News gathered 2024-03-25
(date: 2024-03-25 08:38:05)
IT trade union confirms cybersecurity experts investigating IT, email outage
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Systems have been pulled offline as a precaution
Exclusive The Communications Workers Union (CWU), which represents hundreds of thousands of employees in sectors across the UK economy including tech and telecoms, is currently working to mitigate a cyberattack.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/cwu_security_incident/
Size matters: TGE, Volvo roll out Australia’s largest all-electric logistics fleet
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
Since taking delivery of sixty all-electric delivery trucks, Team Global Express now has the largest all-electric logistics fleet in service in Australia.
Over 16,000 Tesla Supercharger Stalls Open To Ford, Rivian And Others: Exec
date: 2024-03-25, from: Inside EVs News
Time-consuming utility interconnections are the only major hurdle to adding more stalls, Tesla’s public policy expert said.
https://insideevs.com/news/713705/16000-tesla-supercharger-stalls-open-ford-rivian-others/
Could these simple, secure e-bike charging stations be the solution America needs?
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
There’s no doubt that the issue of safely charging e-bikes is a growing topic of concern in the US. And while the media frenzy around relatively rare e-bike fires is often overblown, it doesn’t rule out a real risk associated with lithium-ion batteries. Now, a new charging solution designed in the US could provide an answer to the problem.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/25/electric-bike-charging-stations-mod-bikes/
49ers stage ownership shift: Jed York to succeed mother as primary owner
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 49ers are seeking NFL approval to move CEO Jed York into the primary owner role that has been held the past 24 years by his mother, Denise DeBartolo York.
As Boeing’s CEO steps down, union negotations ramp up
date: 2024-03-25, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Boeing’s CEO has announced plans to step down just as the company begins negotiations with its largest labor union, which could authorize a strike in July if its demands aren’t meant. Also, the European Union’s antitrust regular investigates Apple, Google and Meta; why new home sales have become such a large chunk of the housing market; and tracing Haiti’s economic history from its founding to the current crisis.
XPeng AeroHT’s modular ‘flying car’ design gets certified, moving closer to commercial operations
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
XPeng’s eVTOL arm, AeroHT, announced its latest milestone today in a quest to achieve commercial operations of its all-electric “flying cars” in China. The company has successfully received design certification from the powers that be for its air module vehicle, codenamed X3-F, bringing the technology one step closer to flight certification and customer deliveries.
Orange Pi Neo Linux handheld gaming PC to sell for $499 and up
date: 2024-03-25, from: Liliputing
The Orange Pi Neo is an upcoming handheld gaming PC with some of the features we’ve come to expect in this space. It has a 7 inch FHD+ display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and it will be available with a choice of AMD Ryzen 7 7840U or Ryzen 7 8840U processor options. But it’s […]
The post Orange Pi Neo Linux handheld gaming PC to sell for $499 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/orange-pi-neo-linux-handheld-gaming-pc-to-sell-for-499-and-up/
Jill On Money: Will real estate commissions settlement impact home prices?
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
In a real estate market that remains dislocated due to low levels of inventory, the answer is probably not any time soon
Mozilla fixes $100,000 Firefox zero-days following two-day hackathon
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Users may have to upgrade twice to protect their browsers
Mozilla has swiftly patched a pair of critical Firefox zero-days after a researcher debuted them at a Vancouver cybersec competition.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/mozilla_fixes_firefox_zerodays/
Trump Looking to Delay Hush Money Criminal Trial
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-looking-to-delay-hush-money-criminal-trial-/7541558.html
The Best Qubits for Quantum Computing Might Just Be Atoms
date: 2024-03-25, from: Quanta Magazine
In the search for the most scalable hardware to use for quantum computers, qubits made of individual atoms are having a breakout moment.The post The Best Qubits for Quantum Computing Might Just Be Atoms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-best-qubits-for-quantum-computing-might-just-be-atoms-20240325/
International Space Station Program Deputy Chief Scientist Meghan Everett
date: 2024-03-25, from: NASA breaking news
“Don’t be afraid to go after the things that you’re dreaming about that aren’t necessarily possible right now. We do things all the time now that were impossible 10 years ago! Figure out how to make the impossible possible, if it’s what you want to do. “One of my cornerstone pinnacles [is], ’Show up to […]
BYD launches lower-priced version of its Tesla Model 3 rival electric sedan, starting at $25K
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
Global EV leader BYD launched a new version of its Seal electric sedan Monday, with starting prices around $25,000 (179,800 yuan). The Seal Honor Edition is BYD’s latest lower-priced EV to roll out, fueling its “liberation battle” against gas-powered cars.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/25/byd-undercuts-tesla-model-3-with-its-new-electric-sedan/
GoFetch security exploit can’t be disabled on M1 and M2 Apple chips
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
For now, cryptographic work should be run on slower Icestorm cores
The GoFetch vulnerability found on Apple M-series and Intel Raptor Lake CPUs has been further unpacked by the researchers who first disclosed it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/gofetch_security_exploit_demoed/
What The 2024 Election Could Mean For EV Tax Credits
date: 2024-03-25, from: Inside EVs News
Campaign rhetoric points to an uncertain future for EV incentives if Republicans win big this fall.
https://insideevs.com/news/713548/election-2024-ev-tax-credit/
E-quipment highlight: Daimler, Hexagon partner on electric utility trucks
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
Daimler Trucks’ Freightliner brand trucks are industry leaders in the medium and heavy-duty vocational truck market. Now, they’re going to be leaders in the zero emission work truck market, too, thanks to their partnership with Hexagon Purus.
Using an AI code generator with school-age beginner programmers
date: 2024-03-25, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
AI models for general-purpose programming, such as OpenAI Codex, which powers the AI pair programming tool GitHub Copilot, have the potential to significantly impact how we teach and learn programming. The basis of these tools is a ‘natural language to code’ approach, also called natural language programming. This allows users to generate code using a…
The post Using an AI code generator with school-age beginner programmers appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/using-an-ai-code-generator-with-school-age-beginner-programmers/
Jalapeños are less spicy now because big pepper product producers procure alternate…
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/03/0044256-jalapenos-are-less-spicy-
113 years after Triangle Fire, worker revolt rises across US
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
There were nearly 25 million work days on strike in 2023 in the US – a five-fold increase in a year.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/25/113-years-after-triangle-fire-worker-revolt-rises-across-us/
US Vice President to Meet Guatemalan Leader on Immigration, Anti-Corruption Drive
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet on Monday with President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala as the U.S. grapples with an influx of migrants to its southern border, thousands from that Central American nation.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the Biden administration’s use of so-called “safe mobility offices,” which were set up in Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador in the fall, among other immigration matters. The safe mobility offices are designed to streamline the U.S. refugee process so migrants apply where they are and avoid paying smugglers to make the journey north.
As the 2024 election heats up, immigration has become a rising bipartisan concern. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress say the system is broken, but efforts by lawmakers to address the problems have failed. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with working to address the reasons people choose to leave their homelands to migrate to the U.S.
Harris and Arévalo will also discuss Arévalo’s anti-corruption agenda and how the U.S. can support the effort, according to a White House official, previewing the talks on the condition of anonymity.
Arévalo won the presidency in August, beating the establishment candidate by a comfortable margin. He is the son of a former president credited with implementing some of Guatemala’s key labor protections, but his strong showing in a crowded field was still a shock.
The politician with a background in academia and conflict resolution caught fire with a message of challenging the country’s entrenched power structure and resuming the fight against corruption.
The Democratic vice president is also expected to announce $5.2 billion in investments in Central America.
While still among the lowest monthly tallies in Biden’s presidency, the number of arrests for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border nudged upward in February over the previous month to 189,922. Of those, 23,780 were Guatemalan.
The feds want to study giving cash to renters. Will Californians be included?
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
HUD wants to see what happens when you give cash directly to renters, instead of traditional vouchers. At least one Bay Area housing authority is interested.
IM Motors’ L6 EV promises huge range and AWD performance thanks to solid-state batteries
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
Chinese EV automaker IM Motors is on the cusp of launching its fourth EV model and is touting some impressive specs to get the hype train going. The company’s co-CEO recently shared that the new L6 EV will be powered by a 900V platform equipped with solid-state batteries that can deliver over 1,000 km of range on a single charge.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/25/im-motors-l6-ev-promises-range-awd-performance-solid-state-batteries/
Designing The Light Source for IRIS
date: 2024-03-25, from: Bunnie’s Studio Blog
This post is part of a longer-running series about giving users a tangible reason to trust their hardware through my IRIS (Infra-Red, in-situ) technique. IRIS allows us to see the insides of certain types of chips, even after they are soldered to a circuit board. This is possible because under infrared light, silicon is practically […]
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=7035
Boeing top brass stand down amid safety turbulence
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
They were all planning on leaving anyway, company claims
The door plug on Boeing’s C-suite has flown off, taking the CEO, board chair, and head of its commercial airplane division with it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/boeing_leadership_exits/
Hubble Sees New Star Proclaiming Presence with Cosmic Lightshow
date: 2024-03-25, from: NASA breaking news
Jets emerge from the cocoon of a newly forming star to blast across space, slicing through the gas and dust of a shining nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, […]
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
This is a screen shot of my blogroll. I can have posts from Mastodon or Bluesky here. But not Threads. It’s really easy. Just support outbound RSS and we can add you to the club.
http://scripting.com/2024/03/25.html#a135719
Tesla releases new vision-based auto parking system
date: 2024-03-25, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla has started to release a new version of its auto parking system, an updated automated parking for its newer vision-only vehicles.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/25/tesla-releases-new-vision-based-auto-parking-system/
Baseball season 2024: SF Giants’ field operations sends in the drones at Oracle Park
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
How does the head of field operations for an MLB park keep that field so pristine? With drones, robo-mowers and old-fashioned expertise. Here’s the story.
Boeing CEO to step down in broader management shakeup after blowout of a panel on a 737 Max
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit, will retire immediately, with Stephanie Pope, the company’s chief operating officer, will lead the division.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I
was glad to have
3 Body
Problem to binge over the weekend. Created by the showrunners for
Game of Thrones based on a much-loved series of science fiction
novels,
which btw I have not read. This was emphatically not Game of Thrones,
though some of the actors played roles in both series, and in each case
that was awkward. Not the best actors, they didn’t get much screentime
in GoT, but here, they get the big lines and omg it was embarrassing,
they don’t pull it off. Creepy. I loved the first four episodes,
incredible story, and the special effects, awesome. Then it really
started to stink in episodes in 6 and 7, endless stupid dialog with
music that made every stupid thing like a climax of a sort. But I was
still watching, and then it came back roaring in the final episode. On
the other hand it’s like so much of today’s TV, superheros, epic
conflicts, resolution, good guys win. A cross between
Lost
and Ender’s
Game. A space adventure and the supernatural. Net-net – it
was worth it. A good distraction, I will probably watch Season
2.
http://scripting.com/2024/03/25.html#a133510
Jasmin Paris Kicks Ass
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/03/25/jasmin-paris-kicks-ass/
The way Apple, Alphabet implemented DMA rules ‘seems to be at odds’ with law
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
European Commission says 12-month investigation could lead to fine of up to 10% of global revenue
The European Commission is opening its first official probes under the Digital Markets Act with a focus on curbing the power of tech titans Apple, Meta, and Alphabet via threats of heavy fines.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/ec_antitrust_team_opens_dma/
Travel Troubleshooter: Vrbo promised to cover my rental bill in Hawaii, so why won’t it?
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
When Cheryl Mander’s Vrbo rental in Hawaii is uninhabitable, the rental platform agrees to cover her new accommodations. But then it backs out. What happened?
Is Oakland cat’s preference for drinking from a cup just a ‘cat thing?’
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Plus, what happened to my carrots? Has Peter Rabbit gone subterranean?
Wish You Were Here: Touring ancient Roman ruins in Tunisia
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
You don’t normally think of Roman ruins in Northern Africa, but that ancient civilization’s colonial efforts encompassed the entire Mediterranean region.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/03/25/wish-you-were-here-touring-ancient-roman-ruins-in-tunisia/
Oakland A’s manager Mark Kotsay shines in one of the toughest jobs in baseball
date: 2024-03-25, from: San Jose Mercury News
Manager Mark Kotsay earns rave reviews despite Oakland A’s mounting losses, Las Vegas relocation and other off-field distractions.
Nissan’s Comeback Plan Includes EVs 30% Cheaper Than Ariya, More Models
date: 2024-03-25, from: Inside EVs News
We look at Nissan’s updated strategy for the next few years, and ask: is the threat of Chinese EVs overblown?
https://insideevs.com/news/713666/nissan-the-arc-cm/
Gelsinger woos Musk as Intel seeks to drum up Foundry Services business
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s just not economical for Chipzilla to be the factories’ only customer these days
Intel is keen to get its Foundry Services strategy off the ground and draw in more customers. With this in mind, it’s made a move to cultivate Elon Musk and finalized an agreement with Arm intended to make it easier for chip designers to get their products built.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/intel_foundry_services_clients/
Age Verification Laws Drag Us Back to the Dark Ages of the Internet
date: 2024-03-25, from: 404 Media Group
Invasive and ineffective age verification laws that require users show government-issued ID, like a driver’s license or passport, are passing like wildfire across the U.S.
https://www.404media.co/age-verification-laws-will-drag-us-back-to-the-dark-ages-of-online-porn/
The Quest to Clean Up Heavy Industry in America
date: 2024-03-25, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Hong Kong recorded its highest March temperature in 140 years • Miami’s Ultra Music Festival was evacuated due to severe weather • Tornadoes are possible today across east Texas and through the Lower Mississippi Valley.
THE TOP FIVE
- Biden administration backs 33 projects to help decarbonize
industrial sector
As expected, the Biden administration today announced that 33 projects have been selected to receive a slice of $6 billion in government funding to speed up the decarbonization of America’s industrial sector. The projects cover some of the most energy-intensive industries, like cement, chemicals, steel, and food production. The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) expects the projects to cut the equivalent of more than 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million gasoline-powered cars. The initiatives are also expected to help create a lot of new jobs, and about 80% of the projects are located in disadvantaged communities. Some project examples here:
- Century Aluminum Company could get up to $500 million to build a new “green” aluminum smelter that cuts emissions by 75% compared to a traditional smelter due to its energy-efficient design and use of carbon-free energy.
- Brimstone Energy could get up to $189 million to build its first commercial-scale demo plant to produce carbon-free industry standard cement.
- ExxonMobil could get up to $331.9 million for its Baytown Olefins Plant Carbon Reduction Project, which would use hydrogen instead of natural gas to produce ethylene, an important chemical used in tons of things like packaging and vehicles.
- New open-source data set will help public sort through 2,000
electrification incentives
A group of nonprofits is working on an open-source data set that lists every residential electrification incentive in the country. The ambitious project is called the National Open Data for Electrification (NODE) Collective, and it’s being organized by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, Eli Technologies, the Building Decarbonization Coalition, Rewiring America, and RMI, but they’re looking for additional collaborators and stakeholders as they build up the data set for eventual launch. “Government-funded rebates, tax credits, and other purchasing incentives can be a key driver of consumer adoption of pollution-free technologies like heat pumps, yet navigating fragmented and outdated data can be a confusing and frustrating process,” Andre Meurer, head of product at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said in a press release. The NODE Collective is expected to cover more than 2,000 incentives on offer, from heat pumps and induction stovetops to home battery storage and electric panel upgrades, and the list will be maintained so nothing is out of date.
- Experts urge NOAA to tighten regulations around solar geoengineering
A group of environmental law professors and policy experts are urging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to tighten the rules around weather modification in the U.S. so they apply more stringently to private solar geoengineering projects. NOAA’s existing rule “requires only a heads-up before experiments to modify the weather,” E&E News explained. In a petition filed this month, the experts requested NOAA update its rule in three ways: First, they want anyone applying to use solar geoengineering (which involves spraying aerosols into the sky to bring down temperatures) to report details of their project that can help gauge potential risks and impacts. Second, the petitioners want to see more reporting requirements for international geoengineering projects that could affect U.S. citizens. And third, they want NOAA to come up with a more comprehensive strategy to study and regulate solar geoengineering activities.
- EU’s nature restoration law faces uncertain future
One of the European Union’s biggest environmental policies is in trouble. The nature restoration law would require countries to restore nature on 20% of their land and sea by 2030 in an effort to “help achieve the EU’s climate and biodiversity objectives and enhance food security.” More than 80% of Europe’s natural habitats are classed as in poor condition. A vote on the law was canceled today after Hungary withdrew support, putting the regulation in jeopardy. The bloc’s green policies have come under increased scrutiny in recent months ahead of EU Parliament elections in June, especially after months of disruptive protests by farmers. However a poll published today found that more than half of European voters see fighting climate change as a priority.
- EPA continues its crackdown on greenhouse gas smuggling
The EPA last week imposed its largest fine yet to a company accused of attempting to smuggle greenhouse gases into the U.S. Resonac America must pay $416,003 and destroy 1,693 pounds of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) it tried to import illegally on four occasions. HFCs are used as refrigerants but are being phased out because they are “super climate pollutants” with far greater warming potential than carbon dioxide. The U.S. still allows imports of HFCs but only when companies apply for “allowances” – and those allowances are getting smaller each year, with the goal of reducing the country’s HFC consumption and production by 85% by 2036. As the phase-down continues, the EPA wants to discourage the development of an HFC black market by showing zero tolerance on illegal imports. Recently a California man was charged with bringing HFCs in from Mexico.
THE KICKER
Brazil has seen a surge in proposed laws requiring water be provided at large events after an extreme heatwave during a Taylor Swift concert last year. The influx has been nicknamed the “ Taylor Swift effect.”
https://heatmap.news/economy/industry-decarbonize-biden-funding
Only The Hyundai Ioniq 6 Has Everything ‘Next-Wave’ EV Buyers Want: Study
date: 2024-03-25, from: Inside EVs News
How do EVs get past early adopters and break into the mainstream? Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 may offer some clues.
https://insideevs.com/news/713576/ioniq-6-boston-consulting-study/
The New All-Electric VMoto Stash Motorcycle Set To Enter Europe
date: 2024-03-25, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The Stash is ready to make quick work of city traffic.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/711456/vmoto-stash-electric-motorcycle-coming-soon-europe/
Boeing CEO to Step Down This Year, Board Chairman to Exit, Head of Commercial Airplanes Retires
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
EU opens non-compliance investigations against Alphabet, Apple and Meta under the Digital Markets Act
date: 2024-03-25, from: OS News
It turns out Apple, Facebook, and Google were not as clever with their malicious compliance with the European Union’s DMA as they thought they were, as the European Commission has opened investigations into their compliance plans. Especially Apple, who has been most public about its malicious compliance, seems to be the target. Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s “pay or consent model”. The Commission suspects that the measures put in place by these gatekeepers fall short of effective compliance of their obligations under the DMA. In addition, the Commission has launched investigatory steps relating to Apple’s new fee structure for alternative app stores and Amazon’s ranking practices on its marketplace. Finally, the Commission has ordered gatekeepers to retain certain documents to monitor the effective implementation and compliance with their obligations. ↫ European Commission press release This is entirely unsurprising. Google’s and Facebook’s compliance plans were less scrutinised in the press, but all still raised questions about whether they would pass mustard. Apple’s plans, meanwhile, were universally seen as deeply malicious and not compliant, and it seems the European Commission agrees. Apple’s continuous wild, flailing attacks on the EU and the DMA certainly aren’t helping, either. There’s no denying Apple’s behaviour has been deeply unprofessional and anti-European Union, which contrasts strongly with how Apple and Tim Cook operate in China, where they face much stricter rules than they do in the EU. Tim Cook is currently in China praising and buttering up to the Chinese totalitarian regime, while the company has been attacking the European Union and DMA almost non-stop for months now. It really shows where Apple’s priorities lie. Meanwhile, Facebook’s pay-for-privacy model was always going to be a hard sell at €10 a month, and as such, the company already announced it was going to cut that cost in half. Google’s plans are a bit more nebulous, since it’s a bit more difficult to see tangible results from things like search rankings, but it seems here, too, the European Commission has its worries about compliance. The European Commission intends to complete its investigations within a year, and if found in violation of the law, companies can be fined for up to 10% of their worldwide turnover, which can grow up to 20% for repeated infringements.
Reducing Risks Through Independent M&S
date: 2024-03-25, from: NASA breaking news
This article is from the 2023 Technical Update. The NESC Flight Mechanics Technical Discipline Team (TDT) provides support to all NASA Mission Directorates and throughout all mission phases. Highlights from this past year include three critical program support assessments, new discipline-advancing capabilities in simulation tools, and a preview of future efforts by the TDT to capture […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/nesc/reducing-risks-through-independent-mamps/
The Hyundai Ioniq 6 Is Now The Cheapest Car To Lease In The U.S.
date: 2024-03-25, from: Inside EVs News
How does $239/month with no down payment sound?
https://insideevs.com/news/713621/2024-hyundai-ioniq-6-cheapest-lease-us/
Fujitsu’s 30-year-old UK customs system just keeps hanging on
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
After declaring the end of CHIEF at least five times in as many years, HMRC hopes this June 2024 date will stick
The UK’s tax collector has named the date for migrating from a 30-year-old customs IT system for the fifth time in as many years after planning its replacement for more than a decade.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/hmrc_chief_system_retirement/
Floorp Firefox fork makes its modifications closed source due to forks
date: 2024-03-25, from: OS News
Recently, a few people suggested I give the browser Floorp a try, a Firefox fork with some additional UI changes and additions. Since it was based on Firefox ESR, however, I saw no point in even trying it, because I prefer to be on the latest Firefox release. It seems I accidentally made the right choice, since yesterday the developers behind Floorp decided to take their modifications closed source. The appearance of Floorp forks – which, may I remind you, is a fork itself – seems to be the cause. I know it’s not nice of me to say, but Floorp has been in too much demand. It am surprise to me that companies and organizations would fork a fork that I had created when I was still a teenager, and at first I was happy about it, but it was not beneficial to me, and on the contrary, it was mentally draining. There were forks that wanted to hide the fact that they were Floorp forks, forks that did not want to contribute to Floorp at all, forks that used the code for life and just changed the name of Floorp, and many other forks were born. ↫ Floorp blog It seems the developer of Floorp is rather young, and started the project as a teenager, and as such, I don’t think we should be too harsh on them – I did some dumb things as a teenager – but complaining about forks of your own fork seems a bit disingenuous, regardless of how young and inexperienced you are. I understand seeing your work forked into competing browsers can be frustrating, but it’s a core part of the open source world, especially if you yourself owe your product to forking, too.
Is My Kid’s LAUSD Campus Safe From Earthquakes?
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The LAist
Hundreds of LAUSD buildings may still need to be retrofitted. How can you figure out if your kid’s school is safe?
https://laist.com/news/education/kids-lausd-campus-earthquake-safe
As Trump Media goes public, Nordstrom attempts to go private
date: 2024-03-25, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Today’s the deadline for former President Donald Trump to come up with more than $450 million in cash or bond to cover New York State’s civil fraud judgement against him. He could get a quick hit of cash as Truth Social’s parent company goes public with the help of a merger with something called a SPAC. Meanwhile, Nordstrom is making another attempt to remove itself from public trading and go back to being a private company. The retailer tried and failed to make a similar move back in 2018.
How would you sum up a decade of Kubernetes?
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The CNCF is looking for a tenth anniversary logo
Logowatch Are you feeling creative? To celebrate ten years of Kubernetes, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is seeking a design for an anniversary logo. Perhaps just the letters A and I crudely taped onto a ship’s wheel would do the job?…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/cncf_logo_competition/
Living history
date: 2024-03-25, from: Status-Q blog
I was delighted to meet my great-nephew Jonathan — my brother’s daughter’s son — for the first time at the weekend. I remember, in my childhood, meeting my Great-Aunt Grace. (She deserved that degree of capitalisation.) Though always kind, I remember her as a rather formidable woman from a different world. She lived in central Continue Reading
https://statusq.org/archives/2024/03/25/11981/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
If you want to watch my blogroll from a mobile device, this is the place to go.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
NASA eclipse map.
https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/where-when/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
6 U.S. cities in the 2024 eclipse's path of totality.
https://theweek.com/travel/solar-eclipse-path-of-totality-2024
Licensing AI Engineers
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-21, from: Bruce Schneier blog
The debate over professionalizing software engineers is decades old. (The basic idea is that, like lawyers and architects, there should be some professional licensing requirement for software engineers.) Here’s a law journal article recommending the same idea for AI engineers.
This Article proposes another way: professionalizing AI engineering. Require AI engineers to obtain licenses to build commercial AI products, push them to collaborate on scientifically-supported, domain-specific technical standards, and charge them with policing themselves. This Article’s proposal addresses AI harms at their inception, influencing the very engineering decisions that give rise to them in the first place. By wresting control over information and system design away from companies and handing it to AI engineers, professionalization engenders trustworthy AI by design. Beyond recommending the specific policy solution of professionalization, this Article seeks to shift the discourse on AI away from an emphasis on light-touch, ex post solutions that address already-created products to a greater focus on ex ante controls that precede AI development. We’ve used this playbook before in fields requiring a high level of expertise where a duty to the public welfare must trump business motivations. What if, like doctors, AI engineers also vowed to do no harm?…
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/03/licensing-ai-engineers.html
Doctors Take Another Step Toward Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants With the First Pig Kidney Transplant
date: 2024-03-25, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The experimental procedure was done on a man experiencing end-stage kidney failure last week who had been on the transplant waiting list for two years
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-human-receives-pig-kidney-transplant-180984016/
The UK Digital Information Bill: Brexit dividend or data disaster?
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Move could ‘weaken’ Brits’ personal data rights when info is transferred outside Europe
Comment The UK government’s proposed data protection law reform seeks to create a more business-friendly regime, though its implementation could further complicate the international flow of data between Britain and Europe, which potentially outweighs any benefits to business.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/uk_digital_information_bill_feature/
Could reshoring hurt global trade?
date: 2024-03-25, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the World Trade Organization’s director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says that when countries bring production back home — known as “reshoring” — it does not necessarily make supply chains more resilient. She thinks it contributes to a fragmentation of global trading relationships. Plus, how the popularity of the Mediterranean island Ibiza has driven up rents, making life hard for workers and the tourist businesses that employ them. And the streets of Paris see the return of a historic race of cafe servers.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/could-reshoring-hurt-global-trade
UK health department republishes £330M Palantir contract with fewer ██████
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
As Good Law Project considers response, ICO slams failure to comply with FoI request
The UK health department has republished its contracts with US spy-tech company Palantir, blanking out fewer sections, following a warning from legal campaigners.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/nhs_palantir_contract_republished/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump’s $454 Million Judgment Is Due.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/03/25/trumps-454-million-judgment-is-due/
YAFC Flux Capacitor | #MagPiMonday
date: 2024-03-25, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
A classic time travel film prop brought about via Raspberry Pi caught the eye of Rosie Hattersley, a sucker for all things 1980s. It’s yet another flux capacitor!
The post YAFC Flux Capacitor | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/yafc-flux-capacitor/
Time to examine the anatomy of the British Library ransomware nightmare
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Mistakes years in the making tell a universal story that must not be ignored
Opinion Quiz time: name one thing you know about the Library of Alexandria. Points deducted for “it’s a library. In Alexandria.” Looking things up is cheating and you know it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/opinion_column/
The Future of Deep Sea Mining Is Being Decided — Without the U.S.
date: 2024-03-25, from: Heatmap News
There’s a lot of metal sitting at the bottom of the ocean. A single swath of seabed in the eastern Pacific holds enough nickel, cobalt and manganese to electrify America’s passenger vehicle fleet several times over. But whether to mine this trove for the energy transition is an open question — one that’s sparked many an internecine feud among environmentalists.
Most of the seabed in question falls beyond the jurisdiction of any one country. This area, the High Seas, covers a whopping 43% of Earth’s surface. And one group decides whether (and how) to mine it: the International Seabed Authority. Created by the United Nations, the ISA counts 168 nations among its members.
This month, ISA policymakers are meeting in Jamaica to hash out the rules of the road for a future seabed mining industry. They’ll debate everything from environmental protection to financial regulation of mining companies.
ISA members include every major economy with an ocean coastline — except the United States.
The U.S. has yet to ratify the global treaty that chartered the ISA back in 1982. That leaves America sidelined as ISA member countries decide on such matters as the fate of the global ocean and the pace of the energy transition. You know, small stuff.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, has been leading a lonely, decade-long quest to convince Senate Republicans to abandon their long-held skepticism of the ISA. “Our hands are tied behind our backs,” Murkowski told me. She argues the U.S. has lost the reins on some of the biggest questions surrounding critical minerals sourcing. “When it comes to the ISA, it’s China that is determining the rules. That’s not a good place for us to be.”
A new, bipartisan resolution in the Senate could finally give the U.S. a full seat at the global table in seabed mining negotiations. The legislation faces an uphill climb but, if passed, could allow the Biden administration to take victory laps on two of its ostensible priorities: ocean conservation and decoupling from China-controlled supply chains of critical minerals.
American exceptionalism at sea
Marine experts affectionately dub the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea the constitution for the oceans. The treaty sets ground rules for all manner of seafaring activity on the High Seas, including transit, fishing, and cable laying. And despite that there was no deep seabed mining happening at the time (there still isn’t, yet), UNCLOS was clear about who owns all that metal under the sea.
“It’s everyone’s property,” Andrew Thaler, a deep-sea ecologist and CEO of the marine consultancy Blackbeard Biologic, told me. “It codifies the idea that this is a shared resource among all of humanity,” said Thaler. “And it has to be managed as such.”
Lofty ideals, with practical implications. Under UNCLOS, a country cannot unilaterally decide to plunder seabed resources for its sole benefit. To mine the ocean floor, nations and private companies must receive various permissions from the ISA, where decisions are often made by consensus or supermajority vote among member countries. Mining operations must also pay royalties to every ISA member for the privilege of accessing (and degrading) humankind’s shared resource.
In Thaler’s assessment, it’s all very egalitarian. “UNCLOS is an incredibly progressive piece of international diplomacy,” he said.
Which helps explain why the U.S. never ratified it.
Ronald Reagan occupied the Oval Office in 1982 when the vast majority of nations voted to adopt UNCLOS. He wasn’t keen on the treaty’s “common heritage” principle and didn’t want to have to deal with the rest of the world. As the New York Times reported, “the United States, possessing some of the most advanced technology and the most resources to be developed, was unhappy at the prospect of having to share seabed mining decision-making with smaller, often third-world countries.”
The irony here is that Reagan essentially ceded decision-making to those “often third-world countries” by keeping the U.S. out of the treaty. To this day, the U.S. is relegated to observer status at ISA negotiations, the same standing enjoyed by non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace and the International Cable Protection Committee.
The U.S. sends State Department officials to the ISA to follow along the debate and occasionally make statements. But America’s delegation cannot vote on important matters and, crucially, cannot sit on the ISA Council, a subset of ISA members currently drafting comprehensive regulations to govern the financial and environmental aspects of a prospective seabed mining industry. (That all-important rulebook is known as the Mining Code.)
UNCLOS members updated the treaty in 1994 to “guarantee the U.S. a seat on the ISA Council if it ratifies,” among other things, Pradeep Singh, an ocean governance expert at the Research Institute for Sustainability, told me. The U.S. itself played a “pivotal role” in negotiating such favorable terms, said Singh, “but ultimately they still did not ratify.”
Following Reagan’s lead, Republicans have typically remained skeptical of UNCLOS, while Democrats — including the Biden administration—have supported it.
“We ought to join the Law of the Sea,” Jose Fernandez, President Biden’s Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, told me. “We are the only major economy that’s not a member. It hurts our interests.”
Fernandez noted that the Biden administration has neither endorsed nor condemned seabed mining as a source of minerals for the energy transition (“Let’s just say we’re taking a precautionary approach”), but that ratifying UNCLOS would allow the U.S. to better advocate for strong environmental protections and other provisions in the ISA’s mining code.
Inevitably, seabed mining will impact deep-sea ecosystems that scientists are just beginning to map and explore. Research indicates that mining could also interfere with seabed carbon storage and fish migration — and that land-based mineral reserves are sufficient to meet the needs of the energy transition.
Supporters of seabed mining counter that relying on terrestrial minerals alone could perpetuate the environmental and social harms long associated with mining on land, including deforestation, tainted water supplies, forced relocation of mine-adjacent communities, and child labor. They also say it could reduce the cost of acquiring minerals and thus speed the deployment of low-carbon energy systems, although the overall cost of extracting metal has not yet been demonstrated as, again, no one is currently doing it.
A marine technology arms race
Ratifying UNCLOS would require a two- thirds majority vote in the Senate — a towering hurdle in the polarized chamber. But new momentum is building, thanks to a rare unifying force lurking across the Pacific Ocean.
China holds five separate ISA licenses to explore for seabed minerals. That’s more than any other country. (The U.S. cannot obtain such licenses because it is not an ISA member.) Beijing is also pouring R&D money into deep-sea technology.
This is all of concern to U.S. lawmakers looking to friendshore America’s mineral supply chains, which China already dominates. House Republicans introduced a bill earlier this month to develop a U.S.-based seabed mining industry. The brief seven-page document mentions China on four separate occasions.
Among the concerned lawmakers in the Senate is Murkowski. She’s long pushed for UNCLOS ratification over the isolationist objections of her fellow Republicans. But Murkowski sees opposition dissolving amid worries over China’s maritime activity.
“I’ve been working on this issue for a decade plus, and I’ve never been in a Congress where there are more that are engaged on this issue from both sides of the aisle,” said Murkowski.
Mining firms aiming to process their seabed haul on U.S. soil are hyping the China concern, too.
Also earlier this month, a group of more than 300 former U.S. political and military leaders sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations urging UNCLOS ratification. Signatories included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and three former U.S. Secretaries of Defense.
Murkowski hopes to line up enough support for UNCLOS ratification in the Senate to bring the issue to a vote next year, and the resolution currently sits with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. “I feel very confident about the momentum we have right now,” Murkowski said.
A simmering debate
As UNCLOS gains political traction in the U.S., calls for a cautionary approach to seabed mining have grown louder the world over.
More than 800 marine experts have urged a pause on the controversial industry, citing uncertain environmental impacts and risks to ocean biodiversity. At least 25 national governments have echoed those calls at the ISA. Some manufacturers—including BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen, Rivian, Renault, Google and Samsung—have pledged to forgo ocean-mined minerals in their products.
A shift in electric vehicle technology adds another wrinkle to the debate. A growing share of EV batteries sold globally don’t include any nickel or cobalt — two metals found in abundance on the ocean floor — which complicates the business case for seabed mining.
Compared to traditional nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries, these increasingly popular lithium-iron-phosphate batteries are cheaper but provide lower energy density (i.e. range). Consumers in China, the world’s largest EV market, seem willing to accept that tradeoff. But even with a slipping market share, nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries and their constituent elements could see absolute demand grow as the global EV industry booms.
In the name of the energy transition, some countries such as Norway and the Cook Islands have gone ahead and greenlit mineral exploration in the Exclusive Economic Zones off their own coastlines,.
The debate reached a fever pitch over the summer when The Metals Company, a Canadian firm, announced plans to apply for the world’s first ever commercial mining license on the High Seas; it’s partnering with the government of Nauru on the application.
Meanwhile, the ISA is unlikely to adopt a final mining code before The Metals Company submits its application, which is expected as soon as August — a timing mismatch that could throw the seabed mining debate into chaos. (The ISA Council has signaled it would not support the approval of a mining application until regulations are finalized.)
All the while, the U.S. will be watching. And unless the Senate ratifies UNCLOS, it won’t be doing much else.
https://heatmap.news/climate/isa-deep-sea-mining-us
Sources: iOS 18 lets users customize layout of home screen app icons
date: 2024-03-25, from: OS News
While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce the ability to create blank spaces, rows, and columns between app icons. ↫ Joe Rossignol at MacRumors It’s 2024 and iOS’ Springboard is slowly catching up to the Palm OS launcher. I’m drowning in the innovation here.
DBA made ten years of data disappear with one misplaced parameter
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Greybeards thought it was clever, making this an educational experience in more ways than one
Who, Me? Welcome once again, dear reader, to Who, Me? – the cathartic corner of The Register wherein, once a week, we hand over to our readers, such as yourself, so that they may unburden themselves about times when things did not quite go according to plan.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/who_me/
How to deal with the Trump threat (Part 1)
date: 2024-03-25, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, The 2024 general election is now underway. Like most of you, I’ve found myself immersed in many conversations about the threat to our nation — and the world — posed by Donald Trump. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about conversations with Trump
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-to-deal-with-the-trump-threat
2024-03-23 Isole de Brissago
date: 2024-03-25, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-03-23 Isole de Brissago
After visiting the Camellia park, we took the boat the Brissago Islands. One of them has an old villa previously owned by some rich dude but now owned by the canton and turned into a restaurant, a hotel and the island itself turned into a botanical garden.
Towards the end you can spot me sleeping on a park bench. Yay me!
Obviously I did not take that picture. Somebody knows the access code to my phone! 🕵️
This pond had fantastic frogs.
Behind those walls is a tiny “Roman” pool. We’ll come to it towards the end.
The villa where we started our walk in the background…
The “Roman” bath…
A hole in the wall, looking towards Ascona.
And me holding the camera out over the water and looking left, back towards the villa where we started.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-23-brissago
Picotron by Lexaloffle
date: 2024-03-25, from: Tilde.news
https://www.lexaloffle.com/picotron.php
SoftIron rolls its own server virt stack to join the ‘let’s get VMware’ crowd
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Banks on allowing BYO external storage to make migrations less painful
Artisanal server vendor SoftIron smells blood in the water since Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware led to considerable price hikes for many users, so has developed an alternative server virtualization platform whose key selling point is the ability to run with existing external storage hardware.…
2024-03-24 Bolle di Magadino
date: 2024-03-25, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-03-24 Bolle di Magadino
And on the last day, we went for a walk into the Bolle di Magadino, some wetlands at the east end of the Lago Maggiore.
The walk was very short but we saw a lot of frogs and heard a lot of birds. Sadly, these pages are silent.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-24-bolle-di-magadino
Classifieds – March 25, 2024
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition. Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the Classifieds.
The post Classifieds – March 25, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/classifieds-march-25-2024/
March 24, 2024 (Sunday)
date: 2024-03-25, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
The Senate passed the appropriations bill shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, and President Joe Biden signed it Saturday afternoon. In his statement after he signed the bill, Biden was clear: “Congress’s work isn’t finished,” he said. “The House must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental to advance our national security interests. And Congress must pass the bipartisan border security agreement—the toughest and fairest reforms in decades—to ensure we have the policies and funding needed to secure the border. It’s time to get this done.”
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-24-2024-sunday
Today in SCV History (March 25)
date: 2024-03-25, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1889 – Castaic School District established. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-march-25/
‘Dune: Part Two’ offers a cautionary tale
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Paul Atreides’ Messianic transformation is a warning aboutlesson on the danger of cults of personality.
The post ‘Dune: Part Two’ offers a cautionary tale appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/dune-part-two-offers-a-cautionary-tale/
Laufey opens up on girlhood, fashion and finding home
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The singer-songwriter spoke candidly in a rare speaking engagement at USC.
The post Laufey opens up on girlhood, fashion and finding home appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/laufey-opens-up-on-girlhood-fashion-and-finding-home/
Women’s swim and dive season ends at national meet
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC placed eighth in the NCAA championships to cap off its historic spring.
The post Women’s swim and dive season ends at national meet appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/womens-swim-and-dive-season-ends-at-national-meet/
Student groups join community health fair
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Saturday’s Hoover Street Elementary Health Fair went on despite the rain.
The post Student groups join community health fair appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/campus-clubs-assist-at-community-health-fair/
Robotaxis now able to drive through campus
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Two student organizations hosted a gala Friday night to honor the Persian New Year.
The post Robotaxis now able to drive through campus appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/persian-community-celebrates-nowruz-3/
Justice requires smart decarceration
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Rehabilitation and reentry are central to an equitable criminal justice system.
The post Justice requires smart decarceration appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/justice-requires-smart-decarceration/
Women’s basketball is not a Cinderella story, but its season is becoming an epic
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
To close out its tournament homestand, No. 1 USC plays No. 8 Kansas Monday night.
The post Women’s basketball is not a Cinderella story, but its season is becoming an epic appeared first on Daily Trojan.
‘About Face’ empowers modern Trojan women
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Playwrights, professors and actors gathered to discuss modern Trojan women.
The post ‘About Face’ empowers modern Trojan women appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/about-face-empowers-modern-trojan-women/
Persian community celebrates Nowruz
date: 2024-03-25, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Two student organizations hosted a gala Friday night to honor the Persian New Year.
The post Persian community celebrates Nowruz appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/25/persian-community-celebrates-nowruz-2/
That Asian meal you eat on holidays could launder money for North Korea
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
United Nations finds IT contract and crypto scams are just two of DPRK’s illicit menu items
If you dine out at an Asian restaurant on your next holiday, the United Nations thinks your meal could help North Korea to launder money.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/un_north_korea_report/
TikTok Bill Faces Uncertain Fate in Senate
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The young voices in the messages left for North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis were laughing, but the words were ominous.
“OK, listen, if you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you,” one said, giggling and talking over other young voices in the background. “I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces.” Another threatened to kill Tillis, and then take their own life.
Tillis’s office says it has received around 1,000 calls about TikTok since the House passed legislation this month that would ban the popular app if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake. TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers. “The government will take away the community that you and millions of other Americans love,” read one pop-up message from the company when users opened the app.
Tillis, who supports the House bill, reported the call to the police. “What I hated about that was it demonstrates the enormous influence social media platforms have on young people,” he said in an interview.
While more aggressive than most, TikTok’s extensive lobbying campaign is the latest attempt by the tech industry to head off any new legislation — and it’s a fight the industry usually wins. For years Congress has failed to act on bills that would protect users’ privacy, protect children from online threats, make companies more liable for their content and put loose guardrails around artificial intelligence, among other things.
“I mean, it’s almost embarrassing,” says Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., a former tech executive who is also supporting the TikTok bill and has long tried to push his colleagues to regulate the industry. “I would hate for us to maintain our perfect zero batting average on tech legislation.”
Some see the TikTok bill as the best chance for now to regulate the tech industry and set a precedent, if a narrow one focused on just one company. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the House bill, which overwhelmingly passed 362-65 this month after a rare 50-0 committee vote moving it to the floor.
But it’s already running into roadblocks in the Senate, where there is little unanimity on the best approach to ensure that China doesn’t access private data from the app’s 170 million U.S. users or influence them through its algorithms.
Other factors are holding the Senate back. The tech industry is broad and falls under the jurisdiction of several different committees. Plus, the issues at play don’t fall cleanly on partisan lines, making it harder for lawmakers to agree on priorities and how legislation should be written. Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has so far been reluctant to embrace the TikTok bill, for example, calling for hearings first and suggesting that the Senate may want to rewrite it.
“We’re going through a process,” Cantwell said. “It’s important to get it right.”
Warner, on the other hand, says the House bill is the best chance to get something done after years of inaction. And he says that the threatening calls from young people are a good example of why the legislation is needed: “It makes the point, do we really want that kind of messaging being able to be manipulated by the Communist Party of China?”
Some lawmakers are worried that blocking TikTok could anger millions of young people who use the app, a crucial segment of voters in November’s election. But Warner says “the debate has shifted” from talk of an outright ban a year ago to the House bill which would force TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd., to sell its stake for the app to continue operating.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a television interview that aired Sunday, acknowledged the popularity of the app and that it has become an income stream for many people. She said the administration does not intend to ban TikTok but instead deal with its ownership. “We understand its purpose and its utility and the enjoyment that it gives a lot of folks,” Harris told ABC’s ”This Week.”
Republicans are divided. While most of them support the TikTok legislation, others are wary of overregulation and the government targeting one specific entity.
“The passage of the House TikTok ban is not just a misguided overreach; it’s a draconian measure that stifles free expression, tramples constitutional rights, and disrupts the economic pursuits of millions of Americans,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Hoping to persuade their colleagues to support the bill, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee have called for intelligence agencies to declassify information about TikTok and China’s ownership that has been provided to senators in classified briefings.
“It is critically important that the American people, especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake,” the senators said in a joint statement.
Blumenthal and Blackburn have separate legislation they have been working on for several years aimed at protecting children’s online safety, but the Senate has yet to vote on it. Efforts to regulate online privacy have also stalled, as has legislation to make technology companies more liable for the content they publish.
And an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to quickly move legislation that would regulate the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry has yet to show any results.
Schumer has said very little about the TikTok bill or whether he might put it on the Senate floor.
“The Senate will review the legislation when it comes over from the House,” was all he would say after the House passed the bill.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican who has worked with Schumer on the artificial intelligence effort, says he thinks the Senate can eventually pass a TikTok bill, even if it’s a different version. He says the classified briefings “convinced the vast majority of members” that they have to address the collection of data from the app and TikTok’s ability to push out misinformation to users.
“I think it’s a clear danger to our country if we don’t act,” he said. “It does not have to be done in two weeks, but it does have to be done.”
Rounds says he and Schumer are still holding regular meetings on artificial intelligence, as well, and will soon release some of their ideas publicly. He says he’s optimistic that the Senate will eventually act to regulate the tech industry.
“There will be some areas that we will not try to get into, but there are some areas that we have very broad consensus on,” Rounds says.
Tillis says senators may have to continue laying the groundwork for a while and educating colleagues on why some regulation is needed, with an eye toward passing legislation in the next Congress.
“It can’t be the wild, wild west,” Tillis said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tiktok-bill-faces-uncertain-fate-in-senate/7541221.html
Beijing issues list of approved CPUs – with no Intel or AMD
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
2024 may be the year of Linux On The Arm-or-RISC-desktop as China moves away from Western tech
AMD and Intel are not present on a list of processors approved by China’s Information Security Evaluation Center.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/china_approved_tech_list/
NWSL week 2: The good, the bad, and the ugly
date: 2024-03-25, from: Matt Haughey blog
Instead of a rundown of every game in week 2 of the NWSL season, I thought I'd instead mention a few high points and low points from the weekend full of games.
The Good
The Washington Spirit vs. Bay FC game was tied 1-1 and scoreless for the
https://a.wholelottanothing.org/nwsl-week-2-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Led by NBC, U.S. corporate media is learning to live with Trump.
Comedian Kevin Hart Honored With Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Kevin Hart, who rose from the open mics and comedy clubs of his native Philadelphia to become one of the country’s most recognizable performers, will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a gala performance Sunday at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Hart, 44, has honed a signature style that combines his diminutive height, expressive face and motor-mouth delivery into a successful stand-up act.
In Hollywood, Hart made his movie debut in the 2002 film “Paper Soldiers” and came to mainstream fame through a string of scene-stealing cameos in hits such as 2005’s “The 40-Year-Old-Virgin.”
Hart’s films have grossed more than $4.23 billion globally.
Now in its 25th year, the Mark Twain Prize annually honors performers who have made a lasting impact on humor and culture. Honorees receive a bronze bust of Twain, the iconic American writer and satirist whose real name was Samuel Clemens.
Mark Twain recipients are honored with a night of testimonials and video tributes, often featuring previous award winners. Other comedians receiving the lifetime achievement award include George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett and Dave Chapelle. Bill Cosby, the 2009 recipient, had his Mark Twain Prize rescinded in 2019 amid allegations of sexual assault.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-25, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Here is the MetaWeblog API, the common glue that connected editors to blogging systems in the 00s. It was supported by most of the popular systems (not sure if Blogger did).
http://1998.xmlrpc.com/metaWeblogApi.html
Microsoft confirms memory leak in March Windows Server security update
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
ALSO: Viasat hack wiper malware is back, users are the number one cause of data loss, and critical vulns
Infosec in brief If your Windows domain controllers have been crashing since a security update was installed earlier this month, there’s no longer any need to speculate why: Microsoft has admitted it introduced a memory leak in its March patches and fixed the issue.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/microsoft_confirms_memory_leak_in/
Geomagnetic Storm From Solar Flare Could Disrupt Radio Communications
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
BOULDER, Colo. — Space weather forecasters have issued a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, saying an outburst of plasma from a solar flare could interfere with radio transmissions on Earth. It could also make for great aurora viewing.
There’s no reason for the public to be concerned, according to the alert issued Saturday by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
The storm could interrupt high-frequency radio transmissions, such as by aircraft trying to communicate with distant traffic control towers. Most commercial aircraft can use satellite transmission as backup, said Jonathan Lash, a forecaster at the center.
Satellite operators might have trouble tracking their spacecraft, and power grids could also see some “induced current” in their lines, though nothing they can’t handle, he said.
“For the general public, if you have clear skies at night and you are at higher latitudes, this would be a great opportunity to see the skies light up,” Lash said.
Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic field flips, meaning its north and south poles switch positions. Solar activity changes during that cycle, and it’s now near its most active, called the solar maximum.
During such times, geomagnetic storms of the type that arrived Sunday can hit Earth a few times a year, Lash said. During solar minimum, a few years may pass between storms.
In December, the biggest solar flare in years disrupted radio communications.
New England Shovels Out After Major Snowstorm
date: 2024-03-25, from: VOA News USA
BOSTON — Hardy souls across New England were spending their Sunday shoveling out after a major storm dumped more than 60 centimeters of snow in some areas, causing multiple road accidents, downing power lines and leaving hundreds of thousands across the Northeast without electricity.
Road conditions were dangerous Saturday night for crews seeking to restore power, according to Central Maine Power, the state’s largest utility, which said the company’s focus overnight was responding to emergency calls and making downed power lines safe.
As of daylight Sunday, crews began assessing and clearing damage to begin widespread power restoration efforts. The company said it expected a multiday effort in areas hardest hit by the storm.
“Damage to trees, poles and wires was significant overnight on Saturday, and our assessors are taking stock of the damage today so we can begin restoring power to our customers as quickly and as safely as possible,” said Jon Breed of Central Maine Power.
Police across the Northeast reported hundreds of traffic accidents as cars spun out and drivers grappled with icy road conditions.
As the storm was winding down, about 200,000 customers were without power in Maine and another 80,000 or so without power in New Hampshire.
Breed said that ahead of the storm, the company pre-staged 150 crews across its service area and another 200 crews were arriving Sunday.
Versant, Maine’s second-largest utility, reported about 15,000 outages Sunday morning, compared with 188,000 reported by Central Maine.
Zack Taylor, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said heavy snowfall from the storm stretched across the region, including upstate and northern New York through Vermont, New Hampshire, and most of Maine.
Many areas saw totals of 20 to 30 centimeters of snow, but there was a localized area that saw more than 60 centimeters.
Some of the highest totals exceeded 76 centimeters in south central Vermont.
“So overall, it was a pretty significant winter storm and for some areas that was some of the most snow they’ve seen all winter with a single storm,” Taylor said.
Major cities from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, to Philadelphia, New York and Boston saw heavy rain and flooding.
In New York, more than 90,000 customers were without power Sunday morning. Areas north of New York City were among the hardest hit, according to online maps from National Grid and PowerOutage.us, a power outage tracking website.
The combination of sleet, freezing rain and heavy, wet snow that took down trees and power lines was also blamed for hundreds of delayed and canceled flights at area airports.
In New York City, a flood watch and wind advisory were in place until 2 a.m. Sunday, and flooding affected subway service. Rainwater also closed part of the Cross Island Parkway in Queens as police warned motorists about standing water on roadways throughout the city.
In Lodi, New Jersey, flooding from the Saddle River inundated nearby roads.
Taylor said another significant winter storm is evolving in the West and will continue through Monday across much of the Rockies, Plains and in the upper Midwest.
That system is expected to bring heavy snowfall across portions of Wisconsin, Minnesota, much of the Dakotas and even down into Nebraska and western Kansas with the potential of 20 to 30 centimeters of snow, with higher amounts across the eastern Dakotas and portions of central Minnesota, he added.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7540732.html
Hello, Everyone, Let’s Have A Week
date: 2024-03-25, updated: 2024-03-25, from: Jason Kittke’s blog
https://kottke.org/24/03/hello-everyone-lets-have-a-week
Monday 25 March, 2024
date: 2024-03-25, from: John Naughton’s online diary
Director’s cut Strange juxtaposition of Andrew ‘Brillopad’ Neil and someone else. Shot in 2007. Quote of the Day “Ideas rot if you don’t do something with them. Don’t hoard them. Blog them or otherwise tell people.” Ed Dumbill Musical alternative … Continue reading
https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-25-march-2024/39274/
AI art is not generative art
date: 2024-03-25, from: Lean Rada’s blog
AI art is not generative art (clickbait title). While the technical definition says that one is a subset of the other, I think it’s useful to distinguish between these two categories.
Why I’m writing this in the first place — Starting
2022, the term “generative art” had been progressively becoming
synonymous with art produced by AI text-to-image systems. As a consumer
and producer of (traditional) generative art, it was becoming a bit
annoying to browse generative art content on the internet. Whether
through tags like #generativeart or communities like
r/generative, spaces are being flooded with AI-generated
images which I and many others are not interested in. End rant.
In 2024, things are a bit different. AI art is now commonly referred to as ‘AI art’. I shouldn’t have procrastinated writing this post for so long.
There are also cases where generative artists are pressured to relabel their art, so as to not be mistaken for being AI (and avoid the silly AI witch hunts). It’s an unfortunate niche pressured to be nichey-er.
At this point you may be asking, what’s the difference anyway? Well, that’s the point of this post. It’s kinda like animals vs humans. While technically & scientifically, humans are (a subset of) animals; in daily life “animals” usually mean non-human animals, as in “animal lover” and “animal rights”. I digress.
Section overview
This article looks at the similarities and differences between (traditional) generative art and text-to-image AI art in different angles. Skip to different sections if you want.
History
Tracing the history of each practice may offer insights and nuance.
Don’t worry, there are pictures! And interactive things!
(too lazy to implement interactive things for now)
This is not a comprehensive history of either field. The dates are probably off by a couple years. Btw, this timeline layout is better viewed on a large screen.
1940s
The first artificial neural networks were proposed; abstract machines modeled after biological neurons (brain cells).
1950s
The Perceptron
Frank Rosenblatt built a relatively simple neural network that can be trained, called the perceptron.
The perceptron was designed for image recognition. The perceptron looks at some input (an image) and decides from a set of pre-learned classes of images, which kind of image it is.
1960sConceptual art
Artist Sol LeWitt started doing something called wall drawings, sets of instructions that produce abstract drawings. These can be thought of as precursors to generative art.
“Wall Drawing #797. The first drafter has a black marker and makes an irregular horizontal line near the top of the wall. Then the second drafter tries to copy it (without touching it) using a red marker. The third drafter does the same, using a yellow marker. The fourth drafter does the same using a blue marker. Then the second drafter followed by the third and fourth copies the last line drawn until the bottom of the wall is reached.”
Product of Wall Drawing #797, executed from instructions written
by LeWitt.
“The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” (Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, 1967) It’s not quite generative art but it’s close. Besides, LeWitt called it something else: ‘conceptual art’.
1960sCode art
Vera Molnár brought us closer to modern generative art by actually using computers and writing code to generate artworks.
Vera Molnár1970s
AI winter ⛄
The limitations of relatively primitive AI and weak computing power back then resulted in massive disappointment about AI. Budgets were cut. R&D slowed down. Hype was lost.
The Perceptron did not achieve self-awareness.
1990sSince 1990s, artists began meeting in generative art conferences and the artistic community started converging on a shared definition of generative art.
Generative art — work that has been produced by the execution, usually by a computer system, of a set of rules or procedures determined by the artist.2010s
Deep learning
The intersection of advancements in computing power, improved machine learning algorithms, and huge ever-growing datasets of digital things resulted in bigger and better neural networks. The great potential of AI was reignited. The start of the deep learning revolution.
Image recognition, picture captioning, automated language translation, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, etc. got seriously buffed.
Google’s DeepDream exploits image recognition feeding into digital
pareidolia. It can be considered early AI art, but it’s quite different
from modern AI art.
Generative networks
Due to deep learning, we had advancements in generative networks, which are networks that can generate new data on their own instead of simply being a complex input-output mapping.
This appears to be the start of the image synthesis wave.
Here is a fake person generated by a generative adversarial network
(GAN) trained specifically on portraits. Tap the face to regenerate a
new one from
thispersondoesnotexist.com.
Text to image
The first modern text-to-image model was introduced.
It was called alignDRAW.
It can generate images from natural language descriptions, making these machines massively accessible as the general public could simply type in what they wanted to see.
alignDRAW’s output for “A toilet seat sits open in the grass
field.”2021
DALL·E was revealed by OpenAI. Another text-to-image model, and it became famous. (Or, rather it was made famous by “DALL-E mini” which was viral.)
DALL·E’s output for “A toilet seat sits open in the grass
field.”2022
Meanwhile, 2022 saw a burst of NFTs, most of which have been associated with generative art.
Honestly, some of them are on the borderline shallow end of generative art, Mad Libs-style images generated from shufflings of pre-drawn hairstyles, sunglasses, and clothes. Automated dress-up. They are more akin to the musical dice game.
Typical images associated with NFTs2022
Text-to-image models were approaching the quality of real images. Generated artworks were approaching the quality of human art.
AI-generated painting2020s
Today, we see different techniques and tools to make generative art, from straight up canvas coding, to frameworks like p5.js, to full-blown authoring software like TouchDesigner and Houdini.
An output of the QQL algorithm which uses the p5.js
library2020s
Tools to make AI art and images have been heavily commercialised, with online image generation services provided by OpenAI/Microsoft, Google, and Midjourney. There are also local models for advanced users and tinkerers.
Microsoft’s image creator which at the time used the DALL·E 3
model
So. AI art is a relatively new movement borne out of general image synthesizers. This was made possible since visual artworks are images too. Meanwhile, there have been decades of development and refinement in (traditional) generative art, techniques, and algorithms.
The terminology may overlap (generative networks ~ generative art), but these are just labels. You may call them whatever you want, but they’re still separate art movements that cannot be historically reconciled.
By the way, I don’t care if you want to call them ‘art’ or not. That’s not the point of this post. If it bothers you, please imagine that all instances of the word ‘art’ were replaced with ‘image’. Same for the word ‘artist’.
The craft
OK so, whatever sure, history is in the past. Why don’t we look at it in terms of what artists are doing today. What do they do? What do they practise to improve?
Unique skills
Both practices involve some unique skills that are not in common with the other. They each have their own defining skills.
| Generative artists | AI artists |
|---|---|
|
programming math / geometry / trigonometry |
prompting curation / training data science |
Generative art involves programming and uses math (usually geometry or trigonometry) to create graphics. A good undertanding of functions and their domains and ranges and how they compose together is essential, especially when utilising random number generators.
Typical generative art math
Beyond these core skills, there are a lot of areas generative artists could expand into, like graph theory, simulations, fractals, image processing, and other algorithms.
Scattered
Pathways by Nate Nolting.Generative art using a graph pathfinding algorithm
AI art, on the other hand, is heavy on prompt engineering. It could be as simple as writing English descriptions, or as precise as inputting parameterised labels if the tool allows for it.
Prompt: Dog, (Artist Name, Artist Name), Masterpiece,
Studio Quality, 6k, glowing, axe, mecha, science_fiction, solo, weapon,
jungle, green_background, nature, outdoors, solo, tree, weapon, mask,
dynamic lighting, detailed shading, digital texture painting
Negative prompt: un-detailed skin, semi-realistic,
cgi, 3d, render, sketch, cartoon, drawing, ugly eyes, (out of
frame:1.3), worst quality, low quality, jpeg artifacts, cgi, sketch,
cartoon, drawing, (out of frame:1.1)
Parameters:
Steps: 50, Sampler: Euler a, CFG scale: 7.0, Seed: 1579799523, Face
restoration, Size: 512x512
<span>Example prompt with advanced parameters (e.g. for StableDiffusion)</span>Beyond writing prompts, there are several tools that allow more control like influencing certain compositional elements. AI artists could also train or fine-tune models by curating image-label datasets as extra training data.
Images generated with
ControlNet,
controlling the general shape of the subject.
There seems to be little to no transferable skills between these practices. Sure, you can program some scripts to automate parts of an AI art workflow, or add an AI filter step to an otherwise procedurally-generated image. But there is no inherent overlap.
At the highest level, it is the difference between computer science vs data science. At the lowest, it is the difference between coding and writing English.
That’s why you can’t just ask an AI artist to please create an interactive audio-reactive visualisation for your music video, or a public art installation that reacts to the weather. Likewise, you can’t expect a generative artist to easily generate photorealistic art in seconds.
Skills in common
One big thing that’s common between these practices is the need to curate. Since both practices involve chaos and randomness, a curation step is almost always required before finishing a work. Curation requires artistic vision, which could be considered a skill in itself.
|
Generative artists |
What’s curation? As one finishes a piece, they usually generate multiple outputs by running the process with different seeds or starting parameters. These produce different variations, from which the best one(s) are selected for publishing, discarding the rest. That’s curation. Alternatively, you might refine and iterate your prompt / program until the generated outputs satisfy your artistic vision. 
Uncurated set of outputs from a generative art algorithm
AI image generators usually generate multiple outputs at a time
for you to curate.
It could be argued that having artistic vision and doing iterations are pretty common to all arts, and so those alone don’t make generative art and AI art any more similar to each other than any other art. Disclaimer: I’m not very good at AI image generation. I don’t have first-hand experience of the advanced skills that I mentioned like fancy prompt engineering or fine-tuning. (Though I did train a different type of neural network before). Overall, the significant differences in skillsets mean that generative artists and AI artists are not interchangeable, and the same should go for their respective arts. The processFinally, let’s attack the subject from the POV of processes and systems. Setting aside the question of whether Art is Product or Process, let us indulge in these animations of art in the process of being products. AI art being formed via denoising Generative art being formed via procedural strokesMost modern AI image generators are based on diffusion models — they form images via ‘denoising’. The animation above (left) shows the sequence of steps to progressively denoise a pure noise image into something coherent based on a prompt. The prompt for the above generation specifically was ‘cherry blossom branches against a clear blue sky’. The denoising process is a black box, an inscrutable network of billions of artificial neurons trained to generate coherent arrays of pixels. Generative art algorithms, on the other hand, are relatively more hand-crafted, less magical. Explicit instructions are written to draw every element in the piece. This is apparent in the above animation (right) where each stroke is individually drawn according to the artist’s rules. This particular animation was from The Soul of Flowers by Che-Yu Wu. In fact, it’s impossible to not have total control of the art because programming is precise. You have to artificially create whim (i.e. randomness) to produce dynamic results. For example, a quivering brush stroke must be backed by a mathematical rule such as Gaussian or Brownian noise. It comes down to the explainability or transparency of the process. One is a black box. The other is literally the instructions to create the art. The level of control is just a consequence of the intelligibility of the process. It’s easier to control something that is understandable. On an opposite note, AI artists can be thought of as high-level artistic directors who don’t concern themselves with the rendering of mid- to low-level details. Unlike AI art, generative artists must always specify the exact procedure for both the broad strokes and the fine details. System diagramsBeyond the processes themselves, art interacts with the context of its creation. And there is a lot to unpack here, especially for AI art. I’ll use diagrams to illustrate the context of the creation process. 
The generative artist writes the program that renders the piece of
art
In the generative art process, there are three components at the minimum: the artist, the program, and the rendered output. They may use libraries or frameworks as part of the program, but the artist ultimately writes the specific steps or rules which the program would execute at a certain level of abstraction. 
The AI artist prompts the model trained from the dataset to
produce the piece of art
In AI art, there are four components to the process at the minimum: the artist, the model, the rendered output, and the dataset. Comparing the generative art process with the AI art process, there is an immediate difference. Unlike AI art, generative art don’t need datasets. And it’s a controversial thing, the dataset. The data used to train a text-to-image model can consist of billions of images, usually scraped from the internet and includes other artworks by other artists. If you consider that the model has been influenced by a lot of other images on the web, then the question of how important the AI artist’s influence over the final piece is raised. Was that chiaroscuro an artistic choice, or an emergent byproduct of the model? Were those bold paint strokes intentional, or just some style produced by the model? In AI art, there is confusion over which elements were expressed by the artist and which by the machine. Utlimately, there comes a question of who worked out the art of the artwork. Leaving the contentious topic of datasets aside, there is another point, but not as essential, of who authored the main program. Who created the most crucial piece of the system? Generative art programs are usually created by the artists themselves, while AI art programs are usually created by AI researchers (plus datasets), only to be used as a product by AI artists. One makes the machine that makes the art, the other uses a machine to make the art. Of course, AI artists could train (not just fine-tune!) their own models, if they have a big enough dataset and some machine learning know-how. That’s why I said it’s not an essential point. ConclusionThe point is that these are separate art mediums. Or art movements, if you will. The histories, the crafts, and the processes point to the same conclusion — they are no more similar than oil painting is to photography, or a film director to an animator. Some aspects of the post have probably been outdated by the time I publish this post. I’ll still include them in the post because why not. The stand may be pointless, but the points still stand. P.S. a similar thing: cryptoisnotcryptocurrency.com, Wikipedia article. P.P.S. I’m still refining this post. Let’s say it’s in Beta. https://leanrada.com/notes/ai-art-not-generative-art?ref=rss Ohtani to Speak to Media for 1st Time Since Illegal Gambling, Theft Allegations Against Interpreterdate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani plans to speak to the media Monday for the first time since the illegal gambling and theft allegations involving the Los Angeles Dodgers star and his interpreter emerged during the team’s trip to South Korea. The interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired by the Dodgers last week when the team opened the season with two games against the San Diego Padres in Seoul. Manager Dave Roberts endorsed Ohtani addressing the matter publicly. He said it was the two-way superstar’s decision to do so. “It’s the right thing to do,” Roberts said. “I’m happy he’s going to speak and speak to what he knows and give his thoughts on the whole situation. I think it will give us all a little bit more clarity.” Mizuhara was let go from the team following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and claims from Ohtani’s attorneys that the Japanese star had been the victim of a “massive theft.” Major League Baseball has opened an investigation of the matter. The Internal Revenue Service has confirmed that Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker in Orange County, California, are under criminal investigation. Ohtani made only a brief appearance in the Dodgers clubhouse before Sunday’s Freeway Series opener against his former team, the Los Angeles Angels. The teams are playing three exhibition games before the Dodgers host St. Louis in their home opener on Thursday. Ohtani was set to bat second as the designated hitter at Dodger Stadium. He’s also expected to play Monday and Tuesday in Anaheim, where he was a two-time AL MVP before leaving the Angels as a free agent to sign a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers in December. Roberts said Ohtani has not addressed his teammates as a group. “I think that he’s had one-off conversations with players,” Roberts said. The manager said he checked in with Ohtani to see how he’s doing. “He’s kind of business as usual,” Roberts said. Ohtani has a double locker in the Dodgers clubhouse located between the shower room and fellow Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is slated to make his second start of the season on Saturday against St. Louis. Extra security was posted in the jammed clubhouse on Sunday. Besides the players and a horde of media, eight temporary lockers were set up at one end for minor leaguers brought over from Arizona for the Freeway Series. Overhead televisions were tuned to men’s NCAA Tournament games, baseball and horse racing, with former Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Paul Lo Duca offering TV handicapping tips on the day’s races. The MLB gambling policy is posted in every clubhouse. Betting on baseball — legally or not — is punishable with a one-year ban from the sport. The penalty for betting on other sports illegally is at the commissioner’s discretion. Sports gambling is illegal in California, even as 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it. “The mood in the room is get ready for baseball because I don’t hear a lot of conversations and speculation,” Roberts said. “That’s why I think tomorrow is going to be good for everyone.” Samsung preps inferencing accelerator to take on Nvidia, scores huge saledate: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-25, from: The Register (UK I.T. News) PLUS: Tencent’s profit plunge; Singtel to build three AI datacenters; McDonald’s China gobbles Microsoft AIAsia In Brief Samsung has reportedly secured a massive sale of an AI accelerator it plans to launch in 2025.… https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/24/asia_tech_news_roundup/ Episode 128 - Cryotrons LIVE!date: 2024-03-24, from: Advent of Computing Originally presented at VCF SoCal in February of 2024. The cryotron, a superconductive switch, almost revolutionized computing. It’s one of those fascinating near misses. In this episode we are talking about the history of the cryotron, how the NSA and supercomputing factors into the mix, and the current state of research into the topic. Did the NSA actually construct a supercomputer that ran in a vat of liquid helium? The answer is… maybe? Video of this talk: https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/episode-128-cryotrons-live @Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
http://scripting.com/2024/03/24.html#a225729 @Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog) I had to do a little work on the XML-RPC site and stumbled across this page of links into the 1998 version of the site. The text is all the same, but the style is very 1998. 😍 https://xmlrpc.com/docs/guidetolegacysite.md @Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News) Never thought I’d be so glad to see the xml-rpc site back up and running. I found out about it being off by someone sending an email asking if they could buy the domain from me. Otherwise I’m not sure I would have noticed. The whole idea is to put these static sites in a safe place and forget about it. But clearly there are no safe places and someday you might get dragged back to try to debug some work you did a bunch of years ago. http://scripting.com/2024/03/24.html#a224816 @Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News) So I went ahead and moved xmlrpc.com to a HTTPS server. The other day I forgot to mention that style sheets might not be readable when you move from HTTP to HTTPS, leading to this striking breakage I saw when I first got to look at the site in its new location. And now thanks to Google and the EFF, I get to spend time debugging something that worked just fine in 1998 and every year since then. Should I send them the bill for my time? Fuckers. http://scripting.com/2024/03/24.html#a221454 Peachy keen: Two Georgia natives commit to USC footballdate: 2024-03-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper) Defensive specialists Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson have committed to USC. The post Peachy keen: Two Georgia natives commit to USC football appeared first on Daily Trojan. https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/24/peachy-keen-two-georgia-natives-commit-to-usc-football/ @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed) Credit: https://x.com/ryanels4/status/1771784932026691769?s=46 https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112152817531463333 Two Years Laterdate: 2024-03-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News February 24, 2022, is recognized by every Ukrainian, including Ukrainians in the Santa Barbara community, as a horrific day that marked the beginning of an unjustified and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by neighboring Russia. The post Two Years Later appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent. https://www.independent.com/2024/03/24/two-years-late/ @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed) November 2023, 3 months before Congress drops the “TikTok is a danger to national security” we had this audio leaked: https://x.com/snarwani/status/1725138601996853424?s=20 https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112152798829503831 Trump Faces Day of Financial Reckoning on Mondaydate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-faces-day-of-financial-reckoning-on-monday-/7540757.html Congress’s new lowdate: 2024-03-24, from: Robert Reich on Substack House Republicans are determined to hit bottom https://robertreich.substack.com/p/congresss-new-record Welcome Aaron Cohen Back to the Sitedate: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-24, from: Jason Kittke’s blog https://kottke.org/24/03/welcome-aaron-cohen-back-to-the-site Hyprland crash coursedate: 2024-03-24, from: OS News For the past week I have been configuring hyprland and using it as my daily driver. Coming from major Desktop Environments like KDE or Gnome, this was definitely quite challanging, specially when implementing features that we take it for granted on these DEs, like screen sharing or screenshot annotating. In this post I will be going through all the tools and scripts I have been creating to configure this amazing Window Manager to my liking. ↫ xd1.dev Like I mentioned in my MNT Reform review, I’m not a fan of these “build your own desktop environment” window managers and related tools, but there’s no denying they’re quite popular. This article is a good introduction to hyprland, one of the more popular window managers of this genre. https://www.osnews.com/story/138947/hyprland-crash-course/ Trump Handles Legal Matters; Biden Vows to Protect Affordable Health Caredate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA U.S. President Joe Biden campaigned on his health care record this weekend, while his political rival Donald Trump had to focus on meeting a deadline to post a bond to a New York state court after losing a civil fraud case. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports. @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed) Addendum: it is not a complex problem. It is just a battle over taking the land that belonged to someone else and the ramifications of that. https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112152525278989653 The Mind Khadas: a modular PCdate: 2024-03-24, from: OS News I saw this on a Linus Tech Tips video today, and it’s pretty neat: the Khadas Mind is a tiny computer powered by an Intel Core i5-1340P or Core i7-1360P, but it has a souped-up PCIe connector at the bottom that allows you to hook it up to all kinds of other devices, like a graphics card, a dock, and so on. It looks slick and quite user-friendly, and according to the LTT video, the company intends to release the specs for the connector so that third parties can hook into it as well, but a promise is just that – a promise. It’s way too early to tell if this will go anywhere – past attempts would suggest that sadly, it won’t – but that doesn’t mean it’s not an incredibly awesome and seemingly workable implementation of the modular PC idea. https://www.osnews.com/story/138945/the-mind-khadas-a-modular-pc/ Digital wallets and the “only Apple Pay does this” mythologydate: 2024-03-24, from: OS News I hope what you take away from this post is that while Apple Pay is a great way to pay for things and that Apple did a great job mainstreaming digital wallets like this, what they do is not unique in the industry. DPANs are great for making it harder to track one person’s purchases across multiple merchants and they make customers less at risk in the event of a data breach of payment card info. ↫ Matt Birchler The gist of the article is that all the things Apple claims are unique about Apple Pay are really not unique at all, and quite a few things Apple touts are just flat-out lies, such as merchants being unable to know what you buy or people being unable to track you when you use Apple Pay. Other digital wallets, from Google, Samsung, and others, work in the exact same way Apple Pay does, and even banks and similar companies implement their payment systems the way Apple Pay does. It’s a case study in how Apple’s marketing and PR bloggers manage to perpetuate a myth solely because so many people just assume it must be true. Apple wouldn’t lie, right? https://www.osnews.com/story/138941/digital-wallets-and-the-only-apple-pay-does-this-mythology/ A Fun, Festive and Egg-Filled Daydate: 2024-03-24, from: City of Santa Clarita A Fun, Festive and Egg-Filled Day By City Manager Ken Striplin Springtime in Santa Clarita brings not only vibrant blooms and opportunities to embrace the outdoors with warmer weather, but also an array of free, family-friendly events and this Saturday is no exception. From a massive egg hunt throughout the fields at Central Park to […] The post A Fun, Festive and Egg-Filled Day appeared first on City of Santa Clarita. https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/03/24/a-fun-festive-and-egg-filled-day/ Some 300,000 IPs vulnerable to this Loop DoS attackdate: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News) Easy to exploit, not yet exploited, not widely patched – pick threeAs many as 300,000 servers or devices on the public internet are thought to be vulnerable right now to the recently disclosed Loop Denial-of-Service technique that works against some UDP-based application-level services.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/24/loop_ip_vulnerable/ How professional thieves stole $1 million worth of unreleased e-bikes in seven minutesdate: 2024-03-24, from: Electrek Feed 
When my high-end electric bike was stolen last year, the intense combination of feelings ranging from violation to anger was hard to describe. But that is nothing compared to what one innovative electric bike maker is going through after $1M worth of unreleased new e-bikes was stolen in one fell swoop. @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed) I have followed the Palestinian struggle since about 2000 and read every book I could on the subject. But TikTok has really made this knowledge accessible to the public. The TikTokers know how to explain in small bursts like nothing I have seen before. Accurate and concise. https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112151773527049475 Israel-Palestine Conflict the Hot Topic of Rep. Salud Carbajal’s ‘Telephone Town Hall’date: 2024-03-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News The Santa Barbara congressmember emphasized the need for increased humanitarian aid, a sustained ceasefire, and his belief in a two-state solution. The post Israel-Palestine Conflict the Hot Topic of Rep. Salud Carbajal’s ‘Telephone Town Hall’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent. @Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog) Steve Wozniak: We're saying 'Oh, you might be tracked by the Chinese'. Well, they learned it from us. 2024-03-23 Camelliasdate: 2024-03-24, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog 2024-03-23 CamelliasWe visited the Camellia garden in Locarno before taking the boat to the Isole de Brissago.
#Pictures #Flowers #Plants #Camellias #Locarno #Ticino https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-03-23-camellias Assembly Bill Would Create New Rules for Commercial Fishing in California, Ban Gillnets Around Channel Islandsdate: 2024-03-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News The president of the Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara warns that the proposed regulations could have “devastating impacts” on fisheries. The post Assembly Bill Would Create New Rules for Commercial Fishing in California, Ban Gillnets Around Channel Islands appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent. @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
At the Godot Conf, at our last dinner the population breakdown
was: It is a crowd that vibes at a different frequency. Background: I tried to privacy shame the Android folks at the table. https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112151591106054676 The Language of Sports Transcends Boundariesdate: 2024-03-24, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News As we dig into March Madness here in Santa Barbara, the writer shares a tale of why whiskey and basketball are a match made in Scotland. The post The Language of Sports Transcends Boundaries appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent. https://www.independent.com/2024/03/24/the-language-of-sports-transcends-boundaries/ Tesla Cybertruck Wholesale Prices Are Dropping Pretty Quicklydate: 2024-03-24, from: Inside EVs News Within one week, one wholesaler saw prices drop of the truck $4,000. https://insideevs.com/news/713502/cybertruck-wholesale-pricing-bubble-burst/ @Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-03-24, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed) The plan came together Spread lies about UNWRA; cut the major donor long enough to make the life of remaining people miserable, build an expulsion pier and yeet them out Take over the Gaza offshore oil fields without disturbance + New beach properties for wealthy Americans. https://x.com/maitelsadany/status/1771596788044083600?s=46 https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112151424979198931 Non-bike bike gear tested: Linka Lasso smartphone-controlled chain lockdate: 2024-03-24, from: Electrek Feed 
I’d like to think that the only thing I need to live a car-free life is my bike and my enthusiasm. But it’s the extra gear that helps me stay as two-wheeled as possible. In this regular column, I take a deep dive into some of the coolest and most interesting gadgets and pieces of kit that make it possible to swap a car for an e-bike on a daily basis. This time, we’re checking out a fascinating smartphone-controlled keyless e-bike lock called the Linka Lasso. Weekend Leftovers: Good Reads & Moredate: 2024-03-24, from: Om Malik blog While my blog is about technology, I wanted to share some of the articles, videos, and other stuff I enjoyed during this past week — Om. “What you have is all you need.” Pico Iyer, A Beginner’s Guide to Japan Imagine turning your Mac Studio and an iPad into a vintage Macintosh. Clever. It is amazing … https://om.co/2024/03/24/weekend-leftovers-good-reads-more/ You Could Get A New Chevy Bolt For $8,000 In Californiadate: 2024-03-24, from: Inside EVs News That is, if you can find one. Bolt EV and EUV supplies are dwindling fast, but California incentives make them better than ever. https://insideevs.com/news/713571/chevy-bolt-discount-california/ LEVER WEEKLY: Corruption Rules Everything Around Medate: 2024-03-24, from: The Lever News From the fossil fuel-soaked legislatures to corrupt lower courts, bribery is rampant at every level of government, and other news from The Lever this week. https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-corruption-rules-everything-around-me/ Royal Enfield Bullet 350 Storms Into Japandate: 2024-03-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News Royal Enfield’s quest for world domination makes a stop at the land of the rising sun. https://www.rideapart.com/news/712729/royal-enfield-bullet-350-motorcycle-launch-japan/ @Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-03-24, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News) Braintrust query: I have not been able to reliably get to a bunch of my sites that use HTTP this morning. For example, feeder.scripting.com, a site that I use to test feeds. Also xmlrpc.com. It’s possible that something broke overnight in my server. Or Digital Ocean is having a problem? Doesn’t seem like it’s something Google is doing to punish me for using HTTP, though that is always the first thing that comes to mind. I tried moving the XML-RPC site to a different server, but the problem follows it. No changes have been made to the site in years. Not exactly what I had planned to be digging into on a nice (but cold) Sunday morning in the mountains. I started a thread, if you have any insights. At least scripting.com is still working, but it’s not served through my software or Digital Ocean. http://scripting.com/2024/03/24.html#a125952 ‘The Last Repair Shop’date: 2024-03-24, from: Dan Rather’s Steady A Reason To Smile https://steady.substack.com/p/the-last-repair-shop Another day, another paean of praise for the Amiga’s 1980s pre-emptive multitasking GUIdate: 2024-03-24, from: Liam on Linux
Yes, the Amiga offered a GUI with pre-emptive multitasking, as early as
1985 or so. And it was affordable: you didn’t even need a hard
disk.
The thing is, that’s only part of the story. There’s a generation of techies who are about 40 now who don’t remember this stuff well, and some of the older ones have forgotten with time but don’t realise. I had some greybeard angrily telling me that floppy drives were IDE recently. Senile idiot. Anyway. Preemptive multitasking is only part of the story. Lots of systems had it. Windows 2.0 could do preemptive multitasking – but only of DOS apps, and only in the base 640kB of RAM, so it was pretty useless. It sounds good but it’s not. Because the other key ingredient is memory protection. You need both, together, to have a compelling deal. Amiga and Windows 2.x/3.x only had the preemption part, they had no hardware memory management or protection to go with it. (Windows 3.x when running on a 386 and also when given >2MB RAM could do some, for DOS apps, but not much.) Having multiple pre-emptive tasks is relatively easy if they are all in the same memory space, but it’s horribly horribly unstable. Also see: microkernels. In size terms, AmigaOS was a microkernel, but a microkernel without memory protection is not such a big deal, because the hard part of a microkernel is the interprocess communication, and if they can just do that by reading and writing each other’s RAM it’s trivially easy but also trivially insecure and trivially unstable. RISC OS had pre-emptive multitasking too… but only of text-only command-line windows, and there were few CLI RISC OS apps so it was mostly useless. At least on 16-bit Windows there were lots of DOS apps so it was vaguely useful, if they’d fit into memory. Which only trivial ones would. Windows 3 came along very late in the DOS era, and by then, most DOS apps didn’t fit into memory on their own one at a time. I made good money optimising DOS memory around 1990-1992 because I was very good at it and without it most DOS apps didn’t fit into 500-550kB any more. So two of them in 640kB? Forget it. Preemption is clever. It lets apps that weren’t designed to multitask do it. But it’s also slow. Which is why RISC OS didn’t do it. Co-op is much quicker which is also why OSes like RISC OS and 16-bit Windows chose it for their GUI apps: because GUI apps strained the resources of late-1980s/very-early-1990s computers. So you had 2 choices: • The Mac and GEM way: don’t multitask at all. • The 16-bit Windows and RISC OS way: multitask cooperatively, and hope nothing goes wrong. Later, notably, MacOS 7-8-9 and Falcon MultiTOS/MiNT/MagiC etc added coop multitasking to single-tasking GUI OSes. I used MacOS 8.x and 9.x a lot and I really liked them. They were extraordinarily usable to an extent Mac OS X has never and will never catch up with. But the good thing about owning a Mac in the 1990s was that at least one thing in your life was guaranteed to go down on you every single day.
(Repurposed from
a HN
comment.)
https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/90834.html VP Harris Tours Bloodstained Building Where 2018 Parkland Massacre Happeneddate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA Parkland, Florida — PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris toured on Saturday the bloodstained classroom building where the 2018 Parkland high school massacre happened, then announced a program to assist states that have laws allowing police to temporarily seize guns from people judges have found to be dangerous. Harris saw bullet-pocked walls and floors still covered in dried blood and broken glass left behind from the Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 14 students and three staff members and wounded 17. The halls and classrooms inside the three-story structure remain strewn with shoes left behind by fleeing students and wilted Valentine’s Day flowers and balloons. Textbooks, laptop computers, snacks and papers remain on desks. She was told about each victim who died. “Frozen in time,” Harris said repeatedly about what she saw. She was accompanied on the tour by victims’ family members, some of them pushing for more spending on school safety and others for stronger gun laws. Harris, who leads the new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, said there are lessons to be learned from Parkland, both for stopping school shootings before they happen and mitigating them with measures such as making sure classroom doors don’t lock from the outside as they did at Stoneman Douglas. She pointed out that shootings are a leading cause of death for children and teenagers. “We must be willing to have the courage to say that on every level, whether you talk about changing laws or changing practices and protocols, that we must do better,” Harris said. At Stoneman Douglas, former student Nikolas Cruz, then 19, fired about 140 shots from his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle during his six-minute attack, moving methodically from the first floor, through the second and onto the third. He pleaded guilty in 2021. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2022 after his jury couldn’t unanimously agree he deserved a death sentence, angering the victims’ families. The building was preserved so his jury could tour it. It has loomed over the 3,600-student school from behind a temporary fence since the school reopened two weeks after the shooting. It is scheduled to be demolished this summer. No replacement plan has been announced. Following Harris’ tour, she announced a $750 million grant program to provide technical assistance and training to Florida and the other 20 states that have similar “red flag laws.” Florida’s law allows police officers, with a judge’s permission, to temporarily seize guns belonging to anyone shown to be a danger to others or themselves. The statute has been used more than 12,000 times since it was enacted six years ago in response to the Parkland shooting. Harris also called on both Congress and states without red flag laws to adopt them. The Biden administration has called for a national red flag law. Cruz had a long history of troubling and bizarre behavior before the shooting, including animal torture. In the weeks before the shooting, he had been reported to local law enforcement and the FBI by people fearing he was planning a mass shooting, but no action was taken. He legally purchased 10 guns in the 17 months between his 18th birthday and the massacre. “Red flag laws are simply designed to give communities a vehicle through which they can share … information about the concern of potential danger or the crying out for help,” Harris said. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who signed Florida’s red flag law as governor, issued a statement Saturday calling the Biden administration’s proposed national red flag law “radical,” saying it would be modeled on California’s statute and strip gun owners of their rights. California’s law is broader than Florida’s as it allows family members, employers and others to initiate the process, but the removal also has to be approved by a judge. California’s law “abandons due process to more quickly and easily take constitutional rights away from law-abiding Americans. That is unacceptable,” Scott said. Harris’ tour was the latest by elected officials and law enforcement and education leaders in recent months. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona toured it in January, and several members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have gone through since law enforcement returned custody of the building to the school district last summer. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle visited the building in recent days. “It is important to bring these people through the building so they can see not only the horror that still exists there, but so that we can point to the exact things that failed,” said Tony Montalto, president of Stand With Parkland, the group that represents most of the victims’ families. His 14-year-old daughter Gina died in the shooting. Some Stoneman Douglas families who participate in the tours, along with Harris and President Joe Biden, want the sale of AR-15s and similar guns banned, as they were from 1994 to 2004, but there isn’t sufficient support in Congress. Opponents, which include other victims’ families, argue that such a ban would violate the Second Amendment and do little to stem gun violence. Linda Beigel Schulman said the tour showed Harris the carnage a mass shooting creates — it no longer will be an abstract concept for her. Beigel Schulman’s 35-year-old son, geography teacher Scott Beigel, was killed as he ushered students to safety in his classroom. The papers he was grading when the shooting began remain on his desk. “She understands how important gun violence prevention is for us,” Beigel Schulman said of the vice president. “But when you go into the actual building and see what actually happened, it doesn’t matter that it is six years later. It really does something to you.” Max Schachter, whose son Alex died in the shooting, uses the tours to persuade officials to enact school safety measures such as making doors and windows bullet-resistant. Alex, 14, died from shots fired through the window of his classroom’s door. Schachter said while there is disagreement over gun laws, school safety brings the sides together. He pointed particularly to a fall visit by Utah officials, leading to that state enacting a $100 million plan to harden its schools. “I couldn’t save Alex. But every time I have officials come through that building, lives are saved,” Schachter said. Mark Your Calendars For World Ducati Weekdate: 2024-03-24, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News The Race of Champions takes center stage with top Ducati racers slugging it out at the Misano World Circuit. https://www.rideapart.com/news/712501/2024-world-ducati-week-tickets-on-sale/ Vans claims cyber crooks didn’t run off with its customers’ financial infodate: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-24, from: The Register (UK I.T. News) Just 35.5M names, addresses, emails, phone numbers … no biggieClothing and footwear giant VF Corporation is letting 35.5 million of its customers know they may find themselves victims of identity theft following last year’s security breach.… https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/24/vans_breach_disclosure/ Sunday caption contest: broke?date: 2024-03-24, from: Robert Reich on Substack And last week’s winner https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-broke In US, Micro-Apartments Back as Need for Affordable Housing Soarsdate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA SEATTLE — Every part of Barbara Peraza-Garcia and her family’s single-room apartment in Seattle has a double or even triple purpose. The 17-square-meter room is filled with an air mattress where she, her partner and their children, ages 2 and 4, sleep. It’s also where they play or watch TV. At mealtimes, it becomes their dining room. It’s a tight squeeze for the family of asylum seekers from Venezuela. But at $900 a month —more than $550 less than the average studio in Seattle — the micro-apartment with a bare-bones bathroom and shared kitchen was just within their budget and gave them a quick exit from their previous arrangement sleeping on the floor of a church. “It’s warm. We can cook ourselves. We have a private bathroom. It’s quiet,” said Peraza-Garcia, whose family came to the U.S. to escape crime in Venezuela and so she could access vital medication to combat cysts on her kidney. “We can be here as a family now.” Boarding houses that rented single rooms to low-income, blue-collar or temporary workers were prevalent across the U.S. in the early 1900s. Known as single room occupancy units, or SROs, they started to disappear in the postwar years amid urban renewal efforts and a focus on suburban single-family housing. Now the concept is reappearing — with the trendy name of “micro-apartment” and aimed at a much broader array of residents — as cities buffeted by surging homelessness struggle to make housing more affordable. “If you’re a single person and you want a low-cost place to live, that’s as cheap as you’re going to get without trying to find a subsidized apartment,” said Dan Bertolet, senior director of housing and urbanism for the non-profit research center Sightline Institute. The Pacific Northwest is a leader in the resurgence of this form of affordable housing. Oregon last year passed a bill opening the door for micro-apartments and Washington state lawmakers this year did the same, starting to clear red tape that for years has limited construction of the tiny units, which are about a third the size of an average studio apartment. The Washington bill, which was signed this week by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee after receiving nearly unanimous support in the Legislature, would require most cities to allow micro-apartments in residential buildings with at least six units, according to the Department of Commerce. It takes effect in late 2025. The legislation is an effort to counteract skyrocketing housing prices and, in the Seattle area, one of the nation’s highest rates of homelessness, as well as a critical housing shortage. Extremely low-income renters — those below federal poverty guidelines or earning 30% of the area median income — face a shortage of 7.3 million affordable rental homes, according to a National Low Income Housing Coalition report published last week. Such households account for 11 million — or nearly one-quarter — of renters nationwide, the report said. Rep. Mia Gregerson, who sponsored Washington’s bill, said she predicts the measure will lead to thousands of units being built in her state, providing unsubsidized affordable housing to everyone from young people getting their first apartment and elderly people downsizing to those coming out of physical or mental health treatment. “Government can’t close that gap all by itself, it has to have for-profit, market-rate housing built all at the same time,” said Gregerson, a Democrat. The U.S. lost hundreds of thousands of SROs in the last half of the 20th century as associations with poverty and substandard accommodation sparked restrictive zoning laws. Some cities outlawed their construction altogether — a loss some housing experts say helped contribute to the homelessness crisis. Facing that crisis and a critical housing shortage, cities and states across the nation are now shifting their stance. In December, as her state grappled with a massive influx of migrants, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $50 million program aimed at repairing and renovating 500 SROs across the state. New York City lost at least 70,000 such units between the early 20th century and 2014, according to a report from New York University’s Furman Center. But there is concern that this type of affordable housing is not an ideal fit for an especially vulnerable group — families. There are more than 3,800 unhoused families with children in the Seattle area, among the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2023 one-night count. Cities need to focus on building affordable housing that also includes larger units, such as studios and one-bedroom apartments, said Marisa Zapata, a land-use planning professor at Portland State University. “My biggest concern is that we will see them as the solution and not do right by our community members by building the housing that people want,” she said of micro-apartments. The bill passed by Oregon lawmakers last year requires local governments to allow single room occupancy units in areas zoned for residential use. The provision took effect January 1. Central City Concern, a Portland-based homeless services nonprofit, leases more than 1,000 SRO units — both subsidized and not — to people who are considered extremely low income. It helps people struggling to access housing due to things like eviction histories and poor credit scores. The units have a median rent of $550 a month, making them a “vital option” for people exiting homelessness or living on fixed incomes, such as those with disabilities, said Sarah Holland, senior director of supportive housing and employment. Over 80% of tenants were formerly homeless, she said, and some have been living in their units for 30 years. “As costs continue to escalate in Portland, it gives them the chance to stay in their home,” she said. Cheyenne Welbourne moved into one of the nonprofit’s micro-apartments in downtown Portland last March after years of living on the streets. The room, which has a curtained-off toilet and sink, is just big enough to fit a single bed, a chair and a TV. But to him, it’s a treasured home that he’s decorated with colorful lights, potted plants and action figures. He uses the small kitchenette, which features an induction cooktop, for making the tea he loves to drink. “All I had was just me and my backpack, and that’s it,” he said. “I was just happy to be in here and that I didn’t have to spend another winter out there.” “I just want a home, you know? A nice home, a decent home.” Some experts hope the Pacific Northwest will inspire more states to take similar steps. “The alternatives are … people being in shelters, people being on the street, people being doubled, tripled, quadrupled up,” said Vicki Been, faculty director at New York University’s Furman Center and a law professor. For Peraza-Garcia’s family in Seattle, the tight squeeze is worth it to be in the same complex as their cousins and within walking distance of grocery stores, a park and preschools. They plan to spend the next year in the micro-apartment and then move to a bigger place if they can get good-paying jobs. “We’re happy because we’re here in a quiet place where we can be together as a family,” she said. California City Wrestles With History of Discrimination Against Early Chinese Immigrantsdate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA Antioch, California — In 1939, after attending the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, Alfred Chan and his friends were headed back home to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. “They got really hungry and decided to stop halfway in Antioch for a meal,” his son Ron Chan said. But, the waitress refused to serve the young men or even talk to them. They left the establishment an hour later, hungry and humiliated. Eighty-two years after that incident, Alfred Chan received an apology delivered in person by Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe in November 2022. Chan, a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Navy and worked 38 years for the city of Oakland, died at age 98, about three months after hearing those words. “It helped close a bad moment in my father’s life,” Ron Chan said, adding that it gave him peace to see his father’s closure as well. “An apology may be just words that may not be enough to resolve all issues from the past. But without that first step, we have no progress.” In May 2021, Thorpe had issued a formal apology for Antioch’s mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants, including the torching of Chinatown and driving out its residents, which has been documented by local newspapers and historians. Thorpe’s actions led to major cities like San Jose, Los Angeles and San Francisco passing similar resolutions. The 2021 apology has also led to local residents and historians delving deeper into the past and working to establish a Chinatown Historic District, complete with murals and museum exhibits highlighting the history and accomplishments of the community in Antioch. Chinese laborers were among the early population in Antioch, which was named in 1851. They likely numbered just under 100, said Lucy Meinhardt, an Antioch Historical Society Museum board member. They worked in farms, canneries and mines. They helped build river levees and established a Chinatown where the city’s downtown now stands. In the 19th century, Chinese people across California endured discrimination such as wage disparity, bans on property ownership and sundown laws that barred them from going outside after dark. Those working and living around Antioch were no different. In 1871, a massive fire wiped out several blocks of Antioch’s Chinatown. The townspeople decided that a Chinese laundry needed to be torn down to stop the blaze. Then in 1876, local newspapers reported that another blaze was deliberately started to drive six Chinese women who were allegedly prostitutes out of their homes. A Buddhist/Tao temple also perished in the fire, Meinhardt said. It’s become popular local lore that Antioch was a “sundown town” and Chinese residents used tunnels to skirt the rules. Meinhardt says there is no record of such a law “but it had to have been a practice if it existed. I still suspect it existed.” Before getting involved with the Antioch Historical Society and becoming committee chair for its Chinese History Project, Hans Ho said he had no idea a Chinatown once existed there. Chinese people were undoubtedly treated as second-class citizens, said Ho, who emigrated from Hong Kong in the 1960s. “Regardless of which narrative you believe in, it is still an atrocity because these people were expelled or persecuted without due process of law and their houses were burned down,” he said. He was also one of the representatives from the Chinese American community to receive Thorpe’s apology, an act that moved him to tears. “I was shamelessly crying,” said Ho, who became visibly choked up just recalling that moment. “It’s the most obvious means of reconciliation that I’ve ever encountered.” Today, the city of more than 111,000 is 25% white while Asians make up 12%. Hispanic and Black residents are 35% and 20% of the population, respectively. Making progress on Asian American representation in public spaces remains an uphill struggle. Plans for a public memorial paying tribute to early Chinese settlers is at a standstill after a consultant recommended the city invest in more research. Even creating a space for some materials related to Chinese residents at the Antioch Historical Society Museum has gotten pushback. “(One board member) said that they wanted this to be an ‘American’ museum,” said Dwayne Eubanks, a past president of the historical society, who is African American. “I took umbrage to that.” He held up a picture of his father in his Army uniform and told the man: “This is an American.” On Saturday, Eubanks, Meinhardt and Ho all attended the May We Gather event in Antioch, which organizers described as the first national memorial service and pilgrimage in response to anti-Asian violence. Attendees, including the three local residents, walked meditatively with Buddhist monks, nuns and lay leaders, around the city block where Antioch’s Chinatown stood 150 years ago. Ho said such events while educational, should guard against portraying communities of color as victims and instead spotlight stories of Asian American accomplishment in the face of stark adversity. Somewhat agreeing with his friend, Eubanks pointed out that “healing is a two-way street” and that those who hate must first understand and acknowledge what happened. “And then they have the opportunity to accept the medicine because hate is a sickness,” he said. “We do not want this to happen to our grandkids. We don’t want history to repeat itself.” What Is Gambling Addiction and How Widespread Is It in US?date: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey — The firing of Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter and close friend after allegations of illegal gambling and theft from the Japanese baseball player is shining renewed attention on compulsive gambling. The team fired interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, who has been Ohtani’s constant companion since the star came to the U.S in 2017, on Wednesday after reports about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well over $1 million. The law firm representing Ohtani said in a statement that he had been the victim of “massive theft.” Mizuhara told ESPN this week that Ohtani knew nothing of his illegal wagers on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. Mizuhara said Ohtani was an innocent victim of his friend’s gambling addiction. What is problem gambling? The National Council on Problem Gambling defines gambling addiction as “gambling behavior that is damaging to a person or their family, often disrupting their daily life and career.” Gambling addiction is a recognized mental health diagnosis, and the group says anyone who gambles can be at risk for developing a problem. Its symptoms include thinking about gambling all the time; feeling the need to bet more money more often; going back to try to win money back, known as “chasing losses”; feeling out of control; and continuing to gamble despite negative consequences. How widespread is it? The council says about 2.5 million adults in the U.S. meet the criteria of having a severe gambling problem. Another 5 million to 8 million people are considered to have mild or moderate gambling problems. The 800-GAMBLER hotline can offer help and referrals, and Gamblers Anonymous also has resources and support for those with gambling problems. Where is sports betting legal? Sports betting is legal in 38 U.S. states plus Washington, D.C., since a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates to legal wagering in a case brought by New Jersey. More than 80% of sports betting is done online, using phones or laptops. This week, at the start of the NCAA college basketball tournaments, the American Gaming Association estimated that Americans would wager $2.72 billion with legal outlets this year on the tournaments. What are sports leagues doing about gambling? Major professional sports leagues prohibit their players from gambling, and many impose penalties including fines, suspensions and lifetime bans for violations. The most famous of these involves baseball star Pete Rose, the sport’s all-time hits leader, who was banned for betting on games in which his team was involved. Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement includes an annual spring training education program for players on safety and security, including issues relating to sports betting and gambling. This comes at the same time that the leagues — who bitterly fought against legalizing sports betting beyond the four states that allowed it before 2018 — have become business partners with the biggest gambling outlets. Many teams and leagues have official sports betting partners and allow gambling company advertising on their premises. A few have even opened sports books at their stadiums. Is betting legal in California or Japan? Sports betting is not legal in California, despite several attempts to have voters legalize it. In Japan, most forms of gambling are prohibited, although it is allowed on horse racing, motor sports and public races involving bicycles, power boats and motorcycles. https://www.voanews.com/a/what-is-gambling-addiction-and-how-widespread-is-it-in-us-/7538051.html Today in SCV History (March 24)date: 2024-03-24, from: SCV New (TV Station) 1922 – Wyatt Earp’s wife thanks William S. Hart for defending her husband’s honor. [story https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-march-24/ Climate Change Shrinks Nevada’s First Big-Game Moose Huntdate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA RENO, Nevada — In what will be a tiny big-game hunt for some of the largest animals in North America, Nevada is planning its first-ever moose hunting season this fall. Wildlife managers say explosive growth in Nevada moose numbers over the past five years, increasing to a population of more than 100, justifies the handful of harvests planned. Scientists say the experiment of sorts should also provide a real-time peek at how the complexities of climate change affect wildlife, and why these majestic — some say goofy-looking — mammals the size of a horse have unexpectedly expanded their range into warmer territory. “Moose are newcomers to North America,” said Cody McKee, a Nevada Department of Wildlife specialist. The last deer species to cross the Bering Sea land bridge into Alaska and Canada, McKee said the movement of moose into the Lower 48 has occurred almost exclusively in the past 150 years. “Their post-glacial range expansion isn’t really complete,” McKee said. “And that’s what we’re currently seeing in Nevada right now, is those moose are moving into the state and finding suitable habitat.” Only a few Nevada moose, perhaps just one, will be killed across an area larger than Massachusetts and New Jersey combined. But state officials expect thousands of applications for the handful of hunting tags, and it’s already controversial. “Why a moose hunt at all?” Stephanie Myers of Las Vegas asked at a recent wildlife commission meeting. “We want to see moose, view moose. Not kill moose.” The first moose was spotted in Nevada in the 1950s, not long before the dim-witted cartoon character Bullwinkle made his television debut. Only a handful of sightings followed for decades but started increasing about 10 years ago. By 2018, officials estimated there were 30 to 50, all in Nevada’s northeast corner. But the population has more than doubled and experts believe there’s enough habitat to sustain about 200, a level that could be reached in three years. Bryan Bird, Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest program director, is among the skeptics who suspect it’s a short-lived phenomenon. “I believe the moose story is one of ‘ghost’ habitat or ‘ghost’ range expansion. By that I mean, these animals are expanding into habitat that may not be suitable in 50 years due to climate change,” Bird said. Government biologists admit they don’t fully understand why the moose have moved so far south, where seasonal conditions are warmer and drier than they traditionally prefer. “It seems to be opposite of where we would expect to see moose expansion given their ecology,” said Marcus Blum, a Texas A&M University researcher hired to help assess future movement. He analyzed aerial surveys, individual sightings and habitat to project growth trends. Standing 1.8 meters tall at the shoulder and weighing up to 453.5 kilograms, moose live in riparian areas where they munch on berry bushes and aspen leaves along the edges of mountain forests native to the northern half of Nevada. They usually avoid places where temperatures regularly exceed 20 Celsius. The Nevada study documented moose spending nearly half their time in areas where that “thermal threshold” was exceeded about 150 days a year, while climate change models suggest the threshold will be surpassed by another 14 days annually by 2050, Blum said. To be clear, the valleys beneath the snow-capped winter mountain ranges with moose are 805 kilometers from the Las Vegas Strip in the desert many people picture as Nevada. Researchers have more questions than answers about why moose continue to expand their range into Nevada where extended drought has taken a toll on other wildlife, McKee said. “There’s a lot of speculation and questions about why they are here, given concerns about the changing environment and how it’s probably getting warmer and dryer,” McKee said. “Why is it that our extensive drought cycles haven’t seemed to be affecting the moose population?” Populations along the U.S.-Canada border have oscillated for more than a century. Several states, from Idaho to Minnesota and Maine, have dramatically reduced hunting quotas at times to allow populations to recover. Alaska is home to the vast majority of U.S. moose, upwards of 200,000, with about 7,000 harvests annually. Maine has nearly 70,000, which is five times more than any other Lower 48 state, and issued 4,100 permits last year. Neighboring New Hampshire offered only 35 for 3,000-plus moose and Idaho issued about 500 for its 10,000 to 12,000. No moose were observed in Washington state before the 1960s, but its growing population now exceeds 5,000. The state issued three hunting permits in 1977 and now tops 100 annually. Nevada’s research suggests its population could sustain more harvests than planned, McKee said, but “conservative is the name of the game here.” Aerial surveys are now backed by radio-tracking collars biologists have fitted on four bull moose and nine cows since 2020. In some spots, males significantly outnumber females. Removing a bull or two might improve herd dynamics, he said. The exact number of permits will be determined in the coming weeks, but McKee anticipates no more than three. Only Nevadans can apply for the inaugural hunt, which will help guide decisions about future endeavors. Successful hunters must present the skull and antlers for state inspection within five days. That will give scientists more insight into herd health, body conditions, disease and parasites. Bill Nolan of Sparks, who first hunted ducks at age 12, says he intends to apply for a chance he describes as “slim and none” to draw a moose tag. “For hunters, it would be like hitting the lottery,” he said. https://www.voanews.com/a/climate-change-shrinks-nevada-s-first-big-game-moose-hunt-/7540353.html March 23, 2024 (Saturday)date: 2024-03-24, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog Buddy and I are traveling in the Southwest and have virtually no internet connection tonight, so a letter isn’t going to happen. But I’m going to try to post a picture of some of what we’ve been seeing. This image is from yesterday, near Zion National Park in Utah. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-23-2024-saturday Malinin Takes Men’s World Figure Skating Crown in Record Performancedate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA MONTREAL — American figure skating star Ilia Malinin is a world champion — and a world-record holder. Malinin put on a dominant display that included a jaw-dropping six quad jumps — including his patented quad axel — to snag the men’s singles crown Saturday night at the world championships. After placing third in Thursday’s short program, the 19-year-old scored a world record 227.79 in the free program while skating to the Succession soundtrack to bring his total to 333.76 — more than 20 points than the rest of the field. Malinin dropped to the ice in disbelief after presenting his routine to a rowdy Bell Centre crowd that cheered and clapped the whole way. He dethroned two-time defending world champion Shoma Uno of Japan, who fell to fourth (280.85) after missing two quad jumps to start his program. Yuma Kagiyama of Japan won silver (309.65) and Adam Siao Him Fa of France claimed bronze (284.39). Siao Him Fa climbed from 19th to third with an awe-inspiring display of his own, which included a backflip. Earlier Saturday, 2022 Olympic champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States defended their ice dance world title with a season-best total score of 222.20. Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier won silver (219.68) and Italy’s Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri claimed bronze (216.52). It’s Montreal’s first time hosting the event since 1932. The city was supposed to stage the 2020 championship but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the competition. Boston will hold the 2025 competition. Biden, Trump Win Louisiana’s Presidential Primarydate: 2024-03-24, from: VOA News USA washington — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won Louisiana’s primary on Saturday, collecting more delegates after they clinched their party nominations. Biden also appeared in Missouri’s Democratic primary, with results not expected to be reported until next week. None of the races were in suspense. Biden and Trump have beaten their major competitors. But the primary races are still closely watched by insiders for turnout and signs of protest voters. For Biden, some liberals are registering their anger with Israel’s war against Hamas following the militant group’s October 7 attack. More than 30,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children, have been reported killed by Gaza authorities since Israel launched its offensive. A protest movement launched by Arab American communities in Michigan has spread to several other states. Trump is his party’s dominant figure and has locked up a third straight Republican nomination. But he faces dissent from people worried about the immense legal jeopardy he faces or critical of his White House term, which ended shortly after the January 6 insurrection mounted by his supporters and fueled by his false theories of election fraud. Saturday’s primary was the Missouri Democratic Party’s first party-run presidential contest since a new law took effect in August 2022. Louisiana’s primaries, meanwhile, come almost four years after the state was the first to postpone its primaries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-win-louisiana-s-presidential-primary-/7540329.html @Jessica Smith’s blog (date: 2024-03-24, from: Jessica Smith’s blog) Gidget’s inherited a lovely little blanket from an elderly family friend of Viv’s whose beloved cat recently passed away. She said Gidget had better appreciate it because “it was very special to Sooty”. Thankfully, she does 😸
https://www.jayeless.net/2024/03/gidget-inherited-blankie.html An FTC report says large grocery chains “used rising costs as an…date: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-24, from: Jason Kittke’s blog https://kottke.org/24/03/0044252-an-ftc-report-says-large Daily EV Recap: Wireless EV chargingdate: 2024-03-24, 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/2024/03/23/daily-ev-recap-wireless-ev-charging/ ‘Harrison Bergeron’date: 2024-03-24, updated: 2024-03-24, from: Daring Fireball https://daringfireball.net/misc/2024/03/Harrison_Bergeron.pdf On to the next: Women’s basketball wins first NCAA Tournament gamedate: 2024-03-24, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper) The Trojans led the Islanders for all but 59 seconds of the game. The post On to the next: Women’s basketball wins first NCAA Tournament game appeared first on Daily Trojan. https://dailytrojan.com/2024/03/23/on-to-the-next-womens-basketball-wins-first-ncaa-tournament-game/ Full Circle Weekly News 358date: 2024-03-24, from: Full Circle Magazine Credits
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