows off production-intent build process [Video]

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Fresh off a successful crowdfunding program to gain capital and secure slots for its first 2,000 solar EV builds, Aptera Motors is offering a peek at its production-intent design currently being finalized in Italy. See more in the video below.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/solar-ev-closer-than-ever-aptera-shows-off-production-intent-build-process-video/ Save to Pocket

Elon Musk claims fatal crash was not on ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ after Tesla said the logs were lost

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Elon Musk has claimed that a fatal crash reported by The Washington Post yesterday was not on ‘Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta’ after Tesla told the police that they couldn’t confirm it because the logs were lost.

Now, he goes as far as claiming that FSD Beta would have saved the Tesla employee.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/elon-musk-claims-fatal-crash-not-on-full-self-driving-beta-after-tesla-logs-lost/ Save to Pocket

ASML sees semiconductor upturn ahead, but China export restrictions are a risk

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

World’s only EUV photolithography maker finished 2023 with order backlog worth €39B

Even as the chip industry lifts itself out of the current deep downcycle, ASML is worried geopolitical developments outside its control could still have an unforeseen impact on business.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/asml_sees_semiconductor_upturn_ahead/ Save to Pocket

Pluralistic: Prison-tech is a brutal scam – and a harbinger of your future (14 Feb 2024)

date: 2024-02-14, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog

Today’s links Prison-tech is a brutal scam – and a harbinger of your future: My next novel predicts the present. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2013, 2019, 2023 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Prison-tech is a brutal scam – and a harbinger of your future (permalink) Here’s how the shitty technology adoption curve works: when you want to roll out a new, abusive technology, look for a group of vulnerable people whose complaints are roundly ignored and subject them to your bad idea. Sand the rough edges off on their bodies and lives. Normalize the technological abuse you seek to inflict. Next: work your way up the privilege gradient. Maybe you start with prisoners, then work your way up to asylum seekers, parolees and mental patients. Then try it on kids and gig workers. Now, college students and blue collar workers. Climb that curve, bit by bit, until you’ve reached its apex and everyone is living with your shitty technology: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware Prisoners, asylum seekers, drug addicts and other marginalized people are the involuntary early adopters of every form of disciplinary technology. They are the leading indicators of the ways that technology will be ruining your life in the future. They are the harbingers of all our technological doom. Which brings me to Minnesota. Minnesota is one of the first states make prison phone-calls free. This is a big deal, because prison phone-calls are a big business. Prisoners are literally a captive audience, and the telecommunications sector is populated by sociopaths, bred and trained to spot and exploit abusive monopoly opportunities. As states across America locked up more and more people for longer and longer terms, the cost of operating prisons skyrocketed, even as states slashed taxes on the rich and turned a blind eye to tax evasion. This presented telco predators with an unbeatable opportunity: they approached state prison operators and offered them a bargain: “Let us take over the telephone service to your carceral facility and we will levy eye-watering per-minute charges on the most desperate people in the world. Their families – struggling with one breadwinner behind bars – will find the money to pay this ransom, and we’ll split the profits with you, the cash-strapped, incarceration-happy state government.” This was the opening salvo, and it turned into a fantastic little money-spinner. Prison telco companies and state prison operators were the public-private partnership from hell. Prison-tech companies openly funneled money to state coffers in the form of kickbacks, even as they secretly bribed prison officials to let them gouge their inmates and inmates’ families: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/mississippi-corrections-corruption-bribery-private-prison-hustle/ As digital technology got cheaper and prison-tech companies got greedier, the low end of the shitty tech adoption curve got a lot more crowded. Prison-tech companies started handing out “free” cheap Android tablets to prisoners, laying the groundwork for the next phase of the scam. Once prisoners had tablets, prisons could get rid of phones altogether and charge prisoners – and their families – even higher rates to place calls right to the prisoner’s cell. Then, prisons could end in-person visits and replace them with sub-skype, postage-stamp-sized videoconferencing, at rates even higher than the voice-call rates. Combine that with a ban on mailing letters to and from prisoners – replaced with a service that charged even higher rates to scan mail sent to prisoners, and then charged prisoners to download the scans – and prison-tech companies could claim to be at the vanguard of prison safety, ending the smuggling of dope-impregnated letters and other contraband into the prison system. Prison-tech invented some wild shit, like the “digital stamp,” a mainstay of industry giant Jpay, which requires prisoners to pay for “stamps” to send or receive a “page” of email. If you’re keeping score, you’ve realized that this is a system where prisoners and their families have to pay for calls, “in-person” visits, handwritten letters, and email. It goes on: prisons shuttered their libraries and replaced them with ebook stores that charged 2-4 times the prices you’d pay for books on the outside. Prisoners were sold digital music at 200-300% markups relative to, say, iTunes. Remember, these are prisoners: locked up for years or decades, decades during which their families scraped by with a breadwinner behind bars. Prisoners can earn money, sure – as much as $0.89/hour, doing forced labor for companies that contract with prisons for their workforce: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/ Of course, there’s the odd chance for prisoners to make really big bucks – $2-5/day. All they have to do is “volunteer” to fight raging wildfires: https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-wildfire-california-incarcerated-firefighters-face-dangerous-work-low-pay-and-covid19/ So those $3 digital music tracks are being bought by people earning as little as $0.10/hour. Which makes it especially galling when prisons change prison-tech suppliers, whereupon all that digital music is deleted, wiping prisoners’ media collection out – forever (literally, for prisoners serving life terms): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/captive-audience-how-floridas-prisons-and-drm-made-113m-worth-prisoners-music Let’s recap: America goes on a prison rampage, locking up ever-larger numbers of people for ever-longer sentences. Once inside, prisoners had their access to friends and family rationed, along with access to books, music, education and communities outside. This is very bad for prisoners – strong ties to people outside is closely tied to successful reentry – but it’s great for state budgets, and for wardens, thanks to kickbacks: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/12/21/family_contact/ Back to Minnesota: when Minnesota became the fourth state in the USA where the state, not prisoners, would pay for prison calls, it seemed like they were finally breaking the vicious cycle in which every dollar ripped off of prisoners’ family paid 40 cents to the state treasury: https://www.kaaltv.com/news/no-cost-phone-calls-for-those-incarcerated-in-minnesota/ But – as Katya Schwenk writes for The Lever – what happened next is “a case study in how prison communication companies and their private equity owners have managed to preserve their symbiotic relationship with state corrections agencies despite reforms — at the major expense of incarcerated people and their families”: https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/ Immediately after the state ended the ransoming of prisoners’ phone calls, the private-equity backed prison-tech companies that had dug their mouth-parts into the state’s prison jacked up the price of all their other digital services. For example, the price of a digital song in a Minnesota prison just jumped from $1.99 to $2.36 (for prisoners earning as little as $0.25/hour). As Paul Wright from the Human Rights Defense Center told Schwenk, “The ideal world for the private equity owners of these companies is every prisoner has one of their tablets, and every one of those tablets is hooked up to the bank account of someone outside of prison that they can just drain.” The state’s new prison-tech supplier promises to double the amount of kickbacks it pays the state each year, thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, money transfers, and other “services.” The perverse incentive isn’t hard to spot: the more these prison-tech companies charge, the more kickbacks they pay to the prisons. The primary prison-tech company for Minnesota’s prisons is Viapath (nee Global Tel Link), which pioneered price-gouging on in-prison phone calls. Viapath has spent the past two decades being bought and sold by different private equity firms: Goldman Sachs, Veritas Capital, and now the $46b/year American Securities. Viapath competes with another private equity-backed prison-tech giant: Aventiv (Securus, Jpay), owned by Platinum Equity. Together, Viapath and Aventiv control 90% of the prison-tech market. These companies have a rap-sheet as long as your arm: bribing wardens, stealing from prisoners and their families, and recording prisoner-attorney calls. But these are the kinds of crimes the state punishes with fines and settlements – not by terminating its contracts with these predators. These companies continue to flout the law. Minnesota’s new free-calls system bans prison-tech companies from paying kickbacks to prisons and prison-officials for telcoms services, so the prison-tech companies have rebranded ebooks, music, and money-transfers as non-communications products, and the kickbacks are bigger than ever. This is the bottom end of the shitty technology adoption curve. Long before Ubisoft started deleting games that you’d bought a “perpetual license” for, prisoners were having their media ganked by an uncaring corporation that knew it was untouchable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU Revoking your media, charging by the byte for messaging, confiscating things in the name of security and then selling them back to you – these are all tactics that were developed in the prison system, refined, normalized, and then worked up the privilege gradient. Prisoners are living in your technology future. It’s just not evenly distributed – yet. As it happens, prison-tech is at the heart of my next novel, The Bezzle, which comes out on Feb 20. This is a followup to last year’s bestselling Red Team Blues, which introduced the world to Marty Hench, a two-fisted, hard-bitten, high-tech forensic accountant who’s spent 40 years busting Silicon Valley finance scams: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle In The Bezzle, we travel with Marty back to the mid 2000s (Hench is a kind of tech-scam Zelig and every book is a standalone tale of high-tech ripoffs from a different time and place). Marty’s trying to help his old pal Scott Warms, a once-high-flying founder who’s fallen prey to California’s three-strikes law and is now facing decades in a state pen. As bad as things are, they get worse when the prison starts handing out “free” tablet and closing down the visitation room, the library, and the payphones. This is an entry to the thing I love most about the Hench novels: the opportunity to turn all this dry, financial skullduggery into high-intensity, high-stakes technothriller plot. For me, Marty Hench is a tool for flensing the scam economy of all its layers of respectability bullshit and exposing the rot at the core. It’s not a coincidence that I’ve got a book coming out in a week that’s about something that’s in the news right now. I didn’t “predict” this current turn – I observed it. The world comes at you fast and technology news flutters past before you can register it. Luckily, I have a method for capturing this stuff as it happens: https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/ Writing about tech issues that are long-simmering but still in the periphery is a technique I call “predicting the present.” It’s the technique I used when I wrote Little Brother, about out-of-control state surveillance of the internet. When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA spying in 2013, people acted as though I’d “predicted” the Snowden revelations: https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/ But Little Brother and Snowden’s own heroic decision have a common origin: the brave whistleblower Mark Klein, who walked into EFF’s offices in 2006 and revealed that he’d been ordered by his boss at AT&T to install a beam-splitter into the main fiber trunk so that the NSA could illegally wiretap the entire internet: https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declaration Mark Klein inspired me to write Little Brother – but despite national press attention, the Klein revelations didn’t put a stop to NSA spying. The NSA was still conducting its lawless surveillance campaign in 2013, when Snowden, disgusted with NSA leadership for lying to Congress under oath, decided to blow the whistle again: https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73e3d854ad The assumption that let the NSA get away with mass surveillance was that it would only be weaponized against the people at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve: brown people, mostly in other countries. The Snowden revelations made it clear that these were just the beginning, and sure enough, more than a decade later, we have data-brokers sucking up billions in cop kickbacks to enable warrantless surveillance, while virtually following people to abortion clinics, churches, and protests. Mass surveillance is chugging its way up the shitty tech adoption curve with no sign of stopping. Like Little Brother, The Bezzle is intended as a kind of virtual flythrough of what life is like further down on that curve – a way for readers who have too much agency to be in the crosshairs of a company like Viapath or Avently right now to wake up before that kind of technology comes for them, and to inspire them to take up the cause of the people further down the curve who are mired in it. The Bezzle is an intense book, but it’s also a very fun story – just like Little Brother. It’s a book that lays bare the internal technical workings of so many scams, from multi-level marketing to real-estate investment trusts, from music royalty theft to prison-tech, in the course of an ice-cold revenge plot that keeps twisting to the very last page. It’ll drop in six days. I hope you’ll check it out: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle Hey look at this (permalink) DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning https://www.theverge.com/24067873/jonathan-kanter-doj-antitrust-google-policy-monopoly-big-tech Just got my PAC mailing from PlutocracySF https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/02/just-got-my-pac-mailing-from-plutocracysf/ Forest and Factory The Science and the Fiction of Communism https://endnotes.org.uk/posts/forest-and-factory (h/t This Machine Kills) This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Amazon discloses many reviews written by insecure, sniping writers https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/us/amazon-glitch-unmasks-war-of-reviewers.html #15yrsago 700 comments tell the FTC “No DRM!” https://memex.craphound.com/2004/02/13/dd-to-be-reissued-by-wotc/ #15yrsago FTC gets an earful from the public on DRM, practically all of it anti- https://web.archive.org/web/20040314030944/https://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=11796&mode=thread&order=0 #15yrsago Flashbake: Free version-control for writers using git https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/13/flashbake-free-version-control-for-writers-using-git/ #10yrsago Self-published ebooks: the surprising data from Amazon https://memex.craphound.com/2014/02/13/self-published-ebooks-the-surprising-data-from-amazon/ #10yrsago Tell the IRS that mountains of DVDs are a stupid way to distribute public records https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL0E1-5IhYE #5yrsago Tracking down Dick Davy, a mysterious “lost” comedian who once championed civil rights and antiracism https://stolendress.com/comedyonvinyl/episode-291-family-albums-episode-6-finding-dick-davy/ #5yrsago Chuck Schumer’s general counsel, once a Goldman Sachs lobbyist, won’t disclose the names of 95% of his former clients https://theintercept.com/2019/02/13/chuck-schumer-mark-patterson/ #5yrsago Burning Man purges one-percenter camp that charged up to $100K, littered like crazy, and ripped off its attendees https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/cultural-course-correcting/ #5yrsago Ios and Android app stores both host Saudi government app that lets men track their spouses’ movements https://www.techdirt.com/2019/02/13/google-apple-called-out-hosting-saudi-government-app-that-allows-men-to-track-their-spouses-movements/ #5yrsago Blizzard/Activision celebrates record revenues by laying off 800 employees https://www.fanbyte.com/legacy/kiss-my-ass-activision-blizzard #5yrsago Teen journalists profile each of the 1,200+ US children killed by guns since Parkland https://sinceparkland.org #5yrsago Leak: Apple is demanding 50% of the revenue from its “Netflix for news” product https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18222281/apple-news-subscription-service-50-percent-cut-publishers-media-deal #5yrsago Phone scammer tried to con William Webster, the only person ever to serve as director of both the CIA and FBI: it did not go well https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/02/12/william-webster-ex-fbi-cia-director-helps-feds-nab-jamaican-phone-scammer/ #1yrato Obama’s turncoat antitrust enforcer is angry about the Google breakup https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/13/the-last-man-to-die-for-a-mistake/#dont-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass-on-the-way-out 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 Bezzle at Weller Book Works (Salt Lake City), Feb 21 https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow Tucson Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26 https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006 The Bezzle at Anderson’s Books (Chicago), Apr 17 https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2 https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator Media Ecology Association keynote (Amherst, NY), Jun 6-9 https://media-ecology.org/convention American Association of Law Libraries keynote (Chicago), Jul 21 https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/ Recent appearances: Big Story Podcast https://thebigstorypodcast.ca/2024/02/13/a-story-about-how-anyone-yes-even-you-can-get-scammed/ Why Taylor Left Tiktok (Today, Explained) https://open.spotify.com/episode/62R2sJ6cEUOitIDPBdmwpy Online Platform Decay (Tim Ventura) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83SULjan-JM 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/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/ Save to Pocket

The happiest kids in the world have social safety nets. “In a…

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043964-the-happiest-kids-in-the Save to Pocket

January 2024 Retirements

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Robert Paulin Aerospace Test Branch, retired Jan. 3, 2024, with 40 years of NASA service. James Douglas Kiser (Not Pictured) Ceramic and Polymer Composites Branch, retired Jan. 12, 2024, with 41 years of NASA service.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/january-2024-retirements/ Save to Pocket

The fun little JackRabbit micro e-bike gets a gigantic new battery, 2.5x the range

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

The JackRabbit electric micro bike is as divisive as it is diminutive, which is to say, “very.” But one thing just got a lot less micro on this pint-sized commuter. The company has just unveiled its RangeBuster battery, which has nearly 250% of the capacity of an original JackRabbit battery.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/the-fun-little-jackrabbit-micro-e-bike-gets-a-gigantic-new-battery-2-5x-the-range/ Save to Pocket

Podcast: An Open Source Search Engine to Replace Google

date: 2024-02-14, from: 404 Media Group

This week we chat about an annoying recruitment tool, a new open source search engine, and how a botnet of toothbrushes wasn’t real.

https://www.404media.co/404-media-podcast-week-25-open-source-search-engine-stract-paradoxai/ Save to Pocket

A Porsche Luxury Electric Minivan Would Be “Very Interesting,” Says Design Boss

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

Ferrari made an SUV and now Porsche is thinking about making an electric minivan. Has the world gone crazy?

https://insideevs.com/news/708566/porsche-electric-minivan-very-interesting-design-boss/ Save to Pocket

Defendant charged in fatal hit-and-run released from prison

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

A man charged in a fatal hit-and-run of a 2-year-old girl in June 2023 was released from prison.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/defendant-charged-in-fatal-hit-and-run-released-from-prison/article_4b9518d2-caf1-11ee-aa4a-434e9a7772c4.html Save to Pocket

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR: The traditional Lion Dance is performed at the Agana Shopping Center and Micronesia Mall in celebration of the Lunar New Year.

https://www.postguam.com/entertainment/lifestyle/happy-lunar-new-year/article_d36ba68e-cac6-11ee-a457-8feeca571664.html Save to Pocket

Jury finds Nededog not guilty of Sånta Rita-Sumai murder

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

Jamie John Nededog was acquitted of murder in connection to the death of Edwin Pirando.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/jury-finds-nededog-not-guilty-of-s-nta-rita-sumai-murder/article_b64206b4-cafa-11ee-814f-3739b27065ca.html Save to Pocket

Lawmakers question Port board nominee

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

Port Authority of Guam board nominee Fe Valencia-Ovalles sat before lawmakers during a confirmation hearing Tuesday, where she fielded questions about how she would handle decision-making and whether she could perform her duties without interference from the PAG general manager…

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lawmakers-question-port-board-nominee/article_534317b0-ca4b-11ee-a9ce-27e93e88d381.html Save to Pocket

Defendant takes deferred plea in rape case

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

A man entered into a deferred plea agreement for charges stemming from sexually assaulting a woman known to him multiple times over the course of two years.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/defendant-takes-deferred-plea-in-rape-case/article_a49d8a34-ca2b-11ee-aa81-ebc9151857c2.html Save to Pocket

Bicyclist dies in Barrigada crash

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

A bicyclist died from injuries sustained in a Barrigada traffic crash.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/bicyclist-dies-in-barrigada-crash/article_69ae9762-caec-11ee-aec6-e71b67d5eda6.html Save to Pocket

Lawmakers hold hearing on bill limiting portions for sugary drinks

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

Lawmakers heard testimony on Bill 199-37 on Monday. The measure would limit portions for sugary drinks sold at eating and drinking establishments and at vending machines to no more than 17 fluid ounces. Food service establishments and eating and drinking…

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/lawmakers-hold-hearing-on-bill-limiting-portions-for-sugary-drinks/article_fa198b04-c966-11ee-8f5d-83787719e3f2.html Save to Pocket

A Market for 24/7 Clean Power Might Look Something Like This

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

There are two kinds of people who work on climate solutions: Those who still believe in the promise of carbon markets, and those who think the whole concept is fundamentally flawed.

In the first category, you have people like McGee Young, the CEO of a company called WattCarbon. Young is aware of the ways carbon markets can be a race to the bottom — enabling companies to buy cheap certificates that say they used clean energy or reduced their carbon footprint, when in reality their purchase had little effect on the environment or the energy system.

And yet, there’s all this money out there for the taking! Companies want to green their image! Tackling climate change is expensive! There must be a way to funnel corporate sustainability budgets to where they can make a real impact!

To Young, the solution is a matter of better data and greater transparency. “We need a record-keeping system that allows us to raise the bar,” he told me.

Young launched his vision for that record-keeping system on Wednesday — the WattCarbon Energy Attribute Tracking System, or WEATS. It functions similarly to other environmental credit registries: Owners of clean energy assets can sign up to generate credits known as Environmental Attribute Certificates, or EACs, which buyers can then purchase to count toward their own clean energy or carbon goals.

WEATS has two main features that differentiate it. First, it will include credits from small-scale distributed energy resources like residential solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps — clean energy solutions that haven’t really been able to participate in carbon markets until now. Second, each EAC will include granular information about where and when the power was generated, in the case of solar, or the carbon savings incurred, in the case of heat pumps, down to the hour.

The first feature is part of what motivated Young to start WattCarbon. “The clean energy transition is more than just wind and solar, it’s more than just generation,” he told me. But it’s the second that Young said is key to improving the credibility of claims that companies are “using 100% clean energy,” or “achieving net-zero.”

Today, many companies simply buy enough clean energy credits to match their annual energy use, regardless of where or when the energy was generated. But researchers have shown that this strategy can have little to no impact on emissions. For example, if a company is only buying solar credits, but it is using energy at night, its carbon footprint from that nighttime energy could surpass any environmental benefits of the solar it bought.

To solve this, some energy buyers have embraced a concept called “24/7 carbon-free energy,” which means that “every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption is met with carbon-free electricity sources, every hour of every day, everywhere,” in the words of a United Nations-led initiative to promote the concept. “It is both the end state of a fully decarbonized electricity system,” according to the UN, “and a transformative approach to energy procurement, supply, and policy design that is critical to accelerating its arrival.”

If you’ve followed the recent debate about the green hydrogen tax credit, you might be familiar with the idea. In December, the Treasury Department proposed that hydrogen producers will have to match their electricity consumption with the purchase of local clean electricity generation on an hourly basis to prove their hydrogen is clean enough to qualify for the full value of the tax credit. That means producers can either hook up directly to a solar farm or wind farm or geothermal power plant and operate only when it is generating power, or, it can buy renewable energy credits or EACs that correspond to the hours that it operates.

WattCarbon’s marketplace is one of the first to enable this by requiring sellers to include data about exactly where and when each EAC was produced. It also include the carbon intensity of the grid in the place and time when that unit of power was produced. For example, 1 megawatt-hour of solar power in West Virginia, where the grid is supplied by a lot of coal-fired power plants, would likely reduce emissions far more than 1 megawatt-hour of solar power in California, where the main fossil fuel burned for power is natural gas. Similarly, 1 megawatt-hour of solar generated in the afternoon in California will not do as much to reduce emissions as if that unit of power were stored in a battery and then dispatched at night. On other markets, all of these credits might simply be advertised as 1 megawatt-hour of solar power, and the buyer would be none the wiser.

So what does this new carbon trading marketplace look like in practice? There are a lot of possibilities, but here’s one scenario. WattCarbon partners with a company that helps homeowners electrify their heating or install and manage their solar and battery systems. That third party company can then say to their customers, “As an extra incentive to do this, we can help you sell the environmental benefits it provides to third parties through the WattCarbon marketplace,” and those extra payments are what convinces the homeowner to go for it.

Independent experts I spoke with were cautiously optimistic about what this new marketplace could do. “We need to deploy on the order of a billion machines, in the U.S. alone — and not over a century, but on the order of a decade,” said Kevin Kircher, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, whose research focuses on heat pumps and other distributed energy resources. “So there’s a lot that needs to be done, and just connecting people to money to do the work is really important.”

Wilson Ricks, a PhD candidate at Princeton University whose research informed the Treasury’s proposal for the hydrogen tax credit, said that having a platform where hydrogen companies can procure clean energy from a variety of projects, and with time and location data, would be very useful. He was also intrigued by WattCarbon’s attempt to create EACs tied to batteries because energy storage systems are one of the few resources that can produce clean power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

But both Ricks and Kircher warned there are a number of ways this system of credits could fall into the same traps that ensnare many carbon offset projects and reduce their credibility. For one, it’s really hard to get the math right. That’s especially true for a project like a heat pump, where the carbon savings are based on a counterfactual situation where the homeowner would have kept their gas heater. You have to basically estimate how often they would have run it, which opens the door to sloppiness at best and fraud at worst.

Another key criterion — a concept called additionality — is very hard to assess. Would the household that switches to a heat pump have done so regardless of whether they were getting extra revenue from selling EACs? If the answer is unequivocally yes, the credits are meaningless and serve to give corporate emitters an excuse to keep emitting.

Young acknowledged to me that this was likely going to be true in some cases, but still felt that heat pump owners deserved to be paid for the environmental benefits they were providing. “We provide environmental subsidies for large-scale wind and solar, and we don’t do that for the things that we’re putting into our buildings and our communities. And to me, there’s an inherent inequality in the way that we treat and value clean energy that needs to be addressed.”

That didn’t quite make sense to me — the government provides subsidies for all kinds of clean energy resources, including distributed energy resources, I countered. The Treasury will give you $2,000 for a heat pump and a 30% discount on rooftop solar.

“That’s true,” Young said. “But we don’t have enough money in all of our government programs to truly scale those.”

I couldn’t argue with that. But the real challenge is helping low-income homeowners with the upfront capital to install these devices — after-the-fact payments are not enough. Young said he had plans to create a way for companies to procure EACs in advance from groups of homeowners. The deals would be similar to the power purchase agreements that big electricity consumers like Google and Walmart make with large-scale renewable energy developers, helping to finance those projects by reducing the risk.

“This is a necessary but not sufficient step,” Young said of the version of the marketplace that launched Wednesday. “Without this, we can’t do that. But this by itself would be inadequate for the market to be able to reach its fullest potential.”

https://heatmap.news/economy/wattcarbon-clean-energy-market Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

How Slack brought the group chat to work.

https://www.theverge.com/24070725/slack-ten-year-anniversary-retrospective-groupchat-workplace Save to Pocket

Health Insurers Fret About Climate Change

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: Much of the U.S. will see calmer weather over the next few days • A tornado caused “biblical damage” in Cyprus • Mexico is experiencing its worst drought in 12 years.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Study: Polar bears head ashore for food as sea ice melts

A new study sheds light on how polar bears are changing their diets and behaviors in a warming world. Climate change is shrinking the sea ice on which the bears rely for hunting seals. As the ice melts, the bears are forced onto land, where they can either reduce their physical activity in order to save energy and calories, or forage for berries and small prey. The research, which involved strapping cameras to 20 bears in Canada’s Manitoba province, found that neither option is enough to prevent the animals from going hungry. All of them lost weight and two of them were on track to starve before the sea ice was expected to return. “Polar bears are not grizzly bears wearing white coats,” said Charles Robbins, director of the Washington State University Bear Center and co-author of the study in the journal Nature Communications. “They’re very, very different.” The study found some bears are spending more time in the water, which is “new and unexpected,” one polar bear expert told Vox. “These are possibly acts of desperation. Hungry and skinny bears take more risks than fat bears.”

2. Health insurers fret about climate change impact

Health insurance may be the next sector to hike premiums due to climate change, The Wall Street Journal reported. The rise in extreme weather events has already roiled the home insurance market, making it more expensive – or even impossible – for homeowners in some high-risk areas to take out a policy. Now health insurers are “building new models to reassess premiums, estimate risk, and meet incoming climate reporting standards,” the Journal said. Recent research has linked extreme heat and wildfire smoke to a variety of health problems including heart attacks and cancer, and insurers want to know what this all means for their bottom lines. But the Journal reports that for now, insurers aren’t worried about their profits, “because the groups most likely to be affected by climate change aren’t covered by insurance.”

3. Redfin adds air quality tracker to home listings

In a sign of the times, Redfin has become the first real estate brokerage to include air quality data alongside home listings. The feature allows house hunters to see the air quality in their prospective new neighborhoods, and tells them whether it is expected to get better or worse in years to come. One home listed in Washington, D.C., for example, came with this warning: “Over the next 30 years, this area will experience a 20.0% increase in the number of poor air quality days, i.e. where the Air Quality Index (AQI) exceeds 100.”

Air quality information on a home listing in Washington, D.C. Redfin

Redfin already lists other risk factors like flood, fire, heat, and wind. “Redfin wants to ensure that every single person searching for a home has the information they need to understand climate risks,” said Redfin Senior Vice President of Product and Design Ariel Dos Santos. The company also published data this week showing that more people are moving into than out of metro areas that have bad air quality, not necessarily because of health concerns, but because they’ve been priced out.

4. BlackRock’s ESG funds are ‘soaring’

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, has seen more cash flow into its ESG funds than out every quarter for the last two years, “a period that marks one of the toughest ever in the two-decade history of environmental, social and governance investing,” Bloomberg reported. Most people might associate ESG with renewables, but it also encompasses some of the biggest tech giants: BlackRock’s three top-performing ESG funds include Microsoft and Apple as their biggest holdings.

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5. UK Royal Navy reportedly considering climate change course for sailors

The United Kingdom’s Royal Navy is considering making all its sailors take a course about climate change, The Telegraph reported, citing a leaked document. The course would focus specifically on how climate change threatens peace and defense efforts. The document also said rising sea levels could damage maritime infrastructure. Other initiatives under consideration include paying for sailors to study climate change, and inviting climate scientists to conduct research on Britain’s warships. One former head of the Royal Navy told the paper he supported the plans, but added: “Climate change is not more important than fighting the King’s enemies, so it has to be done with a balance.”

THE KICKER

At a North Carolina aquarium, a round stingray named Charlotte is pregnant despite not having contact with a male of her species in at least eight years.

https://heatmap.news/climate/polar-bears-sea-ice Save to Pocket

NASA Trains Teachers on Upcoming Solar Eclipse

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

On Monday, April 8, Northeast Ohioans will get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a total solar eclipse. During this rare natural phenomenon, the Moon will pass between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun and darkening the sky for nearly four minutes. Teachers, librarians, and community leaders from across Northeast Ohio […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasa-trains-teachers-on-upcoming-solar-eclipse/ Save to Pocket

NASA Participates in “Ohioans in Space” Painting Unveiling

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Representatives from NASA Headquarters and NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland participated in the unveiling of the “Ohioans in Space” painting at a large gala at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Jan. 24. The portrait, which depicts Ohio-born national heroes Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Jim Lovell, Judy Resnik, and Gene Kranz, is the first painting hung […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasa-participates-in-ohioans-in-space-painting-unveiling/ Save to Pocket

NASA’s Day of Remembrance

date: 2024-02-14, from: NASA breaking news

Every year on NASA’s Day of Remembrance, the agency pauses to honor the sacrifice of the NASA family members who gave their lives to advance the cause of exploration. Employees remember friends and colleagues, including the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.   A key element in observances across the agency centers […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasas-day-of-remembrance/ Save to Pocket

Conquer The Urban Jungle In Style With Monty’s New E-Cargo Bikes

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Spanish bike brand BH is making waves in the growing e-cargo bike segment with new models from the Monty brand.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708550/bh-monty-v-series-e-cargo-bikes/ Save to Pocket

Roses are red, violets are blue, Opera GX gives Valentine’s a gray, rainy hue

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

HeartBlocker extension aimed at the ‘forever alone’ crowd

Opera is rolling out an extension to the gamer version of its eponymous browser aimed at users who would rather not be reminded of the significance of February 14.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/opera_gx_heartblocker/ Save to Pocket

2024-02-09 Oddµ namespaces and live updating

date: 2024-02-14, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

2024-02-09 Oddµ namespaces and live updating

It’s a slow morning. I had my two cups of coffee, ate my pancakes with plum jam, spent time online reading Mastodon, talked to my wife about wannabe-axe murderers on Swiss trains, looked up stuff about taxing the rich…

I’ve been working on Oddmu again. My goal is to be able to reproduce the Campaign Wiki setup:

• people can get a “space” for their site by signing up in some way
• they can make changes to the look and feel of their site (change the headers, footers, colours, i.e. make changes to both the HTML template and the CSS)
• feeds, list of changes and all that are limited to their site

Using Oddmu would also result in the following:

• sites are no longer publically editable (which isn’t a requirement for such spaces like role-playing game campaigns)

Oddmu now has the following features:

• when editing pages in a subdirectory, the index and changes page in the same directory are updated (instead of the root directory)
• when HTML templates exist in the same directory, those are used instead of the templates in the root directory (e.g. Oddµ)
• when uploading a HTML template, it is loaded immediately (no more server restart)

Once I had this implemented using a library that watches the filesystem for changes, I realized that I could use the same feature to index new pages. This brings me closer to having online and offline writing feature equivalence: Using the web site to create a page should be equivalent to writing a page elsewhere and uploading it to the site via rsync. (Offline you can use the oddmu notify command to add links to index, changes and hashtag pages.)

I think I’m getting close!

#Oddµ

Also, code complexity is through the roof, now. All the global maps aren’t thread-safe so they need mutexes. There’s a weird Heisenbug I have where I run the test suite and then view.html is gone. The next test run then fails, of course. Thinking it was related to the order of tests, I started running go test -shuffle on and found a plethora of other bugs. And I’ve seen at least two occasions where I noticed the disappearing view.html bug, noted the shuffle id, reran the test with that id, got the error again, tried for a third time, and then tests passed. So… it must be a race condition of some sort.

How aggravating.

Maybe something got lost, with that last set of changes.

I do feel, however, that I’ve found a lot of bugs… Just now, for example, to help prevent Oddmu from showing any directories or files with a path segment starting with a period…

2024-02-14. I need to think about an archive handler that allows you to get a zip file for the current directory. (I guess zip files are more accessible than .tar.gz files? Like, for Windows and macOS…

And the archive needs to take ODDMU_FILTER into account!

Done. ✔️

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-02-09-oddmu-namespaces Save to Pocket

This Valentine’s Day, a not-so-sweet chocolate economy

date: 2024-02-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Lovers and chocolate lovers beware: If you’re eyeing a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, those bonbons are going to come at a cost. Cocoa prices recently hit an all-time high and sugar prices have spiked too. Rather bittersweet, huh? But first, Tuesday’s inflation data headed in the wrong direction — and markets were not pleased. Plus, why does Walmart want to buy bargain television brand Vizio?

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/this-valentines-day-a-not-so-sweet-chocolate-economy Save to Pocket

Not Enough Chargers in Top EV Market California, Drivers Say

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

Over 1.7 million electric cars are currently on the road in California. But drivers in the nation’s largest EV market say they are struggling to find chargers. VOA’s Anna Rice narrates this report by Angelina Bagdasaryan. Video: Vazgen Varzhabetian

https://www.voanews.com/a/not-enough-chargers-in-top-ev-market-california-drivers-say/7487027.html Save to Pocket

Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 Already Selling Well Below MSRP: Study

date: 2024-02-14, from: Inside EVs News

Slower-than-expected demand and revised federal tax credit rules are impacting EV prices in the U.S.

https://insideevs.com/news/708539/evs-command-lower-prices-than-msrp/ Save to Pocket

Setting Aside Local Control, Legislation Would Mandate How To Teach Reading In California

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The LAist

Pointing to dismal test scores, veteran lawmaker and a coalition of advocacy groups introduce AB 2222.

https://laist.com/news/education/california-legislation-would-mandate-how-to-teach-reading Save to Pocket

Students Panic After New Financial Aid Application Blocks Them: ‘I Don’t Know Who To Call’

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The LAist

When parents without Social Security numbers try to fill out the aid application on behalf of their children, they are blocked from continuing.

https://laist.com/news/education/fasfa-application-blocks-students Save to Pocket

California Rain Will Cause More Valley Fever

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-15, from: The LAist

State health officials are warning doctors to be on the lookout.

https://laist.com/news/health/california-rain-will-cause-more-valley-fever Save to Pocket

For Many Americans, Valentine’s Day Is Last-Minute Affair

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/for-many-americans-valentine-s-day-is-last-minute-affair-/7487006.html Save to Pocket

Austin Leads Talks on Defense Support for Ukraine

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/austin-to-lead-talks-on-defense-support-for-ukraine-/7486997.html Save to Pocket

Southern Water cyberattack expected to hit hundreds of thousands of customers

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Brit utility also curiously disappears from Black Basta leak site

Southern Water has admitted between five and ten percent of its customers had their details stolen from the British utilities giant during a January cyberattack.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/southern_water_cyberattack/ Save to Pocket

Improving the Cryptanalysis of Lattice-Based Public-Key Algorithms

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Bruce Schneier blog

The winner of the Best Paper Award at Crypto this year was a significant improvement to lattice-based cryptanalysis.

This is important, because a bunch of NIST’s post-quantum options base their security on lattice problems.

I worry about standardizing on post-quantum algorithms too quickly. We are still learning a lot about the security of these systems, and this paper is an example of that learning.

News story.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/improving-the-cryptanalysis-of-lattice-based-public-key-algorithms.html Save to Pocket

Louis Armstrong: Harlem Renaissance Pioneer

date: 2024-02-14, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog

February is Black History Month. Visit the National Archives website for more information on our resources related to African American history. Today’s post, from Alyssa Moore in the National Archives History Office, looks at the legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 (although he often claimed he was born on July … Continue reading Louis Armstrong: Harlem Renaissance Pioneer

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/02/14/louis-armstrong-harlem-renaissance-pioneer/ Save to Pocket

Dumping us into ad tier of Prime Video when we paid for ad-free is ‘unfair’ – lawsuit

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Who could possibly have predicted this backlash?

When Netflix launched its ad-supported tier in November 2022, it tried to tempt viewers in with discounted rates, hoping to win new consumers and sell their eyeballs to ad-slingers. But Amazon Prime, well, it went a different route.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/amazon_prime_vid_suit/ Save to Pocket

Indonesia heads to the polls — and it’s all about the economy

date: 2024-02-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s third largest democracy. Today, citizens vote in the presidential and legislative elections, which are dominated by issues like future growth and job opportunities. Meanwhile, farmers in India continue protests over the prices they receive for their goods. And we hear from Racheal Kundananji, the soccer player who has set a new transfer record with her move to San Francisco’s Bay FC.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/indonesia-elections-economy Save to Pocket

Electric car fire risks

date: 2024-02-14, from: Status-Q blog

The idea that electric cars are a serious fire risk is one that has established itself in people’s minds, chiefly because such headlines increase advertising revenue for newspaper editors.   If you can’t get a scare story with ‘Elon Musk’ in the title, at least try to include some reference to ‘Tesla’! When a big Continue Reading

https://statusq.org/archives/2024/02/14/11949/ Save to Pocket

Bumblebee malware wakes from hibernation, forgets what year it is, attacks with macros

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Trying to break in with malicious Word documents? How very 2015 of you

The Bumblebee malware loader seemingly vanished from the internet last October, but it’s back and - oddly - relying on a vintage vector to try and gain access.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/bumblebee_malware_back/ Save to Pocket

Fliteboard unveils clever new design to drastically cut electric surfboard prices

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Electric surfboards and hydrofoil boards are some of the most fun you can have on the water, but their high prices have often limited their reach to those with boat money. Today, Fliteboard announced a new line of lower-cost models known as the Flite AIR to help make electric surfboards more accessible to a broader market.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/fliteboard-unveils-clever-new-design-to-cut-drastically-electric-surfboard-prices/ Save to Pocket

Black History Month Recognizes Achievements, Contributions of African Americans

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/black-history-month-recognizes-achievements-contributions-of-african-americans/7486898.html Save to Pocket

NASA solar sail tech is ready – now who’s up to use it in a mission?

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Ready for cruising: successful deployment leaves the ball in the scientists’ court

NASA says its latest take on solar sail technology is ready for proposals for it to be flown on science missions.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/nasa_solar_sail_is_ready/ Save to Pocket

Cosmic Drive heading to Naniloa: Nighttime Top Golf-like experience will utilize hotel’s driving range

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The Grand Naniloa Hotel&#8217;s driving range is about to look very different in the evening when it becomes home to Hilo&#8217;s newest nighttime attraction &#8212; Cosmic Drive.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/hawaii-news/cosmic-drive-heading-to-naniloa-nighttime-top-golf-like-experience-will-utilize-hotels-driving-range/ Save to Pocket

Affordable Connectivity Program ends soon that helped subsidize internet costs for low-income households

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>A federal program reimbursing low-income households for their internet bills will end within months.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/hawaii-news/affordable-connectivity-program-ends-soon-that-helped-subsidize-internet-costs-for-low-income-households/ Save to Pocket

Hilo man sentenced for fatal Halloween stabbing

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>A 44-year-old Hilo man will spend life in prison &#8212; with the possibility of parole &#8212; for stabbing a woman to death in her Hilo apartment on Halloween in 2020.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/hawaii-news/hilo-man-sentenced-for-fatal-halloween-stabbing/ Save to Pocket

Kona airport closed again

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Travelers coming to and leaving from Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole were informed Tuesday morning that the airport was closed.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/hawaii-news/kona-airport-closed-again/ Save to Pocket

CDC considers ending 5-day isolation period for COVID

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening its recommendations regarding how long people should isolate after testing positive for the coronavirus, another reflection of changing attitudes and norms as the pandemic recedes.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/cdc-considers-ending-5-day-isolation-period-for-covid/ Save to Pocket

Democrat Tom Suozzi wins New York race to succeed George Santos in Congress

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Democrat Tom Suozzi has won a special election in New York for the U.S. House seat that was left vacant when Republican George Santos was expelled from Congress.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/democrat-tom-suozzi-wins-new-york-race-to-succeed-george-santos-in-congress/ Save to Pocket

Spacecraft named Odysseus makes moonshot today

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Another month, another try at the moon.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/spacecraft-named-odysseus-makes-moonshot-today/ Save to Pocket

The high court seems ready to knock over Trump’s Colorado ballot ban

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The U.S. Supreme Court expressed proper doubt toward Colorado&#8217;s attempt to exclude Donald Trump from its presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment. Trump is indeed an anti-democratic demagogue who sought to overturn the 2020 election, before and on Jan. 6. </p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/opinion/the-high-court-seems-ready-to-knock-over-trumps-colorado-ballot-ban/ Save to Pocket

Saving the news media means moving beyond the benevolence of billionaires

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>For the journalism industry, 2024 is off to a brutal start.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/opinion/saving-the-news-media-means-moving-beyond-the-benevolence-of-billionaires/ Save to Pocket

Roses are red, violets are blue, through Miami’s airport yours probably flew

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The roses that you buy this week from a florist, supermarket or website for Valentine&#8217;s Day in all likelihood arrived in the United States through one place: Miami International Airport, the port of entry for about 90% of the nation&#8217;s imported cut flowers.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/roses-are-red-violets-are-blue-through-miamis-airport-yours-probably-flew/ Save to Pocket

Putin seeks revenge on a world order he once wanted to join

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>In Ukraine, Putin is attempting to strike a decisive blow against the U.S. and Europe to reshape that global order to Russia&#8217;s advantage. Putin&#8217;s gamble &#8212; backed by military force and grudges &#8212; is that he can bend the world to his will. China, with its own territorial ambitions, is watching carefully how much Russia is able to push the boundaries.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/putin-seeks-revenge-on-a-world-order-he-once-wanted-to-join/ Save to Pocket

Sen. Maria Cantwell to accelerate pace of aviation bills in wake of door blowout

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>US Senator Maria Cantwell plans further aviation safety oversight following the Alaska Airlines mid-flight door plug blowout on a Boeing aircraft, likely going beyond what Congress typically does for aviation.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/sen-maria-cantwell-to-accelerate-pace-of-aviation-bills-in-wake-of-door-blowout/ Save to Pocket

Obituaries for February 14

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Felipe Domingo Jr., 76, of Keaau died Jan. 25 in Hilo. He was born in Hilo. Celebration of life ceremony 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 17, at Hilo Baptist Church, 600 W. Lanikaula St. Gathering in Kailua-Kona on Feb. 18. Online condolences: ballardfamilymortuary.com. Survived by mother, Florencia Cabanting Domingo of Hilo; brothers, Perfecto (Tina) Domingo of Hilo, Ernesto (Hannah) Domingo of Kalihi, Oahu, and Eduardo (Veronica) Domingo of Hilo; son, Felipe Domingo III of San Diego; daughters: Laurie Dizol of Las Vegas, Lanelle (Chris) Coleman of Kailua-Kona and Lennifer (Gary) Vidal of Honolulu; 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, 12 step-grandchildren and a step-greatgrandchild. Arrangements by Ballard Family Mortuary.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/obituaries/obituaries-for-february-14-9/ Save to Pocket

House votes to impeach Mayorkas, a historic rebuke of sitting Cabinet member by Republicans

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>WASHINGTON (AP) &#8212; The U.S. House voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with the Republican majority determined to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S-Mexico border after failing last week in a politically embarrassing setback.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/house-votes-to-impeach-mayorkas-a-historic-rebuke-of-sitting-cabinet-member-by-republicans/ Save to Pocket

Biden warns opposing Ukraine funding plays ‘into Putin’s hands,’ but faces resistance in House

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for House Republicans to urgently bring a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to a vote, warning that refusal to take up the bill, passed by the Senate in the morning, would be &#8220;playing into Putin&#8217;s hands.&#8221;</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/biden-warns-opposing-ukraine-funding-plays-into-putins-hands-but-faces-resistance-in-house/ Save to Pocket

US Supreme Court gives special counsel Jack Smith one week to respond to Trump immunity claim

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered special counsel Jack Smith to respond by next Tuesday to former President Trump&#8217;s blanket immunity appeal in his stalled Jan. 6 election interference case.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/us-supreme-court-gives-special-counsel-jack-smith-one-week-to-respond-to-trump-immunity-claim/ Save to Pocket

AI chatbots should pay for news, bipartisan Senate group says

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Senators who have raised bipartisan outcry over the demise of newsrooms at the hands of Big Tech companies are rallying to protect journalism from the potentially fatal blow of artificial intelligence.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/ai-chatbots-should-pay-for-news-bipartisan-senate-group-says/ Save to Pocket

Why replacing Biden with Newsom or some ‘mythical perfect Democrat’ is unlikely

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Anyone hoping California Gov. Gavin Newsom or some other Democrat will take Joe Biden&#8217;s place on the 2024 presidential ballot is likely to be disappointed.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/nation-world-news/why-replacing-biden-with-newsom-or-some-mythical-perfect-democrat-is-unlikely/ Save to Pocket

Ka Makani boys place second, girls fifth at swimming states

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>KIHEI &#8212; Hawaii Preparatory Academy swimming helped represent the Big Island Interscholastic Federation (BIIF) last weekend on Maui in the K. Mark Takai/HHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships, putting on a performace for the ages.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/ka-makani-boys-place-second-girls-fifth-at-swimming-states/ Save to Pocket

An arrest has been made in the theft of a Jackie Robinson statue later found dismantled and burned

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>A 45-year-old man was arrested in the theft of a bronze Jackie Robinson statue that was cut off at the ankles and found days later smoldering in a trash can in a city park in Kansas, police announced Tuesday. </p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/an-arrest-has-been-made-in-the-theft-of-a-jackie-robinson-statue-later-found-dismantled-and-burned/ Save to Pocket

Pana‘ewa rodeo on tap this weekend

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The Panaewa Stampede Rodeo continues to highlight the paniolo skills of local cowboys, cowgirls, keiki and traveling rodeo contestants with the 31st annual event this year.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/panaewa-rodeo-on-tap-this-weekend/ Save to Pocket

Wrap-up: Big Island Baseball Bash

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>UH-Hilo held its annual Big Island Baseball bash over the weekend.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/wrap-up-big-island-baseball-bash/ Save to Pocket

McKnight, Faavi back as consultants for Warriors

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>In a double blast from the past, the University of Hawaii football team is receiving help from a former Rainbow Warrior lineman and coach.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/mcknight-faavi-back-as-consultants-for-warriors/ Save to Pocket

KSH players named to HHSAA All-Tournament Team

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The All-Tournament teams for the Motiv8 Foundation/HHSAA Boys Soccer Championships were recently released, naming four Big Island Interscholastic Federation (BIIF) players in the Division II team.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/ksh-players-named-to-hhsaa-all-tournament-team/ Save to Pocket

Shanahan bristles at the notion his 49ers can’t win big games following another Super Bowl loss

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>SANTA CLARA, Calif. &#8212; Kyle Shanahan has heard the criticism that, for all his great accomplishments as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, he is unable to win the big game. </p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/sports/shanahan-bristles-at-the-notion-his-49ers-cant-win-big-games-following-another-super-bowl-loss/ Save to Pocket

New Orleans bids another joyous ‘Fat Tuesday’ farewell to Carnival season

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>NEW ORLEANS &#8212; New Orleans bade a typically joyous goodbye to Carnival season Tuesday with Mardi Gras parades, street parties and what amounted to a massive outdoor costume festival around the bars and restaurants in the French Quarter.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/14/features/new-orleans-bids-another-joyous-fat-tuesday-farewell-to-carnival-season/ Save to Pocket

USG candidates debate for student votes

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Candidates differed on issues such as Greek life and student engagement.

The post USG candidates debate for student votes appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/usg-candidates-debate-for-student-votes/ Save to Pocket

Registration is open for Coolest Projects 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)

Big news for young coders and everyone who supports them: project registration is now open for Coolest Projects 2024! Coolest Projects is our global technology showcase for young people aged up to 18. It gives young creators the incredible opportunity to share the cool stuff they’ve made with digital technology with a global audience, and…

The post Registration is open for Coolest Projects 2024 appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/registration-is-open-for-coolest-projects-2024/ Save to Pocket

Forget company cars – electric bikes set to become the next job perk

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Getting a company car used to be a major perk of a new job, but times are changing. As more young adults flock to electric bikes for their advantages over car travel in cities, companies are now making their own changes to reflect those shifting transportation habits.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/forget-company-cars-electric-bikes-set-to-become-the-next-job-perk/ Save to Pocket

Club seeks to create new telemedicine platform

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Love and Time’s mission caters to law enforcement, mothers and at-risk youth.

The post Club seeks to create new telemedicine platform appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/club-seeks-to-create-new-telemedicine-platform/ Save to Pocket

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year gap

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

DSL 2024 is not as svelte as it used to be – but who is?

Seventeen years after its last major version, an old favorite, Damn Small Linux, is back with a new 2024 release.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/damn_small_linux_returns/ Save to Pocket

Police seek man for questioning regarding robbery and assault complaint

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

The Guam Police Department has published a wanted flyer for Joseph Christopher Mendiola, who is sought for questioning regarding a robbery and assault complaint that occurred in the Tumon area.

https://www.postguam.com/news/police-seek-man-for-questioning-regarding-robbery-and-assault-complaint/article_2cccda02-cb19-11ee-acb6-b3736a158c93.html Save to Pocket

Office Hours: A Valentine’s Day question about people in public life

date: 2024-02-14, from: Robert Reich on Substack

Friends, There’s so much hate and nastiness in public life these days — by “public life,” I mean anyone who is known to the broad public, including politicians, celebrities, athletes, actors, writers, painters, and journalists — that it’s probably easy for you to come up with people in public life you detest. (My list would include Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Kari Lake, for example.)

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-a-valentines-day-question Save to Pocket

2024-02-14 Oddµ bug maybe

date: 2024-02-14, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

2024-02-14 Oddµ bug maybe

I had a site where an entire subdirectory was private. Nobody but the author could read or write those pages. I had configured Apache to require authentication for this subdirectory.

The config looked a bit like this:

<LocationMatch "^/(edit|save|add|append|upload|drop|view/secret)/">
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Password Required"
  AuthUserFile /home/oddmu/.htpasswd
  Require valid-user
</LocationMatch>

Note the addition of view/secret.

But yesterday I realized that you can run a search in the root. Such a search includes all the pages in subdirectories, and so Oddmu served an extract of the pages in the “secret” subdirectory. Adding |search/secret to the LocationMatch doesn’t help.

I had to decide whether to disable search all together, or disable the search of subdirectories, or add a new feature.

I added a new feature.

It is tied to an environment variable called ODDMU_FILTER. It matches the directory being searched and the directory where the search starts. If the directory doesn’t match, the pages returned must also not match; if the directory does match, the pages returned must also match.

Here’s an example of three pages:

• /a
• /public/b
• /secret/c

The environment variable is set: ODDMU_FILTER=^secret/ – what happens now?

• If you search from the root (doesn’t match the filter), then only pages a and b are searched (they also don’t match the filter).
• If you search from /public (doesn’t match the filter), then only page b is searched (also doesn’t match the filter). This behaviour is unchanged from before. Searches start with the directory the user is looking at.
• If you search from /secret (matches the filter), then only page c is searched (also matches the filter). This, too, is unchanged from before.

Naturally, you still need to change to the web server config for the actual authentication to happen:

<LocationMatch "^/(edit|save|add|append|upload|drop|view/secret|search/secret)/">
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "Password Required"
  AuthUserFile /home/oddmu/.htpasswd
  Require valid-user
</LocationMatch>

I hope I got it right! It’s also documented in the oddmu-apache(5) man page.

#Oddµ

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-02-14-oddmu-bug Save to Pocket

Classifieds – February 14, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, 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 – February 14, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/classifieds-february-14-2024/ Save to Pocket

It’s time we add friction to digital experiences and slow them down

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Decades of obsessing about always going faster have left us in constant danger

Column  Before he woke up on the first day of February, one of my friends was robbed.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/friction_is_good/ Save to Pocket

Today in SCV History (Feb. 14)

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

1939 – Newhall Elementary School burns down; pupils rejoice [story

https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-14/ Save to Pocket

This Valentine’s Day, heart sees heart

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

How does creativity drastically change with age and expectation, and how can we combat such narrow stigmas to open possibilities for fearless exploration?

The post This Valentine’s Day, heart sees heart appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/this-valentines-day-heart-sees-heart/ Save to Pocket

The sticky situation with USC’s most infamous trees

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

It’s not love that’s in the air but the aromas of the Callery pear.

The post The sticky situation with USC’s most infamous trees appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/the-sticky-situation-with-uscs-most-infamous-trees/ Save to Pocket

My Super Bowl LVIII takes

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The slugfest between the 49ers and the Chiefs was an all-timer.

The post My Super Bowl LVIII takes appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/my-super-bowl-lviii-takes/ Save to Pocket

America Ferrera inspires USC’s next generation of multi-hyphenates

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Trojan alum spoke to a crowd about her love of storytelling and activism.

The post America Ferrera inspires USC’s next generation of multi-hyphenates appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/america-ferrera-inspires-uscs-next-generation-of-multi-hyphenates/ Save to Pocket

Let’s celebrate the many ways love can look

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

As an asexual man, I’ve always felt confused by my feelings — but now, I feel free.

The post Let’s celebrate the many ways love can look appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/lets-celebrate-the-many-ways-love-can-look/ Save to Pocket

Men’s basketball seeks much-needed win against Utah

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

USC looks to salvage its season after falling back to last place in the Pac-12.

The post Men’s basketball seeks much-needed win against Utah appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/mens-basketball-seeks-much-needed-win-against-utah/ Save to Pocket

Women’s basketball beats Arizona for fourth-straight win

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Trojans started slow, but an electric second half propelled them to a victory.

The post Women’s basketball beats Arizona for fourth-straight win  appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/14/womens-basketball-wins-fourth-straight-over-arizona/ Save to Pocket

ROAM secures $24M in Series A funding to expand electric motorcycle and bus production

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Kenya-based electric mobility company ROAM has successfully completed a Series A funding round totaling $24 million in equity and debt to expand local production and further electrify mobility across Africa.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/14/roam-secures-24m-series-a-funding-electric-motorcycle-bus-production/ Save to Pocket

Europe loosens the straps tying Apple and Microsoft to tough antitrust rules

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Did someone say a safety word? iMessage, Bing, Edge, Ads avoid gatekeeper restrictions

The European Commission has reversed its decision that some Apple and Microsoft offerings qualify as “gatekeeper services” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), meaning the bloc’s toughest regulations won’t be applied.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/apple_microsoft_dma_exemptions/ Save to Pocket

Upstart retrofits an Nvidia GH200 server into a €47,500 workstation

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Of course it’s bristling with Noctuas – how else do you cool a 1kW desktop?

Nvidia’s long-teased GH200 CPU-GPU Superchips are finally going on sale, and the 1,000-Watt chip – built to run in servers and handle hefty AI training and inference tasks – is even available in a workstation from German startup gptshop.ai.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/german_gh200_workstation/ Save to Pocket

Airbnb sees AI as its ticket to become a sprawling Big Tech giant

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Reckons OpenAI and Google are mere infrastructure players who don’t understand apps or how AI will change them

Airbnb sees AI as its ticket out of the travel industry ghetto, and a passport to expanding its services into other industries.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/airbnb_q4_23/ Save to Pocket

China is building more coal plants but might burn less coal

date: 2024-02-14, from: Hannah Richie at Substack

China is adding more coal capacity, but its plants are running less often.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants Save to Pocket

February 13, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

“History is watching,” President Joe Biden said this afternoon. He warned “Republicans in Congress who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountable” that “[f]ailure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-13-2024 Save to Pocket

Australian Tax Office probed 150 staff over social media refund scam

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

$1.3 billion lost as identity fraud – and greed – saw 57,000 or more seek unearned tax refunds

One hundred and fifty people who worked for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have been investigated – and some prosecuted – for participating in a tax refund scam promoted on Facebook and TikTok.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/ato_operation_protego_tax_scam/ Save to Pocket

Tesla increases Model 3 price, now costs as much as Model Y

date: 2024-02-14, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla has increased the price of the refreshed Model 3 Long Range in the US. It now pretty much costs the same as Model Y, if not more in some cases.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/tesla-increases-model-3-price-now-cost-as-much-as-model-y/ Save to Pocket

Democrat Tom Suozzi Wins New York Race to Succeed George Santos in Congress

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/democrat-tom-suozzi-wins-new-york-race-to-succeed-george-santos-in-congress/7486805.html Save to Pocket

Nededog found not guilty of murder

date: 2024-02-14, from: Guam Daily Post

Jamie John Nededog was found not guilty of murdering Edwin Pirando.

https://www.postguam.com/news/nededog-found-not-guilty-of-murder/article_3559208a-caca-11ee-9163-1b288820ec46.html Save to Pocket

Back to school in the new year

date: 2024-02-14, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

The first day of the spring semester was off to a rainy start at Pierce College on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. Brahmas began their semester by

The post Back to school in the new year appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/02/13/back-to-school-in-the-new-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=back-to-school-in-the-new-year Save to Pocket

Judge crosses out some claims by writers against OpenAI, lets them have another crack at it

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Scribes may have a point about unfair competition, direct copyright infringement

Updated  A US judge has dismissed some of the claims made by writers in a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, and gave the wordsmiths a chance to amend their complaint.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/tremblay_vs_openai_claims_dismissed/ Save to Pocket

HJC Channels The Power Of Venom With New Graphic For RPHA 12

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The HJC RPHA 12 Maximized Venom is the latest addition to HJC’s Marvel collection.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708548/hjc-rpha-12-maximized-venom-graphic-2024/ Save to Pocket

Feb. 17: Zonta of SCV LifeForward Workshop ‘Importance of Boundaries’

date: 2024-02-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Zonta Club of Santa Clarita Valley will host a free workshop designed to help participants focus on the importance of boundaries in our lives.

https://scvnews.com/feb-17-zonta-of-scv-lifeforward-workshop-importance-of-boundaries/ Save to Pocket

Crims found and exploited these two Microsoft bugs before Redmond fixed ’em

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

SAP, Adobe, Intel, AMD also issue fixes as well as Google for Android

Patch Tuesday  Microsoft fixed 73 security holes in this February’s Patch Tuesday, and you better get moving because two of the vulnerabilities are under active attack.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/patch_tuesday_feb_2024/ Save to Pocket

US Senate Passes $95B Foreign Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific

date: 2024-02-14, from: VOA News USA

The U.S. Senate approved a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan early Tuesday. But as VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the bill faces a tough path to passage in the Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-senate-passes-95b-foreign-aid-package-for-ukraine-israel-indo-pacific-/7486737.html Save to Pocket

2024 Yamaha Vino Gets Three Charming Colorways In Japan

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The Yamaha Vino is the perfect blend of stylish and practical, making it the perfect runabout for Japanese streets.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708547/2024-yamaha-vino-launch-japan/ Save to Pocket

Quick Charge Podcast: February 13, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/quick-charge-podcast-february-13-2024/ Save to Pocket

Updated 2024 Honda Africa Twin Touches Down In America

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The 2024 MY comes with a host of improvements to both the Africa Twin and Africa Twin Adventure Sports models.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708545/2024-honda-africa-twin-america/ Save to Pocket

Sean O’Brien 100K Race Report (2024)

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Educated Guesswork blog

https://educatedguesswork.org/posts/sob100k-2024/ Save to Pocket

The most 2024 things to do are laying off staff and eyeing up AI – Mozilla’s doing both

date: 2024-02-14, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Firefox Mobile also getting increased attention

Firefox maker Mozilla has laid off “approximately 60” staff, or around five percent of its workforce.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/14/mozilla_layoffs_ai_pivot/ Save to Pocket

Wednesday 14 February, 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: John Naughton’s online diary

On the beach One of my grandsons on a Kerry beach on an Easter Sunday morning. Quote of the Day ”Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-14-february-2024/39130/ Save to Pocket

2024 Honda Talon 1000 UTVs Are Here To Rip Up The Trails

date: 2024-02-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The Talon 1000 comes in a total of seven variants offered in both two- and four-seater configurations.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708543/2024-honda-talon-1000-utv-launch-usa/ Save to Pocket

program: Windows 3’s Program Manager for X11

date: 2024-02-14, from: OS News

progman is a simple X11 window manager modeled after Program Manager from the Windows 3 era. ↫ progman’s GitHub page If that description doesn’t pique your interest, nothing will. What more do you people want from me?

https://www.osnews.com/story/138585/program-windows-3s-program-manager-for-x11/ Save to Pocket

Call for Proposals is open for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024

date: 2024-02-14, from: PostgreSQL News

…until April 7, 2024!

The 3rd annual event now called POSETTE: An Event for Postgres (formerly Citus Con) will happen Jun 11-13, 2024 and the Call for Speakers is now open—until Apr 7, 2024! POSETTE is a free & virtual developer event organized by the Postgres team at Microsoft. The name POSETTE stands for Postgres Open Source Ecosystem Talks Training & Education.

First time & experienced speakers both welcome! Whether you’re a first-time speaker or a regular speaker at conferences, we’d love to consider your talk proposal(s) about Postgres and the rich tooling and extensions (like Citus) in the Postgres ecosystem—both open source and for Postgres in the cloud on Azure.

4 Unique Livestreams

There will be 4 unique livestreams: 2 in Americas workday timezones (PDT), and 2 in EMEA workday timezones (CEST). Each livestream will have its own keynote and set of talks—no repeats among the livestreams.

Important Dates & Deadlines

• Jan 19, 2024 – Call for proposals (CFP) opens
• Apr 07, 2024 – CFP closes @ 11:59 pm PDT
• Apr 17, 2024 – Speakers notified
• May 01, 2024 – Schedule & sessions announced
• May 02, 2024 – Virtual Speaker Meet & Greet
• May 13-17 & 20-24, 2024 – Pre-record all talks
• Jun 11-13, 2024 – POSETTE happens! Join the livestream virtually to chat with attendees and other speakers.

Key things to know

Even more information on the POSETTE CFP page

• Format: Four 4.5-hour livestreams at different times of day
• CFP closes: Apr 7, 2024
• Length: 25 mins / talk
• Virtual & free: no travel (or funding) required
• Video recording & production: All talks will be pre-recorded by the POSETTE team at Microsoft—all speakers need is a good microphone & a decent webcam. We’ll take care of the rest—including all editing, caption QA, and caption translation.
• Speaker resources: on our CFP page
• Submit your proposal: on Sessionize

Topics

Here are some of the topics we would like to see at POSETTE: An Event for Postgres (formerly Citus Con). This list is not exhaustive, other Postgres topics are welcome too!

• How you run your app on Postgres on Azure
• Open source user stories for Citus, PostGIS, & other extensions
• New capabilities in PostgreSQL 16
• Tips for building your application on Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server
• Postgres community
• Generally interesting Postgres knowledge & tips
• Data modeling and SQL best practices
• How you use Postgres extensions
• High availability techniques (including Patroni)
• Distributing Postgres with Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL
• Benchmarking & performance tuning
• Migrating to Postgres on Azure
• Monitoring tools for Postgres
• Optimizing for data-intensive analytics and time series workloads
• Azure ecosystem integrations with Postgres
• Running SaaS apps built with Ruby, Python, Node.js, Java, or .NET—and running on Postgres
• Using Postgres with Python and Django applications
• Supporting AI-based workloads with Postgres

Other useful links

• Code of conduct
• Talk selection team

https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/call-for-proposals-is-open-for-posette-an-event-for-postgres-2024-2806/ Save to Pocket

Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

Specifically, Mozilla plans to scale back its investment in a number of products, including its VPN, Relay and, somewhat remarkably, its Online Footprint Scrubber, which launched only a week ago. Mozilla will also shut down Hubs, the 3D virtual world it launched back in 2018, and scale back its investment in its mozilla.social Mastodon instance. The layoffs will affect roughly 60 employees. Bloomberg previously reported the layoffs. Going forward, the company said in an internal memo, Mozilla will focus on bringing “trustworthy AI into Firefox.” To do so, it will bring together the teams that work on Pocket, Content and AI/Ml. ↫ Frederic Lardinois for TechCrunch I’d like to remind everyone that I’ve been warning the Linux world about the precarious, uncertain future of Firefox for years now. The single most important desktop Linux application is in a death spiral and entirely dependent on free Google money. Not a good base to work from. With today’s news, I only feel strengthened in my conviction that the major desktop projects in the Linux world need to come together in a serious manner to discuss the establishment of a browser project optimised for Linux. Pick an engine, let the GNOME and KDE developers build a native UI on top, and take matters into your own hands. If you can build the two best desktop environments in desktop computing today, you can build a first-class browser together. This is existential.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138582/mozilla-downsizes-as-it-refocuses-on-firefox-and-ai/ Save to Pocket

Microsoft is bringing Copilot “AI” to Notepad for Windows 11

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

Microsoft plans to make Copilot AI inseparable from Windows. After releasing Copilot for Windows 11 and 10 and adding it to Microsoft apps, you can now use Copilot AI in Notepad to get simplified explanations. You can install the Notepad app update via the Microsoft Store to use this feature, but remember, it only works in Dev or Canary channels. Notepad version 11.2401.25.0 adds the “Explain with Copilot” option in its context menu. After highlighting a chunk of text (sentences, code snippets, etc), right-click and select the “Explain with Copilot” option. Or you can press the Ctrl + E shortcut to invoke this feature. ↫ Abhishek Mishra I wonder if you could replace this new, butchered Notepad with a an older, working copy.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138580/microsoft-is-bringing-copilot-ai-to-notepad-for-windows-11/ Save to Pocket

FreeBSD 15, 16 to end support for 32 bit platforms

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

FreeBSD is deprecating 32-bit platforms over the next couple of major releases. We anticipate FreeBSD 15.0 will not include the armv6, i386, and powerpc platforms, and FreeBSD 16.0 will not include armv7. Support for executing 32-bit binaries on 64-bit kernels will be retained through at least the lifetime of the stable/16 branch if not longer. (There is currently no plan to remove support for 32-bit binaries on 64-bit kernels.) ↫ John Baldwin on freebsd-announce I don’t think this is too egregious of a timeline, but there’s always someone with some weird edge case that gets bit hard by deprecations like these.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138578/freebsd-15-16-to-end-support-for-32-bit-platforms/ Save to Pocket

Running UNIX on a Nintendo Entertainment System

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

Who wouldn’t want to run a UNIX-like operating system on their NES or Famicom? Although there’s arguably no practical reason for doing so, decrazyo has cobbled together a working port of Little Unix (LUnix), which was originally written for the Commodore 64 and 128 by Daniel Dallmann. The impetus for this project was initially curiosity, but when decrazyo saw that someone had already written a UNIX-like OS for the 6502 processor, it seemed apparent that the NES was too similar to the C64 to not port it. ↫ Maya Posch for Hackaday This is peak computing.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138569/running-unix-on-a-nintendo-entertainment-system/ Save to Pocket

Just one bad packet can bring down a vulnerable DNS server thanks to DNSSEC

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

‘You don’t have to do more than that to disconnect an entire network’ El Reg told as patches emerge

A single packet can exhaust the processing capacity of a vulnerable DNS server, effectively disabling the machine, by exploiting a 20-plus-year-old design flaw in the DNSSEC specification.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/dnssec_vulnerability_internet/ Save to Pocket

To extend a lithium-metal EV battery’s life, just drain it and let it sit, find Stanford scientists

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Stanford University researchers found that the best way to extend the life of a lithium-metal EV battery is to drain it and let it rest for a few hours.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/lithium-metal-ev-battery-life-stanford-study/ Save to Pocket

Reconnect a HomeKit Accessory over a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Network

date: 2024-02-13, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/2024/02/13/reconnect-a-homekit-accessory-over-a-2-4-ghz-wi-fi-network/ Save to Pocket

2024 USG presidential debate — as it happened

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The four presidential-vice presidential tickets vying for 2024-2025 Undergraduate Student Government leadership discussed their platforms Tuesday night at The Forum. Look back at our live coverage.

The post 2024 USG presidential debate — as it happened appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/2024-usg-presidential-debate-live-updates/ Save to Pocket

Why EV Makers Had So Little to Say at the Super Bowl

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heatmap News

As a young figure skater twirls around the ice rink, we see the seat next to her father is conspicuously empty. She notices, too. But not to worry: After the performance, dad and daughter drive their Kia EV9 up to her grandparents’ house in the mountains. Dad strings Edison bulbs around the adjacent frozen pond and brings out a speaker, both powered by the battery in his electric car, so the girl can recreate her performance for an adoring grandfather who watches from the window.

Besides being a tearjerker, Kia’s Super Bowl commercial this year introduced millions of Americans to one of my favorite electric vehicle features — tapping the battery for activities other than driving, such as leaving on climate control for your dog, providing backup electricity to one’s home, or running accessories from lights to power tools. However, while Sunday’s game did feature EV ads from Kia, BMW, and Volkswagen, the broadcast felt like the end of a mini-era, a time when automakers used the Super Bowl to sell Joe American on the idea that EVs are shiny and cool.

The age of EV Super Bowl ads started with Audi’s in 2019 and accelerated during the next year’s big game, when GM used LeBron James to hype the all-electric return of the Hummer. That year, 2020, marked the first time ads for EVs outnumbered those for gas cars. Super Bowl hype for EVs peaked in 2022, when seven electric vehicle ads aired compared to just two for old-school combustion. General Motors concocted an evil plan to trot out the cast of the Austin Powers movies for an EV commercial. Even now-struggling Polestar bought an ad.

Although EVs cooled as an advertising trend last year, the Super Bowl still saw a high-profile commercial with Will Ferrell that jammed GM’s electric vehicles into Netflix shows like “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game.” But the message had flipped on its head. No more, You want an electric car because they’re powerful and sexy. Instead, the ad implied: We’re putting EVs everywhere because they are ordinary — and inevitable.

By this past Sunday, the idea of selling EVs to Americans as the next big thing in tech had, with the exception of Kia’s spot, withered. BMW’s Christopher Walken commercial was, like too many during the game, an extended celebrity cameo that had little to do with the product at hand (the electric BMW i5, in case you forgot. I had to look it up.) VW’s pitch for the ID.Buzz, its electric revival of the Volkswagen bus, was soaked in nostalgia instead of flashy promises of 21st century features. GM and Ford, in the midst of sales slumps and strategy regroups over how to sell electric cars, skipped the Super Bowl this year.

The slowdown of Super Bowl EV hype sure feels like an extension of the implied malaise around the electric sector in 2024. As Heatmap has noted, EV sales are not, in fact, in the kind of freefall some headlines would suggest. Even so, a variety of struggles such as lagging charging infrastructure and uncertain tax credits as an election year looms have the automakers on edge.

The mega-platform of the Super Bowl has provided the simplest way to see what the car companies want to say about themselves and their electric futures. Until this weekend, the game had been GM’s biggest platform for proclaiming its intention to make an aggressive push in electrification. Its conspicuous absence from the Chiefs’ victory over the 49ers mirrors its real-world reversal; the Detroit behemoth is bringing back the plug-in hybrid as it cools on full EVs. Because Detroit wasn’t quite sure what to say about this moment in the EV transition, it said nothing.

And so, as we enter a gap year of electric uncertainty, a lingering question is, How will EVs be marketed now? The first wave of EV hype from the legacy car companies sought to duplicate the success of Tesla. Car ads positioned the new electric offerings not as mobility for the eco-minded, like the original Nissan Leaf, but as desirable quasi-luxury vehicles with big touchscreens and lots of LEDs — a must-have gadget on wheels.

If the Super Bowl is any indication, that approach has fizzled. Premium electrics like the Lucid Air will be sold that way, yes. But when the next big phase of electrification takes off, it will likely be because of boring, affordable cars — entry-level EVs like what Ford and Tesla reportedly have in development, or a suite of similar crossovers that mirrors the gasoline vehicles Americans families buy in droves. (Kia is already doing this successfully. Perhaps that’s why they’re the ones pushing a family-focused version of the “EVs are cool” narrative.)

Maybe the next phase of EV won’t be about the technology of tomorrow. Instead, it will be about the best car you can afford today.

https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/super-bowl-lviii-kia-volkswagen-bmw Save to Pocket

ArcBest launches full line of electric, autonomous forklifts

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

ArcBest just rolled out a line of fully automated electric forklifts and reach trucks for use in its customers’ distribution centers and manufacturing facilities — and if they get their way, struggling to find those “forklift certified” operators will be a thing of the past.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/arcbest-launches-full-line-of-electric-autonomous-forklifts/ Save to Pocket

Is Porsche developing a luxury electric van to rival the Volvo EM90?

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

An all-electric Porsche luxury van? This could be a possibility. Porsche’s design boss, Peter Varga, said a van is now “very interesting” when combined with luxury.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/porsche-developing-luxury-electric-van-rival-volvo-em90/ Save to Pocket

Oregon Resident Catches Rare Case of Plague, Likely From Their Cat

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The patient was treated during the earlier stages of disease, so the community faces little risk, according to health officials

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/oregon-resident-catches-rare-case-of-plague-likely-from-their-cat-180983785/ Save to Pocket

US patents boss cannot stress enough that inventors must be human, not AI

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

You can use neural networks to help, sure, but not do all the work

The US Patent and Trademark Office this week repeated loud and clear it will only accept patent applications that list actual real humans as the inventor and not AI.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/uspto_ai_patents/ Save to Pocket

Book Talk: Wrong Way by Joanna McNeil

date: 2024-02-13, from: Authors Union blogs

Join us for a VIRTUAL book talk with author Joanne McNeil about her latest book, WRONG WAY, which examines the treacherous gaps between the working and middle classes wrought by the age of AI. McNeil will be in conversation with author Sarah Jaffe. This is the first Internet Archive / Authors Alliance book talk for a work of fiction! Come […]

https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/02/13/book-talk-wrong-way-by-joanna-mcneil/ Save to Pocket

Metal Detectorist Finds a Rare 3,000-Year-Old Dress Fastener

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The gold accessory is one of only seven artifacts of this kind discovered in England and Wales

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/metal-detectorist-finds-a-potentially-life-changing-3000-year-old-gold-accessory-180983770/ Save to Pocket

After Passing Tesla, China’s BYD Eyes Mexico Plant For U.S. Sales

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

China’s EV champion seems dead-set on U.S. sales sooner than later.

https://insideevs.com/news/708540/byd-mexico-tesla-china/ Save to Pocket

Lilbits: Layoffs at Mozilla, Android 15 Dev Preview coming soon, and Playdate is finally “in stock”

date: 2024-02-13, from: Liliputing

The Playdate handheld gaming device with a 1-bit display and a hang crank on the side is a cute and quirky device that’s very different from some other handhelds. But it’s also been a lot harder to actually get your hands on. Playdate began taking pre-orders in mid-2021 and finally began shipping the handheld almost a year later. […]

The post Lilbits: Layoffs at Mozilla, Android 15 Dev Preview coming soon, and Playdate is finally “in stock” appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/lilbits-layoffs-at-mozilla-android-15-dev-preview-coming-soon-and-playdate-is-finally-in-stock/ Save to Pocket

Mack to invest $14.5M in Roanoke to build electric MD line

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

The iconic Mack Trucks brand has been taking the medium duty market by storm, bringing big truck features and functionality to the segment like never before. The market has responded, and Mack is selling as many as they can make — so they’re going to start making more.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/mack-to-invest-14-5m-in-roanoke-to-build-electric-md-line/ Save to Pocket

The Dawn Project got in trouble with the feds for its anti-Tesla FSD Super Bowl ad

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

The Dawn Project, a group that runs ads attacking Tesla’s full self-driving system, has received a letter from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) demanding that it cease using its logo in advertising, which Dawn Project did in contravention of US federal law in its Super Bowl ad aired this weekend.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/the-dawn-project-got-in-trouble-with-the-feds-for-its-anti-tesla-fsd-super-bowl-ad/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

If you’re thinking it might be good if President Biden stepped aside for someone younger and nicer to look at, what you really want is President Biden to be younger and nicer looking, and of course he probably wouldn’t mind that either. But, as Keith Olbermann spells out so well in his latest Countdown, if he were to step aside that would basically concede the election to Trump. So if you think the old man is being silly and vain, well, he’s being a lot smarter than you are, and btw, paying a huge price. If you live to be 81, I bet the last thing you want to do, after the life he’s had, is to be in this position. We should get behind him, and tell him so, let him know we don’t want anyone else, and we want him to be happy, healthy and know that the smart, good people of the US appreciate what he’s doing for all of us.

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a214721 Save to Pocket

Broadcom VMware ends free VMware vSphere Hypervisor closing an era

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

Broadcom’s VMware division took a big step today, ending its free VMware vSphere Hypervisor. This is one of those announcements that we were expecting after we covered VMware End of Availability on Many VMware vSphere Editions and VMware Updates its EOA Plan Providing Guidance for Some Subscription Transition, but it is a big deal for many STH readers. It now sets VMware down the path of mainframes. ↫ Patrick Kennedy at ServeTheHome A massive blow for the homelab community.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138575/broadcom-vmware-ends-free-vmware-vsphere-hypervisor-closing-an-era/ Save to Pocket

How to get the retro WordArt back in Microsoft Word

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

Graphic design is my passion so naturally I love the vintage, 1990s WordArt. This was a feature in Microsoft Word that allowed you to create timeless “3D” renderings of any text you wanted. It was perfection, but for some reason Microsoft overhauled the feature in the late 2000s, basically ruining it. These are a soulless simulacrum of the WordArt of yore. The true WordArt remains, however, embedded deep in the code of Microsoft Word itself. But some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for twenty years WordArt passed out of all knowledge.  But it can be found again. ↫ Justin Pot at Popular Science I had no idea this stuff was still in there, but I guess it makes sense – people absolutely adored this stuff, and it was all over the place for a very long time. You would see it in restaurants, hotels, schools, stores, everywhere – from high-end, luxury places to bargain basements. Now that I think about it, I’m not at all surprised it’s still accessible.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138572/how-to-get-the-retro-wordart-back-in-microsoft-word/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

The News tab on the Scripting News home page was set up to request the All category from my FeedLand account. I switched to Tech, it’s a bit faster, and probably a better fit. Still looking for a performance issue.

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a213651 Save to Pocket

Bullet Points: On Bluesky, the Vision Pro Jackpot, and the Quiet Period before the Election

date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Karpf’s blog

(Plus, a bonus take - Bill Ackman is an insufferable dweeb)

https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/bullet-points-on-bluesky-the-vision Save to Pocket

Winners of the 59th Annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/winners-of-the-59th-annual-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-contest Save to Pocket

JuxtaCode 1.0.2

date: 2024-02-13, from: Michael Tsai

Yori Mihalakopoulos (Mastodon): Easily trace your code’s history, so you can better shape its future. Browse commits, compare branches, see how a file has changed over time. Gain insights into tricky conflicts and resolve them with a powerful merge tool.[…]Access a file’s complete history by simply opening it. A dedicated tab will show all the […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/13/juxtacode-1-0-2/ Save to Pocket

Split View Proactive Peek and Reveal on Edge Hover

date: 2024-02-13, from: Michael Tsai

Wade Tregaskis: It’s easy to see how some UI designer thought this was a good idea. Surely if you move the mouse near the edge of the window (or the screen, in fullscreen mode) and rest it there, it’s because you’re looking forlornly for your lost sidebar? What could be more helpful and delightful than […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/13/split-view-proactive-peek-and-reveal-on-edge-hover/ Save to Pocket

Bumping macOS’s Major Version Number

date: 2024-02-13, from: Michael Tsai

Jordan Rose: There were four good moments for Apple to switch Mac OS version numbers from 10.X to 11 […] and they missed all of them, instead eventually tying it to the Apple Silicon switchover (what would have been 10.16). I think about this a lot. They ended up doing it with macOS Big Sur, […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/13/bumping-macoss-major-version-number/ Save to Pocket

Dragging From a List With SwiftUI

date: 2024-02-13, from: Michael Tsai

Marco Arment: I wish so badly that SwiftUI’s .onMove supported multiple-item selection in a List.I should never need to tell my customers, “That was too difficult to achieve in SwiftUI, so that feature is gone.” It’s scary reading stuff like this because, glancing at the API, the source is an IndexSet, so it seems like […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/13/dragging-from-a-list-with-swiftui/ Save to Pocket

The Story of Two Presidents and One Dam Model

date: 2024-02-13, from: National Archives, Text Message blog

Today’s post is written by Cody White, Archivist at the National Archives at Denver The contractors were given seven years to do the impossible: dam up the mighty Colorado River in Black Canyon, southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. But it only took them five, when in 1936 the completed dam was formally turned over to … Continue reading The Story of Two Presidents and One Dam Model

https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2024/02/13/the-story-of-two-presidents-and-one-dam-model/ Save to Pocket

A powerful blogroll!

date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News

I’d like a fanciful cartoon drawing of a blogroll that automatically sorts itself out when something new comes in. It’s happy and fun but also very powerful!

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13/210450.html?title=aPowerfulBlogroll Save to Pocket

Children in Gaza: Why aren’t we stopping the deaths?

date: 2024-02-13, from: Robert Reich on Substack

Friends, Late last night, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen gave a remarkable speech on the Senate floor, condemning the government of Benjamin Netanyahu for deliberately blocking aid to civilians in Gaza. Van Hollen said: “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals. … Every one of them [officials at humanitarian relief organizations] has stated that their organizations have never experienced a humanitarian disaster as dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.”

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/children-in-gaza-why-arent-we-stopping Save to Pocket

Watch The Tesla Cybertruck Cyberbeast Rip From 0 To 60 MPH In 2.68 Seconds

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

It finishes the quarter-mile run in 11.68 seconds.

https://insideevs.com/news/708502/tesla-cybertruck-cyberbeast-quarter-mile-0-60-mph/ Save to Pocket

Stone Age Wall Discovered Beneath the Baltic Sea Helped Early Hunters Trap Reindeer

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Made up of some 1,600 stones, the submerged “Blinkerwall” might be Europe’s oldest known megastructure

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stone-age-wall-discovered-beneath-the-baltic-sea-helped-early-hunters-trap-reindeer-180983783/ Save to Pocket

The Student Perspective: CFA Strike

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

Faculty members from 23 CSU campuses went on strike Jan. 22, 2024. Despite the weather, Matadors and other members of the community showed their support alongside CFA.

https://sundial.csun.edu/178306/multimedia/listen/the-student-perspective-cfa-strike/ Save to Pocket

CAP-X and COMP-X: how the Tandy Pocket Computers got a sucky Japanese assembler

date: 2024-02-13, from: OS News

I grew up primarily with the Commodore 64, where if you wanted to do anything really cool and useful, you had to do it in 6502 assembly language. Today I still write 6502 assembly, plus some Power ISA and even a little TMS9900. I like assembly languages and how in control of the CPU you feel writing in one. But you know what would make me not like an assembly language? One that was contrived and not actually the CPU it was running on. And you know what would make me like it even less? If it were kneecapped, convoluted and limited without even proper I/O facilities. ↫ Old Vintage Computing Research Everything you ever wanted to know about CAP-X and COMP-X. Which turns out to be a lot.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138570/cap-x-and-comp-x-how-the-tandy-pocket-computers-got-a-sucky-japanese-assembler/ Save to Pocket

BYD mulls EV plant in Mexico as an ‘export hub’ to the US and overseas markets

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

As BYD continues its dominant global expansion, the EV maker’s latest target is a stone’s throw from the US. BYD is looking to establish an EV plant in Mexico as an “export hub” for the US.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/byd-mulls-ev-plant-mexico-export-hub-to-us/ Save to Pocket

Firehouse Five and the Cinderella Surprise

date: 2024-02-13, from: Cobel Sasser’s blog

My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made up of mostly Disney employees, the Firehouse Five Plus Two. But along the way, I accidentally discovered an incredible lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella. And you’re about to hear it too. Let’s go. Firehouse Five Plus […]

https://cabel.com/2024/02/13/firehouse-five-and-the-cinderella-surprise/ Save to Pocket

Reminder that I’m recording audio podcasts

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

of the letters the morning after I post them. Links here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/podcast And here: As you know, I loathe the idea of spamming your inboxes, so I will do so only sparingly, and only for these first three experimental weeks.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/reminder-that-im-recording-audio Save to Pocket

The race is on to power up with perovskite solar cells in space

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Perovskite solar cells are increasingly being viewed as a possible game-changer as a source of power in space – here’s why.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/perovskite-solar-cells-in-space/ Save to Pocket

A Hacker’s Mind is Out in Paperback

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Bruce Schneier blog

The paperback version of A Hacker’s Mind has just been published. It’s the same book, only a cheaper format.

But—and this is the real reason I am posting this—Amazon has significantly discounted the hardcover to $15 to get rid of its stock. This is much cheaper than I am selling it for, and cheaper even than the paperback. So if you’ve been waiting for a price drop, this is your chance.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/a-hackers-mind-is-out-in-paperback.html Save to Pocket

A list of directors’ impressive first movies, including Citizen Kane (Orson Welles),…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043965-a-list-of-directors-impre Save to Pocket

QNAP vulnerability disclosure ends up an utter shambles

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Two new flaws, one zero-day, countless different patches, but everything’s fine!

Network-attached storage (NAS) specialist QNAP has disclosed and released fixes for two new vulnerabilities, one of them a zero-day discovered in early November.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/qnap_latest_vulnerabilities/ Save to Pocket

Schwinn Marshall Hybrid e-bike hits $765, save $1,699 in this EcoFlow power station sale, more

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Headlining today’s top deals is a collection of discounted Schwinn e-bikes led by the Marshall Electric Hybrid Bike at $765. They are joined by the second of EcoFlow’s 24-hour Valentine flash sales that is taking up to $1,699 off two power stations and an extra battery starting from $469, as well as one of the first chances to save on the Greenworks Optimow Robotic Lawn Mower for $1,000. 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/schwinn-marshall-hybrid-e-bike-ecoflow-flash-sale-and-more/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Swiss antisemitism shock at Davos shop sign saying no skis for Jews.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68283043?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA Save to Pocket

Brian Eno’s Glowing Turntable

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/brian-enos-glowing-turntable Save to Pocket

Polaris’ next electric UTV is here: the Pro XD Full-Size Kinetic

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Polaris is following up on its all-electric RANGER XP Kinetic with another electric UTV, this time for its commercial line. The Pro XD Full-Size Kinetic utility vehicle from Polaris Commercial is poised to bring the heavy-hitting power and performance of electric drive to just about any tasks that operators could imagine. And if it’s anything like the electric RANGER XP Kinetic I tested, it’s going to overdeliver with some serious power and performance.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/polaris-next-electric-utv-is-here-the-pro-xd-full-size-kinetic/ Save to Pocket

Get a Grip, New York. It’s Just Snow.

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heatmap News

It is a time-honored tradition for Americans who live north of the 39th parallel to mock cities like Washington, D.C., and Atlanta when they shut down over a little bit of snow. It is with great regret, then, that I write now to tell you that New York City has fallen. No longer will it be acceptable for us to roll our eyes at Southerners who abandon their cars over a mere inch of snow; no, we in fact deserve to be razzed by New Englanders and Minnesotans, our former partners in razzing. New Yorkers have become, in effect, weak. We’ve forgotten how to winter.

Maybe it’s because it has been 745 days since our last significant snowfall, or maybe it’s because, at some point, we started to lean into our designation as a “subtropical” climate. But no — I won’t make excuses, either. Outside my window in western Queens, the sidewalks are slushy but navigable, the flakes are light, and the city has lost its mind.

“‘Stay home,’ NYC mayor pleads,” reads one illustrative headline, while The New York Times has at least 16 different reporters assigned to its nor’easter live blog covering — what, exactly? The fact that “the Metropolitan Museum of Art remained open on Tuesday”? (At least we haven’t all lost our senses.) And while the white stuff was still coming down around midday, at the time of this writing, Central Park had reported just 1.2 inches of total accumulation — not even enough to make a proper snowball without scraping the ground bare beneath your glove.

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, channeling his inner Jim Cantore, posted video from the frontlines of the storm. Even he was forced to admit, however, that “the roads are not bad.” At home, kids robbed of a proper snow day struggled to connect to their remote classrooms after the city preemptively closed schools on Monday, a whole 20 hours before the brunt of the storm even hit.

As tempting as it is to blame meteorologists for overselling the nor’easter (another time-honored American tradition), that’s not what the problem is. More simply, New Yorkers have gotten soft. As recently as 2016, Snowzilla dumped 26.8 inches across the five boroughs, and my street went unplowed for days. There will be longtime New Yorkers who laugh at even that example, pointing to the 2006 storm — 18 years ago to the day! — that was a tenth of an inch deeper and set the standing city record.

Ridiculous snowstorms are, in fact, part of what gives New York its grit. None of this “few are out on the [Prospect Park] loop in the snow” nonsense. Back in 1920, the city deployed the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service to use flamethrowers to melt the snowbanks. The Blizzard of 1888 was so severe that 200 New Yorkers died and you could reportedly walk across the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan or, if you were less lucky, trip over a frozen horse:

One man suffered a gash on his forehead when he fell into a snow drift. The drift was soft and deep, but his head struck the leg of a dead horse buried there. For some time afterward, the man showed his friends the wound and boasted that he was the first person ever kicked by a dead horse. [NYCSubway.org]

Not everyone has forgotten what it means to be scrappy, though.The more I looked into it on Tuesday, the more I found New Yorkers reacting to the storm with refrains of “this is nothing” and “lame.” It’s not that we need frozen horse legs to feel like proper New Yorkers, but not having them certainly isn’t making us any happier. Having a real winter is part of what makes the city, the City. If we become the kind of people who get worked up over a few inches of snow, then we truly are no better than Washingtonians. Shudder.

But getting wimpier about winter might also be out of our control. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation says that statewide, snowfall is “likely to decrease … due to warming global temperatures.” As we’re seeing already, our ability to handle a little snow will decrease right along with it. One day, there could even be New Yorkers who don’t know what it means to fatally misjudge the depth of a snow-crusted puddle at the corner of an intersection. Then who are we?

All I’m saying is, we used to be a proper city. And if what’s outside my window is what passes for exciting weather in New York these days — now at the tail-end of the storm, the snowfall is starting to turn to rain — then Boston, do your worst. We deserve it.

https://heatmap.news/sparks/new-york-snow Save to Pocket

February 12, 2024

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-12-2024-fc5 Save to Pocket

ALPHV blackmails Canadian pipeline after ‘stealing 190GB of vital info’

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Gang still going after critical infrastructure because it’s, you know, critical

Updated  Canada’s Trans-Northern Pipelines has allegedly been infiltrated by the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware crew, which claims to have stolen 190 GB of data from the oil distributor.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/alphv_canadian_pipeline/ Save to Pocket

Daily Deals (2-13-2024)

date: 2024-02-13, from: Liliputing

Woot is running a “mystery laptop” sale on older, refurbished notebooks. The bad news is you don’t know what you’re going to get. The good news is that all you have to spend is $190 and Woot is promising everyone will get a laptop with a 13 inch or larger screen, an 8th-gen Intel Core […]

The post Daily Deals (2-13-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-2-13-2024/ Save to Pocket

BYD is launching its cheapest EV in South America, starting at $20,000

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Chinese EV leader BYD is launching its cheapest electric car, the Seagull, in South America. The BYD Seagull will go by the Dolphin Mini overseas and will start at $20,100 (99,800 BRL).

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/byd-launches-cheapest-ev-south-america-20k/ Save to Pocket

Romans Stored Hallucinogenic Seeds in a Vial Made From an Animal Bone

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Ancient scholars wrote about the medicinal, poisonous and psychoactive properties of black henbane seeds

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dutch-romans-stored-poisonous-hallucinogenic-seeds-in-this-hollowed-bone-180983776/ Save to Pocket

The unsettling scourge of obituary spam. “In the wake of death, AI-generated…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043966-the-unsettling-scourge-of Save to Pocket

LA’s Rental Landscape is Dire. It Could Get Worse

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: RAND blog

Los Angeles is one of the least affordable places to live in the country. If the city prefers to keep strengthening renter protections while blocking developers from constructing affordable housing, residents will need to brace for a stricter, even pricier rental market under the growing watch of aggravated landlords and faceless corporations.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/las-rental-landscape-is-dire-it-could-get-worse.html Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Smart Terminals: Personal Computing’s True Origin?

https://thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/2023/10/23/smart-terminals-personal-computings-true-origin/ Save to Pocket

FCC Commissioner calls for crackdown on Apple’s iMessage gatekeeping

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Demands investigation into iPhone maker for potentially breaching regulations over Beeper Mini

Brendan Carr of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has called on the authority to take a closer look at Apple’s actions in the Beeper Mini affair.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/fcc_apple_beeper_mini/ Save to Pocket

The Talk Show: ‘I‘m a Real-World Man’

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2024/02/13/ep-395 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Nintendo Switch 2: Everything You Need to Know.

https://gizmodo.com/nintendo-switch-2-1851242349 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

The rise of obituary spam.

https://www.theverge.com/24065145/ai-obituary-spam-generative-clickbait Save to Pocket

Great to hear that 404 Media is profitable 6 months in. “Owning…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043967-great-to-hear-that-404 Save to Pocket

[Sponsor] Nylas for Email and Calendar APIs

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Daring Fireball

https://info.nylas.com/nylas-technical-demo.html?utm_source=daring-fireball&utm_medium=sponsoredemail&utm_campaign=FY24Q1-daringfireball-rssfeed&utm_content=2024-02-DSU Save to Pocket

California Has Enough Lithium Reserves To Power Over 300 Million EV Batteries

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

But lawsuits against the local county and environmental challenges loom large.

https://insideevs.com/news/708509/california-salton-sea-lithium-reserves/ Save to Pocket

Cruise swerves to hire safety guru after series of misadventures on the streets

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Robocar company lost license to operate in California

Autonomous vehicle biz Cruise has hired a Chief Safety Officer following the dramatic incident last fall when a pedestrian was dragged under the wheels of one of its cars, precipitating a suspension of its US fleet.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/cruise_chief_safety_officer/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

I am still in camp blue no matter who for a spectrum of reasons, but I am surprised at how many friends and acquaintances have soured due to the genocide Biden is supporting.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111925451524892737 Save to Pocket

Statistics versus Understanding: The Essence of What Ails Generative AI

date: 2024-02-13, from: Gary Marcus blog

The Foundation Remains Shaky

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/statistics-versus-understanding-the Save to Pocket

“People don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad bosses”: How journalists evaluate newsroom leadership

date: 2024-02-13, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

In the first weeks of my first job in journalism, the editor-in-chief stormed into the newsroom, furious — the photo editor had not photographed the event that he had planned the front page around. He stood before her, red-faced and yelling, before grabbing a copy of the AP Stylebook off a nearby table and throwing…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/people-dont-quit-bad-jobs-they-quit-bad-bosses-how-journalists-evaluate-newsroom-leadership/ Save to Pocket

His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043968-his-best-friend-was-a Save to Pocket

Flipper Zero’s $49 Video Game Module turns the hacker toy into game console

date: 2024-02-13, from: Liliputing

The Flipper Zero is a pocket-sized multi-tool designed for hardware and software hackers, security researchers, and folks looking to tinker with RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, and IR wireless protocols, among other things. It’s been in the news this week as the Canadian government considers banning the Flipper Zero which some folks say can be used to […]

The post Flipper Zero’s $49 Video Game Module turns the hacker toy into game console appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/flipper-zeros-49-video-game-module-turns-the-hacker-toy-into-game-console/ Save to Pocket

A.I. Learns Words From a Human Baby’s Perspective, Using Headcam Footage

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

With only limited training, the model could correctly identify certain objects, suggesting some elements of learning language are not innate to humans

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ai-learns-words-from-a-human-babys-perspective-using-headcam-footage-180983735/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Stellantis will adopt Tesla-style fast charger plug.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/02/stellantis-will-finally-adopt-tesla-style-fast-charger-plug/ Save to Pocket

Celebrate the Legacies of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Thomas Ince at the Newhallywood Silent Film Festival

date: 2024-02-13, from: City of Santa Clarita

CELEBRATE THE LEGACIES OF DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS SR. AND THOMAS INCE AT THE NEWHALLYWOOD SILENT FILM FESTIVAL A Celebration of the Silent Film Era Returns February 16-18 Transport yourself to the early days of silent cinema and explore some of the most iconic movies ever created at the 2024 Newhallywood Silent Film Festival. The City of […]

The post Celebrate the Legacies of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Thomas Ince at the Newhallywood Silent Film Festival appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.

https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/02/13/celebrate-the-legacies-of-douglas-fairbanks-sr-and-thomas-ince-at-the-newhallywood-silent-film-festival/ Save to Pocket

Biden admin keeps O-RAN dream alive with $42M funding for R&D facility

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

AT&T, Verizon leading new initiative to finally commercialize OpenRAN technology, sans timeline

The Biden administration is keeping America’s dreams of a future filled with open radio access network (OpenRAN) kit alive after awarding $42.3 million to a new consortium dedicated to commercialization of the tech. …

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/biden_admin_keeps_oran_dream/ Save to Pocket

Tesla worker died in horrible crash on Full Self-Driving beta, but he was also drunk

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

The horrible fatal crash of a Tesla employee using Full Self-Driving Beta has been reported in detail for the first time to highlight responsibility in those accidents.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/tesla-worker-died-horrible-crash-full-self-driving-beta-but-drunk/ Save to Pocket

Cali startup delivers first electric cargo plane for US Air Force with up to 200 mi range

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Pyka, a Silicon Valley startup, delivered its first electric autonomous cargo plane to AFWERX, the US Air Force’s network of innovators.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/cali-startup-delivers-first-electric-cargo-plane-us-air-force/ Save to Pocket

USPS Underground Railroad Stamps

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/usps-underground-railroad-stamps Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

I was happy to see Jon Stewart back on the Daily Show. I wish he would get over how he looks, all of us have aged in the time since he was last on the Daily Show. It was really good. He finally is back with the writers he belongs with, and this show obviously agrees with him, and I got the feeling I always used to get from his show “we’ll figure this out.”

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a164815 Save to Pocket

Wallbox launches new Supernova 180 DC fast charger designed specifically for North America

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Following successful DC fast charger launches in Europe, Wallbox has begun production on its third-generation EV charger, the Supernova 180. This UL-certified DC fast charger was explicitly designed for the North American market and can add 100 miles of EV range in ten minutes.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/wallbox-launches-new-supernova-180-dc-fast-charger-designed-specifically-for-north-america/ Save to Pocket

Two superstar Bay Area acts combine forces for major concert tour

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Santana and the Counting Crows to play Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View as part of the Oneness concert tour.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/two-superstar-bay-area-acts-combine-forces-for-major-concert-tour/ Save to Pocket

Flipper Zero takes to the big screen

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

RP2040-based Video Game Module brings game controller functionality and video output

A Video Game Module (VGM) containing a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller is out today for the Flipper Zero pentester multi-tool.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/flipper_zero_vgm/ Save to Pocket

SOPHGO SG2000 and SG2002 chips combine RISC-V, ARM, MCU, and NPU cores for small, cheap AI boards

date: 2024-02-13, from: Liliputing

SOPHON’s SOPHGO SG2000 and SG2002 chips are cheap, low-power solutions that leverage a bunch of different processor cores to provide a platform for running AI tasks and other applications. The chip supports a mix of RISC-V and ARM application processors as well as a microcontroller for managing input from cameras and other devices and an […]

The post SOPHGO SG2000 and SG2002 chips combine RISC-V, ARM, MCU, and NPU cores for small, cheap AI boards appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/sophgo-sg2000-and-sg2002-chips-combine-risc-v-arm-mcu-and-npu-cores-for-small-cheap-ai-boards/ Save to Pocket

Germany goes on defense

date: 2024-02-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Earlier this morning, the Senate approved a $95 billion aid package for Israel and Ukraine. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Europe’s defense industries must switch toward arms productions. Manufacturers are struggling to meet demand for ammunition, as the war in Ukraine continues and fears of what another Donald Trump presidency could mean for U.S.-Europe security ties are renewed. Also: inflation lingers, and Airbnb adds yet another fee.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/germany-goes-on-defense Save to Pocket

What to know about Alaskapox after officials report first known fatal case

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Experts say that the illness is often mild and that infections remain rare in humans, as the virus is primarily found in small mammal populations throughout Alaska.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/what-to-know-about-alaskapox-after-officials-report-first-known-fatal-case/ Save to Pocket

Quakes sign breakout Norwegian player to replace homegrown winger Cowell

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Pellegrino is the Norwegian league’s reigning player of the year.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/quakes-sign-breakout-norwegian-player-to-replace-homegrown-winger-cowell/ Save to Pocket

Public EV Chargers In U.S. Are Getting More Reliable But There Aren’t Enough Of Them

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

Level 2 chargers seem to have been left behind as the industry races to install more DC fast chargers.

https://insideevs.com/news/708414/public-ev-charger-reliability-availability-jd-power-q4-2023/ Save to Pocket

How an ethic of care can heal the harms of journalism

date: 2024-02-13, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

This newsletter is almost four years old, and during that time we have chronicled again and again how research has shown how deeply frustrated many consumers are with news as it exists today. In the U.S., that’s especially true for conservatives who feel alienated by the mainstream media, and thus have abandoned local and national news sources in favor of Fox…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/how-an-ethic-of-care-can-heal-the-harms-of-journalism/ Save to Pocket

Clouds Over The Mines

date: 2024-02-13, from: David Rosenthal’s blog

Source

Bitcoin miners are getting a jump on an anticipated decline in revenue from the so-called halving in April, when the blockchain’s network protocol will reduce rewards for verifying transactions by half.

Miner reserves — unsold Bitcoin held in digital wallets associated with the companies — have dropped by 8,400 tokens since the start of 2024 to 1.8 million, a level last seen in June 2021, according to data compiled by CryptoQuant. Analysts said the decrease indicates miners are selling tokens.

“Miners have begun to sell more of their coins to bolster balance sheets and fund growth capex ahead of tougher times for margins when block rewards are halved in April,” said Matthew Sigel, head of digital-asset research at VanEck. “After the halving, scale will matter even more.”

Source

Why then did HUT pay $745 mln to acquire this company and its planned payments?

One person highly familiar with USBTC told us, “without the merger, [USBTC] would have done a structured bankruptcy.”

Hut 8’s North Bay mining facility has been non-operational for an extended period of time, and problems at its Drumheller facility “have been causing miners to fail.”

has an industry-low efficiency rate and, post halving, will produce Bitcoin at a loss of close to $20,000 per Bitcoin at current spot prices.

Hut 8 Corp., one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, named Asher Genoot to succeed Jaime Leverton as chief executive officer, three weeks after a short-seller released a report critical of its recent merger.

The transition is effective immediately. Genoot served as the chief operating officer and the president of US Bitcoin Corp. Miami-based US Bitcoin, which has large-scale mining facilities across the US including Texas, completed its merger with then-Canadian miner Hut 8 in late 2023.

The leadership transition comes amid increasing competition among the miners, a Bitcoin code update set to drastically reduce mining revenue in two months as well as the Jan. 18 report from short-seller J Capital Research alleging the merged company was a “pump and dump” waiting to happen. Hut 8 has disputed the claim.

abandoned several failed start-ups.

is a 30-year-old used-car salesman from Vancouver whose history is littered with involvement in SEC-defined pump-and-dumps, sporting share-price declines of 83%,

A cryptocurrency firm has lost a bid to force BC Hydro to provide the vast amounts of power needed for its operations, upholding the provincial government’s right to pause power connections for new crypto miners.

Conifex Timber Inc., a forestry firm that branched out into cryptocurrency mining, had gone to the B.C. Supreme Court to have the policy declared invalid.

But Justice Michael Tammen ruled Friday that the government’s move in December 2022 to pause new connections for cryptocurrency mining for 18 months was “reasonable” and not “unduly discriminatory.”

BC Hydro CEO Christopher O’Riley had told the court in an affidavit that the data centres proposed by Conifex would have consumed 2.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year.

Bitcoin miners in the US are consuming the same amount of electricity as the entire state of Utah, among others, according to a new analysis by the US Energy Information Administration. And that’s considered the low end of the range of use.

Electricity usage from mining operations represents 0.6% to 2.3% of all the country’s demand in 2023, according to the report released Thursday. It is the first time EIA has shared an estimate. The mining activity has generated mounting concerns from policymakers and electric grid planners about straining the grid during periods of peak demand, energy costs and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

“This estimate of U.S. electricity demand supporting cryptocurrency mining would equal annual demand ranging from more than three million to more than six million homes,” the report said.

Global electricity demand from data centers, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence could more than double over the next three years, adding the equivalent of Germany’s entire power needs, the International Energy Agency forecasts in its latest report.

There are more than 8,000 data centers globally, with about 33% in the US, 16% in Europe and close to 10% in China, with more planned. In Ireland, where data centers are developing rapidly, the IEA expects the sector to consume 32% of the country’s total electricity by 2026 compared to 17% in 2022. Ireland currently has 82 centers; 14 are under construction and 40 more are approved.

Overall global electricity demand is expected to see a 3.4% increase until 2026, the report found. The increase, however, will be more than covered by renewables, such as wind, solar and hydro, and all-time high nuclear power.

The Biden administration is now requiring some cryptocurrency producers to report their energy use following rising concerns that the growing industry could pose a threat to the nation’s electricity grids and exacerbate climate change.

The Energy Information Administration announced last week that it would start collecting energy use data from more than 130 “identified commercial cryptocurrency miners” operating in the US. The survey, which started this week, aims to get a sense of how the industry’s energy demand is evolving and where in the country cryptocurrency operations are growing fastest.

“As cryptocurrency mining has increased in the United States, concerns have grown about the energy-intensive nature of the business and its effects on the US electric power industry,” the EIA said in a new report, following the announcement. “Concerns expressed to EIA include strains to the electricity grid during periods of peak demand, the potential for higher electricity prices, as well as effects on energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.”

Source

A sudden freeze in Texas may have contributed to a 34% drop in the Bitcoin hash rate, as some miners were forced to curtail operations amid demand on the state’s energy grid.

Beginning on Jan. 14, temperatures in many parts of Texas dropped below freezing for one of the first times since a massive ice storm in February 2023. According to data from YCharts, the total Bitcoin network hash rate fell from more than 629 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Jan. 11 to roughly 415 EH/s on Jan. 15 — a 34% drop. The analytics site reported the hash rate increased to more than 454 EH/s on Jan. 16 as temperatures in Austin briefly rose above freezing during the day.

Source

Ethiopia has emerged as a rare opportunity for all firms that mine the original cryptocurrency, as climate change and power scarcity fuel a backlash against the $16 billion-a-year industry (at Bitcoin’s current price) elsewhere. But it holds special appeal for Chinese companies, which once dominated Bitcoin mining but have struggled to compete with local rivals in Texas, the current hub.

It is also a risky gamble, for the companies and Ethiopia alike. A succession of developing countries like Kazakhstan and Iran initially embraced Bitcoin mining, only to turn on the sector when its energy use threatened to fuel domestic discontent. China’s reign as the epicenter of Bitcoin mining came to an abrupt end in 2021, when the government banned it. Dozens of companies were forced to leave.

Ethiopian officials are wary of the controversy that accompanies Bitcoin mining, according to industry executives who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing government relations. Even after new generation capacity came online, almost half the population live without access to electricity, making mining a delicate topic. At the same time, it represents a potentially lucrative source of foreign-exchange earnings.
…
The reliance on abundant power is also a major vulnerability because it can put miners in competition for electricity with factories and households, exposing them to political backlash.

When Kazakzstan imposed fresh curbs and taxes on miners, “it basically killed the industry,” said Hashlabs co-founder Alen Makhmetov. Two years after the clampdown, his 10-megawatt facility there is still sitting idle.

And in an era when rising temperatures wreak havoc around the world, Bitcoin mining is increasingly seen as a contributor to global warming that doesn’t serve any productive purpose — even though miners have claimed they’re increasingly tapping clean energy. A study by United Nations University published in October estimated that two-thirds of the electricity used for Bitcoin mining in 2020 and 2021 was generated using fossil fuels.

The Arkansas Data Centers Act, popularly called the Right to Mine law, offers Bitcoin miners legal protections from communities that may not want them operating nearby. Passed just eight days after it was introduced, the law was written in part by the Satoshi Action Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Mississippi whose co-founder worked in the Trump administration rolling back Obama-era climate policies.

A furious backlash has some lawmakers considering a statewide ban.

Despite efforts to build bipartisan support, the Satoshi fund has succeeded predominantly in red states. But in Arkansas, where the state legislature is dominated by Republicans, it is conservatives who have led calls to repeal the law, including Senator Bryan King, a poultry farmer whose district includes a property purchased by one of the companies tied to the Chinese government. He said it was not fair that the Bitcoin operators received special protections under the law, which shields them from “discriminatory industry specific regulations and taxes,” including noise ordinances and zoning restrictions.

The opening of the GERD project increased Ethiopia’s installed generation capacity to 5.3 gigawatt, 92% of which comes from hydropower, a renewable energy source.

Once GERD is fully completed, Ethiopia’s generation capacity will double, according to Ethiopian Electric Power. It charges Bitcoin miners a fixed rate of 3.14 US cents per kilowatt hour for electricity drawn from substations, Marketing and Business Development Director Hiwot Eshetu said in an interview.

While that’s similar to the average in Texas, rates in the Lone Star State can swing wildly, Luxor’s Vera said, making profits there less predictable. In Ethiopia, the price will fall once miners connect directly to power plants, according to Hiwot.

But if the utility can make money selling power to the mines right by the dam they have little incentive to build out the grid than could get the power to the unserved half of the population.

As regards the longer-term issue of access to state-of-the-art chips, it is important to note that the best mining chips are sold by Bitmain, a Chinese company, but manufactured at TSMC in Taiwan. There are two major risks here. The first is that the US appears determined to prevent China importing leading-edge chips and the equipment to make them. China remains at least a generation and a half behind TSMC and Samsung, and reportedly has poor yields on its leading-edge process. These restrictions could well prevent Chinese mining companies acquiring leading-edge rigs, and might cause TSMC problems in fab-ing Bitmain products.

Second, there is the looming threat of a Chinese blockade or even invasion of Taiwan. Of course, difficulties for Bitcoin miners are hardly the major impact if these threats are made good. One might think that, even if supplies of new mining chips were cut off, existing rigs would continue working. In the short term they would, but there is a long history of rigs being obsolete after about 18 months. So they aren’t designed or operated for longevity.

https://blog.dshr.org/2024/02/clouds-over-mines.html Save to Pocket

Microsoft might have just pulled support for very old PCs in Windows 11 24H2

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Time to look elsewhere for an operating system for that ancient CPU

If you’re running a very old PC but have managed to persuade Windows 11 to boot, it looks like the rug could soon be pulled from under you, judging by a post claiming that Microsoft’s code will now require an instruction not found on old CPUs.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/microsoft_might_have_just_pulled/ Save to Pocket

Chrysler unveils radical Halcyon EV concept that will redefine the 100-year-old brand

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

An all-electric Chrysler that can drive itself with “unlimited” range? That’s what Chrysler is showcasing with the new Halcyon EV concept. The sleek sports car features futuristic tech, next-gen batteries, and a new design theme, giving us a glimpse into Chrysler’s all-electric future.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/chrysler-unveils-radical-halcyon-ev-concept-with-unlimited-range/ Save to Pocket

What’s inside the Senate’s $95 billion bill to aid Ukraine and Israel and counter China

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Now that the Senate has approved the emergency spending package, it is up to the Republican-led House to take it up, change it or let it die.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/whats-inside-the-senates-95-billion-bill-to-aid-ukraine-and-israel-and-counter-china-2/ Save to Pocket

How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills?

date: 2024-02-13, from: Quanta Magazine

The post How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-quickly-do-large-language-models-learn-unexpected-skills-20240213/ Save to Pocket

High school boys basketball rankings Feb. 13, 2024: Bay Area News Group Top 20

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Sizzling Archbishop Riordan moves to No. 2, San Ramon Valley and Granada swap spots, Sacred Heart Prep, Serra, Clayton Valley Charter climb.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/high-school-boys-basketball-rankings-feb-13-2024-bay-area-news-group-top-20/ Save to Pocket

Service Jobs Now Require Bizarre Personality Test From AI Company

date: 2024-02-13, from: 404 Media Group

Paradox.ai, which is used by some of the biggest employers in the country, requires applicants to respond to dozens of confusing slides featuring a blue alien named Ash.

https://www.404media.co/low-paying-jobs-require-bizarre-personality-evaluation-from-ai-company/ Save to Pocket

Japanese Automakers Are Using Profits From Hybrids To Fund EVs

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

Plus, California lawmakers want a tighter grip on robotaxis and Cruise gets a new safety boss.

https://insideevs.com/news/708479/honda-toyota-mazda-hybrid-evs/ Save to Pocket

County adds new stop sign to Blossom Hill manor in Los Gatos

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Intended to improve traffic flow at Lavender and Orange Blossom lanes.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/county-adds-new-stop-sign-to-blossom-hill-manor-in-los-gatos/ Save to Pocket

Campbell woman says ex distributed explicit photos of her

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Incident violates restraining order.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/campbell-woman-says-ex-distributed-explicit-photos-of-her/ Save to Pocket

Do you need to rinse your chicken before you cook it?

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Cooking poultry to the recommended internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit is the foolproof way to make sure you’re meeting food safety standards.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/do-you-need-to-rinse-your-chicken-before-you-cook-it/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-02-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Sometimes life pushes you to entrepreneurship. Sometimes it’s my taxes and my garbage representation in congress:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/111924834223719897 Save to Pocket

Los Gatos ‘Mythbuster’ helps launch national STEM challenge

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Kari Byron’s nonprofit aims to get more students interested in the sciences.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/los-gatos-mythbuster-helps-launch-national-stem-challenge/ Save to Pocket

Career Journey: Building Strength as an Astronaut Fitness Trainer

date: 2024-02-13, from: NASA breaking news

NASA astronauts must prepare their bodies for the physical stresses of living and working in microgravity before they launch on a spaceflight. Fortunately, they get customized training programs and plenty of help from astronaut fitness trainer Corey Twine, who shares decades of strength and conditioning expertise with astronauts every day at NASA’s Johnson Space Center […]

https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/career-journey-building-strength-as-an-astronaut-fitness-trainer/ Save to Pocket

Rest in Peace, Kelvin Kiptum

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/02/13/rest-in-peace-kelvin-kiptum/ Save to Pocket

High school girls basketball rankings Feb. 13, 2024: Bay Area News Group Top 20

date: 2024-02-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Mitty, San Ramon Valley and Carondelet remain in the Top 3, Heritage enters rankings after winning BVAL

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/13/high-school-girls-basketball-rankings-feb-13-2024-bay-area-news-group-top-20/ Save to Pocket

The World’s Biggest Tesla Supercharger Will Have Over 160 Stalls

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

The California EV charging station will also have 16 pull-though chargers that are designed to accommodate vehicles with trailers.

https://insideevs.com/news/708486/tesla-supercharger-largest-in-the-world-california/ Save to Pocket

LeVar Burton hosts an episode of Banned Book Rainbow, “where we talk…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043963-levar-burton-hosts-an-epi Save to Pocket

Backblaze’s geriatric hard drives kicked the bucket more in 2023

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Failure rates are consistent with aging – something we can all relate to

Cloud backup and storage provider Backblaze has published a report on hard drive failures for 2023, finding that rates increased during the year due to aging drives that it plans to upgrade.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/backblaze_failure_rates/ Save to Pocket

How NASA Uses Simple Technology to Track Lunar Missions

date: 2024-02-13, from: NASA breaking news

NASA is using a simple but effective technology called Laser Retroreflective Arrays (LRAs) to determine the locations of lunar landers more accurately. They will be attached to most of the landers from United States companies as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative. LRAs are inexpensive, small, and lightweight, allowing future lunar orbiters […]

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/how-nasa-uses-simple-technology-to-track-lunar-missions/ Save to Pocket

MOVIES VS. CAPITALISM: 27 Dresses (w/ Erica Bitton)

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Lever News

The MVC team explores the wedding-industrial complex in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

https://www.levernews.com/movies-vs-capitalism-27-dresses-w-erica-bitton/ Save to Pocket

US Inflation Slows as Price Pressures Ease Gradually

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — Annual inflation in the United States cooled last month yet remained elevated in the latest sign that the pandemic-fueled price surge is gradually and fitfully coming under control. 

Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the consumer price index rose 0.3% from December to January, up from a 0.2% increase the previous month. Compared with a year ago, prices are up 3.1%. 

That is less than the 3.4% figure in December and far below the 9.1% inflation peak in mid-2022. 

The latest reading is well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target at a time when public frustration with inflation has become a pivotal issue in President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election. 

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices climbed 0.4% last month, up from 0.3% in December and 3.9% over the past 12 months. Core inflation is watched especially closely because it typically provides a better read of where inflation is likely headed. The annual figure is the same as it was in December. 

Biden administration officials note that inflation has plummeted since pandemic-related supply disruptions and significant government aid sent it soaring three years ago. And a raft of forward-looking data suggests that inflation will continue to cool. 

Still, even as it nears the Fed’s target level, many Americans remain exasperated that average prices are still about 19% higher than they were when Biden took office. 

The mixed data released Tuesday could reinforce the caution of Fed officials, who have said they’re pleased with the progress in sharply reducing inflation but want to see further evidence before feeling confident that it’s sustainably headed back to their 2% target. Most economists think the central bank will want to wait until May or June to begin cutting its benchmark rate from its 22-year-high of roughly 5.4. 

The Fed raised its key rate 11 times from March 2022 to July of last year in a concerted drive to defeat high inflation. The result has been much higher borrowing rates for businesses and consumers, including for mortgages and auto loans. Rate cuts, whenever they happen, would eventually lead to lower borrowing costs for many categories of loans. 

In the final three months of last year, the economy grew at an unexpectedly rapid 3.3% annual rate. There are signs that growth remains healthy so far in 2024. Businesses engaged in a burst of hiring last month. Surveys of manufacturing companies found that new orders rose in January. And services companies reported an uptick in sales.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-inflation-slows-as-price-pressures-ease-gradually/7485559.html Save to Pocket

Brilliant Labs is selling a pair of fully open-source AI glasses called…

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/02/0043962-brilliant-labs-is-selling Save to Pocket

Recall: Multiple 2020-2022 Indian Bikes May Have Brake Light Issue

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

On affected models, incorrect ABS module software is causing brake lights to illuminate when riders aren’t braking.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708389/indian-motorcycle-brake-light-recall/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

This is what I imagine we all yearn for, for someone to really know us before we die. Okay if it can’t be other people, at least let it be a machine. Something like preserving a brain. Wouldn’t it be great to know that when you’re gone, the essential you, even if it doesn’t include your consciousness, persists? You could visit a person like you visit a website. This is just evolutionary, and it’s obviously going to happen.

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a142420 Save to Pocket

Crooks hook hundreds of exec accounts after phishing in Azure C-suite pond

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plenty of successful attacks observed with dangerous follow-on activity

The number of senior business executives stymied by an ongoing phishing campaign continues to rise with cybercriminals registering hundreds of cloud account takeovers (ATOs) since spinning it up in November.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/exec_accounts_phishing_campaign/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

The next hurdle for AI is to teach the software to learn about you. I think that’s what we all want. Start with the simplest things. This is my coding style, so give me all the example code you generate this way. Where does this end? No idea. But read Klara and the Sun, a truly great story, beautifully told, for a truly creative application.

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a141825 Save to Pocket

Flipper’s new Video Game Module is powered by Raspberry Pi

date: 2024-02-13, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)

Our friends at Flipper Devices have made a fantastic new video game accessory for their popular Flipper Zero, and it’s built on RP2040.

The post Flipper’s new Video Game Module is powered by Raspberry Pi appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/flippers-new-video-game-module-is-powered-by-raspberry-pi/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Today would be the perfect day to ski at Belleayre or Hunter, if you can get out of NYC where all the snow is falling. I have work to do and was planning on skiing tomorrow, expecting 8 inches of fresh snow. We’re not getting much from this storm in the Catskills, NYC is getting the brunt. And any day you can’t get here from the city means not many people on the mountain. 😄

http://scripting.com/2024/02/13.html#a141546 Save to Pocket

Celebrating Community Contributors

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Deno blog

Introducing TypeScript Champions (TSC), a new way to celebrate and support some of the most prolific TypeScript contributors.

https://deno.com/blog/celebrating-community-contributors-typscript-champions Save to Pocket

Pluralistic: Kelly Link’s “Book of Love” (13 Feb 2023)

date: 2024-02-13, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog

Today’s links Kelly Link’s “Book of Love”: A deceptively quirky tale with rusty razors at its core. 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. Kelly Link’s “Book of Love” (permalink) Kelly Link is one of science fiction’s most important writers, a master of the short story to rank with the likes of Ted Chiang. For a decade, Kelly’s friends have traded whispers that she was working on a novel – a giant novel – and the rumors were true and the novel is glorious and you will love it: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/book-of-love-9781804548455/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239722/the-book-of-love-by-kelly-link/ It’s called The Book of Love and it’s massive – 650 pages! It is glorious. It is tricky. If you’ve read Link’s short stories (which honestly, you must read), you know her signature move: a bone-dry witty delivery, used to spin tales of deceptive whimsy and quirkiness, disarming you with daffiness while she sets the hook and yanks. That’s the unmistakeable, inimitable texture of a Kelly Link story: deft literary brushstrokes, painting a picture so charming and silly that you don’t even notice when she cuts you without mercy. Turns out that she can quite handily do this for hundreds of pages, and the effect only gets better when it’s given space to unfold. Hard to tell you about this one without spoilers! But I’ll tell you this much. It’s a story about three teenaged friends who return from death and find themselves in the music room at their high school, face to face with their mild-mannered music teacher, Mr Anabin. Anabin explains what’s happened in frustratingly cryptic – and very emphatic – terms, but is interrupted when a sinister shape-shifting wolf enters the music room. This is Bogomil, and whenever he speaks, Mr Anabin turns his back – and vice versa. Anabin and Bogomil appear to be rivals, and Bogomil may or may not have been the keeper of the land of the dead from which the three have escaped. There’s also a forth, a tattered shade who’s been dead so long they don’t remember who they are or anything about themselves. Bogomil would like to take the four back to the deadlands, but Anabin proposes a contest and Bogomil agrees – but no one explains the contest or its rules (or even its stakes) to the four dead teenagers. That’s the wind up. The pitch that follows is flawless, a long and twisting mystery about friendship, love, queerness, rock-and-roll, stardom, parenthood, loyalty, lust and duty. There’s a terrifying elder god of Lovecraftian proportions. There are ghosts upon ghosts. There are ancient grudges. There are sudden revelations that come from unexpected angles but are, in retrospect, perfectly set up. More than anything, there are characters. It’s impossible not to love Link’s characters, despite (because of) their self-destructive choices and their impossible dilemmas. They are so sweet, but they are also by turns mean and spiteful and resentful, like the pinch of salt that transforms a caramel from inedible spun sugar into something that bites even as it delights. These characters, so very likable, are often dead or at death’s door, and that peril propels the story like an unstoppable locomotive. From the very start, it’s clear that some of them can’t survive to the end, and Link is merciless in making you root for all of them, even though this means rooting against them all. This, in turn, creates moments of toe-curling, sublime horror. Link has built a complex machine with more moving parts than anyone has any business being able to keep track of. And yet, each of these parts meshes flawlessly with all the others. The book ends with such triumphant perfection that it lingers long after you put it down. I can’t wait to read this one again. Hey look at this (permalink) Apple Is Lobbying Against Right to Repair Six Months After Supporting Right to Repair https://www.404media.co/apple-is-lobbying-against-right-to-repair-again/ Blowing the Door Off Boeing’s ‘Epstein Deal’ https://prospect.org/justice/2024-02-09-boeing-max-doj-epstein-deal/ RSS Parrot https://rss-parrot.net/ This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago danah boyd’s social networks talk from ETCON https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2004/02/11/my_etech_talk_revenge_of_the_user.html#004027 #20yrsago Harlan Ellison’s AOL/Time-Warner suit https://web.archive.org/web/20040901000000*/http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/02/9th_circuit_wro.html #20yrsago Google is Harder Than it Looks ETCON talk notes https://craphound.com/googleetcon04.txt #20yrsago Emotional Design: The Principles ETCON talk notes https://craphound.com/normanetcon04.txt #20yrsago My ETCON talk, in the Public Domain https://craphound.com/ebooksneitherenorbooks.txt #15yrsago Apple sez jailbreaking iPhones is illegal and should be banned https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal #15yrsago RIP, Atomic Ed Grothus, curator and proprietor of the Black Hole of Los Alamos https://web.archive.org/web/20090213231519/http://wps.com/archives/EdGrothus/ #15yrsago Hard data on ebook piracy versus sales — slides from O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing panel https://archive.org/details/ChallengingNotionsOffree #15yrsago FDR: Time-travelling destroyer of economies https://prospect.org/article/country-run-idiots./ #15yrsago Kansas Representative introduces anti-netroots campaign finance reform bill https://web.archive.org/web/20090216145249/http://seantevis.com/weblog/story/my-response-to-house-bill-no-2244-aka-the-sean-tevis-bill/ #15yrsago EFF asks the FTC to protect the public from Digital Rights Management https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/DRM/drmcomments_final.pdf #15yrsago Neil Gaiman waxes sensible on Kindle Audiobooks and the redonkulous Author’s Guild https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/02/quick-argument-summary.html #15yrsago Salmonella Peanut CEO won’t eat his own peanuts, cites Fifth Amendment https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/02/11/peanut-co-owner-refuses-to-testify-to-congress #15yrsago Why the EVE Online industrial espionage econopocalypse is “fun” https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/02/11/the-eve-upset/ #10yrsago Chinese-language Bing searches in the USA censored to match mainland Chinese results https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/11/bing-censors-chinese-language-search-results #10yrsago The Coruscant Tapestry: 30′ long Star Wars cross-stitchhttps://web.archive.org/web/20140222222211/https://nineteeneightyeight.com/products/aled-lewis-the-coruscant-tapestry #10yrsago Militant commander accidentally blows up dozens of trainee suicide bombers https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/suicide-bomber-kills-suicide-bomers #5yrsago Police lobbyist: cops will not be motivated to stop crime unless they are allowed to steal people’s stuff https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/taken/2019/02/03/sc-civil-forfeiture-police-defend-practice-say-funds-essential-law-enforcement/2746412002/ #5yrsago Courthouse shut after sheriff notices bedbugs “falling out of” lawyer’s clothes https://www.3newsnow.com/news/national/oklahoma-lawyer-with-bed-bugs-falling-out-of-clothing-causes-county-courthouse-to-close #5yrsago Thomas Piketty explains how Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax is American as apple pie https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2019/02/12/wealth-tax-in-america/#xtor=RSS-32280322 #5yrsago After promising health care execs that Medicare for All was dead, Pelosi’s team plans toothless pharma deal https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/pelosi-advisor-proposes-non-binding-arbitration-road-lowering-drug-prices.html #5yrsago Netherlands court strikes down Dutch grifter’s patent claim over Ethiopia’s ancient staple grain teff https://qz.com/africa/1545111/ethiopias-teff-flour-is-no-longer-patented-as-a-dutch-invention #5yrsago Bank lobbyists are scared to meet with AOC because she might humiliate them on Twitter later https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-aoc/banks-weigh-whether-to-embrace-or-avoid-progressive-firebrand-ocasio-cortez-idUSKCN1PV27N/ #5yrsago Barefoot Engineers: rural women from Malawi, trained as solar engineers, who are electrifying their remote villages https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2019/feb/11/barefoot-engineers-malawi-solar-power-in-pictures #5yrsago Amazon just bought mesh wifi company Eero. Oh, great. https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18221441/amazon-buying-eero-disappointing #5yrsago A short list of “all the bad things” about Uber and Lyft https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/02/04/all-the-bad-things-about-uber-and-lyft-in-one-simple-list #5yrsago The WPA’s horseback librarians https://historydaily.org/female-librarians-on-horseback #5yrsago The most censored Wechat topics: US-China trade war, Canadian arrest of Huawei CFO, ZTE sanctions, more https://globalvoices.org/2019/02/11/censored-on-wechat-a-year-of-content-removals-on-chinas-most-powerful-social-media-platform/ #5yrsago Freedom EV: free/open replacement firmware for your electric vehicle — including a Tesla https://github.com/jnuyens/freedomev #5yrsago How to think about climate change and “cost-benefit analysis” https://progressivereform.org/cpr-blog/on-buying-insurance-and-ignoring-cost-benefit-analysis/ #5yrsago Artist Nan Goldin leads protests at the Guggenheim and the Met over their reputation-laundering of the Sacklers’ opioid epidemic fortunes https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/nan-goldin-leads-a-protest-at-the-guggenheim-against-the-sackler-family #5yrsago Addressing inequality is foreign policy, not domestic https://crookedtimber.org/2019/02/11/democracy-and-inequality-as-a-global-policy-agenda/ #1yrago After Ohio rail disaster, Buttigieg is silent on restoring the safety standards Trump repealed https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp Colophon (permalink) 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 Bezzle at Weller Book Works (Salt Lake City), Feb 21 https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow Tucson Festival of Books, Mar 9/10 https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676 Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26 https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006 Media Ecology Association keynote, Jun 6-9 (Amherst, NY) https://media-ecology.org/convention American Association of Law Libraries keynote, Jul 21 (Chicago) https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/ Recent appearances: Why Taylor Left Tiktok (Today, Explained) https://open.spotify.com/episode/62R2sJ6cEUOitIDPBdmwpy Online Platform Decay (Tim Ventura) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83SULjan-JM Decentralization, Digital Rights, and the Future of the Internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsQuNbWbByA 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/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/ Save to Pocket

Broker That Sold Abortion Clinic Data Contracted with Air Force for ‘Targeting’

date: 2024-02-13, from: 404 Media Group

New documents show that SafeGraph, a company that previously sold location related to abortion clinics, was contracted to explicitly help the Air Force with “targeting” in “contested geographies.”

https://www.404media.co/safegraph-abortion-clinic-data-contracted-with-air-force-for-targeting/ Save to Pocket

Hiring prohibition for official misconduct conviction vetoed

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero has vetoed Bill 30-37, the measure that would prohibit employment in the government of Guam for individuals convicted of official misconduct.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/hiring-prohibition-for-official-misconduct-conviction-vetoed/article_e4522a6e-ca20-11ee-8177-17aef6f84240.html Save to Pocket

Suspect arrested in fatal July 2023 crash

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

The driver of a Jeep involved in a three-car accident that authorities said resulted in the death of a 16-year-old passenger has been arrested and charged.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/suspect-arrested-in-fatal-july-2023-crash/article_099cfdb6-c9fa-11ee-a1eb-9fc998ce22ce.html Save to Pocket

Southern High JROTC wins Honor Unit with Distinction

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

The Southern High School JROTC program was awarded the Honor Unit with Distinction and the top three cadets of the Knight Battalion were recognized by the U.S. Army Command’s 8th Brigade last month.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/southern-high-jrotc-wins-honor-unit-with-distinction/article_2467d7ce-ca18-11ee-bab0-ffe35f930f1a.html Save to Pocket

Testimony heard, bill amending abortion informed consent laws

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

Editor’s note: This article initially stated that the Superior Court of Guam decided that a local abortion ban essentially has no effect today. The article has been corrected to say Supreme Court of Guam.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/testimony-heard-bill-amending-abortion-informed-consent-laws/article_ab9d3298-c991-11ee-918d-1b634681a347.html Save to Pocket

OAG, defense argue theories as Nededog murder trial ends

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

Jurors in the trial of Jamie John Nededog have heard all the evidence and arguments presented by attorneys to determine whether Nededog is guilty or not guilty of killing Edwin Pirando.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/oag-defense-argue-theories-as-nededog-murder-trial-ends/article_6cfb7b2c-ca21-11ee-a636-a3c4ddde29b1.html Save to Pocket

Cardiologists envision better heart health for Guamanians

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

Heart disease is the leading cause of death on Guam, accounting for 33.9% of total deaths in 2015. Getting those numbers down is a collaborative effort, one that was recognized by the Guam Legislature on Monday.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/cardiologists-envision-better-heart-health-for-guamanians/article_13843fde-c968-11ee-9616-474f60792d3b.html Save to Pocket

Student, 18, allegedly went to school drunk

date: 2024-02-13, from: Guam Daily Post

An 18-year-old student was charged after allegedly being intoxicated at school.

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/student-18-allegedly-went-to-school-drunk/article_ba39753e-c949-11ee-8090-87078b4373ee.html Save to Pocket

Tesla releases new yoke steering wheel with normal horn

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla has started to deliver a new version of its yoke steering wheel and it now features a normal horn.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/tesla-releases-new-yoke-steering-wheel-with-normal-horn/ Save to Pocket

Kipp Mueller | California Must Help Its Small Businesses

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and the backbone of our communities. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses account for 64% of new jobs in America and employ nearly half of the American workforce.  About 44% of U.S. economic activity comes from small businesses, the reason for America’s robust middle class.  […]

The post Kipp Mueller | California Must Help Its Small Businesses appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/kipp-mueller-california-must-help-its-small-businesses/ Save to Pocket

Jeff Solomon | Happy 105th to The Signal

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

Congratulations on serving our community for 105 years. That’s an accomplishment! As a longtime Santa Clarita resident of over 35 years, I’ve been a subscriber for a few of those years. With print newspapers being so challenged these days, it’s a blessing to have a community paper that does a great job covering what’s happening […]

The post Jeff Solomon | Happy 105th to The Signal appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/jeff-solomon-happy-105th-to-the-signal/ Save to Pocket

Maria Wright | An Education on Sexual Assault

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

This is in reply to Mr. Ron Perry’s farcical depiction of what happened to E. Jean Carroll and the ultimate outcome of the trial (letters, Feb. 9). First of all, he states that she was “raped” by the former president. The verdict clearly indicates that Donald Trump was found liable for “sexual assault.” Whereas the […]

The post Maria Wright | An Education on Sexual Assault appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/maria-wright-an-education-on-sexual-assault/ Save to Pocket

Rick Barker | An Even Deeper Dive

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

In re: Gary Horton, commentary, “A Deeper Dive Into Immigration,” Feb. 7.  Perhaps Mr. Horton  just failed to dive deep enough in the above-referenced letter to see that  there is a HUGE difference between legal and illegal residents who are not citizens of the United States legally obtaining work permits.  An even deeper dive than […]

The post Rick Barker | An Even Deeper Dive appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/rick-barker-an-even-deeper-dive/ Save to Pocket

Kia EV8 Coming In 2026 As Electric Stinger Replacement: Leaked Docs

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

Codenamed GT1, the electric sedan will offer up to 603 hp and over 400 miles of range, according to a leaked production schedule.

https://insideevs.com/news/708433/kia-ev8-electric-stinger-2026/ Save to Pocket

How COVID-19 Changed US Office Fashion

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

Hybrid work relaxed office fashion, but formal attire might be making a comeback

https://www.voanews.com/a/how-covid-19-changed-office-fashion/7484394.html Save to Pocket

Tesla’s Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

‘Literally bulletproof’ but needs constant cleaning to stave off corrosion

It’s only been a few months since Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck made its way to those at the front of the queue, but the arrival has been tarnished for some.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/tesla_cybertruck_rust/ Save to Pocket

Dutch police found a way to test e-bike power on the side of the road

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

Dutch police have a new weapon in their battle against high-speed and high-power electric bicycles: a roadside testing platform to catch hot-rodded e-bikes.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/13/dutch-police-found-a-way-to-test-e-bike-power-on-the-side-of-the-road/ Save to Pocket

Everybody Is Mad About Biden’s Offshore Lease Plans

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: New York City is expecting six inches of snow • Intense flooding has been recorded across Oman • Parts of southeastern Australia are facing the worst bushfires in four years.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Oil industry and environmentalists are mad about Biden’s offshore lease plans

The Biden administration’s decision to dramatically reduce the number of offshore drilling lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico is proving to be unpopular with the oil industry and environmentalists. The plan is to hold just three lease sales between 2025 and 2029, a record low and far below the 47 proposed during the Trump administration. This week both the American Petroleum Institute (the fossil fuel industry’s biggest trade group) and Earthjustice (an environmental group) filed separate lawsuits over the plan “in a sign of the political tightrope policymakers must walk when rulemaking in the U.S. climate and energy sector,” explained the Financial Times. The oil group wants more lease sales, and accused the government of forcing Americans to rely on foreign energy sources; Earthjustice wants fewer lease sales (or none at all) and said the administration was ignoring public health impacts for frontline communities. “The oil and gas industry is already sitting on 9mn acres of undeveloped leases. They certainly are not entitled to more,” said Brettny Hardy, an Earthjustice attorney.

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2. Chinese battery giants team up on solid-state commercialization

China’s leading carmakers and battery manufacturers are joining forces to turbocharge commercialization of solid-state electric vehicle batteries. The China All-Solid-State Battery Collaborative Innovation Platform (CASIP) includes six of the top 10 global battery makers, reported Peter Johnson at Electrek, including would-be rivals BYD and CATL. Solid-state batteries are “a kind of holy-grail technology,” explained Patrick George at Heatmap. They can cut charging times and increase EV range compared to lithium-ion batteries, so carmakers are eager to bring a solid-state battery to market. But mass production is still very difficult. The Chinese project “pools academia and industry leaders,” Johnson said, and “could revolutionize the EV market.”

3. Study chronicles 30 years of ice melt on Greenland

Over the last three decades, Greenland has lost about 11,000 square miles of its ice cover due to global warming, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. The researchers, from the University of Leeds, analyzed high resolution satellite images to understand historical melting trends. They found that as the ice disappears, plants are spreading – the amount of land with some vegetation on it more than doubled in three decades. Greenland is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. The melting ice creates a feedback loop – exposed rock absorbs more heat, therefore raising the temperature of the land. And the permafrost is melting, too, releasing carbon dioxide and methane.

University of Leeds

4. China’s emissions could peak sooner than expected

Experts think China’s greenhouse gas emissions will peak earlier than originally anticipated, reported The Wall Street Journal. The turning point could even come this year. China is the biggest annual greenhouse gas emitter, but it is rapidly scaling up renewable energy. Just last year its solar power capacity increased by 55%, “more than 500 million solar panels and well above the total installed solar capacity of the U.S.,” the Journal report explained. And it installed more wind energy than the rest of the world combined. “An early peak would have a lot of symbolic value and send a signal to the world that we’ve turned a corner,” said Jan Ivar Korsbakken, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research.

5. Debate rages on over hypothetical Category 6 hurricanes

Two climate scientists have sparked debate in their field by suggesting the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, which is used to determine a hurricane’s category, is insufficient in describing the risks posed by stronger storms in the age of climate change. The scale currently goes from 1 to 5, but Michael Wehner of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and James Kossin of the First Street Foundation pondered whether a Category 6 was needed. This was more than a week ago, and the debate is still going. The main objection from other climate experts is that adding a new category “increases the chance of people underestimating the risks from storms that are lower than the highest category,” ABC News explained. After all, the category only focuses on wind speed and doesn’t tell residents much about other deadly hazards like storm surge and rainfall, which account for most storm-related deaths. “It is not evident how having an additional category on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale would improve preparation or decisions,” said AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter.

THE KICKER

882 private jets landed in Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend, the second highest number ever for the event, and just below last year’s total of 931.

https://heatmap.news/politics/biden-offshore-lease-lawsuit Save to Pocket

Honda’s Winner X Is Gunning For Victory In The Philippines

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The Winner X is the newest player in the premium “underbone” category.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708395/honda-winner-x-launch-philippines/ Save to Pocket

Real Estate Mogul, Others Pour $1M To Defeat Progressive LA City Councilmember Nithya Raman

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The LAist

Raman faces two challengers in the hotly contested primary race for Council District 4.

https://laist.com/news/politics/real-estate-mogul-others-pour-1m-to-defeat-progressive-la-city-councilmember-nithya-raman-in-2024-election Save to Pocket

At the Swiftposium, Scholars Gather to Analyze a Superstar’s Astonishing Influence

date: 2024-02-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The University of Melbourne welcomed academics from all over the world for its Taylor Swift conference

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/swiftposium-scholars-analyze-taylor-swift-astonishing-influence-180983780/ Save to Pocket

Use Our Game Safety Buddy to Protect Your Kids and Yourself  on Gaming Consoles

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Markup blog

Our tool and advice can help you navigate the overwhelming number of settings on today’s game platforms.

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/02/13/use-our-game-safety-buddy-to-protect-your-kids-and-yourself-on-gaming-consoles Save to Pocket

US Senate Approves Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-senate-set-for-final-foreign-aid-bill-vote/7485440.html Save to Pocket

The Chrysler Halcyon Concept Is A Sleek Cruiser With Wireless Charging

date: 2024-02-13, from: Inside EVs News

The Chrysler Halcyon concept is Stellantis’ newest take on EVs. It’s sleek, open-focused, and aimed solely at comfort and ease of driving.

https://insideevs.com/news/708465/chrysler-halcyon-concept/ Save to Pocket

Infosys enjoyed a boom in UK government invoices in 2023

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Linked to the prime minister’s wife, the Indian firm achieves contract wins in open and fair process

Tech services biz Infosys enjoyed a 49 percent increase in its invoices from the UK government for 2023, according to research figures.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/infosys_uk_government_contracts/ Save to Pocket

The uglier sides of an industry centered on beauty

date: 2024-02-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Modeling may seem glamorous, but the realities of the industry can be far from picture-perfect. Today, as part of our Econ Extra Credit series, we take a hard look at what is being done to protect models and hold the agencies that sometimes recruit and exploit them accountable. Also: the most watched program in U.S. history and a brief, planned Valentine’s Day strike among ride-share drivers.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-uglier-sides-of-an-industry-centered-on-beauty Save to Pocket

PeerJ Awards Winners at SESBE 2024

date: 2024-02-13, from: PeerJ blog

Set against the backdrop of Málaga, much like its predecessors, the IX Biennial Meeting of the Spanish Society for Evolutionary Biology (SESBE), held between the 17th and the 19th of January 2024, was a dynamic platform that hosted over 150 participants, not only from Spain, but from other 6 countries. The inherently interdisciplinary nature of […]

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284888837/peerj-awards-winners-at-sesbe-2024/ Save to Pocket

Farmers threaten protests in India

date: 2024-02-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: Police in Delhi banned all public gatherings after farmers threatened major demonstrations in India’s capital. Polish farmers stopped several Ukrainian trucks and emptied some of their grain cargo to protest what they say is unfair competition. And couples in the United Kingdom planning to grab takeout for a cozy Valentine’s night in may be disappointed as thousands of delivery drivers plan to go on strike.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/farmers-threaten-protests-in-india Save to Pocket

Molly White Reviews Blockchain Book

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-12, from: Bruce Schneier blog

Molly White—of “Web3 is Going Just Great” fame—reviews Chris Dixon’s blockchain solutions book: Read Write Own:

In fact, throughout the entire book, Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service at any kind of scale. The closest he ever comes is when he speaks of how “for decades, technologists have dreamed of building a grassroots internet access provider”. He describes one project that “got further than anyone else”: Helium. He’s right, as long as you ignore the fact that Helium was providing LoRaWAN, not Internet, that by the time he was writing his book Helium hotspots had long since passed the phase where they might generate even enough tokens for their operators to merely break even, and that the network was pulling in somewhere around $1,150 in usage fees a month despite the company being valued at $1.2 billion. Oh, and that the company had widely lied to the public about its supposed big-name clients, and that its executives have been accused of hoarding the project’s token to enrich themselves. But hey, a16z sunk millions into Helium (a fact Dixon never mentions), so might as well try to drum up some new interest!…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/molly-white-reviews-blockchain-book.html Save to Pocket

Stormy Times Ahead

date: 2024-02-13, from: Dan Rather’s Steady

I noticed Donald Trump will spend more time in front of a judge this week than in front of potential voters. It’s his new normal. Trump’s schedule looks like a litigious hellscape. And his calendar for the foreseeable future is more of the same. It’s all so antithetical to my belief about what kind of person should lead our great nation.

https://steady.substack.com/p/stormy-times-ahead Save to Pocket

ChatGPT? Sure, I’ve heard it. But is AI coming for my job?

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Some users will pay for AI tools, but more worry about their future employment prospects

What a difference a year makes. Analysts at Jefferies have run a survey showing that nearly all US office workers have heard of ChatGPT - up from just over half a year ago - yet the flipside is that some now fear automation is coming for their jobs.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/chatgpt_survey/ Save to Pocket

Even With Trump, Kim Jong Un May Spurn Talks, Analysts Warn

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/even-with-trump-kim-jong-un-may-spurn-talks-analysts-warn/7485399.html Save to Pocket

RIP John Walker, software and hardware hacker extraordinaire

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Creator of the Hacker Diet and sponsor of pre-Web hypermedia system Xanadu

Obit  Polymath, pioneering developer of software and hardware, a prolific writer, and true old-school hacker John Walker has passed away.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/john_walker_obit/ Save to Pocket

Unit4 software’s budget bungle leaves schools counting the cost

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

MP calls on council to ensure education teams can plan their financial futures

A letter from a former government minister to the head of education for one of the UK’s largest local authorities reveals the financial disruption caused by the implementation of a Unit4 HR, finance, and payroll system.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/unit4_surrey_county_council/ Save to Pocket

BIIF seeking track officials

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The Big Island Interscholastic Federation (BIIF) is seeking officials for the upcoming track and field season.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/biif-seeking-track-officials/ Save to Pocket

PHOTOS: Wrestling nears season’s end

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>By CONOR LANGS</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/photos-wrestling-nears-seasons-end/ Save to Pocket

The Chiefs have achieved dynasty status with their third Super Bowl title in five years

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>LAS VEGAS &#8212; This was supposed to be the year when the Kansas City Chiefs were vulnerable. Their wide receivers were dropping passes, their offense was committing penalties, Travis Kelce was supposedly getting old and there was no way that Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes could possibly overcome all of that.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/the-chiefs-have-achieved-dynasty-status-with-their-third-super-bowl-title-in-five-years/ Save to Pocket

Jen Pawol on verge of becoming first MLB woman umpire, gets full-time spring training assignment

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>NEW YORK &#8212; After nearly a decade climbing through the minor leagues, Jen Pawol is poised to break the umpiring gender barrier.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/jen-pawol-on-verge-of-becoming-first-mlb-woman-umpire-gets-full-time-spring-training-assignment/ Save to Pocket

Spring training preview: The Dodgers won the offseason. Will it buy them a championship?

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>PHOENIX &#8212; Money can buy lots of things, including Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pair of Japanese superstars that set the Los Angeles Dodgers back more than $1 billion.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/spring-training-preview-the-dodgers-won-the-offseason-will-it-buy-them-a-championship/ Save to Pocket

Tiger Woods starts a new year with a new look. Sun Day Red is his new apparel through TaylorMade

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>LOS ANGELES (AP) &#8212; Tiger Woods and Sunday red is no longer just a shirt. It&#8217;s a brand.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/sports/tiger-woods-starts-a-new-year-with-a-new-look-sun-day-red-is-his-new-apparel-through-taylormade/ Save to Pocket

Bill for ‘clean elections’ has widespread public support

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>A proposal to publicly finance Hawaii election campaigns is riding a wave of public support through the state Legislature.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/bill-for-clean-elections-has-widespread-public-support/ Save to Pocket

Captain Cook man sentenced for violent robbery

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>A 21-year-old Captain Cook man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a violent robbery last June at an Ocean View business.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/captain-cook-man-sentenced-for-violent-robbery/ Save to Pocket

Trump backs his candidate for RNC chair, and his daughter-in-law for co-chair

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Former President Donald Trump on Monday night made public what he has been discussing privately for days: He has settled on someone to replace Ronna McDaniel as the chair of the Republican National Committee, and wants his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be the co-chair.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/trump-backs-his-candidate-for-rnc-chair-and-his-daughter-in-law-for-co-chair/ Save to Pocket

Military judge to rule on CIA torture program in Sept. 11 case

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba &#8212; A defense lawyer asked a military judge Monday to dismiss the Sept. 11 conspiracy charges against a Saudi prisoner who was tortured in CIA custody, describing the secret overseas prison network where the man was held as part of a &#8220;vast criminal international enterprise&#8221; that trafficked in torture.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/military-judge-to-rule-on-cia-torture-program-in-sept-11-case/ Save to Pocket

Animal Control recruitment, staffing ‘probably our biggest issue,’ administrator says

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Hawaii County officials last week lamented a lack of resources for dealing with the island&#8217;s dangerous dogs, even as residents urged them to take action.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/animal-control-recruitment-staffing-probably-our-biggest-issue-administrator-says/ Save to Pocket

Will Biden and Trump face one another in presidential debates? There’s no commitment yet

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>WASHINGTON &#8212; Nikki Haley is challenging Donald Trump to debate. Trump is challenging Joe Biden to debate. And Biden is laughing Trump off, at least publicly.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/will-biden-and-trump-face-one-another-in-presidential-debates-theres-no-commitment-yet/ Save to Pocket

Biden’s ‘diminished faculties’ a great concern

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>If Democrats believe Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, why do they insist on sending a weakened 81-year-old Joe Biden into battle against him? That question became a bit more urgent last week.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/opinion/bidens-diminished-faculties-a-great-concern/ Save to Pocket

Public advised about convoys from PTA

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>The following is a schedule of upcoming military vehicle convoys this week from Pohakuloa Training Area to Kawaihae Harbor.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/public-advised-about-convoys-from-pta/ Save to Pocket

‘A horrible, perfect storm’: Frustrations rise as shortage of Adderall, other ADHD medication continues

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>All Jennifer Howell wanted was to find medication for her son. Instead, she was caught in a maze of desperate phone calls to pharmacies and physicians.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/a-horrible-perfect-storm-frustrations-rise-as-shortage-of-adderall-other-adhd-medication-continues/ Save to Pocket

Atlantic Ocean is headed for a tipping point

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That&#8217;s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie &#8220;The Day After Tomorrow&#8221; depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean&#8217;s circulation and the catastrophic consequences.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/opinion/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point/ Save to Pocket

Your Views for February 13

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Knowledge is the&#0010;key to freedom</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/opinion/your-views-for-february-13-7/ Save to Pocket

Israeli forces rescue 2 hostages in dramatic Gaza raid that killed at least 67 Palestinians

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>RAFAH, Gaza Strip &#8212; Israeli forces rescued two hostages early Monday, storming a heavily guarded apartment in a densely packed town in the Gaza Strip as airstrikes carried out to cover the raid killed more than 60 Palestinians, including women and children.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/israeli-forces-rescue-2-hostages-in-dramatic-gaza-raid-that-killed-at-least-67-palestinians/ Save to Pocket

Biden’s first TikTok post jokes about Super Bowl conspiracy theory

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Did President Joe Biden cunningly rig the Super Bowl so the Kansas City Chiefs would win?</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/bidens-first-tiktok-post-jokes-about-super-bowl-conspiracy-theory/ Save to Pocket

Dwayne Johnson slams reporter for ‘toxic, false clickbait garbage’ after WWE event used to criticize Maui relief efforts

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>(TNS) &#8212; Dwayne Johnson railed against journalist Nick Sortor on X (formerly Twitter) over &#8220;toxic, false clickbait garbage&#8221; after the latter framed Johnson&#8217;s appearance at a recent WWE press conference in a way that called out the superstar&#8217;s relief efforts in Maui. A video from the WWE event showed Johnson getting booed by the crowd. Sortor claimed that was because the crowd was calling out Johnson for not delivering on his promise to provide financial relief to Maui.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/dwayne-johnson-slams-reporter-for-toxic-false-clickbait-garbage-after-wwe-event-used-to-criticize-maui-relief-efforts/ Save to Pocket

Obituaries for Feb. 13

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Arnold &#8220;Ano&#8221; Kalakini Bannister, 54, of Kealakekua died Feb. 7 at Hilo Medical Center. Born in Wahiawa, Oahu, he was a former heavy equipment operator for E.M. Rivera. Services at a later date. Survived by significant other, Davolyn Pama of Kealakekua; daughter, Briana (Precious) Pama of Kealakekua; sons, Kolten (Ashley) Bannister of Hookena and Travis (Kapua) Pama of Kealakekua; mother, Elizabeth Bannister of Kealakekua; sisters, Leonora (Timothy) Walsh of Arizona and Karen (Wray) Ichishita of Kealakekua; brothers, Clinton (Roylynn) Bannister of Hilo, Moke (Tanya) Bannister of Honaunau and Aaron (Heather) Kaiawe of Kona; hanai sister, Tracey Kaiawe; godchildren, Lainie (Jordan) Alapai, Kassie (Michael) Alapai, Caylie Alapai and Tia (Dayton) Alapai; nine grandchildren; nieces and nephews. Arrangements by Dodo Mortuary.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/obituaries/obituaries-for-feb-13/ Save to Pocket

Legislation to eliminate Hawaii’s tip credits deferred for vote again

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Senate Bill 2784 has divided employees and employers over whether to pay tipped employees at least Hawaii&#8217;s minimum wage and has been deferred for a second time.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/legislation-to-eliminate-hawaiis-tip-credits-deferred-for-vote-again/ Save to Pocket

Shooter entered Texas megachurch with young son and used AR-style rifle in the attack, police say

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>HOUSTON &#8212; The shooter who opened fire at a Texas megachurch on Sunday before being killed by security officers had a history of mental illness and used an AR-style rifle in the attack that also critically injured their 7-year-old son, authorities said Monday.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/shooter-entered-texas-megachurch-with-young-son-and-used-ar-style-rifle-in-the-attack-police-say/ Save to Pocket

Trump appears at federal court in Florida for closed hearing in his classified documents case

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) &#8212; Seeking to turn legal problems into political gain, former President Donald Trump arrived Monday to a crowd of supporters at a federal courthouse in Florida for a closed hearing in the criminal case charging him with mishandling classified documents.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/trump-appears-at-federal-court-in-florida-for-closed-hearing-in-his-classified-documents-case/ Save to Pocket

Fed officials eye ‘broadening’ disinflation as new rate-cut test

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Some Federal Reserve officials, who were surprised by inflation&#8217;s rapid descent in 2023, seem to be setting a new bar for interest-rate cuts: a broader pullback in price pressures.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/nation-world-news/fed-officials-eye-broadening-disinflation-as-new-rate-cut-test/ Save to Pocket

Hawaiian Electric customers asked to conserve electricity this evening

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p>Hawaiian Electric customers are advised to conserve electricity this evening after an unexpected generator failure.</p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/hawaiian-electric-customers-asked-to-conserve-electricity-this-evening/ Save to Pocket

UPDATE: Kona airport runway has reopened

date: 2024-02-13, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold

            <p><strong>UPDATED 3:27 p.m.</strong></p>
        

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/13/hawaii-news/kona-airport-grounded-until-noon/ Save to Pocket

Wall Street’s New Prison Scam

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Lever News

As states crack down on prison-phone price gouging and resulting government kickbacks, telecom companies and their private equity backers have new ways to game the system.

https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/ Save to Pocket

NHS in Wales bets big on Microsoft with deal worth nearly half a billion

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Forget historic cloud downtime, latest contract with reseller to offer ‘agile and flexible’ approach

The NHS in Wales has decided to send up to £450 million ($568 million) of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash into the bank account of Microsoft via one of its resellers, the public sector organization has confirmed.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/nhs_in_wales_microsoft/ Save to Pocket

The growing disgrace and danger of Robert F. Kennedy Junior

date: 2024-02-13, from: Robert Reich on Substack

His father, for whom I worked 57 years ago, would be appalled

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-disgrace-and-danger-of-robert Save to Pocket

Switching from S3 to Tigris on Fly.io

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ben Hoyt, Technical Writing

How I switched my side project from using Amazon S3 for file hosting to using Tigris (which is built on Fly.io infrastructure). It was a good experience overall, but there were a few quirks.

https://benhoyt.com/writings/flyio-and-tigris/ Save to Pocket

Biden, Jordanian King Express Concerns About Rafah Operation in Gaza

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the first Arab leader to visit the White House since October 7, met with President Joe Biden to discuss a hostage deal and the future of Gaza as Israel began operations Monday in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Jordan is pushing a cease-fire, while Biden over the weekend appeared to criticize Israel’s strategy. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-jordanian-king-express-concerns-about-rafah-operation-in-gaza/7485300.html Save to Pocket

On climbing and design

date: 2024-02-13, from: Manu - I write blog

I don’t climb, I am not a climber, I don’t have interest in becoming one. I do happen to have a brother though. And he’s a climber. And if you know anything about climbers is that they’re a bit obsessed with the sport. And as a result of that I’m becoming a climber by proximity. I have absolutely no intention of practicing the sport but I do enjoy watching it as a sport and I also enjoy consuming content related to it. Mainly because climbers climb in gorgeous places and I love nature. Anyway my brother also happens to be a graphic designer and it was only a matter of time before the two things collided. Well, it finally happened: 621.design

The first series of climbing inspired t-shirts are available to be purchased after WAY TOO LONG! I’m already tired of hearing about this project but I’m happy that they’re finally out in the wild. Just to be clear, I am not involved with this. I’m just doing my part and let you know that these exist because who knows, maybe some of you out there are into climbing.

Now, I do have one of those T-shirts sitting on my desk this very moment. It’s the Climb, size L. If you want it, you can sign up to my One a Month and then send me a message. I’m gonna send it to the first one who claims it and will throw in something else at random in the package. No drugs I promise you. I might add a book in there or maybe a stick from the woods. Still don’t know but there’s going to be something.

Anyway, 621.design, also on Instagram . Go tell my brother that these took WAY TOO LONG to come out.

https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/6xE5jPv1CgPaAEB1 Save to Pocket

Classifieds – February 13, 2024

date: 2024-02-13, 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 – February 13, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/classifieds-february-13-2024/ Save to Pocket

Meta says risk of account theft after phone number recycling isn’t its problem to solve

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Leaves it to carriers, promoting a complaint to Irish data cops from Big Tech’s bête noire

Meta has acknowledged that phone number reuse that allows takeovers of its accounts “is a concern,” but the ad biz insists the issue doesn’t qualify for its bug bounty program and is a matter for telecom companies to sort out.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/meta_phone_security_number_recycling/ Save to Pocket

Today in SCV History (Feb. 13)

date: 2024-02-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

1999 – The Santa Clarita Valley and Antelope Valley split off from 805 area code to become 661. [story

https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-13/ Save to Pocket

Old to Gold: USC finishes refurbishing Generations Fountain

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Generations Fountain needed refurbishing after it became damaged over time.

The post Old to Gold: USC finishes refurbishing Generations Fountain appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/old-to-gold-usc-finishes-refurbishing-generations-fountain/ Save to Pocket

Your gay best friend doesn’t make you an ally

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Allies must fight for the rights of the entire LGBTQIA+ community.

The post Your gay best friend doesn’t make you an ally appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/your-gay-best-friend-doesnt-make-you-an-ally/ Save to Pocket

Embrace imperfect climate activism

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Earth won’t die because you forgot to turn off a light; it was going to die anyway.

The post Embrace imperfect climate activism appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/embrace-imperfect-climate-activism/ Save to Pocket

California Science Center expansion spotlights Endeavor

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Space Shuttle Endeavor moved to liftoff position Jan. 29 after 12 years on its side.

The post California Science Center expansion spotlights Endeavor appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/california-science-center-expansion-spotlights-endeavor/ Save to Pocket

It’s time to get excited about club baseball

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

USC club baseball is a field of dreams for washed-up little leaguers.

The post It’s time to get excited about club baseball appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/its-time-to-get-excited-about-club-baseball/ Save to Pocket

Savory savings in the form of skewers

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Dollar Hits serves up Los Angeles flavors with affordability built into their name.

The post Savory savings in the form of skewers appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/savory-savings-in-the-form-of-skewers/ Save to Pocket

USC made the Super Bowl… kind of

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Although it’s not college ball, the Trojans still heavily influence the Super Bowl.

The post USC made the Super Bowl… kind of appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/13/usc-made-the-super-bowl-kind-of/ Save to Pocket

Venus has a quasi-moon and it’s just been named ‘Zoozve’ for a sweet reason

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

The Small Bodies Nomenclature Working Group has just given 29 space rocks names

The Small Bodies Nomenclature Working Group (WGSBN) – the folks responsible for assigning names to minor planets and comets – last week published a bulletin in which it gave 29 small celestial bodies their very own names.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/venusian_quasi_moon_named_zoozve/ Save to Pocket

Motowatt’s W1X Electric Motorcycle Wants To Be The Ultimate Urban Commuter

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The W1X promises a wide assortment of upgrades and accessories to suit individual needs and preferences.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708394/motowatt-w1x-electric-motorcycle/ Save to Pocket

Chrome engine devs experiment with automatic browser micropayments

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

I’d buy that for a $0.00000001

The team behind Chromium – the open source engine of Google Chrome and other browsers – is working on a way to enable those surfing the web to pay for the stuff they read or watch without any interaction.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/google_micropayments_plan/ Save to Pocket

Royal Enfield Track School Welcomes New And Seasoned Riders In India

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Royal Enfield encourages riders to build their track riding skills in a safe and controlled environment.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708393/royal-enfield-track-school-2024/ Save to Pocket

Infosys subsidiary named as source of Bank of America data leak

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Looks like LockBit took a swipe at an outsourced life insurance application

Indian tech services giant Infosys has been named as the source of a data leak suffered by the Bank of America.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/infosys_bank_of_america_leak/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Jon Stewart Tackles The Biden-Trump Rematch That Nobody Wants.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=Y7FkIjfh53qr2Ib8&v=NpBPm0b9deQ&feature=youtu.be Save to Pocket

@Jessica Smith’s blog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Jessica Smith’s blog)

Not really pleased with how today’s scene is going. I feel like I had good ideas for it two weeks ago, but I didn’t write it then, because I still hadn’t finished the previous scenes 😖 Now I’m scrambling a bit – “Oh, this bit of dialogue was in it, right?” and it just doesn’t feel cohesive. In future I need to take notes, no matter how much I think I’m “just about” to reach a scene, anyway.

https://www.jayeless.net/2024/02/unhappy-with-scene.html Save to Pocket

Saving all your GitHub Stars to Pinboard

date: 2024-02-13, from: Conor O’Niell’s blog, Cross Dominant

Over the past 18 months or so, I’ve been replacing various IFTTT and Low-Code functions with my own code running either in GitHub Actions or AWS Lambda. The latest one is a simple function to save all my latest GitHub Stars to Pinboard once an hour. This way, no matter what IFTTT/Zapier/etc decide to change this month, I don’t have to change anything. Some of my Serverless functions have been running for years with no updates required.

https://conoroneill.net/2024/02/13/saving-all-your-github-stars-to-pinboard/ Save to Pocket

February 12, 2024

date: 2024-02-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

Today’s big story continues to be Trump’s statement that he “would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if those countries are, in his words, “delinquent.” Both Democrats and Republicans have stood firm behind NATO since Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president in 1952 to put down the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, and won.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-12-2024 Save to Pocket

Horse rides Astronaut, redux

date: 2024-02-13, from: Gary Marcus blog

Dall-E 3 and Gemini have something in common with DALL-E 2

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/horse-rides-astronaut-redux Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

How Mastodon made friends with Meta.

https://www.platformer.news/mastodon-interview-eugen-rochko-meta-bluesky-threads-federation/ Save to Pocket

Broadcom terminates VMware’s free ESXi hypervisor

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Certain licenses still allow tinkerers to taste the vStack. Whether they want to is another matter

Broadcom has discontinued the free version of VMware’s ESXi hypervisor.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/broadcom_ends_free_esxi_vsphere/ Save to Pocket

Matadors corral the Mustangs and earn 15th win

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

After a rough five-game losing streak in the middle of the season, CSUN (15-9, 6-6 Big West) has now strung together back-to-back home wins after defeating Cal Poly San Luis…

https://sundial.csun.edu/178315/sports/matadors-corral-the-mustangs-and-earn-15th-win/ Save to Pocket

Matadors’ defense fails to stop Gauchos’ offense in 21st straight loss

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

In another one-possession game with less than a minute left in the fourth, CSUN failed to close the game out with a win, as the Matadors could not get the…

https://sundial.csun.edu/178308/sports/matadors-defense-fails-to-stop-gauchos-offense-in-21st-straight-loss/ Save to Pocket

An Unfinished Live Audio Journey

date: 2024-02-13, from: Chris Coyier blog

I have the opportunity to play out at our friends Bar Rio here in Bend, Oregon somewhat regularly. I’ve got one gig in the bag already. It went OK, but I’ve got a lot to learn and improve about handling the live audio sound situation. Here’s that story so far. At this particular gig, I […]

https://chriscoyier.net/2024/02/12/an-unfinished-live-audio-journey/ Save to Pocket

Photos: Cube hosts West Coast Hockey Conference

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

The Northern Arizona University IceJacks were named the West Coast Hockey Conference Champions against the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins on Sunday at the Cube Ice and Entertainment Center. 

The post Photos: Cube hosts West Coast Hockey Conference appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/photos-cube-hosts-west-coast-hockey-conference/ Save to Pocket

Korean eggheads crack Rhysida ransomware and release free decryptor tool

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Great news for victims of gang behind the big British Library hit in October

Some smart folks have found a way to automatically unscramble documents encrypted by the Rhysida ransomware, and used that know-how to produce and release a handy recovery tool for victims.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/rhysida_ransomware_decrypted/ Save to Pocket

Quick Charge Podcast: February 12, 2024

date: 2024-02-13, 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/12/quick-charge-podcast-february-12-2024/ Save to Pocket

Petition seeks to reverse Hart High mascot change 

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

A petition circulating online is seeking to reverse the decision to change the mascot of Hart High School made by the William S. Hart Union High School District governing board nearly three years ago.  The petition, started by Jennifer Saldivar on change.org, is asking for the “Indians” mascot to not be removed. The board voted […]

The post <strong>Petition seeks to reverse Hart High mascot change</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/petition-seeks-to-reverse-hart-high-mascot-change/ Save to Pocket

Mustangs Set Two School Records at Sunshine Invitational

date: 2024-02-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Master’s University track and field teams took on top competition at the Sunshine Invitational in Santa Barbara Saturday

https://scvnews.com/mustangs-set-two-school-records-at-sunshine-invitational/ Save to Pocket

Castaic Animal Care Center hosts pet adoption day

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

Snuggles, kisses, hugs and extra love were given to eight large dog breeds that were up for adoption at the adoption day hosted by the city of Santa Clarita and Castaic Animal Care Center at the Mitchell River House on Saturday.   Sara Cohen was walking out with Alvee, her newly adopted Husky, ready to give […]

The post <strong>Castaic Animal Care Center hosts pet adoption day </strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/castaic-animal-care-center-hosts-pet-adoption-day/ Save to Pocket

Hydrogen container ship could slash carbon emissions by 3000 tons

date: 2024-02-13, from: Electrek Feed

The H2 Barge 2 is a hydrogen fuel-cell powered ship designed to transport containers on the Rhine between Rotterdam (NL) and Duisburg (DE) with zero emissions that could represent a massive reduction in carbon emissions.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/02/12/hydrogen-container-ship-could-slash-carbon-emissions-by-3000-tons/ Save to Pocket

Hart girls’ soccer returns to D1 playoffs, beats Alta Loma 

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

Hart Indians girls’ soccer coach Brett Croft was a little worried about his team heading into its playoff matchup with the Alta Loma Braves on Saturday.  The Indians’ impressive schedule notched the team a bye, marking the team’s first Division 1 playoff game in four years as a second-round matchup with the Braves at College […]

The post <strong>Hart girls’ soccer returns to D1 playoffs, beats Alta Loma</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/hart-girls-soccer-returns-to-d1-playoffs-beats-alta-loma/ Save to Pocket

Trump Comments on NATO Send Shock Waves Throughout Europe

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

Shock waves across European capitals and a rare rebuke from NATO followed the latest comments by former President Donald Trump about the U.S. commitment to the alliance. Trump said that if he returned to the White House, he would invite Russia to attack allies that he termed “delinquent.” VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-comments-on-nato-send-shock-waves-throughout-europe/7485174.html Save to Pocket

Ask RideApart: What’s The Difference Between The Honda CBR650R And CBR600RR?

date: 2024-02-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

They’re both sportbikes and around 600-ish cc – what really sets them apart?

https://www.rideapart.com/news/708392/cbr650r-vs-cbr600rr-whats-the-difference/ Save to Pocket

Biden Forms Task Force to Address Mishandling of Classified Documents During Presidential Transitions

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

washington — President Joe Biden on Monday launched a task force aimed at addressing the “systemic” problem of mishandling classified information during presidential transitions, days after a Justice Department special counsel’s sharply critical report said he had done just that.

The Presidential Records Transition Task Force will study past transitions to determine best practices for safeguarding classified information from an outgoing administration, the White House said. It will also assess the need for changes to existing policies and procedures to prevent the removal of sensitive information that by law should be kept with the National Archives and Records Administration.

The report from special counsel Robert Hur listed dozens of sensitive documents found at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former Washington office. The papers were marked as classified or later assessed to contain classified information.

The majority of the documents, Hur’s report stated, appeared to have been mistakenly removed from government offices, though he also detailed some items that Biden appeared to knowingly retain. He concluded that criminal charges were not warranted in the matter.

“I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” Biden said last week after Hur’s report was released. He added that “things that appeared in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved were moved not by me but my staff.”

First findings

Biden aides first discovered some of the documents as they cleared out the offices of the Penn-Biden Center in Washington in 2022, and more were discovered during subsequent searches by Biden’s lawyers and the FBI.

Biden promptly reported the discoveries to federal authorities, which prompted the special counsel probe. By contrast, former President Donald Trump is accused of resisting efforts to return classified government records that he moved to his Florida residence before leaving office in 2021 and of obstructing the investigation into them in a separate special counsel investigation.

In even the best of circumstances, presidential transitions can be chaotic as records of the outgoing administration are transferred to the National Archives and thousands of political appointees leave their jobs to make way for the incoming administration.

Officials of multiple administrations have said there is a systemic problem with mishandling of classified information by senior government officials, particularly around transitions, magnified by rampant overclassification across the government.

Former Vice President Mike Pence turned over some classified documents discovered at his home last year. And several times a year, former officials from all levels of government discover they possess classified material and turn it over to the authorities.

“Previous presidential transitions, across administrations stretching back decades, have fallen short in ensuring that classified presidential records are properly archived at NARA,” the White House said. “In light of the many instances that have come to light in recent years revealing the extent of this systemic issue, President Biden is taking action to strengthen how administrations safeguard classified documents during presidential transitions and to help address this long-standing problem going forward.”

Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

Subjects of documents

Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless. Investigators did find evidence of willful retention of a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, house, including in a garage, office and basement den, but not enough to suggest charges. The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. He kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.

Biden also retained his personal notebooks after leaving the vice presidency, some of which investigators found contained classified information, though other officials have kept similar documents as their personal property.

“President Biden takes classified information seriously – he returned the documents that were found, he fully cooperated with the investigation, and it concluded that there was no case,” said Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office. “Now he is taking action to help strengthen future transitions to better prevent classified documents from being accidentally packed up and removed from the government, like we have seen with officials from every administration for decades.”

The task force will be led by Katy Kale, deputy administrator of the General Services Administration, who was assistant to the president for management and administration during the Obama administration, the post that oversees the human resources and document retention functions at the White House.

The panel will include representatives from the White House, General Services Administration, NARA, the National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The task force is to produce its recommendations ahead of the next presidential transition. It is set to operate independently from the White House Transition Coordinating Council, which is chaired by the White House chief of staff and required by law to be stood up six months before any presidential election.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-forms-task-force-to-address-mishandling-of-classified-documents-during-presidential-transitions-/7485172.html Save to Pocket

Riverside County Warns About Bringing ‘Stray’ Cats To The Shelter — Some Might Be Pets

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The LAist

A new program aims to get felines into homes and away from unnecessary euthanasia.

https://laist.com/news/cat-crisis-riverside-county-adoption Save to Pocket

Winning Streak Ends for COC Women’s Tennis

date: 2024-02-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

College of the Canyons hosted a pair of matches on Saturday, picking up a win over San Diego City College in the morning session before having its six-match win streak halted by American River College during the afternoon affair

https://scvnews.com/winning-streak-ends-for-coc-womens-tennis/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Why I [Krugman] Am Now Deeply Worried for America.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/opinion/biden-trump-america.html Save to Pocket

Future of Castaic school district transportation up in the air 

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

The Castaic Union School District is in a bit of a pickle when it comes to its transportation department.  Currently, the district has three qualified school bus drivers and one driver trainer, with one more driver who was recently hired but is on probation as the person goes through the training process.  That is not […]

The post <strong>Future of Castaic school district transportation up in the air</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/future-of-castaic-school-district-transportation-up-in-the-air/ Save to Pocket

City to consider $1.1M loan for Vista Canyon bridge 

date: 2024-02-13, from: The Signal

The city of Santa Clarita is looking to support a much-ballyhooed but struggling development on the east side of town with a $1.1 million loan to complete the design of a bridge to improve Vista Canyon’s connectivity.  In the agenda item, city officials stated their help is needed to ensure the timely completion of the […]

The post City to consider $1.1M loan for Vista Canyon bridge  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/02/city-to-consider-1-1m-loan-for-vista-canyon-bridge/ Save to Pocket

Some Republican Lawmakers Not Concerned With Trump’s NATO Comments

date: 2024-02-13, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/some-republican-lawmakers-not-concerned-with-trump-s-nato-comments-/7485162.html Save to Pocket

LAUSD Limits Charter School Placements On ‘Most Fragile’ Campuses

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-14, from: The LAist

The policy is intended to ease yearslong tensions from forcing traditional public schools to share space and resources with charter schools.

https://laist.com/news/education/lausd-charter-school-co-location-proposition-39-vote-february-2024 Save to Pocket

Thar be safe harbor: Reddit defeats third attempt to unmask digital pirates

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

First Amendment is a rule, not a guideline, says judge

Digital pirates dropping anchor on Reddit for a bit o’ parley can consider themselves harbored in relatively safe waters, as US courts have decided for a third time in the past year that they’re protected from identification by the First Amendment.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/reddit_pirates_win/ Save to Pocket

Mark Ruffalo’s Humanity Brings a Special Kind of Movie Magic to Santa Barbara

date: 2024-02-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

SBIFF American Riviera Award winner lets his real character show both on and off screen.

The post Mark Ruffalo’s Humanity Brings a Special Kind of Movie Magic to Santa Barbara  appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/02/12/mark-ruffalos-humanity-brings-a-special-kind-of-movie-magic-to-santa-barbara/ Save to Pocket

Feb. 14: COC Board of Trustees Regular Business Meeting

date: 2024-02-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will meet for a regular business meeting Wednesday, Feb. 14, beginning with closed session at 4:30 p.m., followed immediately by open session at 5 p.m

https://scvnews.com/feb-14-coc-board-of-trustees-regular-business-meeting/ Save to Pocket

Routing Enhancements for Go 1.22

date: 2024-02-13, updated: 2024-02-13, from: Go language blog

Go 1.22's additions to patterns for HTTP routes.

https://go.dev/blog/routing-enhancements Save to Pocket

Ed Pentz accepts the 2024 NISO Miles Conrad Award

date: 2024-02-13, from: Crossref Blog

Great news to share: our Executive Director, Ed Pentz, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Miles Conrad Award from the USA’s National Information Standards Organization (NISO). The award is testament to an individual’s lifetime contribution to the information community, and we couldn’t be more delighted that Ed was voted to be this year’s well-deserved recipient.

During the NISO Plus conference this week in Baltimore, USA, Ed accepted his award and delivered the 2024 Miles Conrad lecture, reflecting on how far open scholarly infrastructure has come, and the part he has played in this at Crossref and through numerous other collaborative initiatives.

Established in 1965, the Miles Conrad Award gives recognition to those who’ve made substantial contributions to the information community over a lifetime. Named after the founder of the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services (NFAIS)—an association that since merged with NISO—the award encourages innovation in content management and dissemination. Over the years, leaders and innovators who have significantly influenced the field of information exchange have been honored with the award. Ed has joined an illustrious group!

Ed’s leadership in collaboration and diplomacy has led to Crossref’s success in making research objects more accessible and useful to a wide global audience, including publishers, researchers, funders, societies, libraries, and more. Crossref’s founding purpose is stated as:

“To promote the development and cooperative use of new and innovative technologies to speed and facilitate scientific and other scholarly research”.

Acknowledging his privilege as a Western, university-educated, white man, which he comments has helped his career, Ed prioritises collaboration, open communication, teamwork, and equity in creating a positive, trusted environment that has brought together a diverse team of 49 colleagues from 11 countries. The organisation’s culture allows everyone to grow and contribute to the mission of a connected research nexus by including and developing solutions for community members across the globe.

Before his journey with Crossref, Ed held a number of roles at Harcourt Brace, including launching Academic Press’s first online journal. This experience led to his involvement with the DOI-X pilot project, which became the foundation for Crossref. Since its launch in 2000, under his leadership, Crossref has become an important component of the research ecosystem, an open scholarly infrastructure with nearly 20,000 members across more than 150 countries. Crossref is now the main source of >155 million records about all kinds of research objects and this open metadata registry is relied upon by thousands of tools and services across the whole research system.

Ed’s influence is also evident throughout the wider world of open scholarly infrastructure; aside from establishing Crossref, he co-founded ROR and was a founding member of ORCID, where he also served as board Chair. Further, he has engaged with the community by holding various advisory positions, including the DOI Foundation, the Digital Object Naming Authority (DONA), and the Coalition for Diversity in Scholarly Publishing (C4DISC).

Ed also emphasised that the long-term success of community initiatives lies in patience and the ability to agree on high-level principles of purpose and governance, which oil the wheels of collaboration, encourage participation, and enable more progressive change that builds and lasts over time. He says, “to solve collective problems it takes collaboration and diplomacy, bringing together a group of stakeholders, balancing their different concerns, building trust, and reaching consensus.”

The adoption of the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI), along with (so far) 14 other organisations, was a key turning point for Crossref, Ed said, and one which has already paved the way for more openness of key metadata for the community, including references and retractions, as well as closer partnerships with many of the other POSI adoptees, given their shared understanding and experience.

Referencing the current “peak hype” around artificial intelligence (AI), Ed points to the challenge of research integrity and the “growing field of science sleuthing” as a forthcoming area that Crossref and open metadata may help tackle at scale, including through Crossref’s Integrity of the Scholarly Record (ISR) Program and—of course—community-wide collaboration.

In concluding his talk, Ed describes his hopes and dreams for scholarly communications in the future. He would like to see more balance in diversity in the leadership of open scholarly infrastructure, extended integrations among the various foundational infrastructures, and a fully connected system where the scholarly record is inclusive globally.

Ed, on behalf of all your proud colleagues at Crossref, thank you and congratulations!

https://www.crossref.org/blog/ed-pentz-accepts-the-2024-niso-miles-conrad-award/ Save to Pocket