News gathered 2024-02-27
(date: 2024-02-27 09:03:52)
Are screen media the new pacifiers? The role of parenting stress and parental attitudes for children’s screen time in early childhood
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Brauchli V.; Sticca F.; Edelsbrunner P.; von Wyl A.; Lannen P.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649586 Save to Pocket
A convolutional neural network-based method for the generation of super-resolution 3D models from clinical CT images
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Zhou Y.; Klintström E.; Klintström B.; Ferguson S.J.; Helgason B.; Persson C.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/655412 Save to Pocket
Handling uncertainty in train timetable rescheduling
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Zhan, Shuguang; Xie, Jiemin; Wong, S.C.; Zhu, Yongqiu; Corman, Francesco
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/657510 Save to Pocket
Global nutritional challenges and opportunities: Buckwheat, a potential bridge between nutrient deficiency and food security
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Jha R.; Zhang K.; He Y.; Mendler-Drienyovszki N.; Magyar-Tábori K.; Quinet M.; Germ M.; Kreft I.; Meglič V.; Ikeda K.; Chapman M.A.; Janovská D.; Podolska G.; Woo S.H.; Bruno S.; Georgiev M.I.; Chrungoo N.; Betekhtin A.; Zhou M.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/660083 Save to Pocket
Human cues in eHealth to promote lifestyle change: An experimental field study to examine adherence to self-help interventions
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Cohen Rodrigues T.R.; de Buisonjé D.R.; Reijnders T.; Santhanam P.; Kowatsch T.; Breeman L.D.; Janssen V.R.; Kraaijenhagen R.A.; Atsma D.E.; Evers A.W.M.
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/660082 Save to Pocket
Socioeconomic impacts of small conserved sites on rural communities in Madagascar
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Rodríguez-Rodríguez, David; Knecht, Nielja; Llopis, Jorge C.; Heriarivo, R.A.; Rakotoarison, H.; Andriamampionomanjaka, V.; Navarro-Jurado, Enrique; Randriamamonjy, Voahirana
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/659418 Save to Pocket
Prenatal and postnatal influences on behavioral development in a mouse model of preconceptional stress
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Scarborough, Joseph; Iachizzi, Monica; Schalbetter, Sina M.; Müller, Flavia S.; Weber-Stadlbauer, Ulrike; Richetto, Juliet
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/659419 Save to Pocket
Multi-criteria assessment of inland and offshore carbon dioxide transport options
date: 2024-03-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
Oeuvray, Pauline; Burger, Johannes; Roussanaly, Simon; Mazzotti, Marco; Becattini, Viola
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/661076 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-27, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
There’s a new faster version of news.scripting.com coming. I was originally thinking I’d do the switch today, but decided to hold it for a bit. I want to do more testing and development.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/27.html#a165527 Save to Pocket
Biden’s ‘Late Night’ Interview With Seth Meyers Revealed His Limits
date: 2024-02-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog
Variety: "Biden has long lacked the ability to bend the medium of TV to his ends." That's true of Democrats as a group. In contrast, the Repubs do this very well. It's the only thing they do well.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/columns/biden-seth-meyers-late-night-israel-1235923991/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Model Y 2024 scores near-perfect in IIHS’ crash tests
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
The Tesla Model Y 2024 has been awarded IIHS’s “top safety pick +” award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) despite more stringent eligibility.
The electric SUV scored near perfect in the crash tests.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/tesla-model-y-2024-scores-near-perfect-iihs-crash-tests/ Save to Pocket
BYD storms into Europe as first car transport ship docks in Germany carrying 3K vehicles
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Global EV leader BYD is taking Europe by storm. BYD’s first cargo ship landed in Germany Tuesday, with about 3,000 vehicles set to roll out
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/byd-storms-europe-first-cargo-ship-docks-germany/ Save to Pocket
Housing in the 1st
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Supervisor Das Williams’s opponent has repeatedly opposed new housing in District 1.
The post Housing in the 1st appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/27/housing-in-the-1st/ Save to Pocket
Mustangs Drop Five-Set Match to Lions
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
It was a rematch of the five-set thriller from the NAIA semifinals last spring.
https://scvnews.com/mustangs-drop-five-set-match-to-lions/ Save to Pocket
Nubia Music is a smartphone with TWO headphone jacks
date: 2024-02-27, from: Liliputing
Smartphones with headphone jacks appear to be an endangered species these days. But ZTE subsidiary is pushing back with a new smartphone that not only has a headphone jack… it has two of them. The Nubia Music is a smartphone designed to put music front and center. It has two 3.5mm audio jacks on top of the device, […]
The post Nubia Music is a smartphone with TWO headphone jacks appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/nubia-music-is-a-smartphone-with-two-headphone-jacks/ Save to Pocket
Willie Nelson leads unbelievably great concert lineup out on tour
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour, with Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, touches down at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/willie-nelson-leads-unbelievably-great-concert-lineup-out-on-tour/ Save to Pocket
Campbell: Family of man slain in roadside clash decries plea agreement
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Relatives of Greg Cirimele lament a voluntary manslaughter deal in the deadly 2021 shooting.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/campbell-family-of-man-slain-in-roadside-clash-decries-plea-agreement/ Save to Pocket
This Cézanne Mural Was Hidden in the Walls of the Artist’s Family Home
date: 2024-02-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Workers found fragments of a naval scene while renovating the mansion in the south of France
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-cezanne-mural-was-hidden-in-the-walls-of-the-artists-southern-france-home-180983831/ Save to Pocket
FAA gives SpaceX a bunch of homework to do before Starship flies again
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You’ve heard of Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. How about an energetic engine failure?
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has closed its investigation into the case of another exploding SpaceX rocket with a list of corrective actions to be implemented before Starship can fly again.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/faa_closes_spacex_mishap_investigation/ Save to Pocket
All the Ways Mt. Everest Can Kill You
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/all-the-ways-mt-everest-can-kill-you Save to Pocket
Watch this 1400 hp Ford electric van shatter Bathurst track records
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
While Ford’s E-Transit work vans are busy racking up sales and electrifying the world’s commercial van fleets, Ford’s 1400 hp electric SuperVan is racking up records and electrifying race tracks around the world!
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/watch-this-1400-hp-ford-electric-van-shatter-bathurst-track-records/ Save to Pocket
The CUTE Mission: Innovative Design EnablesObservations of Extreme Exoplanets from a SmallPackage
date: 2024-02-27, from: NASA breaking news
Of the approximately 5,500 exoplanets discovered to date, many have been found to orbit very close to their parent stars. These close-in planets provide a unique opportunity to observe in detail the phenomena critical to the development and evolution of our own solar system, including atmospheric mass loss and interactions with the host star. NASA’s […]
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/science-enabling-technology/the-cute-mission-innovative-design-enablesobservations-of-extreme-exoplanets-from-a-smallpackage/ Save to Pocket
Moses Moody remains odd man out as Warriors tip off East Coast trip
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Warriors appear too deep for Moses Moody to get real opportunities.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/moses-moody-remains-odd-man-out-as-warriors-tip-off-east-coast-trip/ Save to Pocket
Opinion: FAFSA mess could cost me my chance at college
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Federal changes on financial aid form leave children in immigrant families in limbo as college deadlines loom.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/opinion-fafsa-mess-could-cost-me-my-chance-at-college/ Save to Pocket
Survey Results and Roadmap
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: Deno blog
You answered our survey and we listened. Here’s what we’re working on currently and what you can expect from Deno next.
https://deno.com/blog/2024-survey-results-and-roadmap Save to Pocket
EVP’s New Can-Am Maverick R ECU Tunes And Exhaust Spit Flames
date: 2024-02-27, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Who doesn’t love pops and bangs?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/710195/evp-ecu-exhaust-2024-maverick-r/ Save to Pocket
MINIX Z100-AERO is an Alder Lake-N mini PC with dual Ethernet ports for $219 and up
date: 2024-02-27, from: Liliputing
The MINIX Z100-AERO is a small desktop computer that measures about 5″ x 5″ x 1.7″ and features a 6-watt Intel N100 quad-core processor, support for up to 32GB of DDR4 memory and up to 4TB of PCIe 3.0 NVMe storage, and has two RJ45 Ethernet jacks: one with support for Gigabit speeds and another with […]
The post MINIX Z100-AERO is an Alder Lake-N mini PC with dual Ethernet ports for $219 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/minix-z100-aero-is-an-alder-lake-n-mini-pc-with-dual-ethernet-ports-for-219-and-up/ Save to Pocket
‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules
date: 2024-02-27, from: Quanta Magazine
Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them.The post ‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/entropy-bagels-and-other-complex-structures-emerge-from-simple-rules-20240227/ Save to Pocket
US women’s cycling team suspended for dressing mechanic as rider to avoid disqualification from race
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
US women’s cycling team Cynisca has been suspended by the International Cycling Union (UCI), the sport’s global governing body, for perpetrating a “fraud” and dressing a mechanic as a rider in order to avoid disqualification from a race.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/us-womens-cycling-team-suspended-for-dressing-mechanic-as-rider-to-avoid-disqualification-from-race/ Save to Pocket
What Trump Got Wrong About EVs During His Michigan Speech
date: 2024-02-27, from: Inside EVs News
Plus, BYD has “no plans” to expand to the U.S. and a European auto trade group vows not to fight 2035 ban of new gas cars.
https://insideevs.com/news/710293/trump-evs-michigan-critical-materials/ Save to Pocket
Tesla talks Cybertruck coming to Canada, Rivian accelerates deliveries
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla is talking about soon bringing the Cybertruck to Canada while Rivian quickly accelerates deliveries in the market.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/tesla-talks-cybertruck-coming-canada-rivian-accelerates-deliveries/ Save to Pocket
Teaching teens personal finance has long-term payoffs
date: 2024-02-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A growing number of high schools are requiring students to take personal finance courses, and the long-term payoffs are significant. Plus, Macy’s is closing 30% of its stores, Expedia announces layoffs as the post-lockdown travel surge slows, and a $1 billion gift means free tuition at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/teaching-teens-personal-finance-has-long-term-payoffs Save to Pocket
Stagecoach 2024: Set times, new layout and limited passes announced
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Producers will put a limited number of passes to the sold out Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio on Friday, March 1.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/stagecoach-2024-set-times-new-layout-and-limited-passes-announced/ Save to Pocket
Gene-Edited Pork Could Be Coming Soon to Your Dinner Plate
date: 2024-02-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Scientists are using CRISPR technology to make pigs immune to a deadly virus—and they’re hoping for FDA approval by early next year
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gene-edited-pork-could-be-coming-soon-to-your-dinner-plate-180983846/ Save to Pocket
The Polestar 3 Can’t Come Soon Enough
date: 2024-02-27, from: Inside EVs News
Production of the Polestar 3 begins in China. This year, it will enter production in the U.S. The brand could use the boost.
https://insideevs.com/news/710289/polestar3-enters-production-china/ Save to Pocket
Boffins caution against allowing robots to run on AI models
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Before building the Torment Nexus, consider the risks
Computer scientists at the University of Maryland (UMD) have asked robot makers to do further safety research before wiring language and vision models to their hardware.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/boffins_caution_against_running_robots/ Save to Pocket
Smartphone builder Xiaomi’s first EV coming in Q2 and looks to capitalize on 20M current users
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Less than three years after establishing its own automotive arm to develop and build EVs, Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi sits on the cusp of bringing its flagship model, the SU7, to market. Furthermore, the electronics specialist has high hopes for the vehicle, expecting a large chunk of its 20 million current phone users to consider buying one.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/smartphone-builder-xiaomi-first-ev-coming-q2-looks-to-capitalize-20m-users/ Save to Pocket
Wall Street Trailblazer to Deliver CSUN Distinguished Speaker Lecture
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
R. Martin “Marty” Chavez, a trailblazing entrepreneur who turned a Wall Street trading business into a software business and in the process revolutionized the way capital moves and works, will provide insights into the world of finance on Tuesday, March 12, as part of the Younes Nazarian Distinguished Speaker Series at California State University, Northridge
https://scvnews.com/wall-street-trailblazer-to-deliver-csun-distinguished-speaker-lecture/ Save to Pocket
Juveniles seen throwing chairs at Main Street Burgers in Los Gatos
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
They refused to leave the restaurant.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/juveniles-seen-throwing-chairs-at-main-street-burgers-in-los-gatos/ Save to Pocket
Adding Full Post Content to my RSS Feed
date: 2024-02-27, from: Nora Tindall’s blog
A reader reached out to me the other day to let me know that my RSS feed for this blog didn’t include post content, just descriptions, and that this hindered their ability to read my posts offline. This obviously isn’t ideal, so I set about adding the full post content. Customizing the RSS Feed Hugo comes with a builtin RSS feed template, but it’s easy enough to override. Simply copy the contents of this file to the themes/[theme name]/layouts/_default directory, and then edit to your heart’s content.
https://nora.codes/post/adding-full-post-content-to-my-rss-feed/ Save to Pocket
Microlino Lite arrives as the world’s cutest, Mr. Bean-style microcar
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
What’s the perfect anecdote to truck and SUV bloat? Why, the Microlino Lite, of course. Swiss company Micro has just unveiled a production version of its Microlino Lite – an even smaller version of its Microlino microcar – this week at the Geneva Motor Show. It won’t go faster than 28 mph (45 km/h), but it’s the next best thing to ditching cars altogether and getting an e-bike. And it could be coming to the US.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/microlino-lite-arrives-as-the-worlds-cutest-mr-bean-style-microcar/ Save to Pocket
Pay for Broadcom’s CEO soars 167% after stock award
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Annual compensation for Broadcom Inc. Chief Executive Officer Hock Tan more than doubled last year to $161.8 million, thanks to a stock award of $160.5 million that will vest over the next five years.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/broadcom-ceos-pay-soars-to-161-8-million-after-stock-award/ Save to Pocket
With online ordering now, people have a lot of options when it…
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044062-with-online-ordering-now- Save to Pocket
US Plans Clean Energy Projects for Native American Tribes, Rural Areas
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-plans-clean-energy-projects-for-native-american-tribes-rural-areas/7504420.html Save to Pocket
2024-02-07 Apple killed music on the move, for me
date: 2024-02-27, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-02-07 Apple killed music on the move, for me
I was thinking about joining the Tangara crowdfunding. It’s a kind of iPod, but better in that it is all open. Yay!
But then I realized something: Having an iPhone made listening to music such a shit show that I basically stopped and switched my entire phone-based audio entertainment to podcasts. Because podcast clients are great (at least iCatcher is) where as Apple Music is a pain. Having used iTunes when it was cool until it was unusable, and then realizing what a pain the weird AAC formats on the files were, and the DRM on some of them, preventing me from playing them on other machines I owned. I was so angry.
In a fit of hate I decided I was going to move all my pictures out of iPhotos and all my music out of iTunes and never go back. And I did. And so the Apple Music app died, and I guess no alternatives were allowed on the App Store because Apple is great like that, and so when the iPod classic I had with Rockbox installed finally died, all I was left with was podcasts on the iPhone.
And so now I don’t even know whether I want to listen to music any more while I’m on the move.
Apple killed music on the move, for me.
At home it’s a different story, of course, but Tangara is a portable music player.
I wish Tangara the best of luck.
2024-02-27. I joined the Kickstarter. Not because I have a terribly good feeling about it but because I remember wanting a portable audio player and I recently found, once again, that I really hate the Apple Music app.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-02-07-tangara Save to Pocket
February 2024
date: 2024-02-27, from: Association of Research Libraries News
Last Updated on February 27, 2024, 10:03 am ET Public Policy Briefing (February 2024) This issue includes: Accessibility ARL/CARL Task Force Releases Final Report on Marrakesh Treaty Implementation Appropriations CARL…
The post February 2024 appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.
https://www.arl.org/our-priorities/advocacy-public-policy/public-policy-briefing/february-2024/ Save to Pocket
Hyundai fast-tracks start of EV production in the US as it gains recognition with its own day
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
February 26, 2024, will forever be known as Hyundai Day in the state of Georgia as the automaker gears up to begin production at its first dedicated EV and battery plant in the US later this year.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/hyundai-fast-tracks-ev-production-us-gains-day/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Arson Suspect Caught On Camera: Two Model Ys Burnt
date: 2024-02-27, from: Inside EVs News
Police are asking for your help to identify the suspect.
https://insideevs.com/news/710295/tesla-arson-san-francisco-caught-camera/ Save to Pocket
Western Monarch Butterflies Decline By 30%: How You Can Help Protect Them
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The LAist
Climate change and pesticide use play a big part in their dwindling numbers, but habitat loss is the biggest factor in their decline.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/western-monarch-butterflies-decline-by-30-how-you-can-help-protect-them Save to Pocket
Groundbreaking Results from Space Station Science in 2023
date: 2024-02-27, from: NASA breaking news
Lee esta historia en español aquí. The International Space Station is a microgravity research lab hosting groundbreaking technology demonstrations and scientific investigations. More than 3,700 investigations conducted to date have generated roughly 500 research articles published in scientific journals. In 2023, the orbiting lab hosted more than 500 investigations. See more space station research achievements […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/groundbreaking-results-from-space-station-science-in-2023/ Save to Pocket
New County Loan to Aid Moderate-Income, First Time Home Buyers
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Development Authority is excited to announce its new Home Ownership Program,
https://scvnews.com/new-county-loan-to-help-moderate-income-first-time-home-buyers/ Save to Pocket
Federal judge reverses himself, rules that California’s ban on billy clubs is unconstitutional
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled last week that the prohibition “unconstitutionally infringes the Second Amendment rights of American citizens” and enjoined the state from enforcing the law.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/federal-judge-reverses-himself-rules-that-californias-ban-on-billy-clubs-is-unconstitutional/ Save to Pocket
Pac-12 WBB roundup: Stanford clinches tie for the title despite home loss as UCLA sweeps
date: 2024-02-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Arizona stunned the Cardinal in Maples Pavilion as only one of the Pac-12’s ranked teams went unscathed.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/27/pac-12-wbb-roundup-stanford-clinches-tie-for-the-title-despite-home-loss-as-ucla-sweeps/ Save to Pocket
Apple Vision Pro rentals take China by storm ahead of official release
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Factoring in the deposit, you’d be better off running away with it
Apple is a big deal in China. Despite competition from four homegrown smartphone vendors, the iPhone comes top with a 17.3 percent market share, with Honor closely behind at 17.1 percent, according to IDC.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/china_apple_vision_pro_rentals/ Save to Pocket
What We Have to Lose
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The MAGA movement wants to take away the roots of our social equality progress since Martin Luther King Jr. stood up for equal voting rights and social equality rights for everyone in the 1960s.
The post What We Have to Lose appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/27/what-we-have-to-lose/ Save to Pocket
Ghost Kitchens Are Advertising AI-Generated Food on DoorDash and Grubhub
date: 2024-02-27, from: 404 Media Group
Reality bending, AI-generated cheesesteaks and pasta dishes are flooding food delivery services.
https://www.404media.co/ghost-kitchens-are-advertising-ai-generated-food-on-doordash-and-grubhub/ Save to Pocket
Microsoft’s February Windows 11 security update unravels at 96% for some users
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Was your Patch Tuesday followed by a Rollback Wednesday? You’re not alone
Microsoft says that February 13’s security update for Windows 11 might “face installation issues.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/windows_11_installation_problems/ Save to Pocket
The 2025 Honda CR-V e:FCEV Is A Hydrogen Plug-In Hybrid, For Real
date: 2024-02-27, from: Inside EVs News
Meet a very different CR-V, and the first production plug-in hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle ever made. But can owners find fuel?
https://insideevs.com/news/710194/honda-crv-hydrogen-plug-in/ Save to Pocket
Podcast: Byron Tau on the New U.S. Surveillance State
date: 2024-02-27, from: 404 Media Group
We’re trying out a new interview episode for the podcast! Our first guest is investigative journalist and author Byron Tau on the adtech surveillance industry.
https://www.404media.co/interview/ Save to Pocket
Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023
date: 2024-02-27, from: NASA breaking news
Read the article in English here. La Estación Espacial Internacional (EEI) es un laboratorio de investigación en microgravedad que alberga innovadoras demostraciones de tecnología e investigaciones científicas. Las más de 3.700 investigaciones llevadas a cabo hasta la fecha han producido alrededor de 500 artículos publicados en revistas científicas. En 2023, este laboratorio orbital albergó más de 500 investigaciones. […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/resultados-cientificos-revolucionarios-en-la-estacion-espacial-de-2023/ Save to Pocket
Check Out The Honda Monkey King Special Custom Edition From Cub House
date: 2024-02-27, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Black and gold garb gives this mini-moto a royal flair.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/710018/honda-monkey-king-special-custom-edition/ Save to Pocket
FreeWire Boost Power Pro EV chargers offer bidirectional capabilities and work during blackouts
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Innovative EV charging developer FreeWire Technologies is improving its flagship lineup of Boost chargers to offer an even more flexible and capable lineup that now includes bidirectional capabilities, power sharing, and site backup should the local grid encounter any power outages.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/freewire-boost-power-pro-ev-chargers-bidirectional-capabilities-blackouts/ Save to Pocket
FreeWire’s New Pro Series DC Fast Chargers Can Also Power Your Business
date: 2024-02-27, from: Inside EVs News
The stalls have integrated batteries and can become backup power sources in case of blackouts.
https://insideevs.com/news/709855/freewire-pro-series-dc-fast-charger-backup/ Save to Pocket
Aventon Ramblas e-bike unveiled as brand’s first mid-drive performance electric bike
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Aventon, the San Diego-based electric bike brand known for pushing the budget electric bike market into higher quality territory, has just announced its highest-performance model yet. The new Aventon Ramblas is the brand’s first dedicated electric mountain bike and features an Aventon-developed mid-drive motor with impressive torque and power.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/aventon-ramblas-e-bike-unveiled-as-brands-first-mid-drive-performance-electric-bike/ Save to Pocket
Be Better, FedEx
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/02/27/be-better-fedex/ Save to Pocket
Polestar 3 production kicks off in China, US builds will soon follow
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
The Polestar 3 has officially begun production in Chengdu, China, before its first deliveries. The third bespoke model, which is also Polestar’s first electric SUV, has a lot riding on its success in multiple markets. It will also be built in the US, and Polestar provided an update on that progress.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/27/polestar-3-production-kicks-off-in-china-us-builds-will-soon-follow/ Save to Pocket
I dropped the ball on not featuring this gorgeous letterpress version of…
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044061-i-dropped-the-ball-on Save to Pocket
Brace for Weather Whiplash
date: 2024-02-27, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: The Northern Sierra mountain range could see up to 12 feet of snow • Raging bushfires are forcing 30,000 people in Australia’s Victoria state to evacuate • It will be unusually warm across much of Michigan today as voters participate in the state’s presidential primaries.
THE TOP FIVE
- End of February brings weather whiplash
This week has already been a wild one for U.S. weather, as what is expected to be the warmest February on record comes to a close. Many states in the Midwest and South experienced a heatwave yesterday that brought record high winter temperatures. It was 65 degrees Fahrenheit in Minneapolis, for example, where the normal high is 33. Parts of Texas saw temperatures soar into the 90s. In Chicago, where February temperatures usually sit in the low 30s at best, it was a balmy 60 degrees yesterday. The warm weather brought with it wind gusts and fire risks, and red flag warnings were in place from Texas to Missouri.
But prepare for some weather whiplash: A cold front is advancing east, and will plunge some of those warmer states into frigid temperatures. Grand Forks, North Dakota, for example, won’t see temperatures rise above 9 degrees today; yesterday it was 55. In Chicago, it’ll be cold with a threat of tornadoes. Forecasters reminded Reuters climate change is making extreme and unpredictable weather more frequent.
X/RyanMaue
- Famous sled dog race canceled due to lack of snow
Authorities have canceled Maine’s Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Race, the longest such race in the eastern United States, due to lack of snow. Since 1992, the 250-mile trek has taken place in snowy northern Maine, but this year the region has seen just over half the typical amount of snowfall. “The unique challenges presented by the lack of snow have led us to conclude that moving forward with this year’s race could compromise the well-being of all involved,” wrote Can-Am President Dennis Cyr. “It is a decision made with heavy hearts but necessary caution.” National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Wegman said the lack of snow across parts of the country is creating a feedback loop: “Most of the eastern two-thirds of the country has had a relatively snow-less winter, so the ground is bare and dry. So we’re getting much warmer temperatures just due to solar radiation.”
- Report: First Solar helped create 16,000 U.S. jobs in 2023
First Solar, the largest solar panel manufacturer in America, has been a boon for the nation’s economy, according to analysis from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center and commissioned by the company. The report found that First Solar had 2,700 people on payroll in 2023, but because “each First Solar job ends up supporting six more jobs throughout the U.S. economy,” the company had a trickle-down effect of supporting some 16,000 jobs, Electrek’s Michelle Lewis explained. The company added $2.75 billion in value and $5.32 billion in output to the U.S. economy last year. By 2026, those numbers are expected to climb to $4.99 billion and $10.18 billion, respectively, as the company expands its solar capacity. First Solar is “a fully vertically integrated manufacturer of thin-film PV solar panels,” Lewis said. “This means they can turn a sheet of glass into a functional solar panel in about four hours, relying heavily on U.S.-sourced materials like glass and steel.”
- Oil and gas profits triple during Biden presidency
Major U.S. oil and gas producers have seen profits nearly triple during President Biden’s presidency as production has soared, reported the Financial Times. The 10 most valuable operators – including ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and others – amassed a combined net income of $313 billion between 2020 and 2023, up from $112 billion during the same period of Donald Trump’s presidency. “The outperformance under Biden underlines the limited role of the White House in dictating the sector’s fortunes.” But it still won’t look great on his resume as he seeks to bolster support from climate-conscious progressives heading into the 2024 election. Biden ran “the most ambitious climate platform of any U.S. president in history,” and has indeed taken aim at the oil and gas industry during his tenure, the FT wrote. But he has also pushed to keep production high in the face of inflation and energy shocks.
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- Carbon removal startup Equatic to build demonstration plant in
Singapore
Carbon removal startup Equatic confirmed today that it is building a $20 million plant in Singapore to demonstrate the company’s technology, Bloomberg reported. Equatic uses electrolysis to permanently remove carbon dioxide from seawater, enabling it to absorb more of the greenhouse gas from the air. The process also creates hydrogen as a byproduct. The company already has two smaller pilot plants in operation, but the new one will be different for a few reasons: First, it’s much bigger – when complete, it could rival the annual carbon capturing capabilities of Climeworks, currently the world’s biggest carbon removal plant. Second, it will use a new proprietary process that doesn’t produce harmful chlorine gas. And third, it will mark a step toward commercialization as the company looks to scale and find more buyers. Boeing is among its most prominent customers, committing to pay the company to remove 62,000 tons of CO2 and produce 2,100 tons of hydrogen. Equatic plans to eventually build a commercial-scale plant that it claims will remove 100,000 tons of CO2 per year.
https://heatmap.news/climate/february-extreme-weather-whiplash Save to Pocket
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-02-27, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
https://caniuse.com/css-text-wrap-balance
text-wrap: balance is now in every evergreen desktop browser. It’s not in mobile safari yet, but will be soon. Huzzah!
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112003667972077647 Save to Pocket
Pluralistic: Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms (27 Feb 2024)
date: 2024-02-27, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms: And those real AI harms are priming people to believe disinformation. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms (permalink) You can barely turn around these days without encountering a think-piece warning of the impending risk of AI disinformation in the coming elections. But a recent episode of This Machine Kills podcast reminds us that these are hypothetical risks, and there is no shortage of real AI harms: https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/311-selling-pickaxes-for-the-ai-gold-rush The algorithmic decision-making systems that increasingly run the back-ends to our lives are really, truly very bad at doing their jobs, and worse, these systems constitute a form of “empiricism-washing”: if the computer says it’s true, it must be true. There’s no such thing as racist math, you SJW snowflake! https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/aoc-algorithms-racist-bias.html Nearly 1,000 British postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud by Horizon, the faulty AI fraud-hunting system that Fujitsu provided to the Royal Mail. They had their lives ruined by this faulty AI, many went to prison, and at least four of the AI’s victims killed themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal Tenants across America have seen their rents skyrocket thanks to Realpage’s landlord price-fixing algorithm, which deployed the time-honored defense: “It’s not a crime if we commit it with an app”: https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech Housing, you’ll recall, is pretty foundational in the human hierarchy of needs. Losing your home – or being forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries or gas for your car or clothes for your kid – is a non-hypothetical, widespread, urgent problem that can be traced straight to AI. Then there’s predictive policing: cities across America and the world have bought systems that purport to tell the cops where to look for crime. Of course, these systems are trained on policing data from forces that are seeking to correct racial bias in their practices by using an algorithm to create “fairness.” You feed this algorithm a data-set of where the police had detected crime in previous years, and it predicts where you’ll find crime in the years to come. But you only find crime where you look for it. If the cops only ever stop-and-frisk Black and brown kids, or pull over Black and brown drivers, then every knife, baggie or gun they find in someone’s trunk or pockets will be found in a Black or brown person’s trunk or pocket. A predictive policing algorithm will naively ingest this data and confidently assert that future crimes can be foiled by looking for more Black and brown people and searching them and pulling them over. Obviously, this is bad for Black and brown people in low-income neighborhoods, whose baseline risk of an encounter with a cop turning violent or even lethal. But it’s also bad for affluent people in affluent neighborhoods – because they are underpoliced as a result of these algorithmic biases. For example, domestic abuse that occurs in full detached single-family homes is systematically underrepresented in crime data, because the majority of domestic abuse calls originate with neighbors who can hear the abuse take place through a shared wall. But the majority of algorithmic harms are inflicted on poor, racialized and/or working class people. Even if you escape a predictive policing algorithm, a facial recognition algorithm may wrongly accuse you of a crime, and even if you were far away from the site of the crime, the cops will still arrest you, because computers don’t lie: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/texas-macys-sunglass-hut-facial-recognition-software-wrongful-arrest-sacramento-alibi/ Trying to get a low-waged service job? Be prepared for endless, nonsensical AI “personality tests” that make Scientology look like NASA: https://futurism.com/mandatory-ai-hiring-tests Service workers’ schedules are at the mercy of shift-allocation algorithms that assign them hours that ensure that they fall just short of qualifying for health and other benefits. These algorithms push workers into “clopening” – where you close the store after midnight and then open it again the next morning before 5AM. And if you try to unionize, another algorithm – that spies on you and your fellow workers’ social media activity – targets you for reprisals and your store for closure. If you’re driving an Amazon delivery van, algorithm watches your eyeballs and tells your boss that you’re a bad driver if it doesn’t like what it sees. If you’re working in an Amazon warehouse, an algorithm decides if you’ve taken too many pee-breaks and automatically dings you: https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/ If this disgusts you and you’re hoping to use your ballot to elect lawmakers who will take up your cause, an algorithm stands in your way again. “AI” tools for purging voter rolls are especially harmful to racialized people – for example, they assume that two “Juan Gomez”es with a shared birthday in two different states must be the same person and remove one or both from the voter rolls: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/ Hoping to get a solid education, the sort that will keep you out of AI-supervised, precarious, low-waged work? Sorry, kiddo: the ed-tech system is riddled with algorithms. There’s the grifty “remote invigilation” industry that watches you take tests via webcam and accuses you of cheating if your facial expressions fail its high-tech phrenology standards: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat All of these are non-hypothetical, real risks from AI. The AI industry has proven itself incredibly adept at deflecting interest from real harms to hypothetical ones, like the “risk” that the spicy autocomplete will become conscious and take over the world in order to convert us all to paperclips: https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space Whenever you hear AI bosses talking about how seriously they’re taking a hypothetical risk, that’s the moment when you should check in on whether they’re doing anything about all these longstanding, real risks. And even as AI bosses promise to fight hypothetical election disinformation, they continue to downplay or ignore the non-hypothetical, here-and-now harms of AI. There’s something unseemly – and even perverse – about worrying so much about AI and election disinformation. It plays into the narrative that kicked off in earnest in 2016, that the reason the electorate votes for manifestly unqualified candidates who run on a platform of bald-faced lies is that they are gullible and easily led astray. But there’s another explanation: the reason people accept conspiratorial accounts of how our institutions are run is because the institutions that are supposed to be defending us are corrupt and captured by actual conspiracies: https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/ The party line on conspiratorial accounts is that these institutions are good, actually. Think of the rebuttal offered to anti-vaxxers who claimed that pharma giants were run by murderous sociopath billionaires who were in league with their regulators to kill us for a buck: “no, I think you’ll find pharma companies are great and superbly regulated”: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine Institutions are profoundly important to a high-tech society. No one is capable of assessing all the life-or-death choices we make every day, from whether to trust the firmware in your car’s anti-lock brakes, the alloys used in the structural members of your home, or the food-safety standards for the meal you’re about to eat. We must rely on well-regulated experts to make these calls for us, and when the institutions fail us, we are thrown into a state of epistemological chaos. We must make decisions about whether to trust these technological systems, but we can’t make informed choices because the one thing we’re sure of is that our institutions aren’t trustworthy. Ironically, the long list of AI harms that we live with every day are the most important contributor to disinformation campaigns. It’s these harms that provide the evidence for belief in conspiratorial accounts of the world, because each one is proof that the system can’t be trusted. The election disinformation discourse focuses on the lies told – and not why those lies are credible. That’s because the subtext of election disinformation concerns is usually that the electorate is credulous, fools waiting to be suckered in. By refusing to contemplate the institutional failures that sit upstream of conspiracism, we can smugly locate the blame with the peddlers of lies and assume the mantle of paternalistic protectors of the easily gulled electorate. But the group of people who are demonstrably being tricked by AI is the people who buy the horrifically flawed AI-based algorithmic systems and put them into use despite their manifest failures. As I’ve written many times, “we’re nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, but we’re certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job” https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week The most visible victims of AI disinformation are the people who are putting AI in charge of the life-chances of millions of the rest of us. Tackle that AI disinformation and its harms, and we’ll make conspiratorial claims about our institutions being corrupt far less credible. (Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) FTC Blocks Kroger-Albertsons Merger on Labor Grounds https://prospect.org/labor/2024-02-26-ftc-blocks-kroger-albertsons-merger-labor-grounds/ The Political Effects of Neoliberalism https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-political-effects-of-neoliberalism/ Defending Access to the Decentralized Web https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/defending-access-decentralized-web This day in history (permalink) #15yrsago Conan and copyright, by Crom! https://web.archive.org/web/20090228111053/http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4rerevised.html<?a> #15yrsago What were arcades like, Grandpa? https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/27/what-were-arcades-like-grandpa/ #15yrsago Ian McDonald’s “Cyberabad Days” — short stories in 2047 India that blend technology with spirituality, love, sex, war and humanity https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/27/ian-mcdonalds-cyberabad-days-short-stories-in-2047-india-that-blend-technology-with-spirituality-love-sex-war-and-humanity/ #10yrsago GCHQ spied on millions of Yahoo video chats, harvested sexual images of chatters, compared itself to “Tom Cruise in Minority Report” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo #10yrsago Boeing’s self-destructing, tamper-resistant spookphone: the Black https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/boeings-black-this-android-phone-will-self-destruct/ #10yrsago Guest review: my daughter reviews Ariol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dkj81uRN9Q #5yrsago Fox hit with $179m (including $128m in punitive damages) judgment over shady bookkeeping on “Bones” https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/fox-bones-arbitration-emily-deschanel-179-million-1203150879/ #5yrsago AOC grills Equifax CEO: the Congressional record now contains the obvious, infuriating truth that everyone else already knew https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/02/11/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-takes-aim-equifax-credit-scoring/ #5yrsago Bunnie Huang’s tour-de-force explanation of how hardware implants and supply chain hacks work https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5519 #1yrago Pluralistic: Podcasting “Twiddler” https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/ 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: The Majority of Censorship is Self-Censorship https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/25/the-majority-of-censorship-is-self-censorship/ Upcoming appearances: The Bezzle at Powell’s (Portland) Feb 27: https://www.powells.com/book/the-bezzle-martin-hench-2-9781250865878/1-2 The Bezzle at Changing Hands (Phoenix), Feb 29: https://www.changinghands.com/event/february2024/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 Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31 https://www.comic-con.org/wc/ The Bezzle at Anderson’s Books (Chicago), Apr 17 https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1 Torino Biennale Tecnologia (Apr 19-21) https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2 https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival (May 5-11) https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/ 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: Radioactive (KCRL) https://krcl.org/blog/grist-investigates-doctorow-seed/ The enshittification of music (Music Ally) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh20fD3XXbg Aaron Swartz (EpistemiCast) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t9QVHSQBjIXKUiN2EvEmK Latest books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/). “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: 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/2024/02/27/ai-conspiracies/ Save to Pocket
40k servers, 400k CPUs and 40 PB of storage later… welcome to Google Cloud
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sabre Technology shutters 17 datacenters, says 90% of workloads transferred
Airline reservation technology biz Sabre Corporation has almost completed a mammoth migration to Google Cloud - one that would have tested the nerves of the most steely-eyed IT director.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/moving_thousands_of_servers_to_google_cloud/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Officials admit to blown call as lowly Pistons lose again.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/27/an-abomination-officials-admit-to-blown-call-as-lowly-pistons-lose-again Save to Pocket
The last local news outlet in town
date: 2024-02-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
With local elections looming — and no more daily newspaper in the area — how are residents of Del Rio, Texas getting their information?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-last-local-news-outlet-in-town Save to Pocket
Lenovo ThinkVision M14t Gen 2 mobile touch monitor brings resolution, contrast, and color improvements
date: 2024-02-27, from: Liliputing
It’s been a few years since Lenovo launched the ThinkVision M14t portable touchscreen monitor with support for touch and pen input. Now the company has announced a second-gen model is coming this summer. For the most part the new ThinkVision M14t Gen 2 looks a lot like the original. It’s still a portable 14 inch display that […]
The post Lenovo ThinkVision M14t Gen 2 mobile touch monitor brings resolution, contrast, and color improvements appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lenovo-thinkvision-m14t-gen-2-mobile-touch-monitor-brings-resolution-contrast-and-color-improvements/ Save to Pocket
LA City Councilmember Kevin de León Faces 7 Challengers And Hopes For Voters’ Forgiveness
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The LAist
More than a year after President Biden called on him to resign over his participation in a recorded conversation that included racist and derogatory remarks, L.A. City Councilmember Kevin de León is asking voters for another four-year term.
https://laist.com/news/politics/kevin-de-leon-racism-scandal-election Save to Pocket
Why This Slate Of Judge Candidates Wants More Defense Attorneys Elected To The Superior Court
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The LAist
Historically, voters have elected judges with prosecutorial experience. But could a more diverse bench better serve some of the most vulnerable?
https://laist.com/news/politics/los-angeles-superior-court-defense-backgrounds Save to Pocket
Scientists Discover How Some Whales Can Sing While Holding Their Breath Underwater
date: 2024-02-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Baleen whales have evolved unique voice boxes essential for song, a new study finds—but these low-frequency vocalizations must compete with the noise of humans’ ships
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-discover-how-some-whales-can-sing-while-holding-their-breath-underwater-180983836/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-27, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
My
Threads timeline is full of
Kara
Swisher the last few days. She has a
book
coming out. I think she’s popular with other journalists. Her theme
appears to be that it’s the personalities that matter, not what the
companies do. I don’t think she has a whole lot of insight into the
products and technology. For some reason tech, which mystifies a lot of
history and english majors, is considered irrelevant or optional, or
maybe kind of cute, by the typical reporter. So she expresses tech in
terms the journalists understand, therefore they like her.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/27.html#a124537 Save to Pocket
Capita wins uncontested extension to mega millions Northern Ireland Education contract
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Latest £33M awarded without competition in 11+ years contract that’s now worth well over half a billion
Northern Ireland’s Education Authority has awarded UK tech outsourcer Capita a managed services contract extension worth £33 million ($41.8 million) without external competition.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/northern_ireland_education_capita_deal/ Save to Pocket
Biden, Congressional Leaders to Discuss Ukraine Aid and Averting Government Shutdown
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-congressional-leaders-to-discuss-ukraine-aid-and-averting-government-shutdown-/7504196.html Save to Pocket
Nigeria protests hunger and hardship
date: 2024-02-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Trade unions have led demonstrations in Nigeria, as the country grapples with an economic crisis. Also: There are concerns about the tactics used by companies offering loans via cell phone apps in Kenya.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/nigeria-protests-hunger-and-hardship Save to Pocket
China Surveillance Company Hacked
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Bruce Schneier blog
Last week, someone posted something like 570 files, images and chat logs from a Chinese company called I-Soon. I-Soon sells hacking and espionage services to Chinese national and local government.
Lots of details in the news articles.
These aren’t details about the tools or techniques, more the inner workings of the company. And they seem to primarily be hacking regionally.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/china-surveillance-company-hacked.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
My two cents, I can’t think of a single example of a tech revelation reported by Kara Swisher.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/26/kara-swisher-memoir-review/ Save to Pocket
ESA’s ERS-2 satellite began to come apart earlier than predicted
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Harmlessly entered over the North Pacific, but solar array was already bent
The European Space Agency’s ERS-2 satellite has re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. While no damage to property was reported, some impressive shots were taken of the spacecraft starting to buckle as it approached re-entry.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/esas_ers2_began_its_disassembly/ Save to Pocket
Miracle WM, a new tiling window manager built on Mir
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Try preliminary version of a new environment in a snap
Version 0.1.0 of Miracle-wm is very incomplete still, yet shows that interesting stuff is happening on the back of Canonical’s Mir display server.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/miracle_tiling_wm/ Save to Pocket
Campus voting initiatives ramp up for primaries
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The USC Political Union, VoteSC and more organized to boost election turnout.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/campus-voting-initiatives-ramp-up-for-primaries/ Save to Pocket
Microsoft wants to update your Windows 11 PC without forcing you to reboot
date: 2024-02-27, from: OS News
If there’s one thing Windows users hate about Windows, it’s Windows updates interrupting your workflow or gaming session with a popup asking you to restart your PC finish installing the latest security update. It happens at least once a month, because that’s how often Microsoft rolls out security updates to Windows PCs. This may soon be a thing of the past, as the company is now testing an update method called “hot patching” for Windows 11 PCs. Hot patching is already in use on some Windows Server editions, as well as Xbox, and now it appears the company is preparing to bring it to devices running Windows 11. ↫ Zac Bowden at Windows Central A welcome, good improvement every Windows user is going to benefit from. This is the kind of improvements Microsoft should really be focusing on, instead of adding more ads or useless “AI” features.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138655/microsoft-wants-to-update-your-windows-11-pc-without-forcing-you-to-reboot/ Save to Pocket
A history of the tty
date: 2024-02-27, from: OS News
It’s one of those anachronisms that is deeply embedded in modern technology. From cloud operator servers to embedded controllers in appliances, there must be uncountable devices that think they are connected to a TTY. I will omit the many interesting details of the Linux terminal infrastructure here, as it could easily fill its own article. But most Linux users are at least peripherally aware that the kernel tends to identify both serial devices and terminals as TTYs, assigning them filesystem names in the form of /dev/tty*. Probably a lot of those people remember that this stands for teletype or perhaps teletypewriter, although in practice the term teleprinter is more common. ↫ J. B. Crawford I remember first using Linux in like 2000 or 2001, and running into the abbreviation tty, and not having a single clue what that meant since I came from a DOS and Windows background. Over time I gained a lot more understanding of the structure of modern UNIX-like systems, but it’s still great to read such a detailed history of the concept.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138653/a-history-of-the-tty/ Save to Pocket
Newsom-backed Prop 1 could impact mental health, homelessness
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Proposition 1 would fund new mental health facilities in California if passed.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/proposition-1-mental-health-homelessness/ Save to Pocket
HPE boss Neri bags 15% pay hike in 2023 as targets ticked
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
CEO-to-grunt pay ratio now 300:1 as wider workforce gets 4.4% more than year earlier
HPE chief Antonio Neri was awarded $20.06 million in compensation for the company’s last financial year, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/hpe_neri_compensation/ Save to Pocket
California Senate Seat up for grabs
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Four candidates poll over 1% and are competing for a spot in the general election.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/california-senate-candidates/ Save to Pocket
Yankees pitcher Cortes emerges pain-free from first spring training start after injury-marred 2023
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Nestor Cortes wasn’t exactly nasty in his first spring training appearance, but the New York Yankees left-handed emerged from Monday’s game against Minnesota feeling good.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/sports/yankees-pitcher-cortes-emerges-pain-free-from-first-spring-training-start-after-injury-marred-2023/ Save to Pocket
Hart makes go-ahead basket after chaotic possession as Knicks beat Pistons 113-111
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson missed a 3-pointer, eventually got the ball back and passed it to Josh Hart for the go-ahead basket.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/sports/hart-makes-go-ahead-basket-after-chaotic-possession-as-knicks-beat-pistons-113-111/ Save to Pocket
Duke’s Scheyer wants the ACC to implement measures to prevent court-storming after Filipowski injury
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Duke coach Jon Scheyer wants the Atlantic Coast Conference to implement measures to prevent court-storming after star big man Kyle Filipowski was hobbled following a collision with a fan during a weekend loss at Wake Forest.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/sports/dukes-scheyer-wants-the-acc-to-implement-measures-to-prevent-court-storming-after-filipowski-injury/ Save to Pocket
Houston rises to No. 1 in AP Top 25 ahead of Purdue, UConn; South Florida makes its rankings debut
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Now it is Houston’s turn at the top of The Associated Press Top 25 men’s college basketball poll.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/sports/houston-rises-to-no-1-in-ap-top-25-ahead-of-purdue-uconn-south-florida-makes-its-rankings-debut/ Save to Pocket
Police: Kona man intentionally rammed vehicles with truck
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A judge on Monday freed a Kailua-Kona police say intentionally rammed parked vehicles with a pickup truck on Friday on supervised release, a form of cashless bail.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/police-kona-man-intentionally-rammed-vehicles-with-truck/ Save to Pocket
Biden will make rare visit to southern border on same day as Trump
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is planning to make a rare visit to the southern border Thursday, his press secretary said, traveling to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day that former President Donald Trump has already scheduled a border trip.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/biden-will-make-rare-visit-to-southern-border-on-same-day-as-trump/ Save to Pocket
Arrest of migrant in Georgia killing turns city into latest battleground on immigration
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>(NYT) ATHENS, Ga. — When a 22-year-old nursing student was found dead on a wooded trail at the University of Georgia in what’s believed to be the first homicide on campus in nearly 30 years, it set off waves of grief and fear that shook the university to its core.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/arrest-of-migrant-in-georgia-killing-turns-city-into-latest-battleground-on-immigration/ Save to Pocket
In Trump criminal case, Manhattan DA asks for gag order before trial
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>NEW YORK — Manhattan prosecutors Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump to prohibit the former president from attacking witnesses or exposing jurors’ identities.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/in-trump-criminal-case-manhattan-da-asks-for-gag-order-before-trial/ Save to Pocket
Merrie Monarch Festival currently leading in USA Today poll
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Merrie Monarch Festival is uniquely Hawaiian in nature but of worldwide interest. The festival, held yearly in Hilo, is dedicated to King David Kalakaua, the “Merrie Monarch,” who revived the art of hula — which had been banned after Christian missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the 1820s.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/merrie-monarch-festival-currently-leading-in-usa-today-poll/ Save to Pocket
State measure to help combat invasive two-line spittlebug
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The State House of Representatives Committee on Finance took up a measure on Thursday to fund mitigation and control of the two-lined spittlebug, an invasive pest that has destroyed thousands of acres of pasture land on the Big Island.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/state-measure-to-help-combat-invasive-two-line-spittlebug/ Save to Pocket
Big Island cable market could see fresh face
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A new cable provider could be coming to the Big Island.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/big-island-cable-market-could-see-fresh-face/ Save to Pocket
Mountain View man accused of soliciting sex from a minor
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A 42-year-old Mountain View man was arrested and charged for sex solicitation after exchanging text messages with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a teenage girl.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/mountain-view-man-accused-of-soliciting-sex-from-a-minor/ Save to Pocket
US sues to block merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, saying it could push prices higher
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The Federal Trade Commission sued to block a proposed merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, saying the $24.6 billion deal would eliminate competition and lead to higher prices for millions of Americans.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/us-sues-to-block-merger-of-grocery-giants-kroger-and-albertsons-saying-it-could-push-prices-higher/ Save to Pocket
Supreme Court casts doubt on GOP-led states’ efforts to regulate social media platforms
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on state laws that could affect how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. The cases are among several this term in which the justices could set standards for free speech in the digital age.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/supreme-court-casts-doubt-on-gop-led-states-efforts-to-regulate-social-media-platforms/ Save to Pocket
Police: HPP drowning investigation still open
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Police detectives continue to actively investigate the circumstances surrounding the Feb. 18 drowning death of 29-year-old Kala‘i Reyes-Kanekoa, who went off a cliff into the ocean in Hawaiian Paradise Park.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/police-hpp-drowning-investigation-still-open/ Save to Pocket
Primary apathy in Michigan: Democrats, GOP struggle as supporters mull whether to even vote
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LANSING, Mich. — In Michigan, a state that both major parties say they must have to win the White House in 2024, a cloud of apathy has settled over the electorate. Even with crucial races for the U.S. Senate and Congress also on the ballot, genuine enthusiasm is hard to find. The state’s voters are poised to cast ballots in their respective primaries today, but the prospect looms that they will be left with the same choices for president in November that they considered four years ago.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/primary-apathy-in-michigan-democrats-gop-struggle-as-supporters-mull-whether-to-even-vote/ Save to Pocket
Obituaries for February 27
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>John “Jack” Edward Bowen, 85, of Hilo died Dec. 7. Born in Washington D.C., he was a firefighter with the College Park, Md., Fire Department, became a Hazmat Trainer in Hawaii and worldwide, worked for C. Brewer and Co. and was a researcher for the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture. Memorial service at a later date. Condolences: Denise Marjarum, 5277 N. Salem Church Rd. Dover, PA 17315. Online condolences: homelanimemorialpark.com. Survived by wife, Anne Bowen; daughters, Maureen (Norbert) Figueira and Denise Marjarum of Pennsylvania; eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Arrangements by Homelani Memorial Park.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/obituaries/obituaries-for-february-27-9/ Save to Pocket
Navalny was part of discussions on a prisoner exchange
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Aides to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month, asserted Monday that he had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange with the West.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/navalny-was-part-of-discussions-on-a-prisoner-exchange/ Save to Pocket
Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer will present at the Oscars (plus everything else you need to know)
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a winter barrage of award shows — the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Grammys — the grandaddy of them all, the Academy Awards, are around the corner. The 96th Oscars may be a coronation for “Oppenheimer,” which comes in with a leading 13 nominations, though other films, including “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Poor Things” are in the mix.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/al-pacino-and-michelle-pfeiffer-will-present-at-the-oscars-plus-everything-else-you-need-to-know/ Save to Pocket
The Oahu resort that’s become a favorite Hollywood film location
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>For more than a century, Hawaii has been the chosen location for countless Hollywood movies and TV shows. It’s where dinosaurs roamed in “Jurassic Park,” wealthy guests checked in to “The White Lotus,” and Indiana Jones ran through the jungle in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/the-oahu-resort-thats-become-a-favorite-hollywood-film-location/ Save to Pocket
Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s top official, plans to step down March 8
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>The chair of the Republican National Committee said Monday that she would step down in just over a week, as former President Donald Trump seeks to install a new hand-picked leader for the national party before the general election this fall.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/ronna-mcdaniel-the-rncs-top-official-plans-to-step-down-march-8/ Save to Pocket
Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/nation-world-news/sideways-moon-landing-cuts-mission-short-private-us-lunar-lander-will-stop-working-tuesday/ Save to Pocket
Demand increasing for help from Visitor Aloha Society
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Michael and Merle Ross, first-time visitors from Canada celebrating their fifth anniversary, were in the middle of a tour when they got a text telling them to shelter in place because the Honolulu Police Department was dealing with a barricaded suspect at the Aston Waikiki Sunset, where they were staying.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/hawaii-news/demand-increasing-for-help-from-visitor-aloha-society/ Save to Pocket
Let’s Talk Food: Leap Year is this Thursday
date: 2024-02-27, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>This Thursday is February 29, which occurs only once in four years. This is because the Earth actually goes completely around the sun 365 days, 5 hours, 38 minutes and 46 seconds, which means every four years — if you are a mathematician — would mean an extra day.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/27/community/lets-talk-food-leap-year-is-this-thursday/ Save to Pocket
Candidates rush to fill LAUSD seat
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
A long-time District 1 board member will retire this December, leaving an open seat.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/lausd-district-1-candidates/ Save to Pocket
A look into District 14’s candidates
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The district, which includes USC’s Health Sciences campus, is holding an election this year.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/los-angeles-council-district-14/ Save to Pocket
More than $6 million in undistributed child support, lawmakers hear escheatment bill
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
The Child Support Enforcement Division, or CSED, of the Office of the Attorney General has more than $6.2 million in undistributed funds sitting in a trust account as of June 2023, of which more than $4.2 million have remained undistributed…
https://www.postguam.com/news/more-than-6-million-in-undistributed-child-support-lawmakers-hear-escheatment-bill/article_fbedbacc-d53c-11ee-a86b-7bf193fbe770.html Save to Pocket
Black role models in tech are making history every day
date: 2024-02-27, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
It’s the last week of Black History Month 2024 in the USA, but by no means is the celebration over. The beautiful thing about history is that it’s not an isolated narrative about the past, but an ongoing dialogue in which we talk about how our collective past informs our present, and what more can…
The post Black role models in tech are making history every day appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/black-history-month-2024/ Save to Pocket
Renewal of US-China Science and Tech Pact Faces Hurdles
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
STATE DEPARTMENT — With a science and technology agreement between the United States and People’s Republic of China due to expire Tuesday, the State Department said it is negotiating to “amend, extend, and strengthen protections within” the agreement but declined to specify if the U.S. would extend the deal.
“We are not able to provide information at this time on specific U.S. negotiating positions or on whether the agreement will be extended past its current expiration date,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.
The Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement is a framework for U.S. governmental collaborations with China in science and technology.
U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China.
While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China’s national science and technology strategies and its domestic legal framework.
Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, point out China’s restrictions on data and a lack of transparency in sharing scientific findings. Washington is also concerned about personal safety of American scientists who travel to China, as well as Beijing’s potential military application of shared research.
A report by Congressional Research Service said China’s cooperation under the agreement has not been consistent. For example, “China reportedly withheld avian influenza strains required for U.S. vaccines and in 2019, cut off U.S. access to coronavirus research, including U.S.-funded work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said the CRS.
Advocates for renewing the agreement want to maintain some level of official and unofficial contacts amid strained relationship between the two countries.
During a recent discussion hosted by the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), panelists said the STA is “important symbolically” and gives confidence to researchers on both sides to deepen their engagement with counterparts.
“In the event of the agreement’s non-renewal, the mutual confidence that sustains and underpins collaboration is bound to suffer,” said ICAS in its post-event summary.
Dean Cheng, a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the American system is far more open, so China will typically be able to gather information regardless of whether there is an agreement.
“The STA is no guarantee that American scientists will, in fact, be able to access Chinese research, information, or scholars, whereas the Chinese side will use the STA as a means of establishing an even greater presence in the U.S.,” Cheng told VOA, adding the “strategic advantage” under the deal will likely be with the PRC.
The STA was originally signed in 1979 by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-PRC leader Deng Xiaoping. Under the agreement, the two countries cooperate in fields including agriculture, energy, space, health, environment, earth sciences and engineering, as well as educational and scholarly exchanges.
U.S.-China science and technology activity increased in November 2009 with new agreements on joint projects in electric vehicles, or EVs, renewable energy, and the creation of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, or CERC, a 10-year research effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
The agreement has been renewed approximately every five years since its inception, with the most recent five-year extension occurring in 2018. Last August, it received a six-month extension as officials from the two countries undertook negotiations to amend and strengthen the terms.
https://www.voanews.com/a/renewal-of-u-s–china-science-and-tech-pact-faces-hurdles/7504097.html Save to Pocket
Elon Musk Flees To Billionaires’ New Court
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Lever News
Burned by legal decisions, Elon Musk is relocating his rocket company to Texas — where he’ll enjoy a new, separate justice system controlled by his ally, Gov. Greg Abbott.
https://www.levernews.com/elon-musk-flees-to-billionaires-new-court/ Save to Pocket
Cybercrims: When we hit IT, they sometimes pay, but when we hit OT… jackpot
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Or so says opsec firm, which confirms 70% of all industrial org ransomware in 2023 targeted manufacturers
Analysis Cybercriminals follow the money, and increasingly last year that led them to ransomware attacks against the manufacturing industry.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/manufacturing_sector_malware/ Save to Pocket
Barnett: GPD oversight hearing to address brutality allegations
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Police Department will be asked questions by the 37th Guam Legislature at an oversight hearing Wednesday afternoon about complaints against police officers.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/barnett-gpd-oversight-hearing-to-address-brutality-allegations/article_7dfbd4ec-d51d-11ee-a5b0-17a978afc506.html Save to Pocket
GMHA expects $30M shortfall
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
Although the Guam Memorial Hospital Authority is showing improvement in its operating revenue compared to this time last fiscal year, operating expenses continue to grow, and the hospital is always seeing losses from operations, according to GMHA Chief Financial Officer…
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/gmha-expects-30m-shortfall/article_af3f6446-d528-11ee-b63f-cbe9c5590de0.html Save to Pocket
Energy credit extension now law
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
Acting Gov. Josh Tenorio has signed into law another round of the Prugråman Ayuda Para I Taotao-ta Energy Credit Program, now known as Public Law 37-66, granting $100 monthly credits for power billings from January through March.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/energy-credit-extension-now-law/article_03a3a2ca-d512-11ee-8828-53da9ea97d4f.html Save to Pocket
Efforts to reduce speed on Route 1 curve
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
The Department of Public Works will be installing “candlestick stanchions” in the middle lane of the area of Route 1 known as Dead Man’s Curve in the next couple of weeks to slow down the speed of traffic.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/efforts-to-reduce-speed-on-route-1-curve/article_61e83a74-d50f-11ee-a7bd-8f0179d6bfcb.html Save to Pocket
June trial for teacher accused of sexually assaulting students
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
An elementary school teacher accused of sexually assaulting several students is scheduled to go to trial in June.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/june-trial-for-teacher-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-students/article_100c25ac-d506-11ee-bc63-1fa937ccd3c0.html Save to Pocket
Man accused of sexually assaulting girl
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
A 34-year-old man was accused of sexually assaulting a female minor when she was 9 years old and again when she was 12 years old.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/man-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-girl/article_266f7f34-d465-11ee-a5e5-afd8dcb4ca39.html Save to Pocket
DivingBoard: a homemade MIDI controller for synth lovers
date: 2024-02-27, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Oliver Hagen built the DivingBoard MIDI controller to make it easier to use synthesisers with hectic user interfaces
The post DivingBoard: a homemade MIDI controller for synth lovers appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/divingboard-a-homemade-midi-controller-for-synth-lovers/ Save to Pocket
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk vs. American workers
date: 2024-02-27, from: Robert Reich on Substack
The biggest robber barons of this Second Gilded Age are trying to end the freedom of workers to unionize
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/jeff-bezos-and-elon-musk-vs-american Save to Pocket
THE CARNIVAL IS OVER
date: 2024-02-27, from: Howard Jacobson blog
This is a free post. But don’t let that dissuade you from becoming a paid subscriber and gaining access to past and future articles of this kind, as well as work in progress, letters, ruminations, reflections, desperations, new fiction, and heaven knows what else.
https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/the-carnival-is-over Save to Pocket
Democrats, Republicans Holding Presidential Primaries in Michigan
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/democrats-republicans-holding-presidential-primaries-in-michigan/7504082.html Save to Pocket
Classifieds – February 27, 2024
date: 2024-02-27, 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.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/classifieds-february-27-2024/ Save to Pocket
Meta to build election operations center in Europe to inspect AI content
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fact-checkers will label AI-generated media for upcoming EU elections
Meta is launching an “EU-specific Elections Operations Center” to tackle AI-generated misinformation and political advertising to prepare for upcoming parliament elections.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/meta_telection_infotrmation_ai/ Save to Pocket
Today in SCV History (Feb. 27)
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1950 – Ex-Mrs. William S. Hart appears in court to challenge will that leaves Hart Park and Mansion to the public [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-27/ Save to Pocket
Angel Gentle opens shop in South Central
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Not all angels wear halos — this up-and-coming L.A. designer prefers streetwear.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/angel-gentle-opens-shop-in-south-central/ Save to Pocket
‘Campus Crush’ puts a new spin on reality TV
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Dating can be a struggle at USC, but student TV station Trojan Vision wants to help.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/campus-crush-puts-a-new-spin-on-reality-tv/ Save to Pocket
Baseball must figure out its road struggles
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojans have started out 0-4 away from “home” this season, were 8-17-1 last season.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/baseball-must-figure-out-its-road-struggles/ Save to Pocket
Baseball hits its way to first series win
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Trojan bats finally broke through for 16 runs in a pair of wins over the weekend.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/baseball-hits-its-way-to-first-series-win/ Save to Pocket
Watkins frustrated, women’s basketball falls to Utes again
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Utah completed its season sweep of USC, snapping the Trojans’ latest win streak.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/watkins-frustrated-womens-basketball-falls-to-utes-again/ Save to Pocket
Underlying costs of college harm students
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC must address its high prices for the fundamental requirements of students.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/underlying-costs-of-college-harm-students/ Save to Pocket
Surviving the midterm munchies
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Pre-made grocery store meals run my busy weeks.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/surviving-the-midterm-munchies/ Save to Pocket
LGBTQIA+ spaces aren’t for non-queer people
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Non-LGBTQIA+ people should be mindful in queer spaces.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/27/lgbtqia-spaces-arent-for-non-queer-people/ Save to Pocket
Chinese Airlines Can Boost US Flights to 50 Per Week, US Says
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Chinese passenger airlines will be allowed to boost their weekly round-trip U.S. flights to 50 starting on March 31, up from the current 35, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Monday, returning the market to nearly one-third of pre-pandemic levels.
The approval “is a significant step forward in further normalization of the U.S.-China market in anticipation of the Summer 2024 traffic season,” the USDOT said.
More than 150 weekly round-trip passenger flights were allowed by each side before restrictions were imposed in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but until August 2023, Chinese and U.S. carriers could each fly only 12 a week between
the two countries.
The number rose on Sept. 1 to 18 weekly roundtrips and then to 24 per week starting Oct. 29. The USDOT approved 35 for Chinese carriers in November.
Airlines for America, a group representing American Airlines , Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, which fly a combined 31 weekly flights to China, said it “supports the U.S. government’s approach to slowly, gradually and reciprocally reopen the market with China. It’s imperative the U.S. government maintains this approach.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was “glad to see the positive progress made on increasing direct passenger flights between China and the U.S.” The embassy added it is working to “further facilitate cross-border travel and promote people-to-people exchange between the two countries.”
Reuters reported last June that newly approved Chinese flights to the United States were not overflying Russia, which would have given them a shorter flight time and fuel advantage over U.S. rivals blocked from Russian airspace.
Other international air markets involving China have reopened far more quickly, with seat capacity between China and the United Kingdom this month exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 30%, and China-Singapore by 6%, according to aviation data
provider OAG.
The USDOT said it was engaged in a productive dialogue with China’s aviation regulator towards the “implementation of a roadmap to provide for a gradual, broader reopening of the U.S.-China air services market and a phased and predictable return to the capacity entitlements” specified under a U.S.-China agreement.
On a trip to China last year, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she wanted to boost travel and tourism between the two countries.
If China returned to 2019 U.S. tourism levels, it would add $30 billion to the U.S. economy and 50,000 U.S. jobs, Raimondo said in August.
https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-airlines-can-boost-us-flights-to-50-per-week-us-says/7504068.html Save to Pocket
Broadcom builds a better SASE out of VMware VeloCloud and Symantec
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
First integration across properties, as end user compute division readies to leave home
Broadcom has delivered on its 2023 teaser of integration between VMware’s SD-WAN and Symantec’s Security Service Edge, by today debuting the “VMware VeloCloud SASE, Secured by Symantec” at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/vmware_symantec_sase/ Save to Pocket
February 26, 2024
date: 2024-02-27, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Lots of moving pieces on this Monday, with the biggest stories coming in international affairs. The U.S. has appointed a special envoy for Sudan, which is ten months into a civil war that has turned 8 million people into refugees, sending 1.5 million into other countries; closed 80% of the hospitals in the area of the fighting; and prompted torture, rape, and deliberate starvation of civilians, at least 14,600 of whom have been killed. Tom Perriello will, the State Department said, “coordinate the U.S. policy on Sudan and advance our efforts to end the hostilities, secure unhindered humanitarian access, and support the Sudanese people as they seek to fulfill their aspirations for freedom, peace, and justice.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-26-2024 Save to Pocket
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Machine learning will make everyone a programmer, so best become an expert in something else
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes AI has advanced to the point at which it’s no longer necessary to prioritize computer science and coding education for the world’s youth.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/jensen_huang_coders/ Save to Pocket
US Army Using Own Funding to Pay for Training of Ukrainian Forces
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-army-using-own-funding-to-pay-for-training-of-ukrainian-forces-/7504044.html Save to Pocket
‘How do I reset my router’ isn’t in LLM corpuses. An alliance of telcos wants to change that
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Customer service data from five top telcos across Asia, Europe, and UAE will feed a carrier-centric multi-lingual chatbots
A joint venture comprising carriers SoftBank, Singtel, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and e& Group plans to develop a large language model (LLM) they will use to automate customer service for the telco sector.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/global_telco_ai_alliance_llms/ Save to Pocket
Japan’s SLIM unexpectedly wakes up on Moon after month-long nap
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
How’s that for resilient?
Against almost astronomical odds, Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) has reestablished communication with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/jaxa_slim_moon_lander_awakens/ Save to Pocket
China warns of fake digital currency wallets fleecing netizens
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Scammers’ tactics are tiresomely familiar: get-rich-quick schemes and data harvesting
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has warned local netizens that fake wallet apps for the nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) are already circulating and being abused by scammers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/china_fake_ecny_app_warning/ Save to Pocket
GPD oversight hearing to address police brutality allegations
date: 2024-02-27, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Police Department will be asked questions about complaints against police officers at an oversight hearing in the 37th Guam Legislature Wednesday afternoon.
https://www.postguam.com/news/gpd-oversight-hearing-to-address-police-brutality-allegations/article_24f5f3e6-d513-11ee-a28c-338345dd2df4.html Save to Pocket
CSUN hosts the CSU Folklórico Showcase for the first time
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Known for performing regional dances from Mexico, the Ballet Folklórico Aztlán de CSUN is no stranger to cultural dance. Since its establishment in 1969, the student-run organization has focused on…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178699/arts-entertainment/csun-hosts-the-csu-folklorico-showcase-for-the-first-time/ Save to Pocket
Underwater cables in Red Sea damaged months after Houthis threatened to do just that
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Yemeni rebels thought to lack the ability to damage submarine cables, but here we are
Undersea data cables in the Red Sea have reportedly been damaged, months after Yemeni Houthi rebels threatened to do so.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/red_sea_cables_houthi/ Save to Pocket
Teens arrested after SUV crash
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies arrested two juveniles Monday afternoon after a black Mercedes Benz SUV crashed into a center divider in Valencia following a stolen-vehicle investigation. Deputies received a report that the plates on the black SUV matched a vehicle that had been reported stolen, prompting deputies to perform a traffic stop, according […]
The post Teens arrested after SUV crash appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/teens-arrested-after-suv-crash-2/ Save to Pocket
CSUN women’s rugby season opener
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
California State University, Northridge women’s rugby team kicked off the 2024 season at home against UC Irvine last weekend. This matchup challenged the Matadors to put all their hard work,…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178695/multimedia/watch/csun-womens-rugby-season-opener/ Save to Pocket
Teen seeks to raise alarm after massage parlor visit
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
A local teen said he wanted to make people aware of what’s going on in his neighborhood after he filed a report with law enforcement alleging he was fondled against his will and then had money stolen from his wallet at a massage parlor just blocks from his house. The 18-year-old victim drove to a […]
The post Teen seeks to raise alarm after massage parlor visit appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/teen-seeks-to-raise-alarm-after-massage-parlor-visit/ Save to Pocket
Teens arrested after SUV crash
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies arrested two juveniles Monday afternoon after a black Mercedes Benz SUV crashed into a center divider in Valencia following a stolen-vehicle investigation. Deputies received a report that the plates on the black SUV matched a vehicle that had been reported stolen, prompting deputies to perform a traffic stop, […]
The post Teens arrested after SUV crash appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/teens-arrested-after-suv-crash/ Save to Pocket
New developer, new plans
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
City to hear new proposal for former Whittaker-Bermite site next week The city of Santa Clarita is expecting to hear an early public discussion next week for one of the most talked-about and worked-on plots of land in the region’s history: the Whittaker-Bermite property, which is now being proposed for development as a new project […]
The post New developer, new plans appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/new-developer-new-plans/ Save to Pocket
Is Emacs Dying?
date: 2024-02-27, from: Tilde.news
https://irreal.org/blog/?p=11995 Save to Pocket
Battery powered trailer boost range, efficiency — now for $120,000 less
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
The RA electric trailer from Range Energy promises to turn your diesel truck into a hybrid or extend the range of your electric semi – and now it qualifies for a $120,000 voucher in California.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/battery-powered-trailer-boost-range-efficiency-now-for-120000-less/ Save to Pocket
Google to bring Gemini model back online in a few weeks after adjusting historical color calibrations
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
While you wait, Android devices will start to use gen AI to do stuff like summarize group chats
Google hopes to reinstate Gemini’s AI image-generating abilities in the next couple of weeks as it races to fix an issue that prevented the model’s text-to-image service from depicting White people.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/google_gemini_return/ Save to Pocket
mud-pi: A simple MUD server in Python, for teaching purposes, which could be run on a Raspberry Pi
date: 2024-02-27, from: Tilde.news
https://github.com/Frimkron/mud-pi Save to Pocket
Quick Charge Podcast: February 26, 2024
date: 2024-02-27, from: Electrek Feed
Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/quick-charge-podcast-february-26-2024/ Save to Pocket
Holocaust survivor tells life story at Hart High School
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
Holocaust survivor Joe Alexander gave a presentation on his life and experiences surviving 12 different concentration camps at Hart High School on Sunday evening. “Tonight, Santa Clarita will have the opportunity to hear from a man who has survived these atrocities,” said Councilman Jason Gibbs, who introduced Alexander alongside Rabbi Choni Marozov from Chabad of […]
The post Holocaust survivor tells life story at Hart High School appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/holocaust-survivor-tells-life-story-at-hart-high-school/ Save to Pocket
Concerned Carpinterians for Roy Lee
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Concerned Carpinterians announces their full-hearted support and endorsement of Carpinteria City Council Member Roy Lee for 1st District Supervisor of Santa Barbara.
The post Concerned Carpinterians for Roy Lee appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/concerned-carpinterians-for-roy-lee/ Save to Pocket
Texas Sues Pornhub, Claiming It’s Ignoring Age Verification Law
date: 2024-02-27, from: 404 Media Group
Attorney General Ken Paxton said he “looks forward” to preventing minors from seeing “harmful, obscene material” on the internet.
https://www.404media.co/texas-sues-pornhub-claiming-its-ignoring-age-verification-law/ Save to Pocket
Even in Losing to Trump, Haley Reveals His Soft GOP Support
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/even-in-losing-to-trump-haley-reveals-his-soft-gop-support/7503925.html Save to Pocket
Russia’s Cozy Bear dives into cloud environments with a new bag of tricks
date: 2024-02-27, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Kremlin’s spies tried out the TTPs on Microsoft, and now they’re off to the races
Russia’s notorious Cozy Bear, the crew behind the SolarWinds supply chain attack, has expanded its targets and evolved its techniques to break into organizations’ cloud environments, according to the Five Eyes governments.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/russia_cozy_bear_new_ttps/ Save to Pocket
Lady Mustangs Drop Regular Season Finale to Menlo Oaks 60-67
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University women’s basketball team got to within one in the final quarter, but it was the Menlo Oaks that pulled away in the end to get the 67-60 win Saturday afternoon in The MacArthur Center
https://scvnews.com/lady-mustangs-drop-regular-season-finale-to-menlo-oaks-60-67/ Save to Pocket
Wilk coauthors measure to pull plug on looming income-based electricity charges
date: 2024-02-27, from: The Signal
News release Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, has announced he is co-authoring the Cost of Living Reduction Act, Senate Bill 1326, which would repeal a 2022 law authorizing an income-based charge on electrical bills. “Too many Californians struggle to afford their electricity bills at a time when energy is already unreliable, and yet the Legislature […]
The post Wilk coauthors measure to pull plug on looming income-based electricity charges appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/wilk-coauthors-measure-to-pull-plug-on-looming-income-based-electricity-charges/ Save to Pocket
Weihai Sister Cities Association Brings in Year of the Dragon at China Pavilion
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
2024 Board members of Weihai, China Sister Cities Association hosted their annual New Year Celebration with a Year of the
The post Weihai Sister Cities Association Brings in Year of the Dragon at China Pavilion appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/weihai-sister-cities-association-brings-in-year-of-the-dragon-at-china-pavilion/ Save to Pocket
An Asset to the County
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
As a full-time Gaviota resident in rural Santa Barbara County, I support Joan Hartmann for 3rd District Supervisor.
The post An Asset to the County appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/an-asset-to-the-county/ Save to Pocket
SCV Realtor Recognized Among Wilk’s Black History Month Spotlight
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
In honor of Black History Month, California State Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, is pleased to recognize several prominent Black community leaders and organizations who are making a difference across Senate District
https://scvnews.com/scv-realtor-recognized-among-wilks-black-history-month-spotlight/ Save to Pocket
Pentagon Absolves Itself After Secrecy Surrounding Austin’s Hospitalization
date: 2024-02-27, from: VOA News USA
washington — An internal review blames privacy restrictions and staff hesitancy for the Pentagon’s failure last month to quickly notify the president and other senior leaders about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for complications from prostate cancer surgery.
The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization, which included several days in the intensive care unit. And it says flatly there was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate.”
Instead, the 30-day examination of the lapse — which angered the White House and members of Congress — says procedures must be improved and information shared better about when the defense secretary must transfer decision-making authorities to the deputy.
Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing and is expected to face sharp criticism. The Defense Department’s inspector general is also conducting a review, which has not yet been completed.
Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early December and went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for surgery on December 22. On January 1, he was taken back to Walter Reed by ambulance after experiencing significant pain and was moved to the intensive care unit the next day.
Although he transferred decision-making authorities to Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks during his initial surgery and then again when he was in intensive care, he did not tell her why and he did not inform the White House.
Pentagon officials have acknowledged that public affairs and defense aides were told on January 2 that Austin had been hospitalized but did not make it public and did not tell the military service leaders or the National Security Council until January 4. Only then did President Joe Biden find out. It took four more days before the reason for his hospitalization was disclosed.
Defense officials released an unclassified summary of the review on Monday and a set of recommended changes. The review suggests there was no established method for handling such an incident, and the fact that his hospitalization was “unplanned” contributed to the failure to let others know.
It also says Austin’s staff was limited by medical privacy laws that prohibited doctors from providing information and they “were hesitant to pry or share any information they did learn.” It adds that since Austin’s condition was “in flux” they could not ensure “timely secured communications.”
Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Monday that Austin’s aides found themselves in an “unprecedented situation.” He said that as Austin was being moved into intensive care, his aides recognized that he would not have access to critical communications, and they made the decision to transfer authorities to the deputy.
The fact that staff and not Austin made the decision raised questions about who was in control of the department at that moment, including America’s nuclear arsenal. Ryder said there were “no gaps” in command and control of the department.
Pressed on the lack of blame and whether anyone is being disciplined, Ryder said, “as the secretary has said, the buck stops with him and he’s taking responsibility for not notifying the president and the White House sooner.”
He added that “dedicated public servants were doing what they thought was the right thing.”
The 30-day review was finished and submitted to Austin on February 8, but only parts of it were publicly released. The Pentagon has argued that portions of the report are classified.
Austin, in a press briefing after he returned to work, told reporters that he never told his staff to keep his surgery and hospitalization secret from the White House, but acknowledged he should have handled it differently and he apologized for keeping Biden and others in the dark. He denied there was a culture of secrecy in his office, and also said that staff members may have perceived that “they’re doing things in my best interest.”
The recommended changes include better guidelines for the transfer of authorities and better reporting requirements during those incidents.
His secrecy about the hospitalizations prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to ensure it will be informed any time a Cabinet head transfers decision-making authorities when they are unreachable due to medical, travel or other reasons.
https://www.voanews.com/a/pentagon-absolves-itself-after-secrecy-surrounding-austin-s-hospitalization-/7503906.html Save to Pocket
Cannabis Money
date: 2024-02-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
In 2019, Das Williams said he wouldn’t accept future contributions from the cannabis industry, but he hasn’t kept this promise.
The post Cannabis Money appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/cannabis-money/ Save to Pocket
Landmark Legislation Announced for School Employees Paid Pregnancy Leave
date: 2024-02-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond joined educators and members of the California Teachers Association Monday on the west steps of the California State Capitol to announce historic legislation—the Pregnancy Leave for Educators Act
https://scvnews.com/landmark-legislation-announced-for-school-employees-paid-pregnancy-leave/ Save to Pocket
Today in the Supreme Court: What’s the real answer to the problem of policing Giant Tech’s content?
date: 2024-02-27, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Today’s argument before the Supreme Court
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/whats-the-real-answer-to-the-problem Save to Pocket
Fast Poetry and pre-commit with GitHub Actions
date: 2024-02-27, from: Max Halford Blog
This is a short post to share a GitHub Actions pattern I use to setup Poetry and pre-commit. These two tools cover most of my Python development needs. I use Poetry to manage dependencies and pre-commit to run code checks and formatting. The setup is fast because it caches the virtual environment and the .local directory. I like to use custom actions for this type of stuff. These are base actions that can be re-used in multiple workflows.
https://maxhalford.github.io/blog/fast-poetry-pre-commit-github-actions/ Save to Pocket
Pure CSS single-page app routing
date: 2024-02-27, from: Lean Rada’s blog
You’re probably a busy person, so here’s the CSS:
section:not(:target) {
display: none;
}Demo: Open in a new tab
Open in a new tabExplanation
The
:target
CSS selector selects the element that is targeted by the URL fragment.
Combined with :not, we can hide sections that are
not referenced by the URL fragment.
Just as JS routers use the fragment to hide/show sections in the DOM, this “CSS router” uses the same fragment to hide/show sections in the DOM.
Experiment: Default section
Notice that the example above doesn’t start with the Home section. The content is blank initially. This is because on initial page load we don’t have a URL fragment to begin with.
We need to make an exception for the Home section.
Let’s start by not hiding the #home section by default.
Only hide #home if there’s a specific :target
section.
- section:not(:target) {
+ section:not(#home, :target),
+ :root:has(:target) #home {
display: none;
}Demo v2: Open in a new tab
Open in a new tabExperiment: Nested routes
One thing that makes most client-side routers modular is the ability to nest routes. We can do the same with CSS.
- section:not(:target) {
+ section:not(:target, :has(:target)) {
display: none;
}Demo v3: This demo is best when you view it in a separate tab
Open in a new tabParameterised routes?
The ultimate feature for client-side routers is to dynamically catch
routes with parameters like for example /post/:id.
Since HTML is static, there’s no real way to do this with CSS. ☹
Unless… you could render all possible :id values in the
markup and use it like you would nested routes.
<!-- ... -->
<section id="post/128"><!-- ... --></section>
<section id="post/129"><!-- ... --></section>
<section id="post/130"><!-- ... --></section>
<!-- ... -->But that’d be like putting the entire database in HTML. What if you have two parameters in the route? It could be a combinatorial explosion. So no, the experiments end here. 👋
https://leanrada.com/notes/pure-css-spa-router?ref=rss Save to Pocket
Lilbits: Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Galaxy Smart Ring, Humane Ai Pin, and Honor Magic 6 Pro
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
Amazon recently rolled out an update to Fire TV devices that blocks a feature that allowed advanced users to do things like use third-party home screen and launcher apps without the need to root their TVs or media streaming boxes. But it also ended up breaking a number of other popular apps. Meanwhile the update […]
The post Lilbits: Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Galaxy Smart Ring, Humane Ai Pin, and Honor Magic 6 Pro appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lilbits-amazon-fire-tv-samsung-galaxy-smart-ring-humane-ai-pin-and-honor-magic-6-pro/ Save to Pocket
With over 600 CHIPS fund applicants seeking over $70B, don’t get your hopes up
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Commerce secretary warns priority will go to shovel-ready projects
US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo shared some hard truths about the $39 billion in CHIPS Act funding up for grabs in a speech on Monday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/us_chips_funding/ Save to Pocket
Chumash Fire Department Teaches First Graders About Fire Preparedness
date: 2024-02-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA YNEZ, CA — February 26, 2024 — The Chumash Fire Department recently hosted a group of young students to learn about fire
The post Chumash Fire Department Teaches First Graders About Fire Preparedness appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/chumash-fire-department-teaches-first-graders-about-fire-preparedness/ Save to Pocket
Thank You – a New Milestone
date: 2024-02-26, from: Dan Rather’s Steady
The Steady community
https://steady.substack.com/p/thank-you-a-new-milestone Save to Pocket
Big Showdown Looming for Developers of 250-Room Garden Street Hotel
date: 2024-02-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A project dating back more than 20 years looks to move forward on February 29 despite public pushback.
The post Big Showdown Looming for Developers of 250-Room Garden Street Hotel appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/big-showdown-looming-for-developers-of-250-room-garden-street-hotel/ Save to Pocket
HP Envy x360 14 inch convertibles with Intel Meteor Lake and AMD Hawk Point coming in March for $950 and up
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
HP is refreshing its Envy x360 14 inch convertible laptop with new models sporting the latest Intel and AMD processors. While both models look pretty much the same, there are a few key differences. One is that the models with Intel processors have a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4 port, while AMD-powered versions of the laptop […]
The post HP Envy x360 14 inch convertibles with Intel Meteor Lake and AMD Hawk Point coming in March for $950 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/hp-envy-x360-14-inch-convertibles-with-intel-meteor-lake-and-amd-hawk-point-coming-in-march-for-950-and-up/ Save to Pocket
Santa Clarita Student Earns CA Jaycee Foundation Scholarship
date: 2024-02-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The California Jaycee Foundation announced Monday Alexander Bonfiglio of Golden Valley High School is one of eight graduating high school seniors receiving a $1,000 Scholarship resulting from the annual competition completed in January
https://scvnews.com/santa-clarita-student-earns-ca-jaycee-foundation-scholarship/ Save to Pocket
Santa Barbara Assemblymember Gregg Hart Reintroduces Blue Whales and Blue Skies Bill
date: 2024-02-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The legislation would expand the program statewide to help prevent fatal ship strikes on whales and lower harmful emissions.
The post Santa Barbara Assemblymember Gregg Hart Reintroduces Blue Whales and Blue Skies Bill appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/santa-barbara-assemblymember-gregg-hart-reintroduces-blue-whales-and-blue-skies-bill/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Not much blogging here today. A lot of writing in other contexts.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/26.html#a225449 Save to Pocket
Will Americans Buy This Tiny, Cute Electric Car?
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The Microlino Lite can go 28 mph and seats two.
https://insideevs.com/news/710183/microlino-electric-car-america-sales/ Save to Pocket
After 40 Years, The Book Rack In Arcadia Will Shut Its Doors
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
Owner Karen Kropp said it has become “harder and harder” to run a mom-and-pop shop.
https://laist.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/after-40-years-the-book-rack-in-arcadia-will-shut-its-doors Save to Pocket
You won’t believe who bought almost $1 million worth of Tesla Roadsters
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
In a surprising turn of events, we now learn that billionaire Dan O’Dowd bought the 3 Tesla Roadsters that were lost in a Chinese port for over a decade.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/who-bought-almost-1-million-worth-tesla-roadsters/ Save to Pocket
Mercedes is upgrading the EQS with more range and a more classic grille design option
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Mercedes is going back to its roots with the upgraded EQS. The new Mercedes EQS luxury sedan will feature an improved battery for more range and the option for a more classic grille design.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/mercedes-improves-new-eqs-more-range-better-grille-design/ Save to Pocket
Join or Die
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/join-or-die Save to Pocket
Some OpenBSD features that aren’t widely known
date: 2024-02-26, from: OS News
In this blog post, you will learn about some OpenBSD features that can be useful, but not widespread. They often have a niche usage, but it’s important to know they exist to prevent you from reinventing the wheel. ↫ Solène Rapenne Written by Solène Rapenne, who also happens to be an OpenBSD developer, so a great source for information like this.
https://www.osnews.com/story/138651/some-openbsd-features-that-arent-widely-known/ Save to Pocket
HP’s new Pavilion Aero 13 is a 2.2 pound laptop with Ryzen 8040, coming in May for $800 and up
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
For the past few years, the HP Pavilion Aero 13 has been one of my go-to recommendations for folks looking for a thin and light laptop with performance and design that punches above its price class. HP has given the laptop a few modest upgrades since I first reviewed the notebook in 2021, but for […]
The post HP’s new Pavilion Aero 13 is a 2.2 pound laptop with Ryzen 8040, coming in May for $800 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/hps-new-pavilion-aero-13-is-a-2-2-pound-laptop-with-ryzen-8040-coming-in-may-for-800-and-up/ Save to Pocket
Santa Barbara–Based Charity Supplying Gaza from 7,500 Miles Away
date: 2024-02-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
ShelterBox is providing aid packages to Gaza’s most vulnerable amid military onslaught.
The post Santa Barbara–Based Charity Supplying Gaza from 7,500 Miles Away appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/02/26/santa-barbara-based-charity-supplying-gaza-from-7500-miles-away/ Save to Pocket
Biden, Trump to Visit Immigration Flashpoint Cities on Thursday
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-to-visit-immigration-flashpoint-cities-on-thursday/7503502.html Save to Pocket
Automakers Are Lobbying To Roll Back EV Adoption. It May Work
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
Automakers have already dialed back their own optimism, but now they have to convince regulators to let them off the hook.
https://insideevs.com/news/710176/automakers-lobby-for-lax-emissions/ Save to Pocket
Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 with Intel Meteor Lake coming in March
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 is a convertible notebook with a 14 inch touchscreen display, a 360 degree hinge that lets you position the computer for use in tablet, tent, stand, or laptop modes, and a reasonably compact design: the laptop measures about 0.7 inches thick and has a starting weigh of 3.6 pounds. […]
The post Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 with Intel Meteor Lake coming in March appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lenovo-thinkbook-14-2-in-1-with-intel-meteor-lake-coming-in-march/ Save to Pocket
Nevada sues to deny kids access to Meta’s Messenger encryption
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
State government says it’s thinking of the children
A law firm acting on behalf of the Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has asked a state court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) denying minors access to encrypted communication in Meta’s Messenger application.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/nevada_meta_encryption/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
When Eyes in the Sky Start Looking Right at You.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/science/satellites-albedo-privacy.html Save to Pocket
Is Husqvarna Finally Going To Release A Vitpilen And/Or Svartpilen 901?
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
They’ve been teasing it for so long, I almost need two hands to count the years.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/710191/husqvarna-901-teaser-video-svartpilen/ Save to Pocket
CSUN celebrates Black History Month with Harmony in Diversity event
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Working professionals in media and music came together to share inspiring words and stories about their experience in film and television scores to help students take their next steps. Taura…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178690/arts-entertainment/csun-celebrates-black-history-month-with-harmony-in-diversity-event/ Save to Pocket
Emergency session requested for temporary power procurement bill
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Sen. William Parkinson is seeking an emergency session for Bill 206-37, the measure proposing to waive certain procurement law requirements to avoid delays in the procurement of temporary power for Guam.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/emergency-session-requested-for-temporary-power-procurement-bill/article_4050b196-d47b-11ee-89ea-3b8d3c386480.html Save to Pocket
LA Man Pleads Not Guilty To Shooting Deaths Of Three Unhoused People And A County Employee
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
Jerrid Joseph Powell appeared in court Monday after his arraignment was postponed several times since December.
https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/la-man-arraigned-shooting-deaths-unhoused-men-county-employee Save to Pocket
Man admits to paying magician $150 to create anti-Biden robocall
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Steve Kramer claims the whole thing was a ruse to regulate AI in politics
A political consultant admitted to paying a magician to create a fake anti-Biden robocall urging people not to vote in a Democratic primary election.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/kramer_magician_biden_robocall/ Save to Pocket
Avast Fined for Selling Browsing Data
date: 2024-02-26, from: Michael Tsai
FTC (via Lina Khan): The Federal Trade Commission will require software provider Avast to pay $16.5 million and prohibit the company from selling or licensing any web browsing data for advertising purposes to settle charges that the company and its subsidiaries sold such information to third parties after promising that its products would protect consumers […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/26/avast-fined-for-selling-browsing-data/ Save to Pocket
Apple Arcade’s Uncertain Future
date: 2024-02-26, from: Michael Tsai
Neil Long (2023, Slashdot, MacDailyNews): In the 15 years since it launched the App Store, Apple has proved again and again that it cares very little about games – though it is happy to make billions from them. I should know: I was an App Store games editor for seven years.[…]The woefully understaffed team of […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/26/apple-arcades-uncertain-future/ Save to Pocket
Might Have Been
date: 2024-02-26, from: Michael Tsai
Ben Lovejoy: Jony Ive tried to persuade Apple to cease making the MacBook Air, leaving a redesigned MacBook Pro as the only portable Mac.[…]Mossberg’s source said this led to a huge battle between Ive’s design team and the product managers, and was only finally resolved in 2018, when the product team got their way.It’s a […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/26/might-have-been/ Save to Pocket
A Complete Guide to Bluesky
date: 2024-02-26, from: Michael Tsai
Kuba Suder: For the past 10 months, I’ve been a pretty active user of Bluesky. I enjoy it a lot, and I’ve managed to learn a lot about how it works, what works well and what doesn’t, and also what’s likely coming next.I’ve decided to write down some of the tips & tricks that I […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/02/26/a-complete-guide-to-bluesky/ Save to Pocket
Metal Detectorist Finds Rare 1,500-Year-Old Gold Ring in Denmark
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The distinctly decorated artifact may be linked to a powerful family in the area with ties to the Merovingians
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/metal-detectorist-discovers-a-rare-1500-year-old-gold-ring-in-denmark-180983830/ Save to Pocket
I remember watching this scene in Se7en, where the sun shines brightly…
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044056-i-remember-watching-this- Save to Pocket
Electrification Leads To All-Wheel-Drive Dominance
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
75% of EV configurations are all-wheel drive.
https://insideevs.com/news/710128/electrification-leads-awd-dominance/ Save to Pocket
NASA is going to power small spacecraft with these flexible thin-film solar arrays
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
NASA is taking Ascent Solar Technologies‘ (Nasdaq: ASTI) flexible thin-film solar on a “big power for small spacecraft” mission this summer.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/nasa-small-spacecraft-flexible-thin-film-solar/ Save to Pocket
ALPHV/BlackCat responsible for Change Healthcare cyberattack
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
US government’s bounty hasn’t borne fruit as whack-a-mole game goes on
Updated The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang is reportedly responsible for the massive Change Healthcare cyberattack that has disrupted pharmacies across the US since last week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/alphv_healthcare_unitedhealth/ Save to Pocket
Onyx BOOX Leaf 3C is basically a Kindle Oasis with an E Ink color display (and more storage, a microSD card reader, etc)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Onyx BOOX Leaf 3C is an eBook reader with a 7 inch, 1264 x 1680 pixel E Ink display positioned off-center, leaving one side of the device with enough room for a grip with physical page turn buttons. In other words, it looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle Oasis. But unlike the Oasis, the Leaf […]
The post Onyx BOOX Leaf 3C is basically a Kindle Oasis with an E Ink color display (and more storage, a microSD card reader, etc) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/onyx-boox-leaf-3c-is-basically-a-kindle-oasis-with-an-e-ink-color-display-and-more-storage-a-microsd-card-reader-etc/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump's CPAC speech showed clear signs of major cognitive decline.
https://www.salon.com/2024/02/26/cpac-speech-showed-clear-signs-of-major-cognitive-decline–yet-maga-cheered/ Save to Pocket
Artemis II Crew, Recovery Teams Train for Final Phase of Moon Mission
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover is assisted by U.S. Navy personnel as he exits a mockup of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean during training Feb. 25, while his crewmates look on. The Artemis II crew and a team from NASA and the Department of Defense are spending several days at […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/artemis-ii-crew-recovery-teams-train-for-final-phase-of-moon-mission/ Save to Pocket
Michael Sippey made an absolutely unhinged “electoral college” version of Pong Wars….
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044060-michael-sippey-made-an-ab Save to Pocket
Joro Spiders, Spreading in the Southeast, Can Survive Surprisingly Well in Cities
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Unlike most spiders, the hustle and bustle of urban areas doesn’t seem to disturb the non-native Joros, a new study finds
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/joro-spiders-spreading-in-the-southeast-can-survive-surprisingly-well-in-cities-180983845/ Save to Pocket
Day in Review (February 26–29)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Association of Research Libraries News
Last Updated on February 26, 2024, 3:23 pm ET Sign up to receive the Day in Review by email. Jump to: Tuesday, February 27 | Wednesday, February 28 | Thursday,…
The post Day in Review (February 26–29) appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.
https://www.arl.org/day-in-review/day-in-review-february-26-29/ Save to Pocket
Nvidia talks up local AI with RTX 500, 1000 Ada mobile GPUs
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
As always, the lack of memory could prove limiting
Nvidia rolled out a pair of entry-level laptop GPUs aimed at professional notebooks on Monday, with performance claims far exceeding that of standalone system on chips (SoCs) from Intel and AMD.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/nvidia_ai_pc_gpus/ Save to Pocket
The Tricycle Haiku Contest
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/the-tricycle-haiku-contest Save to Pocket
See Stunning Photos of the Rolling Stones Found in a London Loft
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The previously unseen images of the band are going on display in a new exhibition, “Elegantly Wasted”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-london-art-gallery-is-showing-never-before-seen-photos-of-the-rolling-stones-180983825/ Save to Pocket
OnePlus Watch 2 is a Wear OS watch with up to 4 days battery life (and an activity tracker with up to 12)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
Smartwatches running Google’s Wear OS software aren’t exactly known for stellar battery life, often needing to be recharged every day or two. But the OnePlus Watch 2 promises up to 100 hours (a little over four days) of battery life under normal usage or 48 hours of heavy use. How? By leveraging the Wear OS […]
The post OnePlus Watch 2 is a Wear OS watch with up to 4 days battery life (and an activity tracker with up to 12) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/oneplus-watch-2-is-a-wear-os-watch-with-up-to-4-days-battery-life-and-an-activity-tracker-with-up-to-12/ Save to Pocket
Why the SEC’s New Climate Rules Matter
date: 2024-02-26, from: Heatmap News
A new era of transparency for corporate sustainability is coming — finally. After two years of deliberation, the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to issue a final rule requiring public companies to make climate-related disclosures to investors. The decision could come as soon as next week.
The rule considers two categories of climate-related information relevant to investors: greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to climate-related risks like extreme weather or future regulations. While many companies voluntarily disclose this kind of information in other ways, the rules will both require and standardize climate-based reporting as a core part of a company’s fiduciary duty.
From almost the moment it appeared, the proposal has been the center of a lobbying firestorm. Some of the rule’s opponents write it off as part of an activist agenda — an indirect route to economy-wide carbon regulations. “The host of new requirements in this Proposed Rule are motivated by a small number of environmental activists who seek to steer the economy away from fossil fuels,” wrote twelve Republican attorneys general in a letter to the SEC responding to the proposal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, vowed to fight back against “unlawful and excessive government overreach.” (At a Chamber-sponsored event last October, SEC Chair Gary Gensler joked, “Wait, are you already suing us? I just walked in.”)
Certainly there are environmentalists who do see the rule as a tool to undermine the oil and gas industry. But proponents primarily make the case that the stakes are less about the atmosphere and more about protecting investors and the entirety of the financial system.
While we’re still waiting on the final rule — which was originally expected in the fall of 2022 and has been repeatedly delayed — here’s a catch-up on what we know so far.
Why is the SEC doing this?
At a basic level, the SEC makes rules saying what companies have to disclose and how so that investors can make well-informed decisions. The two types of information this particular rule covers — climate-related risks and greenhouse gas emissions — are distinct, but related.
The former is pretty straightforward. From the growing number of billion-dollar weather- and climate-related disasters in the United States to the ongoing exodus of insurance companies from fire and flood-prone areas to trade delays in the drought-stricken Panama Canal, it’s clear that climate change poses a substantial financial risk to businesses. It makes sense that investors would want to know how exposed a company’s warehouses or data centers or trucking routes are to wildfires and floods.
But why should investors care about a company’s emissions? Because they are an indicator of another type of risk.
“A shareholder is not necessarily concerned with whether a company is ‘on target’ with any climate commitment,” Boston University law professor Madison Condon writes, “but rather in assessing how exposed an asset may be to changes in global or local climate policy, energy prices, or shifts in consumer and investor sentiments.”
These changes are already in motion around the world, and are generally accelerating. Companies that aren’t preparing could be disadvantaged, or alternatively, could miss lucrative opportunities. Steven Rothstein, a managing director at the nonprofit Ceres, gave the example of the steel industry. If you think that, in the next several years, customers are going to ask for low-emission steel — which some already are doing — or that there might be a regulatory cost put on steel-related emissions, then a company with lower emissions will be better positioned to grow, while a company with higher emissions might have to spend a bunch of money to retrofit its factories.
Are investors actually asking for this?
Part of the SEC’s rationale for the rule is the proliferation of investor-led initiatives calling for government-mandated climate risk disclosure. “These initiatives demonstrate that investors are using information about climate risks now as part of their investment selection process and are seeking more informative disclosures about those risks,” the Commission wrote in its proposal. (Oil giant Exxon filed suit against the sponsors of one such proposal in January, having lost patience with proposals it said were “calculated to diminish the company’s existing business.”)
After the draft rule was released in March 2022, the SEC was bombarded by thousands of comments from investors, academics, NGOs, politicians, trade associations, and companies. One analysis of those comments by legal researchers found that investors were the most supportive group, with more than 80% in favor of the rule.
What are the major points of debate?
The most contentious aspect of the proposal invited criticism even from parties that were generally supportive of the rule. The SEC had taken a strong stance on emissions reporting, asking companies to disclose emissions indirectly related to their business, known as“scope 3” emissions. That means a company like Amazon wouldn’t just have to report the emissions from its warehouses and delivery trucks, but also an estimate of the emissions associated with producing and using all the products it sells. A company like Ford wouldn’t just have to report the emissions from its factories, but also from the production of the raw materials it uses, as well as from all the gasoline burned in the cars it sells.
Those in support of scope 3 reporting point to the fact that for many companies, including the two I just named, the number would vastly exceed their direct emissions.
In a legal review of why scope 3 emissions reporting matters, Condon warned that without it, companies could begin outsourcing their most emissions-intensive processes to third parties in order to appear greener than they actually are. She also argued that leaving out scope 3 obscures climate risks. She gave the example of electric vehicles, which can involve higher emissions during production than conventional cars but result in much lower emissions over their lifecycle. “When excluding Scope 3, an EV manufacturer is penalized, even though from the perspective of considering transition risk and climate impact, this makes little sense,” she wrote.
But companies and their trade associations threw every excuse at the idea of a scope 3 requirement: It would cost too much to gather the data; the data on supply chain emissions is unreliable and impossible to verify; since companies don’t directly produce these emissions, they aren’t relevant; etc.
And by all accounts, they won. The SEC is expected to drop requirements to report scope 3 emissions in the final rule.
However, that’s unlikely to satisfy opponents, many of whom, like the Republican attorneys generals who wrote letters to the Commission, say the SEC doesn’t have the legal authority to require climate-related disclosures at all. If there’s one thing that critics and supporters agree on, it’s that the rule, whatever it says, is going to be challenged in court.
What about the rules in Europe and California?
A lot of companies are going to have to report their scope 3 emissions anyway. The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive includes scope 3 and is expected to cover more than 50,000 companies, with some starting to report as soon as this year; U.S.-based businesses on EU-regulated exchanges, or with subsidiaries or parent companies in Europe, will be expected to comply. A similar rule voted into law in California last year also requires scope 3 emissions disclosures and covers any company doing business in the state — whether private or public — giving it broader reach than the SEC. However, Governor Gavin Newsom did not include any funding for the law in his budget proposal this year, creating concern that it will be delayed.
Danny Cullenward, a climate economist and legal expert, said the fate of the California regulations are important in light of the likely Supreme Court challenge to the SEC rule. “It’s a lot harder to mount comparably broad challenges to state laws on this front,” he told me.
How will this change the climate economy?
Despite the SEC’s narrow focus on protecting investors, the mandatory disclosure of corporate emissions and climate risks would have widespread effects — even some that regular people might feel. Suddenly, consumers would have better tools to compare the relative sustainability of different companies and products. Activists would have more documentation to hold companies accountable for greenwashing or failing to live up to their public climate commitments.
The rule is also set to spark an explosion in the businesses of corporate emissions accounting and climate risk analysis. Most companies don’t have the staff or expertise to track their emissions, and thus will have to turn either to specialized climate-specific firms like Watershed or all-purpose corporate accountants like Deloitte to manage the disclosure process for them. Similarly, analytics giants like Moodys and S&P Global will also be called upon to feed company data into climate models and spit out risk reports.
Both exercises come with inherent challenges and uncertainties. Climate risk researchers have warned that rating services keep their methodologies in a black box, making it hard to know whether they are using climate models appropriately. “The misuse of climate models risks a range of issues, including maladaptation and heightened vulnerability of business to climate change, an overconfidence in assessments of risk, material misstatement of risk in financial reports, and the creation of greenwash,” wrote the authors of a 2021 article in the journal Nature Climate Change.
“When you ask, ‘What is my exposure to future climate risks?,’ you’re asking for a projection of future climate states and probabilities of different future climate outcomes and extreme weather events. There’s an enormous amount of scientific uncertainty and complexity in getting to that,” Cullenward told me.
But while neither emissions accounting nor climate risk assessment may be perfectly up to the task yet, Cullenward argued that’s all the more reason for the SEC to get these rules in place.
“If you don’t ask people to disclose what’s going on, it’s just sticking your head in the sand,” he said. “No one will ever know how to do it perfectly, getting out of the gate. To me that is not a reason to stop or to slow down, that is a reason to get started.”
https://heatmap.news/guides/sec-climate-disclosure-rule Save to Pocket
Kia slashes EV6, EV9 prices by up to $10K in Korea to boost demand
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
In what Kia is calling “EV Festa,” the automaker is slashing prices on its all-electric models, including the EV6, EV9, and Niro EV in Korea, by up to $10,000 (KRW 13.56 million).
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/kia-slashes-ev6-ev9-prices-10k-korea/ Save to Pocket
Which upcoming EV are you most excited about?
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
https://electrek.co/poll-post/what-upcoming-ev-are-you-most-excited-about/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Cybertruck’s ‘armor glass’ stops break-in attempt caught on sentry mode
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla Cybertruck’s “armor glass” has managed to stop a break-in attempt caught on camera by the vehicle’s Sentry Mode.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/tesla-cybertruck-armor-glass-stops-break-in-sentry-mode/ Save to Pocket
Developers’ fireside chat – 2nd March
date: 2024-02-26, from: RiscOS Story
While the number of people using RISC OS is very small by the standards of other other operating systems, and by extension the number of programmers comparatively minuscule, within the community the number of people programming is – probably, at least – quite high as a proportion of users. One of the reasons for this is almost certainly the ease with which it is possible to start programming a RISC OS computer, with one very popular language supplied out of the box – BBC BASIC is included as part of…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/developers-fireside-chat-2nd-march/ Save to Pocket
Polaris Issues Stop Ride Recall On Some 2022-2024 Snowmobiles
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Potential clutch failure is the culprit.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/710171/polaris-snowmobile-recall-clutch-issue/ Save to Pocket
Back from the dead: LockBit taunts cops, threatens to leak Trump docs
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Officials have until March 2 to cough up or stolen data gets leaked
Updated LockBit claims it’s back in action just days after an international law enforcement effort seized the ransomware gang’s servers and websites, and retrieved more than 1,000 decryption keys to assist victims.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/lockbit_back_in_action/ Save to Pocket
R-Comp releases an updated Hexen
date: 2024-02-26, from: RiscOS Story
If you’re a fan of a type of computer game known as a ‘first-person shooter’ (or FPS), in which the perspective of the game is from the eyes of the character being played, there are countless games you will know of on other platforms, with far fewer titles available for RISC OS, whether ported or original. One of those that began life elsewhere and was ported to our system was Hexen. Elsewhere, the game was developed by Raven Software and published by id Software – also known for titles such…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/r-comp-hexen-beyond-heretic/ Save to Pocket
Nine Productions Currently Filming in Santa Clarita
date: 2024-02-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita’s Film Office released the list of nine productions currently filming in the Santa Clarita Valley for the week of Monday, Feb. 26 - Sunday, March
https://scvnews.com/nine-productions-currently-filming-in-santa-clarita-4/ Save to Pocket
EORI validation from the desktop
date: 2024-02-26, from: RiscOS Story
Released in 2021, VATGST is an application from Kevin Wells that makes it possible to validate Value Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) numbers – a sometimes handy thing for businesses to do when checking suppliers and customers. Kevin has released an update to the software, giving it the ability to also look up and validate Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) numbers. These are required for entities that import or export goods to/from the European Union – which many companies based in the United Kingdom do…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/eori-validation-vatgst/ Save to Pocket
Aventon Aventure.2 e-bike with extra battery now $1,799 ($2,499 value), eneloop Pro AAA rechargeable 12-pack hits $43, and more
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Kicking off this week’s green deals is a special flash sale on Aventon’s Aventure.2 All-Terrain e-bike with a free extra battery for $1,799. It is joined by a few different discounts on bundled Panasonic rechargeable battery packs, led by the eneloop Pro AAA 12-pack for $43, as well as the EGO Power+ 56V 15-inch Cordless Electric String Trimmer at $179. Plus, all of the other best new Green Deals landing this week.
Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/aventon-aventure-2-e-bike-eneloop-sale-more/ Save to Pocket
Pluto 3.20 now available
date: 2024-02-26, from: RiscOS Story
Once developed as a commercial application by Jonathan Duddington, and now open sourced and freely available, the internet ‘news’ (aka usenet) and email client application Pluto has been updated to version 3.20. Changes in this version are mainly small and include bug fixes, but the headline list includes improved article recovery notification and logging, and the number of transports (third party programs for moving messages between the local computer and the remote server) has been reduced, simplifying the code by removing code now considered redundant where the transports in question…
https://www.riscository.com/2024/pluto-3-20/ Save to Pocket
I laughed: Gilbert & Sullivan’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, by…
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044048-gilbert-sullivans-francis Save to Pocket
China Looks to Ukraine War for Guidance on Attack Helicopters
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: RAND blog
Chinese strategists continue to be quite fixated on Russian attack helicopter operations in Ukraine. Helicopters appear to be at the very heart of any Chinese strategy to conquer Taiwan, since they can provide both extensive air cover and firepower for amphibious forces coming ashore and provide transport capabilities to deliver forces further inland in a hypothetical Taiwan scenario.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/china-looks-to-ukraine-war-for-guidance-on-attack-helicopters.html Save to Pocket
NASA’s SpaceX 30th Resupply Mission to Launch Experiments to Station
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA and the agency’s international partners are sending scientific investigations to the International Space Station on the 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission, including tests of technologies to monitor sea ice, automate 3D mapping, and create nanoparticle solar cells. The company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/nasa-spacex-30-resupply-mission-launches-experiments-to-station/ Save to Pocket
This Is How You Wheelie A Sandrail On Ice
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Tire studs are the key… plus clutch kicks and spare parts.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709994/wheelie-sandrail-on-ice/ Save to Pocket
The US’s largest solar panel maker is making a big impact on the US economy – in numbers
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
First Solar added $2.75 billion in value and $5.32 billion in output to the US economy in 2023 alone, and its economic impact is forecasted to soar.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/us-largest-solar-panel-maker-us-economy/ Save to Pocket
Ex-FBI Informant Charged With Lying About Bidens to Remain Jailed While Awaiting Trial
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled Monday, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention after prosecutors raised concerns that the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence could flee the country.
A different judge had released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his Feb. 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention. Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him were “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”
Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.
In urging the judge to keep him in jail, prosecutors revealed Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Smirnov had been planning to travel overseas to multiple countries days after his Feb. 14 arrest where he said he was meeting with foreign intelligence contacts.
Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, is charged by the same Justice Department special counsel who has separately filed gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden.
Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial. Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.
In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of his trial.
Smirnov was re-arrested on Thursday morning while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas.
In an emergency petition with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said Wright did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be taken back into custody. The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.
The appeals court on Sunday evening denied Smirnov’s emergency petition, refusing to block Monday’s hearing or assign the case to a different judge.
Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.
While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ex-fbi-informant-charged-with-lying-about-bidens-to-remain-jailed-while-awaiting-trial-/7503192.html Save to Pocket
$l4ckb0t
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/02/26/l4ckb0t/ Save to Pocket
France’s EV ‘Renaulution’: Renault revives its beloved supermini as all-electric 5 E-Tech
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
There were several notable EU-centric EV debuts today during the Geneva International Motor Show, including an all-electric supermini from Renault called the 5 E-Tech. The French automaker has revived the nameplate for the all-electric age, with hopes it will soon dominate its class overseas.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/france-ev-renault-revives-beloved-supermini-as-electric-5-e-tech/ Save to Pocket
COC Board to Consider Amendment to Purchase of 30,000-Square-Foot Tech Center
date: 2024-02-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting Wednesday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m.
https://scvnews.com/coc-board-to-consider-purchase-of-30000-square-foot-tech-center/ Save to Pocket
Yes to Striking Iranian-Backed Militants
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: RAND blog
Strikes against state-backed militias like the Houthis degrade these groups’ military capabilities. But such strikes will almost certainly not deter the group from launching additional attacks. They could, however, take key capabilities and leaders off the battlefield, challenging Iran and the militias it backs to field the same quantity and quality of attacks in the future.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/yes-to-striking-iranian-backed-militants.html Save to Pocket
Flaco, the Famous Owl That Escaped the Central Park Zoo, Dies After Hitting a Building
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The Eurasian eagle-owl had been living free in New York City after someone cut the wires on his zoo cage last year
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flaco-the-famous-owl-that-escaped-the-central-park-zoo-dies-after-hitting-a-building-180983847/ Save to Pocket
Private US Lunar Lander Will Stop Working Tuesday
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon.
Intuitive Machines, the Houston company that built and flew the spacecraft, said Monday it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels. Based on the position of Earth and the moon, officials expect that to happen Tuesday morning. That’s two to three days short of the week or so that NASA and other customers had been counting on.
The lander, named Odysseus, is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years, carrying experiments for NASA, the main sponsor. But it came in too fast last Thursday and the foot of one of its six legs caught on the surface, causing it to tumble over, according to company officials.
Based on photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flying overhead, Odysseus landed within 1.5 kilometers of its intended target near the Malapert A crater, just 300 kilometers from the moon’s south pole.
The LRO photos from 90 kilometers up are the only ones showing the lander on the surface, but as little more than a spot in the grainy images. A camera-ejecting experiment by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, to capture images of the lander as they both descended, was called off shortly before touchdown because of a last-minute navigation issue.
According to NASA, the lander ended up in a small, degraded crater with a 12-degree slope. That’s the closest a spacecraft has ever come to the south pole, an area of interest because of suspected frozen water in the permanently shadowed craters there.
NASA, which plans to land astronauts in this region in the next few years, paid Intuitive Machines $118 million to deliver six experiments to the surface. Other customers also had items on board.
Instead of landing upright, the 4.3-meter Odysseus came down on its side, hampering communication with Earth. Some antennas were covered up by the toppled lander, and the ones still exposed ended up near the ground, resulting in spotty communications. The solar panels also ended up much closer to the surface than anticipated, less than ideal in the hilly terrain. Even under the best of circumstances, Odysseus only had a week to operate on the surface before the long lunar night set in.
Since the 1960s, only the U.S., Russia, China, India and Japan have successfully pulled off moon landings, and only the U.S. with crews. Japan’s lander ended up on the wrong side, too, just last month.
Despite its slanted landing, Intuitive Machines became the first private business to join the elite group. Another U.S. company, Astrobotic Technology, gave it a try last month, but didn’t make it to the moon because of a fuel leak.
Intuitive Machines almost failed, too. Ground teams did not turn on the switch for the lander’s navigating lasers before the Feb. 15 liftoff from Florida. The oversight was not discovered until Odysseus was circling the moon, forcing flight controllers to rely on a NASA laser-navigating device that was on board merely as an experiment.
As it turned out, NASA’s test lasers guided Odysseus to a close to bull’s-eye landing, resulting in the first moon landing by a U.S. spacecraft since the Apollo program.
Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972. While NASA went on to put an occasional satellite around the moon, the U.S. did not launch another moon-landing mission until last month. Astrobotic’s failed flight was the first under NASA’s program to promote commercial deliveries to the moon.
Both Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic hold NASA contracts for more moon landings.
https://www.voanews.com/a/private-us-lunar-lander-will-stop-working-tuesday-/7503113.html Save to Pocket
Do You Use It? Software Update on the Mac
date: 2024-02-26, from: TidBITS blog
This week’s Do You Use It? poll asks several questions about how when and how you install macOS updates.
https://tidbits.com/2024/02/26/do-you-use-it-software-update-on-the-mac/ Save to Pocket
Tesla dominates brand loyalty: once you go EV, you don’t go back
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla took half the awards for brand loyalty in the automotive industry in S&P Global Mobility’s new study.
Once you go electric, you don’t go back.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/tesla-dominates-brand-loyalty-once-you-go-ev-you-dont-go-back/ Save to Pocket
IndieWeb Carnival: February is almost at the end
date: 2024-02-26, from: Manu - I write blog
It’s Monday, February 26th and that means there are just a few days left to submit your entry for this month’s IndieWeb Carnival that I’m hosting on the topic of Digital Relationships. I’m going to accept all entries that land in my inbox before March 1st because that’s also when I plan to post my roundup post. So, if you want to participate hurry up!
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/GzVUNN2BNxIhxq3l Save to Pocket
US Couple from Hijacked Catamaran Likely Died After Being Thrown Overboard
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — An older U.S. couple whose catamaran was hijacked last week in the Caribbean by three escaped prisoners were likely thrown into the ocean and died, police in Grenada said Monday.
The announcement is a blow to those who were independently helping search for Ralph Hendry and Kathy Brandel and had hoped they were still alive.
Don McKenzie, police commissioner of the Royal Grenada Police Force, said at a news conference that the three prisoners escaped on Feb. 18 from the South Saint George Police Station. They hijacked the catamaran “Simplicity” on Feb. 19 and headed to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where they were arrested last Wednesday, he said.
“Information suggests that while traveling between Grenada and St. Vincent, they disposed of the occupants,” McKenzie said.
When pressed for details, he said, “We have nothing conclusive to say that the individuals are dead. We still hold out hope that in spite (of) what might be a low probability, that they would turn up alive somewhere.”
He noted that he was “quite limited” with what he could share with the public regarding the case because the investigation is ongoing, and because Grenadian authorities still don’t have much information.
“The information I possess is limited and can be considered second-hand as I have had very limited discussions regarding the details of the investigation with my Vincentian counterpart,” McKenzie said.
St. Vincent police could not be immediately reached for comment.
The nonprofit Salty Dawg Sailing Association said Hendry and Brandel were “veteran cruisers” and longtime members of the association, calling them “warm-hearted and capable.”
It said the couple had sailed the yacht in last year’s Caribbean Rally from Hampton, Virginia, to Antigua, and were spending the winter cruising in the eastern Caribbean.
A son of Hendry and a son of Brandel did not immediately return messages for comment.
A GoFundMe page created to raise money for the couple’s family noted that Brandel had recently become a first-time grandmother, and that the sailing community was “shattered” by what happened.
“Kathy and Ralph, experienced adventurers, spent their retirement sailing aboard Simplicity, spending summers in New England and embracing the warmth of Caribbean winters,” the page stated.
McKenzie, Grenada’s police commissioner, said a five-person team was sent to St. Vincent to help with the investigation.
After his brief announcement Monday, McKenzie and other police officials took questions from local media, including one reporter who asked, “Who is really to be blamed for this massive failure to keep these prisoners under the control of the (Royal Grenada Police Force) which has now resulted in this tragedy?”
McKenzie said police have launched an investigation into the escape and are looking into whether it was “a system failure” or a case of a “slip up.”
“All aspects of that investigation are on the table,” he said, adding that the police holding station where the three men were being held has “sufficient safety to prevent an incident like that (from) occurring.”
When the reporter asked why the three men who were arrested remained in a holding cell instead of prison, Vannie Curwen, assistant police commissioner, said the men first had to see a magistrate who would decide whether to grant bail or order them remanded.
The escaped prisoners, ages 19, 25 and 30, were charged a couple of months ago with one count of robbery with violence. The eldest inmate also was charged with one count of rape, three counts of attempted rape and two counts of indecent assault and causing harm, police in Grenada said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-couple-from-hijacked-catamaran-likely-died-after-being-thrown-overboard/7503131.html Save to Pocket
NASA Invites You to Share Excitement of Agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 Launch
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities for the launch of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist, will fly to the space station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon […]
https://www.nasa.gov/get-involved/virtual-guest-program/nasa-invites-you-to-share-excitement-of-agencys-spacex-crew-8-launch/ Save to Pocket
2024 U.S. Electric Cars Listed From Lowest To Highest Energy Consumption
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The Hyundai Ioniq 6, Lucid Air and Lexus RZ are your energy consumption champions.
https://insideevs.com/news/709706/electric-cars-energy-consumption-ranking/ Save to Pocket
Daily Deals (2-26-2024)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook Plus is a ChromeOS laptop with a 14 inch FHD touchscreen display, an Intel Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage. While those aren’t stellar specs by Windows laptop standards, they’re enough to put this into premium Chromebook territory, and the laptop has […]
The post Daily Deals (2-26-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-2-26-2024/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The feed for the NYT Daily podcast has 2000 items in it, with episodes going back as far as May 15, 2017. That show was about James Comey's firing.
http://feeder.scripting.com/returnjson?feedurl=https://feeds.simplecast.com/54nAGcIl Save to Pocket
NASA’s Planetary Radar Images Slowly Spinning Asteroid
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
During the close approach of 2008 OS7 with Earth on Feb. 2, the agency’s Deep Space Network planetary radar gathered the first detailed images of the stadium-size asteroid. On Feb. 2, a large asteroid safely drifted past Earth at a distance of about 1.8 million miles (2.9 million kilometers, or 7 ½ times the distance […]
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/nasas-planetary-radar-images-slowly-spinning-asteroid/ Save to Pocket
The Problem With Loving the Unborn
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/the-problem-with-loving-the-unborn Save to Pocket
Anker’s new 768Wh SOLIX C800 Plus power station with stowable camping light officially ships in March
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Today Anker is releasing its new SOLIX C800 Plus Portable Power Station, which we saw debut at CES 2024 and is the first power station with stowable camping lights that illuminates campsites and powers outdoor adventures. Now available for pre-order, it is equipped with two water-resistant LED camping lights, each offering three lighting modes for up to eight hours, ensuring peace of mind as the sun sets.
https://9to5toys.com/2024/02/26/anker-solix-c800-plus/ Save to Pocket
Maple Hall opening in March
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Maple Hall, the first new building to be constructed on the CSUN campus in 14 years, is finally set to open on March 25, when classes start again after spring…
https://sundial.csun.edu/178660/news/maple-hall-opening-in-march/ Save to Pocket
Ford stops 2024 F-150 Lightning shipments as hundreds of pickups pile up
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Ford halted shipments of the 2024 F-150 Lightning electric pickup earlier this month, as reports say hundreds, if not thousands, of Ford trucks have piled up in holding lots around Detroit.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/ford-stops-2024-f-150-lightning-shipments-trucks-pile-up/ Save to Pocket
NASA Names New Station Manager, Space Operations Deputy
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has selected Dana Weigel as the International Space Station Program manager, based at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Weigel succeeds Joel Montalbano, who has accepted a position as deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Both positions will be effective April 7. “Dana is […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-names-new-station-manager-space-operations-deputy/ Save to Pocket
72 flights later and a rotor blade short, Mars chopper loses its fight with physics
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Perseverance images show violent end to Ingenuity’s final flight
A little more light is being shed on the fate of NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, thanks to fresh images snapped by the Perseverance rover.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/nasa_ingenuity_rotor_damage/ Save to Pocket
NASA, Partners Test Artemis II Recovery Procedures
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
Members of NASA’s Exploration Ground System’s Landing and Recovery team work to secure the Crew Module Test Article and align it on its stand inside the ship’s well deck in this image from Feb. 22, 2024. Underway Recovery Test 11 is the eleventh in a series of Artemis recovery tests, and the first time NASA […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-partners-test-artemis-ii-recovery-procedures/ Save to Pocket
Dell promises ‘every PC is going to be an AI PC’ whether you like it or not
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Windows 11 didn’t kickstart a refresh cycle so here’s another excuse
Dell Technologies has joined other PC vendors that bought a ticket on the AI hype train as it prepares to release a swathe of new devices.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/dell_ai_pc/ Save to Pocket
This Dodge Ram Pickup Was Destroyed After Rear-Ending A Tesla Cybertruck
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The Cybertruck had minimal damage but the Ram appears totalled.
https://insideevs.com/news/710125/tesla-cybertruck-rear-end-crash-dodge-ram/ Save to Pocket
Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 with Intel Meteor Lake coming in April
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 is a 2-in-1 Windows tablet with a detachable keyboard featuring Lenovo’s TrackPoint system with a touchpad and a pointing stick as well as a built-in kickstand for the tablet and optional support for a pressure-sensitive pen that attaches to the side of the tablet magnetically when it’s not in use. […]
The post Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 with Intel Meteor Lake coming in April appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x12-detachable-gen-2/ Save to Pocket
Reasoning with Attitude
date: 2024-02-26, from: Logic Matters blog
Here is a familiar thought, one that many of us find attractive: For some classes of sentence, their primary semantic role is not to report a special class of facts but rather to express certain attitudes. Moral claims are a paradigm case for this sort of treatment. The idea that such claims are referential in […]
The post Reasoning with Attitude appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/02/26/reasoning-with-attitude/ Save to Pocket
If a “helen” is an amount of beauty, then “1 millihelen is…
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044055-if-a-helen-is-an Save to Pocket
Middle School Math Matters More Than You May Realize
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: RAND blog
Many eighth graders don’t even have access to algebra I, let alone geometry. Even when those courses are offered, the criteria for who can enroll vary a lot. Together, these circumstances can lead to deep inequities in who gets into advanced math classes by high school.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/02/middle-school-math-matters-more-than-you-may-realize.html Save to Pocket
Overseen: memories of the search for a thing that maybe never was
date: 2024-02-26, from: Care
<p>Kalundi Serumaga discovers an archive of African state TV broadcasts in London, and describes the fight to save colonial archives of Ugandan history and the stakes for Black African Indigenous peoples.</p>https://logicmag.io/policy/over-seen Save to Pocket
Pluralistic: Incomplete vs. overshoot (26 Feb 2024)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Cory Doctorow’s blog
Today’s links Incomplete vs. overshoot: The horseshoe theory is really, really wrong. 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 Incomplete vs. overshoot (permalink) You know the “horseshoe theory,” right? “The far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of the political spectrum, closely resemble each other, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory It’s a theory that only makes sense if you don’t know much about the right and the left and what each side wants out of politics. Take women’s suffrage. The early suffragists (“suffragettes” in the UK) were mostly interested in votes for affluent, white women – not women as a body. Today’s left criticizes the suffrage movement on the basis that they didn’t go far enough: https://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134849480/the-root-how-racism-tainted-womens-suffrage Contrast that with Christian Dominionists – the cranks who think that embryos are people (though presumably not for the purpose of calculating a state’s electoral college vote? Though it would be cool if presidential elections turned on which side of a state line a fertility clinic’s chest-freezer rested on): https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/how-alabama-ivf-ruling-was-influenced-christian-nationalism-on-the-media?tab=summary These people are part of a far-right coalition that wants to abolish votes for women. As billionaire far-right bagman Peter Thiel wrote that he thought it was a mistake to let women vote at all: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/ Superficially, there’s some horseshoe theory action going on here. The left thinks the suffragists were wrong. The right thinks they were wrong, too. Therefore, the left and the right agree! Well, they agree that the suffragists were wrong, but for opposite reasons – and far, far more importantly, they totally disagree about what they want. The right wants a world where no women can vote. The left wants a world where all women can vote. The idea that the right and the left agree on women’s suffrage is, as the physicists say, “not even wrong.” It’s the kind of wrong that can only be captured by citing scripture, specifically, A Fish Called Wanda, 6E, 79: “The central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself.’ And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.” Or take the New Deal. While the New Deal set its sites on liberating workers from precarity, abuse and corruption, the Dealers – like the suffragists – had huge gaps in their program, omitting people of color, indigenous people, women, queer people, etc. There are lots of leftists who criticize the New Deal on this basis: it didn’t go far enough: https://livingnewdeal.org/new-deal-and-race/ But for the past 40 years, America has seen a sustained, vicious assault on New Deal programs, from Social Security to Medicare to food stamps to labor rights to national parks, funded by billionaires who want to bring back the Gilded Age and turn us all into forelock-tugging plebs: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/ If you only view politics as a game of elementary school cliques, you might say that the left and the right are meeting again. The left says Roosevelt got it wrong with the New Deal (because he left out so many people). The right says FDR was wrong for doing the New Deal in the first place. Therefore, the left and the right agree, right? Obviously wrong. Obviously. Again, the important thing is why the left and the right think the New Deal deserves criticism. The important thing is what the left and the right want. The left wants universal liberation. The right wants us all in economic chains. They do not agree. It’s not always just politics, either. Take the old, good internet. That was an internet defined by technological self-determination, a wild and wooly internet where there were few gatekeepers, where disfavored groups could find each other and make common cause, where users who were threatened by the greed of the shareholders behind big services could install blockers, mods, alternative clients and other “adversarial interoperability” tools that seized the means of computation. Today’s enshitternet – “five giant websites, filled with screenshots of the other four” (h/t Tom Eastman) – is orders of magnitude more populous than that old, good internet. The enshitternet has billions of users, and they are legally – and technologically – prevented from taking any self-help measures when the owners of services change them to shift value from users to themselves: https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/ The anti-enshittification movement rightly criticizes the old, good internet because it wasn’t inclusive enough. It was a system almost exclusively hospitable to affluent, privileged people – the people who least needed the liberatory power of technology. Likewise pro-enshittification monopolists – billionaires and their useful idiots – deplore the old, good internet because it gave its users too much power. For them, ad-blocking, alternative clients, mods, reverse-engineering and so on were all bugs, not features. For them, the enshitternet is great because businesses can literally criminalize taking action to protect yourself from their predatory impulses: https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model Superficially, it seems like the pro- and anti-enshittification forces agree – they both agree that the old, good internet was a mistake. But the difference that matters here is that the pro-enshittification side wants everyone mired in the enshitternet forever, living with what Jay Freeman calls “Felony contempt of business-model.” By contrast, the disenshittification side wants a new, good internet that gives every user – not just a handful of techies – the power to decide how the digital systems they work use, and to be able to alter or reconfigure them to suit their own needs. The horsehoe theory only makes sense if you don’t take into account the beliefs and goals of each side. Politics aren’t just a matter of who you agree with on a given issue – the real issue is what you’re trying to accomplish. Hey look at this (permalink) Become a Wikipedian in 30 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRHR1NEOqE Report: The Dollar Store Invasion https://ilsr.org/report-dollar-store-invasion/ (h/t Regs to Riches) Forest and Factory Zine https://shop.haters.life/products/forest-and-factory-zine-2-pack (h/t This Machine Kills) This day in history (permalink) #20yrsago Education czar calls teachers’ union a “terrorist organization” https://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/02/24/paige.terrorist.nea/index.html #20yrsago Garry Trudeau puts $10K up for anyone who will confirm Bush’s Air Guard claims https://web.archive.org/web/20040401103812/http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/faqs/index.html #20yrsago Nelson’s Grey Tuesday RSS https://web.archive.org/web/20040503084858/http://www.nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog/culture/blogs/greyDay.html #15yrsago Conan copyright trolls censor fan-readings of public domain stories https://www.sffaudio.com/conan-and-new-zealands-new-copyright-law-vs-broken-sea/ #15yrsago Unimaginably gigantic cell-phone market in Shenzhen https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=283 #15yrsago John Hodgman explains what’s wrong with “Meh” https://waxy.org/2009/02/john_hodgman_on_meh/ #15yrsago Bruce Sterling’s The Caryatids, my pick for best book of 2009, a novel of clear-eyed hope for the future https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/24/bruce-sterlings-the-caryatids-my-pick-for-best-book-of-2009-a-novel-of-clear-eyed-hope-for-the-future/ #20yrsago Universal crackpot spam solution rebuttal https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt #15yrsago Steampunk: Love the machine, hate the factory https://web.archive.org/web/20090301121548/http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol17/?pg=16&pm=1 #15yrsago RIP, Philip Jose Farmer https://web.archive.org/web/20090228143743/http://www.pjfarmer.com/ #15yrsago Authors´ Guild vs. reality: Kindles and read-aloud https://memex.craphound.com/2009/02/25/authors-guild-vs-reality-kindles-and-read-aloud/ #10yrsago Mozilla’s $25 Firefox smartphone: a free/open device for billions of new netizens https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/with-firefox-os-mozilla-begins-the-25-smartphone-push/ #10yrsago Whistleblower: NSA secretly continues Merkel surveillance by bugging other German officials https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/nsa-moves-from-bugging-german-chancellor-to-bugging-german-ministers/ #10yrsago Text of Little Brother on an art-litho, tee, or tote https://www.litographs.com/products/brother #10yrsago Takei to Arizona lawmakers: we will boycott Arizona if it passes its anti-gay Jim Crow law https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/25/razing-arizonageorge-takeicommentary.html #10yrsago How Youtube’s automated copyright system lets big music screw indie creators https://torrentfreak.com/why-youtubes-automated-copyright-takedown-system-hurts-artists-140223/ #10yrsago DICE: emulator for hardwired, discrete-circuit games from the 1970s https://adamulation.blogspot.com #10yrsago It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens (must, MUST read) https://memex.craphound.com/2014/02/25/its-complicated-the-social-lives-of-networked-teens-must-must-read/ #10yrsago GCHQ’s dirty-tricking psyops groups: infiltrating, disrupting and discrediting political and protest groups https://memex.craphound.com/2014/02/25/gchqs-dirty-tricking-psyops-groups-infiltrating-disrupting-and-discrediting-political-and-protest-groups/ #5yrsago Costa Rican measles outbreak traced to unvaccinated French tourists https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/measles-costa-rica-french-tourist-boy-anti-vax-vaccination-who-global-health-threat-infection-mmr-a8794256.html #5yrsago France fines UBS €3.7b for helping rich French residents launder more than €10b https://www.thelocal.fr/20190220/breaking-french-court-hits-swiss-bank-ubs-with-37-billion-fine-in-french-tax-fraud-case #5yrsago German neofascists used Qanon to expand their reach https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-fringe-groups-are-using-qanon-to-amplify-their-wild-messages #5yrsago Lime scooters have a software bug that causes them to hurl their riders to the ground https://qz.com/1558033/a-software-malfunction-is-injuring-lime-riders-around-the-world #5yrsago Artists against Article 13: when Big Tech and Big Content make a meal of creators, it doesn’t matter who gets the bigger piece https://memex.craphound.com/2019/02/25/artists-against-article-13-when-big-tech-and-big-content-make-a-meal-of-creators-it-doesnt-matter-who-gets-the-bigger-piece/ #5yrsago Deposition of opioid profiteer Richard Sackler reveals his bizarre defense: definitional games and insistence that words mean their opposite https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/sackler-behind-oxycontin-fraud-offered-twisted-mind-boggling-defense/ #5yrsago Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will pay every staffer a living wage, ending the longstanding practice of Congressional staffers taking second jobs https://rollcall.com/2019/02/22/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-call-for-a-living-wage-starts-in-her-office/ #5yrsago As expected, the EU has advanced the catastrophic Copyright Directive without fixing its terrible defects https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/european-governments-approve-controversial-new-copyright-law/ #1yrago This is your brain on fraud apologetics https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security 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: The Majority of Censorship is Self-Censorship https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/25/the-majority-of-censorship-is-self-censorship/ Upcoming appearances: The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow The Bezzle at Powell’s (Portland) Feb 27: https://www.powells.com/book/the-bezzle-martin-hench-2-9781250865878/1-2 The Bezzle at Changing Hands (Phoenix), Feb 29: https://www.changinghands.com/event/february2024/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 Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31 https://www.comic-con.org/wc/ The Bezzle at Anderson’s Books (Chicago), Apr 17 https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1 Torino Biennale Tecnologia (Apr 19-21) https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2 https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival (May 5-11) https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/ 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: Radioactive (KCRL) https://krcl.org/blog/grist-investigates-doctorow-seed/ The enshittification of music (Music Ally) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh20fD3XXbg Aaron Swartz (EpistemiCast) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t9QVHSQBjIXKUiN2EvEmK Latest books: The Bezzle: a sequel to “Red Team Blues,” about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/). “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: 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/2024/02/26/horsehoe-crab/ Save to Pocket
Avenir’s Energizer HardCase P28K is a rugged smartphone with a 28,000 mAh battery
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Energizer brand is best known for batteries, so it probably shouldn’t be surprising that the company with the rights to use the Energizer name on its smartphones has a habit of making models where the battery is the stand-out feature. A few years ago Avenir Telecom launched a crowdfunding campaign for the Energizer P18K […]
The post Avenir’s Energizer HardCase P28K is a rugged smartphone with a 28,000 mAh battery appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/avenirs-energizer-hardcase-p28k-is-a-rugged-smartphone-with-a-28000-mah-battery/ Save to Pocket
Revolutionizing the road trip: Sealvans builds and sells electric caravan trailer boat combos
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Is it a caravan camper trailer? Is it a boat? Does it have an electric motor? A Turkish company called Sealvans is blending the lines of recreational mobility, designing and selling trailer boat combos that deliver a hybrid mix of travel by land and sea. Check them out.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/sealvans-builds-sells-electric-caravan-trailer-boat-combos/ Save to Pocket
A Japanese American Incarceration Camp in Colorado Is America’s Newest National Park
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
More than 10,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned at the Granada Relocation Center, also known as Amache, during World War II
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/japanese-american-incarceration-camp-in-colorado-is-americas-newest-national-park-180983843/ Save to Pocket
It is a bird, a plane or a Chinese spy balloon? None of the above
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
One year on, balloon fever remains alive and well in the US
Just when you thought the skies over America were finally free of Chinese spy balloons … well they are, at least in this latest case of a mystery object that was spotted while flying over the western US.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/norad_scramb/ Save to Pocket
US Supreme Court Weighs Florida, Texas Laws Regulating Social Media Companies
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday explored free speech rights in the digital age in a pair of cases testing the legality of Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas that restrict the ability of social media platforms to curb content that these companies deem objectionable.
Arguments before the justices were ongoing.
At issue is whether these 2021 state laws regulating content-moderation practices by large social media platforms violate the free speech protections for the companies under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Lower courts split on the issue, blocking key provisions of Florida’s law while upholding the Texas measure.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts asked a lawyer for Florida about First Amendment concerns about “the state regulating what we have called the modern public square.”
The laws were challenged by tech industry trade groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose members include Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, which owns YouTube, as well as TikTok and Snapchat owner Snap.
Neither law has gone into effect due to the litigation.
The justices must decide whether the First Amendment protects the editorial discretion of the social media platforms and prohibits governments from forcing companies to publish content against their will. The companies have said that without such discretion - including the ability to block or remove content or users, prioritize certain posts over others, or include additional context - their websites would be overrun with spam, bullying, extremism and hate speech.
Another issue for the justices is whether the state laws unlawfully burden the free speech rights of social media companies by requiring them to provide users with individualized explanations for certain content-moderation decisions, including the removal of posts from their platforms.
President Joe Biden’s administration, which opposes the Florida and Texas laws, has argued that the content-moderation restrictions violate the First Amendment by forcing platforms to present and promote content they view as objectionable.
Officials from Florida and Texas have countered that the content-moderation actions by these companies fall outside the protection of the First Amendment because such conduct - which they deem “censorship” - is not itself speech.
Conservative critics of “Big Tech” companies have cited as an example of what they called censorship the decision by the platform previously called Twitter to suspend then-President Donald Trump shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” Trump’s account has since been reinstated under Elon Musk, who now owns the company that was renamed X.
In signing the law in 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, “Many in our state have experienced censorship and other tyrannical behavior firsthand in Cuba and Venezuela. If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”
Florida’s law requires large platforms to “host some speech that they might otherwise prefer not to host” by prohibiting the censorship or banning of a political candidate or “journalistic enterprise.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in signing the law in 2021, said, “There is a dangerous movement by some social media companies to silence conservative ideas and values. This is wrong and we will not allow it in Texas.”
The Texas law forbids social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from acting to “censor” users based on “viewpoint,” and allows either users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce it.
Florida is seeking to revive its law after the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled largely against it. The industry groups are appealing a decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Texas law, which the Supreme Court blocked at an earlier stage of the case, with liberal Justice Elena Kagan and three of the court’s more conservative justices in dissent.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-supreme-court-weighs-florida-texas-laws-regulating-social-media-companies-/7502962.html Save to Pocket
The new MLB uniforms make players look as if they’re wearing diapers….
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044051-new-mlb-uniforms-have-pla Save to Pocket
Electric Ford Maverick And Bronco EV Postponed Until Next Decade: Report
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
Ford has reportedly moved fully electric versions of two popular trucks back until at least 2030.
https://insideevs.com/news/710014/ford-maverick-bronco-ev-postoned/ Save to Pocket
Musk ‘texts’ Nadella about Windows 11’s demands for a Microsoft account
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Billionaire worried about AI crawling over his computer
Are you getting a bit tired of Microsoft’s demands while installing Windows 11? You aren’t alone – billionaire Elon Musk is also less than impressed with the requirements for a smooth out-of-box experience.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/musk_windows_11_account/ Save to Pocket
Fiat’s Retro EV Future Includes Panda City Car, Truck, SUV, Camper
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
Starting July 2024, Fiat will introduce one new model each year through 2027, with pure electric, hybrid, and ICE powertrains.
https://insideevs.com/news/710144/fiat-panda-electric-city-car-truck-suv/ Save to Pocket
Neanderthals Made a Special Glue to Engineer Grips for Stone Tools, Study Suggests
date: 2024-02-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
An analysis of forgotten museum artifacts reveals the oldest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/neanderthals-made-a-special-glue-to-engineer-grips-for-stone-tools-study-suggests-180983838/ Save to Pocket
Great Western Railway’s fully-electric train breaks UK record, paving way for cleaner travel
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Entering its trial third year to study the feasibility of battery-electric rail, UK’s Great Western Railway (GWR) has hit an encouraging milestone, traveling further in the region than any battery-electric train before it. Its latest treks surpassed expectations and offered further confidence toward a more sustainable future in train travel.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/great-western-railways-fully-electric-train-breaks-uk-record/ Save to Pocket
Trump Appeals $454 Million Judgment in New York Civil Fraud Case
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
New York — Donald Trump has appealed his $454 million New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s finding that Trump lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
The former president’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Monday asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 verdict in Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.
Trump’s lawyers wrote in court papers that they’re asking the appeals court to decide whether Engoron “committed errors of law and/or fact” and whether he abused his discretion and/or his jurisdiction.
Engoron found that Trump, his company and top executives, including his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., schemed for years to deceive banks and insurers by inflating his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals. Among other penalties, the judge put strict limitations on the ability of Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, to do business.
The appeal ensures that the legal fight over Trump’s business practices will persist into the thick of the presidential primary season, and likely beyond, as he tries to clinch the Republican presidential nomination in his quest to retake the White House.
If upheld, Engoron’s ruling will force Trump to give up a sizable chunk of his fortune. Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties, but with interest the total has grown to nearly $454 million. That total will increase by nearly $112,000 per day until he pays.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-appeals-454-million-judgment-in-new-york-civil-fraud-case/7502933.html Save to Pocket
A sunny outlook, courtesy of American business economists
date: 2024-02-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Recession talks are receding and the the prospects of a soft landing are getting bigger, at least according to a new forecast by the National Association for Business Economics. But while the pros are betting the economy gets better and better this year, what about everyday folks? Then, we’ll pick up our discussion with model, entrepreneur and activist Bethann Hardison about the fits and starts of diversity in the fashion industry.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-sunny-outlook-courtesy-of-american-business-economists Save to Pocket
Unpaid bills increase in California, nationwide
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
California’s 1.23% missed payments is highest level in a year and a half.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/unpaid-bills-increase-in-california-nationwide/ Save to Pocket
BYD launches $233K Yangwang U9 electric supercar that will smoke a Ferrari and can dance
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
The world’s leading EV maker, BYD, is taking aim at exotic car manufacturers like Ferrari and Lamborghini with the new Yangwang U9. BYD officially launched the Yangwang U9 electric supercar with a 0 to 62 mph (0-100 km/h) sprint in 2.36 seconds and a $233,400 (1,680,000 yuan) price tag.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/byd-launches-233k-yangwang-u9-ev-supercar-ferrari/ Save to Pocket
A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart.
date: 2024-02-26, from: Quanta Magazine
A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome.The post A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-quantum-trick-implied-eternal-stability-now-its-falling-apart-20240226/ Save to Pocket
Kurtenbach: The Warriors were hit with a harsh reality check by the defending champions. They can’t afford to ignore it
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Dubs’ best doesn’t stack up with the West’s best. Until it does, this season will be nice but not fruitful.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/kurtenbach-the-warriors-were-hit-with-a-harsh-reality-check-by-the-defending-champions/ Save to Pocket
Greener, cheaper, what’s not to love about a secondhand smartphone?
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Price tag, hardware durability underpinning ‘already lengthened replacement cycle’
Half of consumers polled in a Vodafone-backed survey are considering buying a refurbished smartphone instead of a brand-new handset, with the lower purchase price and environmental concerns cited as the main reasons.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/refurbished_phones_survey/ Save to Pocket
Spain takes climate action: “Flights with a rail alternative that takes less…
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044053-spain-takes-climate-actio Save to Pocket
CIF NorCal soccer regionals 2024: Opening-round schedule
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Bay Area soccer teams will open the CIF NorCal regionals on Tuesday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/cif-norcal-soccer-regionals-2024-opening-round-schedule/ Save to Pocket
With elections looming worldwide, here’s how to identify and investigate AI audio deepfakes
date: 2024-02-26, from: Nieman Journalism Lab
In October 2023, an AI-synthesized impersonation of the voice of an opposition leader helped swing the election in Slovakia to a pro-Russia candidate. Another AI audio fake was layered onto a real video clip of a candidate in Pakistan, supposedly calling on voters to boycott the general election in February 2024. Ahead of the Bangladeshi…
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/02/with-elections-looming-worldwide-heres-how-to-identify-and-investigate-ai-audio-deepfakes/ Save to Pocket
Donald Trump appeals $454 million judgment in New York civil fraud case
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Donald Trump has appealed his $454 million New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s finding that Trump lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/donald-trump-appeals-454-million-judgment-in-new-york-civil-fraud-case/ Save to Pocket
Section of massive East Bay development topples into loan delinquency
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
A section of a massive East Bay development that would create a new mixed-use neighborhood has flopped into a loan default.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/east-bay-san-leandro-home-build-hotel-store-loan-real-estate-economy/ Save to Pocket
Awaiting the count – gray whales population has been declining
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Whale experts are anxiously awaiting the 2024 count, which could hold more bad news about migratory gray whales, whose population has been declining.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/awaiting-the-count-gray-whales-population-has-been-declining/ Save to Pocket
Lenovo’s 2024 Thinkpad T14 and T16 laptops have user-replaceable parts (including batteries)
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
As laptops have gotten thinner and lighter, PC makers have moved away from including user-replaceable parts. The first to go were user-replaceable batteries, but a growing number of notebooks also have memory, and sometimes even storage, soldered to the motherboard. But a key selling point for Lenovo’s new ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 and ThinkPad T16 Gen […]
The post Lenovo’s 2024 Thinkpad T14 and T16 laptops have user-replaceable parts (including batteries) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lenovos-2024-thinkpad-t14-and-t16-laptops-have-user-replaceable-parts-including-batteries/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Model 3 Ludicrous spotted being filmed for promo
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
A new Tesla Model 3 Performance, likely a new ‘Ludicrous’, has been spotted being filmed for what appears to be a promotional video.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/tesla-model-3-ludicrous-spotted-being-filmed-promo/ Save to Pocket
GUSTO Breaks NASA Scientific Balloon Record for Days in Flight
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
Editor’s note: The GUSTO mission ended Feb. 26 at 6:24 EST, setting a new record for a NASA heavy-lift, long-duration balloon flight at float for 57 days, 7 hours, 38 minutes. The payload descended by parachute landing safely on the ground in Antarctica. Any recovery effort, while not required for mission success, will be coordinated […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/scientific-balloons/gusto-breaks-nasa-scientific-balloon-record-for-days-in-flight/ Save to Pocket
Get Unstuck From Sticky Situations With AGM’s Trick Rapid Rope
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
No steel shackles, no extra attachments, no hassle. We want it.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709773/agm-rapid-kinetic-energy-recovery-rope/ Save to Pocket
Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander tripped and fell
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Still works, though, says CEO, promising pics any day now
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander last week became the first American lander to touch down on the Moon in 50 years – albeit landing on its side.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/intuitive_machines_lunar_lander_sideways/ Save to Pocket
Redwood City: Jellyfish aquarium, pristine seafood star at new Hurrica restaurant
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
First Look: Guests can arrive via land or sea for dinner nightly, lunch five days a week
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/redwood-city-jellyfish-aquarium-pristine-seafood-star-at-new-hurrica-restaurant/ Save to Pocket
Why is a mellow skunk hanging around a Morgan Hill trail in broad daylight?
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
This skunk seems unbothered by people, bicyclists or dogs – but is this a good thing or a bad one?
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/why-is-a-mellow-skunk-hanging-around-a-morgan-hill-trail-in-broad-daylight/ Save to Pocket
“How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold”
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/how-first-contact-with-whale-civilization-could-unfold Save to Pocket
Pompano Beach adds Mack electric garbage truck to fleet
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
The streets of Pompano Beach, Florida will be cleaner and quieter than ever starting this week, thanks to a new, all-electric Mack LR waste truck that was delivered last week!
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/pompano-beach-add-mack-electric-garbage-truck-to-fleet/ Save to Pocket
Marin’s median home price declines 7% to $1.5 million
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The figure has wobbled between $1.5 million and $1.8 million for more than a year. In the spring of 2022, it exceeded $2 million.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/marins-median-home-price-declines-7-to-1-5m/ Save to Pocket
Auto Industry Begs U.S. To Block ‘Cheap’ Chinese EV Imports From Mexico
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
Plus: what’s next in the EV race from Jeep, and how Rivian can cross “the valley of death.”
https://insideevs.com/news/710108/byd-jeep-rivian-ev-sales/ Save to Pocket
Hanging out with the fantastic golf-course foxes of San Jose
date: 2024-02-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The thieving red foxes and their pups, who inhabit a public golf course, are the fascinating subject of South Bay wildlife photographer Parham Pourahmad.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/02/26/hanging-out-with-the-fantastic-golf-course-foxes-of-san-jose/ Save to Pocket
Police Bodycam Shows Sheriff Hunting for ‘Obscene’ Books at Library
date: 2024-02-26, from: 404 Media Group
Body camera footage from Idaho reveals a sheriff hunting for a YA book he could use for a political stunt.
https://www.404media.co/police-bodycam-shows-sheriff-kootenai-idaho-hunting-for-obscene-books-at-library/ Save to Pocket
Qualcomm inserts GenAI into smartphones at industry’s mega tradeshow
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Just what Android fans were missing, amirite? A 7 billion parameter LLM that accepts image and voice prompts?
MWC Qualcomm is going big on AI at MWC, where it’s showing off a 7 billion parameter large language model running on an Android phone, along with an online hub to help mobile devs blend models into their apps, and AI infused into its latest 5G modem and Wi-Fi 7 silicon.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/qualcomm_puts_genai_into_smartphones/ Save to Pocket
GM expands to new European markets with its luxury $93K Lyriq
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
General Motors is banking that Europeans will want an American-made
$93,000 SUV that has zero emissions – but the US
brand
has had plenty of trouble getting production off the ground on its
home turf.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/gm-expands-to-new-european-markets-with-its-luxury-93k-lyriq/ Save to Pocket
Tesla Spotted Filming At Superchargers With Non-Tesla EVs
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The Ford Mustang Mach-E and GMC Hummer EV were part of the cast.
https://insideevs.com/news/709995/tesla-spotted-filiming-supercharger-nacs/ Save to Pocket
Middlemarch Madness: a schedule for finishing George Eliot’s masterpiece by April 14…
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/02/0044052-middlemarch-madness-a-sch Save to Pocket
Flood Risk Is Hurting Texas Home Prices
date: 2024-02-26, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Mexico City’s iconic jacaranda trees have bloomed early • More than half of Australia’s Victoria state is under an extreme bushfire danger alert • It could hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit in Green Bay, Wisconsin, tomorrow. The average February high is 29 degrees.
THE TOP FIVE
- Study: Mandatory flood risk disclosures hit Texas property prices
New research offers a glimpse into how climate change continues to alter the real estate landscape in America. A recent study from Fannie May examined a Texas law, enacted in 2019 after Hurricane Harvey, that requires properties at risk of flooding be listed as such. The study found that the law has decreased prices for flood-prone homes by $15,000 on average. The study “comes as many states adopt or consider similar flood disclosure requirements,” E&E News reported. Harvey caused $155 billion in property damage. Experts say climate change is making hurricanes more destructive.
- First U.S. Jeep EV coming soon
Eco-conscious Jeep lovers have been waiting patiently for a fully-electric version of their favorite vehicle, and their wait will soon be over. Jeep’s first EV – the Wagoneer S SUV – is entering production in the second quarter of 2024 and could be delivered to customers by July, the company’s CEO Antonio Filsosa said. It will be the first EV to sit on Stellantis’ new STLA Large EV platform. An electric Recon (which is inspired by the Wrangler) could be available by the end of the year. Stellantis-owned Jeep saw a 6% drop in U.S. sales last year, and is slashing prices on some of its best selling vehicles to combat the dip. It is no doubt hoping the EV push will help turn things around. “They’ve suddenly got a lot more competition than they traditionally have had,” Sam Abuelsamid, an e-mobility analyst at market research firm Guidehouse Inc., told The Detroit News. “There’s certainly opportunity for them to grow their share, but it’s not going to be easy.”
The
Wagoneer
SJeep
- UN Environment Assembly kicks off in Nairobi
The sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) gets underway in Nairobi, Kenya, today. Member states will consider 19 draft resolutions on issues including climate change, pollution, and biodiversity. At the last meeting, in 2022, the group adopted 14 resolutions, including one on ending plastic pollution, which was called “the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris Agreement,” according to The Associated Press. “UNEA-6 won’t solve the world’s problems overnight,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme. “What it will do is unite nations under the banner of environmental action, focus minds and energies on key solutions and guide the work of UNEP in this critical period for people and planet.” The meeting runs until March 1.
- Farmer protests escalate in Brussels
The streets of Brussels are clogged with nearly 1,000 large tractors today as farmers descend on the city to protest environmental policies being discussed by EU agriculture ministers. Piles of tires were set on fire and manure was dumped onto the streets. Some tractors plowed through barricades. Police fired water cannons. Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks, demanding that policymakers do more to help out the agriculture sector, including scrapping some policies aimed at significantly reducing the bloc’s emissions by 2040. “We are not against climate policies,” the head of one farming organization told Reuters. “But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way.” The protests may be working: The EU has already back-tracked on cutting farming emissions, and nixed plans to urge citizens to eat less meat.
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- Walmart reports Scope 3 emissions milestone
This went slightly under the radar last week, but is
worth highlighting: Retail giant Walmart has
hit
a 2030 goal of reducing its Scope 3 emissions – six years early.
Through the company’s “Project Gigaton” initiative, Walmart suppliers
have removed 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from
their value chains by reducing emissions, sequestering them, or avoiding
them altogether. Project Gigaton launched in 2017. It’s a voluntary
program that asks suppliers to set science-based emissions reduction
targets in areas like waste, packaging, energy use, and transportation.
Nearly 6,000 suppliers have signed up, and nearly 75% of net U.S. sales
now come from Project Gigaton suppliers,
reported
The Wall Street Journal.
Scope 3 emissions – which
come from a company’s supply chain and also from the ways consumers use
its products – usually represent about
70%
of a company’s carbon footprint. The Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) was set to require all U.S.-listed companies to disclose their
Scope 3 emissions, but appears poised to
roll
back this rule, leaving companies and individual states to take the
initiative. Already California is requiring large companies doing
business in the state to report Scope 3 emissions by 2027.
THE KICKER
“We live in the narrow window where the severity of the problem is known, but there is yet time to act.” –Climate researchers Delvane Diaz, Steven Davis, and Zeke Hausfather writing about climate optimism for The Hill
https://heatmap.news/climate/texas-flood-disclosure-property-price Save to Pocket
Kandi’s new collapsible electric golf cart is the latest tiny EV coming for your neighborhood
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Golf carts aren’t just for golfers anymore. In fact, they’re getting much more use away from the golfing green as an alternative to cars in neighborhoods all over the US. Now Kandi America’s new collapsible mini golf cart is trying to reframe the concept of low-impact urban transportation.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/kandis-new-collapsible-electric-golf-cart-is-the-latest-tiny-ev-to-take-over-your-neighborhood/ Save to Pocket
NASA’s LRO Images Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus Lander
date: 2024-02-26, from: NASA breaking news
On Feb. 22, Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, called Odysseus, completed a seven-day journey to lunar orbit and softly landed near crater Malapert A in the South Pole region of the Moon at 6:24 p.m. EST. On Feb. 24, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft passed over the landing site at an altitude of about 56 miles […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/lro/nasas-lro-images-intuitive-machines-odysseus-lander/ Save to Pocket
More AI for cell networks as Intel rolls out vRAN platform
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus fresh edge compute system that may be able to run on existing infra
MWC Intel’s opening day at MWC is all about networks and edge compute, specifically a dedicated edge platform, a developer kit for AI models for vRAN, and a power management tool for 5G infrastructure.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/intel_edge_ai_mwc/ Save to Pocket
Dell Precision 3280 CFF is a small form-factor PC with up to NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada graphics
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
The Dell Precision 3280 Compact Form Factor (CFF) is a compact desktop computer that Dell says “is the world’s smallest workstation that supports Tensor Core GPUs,” with support for up to NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada graphics. It’s also designed to support 65W Intel Core processors that have been adjusted to run at 80 watts. Dell hasn’t […]
The post Dell Precision 3280 CFF is a small form-factor PC with up to NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada graphics appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/dell-precision-3280-cff-is-a-small-form-factor-pc-with-up-to-nvidia-rtx-4000-ada-graphics/ Save to Pocket
Upgraded Tesla Model 3 Performance Spotted Without Camouflage
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The market launch of the new Performance version is expected within months.
https://insideevs.com/news/710079/upgraded-tesla-model3-performance-spotted/ Save to Pocket
Read Write Own, Reviewed
date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
Chris Dixon’s Read Write Own has a few problems. And the biggest problem is Dixon himself.
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/read-write-own-reviewed Save to Pocket
AT&T’s apology for Thursday’s outage should stretch to a cup of coffee
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Check your service level agreements to make sure you’ll at least get a slice of cake when your vendor goes down
The $5 credit AT&T is offering to customers affected by last week’s major outage highlights that compensation when a provider suffers downtime is unlikely to get even close to the inconvenience or cost to business.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/at_and_t_outage_apology_plus_5/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Behind Taylor Lorenz’s ‘painful, agonizing’ interview of the Libs of TikTok activist.
https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2024/taylor-lorenz-chaya-raichik-libs-tiktok-interview/ Save to Pocket
TECNO Pocket Go handheld gaming PC-in-a-controller comes with AR glasses for a display
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
Chinese phone maker TECNO is the latest company making a play for the handheld gaming PC. But the company’s new TECNO Pocket GO is a little different from… anything else on the market. That’s because instead of a small screen surrounded by a set of controllers, the handheld itself looks like a somewhat chunky game controller […]
The post TECNO Pocket Go handheld gaming PC-in-a-controller comes with AR glasses for a display appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/tecno-pocket-go-handheld-gaming-pc-in-a-controller-comes-with-ar-glasses-for-a-display/ Save to Pocket
A New Attempt To Count Americans Of MENA Descent In California
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
Americans of Middle East and North African descent have tried for years to be counted as other than “white.” A California bill proposes a solution.
https://laist.com/news/a-new-attempt-to-count-americans-of-mena-descent-in-california Save to Pocket
LA’s Dry Months Are Just Around The Corner. How Much Stormwater Can We Capture Now?
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
A lot of it runs out to the ocean, but we do manage to capture hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a year.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/how-much-stormwater-can-we-actually-capture Save to Pocket
How Air Pollution Delayed A Surge In Extreme Rain
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
Aerosol pollutants have masked the effects of global warming. Without them, the U.S. is about to get a lot wetter.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/how-air-pollution-delayed-a-surge-in-extreme-rain Save to Pocket
The EV Shift Could Prevent Millions Of Childhood Asthma Attacks
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The LAist
For children living near U.S. highways, a transition to zero-emission electric vehicles will mean reduced exposure to dangerous exhaust.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/ev-shift-could-prevent-millions-of-childhood-asthma-attacks Save to Pocket
Is Triumph Working On An Upcoming Tiger Rally 660?
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
There’s been no official word yet, but there’s reason to believe it could be.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709933/triumph-tiger-rally-660-rumors/ Save to Pocket
A news desert in the desert
date: 2024-02-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
They say all politics is local. But what are voters to do to get reliable, fact-checked information about local issues and politics when they have few news coverage options? As part of this week’s “Democracy in the Desert” series, we travel to Val Verde County, Texas, to hear how voters get their news ahead of Super Tuesday. Plus, AT&T will give a $5 credit to customers most affected by last week’s network outage.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-news-desert-in-the-desert Save to Pocket
Data watchdog tells off outsourcing giant for scanning staff biometrics despite ‘power imbalance’
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
2,000 employees at 38 facilities had data processed ‘unlawfully’, ICO says
A data protection watchdog in the UK has issued an enforcement notice to stop Serco from using facial recognition tech and fingerprint scanning to monitor staff at 38 leisure centers it runs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/uk_data_protection_watchdog_halts/ Save to Pocket
Boeing delays could hit ticket prices in Europe
date: 2024-02-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Europe’s biggest low cost airline, Ryanair, is warning of a 10% rise in ticket prices this summer because delayed deliveries of new aircraft from Boeing could affect capacity. We’ll discuss. Plus, how is Russia’s economy faring after two years of sanctions? Then, we’ll discuss the death of Zong Qinghou, the billionaire beverage magnate who was China’s richest man.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/boeing-delays-could-hit-ticket-prices-in-europe Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Republican Opposition to Birth Control Bill Could Alienate Voters, Poll Finds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/us/politics/republicans-birth-control-ivf.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YU0.7Zrt.IUOPsiZPjlYX&smid=url-share Save to Pocket
Apple Announces Post-Quantum Encryption Algorithms for iMessage
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-23, from: Bruce Schneier blog
Apple announced PQ3, its post-quantum encryption standard based on the Kyber secure key-encapsulation protocol, one of the post-quantum algorithms selected by NIST in 2022.
There’s a lot of detail in the Apple blog post, and more in Douglas Stabila’s security analysis.
I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it’s probably premature to switch to any particular post-quantum algorithms. The mathematics of cryptanalysis for these lattice and other systems is still rapidly evolving, and we’re likely to break more of them—and learn a lot in the process—over the coming few years. But if you’re going to make the switch, this is an excellent choice. And Apple’s ability to do this so efficiently speaks well about its algorithmic agility, which is probably more important than its particular cryptographic design. And it is probably about the right time to worry about, and defend against, attackers who are storing encrypted messages in hopes of breaking them later on future quantum computers…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/apple-announces-post-quantum-encryption-algorithms-for-imessage.html Save to Pocket
New York Is Raising the Minimum Age to Operate ATVs Because…Reasons
date: 2024-02-26, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
It has the right intentions, but the wrong execution.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/709041/new-york-atv-child-legislation-laws/ Save to Pocket
Fiat unveils 5 new boxy ‘Panda-inspired’ concept cars
date: 2024-02-26, from: Electrek Feed
Fiat just unveiled a new set of Panda-inspired concept cars at the Geneva Motor Show, including a new city car and a pickup truck. As Fiat has just launched its 500e in the US, some EV versions of these vehicles could be on their way stateside.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/26/fiat-unveils-5-new-boxy-panda-inspired-concept-cars/ Save to Pocket
Fox News ‘hacker’ turns out to be journalist whose lawyers say was doing his job
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Also, another fake iOS app slips into the store, un-cybersafe EV chargers leave UK shelves, and critical vulns
Infosec in brief A Florida journalist has been arrested and charged with breaking into protected computer systems in a case his lawyers say was less “hacking,” more “good investigative journalism.” …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/in_brief_security/ Save to Pocket
Multiple billions up for grabs as UK government launches cloud services tenders
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Two major procurement initiatives aim to beef up public sector tech
UK government has launched two tenders for cloud services that could jointly see up to £7.5 billion ($9.5 billion) spent under framework agreements.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/uk_gov_cloud_services/ Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A new leader for Press Forward, at a pivotal moment for journalism.
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/dale-anglin-profile-press-forward-new-leader.php Save to Pocket
The self-created risk in Broadcom’s big VMware kiss-off
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Arise, the new Migration Nation
Opinion It looked like the most cynical corporate move of the last couple of years, at least in IT. A year and a half after it was announced, so it has proved to be. Broadcom’s $61 billion buyout of VMware was expected to follow a familiar formula – price hikes, product abandonment, complete ecosystem devastation – and the creation of two classes of people.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/opinon_column_broadcom_vmware/ Save to Pocket
Save Ukraine and free Russia: Countering Putin requires concerted action
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Saturday marks the two-year anniversary of Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow’s military forces took control of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. When he launched his “special military operation” in 2022, Putin expected his tanks to roll into Kyiv within days, a proof of concept for his vision of a reconstituted Soviet Union.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/opinion/save-ukraine-and-free-russia-countering-putin-requires-concerted-action/ Save to Pocket
Consumers are increasingly pushing back against price increases — and winning
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>WASHINGTON — Inflation has changed the way many Americans shop. Now, those changes in consumer habits are helping bring down inflation.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/consumers-are-increasingly-pushing-back-against-price-increases-and-winning/ Save to Pocket
After South Carolina, Trump’s march to the nomination quickens
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>CHARLESTON, S.C. — The reality has been clear for weeks, since former President Donald Trump trounced his opponents across the frozen fields and icy highways of Iowa. But his overwhelming victory on Saturday in South Carolina, where he defeated Nikki Haley in her home state, makes it all but official.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/after-south-carolina-trumps-march-to-the-nomination-quickens/ Save to Pocket
US Moon landing marks new active phase of lunar science
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>For the first time since 1972, NASA landed a craft on the surface of the Moon in February 2024. But the agency didn’t do it alone – instead, it partnered with commercial companies. Thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, the scientific projects brought to the Moon on this craft and on future missions like it will open up new realms of scientific possibility.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/opinion/us-moon-landing-marks-new-active-phase-of-lunar-science/ Save to Pocket
The spy war: How the CIA secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin/ Save to Pocket
Police arrest 15 for DUI
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>During the week of Feb. 12-18, Hawaii Island police arrested 15 motorists for DUI.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/hawaii-news/police-arrest-15-for-dui-14/ Save to Pocket
Most insurance-related bills to help those in Lava Zones 1, 2 have stalled
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>Efforts in the state Legislature to forestall an impending explosion of property insurance costs in lower Puna appear to have largely petered out.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/hawaii-news/most-insurance-related-bills-to-help-those-in-lava-zones-1-2-have-stalled/ Save to Pocket
Strong turnout for initial food distribution effort for veterans, active duty personnel
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>High grocery prices, low pay and a lack of options have caused many Hawaii Island veterans to face food insecurity.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/hawaii-news/strong-turnout-for-initial-food-distribution-effort-for-veterans-active-duty-personnel/ Save to Pocket
Netanyahu says a cease-fire deal would only delay ‘somewhat’ an Israeli military offensive in Rafah
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah could be “delayed somewhat” if a deal is reached for a weekslong cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, and claimed that total victory in the territory would come within weeks once the offensive begins.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/netanyahu-says-a-cease-fire-deal-would-only-delay-somewhat-an-israeli-military-offensive-in-rafah/ Save to Pocket
How this AP photographer captured a unique splash at the swimming worlds with an underwater camera
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p><strong>WHY THIS PHOTO</strong></p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/how-this-ap-photographer-captured-a-unique-splash-at-the-swimming-worlds-with-an-underwater-camera/ Save to Pocket
Republicans struggle to respond as Democrats emphasize the Alabama IVF ruling
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>More than a week after the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos produced for in vitro fertilization were people with legal rights, upending fertility care in the state, the ruling is reverberating nationally, putting Republicans on the defensive.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/republicans-struggle-to-respond-as-democrats-emphasize-the-alabama-ivf-ruling/ Save to Pocket
Drug drastically reduces children’s reactions to traces of food allergens
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>A drug that has been used for decades to treat allergic asthma and hives significantly reduced the risk of life-threatening reactions in children with severe food allergies who were exposed to trace amounts of peanuts, cashews, milk and eggs, researchers reported Sunday.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/drug-drastically-reduces-childrens-reactions-to-traces-of-food-allergens/ Save to Pocket
A decade after crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, planes still at risk of vanishing off the map
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>“Good Night. Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” Those six words were the last radio transmission from the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, less than an hour after the aircraft took off late at night from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Minutes later, the plane disappeared from air-traffic control radar screens.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/a-decade-after-crash-of-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-planes-still-at-risk-of-vanishing-off-the-map/ Save to Pocket
Man killed in head-on collision in Honaunau
date: 2024-02-26, from: Hawaii Tribune Harold
<p>An 18-year-old Honaunau man has been arrested on suspicious of negligent homicide after a head-on crash Sunday afternoon in Honaunau left a 49-year-old Kailua-Kona man dead.</p>
https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/hawaii-news/man-killed-in-head-on-collision-in-honaunau/ Save to Pocket
Ending The Ivy League’s Tax Dodge
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Lever News
As efforts mount to finally tax private universities’ massive endowment funds, wealthy institutions are fighting back.
https://www.levernews.com/ending-the-ivy-leagues-tax-dodge/ Save to Pocket
Starting over: Rebooting the OS stack for fun and profit
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Making full effective use of new persistent memory means tearing up the rulebook
Opinion Non-volatile RAM is making a comeback, but the deep assumptions of 1970s OS design will stop us making effective use of it. There are other ways to do things.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/starting_over_rebooting_the_os/ Save to Pocket
Tamuning homicide investigation still open
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
The Guam Police Department continues to investigate the fatal shooting and robbery at Thai Thai Healthy Cuisine restaurant on Valentine’s Day.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/tamuning-homicide-investigation-still-open/article_fd6e4cf4-d44c-11ee-86ce-bff8145bdb45.html Save to Pocket
Delegate meets with FEMA on power grid, Sanchez High issues
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Guam Del. James Moylan met with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell last week to discuss Guam’s infrastructure resiliency, with discussion primarily around Moylan’s Typhoon Mawar Reconstruction Act, or H.R. 6478, the delegate’s office stated in a press release.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/delegate-meets-with-fema-on-power-grid-sanchez-high-issues/article_f35648a4-d445-11ee-a372-d3123db2bf13.html Save to Pocket
Court orders writ of prohibition against CSC over legal concerns
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
The Civil Service Commission is currently determining the impact of a writ of prohibition ordered by the Superior Court of Guam regarding, in part, lay representation and the practice of law at the commission.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/court-orders-writ-of-prohibition-against-csc-over-legal-concerns/article_bcee07fa-d1e0-11ee-99d9-3f8c8fd2c672.html Save to Pocket
Ex-officer charged with assault, allowed to use nonlethal weapons
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/ex-officer-charged-with-assault-allowed-to-use-nonlethal-weapons/article_1d86359a-d445-11ee-86a8-9f24b95c4405.html Save to Pocket
4 lasers pointed at aircraft since Feb. 9
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
In the past 2-1/2 weeks, there have been four incidents of lasers pointed at military aircraft landing at Andersen Air Force Base.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/4-lasers-pointed-at-aircraft-since-feb-9/article_3dcfa78a-d442-11ee-a104-4b355072849f.html Save to Pocket
Jose Rios Middle School, partners host community outreach event
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Saturday afternoon was a productive one for Jose Rios Middle School students, teachers and staff who engaged the community by connecting them with resources needed in and out of the classroom.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/jose-rios-middle-school-partners-host-community-outreach-event/article_ba65d082-d43b-11ee-b298-cb94a912e48c.html Save to Pocket
Dismissals possible for 3 out of 5 men charged in fatal stabbing
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Three of five men accused in the fatal stabbing of Kifirston Aiken in 2022 may have their cases dismissed.
https://www.postguam.com/news/local/dismissals-possible-for-3-out-of-5-men-charged-in-fatal-stabbing/article_552c4680-d439-11ee-8b7e-d368ce6d3a40.html Save to Pocket
Less than 60 percent of the vote in South Carolina? Sheesh. Trump continues to do poorly in Republican caucuses and primaries
date: 2024-02-26, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Why is the mainstream media referring to them as “big victories” for Trump?
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/less-than-60-percent-of-the-vote Save to Pocket
February 25, 2024
date: 2024-02-26, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-25-2024-96f Save to Pocket
Renault 5 Returns As Retrolicious EV With Up To 248 Miles Of WLTP Range
date: 2024-02-26, from: Inside EVs News
The modern reinterpretation of the Renault Le Car can power your appliances and has Google Maps and Waze built-in.
https://insideevs.com/news/709693/renault-5-ev-2024-specs-details-official/ Save to Pocket
Amazing projects direct from social media | #MagPiMonday
date: 2024-02-26, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Here’s a selection of some of the awesome things we got sent this month – and remember to follow along at the hashtag #MagPiMonday
The post Amazing projects direct from social media | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/amazing-projects-direct-from-social-media-magpimonday/ Save to Pocket
Classifieds – February 26, 2024
date: 2024-02-26, 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.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/classifieds-february-26-2024/ Save to Pocket
Today in SCV History (Feb. 26)
date: 2024-02-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1923 – U.S. release of Charles Chaplin film “The Pilgrim,” partially shot at Saugus Train Station and Newhall First Presbyterian Church. [watch
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-feb-26/ Save to Pocket
Kaufman’s ‘Fresh Sesh’ welcomes new dancers
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The class of 2027 showed off its talent, rhythm and creativity Thursday night.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/kaufmans-fresh-sesh-welcomes-new-dancers/ Save to Pocket
Innovative artistry drives student composers
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Thornton Symphony played students’ abstract musical compositions Friday night.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/innovative-artistry-drives-student-composers/ Save to Pocket
DPS honors life-saving students
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Two graduate students won a DPS award for treating a student’s critical wounds.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/dps-honors-life-saving-students/ Save to Pocket
University reaches new sustainability goal
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC received a gold star sustainability rating for 2023, up from silver in 2021.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/usc-sustainability-ranking/ Save to Pocket
Beach volleyball outlasted at Outrigger
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC was the runner up to UCLA in its season-opening tournament in Hawai’i.
The post Beach volleyball outlasted at Outrigger appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/202327/ Save to Pocket
Beach volleyball outlasted at Outrigger
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC was the runner up to UCLA in its season-opening tournament in Hawai’i.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/beach-volleyball-outlasted-at-outrigger/ Save to Pocket
Let’s accept our generational history
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
We have been idolizing our ancestors for too long, and it’s time to retire the legends.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/always-tell-the-truth-about-your-family/ Save to Pocket
‘Drive-Away Dolls’ runs out of gas before Tallahassee
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut leaves much to be desired.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/drive-away-dolls-runs-out-of-gas-before-tallahassee/ Save to Pocket
Dell Latitude 7350 Detachable is a 2-in-1 business tablet with Intel Meteor Lake
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
Dell is refreshing its business PC lineup with a new line of Latitude and Precision-branded notebooks, mobile workstations, and desktop computers powered by Intel Meteor Lake processors. And one of the most interesting is the new Dell Latitude 7350 Detachable, which is a 2-in-1 tablet with a 13.3 inch, 2880 x 1920 pixel 3:2 aspect ratio […]
The post Dell Latitude 7350 Detachable is a 2-in-1 business tablet with Intel Meteor Lake appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/dell-latitude-7350-detachable-is-a-2-in-1-business-tablet-with-intel-meteor-lake/ Save to Pocket
Men’s basketball stuns the Bruins
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Against UCLA Saturday, the Trojans won their first road game since Dec. 19.
The post Men’s basketball stuns the Bruins appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/202319/ Save to Pocket
Men’s basketball stuns the Bruins
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Against UCLA Saturday, the Trojans won their first road game since Dec. 19.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/mens-basketball-stuns-bruins/ Save to Pocket
Social media is just a highlight reel
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The online world markets false authenticity, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and mental health issues among consumers.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/02/26/social-media-is-just-a-highlight-reel/ Save to Pocket
San Nicolas: ‘We need a new hospital now’
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Sen. Dwayne San Nicolas said he voted for Bill 185-37 on Friday to benefit the people of Guam, and because the island is in need of a new hospital. The senator issued his statement Monday, following a request for comment.
https://www.postguam.com/news/san-nicolas-we-need-a-new-hospital-now/article_f78d874a-d475-11ee-b2e4-bfdd8b7ad20d.html Save to Pocket
Lenovo debuts AI PCs that have specs a lot like vanilla PCs with this year’s accelerated CPUs
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
While you ponder that, look – or try to – at a concept transparent lappie
Lenovo has used Mobile World Congress (MWC) to debut a clutch of updated ThinkPads for business users that it claims are AI PCs – but which look a lot like just PCs that ship with AI-capable processors.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/lenovo_ai_pcs_transparent_concept/ Save to Pocket
Energy credit extension now law
date: 2024-02-26, from: Guam Daily Post
Acting Gov. Josh Tenorio has signed into law another round of the Prugråman Ayuda Para I Taotao-ta Energy Credit Program, now known as Public Law 37-66, granting $100 monthly credits for power billings from January through March.
https://www.postguam.com/news/energy-credit-extension-now-law/article_fe88a510-d471-11ee-955e-4f53fc1b5119.html Save to Pocket
TCL expands its NXTPAPER 3.0 tablet lineup, announces pricing and availability
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
TCL’s NXTPAPER 3.0 display technology offers a paper-like viewing experience on tablets with a full-color LCD display. Unlike E Ink displays, you can see millions of colors at high refresh rates. But NXTPAPER displays are less shiny than even most matte LCD displays, offering a more comfortable, glare-free viewing experience. TCL says version 3.0 of […]
The post TCL expands its NXTPAPER 3.0 tablet lineup, announces pricing and availability appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/tcl-expands-its-nxtpaper-3-0-tablet-lineup-announces-pricing-and-availability/ Save to Pocket
Who needs the cloud? Qualcomm emphasis on-device AI features for smartphones and Windows PCs
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
AMD recently launched its second generation of PC processors with integrated neural processing units, or NPUs. And Intel’s new Core Ultra processors based on Meteor Lake architecture also have built-in NPUs for hardware-accelerated AI. So we’re seeing a growing number of PC makers position their latest systems as “AI PCs.” But ARM-based chip makers have […]
The post Who needs the cloud? Qualcomm emphasis on-device AI features for smartphones and Windows PCs appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/who-needs-the-cloud-qualcomm-emphasis-on-device-ai-features-for-smartphones-and-windows-pcs/ Save to Pocket
It’s crazy but it’s true: Apple rejected Bing for wrong answers about Annie Lennox
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cupertino only wanted to be with Google for search – despite the prospect of buying Bing outright
Bad search results for the query “Annie Lennox first band” were among the reasons Apple rejected an approach from Microsoft to use the Bing search engine as the default in its Safari browser – and also discarded the idea of a joint venture to make Bing better or even the chance to buy the search engine outright.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/google_antitrust_defense_apple_bing/ Save to Pocket
If we plug this in without telling anyone, nobody will know we caused the outage
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The whole incident could have been avoided by spending some spare change on a fastener
Who, Me? What? Monday? Again? Didn’t we do Monday last week? OK, fine. Welcome once again to your soft landing pad into the working week – the oasis we call Who, Me? in which Reg readers unburden themselves with tales of tech tribulations.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/who_me/ Save to Pocket
Gen AI and cloud optimization help Asian SuperApp Grab turn a profit
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Headcount down 18 percent as content creation time shrinks from 99 hours to 90 minutes
Singapore-based superapp Grab logged its first ever positive net profit late last week, and revealed it was helped by cutting cloud costs and adopting generative AI.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/grab_profitable_quarter/ Save to Pocket
Santa Clarita to discuss indoor pool, Parks commission, needs assessment
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita City Council is expected to discuss a contract for its first indoor community pool, its needs assessment, and another new commissioner for its Parks, Recreations anf Community Services Commission at its Tuesday meeting. The city of Santa Clarita received seven applications after it reopened the appointment process for a vacancy on the […]
The post Santa Clarita to discuss indoor pool, Parks commission, needs assessment appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/02/santa-clarita-to-discuss-indoor-pool-parks-commission-needs-assessment/ Save to Pocket
Microsoft trying to stop Copilot generating fake Putin comments on Navalny’s death
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: US Department of Justice has hired its first chief AI officer
AI in brief Microsoft is investigating fictional press statements about the death of political prisoner Alexei Navalny, written by its AI Copilot and falsely attributed to Russian president Vladimir Putin.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/ai_in_brief/ Save to Pocket
February 25, 2024
date: 2024-02-26, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
The last several days have seen a Republican stampede to distance the party from the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision of a week ago, when it ruled that embryos frozen for in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children and that their injury can be treated like injury to a child. That decision has led major healthcare providers in Alabama to stop IVF procedures out of fear of prosecution.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-25-2024 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Newsom launches abortion ads in Republican states to fight ‘war on women.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/gavin-newsom-abortion-ads-republican-states Save to Pocket
Dragons and Dancers Parade Through Manhattan’s Chinatown for Lunar New Year
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
New York — Dragons took a starring role at the Lunar New Year parade in Manhattan’s historic Chinatown on Sunday — it’s the Year of the Dragon, after all — as hundreds of revelers filled the cold clear air with the sound of drums, cymbals and puffs of confetti.
Lions and red lanterns were interspersed with around a dozen groups displaying traditional dragon puppets, which stretched up to 20 meters (65 feet) long, in interconnected segments held by up to 11 people walking beneath.
Two people also held up a giant golden picture frame with the Chinese character for “Dragon” on a red background.
Other staples of the parade included waves of red lanterns, a file of classic cars, as well as formations by local civic organizations, businesses, New York City agencies, and politicians. Many marchers yelled “Happy New Year” in English, mixing in traditional greetings in Mandarin and Cantonese wishing financial prosperity.
Asian communities across the world started ringing in the Lunar New Year on Feb 10, celebrating the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. Fireworks, parades and other Lunar New Year rituals are centered around removing bad luck and welcoming prosperity.
In New York, there have already been major celebrations in larger Chinese immigrant enclaves in Queens and Brooklyn. While the symbolic new lunar cycle ended earlier this week with the full moon, Manhattan’s parade was scheduled for the weekend.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dragons-and-dancers-parade-through-manhattan-s-chinatown-for-lunar-new-year/7502463.html Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Robert Hur is probably not a name familiar to you, and that's a failing of the American journalism. He's a presidential assassin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Hur Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Went
out to eat, nice pizza place in
Phoenicia.
There was a guy wearing a brand new Trump hat. I’ve never seen that in a
public place. Otherwise he looked perfectly normal. I wondered what kind
of weirdo has that kind of hate in his heart. Is he listening to what
Trump is saying these days? I didn’t want to ask him. These are our
Nazis. They’ve hated us their whole lives. Until now, I never knew they
existed. And now they get to parade around in public with these obscene
hats on. When will the swastikas start appearing on the hats. I wonder
if this is the first of many. Like the
Germans
partying at
Rick’s
place in
Casablanca.
One more thing. Have you heard about the
Civil
War movie coming out later this year. Watch the
trailer. Maybe
wait till morning, because you might have trouble sleeping.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/25.html#a022925 Save to Pocket
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-02-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A Pilot Drew a Penis in the Sky and Wrote ‘See Ya’ During a 6-Hour Flight. And that's the way it is on February 25, 2024.
https://gizmodo.com/pilot-drawing-penis-see-ya-sky-ohio-flightradar24-1851285185 Save to Pocket
VMware’s end-user compute unit reportedly headed to private equity firm KKR
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
As users report Broadcom massively hikes license costs, consultant advises negotiation tactics used for Oracle or Microsoft will apply
VMware’s end-user compute business unit is set to be acquired by private equity firm KKR, according to a Reuters report that claims the deal will see $3.8 billion change hands.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/kkr_vmware_euc_acquisitioj/ Save to Pocket
‘Past Lives,’ ‘American Fiction’ And ‘The Holdovers’ Are Big Winners at Independent Spirit Awards
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
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Kayakers Paddle in Death Valley After Rains Replenish Lake
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif — Kayakers have been paddling in one of the driest places on Earth after a series of record rainstorms battered California’s Death Valley and replenished Lake Manly.
Park Ranger Nichole Andler said Badwater Basin at Death Valley National Park, which runs along part of central California’s border with Nevada, “is normally a very beautiful, bright white salt flat.”
This year it is a lake.
In the past six months, Death Valley has received more than double its annual rainfall amount, recording more than 12.45 centimeters (4.9 inches) compared to a typical year that gets about 5.08 centimeters (2 inches). Temperatures at or above 54.44 C (130 F) have only been recorded on Earth a handful of times, mostly in Death Valley.
Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America at 85.95 meters (282 feet) below sea level and has been a favored spot for tourists to take selfies and briefly walk along the white salt flats ringed by sandy-colored mountains.
“It’s the lowest point, in North America. So it’s going to collect water, but to have as much water as we have now — and for it to be as deep and lasting as long as it has — this is extremely uncommon,” Andler said. “If it’s not once-in-a-lifetime, it’s nearly.”
Andler said kayakers should come soon since water levels are expected to drop in a matter of weeks, though the lake “will probably be here into April. If we’re lucky, May. And then it’ll be a muddy, wet mess, and then it’ll dry out into those gorgeous white salt flats.”
On Thursday, Heather Gang of Pahrump, Nevada, and her husband, Bob, were among hundreds of visitors playing in the water. Most waded into the lake, though the couple and others paddled where the water reached up to about a foot (0.3 meters) deep in parts.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kayak Lake Manley,” Heather Gang said.
It was a sharp contrast to the Death Valley of the past where they figured they had once stood around the same spot and looked at the chalky salt flats for as far as the eye could see.
The couple has been eyeing the lake’s evolution ever since last year’s storms started filling the lake. In the fall, they drove out to see it re-emerge as a lake but they said it wasn’t deep enough for kayaks like now. This time the water reached up to the boardwalk.
The lake, which is currently about 9.66 kilometers long and 4.83 kilometers wide, is still nowhere near its original state thousands of years ago after it formed during the Ice Age and covered a significant part of the park and was several hundred feet deep.
Bob Gang said he had heard the lake had filled up to the point that boaters could go on it about 20 years ago, so he didn’t want to miss out on the experience this time.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Bob Gang, who gave a girl a ride on his kayak. “It’s good to see the little kids out here enjoying this and seeing something totally unique.”
It could be another 20 years before boaters return, he added, but “with climate change, who knows, maybe this will be the normal.”
Guo Yu, an assistant research professor of hydrometeorology at the Nevada-based Desert Research Institute, said the lake’s size is a “simple natural phenomenon.”
It’s linked to a wet winter from a strong El Nino — a natural and occasional warming of part of the Pacific Ocean that can lead to more precipitation than usual in California — plus climate change, which brings more intense atmospheric rivers to the area more frequently, Yu said.
Scientists need to study Lake Manly now, he said, to see if they can harness the water for other uses in the future, such as drinking water throughout the dry Southwest.
Tiffany Pereira, an associate research scientist at the institute, said the lake’s size now can be beneficial to local flora and fauna.
Certain seed species endemic to the area, meaning they only naturally exist in Death Valley, have lain dormant for a decade or more and are now beginning their short-lived life cycle because there is enough water to sustain them.
“They hang out, they do their thing, and as soon as it dries up, that’s it. They’re done,” she said.
For now, friends Trudell Artiglere and Sheri Dee Hopper of Las Vegas will enjoy paddling through the lake. At the end of the day on Thursday, Artiglere said, their salt-encrusted kayaks looked like “glazed donuts.”
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Trouble in Trumpland?
date: 2024-02-26, from: Dan Rather’s Steady
A deeper dive indicates where and how Trump is vulnerable
https://steady.substack.com/p/trouble-in-trumpland Save to Pocket
US Airman Dies After Setting Himself Afire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — A U.S. military service member who had set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington over the weekend, in an apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza, has died, local police said Monday.
Officer Lee Lepe, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department, confirmed the U.S. airman’s death.
The Pentagon said that the death was a “tragic event” and that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was following the situation.
Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters that he was not aware of any other acts of protest by service members against the war.
The U.S. airman was hospitalized in critical condition on Sunday after U.S. Secret Service officers put out the flames, D.C. Fire and EMS had said earlier.
The man, wearing military fatigues, broadcast the incident live over the internet.
“I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” the man said before dousing himself in a clear liquid and setting himself on fire, screaming, “Free Palestine,” according to a video seen by Reuters.
The latest incident came amid pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests in the United States following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis in a cross-border attack. About 240 people were taken hostage.
Israeli forces then waged a military campaign against the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza, destroying much of the coastal enclave, with nearly 30,000 people confirmed killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel’s embassies have drawn continued protests against the war. In December, a woman protesting the war set herself on fire outside the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta.
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Lenovo’s ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop concept has a 17.3 inch see-through micro-LED screen
date: 2024-02-26, from: Liliputing
As expected, Lenovo is showing off the first laptop that might actually be able to claim a truly bezel-free display, because the screen is a transparent micro-LED display that looks like a sheet of clear glass when there’s nothing on the screen. But turn the laptop on and the 17.3 inch Micro-LED display can show […]
The post Lenovo’s ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop concept has a 17.3 inch see-through micro-LED screen appeared first on Liliputing.
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Kenwood Village Issues
date: 2024-02-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Building, mandates, descriptions, compatibility, and choices
The post Kenwood Village Issues appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
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Residents get informed on brush clearance program
date: 2024-02-26, from: The Signal
Los Angeles County Fire Department personnel had an informational meeting at Santa Clarita City Hall to discuss concerns and provide transparency to local homeowners about the county’s brush clearance program on Saturday. Sixty local homeowners trickled in and out of City Hall, and spoke with Fire Department personnel and asked questions about how they could […]
The post Residents get informed on brush clearance program appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
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India’s homebrew RISC-V CPU goes on sale in new development board
date: 2024-02-26, updated: 2024-02-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: Huawei’s tablets beat iPad sales; Japanese supermarket’s long ransomware fight; Do Kwon extradited
Asia In Brief India’s home-grown DIR-V VEGA RISC-V processors have debuted in development boards.…
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Biden to Summon Congressional Leaders to Discuss Ukraine, Government Funding
date: 2024-02-26, from: VOA News USA
Washington — President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to press lawmakers on passing an emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as averting a looming government shutdown next month, according to a White House official.
The top four leaders include Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
During the meeting, the president will discuss the “urgency” of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet publicly confirmed.
The Republican-led House is under pressure to pass the $95 billion national security package that bolsters aid for Ukraine, Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific. That legislation cleared the Senate on a 70-29 vote earlier this month, but Johnson has been resistant to put the aid bill up for a vote in the House.
“This is one of those instances where one person can bend the course of history. Speaker Johnson, if he put this bill on the floor, would produce a strong, bipartisan majority vote in favor of the aid to Ukraine,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Sullivan stressed that Ukrainians need weapons and ammunition to fend off Russian forces, and that in his personal conversations with the speaker, he “has indicated that he would like to get the funding for Ukraine.”
Separate from the national security package, the first tranche of government funding is due to expire Friday. The rest of the federal government, including agencies such as the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires on March 8.
In a letter to his colleagues sent Sunday, Schumer said there was not yet an agreement to avoid a partial shutdown of the agencies whose funding expires this week. That includes the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.
“While we had hoped to have legislation ready this weekend that would give ample time for members to review the text, it is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,” Schumer wrote in the letter. The Senate majority leader called on Johnson to “step up to once again, buck the extremists in his caucus, and do the right thing” by greenlighting funding to keep the government open.
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Monday 26 February, 2024
date: 2024-02-26, from: John Naughton’s online diary
Sky’s the Limit A Norfolk beach on Friday afternoon. Quote of the Day ”I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become … Continue reading
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