News gathered 2024-03-14

(date: 2024-03-14 19:51:22)

Hart district, teachers strike tentative agreement 

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Signal

A monthslong negotiation between the Hart District Teachers Association and the William S. Hart Union High School District may finally be over after the two sides reached a tentative agreement on Thursday.  The tentative agreement is now set to be sent to the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the HDTA membership and the Hart […]

The post <strong>Hart district, teachers strike tentative agreement</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/hart-district-teachers-strike-tentative-agreement/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-15, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Lots of cleaning up after yesterday’s party. I love that people are open to new ideas with blogs in 2024. It’s been a while.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a024725 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-15, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

This would be a nice place to have Markdown support.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a024428 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-15, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

22 of the Funniest Novels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/books/funny-novels-humor.html?unlocked_article_code=1.c00.ux2y.5Tthfn40S3nn&smid=url-share Save to Pocket

Quick Charge Daily Podcast: March 14, 2024

date: 2024-03-15, from: Electrek Feed

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/quick-charge-daily-podcast-march-14-2024/ Save to Pocket

@Chris Coyier blog (date: 2024-03-15, from: Chris Coyier blog)

Brad follows up on some some of the chatter and happenings since the big Global Design System concept dropped. In addition to many of the positive responses, I heard plenty of skepticism, open questions, and apprehension. So much of it is valid and shared by me! Chris Coyier published a great post that sums up a lot […]

https://chriscoyier.net/2024/03/14/11162/ Save to Pocket

Valencia baseball beats Saugus

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Signal

Valencia Vikings baseball rode a hot start to victory on Wednesday over the visiting Saugus Centurions.  The Centurions struck first but the Vikings were able to rally early and never lost their lead after the bottom of the first inning.   Valencia notched its first Foothill League win of the year, winning the game 5-2, behind […]

The post <strong>Valencia baseball beats Saugus</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/valencia-baseball-beats-saugus/ Save to Pocket

A’s hitters no match for Cubs’ pitching phenom Shota Imanaga

date: 2024-03-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Cubs’ 30-year-old rookie from Japan strikes out nine of the 16 A’s batters he faced during a 3-1 spring training victory over Oakland.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/as-hitters-no-match-for-cubs-pitching-phenom-shota-imanaga/ Save to Pocket

Biden Campaigns in Key Swing State Michigan

date: 2024-03-15, from: VOA News USA

President Joe Biden faces uncertain prospects in the key swing state of Michigan, where more than 100,000 Democratic voters chose “uncommitted” rather than the president in the recent primary. On Thursday, he visited Saginaw. VOA’s Anita Powell, traveling with the president, reports.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-campaigns-in-key-swing-state-michigan/7528761.html Save to Pocket

Third period dooms Sharks, again, but veteran forward avoids serious injury

date: 2024-03-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

San Jose Sharks allow third-period goals to John Ludvig and Rickard Rakell in a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/third-period-dooms-sharks-again-but-veteran-forward-avoids-serious-injury/ Save to Pocket

Matadors upset Gauchos in overtime thriller

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

“Basketball is back at Cal State Northridge.” CSUN head coach Andy Newman couldn’t wait to get these words off his chest. It’s been ten years since the last time the…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179619/sports/matadors-upset-gauchos-in-overtime-thriller/ Save to Pocket

Eight injured when SUV runs red light, hits Tri Delta Transit bus in Antioch

date: 2024-03-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

Police said drugs, alcohol and excessive speed did not play a role in the crash.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/eight-injured-when-suv-runs-red-light-hits-tri-delta-transit-bus-in-antioch/ Save to Pocket

Alameda County could take another month to determine if Pamela Price recall has enough signatures, registrar says

date: 2024-03-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

The process of a manual count could take up to 30 days, according to Alameda County’s top election official.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/pamela-price-recall-manual-count-alameda-county/ Save to Pocket

NASA missions are being delayed by oversubscribed, overburdened, and out-of-date supercomputers

date: 2024-03-15, updated: 2024-03-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Flagship facility has just 48 GPUs

NASA’s supercomputing capabilities are not keeping pace with the latest technology developments, and are “oversubscribed and overburdened,” causing delays to missions that are sometimes addressed by teams acquiring their own infrastructure.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/nasa_oig_supercomputing_audit/ Save to Pocket

Friday 15 March, 2024

date: 2024-03-15, from: John Naughton’s online diary

And the mural of the story is… Brignoles, France. Quote of the Day “Raw data is an oxymoron.” Lisa Gitelman Simple and profound truth that is rarely understood in contemporary discourses. All data collection is the product of human choices … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/friday-15-march-2024/39242/ Save to Pocket

Red Cross holding local blood drives

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Signal

News release  As spring approaches, the American Red Cross is urging donors to give blood or platelets now to continue to strengthen the national blood supply. People of all blood types – especially those with type O blood – are critical to ensuring hospitals can meet the daily demand for lifesaving transfusions, according to a […]

The post Red Cross holding local blood drives appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/red-cross-holding-local-blood-drives/ Save to Pocket

US Senate Considers Bill That Could Ban TikTok in United States

date: 2024-03-15, from: VOA News USA

The White House is urging senators to quickly begin considering a bill that would address national security concerns related to the social media app TikTok. The House approved the measure earlier this week. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-senate-considers-bill-that-could-ban-tiktok-in-united-states-/7528735.html Save to Pocket

Residents question landfill relief fund; Garcia sends letter 

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Signal

Castaic and Val Verde residents are questioning whether accepting assistance from a Chiquita Canyon Landfill relief fund may impact their future legal options — and, after residents’ concerns were not allayed by the landfill’s response, county Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement Thursday calling on the landfill to provide the assistance to residents “with no […]

The post <strong>Residents question landfill relief fund; Garcia sends letter</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/residents-question-landfill-relief-fund-garcia-sends-letter/ Save to Pocket

Hart district: Finances back in check 

date: 2024-03-15, from: The Signal

After a period in which William S. Hart Union High School District officials feared that the district’s finances could be in jeopardy, district officials said at Wednesday’s governing board meeting that those issues are no longer.  The governing board approved a second interim financial report on Wednesday that shows the district having more than double […]

The post <strong>Hart district: Finances back in check</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/hart-district-finances-back-in-check/ Save to Pocket

Major storm inundates Colorado with feet of snow

date: 2024-03-15, from: San Jose Mercury News

More than 75,000 customers were without power across Colorado on Thursday — about 2% of electric utility customers statewide and concentrated primarily in metro Denver and along the Front Range, according to poweroutage.us.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/major-storm-inundates-colorado-with-feet-of-snow/ Save to Pocket

Role of the pea protein aggregation state on their interfacial properties

date: 2024-03-15, from: ETH Zurich, recently added

Grasberger K.F.; Lund F.W.; Simonsen A.C.; Hammershøj M.; Fischer P.; Corredig M.

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/649585 Save to Pocket

Economy-wide impacts of socio-politically driven net-zero energy systems in europe

date: 2024-03-15, from: ETH Zurich, recently added

Mayer, Jakob; Süsser, Diana; Pickering, Bryn; Bachner, Gabriel; Sanvito, Francesco Davide

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/659857 Save to Pocket

Lawsuit: Emery Unified officials failed to protect student from sexual abuse

date: 2024-03-14, from: San Jose Mercury News

Court filing comes months after an Emery High School security guard’s arrest in sexual assault case.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/lawsuit-emery-unified-officials-failed-to-protect-student-from-sexual-abuse/ Save to Pocket

Trump-backed Senate candidate faces GOP worries that he could be linked to adult website profile

date: 2024-03-14, from: San Jose Mercury News

Bernie Moreno is confronting questions about the existence of a 2008 profile seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex” on a casual sexual encounters website called Adult Friend Finder.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/trump-backed-senate-candidate-faces-gop-worries-that-he-could-be-linked-to-adult-website-profile/ Save to Pocket

James Crumbley found guilty in his son’s school shooting

date: 2024-03-14, from: San Jose Mercury News

The jury verdict means James Crumbley has joined Jennifer Crumbley as a cause of the killing of four students at Oxford High School in 2021, even without pulling the trigger.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/james-crumbley-found-guilty-in-his-sons-school-shooting/ Save to Pocket

Forget TikTok – Chinese spies want to steal IP by backdooring digital locks

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Uncle Sam can use this snooping tool, too, but that’s beside the point

There’s another Chinese-manufactured product – joining the likes of TikTok, cars and semiconductors – that poses a national security risk to Americans: electronic locks, such as those used in safes.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/chinese_espionage_safe_locks/ Save to Pocket

Letters: Lee’s legacy | Let go of landlines | Support for teachers | Calling out Trump | Firing employees

date: 2024-03-14, from: San Jose Mercury News

East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for March 15, 2024

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/letters-1652/ Save to Pocket

’Objectified’ Turns 15, Streaming Free Through March 17

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free Save to Pocket

Russia reports Ukraine has fired missiles at a border region

date: 2024-03-14, from: San Jose Mercury News

It is not possible to independently verify the Russian claims. Cross-border attacks in the area have occurred sporadically since the war began and have been the subject of claims and counterclaims, as well as disinformation and propaganda.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/14/russia-reports-ukraine-has-fired-missiles-at-a-border-region/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Would love for my Apple Books/audible/kindle collection to be queriable like this.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112096584121253538 Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

I got access to Gemini million dollar token thing.

Here is what I found it useful for. I dumped the whole text of “Ethnic cleansing of Palestine” a book I read years ago. There are tons of details that I cant recall anymore.

I am using it like a database that you can query with natural language “what were the cities that were targeted by plan Dalet”. It is truly great for this. Or run more complex queries.

Not my idea, I first saw Joe Heitzeberg do this with his personal data archive.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112096575377779579 Save to Pocket

Matadors Earn First Big West Tourney Game in 10 Years

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The California State University, Northridge men’s basketball team outlasted defending Big West champion University of California, Santa Barbara Wednesday, 87-84 in overtime, to win a game in the Big West Basketball Championship tournament for the first time since

https://scvnews.com/matadors-earn-first-big-west-tourney-game-in-10-years/ Save to Pocket

Lady Cougs Outlast Chaffey 7-5

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

College of the Canyons picked up another non-conference victory, this time outlasting visiting Chaffey College 7-5 at Whitten Field on Tuesday

https://scvnews.com/lady-cougs-outlast-chaffey-7-5/ Save to Pocket

Open Letter | NixOS Users Against MIC Sponsorship

date: 2024-03-14, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://nixos-users-against-mic-sponsorship.github.io Save to Pocket

Short interview with a seismologist who has debunked a Harvard astrophysicist’s claim…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044193-short-interview-with-a-se Save to Pocket

Samuel Dixon to Host Hart District’s Patient Care Students

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Samuel Dixon Family Health Center, Inc. is proud to announce their continued partnership with the William S. Hart Union High School District

https://scvnews.com/samuel-dixon-to-host-hart-districts-patient-care-students/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

How Hollywood fails women on screen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43197774 Save to Pocket

Here’s another thing AI can do: Spark a boom in edge infrastructure spending

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

IDC forecasts spend to grow 15.4% in 2024 to $232B – then add another $100B in three years

Spending on edge computing is growing fast and because it’s 2024, analyst firm IDC believes AI is a big reason for the boost.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/idc_charts_bright_future_for/ Save to Pocket

US VP Harris Visits Women’s Health Clinic, Stresses Importance of Abortion Rights

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-vp-harris-visits-abortion-clinic-a-first-for-american-leaders/7528344.html Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

I am still recovering from learning that ~Copyable doesn’t mean “not copyable” but “suppresses Copyable”

Send thoughts and prayers my way.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112096402976111760 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

TWiT's Lesser Known RSS Feeds.

https://twit.tv/posts/inside-twit/twits-lesser-known-rss-feeds Save to Pocket

Raspberry Pi 5 can overclock to 3.14 GHz

date: 2024-03-14, from: Jeff Geerling blog

Raspberry Pi 5 can overclock to 3.14 GHz

        <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>...and it's not just for Pi Day.</p>

After posting my deep-dive into the Pi 5’s new BCM2712 and RP1 silicon this morning, someone linked me to this GitHub issue: Raspberry Pi 5 cannot overclock beyond 3.0GHz due to firmware limit(?).

For the past few weeks, a few blog readers (most notably, tkaiser—thanks!) commented on PLLs, OPP tables, and DVFS and how something seemed a little off with the 3.0 GHz CPU limit—which was apparently recommended by Broadcom, according to that GitHub issue.

But today, @popcornmix generated a test firmware revision without the 3.0 GHz limit, and zealous overclockers can get to pushing the clocks higher.

  <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>

March 14, 2024

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/raspberry-pi-5-can-overclock-314-ghz Save to Pocket

Biden’s Climate Agenda Is Actually Popular

date: 2024-03-14, from: Heatmap News

As President Joe Biden prepares to run for re-election, one fact has eluded much notice: His climate change policies are pretty popular.

In an exclusive Heatmap poll of 1,000 Americans conducted by Benenson Strategy Group late last year, most respondents backed the core ideas behind Biden’s climate policies. They expressed the most support of ideas meant to beef up the country’s manufacturing economy and build more renewable electricity.

Nearly 90% of Americans, for instance, support encouraging domestic manufacturing. They also support using tax incentives to make homes more energy efficient (85%), funding research into carbon dioxide removal (81%), investing in public transit (80%), and implementing policies that address environmental injustices (78%).

That is despite the overwhelming public disappointment in Biden. Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 37%, an all-time low of his presidency, despite his boisterous State of the Union performance. At first glance, Biden’s climate policy might seem to pose a paradox: It’s really popular (at least facially), but nobody has seemed to notice. That may persist through the November election. But it will not be able to last for too long after that.

The least popular policies are those that Biden has pursued only when he has bipartisan support — or that he has not pursued at all. Making it easier to build new fossil fuel pipelines, for instance, is supported by 62% of Americans, less than almost any other policy aimed at increasing the country’s energy supply. A slight majority of Americans support making it easier to build new nuclear power plants.

The public generally supports climate policy

At first I doubted the veracity of these results — some of Biden’s policies are, after all, putting up autocrat-like ratings. A carbon tax is polling 52 points above water.

But these results largely match other polling. Surveys reliably find that about two-thirds of Americans would support some kind of carbon tax. Last year, for instance, 68%of Americans backed “requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax,” according to a Yale poll. These numbers have been remarkably stable over time. As much as 67% of Americans backed a carbon tax in 2019, according to a poll from the University of Chicago and the Associated Press-NORC Center on Public Affairs Research.

If these numbers surprise you, you’re not alone. Most Americans underestimate public support for pro-climate policies. (Or at least, they underestimate what polling finds about Americans’ support for climate policies.)

The rub is that public support descends to more Earthly levels once you start asking about concrete costs. Those who say they support a carbon tax when told it will be imposed on fossil fuel companies, for instance, may change their minds after fossil fuel companies pass that tax along as higher prices. Another University of Chicago poll found that most Americans were okay paying a monthly fee of $1 to fight climate change. When asked if they’d pay $40 a month, support fell to 23%.

Climate policy is hard to pass

One of the more ironic aspects of Biden’s success is how rapidly commentators have forgotten that climate change policy used to be seen as uniquely difficult to legislate in the United States. In 1993, and then again in 2010, the House of Representatives passed bills that would have helped fight climate change. Each time, the Senate blocked the legislation. The Senate also effectively blocked the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, the first international climate treaty, in the 1990s.

Through the decades, Congress passed energy bills meant to expand the energy supply in an all-of-the-above way and changed the tax code to let people and companies save money by building solar or wind energy. But these policies expired every few years, and they failed to amount to a unified climate strategy.

Other countries with other forms of government — China, the United Kingdom, the European Union member states — didn’t have this problem. (Which doesn’t mean that they’ve been perfect on climate change.) America’s failure to pass climate policy became a singular indictment of its bicameral system.

Why was it so hard to pass climate policy? The short answer is that for years, climate advocates focused on one particular policy — carbon pricing — as a cure-all solution to climate change. And while carbon pricing is backed up by economic theory, environmentalists and economists struggled to generate the kind of durable, veto-proof support that legislation needs to pass in today’s environment.

By design, carbon pricing raises the cost of energy — meaning that opponents can paint it as a measure meant to increase the cost of living. That didn’t work for voters in the persistently sluggish economy of the 2010s, and it split Democrats’ coalition — of college-educated liberals and lower-income workers — in half. (It also struggled to deal with the political mise en scene. Washington’s interest in climate policy has usually peaked during moments of high energy prices, but the past decade’s fracking boom kept a lid on oil and natural gas prices.)

But climate advocates also struggled for years against more political-economic obstacles. As the political scientist Matto Mildenberger documented, climate proposals have historically invited pro-business groups and labor unions to team up and fight a common enemy. Because climate policy targeted entire industries at once — and because these industries were, naturally, especially sensitive to wholesale energy prices — environmentalists had to take on labor and management at the same time.

It didn’t help that many of the industries concerned had a special claim to Democrats’ sensibilities. Until recently, many of the sectors most affected by climate policy were unionized at a higher rate than the average. Even today, more than 20% of utility workers belong to a union, for example, as compared to 6% of workers in the private sector. These rates were even higher in the recent past. About 16% of automaking workers are represented by unions today, but union membership stood at 60% within living memory. Even in 2010, about one in 10 American workers in the mining, quarrying, and fossil-fuel extraction industries were represented by a union, which was also above the national rate at the time.

Democrats dealt with these problems by abandoning most broad-scale attempts to tax fossil fuels. During the Trump administration, progressives chose to focus instead on using industrial policy and regulations to rein in carbon-intensive sectors — instead of raising the cost of fossil fuels, perhaps a climate law could lower the cost of clean alternatives. And instead of raising energy prices — thereby annoying voters and discouraging high-profile industries — perhaps policy could lower them. Hence the Inflation Reduction Act.

This approach succeeded! And yet many of the IRA’s policies have struggled to attract public attention. Even though the IRA is Biden’s signature legislative achievement — comparable to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act — Biden has largely avoided the specific backlash that greeted that law. Obamacare was about 10 points underwater in 2010, even as Obama himself was about as popular as he was unpopular. Biden, by contrast, is incredibly disliked — he is now 17 points underwater, a nadir for his presidency — yet the IRA’s core ideas remain well-liked.

That is politically inconvenient for Biden and it raises difficult long-term questions for progressives. Biden and Democrats have seemingly given voters what they want — and it’s not clear that the voters care.

This is a long-term policy problem for Donald Trump

But for the would-be Grover Cleveland to Biden’s Benjamin Harrison, it might be more of a problem. If elected, Trump has promised to repeal parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. His rhetoric on climate change hasn’t really changed since the 2016 election, when he argued that it was “job-killing.” Meanwhile, he hates electric vehicles, claiming that “they don’t go far, they cost too much, and they’re all going to be made in China.”

Yet it’s the electric vehicles made in America that are going to get him. If Trump repeals the IRA’s subsidies, then domestic manufacturing will suffer. The EV industry has created roughly 70,000 jobs over the past three years, and many of those roles are in electorally decisive states, including Georgia and Michigan. Trump has promised to act as a “Day One dictator,” but even then, he will still be at least partly constrained by the desires and interests of the local and state-level Republicans who support him — and they will need those jobs and investment to continue.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that these policies will produce political support. In Texas, an explosion of renewable construction has led not to surging public support for clean energy, but to a state-led “war” on wind and solar. (That said, renewables don’t generate local jobs and economic activity in the same long-term way that factories do.) Yet these policies don’t ever have to be popular to be durable — in part because voters won’t organize around them until they’re threatened. Biden’s climate policies — no matter how popular — will probably never win him reelection. But they could very well protect his legacy long after he’s gone.

https://heatmap.news/politics/bidens-climate-agenda-is-actually-popular Save to Pocket

Masimo Proves New Apple Watch Series 9 Units Still Have the Blood Oxygen Sensor

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://ipfray.com/exclusive-if-you-recently-bought-an-apple-watch-in-the-u-s-youll-likely-get-pulse-oximetry-for-free-provided-that-apples-appeal-succeeds/ Save to Pocket

Speedometer 3.0 Browser Benchmark

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://webkit.org/blog/15131/speedometer-3-0-the-best-way-yet-to-measure-browser-performance/ Save to Pocket

Husband of American Journalist Jailed in Russia Brings Campaign to Washington

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

Washington — The husband and two daughters of an American journalist jailed in Russia are in Washington this week to call on the U.S. government to do more to help secure the reporter’s release. 

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, has been jailed in Russia since October 2023 on charges of failing to register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian army. 

Kurmasheva is a Prague-based editor at the Tatar-Bashkir service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL. The journalist and her employer reject the charges, which carry a combined maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Since Kurmasheva’s jailing, her husband, Pavel Butorin, has consistently called for her immediate release. He and their daughters traveled from Prague to Washington this week as part of the campaign to secure Kurmasheva’s release.  

“I’m here because I think that the U.S. government can and should do more for her release,” Butorin told VOA.  

Butorin is the director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

While in Washington, Butorin met with State Department officials, but he did not specify to VOA what was discussed during those meetings.  

“We are making — I will say, cautiously — some progress toward the designation of Alsu as a wrongfully detained American journalist,” Butorin said. “I appreciate the support and attention that Alsu’s case has been given by the administration.” 

For months, Butorin, RFE/RL and international press freedom groups have called on the State Department to declare Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open up additional resources to help secure her release.  

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to a VOA email requesting comment.  

Kurmasheva is one of two American journalists jailed in Russia.  

The other — The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich — has been jailed in Russia since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government deny. The 32-year-old is set to mark one year behind bars on March 29.

The State Department has declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained. 

A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials have pressed the Russian government for access to Kurmasheva, but those requests have not yet been granted.

“We are deeply concerned about Alsu Kurmasheva’s detention,” the spokesperson told VOA in a statement.  

“The Department of State continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detentions of U.S. nationals overseas, including those in Russia, for indicators that they are wrongful,” the spokesperson said regarding a potential wrongful detention determination. 

“I’ve been, again, assured that Alsu’s case is a priority. I’ve heard U.S. officials say that they do think that she is a political prisoner, and they’re working hard on her release,” Butorin said.  

Butorin added that the most just resolution would be for Moscow to drop the charges against his wife, who initially traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June, and she was waiting for them to be returned when she was detained in October.  

“The charges are absurd — spurious. She’s not a criminal. We know her as a devoted mother to her daughters,” Butorin said. He added that the situation has taken a toll on their two children. 

“My daughters have had to grow up very quickly over these past nine months. It’s been an incredibly stressful situation for our family,” he said. “They want their mother back.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/husband-of-american-journalist-jailed-in-russia-brings-campaign-to-washington/7528314.html Save to Pocket

Schiavo introduces bill to promote restroom accessibility for seniors and disabled

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Signal

News release   Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, has introduced Assembly Bill 2233, aimed at updating the California Building Standards Code to improve public restroom facilities for individuals with ambulatory challenges, including seniors and the disabled community.  This bill addresses the current limitations within the California Code of Regulations, which mandates that at least 5% of […]

The post Schiavo introduces bill to promote restroom accessibility for seniors and disabled appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/schiavo-introduces-bill-to-promote-restroom-accessibility-for-seniors-and-disabled/ Save to Pocket

CEQA Is a Scapegoat for California’s Housing Crisis

date: 2024-03-14, from: California Native Plants Society

Is CEQA to blame for the housing crisis? A new report challenges common assumptions with helpful new analysis.

The post CEQA Is a Scapegoat for California’s Housing Crisis appeared first on California Native Plant Society.

https://www.cnps.org/conservation/ceqa-is-a-scapegoat-for-californias-housing-crisis-37813 Save to Pocket

Intel’s $699 Core i9-14900KS turbos to 6.2GHz – assuming you can keep it cool

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

If you can live with a measely 6GHz the standard i9 is a $110 cheaper

If Intel’s 6GHz Core i9-14900K was too pedestrian for your tastes, the x86 giant now has a special-edition processor up for grabs that it says will do 6.2GHz right out of the box.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/intel_i9_62ghz/ Save to Pocket

Carpinteria Cannabis Farms Invite Public on Educational Farm Tours

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

CARP Growers members farms will showcase best practices of responsible farmers during Saturday, April 6, FREE Community Field Day.

The post Carpinteria Cannabis Farms Invite Public on Educational Farm Tours appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/carpinteria-cannabis-farms-invite-public-on-educational-farm-tours/ Save to Pocket

March 21: SCV Water Public Outreach, Legislation Committee Meeting

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency’s Public Outreach and Legislation Committee is holding an in-person meeting Thursday, March 21, at 5:30 p.m

https://scvnews.com/march-21-scv-water-public-outreach-legislation-committee-meeting-3/ Save to Pocket

It’s really become a thing for bands to go on tour to…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044192-its-really-become-a-thing Save to Pocket

Newspaper Cartoonists Rely on Digital Tools, but Not as You’d Expect

date: 2024-03-14, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/2024/03/14/newspaper-cartoonists-rely-on-digital-tools-but-not-as-youd-expect/ Save to Pocket

Inspiring Women Speak at Women’s Economic Ventures International Women’s Day Celebration Event

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Ventura and Santa Barbara, CA—Women’s Economic Ventures (WEV) hosted its first International Women’s Day Celebration at The Hub – Community

The post Inspiring Women Speak at Women’s Economic Ventures International Women’s Day Celebration Event appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/inspiring-women-speak-at-womens-economic-ventures-international-womens-day-celebration-event/ Save to Pocket

CTG Hosts Auditions for Two Comedies

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Auditions for “The Play that Goes Wrong” and “Neil Simon’s Come Blown Your Horn” will be held at the Canyon Theatre Guild in Old Town Newhall

https://scvnews.com/ctg-hosts-auditions-for-two-comedies/ Save to Pocket

March 19: Santa Clarita Tourism Advisory Board Special Meeting

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The city of Santa Clarita Tourism Marketing District Advisory Board will hold a special meeting Tuesday, March 19 at 3 p.m., in the Mural Room of City Hall

https://scvnews.com/march-19-santa-clarita-tourism-advisory-board-special-meeting/ Save to Pocket

Semiannual Recruitment for City Advisory Groups

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Join a City Advisory Group and Shape Your Community’s Future!

The post Semiannual Recruitment for City Advisory Groups  appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/semiannual-recruitment-for-city-advisory-groups/ Save to Pocket

Hart district celebrates 9 National Merit finalists

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Signal

News release  The William S. Hart Union High School District announced that nine outstanding local high school seniors have been named National Merit Scholarship Finalists in the 2024 National Merit Scholarship Program.   “These exceptional students have demonstrated remarkable academic achievement and potential, placing them among the top high school seniors in the nation,” said […]

The post Hart district celebrates 9 National Merit finalists appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/hart-district-celebrates-9-national-merit-finalists/ Save to Pocket

Analysts Warn That Tesla’s Next Growth Phase, Boosted By Model 2, Is Years Away

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

Tesla’s $25,000 car is a “2027 story,” Evercore claims.

https://insideevs.com/news/712489/tesla-analyst-model-2-growth/ Save to Pocket

Prosecutors Say They’re Open to Delay in Trump Hush Money Trial

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

new york — New York prosecutors said Thursday that they were open to delaying the start of Donald Trump’s New York hush money criminal trial by up to a month to give the former president’s lawyers time to review evidence that was only recently turned over. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing that it was not opposed to pushing the start of the trial back for up to 30 days. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin March 25. 

Trump’s lawyers are seeking a 90-day delay or the dismissal of charges against Trump, alleging violations of what’s known as the discovery process, where the sides exchange evidence. The new records came from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which previously investigated the hush money arrangement at the heart of Trump’s New York criminal case. 

The defense has also sought to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claims, which his lawyers say could apply to some of the allegations and evidence in the hush money case. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments April 25. 

The judge in the hush money case, Juan Manuel Merchan, has yet to rule on either request. 

Since March 4, Trump’s lawyers have received at least 84,000 pages of records from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, including a batch of 31,000 pages on Wednesday, according to a court filing. 

The records pertain to a federal investigation that touched on the hush money matter and led to prison time for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. 

Federal prosecutors in 2018 charged Cohen with campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments, with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry and with lying to Congress. 

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal problems, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s case. Trump and his lawyers have portrayed Cohen as completely untrustworthy.

https://www.voanews.com/a/prosecutors-say-they-re-open-to-delay-in-trump-hush-money-trial/7528260.html Save to Pocket

State Route 154 Emergency Repairs Continue Next Week

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY – Caltrans is continuing to perform emergency repairs in various locations on State Route 154 following a

The post State Route 154 Emergency Repairs Continue Next Week appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/state-route-154-emergency-repairs-continue-next-week/ Save to Pocket

One805 Announces Grants for 2024 Supporting Santa Barbara County First Responders Totaling $582,000

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Santa Barbara, CA, March 14, 2024 – During its annual Honorary Board Cocktail reception at the Montecito Club, One805 officially announced

The post One805 Announces Grants for 2024 Supporting Santa Barbara County First Responders Totaling $582,000 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/one805-announces-grants-for-2024-supporting-santa-barbara-county-first-responders-totaling-582000/ Save to Pocket

Chaucer’s In-Store Book Event

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

SANTA BARBARA, CA.- Chaucer’s Books (3321 State Street, Santa Barbara) will host local author Anthony Estrada for an in-store book talk

The post Chaucer’s In-Store Book Event appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/chaucers-in-store-book-event-3/ Save to Pocket

March 26-30: Tejon Outlets Golden Egg Scavenger Hunt

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Experience the exhilaration of Outlets at Tejon’s Golden Egg Scavenger Hunt, returning this spring from March 6 to March

https://scvnews.com/march-26-30-tejon-outlets-golden-egg-scavenger-hunt/ Save to Pocket

NASA Artemis Mission Progresses with SpaceX Starship Test Flight

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign to return humans to the Moon for the benefit of all, the agency is working with SpaceX to develop the company’s Starship human landing system (HLS), which will land astronauts near the Moon’s South Pole during the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions. On March 14, SpaceX launched the […]

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esdmd/artemis-campaign-development-division/human-landing-system-program/nasa-artemis-mission-progresses-with-spacex-starship-test-flight/ Save to Pocket

Volkswagen is offering $13,000 off the 2023 ID.4 AWD Pro S Plus with new lease deal

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

In a fire sale, Volkswagen is offering $13,000 off the 2023 ID.4 AWD Pro S Plus with a new lease deal as it gears up to launch new EVs.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/volkswagen-offering-13000-off-2023-id-4-new-lease-deal/ Save to Pocket

COC gets $50,000 construction program grant

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Signal

News release  College of the Canyons has received a $50,000 Dewalt Grow the Trades Grant to continue supporting the college’s construction technology program.   COC was selected as one of 70 organizations that are projected to skill and reskill more than 55,000 people in 2024 with the grant program’s support.   “This funding will allow the college […]

The post COC gets $50,000 construction program grant appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/coc-gets-50000-construction-program-grant/ Save to Pocket

Whales That Go Through Menopause Live Longer and May Help Care for Grandchildren

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Alongside humans, five species of toothed whales are known to experience menopause. A new study suggests they evolved the trait to increase their lifespan

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/whales-that-go-through-menopause-live-longer-and-may-help-care-for-grandchildren-180983954/ Save to Pocket

Blinken to Visit Philippines to Reinforce Alliance Amid South China Sea Tensions

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

U.S. State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to the Philippines next week, following a recent trade mission there by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The visit comes amid escalating tensions between the Philippines and China over maritime disputes in the South China Sea. 

“Secretary Blinken will travel to Manila to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to our Philippine allies” and “promote peace and stability in the South China Sea,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Thursday briefing. 

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has announced his meeting with Blinken on March 19, with a focus on issues of cooperation and security.

“The secretary’s visit will also underscore the importance of our strong bilateral ties, which for 75 years, have been critical to advancing our shared vision for a free and open connected, prosperous, secure and resilient Indo-Pacific region,” Miller said. 

During Commerce Secretary Raimondo’s trade and investment mission to Manila this week, she announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in the Philippines’ tech sector and help double the number of semiconductor factories in the country. Washington’s move is seen as boosting Manila’s chip sector amid intense competition with Beijing. 

Blinken will start his trip late Thursday, heading first to Vienna for a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. His trip will include a stop in Seoul where South Korea is hosting a Summit for Democracy.

The meeting between Marcos and Blinken is set against a backdrop of increasing tension over territorial disputes in the South China Sea between Manila and Beijing. Marcos has committed to upholding the Philippines’ maritime claims, following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call for military preparedness for potential sea conflicts.  

A recent collision near the waters around Second Thomas Shoal (known as Ren’ai Shoal in China) has further strained the relationship between the two countries. The rich fishing ground is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the nearest Philippines island and 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from China. 

On March 5, the Philippine Coast Guard said Chinese ships carried out dangerous maneuvers and fired water cannons on Philippine vessels, causing multiple collisions, and damaging at least one Philippine vessel.   

China accused the Philippines of intruding on its territory “without the permission of the Chinese government.” A PRC spokesperson said the Chinese foreign ministry “has lodged solemn representations with the Philippines and expressed strong protest.” 

According to an international tribunal’s legally binding decision issued in July 2016, Second Thomas Shoal is located within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, and China has no lawful maritime claims to the waters around the low-tide feature. 

Beijing has rejected the ruling, claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the South China Sea. 

The United States said it stands with the Philippines. The State Department issued a strong statement on March 5 to condemn “the PRC’s repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels” and said Beijing’s actions “show disregard for the safety and livelihoods of Filipinos and international law.” 

The White House has announced that it will host Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio for an official visit on April 10. Japanese media outlet The Asahi Shimbun reported that leaders from Japan, the United States and the Philippines are planning a summit in Washington around that time.

https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-to-visit-philippines-to-reinforce-alliance-amid-south-china-sea-tensions-/7528131.html Save to Pocket

Valencia Town Center Macy’s to remain open amid store closures

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Signal

Over the past several weeks Macy’s has made headlines after announcing the closure of 150 of its locations across the country. On Tuesday, the Macy’s communications team confirmed that the Valencia Town Center location will remain open.   “We intend to close approximately 150 Macy’s stores over the next three years. This allows us to focus […]

The post <strong>Valencia Town Center Macy’s to remain open amid store closures </strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/valencia-town-center-macys-to-remain-open-amid-store-closures/ Save to Pocket

Goleta Water District Inaugurates New Well

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Department of the Interior grants $2 million for ‘Hope Well’ project

The post Goleta Water District Inaugurates New Well appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/goleta-water-district-inaugurates-new-well/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

BTW, this is the feed list for my blogroll. Feel free to import or subscribe to it into your feed reader.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a203147 Save to Pocket

Daimler’s first two eM2 electric box trucks have officially hit the road

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Daimler Truck North America has delivered its first battery-electric Freightliner eM2 trucks to a New York-based trucking company.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/daimler-em2-electric-box-trucks-have-officially-hit-the-road/ Save to Pocket

FTC goes undercover to probe suspected antivirus scam, scores $26M settlement

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Imagine trying to trick folks into buying $500 of unnecessary repairs – and they turn out to be federal agents

A pair of tech support businesses accused of swindling marks out of their hard-earned cash have agreed to cough up a $26 million settlement following an undercover probe by the FTC.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/ftc_antivirus_probe/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

On the limitations of writing for the fediverse.

https://mitchw.blog/2024/03/14/ben-werdmuller-on.html Save to Pocket

@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)

pops a wheelie

https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112095827142036846 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Death of a father.

https://zeldman.com/2024/03/14/death-of-a-father/ Save to Pocket

La NASA invita a los medios a conocer a astronautas de la estación espacial

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

Read this release in English here. La NASA ofrecerá una rueda de prensa con cuatro astronautas a las 9:30 a.m. EDT (hora del este de EE.UU.) del martes 19 de marzo en la sede de la agencia en Washington. La tripulación, entre la que se encuentra el astronauta de la NASA de origen salvadoreño Frank Rubio, […]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/la-nasa-invita-a-los-medios-a-conocer-a-astronautas-de-la-estacion-espacial/ Save to Pocket

NASA Invites Media to Meet Space Station Astronauts at Headquarters

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí. NASA will host a media availability with four astronauts at 9:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, March 19, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The crew, including record-breaking NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, will discuss their recent mission aboard the International Space Station where they conducted a broad range of science […]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invites-media-to-meet-space-station-astronauts-at-headquarters/ Save to Pocket

Beeper’s new “Universal Chat” app for Android is here, but iMessage isn’t included

date: 2024-03-14, from: Liliputing

Beeper is a mobile chat app that’s made a name for itself by offering a “universal” approach to chat, allowing you to communicate with people who are using apps other than Beeper. Most notably, the company has tried several different approaches to letting folks with Android phones communicate with iPhone users by tapping into Apple’s […]

The post Beeper’s new “Universal Chat” app for Android is here, but iMessage isn’t included appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/beepers-new-universal-chat-app-for-android-is-here-but-imessage-isnt-included/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Manhattan Prosecutors Seek 30-Day Delay of Trump Trial.

https://politicalwire.com/2024/03/14/manhattan-prosecutors-seek-30-day-delay-of-trump-trial/ Save to Pocket

Big Improvements Coming to The Old Road

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Los Angeles County is gearing up to make big improvements to The Old Road, a major highway and artery that serves the Santa Clarita Valley, that is frequently used by locals and commuters when traffic on the Interstate 5 is snarled due to roadwork or emergency closures

https://scvnews.com/big-improvements-coming-to-the-old-road/ Save to Pocket

No Expansion of Landfill

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

I am writing to express concern and opposition to the proposed Tajiguas Landfill expansion.

The post No Expansion of Landfill appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/no-expansion-of-landfill/ Save to Pocket

A Glimpse of Gay History at UC Santa Barbara

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

University provost Clark George Kuebler was caught in the ‘Lavender Scare’ of the 1950s.

The post A Glimpse of Gay History at UC Santa Barbara appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/a-glimpse-of-gay-history-at-uc-santa-barbara/ Save to Pocket

Survey Deadline for Accessory Dwelling Unit Owners Now March 24

date: 2024-03-14, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Seeking greater participation of Accessory Dwelling Unit homeowners, particularly in the Santa Maria area, to accurately assess the impact of ADUs on the housing supply in Santa Barbara County.

The post Survey Deadline for Accessory Dwelling Unit Owners Now March 24 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/14/survey-deadline-for-accessory-dwelling-unit-owners-now-march-24/ Save to Pocket

Ex-Trump Aide Navarro, Convicted of Contempt of Congress, Must Report to Prison

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — An appeals court denied Trump White House official Peter Navarro ’s bid to stave off his jail sentence on contempt of Congress charges Thursday.

Navarro has been ordered to report to a federal prison by March 19. He argued he should stay free as he appeals his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington disagreed, finding his appeal wasn’t likely to reverse his conviction. His attorneys did not immediately return messages seeking comment but have previously indicated he would appeal to the Supreme Court.

Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence, but a different judge allowed him to remain free pending appeal.

Navarro was found guilty of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House January 6 committee. He served as a White House trade adviser under then-President Donald Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Navarro has said he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta barred him from making that argument at trial, however, finding that he didn’t show Trump had actually invoked it.

https://www.voanews.com/a/ex-trump-aide-navarro-convicted-of-contempt-of-congress-must-report-to-prison/7528132.html Save to Pocket

This Breakthrough Wireless EV Charger Reaches 100 kW Speeds With Near-Perfect Efficiency

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

Researchers say the new tech is 8-10 times more power-dense than conventional wireless charging coils.

https://insideevs.com/news/712456/oak-ridge-national-lab-wireless-charging-breakthrough/ Save to Pocket

The U.S. Can’t Guarantee Armenia’s Security, Despite Azerbaijan’s Threats, but It Can Help

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: RAND blog

The United States and its European allies cannot be everything Armenia wants and needs from a foreign partner. The West should recognize and accept Armenia’s multi-alignment and focus on areas where it is comparatively able and willing to deepen ties and foster stability.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/03/the-us-cant-guarantee-armenias-security-despite-azerbaijans.html Save to Pocket

A window into Facebook closes as Meta sets a date to shut down CrowdTangle

date: 2024-03-14, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

A widely used window into Facebook is closing for good. Meta had already disbanded the team behind the social monitoring tool CrowdTangle and prevented new users from signing up. On Thursday, users were told CrowdTangle will no longer be available after August 14, 2024. The free tool allowed newsrooms and journalists to follow trends and…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/a-window-into-facebook-closes-as-meta-sets-a-date-to-shut-down-crowdtangle/ Save to Pocket

South Fork Wind just became the US’s first complete utility-scale offshore wind farm

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

The final turbine is up at New York’s South Fork Wind, making it the US’s first complete utility-scale offshore wind farm in federal waters.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/south-fork-us-first-complete-utility-scale-wind-farm/ Save to Pocket

See a Tapestry Commissioned to Celebrate the Paris Summer Olympics

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Designed by artist Marjane Satrapi, the enormous triptych depicts athletes competing around the Eiffel Tower

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-tapestry-commissioned-celebrate-paris-summer-olympics-180983957/ Save to Pocket

Nitro 2024.1

date: 2024-03-14, from: Michael Tsai

Gentlemen Coders: Flexible storage options, camera support, and editing tools unmatched by any app. […] Create smart albums, and organize your Apple Photos library. Nitro reads RAW Power edits. Everything syncs over iCloud! Prefer to manage your files yourself? You can use Nitro with the file system too. Rate and edit non-destructively using XMP sidecars. […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/14/nitro-2024-1/ Save to Pocket

“Sometimes it’s desperate because I can’t touch someone, my hands don’t move,…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044190-sometimes-its-desperate-b Save to Pocket

DealMachine Subscription Cancellations

date: 2024-03-14, from: Michael Tsai

John Gruber (Mastodon): I downloaded the app and signed up; immediately after confirming your email address, you get sent to a screen in the app where you choose from account tiers to begin a free trial. The lowest tier is $100/month, the highest is $500/month. And after making your selection, you get sent to this […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/14/dealmachine-subscription-cancellations/ Save to Pocket

Digital Services Act Compliance: App Store

date: 2024-03-14, from: Michael Tsai

Apple: You’ll be asked to disclose whether or not you’re a trader under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) in order to stay compliant across regions when distributing on the App Store. If you’re distributing content as a trader, the DSA requires that you provide certain identification information, including address and contact details, to […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/14/digital-services-act-compliance-app-store/ Save to Pocket

DMA Compliance: Google

date: 2024-03-14, from: Michael Tsai

Google: Changes to Search results: We have now implemented more than 20 product changes, including the introduction of dedicated units and chips to help users find comparison sites in areas like flights, hotels and shopping. We have removed some features from the search results page which help consumers find businesses, such as the Google Flights […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/14/dma-compliance-google/ Save to Pocket

DMA Compliance: Custom External Link Designs

date: 2024-03-14, from: Michael Tsai

Apple: Developers who’ve agreed to the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU have new options for their apps in the EU: Alternative app marketplaces. Marketplaces can choose to offer a catalog of apps solely from the developer of the marketplace. Linking out to purchase. When directing users to complete a transaction for digital […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/14/dma-compliance-custom-external-link-designs/ Save to Pocket

NIO confirms its new codename ‘Alps’ sub-brand is called ‘Onvo,’ and will target EVs for families

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Days after leaked spy images revealed a new EV nomenclature, NIO has publicly confirmed its upcoming sub-brand will be called “Onvo.” Previously codenamed “Alps,” Onvo EVs will be designed and targeted toward customers with families. We’ve also caught wind of the new brand’s official launch date.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/nio-confirms-new-alps-sub-brand-called-onvo-will-target-evs-for-families/ Save to Pocket

Daily Deals (3-14-2024)

date: 2024-03-14, from: Liliputing

Steam and Epic both kicked off their Spring Sales on PC games today. Meanwhile Epic is giving away two free games this week: Deus Ex Mankind Divided and The Bridge. And if you’re looking for something to play those games on, Best Buy has deals on a few gaming PCs. Here are some of the […]

The post Daily Deals (3-14-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-3-14-2024/ Save to Pocket

For Most Mammal Species, Males Actually Aren’t Larger Than Females, Study Finds

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

New research upends a long-held theory that male mammals tend to be bigger than their female counterparts

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/for-most-mammal-species-males-actually-arent-larger-than-females-study-finds-180983946/ Save to Pocket

Caffeine makes fuel cells more efficient, cuts cost of energy storage

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Boffins show less platinum may be needed for long-lived power source

Adding caffeine can enhance the efficiency of fuel cells, reducing the need for platinum in electrodes and significantly reducing the cost of making them, according to researchers in Japan.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/caffeine_fuel_cells_paper/ Save to Pocket

Celebrating Pi Day on the International Space Station

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

In this image from March 13, 2023, NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen holds a small pie that is festively decorated in commemoration of Pi Day aboard the International Space Station. March 14 marks the annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi, aka the Greek letter π. Its infinite number of digits is usually […]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/celebrating-pi-day-on-the-international-space-station/ Save to Pocket

Stark Future Challenges FIM Over MXGP’s Electric Segregation

date: 2024-03-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The bikes may be quiet, but the team definitely isn’t afraid to make some noise.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/712474/stark-future-challenges-fim-mxgp/ Save to Pocket

The Last Man Standing in the Floppy Disk Business

date: 2024-03-14, from: TidBITS blog

Read original article

https://tidbits.com/2024/03/14/the-last-man-standing-in-the-floppy-disk-business/ Save to Pocket

Pornhub Pulls Out of Texas

date: 2024-03-14, from: 404 Media Group

All of the sites in Aylo’s network, including Pornhub, YouPorn, and Brazzers, are blocked in Texas, their homepages replaced with a message about the company’s rejection of age verification laws.

https://www.404media.co/pornhub-blocked-texas/ Save to Pocket

Hyundai unveils new ST1 EV business platform design for the first time

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

For the first time, Hyundai Motor revealed its new “ST1” EV business platform on Thursday. The ST1 is the first of several new electric models based on the platform.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/hyundai-unveils-new-st1-ev-business-platform/ Save to Pocket

A Rugged, XRT-Trimmed Hyundai Ioniq 5 Is Coming Soon

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

A camouflaged Hyundai Ioniq 5 in South Korea is hiding some rugged upgrades consistent with Hyundai’s well-loved XRT trim.

https://insideevs.com/news/712465/ioniq-5-xrt-trim/ Save to Pocket

LockBit ransomware kingpin gets 4 years behind bars

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Canadian-Russian said to have turned to a life of cybercrime during pandemic, now must pay the price – literally

A LockBit ransomware kingpin has been sentenced to almost four years behind bars and ordered to pay more than CA$860,000 ($635,000, £500,000) in restitution to some of his victims by a Canadian court as he awaits extradition to the US.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/lockbit_ransomware_criminal_sentenced/ Save to Pocket

Long Overlooked, This 11th-Century Astronomical Device Documents Scientific Exchange Among Muslims, Jews and Christians

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The astrolabe features Hebrew and Latin inscriptions added by different owners over time

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-overlooked-this-11th-century-astronomical-device-documents-scientific-exchange-among-muslims-jews-christians-180983955/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Today I won't be doing any complex Godot/SwiftUI integration work.

Today is a day of SwiftUI leisure, and I am just going to polish some rough edges here and there in the UI.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112095421444859545 Save to Pocket

US Senate Leader Schumer: Israel’s Netanyahu Has ‘Lost His Way’

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-senate-leader-schumer-israel-s-netanyahu-has-lost-his-way/7527955.html Save to Pocket

Google gooses Safe Browsing with real-time protection that doesn’t leak to ad giant

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Rare occasion when you do want Big Tech to make a hash of it

Google has enhanced its Safe Browsing service to enable real-time protection in Chrome for desktop, iOS, and soon Android against risky websites, without sending browsing history data to the ad biz.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/google_safe_browsing_update/ Save to Pocket

Bigme InkNote X Color is a 10.3 inch E Ink tablet with pen support and a Dimensity 900 processor

date: 2024-03-14, from: Liliputing

The Bigme InkNote X Color is a 10.3 inch Android tablet with an E Ink Kaleido 3 color display that’s designed not just for reading, but also for writing thanks to support for pressure-sensitive pen input. At first glance the Chinese company’s latest eNote looks a lot like the InkNote Color that I reviewed a few years […]

The post Bigme InkNote X Color is a 10.3 inch E Ink tablet with pen support and a Dimensity 900 processor appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/bigme-inknote-x-color-is-a-10-3-inch-e-ink-tablet-with-pen-support-and-a-dimensity-900-processor/ Save to Pocket

You Can See a Rare, Bright Comet This Month. Will It Be Visible During the Solar Eclipse?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is a frigid, volcanic ice ball that won’t pass near Earth again until 2095

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/you-can-see-a-rare-bright-comet-this-month-will-it-be-visible-during-the-solar-eclipse-180983951/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Updated the reallySimple package to look for the <source:blogroll> element. This means the data will be available to FeedLand.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a175132 Save to Pocket

Save $440 on Lectric’s new ONE e-bike in today’s best deals, ALLPOWERS spring sale, more

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Headlining today’s green deals is a pre-order discount on the new Lectric ONE e-bike for $1,999, which also comes with $220 in free gear as well. It is joined by ALLPOWERS’ spring sale that is taking up to 45% off a large selection of power stations, bundles, and accessories, as well as the one-day sale on the WORX 20V 5-inch Cordless Pruning Saw at a new $100 low. 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/lectric-one-e-bike-allpowers-spring-sale-and-more-deals/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

The Scripting News RSS feed now has a <source:blogroll> element.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a173449 Save to Pocket

Oracle adds GenAI to Fusion with a whopping 50 use cases

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

But is there one that can sort out failing ERP projects? Well Larry, is there?

Oracle has unleashed 50 use cases for gen AI on its Fusion Applications suite, letting vector-based statistical models provide financial report “narratives,” help filter job candidates, and provide product descriptions.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/oralce_adds_genai_to_fusion/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

I’ve started a page on opml.org for notes on blogrolls.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a171156 Save to Pocket

Volkswagen announces production start date for its most affordable $20K ID.1 EV

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

For the first time, Volkswagen announced it aims to start producing its most affordable ID.1 electric car, starting at 20,000 euros ($21,700), in 2027. The $20K Volkswagen ID.1 will offer “affordable electric mobility for everyone,” VW brand leader Thomas Shafer said Thursday.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/volkswagen-announces-production-start-date-20k-id-1-ev/ Save to Pocket

Volkswagen Is Expanding Its EV Lineup, But Not The EV Price War

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

The VW Group’s North American CEO weighs in on the ID. Buzz, the ID.7, and why fire-sale price cuts aren’t in the cards.

https://insideevs.com/news/712429/vw-ceo-prices-id7-buzz/ Save to Pocket

EEO-TIX announces new leader

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Second-in-command Linda Hoos will replace Catherine Spear, who oversaw the office’s restructuring after the George Tyndall scandal, effective April 5.

The post EEO-TIX announces new leader appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/14/eeo-tix-announces-new-leader/ Save to Pocket

Recall: 2022-2024 Triumph Speed Triple RS And RR Could Have Engine Overheat

date: 2024-03-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The good news is, an engine retune should solve the issue according to Triumph.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/712154/triumph-speed-triple-safety-recall/ Save to Pocket

Zoox expands routes, operational hours, and top speed of its bespoke driverless robotaxis

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Autonomous technology developer Zoox shared its latest milestone in a blog post today, expanding its unique driverless robotaxi operations in California and Nevada. The growth includes a broader net of available autonomous routes, longer hours in different weather conditions, and higher top speeds… all without pedals!

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/zoox-expands-routes-hours-top-speed-bespoke-driverless-robotaxi/ Save to Pocket

COC Names Jaclyn Wosk, Hugo Boyer Athletes of the Week

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

College of the Canyons student-athletes Jaclyn Wosk (women’s tennis) and Hugo Boyer (men’s golf) have been named the COC Athletic Department’s Women’s & Men’s Student-Athletes of the Week for the period running March 4-

https://scvnews.com/coc-names-jaclyn-wosk-hugo-boyer-athletes-of-the-week/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

The blogroll sorted in reverse-reverse chronologic order.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a164936 Save to Pocket

Google brains plumb depths of the uncanny valley with latest image-to-video tool

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

VLOGGER needs just a still photo and an audio recording to generate footage, but it’s far from perfect

Google has a new AI trick up its sleeve that can animate a still photo using nothing but a recording of a person’s speech, and boy is it widening the uncanny valley.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/google_vlogger/ Save to Pocket

A moment with a sunset

date: 2024-03-14, from: Manu - I write blog

            <p>A peaceful out for a walk, a lovely a sunset. Sometimes life doesn't have to be complicated to be enjoyable.</p>

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https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/6zSi2aJ7XFu108W0 Save to Pocket

The popup menu

date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News

A popup menu with all kinds of background info.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14/163511.html?title=thePopupMenu Save to Pocket

Moscow Targets VOA Reporter in Latest Round of Sanctions Against Americans

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

Washington — A Voice of America reporter was among more than 200 U.S. citizens sanctioned by the Russian government on Thursday.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday that it was sanctioning Jeff Seldin, who covers national security at VOA. Seldin was among several reporters, including some from The Washington Post and The New York Times, to be included in this latest spate of sanctions against U.S. citizens.

In total, 227 American citizens were included in this round of sanctions over what the Russian government said was “anti-Russian activity.”

“Entry to the Russian Federation is closed to 227 Americans involved in the development, implementation and justification of the Russophobic course of the current U.S. administration,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

The announcement came just one day before the beginning of presidential elections in Russia that President Vladimir Putin is almost guaranteed to win.

Other journalists who were sanctioned included The Washington Post’s Joseph Marks, Joseph Menn, Ellen Nakashima and Tim Starks. Robert Worth from The New York Times was also on the list.

Seldin directed VOA to the outlet’s public relations team.

“VOA’s mandate is to provide accurate, objective, and comprehensive news and information to every part of the world,” the outlet said in a statement. “We stand by Jeff’s reporting and will not be deterred from serving our audience in Russia.”

Seldin isn’t the first VOA journalist to be sanctioned by Moscow. VOA’s former acting director, Yolanda Lopez, was sanctioned by the Russian government in May 2023.

Government officials, including U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, were included on the new list.

“We are deeply concerned by the Kremlin’s escalating attempts to restrict freedom of expression and media freedom in Russia,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA in a statement.

“In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices, including through the use of censorship laws to punish criticism of Russia’s brutal war,” the statement continued.

Moscow also sanctioned a slew of professors from various universities including Harvard, Yale and Columbia.

For Peter Clement, who teaches courses on Russian security policy at Columbia, being included in this round of sanctions didn’t come as a shock.

“I wasn’t surprised. It’s consistent with past Russian policy to issue what they view as reciprocal sanctions,” Clement told VOA.

The Kremlin has blocked more than 2,000 Americans from entering Russia in what it says is a response to U.S. sanctions against Russian individuals and companies.

The United States and other Western countries have hit Russia with a massive wave of sanctions in response to its war against Ukraine.

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.

https://www.voanews.com/a/moscow-targets-voa-reporter-in-latest-round-of-sanctions-against-americans/7527841.html Save to Pocket

CSUN’s VITA Clinic Returns for Tax Season

date: 2024-03-14, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Tax season often brings stress and anxiety, with concerns about correctly filling out forms, but did you know that California State University, Northridge’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Clinic can help smooth out the process

https://scvnews.com/csuns-vita-clinic-returns-for-tax-season/ Save to Pocket

Tesla starts offering LFP battery retrofits for earlier Model 3 under warranty

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla is starting to offer LFP battery pack retrofits for earlier Model 3 vehicles as it starts running out of the old battery pack.

However, it is still only for people under warranty. Tesla is not big on payable battery pack upgrades – not that it is often needed anyway.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/tesla-offering-lfp-battery-retrofits-earlier-model-3-under-warranty/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Seeking a first-class Fediverse platform.

https://werd.io/2024/seeking-a-first-class-fediverse-platform Save to Pocket

Record breach of French government exposes up to 43 million people’s data

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Zut alors! Department for registering and helping unemployed people broken into

A French government department - responsible for registering and assisting unemployed people - is the latest victim of a mega data breach that compromised the information of up to 43 million citizens.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/mega_data_breach_at_french/ Save to Pocket

Tesla Paid Executives More Than it Paid Taxes for Years: Report

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

Plus, General Motors’ latest VP departure, and more on Volkswagen’s effort for an entry-level EV by 2027.

https://insideevs.com/news/712401/tesla-federal-income-executives-report/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Written docs about using the blogroll.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a160247 Save to Pocket

Volkswagen confirms larger electric SUV coming to the US, hybrids too?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

A new, larger VW electric SUV will arrive in the US. Despite several automakers pulling back, Volkswagen says it’s sticking to its EV plans. Meanwhile, the automaker may add hybrids as it looks to boost sales in the US.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/vw-larger-electric-suv-coming-us-hybrids/ Save to Pocket

Eclipse Photographers Will Help Study Sun During Its Disappearing Act

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

As the Sun temporarily disappears from midday skies over North America on April 8, 2024, hundreds of volunteers will capture photos of the total solar eclipse to help us better understand the Sun and its relationship with Earth. These photographers will be participating in three NASA-funded citizen science projects to study the Sun’s ghostly outer […]

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/eclipse-photographers-help-study-sun-during-disappearing-act/ Save to Pocket

You Load Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get? – Coal Records in the National Register

date: 2024-03-14, from: National Archives, Text Message blog

Tomorrow, Friday March 16, the exhibit “Power & Light: Russel Lee’s Coal Survey” opens at the National Archives Building in Washington DC.  It features “photographs of coal communities by American documentary photographer Russell Lee. These images tell the story of laborers who helped build the nation, of a moment when the government took stock of … Continue reading You Load Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get? – Coal Records in the National Register

https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2024/03/14/you-load-sixteen-tons-and-what-do-you-get-coal-records-in-the-national-register/ Save to Pocket

I Tried a Bot That Swipes Tinder For Me

date: 2024-03-14, from: 404 Media Group

BaddieFinder is based on one man’s idea of hot women. So I gave it a test run through my own Tinder account.

https://www.404media.co/baddiefinder-tinder-bot/ Save to Pocket

26 Years Ago…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/26-years-ago Save to Pocket

Former US Treasury Chief Mnuchin Looking to Buy TikTok

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/former-us-treasury-chief-mnuchin-looking-to-buy-tiktok/7527757.html Save to Pocket

Goodbye Pushover, Hello Overpush

date: 2024-03-14, from: mrusme blog

After over 11 years of being a loyal Pushover user, I have decided to give up on the service and run my own minimal, drop-in replacement that works the way I need it to.

https://xn–gckvb8fzb.com/goodbye-pushover-hello-overpush/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Sign up for the New England VisionPro meetup next Monday at 6pm at Microsoft NERD in Cambridge.

Will help us estimate how many spatial pizzas to order:

https://partiful.com/e/5toXav8jAEO7DlHi5T3a

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112094817378627912 Save to Pocket

North America’s largest lithium mine is full steam ahead – it just got a $2.26B loan

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Great news for EVs: Lithium Nevada got the green light for a $2.26 billion loan from the US Department of Energy to finance a lithium carbonate processing plant.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/north-americas-largest-lithium-mine-is-full-steam-ahead-it-just-got-a-2-26b-loan/ Save to Pocket

Third time is almost the charm for SpaceX’s Starship

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Booster hit the water hard and monster rocket lost during re-entry, but otherwise a success!

SpaceX has launched its third Starship Super-Heavy rocket on a test flight that went almost entirely to plan.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/spacex_starship_launch/ Save to Pocket

March 13, 2024

date: 2024-03-14, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-13-2024-272 Save to Pocket

The deepest points in each of the Earth’s oceans are called The…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044176-the-deepest-points-in-eac Save to Pocket

Asus goes big with the Zenfone 11 Ultra

date: 2024-03-14, from: Liliputing

A decade ago smartphones with screen sizes approaching 7 inches were unusual enough that people often called then phablets. These days they’re just… phones. And that means when Asus launched the Zenfone 10 with a 5.9 inch display last year, it was considered fairly small by modern smartphone standards. But now one of the last companies […]

The post Asus goes big with the Zenfone 11 Ultra appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/asus-goes-big-with-the-zenfone-11-ultra/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Save the date: New England VisionPro users group meeting next Monday at 6pm at Microsoft NERD in Cambridge.

Details to follow.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112094690857525143 Save to Pocket

Americans are opting to stay put

date: 2024-03-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Americans have long been known for pulling up stakes and moving for economic opportunity. But rather than chasing higher-paying jobs, more Americans are reluctant to move — and housing costs have something to do with it. Plus, there’s plenty of economic data on the table to discuss: Wholesale inflation came in warm but not hot, retail sales rebounded, and unemployment has stayed under 4% for 25 months now.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/americans-are-opting-to-stay-put Save to Pocket

NIO and CATL sign ‘win-win partnership’ develop longer-life batteries for EVs, swap stations

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

EV automaker NIO has announced an expanded collaboration with battery behemoth and current energy supplier CATL. Together, the two Chinese companies intend to collaborate through the research and development of long-life batteries to support future NIO EVs and battery swap stations.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/nio-catl-sign-partnership-develop-longer-life-batteries-ev-swap-stations/ Save to Pocket

NASA Invites Media to 61st Annual Goddard Space Science Symposium

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

Media are invited to attend the 61st annual Goddard Space Science Symposium (formerly the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium), which will take place March 20-22, 2024, at the Brendan Iribe Center on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium will also be streamed online. Organized by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) […]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invites-media-to-61st-annual-goddard-space-science-symposium/ Save to Pocket

24 Hours In a City Being Invaded By Rhinos

date: 2024-03-14, from: Heatmap News

Ganesh Paudel packs a wad of chewing tobacco as he talks about the rhinoceros attack. “When the rhino charged, we were in a boat,” he tells me. “The rhino was sitting in the water, then it hit me and broke my knee, broke the hand of another guide and gored a tourist” — he points — “through an eye.”

As we chat, another rhino wades in a stream just a short way away. Paudel works as a nature guide, but we’re not in nature today — we’re standing under a bridge that connects to a busy highway in Chitwan, a district of about a million people situated on the outskirts of Nepal’s Chitwan National Park. A school bus passes and a few locals stop their scooters to whip out phones and film. But most keep moving without looking twice.

Rhinos once roamed from Pakistan to Bangladesh, but their numbers plummeted in the 20th century. Many cultures throughout Asia believe rhino horns have medicinal properties, making the creatures they’re attached to vulnerable to poaching. Rajas and royals prized rhinos as trophy kills. Farmers, also, retaliated with violence against rhinos that pillaged their crops. By 1970 there were just 95 rhinos in the national park, a wilderness bigger than New York City.

Eventually, however, the government realized that wildlife protection attracts dollars. For decades now, the United States Agency for International Development and non-governmental organizations like the World Wildlife Fund have supported Nepal’s efforts to boost conservation and lessen human wildlife conflict. Between 2011 and 2020 alone, $57 million of USAID funding went to programs aimed at protecting biodiversity here. Soldiers now patrol the park to stifle poaching.

But while the rhino population has rebounded to nearly 700 in Chitwan, the animals themselves are hardly thriving. As temperatures rise, there’s been less rain during monsoon season. Warming temperatures have fueled invasive species like American creeper vines that have taken over rhino habitat and grow three inches daily. Climate change has also dried up staple rhino foods like elephant grass and aquatic plants. Now, there are too many rhinos and not enough forest, which forces the animals out of the park and into the city. (The same goes for tigers.)

The particular rhino wading near us is named Meghauli. Each morning, like clockwork, he comes out of the forest and into town. Meghauli is a bona fide social media star. When he thuds down the road traffic stops and a parade of hypnotized Nepalis and foreigners snap selfies and touch his leathery hide.

Meghauli was hand-raised by park staff after he was found alone, wounded from a tiger attack. Fed on 18 liters of buffalo milk a day, he grew big and strong — and also lost his fear of humans. Four years later he was released, but he kept returning because it’s easier to find food in town than in the increasingly dry and crowded jungle.

Rhinos are everywhere in the populated regions around the park — wading in streams, but also painted in murals, memorialized in hotel names, and depicted in statues. The uncomfortable truth is that the rhinos’ plight has also created a lucrative tourist opportunity. Rajendra Dhami, who runs a tea shop in front of Meghauli’s main crossing point, a shallow river with basking crocodiles and waiting tourists, tells me the rhinos have become a big attraction. “People come to see rhinos since we have them,” he says. “That means more money for us.”

A pair of young Brits and an Indian family of nine are currently gathered, waiting for Meghauli, but Dhami insists that for the most part, it doesn’t matter which rhino shows up. “We have lots of problems in Nepal,” he tells me, “but we share with wildlife.”

It’s true visitors often choose hotels and shops near wildlife. But a recent 20-year study found that nature-based tourism rarely impacts locals, in part because hotel bookings are often made online with fancy tour operators who act as middlemen and skim off revenue much the same way food delivery sites take from restaurants. Meanwhile, just six of the 93 hotels here are owned or managed by indigenous people, according to the Regional Hotel Association Chitwan. For most Nepalis, especially in poor indigenous communities who rely on farming here, rhinos running around is bad for bottom lines — and bellies.

“Cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, rhinos like it all very much” says Narayan Rijal, who has worked as a park guide for 15 years. ”That’s the problem.”

But people, also, are hungry. Many here are in such need of food that they’re invading rhino habitat to find fruits, honey, and meat. Impoverished communities illegally enter the park to gather firewood, a cycle that increases deforestation, shrinks habitat, and risks deadly rhino, elephant, and tiger attacks.

Tulsi Magar, a guide at the local Sanctuary hotel, says many attacks are because farmers are so desperate to protect their own food that they stand their ground and light fires to try and scare off hungry rhinos. When Magar was 12, he also fought this way, sleeping in a shed and narrowly avoiding losing his life to protect the family’s radish harvest.

“It didn’t work,’ he remembers. “The rhinos won.”

Soldiers try their best to manage the rhinos, trailing them as they leave the park to forage in farmers’ fields. Once they reach town, soldiers often have to hit them with sticks or their rifle butts to get them to return to the forest.

“They‘re not small animals,” an assistant warden says as a rooster crows outside his office. “We try to push rhinos back into the core area. With Meghauli no need for stick, we just push. We do our best.”

Meghauli has a lookalike named Madi, another rescue. Unlike Meghauli, Madi is angry, park staff say, asking me to avoid using their names for fear of speaking openly. “Madi even charged a few taxis by the airport,” they admit. “He’s very aggressive.”

Rhinos have killed 55 people since 1998, including a 2019 attack on safari-going tourists. Last year alone, rhinos killed five. “They’re more dangerous than tigers,” notes Isswari Chapagain who has climbed trees to avoid charges.

Rhinos aren’t just a threat to locals, he says. They’re also a threat to each other. Wild rhinos go nuts and attack orphans like Meghauli and Madi if they smell people on them — another reason they keep coming back to town.

As the park has become famous and rhinos have rebounded, human activities like road expansion have been linked to a string of strange deaths: 165 rhinos killed from falling into roadside ditches and septic tanks, shocks from electric fences, disease (likely from proximity to livestock), and at least six killed by poachers. In 2022 alone, 36 rhinos died from territorial fights, which are also connected to warming temperatures and habitat loss. Construction on Chitwan’s three main rivers changes their flow, shrinks space, increases food competition and pushes rhinos into fields.

Rhinos are protected even if they attack or leave the park boundaries, but people aren’t. If they’re attacked in the park, Nepalis can claim government compensation (although guides cannot). If they’re at home protecting their farms and a rhino mauls them, they get nothing, another reason researchers accuse the government of continuing to prioritize wildlife over people.

Back under the bridge, I watch Meghauli blow bubbles under the water, just like a kid.

When he rises, I see his massive body in full for the first time. He seems gentle but it wouldn’t take much — a jerk of his head or a kick from a leg — for him to kill someone. He exits the water and trudges up the riverbank, then pauses to scan the highway. He faces me and sniffs the air, then turns toward a potato field. It’s lunchtime.

https://heatmap.news/climate/nepal-rhinos-meghauli-chitwan Save to Pocket

Tesla to bring electric semi truck production to Gigafactory Berlin

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Elon Musk says that Tesla will bring Tesla Semi, its electric semi truck, to production at Gigafactory Berlin.

However, it will be important to start volume production in the US first.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/tesla-electric-semi-truck-production-gigafactory-berlin/ Save to Pocket

The Rivian R2 Will Come With A Heat Pump And Optional Tow Hitch

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

R1 vehicles don’t have a heat pump, so adding one to the R2 is a step in the right direction.

https://insideevs.com/news/712343/rivian-r2-heat-pump-tow-hitch/ Save to Pocket

International effort to disrupt cybercrime moves into operational phase

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Will the WEF experiment work?

The Cybercrime Atlas, a massive undertaking that aims to disrupt cybercriminals across the globe, enters its operational phase in 2024, two years after organizers laid the groundwork at the RSA Conference.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/wef_cybercrime_atlas/ Save to Pocket

Is There Anything He Can’t Do? Brabec Does The Double At 2024 Mint 400

date: 2024-03-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

You’d think two Dakar Rally wins would be enough for anyone, but then you’d be wrong.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/712281/ricky-brabec-mint-400-2024/ Save to Pocket

NASA Lights ‘Beacon’ on Moon With Autonomous Navigation System Test

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

For 30 total minutes in February, NASA lit a beacon on the Moon – successfully testing a sophisticated positioning system that will make it safer for Artemis-era explorers to visit and establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. The Lunar Node 1 demonstrator, or LN-1, is an autonomous navigation system intended to provide […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-lights-beacon-on-moon-with-autonomous-navigation-system-test/ Save to Pocket

Trump Arrives at Hearing on Whether to Dismiss Classified Documents Case

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA — Donald Trump arrived Thursday at a federal courthouse in Florida, where a judge will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the criminal case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House. 

The motorcade carrying the 2024 Republican presumptive presidential nominee arrived shortly before the hearing was set to begin before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump. 

The dispute centers on the Trump team’s interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, which they say gave him the authority to designate the documents as personal and maintain possession of them after his presidency. 

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team, by contrast, says the files Trump is charged with possessing are presidential records, not personal ones, and that the statute does not apply to classified and top-secret documents such as those kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. 

The Presidential Records Act “does not exempt Trump from the criminal law, entitle him to unilaterally declare highly classified presidential records to be personal records, or shield him from criminal investigations — let alone allow him to obstruct a federal investigation with impunity,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing last week. 

It was not clear when Cannon might rule, but the outcome will determine whether the case proceeds or whether, as Trump’s lawyers hope, it is thrown out before ever reaching a jury — a rare action for a judge to take. 

Cannon is also expected to hear arguments Thursday on a separate but related Trump team motion that says the statute that forms the bulk of the criminal charges — making it a crime to willfully retain national defense information — is unconstitutionally vague as it applies to a former president. 

It is not surprising that defense lawyers are seeking dismissal of the case based on the Presidential Records Act given that the legal team has repeatedly invoked the statute since the FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. 

The law, enacted in 1978, requires presidents upon leaving office to transfer their presidential records to the U.S. government for management — specifically, the National Archives and Records Administration — although they are permitted to retain personal records, including diaries and notes that are purely private and not prepared for government business. 

Trump’s lawyers have said that he designated as personal property the records he took with him to Mar-a-Lago, which prosecutors say included top-secret information and documents related to nuclear programs and the military capabilities of the U.S. and foreign adversaries. 

Cannon has suggested in the past that she sees Trump’s status as a former president as distinguishing him from others who have held onto classified records. 

After the Trump team sued the Justice Department in 2022 to get his records back, Cannon appointed a special master to conduct an independent review of the documents taken during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. That appointment was later overturned by a federal appeals court. 

More recently, even while ruling in favor of Smith’s team on a procedural question, Cannon pointedly described the case as the “first-ever criminal prosecution of a former United States President — once the country’s chief classification authority over many of the documents the Special Counsel now seeks to withhold from him (and his cleared counsel) — in a case without charges of transmission or delivery of national defense information.” 

Trump faces 40 felony counts in Florida that accuse him of willfully retaining dozens of classified documents and rebuffing government demands to give them back after he left the White House. Prosecutors in recent court filings have stressed the scope of criminal conduct that they say they expect to prove at trial, saying in one that “there has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump’s.” 

They allege, for instance, that Trump intentionally held onto some of the nation’s most sensitive documents — only returning a fraction of them upon demand by the National Archives — and then urged his lawyer to hide records and to lie to the FBI by saying he no longer was in possession of them. He’s also charged with enlisting staff to delete surveillance footage that would show boxes of documents being moved around the property. 

The hearing is the second this month in the case in Florida, one of four prosecutions Trump confronts as he seeks to reclaim the White House this year. Cannon heard arguments on March 1 on when to set a trial date but has not ruled yet. Both sides have proposed summertime dates for the trial to begin.

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-arrives-at-hearing-on-whether-to-dismiss-classified-documents-case/7527642.html Save to Pocket

Newesy Piaggio EV isn’t a Vespa – it’s an adorable robot work cart

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Vespa parent company Piaggio just launched a new electric vehicle that’s loaded with advanced electronics, efficient drive systems, and the latest in autonomous technology. But don’t worry, it’s not coming for your jobs (yet).

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/newesy-piaggio-ev-isnt-a-vespa-its-an-adorable-robot-work-cart/ Save to Pocket

On TV: ‘Free to Be… You and Me’

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/on-tv-free-to-be-you-and-me Save to Pocket

FTC Goes Undercover Against Fake Antivirus Companies

date: 2024-03-14, from: 404 Media Group

Companies called Restoro and Reimage are allegedly behind pop-ups that trick people into downloading a piece of fake antivirus software and paying sizable fees.

https://www.404media.co/ftc-goes-undercover-against-fake-antivirus-companies/ Save to Pocket

Developers beware, Microsoft’s domain shakeup is coming soon

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

If you don’t pay attention, your lovely little Teams app will stop working

Time is running out for developers and administrators to prepare themselves for Microsoft’s one domain to rule them all – cloud.microsoft.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/microsoft_domain_shakeup/ Save to Pocket

Engwe E26 review: Testing out a budget-level 1,000W electric bike

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

I’ve tested several Engwe electric bikes by now, and each time I’ve come away with a solid feeling. The Engwe E26 continues that trend with a fairly priced ($1,199) electric bike that comes with a surprising amount of nice features for the price.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/engwe-e26-review-testing-out-a-budget-level-1000w-electric-bike/ Save to Pocket

Icing Cloud Characterization Engineer Emily Timko

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

“If I knew that I was going to get to where I’m at [today], I would have gone through it all over again. I would have went through changing my major. I would have gone through the divorce. I would have went through the heartbreak of thinking, ’I’m not going to be what I wanted to be when I […]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/icing-cloud-characterization-engineer-emily-timko/ Save to Pocket

Dew Point I is a mesmerizing water sculpture piece by Lily Clark…

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044153-dew-point-i-is-a Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

A place to report problems with the new blogroll.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a140957 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

What a day. I have a feeling there’s going to be more of these as we go forward. It will have been worth the effort to make FeedLand.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/14.html#a140920 Save to Pocket

Swirling Forces, Crushing Pressures Measured in the Proton

date: 2024-03-14, from: Quanta Magazine

The post Swirling Forces, Crushing Pressures Measured in the Proton first appeared on Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/swirling-forces-crushing-pressures-measured-in-the-proton-20240314/ Save to Pocket

US to probe Change Healthcare’s data protection standards as lawsuits mount

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Services slowly coming back online but providers still struggling

Change Healthcare is being investigated over the alleged 6 TB data theft by the ALPHV ransomware group as it continues recovery efforts.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/change_healthcare_ransomware_investigation/ Save to Pocket

Die shots and transistor-level debugging on Raspberry Pi 5

date: 2024-03-14, from: Jeff Geerling blog

Die shots and transistor-level debugging on Raspberry Pi 5

        <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Ever since I <a href="https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2023/raspberry-pi-5-and-rp1-x-ray-scans">X-rayed the Raspberry Pi 5</a> to see inside the BCM2712 and RP1 chip packages, I've wanted <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_shot">die shots</a> of both chips. Why? Mostly out of curiosity, since I'm not a silicon expert by any means.</p>

I also ran into some weird overclocking issues after writing about my experience overclocking and underclocking the Raspberry Pi 5, and probably spent an unhealthy amount of time (and money) to learn about the clocks, PLLs, and chips on the latest version of everyone’s favorite Single Board Computer.

(Some Raspberry Pi 5s were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

  <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>

March 14, 2024

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/die-shots-and-transistor-level-debugging-on-raspberry-pi-5 Save to Pocket

Watch The Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Set A New EV Record At The Nurburgring

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

This is what 7 minutes and 7.55 seconds look like on the Green Hell from the driver’s seat of Porsche’s new 1,000+ HP EV.

https://insideevs.com/news/712409/porsche-taycan-turbo-gt-nurburgring-record-run-video/ Save to Pocket

Hubble Tracks Jupiter’s Stormy Weather

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images, taken on January 5-6, 2024, capturing both sides of the planet. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL). This is because these large […]

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-tracks-jupiters-stormy-weather/ Save to Pocket

Hyundai and Kia recall 170,000 EVs in Korea over software glitch, is the US next?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Hyundai and Kia will recall around 170,000 EVs in Korea, the largest since they launched. The recall is over a software issue impacting Hyundai’s IONIQ, Genesis, and Kia EVs. Meanwhile, there’s an open NHTSA investigation in the US.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/hyundai-kia-recall-170000-evs-korea-is-us-next/ Save to Pocket

A company linked to a large “pink slime” network is being hired by big publishers like Gannett

date: 2024-03-14, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

The largest newspaper chain in the United States has an ongoing business relationship with a company linked to a sprawling network of over a thousand “pink slime” publications — sites that profess to be local but have no local staff and do not disclose funding they’ve received from political sources. A Gannett spokesperson confirmed the…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/a-company-linked-to-a-large-pink-slime-network-is-being-hired-by-big-publishers-like-gannett/ Save to Pocket

US Interior Department to Give Tribal Nations $120 Million to Fight Climate-Related Threats

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-interior-department-to-give-tribal-nations-120-million-to-fight-climate-related-threats/7527547.html Save to Pocket

The Year of the Big-Balled Rat

date: 2024-03-14, from: Gary Marcus blog

Science is in for a rough ride

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-year-of-the-big-balled-rat Save to Pocket

Observers: US Investments in Philippines Seen Easing Reliance on China

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

Taipei, Taiwan — During a trade mission visit to Manila this week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in the Philippines’ tech sector and help double the number of semiconductor factories in the country.

Observers say the pledge and visit highlight the Southeast Asian nation’s growing importance to Washington and will also help reduce the Philippine economy’s reliance on China.

“U.S. companies have realized that our chip supply chain is way too concentrated in just a few countries in the world,” Raimondo said in remarks at a business forum on Tuesday.

“Forget about geopolitics. Just at that level of concentration, you know the old adage, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ Why do we allow ourselves to be buying so many of our chips from one or two countries? That’s why we need to diversify,” Raimondo said.

American business executives from 22 businesses, including Alphabet’s Google, Visa and Microsoft, joined Raimondo on the trip.

Possible expansion of chip industry

JC Punongbayan, resident economist and columnist of the online news website Rappler.com, said that while the Philippines is one of the key centers in the global electronics industry chain, it does not yet have the ability to manufacture smartphone or computer chips. The Philippines currently has 13 semiconductor factories that focus on assembly, packaging and testing.

“This commitment by the U.S. government to boost the local semiconductor industry is a welcome development because right now, even if semiconductors have figured prominently in trade statistics, these are not high value-added. So basically, we import a lot of components and then export them after assembly and packaging,” Punongbayan told VOA’s Mandarin Service.

“Hopefully, these investments by the U.S. government and private sector partners will enable the Philippines to export higher value-added goods in the future,” he said.

Punongbayan believes that at a time when the Philippines is working hard to amend its regulations and hoping to attract more foreign direct investment, the promised investment from U.S. companies could provide a strong boost to the capital-starved country.

“We have had some difficulties when it comes to attracting foreign investments. And in fact, from 2020 to 2023, foreign direct investments dropped by more than 6% on an annual basis. So, we really need these investments in order to boost the economy,” Punongbayan said.

“And the billion-dollar investment pledge of the U.S. is several times the actual foreign direct investments that have come in recent years — in fact, almost nine times the foreign direct investment from the U.S. in 2023. These are very crucial to Philippine development,” he said.

During Raimondo’s two-day visit, U.S. companies committed to invest in the digital and energy sectors, areas that are in line with Manila’s overall development plans and will help the Philippines’ industrial upgrading and transformation, Punongbayan said.

Defense and economy

Dindo Manhit, president of the Stratbase ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies, a policy think tank in the Philippines, said that over the years, the Philippines’ economic growth has been mainly driven by strong consumption.

These investment commitments by U.S. companies will accelerate local economic growth, Manhit said, benefiting both the public and private sectors and positively affecting areas such as the Philippines’ manufacturing supply chain and business process outsourcing.

He said these investments could also allow Manila to fully understand that strengthening its alliance with Washington will not only bring it defense assistance but also economic security.

“Because we all share values, democratic values. We value jobs for people. In the case of the Philippines, imagine if we can create jobs that could provide better income for Filipinos,” Manhit said. “Then we will see the strong partnership with the U.S. not limited to national security only, but also economic security.”

Washington’s pledges of economic support for the Philippines comes at a time of rising tensions between Manila and Beijing over sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.

Earlier this month, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo warned that Manila is facing severe “economic coercion” from China. He also said the Philippines relies heavily on trade relations with China and hopes to expand economic and trade connections with other countries, including establishing formal free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union as soon as possible.

Punongbayan said that despite the disputes in the South China Sea, Manila continues to import a large amount of goods from China, which is the largest source of the country’s trade deficit. That shows how difficult it is for the country to decouple its economy from China, and why it is imperative for Manila to lessen its dependence on Beijing.

Greater interest from the United States to invest in the Philippines is a step in the right direction, he said.

“If we import a lot from China, then indirectly we are boosting China’s economy at the same time. And of course, part of the revenues coming from these payments to China will go to the Chinese government,” Punongbayan said. “So indirectly, in a way, the Philippines is funding China’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea.”

Manhit, however, said compared with other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippine economy is not very dependent on China.

According to recent poll by Stratbase ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies, the country Filipinos most want to maintain good economic relations with is the U.S., followed by Japan, while China ranks at the bottom.

He said the poll not only shows that China does not have as strong an economic influence on the Philippines as Beijing claims, but also that Filipinos are unanimously willing to expand economic cooperation with countries that share common democratic values, or values of human rights and the rule of law.

https://www.voanews.com/a/observers-us-investments-in-philippines-seen-easing-reliance-on-china/7527518.html Save to Pocket

World’s Largest Drone Maker Expands in US Amid Rights Abuse Allegations

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

washington — Chinese drone maker DJI is expanding in the U.S. with its first flagship store in New York City amid allegations of links to human rights abuses and ties to China’s military.

DJI’s “first concept” North American store on New York’s Fifth Avenue welcomes customers into a futuristic, minimalist space to shop. The company describes itself on its website as “the world’s leader in civil drones and creative camera technology.”

“We continue to see growing consumer demand throughout North America as we expand our consumer product portfolio,” said Christina Zhang, senior director of corporate strategy at DJI.

Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, the company was founded in 2006. DJI, also known as Da Jiang Innovations, has become the world’s largest drone maker, having achieved global dominance in less than 20 years. The company now supplies 70% of the world’s consumer drones and nearly 80% of U.S. consumer drones.

Abuse allegations

On March 5, the day of DJI’s official store opening in New York, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), a Washington research and advocacy group, released a report titled Surveillance Tech Series: DJI’s Links to Human Rights Abuses in East Turkistan.

The report accuses DJI of being involved in mass surveillance and rights violations against Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and other Muslim communities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which the group calls East Turkistan.

“DJI is directly involved in mass surveillance schemes in East Turkistan and has supplied public security agencies with tools to surveil and target Uyghurs, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz people,” the UHRP report said. “Xinjiang public security departments entered into seven procurement orders with DJI that were worth nearly US$300,000 between 2019 and 2022.”

The report stated that DJI sells drones to Xinjiang’s paramilitary organization, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which the U.S. government sanctioned because of its “connection with serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities” in Xinjiang.

“Other documents show tenders worth US$47,000 for DJI drones for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps,” the UHRP report stated.

The report also said that a DJI drone captured footage of dozens of individuals, seemingly Uyghur prisoners, blindfolded and shackled at a train station in southern Xinjiang. The video, first released on YouTube in 2019, garnered widespread media attention.

“It’s unethical to support a company that knowingly engages in egregious rights violations,” Nuzigum Setiwaldi, the report’s author, told Voice of America.

The U.S. and several Western parliaments have accused China of genocide in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim populations. The U.N. human rights office released a report saying the human rights violations in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity. China criticized Western nations for spreading “lies” about human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet.

A spokesperson from DJI told VOA the company has not engaged in any activities, including sales distribution and product development, that violate or abuse human rights.

“Like other manufacturers, we do not have control over how our products are used as they are available off the shelf,” wrote a DJI spokesperson in an email response. “However, we have demonstrated – through years of investments in product safety and security initiatives – that our products are developed for peaceful and civilian use only.”

Chinese military company or not?

In 2022, The Washington Post reported that DJI obscured ties to Chinese government funding.

In the same year, the U.S. Department of Defense classified DJI as a “Chinese military company.” As of January, DJI remains on the list of such companies operating in the United States. The department said it maintains companies on the list to counter China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which supports the modernization of the Chinese army.

Reuters reported that former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who ran the U.S. Justice Department from 2015 to 2017 and is now with the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm, wrote a letter to the Defense Department last July on behalf of DJI, urging the removal of her client from the Pentagon’s Chinese military companies list.

In her letter, Lynch cited the importance and urgency of such a move because of the wide use of and dependence on DJI products by a variety of U.S. stakeholders.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned in January that Chinese-made drones posed “significant risk” to U.S. national security and critical infrastructure.

“[T]he PRC’s 2017 National Intelligence Law compels Chinese companies to cooperate with state intelligence services, including providing access to data collected within China and around the world,” CISA said in its cybersecurity guidance on Chinese manufactured drones or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

However, DJI’s spokesperson told VOA that DJI “is not a Chinese military company.”

According to DJI, the company remains one of the few drone companies that clearly “denounce and actively discourage” the use of drones in combat.

“We do not pursue business opportunities for combat use or operations. Our distributors, resellers and other business partners globally have also committed to following this policy when they sell and use our products,” DJI spokesperson said.

https://www.voanews.com/a/world-s-largest-drone-maker-expands-in-us-amid-rights-abuse-allegations-/7526613.html Save to Pocket

Tesla (TSLA) delivery estimates are plunging as growth story dissipates

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Analysts are releasing a wave of delivery estimate downgrades for Tesla as the automaker’s growth story is dissipating – at least for the next few years.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/14/tesla-delivery-estimates-plunging-growth-story-dissipates/ Save to Pocket

The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Pornhub

date: 2024-03-14, from: 404 Media Group

In a new series by CBC Podcasts, hosted by 404 Media’s Sam Cole, former employees, performers, and the new owners themselves speak out about Pornhub’s influence on the industry and beyond.

https://www.404media.co/the-pornhub-empire-cbc-podcast/ Save to Pocket

Voyager 1 starts making sense again after months of babble

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Veteran spacecraft shows signs of sanity with poke from engineers

Engineers are hopeful that the veteran spacecraft Voyager 1 might have turned a corner after spending the last three months spouting gibberish at controllers.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/voyager_1_not_dead/ Save to Pocket

Global Passenger EV, Hybrid Battery Market Expanded 40% In 2023

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

The combined battery deployment reached roughly 690 gigawatt-hours.

https://insideevs.com/news/712261/global-passenger-xev-battery-market-2023/ Save to Pocket

What Is Quantum Teleportation?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Quanta Magazine

The post What Is Quantum Teleportation? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-quantum-teleportation-20240314/ Save to Pocket

Compact Robot Takes Flight to Support CERISS Initiative

date: 2024-03-14, from: NASA breaking news

NASA’s TechFlights 2023 Selections Advance Space Science in Collaboration with Industry A new robot will be taking flight soon to test its ability to support biological and physical science experiments in microgravity.  As one of NASA’s 2023 TechFlights selections, this compact robot will have a chance to fly on a commercial suborbital flight to see […]

https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/biological-physical-sciences/compact-robot-takes-flight-to-support-ceriss-initiative/ Save to Pocket

Who Will Design London’s First Permanent HIV/AIDS Memorial?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Five artists have been shortlisted for the project, which will be located near the site of the U.K.’s first dedicated AIDS ward

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/who-will-design-londons-first-permanent-hivaids-memorial-180983950/ Save to Pocket

$18,101 Worth of Lego Head

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/03/14/18101-worth-of-lego-head/ Save to Pocket

The DOE Is Putting More Money into Clean Hydrogen

date: 2024-03-14, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: New wildfires are spreading along Chile’s Pacific Coast • Flooding has killed more than 60 people in Afghanistan over the last three weeks • It will be 70 degrees Fahrenheit today in Indianapolis, Indiana, where signs of spring have emerged 14 days early.

THE TOP FIVE

1. DOE announces $750 million for clean hydrogen R&D

The Department of Energy announced yesterday a $750 million injection into 52 hydrogen research and development projects aimed at bringing down the price of clean hydrogen and making it a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Most of the money will go toward electrolyzers, the devices that use electricity to split hydrogen from oxygen. Being able to produce more of these devices for less money – by improving the supply chains and automating manufacturing, for example – will help bring down the overall cost of clean hydrogen. The funding will also help support fuel cell production, as well as research into “recovery, recycling, and reuse of clean hydrogen materials and components.” This is the first distribution of the $1.5 billion that’s been carved out from the bipartisan infrastructure law for clean hydrogen. The Biden administration has also allotted $7 billion in federal funds to build seven hydrogen hubs across the country, and these new R&D projects will “support the long-term viability” of these hubs, the DOE said.

2. Shell walks back some emissions pledges

Oil giant Shell is watering down its commitment to scale back carbon emissions in the next few years. The company pledged in 2021 to reduce its “net carbon intensity” by 20% by 2030, but has adjusted that to between 15% and 20%, according to its latest energy transition strategy update. The goal of a 45% reduction by 2035 has been scrapped entirely. Net carbon intensity is a bit of a confusing term. Shell defines it as “emissions associated with each unit of energy we sell.” The Financial Times calls it “an accounting treatment that allows Shell to offset the carbon produced by its oil and gas business against its growing sales of lower-carbon products.”

“The change reflects Shell’s move away from supplying renewable power to homes,” wrote Laura Hurst at Bloomberg. Shell also said it aims to “reduce customer emissions” – or Scope 3 emissions – from its oil products by 15% to 20% by 2030. How? By “reducing sales of oil products, such as petrol and diesel, as we support customers as they move to electric mobility and lower-carbon fuels, including natural gas, LNG and biofuels.” The company claims it can still get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

3. EU sues Greece over flood risk mismanagement

The European Commission is suing Greece for failing to manage flood risk. Under the European Green Deal, all EU member states are required to comply with water rules that help ensure, among other things, good management of river basins to help prepare for floods. The commission said that “Greece has so far not reviewed, adopted nor reported its river basin management plans,” and it is therefore referring the country to the EU’s high court. Greece isn’t the only country under pressure: The commission has also sued Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, and Slovakia for their own reporting failures. But the lawsuit against Greece comes five months after the country experienced historic floods in its Thessaly plain, “devastating crops and livestock and raising questions about the Mediterranean country’s ability to deal with an increasingly erratic climate,” explained Reuters.

4. Study: Methane leaks from U.S. oil and gas operations are vastly underestimated

As the race to cut planet-warming methane emissions ramps up, new data is revealing the true scope of the problem. A new study published yesterday in the journal Nature suggests fossil fuel operations in the U.S. may be emitting three times as much methane as previously thought. Energy production is the third largest source of methane emissions because the gas often leaks from oil wells and gas processing plants. But this new study – which examined 1 million measurements from aerial surveys over six major oil- and gas-producing regions in the U.S. – suggests we’ve been underestimating the size of these leaks, making projects like the MethaneSAT even more important. Yesterday the International Energy Agency said methane emissions from the energy sector were still at record highs last year.

5. The U.K. has more giant redwoods than California

Most people associate giant sequoias with the forests of California, but new research finds the trees are far more plentiful in Britain. The giant redwood was introduced to the UK in 1853 and has since thrived. There are an estimated 500,000 sequoias in the UK, compared with 80,000 in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, according to a report by Britain’s academy of sciences, the Royal Society. While wildfire and drought threaten California’s redwoods, “in the UK our climate is more temperate, wetter, and so it is actually likely better suited to these trees in the long run,” said Dr Mathias Disney from University College London, one of the authors of the study.

To estimate the UK trees’ biomass, the researchers used laser scanning to measure the height of 97 trees from three locations. Here they are, ranked by size:

Royal Society

THE KICKER

The job board for the Biden administration’s American Climate Corps will officially open next month. As Grist reported, most of the positions are not expected to require experience.

https://heatmap.news/economy/clean-hydrogen-shell-emissions Save to Pocket

Former US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin thinking about buying TikTok

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

SteveTok? TikMnuch?

On the heels of the US House of Representatives passing a TikTok ban law, former US Treasury secretary and private equity mogul Steve Mnuchin is apparently thinking about buying the platform.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/tiktok_mnuchin/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

The French call their parents in law beautiful parents/mother/father.

I can’t help wondering if this improves their relationships. The Mexican term is outright ugly sounding “suegro/suegra”

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112094048854511064 Save to Pocket

Honda Might Team Up With Nissan For Cheap EV After Ditching Plans With GM

date: 2024-03-14, from: Inside EVs News

Nissan is looking for a partner to make a new modular electric axle and EV platform, and Honda might fit the bill, Nikkei reported.

https://insideevs.com/news/712353/nissan-honda-cheap-ev-plans-report/ Save to Pocket

PeerJ Expert Curations: Molecular Ecology (Prof. Ana I. F. Ribeiro-Barros)

date: 2024-03-14, from: PeerJ blog

Ana I. F. Ribeiro-Barros, is a research professor at the School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, and visiting professor at Madeira University (Portugal), Eduardo Mondlane University and Gorongosa National Park (Mozambique). Her scientific activity is focused on the characterization, conservation, monitoring and management of agro-forestry resources: molecular ecology; landscape genomics; biodiversity; environmental stress; plant microbiome; […]

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284888922/peerj-expert-curations-molecular-ecology-prof-ana-i-f-ribeiro-barros/ Save to Pocket

What Students Learn From Their Big Bear Bald Eagle (And Real Life) Teachers

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The LAist

Tens of thousands of people have tuned in to watch Jackie and Shadow’s Big Bear nest, including students from around the country.

https://laist.com/news/education/big-bear-bald-eagles-lessons-for-students-2024-pio-watch-nesting-season Save to Pocket

See the Messages NASA Will Send to Space on Its Upcoming Mission to Europa

date: 2024-03-14, from: Smithsonian Magazine

A metal plate affixed to the Europa Clipper is engraved with a poem, tributes to scientists and waveforms representing the word “water” in 103 languages, among other drawings

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-messages-nasa-will-send-to-space-on-its-upcoming-mission-to-europa-180983949/ Save to Pocket

AI and wearables are scaring the wellbeing out of workers

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

We thought everyone was thrilled about being spied on and having their jobs taken by bots

A survey of UK workers suggests that quality of life declines as exposure to newer technology including wearables, robotics, and AI rises in the workplace.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/advanced_workplace_tech_study/ Save to Pocket

Where does TikTok go from here?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives’ passed a bill with bipartisan support that would force parent company ByteDance to either divest — to sell off — TikTok or see the app banned from U.S. app stores. But could such a divestiture happen? And would TikTok still be TikTok? Also on the program: The stock market is on a tear. Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor of The Economist, calls it “rational exuberance.”

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/where-does-tiktok-go-from-here Save to Pocket

TikTok responds to ban bill

date: 2024-03-14, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: TikTok’s chief executive responds to the decision to potentially ban the app in the United States following allegations of links to the Chinese Community Party. We’ll hear some responses from China. Plus, Bitcoin is breaking records, and this time it’s in the right direction — it’s hitting all time highs. So what’s behind the surge?

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/tiktok-responds-to-ban-bill Save to Pocket

MIT students recreate Oppenheimer with a beaver for Pi Day (yes, really)

date: 2024-03-14, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)

An excellent student group from MIT has been creating suitably kooky videos every Pi Day since 2014. This year’s is a take on Oppenheimer.

The post MIT students recreate Oppenheimer with a beaver for Pi Day (yes, really) appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/mit-students-recreate-oppenheimer-with-a-beaver-for-pi-day-yes-really/ Save to Pocket

Automakers Are Sharing Driver Data with Insurers without Consent

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-12, from: Bruce Schneier blog

Kasmir Hill has the story:

Modern cars are internet-enabled, allowing access to services like navigation, roadside assistance and car apps that drivers can connect to their vehicles to locate them or unlock them remotely. In recent years, automakers, including G.M., Honda, Kia and Hyundai, have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving. Some drivers may not realize that, if they turn on these features, the car companies then give information about how they drive to data brokers like LexisNexis [who then sell it to insurance companies]…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/03/automakers-are-sharing-driver-data-with-insurers-without-consent.html Save to Pocket

Exchange Online blocked from sending email to AOL and Yahoo

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Microsoft IP addresses on the spam naughty step

If you’re an Exchange Online user wondering why emails to Yahoo and AOL users haven’t been getting through, don’t worry – it isn’t just you. Stricter security rules have tripped up Microsoft’s email service.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/exchange_online_blocked_from_sending/ Save to Pocket

Watch This Mustang Sketchily Ratchet-Strap Tow a Motorcycle

date: 2024-03-14, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Yeah, this OSHA might have a few complaints…

https://www.rideapart.com/news/712314/mustang-towing-motorcycle-ratchet-strap/ Save to Pocket

Git by example: interactive guide

date: 2024-03-14, from: Anton Zhiyanov blog

Interactive introduction to Git with real-world use cases.

https://antonz.org/git-by-example/ Save to Pocket

Rancher faces prison for trying to breed absolute unit of a sheep

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Ewe-nique endeavor aimed to create Jurassic Baaa-rk experience for hunters

In a case that could have been lifted from a bad movie about a “mad scientist,” a Montana rancher has pleaded guilty to wildlife trafficking charges in his quest to genetically engineer an ubersheep for hunting.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/rancher_hybrid_sheep/ Save to Pocket

2024-03-13 Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: A Shorter Letter

date: 2024-03-14, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

2024-03-13 Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: A Shorter Letter

I think there are people with more interesting ideas than what Tim Berners-Lee has to say, given what I just read. His post is on Medium so I had to read in eww, the browser built into Emacs. 😂 The most interesting fragment was this:

collectivise their solutions, and … overturn the online world being dictated by profit to one that is dictated by the needs of humanity

It’s pretty much out of context because it follows something like this:

there is a need, an urgent need, for others to do the same, to back the morally courageous leadership that is rising

How weird is that? I started thinking. Where is that morally courageous leadership that is rising? Are they morally courageous but not in other ways? Is their morality courageous because their morals aren’t recognized as morals or their morals might seem amoral to others? Or is amorality considered moral in the mainstream? Or isn’t it rather that the mainstream knows full well what is moral but can’t help the systemic pressures of having to earn money? Why isn’t he advocating for system change? Is that what collectivisation is about? What exactly are we collectivising? The solutions? The products? The capital? Or is he just saying that the morally ambiguous but courageous leaders have ideas that we, collectively, ought to support? And the “fundamental change” he has in mind are “Contract for the Web” and “Solid Protocol”? I… I don’t know… We must “champion the efforts of those visionary individuals who are actively working to build a new, improved system”? It just feels so weird. How about this alternative:

1. We need a web that is built for the people, by the people.
2. We need free ourselves from the shackles and fetters of corporations.
3. Remove corporations and their representatives from all governing bodies and committees.
4. All positions to be paid positions. Don’t let those on the corporate payrolls take over.
5. One human, one vote. No strings attached. Don’t tie votes to membership fees. This is for all of humanity.

It took me two minutes to write something that seemed a bit more visionary than what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind and if you like it, please don’t champion me but talk to some friends and do a little thing, no matter how small, to support a few more people on the web. Run a forum, a wiki, provide email services, run a fediverse instance, run a HTML course at the library, collect money for a mutual aid fund, something, anything. The only conditions are:

1. it must be a concrete thing that you are actually doing
2. it must benefit more people than are involved in doing it

It’s OK to cap it. But it’s important to start it. Just make it a point to enable somebody else. And just like that, we’re taking back the web.

#Web

@ohyran commented on fedi:

“Its hardware all the way down”. The internet created this fantasy of a secondary realm outside of the physical confines of our reality - that allowed us to think that the person who controlled the narrative in that alternative universe had some control. In fact the people in control of hardware, if that’s servers or cables or switches, are in control. There is no second reality.

2024-03-14. Brian Kardell writes:

I’ve argued that while the web ecosystem has become the infrastructure for nearly everything, our models for funding and prioritization of the last 20 years have proven not only inadequate, and problematic, but ultimately fragile and cannot last. The only questions, I’ve argued, are how soon and what happens next. Are we ready for it? (hint: no). – How We Fund the Web Ecosystem

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-13-open-web Save to Pocket

I, Cyborg: Using Co-Intelligence

date: 2024-03-14, from: One Useful Thing

How I used AI in my book about AI

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/i-cyborg-using-co-intelligence Save to Pocket

SAP accused of age discrimination, retaliation by US whistleblower

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-15, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Complainant moved to ‘retire in place’ role after Sarbanes Oxley Act report, filing alleges

SAP is being sued for age discrimination and retaliation by an employee who alleges he was moved to a meaningless role after he asked for an investigation of potentially anti-competitive practices.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/sap_in_age_discrimination_case/ Save to Pocket

China Says US TikTok Vote Follows ‘Logic of a Bandit’

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

BEIJING — China on Thursday said the U.S. House of Representatives’ approval of a bill that would force TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent company or be banned in the United States follows “entirely the logic of a bandit.”

The short-video app has soared in popularity worldwide but its ownership by Chinese technology giant ByteDance — and alleged subservience to Beijing’s ruling Communist Party — has fueled concern in Western capitals.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that would force TikTok to divest from its parent company or face a nationwide ban.

The bill is yet to pass the Senate, where it is expected to face a tougher test to become law.

“The bill passed by the United States House of Representatives puts the United States on the opposite side of the principles of fair competition and international economic and trade rules,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press conference.

“If so-called reasons of national security can be used to arbitrarily suppress excellent companies from other countries, then there is no fairness and justice at all,” he said.

“When someone sees a good thing another person has and tries to take it for themself, this is entirely the logic of a bandit.

“The United States’ handling of the TikTok incident will allow the world to see more clearly whether the United States’ so-called rules and order are beneficial to the world, or whether they only serve the United States itself.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-says-us-tiktok-vote-follows-logic-of-a-bandit-/7527139.html Save to Pocket

Oh look, cracking down on Big Tech works. Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi surge on iOS

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Thanks to Europe forcing Apple to offer a browser choice screen. Now, about ditching WebKit …

Since Apple implemented a browser choice screen for iPhones earlier this month to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Brave Software, Mozilla, and Vivaldi have seen a surge in the number of people installing their web browsers.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/brave_mozilla_europe_ios/ Save to Pocket

Biden Keeps Israel Close, but Netanyahu Away

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

Washington — With increasingly frequent and vocal expressions of frustration, U.S. President Joe Biden appears to be distancing himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that international pressure will not prevent Israel from achieving “total victory” in its war against Hamas.

The rift is fueling speculation that the U.S. might restrict the supply of American weapons, particularly if Netanyahu moves to “finish the job” against Hamas in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltered.

Placing conditions on military aid would be Washington’s strongest leverage to affect Israel’s conduct of the war, which has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry.

While U.S. media have quoted anonymous administration sources saying they are considering that option, officially the White House has declined to “entertain hypotheticals.”

“The president has been very clear about our position on Rafah,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during Tuesday’s White House briefing. “A military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, that cuts off the main arteries of humanitarian assistance, and that places enormous pressure on the Israel-Egypt border, is not something that he can support.”

Biden himself was ambiguous about whether invading Rafah would cross a red line, saying he would never abandon Israel. At the same time, he rebuked the Netanyahu government for the way it has gone after Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 240 hostage.

“The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line [where] I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,” he said in a recent interview with MSNBC, even as he underscored that Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

However, the president is telegraphing his rebukes. Caught on a hot mic while speaking to a Democratic senator last week, Biden said that he has told Netanyahu they are heading for a “come to Jesus” meeting, an expression for having a blunt conversation.

Told by an aide that he could be heard, Biden said, “Good. That’s good.”

Electoral goals

Biden’s increasingly public criticism of Netanyahu comes as he ramps up his campaign for reelection in November. The president faces competing constituencies within his Democratic base.

He cannot afford to give Republicans an opportunity to capture pro-Israel votes. But he also needs to stop progressive Democrats, young voters, Muslim and Arab Americans from abandoning him, as threatened by the significant portion of voters in some Democratic primaries who marked their ballots “uncommitted” to signal their outrage at the president’s support for Israel.

To address his domestic politics and foreign policy goals, Biden is “performing a political amputation of Bibi,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, using a nickname for Netanyahu.

The goal, Blumenfeld told VOA, is to separate what Biden considers Netanyahu’s “toxic war policies” from the state of Israel so that the president can follow his political instincts: to protect Israel from further attacks and facilitate the release of hostages “without sacrificing his moral core.”

Biden’s souring on Netanyahu may not be enough to appease pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly if a cease-fire isn’t secured soon. “Uncommitted” voters say they would abandon the president even when Biden surrogates point out that the Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, is likely to give Israel freer rein over its war conduct.

“I’ve lived through four years of Trump,” said Samraa Luqman, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan. Palestinians, she told VOA, “cannot live through another Joe Biden presidency.”

Trump has avoided stating an explicit position on the war other than saying in a Fox News interview that Israel must “finish the problem” and that the “horrible invasion” by Hamas “would have never happened” if he were president.

Netanyahu hits back

In response to Biden’s criticism that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” the prime minister hit back, saying in an interview with Politico that he has the support of the Israeli people.

If Biden meant “that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said.

Only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to stay in office after the war ends, according to a poll by Israel Democracy Institute. But 56% believe that continuing the military offensive is the best way to recover the hostages.

In general, Israelis are focused on toppling Hamas, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. To them, protecting civilians and providing humanitarian aid are “details,” he told VOA. “They don’t understand the significance in America.”

Distrust in Netanyahu

Earlier this week, an annual threat assessment released by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) cited deepening “distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule” since the war broke. The prime minister’s “viability as leader” may be in jeopardy, the report said.

“It’s clear that the U.S. administration is going after Netanyahu,” said Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute.

As the process toward a political transition in Israel begins, Goren told VOA, the U.S. “is an actor in it.”

The ODNI report noted that “a different, more moderate government is a possibility,” drawing ire from Israeli officials who felt snubbed earlier this month when Israeli war Cabinet member Benny Gantz was received by Vice President Kamala Harris, Sullivan and Democratic congressional leaders.

Many see Gantz’s invitation to Washington as a sign of the administration’s support, should the popular centrist politician become Israel’s next prime minister.

Asked by VOA if Gantz’s visit is a signal that the administration is looking forward to an Israeli government without Netanyahu, national security communications adviser John Kirby flatly said, “No.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-keeps-israel-close-but-netanyahu-away/7527036.html Save to Pocket

Biden Keeps Israel Close but Netanyahu Away

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

While U.S. President Joe Biden has continued to support Israel’s war against Hamas, he appears to be distancing himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The apparent rift between the leaders has fueled speculation that the U.S. might restrict military aid in a bid to influence Israel’s conduct in Gaza. VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this story.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-keeps-israel-close-but-netanyahu-away/7527009.html Save to Pocket

Seriously, again, how dumb is Trump?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Robert Reich on Substack

And why has his extraordinary stupidity fallen off the radar during his third run for the presidency?

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/seriously-how-dumb-is-trump Save to Pocket

Microsoft forges One Teams App To Rule Them All

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Windows preview delivers one app to handle multiple accounts, boosts Copilot’s capabilities

Microsoft is on the cusp of addressing a major frustration caused by its Teams app by introducing a version capable of simultaneously logging in to multiple personae.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/unified_teams_debuts/ Save to Pocket

March 13, 2024

date: 2024-03-14, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

After yesterday’s primary contests, we appear headed toward a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. But this year’s election is an entirely different kettle of fish than that of 2020. In 2020 there were plenty of red flags around Trump’s plans for a second term, but it was not until after it was clear he had lost the election that he gave up all pretense of normal presidential behavior. Beginning the night of the election, he tried to overturn that election and to install himself as president, ignoring the will of the voters, who had chosen Joe Biden. His attack on the fundamental principle of democracy ended the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power established in 1797 when our first president, George Washington, deliberately walked behind his successor, John Adams, after Adams was sworn into office.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-13-2024 Save to Pocket

Third Test Flight of SpaceX’s Mega Rocket Ends With Loss of Spacecraft

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/spacex-hoping-to-launch-starship-farther-in-3rd-test-flight/7527089.html Save to Pocket

Ten nations tell social media, banks, and telcos to get better at stopping scams

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Australian minister singles out Meta – where Zuck has 600,000 Nvidia GPUs ready to roll

The governments of ten nations have called on social media operators to improve their ability to detect and prevent fraud from flourishing on their platforms.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/global_fraud_summit_communique_meta/ Save to Pocket

USC community rallies for Rolling Loud

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The R&B and hip-hop music festival will feature a four-day lineup for the first time ever.

The post USC community rallies for Rolling Loud appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/13/usc-community-rallies-for-rolling-loud/ Save to Pocket

Korea’s SK Innovation liquidates Chinese battery subsidiary

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

The Chaebol that also runs chipmaker SK hynix lacks energy to run multiple middle kingdom entities

SK Innovation, part of the same Chaebol as chipmaker SK hynix, has liquidated its Chinese battery subsidiary, Blue Dragon Energy.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/sk_liquidates_chinese_battery/ Save to Pocket

Biden to Raise Concern Over Nippon Steel’s Deal for US Steel

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden plans to express concern over Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, pushing the U.S. company’s stock nearly 13% lower on bets the deal could face greater political opposition.

The issue has the potential to overshadow an April 10 summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida aimed at boosting the long-standing security alliance between their countries in the face of growing Chinese strength.

In December, Nippon Steel clinched a deal to buy the 122-year-old iconic U.S. steelmaker for a hefty premium, betting that U.S. Steel would benefit from the spending and tax incentives in Biden’s infrastructure bill.

However, several Democratic and Republican U.S. senators have criticized the deal, citing national security concerns or raising questions about why the two companies did not consult U.S. Steel’s main union ahead of the announcement.

Donald Trump, Biden’s rival in the November U.S. presidential election, has said he would block the acquisition of U.S. Steel if elected. The White House said in December the deal needed to be carefully scrutinized given U.S. Steel’s core role in producing a material that is critical to national security. 

The White House declined to comment on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the matter said Biden would issue a statement about the planned acquisition before Kishida arrives for his state visit.

U.S. officials and lawyers have drafted the statement, and the White House has privately informed the Japanese government of Biden’s decision, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the news.

Japan’s top government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the report. “The Japan-U.S. alliance is stronger than ever, and the two countries will continue to work together … in the field of economic security,” Hayashi, chief cabinet secretary, told reporters on Thursday, echoing recent remarks by Japanese officials.

Matthew Goodman, a trade and economics expert at Washington’s Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said the issue could overshadow the summit and be damaging for Kishida, who is already struggling politically at home.

“A prime minister of Japan has to demonstrate that he has the U.S. relationship not only under control, but that he’s enhancing it,” Goodman said. “So, to the extent this runs counter to that narrative politically at home, it’s problematic.”

Goodman said he thought the case of the acquisition being a risk to U.S. national security was “dubious” and questioning investments from a supposedly trusted security partner could be very damaging to the relationship.

“It’s much more to do with politics in an election year when both nominees are appealing to support from steel workers and unions,” he said of Biden and Trump.

In a joint statement, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said they welcomed the Biden administration’s scrutiny of the transaction, as “an objective and comprehensive review of this transaction will demonstrate that it strengthens U.S. jobs, competition, and economic and national security.”

Goodman said there have been long-standing concerns in the United States about Japanese labor practices and “non-support for unionization of workers in Japanese-owned factories in the U.S. well beyond steel.”

The companies said they have had “active, dedicated discussions with the United Steelworkers, which are ongoing.” 

 U.S. Steel, founded in 1901 by some of the biggest U.S. magnates, including Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab, became intertwined with the industrial recovery following the Great Depression and World War II.

Last year, the Pittsburgh-based company launched a formal review of its strategic options after rebuffing a takeover offer from steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs.

Its shares had come under pressure following several quarters of falling revenue and profit, making it an attractive takeover target for rivals looking to add a maker of steel used by the automobile industry.

U.S. Steel shares closed 12.8% lower at $40.86 on Wednesday, well below Nippon’s offer of $55 per share.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-raise-concern-over-nippon-steel-s-deal-for-u-s-steel/7527074.html Save to Pocket

★ Apple Adjusts DMA Plan to Offer Direct Downloading of Apps From the Web (With a Big Asterisk), Custom Link-Out Screens, and Marketplaces Solely for the Distribution of a Developer’s Own Apps

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-15, from: Daring Fireball

I suspect Apple was ready to go from the start with web downloads — they knew the EC might demand it — and so they opened their hand January 25 with the compliance plan they hoped would fly, and are ratcheting out, piecemeal, with additional changes in the direction of more openness, as they obtain feedback — both from developers, and whatever EC back channels they may have.

https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/apple_adjusts_dma_plan Save to Pocket

Two Matadors receive all-conference honors as CSUN prepares for tournament

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

For the first time since the 2020-21 season, multiple Matadors were honored when the Big West dropped their men’s basketball all-conference teams. CSUN men’s basketball star De’Sean Allen-Eikens has been…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179483/sports/two-matadors-receive-all-conference-honors-as-csun-prepares-for-tournament/ Save to Pocket

CSU students successful in push to unionize

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

In the absence of a union to advocate for the rights and interests of students, California State University students organized themselves under the banner of the California State University Employees…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179476/news/csu-students-successful-in-push-to-unionize/ Save to Pocket

South Korea goes out on a limb to manage forests with AI, satellites

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plans to digitally transform trees

South Korea’s Forest Service announced on Wednesday it plans to establish a real-time forest resource management system and an AI-based forest fire monitoring platform.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/korea_digitize_forest/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-14, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Now I understand that earlier toot about requiring a PhD to figure out the "word salad", here it is:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112091819139233752 Save to Pocket

Traffic accident by Brahma Drive entrance

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

A two-car traffic accident occurred on Tuesday, March 12, at the intersection of Winnetka Ave. and Calvert St., at the Pierce College sign at the

The post Traffic accident by Brahma Drive entrance appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/traffic-accident-by-brahma-drive-entrance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=traffic-accident-by-brahma-drive-entrance Save to Pocket

Biden Talks About Roads, Bridges, While Protesters Shout About Death in Gaza

date: 2024-03-14, from: VOA News USA

Milwaukee, Wisconsin — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited Wisconsin, a key swing state that he narrowly won in 2020, meeting with community members at a once shuttered but now thriving children’s community center to sell them on how he believes his economic policies are making their lives better.

Biden’s approval ratings in the Badger State have recently slumped, and on Wednesday afternoon, as Biden chatted privately with campaign volunteers at his new campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, less than a block away, several dozen protesters took aim at one reason why.

“Free, free, free Palestine!” the group members yelled as they waved Palestinian flags.

“Hey, Joe, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today,” they also shouted.

Inside the White House’s carefully managed events on Wednesday, the scene was different. Biden announced $3.3 billion in initiatives aimed at fixing transportation and infrastructure. He did not, during his public remarks, mention Gaza or any foreign policy issues.

“Everything we’re doing is connecting people with opportunity, not disconnecting people from opportunity,” Biden said, speaking at a community sports center that was shuttered during the pandemic but has since reopened.

“These projects will increase access to health care, schools, jobs, and will strengthen communities by covering highways with public spaces, creating new transit routes, adding sidewalks, bridges, bike lanes and more,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The White House referred questions to the campaign when asked if Biden would meet with any Arab Americans in Wisconsin or Michigan, where he heads Thursday.

VOA asked Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, whether Biden had met — or would meet — with any concerned parties about the situation in Gaza.

“President Biden believes that every person’s life is profoundly valuable,” he replied. “From Palestine, Israel and around the world. He’s working to move forward towards a just and peaceful enduring solution, as he said in the State of the Union address. And that is the thing that will make the biggest difference for the profound feelings that people have about this crisis.”

The two main political contenders are taking a very different approach in this Midwestern state.

Biden said success in a closely contested state like Wisconsin “comes down to knocking on doors.”

On Wednesday, he lingered inside his new Wisconsin campaign headquarters — in the largest city, Milwaukee — where he met with Democratic volunteers behind closed doors for more than an hour.

Meanwhile, supporters of Biden rival Donald Trump this week submitted petitions in Wisconsin to force a recall election against the state’s top Republican, who refused calls to decertify Biden’s legitimate, narrow win in 2020.

When asked if the Biden campaign had faith in the state’s election process, Wikler was emphatic.

“Wisconsin has consistently been rated as among the best states in the country when it comes to administering elections,” he said. “That system allows us to have elections up and down the ballot where voters can trust the outcome.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-talks-roads-and-bridges-while-protesters-shout-about-gaza-/7527000.html Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Putin Recalls Trump Acting Like Jealous GF in Private.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-recalls-trump-being-jealous-of-sleepy-joe-biden-in-private Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Scripting News: Blogrolls are for watchers.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13/010313.html Save to Pocket

US Congress goes bang, bang, on TikTok sale-or-ban plan

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Bill proposes to do to China what China already does to the US – make life hard for foreign social networks

The United States House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the app’s US operations or face the prospect of a ban.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/us_congress_passes_tiktok_ban/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

10-minute podcast about today’s Blogroll-out.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a014324 Save to Pocket

House Passes Bill That Requires ByteDance to Sell TikTok or Face Ban in the U.S.

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/13/tiktok-ban-passes-house-vote/ Save to Pocket

Happy Birthday, Mom

date: 2024-03-14, from: Doc Searls (at Harvard), New Old Blog

Mom would have been 111 today. She passed in ’03 at 90, but that’s not what matters. What matters is that she was a completely wonderful human being: as good a mother, sister, daughter, cousin, friend, and teacher as you’ll find. There is a thread in Facebook (which seems to be down now) on the […]

https://doc.searls.com/2024/03/13/happy-birthday-mom/ Save to Pocket

Blogrolls are for watchers

date: 2024-03-14, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News

Here’s a screen shot of the new software that came out today, the blogroll feature on Scripting News.

It’s a post on Manton’s blog, viewed in the blogroll on my site, talking about stuff on my site.

As we used to say in the Old School Blogosphere: “Watching them watch us, watch them watching us, etc, etc.”

Manton’s blog is expanded, revealing the five most recent posts. The cursor points at one, showing the full text in a tool tip. Click the link to visit the post on his blog.

Shortly after posting this item, Scripting News showed as the top item in the blogroll.

Then Doc Searls posted on his blog, and I had to snap a screen shot.

Did you know that Doc coined the term blogroll?

Then Gruber showed up from Daring Fireball. It’s a bit like a party. 😄

Today was a very exciting day here, I think tomorrow will be too.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13/010313.html?title=blogrollsAreForWatchers Save to Pocket

The DMA Has Crippled Google Search in the EU

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/an-update-on-our-preparations-for-the-dma/ Save to Pocket

Is TSLA worth more with or without Elon Musk as CEO?

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

https://electrek.co/poll-post/is-tsla-worth-more-with-or-without-elon-musk-as-ceo/ Save to Pocket

Quick Charge Daily Pod: Polestar 3 variants, new EV Caddy, more

date: 2024-03-14, from: Electrek Feed

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/quick-charge-daily-pod-polestar-3-variants-new-ev-caddy-more/ Save to Pocket

Nissan to let 100,000 Aussies and Kiwis know their data was stolen in cyberattack

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Akira ransomware crooks brag of swiping thousands of ID documents during break-in

Over the next few weeks, Nissan Oceania will make contact with around 100,000 people in Australia and New Zealand whose data was pilfered in a December 2023 attack on its systems – perhaps by the Akira ransomware gang.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/nissan_oceania_100k_affected/ Save to Pocket

Pharma’s Dems Are Doing Trump’s Dirty Work On Drug Prices

date: 2024-03-14, from: The Lever News

As the first-ever Medicare drug-price negotiations take shape, Big Pharma-backed Democrats want to limit the number of costly medicines regulators can target.

https://www.levernews.com/pharmas-dems-are-doing-trumps-dirty-work-on-drug-prices/ Save to Pocket

Google’s EU Choice Screens for Android, for Default Browser and Default Search Within Chrome, Only Show Up on New Devices

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/ Save to Pocket

More powerful Go execution traces

date: 2024-03-14, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Go language blog

New features and improvements to execution traces from the last year.

https://go.dev/blog/execution-traces-2024 Save to Pocket

LLVM Google Summer of Code 2024 & 2023

date: 2024-03-14, from: LLVM Blog

The LLVM organization was accepted to participate in Google Summer of Code in 2024. Soon, prospective participants will begin submitting their project proposals, and mentors will review them to select those who will spend a significant amount of time this year contributing to various parts of LLVM.

But first, let’s look back and see what we had in 2023. The Google Summer of Code 2023 was very successful for the LLVM project. Overall, we received 54 proposals for 24 open projects. Out of this set of proposals, 20 projects were successfully completed and covered many different aspects of LLVM and its subprojects.

• ExtractAPI while building by Ankur Saini, mentored by Daniel Grumberg
• WebAssembly Support for clang-repl by Anubhab Ghosh, mentored by Vassil Vassilev and Alexander Penev
• Modules Build Daemon: Build System Agnostic Support for Explicitly Built Modules by Connor Sughrue, mentored by Jan Svoboda, Michael Spencer
• [Interactive MLIR query tool to make exploring the IR easier] (https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/archive/2023/projects/bdePp9VD) by Devajith Valaparambil Sreeramaswamy, mentored by Jacques Pienaar
• Improving Compile Times by Dhruv Chawla, mentored by Nikita Popov
• Adding C++ Support to Clang’s ExtractAPI by Erick Velez, mentored by Daniel Grumberg
• Optimizing MLIR’s Presburger library by gilsaia, mentored by Kunwar Grover
• Adapting IR Load Semantics to Freeze All or Freeze Only Uninitialized Data by John McIver, mentored by Nuno Lopes
• Addressing Rust optimization failures in LLVM by Kohei Asano, mentored by Nikita Popov
• Tutorial development with clang-repl by Krishna Narayanan, mentored by Vassil Vassilev
• Fix Handling of Undefined Behavior in NewGVN by Manuel Brito, mentored by Nuno Lopes
• Map LLVM values to corresponding source-level expressions by phyBrackets, mentored by Satish Guggilla and Karthik Senthil
• Machine Learning Guided Ordering of Compiler Optimization Passes by Puneeth A R, mentored by Tarindu Jayatilaka, Johannes Doerfert, and Mircea Trofin
• Patch based test coverage for quick test feedback by ShivamGupta123, mentored by Henrik Olsson
• Re-optimization using JITLink by Sunho Kim, mentored by Vassil Vassilev, Stefan Gränitz, and Lang Hames
• Improvements in Clang Diagnostics by Takuya Shimizu, mentored by Timm Bäder
• Build & Run SingleSource Benchmarks with ClangIR by Vinicius Espindola, mentored by Bruno Cardoso Lopes and Nathan Lanza
• Better Performance Models for MLGO Training by Viraj Shah, mentored by Mircea Trofin, Aiden Grossman, and Ondrej Sykora
• Enhancing llvm-cov to Generate Hierarchical Coverage Reports by Yuhao Gu, mentored by Petr Hosek and Gulfem Savrun Yeniceri
• Autocompletion in Clang-REPL by Yuquan Fu, mentored by Vassil Vassilev

Some projects also provided detailed end-of-project reports or project diaries that are outstanding on their own:

• Tutorial Development with Clang-Repl
• Diagnostic Improvements in Clang 17
• Improving Compile Times
• Addressing Rust optimization failures in LLVM
• Map LLVM Values to corresponding source level expression
• Another step forward towards interactive programming - covers Autocompletion in Clang-REPL, WebAssembly Support for Clang-Repl, Re-optimization using JITLink and Tutorial development with clang-repl projects.

GSoC 2024

With a successful end to 2023, the LLVM Project is excited to participate in GSOC 2024. If you are interested in participating, here are some guidelines:

1. Project ideas

Please take a look on list of projects at Open Projects page. Projects also have topics below on LLVM Discourse having #gsoc24 tag, so you can ask mentors about details of the project, skills required, etc.

2. Way to submitting a proposal

We encourage you to discuss your proposal before submitting to GSoC system. Having your proposal discussed ensures that your proposal will be well aligned with the project. Please do not hijack other threads (e.g. with mentor Q&A) and create a separate new thread to discuss your proposal. The ideal proposal will contain:

• A descriptive title
• Information about you, including contact information. Please do not forget to include:
  • Your prior compiler and compiler-related experience, if any (e.g. studies at the University, prior contributions)
  • Whether you have any prior contributions to LLVM. If yes, please provide links to these contributions.
  • Your past open source participation and contributions, if any
  • Your knowledge of programming languages (e.g. C, C++, Python, Rust, etc.) and your estimate of your level of experience
• Information about your proposed project. This should be fairly detailed and include a timeline.
• Information about other commitments that might affect your ability to work during the GSoC period (exams, classes, holidays, other jobs, weddings, etc.). Also, if the project allows both medium- and large-size participation, indicate the intended size of the project and the timeframe of your participation.

3. Useful links

LLVM Contribution GuidelinesLLVM Developer PolicyGSoC channel on LLVM DiscordOther documentsLLVM Community Code of ConductGSoC Contributor GuideAdvice for People Applying for GSoCGSoC Program WebsiteLLVM Office Hours

4. Deadlines

• Submission to GSoC system opens on March 18th at 18:00 UTC.
• Submission to GSoC system ends on April 2nd at 18:00 UTC.
• Results to be announced on May 1st at 18:00 UTC.

Welcome to the 20th Google Summer of Code!

https://blog.llvm.org/posts/2024-02-26-gsoc/ Save to Pocket

Dissension in the GOP Ranks

date: 2024-03-13, from: Dan Rather’s Steady

And it’s bad news for Boebert

https://steady.substack.com/p/dissension-in-the-gop-ranks Save to Pocket

Microsoft decides it’s done with Azure egress ransoms

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Cloud exit toll booth bypass built by EU regulators

Microsoft on Wednesday said it will no longer charge customers an egress fee to remove their data from its Azure cloud, following similar declarations earlier this year from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/microsoft_ends_azure_egress_fees/ Save to Pocket

DMA Compliance: Web Distribution of iOS Apps in EU

date: 2024-03-13, from: Michael Tsai

Apple (MacRumors, 9To5Mac, Hacker News, Slashdot): Web Distribution, available with a software update later this spring, will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website owned by the developer. Apple will provide authorized developers access to APIs that facilitate the distribution of their apps from the web, integrate with […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/13/web-distribution-of-ios-apps-in-eu/ Save to Pocket

Downie’s Anti-Piracy Scare Tactic

date: 2024-03-13, from: Michael Tsai

dario (Reddit): It is being reported on Reddit that Downie 4 (a video downloader app developed by Charlie Monroe Software) contains code for a popup that claims to have deleted random files on the computer as a ‘punishment’ for allegedly using a pirated/cracked version. Here’s what it looked like. Charlie Monroe (tweet): During this time, […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/13/downies-anti-piracy-scare-tactic/ Save to Pocket

MNT Reform review: brutalist hardware, familiar software

date: 2024-03-13, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://www.osnews.com/story/138608/mnt-reform-review-brutalist-hardware-familiar-software/ Save to Pocket

Most Subscriptions Apps Do Not Make Money

date: 2024-03-13, from: Michael Tsai

Hartley Charlton (Mastodon): The “State of Subscription Apps” report comes from RevenueCat (via TechCrunch), a prominent mobile subscription toolkit provider. With nearly 30,000 apps utilizing its platform for monetization management, RevenueCat is able to provide a reliable overview of the subscription app landscape thanks to its data collection capabilities. The analysis delves into data from […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/03/13/most-subscriptions-apps-do-not-make-money/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

And now the actual iPad screenshots.

The codebase is mostly SwiftUI + SwiftGodot.

Out of the new 35,000 lines of Swift code (not including SwiftGodot), less than 300 are UIKit for special things.

This relies heavily on new iOS 17 Swift and SwiftUI features.

I would have probably given up on this if it was not for the new SwiftUI observation framework in iOS 17.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112090768191044381 Save to Pocket

2024-03-13 What would happen if Google sunset Gmail?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

2024-03-13 What would happen if Google sunset Gmail?

@lrhodes and @skyfaller where discussing it on fedi and it got me thinking. We all know how Google likes to end services. Would it want to end Gmail? Surely one day Gmail will end. At that point, many people will no longer care.

So I wondered: who cares about email in general or Gmail in particular?

Looking around I sometimes get the feeling that most ordinary people use instant messengers these days. It’s only corporations that want to reach people via email, mostly to send notifications about new info being available on their website (banks, insurances). But even in the corporate world, some notifications are moving to instant messenger apps (WhatsApp), or just proprietary apps (again, banks, insurances). Therefore I posit that in a few years, nobody (or “not enough” people) will need email.

For too many people, email just means getting bills and spam. Few people love email.

I’m thinking of the hair dresser who wants appointments via WhatsApp and the caterer for my wife’s birthday party who wants to send me messages via WhatsApp. When not at work and still in a commercial setting, people use instant messengers. And my real life friends and family almost never send me email. It is always Threema or Signal.

And conversely, of course, in the corporate context all email I’ve ever seen is Microsoft Outlook and that’s getting emoji reactions and what not, so they are going to turn into a corporate proprietary messaging service (maybe not instant…). What I’m trying to say is that I think the value of Gmail keeps dropping. It’s a glorified “forgot my password” service.

Perhaps my problem is that don’t see much email communication from customers to business (C2B). The bigger corporations I know use contact forms (again, banks, insurances, retail). The smaller corporations use websites like Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor, Booking.com or whatnot to communicate with customers.

The value of email is dropping.

And it makes sense: it can be self-hosted, it can be easy to set up, it’s totally federated – of course the big corporations are only interested in extracting all its value. They don’t mind leaving behind a hollow husk. They don’t mind making it hard to reach their customers inside the Gmail and Outlook silos. As long as the people inside the golden silo feel fine, that’s not going to change.

I still think, though:

• For B2B communication, Outlook wins.
• For C2B communication, WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor, Booking.com and the like win
• For human interaction, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threema and Signal win

One day, Google will decide that there’s no value left for them in email and they’ll drop Gmail just like they dropped all the other things.

I happen to really like email, though. I mean… I like the really simple email. I hate email servers like Exim and Postfix and all their weird configuration files and DoveCot and SSL and SASL. Strangely enough, starting up a minimal web server takes me a few minutes to search for the right Python command or shell command, no config necessary, just listen on port 443 and off you go. Where is that all-in-one solution that works for a dozen people? A small club? I don’t need a server optimized to serve a whole university campus.

I like reading and writing email on the command line. I guess that within a small circle friends – like that news server I’m running that has some newsgroups that aren’t connected to Usenet – like the Tilde servers! – that should work. We can rebuild the kind of Internet we like. Sure, it won’t reach millions, but I’ll be happy if it reaches the right two dozen people.

#Mail

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-13-mail Save to Pocket

Leaked docs hint Google may use SiFive RISC-V cores in next-gen TPUs

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Would put those AI accelerators out of Arm’s reach, at least

Opinion  After a difficult 2023, things may be looking up for RISC-V chip designer SiFive, which expects AI to drive strong revenue growth in 2024.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/google_tpu_sifive_riscv/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Ok, finally bit the bullet and removed the debugging aids (no more duplicate titlebar or original docks).

Still iOS on MacOS, can post a native iPad view later:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112090699134416430 Save to Pocket

How to opt in to (or out of) the audio version

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

Hi Folks, What follows is a sparklingly clear set of instructions for opting in to the audio version of Letters from an American (and yes, I’m being flippant. It always seems to me the tech stuff is easy… but only once you figure it out.) It turns out that you cannot use the Substack app to adjust your settings so that you can receive the audio version of the letters automatically. The instructions I sent around before should have made clear that you have to use the browser version of Substack to make ANY changes to your settings.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/how-to-opt-in-to-or-out-of-the-audio Save to Pocket

Fisker has reportedly hired bankruptcy consultants

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Fisker has reportedly hired “restructuring advisers to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/fisker-has-reportedly-hired-bankruptcy-consultants/ Save to Pocket

Brahma Blotter: March 4-10, 2024

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

No crimes were reported between March 4-10, 2024. The crime log is made publicly available at the Pierce College Sheriff’s Office.

The post Brahma Blotter: March 4-10, 2024 appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/brahma-blotter-march-4-10-2024/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=brahma-blotter-march-4-10-2024 Save to Pocket

The British military just bought these off-grid solar EV chargers

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

The British military has placed a $1 million order for San Diego-based Beam Global’s (Nasdaq: BEEM) off-grid solar EV chargers.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/british-military-off-grid-solar-ev-chargers/ Save to Pocket

KTM’s 2024 RC 8C Is More Expensive and Exclusive Than Ever

date: 2024-03-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

There’ll only be 100 hand-built units, so if you want one, you’d better have your debit card and a hefty balance ready to go.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/712301/ktm-rc-8c-limited-edition-2024/ Save to Pocket

What Does Amazon Want With Nuclear?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heatmap News

When Talen Energy, which owns a 90% interest in the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Northeastern Pennsylvania, announced it was selling a data center site adjacent to its power plant to Amazon Web Services, it raised some eyebrows in the energy world. The surprise was not because a large tech company made a big deal with a carbon-free power provider, or even that a tech company made a deal to buy power generated by a nuclear power plant. It was because Amazon was making this deal.

Amazon is a massive buyer of renewable power — it claims to be the world’s largest and says it’s responsible for 28 gigawatts of clean energy capacity — signing contracts with new wind and solar projects all over the world.

But a divide has opened up among tech giants when it comes to energy, with Amazon on one side and Alphabet and Microsoft on the other. The difference hinges on how much it matters where and when the new carbon-free power a company buys in order to match its electricity use.

What’s odd about the Talen deal is that it fits awkwardly into either approach, especially Amazon’s. Amazon does not count nuclear towards its renewable power goals, and in any case, it’s not a “new” source of carbon-free power. Instead, it allows Amazon to siphon somewhere between 480 and 960 megawatts of capacity from the 2,500 megawatt plant.

“Amazon needs power, they’re getting it at cheap rates. They don’t even want to talk about it like a climate thing,” Mark Nelson, the founder of Radiant Energy Group, told me.

In the past decade or so, technology companies have gone on a clean-power buying spree, funding new wind and solar projects all over the world. But there has been a divergence in what is thought to be the best way to go about it.

In 2019, Amazon announced a goal to add enough renewable power to the grid to match its own emissions by 2030 (since moved up to 2025) and to reach net zero by 2040.

Google has been 100% renewable in terms of buying clean power in the same amounts that it consumes since 2017. So in 2020, it set a new goal: to “run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where we operate by 2030.” This would mean not just matching total renewable purchases with total emissions, as Amazon is seeking to do, but also trying to get every hour of data center operation “matched” with an hour of renewable generation on the same grid.

Microsoft has a similar goal, and as a result, both companies have shown much more interest in nuclear power of late than is typical in the technology world.

“A huge bottleneck for growth for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook is access to constant electricity,” Nelson told me. Nuclear is a carbon-free electricity resource that can run at a steady output 24 hours a day, whereas wind and solar are both inherently variable.

Microsoft signed a deal with Constellation to supply power to data centers in Virginia and hired an official from the Tennessee Valley Authority to be its director of nuclear and energy innovations, while Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Sam Altman, the head of Microsoft-backed OpenAI have both invested in nuclear startups, as has Google.

Amazon’s approach — which it shares with several other large companies, including Meta — is not to match 24 hours of its operations with clean power bought locally, but rather to develop and purchase new wind and solar at the same scale of the power it consumes, especially in areas with dirty grids, thus matching the emissions from its consumption with the emissions reductions of new renewables projects. While a 24/7 matching approach may be naturally complementary with nuclear power, Amazon’s strategy doesn’t require it.

“We believe a focus on emissions is the fastest, most cost-effective and scalable way to leverage corporate clean energy procurement to help decarbonize global power grids at the fastest pace,” an Amazon spokesperson told me. “This includes procuring renewable energy in locations and countries that still rely heavily on fossil fuels to power their grids, and where energy projects can have the biggest impact on carbon reduction.”

Contracting out new renewable energy projects can have more bang for your buck in dirty grids, according to proponents of the Amazon philosophy, known as carbon matching. The hypothesis is that a renewable project in a fossil fuel-heavy grid will displace more dirty power than one that’s located near a datacenter in an already relatively clean grid like California or Washington State.

Princeton researchers who examined the carbon matching (Amazon) and temporal matching (Google and Microsoft) strategies argued that the carbon matching approach does not necessarily lead to more renewables — or less fossil fuels — on the grid than would have occurred in the absence of the tech companies, and thus does not actually greatly lower emissions. The temporal approach, on the other hand, can meaningfully displace fossil fuel power that would otherwise have to be on the grid to meet demand.

Nuclear advocates are clear-eyed that this deal won’t cause a new generating unit to sprout up out of the Susquehanna Valley. But they still see it as the kind of deal that can help ensure nuclear plants’ continued survival. Amazon’s $650 million buys it a 10-year agreement to purchase power from the plant, as well as “additional revenue from AWS related to sales of carbon-free energy to the grid,” which an Amazon spokesperson explained as a reference to the deal “ensur[ing] that the nuclear plant has stable revenues to continue generating clean power to the grid for the foreseeable future.”

Nelson, a passionate advocate for nuclear power, lamented the mass shutdown of nuclear power plants in the 2010s thanks to cheap natural gas knocking them out of power markets that didn’t value reliability or carbon-free energy. But now, he says, things are different.

“Now nuclear is getting valued for its climate properties, reliability, and low cost. We’re seeing nuclear plants cash in,” Nelson told me. “Long term PPAs with cold hard cash help me sleep better at night.”

https://heatmap.news/technology/amazon-nuclear-talen-energy Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

@i2h3 that’s the part of the debugging I mentioned.

the first part is Apple’s “iOS on macOS” support. The embedded windows-like UI is what I am gradually replacing (you can see in this case the original tab and the new tab which I just completed)

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112090520123109343 Save to Pocket

The Most Populous Cities in the World, From 3000 BCE to Today

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/the-most-populous-cities-in-the-world-from-3000-bce-to-today Save to Pocket

CSUN Trends conducts a search for models

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

CSUN Trends, a club dedicated to fashion and modeling, held its first meeting of the semester on Feb. 12, and meets every other Monday. For the first meeting, the club…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179457/news/csun-trends-conducts-a-search-for-models/ Save to Pocket

Filling a void through faith: Ekemini Uwan shares her journey with Matadors

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

Alumna Ekemini Uwan joined Matadors on Feb. 22 for an Essential Talk in the Northridge Center at the University Student Union. Essential Talks was created after the passing of George…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179445/news/filling-a-void-through-faith-ekemini-uwan-shares-her-journey-with-matadors/ Save to Pocket

Fisker Is Preparing For Possible Bankruptcy: WSJ

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that Fisker has hired restructuring advisors to assist with the bankruptcy process.

https://insideevs.com/news/712312/fisker-preparing-to-file-for-bankruptcy/ Save to Pocket

After shock reveal of R3, Rivian is going big again with next EV

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Upstart electric vehicle brand Rivian is extending its reach into the commercial vehicle market, entering into a new partnership with JBPCO.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/after-shock-reveal-of-r3-rivian-is-going-big-again-with-next-ev/ Save to Pocket

AS commemorates Presidents Day with a memorable award

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

The Associated Students held a senate meeting on Presidents Day to share their gratitude and appreciation to former AS presidents and vice presidents. AS President Paige Hajiloo acknowledged the hard…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179435/news/as-commemorates-presidents-day-with-a-memorable-award/ Save to Pocket

Tesla Cybertruck Gets Creamed By Rivian R1T, Every ICE Off-Road Truck In This Test

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

Off-roading doesn’t tend to happen on even ground, which is why enthusiasts prioritize trucks with great articulation. Unfortunately, the Tesla Cybertruck doesn’t deliver.

https://insideevs.com/news/712302/tesla-cybertruck-ramp-travel-index-test/ Save to Pocket

Spanish Police Shut Down a Crime Ring Accused of Selling Fake Banksy Artworks

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The suspects allegedly recreated the famous street artist’s work using spray paint and cardboard to rake in over $10,000

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/spanish-police-take-down-an-alleged-crime-ring-selling-fake-banksys-180983930/ Save to Pocket

How Ford CEO Jim Farley Convinced Elon Musk To Open Up Tesla Charging

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

In an interview with InsideEVs’ Tom Moloughney, the Ford CEO talks about what it took to convince Musk to let Ford in on Tesla’s chargers.

https://insideevs.com/news/712282/ford-ceo-farley-tesla-nacs/ Save to Pocket

Microsoft Office for Mac 16.83

date: 2024-03-13, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/watchlist/microsoft-office-for-mac-16-83/ Save to Pocket

Volkswagen unveils sleek ID.3 GTX and ID.7 GTX Tourer with added power and sporty design

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

In a double global debut, Volkswagen introduced the new ID.3 GTX and ID.7 GTX Tourer as it expands its range of sporty EVs.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/volkswagen-unveils-sporty-id-3-gtx-id-7-gtx-tourer-evs/ Save to Pocket

GarageBand 10.4.11

date: 2024-03-13, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/watchlist/garageband-10-4-11/ Save to Pocket

Scientists ‘achieve the highest power density in the world’ for EV wireless charging

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers wirelessly charged a light-duty passenger EV at 100 kW with 96% efficiency – a new milestone.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/scientists-highest-power-density-in-the-world-ev-wireless-charging/ Save to Pocket

The Gravitational Force of Tech Money

date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Karpf’s blog

The main story of the post-techlash years has been too few people with too much capital

https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/the-gravitational-force-of-tech-money Save to Pocket

Tesla restarts production at Gigafactory Berlin after arson attack

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla announced that it restarted production at Gigafactory Berlin today after an arson attack killed the power at the factory earlier this month.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/tesla-restarts-production-gigafactory-berlin-after-arson-attack/ Save to Pocket

Mini Aceman Leaked: 215 Horsepower And Up To 248 Miles Of Range

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

At least in China, the Mini Aceman will be electric only.

https://insideevs.com/news/712295/mini-aceman-leak-china-miit/ Save to Pocket

‘America is Very Purple’: Personality and Place Across the American Landscape.

date: 2024-03-13, from: James Fallows, Substack

The country is complicated. In an era of simplistic “Red State / Blue State” polarization, three different approaches to this central, murky, but inescapable truth.

https://fallows.substack.com/p/america-is-very-purple-personality Save to Pocket

Dawn Baillie: The Art of the Movie Poster

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/dawn-baillie-the-art-of-the-movie-poster Save to Pocket

Lenovo launches ThinkPad X13 Gen 5 series laptops with Intel Meteor Lake

date: 2024-03-13, from: Liliputing

The new Lenovo Thinkpad X13 Gen 5 is a 2.7 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch display, a chassis made from magnesium and aluminum, and support for up to an Intel Core Ultra 7 165U processor. And the new ThinkPad X13 2-in-1 Gen 5 is a 2.8 pound laptop with similar features except it has a touchscreen […]

The post Lenovo launches ThinkPad X13 Gen 5 series laptops with Intel Meteor Lake appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/lenovo-launches-thinkpad-x13-gen-5-series-laptops-with-intel-meteor-lake/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

I just completed all of the signal pad features in my port of the Godot UI to SwiftUI.

Lots of debugging stuff here, please ignore 🙂

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112090045103150863 Save to Pocket

Over 15,000 Hacked Roku Accounts Sold for 50 Cents Apiece

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-15-000-hacked-roku-accounts-sold-for-50-each-to-buy-hardware/#google_vignette Save to Pocket

Waymo starts fully autonomous rides in LA tomorrow; Austin later this year

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Waymo has announced that it will start offering fully autonomous ride-hailing services to the general public in Los Angeles starting tomorrow, March 14th, and that Austin, Texas will open up “later this year.”

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/waymo-starts-fully-autonomous-rides-in-la-tomorrow-austin-later-this-year/ Save to Pocket

Don Lemon Is Shocked — Shocked — That the Face-Eating Leopard Ate His Face

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.threads.net/@karaswisher/post/C4djaMXOcQk Save to Pocket

Help Sarah Perez

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Daring Fireball

https://www.gofundme.com/f/yd78gx-sarah-and-josie-need-our-help Save to Pocket

BYD Wants To Squash Range Anxiety With 1200-Mile PHEVs

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

The numbers look promising on paper, but they’re likely estimated using the overly optimistic CLTC.

https://insideevs.com/news/712289/byd-1200-mile-phevs/ Save to Pocket

From Taschen, The Book of Colour Concepts. Man, I am just a…

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044154-from-taschen-the-book-of Save to Pocket

Rivian’s R2 will have a heat pump to help efficiency in winter

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Rivian’s newly-unveiled R2 will make use of a heat pump to help with efficiency in cold weather, which should be a boon to those in the Northern parts of North America, and in Europe.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/rivians-r2-will-have-a-heat-pump-to-help-efficiency-in-winter/ Save to Pocket

iPulse for iOS

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-14, from: Daring Fireball

https://blog.iconfactory.com/2024/03/22-years-later/ Save to Pocket

Gabriel García Márquez’s Sons Publish Novel the Author Wanted to Destroy

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The famed novelist had instructed his family never to publish drafts of “Until August,” written as he struggled with dementia during his final years

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gabriel-garcia-marquezs-sons-betray-the-author-by-publishing-a-draft-of-his-last-novel-180983927/ Save to Pocket

Modern Indian People Have a Wide Range of Neanderthal DNA, Study Finds

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Genomes of Indian people today reveal links to a prehistoric migration and a group of Iranian farmers, as well as several new sequences from the Neanderthal genome

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/modern-indian-people-have-a-wide-range-of-neanderthal-dna-study-finds-180983928/ Save to Pocket

From quantum AI to photonics, what OpenAI’s latest hire tells us about its future

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

What’s good for quantum optimization could help make models leaner

Analysis  Quantum computing has remained a decade away for over a decade now, but according to industry experts it may hold the secret to curbing AI’s insatiable appetite.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/quantum_openai_hire/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Here’s the lowdown on the blogroll and where it’s going.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a182932 Save to Pocket

Daily Deals (3-13-2024)

date: 2024-03-13, from: Liliputing

Amazon is offering discounts on Samsung’s latest budget, mid-range, and premium tablets. That means you can pick up a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ for $180, a Galaxy Tab S9 FE for $370, or a Galaxy S9 for $680. Here are some of the day’s best deals. Smartphones and tablets Google Pixel 7 Pro for $500 […]

The post Daily Deals (3-13-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-3-13-2024/ Save to Pocket

The National Trust for Local News buys a “mission-driven” printing press in Colorado

date: 2024-03-13, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

Plenty of talk in newsrooms these days might be about how to navigate new technologies like artificial intelligence — but one string of Colorado newspapers is jazzed about a decidedly retro development. The National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that has been buying newspapers in multiple states and investing in their modernization, has gone…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/the-national-trust-for-local-news-buys-a-mission-driven-printing-press-in-colorado/ Save to Pocket

March 12, 2024

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-12-2024 Save to Pocket

Sony Afeela EV Concept Won’t Let You Swear On Its Customizable Exterior Screen

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

There’s a 30-character limit and the exterior screen is called the “media bar.”

https://insideevs.com/news/712273/sony-honda-no-swearing-on-exterior-screen/ Save to Pocket

Chiroptera is a dance performance from artist & photographer JR, choreographer Damien…

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044184-chiroptera-is-a-dance-per Save to Pocket

Poking holes in Google tech bagged bug hunters $10M

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

A $2M drop from previous year. So … things are more secure?

Google awarded $10 million to 632 bug hunters last year through its vulnerability reward programs.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/google_2023_bug_bounties/ Save to Pocket

Many High Schools Across the United States Offer Limited Civics-Focused Extracurricular Activities

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: RAND blog

Students cannot participate in civics-focused extracurricular activities if they do not have access to them. Schools can and should do more to support students’ civic development, and increasing students’ access to civics-focused extracurricular activities might just be one place to start.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/03/many-high-schools-across-the-united-states-offer-limited.html Save to Pocket

This commuter e-bike is now $999 (Save $300), ALLPOWERS power station hits $409, more

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

We have a bunch of returning green deals today, headlined by Denago’s limited-time spring sale that drops the City 1 High-Step Commuter e-bike to $999. It is joined by the ALLPOWERS R1500 Portable Power Station, which has fallen to a new $409 low, as well as a one-day discount on the perfect electric tool bundle for spring from Greenworks at $600. 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.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/city-1-commuter-e-bike-allpowers-power-station-more/ Save to Pocket

Nissan and Honda may team up to slash EV prices and take on Chinese automakers like BYD

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Nissan and Honda are considering teaming up to introduce more affordable EVs to compete with Chinese automakers like BYD. The partnership could include a new EV platform.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/nissan-honda-team-up-slash-ev-prices-byd/ Save to Pocket

First Armv9 automotive CPUs aim to power AI-enabled vehicles

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Vehicle electronics and software becoming ever more complex

Chip designer Arm is bringing its Neoverse architecture to the automotive sector along with the first Armv9 processors for in-vehicle applications, claiming these will provide better performance for AI.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/first_armv9_automotive_cpus_aim/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Quotebacks sounds interesting.

https://quotebacks.net/ Save to Pocket

Stephen D’Onofrio’s Fruit Art

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/stephen-donofrios-fruit-paintings Save to Pocket

BMW Charging adds Shell charger access for EV drivers in North America

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

BMW Charging has just launched in North America as an additional EV charger network powered by Shell Recharge. The newly expanded network gives BMW EV drivers access to over 100,000 chargers across the continent, easily accessible from the vehicle itself or an app.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/bmw-charging-adds-shell-charger-access-for-ev-drivers-in-north-america/ Save to Pocket

This legacy school bus maker just delivered its 1,000th electric school bus

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Thomas Built Buses, founded in 1916, has delivered its 1,000th electric school bus to a school system in Georgia.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/thomas-built-electric-school-bus/ Save to Pocket

Vote for the Topic of the March 2024 Plus Post

date: 2024-03-13, from: Computer ads from the Past

If you are a paid subscriber, voting is open for one week

https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/vote-for-the-topic-of-the-march-2024 Save to Pocket

New Volkswagen ID.3 GTX And ID.7 GTX Tourer Come With More Power, Sporty Looks

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

The ID.3 GTX gets VW’s most powerful electric motor, while the ID.7 GTX Tourer is the most powerful wagon ever made by VW.

https://insideevs.com/news/712084/vw-id3-gtx-id7-gtx-tourer-reveal-specs-details-photos/ Save to Pocket

Try Out The New Arctic Cat Catalyst Snowmobiles on Its Demo Tour

date: 2024-03-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Arctic Cat is showcasing its newest models in a location near you.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/711858/arctic-cat-demo-tour-2024/ Save to Pocket

World’s cleanest lake is getting a new flying electric hydrofoil ferry

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

New Zealand’s Lake Manapōuri is often described as the cleanest lake in the world due to its crystal clear water fed by melting glaciers that carved the lake, as well as yearly snow melt. Now the lake’s hydro-electric power station is getting even cleaner with the adoption of the world’s first flying electric hydrofoil ferry.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/worlds-cleanest-lake-is-getting-a-new-flying-electric-hydrofoil-ferry/ Save to Pocket

Cryptocurrency laundryman gets hung out to dry

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Bitcoin Fog washed hundreds of millions for criminals

The operator of the world’s longest-running Bitcoin money laundering service faces a 50-year prison sentence after being found guilty in a US court.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/bitcoin_fog_conviction/ Save to Pocket

First Stellantis EV in the US draws strong interest from dealers

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Jeep, RAM, Dodge, and Fiat owner Stellantis is launching its first passenger electric vehicles in the US this year. The first to roll out, the Fiat 500e, is already drawing in new dealers ahead of deliveries.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/first-stellantis-ev-us-draws-strong-interest-dealers/ Save to Pocket

HP Pavilion Plus laptop now available with Intel Meteor Lake-H or AMD Ryzen 8040HS

date: 2024-03-13, from: Liliputing

The HP Pavilion Plus is a thin and light laptop that stands out from most Pavilion-branded hardware thanks to premium design and optional premium features like OLED displays. HP first introduced the brand in 2022, and the company has added new models several times since then. The latest updates? The HP Pavilion Plus is now available […]

The post HP Pavilion Plus laptop now available with Intel Meteor Lake-H or AMD Ryzen 8040HS appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/hp-pavilion-plus-laptop-now-available-with-intel-meteor-lake-h-or-amd-ryzen-8040hs/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Screen shot of home page, with blogroll, shortly after launch.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a163305 Save to Pocket

Earlier posts

date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News

This image was the result of a late night collaboration with ChatGPT. For some reason it can’t spell anything right, and when I asked it to correct the spelling it mocked me. But I loved the design. It understood the hard part of what I was asking for.

The Knicks have been slumping since two of their top players have been out with injuries for over a month, after having an amazing January. One of the two star players came back last night, and what a difference! They went from being a team that could barely put a starting five on the court to having the deepest bench in the NBA. I was trying to do the math, but came up empty. They were absolutely unstoppable. Now that they have two superstars on the court at once, the opposing team can’t just double or triple-team the one player, it’s basically impossible to defend against their schtick. At the same time, the Knicks are great at defense. When the second injured player comes back, and it seems that will be soon, we might be back in the January mode that was so exciting. Even so, last night’s game was a return to greatness. They blew out the 76ers, something that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. It’s fun being a Knicks fan again! ❤️

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13/163107.html?title=earlierPosts Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

It’s time to take a fresh look at the humble blogroll.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a163058 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Blogrolls were a common feature in early websites. A list of blogs you follow. A checklist of places to look at. Advertising our web friendships. Blogrolls were the beginning of today’s social web.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a163020 Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

That’s a blogroll, over there.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a162905 Save to Pocket

The winners of the Underwater Photographer of the Year competition for 2024….

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044166-the-winners-of-the-underw Save to Pocket

2024-03-07 Why do we even blog?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

2024-03-07 Why do we even blog?

The urge to blog lives in a strange place. One speaks to an imagined audience. It is not enough to imagine an audience, though. It’s more than writing into a booklet, “Dear Diary, …” – and yet we do it even if there are no comments. Sure, I never had a lot of comments. But I think I’m just as happy getting the occasional email or reply on the fediverse. The thought of somebody reading the words is terrifying. And once I got that first comment, once I started linking the blog from my profiles, putting it out there for others to find, inviting people to read and implicitly, to judge… I started discovered that the blog was something I feared. The blog is a thrill. It makes me nervous. The heart beats. The heart bleeds.

Back when the blog had comments, I used to be anxious about comments. First, there’s a comment. Is it good or bad? Do I read it now? Do I risk a look? But then the imagined audience is still there and now it’s worse. How will I react as I am being watched? Blogging turns into a performance where I feel like I’m demonstrating my moral character. I am not a racist! I am not a white supremacist! I am not a homophobe! Or am I? All the discourse online has made me self-conscious. I really don’t want to be what I fear I might be without knowing it. I keep thinking of the idea that people who aren’t very observant being unable to perceive their own faults. The requirements go up when I learn more.

The effect of all that anxiety, for me, is that I take things seriously. Words are serious. I try to put my word where my heart is. I try to weight them carefully. I weigh my heart. Writing is morally intense. It doesn’t matter how long or how short the page, how trivial or how controversial the topic.

And above all of it hangs the grey sky of unspoken words, of thoughts unexamined and all that maladjustment, all the failures, all the judgements. How often have I found myself falling short of my own measure.

To blog is to wrestle with that. I imagine an audience that is strangely interested in all the things I am interested in. I write for them, for me, for my future self that looks back, the heart full of regret. I struggle for virtue and I put it into words for you and me, the imagined reader and myself. As proof. “I struggled!” I struggle. I keep on struggling to discover what is right and to do what is right.

Blogging is like writing secret confessions. I write about the things that I think I did well because I did them wrong and then I changed my mind. I write about the things I know because I did not know them before. And who cares about those laborious system administration blog posts where I struggle with this or that ephemeral problem. All these issues are lost pages. Nobody cares. People find their answers on Stack Overflow or Reddit or some other centralized platform where middlemen gamify the experience so that we can help each other while on the thread-mill for their pockets. And who cares about those blog posts about growing old or playing games? People read them and move on. Like I do, when I’m reading online. Even if I am moved, I will move on. And there are so many posts to read, the folders on my disk with saved articles and snippets are more like compost heaps, where layer upon layer of good stuff gets dropped, never to see the light of day again.

Perhaps it sparked a thought somewhere, and perhaps that spark starts a fire, somewhere, much later. There is practically no connection and that is fine. The world moves and humanity is moved like a dreamer, one thought knows not the next, and we all partake in that eternal digestion of the sleepless mind. Our books, our journals, our blogs, our posts, they all participate. Perhaps we fall for those waves of outrage and the galaxy brain has a seizure as we all throw our weight around in unison, crushing innocent lives, leaving those we hurt behind, forgetting them as quickly as we forget about the outrage.

Or perhaps blogging is leaving a trail of blazing sparks, each one sparking a fire in the next generation. Spending time reading blogs and posts on social media has certainly changed me.

Perhaps I would have grown older differently without reading blogs and blogging. And this is why I cannot stop blogging. To blog in that half-shadow where perhaps our thoughts are read and perhaps they are not, where every text lights up and shines and drops and sinks onto that great pile where thousands of text are rotting, that is to participate in the galaxy brain that is our world. Some of us can vote and some of us can talk. Some of us can fight and some of us will weep. I try to blog.

I try to blog to prove to myself that it was a struggle, that I tried to think long and hard about things and that I tried to do the right thing. I keep failing and so I must keep blogging.

#Blogs

p1k3 wrote back in 2022:

Writing about writing. Programming about programming. Meetings about meetings. The mind reflecting on its own function. … Writing about writing might not have quite the same potential for nested, generative dysfunction, but it often produces artifacts just as unintelligible. – meta meta

That quote seemed very appropriate for one of the two threads in my posts. The other thread is about the audience and I got a comment on that, too, by the same author:

Not that I have much to add here, but I do relate to this one. The ongoing tension of these feelings contrasted with the sense that (as I’m sure I’ve said many times before) existing in public seems almost entirely unsupportable to me now. And yet: Nothing else has quite the same power as writing for this audience you can never be sure of. The one that might not even exist, but if it does might be all kinds of things.

The pain of existing in public is a great way to put it.

2024-03-08. How to overcome that impostor feeling where you reread that text you wrote and you want to throw it away. Not worth the electrons it was written with! But who’s doing the judging: you, or that imagined audience I was talking about?

I think the point of blogging is for there to be a tiny, non-threatening audience. And really, who is going to read my blog? Internet stranger-friends, mutuals on fedi, those kinds of people. Maybe my parents. (Hi mom!) I can always anonymoblog somewhere else if I’m feeling anxious. Because writing in a paper notebook I don’t feel judged. Surely there’s a similar place, online. The key is to find that happy state where the imagined audience adds a little zest but not the Twitter wolves or Hacker News, or whatever the particular blogging nightmare might be.

For me, this imagined audience is more important than getting it right. Which is why I write my blog posts with the wiki spirit. All these sites are pretty similar, in essence. Blog, wiki, digital garden, Zettelkasten, there’s not enough difference to draw lines. It’s all a question of intent, of culture, of belonging. The blog spirit is to write pages over time, and they disappear into the archive. The digital garden spirit is to write unfinished articles and papers, to be refined or not. The Zettelkasten spirit is to follow the trail of thoughts you thought and add new branches, small notes with new thoughts leading to more thoughts on new notes. And the wiki spirit is to write and edit online, to hit the Save button and then it’s live. There is no editor, there is no draft. Wiki is like brutalism in content management. I can see the page sources and the end result is obvious and full of that old web power. It’s not an app. The software has no idea of process. The wiki spirit is to open that window, write the text and hit save. And then I read it again, and edit it. And tomorrow, I read it again, and edit it. And next week, perhaps, I read it again, and edit it.

I no longer live in the Wiki Now. The pages are intended for future readers but they are not timeless. I add timestamps all over the place. The blog spirit is strong. The pages do disappear into the great compost of thoughts. The archive gobbles them up. I do go back but I don’t rewrite the pages completely. I’m more likely to simply add a timestamp and some thoughts like I did on this page.

I do remove stuff I stumble across that I don’t like at all. I do leave some bad things in there to remind me of bad decisions made, of bad opinions held.

What I want to say, most of all, is that blog posts aren’t gems. They are not precious books. They are not newspaper articles. They are not job applications. And if I don’t like it tomorrow, I edit it. I revise it. Or I write a new page saying how I learned something, or regret something, or I add something. I add stuff to the bottom of pages or I add new pages. What I don’t do is polish the old posts. There will be more great posts in the future. The important part is the writing.

2024-03-09. I’m reading The work of creation in the age of AI by Andrew Perfors and thinking about the part where meaning is discussed.

Meaning without an audience:

If I am writing an essay or diary entry to myself, the goal is … generally to clarify my own thoughts, to identify flaws in my thinking, or to distil the logic and motivations behind my ideas. I might have a more emotional goal - I might want to vent to myself or to express a feeling. I might want to improve my emotional regulation, feel better about life, or change those feelings somehow.

And then with an audience:

… once I decided I might actually want to post it, I changed it in important ways. I included a lot more explanation of things that were clear in my head but I thought would be non-obvious to others (and, in so doing, often I clarified them for myself too!). I fiddled with the structure and the argument flow, took some things out, put others in.

I got an email from @bouncepaw with a link to a reply. Thanks!

This is how it starts:

This article gets better every time I open it because Alex adds something to it.

I wrote about my propensity to “add” to pages up above (I’m doing it again!) and perhaps this would be a good place to talk about the two “views” for this site: blog & wiki.

A blog is organized by the timeline. The Home page lists all the pages in the order of their creation.

A wiki is organized by Recent Changes. The Changes page lists all the pages recently edited (unless I unset a checkbox).

So this site has both natures. And both views have a feed: blog feed & wiki feed.

I think you need quite some wiki-affinity to subscribe to the wiki feed. But it’s there for you.

2024-03-10. Got another reply by email, by fab – who hosts their site on Gopher, Gemini, and the web. Reminds me of the time I had a working Gopher setup. And now I’m remembering the endless bot spiders. Yikes. I still think there should be a way to better control the bots.

2024-03-11. Dozens also wrote a blog about blogging!

You may be wondering where blogs come from and why you would do a blog. If so, keep reading! – doing a blog

2024-03-13. acdw wrote a list of reasons for why don’t i blog?

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-07-why-blog Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Heather Cox Richardson has a great read on how discredited Hur is, it was a total partisan hatchet job, done from inside the DoJ. And none of the big journalists even asked the question – where is this asshole coming from. Our journalists, today, who protest that we need them to keep our democracy, and then they assassinate it. When are we ever going to stand up and put a stop to this. BTW, Substack where she hosts her incredible writing, makes it impossible to find a web link to a story you recieve via email. It’s very easy to get to the article in their app. I prefer the open web, and always will. I don’t want Substack’s app.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a160935 Save to Pocket

ONEXPLAYER 2 Pro handheld gaming PC with Ryzen 7 8840U launches for $1049 and up

date: 2024-03-13, from: Liliputing

The ONEXPLAYER 2 Pro is a handheld gaming PC with an 8.4 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel display,  an AMD Ryzen 7 processor featuring RDNA 3 graphics and a set of detachable controllers that give the little like a Nintendo Switch. One Netbook first launched the ONEXPLAYER 2 Pro in the summer of 2023, and […]

The post ONEXPLAYER 2 Pro handheld gaming PC with Ryzen 7 8840U launches for $1049 and up appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/onexplayer-2-pro-handheld-gaming-pc-with-ryzen-7-8840u-coming-soon/ Save to Pocket

Bring On The Big Guns: Tesla Cybertruck Versus .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

This ain’t no handgun.

https://insideevs.com/news/711817/tesla-cybertruck-bullets-50-caliber-rifle/ Save to Pocket

Microsoft Copilot for Security prepares for April liftoff

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Automated AI helper intended to make security more manageable

Microsoft Copilot for Security, a subscription AI security service, will be generally available on April 1, 2024, the company announced on Wednesday.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/microsoft_copilot_for_security_ready/ Save to Pocket

Why both Vision Pro & Quest are Good & Great?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Om Malik blog

If you have been a regular reader, then you know very well how I feel about Vision Pro, which is the best entertainment device I have ever owned (outside of my iPad.) And you also know that I think it is a two-horse race between Meta and Apple. (You can see my comments in this CNBC story.) Hugo Barra, …

https://om.co/2024/03/13/why-both-vision-pro-quest-are-good-great/ Save to Pocket

Intel continues prepping the Linux kernel for X86S

date: 2024-03-13, from: OS News

Nearly one year ago Intel published the X86S specification (formerly stylized as “X86-S”) for simplifying the Intel architecture by removing support for 16-bit and 32-bit operating systems. X86S is a big step forward with dropping legacy mode, 5-level paging improvements, and other modernization improvements for x86_64. With the Linux 6.9 kernel more x86S bits are in place for this ongoing effort. ↫ Michael Larabel I doubt we’ll see much fallout from these changes.

https://www.osnews.com/story/138808/intel-continues-prepping-the-linux-kernel-for-x86s/ Save to Pocket

Best of the West: The Hotline’s selections for the top players and coach from across the region

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Arizona’s Caleb Love and Utah State’s Great Osobor were two of the top players in the western third of the country in 2023-24.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/best-of-the-west-the-hotlines-selections-for-the-top-players-and-coach-from-across-the-region/ Save to Pocket

AI news that’s fit to print: The New York Times’ editorial AI director on the current state of AI-powered journalism

date: 2024-03-13, from: Nieman Journalism Lab

Hi, I’m Zach Seward, the editorial director of AI initiatives at The New York Times, where I’m building a newsroom team charged with prototyping potential uses of machine learning for the benefit of our journalists and our readers. Before that, I cofounded and spent more than a decade helping to run the business news startup…

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/ai-news-thats-fit-to-print-the-new-york-times-editorial-ai-director-on-the-current-state-of-ai-powered-journalism/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

I was glad to hear that Om Malik, one of the (original) ur-bloggers, has a blogroll on his site. I was almost going to say "still" but blogrolls are now officially on their way back.

https://om.co/blogroll/ Save to Pocket

What a ‘real world’ hydrogen pickup looks like and why it should end the conversation

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

This hydrogen-powered GM commercial truck offers 300 miles of range and “generates enough electricity to power 250 typical American homes” (for a few minutes?). Just not at the same time.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/what-real-world-hydrogen-pickup-looks-like-and-why-it-should-end-the-conversation/ Save to Pocket

On trimming the silence from our lives. “One of the more distressing…

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/0044183-on-trimming-the-silence-f Save to Pocket

Judge in Georgia Election Case Dismisses Some Trump Charges

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump, but many other counts in the indictment remain. 

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. 

But the order leaves intact other charges, and the judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed. 

The six charges are about soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on January 2, 2021. 

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. 

The case accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty. 

The ruling comes as McAfee is also considering a bid by defendants to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case. Defendants have alleged that Willis has a conflict of interest because of her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

https://www.voanews.com/a/judge-in-georgia-election-case-dismisses-some-trump-charges/7525940.html Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

This image was the result of a late night collaboration with ChatGPT. For some reason it can’t spell anything right, and when I asked it to correct the spelling it mocked me. But I loved the design. It understood the hard part of what I was asking for.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a153021 Save to Pocket

European Union lawmakers line up to defend world’s first AI Act

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Rules were not bent for Big Tech, politicians say

The European Parliament has enacted the world’s first legislation designed specifically to address the risk of artificial intelligence, including biometric categorization and manipulation of human behavior, as well as stricter rules for the introduction of generative AI.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/eu_ai_act/ Save to Pocket

Blacklight Updated With New Tracking Info and Caching Options

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Markup blog

Our privacy scanner can now return more up-to-date information

https://themarkup.org/blacklight/2024/03/13/blacklight-updated-with-new-tracking-info-and-caching-options Save to Pocket

Rivian R3 Design Was Inspired By Some Of The Greatest Names In Rallying

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

The design team had the gravel-throwing Lancia Delta Integrale and Audi Quattro coupe from the 1980s on the image board.

https://insideevs.com/news/712194/rivian-r3-design-inspired-lancia-delta-integrale-audi-quattro/ Save to Pocket

‘Chemical cat’ on the loose in Japanese city

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Unlikely to survive hexavalent chromium dip, officials ask residents to keep an eye out

A cat covered in toxic chemicals is wandering the streets of Fukuyama in Japan, and locals are being warned not to go near.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/cat_chemical_vat_japan/ Save to Pocket

Yamaha Sweetens bLU cRU Support For SxS And ATV Racing

date: 2024-03-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Handsome cash prizes and incentives await the top racers fielding Yamaha machines.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/711613/yamaha-blu-cru-support-atv-sxs-prizes/ Save to Pocket

An important consideration about Pi 5 overclocking

date: 2024-03-13, from: Jeff Geerling blog

An important consideration about Pi 5 overclocking

        <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><em>Silicon lottery</em>.</p>

Now that the Raspberry Pi 5s been readily available (at least in most regions) for a few months, more people started messing with clocks, trying to get the most speed possible out of their Pi 5s.

Unlike the Pi 4, the Pi 5 is typically comfortable at 2.6 or even 2.8 GHz, and some Pi 5s can hit 3.0 GHz (but no higher—more on why tomorrow well… this limit may be able to be lifted).

After some testing, I found the default 2.4 GHz clock on the Pi 5 is pretty much the efficiency sweet spot, and after a lot more testing recently, I can confirm that’s still the case, testing a number of Pi 5 samples.

  <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>

March 13, 2024

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/important-consideration-about-pi-5-overclocking Save to Pocket

Museum-Worthy?

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/03/museum-worthy Save to Pocket

BYD reveals cheaper e2 electric crossover starting under $13,000 to undercut ICE cars

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

BYD is launching another lower-priced electric model. The Chinese automaker introduced the new BYD e2 Honor Edition, starting under $13,000, in its latest move to steal market share from gas-powered cars.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/byd-unveils-new-e2-ev-starting-13k-undercut-ice-cars/ Save to Pocket

49ers set to sign LB Kendricks with Greenlaw’s recovery in question

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Linebacker Eric Kendricks is expected to sign today with the 49ers, who need help as Dre Greenlaw recovers from his Achilles tear in the Super Bowl.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/veteran-eric-kendricks-coming-to-fill-49ers-need-at-linebacker/ Save to Pocket

House passes bill that would lead to a TikTok ban if Chinese owner doesn’t sell. Senate path unclear

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. any time it wants.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/house-passes-bill-that-would-lead-to-a-tiktok-ban-if-chinese-owner-doesnt-sell-senate-path-unclear/ Save to Pocket

Valley Fair in San Jose expands luxury collection with new merchants

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose is expanding its luxury stores collection.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/san-jose-real-estate-store-retail-luxury-valley-fair-build-economy/ Save to Pocket

Lenovo Legion Tab is an Android gaming tablet (that already launched in China last summer)

date: 2024-03-13, from: Liliputing

The Lenovo Legion Tab is an Android tablet with an 8.8 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel display featuring a 144 Hz refresh rate, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, 12GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and 256GB of storage. Aimed at mobile gamers, the tablet will be available in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia beginning this […]

The post Lenovo Legion Tab is an Android gaming tablet (that already launched in China last summer) appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/lenovo-legion-tab-is-an-android-gaming-tablet-that-already-launched-in-china-last-summer/ Save to Pocket

The U.S. Wants to Ban TikTok for the Sins of Every Social Media Company

date: 2024-03-13, from: 404 Media Group

The TikTok situation is an untenable mess. Banning it will further balkanize the internet.

https://www.404media.co/the-u-s-wants-to-ban-tiktok-for-the-sins-of-every-social-media-company/ Save to Pocket

Teslas Depreciate Way Faster Than Maseratis Or Alfa Romeos: Study

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

A new report for iSeeCars blames Tesla’s aggressive price cuts for the cars’ rapid depreciation.

https://insideevs.com/news/712157/why-do-teslas-depreciate-so-fast/ Save to Pocket

New York Times: OpenAI’s claim we ‘hacked’ its products both ‘irrelevant’ and ‘false’

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Media giant’s counterfiling accuses AI darling of ‘spin’ in copyright infringement case

The New York Times has fired back another legal salvo at OpenAI after the ChatGPT maker accused it of manipulating the chatbot to regurgitate the media group’s content.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/nyt_hacking_response/ Save to Pocket

U.S. Has ‘No Evidence’ of Alien Technology, New Pentagon Report Finds

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

A review of government investigations into unidentified anomalous phenomena since 1945 found that “most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-has-no-evidence-of-alien-technology-new-pentagon-report-finds-180983938/ Save to Pocket

Judge dismisses some charges against Trump in the Georgia 2020 election interference case

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

The judge overseeing the Georgia 2020 election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against ex-President Donald Trump, but others remain. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote Wednesday in an order that six of the charges in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump. The order leaves intact many other charges in the indictment. The judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed. The six charges in question have to do with soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. One of the counts stems from a phone call Trump made to fellow Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump denies wrongdoing.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/judge-dismisses-some-charges-against-trump-in-the-georgia-2020-election-interference-case/ Save to Pocket

‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity

date: 2024-03-13, from: Quanta Magazine

The post ‘The Rest of the World Disappears’: Claire Voisin on Mathematical Creativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-mathematician-on-creativity-art-logic-and-language-20240313/ Save to Pocket

‘A huge catastrophe waiting to happen’: Aryan Brotherhood drama spills into Northern California courtroom as lawyer joins in the name-calling

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Ronald Dean Yandell and Danny Troxell haven’t exactly been shy about their desire to kill one another, according to a U.S. Marshall officer who testified the two loudly exchanged threats the whole way back to prison.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/a-huge-catastrophe-waiting-to-happen-aryan-brotherhood-drama-spills-into-federal-courtroom-lawyer-joins-in-the-name-calling/ Save to Pocket

Pentagon said to have pulled $2.5B Intel defense chips grant

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plus: Trump reportedly gave chipmaker license to sell to Huawei back in the day…

The Pentagon has reportedly declined to grant $2.5 billion to Intel for the production of defense-related semiconductors, which could leave the Department of Commerce to foot the entire bill.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/intel_defense_grant/ Save to Pocket

Media Arts department takes home 18 awards

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

Journalism student Emil Rizkalla traveled to the 2024 Spring National College Media Conference with hopes of learning and maybe placing top three in a contest.

The post Media Arts department takes home 18 awards appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/media-arts-department-takes-home-18-awards/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=media-arts-department-takes-home-18-awards Save to Pocket

Food for all down at the Bodega

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

With the increase of prices and food uncertainty, students and members of the local community  may be questioning whether they can afford food for themselves

The post Food for all down at the Bodega appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/food-for-all-down-at-the-bodega/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=food-for-all-down-at-the-bodega Save to Pocket

News Briefs – March 13, 2024

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

Upcoming Super Saturdays: Two upcoming Super Saturday workshops will be held on March 16 and March 23 to help students with the Free Application for

The post News Briefs – March 13, 2024 appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/news-briefs-march-13-2024/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news-briefs-march-13-2024 Save to Pocket

Streetbeat: What movies do you like to watch and why?

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

    “I love action and romance because that’s what I was surrounded by growing up and stuff. With my grandma being Filipina and everything,

The post Streetbeat: What movies do you like to watch and why? appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/streetbeat-what-movies-do-you-like-to-watch-and-why/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=streetbeat-what-movies-do-you-like-to-watch-and-why Save to Pocket

All paws on deck to improve students’ mental health

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

With their calm demeanor and fluffy bodies, therapy dogs are on many campuses to help ease students’ stress or anxiety.  While Pierce had therapy dogs

The post All paws on deck to improve students’ mental health appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/all-paws-on-deck-to-improve-students-mental-health/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=all-paws-on-deck-to-improve-students-mental-health Save to Pocket

Learning about the holy month of Ramadan

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

Students filled Multicultural Center Room 5111 as they listened to guest speaker Sheikh Abu Omar talk about the holy month of Ramadan, in which Muslims

The post Learning about the holy month of Ramadan appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/learning-about-the-holy-month-of-ramadan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=learning-about-the-holy-month-of-ramadan Save to Pocket

Music from the space between the notes

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

A nickel-finish guitar with a metal lattice accompanied by geometric shapes along its body rested against a pair of long black slacks and a midnight

The post Music from the space between the notes appeared first on The Roundup.

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Supercar Sunday shines in early sunrise

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

The loss of sleep brought on by daylight savings time was not enough to stop the waves of gearheads flocking to Pierce College to check

The post Supercar Sunday shines in early sunrise appeared first on The Roundup.

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/03/13/supercar-sunday-shines-in-early-sunrise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=supercar-sunday-shines-in-early-sunrise Save to Pocket

Family Dollar and Dollar Tree will close 1,000 stores

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Family Dollar was hit with a record fine this year for violating product safety standards after selling items that were stocked in a rat-infested warehouse in West Memphis filled with live, dead and decaying rodents.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/family-dollar-and-dollar-tree-will-close-1000-stores/ Save to Pocket

Inside Chile’s plan to shorten the workweek

date: 2024-03-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

A year ago, Chilean officials voted to reduce the workweek from 45 hours, longer than in most industrialized countries, to 40. The new rule gives businesses until 2028 to tick down to 40 and is aimed at improving work-life balance. We check how the rollout is going. And the S&P 500 closed at a record high on Tuesday. Can the good times last? We hear the bull’s case for the market.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/inside-chiles-plan-to-shorten-the-workweek Save to Pocket

Photographing the elusive, city-living bobcats of San Jose

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

The screeching, growing, rodent-hunting cats have proven quite adaptable to the urban environment.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/photographing-the-elusive-city-living-bobcats-of-san-jose/ Save to Pocket

Pay less to fly: New strategies for finding cheap airfares now

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Airfares are through the roof right now, but there are some ways to reduce the wallet impact, from tracking fare surges to reverse-engineering your destination. Here’s how.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/pay-less-to-fly-new-strategies-for-finding-cheap-airfares-now/ Save to Pocket

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Microsoft prepares to replace an old faithful with something shiny, new, and lacking key features. Sound familiar?

Analysts have warned that some enterprises have a mountain to climb ahead of Microsoft’s planned phase-out of the classic Outlook for Windows. 2029 is the earliest cut-off date for support, but some key functionality is still missing from the veteran app’s replacement.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/the_end_of_classic_outlook/ Save to Pocket

Article Spotlight: Downsizing a heavyweight: factors and methods that revise weight estimates of the giant fossil whale Perucetus colossus

date: 2024-03-13, from: PeerJ blog

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284888969/article-spotlight-downsizing-a-heavyweight-factors-and-methods-that-revise-weight-estimates-of-the-giant-fossil-whale-perucetus-colossus/ Save to Pocket

When Will Methane Emissions Fall?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: Storms dropped hail stones big enough to leave craters in the ground in Argentina • Denver is expecting more than a foot of snow • A wildfire outbreak is possible in Texas and Oklahoma.

THE TOP FIVE

1. IEA: Methane emissions from energy still high but could fall soon

Methane emissions from energy production around the world reached a record high in 2019, and have remained at that level ever since, with 2023 being no exception, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2024 Global Methane Tracker. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than carbon dioxide, and is responsible for about one-third of the total rise in global temperatures compared to pre-industrial levels. Fossil fuel production is not the only source of methane emissions, but it is a big one, and it is within our control. Improvements to oil and gas infrastructure can reduce methane leaks, for example.

Energy production is the third largest source of methane emissions. IEA

Last year oil, gas, and coal producers added more than 120 million metric tonnes of methane to the atmosphere, a number that is “unacceptably high,” said the IEA’s chief energy economist Tim Gould. The agency called for a 75% reduction in methane emissions from fossil fuels this decade to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and said new policies, pledges, and methane-tracking satellites could bring emissions down soon. “If all methane pledges made by countries and companies to date are implemented in full and on time, it would be sufficient to cut methane emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2030,” the IEA said. “However, most pledges are not yet backed up by plans for implementation.”

2. Biden administration unveils infrastructure plan for electric freight trucks

The Biden administration yesterday released details of its plan to create the infrastructure needed to electrify the nation’s trucking fleet. “Heavy duty vehicles have a disproportionate effect on pollution, as large diesel engines release many more particulate emissions than light-duty vehicles do,” explained Jameson Dow at Electrek. Indeed the transportation sector accounts for about 30% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than a fifth of that comes from the biggest trucks. Phase 1 of the plan is to build out charging and hydrogen fueling hubs along some 12,000 miles of roads between 2024 and 2027, targeting some of the busiest routes first, including those around major ports. After the hubs are established, the subsequent phases would then connect those hubs to one another, and then expand the network. Here is a look at the hubs:

Joint Office of Energy and Transportation

3. Climate change threatens world’s banana production

Did you know there’s a World Banana Forum? The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) hosts the annual gathering so the “main stakeholders of the global banana supply-chain work together to achieve consensus on best practices for sustainable production and trade.” This week the event took place in Rome, and climate change was top of the agenda. “Farmers are battling daily with unpredictable weather patterns, scorching sun, floods, hurricanes, and increased cases of plant diseases,” said Anna Pierides, a sustainable sourcing manager at the Fairtrade Foundation. She warned that farmers may go out of business if they do not get more support and see fairer prices. “There will be some price increases, indeed,” said Pascal Liu, senior economist at the FAO. “If there’s not a major increase in supply, I project that banana prices will remain relatively high in the coming years.” Bananas are the world’s most exported fruit.

4. Greta Thunberg hauled away from Swedish parliament

For the second day in a row, police forcibly removed Greta Thunberg from the entrance to the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. The 21-year-old climate activist and other protesters began their demonstration there yesterday, protesting against what they see as inaction from political leaders in addressing the climate crisis. After Thunberg refused to move, police lifted her by the arms and put her about 20 meters away from the building’s door.

5. Bezos Earth Fund invests in making meat alternatives taste better

Jeff Bezos’ philanthropic organization, the Bezos Earth Fund, is pouring $60 million into setting up hubs at universities where researchers will work to improve the texture, taste, and nutritional value of meat alternatives. We’re not talking about “lab grown” meat here, but plant products made to taste like meat. Animal agriculture accounts for up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations, and meat consumption is expected to grow by 50% by 2050. Meat alternatives could reduce the environmental footprint of the food system, but only if they taste good enough to convert enough meat lovers. Last week Oscar Mayer announced it had partnered with a Bezos-backed food startup to create meatless hot dogs and sausages that “not only deliver on great taste, but also bring the smell, appearance, texture, and grill marks consumers desire and want.”

Oscar Mayer’s plant-based sausges and hot dogs KraftHeinz

THE KICKER

Heatmap News has been named Hottest in Sustainability on Adweek’s 2024 Media Hot List for quickly becoming “a critical part of the climate news landscape.”

https://heatmap.news/climate/methane-iea-fossil-fuels Save to Pocket

This Bay Area county relies on Head Start to prepare kids for school — but can only fund a fraction of the demand

date: 2024-03-13, from: San Jose Mercury News

Officials say federal aid has left a gap in access to Head Start programs, which help reduce intergenerational poverty and prepare children for school.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/13/this-bay-area-county-relies-on-head-start-to-prepare-kids-for-school-but-can-only-fund-a-fraction-of-the-demand/ Save to Pocket

Announcing worldwide availability of Arm Advisory Service for developers

date: 2024-03-13, from: Windows Developer Blog

In October 2023, Microsoft introduced the Arm Advisory Service. Since then, interest has risen steeply. This is no surprise, as

The post Announcing worldwide availability of Arm Advisory Service for developers appeared first on Windows Developer Blog.

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2024/03/13/announcing-worldwide-availability-of-arm-advisory-service-for-developers/ Save to Pocket

Cadillac teases new Opulent Velocity performance EV concept, is it too little too late?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Cadillac gave a sneak peek of “the future of electric performance,” teasing its new Opulent Velocity EV concept. But with GM falling behind in the EV market, is a concept enough at this point?

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/cadillac-teases-new-opulent-velocity-performance-ev/ Save to Pocket

The Human-Sized Dog Bed

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/03/13/the-human-sized-dog-bed/ Save to Pocket

Massively Popular Safe Locks Have Secret Backdoor Codes

date: 2024-03-13, from: 404 Media Group

Senator Ron Wyden has found that the DoD banned the use of such locks for U.S. government systems, but deliberately kept information about the backdoors from the public.

https://www.404media.co/massively-popular-safe-locks-have-secret-backdoor-codes/ Save to Pocket

Podcast: How Hackers Steal Mountains of Oxy and Adderall

date: 2024-03-13, from: 404 Media Group

Fraudsters and hackers hijack the electronic prescription system; 404 Media is included in a Russia disinformation campaign; and how we bypassed the “no-go voice” policy of ElevenLabs.

https://www.404media.co/404-media-podcast-hackers-order-drugs-week-29/ Save to Pocket

Nvidia rival Cerebras says it’s revived Moore’s Law with third-gen waferscale chips

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Startup is also working with Qualcomm on optimized models for its Cloud AI 100 Ultra inference chips

Cerebras revealed its latest dinner-plate sized AI chip on Wednesday, which it claims offers twice the performance per watt of its predecessor, alongside a collaboration with Qualcomm aimed at accelerating machine learning inferencing.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/cerebras_claims_to_have_revived/ Save to Pocket

Cheers! NASA’s Webb Finds Ethanol, Other Icy Ingredients for Worlds

date: 2024-03-13, from: NASA breaking news

What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385. Although planets are not yet forming around those stars, these and other molecules detected there by Webb represent key ingredients for making […]

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/cheers-nasas-webb-finds-ethanol-other-icy-ingredients-for-worlds/ Save to Pocket

Cadillac Opulent Velocity Concept Teased As First V-Series EV

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

The video has some go-fast noises, so this might be good.

https://insideevs.com/news/712226/cadillac-opulent-velocity-concept-ev-v-series/ Save to Pocket

Exeet Quads Are Some Wild Superbike Quad Conversions

date: 2024-03-13, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Fancy a supercharged 200-horsepower quad based on a Kawasaki Z H2?

https://www.rideapart.com/news/711293/exeet-superbike-quad-conversions/ Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

I thought it was a done deal the kids would get these MacBook airs for school next year, but after reading this, maybe the pro is a better model:

https://appleinsider.com/inside/15-inch-macbook-air/vs/m3-15-inch-macbook-air-vs-m3-14-inch-macbook-pro—-comparison

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112088390655073945 Save to Pocket

Volkswagen Group Reaffirms Internal Combustion Will Be ‘Phased Out’ Eventually

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

Plus, Ford and Tesla get nailed for driver-assistance systems, and when it comes to “software-defined cars,” you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

https://insideevs.com/news/712197/vw-group-new-models-2024/ Save to Pocket

Oracle AI buzz means Larry Ellison’s worth $15B more today

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-14, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

And here you were saying tech hadn’t yet made a difference to someone special

Larry Ellison’s personal wealth is inextricably linked to Oracle and yesterday it ballooned by more than $15 billion following a 12 percent rally of Big Red’s stock on the news that it is building an AI datacenter and has a deal with AI darling Nvidia.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/larry_ellison_worth_15_billion/ Save to Pocket

Archaeologists Unearth the Long-Lost Top Half of an Enormous Ramses II Statue

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

A German researcher found the lower section of the Egyptian pharaoh’s likeness nearly 100 years ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-unearth-long-lost-top-half-enormous-ramses-II-statue-180983937/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

The Knicks have been slumping since two of their top players have been out with injuries for over a month, after having an amazing January. One of the two star players came back last night, and what a difference! They went from being a team that could barely put a starting five on the court to having the deepest bench in the NBA. I was trying to do the math, but came up empty. They were absolutely unstoppable. Now that they have two superstars on the court at once, the opposing team can’t just double or triple-team the one player, it’s basically impossible to defend against their schtick. At the same time, the Knicks are great at defense. When the second injured player comes back, and it seems that will be soon, we might be back in the January mode that was so exciting. Even so, last night’s game was a return to greatness. They blew out the 76ers, something that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. It’s fun being a Knicks fan again! ❤️

http://scripting.com/2024/03/13.html#a122730 Save to Pocket

A New Approach for the U.S. Armed Forces: Q&A with David Ochmanek

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: RAND blog

The United States and its allies have a window of opportunity to bolster their security and prepare for the global challenges to come. But it’s closing fast as China and other adversaries build up their own militaries. Business as usual is no longer sufficient.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/03/a-new-approach-for-the-us-armed-forces-qa-with-david.html Save to Pocket

NASA Glenn Prepares Media for Solar Eclipse Event

date: 2024-03-13, from: NASA breaking news

NASA Glenn Research Center’s Office of Communications invited media to an Eclipse Preview at Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC), home of the NASA Glenn Visitor Center, on Feb. 13. During the event, news outlets previewed the Science Center’s Total Eclipse Fest 2024, which is scheduled to take place April 6-8, and learned everything they need to […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasa-glenn-prepares-media-for-solar-eclipse-event/ Save to Pocket

Tri-C Students Shadow NASA Professionals

date: 2024-03-13, from: NASA breaking news

Students from Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) visited NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on Feb. 15 to shadow NASA professionals in a variety of career areas – from offices to laboratories. During the event, students and their advisor acquired knowledge about the NASA Internship Program, Pathways Internship Program, and NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars program. […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/tri-c-students-shadow-nasa-professionals/ Save to Pocket

Engaging Students at Gallery Opening

date: 2024-03-13, from: NASA breaking news

On Feb. 23, NASA’s Glenn Research Center representatives were on hand to help celebrate the ribbon cutting and opening of Great Lakes Science Center’s Cleveland Creates Gallery. The gallery highlights the extraordinary breakthroughs being made by the city of Cleveland’s diverse industries.   During the opening, several hundred middle and high school students and museum visitors […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/engaging-students-at-gallery-opening/ Save to Pocket

NASA Rolls Out Lunar Tires at Monster Jams

date: 2024-03-13, from: NASA breaking news

Few things rev the engines of Monster Jam fans more than tires—including lunar tires. NASA’s Glenn Research Center recently gained traction with amplified audiences at Monster Jams in Milwaukee, Jan. 20-21, and in Cleveland, Feb. 16-17. During pit parties, NASA’s outreach team rolled out its replica lunar rover tire to show visitors the work NASA […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasa-rolls-out-lunar-tires-at-monster-jams/ Save to Pocket

Stanford University failed to detect ransomware intruders for 4 months

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

27,000 individuals had data stolen, which for some included names and social security numbers

Stanford University says the cybersecurity incident it dealt with last year was indeed ransomware, which it failed to spot for more than four months.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/stanford_university_ransomware/ Save to Pocket

Still Relevant: English Learners Show And Tell In The Classroom

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The LAist

Through thoughtfully chosen objects, students at Mt. San Antonio College share a longing for family and friends, challenges they’ve faced, and changes in perspective.

https://laist.com/news/education/community-college-english-learners-for-credit-esl-classes Save to Pocket

Polestar 3 Price Reduced By $10,500, Range Increased By Up to 15 Miles

date: 2024-03-13, from: Inside EVs News

The base version starts at $73,400, while the Performance one has a $79,400 MSRP.

https://insideevs.com/news/712141/polestar3-new-pricing-more-range/ Save to Pocket

Whistleblowing While Black: How Truth-Telling Changes the Careers of Black Women in Tech

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Markup blog

Black women whistleblowers not only jeopardize their professional prospects, experts say, but often face more intense backlash

https://themarkup.org/news/2024/03/13/whistleblowing-while-black-how-truth-telling-changes-the-careers-of-black-women-in-tech Save to Pocket

Incoming 2025 Polestar 3 gains additional variants and now starts at a lower price

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Just ahead of first deliveries in the US later this year, Polestar has introduced two additional variants of the 2025 Polestar 3 SUV, including a new base-level dual motor version that starts at a price of $73,400. Other updates include add-on packages that are now standard and eligibility for lease incentives.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/13/2025-polestar-3-gains-additional-variants-now-starts-at-price-73400/ Save to Pocket

What working from home does to commercial construction

date: 2024-03-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

We’ve been hearing a lot about troubled commercial real estate loans, high office vacancy rates and continued remote work. All of these factors and more are feeding back up the food chain to the folks who design and build office towers and other commercial properties. We’ll discuss. Also: $300 million in new military aid to Ukraine, and a virtual fitness company CEO on staying strong in a changing market.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/what-working-from-home-does-to-commercial-construction Save to Pocket

Argentina’s inflation rate finally falls

date: 2024-03-13, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: Argentina’s inflation — the world’s highest — has slowed down from 20.6% in January to 13.2% in February. Then, hundreds of U.K. post office managers were wrongly prosecuted after faulty computer software calculated that money was missing from their branches. Today, the government will introduce legislation to quash the convictions. And businesses in Chile are preparing to cut their employees’ hours from 45 to 40 hours a week following a new law.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/argentinas-inflation-rate-finally-falls Save to Pocket

A 1,000-Year-Old Viking Sword Emerges From an English River

date: 2024-03-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Discovered by a magnet fisher, the weapon dates to between 850 and 975, during the Vikings’ violent conquest of Britain

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-year-old-viking-sword-emerges-from-english-river-180983936/ Save to Pocket

Burglars Using Wi-Fi Jammers to Disable Security Cameras

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-12, from: Bruce Schneier blog

The arms race continues, as burglars are learning how to use jammers to disable Wi-Fi security cameras.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/03/burglars-using-wi-fi-jammers-to-disable-security-cameras.html Save to Pocket

Can AI shorten PC replacement cycles? Dell seems to think so

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Might be wishful thinking from finance exec following two-year computer sector recession

AI could be the mechanism to shorten notebook replacement cycles, according to the chief financial officer at Dell.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/dell_exec_reckons_aipowered_laptops/ Save to Pocket

Historic Staff Spotlight: Faye Geeslin

date: 2024-03-13, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog

It’s Women’s History Month, and we are taking a look at past staff and their many contributions to the National Archives throughout history. Today’s staff spotlight is on Faye Geeslin, who served as the administrative assistant for three Archivists of the United States.  Faye Geeslin (née Faye Killingsworth) was born on October 24, 1912, in … Continue reading Historic Staff Spotlight: Faye Geeslin

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/03/13/historic-staff-spotlight-faye-geeslin/ Save to Pocket

Velo AI smart bike light

date: 2024-03-13, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)

This smart bike light with road monitoring relies on Raspberry Pi’s capable low-power compute.

The post Velo AI smart bike light appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/velo-ai-smart-bike-light/ Save to Pocket

Sunak’s defunct SaaS scheme spent seven percent of budget designed to help 100,000 SMEs

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Unicorn Kingdom prime minister fails to provide £300 million of magic software beans promised

A local software subsidy scheme launched by UK PM Rishi Sunak, designed to help struggling small businesses following the pandemic, has spent less than seven percent of its £300 million budget.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/sunak_software_scheme_spends_7/ Save to Pocket

A Conversation With Biden’s Former Top Economic Advisor, Part 1

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heatmap News

Few people have shaped Bidenomics more than Brian Deese.

From 2021 to 2023, Deese led the National Economic Council at the White House, serving as President Joe Biden’s top economic aide during such events as the post-pandemic recovery, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Before that, Deese was global head of sustainable investing for Blackrock and a senior political advisor to President Barack Obama. He’s now the Institute Innovation Fellow at MIT, where he helps lead the Clean Investment Monitor, a project that tracks investment in climate technology and infrastructure across the U.S. economy.

On this episode, Deese joins Shift Key for a two-part conversation. Part 1 focuses on the future of Bidenomics, Biden’s State of the Union speech, what the 2024 campaign might mean for the politics and policy of climate change.

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

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

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Robinson Meyer: I want to start by talking about the State of the Union. Jesse, I feel like you had a stronger response to the State of the Union than I did. Where I saw it and I was like, yes, the president is talking about the IRA, he’s talking about big climate legislation, primarily in a jobs context. I feel like you were maybe more surprised.

Jesse Jenkins: What I was kind of expecting was Biden to lean in a bit more on the manufacturing Renaissance story. And he referenced it a couple times as sort of the high level numbers, which we can come back to, which probably came from your Clean Investment Monitor project, if I’m not mistaken. And he told the story of the Belvedere plant that was saved from bankruptcy through the UAW negotiations and is now being rebuilt as a EV manufacturing facility. But I was expecting him to say something more broadly about how we have been talking about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America for my entire lifetime, right, for decades.

And the previous president, of course, also made lots of promises about trying to support US manufacturing. And then of course, did basically nothing to do that. And Biden has an incredible track record on that front, an enormous amount of investment happening across multiple sectors, and in particular in the clean energy domain.
And maybe this is just the limits of a State of the Union address where you got to touch a lot of different issues. But I kind of expected him to lean into that a little bit more and to make it clear that it wasn’t just this one plant, that there are dozens of stories like Belvedere out there across the economy that are being fueled specifically by the Inflation Reduction Act, which by the way, he did never really mention by name.

So I was curious how you saw it and if you thought he had the right balance or maybe could have leaned in more or could do so in the future.

Brian Deese: Well, I think one of the things about State of the Unions is that its quality and moments are often more important than quantity. And so I think that may be a little bit of what’s going on.

But let me step back. Look, I think it was an excellent speech and I think it was delivered in an even more excellent way. And at the top line, the speech was designed to drive pace and clear contrast.

It’s interesting that some of the reaction has been partisan. But if you actually go through the speech, it’s really clear-eyed contrast. And a lot of the things where the contrast exists are between, as the president said multiple times, his predecessor and the vast majority of the American people. And that’s smart.

And the pace was evident from the get-go and positioned President Biden to do exactly what he wanted to do, was to get in the chamber at the podium and go at this thing and demonstrate his capability, but also his enthusiasm. I think for people who actually watched it on TV, you saw not only a president who was in command, but who was having a lot of fun. And a lot of fun because I think he believed in what he was doing.

So that’s the most important. And when you’re structuring a speech like this, you want to say, if that’s your goal is to try to have clear contrast and pace, how do you keep that going? I think in some ways the most important line which goes, Jesse, to the point you are making is he said something to the effect of, it doesn’t make the news, it doesn’t make the headlines, but in thousands of cities across America, people are writing the greatest comeback story never told.

And I would anticipate that in that idea, in thousands of cities and towns across America, greatest comeback story never told will be a consistent refrain and a throughline to try to get at exactly your point, which is there’s an element of that, which reflects a little bit of immediate criticism, right? The greatest comeback story never told, which is why do we never hear about these things going on again?

But it also reflects the kind of great American story that these comeback stories are in fact happening. And for the people and the communities themselves, it matters.

And look, I think that that’s where Belvedere fit in, which is oftentimes the best way to try to bring to life that idea is not by trying to describe or animate all of the ways in which it’s happening across the country and people like the three of us get very gripped by the overarching statistics.

But the story and the story of Belvedere was one that if you look across the speech, there aren’t that many moments where you can actually tell a story like that. And so there was a clear decision to say, this is a story and we are going to tell the story about clean energy manufacturing through the lens of a place and a community, which is really about jobs and grit and resilience. And for those who weren’t paying line by line attention to the story of Belvedere, is Belvedere, Illinois, home of a storied Chrysler plant that was initiated in 1965 I’ll continue to refer to Stellantis as Chrysler because I still can’t get over the idea that we’re not still referring it to as that name, but was basically for a whole bunch of reasons an auto plant that was on its back and then was closed and for a variety of reasons, including the strength of UAW’s negotiating posture, but also the prospect of bringing battery manufacturing here to the U.S., Belvedere has gone from, you know, is really a Phoenix rising story in a pretty concrete way.

So my takeaway from Jesse, your surprise, is that in fact, what the president did was provide a frame for going out and telling that great comeback story and going and telling it. And in fact, the way to tell it will actually be in individual stories in most cases.

Jenkins: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I guess what I was thinking was there’d be an opportunity to draw a sharper contrast, which would be pretty consistent with the rest of the speech between President Biden and his quote unquote predecessor. In the sense that really, I mean, we, we’ve been literally politicians have been promising to bring manufacturing back since the 70s and 80s, right.

And now we are seeing that investment really thanks to a whole suite of policies, some of them bipartisan, like CHIPS and Science, and some of them, you know, I think with broad support in the American public, like you’re saying, Brian, even if the partisan nature of the congressional debate right now, you know, makes it seem more partisan than it is, it’s, you know, these are broadly popular policies. So it was kind of expecting a little bit more contrast there.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by…

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

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

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-episode-6-brian-deese Save to Pocket

Fedora 41’s GNOME to go Wayland-only, says goodbye to X.org

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Don’t worry, you can still put it back, but it’s an accessibility snag

The Fedora development team is discussing dropping the GNOME on X11 session in Fedora 41, meaning that the flagship edition will be Wayland-only.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/fedora_41_drops_x_gnome/ Save to Pocket

Gary Horton | Joe Biden Stakes Out Reelection

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

President Joe Biden delivered his 2024 State of the Union address last week.   No doubt, Team Biden amped up their guy prior to the speech. Six cups of coffee? A shot of adrenaline? Whatever, Biden came out feisty and energetic (for Biden) and for over 60 minutes delivered a robust speech, both prepared and […]

The post Gary Horton | Joe Biden Stakes Out Reelection appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/gary-horton-joe-biden-stakes-out-reelection/ Save to Pocket

Mark White | Forward, Neutral, Reverse

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

Regarding Gary Horton’s column on March 6: Loud people — what does that even mean ­— pushing for Reverse, quiet people in Neutral and “some” forever pressing forward Drive gears. First of all, when you drive forward into a dead end or a cliff, you need to go into reverse – duh! Go forward on […]

The post Mark White | Forward, Neutral, Reverse appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

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David Godfrey | Letter Writer Confused, Once Again

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

In a recent letter (Feb. 22), Lois Eisenberg once again played the labeling game by attributing some crazy Taylor Swift conspiracy to the “MAGA Cult” and the Republican Party. No doubt she heard some crazy conspiracy story somewhere (those are everywhere) and has decided that the “Republican elites,” whoever they are, and the MAGA cult […]

The post David Godfrey | Letter Writer Confused, Once Again appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/david-godfrey-letter-writer-confused-once-again/ Save to Pocket

Erik Larsen | Truth, Consequences and Science

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

David Hegg’s Sunday column “Truth or Consequences?” (March 3) shows a lack of understanding of how the scientific method works, the difference between gender and sex, or the difference between morals and ethics. As a proud product of Santa Clarita’s excellent school system, I’d like to share some “truths” with him.   While the current […]

The post Erik Larsen | Truth, Consequences and Science appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

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Katherine Markova | A Committed Climate Champion

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the wider climate scientistic community, 2023 was the world’s warmest year on record by far, and 2024 is projected to be even hotter yet.   Climate change is the issue of our times. In 2024 we must elect leaders to the California Legislature to reduce emissions […]

The post Katherine Markova | A Committed Climate Champion appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/katherine-markova-a-committed-climate-champion/ Save to Pocket

Whizkids jimmy OpenAI, Google’s closed models

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Infosec folk aren’t thrilled that if you poke APIs enough, you learn AI’s secrets

Boffins have managed to pry open closed AI services from OpenAI and Google with an attack that recovers an otherwise hidden portion of transformer models.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/researchers_pry_open_closed_models/ Save to Pocket

The Savvy Senior | How to Get ‘Extra Help’ Paying for Prescriptions

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

Dear Savvy Senior,  Does Medicare offer any financial assistance programs to help seniors with their medication costs? I recently enrolled in a Medicare drug plan, but I take some expensive medications that have high out-of-pocket costs and need some help.  — Living on a Shoestring  Dear Living,  Yes, there’s a low-income subsidy program called “Extra […]

The post The Savvy Senior | How to Get ‘Extra Help’ Paying for Prescriptions appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/03/the-savvy-senior-how-to-get-extra-help-paying-for-prescriptions/ Save to Pocket

Office Hours: Will 2024 be another contested election?

date: 2024-03-13, from: Robert Reich on Substack

If Trump loses, what will he attempt to do and what should Dems be planning for right now?

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-will-2024-be-another Save to Pocket

Your PC can probably run inferencing just fine – so it’s already an AI PC

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Language models are entirely happy on the desktop

Opinion  What is it that makes a PC an AI PC? Beyond some vague hand-waving at the presence “neural processing units” and other features only available on the latest-and-greatest silicon, no-one has come up with a definition beyond an attempt to market some FOMO.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/age_of_ai_pc/ Save to Pocket

Today in SCV History (March 13)

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

1882 – Henry Mayo Newhall dies at 56 of erysipelas he contracted in SCV, his immune system having been weakened by malaria 2 years earlier. [story

https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-march-13/ Save to Pocket

Japan’s first private satellite launch imitates SpaceX’s giant explosions

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

KAIROS detonated a few seconds after clearing the launchpad

Video  On another bad day for Japan’s space industry, the nation’s first private satellite launch failed within seconds of launch.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/space_one_kairos_launch_fail/ Save to Pocket

March 12, 2024 (Tuesday)

date: 2024-03-13, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

Today, Democratic voters in Georgia gave President Joe Biden enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president when the Democratic National Convention is held in August. Republican voters in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington gave Trump enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination, although former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race last week, continues to win voters—more than 21% in Washington.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-12-2024-tuesday Save to Pocket

Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi adds electric vehicle to its mobility offerings

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

100,000 Chinese drivers join queue just to check out the ‘SU7’ in a showroom

The electric vehicle subsidiary of Chinese consumer electronics brand Xiaomi on Tuesday announced its first product – the Speed Ultra 7 (SU7) sedan – will be ready for deliveries this month.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/xiaomi_ev_ready/ Save to Pocket

Berkeley to Return Parking Lot on Sacred Site to Ohlone Tribe

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco Bay Area parking lot that sits on top of a sacred tribal shell mound dating back 5,700 years has been returned to the Ohlone people by the Berkeley City Council after a settlement with developers who own the land.

Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led, San Francisco Bay Area collective that works to return land to Indigenous people and that raised the funds needed to reach the agreement. 

“This was a long, long effort but it was honestly worth it because what we’re doing today is righting past wrongs and returning stolen land to the people who once lived on it,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin. 

The nearly 1-hectare parking lot is the only undeveloped portion of the West Berkeley shell mound, a three-block area Berkeley designated as a landmark in 2000. 

Before Spanish colonizers arrived in the region, that area held a village and a massive shell mound with a height of 6 meters and the length and width of a football field that was a ceremonial and burial site. Built over years with mussel, clam and oyster shells, human remains, and artifacts, the mound also served as a lookout. 

The Spanish removed the Ohlone from their villages and forced them into labor at local missions. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Anglo settlers took over the land and razed the shell mound to line roadbeds in Berkeley with shells.

“It’s a very sad and shameful history,” said Berkeley City Councilmember Sophie Hahn, who spearheaded the effort to return the land to the Ohlone. 

“This was the site of a thriving village going back at least 5,700 years and there are still Ohlone people among us and their connection to this site is very, very deep and very real, and this is what we are honoring,” she added. 

The agreement with Berkeley-based Ruegg & Ellsworth LLC, which owns the parking lot, comes after a six-year legal fight that started in 2018 when the developer sued the city after officials denied its application to build a 260-unit apartment building with 50% affordable housing and along with retail and parking space. 

The settlement was reached after Ruegg & Ellsworth agreed to accept $27 million to settle all outstanding claims and to turn the property over to Berkeley. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust contributed $25.5 million and Berkeley paid $1.5 million, officials said.

The trust plans to build a commemorative park with a new shell mound and a cultural center to house some of the pottery, jewelry, baskets and other artifacts found over the years and that are in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, addressed council members before they voted, saying their vote was the culmination of the work of thousands of people over many years. 

The mound that once stood there was “a place where we first said goodbye to someone,” she said. “To have this place saved forever, I am beyond words.”

Gould, who is also tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, attended the meeting via video conference and wiped away tears after Berkeley’s City Council voted to return the land.

https://www.voanews.com/a/berkeley-to-return-parking-lot-on-sacred-site-to-ohlone-tribe/7525466.html Save to Pocket

Big Shake-Up at Santa Barbara Public Library

date: 2024-03-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Library Director Jessica Cadiente and Library Services Manager Molly Wetta have been placed on indefinite leave.

The post Big Shake-Up at Santa Barbara Public Library appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/03/12/big-shake-up-at-santa-barbara-public-library/ Save to Pocket

South Korea cracks down on offshore e-commerce, with seeming focus on China

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Seoul wants AliExpress and Temu to step up customer service, maybe Meta too

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has announced a raft of measures aimed at ensuring offshore e-commerce services meet their service and support obligations. And it looks to be aimed squarely at Chinese retailers.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/south_korea_e_commerce_crackdown/ Save to Pocket

What is the Difference Between a Caucus and a Primary?

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

Before a presidential election can be held, political parties must choose their nominees. That is done either through primaries or caucuses.

https://www.voanews.com/a/what-is-the-difference-between-a-caucus-and-a-primary-/7525445.html Save to Pocket

Diversity and Female Artists in the Rising Music Industry

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

Festival season is upon us, and with that comes a whole new array of lineups and artists on the rise. Similar to other industries, the music industry has had a…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179383/arts-entertainment/entertainment/diversity-and-female-artists-in-the-rising-music-industry/ Save to Pocket

City Council members to get slight pay raises 

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

The Santa Clarita City Council approved at Tuesday’s meeting an amended motion to give council members a 2.5% pay raise starting in 2025.  The amendment from Councilwoman Marsha McLean came after the council voted against 10% pay raises, due to a technicality. McLean and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Miranda voted for the larger raise, with […]

The post <strong>City Council members to get slight pay raises</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

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Garcia calls for Chiquita landfill closure 

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

Schiavo issues call for state declaration of emergency  Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, called on Chiquita Canyon Landfill to cease operations while the facility addresses its growing problems, during a virtual address to the landfill’s Community Advisory Committee on Tuesday night, acknowledging county and state regulators’ growing frustration over problems at the Castaic facility.  Assemblywoman […]

The post <strong>Garcia calls for Chiquita landfill closure</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

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SBART Press Luncheon: Gabriel Lea Receives Scholar Athlete of the Year Award For Laguna Blanca

date: 2024-03-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Elina Stump, Jesse Di Maggio, Madeline Ferries and Will Harman received SBART Athlete of the Week awards.

The post SBART Press Luncheon: Gabriel Lea Receives Scholar Athlete of the Year Award For Laguna Blanca appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

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Charges still pending in year-old fatal hit-and-run 

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Signal

California Highway Patrol officers are still working to bring to justice the driver they think is responsible for a fatal hit-and-run collision in Agua Dulce in early 2023, officers said Monday.  Frustrated family members of Jeff Engels’ family have been waiting for answers since the tragedy on Feb. 7, 2023.  On that day, Engels was driving […]

The post <strong>Charges still pending in year-old fatal hit-and-run</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

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Dirty data shocks Indian taxpayers with huge bills

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Extra zeroes added to transaction values, just a handful of days before a payment deadline

India’s income tax collection efforts hit a snag this week when it was found that an automated data feed somehow added an extra two zeroes to the value of taxable transactions, resulting in the issuance of notices to individuals that wrongly overstated their tax liabilities.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/india_tax_goof/ Save to Pocket

GitHub fixes pull request delay that derailed developers

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Went down yesterday, too, longer and harder. Maybe we should call it GitFlub?

GitHub is experiencing a second day of degraded performance, following a bad update that threw the code locker into chaos.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/github_outage_two_days_running/ Save to Pocket

March 14: Arts Commission to Review Updates on City Art Projects

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Arts Commission is holding its regular meeting in City Hall’s Council Chambers Thursday, March 14 at 6 p.m

https://scvnews.com/march-14-arts-commission-to-review-updates-on-city-art-projects/ Save to Pocket

Classified Document Hearing Shows Stiff Partisan Divides on Biden’s Responsibility, Memory

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Tuesday turned a hearing about President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a charged referendum on a question central to the upcoming presidential election: the 81-year-old’s mental fitness. 

The Biden administration and their main challengers, the backers of presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, emerged from the House Judiciary Committee’s five-hour grilling of Special Counsel Robert Hur with radically different answers to that question.

They also starkly disagreed over Hur’s decision not to file criminal charges, despite concluding in his February report that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials as a private citizen.”

Criminal charges were not warranted, Hur argued in announcing his decision in early February, because, he said, Biden would likely present himself to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — words that Republican legislators repeated, repeatedly, during the hearing. 

Afterward, Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, gave his take:

“The main thing I took away from the hearing today was that we had three hours of the Republicans showing just how hypocritical they’re willing to be in order to politically attack the president at the same time that they and the Democrats and the special counsel himself laid bare exactly why there is no case here,” he said.

“The case is closed, the evidence did not support bringing charges, and it’s over,” Sams said. “It’s time to move on.”

Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, offered his own conclusion.

“Joe Biden put America’s national security at risk with his illegal retention and disclosure of classified material,” he said. “Biden lied about his wrongdoing in a national press conference, which begs the question — what else is Joe Biden lying about?” 

Further muddying the picture on the matter is Hur’s own grammatically complex statement: 

“The word exoneration does not appear anywhere in my report and that is not my conclusion,” Hur said. 

A newly released transcript of Hur’s five-hour interview held last year with Biden, includes instances of Biden saying he couldn’t recall details or citing dates incorrectly, appearing to say in one instance that his eldest son died in 2017 and that Trump, who was elected in 2016, was “elected in November of 2017.”

“The transcript is now available for every American to see, for all media to see,” Sams said. He noted it shows that, despite the confusion over the year of Beau Biden’s death, it shows that Biden correctly cited the date: May 30. 

“I think that you saw the anger and emotional reaction of a father who still experiences the pain of that loss every single day,” Sams said. 

Many Republicans used their five-minute question periods to compare Biden’s situation to that of his challenger. Trump, too, faces criminal charges over his handling of classified documents after he left office. He was initially slapped with 37 felony counts, including charges that he obstructed justice by failing to return the documents even in response to a subpoena. It’s not clear when that case will go to trial. 

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, in one sentence, took aim at the justice system and Biden’s mental acuity: “This guy’s not getting treated the same way as Trump, because the elevator is not going to the top floor, so we can’t prove intent.”

Democrats resisted that characterization. 

“Joe Biden is a competent, good president who knows American values,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen said.

Hur, in his opening statement, said he would “refrain from speculating or commenting on areas outside the scope of the investigation.”

But he also responded to criticism that he overstepped, saying he could not have reached the conclusion he did “without assessing the president’s state of mind.”

Other elected representatives chose not to ask Hur any questions, such as Missouri Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat, who described Hur’s report as a “partisan hit job” — though she said it was appropriate for both Trump and Biden to be investigated. 

“Our country deserves better than this,” she said of the hearing. 

Texas Representative Nathaniel Moran praised Hur’s efforts, asking him only yes-or-no questions and suggesting Biden could be ruled incompetent by a District of Columbia court and placed under guardianship. And he repeated the critical line from Hur’s report — words sure to echo over November’s presidential contest — although he prefaced it with an adjective, calling Biden a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/classified-document-hearing-shows-stiff-partisan-divides-on-biden-s-responsibility-memory/7525382.html Save to Pocket

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-13, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

Today Dropbox's paper, my favorite tool to write and share documents lost two documents that I had been editing for hours.

I can reproduce at will. No trace left of them.

I suspect this loved product is falling into neglect.

I tried Notion, but god it is slow. Are there other alternatives, for shared document editing that are fast and use Markdown for their backend?

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112085903623915325 Save to Pocket

Daily EV recap: Tesla offers early CT deliveries to select shareholders, Porsche to launch new EVs

date: 2024-03-13, from: Electrek Feed

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and…

https://electrek.co/2024/03/12/daily-ev-recap-tesla-offers-early-ct-deliveries-to-select-shareholders-porsche-to-launch-new-evs/ Save to Pocket

Steven Sinofsky: ‘Building Under Regulation’

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: Daring Fireball

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/215-building-under-regulation Save to Pocket

CSUN Prof Confident Media Will Survive Recent Newsroom Upheavals

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

As political polarization threatens the foundations of American democracy, newsrooms across the nation — which have long played a vital role in checking political power and keeping the citizenry informed — are laying off staff or disappearing all together

https://scvnews.com/csun-prof-confident-media-will-survive-recent-newsroom-upheavals/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

MacWrite and MacPaint, a coral reef.

http://scripting.com/2013/01/24/whatAboutMacwriteAndMacpaint.html Save to Pocket

March 28: VIA After Five Business Mixer at Resurgence IT

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Connect with other businesses and attend the Valley Industry Association After Five networking mixer on Thursday, March. 28, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at Resurgence IT, 25031 Avenue Stanford STE 10, Valencia, CA 91354.

https://scvnews.com/march-28-via-after-five-business-mixer-at-resurgence-it/ Save to Pocket

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-13, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Tim Berners-Lee’s idea for user-owned and controlled storage is good. Can’t tell you how many times, as a developer, I wanted this. To get it going it’ll need at least a couple of compelling apps, to seed the bootstrap. Like MacWrite and MacPaint for the Mac. Without that, it can’t even begin. I could help with their bootstrap if I had some belief they had would not crush developers, which is harder to do than it sounds. The only times it has worked for me, for a little while, was when I created the platform and apps and content (you need all three). But the huge companies have no vision for the role of developers, so these things rarely even get off the ground, and who’s going to sign up to believe in the goodness of a huge company. It’s a very steep road TBL has chosen to travel. I have argued with my friends at Automattic that they are in a golden position to do this since they already have a large installed base product that’s popular with users, and lots of developers who could make good use of storage attached to each account. I hope someone with deep pockets and longevity does it. Then we can really start building an app ecosystem on the net. We’ve been doing this for 35 years as TBL points out, and we still haven’t created an economic developer ecosystem on the web. Storage, believe it or not, is the big missing piece.

http://scripting.com/2024/03/12.html#a012558 Save to Pocket

Haiti’s Prime Minister Announces Resignation; US Pledges $100M More in Security Funds

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation Tuesday, the day after the United States pledged another $100 million to a United Nations-backed multinational security force intended to assist Haitian police in combating gangs, along with $33 million in humanitarian aid. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching reports.

https://www.voanews.com/a/haiti-s-prime-minister-announces-resignation-us-pledges-100m-more-in-security-funds/7525361.html Save to Pocket

Meet the Proxinator: A hyperbox that puts SATA at the heart of VMware migrations

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Proxmox box sees fresh dedicated hardware become part of the market for Virtzilla alternatives

Exclusive  Every vendor capable of spelling “virtualization” has spent a good chunk of 2024 making a pitch for its products as a fine alternative for folks discomfited by Broadcom’s takeover of VMware. Canadian outfit 45Drives has taken matters a step further by creating an entire product – the Proxinator – to lure those considering the open source Proxmox hyperconverged infrastructure stack.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/45drives_proxmox_proxinator/ Save to Pocket

Matadors hoping to win big at Big West Championships in Henderson

date: 2024-03-13, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

In year one of the Andy Newman era of CSUN men’s basketball, Newman successfully navigated the Matadors to the seventh seed in the 2024 Big West Basketball Championships. The Matadors…

https://sundial.csun.edu/179379/sports/matadors-hoping-to-win-big-at-big-west-championships-in-henderson/ Save to Pocket

Wednesday 13 March, 2024

date: 2024-03-13, from: John Naughton’s online diary

My TV critic I was the Observer’s TV critic for eight years, so I’ve done my tour of duty as a couch potato. Accordingly, I now watch very little TV, and this guy stands watching me accusingly whenever I succumb. … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-13-march-2024/39234/ Save to Pocket

TMU’s Kylee Sears Wins NAIA National Championship

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Kylee Sears won the 200-yard Freestyle by nearly two seconds Friday to win the first-ever national championship for The Master’s University in swimming

https://scvnews.com/tmus-kylee-sears-wins-naia-national-championship/ Save to Pocket

Biden, Trump Capture Their Parties’ Nominations, Set 2020 Rematch

date: 2024-03-13, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-captures-democratic-nomination-trump-on-pace-to-secure-republican/7525350.html Save to Pocket

March 16: ‘Astronaut School’ HOPE Theatre Arts Storytime

date: 2024-03-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Embark on a galactic journey when HOPE Theatre Arts presents “Astronaut School!,” a free Storytime event for kids and their adults

https://scvnews.com/march-16-astronaut-school-hope-theatre-arts-storytime/ Save to Pocket

March Patch Tuesday sees Hyper-V join the guest-host escape club

date: 2024-03-13, updated: 2024-03-13, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Critical bugs galore among 61 Microsoft fixes, 56 from Adobe, a dozen from SAP, and a fistful from Fortinet

Patch Tuesday  Microsoft’s monthly patch drop has arrived, delivering a mere 61 CVE-tagged vulnerabilities – none listed as under active attack or already known to the public.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/patch_tuesday_march_2024/ Save to Pocket

Subject codes, incomplete and unreliable, have got to go

date: 2024-03-13, from: Crossref Blog

Subject classifications have been available via the REST API for many years but have not been complete or reliable from the start and will soon be deprecated.

The subject metadata element was born out of a Labs experiment intended to enrich the metadata returned via Crossref Metadata Search with All Subject Journal Classification codes from Scopus. This feature was developed when the REST API was still fairly new, and we now recognize that the initial implementation worked its way into the service prematurely.

While subject classifications in Crossref metadata could be very useful, the current implementation in the REST API is problematic for three primary reasons:

They are misleadingly exposed in the API as a property of the work, when in fact they are a property of the container (e.g. a journal or conference proceeding). Just because a journal’s broad topic category is “X” doesn’t mean that a particular article in the journal is about “X.”

Existing works may have outdated subjects. Originally, subject codes were not updated periodically. However, subjects exposed in the /journals route are now updated once a day. Those exposed via the /works endpoint are indexed along with works, and so when a new subject list is ingested, new DOIs start getting new subjects, but existing works may have outdated subjects. We don’t have a mechanism for forcing updates when incorrect subject values are returned via the REST API, so this data can be stale and incorrect.

They are not applied to everything. This is because the Scopus list does not cover all the journals that Crossref has (conversely, the Scopus list contains some journals Crossref does not have), and does not contain other container types.

The Labs team investigated options for improving subject classification coverage but ultimately concluded that there are insufficient solutions to the coverage problem. For more, please see Esha Datta’s findings published at Force11’s Upstream: https://doi.org/10.54900/n6dnt-xpq48

Where does that leave us? Rather than continuing to supply unreliable and misleading subject category metadata, we will be deprecating this feature in the coming weeks. To minimize disruption and avoid breaking changes at this time, we will be removing this data from our index, so the subject element will simply be empty. We may remove the subject element in the future.

We know that the community’s desire for subject-based analysis of metadata is very strong, and we have supported efforts to establish a multidisciplinary taxonomy. Inaccurate codes in the meantime do not help but actually hinder these efforts, giving the false impression that they are correct.

We aim to deprecate the subject codes in April of this year.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns by leaving a comment below, which will start a thread in our community forum.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Will the subject field continue to be available and functional?
A. The subject metadata element will continue to be included in the JSON response but will not return any values.

Q. Will new subject codes be added in the future?
A. We do not have any current plans to add new subject codes in the future.

Q. I received a notification about this, but we don’t use subject codes. Do I need to do anything?
A. No, if you do not currently use the subject element, you do not need to do anything about this change.

Q. I noticed that wrong or inaccurate subject codes were assigned to my works. Is this a solution?
A. Yes. Until we can identify an accurate and sustainable system for assigning subject codes to Crossref metadata records, we want to stop assigning inaccurate subject codes and remove all existing assignments.

https://www.crossref.org/blog/subject-codes-incomplete-and-unreliable-have-got-to-go/ Save to Pocket

A Collection of Design Engineers

date: 2024-03-13, from: Maggie Appleton blog

https://maggieappleton.com/design-engineers Save to Pocket

GHC 9.10.1-alpha1 is now available

date: 2024-03-13, from: Glasgow Haskell Compiler

GHC 9.10.1-alpha1 is now available

bgamari - 2024-03-13

The GHC developers are very pleased to announce the availability of the first alpha release of GHC 9.10.1. Binary distributions, source distributions, and documentation are available at downloads.haskell.org.

We hope to have this release available via ghcup shortly.

GHC 9.10 will bring a number of new features and improvements, including:

• The introduction of the GHC2024 language edition, building upon GHC2021 with the addition of a number of widely-used extensions.

• Partial implementation of the GHC Proposal #281, allowing visible quantification to be used in the types of terms.

• Extension of LinearTypes to allow linear let and where bindings

• The implementation of the exception backtrace proposal, allowing the annotation of exceptions with backtraces, as well as other user-defined context

• Further improvements in the info table provenance mechanism, reducing code size to allow IPE information to be enabled more widely

• Javascript FFI support in the WebAssembly backend

• Improvements in the fragmentation characteristics of the low-latency non-moving garbage collector.

• … and many more

A full accounting of changes can be found in the release notes. As always, GHC’s release status, including planned future releases, can be found on the GHC Wiki status.

Many will notice that this release comes a fair bit later than the previously-announced schedule. While this delay has been attributable to a variety factors, the most recent cause is a set of issues with GHC 9.10’s binary distributions on Windows (#24542). Instead of continuing to hold up the release process while we sort out this situation, we have instead provided this alpha without the usual assortment of Windows binary distributions. We expect to have this resolved by alpha 2; apologies to eager Windows testers for this delay.

We would like to thank GitHub, IOG, the Zw3rk stake pool, Well-Typed, Tweag I/O, Serokell, Equinix, SimSpace, the Haskell Foundation, and other anonymous contributors whose on-going financial and in-kind support has facilitated GHC maintenance and release management over the years. Finally, this release would not have been possible without the hundreds of open-source contributors whose work comprise this release.

As always, do give this release a try and open a [ticket][] if you see anything amiss.

http://haskell.org/ghc/blog/20240313-ghc-9.10.1-alpha1-released.html Save to Pocket