News gathered 2024-04-09

(date: 2024-04-09 08:34:27)

Physical modelling of unreinforced masonry walls using a sand-based 3D printer

date: 2024-04-15, from: ETH Zurich, recently added

Del Giudice, Lorenzo; Katsamakas, Antonios; Liu, Bowen; Sarhosis, Vasilis; Vassiliou, Michalis F.

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/661336

Kristina Wong’s ‘Overlord’ mines laughs from scars pf Pandemic

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Comedic solo show about a mask-making project recalls the unsettling early days of Covid outbreak.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/kristina-wongs-overlord-mines-laughs-from-scars-pf-pandemic/

Tesla Will Spend 10 Billion Training Full Self-Driving

date: 2024-04-09, from: Inside EVs News

Tesla’s bill for compute, storage, and networking hardware alone will hit more than $10 billion in 2024.

https://insideevs.com/news/715366/tesla-10-billion-self-driving/

Arizona Governor Strikes Down Age Verification Bill, Says It Violates First Amendment

date: 2024-04-09, from: 404 Media Group

“While we look for a solution, it should be bipartisan and work within the bounds of the First Amendment, which this bill does not,” Arizona governor Katie Hobbs wrote.

https://www.404media.co/arizona-governor-veto-age-verification-bill/

24 hours in AI news

date: 2024-04-09, from: Gary Marcus blog

A bunch of small but important items in recently-breaking AI news: Tesla settled their lawsuit with the Huang family over Walter Huang’s death, for an undisclosed amount of money. “Although Huang’s family acknowledges he was distracted while the car was driving, they argued Tesla is at fault because it falsely marketed Autopilot as self-driving software. They alleged Tesla knew that Autopilot was not ready for prime time and had flaws that could make its use unsafe.” The settlement is striking in part because Musk had previously said this

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/24-hours-in-ai-news

Code in Context: How AI Can Help Improve Our Documentation

date: 2024-04-09, from: Jonudell blog

Here’s the latest installment in the series on working with LLMS: https://thenewstack.io/code-in-context-how-ai-can-help-improve-our-documentation/. Writing documentation from scratch is as uncommon as writing code from scratch. More typically, you’re updating or expanding or refactoring existing docs. My expectation was that an LLM-powered tool primed with both code and documentation could provide a powerful assist, and Unblocked did. … Continue reading Code in Context: How AI Can Help Improve Our Documentation

https://blog.jonudell.net/2024/04/09/code-in-context-how-ai-can-help-improve-our-documentation/

What Climate Change Is Doing to Our Brains

date: 2024-04-09, from: Heatmap News

Thinking is physical. Thankfully, one of the many wonderful things about the human brain is that we don’t have to confront this unsettling fact very much — that the environment around us shapes our perceptions and reactions, that all human experience is the result of secreted hormones and synaptic transmission. In other words, our brains let us think we’re in charge.

Unfortunately, as with so many other things, climate change is interfering. “As the environment changes, you should expect to change too,” writes author, neuroscientist, and Grist senior data scientist Clayton Page Aldern in his gripping new book, The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. “It is the job of your brain to model the world as it is,” he goes on. “And the world is mutating.”

You may already be familiar with some of his examples — that the heat can make us dumber and more aggressive, and that people who survive traumatic weather events can get post-traumatic stress disorder. But Aldern’s book — which, in spite of its author’s technical background, is immensely readable and literary — pushes far past the familiar, touching on topics as wide-ranging as brain-eating amoebas, language death, and free will. The common theme throughout, though, is that climate is our unseen “puppeteer.”

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You use the phrase “the weight of nature” in several contexts throughout the book. It made me think of both Altas, as in “the weight on our shoulders,” and also the idea of determinism that you get into a bit. At what point in the writing process did you come up with the title?

It was early on that the title came to me, but it was not the original title. I’ve been working on this project for six or seven years, and initially my working title was something awful like Nature’s Marionette, which sought to communicate this notion of forcing our hands — the puppetmaster behind our decision-making.

But I wanted to be able to communicate this feeling of being guided by the environment — in addition to carrying said burden — because it felt like weight. It does feel heavy, and heaviness does a lot of things, including forcing our hands.

Is there something about brains that makes them uniquely vulnerable to climate change? I ask because I’m sure books could be written about how climate change hurts our hearts or lungs, too. But it seems to impact our brains in a variety of terrifying forms.

Hearts do one thing: They beat. Brains are always reaching outward, and so, by extension, they’re enmeshed in the same manner in which one can imagine our entire bodies to be enmeshed in this “environment.”

More specifically, in addition to the reaching-out action, brains are actively modeling the world around us. That is what they do. This notion of having an active organ, as opposed to a somewhat passive organ, makes the difference because brains are always integrating new information about the world. And the world is changing.

As we come to terms with this changing world — and when I use the phrase “come to terms,” I’m not seeking to deploy some kind of intellectual or emotional metaphor here. I mean, on a biophysical level, as we’re coming to terms with these changes — then neurochemical changes result accordingly. We respond in kind. Certainly, our other organs are adaptive to various degrees, but the whole point of the brain is its adaptive nature, right? It seeks to model the world around us, and it implements change through a system known as neuroplasticity. It is an organ that is built for modeling and integrating change. And so, is it any wonder that climate change acts directly on this organ in ways it may not act on others?

The chapter about Karl Friston and the give-and-take of perception — in which you write, “our actions are the world’s sensations, and our sensations are the world’s actions” — completely blew my mind.

I haven’t even told this to my editor, but I think if I’m ever granted the privilege of writing a book again, I might try to pitch a biography of Karl Friston. His research is unbelievably interesting.

Is his work well-known among neuroscientists, or is it kind of fringe even within the community?

That’s a fabulous question, and I’ll tell you why: Karl is one of the most cited neuroscientists of all time, but most neuroscientists have not heard of him. The reason that paradox is true is because, early in his career, he developed some of the basic algorithmic technology underlying functional resonance in functional magnetic resonance imaging: fMRI. And so, anytime anybody uses fMRI, which most neuroscientists do, there’s this casual Fristonian citation that goes back to his early work.

Far fewer people have paid attention to his groundbreaking work on what’s called the free energy hypothesis. If you Google, like, “the most influential neuroscientists of all time,” he’s always on these lists, but nobody knows who he is. Well, nobody is a stretch; he’s reasonably well-known in sub-communities. But by and large, he’s such an abstract thinker, and his material is so difficult to internalize, that most people who are attracted to his work fall into the neuro-theory community, computational neuroscientists, theoretical neuroscientists — and that’s, frankly, the vast minority of neuroscientists. So he is somewhat of an unknown entity, which is just astounding because he has literally been in the running for the Nobel.

Something that struck me was how many gaps there are in the science of understanding our own brains — we often seem to know the general region where thoughts or impulses originate but not quite the mechanics of how they work. Are there certain mysteries about our consciousness and perception that might always remain slightly out of our reach?

There’s a huge body of research that seeks to address whether or not the question of consciousness, and understanding it, is unravelable at all. This is known as the hard problem of consciousness. Have we made progress in our understanding of consciousness over the past 100 or 200 years? Well, almost certainly, yes. And in neuroscience, we’ve come closer to an understanding of what perception is and what consciousness is.

Will another 20 years or so get us closer to an ultimate, grounded, and internalized rational scientific representation there of? Maybe! But there are also people today who argue with just as much empirical backing that the notion of solving consciousness — the notion of, basically, a self coming to understand itself — is a logically impossible act.

I’m not a consciousness researcher, so I’m not sure if I have enough background to really say that I’ve made my mind up. But there are certainly folks out there who say consciousness is not something that’s solvable, it’s not something that we will ever understand in the same materialistic terms that, perhaps, we understand the heart.

I’m going to be obnoxious and ask the AI question. You didn’t really get into the possibility and pitfalls of technology, but I’m wondering if it was back of mind at all while you were writing?

I’m going to give you an obnoxious answer. In fact, it’s a decades-old obnoxious answer. When I’m thinking about this stuff, my instinct is to think about technology in terms of the manners in which it removes us from nature. So much of the promise in this area of research — and I do think there’s promise, I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom — is that this intimate relationship we have with the planet is also that which can be leveraged to help mediate some of these detrimental effects.

There’s a fabulous book from a couple of years ago, The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams; I have come to understand my book as its dark version. The Nature Fix details all the manners in which interacting with nature, as opposed to the built environment, is essential for mental, psychological, spiritual, and neurological health.

This is an obnoxious answer because it’s the classic “Oh, kids are all looking at their phones!” But I think that’s real — the handheld devices and the omniscience of the all-knowing screen, which, perhaps we can extend that to the LLMs. As it were, there’s this suite of technologies that mediates our relationship both with knowledge writ large and the broader environment outside of ourselves. In my estimate, it filters the world in a way that I suspect is preventing us from interacting with some of the benefits that the environment has to offer.

The same things that make our brains incredible — their ability to adapt, create, and use language — are also what allowed us to invent the combustion engine, organize global commodities markets, and design machines for fracking. In a sense, the climate fight requires beating back against the weight and consequences of our own brains, right?

When I think about this question, it’s less about “how can we ensure we’re using the tools of evolution, the powers of the brain, for good,” and more about coming to terms with the fact that something like free will doesn’t exist.

There’s this thinker, Timothy Morton, who writes a lot about our enmeshment with the environment and the degree to which one cannot separate the self from the greater universe. Taken to its extreme, that thinking — which I think is very powerful — implies that what we need to wrap our heads around and come to terms with is the fact that we’re not really making decisions, per se. It’s just a universe of particles in motion. So grappling with what Morton calls the ecological thought, grappling with this notion of determinism and enmeshment, and trying to suss out the moral responsibilities that fall out of that relationship — that, to me, is a worthy task and, frankly, an unsolved problem.

As a neuroscientist working in the climate space, what keeps you up at night?

The 20-year timeline keeps me up at night. A lot of the research that we’re coming to terms with today is going to make itself known on a much more visceral level over the next 20 to 50 years. If it is in fact the case that cyanobacterial blooms are releasing a neurotoxin that is spurring an increased risk of ALS, that neurodegenerative disease isn’t necessarily going to manifest in people whom it is likely to affect for a number of years. We’re not going to see in tangible, visceral terms a corresponding spike in this disease in the general population for another couple of decades.

I just published a piece in The Guardian about some of these effects, and one of the researchers I interviewed for that piece basically said what I’m trying to communicate now, which is: We’re in the midst of a grand experiment. It’s not like a lab where you’ve got a rat, and you’re selectively exposing it to one toxin over the course of some fixed time period and measuring the results. The lab that we’re in is the Earth and we are exposed to climatic and environmental stressors in this soup, chronically, for years and years, and in unknown quantities. At some point, we’re going to look around and say, “Oh, this is really bad. We should do something about this.” And for many people, it will be too late.

What gives you hope?

I don’t like hope. I think that hope breeds complacency — or, at least, false hope does. I tend personally not to look for vectors of hope per se, which is not to say that I’m a pessimist or a nihilist or anything like that. I look for climate solutions, for example, or sources of resilience, or stories of the capacity of the human spirit that inspire me with a feeling of desire. I’m interested in having images out there in the world that point my compass toward a future that I would like to realize.

https://heatmap.news/culture/weight-of-nature-climate-brain

Lawyer Scenes

date: 2024-04-09, from: John August blog

John and Craig lawyer up with criminal defense attorney Ken White (aka Popehat) to look at legal scenes in movies and TV, and separate the tropes from the truth. How do lawyers actually prepare a case? Will they meet a client in jail? Do they need to gather evidence themselves? And what happens when they […] The post Lawyer Scenes first appeared on John August.

https://johnaugust.com/2024/lawyer-scenes

Lucid (LCID) sneaks out record first quarter EV deliveries as price cuts take effect

date: 2024-04-09, from: Electrek Feed

EV maker Lucid (LCID) set a record with EV deliveries hitting a new high in Q1 following significant price cuts. With production slipping, will it be enough for Lucid to hit its targets in 2024?

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/09/lucid-lcid-sneaks-out-record-q1-ev-deliveries-amid-price-cuts/

US top military leaders face Congress over Pentagon budget and questions on Israel, Ukraine support

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

Washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Brown Jr. testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget for 2025 as questions remained as to whether lawmakers will support current spending needs for Israel or Ukraine.

The Senate hearing was the first time lawmakers on both sides were able to question the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership on the administration’s Israel strategy following the country’s deadly strike on World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. It also follows continued desperate pleas by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if the U.S. does not help soon, Kyiv will lose the war to Russia.

In their opening statements, both Austin and Brown emphasized that their 2025 budget is still shaped with the military’s long-term strategic goal in mind — to ready forces and weapons for a potential future conflict with China. About $100 billion of this year’s request is set aside for new space, nuclear weapons and cyber warfare systems the military says it must invest in now before Beijing’s capabilities surpass it.

But the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are challenging a deeply-divided Congress and have resulted in months of delays in getting last year’s defense budget through, which was only passed by lawmakers a few weeks ago.

Austin’s opening remarks were temporarily interrupted by protesters lifting a Palestinian flag and shouting at him to stop sending weapons to Israel. “Stop the genocide,” they said, as they lifted their hands, stained in red, in the air.

The Pentagon scraped together about $300 million in ammunition to send to Kyiv in March but cannot send more without Congress’ support, and a separate $60 billion supplemental bill that would fund those efforts has been stalled for months.

“The price of U.S. leadership is real. But it is far lower than the price of U.S. abdication,” Austin told the senators.

If Kyiv falls, it could imperil Ukraine’s Baltic NATO member neighbors and potentially drag U.S. troops into a prolonged European war. If millions die in Gaza due to starvation, it could enrage Israel’s Arab neighbors and lead to a much wider, deadlier Middle East conflict — one that could also bring harm to U.S. troops and to U.S. relations in the region for decades.

The Pentagon has urged Congress to support new assistance for Ukraine for months, to no avail, and has tried to walk a perilous line between defending its ally Israel and maintaining ties with key regional Arab partners. Israel’s actions in Gaza have been used as a rallying cry by factions of Iranian-backed militant groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Islamic Resistance groups across Iraq and Syria, to strike at U.S. interests. Three U.S. service members have already been killed as drone and missile attacks increased against U.S. bases in the region.

Six U.S. military ships with personnel and components to build a humanitarian aid pier are also still en route to Gaza but questions remain as to how food that arrives at the pier will be safely distributed inside the devastated territory.

Lawmakers are also seeing demands at home. For months, a handful of its far-right members have kept Congress from approving additional money or weapons for Ukraine until domestic needs like curbing the crush of migrants at the southern U.S. border are addressed. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is already facing a call to oust him as speaker by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene because Johnson is trying to work out a compromise that would move the Ukraine aid forward.

On Israel, the World Central Kitchen strike led to a shift in tone from President Joe Biden on how Israel must protect civilian life in Gaza and drove dozens of House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to call on Biden to halt weapons transfers to Israel.

Half the population of Gaza is starving and on the brink of famine due to Israel’s tight restrictions on allowing aid trucks through.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-top-military-leaders-face-congress-over-pentagon-budget-and-questions-on-israel-ukraine-support/7562792.html

Former Branham athletic director declines teaching reassignment, uncertain about future

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Landon Jacobs: “I’m not sure what my next step is regarding other AD roles to be honest. We’ll get there soon.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/former-branham-athletic-director-declines-teaching-reassignment-uncertain-about-future/

The $79,995 Base GMC Hummer EV Is Reportedly Dead

date: 2024-04-09, from: Inside EVs News

With the EV2 trim reportedly out of the picture, the cheapest Hummer EV starts at $98,845.

https://insideevs.com/news/715457/base-gmc-hummer-ev-dead-report/

MV Agusta’s Enduro Veloce Is a Faster Rally Machine

date: 2024-04-09, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

It’ll certainly be a stylish way to explore the backcountry and by-roads.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/715371/mv-agusta-enduro-veloce-price-specs-new/

The Little Garden

date: 2024-04-09, from: David Rosenthal’s blog

Source

Once upon a time, three little businesses wanted a connection to the ARPAnet/internet. The year was 1990 or 1991. John Gilmore, John Romke[y], and Trusted Information Systems (TIS) split the $15K or so it took to get a leased-line and 3COM Brouters to Alternet, with what today you’d call fractional T1. An additional 56K leased line and Brouter brought the ’net up to Gilmore’s house, Toad Hall, in San Francisco.

In the mid-1990s, UUNET was the fastest-growing ISP, outpacing MCI and Sprint. At its peak, Internet traffic was briefly doubling every few months, which translates to 10x growth each year.

As time went on, friends of theirs wanted in on this rare and exciting ’net connection, resulting in Tim Pozar putting an old PC running Phil Karn’s KA9Q/NOS program, an amateur radio router capable of TCP/IP, onto Toad Hall’s ethernet. Tim installed a pair of modems, then dialed in once and stayed connected 24 hrs/day (Pacific Bell never said you couldn’t do that…)

Eventually the NOS box was full, and more friends wanted in, but everyone was too busy to deal with the hassle.

Somehow, in September 1992, Pozar and Gilmore and I worked out a deal where, I would maintain the thing, collect money to build more NOS boxes and contribute to the monthly Alternet bill, install more people, and get (1) a free connection to the internet and (2) a slice off the top after it exceeded N connections.

By that December, there were enough connections in place that I was pocketing $420/month. By March 1993 there were 11 modem-connected members (as we fancied ourselves).

• A phone line from Pacific Bell at the PoP.
• A second phone line at my apartment.
• A pair of Zyxel 9.6Kb modems, one for the PoP and one for my apartment.

SparcStation SLC

SparcStation 1+

Luckily we were bought by Best Internet Communications, Mountain View; they had money, marketing, and a non-burned-out management; we had a solid locked-in customer base and positive cash flow.

Edgar Nielsen almost single-handedly built the technical infrastructure that TLGnet ran on. He designed much of the network and routing structure, all of the security (with some help from Stu Grossman), wrote a complete, queryable, shared and remotely-accessible database (included every single modem, router, wire, cable, customer, IP (domain names and IP address allocations), and logical link) in standard and portable tools, installed equipment, built and maintained our unix boxes, put SNMP on every single node (hundreds) and automated the entire ISP technical infrastructure from one end to the other. I doubt many small to mid-size ISPs today have the things Edgar wrote by 1995.

Another thing of crucial importance to me, and to Deke, Edgar and a lesser extent Gilmore, was hiring from our local communities; we hired principled people, punk and queer writers and organizers, and trained and paid them – pay in scale with effort. Total staff turn-over in three years was probably 20; peak staff was 12. Some 10 of them started out at $8.00/hr, unskilled, ended up with $30,000 salary a year later [1994-1996], and stayed in the industry (at prevailing pay). (And we provided health insurance too. Deke being damned Wobbly may have had some small effect.)
…
we treated our staff well, gave them credit for work done, paid them actual money, gave raises and bonuses (upon sale of the business, even some fired employees got small bonus checks). TLGnet wouldn’t have existed without its talented staff!

TLGnet exercises no control whatsoever over the content of the information passing through TLGnet. You are free to communicate commercial, noncommercial, personal, questionable, obnoxious, annoying, or any other kind of information, misinformation, or disinformation through our service. You are fully responsible for the privacy of, content of, and liability for your own communications.

• Concentrate on bulk, fulltime internet access (leased-line and Frame Relay)
• Keep prices low by providing connectivity only
• Unrestricted use of TLG connectivity
• Encourage resale and vertical-market services
• Full, up-front disclosure of all pricing
• No lock-in contracts
• Unbundle installation costs and eliminate padding
• Full technical disclosure of technical information

Essentially, other ISPs restricted use and resale of their connections, in a sort of zero-sum approach. By concentrating on bulk connectivity we at once created a market for our customers to provide the vertical services we didn’t want or couldn’t afford to provide, and built a hard-to-beat solid rep that for a long while locked out direct competitors to our core business; having our prices online and breaking down the leased-line costs and equipment gave us a major one-up economically, technically, and in credible reputation over nearly all other ISPs, big or small.

Some thought us insane; but in fact our customers didn’t “compete” with us, they provided vertical services we couldn’t or wouldn’t (I guess we did have a business plan). And in fact we set further standards of behavior and policies that other ISPs, including MCI and SprintLink, were obliged to match. Though some, like Alternet and PSI, never did; they skimmed the high-end deep-pockets customers, and we got all the new growth.

I would add to the “Busines Model” discussion, that communication costs per-bit dropped dramatically with volume. When you upgraded from 56k bit/sec leased lines to T1 (1,500k bit/sec), you got 24x the bandwidth but it only cost about 4x as much. An upgrade to T3 (45 megabit) provided 30x the bandwidth of a T1, and didn’t cost anything near to 30x as much. So, as your traffic volume grew because you were adding more and more customers, the cost of your basic connection to the rest of the Internet got significantly cheaper (per bit). That economy of scale meant that ISPs who grew could keep affording to upgrade their backbones to handle the traffic growth. Every ISP knew, or figured out, this economics, and they all depended on it. Remember, this was back when there were 2000 ISP’s in the US, mostly local ones. (About 30 of them were getting their Internet service from TLG when we sold it to Best.)

it took six months of a full-time person to get us on the DARPA net in 1985 … but The Little Garden basically made it so that any old person [could connect] and more than that not just themselves but … enabling other people to create their own ISPs and I don’t know there are 400 ISPs now in the Bay Area in large part because of The Little Garden.

https://blog.dshr.org/2024/04/the-little-garden.html

Making Ultra-fast Electron Measurements in Multiple Directions to Reveal the Secrets of the Aurora

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

The energetic electrons that drive the aurora borealis (the northern lights) have a rich and very dynamic structure that we currently do not fully understand.  Much of what we know about these electrons comes from instruments that have fundamental limitations in their ability to sample multiple energies with high time resolution. To overcome these limitations, NASA is using an innovative approach to develop instrumentation that will enhance our measurement capabilities by more than an order of magnitude—revealing a wealth of new information about the amazing physics happening within the aurora.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/science-enabling-technology/making-ultra-fast-electron-measurements-in-multiple-directions-to-reveal-the-secrets-of-the-aurora/

Two-alarm fire burns Hayward commercial building

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Hayward Fire crews said they contained the blaze in a bit more than an hour.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/two-alarm-fire-burns-hayward-commercial-building/

What just happened, what is happening next

date: 2024-04-09, from: One Useful Thing

The tasks AI can do well are expanding rapidly

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/what-just-happened-what-is-happening

Article Spotlight: The role of temperature on the development of circadian rhythms in honey bee workers

date: 2024-04-09, from: PeerJ blog

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284889078/article-spotlight-the-role-of-temperature-on-the-development-of-circadian-rhythms-in-honey-bee-workers/

‘AI Instagram Influencers’ Are Deepfaking Their Faces Onto Real Women’s Bodies

date: 2024-04-09, from: 404 Media Group

AI ‘influencers’ on Instagram have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views by stealing reels from real women to make the AI seem more “believable.”

https://www.404media.co/ai-influencers-are-deepfaking-their-faces-onto-real-womens-bodies/

Post Office slapped down for late disclosure of documents in Horizon scandal inquiry

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Documents from leaders including former CEO Paula Vennells among those handed over at the last minute

Updated  The Post Office Horizon inquiry may be forced to recall witnesses after the company delayed disclosing evidence – some relating to communications to and from former chief executive Paula Vennells.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/post_office_horizon_evidence/

The Best Photos and Videos of the 2024 Solar Eclipse

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/04/the-best-photos-and-videos-of-the-2024-solar-eclipse

Attention Walmart shoppers: You may be entitled to compensation

date: 2024-04-09, from: Marketplace Morning Report

Walmart has opted to settle a $45 million class-action lawsuit over allegedly inflating prices for certain products sold by weight, such as produce and meat products. That means if you purchased “weighted goods” from Walmart, you could be eligible for a payout of up to $500. Plus, investors are braced for the release of March’s consumer price index tomorrow, and we examine how funding from the CHIPS Act is being doled out.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/attention-walmart-shoppers-you-may-be-entitled-to-compensation

Hayward man shot in Oakland

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

The shooting happened about 10:22 p.m. Monday in the 600 block of East 10th Street.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/hayward-man-shot-in-oakland/

NASA Wallops Launches 3 Rockets During Eclipse in Virginia

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

Three Black Brant IX sounding rockets launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia April 8, 2024, during the solar eclipse. The rockets launched for the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission to study the disturbances in the electrified region of Earth’s atmosphere known as the ionosphere created when the Moon eclipses the Sun. […]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-wallops-launches-3-rockets-during-eclipse-in-virginia/

Bay Area college rugby is elite. What will it take for sport to become mainstream at high school level?

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

In California high schools, rugby is considered a club sport – and teams are few and far between.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/bay-area-college-rugby-is-elite-what-will-it-take-for-sport-to-become-mainstream-at-high-school-level/

Tesla Settles Autopilot Death Lawsuit Hours Before Trial Began

date: 2024-04-09, from: Inside EVs News

Plus, Cruise gets ready to re-launch its robotaxi service, and Ferrari wants to know more about batteries.

https://insideevs.com/news/715389/tesla-autopilot-death-lawsuit-settled/

More than $3,000 worth of perfume stolen from Los Gatos CVS

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Suspects forced open a locked cabinet to get items.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/more-than-3000-worth-of-perfume-stolen-from-los-gatos-cvs/

For Bay Area, a brief warm-up before more rain likely for the weekend

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Temperatures into the 80s are only a tease. By the weekend, it is expected to be chilly and rainy again.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/for-bay-area-a-brief-warm-up-before-more-rain-likely-for-the-weekend/

BMW taps electric hypercar specialist Rimac for high-performance EV batteries

date: 2024-04-09, from: Electrek Feed

For its next-gen models, BMW is turning to Croatian electric hypercar specialist Rimac for EV batteries. Rimac’s tech division will supply batteries for BMW’s future electric cars.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/09/bmw-taps-electric-hypercar-specialist-rimac-ev-batteries/

Qualcomm and Qt partner to supercharge UI development for IoT devices

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plus: Qualy punts a ‘micro-power’ Wi-Fi system for the industrial kit

Qualcomm and Qt Group are looking to make it easier to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for embedded systems using Qt’s cross-platform development tools, while Qualcomm has also unveiled a micro-power Wi-Fi system for IoT connectivity.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/qualcomm_qt_iot_gui/

Tesla’s New Largest Supercharger Will Have 200 Stalls

date: 2024-04-09, from: Inside EVs News

It will be located in the U.S., but surprisingly not in California.

https://insideevs.com/news/715376/tesla-largest-supercharger-200-stalls/

March is 10th straight month to be hottest on record, scientists say

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Since last June, the globe has broken heat records each month.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/broken-record-march-is-10th-straight-month-to-be-hottest-on-record-scientists-say/

NASA Shares Medical Expertise with New Space Station Partners

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

NASA is opening access to space for more people by working with private industry on the development of new commercial space stations for low Earth orbit where the agency’s astronauts could fly in the future. New commercial space stations will be available to people beyond government or professional astronauts with years of specialized training and […]

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/leo-economy/nasa-shares-medical-expertise-with-new-space-station-partners/

NASA’s Lola Fatoyinbo Receives Royal Geographical Society Prize

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

Dr. Lola Fatoyinbo, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, received the Esmond B. Martin Royal Geographical Society (RGS) Prize on April 8 in London. The prize, according to the RGS, recognizes “outstanding achievement by an individual in the pursuit and/or application of geographical research, with a particular emphasis on […]

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasas-lola-fatoyinbo-receives-royal-geographical-society-prize/

US Cyber Safety Review Board on the 2023 Microsoft Exchange Hack

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: Bruce Schneier blog

US Cyber Safety Review Board released a report on the summer 2023 hack of Microsoft Exchange by China. It was a serious attack by the Chinese government that accessed the emails of senior U.S. government officials.

From the executive summary:

The Board finds that this intrusion was preventable and should never have occurred. The Board also concludes that Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul, particularly in light of the company’s centrality in the technology ecosystem and the level of trust customers place in the company to protect their data and operations. The Board reaches this conclusion based on:…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/04/us-cyber-safety-review-board-on-the-2023-microsoft-exchange-hack.html

Pizza stolen out of delivery person’s hands in Campbell

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

Suspect slammed door, closed blinds after robbery.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/pizza-stolen-out-of-delivery-persons-hands-in-campbell/

Maldives 2024

date: 2024-04-09, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog

Maldives 2024

The biosphere as we know it is ending and I’m spending two weeks in the Maldives with my wife for her 50th birthday. I feel conflicted.

The trip to get here was long. Zurich Doha by plane, Doha Male by plane, Male Kurudu by water-plane, Kurudu Komandoo by speedboat. I felt like sleeping for 20h when we finally got here. And all the anxiety before leaving was terrible, too.

With that, I think we have all out must-see locations before the end. We went to the Great Barrier Reef in 2017, to the Galapagos in 2020 and now to the Maledivez.

The last leg of the journey – our water-plane was delayed because of the bad weather.

Looking out from the porch the ocean is blue, the sky is blue, and the reef begins a few meters in.

We go snorkeling every day. Our last two trips showed me that we need an underwater camera. Oh to have videos of Reef Number Nine in Australia or the penguins and sea lions in the Galapagos! I bought a GoPro Hero 10 before we left.

This ray we keep seeing is about 2m long and likes to hide in the sand.

There’s sea grass sprouting right now and sea turtles grazing.

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-04-06-maledives

Ford unveils new 2024 Mustang Mach-E with more range, quicker acceleration, and faster charging

date: 2024-04-09, from: Electrek Feed

Ford has unveiled its new 2024 Mustang Mach-E lineup, which offers more range, quicker acceleration, and faster charging.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/09/ford-2024-mustang-mach-e-range-quicker-acceleration-faster-charging/

Switching to Meow keybindings in Emacs

date: 2024-04-09, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://esrh.me/posts/2021-12-18-switching-to-meow

Florida beach town becomes the first to launch an all electric bus fleet

date: 2024-04-09, from: Electrek Feed

The city of Hallandale Beach, Florida is in the news this week after becoming the only municipality in the state with a fully electric transit bus fleet.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/09/florida-beach-town-becomes-the-first-to-launch-an-all-electric-bus-fleet/

NYC Chicken Shop Replaces Cashier With Woman in Philippines On Zoom

date: 2024-04-09, from: 404 Media Group

The Zoom meeting info and password is written on a note facing customers.

https://www.404media.co/sansan-chicken-zoom-cashier/

Introducing the First 404 Media Fellow: Jules Roscoe

date: 2024-04-09, from: 404 Media Group

Jules will be covering labor and automation and helping our stories show up on all platforms as our first 404 Media fellow.

https://www.404media.co/introducing-the-first-404-media-fellow-jules-roscoe/

Monterey: Truck pursued by police plunges off wharf with four people inside

date: 2024-04-09, from: San Jose Mercury News

“It was not until the officers could not find the truck that they realized the truck had driven off of the wharf,” the police report said.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/09/monterey-truck-pursued-by-police-plunges-off-wharf-with-four-people-inside/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-04-09, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)

On pragmatism

Glad to find this 1966 incarnation of this quote, because I have been using the Rumsfeld version, and it always bothered me a bit:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxEJ-y3grdsKZigDeweWo4GsoBJVN-x0yP?si=k9MnYWjRMotDRlf4

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112241447235855567

Grafana Labs updates observability line-up with query-less visualization

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

CTO Tom Wilkie gives an optimistic take on AI without climbing on the bandwagon

Grafana Labs showed off new releases of its eponymous visualization platform, an updated version of Loki, and introduced its distribution of the OpenTelemetry collector, Alloy, at its Amsterdam GrafanaCON this week. We spoke to the company’s CTO, Tom Wilkie, about the updates and where the tech industry darling of the moment – AI – fits into everything.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/grafan_labs_updates_observability_lineup/

Ten years ago, Windows XP received its final update

date: 2024-04-09, from: OS News

Exactly ten years ago, on April 8, 2014, Microsoft released the final security patch for Windows XP. The day marked the end of the road for one of the most iconic Windows versions ever released. ↫ Taras Buria at Neowin I never liked Windows XP. Compared to the operating systems I was using at the time – BeOS, Mandrake Linux 8.x – Windows XP felt kind of like a bad joke I wasn’t in on. It looked ridiculous, didn’t seem to offer anything substantial, and it didn’t take long for major security incidents related to Windows XP to start dominating the news. It wasn’t until several service packs had been released that Windows XP came into its own, but by that point, I had already found a much better alternative for my Windows needs at the time. I’m of course talking about Windows Server 2003, the better Windows than Windows XP. Today though, I do have an odd fondness for Windows XP, as I grow older and XP has become something from my teenage years. The look and feel of Windows XP – the classic theme, not that horrendous Fisher Price nonsense – the sound set, the wallpaper of course – has become iconic, warts and all, and whole generations of people will feel instant feelings as soon as they see Bliss or hear that iconic startup sound. Windows XP with a few service packs now belongs to the small group of Windows releases that I would call the peak of the platform, together with Windows 95 and Windows 7 (and perhaps Server 2003, but that’s more of a personal thing and not a consumer operating system). Everything else has not exactly been great or even aged well, and I doubt Windows 10 and 11 will suddenly get good, either.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139212/ten-years-ago-windows-xp-received-its-final-update/

Audio Hijack 4.4

date: 2024-04-09, from: TidBITS blog

https://tidbits.com/watchlist/audio-hijack-4-4/

Google launches Axion processors, new Arm-based CPUs for the data centre

date: 2024-04-09, from: OS News

Built using the Arm Neoverse™ V2 CPU, Axion processors deliver giant leaps in performance for general-purpose workloads like web and app servers, containerized microservices, open-source databases, in-memory caches, data analytics engines, media processing, CPU-based AI training and inferencing, and more. Axion is underpinned by Titanium, a system of purpose-built custom silicon microcontrollers and tiered scale-out offloads. Titanium offloads take care of platform operations like networking and security, so Axion processors have more capacity and improved performance for customer workloads. Titanium also offloads storage I/O processing to Hyperdisk, our new block storage service that decouples performance from instance size and that can be dynamically provisioned in real time. ↫ Amin Vahdat on the Google blog Fancy new ARM processors from Google, designed explicitly for the data centre. In other words, we’ll never get to play with it unless one makes its way to eBay in a few years.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139209/google-launches-axion-processors-new-arm-based-cpus-for-the-data-centre/

The Gap Between Tesla’s EV Production And Sales Widened Significantly In Q1 2024

date: 2024-04-09, from: Inside EVs News

After Q1, the cumulative difference is estimated at over 160,000 units.

https://insideevs.com/news/715296/tesla-ev-production-sales-difference-2024q1/

Kove Moto Is Offering to Support Riders Who Want To Race Baja

date: 2024-04-09, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Kove is raising the stakes with cash incentives for racers and winners.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/715020/kove-usa-baja-pro-moto-adv-support/

A Worthwhile Improvement

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/04/09/a-worthwhile-improvement/

UK businesses shockingly unaware of how to handle security threats

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Many decide to make no changes after detecting a breach

UK businesses’ response to security breaches has “astounded” experts following the release of the government’s official cybercrime stats for 2024.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/uk_biz_response_to_cybercrime/

SiFive HiFive Premiere P550 high-performance RISC-V dev board coming this summer

date: 2024-04-09, from: Liliputing

SiFive has unveiled an upcoming RISC-V developer board that the company says delivers the “highest performance” of any model currently on the market. The upcoming SiFive HiFive Premiere P550 is powered by an Eswin EIC7700 processor that combines four SiFive P550 CPU cores with a GPU, NPU, and support for PCIe Gen 3, among other things. […]

The post SiFive HiFive Premiere P550 high-performance RISC-V dev board coming this summer appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/sifive-hifive-premiere-p550-high-performance-risc-v-dev-board-coming-this-summer/

60 Years Ago: Gemini 1 Flies a Successful Uncrewed Test Flight

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

On April 8, 1964, Gemini 1 successfully completed the first uncrewed test flight of the Gemini spacecraft and its Titan II booster. The three-orbit mission proved the structural integrity of the spacecraft and the launch vehicle, paving the way for a second uncrewed test flight and ultimately missions with astronauts. The primary goals of Project […]

https://www.nasa.gov/history/60-years-ago-gemini-1-flies-a-successful-uncrewed-test-flight/

March Was Way Too Warm

date: 2024-04-09, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: Hundreds of flood warnings are in effect for the U.K. • Schools in Cape Town will reopen after the passage of a severe storm • The weather will be “relatively quiet” across most of the U.S. for the next couple of days.

THE TOP FIVE

1. March sets another alarming temperature record

March was the 10th consecutive month of record-high temperatures on Earth, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported today. The global average temperature for the month was 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 3 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial March average. Over the last 12 months, global temperatures have been 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial averages, above the 1.5 Celsius warming threshold scientists worry could trigger dramatic and irreversible climate damage. Sea surface temperatures also remained alarmingly high, averaging 69.93 degrees Fahrenheit, “the highest monthly value on record.”

C3S

C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess didn’t mince words: “Stopping further warming requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” she said. Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis echoed that sentiment: “The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising, which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible.”

2. European court says government inaction on climate change threatens human rights

The European Court of Human Rights handed down a landmark decision this morning that could ramp up legal pressure on governments to do more to limit global warming. The lawsuit was brought by a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women who argued Switzerland had violated their human rights by failing to do its part to stop climate change. Older women are more likely to die from extreme heat, and the group said they suffer severely during Swiss heatwaves. The court agreed with them, saying Switzerland hadn’t done enough to meet its emissions reduction targets. The verdict “opens up all 46 members of the Council of Europe to similar cases in national courts that they are likely to lose,” explained The Guardian. “We expect this ruling to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond,” said Joie Chowdhury, an attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law campaign group. The case was one of three climate suits the court was considering – it threw out the other two.

3. Zurich to stop underwriting new fossil fuel projects

Zurich Insurance Group will stop underwriting new oil and gas projects in pursuit of reaching net zero by 2050, Bloomberg reported. The insurer will also pressure its existing corporate clients to curb emissions. “Further exploration and development of fossil fuels isn’t required for the transition,” Sierra Signorelli, chief executive of commercial insurance at Zurich, told Bloomberg. “We think it’s the right time to evolve our position.” The insurer says the policy shift only applies to new oil and gas projects and not existing ones. It will urge all oil and gas customers to set interim emissions targets and put together 2050 net zero plans that are credible, “not just a PowerPoint presentation.”

4. Tesla settles wrongful death suit before trial

Tesla reached a settlement with the family of a man who was killed in a 2018 car crash involving the company’s Autopilot feature. The wrongful death lawsuit was set to go to trial this week. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. This isn’t the only lawsuit Tesla faces over its Autopilot driver assistance technology. “Every plaintiff’s lawyer that has one of these cases will be watching,” Matthew Wansley, associate professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, said before the settlement was announced. “I think Tesla didn’t want all the bad publicity and all the information that would have come out of the trial,” wrote Fred Lambert at Electrek.

5. Study: Climate change threatens Antarctica’s meteorites

Antarctica is pockmarked with meteorites: More than 60% of all these small space rocks ever discovered on Earth have been found on the ice sheet, with about 1,000 collected each year for the last decade. Meteorites are valuable scientific resources, offering researchers a wealth of information about our solar system. But a new paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change explains that warmer temperatures brought on by climate change are causing the meteorites to sink into the ice sheet, where they are lost to science.

Scientists carve out a meteorite submerged in the ice.Steven Goderis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

José Jorquera (Antarctica.cl), University of Santiago, Chile.

The study estimates the ice surface contains between 300,000 and 850,000 meteorites waiting to be collected, but says 24% of them will be lost by 2050 under current warming conditions, and for every tenth of a degree of increase in global air temperature, an average of nearly 9,000 meteorites will disappear. “The loss of Antarctic meteorites is much like the loss of data that scientists glean from ice cores collected from vanishing glaciers,” said Harry Zekollari, a co-author on the study. “Once they disappear, so do some of the secrets of the universe.”

THE KICKER

Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty Images

“The eclipse is a really cool celestial event that hopefully can inspire people to see that there’s a lot of beauty in this universe. I hope it can inspire people to protect what we have.” –Michael Greenberg, co-founder of Climate Defiance

https://heatmap.news/march-temperature-heat-record

Embedding the Servo web engine in Qt

date: 2024-04-09, from: OS News

I’ve been talking about Servo, the Rust browser engine project originally started at Mozilla, for a while now, and while the project’s still got a long way to go, it’s definitely a serious contender to become a competitive browser engine in the future. It seems it’s starting to get some traction already, as The KDAB Group is working on bringing Servo to Qt. At KDAB we managed to embed the Servo web engine inside Qt, by using our CXX-Qt library as a bridge between Rust and C++. This means that we can now use Servo as an alternative to Chromium for webviews in Qt applications. ↫ Andrew Hayzen and Magnus Groß They’re already showing off a basic QML application rendering websites using Servo, which is pretty cool. It goes to show that Servo can definitely eventually fulfill the role that Chromium, WebKit, and Gecko fulfill now.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139205/embedding-the-servo-web-engine-in-qt/

From NASA’s First Astronaut Class to Artemis II: The Importance of Military Jet Pilot Experience

date: 2024-04-09, from: NASA breaking news

The Mercury 7 On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington—the location of NASA Headquarters at that time—to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7. Public Information Director Walter Bonney kicked off the announcement […]

https://www.nasa.gov/history/mercury-7-to-artemis-ii/

Arthur Conan Doyle Agreed to Write ‘The Sign of the Four’ at a Fateful Dinner in 1889

date: 2024-04-09, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The handwritten manuscript he produced is going to auction, where it could become the most expensive item associated with the mystery writer ever sold

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arthur-conan-doyles-handwritten-sherlock-holmes-manuscript-is-for-sale-180984101/

Local news outlets are struggling. What are some solutions?

date: 2024-04-09, from: Marketplace Morning Report

“What we’re living through is a historic, tectonic change in how news is produced, consumed and paid for,” says Tim Franklin at Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative. And he’s feeling encouraged. Today, we’ll discuss some of the economic models that could help bolster the sustainability of local news. But first, Tesla recently settled a case challenging how the company marketed its driver-assistance technology. We’ll hear more.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/local-news-outlets-are-struggling-what-are-some-solutions

Palantir and Oracle buddy up on cloud infrastructure

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

But do all Foundry workloads move to OCI? It’s up to the customer, spy-tech firm says

Last week Oracle and US spy-tech company Palantir struck a cloud partnership, seemingly delighting investors and the news media. But its success may depend very much on customers’ attitudes to Big Red’s infrastructure offer.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/palantir_and_oracle_buddy_up/

Europe’s green tech concerns

date: 2024-04-09, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: After U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned about cheap Chinese green imports, business leaders in Europe are sharing their concerns about Beijing’s impact on the sector. Then, the money-laundering of 27 people connected to the Panama Papers gets underway. And later: Politicians have long utilized social media to reach voters. But whether (semi-embarassing) short dance videos are in store, is utilizing TikTok the right move for politicians?

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/europes-green-tech-concerns

Content creation holds appeal for laid-off workers seeking flexibility

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/content-creation-holds-appeal-for-laid-off-workers-seeking-flexibility-/7562462.html

Ichigo Jam: a learning platform based around Raspberry Pi Pico

date: 2024-04-09, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)

IchigoJam is a novel electronics and BASIC programming education tool built around our $4 Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board.

The post Ichigo Jam: a learning platform based around Raspberry Pi Pico appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/ichigo-jam-a-learning-platform-based-around-raspberry-pi-pico/

VMS Software prunes OpenVMS hobbyist program

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Vintage OS editions go the way of the dodo as VSI cranks up exclusivity

Bad news for those who want to play with OpenVMS in non-production use. Older versions are disappearing, and the terms are getting much more restrictive.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/vsi_prunes_hobbyist_prog/

Data Reports – a new article type in PeerJ Life & Environment

date: 2024-04-09, from: PeerJ blog

We are pleased to announce a new submission option for authors via the introduction of “Data Reports” as a new article type in PeerJ Life & Environment. What are Data Reports? These articles describe new curated datasets – or significant extensions of existing datasets – that hold substantial value for the research community. We recognize […]

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284889086/data-reports-a-new-article-type-in-peerj-life-environment/

Methods Papers – a new article type in PeerJ Life & Environment

date: 2024-04-09, from: PeerJ blog

We are pleased to introduce a new article type in PeerJ Life & Environment aimed at showcasing innovative methods and protocols within the scientific community: Methods Papers. Methods Papers should describe new or significantly improved methods and protocols, or the adaptation of existing methods in new domains. Policies and Procedures for Methods Papers: Need: Authors […]

https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284889092/methods-papers-a-new-article-type-in-peerj-life-environment/

Biden, Trump hold different views on key domestic policy issues

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

washington — U.S. President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, hold very different views on key foreign and domestic issues. Here’s an overview of where each nominee stands on domestic policy.

Reproductive rights

Biden: The Biden administration has protected access to abortion, including: FDA-approved medication abortion; defended access to emergency medical care; supported the ability to travel for reproductive health care; strengthened access to high-quality, affordable contraception; safeguarded the privacy of patients and health care providers and ensured access to accurate information and legal resources, according to a March 7, 2024 White House fact sheet.

On March 26, 2024, Biden said, “If America sends me a Congress that are Democrats, I promise you, Kamala and I will restore Roe vs. Wade is the law of the land again.” He also warned on March 8, 2024, that “states are passing bans criminalizing doctors, forcing rape and incest victims to leave their state to get care. And now MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump want to pass a national ban on the right to choose, period. Well. Take it seriously, folks, because that’s what they’re heading for. Hear me loud and clear. This will not happen on my watch.”

Trump: Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees during his presidency shifted the balance of the court, resulting in an overturning of Roe vs. Wade, sending the decision to legalize abortion back to the states.

Trump announced on April 8, 2024, that he believed abortion legislation should be left up to each state. Previously, he suggested a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks, saying, “Fifteen weeks seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”

Economy

Biden: In a December 5, 2023, speech in Boston, Biden said the economy had created 14 million new jobs — more jobs than any president has created in a four-year term; record economic growth — over 5% just the last quarter; unemployment under 4% for 20 months in a row, and the lowest inflation rate of any of the world’s major economies. Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $550 billion in new spending.

Trump: According to his campaign website, during his presidency, “President Donald J. Trump passed record-setting tax relief for the middle class, doubled the child tax credit, and slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before. Real wages quickly increased as a result, and median household income reached the highest level in the history of our country, while poverty reached a record low.”

Immigration/border security

Biden: President Biden supported the bipartisan Senate Border Security Act that would have provided billions of dollars in additional funding for security and enabled him to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border if daily and weekly border encounters surpassed certain metrics. Former President Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to reject the border security deal, resulting in its failure to pass in the U.S. Congress. On March 9, 2024, Biden said, “On my first day in office as president, I introduced a comprehensive, comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure our border, provide a pathway for citizenship for dreamers and their families, farmworkers, essential workers who helped us through the pandemic and are part of the fabric of our community.”

Trump: On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump has pledged to conduct the largest deportation in U.S. history, shift “massive portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement” and terminate the visas of Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.

On his campaign website, Trump said that in cooperative states, he will deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing illegal alien gang members and criminals. He also pledged to deliver a merit-based immigration system that protects American labor and promotes American values.

During his presidency, Trump issued an executive order suspending entry into the United States for everyone from Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and indefinitely for Syrian refugees. He began construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Criminal justice

Biden: In multiple executive orders, the president has directed the Justice Department not to renew contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities; directed billions of dollars in public funds to community safety initiatives; and expanded community grants to keep guns off the streets.

During his State of the Union speech on March 7, 2024, Biden said, “I’m demanding a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Pass universal background checks. None of this. None of this. I taught the Second Amendment for 12 years. None of this violates the Second Amendment or vilifies responsible gun owners.”

Trump: During his presidency, Trump launched Operation Legend to combat a surge of violent crime in cities, resulting in more than 5,500 arrests and signed the Safe Policing for Safe Communities executive order to incentivize local police department reforms in line with law and order.

The former president made hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of surplus military equipment available to local law enforcement, signed an executive order to help prevent violence against law enforcement officers and signed the bipartisan First Step Act into law, the first landmark criminal justice reform legislation ever passed to reduce recidivism and help former inmates successfully rejoin society.

On the campaign trail this year, Trump has made the case he will combat crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

“I do great with the suburban housewives because they want to remain safe. But they [undocumented immigrants] loot the jewelry, they take their purses, electronics, watches, all of their cash. And the people come back and they say, what happened? If you don’t want illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and ransacking your drawers, then you must vote for the fact that we have to throw Crooked Joe Biden out as fast as possible,” he said on April 2, 2024.

Climate/energy production

Biden: The Democratic president rejoined the Paris climate agreement and signed the Inflation Reduction Act, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy, electric vehicles and environmental justice. His administration also met goals of cutting emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and was among the leaders who launched the Global Methane Pledge, tackling super polluters.

Trump: During his presidency, Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and claimed that Earth’s temperatures “will start getting cooler.” Trump appointees dismantled fossil fuel agreements, kept coal-burning power plants open and launched an anti-trust probe of automakers who agreed to clean air standards.

“President Trump will unleash the production of domestic energy resources, reduce the soaring price of gasoline, diesel and natural gas, promote energy security for our friends around the world, eliminate the socialist Green New Deal and ensure the United States is never again at the mercy of a foreign supplier of energy,” according to his campaign website.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-on-key-domestic-policy-issues-/7561822.html

Irish power crunch could be prompting AWS to ration compute resources

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Users report being pointed to other EU regions if they need more grunt

Exclusive  Datacenter power issues in Ireland may be coming to a head amid reports from customers that Amazon’s facility is restricting resources that users can spin up, even directing them to other AWS regions across Europe instead.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/aws_resource_restrictions/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-09, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Tesla made “full self-driving” free for a month. Here’s one owner’s review. Not too far from my own, which I probably should write up.

https://werd.io/2024/i-tried-tesla-fsd

US envoy to UN to visit Korean border, North Korean defectors

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations will travel to the heavily armed Korean border and meet North Korean defectors in South Korea, her office said on Monday, amid faltering U.N. efforts to ensure sanctions enforcement against the North.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s trip, set for April 14-20, came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts, which has over the past 15 years worked on the implementation of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo criticized Moscow’s veto and China’s abstention, which experts said would undermine the sanctions enforcement, with a South Korean envoy likening it to “destroying a CCTV to avoid being caught red-handed.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s trip, which will also include a stop in Japan, was meant to advance bilateral and trilateral cooperation on the sanctions and beyond, U.S. mission to the U.N. spokesperson Nate Evans said.

Both South Korea and Japan are currently members of the Security Council.

“In both countries, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield will discuss next steps to ensure a continuation of independent and accurate reporting of the DPRK’s ongoing weapons proliferation and sanctions evasion activities,” Evans said in a statement, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In South Korea, Thomas-Greenfield will travel to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, meet young North Korean defectors as well as students at Ewha Womans University, Evans said.

In Japan, she will also meet family members of Japanese citizens who were abducted in the early 2000s by North Korea, and visit Nagasaki, which was hit by U.S. nuclear bombing in 1945.

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-envoy-to-un-to-visit-korean-border-north-korean-defectors/7562396.html

Localising AI education: Adapting Experience AI for global impact

date: 2024-04-09, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)

It’s been almost a year since we launched our first set of Experience AI resources in the UK, and we’re now working with partner organisations to bring AI literacy to teachers and students all over the world. Developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, Experience AI provides everything that teachers need to confidently…

The post Localising AI education: Adapting Experience AI for global impact appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/localising-ai-education-adapting-experience-ai-resources/

Arm flexes silicon muscles to push generative AI at the edge

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Ethos-U85 microNPU boasts 4x performance boost over previous gen

Arm is aiming to boost AI performance at the edge with its latest embedded neural processing unit (NPU) and a Reference Design Platform for it to slot into, and said it expects to see devices based on it running generative AI models next year.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/arm_ethos_u85/

Need more evidence that RFK Junior is working for Trump?

date: 2024-04-09, from: Robert Reich on Substack

Here it is

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-rfk-junior-is

How we got our academic awards back

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

In this episode of “The Soapbox”, host Jennifer Baek paints a picture of the discontinuation and reinstatement of the Academic Achievement Award and Exceptional Funding at USC, alongside opinion staff writers Sherie Agcaoili, Edhita Singhal and Luisa Luo, whose co-written essay was published just days before the University reversed its decision on the awards.

The post How we got our academic awards back appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/how-we-got-our-academic-awards-back/

Report: US must enhance critical minerals strategy in Africa

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States must refine its Africa policy with a focus on critical minerals, including boosting its diplomatic and commercial presence in African mining hubs, says a report from the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace, or USIP.

The group says the changes are needed to safeguard against export controls and market manipulation by geopolitical competitors.

The United States heavily relies on imports for many critical minerals for use in electric vehicle batteries and other applications such as cobalt, graphite and manganese.

“Especially concerning is that the United States is at or near 100% reliant on ‘foreign entities of concern’ — mainly the People’s Republic of China — for key critical minerals,” says the USIP report.

Despite the efforts of the Biden administration and Congress to support U.S. firms in African markets, progress remains measured, with no sign that China and Gulf State competitors are retreating. The USIP report recommends the U.S. government invests in “commercial diplomacy” in Africa.

For example, Washington should prioritize to fully realize the potential benefits of a memorandum of understanding signed with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022 to jointly develop a supply chain for electric vehicle batteries.

The DRC produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, while Zambia is the world’s sixth-largest copper producer and the second-largest cobalt producer in Africa.

The USIP report also recommends that the U.S. increase the physical presence of diplomatic and commercial officers in mining centers. Given the proximity of the Congolese city of Lubumbashi to critical minerals, and the high priority placed on the country’s Lobito Corridor, USIP suggests reopening a U.S. consulate in Lubumbashi, provided security levels are acceptable.

In the mid-1990s, the United States closed its consulate in Lubumbashi following the end of the Cold War and the redirection of interests and resources. Lubumbashi is the capital of the mineral-rich Katanga Province and the second-largest city in the DRC.

Gécamines, the Congolese state mining company, is headquartered in the city, as are other mining companies.

Other policy recommendations include prioritizing and leveraging existing U.S. Agency for International Development programs to assist Africans with rule-of-law and fiscal transparency efforts, expanding membership of the Minerals Security Partnership to include African partners, as well as assisting African nations in building technical capacity in the mining sector.

Launched in June 2022, the Minerals Security Partnership, or MSP, is a collaboration of 14 countries and the European Union to catalyze public and private investment in responsible critical minerals supply chains globally.

U.S. officials say MSP members represent more than 50% of global gross domestic product and currently run 23 projects that involve the extraction and processing of cobalt, copper, gallium, germanium, graphite, lithium, manganese, nickel and rare earth elements. 

“We need to scale up our critical mineral supply chains to deploy clean technologies more quickly, more effectively,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an MSP forum in Leuven, Belgium, earlier this month. “The demand is rising. By 2040, demand for lithium is expected to grow by more than 40%. Graphite, cobalt, nickel demand is set to grow 20 to 25 times.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/report-us-must-enhance-critical-minerals-strategy-in-africa/7562375.html

Solar eclipse darkened skies, dampened internet traffic

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Byteflow dropped by around half under some of the path of totality

Cloudflare has measured the state of the internet during the solar eclipse that was visible on Monday across a swathe of North America, and found a measurable decrease in traffic.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/solar_eclipse_internet_traffic_impact/

Classifieds – April 9, 2024

date: 2024-04-09, 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 – April 9, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/classifieds-april-9-2024/

Today in SCV History (April 9)

date: 2024-04-09, from: SCV New (TV Station)

1937 – Pioneer aviator E.B. Christopher and passenger killed in crash of light plane on Ridge Route near Gorman. [story

https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-april-9/

Missed Connections admin breaks up with USC

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

As current account owner Will Domke graduates this May, he passes the torch.

The post Missed Connections admin breaks up with USC appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/missed-connections-admin-breaks-up-with-usc/

From Death Valley to Leavey Library, students explore Cotopaxi’s Questival race

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

SC Outfitters partnered with Cotopaxi’s 24-hour Questival race to complete challenging tasks across California and give back to the community.

The post From Death Valley to Leavey Library, students explore Cotopaxi’s Questival race appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/from-death-valley-to-leavey-library-students-explore-cotopaxis-questival-race/

Eric Musselman is the right man for the job

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The newly hired head coach will lead men’s basketball into the Big Ten.

The post Eric Musselman is the right man for the job appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/eric-musselman-is-the-right-man-for-the-job/

It feels like my life hinges on my summer internship

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

International students often obsess over a summer internship in the US, forgetting the comfort of home.

The post It feels like my life hinges on my summer internship appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/it-feels-like-my-life-hinges-on-my-summer-internship/

Five Kristen Stewart films to celebrate the star’s birthday

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Impress your “Love Lies Bleeding” date with your new KStew knowledge.

The post Five Kristen Stewart films to celebrate the star’s birthday appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/five-kristen-stewart-films-to-celebrate-the-stars-birthday/

Space excitement eclipses campus

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The USC community gathered Monday morning to view the solar eclipse with special glasses and professional telescopes.

The post Space excitement eclipses campus appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/space-excitement-eclipses-campus/

Men’s volleyball’s unforgettable Saturday night

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The Trojans’ upset over BYU was an instant classic and USC’s biggest win this year.

The post Men’s volleyball’s unforgettable Saturday night appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/mens-volleyballs-unforgettable-saturday-night/

From SNL dreams to USC scenes: The Suspenders’ ‘Wild Wild Sketch’

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Look inside the hilarious world of the sketch comedy troupe’s most recent show.

The post From SNL dreams to USC scenes: The Suspenders’ ‘Wild Wild Sketch’ appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/from-snl-dreams-to-usc-scenes/

Extend operating hours during finals

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Late night studying in the week before exams needs adequate support from USC.

The post Extend operating hours during finals appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/09/extend-operating-hours-during-finals/

From overcapacity to TikTok, issues covered during Janet Yellen’s trip to China

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

Beijing — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and her team are leaving China and returning to Washington after trying to tackle the major questions of the day between the countries. Here’s a look at what she tried to accomplish, what was achieved, and where things stand for the world’s two largest economies:

Unfair trade practices

Yellen said she wanted to go into the U.S.-China talks to address a major Biden administration complaint that Beijing’s economic model and trade practices put American companies and workers at an unfair competitive disadvantage by producing highly subsidized solar products, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries at a loss, dominating the global market.

Chinese government subsidies and other policy support have encouraged solar panel and EV makers in China to invest in factories, building far more production capacity than the domestic market can absorb. She calls this overcapacity.

Throughout the week of meetings, she talked about the risks that come from one nation maintaining nearly all production capacity in these industries, the threat it poses to other nations’ industries and how a massive rapid increase in exports from one country can have big impacts on the global economy.

Ultimately, the two sides agreed to hold “intensive exchanges” on more balanced economic growth, according to a U.S. statement issued after Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng held extended meetings over two days in the southern city of Guangzhou. It was not immediately clear when and where the talks would take place.

“It’s not going to be solved in an afternoon or a month, but I think they have heard that this is an important issue to us,” she said.

Money laundering, related crimes

After several rounds of meetings, the U.S. Treasury and the Chinese central bank agreed to work together to stop money laundering in their respective financial systems.

Nearly all the precursor chemicals that are needed to make the deadly substance fentanyl are coming from China into the U.S. The U.S. says exchanging information on money laundering related to fentanyl trafficking may help disrupt the flow of the precursor chemicals into Mexico and the U.S.

“Treasury is committed to using all of our tools, including international cooperation, to counter this threat,” Yellen said in a speech announcing the formation of the group.

The new cooperative between the U.S. and China will be part of the two nations’ economic working groups that were launched last September, and the first exchange will be held in the coming weeks.

TikTok

Efforts in the U.S. to ban social media app TikTok, owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, were raised initially by the Chinese during U.S-China talks, a senior Treasury official told The Associated Press. The firm has in the past promoted a data security restructuring plan called “Project Texas” that it says sufficiently guards against national security concerns.

However, U.S. lawmakers have moved forward with efforts to either ban the app or force the Chinese firm to divest its interest in the company, which the White House has supported. In China this week, it was evident that there was little movement on the issue.

Yellen said at a news conference Monday that she supported the administration’s efforts to address national security issues that relate to sensitive personal data. “This is a legitimate concern,” she said.

“Many U.S. social apps are not allowed to operate in China,” Yellen said. “We would like to find a way forward.”

Financial stability

On the second day of Yellen’s trip to China, the U.S. and China announced an agreement to work closely on issues related to financial stability, in that U.S. and Chinese financial regulators agreed to hold a series of exercises simulating a failure of a large bank in either of the two countries.

The aim is to determine how to coordinate if a bank failure occurs, with the intent of preventing catastrophic stress on the global financial system.

Yellen said several exercises have already happened.

“I’m pleased that we will hold upcoming exchanges on operational resilience in the financial sector and on financial stability implications from the insurance sector’s exposure to climate risks.

“Just like military leaders need a hotline in a crisis,” Yellen said “American and Chinese financial regulators must be able to communicate to prevent financial stresses from turning into crises with tremendous ramifications for our citizens and the international community.”

What she ate

Yellen is something of a foodie celebrity in China ever since she ate mushrooms that can have psychedelic effects in Beijing last July. This trip was no different.

High-ranking Chinese officials brought up her celebrity ahead of important meetings — Premier Li Qiang noted in his opening remarks that Yellen’s visit has “indeed drawn a lot of attention in society” with media covering her trip and her dining habits. And social media was abuzz, following her latest movements around Guangzhou and Beijing.

This time in Beijing, Yellen ate at Lao Chuan Ban, a popular Sichuan restaurant. She also had lunch with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong at the Beijing International Hotel. On Monday evening, her last night in China, Yellen visited Jing-A Brewing Co. in Beijing — co-founded by an American — where she ordered a Flying Fist IPA, a beer made with American hops.

https://www.voanews.com/a/from-overcapacity-to-tiktok-issues-covered-during-janet-yellen-s-trip-to-china/7562368.html

Cameron to try to rally US support for Ukraine aid

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/cameron-to-try-to-rally-us-support-for-ukraine-aid/7562364.html

Connecticut wins second consecutive NCAA Men’s Division One Basketball Championship

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/connecticut-wins-second-consecutive-ncaa-men-s-division-one-basketball-championship/7562361.html

AI could crash democracy and cause wars, warns Japan’s NTT

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Calls for ecosystem in which AIs keep other AIs in check, and lots more regulation

Japanese telecom giant NTT issued an apocalyptic warning about the impending dangers of AI on Monday.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/ntt_ai_apocalypse/

April 8, 2024

date: 2024-04-09, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

On Sunday, Representative Michael R. Turner (R-OH), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said it is “absolutely true” that Republican members of Congress are parroting Russian propaganda. “We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” he said on CNN’s

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-8-2024

Swimming success at 3rd Western State Conference

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)

Give them an inch and they’ll swim a mile. Take away their pool and they’ll still swim a mile. The Pierce College men’s and women’s

The post Swimming success at 3rd Western State Conference appeared first on .

https://theroundupnews.com/2024/04/08/swim/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=swim

India and EU finally advance HPC collaboration project hatched in 2022

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Seek ideas for thorny problems related to both HPC and real-world problems

India has called for proposals under the Cooperation on High Performance Computing pact it signed with the European Union in 2022.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/india_eu_hpc_collaboration/

SiFive is back with another 64-bit RISC-V dev board – hopefully

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Ditching Intel for a system-on-chip out of Beijing

SiFive has promised the world another HiFive RISC-V development system featuring a 64-bit out-of-order processor for engineers and other curious techies to try out.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/sifive_riscv_hifive/

April 10: Hart District Board to Review Superintendent Search Firm Proposals

date: 2024-04-09, from: SCV New (TV Station)

A special meeting of the William S. Hart Union High School District’s Governing Board will be held 4 p.m. Wednesday, April

https://scvnews.com/april-10-hart-district-board-to-review-superintendent-search-firm-proposals/

How Republicans and Democrats got their animal symbols

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

In the United States, the two major political parties have been illustrated by a donkey, symbolizing the Democratic Party, or an elephant, symbolizing the Republican Party. The images are used on campaign-related materials. But why were these two beasts chosen?

https://www.voanews.com/a/how-republicans-and-democrats-got-their-animal-symbols/7562322.html

Daily EV Recap: Hyundai goes all in on electric

date: 2024-04-09, 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/2024/04/08/daily-ev-recap-hyundai-goes-all-in-on-electric/

Japan may join UK/US/Australia defense-oriented AI and quantum alliance

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

But not the nuclear subs bit

The AUKUS Alliance – a team-up between Australia, the US and the UK – has revealed it may invite Japan to join its efforts to develop artificial intelligence and quantum computing tech to be used for mutual defense.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/japan_aukus_pillar_2_tech/

Morphotrophic

date: 2024-04-09, from: Greg Egan’s feed

My new novel, MORPHOTROPHIC, is now available.

https://www.gregegan.net/MORPHOTROPHIC/00/MorphotrophicExcerpt.html

[Sponsor] Pok Pok

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: Daring Fireball

https://pokpok.sng.link/Dahqz/tfl2/zk3w

Google Launches Upgraded Find My Device Network for Android

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: Daring Fireball

https://blog.google/products/android/android-find-my-device/

The Continued Importance of REALTORS®: Navigating Post-NAR Settlement Realties

date: 2024-04-09, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

By Michele Allyn2024 PresidentSanta Barbara Association of Realtors With the news of the recent announcement of a proposed settlement between

The post The Continued Importance of REALTORS®: Navigating Post-NAR Settlement Realties appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/the-continued-importance-of-realtors-navigating-post-nar-settlement-realties/

With $6.6B to Arizona hub, Biden touts big steps in US chipmaking

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

Washington; Flagstaff, Arizona — President Joe Biden on Monday announced a $6.6 billion grant to Taiwan’s top chip manufacturer to produce semiconductors in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona, which includes a third facility that will bring the foreign tech giant’s investment in the state to $65 billion.

Biden said the move aims to perk up a decades-old slump in American chip manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is based in the Chinese-claimed island, claims more than half of the global market share in chip manufacturing.

The new facility, Biden said, will put the U.S. on track to produce 20% of the world’s leading-edge semiconductors by 2030.

“I was determined to turn that around, and thanks to my CHIPS and Science Act — a key part of my Investing in America agenda — semiconductor manufacturing and jobs are making a comeback,” Biden said in a statement.

U.S. production of this American-born technology has fallen steeply in recent decades, said Andy Wang, dean of engineering at Northern Arizona University.

“As a nation, we used to produce 40% of microchips for the whole world,” he told VOA. “Now, we produce less than 10%.”

A single semiconductor transistor is smaller than a grain of sand. But billions of them, packed neatly together, can connect the world through a mobile phone, control sophisticated weapons of war and satellites that orbit the Earth, and someday may even drive a car.

The immense value of these tiny chips has fueled fierce competition between the U.S. and China.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has taken several steps to hamper China’s efforts to build its own chip industry. Those include export controls and new rules to prevent “foreign countries of concern” — which it said includes China, Iran, North Korea and Russia — from benefiting from funding from the CHIPS and Science Act.

While analysts are divided over whether Taiwan’s dominance of this critical industry makes it more or less vulnerable to Chinese aggression, they agree it confers the island significant global status.

“It is debatable what, if any, role Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing prowess plays in deterrence,” said David Sacks, an analyst who focuses on U.S.-China relations at the Council on Foreign Relations. “What is not debatable is how devastating an attack on Taiwan would be for the global economy.”

Biden did not mention U.S. adversaries in his statement, but he noted the impact of Monday’s announcement, saying it “represent(s) a broader story for semiconductor manufacturing that’s made in America and with the strong support of America’s leading technology firms to build the products we rely on every day.”

VOA met with engineers in the new technological hub state, who said the legislation addresses a key weakness in American chip manufacturing.

“We’ve just gotten in the cycle of the last 15 to 20 years, where innovation has slowed down,” said Todd Achilles, who teaches innovation, strategy and policy analysis at the University of California-Berkeley. “It’s all about financial results, investor payouts and stock buybacks. And we’ve lost that innovation muscle. And the CHIPS Act — pulling that together with the CHIPS Act — is the perfect opportunity to restore that.”

The White House says this new investment could create 25,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. Academics say they’re churning out workers at a rapid pace, but that still, America lacks talent.

“Our engineering college is the largest in the country, with over 33,000 enrolled students, and still we’re hearing from companies across the semiconductor industry that they’re not able to get the talent they need in time,” Zachary Holman, vice dean for research and innovation at Arizona State University, told VOA.

And as the American industry stretches to keep pace, it races a technical trend known as t: that the number of transistors in a computer chip doubles about every two years. As a result, cutting-edge chips get ever smaller as they grow in computing power.

TSMC in 2022 broke ground on a facility that makes the smallest chip currently available, coming in at 3 nanometers — that’s just wider than a strand of DNA.

Reporter Levi Stallings contributed to this report from Flagstaff, Arizona.

https://www.voanews.com/a/with-6-6b-to-arizona-hub-biden-touts-big-steps-in-us-chipmaking-/7562290.html

US legislators propose American Privacy Rights Act - and it looks quite good

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

After two decades of calls for national protections, something may actually happen

Americans may soon live under a federal privacy law – a mere two decades after the US Federal Trade Commission urged Congress to regulate online data collection.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/us_federal_privacy_law_apra/

Woman arrested on suspicion of child cruelty 

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Signal

A woman was arrested by Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies Saturday on suspicion of child cruelty after allegedly driving while under the influence, according to station officials.  Deputies were called to the 15000 block of Leigh Court on Saturday at approximately 3 a.m. regarding a disturbance call, according to Deputy Kabrina Borbon, spokeswoman for […]

The post Woman arrested on suspicion of child cruelty  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/woman-arrested-on-suspicion-of-child-cruelty/

With $6.6B to Arizona hub, Biden touts big steps in US chipmaking

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

President Joe Biden on Monday announced a $6.6 billion grant to Taiwan’s top chip manufacturer for semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona, which includes a third facility that will bring the tech giant’s investment in the state to $65 billion. VOA’s White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington, with reporter Levi Stallings in Flagstaff, Arizona.

https://www.voanews.com/a/with-6-6b-to-arizona-hub-biden-touts-big-steps-in-us-chipmaking/7562282.html

Little School of Music students come back with big achievements 

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Signal

It may be called the Little School of Music, but you could say its accomplishments, such as receiving gold at the WorldStrides Heritage Festival in Anaheim, prove otherwise.  Bands “Flashback” and “Crazy Crew” received the highest ranking in the competition, which was comprised of groups from seven states, including Hawaii, Florida and Alaska, and two […]

The post Little School of Music students come back with big achievements  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/little-school-of-music-students-come-back-with-big-achievements/

Massive crowds watch total solar eclipse over US

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

Millions of people in the United States from Texas to Maine looked to the sky to witness a rare total solar eclipse. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh attended a viewing event hosted by NASA and Purdue University at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and has more.

https://www.voanews.com/a/massive-crowds-watch-total-solar-eclipse-over-us/7562281.html

San Francisco’s light rail to upgrade from floppy disks

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

What is it with Fog City and ancient transport tech?

Those taking public transport in the tech hub of San Francisco may be reassured to know that their rides will soon no longer be dependent on floppy disks.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/san_francisco_muni_floppy_disks/

Man gets 90 days for brandishing after parking lot argument 

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Signal

A Canyon Country emergency medical technician, who was charged with assault after an argument over a parking space escalated when a gun was drawn, was sentenced last month, according to the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office.   On March 25, Darwin Montoya, 29, was ordered to serve 90 days in county jail; complete anger-management classes; to […]

The post Man gets 90 days for brandishing after parking lot argument  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/man-gets-90-days-for-brandishing-after-parking-lot-argument/

CHP arrests man after pursuit 

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Signal

  A Pasadena man was arrested Friday after leading California Highway Patrol officers on a brief pursuit through Santa Clarita, according to a spokesman for the agency.   The suspect was driving north on The Old Road near McBean Parkway around 5:30 p.m. when he accelerated from a traffic light at a high rate of speed, […]

The post CHP arrests man after pursuit  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/chp-arrests-man-after-pursuit/

Eagle Scout candidate raises funds for elementary school

date: 2024-04-09, from: The Signal

For Boy Scouts of America Troop 303 member Joseph Wickham-Vilaubi, his Eagle Scout project is not only about getting promoted — it’s also about helping others like him feel less alone.  “When I was growing up at Mint Canyon [Elementary School], I was never good at making friends,” he said, “and so I wanted to […]

The post Eagle Scout candidate raises funds for elementary school appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/eagle-scout-candidate-raises-funds-for-elementary-school/

Latino voters, coveted by both parties, are targets of election misinformation

date: 2024-04-09, from: VOA News USA

phoenix — As ranchera music filled the Phoenix recording studio at Radio Campesina, a station personality spoke in Spanish into the microphone. 

“Friends of Campesina, in these elections, truth and unity are more important than ever,” said morning show host Tony Arias. “Don’t let yourself be trapped by disinformation.”

The audio was recorded as a promo for Radio Campesina’s new campaign aiming to empower Latino voters ahead of the 2024 elections. That effort includes discussing election-related misinformation narratives and fact-checking conspiracy theories on air.

“We are at the front lines of fighting misinformation in our communities,” said Maria Barquin, program director of Chavez Radio Group, the nonprofit that runs Radio Campesina, a network of Spanish-language stations in Arizona, California and Nevada. 

“There’s a lot at stake in 2024 for our communities. And so, we need to amp up these efforts now more than ever.”

Latinos have grown at the second-fastest rate, behind Asian Americans, of any major racial or ethnic group in the U.S. since the last presidential election, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, and are projected to account for 14.7%, or 36.2 million, of all eligible voters in November, a new high. They are a growing share of the electorate in several presidential and congressional battleground states, including Arizona, California and Nevada, and are being heavily courted by Republicans and Democrats.

Democratic President Joe Biden has credited Latino voters as a key reason he defeated Republican Donald Trump in 2020 and is urging them to help him do it again in November. Given the high stakes of a presidential election year, experts expect a surge of misinformation, especially through audio and video, targeting Spanish-speaking voters.

In addition to radio, much of the news and information Latinos consume is audio-based through podcasts or social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube. Content moderation efforts in Spanish are limited on these platforms, which are seeing a rising number of right-wing influencers peddling election falsehoods and QAnon conspiracy theories.

The types of misinformation overlap with falsehoods found in other conservative media and many corners of the internet — conspiracy theories about mail voting, dead people casting ballots, rigged voting machines and threats at polling sites.

Other narratives are more closely tailored to Latino communities, including false information about immigration, inflation and abortion rights, often exploiting the traumas and fears of specific communities. For example, Spanish speakers who have come from countries with recent histories of authoritarianism, socialism, high inflation and election fraud may be more vulnerable to misinformation about those topics.

Misinformation on the airwaves also is particularly difficult to track and combat compared with more traditional, text-based misinformation, said Daiquiri Ryan Mercado, strategic legal adviser and policy counsel for the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which runs the Spanish Language Disinformation Coalition. While misinformation researchers can more easily code programs to categorize and track text-based misinformation, audio often requires manual listening. Radio stations that air only in certain areas at certain times also can be difficult to track. 

“When we have such limited representation, Spanish speakers feel like they can connect to these people, and they become trusted messengers,” Mercado said. “But some people may take advantage of that trust.”

Mercado and others said that’s why trusted messengers, such as Radio Campesina, are so important. The station was founded by Mexican American labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez and has built a loyal listening base over decades. At any given moment, as many as 750,000 people are listening to the Chavez Radio Network on the air and online, Barquin said.

“They will come and listen to us because of the music, but our main focus is to empower and educate through information,” she said. “The music is just a tactic to bring them in.”

Radio Campesina’s on-air talent and musical guests often discuss misinformation on air, answering listeners’ questions about voting, teaching them about spotting misinformation and doing tutorials on election processes, such as how to submit mail-in ballots. The station also has hosted rodeos and music events to register new voters and talk about misinformation.

They allow listeners to call or text questions on WhatsApp, a social media platform especially popular with immigrant communities but where much of the misinformation they see festers. In March, the station partnered with Mi Familia Vota, a Latino advocacy group, for an on-air show and voter phone bank event to answer voter questions.

“We know that there are many people who are unmotivated because sometimes we come from countries where, when it comes to elections, we don’t trust the vote,” said Carolina Rodriguez-Greer, Arizona director of Mi Familia Vota, before she shared information on the show about how voters can track their ballots.

The organization began working with Spanish media outlets to dispel misinformation after seeing candidates such as former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake spread election lies in 2022, Rodriguez-Greer said. Lake is now running for the U.S. Senate with Trump’s endorsement.

“One way to combat this misinformation is to fill the airways with good information,” said Angelica Razo, national deputy director of campaigns and programs for Mi Familia Vota.

A variety of other community and media groups also are prioritizing the seemingly never-ending fight against misinformation.

Maritza Felix often fact-checked misinformation for her mother, whom she calls the “Queen of WhatsApp.” This led to Felix doing the same for family and friends in a WhatsApp group that grew into the Spanish news nonprofit Conecta Arizona.

It now runs a radio show and newsletter that debunks false claims about election processes, health, immigration and border politics. Conecta Arizona also combats misinformation about the upcoming Mexican presidential election that Felix said has been seeping over the border.

The Spanish-language fact-checking group Factchequeado is building partnerships with dozens of media outlets across the country to provide training and free Spanish fact-checking content.

“Disinformation is at the same time a global phenomenon and a hyperlocal phenomenon,” said Factchequeado co-founder Laura Zommer. “So, we have to address it with local and national groups uniting together.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/latino-voters-coveted-by-both-parties-are-targets-of-election-misinformation-/7562256.html

Reform of USA’s Section 702 spying rule may make it to a vote this week

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Tool that lets spooks observe Americans appears to have been renewed for another year

Everyone’s favorite warrantless surveillance tool, FISA Section 702, returns to the US House of Representatives this week and is expected to go to a full House vote on Thursday.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/fisa_section_702_deadline/

TMU Announces Featured Speaker for 2024 Commencement

date: 2024-04-09, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Greg Gifford, Ph.D., will be the featured speaker at this year’s commencement ceremony at The Master’s University

https://scvnews.com/tmu-announces-featured-speaker-for-2024-commencement/

Systems: What warms the heart?

date: 2024-04-09, updated: 2024-04-09, from: Anil Dash blog

https://anildash.com/2024/04/09/systems-heartwarming-stories/

Tesla settles case over fatal Autopilot crash of Apple engineer

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/tesla-settles-case-over-fatal-autopilot-crash-of-apple-engineer-/7561920.html

Tesla opens wallet and settles Autopilot death lawsuit as it was getting interesting

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla’s team of “hardcore lawyers” have decided to settle a lawsuit involving an Autopilot death instead of going to a trial that looked like it was about to get interesting.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/tesla-opens-wallet-settles-autopilot-death-lawsuit/

Kellogg Elementary Leads the Way in Environmental Responsibility: Transitioning to Reusable Utensils

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Goleta, CA – March 25, 2024 – Kellogg Elementary School, known for its commitment to environmental stewardship, is making a

The post Kellogg Elementary Leads the Way in Environmental Responsibility: Transitioning to Reusable Utensils appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/kellogg-elementary-leads-the-way-in-environmental-responsibility-transitioning-to-reusable-utensils/

Actualización del Elemento de Vivienda Audiencias de la Junta de Supervisores Para Seleccionar Sitios de Rezonificacion el 30 de Abril y el 3 de May

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Martes 30 de abril de 2024 en el Centro de Santa María Betteravia y el lunes (sala de audiencias en 511

The post Actualización del Elemento de Vivienda Audiencias de la Junta de Supervisores Para Seleccionar Sitios de Rezonificacion el 30 de Abril y el 3 de May appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/actualizacion-del-elemento-de-vivienda-audiencias-de-la-junta-de-supervisores-para-seleccionar-sitios-de-rezonificacion-el-30-de-abril-y-el-3-de-may/

Chinese nationalist trolls pretend to be Trump supporters ahead of US elections

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

washington — British researchers say Chinese nationalist trolls have been posing as American supporters of former President Donald Trump on X to try to exploit domestic divisions ahead of the U.S. election.

A report released April 1 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London think tank, says it found four previous Mandarin-tweeting accounts that went silent before re-emerging as American Trump supporter personas tweeting in English.

It linked them to China’s so-called Spamouflage network, which it described as a “long-running and widespread but largely ineffective” campaign to promote pro-Chinese Communist Party narratives.

But Elise Thomas, a senior researcher at the institute and author of the report, said pretending to be Trump supporters is a fresh and more effective tactic.

“They are posing convincingly as Americans, specifically Trump supporters,” she told VOA. “They are getting engagement from what look like real American users. That’s significantly different from what we’ve seen with Spamouflage in the past.”

She pointed out that a traditional Spamouflage tweet might have many likes and retweets, but upon further examination, it’s all from other Spamouflage accounts. Now, they are interacting with predominantly genuine American users.

“What they are doing that is quite different from other Spamouflage accounts is that they are building up authentic audiences using this thing called patriot follow trains, which is basically where people agree to mutually follow one another in order to each build their own follower accounts,” Thomas explained.

Using real viral videos and photos, these accounts seek to amplify divisive issues such as LGBTQ rights, immigration, race, gun control and crime rates.

Some of the accounts mock Biden’s age; others falsely claim that Biden is a pedophile. All seem to be promoting Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again (MAGA),” leading the report to dub this new tactic “MAGAflage.”

One of the X accounts, Ben MAGA 2024, was opened in 2010, but previous posts have been deleted. Since April 18, 2023, the account began to tweet in English with a main theme: Biden is a pedophile and cannot be trusted.

The account tries to build a persona as an American living in Los Angeles. It posted a picture in January with the caption “Good morning! Patriots, I’m 43 years old, and passionately and loyally supporting President Trump!”

In fact, the picture belongs to a travel blog by a Danish man with no indication that he’s a Trump supporter.

This account also retweeted a video from Russian state media Russia Today on February 18, claiming that Biden and the Central Intelligence Agency had sent a neo-Nazi leader to fight in Ukraine.

That post was retweeted by Alex Jones, an American far-right conspiracy theorist and radio show host with 2.2 million followers on X. The post had been viewed nearly 360,000 times as of March 4.

Thomas said by wrapping a topic in a U.S. partisan political frame, they got “a reasonable amount of engagement” from real American users.

This mimics Russia’s playbook during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when U.S. officials say Moscow used information warfare to damage the Clinton campaign, boost Trump’s chances and sow distrust in American democracy, which the Kremlin denies.

The report said some Spamouflage accounts could also be posing as left-wing Biden supporters, though they did not find any.

Twitter has since suspended all the accounts mentioned in the institute’s report.

While just a handful of accounts were identified, the report says there are almost certainly many more, which Thomas worries could have an unseen effect on the U.S. election.

“These [MAGAflage] accounts were very difficult to find. It took quite a lot of time, and I’ve only been able to find a relatively small number of them,” she said. “But because what we know from Spamouflage’s history is that everything it does, it does at massive scale. It would be really out of character for them to be only doing this, if it’s effective, at a small scale. So, that’s my concern, that it may be happening at a significantly larger scale.”

VOA reached out to the Trump and Biden campaigns for comment but did not receive a response as of publication time.

The Spamouflage network was discovered in 2019 by social media analytics firm Graphika and was first used to target Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

Researchers said the network is tied to “individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement,” and has been active across thousands of accounts and more than 50 platforms and forums, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X.

On March 11, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued its annual assessment on the major threats to U.S. interests around the world and warned that China’s government may “attempt to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify U.S. societal divisions.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in a statement sent to VOA that China is “committed to the principle of noninterference” and that claims about Beijing influencing U.S. presidential elections are “completely fabricated.”

Meta in August shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with the Spamouflage network.

https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-nationalist-trolls-pretend-to-be-trump-supporters-ahead-of-us-elections-/7561907.html

Housing Element Update Board of Supervisors Hearings to Select Rezone Sites April 30 and May 3

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Tues. Apr. 30, 2024 at the Santa Maria Betteravia Center hearing room at 511 E. Lakeside Pkwy, Santa Maria and Fri. May.

The post Housing Element Update Board of Supervisors Hearings to Select Rezone Sites April 30 and May 3 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/housing-element-update-board-of-supervisors-hearings-to-select-rezone-sites-april-30-and-may-3/

April 11: Castaic Union School District Regular Board Meeting

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Castaic Union School District Governing Board will hold its regular meeting Thursday, April 11, at 6 p.m

https://scvnews.com/april-11-castaic-union-school-district-regular-board-meeting-2/

Deputies seize guns from LAPD officer’s Valencia home 

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Signal

Three firearms were seized from a Los Angeles Police Department officer’s Valencia home after his second domestic violence arrest in March — which involved a different alleged victim than a May arrest, according to records at the Santa Clarita Courthouse.  The suspect, Shay Van Deventer, 28, had three registered semiautomatic handguns seized by Santa Clarita […]

The post Deputies seize guns from LAPD officer’s Valencia home  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/deputies-seize-guns-from-lapd-officers-valencia-home/

SCV takes in partial solar eclipse 

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Signal

Art Ybarra just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  He and his wife typically walk around Central Park in Saugus every morning, and it just so happened that on Monday morning, a man was assembling a telescope to be able to view the solar eclipse.  “It caught my curiosity,” Ybarra […]

The post <strong>SCV takes in partial solar eclipse</strong>  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/scv-takes-in-partial-solar-eclipse/

Five-Story Housing-Storage Project in Downtown Santa Barbara Gets Bad Review

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

The Architectural Board of Review suggests a “radical reduction” of the proposed 60-foot multi-use building on De la Guerra Street.

The post Five-Story Housing-Storage Project in Downtown Santa Barbara Gets Bad Review appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/five-story-housing-storage-project-in-downtown-santa-barbara-gets-bad-review/

‘Kind of Like Something’s Eating the Sun’

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Hundreds of Adams Elementary students view Monday’s historic solar eclipse in Santa Barbara.

The post ‘Kind of Like Something’s Eating the Sun’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/kind-of-like-somethings-eating-the-sun/

The Case Trump is Desperate to Delay

date: 2024-04-08, from: Dan Rather’s Steady

This one could sink him

https://steady.substack.com/p/the-case-trump-is-desperate-to-delay

Santa Clarita Author Releases New Plant-Based Cookbook

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

 Vegetable dishes just got tastier

https://scvnews.com/santa-clarita-author-releases-new-plant-based-cookbook/

Trump says abortion laws should stay with states

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump says laws against abortion should continue to be made by each state. That position goes against some of his supporters who want a nationwide abortion ban. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-says-abortion-laws-should-stay-with-states/7561887.html

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Elon Musk thinks we'll have AI smarter than any one human by next year. (Were already far beyond that.)

https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-ai-smarter-next-year/

Person extricated after vehicle turns over in Newhall 

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Signal

A person was extricated from an SUV on its side on Monday afternoon following a two-vehicle traffic collision in Newhall, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department officials.  The initial call was for a person trapped near the intersection of Market Street and Railroad Avenue, according to Kaitlyn Aldana, spokeswoman for the Fire Department. Units […]

The post Person extricated after vehicle turns over in Newhall  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/person-extricated-after-vehicle-turns-over-in-newhall/

Meteor Lake CPUs splash down in socketed motherboards for edge and embedded workloads

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Intel reckons the NPUs that power the ‘AI PC’ are needed on your lap, on the edge, but not on the desktop

Intel has created versions of its Core Ultra processors – aka Meteor Lake – for use in socketed motherboards employed in embedded and edge applications, the x86 giant announced today at the Embedded World conference in Germany.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/intel_core_ultra_cpu/

DACC Raises Awareness During Dog Bite Prevention Week

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The County of Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control is pleased to share advice this week in acknowledgment of Dog Bite Prevention Week. Dog Bite Prevention Week is here to raise awareness about the serious health risks posed by dog bites and to educate the public on how to prevent them

https://scvnews.com/dacc-raises-awareness-during-dog-bite-prevention-week/

3 of Oklahoma’s first NEVI EV charging stations will be Tesla Superchargers

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Oklahoma approved more than $8 million in federal funds for Tesla and two other companies to build DC fast chargers along its interstates.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/3-of-oklahomas-first-nevi-ev-charging-stations-will-be-tesla-superchargers/

Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry, R&B singer of 1956 hit ‘Ain’t Got No Home,’ dies

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

new orleans — Clarence “Frogman” Henry, who was one of New Orleans’ best known old-time R&B singers and scored a hit at age 19 with “Ain’t Got No Home,” has died. He was 87.

Henry died Sunday night, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation said on social media. It didn’t give the cause of death.

Henry, who had been scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival later this month, imitated the voice of a frog in “Ain’t Got No Home.” It was a hit in 1956 and later brought Henry renewed fame when it was featured on the “Forrest Gump” and “Mickey Blue Eyes” soundtracks.

He credited disc jockey Poppa Stoppa, whose real name was Clarence Hayman, as coming up with the nickname the “Frogman,” which mimicked Fats Domino’s moniker the “Fatman.”

By 1958, Henry’s popularity waned, and he took to playing nightclubs on Bourbon Street.

“I thought the sun would shine. I thought my record would always stay out there and stay on the top, but in 1958, the rain came and bring me back to New Orleans,” Henry told The Associated Press in 2003.

But in 1960, a new song, “I Don’t Know Why But I Do” by Cajun songwriter Bobby Charles and arranged by Allen Toussaint, brought Henry renewed success.

With the Bill Black Combo and the Jive Five, he opened for the Beatles for 18 dates in 1964 during their first U.S. trip and toured extensively, from Scotland to New Zealand.

In Louisiana, Henry remained popular. He also was one of the few Black New Orleans musicians to cross over into Cajun musical circles.

Henry, who was born in New Orleans on March 19, 1937, started playing the piano at 8, taking up lessons his sister had disliked. He worked for his father until he was 15, often for no money.

He played the trombone and piano in his high school band and later joined The Toppers, traveling around southern Louisiana before making it big.

“When I was going to school, I wanted to be Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, and I would wear a wig with two plaits and call myself Professor Longhair,” Henry told the AP. “I like the Fats Domino rhythm, but I play my own chords and my own style.”

Henry’s national fame faded but he remained popular in Louisiana. He was a Bourbon Street fixture until 1981, when he retired from the grueling club circuit. But he never gave up music and continued to be an annual crowd pleaser at the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Funeral arrangements are pending at the Murray Henderson Funeral Home.

https://www.voanews.com/a/clarence-frogman-henry-r-b-singer-of-1956-hit-ain-t-got-no-home-dies-/7561870.html

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

How to Use Google Gemini to Summarize YouTube Videos.

https://windowscopilot.news/2024/04/09/how-to-use-google-gemini-to-summarize-youtube-videos/

April 10: COC Board of Trustees Business Meeting

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will hold a business meeting Wednesday, April 10, beginning at 4 p.m

https://scvnews.com/april-10-coc-board-of-trustees-business-meeting-2/

Book Review | ‘Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt’ by Willard Spiegelman & ‘Jane Kenyon: The Making of a Poet’ by Dana Greene

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Some poetic biographies for National Poetry Month.

The post Book Review | ‘Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt’ by Willard Spiegelman & ‘Jane Kenyon: The Making of a Poet’ by Dana Greene appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/book-review-nothing-stays-put-the-life-and-poetry-of-amy-clampitt-by-willard-spiegelman-jane-kenyon-the-making-of-a-poet-by-dana-greene/

Intel’s ambitious Meteor Lake iGPU

date: 2024-04-08, from: OS News

Intel and AMD both tried to ship iGPUs fast enough to compete with low end discrete cards over the past 10 years with mixed results. Recently though, powerful iGPUs have been thrown back into the spotlight. Handhelds like Valve’s Steam Deck and ASUS’s ROG Ally demonstrated that consumers are willing to accept compromises to play games on the go. AMD has dominated that market so far. Valve’s Steam Deck uses AMD’s Van Gogh APU, and the ROG Ally uses the newer Phoenix APU. Unlike Van Gogh, Phoenix is a general purpose mobile chip with both a powerful CPU and GPU. Phoenix doesn’t stop at targeting the handheld segment, and threatens Intel’s laptop market share too. In response, Meteor Lake brings a powerful iGPU to the party. It has the equivalent of 128 EUs and clocks up to 2.25 GHz, making it modestly wider and much faster than Raptor Lake’s 96 EU, 1.5 GHz iGPU. Raptor Lake’s Xe-LP graphics architecture gets replaced by Xe-LPG, a close relative of the Xe-HPG architecture used in Intel’s A770 discrete GPU. At the system level, Meteor Lake moves to a GPU integration scheme that better suits a chiplet configuration where the iGPU gets significant transistor and area budget. I’ll be testing Meteor Lake’s iGPU with the Core Ultra 7 155H, as implemented in the ASUS Zenbook 14. I purchased the device myself in late February. ↫ Chips and Cheese I’m absolutely here for the resurgence in capable integrated GPUs, both for PC gaming on the go and for better graphics performance even in thinner, smaller laptops. I would love to have just a bit more graphics power on my thin and small laptop so I can do some basic gaming with it.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139201/intels-ambitious-meteor-lake-igpu/

Why Do Kids Outperform Their Parents in This Rural California Town? A Sociologist Looks for Answers

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

A UC Santa Barbara PHd seeks to understand where things are going well for young people in diverse small towns across the country.

The post Why Do Kids Outperform Their Parents in This Rural California Town? A Sociologist Looks for Answers appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/why-do-kids-outperform-their-parents-in-this-rural-california-town-a-sociologist-looks-for-answers/

Mercedes will finally unveil its ‘unrivaled’ electric G-Class later this month

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

The G-Wagon is finally going all-electric. Mercedes-Benz is unveiling its long-awaited electric G-Class at the Beijing Motor Show later this month. Mercedes has been teasing the electric 4×4 since the concept version debuted in 2021.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/mercedes-finally-unveiling-unrivaled-electric-g-class/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Timelapse eclipse from Buffalo.

https://www.threads.net/@wkbw/post/C5g5YROrSlh

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2024) is now available in the US for $330 and up

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2024) is an Android tablet with a 10.4 inch, 2000 x 1200 pixel IPS LCD display, a Samsung Exynos 1280 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage. It’s also the cheapest Samsung tablet with S-Pen support. First announced in March, the tablet is now available in the […]

The post Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2024) is now available in the US for $330 and up appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-s6-lite-2024-is-now-available-in-the-us-for-330-and-up/

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

I don’t think eclipsy is a word.

http://scripting.com/2024/04/08.html#a212031

Twenty-Nine Cougars Named to SCFA Scholar-Athlete Team

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

The College of the Canyons football program had 29 players named to the 2023 Southern California Football Association Scholar-Athlete Team, by far the most of any school in the region

https://scvnews.com/twenty-nine-cougars-named-to-scfa-scholar-athlete-team/

Judge rejects Trump’s bid to delay hush money trial

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

NEW YORK — A New York appeals court judge Monday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to delay his hush money criminal trial, set to start April 15, while he fights to move the case out of Manhattan.

Justice Lizbeth Gonzalez of the state’s midlevel appeals court made her ruling after an emergency hearing where Trump’s attorneys asked to postpone the trial indefinitely while they seek a change of venue. Trump was seeking an emergency stay, a court order that would prevent the trial from starting on time.

The hush money trial is the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments slated to go to trial and would be the first criminal trial ever of a former president.

Trump attorney Emil Bove argued that the presumptive Republican nominee faces “real potential prejudice” as a defendant in heavily Democratic Manhattan. Citing defense surveys and a review of media coverage, Bove argued that jury selection “cannot proceed in a fair manner.”

Trump has suggested on social media that the trial should be moved to Staten Island, the only New York City borough he won in 2016 and 2020.

Steven Wu, appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, noted that trial Judge Juan M. Merchan had already rejected Trump’s requests to move or delay the trial as untimely. 

“The question in this case is not whether a random poll of New Yorkers from whatever neighborhood are able to be impartial, it’s about whether a trial court is able to select a jury of 12 impartial jurors,” Wu said. He blamed Trump for stoking pretrial publicity with “countless media appearances talking about the facts of this case, the witnesses and so on.”

In a separate appellate matter, Trump’s lawyers are also challenging a gag order imposed on him in the case, which Merchan recently expanded to prohibit Trump from making comments about the judge’s family. The appeals court signaled it would take up that matter later.

Paperwork relating to Trump’s appeals was placed under seal and not publicly available.

Trump had pledged to appeal after Merchan ruled last month that the trial would begin April 15. His lawyers had pleaded to delay the trial at least until summer to give them more time to review late-arriving evidence from a prior federal investigation into the matter.

Merchan, who had already moved the trial from its original March 25 start date because of the evidence issue, said no further delays were warranted.

Trump’s attorneys filed their appeals Monday on two separate court dockets. One was styled as a lawsuit against Merchan, a legal mechanism allowing them to challenge his rulings.

In New York, judges can be sued over some judicial decisions under a state law known as Article 78. Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his civil fraud case in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall.

In this case, he is accused of falsifying his company’s records to hide the nature of payments to his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, who helped him bury negative stories during his 2016 campaign. Cohen’s activities included paying porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.

Trump’s move Monday was the latest escalation in his battles with Merchan. 

Trump assailed the judge on social media after he imposed a gag order last month barring Trump from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected the case. After Trump’s complaints, Merchan expanded the gag order to include members of his own family.

Last week, Trump renewed his request for the judge to step aside from the case, citing Merchan’s daughter’s work as the head of a firm whose clients have included his rival, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats.

The former president alleges the judge is biased against him and has a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work. The judge rejected a similar request last August.

Trump has also made numerous other attempts to get the trial postponed, echoing a strategy he’s deployed in his other criminal cases. “We want delays,” Trump proclaimed to TV cameras outside a February pretrial hearing in his hush money case.

Merchan last week rejected his request to delay the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases.

Trump also filed an eve-of-trial lawsuit against the judge in his New York civil fraud case, accusing the jurist of repeatedly abusing his authority. Among other issues, Trump’s lawyers in that case complained that Judge Arthur Engoron had refused their request to delay the trial. Their suit was filed about three weeks before the trial was slated to begin.

A state appeals court rejected Trump’s claims, and the trial started as scheduled October 2.

During the civil trial, Trump sued Engoron again, this time over a gag order he’d issued after Trump smeared the judge’s principal law clerk in a social media post. The gag order barred parties in the case — and, later, their lawyers as well — from commenting publicly on court staffers, though not on the judge himself.

A sole appeals judge lifted the gag order, but a four-judge appellate panel ultimately restored it two weeks later. The panel said Trump’s lawyers should have followed a normal appeals process instead of suing the judge. Trump’s attorneys said they had been trying to move quickly.

Engoron, who decided that case without a jury, ruled that Trump, his company and key executives defrauded bankers and insurers by overstating his wealth in documents used to get loans and coverage. Trump denied any wrongdoing and is appealing the finding and over $454 million in penalties and interest.

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-launches-last-minute-bid-to-delay-hush-money-criminal-case-/7561786.html

‘Reel Guppy Outdoors’ Expands Programming, Participation, and Partnerships with Dockside Learning Center at Fisherman’s Wharf in the Channel Islands Harbor

date: 2024-04-08, from: Port Hueneme

Port/City Community Benefit Fund Donation Makes A Splash in the Local Community Download Press Release [Oxnard, California – March 28, 2024] The Port of Hueneme and City of Port Hueneme joined Reel Guppy founder, Kevin Brannon, to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Reel Guppy Dockside Learning Center — an amazing addition to the local Read More

https://www.portofhueneme.org/cbf-reel-guppy-2024/

Google launches new Find My Device network on Android

date: 2024-04-08, from: OS News

Today, the all-new Find My Device is rolling out to Android devices around the world, starting in the U.S. and Canada. With a new, crowdsourced network of over a billion Android devices, Find My Device can help you find your misplaced Android devices and everyday items quickly and securely. Here are five ways you can try it out. ↫ Erik Kay on the Google blog This old Android feature has basically been updated to be the same thing as Apple’s Find My, but with more than just one vendor making the tracking tags. Of course, this means it also comes with the same problems, from its use by stalkers to controlling partners, and everything in between. This is a very problematic technology, one which I think is almost impossible to make safe. Still, I have a Samsung tracker that I don’t use anymore – because I bought a Pixel 8 Pro, and don’t want to install any Samsung applications – and I do plan on getting a new tracker that’s compatible with this new Find My Device network. With two small kids, it’s easy to lose track of something like my car keys, and instead of stressing about where they are when we need to leave on time, I can just ping them using our Google Home devices instead. Sometimes, these silly smart technologies really do take just that little bit of stress out of your life – you just have to be really picky and honest with yourself about what you really need.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139199/google-launches-new-find-my-device-network-on-android/

These Were the Most Challenged Books in America Last Year

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Titles with LGBTQ themes dominated the American Library Association’s newly released list

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-were-the-most-challenged-books-in-america-last-year-180984116/

AOKZOE A2 Ultra is an Intel Meteor Lake-powered handheld gaming PC

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

Most of the handheld gaming PCs launched over the past few years have been powered by AMD’s Ryzen processors. But with Intel’s new Meteor Lake chips for mobile devices promising big gains in graphics performance, we’re starting to see companies opt for Intel chips in select models. Earlier this year the MSI Claw became the […]

The post AOKZOE A2 Ultra is an Intel Meteor Lake-powered handheld gaming PC appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/aokzoe-a2-ultra-is-an-intel-meteor-lake-powered-handheld-gaming-pc/

NAIA all but bans its transgender college athletes from women’s sports

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/naia-all-but-bans-its-transgender-college-athletes-from-women-s-sports/7561777.html

Tesla can now deploy pre-fabricated Superchargers in a game-changing 4 days

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla has revealed that it can now deploy pre-fabricated Superchargers in a game-changing 4 days.

Anyone who knows anything about deploying EV fast-charging stations knows just how impressive that is.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/tesla-deploy-pre-fabricated-superchargers-game-changing-4-days/

Can Hawaii Harness Its Volcanic Energy?

date: 2024-04-08, from: Heatmap News

In 1881, King David Kalakaua of Hawaii and his entourage paid a late evening visit to Thomas Edison in New York. The king was unsure about electricity — he didn’t think the technology was reliable enough to light up Honolulu’s streets just yet — but after marveling at a chandelier buzzing with electric light, the group started bantering about how Hawaii could generate power. What about putting boilers atop a volcano? There was enough energy up there, a companion to the king mused, that it could illuminate the entire United States. He appeared to be joking, but Edison took the notion seriously. Nice idea, he told his visitors, but an undersea cable carrying power to the mainland would be far too expensive.

Honolulu got its new streetlights a few months later — powered, in the end, by a hydroelectric dam. The volcano thought would wait a century longer.

In the 1970s, geologists began drilling into the eastern rift of the Big Island’s Kilauea volcano, resulting, in 1993, in Hawaii’s first geothermal power plant, which is today called the Puna Geothermal Venture, or PGV. The 38-megawatt facility straddles the most active rift of Hawaii’s most active volcano and is, to this day, the state’s only geothermal plant, supplying just 3% of the islands’ energy. That status quo puzzles geothermal advocates elsewhere. The obvious comparison is to a volcanic sibling like Iceland, where the Earth’s radiant heat supplies 25% of the country’s consumer electricity needs and more than 70% of its overall energy.

“It’s been talked about for ages that at some point, Hawaii needs to have a reset on geothermal,” Mark Glick, Hawaii’s Chief Energy Officer, told me. “That time is now.” So far, that reset involves the governor’s office directing discretionary COVID relief funds with the aim of getting an essentially moribund industry off the ground. Five million dollars will go toward a drilling program to explore the geology of promising areas of heat, hopefully with results that encourage potential developers to make their own, bigger investments. Site selection is underway, with Maui and the Big Island at the top of the list, and Glick said local outreach will begin in the next few months.

That the vast underground heat resources of a place like Maui are only now getting even basic attention is “mind-boggling,” Glick said. But it’s also a reflection of decades of turmoil over all things geothermal in the state — clashes with neighbors, toxic incidents, failed dreams of grandiose infrastructure. That has to change, he added, if the state is serious about ditching its dirtiest forms of power generation quickly. Hawaii has committed to reaching a 100% clean energy portfolio by 2045, but was still producing as much as 80% of its electricity from burning petroleum by last year.

Like other states endowed with abundant heat, Hawaii was previously inspired to consider geothermal energy during the 1970s oil crisis. The state was dependent on imported fuel, and the regularly lava-spewing Kilauea, in particular, looked like “a no-brainer” for geothermal development, explains Roland Horne, director of the Stanford Geothermal Program and a noted historian of the industry.

Hawaii’s problem is that, in addition to being an island chain, it’s also a chain of separate electric grids. With no power lines connecting the Big Island — home to 14% percent of the state’s population — to any others, Kilauea’s energy was marooned. Initially, the state imagined unifying its disparate grids in parallel with geothermal development. But Edison, it turns out, was right about undersea cables, even relatively short ones. After a decade of planning and testing that included laying prototype wires across the 6,100-feet deep, 30-mile wide ’Alenuihaha Channel between the Big Island and Maui found that such a project was technically feasible but would be far too expensive.

Meanwhile, oil prices fell, and so did interest in hunting for hot rock elsewhere. Although a statewide survey that began in the 1970s found most of the islands could harbor geothermal resources — even older, geologically colder islands like Oahu and even Kauai — nobody followed up. “It led to almost nothing for three decades,” said Nicole Lautze, a geologist at the University of Hawaii-Manoa who is overseeing the state’s current exploratory projects. Instead, the state remained dependent on imported oil.

Other problems were more island-specific. Drilling into an active volcano is fairly unusual for geothermal prospectors and presents unique challenges, given the proximity of lava and abundance of toxic gasses. The work on Kilauea was controversial from the start, with nearby residents and Native Hawaiian spiritual practitioners calling the project not just unsafe but sacrilegious. A release of hydrogen sulfide during construction in 1991 only added to the controversy.

Toxic emissions, including sulfur, from geothermal facilities are generally minuscule compared with fossil fuel plants—and part of the everyday dangers of living on a volcanic slope, Horne told me. “They were coming out of the ground long before Puna was ever built,” he said. But PGV’s reputation as a danger to the community was hard to shake. When geothermal has made headlines in the state over the years since, the story has generally been PGV’s uneasy relationship with the volcano — most notably during Kilauea’s 2018 eruption, during which the plant was totally surrounded by lava flows. Neighbors remained fiercely opposed to the plant when it reopened two years later.

In 2014, when Lautze was tapped for a new survey of that state’s geothermal resources, the word “geothermal” was so taboo that she was reluctant to tell anyone locally her line of work. But she had funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, thanks to the federal government’s resurgent interest in geothermal as a source of clean, firm energy. Popular perception in Hawaii held that the Earth’s heat could only be tapped on the Big Island, where magma was breaching the surface, but Lautze was intrigued by the possibility of finding resources on islands that are less geologically volatile and home to more people. She set about developing new simulations for subsurface heat across the state, followed by on-the-ground experiments.

On islands like Lanai and Maui, Lautze said her team received a warmer welcome than expected. Certain benefits of geothermal had become much more clear amidst the state’s rush to adopt renewable energy — among them, that geothermal power would take a fraction of the land required to produce the same electricity from wind turbines or solar panels, in addition to providing continuous power, regardless of the weather. “Hawaii is realizing that they’re not going to get to 100 percent renewable from solar and wind alone,” said Lautze. Plus, she added, “the cost of energy is going up and up and up.”

The next step toward tapping that heat is what’s known as “slim hole” drilling, using bits less than 7 inches wide to descend more than a kilometer down. Even promising hotspots can be duds, and developers are often hesitant even in well-mapped places, which Hawaii isn’t. Before the state tries to sell geothermal companies on the idea of coming to Hawaii, officials want to be sure of what they’re selling. “There’s an absolute dearth of information on the volcanically older islands,” Lautze said.

Mike Kaleikini, head of Hawaii affairs for Ormat, which owns PGV, told me he’s been heartened to see the state turning its attention to basic research. Developers could very well get excited about places like Maui, he said, with some initial exploration already done and if they feel they can navigate permitting and potential concerns from the public. “Hawaii is not the easiest place to do business,” he added.

Among the better prospects for new development is on Big Island land owned by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, an agency that works to redistribute homes and land to Native Hawaiians. Located on the more docile slopes of Mauna Kea, the project’s backers say it could both power DHHL’s housing developments and generate royalties that help finance more home building.

Whatever heat developers strike there will remain marooned on the Big Island, at least for now. Channeling the dream of near-endless volcanic energy, Glick’s office proposed tying the Big Island’s geothermal production to a regional hydrogen hub so that the energy could be shipped offshore, but the DOE ultimately passed on funding the plan. Lautze still dreams of wires strung across the unruly Hawaiian channels. People still talk about the idea, she noted, even if it elicits smirks and eyerolls from people who lived through its past failures. The state is still a far cry from achieving the king’s dream. But the only way to get there is to start drilling.

https://heatmap.news/climate/hawaii-volcanoes-geothermal

Spring Into Action: Give Blood With the Red Cross

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

SANTA BARBARA, April 8, 2024 — During National Volunteer Month in April, the American Red Cross asks donors to help protect the

The post Spring Into Action: Give Blood With the Red Cross appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/spring-into-action-give-blood-with-the-red-cross/

June 1: Santa Clarita Dodger Day Returns

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Santa Clarita Dodger Day is back!

https://scvnews.com/june-1-santa-clarita-dodger-day-returns/

These 15 Photos Show How the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Captivated the Nation

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

From Texas to Maine, millions of Americans looked up and were spellbound by the spectacular phenomenon

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-15-photos-show-how-the-2024-total-solar-eclipse-captivated-nation-180984115/

Lucid Offering Almost $30,000 Off Airs In Its Inventory

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

If you pick the base Lucid Air Pure, its price should fall to under $60,000 with all the discounts being offered.

https://insideevs.com/news/715372/lucid-air-stock-discount/

US insurers use drone photos to deny home insurance policies

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Of course, it helps if you don’t live in a potential disaster zone

US insurance companies are reportedly relying on aerial photos from drones to deny claims.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/us_insurers_drones/

SmolBSD: make your own BSD UNIX MicroVM

date: 2024-04-08, from: OS News

SmolBSD is a tiny BSD UNIX (NetBSD) system creation tool, primarily aimed at building modern, lightweight, fast micro VMs. SmolBSD can start a service in (way) under a second, giving it the ability to be used as a virtualized container, thus reducing attack surface and actually isolating workflows. ↫ SmolBSD website Neat.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139197/smolbsd-make-your-own-bsd-unix-microvm/

Ted Lasso Star Hannah Waddingham Named Sun Princess Godmother

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

Award-winning actress and performer Hannah Waddingham will serve the time-honored, maritime tradition as the official Godmother of Princess Cruises’ newest “Love Boat” Sun Princess

https://scvnews.com/ted-lasso-star-hannah-waddingham-named-sun-princess-godmother/

Cooking Up a Day of Fanciful Fun

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Santa Barbara’s first-ever Kinetic Cake Expo comes to CAW April 13.

The post Cooking Up a Day of Fanciful Fun  appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/08/cooking-up-a-day-of-fanciful-fun/

Polestar Doesn’t See Tesla As A Rival, Has Its Eye On Porsche Customers

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

The Volvo spinoff brand wants to be measured against Porsche and other premium automakers, not Tesla.

https://insideevs.com/news/715351/polestar-rivals-porsche-luxury-brands/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

The Beatles: Here Comes The Sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQetemT1sWc

Celebrate the 45th Santa Clarita Dodger Day

date: 2024-04-08, from: City of Santa Clarita

CELEBRATE THE 45TH SANTA CLARITA DODGER DAY Watch the Dodgers Take on the Rockies on June 1 Santa Clarita Dodger Day is back! The City of Santa Clarita is excited to invite residents to purchase tickets for the 45th Annual City of Santa Clarita Dodger Day. This year’s game is between the Los Angeles Dodgers […]

The post Celebrate the 45th Santa Clarita Dodger Day appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.

https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/04/08/celebrate-the-45th-santa-clarita-dodger-day/

Rivian (RIVN) officially shuts down Normal EV plant for upgrades as R2 creates a buzz

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Rivian (RIVN) officially shut down production at its Normal, Illinois plant as the EV maker prepares for its next growth phase. The company is upgrading the facility to cut costs and improve efficiency as it looks to expand the brand.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/rivian-rivn-officially-shuts-down-normal-ev-plant-upgrades/

Tesla Delays The Affordable EV Dream

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

Tesla is reportedly canceling its long-promised cheaper car. What does that mean for EV shoppers on a budget?

https://insideevs.com/news/715367/tesla-cheap-ev-canceled/

Imagination licenses RISC-V CPU cores for smart TVs, IoT, embedded stuff

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Chip designer legging it after Arm

Brit chip designer Imagination Technologies today debuts its APXM-6200 RISC-V CPU cores, aimed at powering smart TVs, wearables, Internet of Things, embedded hardware, and similar gear.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/imagination_riscv_cpu_cores/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Trump Bets That Voters Will Buy His Feigned Moderation On Abortion.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-abortion-feigned-moderation

Low-tech: Make a pinhole camera to watch the solar eclipse

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

Since it’s not safe to look directly at the sun (even when it’s partially blocked), many people have been shopping for eclipse glasses ahead of the solar eclipse in the United States. These glasses are so dark that just about the only thing that you can see through them is an extremely bright object like the […]

The post Low-tech: Make a pinhole camera to watch the solar eclipse appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/low-tech-make-pinhole-camera-watch-solar-eclipse-august-21st/

Across the Hill

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

Long blobs with circular eyes, no mouth and spiky heads. The ghosts assemble to form a line every sunset. Everyone always gathers to see where they’re going. On Saturdays, Dad…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180101/print-editions/print-stories/across-the-hill/

Building Experiences Together: Why students want to develop games

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

California State University, Northridge’s Game Development Club serves students who have a passion for the multidisciplinary field of video game development by making opportunities and academic resources available to help…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180097/print-editions/print-stories/building-experiences-together-why-students-want-to-develop-games/

Throwing Punches and Taking Names: Finding community through video games

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

I tucked myself underneath the warmth of my blanket after my mom shut off my bedroom lights. The only thing offering any kind of light was the glow from my…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180092/print-editions/print-stories/throwing-punches-and-taking-names-finding-community-through-video-games/

AS Sustainability Center hosts a Refill and Repair event

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

On March 26, the AS Sustainability Center hosted its second Refill and Repair event of the spring semester, near Magnolia and Citrus Hall, at Matador Square. Refill and Repair encourages…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180135/news/as-sustainability-center-hosts-a-refill-and-repair-event/

SpaceX paints the skies of California a glowing aurora on Monday

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

No, this was not an April Fool’s prank. On Monday, April 1, SpaceX launched its Falcon9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base to deliver 22 Starlink satellites to orbit…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180126/news/spacex-paints-the-skies-of-california-a-glowing-aurora-on-monday/

Remembering Cesar Chavez: A champion of civil rights

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)

On March 28, CSUN held its 15th annual Cesar Chavez Service Fair. Hosted by the Department of Chicano Studies, the event took place at the University Library Lawn. Many campus…

https://sundial.csun.edu/180140/news/remembering-cesar-chavez-a-champion-of-civil-rights/

Say It Ain’t So: Atwyld Announces Plans To Pause Operations At End Of Month

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

The women’s gear and apparel company announced the sad news on its socials.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/715373/atwyld-pauses-operations-april-2024/

Vikings May Have Used Body Modification as a ‘Sign of Identification’

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

A recent study analyzes Scandinavian examples of filed teeth and elongated skulls dating to the Viking Age

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-viking-trade-guilds-standard-uniform-carved-up-teeth-180984080/

Up to a Trillion Cicadas Could Emerge in the U.S. Later This Spring

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Two specific broods will appear together for the first time since 1803

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/two-broods-of-cicadas-will-emerge-in-the-us-later-this-spring-180984110/

Maiyunda M1 is an Alder Lake-N mini PC with four 2.5 GbE LAN ports and four NVMe SSD slots

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

The Maiyunda M1 is a small, cheap, low-power computer that looks like it’s designed for home networking and storage applications. Available in China with prices starting at 1,380 CNY (about $190) for barebones models, the little computer has an Intel Alder Lake-N processor and support for up to 32GB of RAM, the little computer has a few […]

The post Maiyunda M1 is an Alder Lake-N mini PC with four 2.5 GbE LAN ports and four NVMe SSD slots appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/maiyunda-m1-is-an-alder-lake-n-mini-pc-with-four-2-5-gbe-lan-ports-and-four-nvme-ssd-slots/

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Something disturbing about America in 2024. Over a million Americans died of Covid, but they aren’t on our minds. A million more have long Covid, perhaps. This suggests a million Americans could be killed by our government in the name of a conspiracy, and we’d shrug it off like good Germans. “We didn’t know,” a likely defense.

http://scripting.com/2024/04/08.html#a184614

Adorable but Deadly Fluff Balls, Better Known as Pygmy Slow Lorises, Born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The two babies are part of an endangered species whose unbearable cuteness has made them a target for wildlife traffickers

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/first-endangered-pygmy-slow-lorises-born-at-smithsonians-national-zoo-and-conservation-biology-institute-180984112/

Microsoft puts ex-DeepMind boffin in charge of London AI hub

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Follows £2.5 billion pledge to ‘upskill’ British workers for the new world order

Microsoft is opening an AI research and development hub in London led by former Google DeepMind researchers.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/microsoft_london_ai/

IM Motors opens pre-sale for solid-state powered L6 sedan, starting under $32,000

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Just weeks after teasing the launch of its fourth all-electric model and promising some impressive specs, China’s IM Motors has officially opened pre-orders for its L6 Sedan. The automaker confirmed earlier today that the L6 will be powered by semi-solid-state batteries, offer a range of over 1,000km (620 miles), and deliver unique maneuvers like crabwalk and an intelligent driving chassis.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/im-motors-opens-pre-sale-solid-state-powered-l6-sedan-starting-under-32000/

April 7, 2024

date: 2024-04-08, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-7-2024

Save $900 on this NIU Pro e-bike at $1,300, ALLPOWERS power station now $199, and other Green Deals

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

As the rain falls in April to prepare for May flowers, so too do we have a bunch of green deals falling in price that could make the coming months far more enjoyable. Kicking off this week’s rundown is the 1-day flash sale on the NIU BQi-C3 Pro e-bike at a return $1,300 low. It is joined by the ALLPOWERS R600 BEIGE Portable Power Station at $199, as well as another 1-day sale for the Greenworks 80V 730 CFM Cordless Electric Blower at $180. Plus all of the other Green Deals you’ll find below.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/niu-bqi-c3-pro-e-bike-allpowers-r600-beige-power-station-and-more/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Trump's latest position on abortion tells you one thing – they know it's a very dangerous issue for them.

https://politicalwire.com/2024/04/08/trump-has-been-on-every-side-of-the-abortion-issue/

Home Depot confirms worker data leak after miscreant dumps info online

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

SaaS slip up leads to scumbags seeking sinecure

Home Depot has confirmed that a third-party company accidentally exposed some of its employees’ personal details after a criminal copy-pasted the data online.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/home_depot_data_theft/

Watch Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Drag Race A Tesla Model 3 Long Range

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

The EX30 Twin Motor Performance demonstrates why it is “the fastest-accelerating Volvo car ever.”

https://insideevs.com/news/715240/volvo-ex30-tesla-model-3-drag-race/

Watch the solar eclipse impact the US grid in real time

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

A total solar eclipse will bring complete darkness to 12 US states today – watch live to see its effect on solar power and the grid across all 50 US states. 

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/solar-eclipse-impact-us-grid-in-real-time/

Community and city officials celebrate opening of Skyline Ranch Park 

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Signal

Overlooking the Santa Clarita skyline is none other than Skyline Ranch Park, the newest park installment in the city.  Saturday marked its grand opening, as city officials, residents and Sammy Clarita gathered for the ceremony before the ribbon cutting.   Mayor Cameron Smyth took the podium to lead the ceremony, thanking Mother Nature for ensuring a […]

The post Community and city officials celebrate opening of Skyline Ranch Park  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/community-and-city-officials-celebrate-opening-of-skyline-ranch-park/

Corrected link, re: new paper on scaling and AGI

date: 2024-04-08, from: Gary Marcus blog

With apologies, there was a broken link in my last post (now corrected in the online version of the post). The important new arXiv article can be found here https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.04125. Thank you all for your support! –Gary

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/corrected-link-re-new-paper-on-scaling

See NASA’s Initial Moon Buggy Concepts, Expected on the Moon by 2030

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Three companies are competing to design NASA’s lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) for the agency’s Artemis campaign

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-nasas-initial-moon-buggy-concepts-expected-on-the-moon-by-2030-180984108/

BYD is launching its next-gen Blade EV battery soon with more range and even lower cost

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

BYD is expected to launch its next-gen Blade EV battery later this year. The battery will promote more range at an even lower cost. Will the new battery be BYD’s X-factor in its “liberation battle” over gas-powered vehicles?

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/byd-launch-next-gen-ev-battery-more-range-lower-price/

TSMC scores $11.6B funding infusion for Arizona fabs, now plans for third plant

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Nevermind the fact that the first two plants are facing delays and costs are rising – build, build build!

With a new Biden administration funding agreement in hand, chip giant TSMC plans to build a third chip fabrication plant in Arizona despite facing delays with the two it’s still building.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/tsmc_116b_arizona_funding/

Breaking news: Scaling will never get us to AGI

date: 2024-04-08, from: Gary Marcus blog

A new result casts serious doubt on the viability of scaling

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/breaking-news-scaling-will-never

Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC)

date: 2024-04-08, from: Michael Tsai

Aimee Picchi: The moon could soon get its own time zone. The White House is directing NASA to work with other government agencies to develop a lunar-based time system called Coordinated Lunar Time, abbreviated as LTC. The Biden administration has given the space agency until the end of 2026 to hammer out the new system.According […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/08/coordinated-lunar-time-ltc/

Voice Dream Reader Switches to Subscriptions

date: 2024-04-08, from: Michael Tsai

Jonathan Mosen: Unfortunately, the relationship between Voice Dream Reader’s new owners and its engaged user base got off to a rocky start. Members of the online blind community did not find out about the sale of Voice Dream Reader last year from either the buyer or the seller. Instead, they found out because an indie […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/08/voice-dream-reader-switches-to-subscriptions/

Music App Links in EU

date: 2024-04-08, from: Michael Tsai

Apple (Hacker News): 3.1.1(a): Updated to include Music Streaming Services Entitlements. The new guideline reads: 3.1.1(a) Link to Other Purchase Methods: Developers may apply for entitlements to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase digital content or services. Please see additional details […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/08/music-app-links-in-eu/

Allowing iOS Game Emulators and Mini Apps

date: 2024-04-08, from: Michael Tsai

Apple (Hacker News): 4.7: Added games from retro game console emulator apps to the list of permitted software, and clarifies that mini apps and mini games must be HTML5. Sweet! The new guideline reads: 4.7 Mini apps, mini games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins, and game emulators Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/08/allowing-ios-game-emulators-and-mini-apps/

Biden, Trump hold different views on key foreign policy issues

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, hold very different views on key foreign and domestic issues. Here’s an overview of where each one stands on foreign policy.  

Russia-Ukraine  

Biden endorses sending military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine to aid its fight against Russia, while warning that Western countries cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to achieve victory. To date, the Biden administration has sanctioned Russian individuals and entities and sent $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine since the February 2022 Russian invasion. 

Biden said on March 7, 2024, “Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.”  

Trump has said NATO countries are not paying their share of aid to Ukraine and claimed the United States has sent more than other countries. At a February rally, Trump said he told an unnamed NATO member that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to any alliance member that does not meet spending guidelines on defense. In a 2023 speech in New Hampshire, Trump said, “Shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled.”  

Throughout his presidency, Trump faced multiple accusations of collusion with Russia and was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 18, 2019, for charges he leveraged U.S. aid to Ukraine in return for damaging information on potential political rival Joe Biden. Trump denied those charges and was later acquitted by the U.S. Senate.  

China 

Biden said on March 7, 2024, “We have the best economy in the world. And since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up, our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point over a decade and we’re standing up against China’s unfair economic practices. We’re standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. I’ve revitalized our partnership and alliance in the Pacific. India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Pacific Islands. I made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China, not allowing to trade them there. Frankly, for all this tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do any of that. I want competition with China, not conflict. And we’re in a stronger position to win the conflict of the 21st century against China than anyone else, for that matter, than any time as well.” 

During his presidency, Trump denounced the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party as the most significant foreign policy challenge of this generation. He said China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and penalized China for ending the “one country, two states” policy in Hong Kong. In a May 2020 speech, Trump said, “The United States wants an open and constructive relationship with China, but achieving that relationship requires us to vigorously defend our national interests.”  

On his campaign website, Trump said, “To protect our country, we need to enact aggressive new restrictions on Chinese ownership of any vital infrastructure in the United States, including energy, technology, telecommunications, farmland, natural resources, medical supplies, and other strategic national assets. We should stop all future Chinese purchases in these essential industries. And we should begin the process of forcing the Chinese to sell any current holdings that put our national security at risk.”  

Israel-Palestinians  

Biden says Israel has a right to go after Hamas but has warned Israel against killing Palestinian civilians. In March, Biden announced the construction of an offshore port to deliver aid to Gaza.  

Biden said in New York on March 9, 2024, “I’m never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them. They don’t have … but there’s red lines that if he crosses and they continue … you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after, there’s other ways to deal, to get to, to deal with the trauma caused by Hamas.”  

Trump released a Middle East peace plan in 2020 calling for a two-state solution that would have given Israel control of a unified Jerusalem and maintained its settlements in the West Bank.  

In an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper on March 25, 2024, Trump said of the current conflict, “What I saw October 7 was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. … You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You got to get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we got to get to peace; we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel.”  

Iran 

Biden spent more than two years attempting to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama administration before declaring it “dead.” Last year, the Biden administration negotiated the release of five American hostages in return for unfreezing billions in Iranian assets.  

Biden said in Washington on March 7, 2024, “Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran. That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capability and defend U.S. forces in the region. As commander in chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and our military personnel.” 

Among Trump’s proudest achievements was the withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA. He also authorized the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force — the terrorist branch of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC — a move he called “the boldest action of his presidency.” 

North Korea 

The Biden administration has repeatedly stated it is open to negotiations with North Korea with no preconditions but has yet to offer any incentives in the form of economic assistance to encourage North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to open talks. Biden has met with regional allies and last year announced a new nuclear deterrence agreement, with South Korea, that would allow the U.S. to dock submarines in South Korean ports.  

During his presidency, Trump pursued “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea but eventually developed a good personal relationship with Jong-Un after multiple meetings. His personal diplomacy did not result in any agreements between the two countries. 

VOA’s Saqib Ui Islam contributed to this report.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-on-key-foreign-policy-issues-/7561392.html

Google launches Find My Device network (find Android phones and other gadgets via a crowdsourced network)

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

Google’s new Find My Device network is designed to help you find a misplace or stolen phone or other supported gadgets. The company has long offered the ability to show your phone’s last known position on a map, make your phone ring so it’s easier to locate in the couch cushions or bottom of your […]

The post Google launches Find My Device network (find Android phones and other gadgets via a crowdsourced network) appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/google-launches-find-my-device-network-find-android-phones-and-other-gadgets-via-a-crowdsourced-network/

These Graphs Show How Much Tesla Is Struggling To Sell Cars Right Now

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

The company’s EV production and deliveries stopped growing.

https://insideevs.com/news/715212/tesla-production-deliveries-2024-q1/

Developers are calling the shots on AI planning, judging by your experience

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

And American CIOs keep a closer eye on the purse strings than European equivalents

Reader Poll Results  When it comes to rolling out AI systems, developers are still the most important in deciding which to run, but there are some major differences in strategy between The Register’s US and European readers.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/register_readers_ai_poll/

Kawi Performance is Building a Crazy Supercharged Jet Ski

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

It’s their most ambitious build to date.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/715242/kawi-performance-supercharged-jetski-build/

The Eclipse Was a 3-Hour Boon for Gas, Batteries, and Hydro

date: 2024-04-08, from: Heatmap News

Early April is typically a kind of goldilocks moment for solar power. Days are getting longer but the weather is still mild, meaning that higher solar power generation isn’t entirely eaten up by increased demand due to air conditioning.

But that all depends on the sun actually shining.

Monday’s solar eclipse took a big chunk of power off the grid. Since 2017’s eclipse, solar power generation has increased substantially, both locally (think rooftops) and at utility scale (think massive fields of solar panels). In 2017, the U.S. had around 35 gigawatts of utility-scale solar capacity, a figure that had increased to an estimated 95 gigawatts by the end of 2023.

While total solar eclipses are rare (the next one to hit the lower 48 isn’t expected until 2044), the challenges they present to grid operators may be part of the new normal. With vastly expanded renewable energy generation comes a greater degree of unpredictability, as a growing a portion of the generation fleet can drop off the grid due to weather and climate conditions — like, say, clouds of smoke from a wildfire — that cannot be precisely predicted by 17th century science.

Grid operators were confident they’d be able to manage through the eclipse without any reliability issues, and what actually transpired mostly confirmed their forecasts. In Texas, solar power production shrunk from around 13.5 gigawatts at noon, making up 27% of the grid’s electricity supply, to a mere 0.8 gigawatts at 1:30 p.m. Things did not go as well for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, however, which includes a swath of the middle of the country from Minnesota to Indiana to Louisiana. Solar output was estimated to drop from around 4 gigawatts at 1 p.m. Central time to 2 gigawatts an hour later, according to Grid Status. Instead, output dropped to around 300 megawatts, causing real-time prices for power on the grid to spike.

ERCOT’s fuel mix from Monday, April 8, including during the solar eclipse.ERCOT

Overall, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that some 6,500 megawatts of solar generation capacity would be fully obscured during the eclipse, which would “partially block sunlight to facilities with a combined 84.8 GW of capacity in an even larger swath of the United States around peak solar generating time.” Some 40 gigawatts may have come off the grid, enough power for about 28 million homes, according to a release from Solcast, a solar forecasting company.

By comparison, during the 2017 eclipse, solar power loss at its peak was between 4 and 6.5 gigawatts and the total loss of power was around 11 gigawatts, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

In states like Texas, the main effect was on utility-scale production of solar, but in the Northeast and parts of the mid-Atlantic and Midwest, there was also a related problem: Behind-the-meter solar fell off, too, thus requiring the homes and businesses that generate power for themselves in the middle of the day to get more power from the grid, increasing demand on the grid at a time of low supply.

New England has seen immense growth in rooftop solar, and solar production was expected to fall by “thousands” of megawatts, according to ISO New England, while the New York Independent System Operators expected to lose 700 megawatts of behind the meter solar.

During the 2017 eclipse, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that “the burden of compensating for the lost energy from solar generators fell to the thermal fleet,” i.e. natural gas, along with some increases in coal and hydropower production.

Since then, the coal fleet has shrunk, thus putting more of the burden of responding to Monday’s eclipse onto gas and hydro, but the basic logic still applies. “Grid operators are expected to rely on natural gas to ensure stability and meet the household demand spike across national grids, as was done during the previous eclipse in 2023 in California and Texas,” according to Solcast. As the sun was dimming in Texas, natural gas generation rose from 18.7 gigawatts to 27.5 gigawatts.

Something else that’s changed since 2017: batteries. By the end of 2023, Texas had installed 5.6 gigawatts of grid storage, most of it providing so-called “ancillary services,” power sources that can respond quickly to immediate needs. ERCOT, the electricity market that covers most of Texas, said in a presentation back in February that it would rely on these ancillary tools to get through the eclipse, and once again, it was right. Power from batteries on the grid got up 1.4 gigawatts during the eclipse.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the actual effects of the eclipse on U.S. power generation.

https://heatmap.news/climate/eclipse-power-solar-gas-batteries

Silent, 70-ton Scania semi gets to work on Swedish timber farm [Video]

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Swedish truck maker Scania is working with SCA to put the world’s first all electric timber truck into production in a bid to decarbonize the logging industry.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/silent-70-ton-scania-semi-gets-to-work-on-swedish-timber-farm-video/

Everyone should try and experience a total solar eclipse at least once in their lives

date: 2024-04-08, from: Matt Haughey blog

Today's total solar eclipse features four minutes of totality stretching from Texas to Vermont, but I didn‘t make travel plans to head out to the midwest this time around. I wish I could see it but I feel ok missing it because I got to live

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/why-every-single-person-should-experience-a-total-solar-eclipse-at-least-once-in-their-lives/

Broadcom has willingly dug its VMware hole, says cloud CEO

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Civo’s Mark Boost says price hikes appear designed to retain whales while tossing back small fry

interview  Broadcom has faced a lot of heat for the direction it’s taken VMware after acquiring it – and much of what has happened has confirmed the fears Virtzilla customers expressed well before that deal closed. …

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/broadcom_vmware_civo/

SolidRun Bedrock R8000 is a compact, fanless industrial PC with up to Ryzen 9 8945HS

date: 2024-04-08, from: Liliputing

The SolidRun Bedrock R8000 is a small, passively cooled computer that packs a lot of horsepower into a small package, with support for up to AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor. If the design looks familiar, that’s because the new PCs are basically updated versions of last year’s Bedrock R7000 systems, but there are a few key differences. […]

The post SolidRun Bedrock R8000 is a compact, fanless industrial PC with up to Ryzen 9 8945HS appeared first on Liliputing.

https://liliputing.com/solidrun-bedrock-r8000-is-a-compact-fanless-industrial-pc-with-up-to-ryzen-9-8945hs/

The U.S. Won’t Let China Flood Its Auto Market, Treasury Secretary Says

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

Yellen says the Biden Administration will not let cheap Chinese imports disrupt the U.S. auto industry.

https://insideevs.com/news/715354/janey-yellen-ev-concerns-china-overcapacity/

This Tiny Italian Island Is Giving Away Goats to Anyone Who Can Catch Them

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

An estimated 600 of the hoofed intruders are wreaking havoc on the two-square-mile island of Alicudi

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-tiny-italian-island-is-giving-away-goats-to-anyone-who-can-catch-them-180984104/

Aviation vs. Eclipse

date: 2024-04-08, from: Doc Searls (at Harvard), New Old Blog

Contrails form behind jet aircraft flying through the stratosphere. Since high-altitude aviation is happening all around the earth more or less constantly, planes are painting the sky everywhere. (Here is one time-lapse.) Many contrails don’t last, of course, but many do, and together they account for much of the cloud cover we see every day. […]

https://doc.searls.com/2024/04/08/aviation-vs-eclipse/

NASA Names Finalists of the Power to Explore Challenge

date: 2024-04-08, from: NASA breaking news

NASA has selected the nine finalists of the Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes. NASA selected nine finalists out of the 45 semifinalist student essays in the Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes. Contestants were […]

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/rps/nasa-names-finalists-of-the-power-to-explore-challenge-2/

The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV Is More Expensive To Lease Than The Blazer EV

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

Even though the Blazer EV is larger and more expensive to buy than the Equinox EV.

https://insideevs.com/news/715308/2024-chevrolet-equinox-ev-lease-expensive-blazer-ev/

Musk burns bridges in Brazil after calling for senior judge to be impeached

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Tycoon threatens to ignore court order banning far-right accounts on X

In this weekend’s episode of “Billionaires Behaving Boldly,” X supremo Elon Musk locked horns with Brazil’s legal luminaries over what constitutes free speech and what’s far-right pablum.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/musk_burns_bridges_in_brazil/

The Potential of Smart Treaties

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: RAND blog

Blockchain technology presents numerous opportunities for the development of trade and commerce. One particularly interesting opportunity is smart contracts, an application that could have broad geopolitical implications if applied to treaties.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/04/the-potential-of-smart-treaties.html

Kia’s affordable EV3 is coming soon… and it’s getting a sporty GT Line model

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

A new low-cost Kia electric car is expected to debut this summer. Kia is set to reveal the affordable EV3 later this year, complete with a sporty GT Line trim.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/kias-affordable-ev3-coming-soon-gt-line/

Tesla plans new world’s largest Supercharger with an impressive 200 stalls

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Tesla has unveiled plans for a new world’s largest Supercharger station, with an impressive 200 stalls in Yeehaw Junction, Florida.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/tesla-new-worlds-largest-supercharger-200-stalls/

Shadow of Trump hangs over future EU-US tech collaboration

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Orange candidate has been known to use protectionist policy against allies

AI, 6G, semiconductor supply chains and critical minerals were all discussed at the latest EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC), amid concerns that a victory for Republican candidate Donald Trump in this year’s election would put an end to such cooperation.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/ttc_future_in_balance/

Lotus’ (LOT) 2023 financial results show steady growth as it executes its all-electric strategy

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Lotus Technology has shared its Q4 and full 2023 financial results, relaying steady revenue growth alongside business expansions and further progress in becoming a 100% electric brand. Better still, Lotus expects much more growth in 2024.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/lotus-lot-2023-financial-results-growth-executes-all-electric-strategy/

I co-wrote a book about the Virtual Boy for MIT Press

date: 2024-04-08, from: Vintage Computing

Platform Studies book from Zagal and Edwards launches May 14, 2024. Attention video game fans! I co-wrote an MIT Press Platform Studies book called Seeing Red: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy with Dr. Jose Zagal, and it’s coming out May 14th of this year. You can pre-order it now on Amazon if you’re wild about stereoscopic red […]

https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/3370/i-co-wrote-a-book-about-the-virtual-boy-for-mit-press

Kia Wants To Step Up Its Hybrid And Plug-In Hybrid Game

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

The Korean automaker is not abandoning its all-electric vehicle plans but boosting its portfolio with more electrified models.

https://insideevs.com/news/715261/kia-hybrid-plug-in-hybrid-increase/

Jill On Money: What to do with your tax refund

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

But next year, think about keeping more of your money throughout the year

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/jill-on-money-what-to-do-with-your-tax-refund/

Big affordable housing project in San Jose could boost micro economy

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

The development of 700-plus affordable homes on a San Jose land site could spur an economic upswing locally.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/san-jose-house-home-affordable-build-economy-store-golf-real-estate/

Google is wrong to put AI search features behind paywall, says HPC leader

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

‘A huge amount of responsibility to ensure that there is ethical management’

Interview  You may have heard that Google is considering putting its latest AI search innovations behind a paywall, something that doesn’t sit well with Rosanne Kincaid-Smith, COO at German HPC firm Northern Data Group. …

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/google_search_paywall/

Watch This Dude Get Run Over By 376 Motorcycles And Set A World Record

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Add this to your list of pointless world records.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/714880/pointless-world-record-video-motorcycles-run-over/

Here are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in April 2024

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

I’ve spent countless hours here at Electrek doing detailed hands-on testing of hundreds of electric bikes. Through thousands of miles of riding, I’ve learned these e-bikes inside and out, top to bottom and front to back. That dedication to real-world e-bike testing has helped me find the best electric bicycles on the market for just about any budget.

Below are some of the top e-bikes I’ve hand-tested for every price range, current as of April 2024. Spring is finally upon us (at least, here in the Northern Hemisphere) and riding season is gearing up! After an ultra-competitive e-bike selling year in 2023, we’re still seeing some great sales into early 2024. So check out the awesome e-bikes below, any one of which could become your next electric bike.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/here-are-the-best-electric-bikes-you-can-buy-at-every-price-level/

More space, bigger screens, and Ford power for next VW Transporter

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Volkswagen first showed off a heavily camouflaged version of its next-generation Transporter van back in December – but new specs and interior pictures give us our best look at the new van until the wraps officially come off in September.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/more-space-bigger-screens-and-ford-power-for-next-vw-transporter/

Total solar eclipse inspires a special doughnut from Krispy Kreme

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

The doughnut chain’s promotion is tied to Monday’s rare celestial event that will temporarily darken much of the United States.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/total-solar-eclipse-inspires-a-special-doughnut-from-krispy-kreme/

Puppies, kittens, data at risk after ‘cyber incident’ at veterinary giant

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

IT systems pulled offline for chance to paws and reflect

First, they came for hospitals, then it was charities and cancer centers. Now, cyber scumbags are coming for the puppies and kittens.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/cyber_incident_strikes_veterinary_services/

Elon Musk talks Tesla Secret Plan Part 2, how it is going 8 years later

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

Elon Musk is back referencing his ‘Tesla Secret Master Plan Part 2’. Let’s take a look at how the execution is going 8 years later.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/elon-musk-tesla-secret-plan-part-2-how-going-8-years-later/

Hyundai US boss calls out the competition as the brand goes ‘all in’ on electric vehicles

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

As rivals including Ford and GM pull back, Hyundai is surging ahead in the US electric vehicle market. Hyundai’s US CEO, Randy Parker, is calling out the competition as the brand goes “all in” on EVs.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/hyundai-us-boss-calls-out-rivals-brand-goes-all-in-on-evs/

U.S.’ King Of Plug-In Hybrids Set Another PHEV Sales Record In Q1 2024

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

Stellantis’ PHEV sales almost doubled and its all-electric offensive is just around the corner.

https://insideevs.com/news/715209/stellantis-phev-sales-2024q1/

Butler Investments joins Atos rescue party

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Shares up 25% on the news

Shares in crisis-ridden French IT integrator Atos bounced by over 25 percent this morning as top shareholder Onepoint said it has a rescue plan involving investment firm Butler Industries.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/atos_rescue_plan/

Hatsune Miku Fans Furious Live Show Was Just a Flatscreen On Stage

date: 2024-04-08, from: 404 Media Group

The virtual pop idol did not appear in her full hologram form in two shows on her North American tour and fans are pissed.

https://www.404media.co/hatsune-miku-fans-furious-live-show-was-just-a-flatscreen-on-stage/

Wish You Were Here: Northern Lights and glacier hopping in Alaska

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

Northern Lights and glacier hikes starred on this Alaska holiday.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/wish-you-were-here-northern-lights-and-glacier-hopping-in-alaska/

Are hummingbird feeders to blame for two bird deaths in Palo Alto?

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

Readers offer feedback and suggestions to recent columns about cats.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/are-hummingbird-feeders-to-blame-for-two-bird-deaths-in-palo-alto/

Renault and Volvo team up on next generation electric vans

date: 2024-04-08, from: Electrek Feed

The electric van market is heating up with new entries coming soon from Nissan, Mercedes, and even Kia – and now, even more players are getting into the market. A new JV between Volvo Trucks, Renault, and logistics provider CMA CGM promises a “revolutionary” new entry into the increasingly crowded field.

more…

https://electrek.co/2024/04/08/renault-and-volvo-team-up-on-next-generation-electric-vans/

TasteFood: Let quinoa do the heavy lifting in this salad

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

This fast and easy recipe for Southwestern Quinoa Salad is packed with flavor.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/tastefood-let-quinoa-do-the-heavy-lifting-in-this-salad/

Travel Troubleshooter: Why won’t Airbnb cover my hotel expenses? They promised!

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

When David Tuttle’s Airbnb host moves him to a different rental, Airbnb offers to cover his hotel expenses, but a month has passed since. Where’s the money?

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/travel-troubleshooter-why-wont-airbnb-cover-my-hotel-expenses-they-promised/

Alibaba Cloud slashes prices outside China

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Domestic customers saw their fees cut last January

Alibaba Cloud is cutting prices for international users of its core compute, storage, and database services, using offers similar to those it dangled before Chinese customers earlier this year.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/alibaba_intl_price_cut/

The most spectacular new hotels in California, Hawaii and around the world

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

Afar magazine’s list of top new hotels spans the globe, from the Kalahari Desert to Santa Barbara wine country

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/the-list-afars-top-new-hotels-around-the-world/

When college costs $100,000 a year

date: 2024-04-08, from: Marketplace Morning Report

You may want to shield your eyes. No, we’re not talking about the solar eclipse — though please do wear the appropriate glasses. Today, we’re talking about eye-popping college costs. One such example? At Vanderbilt University, some students could see a sticker price of nearly $100,000 for the upcoming school year. Also on the show: President Joe Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness plan and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s “difficult conversations” in China.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/when-college-costs-100000-a-year

It’s Really a Very Bad Name

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: One Foot Tsunami

https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/04/08/its-really-a-very-bad-name/

It’s Eclipse Day!

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: Jason Kittke’s blog

https://kottke.org/24/04/its-eclipse-day

to be a pilgrim

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ayjay blog

I’ve been teaching The Pilgrim’s Progress, something that always gives me great joy. I find it simply wonderful that so utterly bonkers a book was so omnipresent in English-language culture (and well beyond) for so long. You couldn’t avoid it, whether you loved it — as George Eliot’s Maggie Tulliver did, and lamented the sale […]

https://blog.ayjay.org/to-be-a-pilgrim/

Regretting coming to US, some illegal Chinese immigrants return home

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

Austin, Texas — Chinese migrants coming across the southern U.S. border say they made the treacherous journey to flee China’s authoritarian rule, to seek the American dream or escape growing political and economic uncertainty at home.

But the challenges do not end after they arrive, and some are deciding to return to China, while others have no choice.

Last April, Xia Yu arrived in the United States after traveling through more than 10 countries over a period of two months. Xia, a Chinese man in his 40s, asked to use a pseudonym so he could speak more freely with VOA Mandarin about his journey.

On his way to the U.S. border, he says, all his property was stolen, and his American dream did not come true: In immigration custody, he failed to pass the “credible fear interview” for asylum-seekers.

2023 surge

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, 52,700 Chinese immigrants arrived at U.S. borders without valid entry visas in fiscal 2023 — more than twice the number of just two years earlier. About half of them entered somewhere along the southern U.S. border where they were apprehended by Border Protection agents and sought asylum.

Individuals who pass the screening and establish that they have a credible reason to fear torture, persecution, or returning to their country, are allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue their cases in immigration court.

Xia remained in the detention facility in the U.S. for months as he was processed for deportation, eventually landing at Shanghai Pudong Airport last August. Entering Chinese customs, he was fined $71 and had to sign a document admitting his crime of being deported after illegally entering another country. His passport was confiscated, and he was notified that he would be barred from leaving the country for three years.

The public security bureau in his hometown also questioned him about whom he encountered while on U.S. soil.

“They asked me to delete my foreign social media apps and foreign contacts,” he told VOA. “Then they told me not to contact these people because I would be deceived.” 

Xia said he thinks his WeChat account is being monitored to prevent him from inciting others to emigrate illegally. He said spending tens of thousands of dollars without even staying in the U.S. is nothing to brag about, and that he’d rather not mention his experience again.

‘A full life at home’

At 33, Wang Zhongwei from China’s Anhui Province now lives in Los Angeles, where has become a vocal advocate for immigrants since entering the United States in May.

Many Chinese who have crossed the border or are attempting to do so reach out to him for advice. Wang tells VOA Mandarin that while most who make the journey across the border stay, there are those who return because of loneliness, deceit, or family pressure.

Wang’s friend, Liu Ming, from Sichuan Province, came to the United States in the second half of 2023. Liu, 31, first stayed in Los Angeles for a month or two and then moved to New York to find work. After a long wait, he found a job working for a Chinese boss, but the pay wasn’t good.

In January, Liu’s boss refused to pay him, so he had no choice but to call the police. After receiving his salary the following day, Liu immediately went to the airport, messaging Wang: “I’m at the airport now and about to go back to China. I don’t like it here. See you again if destiny has it.”

In March, when Wang contacted him again, he found that Liu had used the self-service kiosk when entering China and wasn’t even interviewed by government staff.

Within months, Liu had returned to a life in China much as he knew it before.

“I am now working in a restaurant in my hometown. I work eight hours and the food is super good,” he told Wang via WhatsApp. “I used to work 12 hours non-stop in a restaurant in the U.S., [where] I was bored and lonely … but I live a full life at home.

At one point, when he got sick in the U.S., he worried about dying in a foreign land. He also complained about not being able to meet women there.

“I don’t regret the trip to the U.S.,” Liu continued, allowing, however, that on getting sick he’d worried about dying in a foreign land, and that he’d found it difficult to meet women.

“What I saw in real life was different from what I saw online,” he concluded. “There are both good and bad things in America.”

Room for regret

Zhang Lin, who is in his 30s and asked to use an alias to protect his privacy, describes himself as a person of double regrets. He first regretted coming to the United States, and now he regrets returning to China.

Crossing the U.S. border, Zhang found a job as a massage therapist in Los Angeles because he had the training. There, he made about $150 a day, a substantial wage for an undocumented immigrant.

But after only a month he returned to China, where he now runs a foot spa in his hometown.

“There were so many things I wasn’t used to in the U.S., and I was lonely,” he said. “I felt very homesick, so I came back impulsively.”

When he went to the U.S., Zhang said, he’d hoped to make a lot of money and make his family the envy of his hometown neighbors.

But now, after returning to China, where he faced a 12-hour interrogation at customs but faced no penalties, he says he regrets his impulsive decision to return.

“Life in my hometown is really hopeless,” Zhang said, adding that he hopes to go to the U.S. illegally again. “When you go out, you realize that the outside world is different. Your mind is opened up.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

https://www.voanews.com/a/regretting-coming-to-us-some-illegal-chinese-immigrants-return-home/7561083.html

Watch Live: 2024 total solar eclipse

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

California will get a partial eclipse Monday, but the total eclipse visible from Texas to Maine can be seen here online

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/watch-live-2024-total-solar-eclipse/

As development sprawls across the Bay Area, a 27-mile wilderness trail is a model for preserving open space

date: 2024-04-08, from: San Jose Mercury News

“It’s one of those places, I still remember, where you go for hours without seeing another soul. There’s no evidence of civilization in an area of 7.5 million people.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/04/08/as-development-sprawls-across-the-bay-area-a-27-mile-wilderness-trail-is-a-model-for-preserving-open-space/

How Amateur Performers Are Making Porn in the Apple Vision Pro

date: 2024-04-08, from: 404 Media Group

Damien and Diana Soft are making porn using Apple’s new VR device—and the headset stays on during sex.

https://www.404media.co/apple-vision-pro-porn/

E.C.D.’s EV Powertrain Doesn’t Require Any Structural Changes

date: 2024-04-08, from: Inside EVs News

As the industry progresses towards cleaner forms of propulsion, electrifying classic cars might be a way to keep them relevant.

https://insideevs.com/news/714877/ecd-ev-platform/

Change Healthcare faces second ransomware dilemma weeks after ALPHV attack

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Theories abound over who’s truly responsible

Change Healthcare is allegedly being extorted by a second ransomware gang, mere weeks after recovering from an ALPHV attack.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/change_healthcare_ransomware/

Recall: 2023-2024 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-4R, ZX-4RR Could Have Spark Plug Damage

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

Bikes with damaged spark plugs could have unstable idles and even possible engine stalling unless the problem is remedied.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/714689/kawasaki-zx4r-zx4rr-sparkplug-recall/

Microsoft adds driver to Windows that prevents changing the default browser using the registry

date: 2024-04-08, from: OS News

There are various ways you can change the default browser and similar defaults on Windows, but oneof the ways many third-party tools do this is by editing the relevant registry strings. It turns out that Microsoft is not particularly happy with this, as they’ve recently introduced a new driver specifically designed to prevent this from happening, by blocking tools like regedit or PowerShell from editing a number of registry keys for setting default applications. The driver was discovered by Christoph Kolbicz. Microsoft implemented a driver based protection to block changes to http/https and .pdf associations by 3rd party utilities. The rollout was staggered and activated “randomly”, but in the meantime I got many reports – also from business or education environments (but not Server OS). Microsoft also updated the driver during my tests (from 2.0 to 2.1) and extended the deny list of executables. This means, they can change the behavior almost on the fly and add new tricks or block additional extensions/protocols! ↫ Christoph Kolbicz Digging further into what, exactly, this driver can do, Microsoft also made it so that even if you disable the driver, an additional scheduled task will run to re-enable the driver and revert the registry changes. It also seems this is somehow related to the changes Microsoft has to make to comply with the EU’s DMA, but the driver is also installed on systems outside of the EU, so it’s all a bit unclear at the moment.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139194/microsoft-adds-driver-to-windows-that-prevents-changing-the-default-browser-using-the-registry/

Just how much faster are the GNOME 46 terminals?

date: 2024-04-08, from: OS News

Over the GNOME 46 cycle, VTE has seen a lot of performance improvements. Christian Hergert mentioned some of them in his blog posts about VTE and about his work in GNOME 46. But how much did the performance actually improve? What should you, the user, expect to feel after installing a fresh Fedora 40 update and launching your favorite terminal? Let’s measure and find out! ↫ Ivan Molodetskikh The short version is that the improvements are definitely noticeable during genera use – for the long version, read the actual article.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139192/just-how-much-faster-are-the-gnome-46-terminals/

What Electricity Providers Can Learn From the Eclipse

date: 2024-04-08, from: Heatmap News

Current conditions: Wildfire season has started one month early in Greece • A Russian oil refinery in Orsk paused operations after torrential rains caused a dam to burst • It will be about 70 degrees Fahrenheit and partly cloudy in Glendale, Arizona, for the men’s NCAA basketball championship game between Purdue and UConn.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Solar eclipse will offer power providers a ‘test run’

Happy eclipse day! The moon will block out the sun’s light for up to four minutes in some areas across the U.S. this afternoon. Millions have flocked to cities along the eclipse’s “path of totality,” which arcs diagonally across continental North America from Mexico’s Pacific coast up through eastern Canada, touching 15 states along the way. The eclipse is “offering power providers a test run for unpredictable sun-blocking events, such as winter storms and wildfire smoke so thick it blankets the sky,” Politico reported. Texas, for example, could lose more than 90% of its solar capacity during the celestial event. But customers are unlikely to have any problems with their electricity as a result.

Eclipse cloud cover forecast. NWS

Unfortunately, the weather isn’t looking great for spectators. Most regions are expected to have at least some cloud cover. “Cloud cover is one of the trickier things to forecast,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Alexa Mainee. “At the very least, it won’t snow.”

2. European human rights court to issue precedent-setting climate rulings

The European Court of Human Rights will issue rulings on three major climate cases this week. “The verdicts will set a precedent for future litigation on how rising temperatures affect people’s right to a liveable planet,” reported Reuters. In all three cases, the plaintiffs claim governments breached their human rights by not protecting them from the damaging health effects of climate change. The three cases are all quite different: One involves a group of young people from Portugal, another is from older Swiss women, and the third involves a former French mayor. But “we all are trying to achieve the same goal,” said 23-year-old Catarina Mota, one of the Portuguese youths. “A win in any one of the three cases will be a win for everyone.” A ruling against even one government could put added pressure on all European countries to reconsider their emissions reductions schedules, and pave the way for similar cases.

3. Greta Thunberg arrested in The Hague

Greta Thunberg was detained again over the weekend. The 21-year-old climate activist joined about 100 people from Extinction Rebellion in blocking a highway in The Hague to protest fossil fuel subsidies. Dutch police lifted Thunberg from her seated position on the ground and dragged her to a bus. Photos circulating from the arrest show her grimacing while being carried away, but Thunberg described the arrest as “peaceful.” Thunberg was arrested in London last year for blocking the entrance of a hotel. In February a judge found her not guilty of breaking the law in that case, and said the police had imposed “unclear” and “unlawful” conditions on protesters.

X/XrItaly

4. Tesla wrongful death suit heads to trial

A wrongful death lawsuit involving Tesla’s Autopilot system goes to trial tomorrow. The jury will have to decide who is at fault for a 2018 crash that occurred while the driver, Walter Huang, was using the driver-assistance technology in his Tesla Model X. Huang died in the crash, and his family says the Autopilot feature was not safe and that Tesla oversold it in marketing materials. Tesla insists Huang is at fault for the crash because he was playing a video game. “If the Huangs prevail, the suit could represent a major financial liability for Tesla, potentially spurring additional cases that seek notable awards,” reported The Wall Street Journal. The ruling could also have ramifications for Tesla’s planned robotaxis, which would likely rely on Autopilot and Full Self-Driving tech. The company plans to unveil its robotaxi on August 8.

Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:

5. New ‘Elmer’ book will focus on climate change

The creator of the iconic children’s book character Elmer the patchwork elephant was working on an Elmer book about climate change before he died in 2022. Author David McKee left behind an early manuscript and sketches of his book “Elmer + White Bear,” in which Elmer meets a polar bear that has floated to the jungle a melting piece of ice. “I love where I live,” the bear says, explaining that global warming is making the world warmer and caused him to become lost in the jungle.

Andersen Press

Before he died, McKee talked with his publisher about writing a book that helped parents talk to their kids about the climate crisis. “So many people have wanted to use Elmer as a mascot,” said McKee’s son, Chuck. “He never wanted that to happen, because Elmer belongs to everybody. So the idea of doing something, of making a statement with Elmer about climate change, was a first for him.”

Elmer and the White Bear will be published by Andersen Press next year.

THE KICKER

“A surge in earthquakes should be the absolute least of your worries when it comes to the warming planet.” –Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo investigates whether climate change causes earthquakes

https://heatmap.news/culture/eclipse-solar-power-electricity

Engine cover flies from Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 during takeoff

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

FAA investigation set to examine failure after aircraft fire in Texas last week

The engine cover on a Boeing 737-800 used by Southwest Airlines detached during takeoff from Denver on Sunday, prompting an investigation by aviation regulators.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/engine_cowling_boeing/

Biden administration announces $6.6 billion to ensure leading-edge microchips are built in US

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

WILMINGTON, Del. — The Biden administration pledged on Monday to provide up to $6.6 billion so that a Taiwanese semiconductor giant can expand the facilities it is already building in Arizona and better ensure that the most-advanced microchips are produced domestically for the first time. 

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the funding for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. means the company can expand on its existing plans for two facilities in Phoenix and add a third, newly announced production hub. 

“These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are the necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy,” Raimondo said on a call with reporters, adding that they were vital to the “21st century military and national security apparatus.” 

The funding is tied to a sweeping 2022 law that President Joe Biden has celebrated and which is designed to revive U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Known as the CHIPS and Science Act, the $280 billion package is aimed at sharpening the U.S. edge in military technology and manufacturing while minimizing the kinds of supply disruptions that occurred in 2021, after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when a shortage of chips stalled factory assembly lines and fueled inflation. 

The Biden administration has promised tens of billions of dollars to support construction of U.S. chip foundries and reduce reliance on Asian suppliers, which Washington sees as a security weakness. 

“Semiconductors – those tiny chips smaller than the tip of your finger – power everything from smartphones to cars to satellites and weapons systems,” Biden said in a statement. “TSMC’s renewed commitment to the United States, and its investment in Arizona represent a broader story for semiconductor manufacturing that’s made in America and with the strong support of America’s leading technology firms to build the products we rely on every day.” 

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. produces nearly all of the leading-edge microchips in the world and plans to eventually do so in the U.S. 

It began construction of its first facility in Phoenix in 2021, and started work on a second hub last year, with the company increasing its total investment in both projects to $40 billion. The third facility should be producing microchips by the end of the decade and will see the company’s commitment increase to a total of $65 billion, Raimondo said. 

The investments would put the U.S. on track to produce roughly 20% of the world’s leading-edge chips by 2030, and Raimondo said they should help create 6,000 manufacturing jobs and 20,000 construction jobs, as well as thousands of new positions more indirectly tied to assorted suppliers in chip-related industries tied to Arizona projects. 

The potential incentives announced Monday include $50 million to help train the workforce in Arizona to be better equipped to work in the new facilities. Additionally, approximately $5 billion of proposed loans would be available through the CHIPS and Science Act. 

“TSMC’s commitment to manufacture leading-edge chips in Arizona marks a new chapter for America’s semiconductor industry,” Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters. 

The announcement came as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is traveling in China. Senior administration officials were asked on the call with reporters if the Biden administration gave China a head’s up on the coming investment, given the delicate geopolitics surrounding Taiwan. The officials said only that their focus in making Monday’s announcement was solely on advancing U.S. manufacturing. 

“We are thrilled by the progress of our Arizona site to date,” C.C. Wei, CEO of TSMC, said in a statement, “And are committed to its long-term success.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-administration-announces-6-6-billion-to-ensure-leading-edge-microchips-are-built-in-us-/7561044.html

Yellen says US will not accept Chinese imports decimating new industries

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

BEIJING — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned China on Monday that Washington will not accept new industries being decimated by Chinese imports as she wrapped up four days of meetings to press her case for Beijing to rein in excess industrial capacity. 

Yellen told a media conference that U.S. President Joe Biden would not allow a repeat of the “China shock” of the early 2000s, when a flood of Chinese imports destroyed about 2 million American manufacturing jobs. 

She did not, however, threaten new tariffs or other trade actions should Beijing continue its massive state support for electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and other green energy goods. 

Yellen used her second trip to China in nine months to complain that China’s overinvestment has built factory capacity far exceeding domestic demand, while fast-growing exports of these products threaten firms in the U.S. and other countries. 

She said a newly created exchange forum to discuss the excess capacity issue would need time to reach solutions. 

Yellen drew parallels to the pain felt in the U.S. steel sector in the past. 

“We’ve seen this story before,” she told reporters. “Over a decade ago, massive PRC government support led to below-cost Chinese steel that flooded the global market and decimated industries across the world and in the United States.” 

Yellen added: “I’ve made it clear that President Biden and I will not accept that reality again.” 

When the global market is flooded with artificially cheap Chinese products, she said, “the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question.” 

Yellen said her exchanges with Chinese officials had advanced American interests and that U.S. concerns over excess industrial capacity were shared by allies in Europe, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines and other emerging markets. 

Pushback 

China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, said in March the government would take steps to curb industrial overcapacity. 

But Beijing says the recent focus by the United States and Europe on the risks to other economies from China’s excess capacity is misguided. 

Chinese officials say the criticism understates innovation by their companies in key industries and overstates the importance of state support in driving their growth. 

They also say tariffs or other trade curbs will deprive global consumers of green energy alternatives key to meeting global climate goals. 

Trade curbs on Chinese electric vehicles would be disruptive to a growing industry and contravene World Trade Organization rules, the industry and information technology ministry said in a statement carried by state media CCTV and China Daily. 

The ministry added that it was committed to support EV exports and would help “accelerate the overseas development” of the industry including planning for shipping and logistics and support for firms to innovate and meet global standards. 

State news agency Xinhua quoted Li as saying the U.S. should “refrain from turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues” and view the topic of production capacity from a “market-oriented and global perspective.” 

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao voiced more pointed objections during a roundtable meeting with Chinese EV makers in Paris, saying U.S. and European assertions of Chinese excess EV capacity were groundless. 

Rather than subsidies, China’s electric vehicle companies rely on continuous technological innovation, perfect production and supply chain systems and full market competition, Wang said on his trip to discuss a European Union anti-subsidy inquiry. 

Yellen said a possible short-term solution was for China to take steps to bolster consumer demand with support for households and retirement, and shift its growth model away from supply-side investments. 

Yellen spoke about the issue at length with Premier Li Qiang and also met Finance Minister Lan Foan on Sunday. She met People’s Bank of China (PBOC) governor Pan Gongsheng and former vice premier Liu He on Monday. 

In a CNBC interview after the meetings, Yellen said she was “not thinking so much” about trade curbs on China, as much as shifts in its macroeconomic environment. But she reiterated she would notrule out tariffs.

https://www.voanews.com/a/yellen-says-us-will-not-accept-chinese-imports-decimating-new-industries-/7561032.html

Dark Energy Could Be Evolving Over Time, Raising Questions About the Nature of the Cosmos

date: 2024-04-08, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The largest 3D map of the universe ever made hints that dark energy might not be a constant, though the findings must be backed up with more data

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dark-energy-could-be-evolving-over-time-raising-questions-about-the-nature-of-the-cosmos-180984102/

Women pay more for health care. It adds up.

date: 2024-04-08, from: Marketplace Morning Report

According to a Deloitte study, employed women pay $15 billion more each year for out-of-pocket health care than men do. We’ll unpack the reasons why and the toll these extravagant costs can take. In other health news, federal officials are taking a closer look at the role of private equity in health care. Also, two lawmakers on Capitol Hill have proposed national standards on data privacy. We’ll discuss.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/women-pay-more-for-health-care-it-adds-up

Brazil judge launches Musk inquiry

date: 2024-04-08, from: Marketplace Morning Report

From the BBC World Service: A Supreme Court judge in Brazil has launched an investigation into Elon Musk after he said he’ll defy a court order to block certain accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter. Also on the program: A chip giant looks to build a factory in Arizona, we take a closer look at seller fees on eBay, and small business owners react to TikTok’s uncertain future in the U.S.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/brazil-judge-launches-musk-inquiry

Security Vulnerability of HTML Emails

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-05, from: Bruce Schneier blog

This is a newly discovered email vulnerability:

The email your manager received and forwarded to you was something completely innocent, such as a potential customer asking a few questions. All that email was supposed to achieve was being forwarded to you. However, the moment the email appeared in your inbox, it changed. The innocent pretext disappeared and the real phishing email became visible. A phishing email you had to trust because you knew the sender and they even confirmed that they had forwarded it to you.

This attack is possible because most email clients allow CSS to be used to style HTML emails. When an email is forwarded, the position of the original email in the DOM usually changes, allowing for CSS rules to be selectively applied only when an email has been forwarded…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/04/security-vulnerability-of-html-emails.html

A cheeky intern nearly turned MS-DOS into NSFW-DOS

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Easter egg in test build could have scrambled Microsoft’s reputation

More than 30 years before the xz backdoor became the near disaster of the week, an intern tried to sneak some unexpected code into MS-DOS. Not a backdoor, but potentially a bit silly.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/ms_dos_easter_egg/

Is The Yadea Kemper RC The Electric Sportbike We’ve Been Waiting For?

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News

It’s built atop Yadea’s Kemper electric naked bike platform.

https://www.rideapart.com/news/714878/yadea-kemper-rc-electric-sportbike/

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W revives iconic red telephone | #MagPiMonday

date: 2024-04-08, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)

Dial M for Miles – Rob Miles to be exact. And when you do, don’t be surprised if he answers you on an iconic 20th century landline phone

The post Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W revives iconic red telephone | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-revives-iconic-red-telephone-magpimonday/

Huge crowds await a total solar eclipse in North America

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

MESQUITE, Texas — Millions of spectators along a narrow corridor stretching from Mexico to the U.S. to Canada eagerly awaited Monday’s celestial sensation — a total eclipse of the sun — even as forecasters called for clouds.

The best weather was expected at the tail end of the eclipse in Vermont and Maine, as well as New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

It promised to be North America’s biggest eclipse crowd ever, thanks to the densely populated path and the lure of more than four minutes of midday darkness in Texas and other choice spots. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

“Cloud cover is one of the trickier things to forecast,” National Weather Service meteorologist Alexa Maines explained at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center on Sunday. “At the very least, it won’t snow.”

The cliff-hanging uncertainty added to the drama. Rain or shine, “it’s just about sharing the experience with other people,” said Chris Lomas from Gotham, England, who was staying at a sold-out trailer resort outside Dallas, the biggest city in totality’s path.

For Monday’s full eclipse, the moon was due to slip right in front of the sun, entirely blocking it. The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars and maybe even a comet to pop out.

The out-of-sync darkness lasts up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds. That’s almost twice as long as it was during the U.S. coast-to-coast eclipse seven years ago because the moon is closer to Earth. It will be another 21 years before the U.S. sees another total solar eclipse on this scale.

Extending five hours from the first bite out of the sun to the last, Monday’s eclipse begins in the Pacific and makes landfall at Mazatlan, Mexico, before moving into Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and 12 other U.S. states in the Midwest, Middle Atlantic and New England, and then Canada. Last stop: Newfoundland, with the eclipse ending in the North Atlantic.

It will take just 1 hour, 40 minutes for the moon’s shadow to race more than 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) across the continent.

Eye protection is needed with proper eclipse glasses and filters to look at the sun, except when it ducks completely out of sight during an eclipse.

The path of totality — approximately 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide — encompasses several major cities this time, including Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York and Montreal. An estimated 44 million people live within the track, with a couple hundred million more within 200 miles (320 kilometers). Add in all the eclipse chasers, amateur astronomers, scientists and just plain curious, and it’s no wonder the hotels and flights are sold out and the roads jammed.

Experts from NASA and scores of universities are posted along the route, poised to launch research rockets and weather balloons, and conduct experiments. The International Space Station’s seven astronauts also will be on the lookout, 270 miles (435 kilometers) up.

https://www.voanews.com/a/huge-crowds-await-a-total-solar-eclipse-in-north-america-clouds-may-spoil-the-view/7560951.html

What happened to agility and new business models? Cloud benefits have all gone to IT

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Orgs are missing a trick when it comes to the white fluffy stuff, survey says

The migration of IT workloads to the cloud is benefiting tech departments rather than the wider business, according to a McKinsey survey.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/cloud_mckinsey_survey/

Tele2 secure collaboration hub for public sector keeps Swedish data in Sweden

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Data sovereignty is eftersökt these days

A Swedish telco has rolled a collaboration platform for public sector organizations worried about sensitive data leaving Sweden.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/tele2_collaborate/

Alexey Morozov pushed to project branch main at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Ober…

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: Oberon A2 at CAS

Alexey Morozov (4871f64c) at 08 Apr 11:05

https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/commit/4871f64cbb1bbab6c04a2eb1c4884888825939d3

Insights into students’ attitudes to using AI tools in programming education

date: 2024-04-08, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)

Educators around the world are grappling with the problem of whether to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the classroom. As more and more teachers start exploring the ways to use these tools for teaching and learning computing, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of their use to make sure they do…

The post Insights into students’ attitudes to using AI tools in programming education appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/insights-into-students-attitudes-to-using-ai-tools-in-programming-education/

Cloud vendor lock-in is shocking, but there’s a get out of jail card

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

We’ve done it once, we can do it again

Opinion  The Sleepwalking Into Disaster klaxon is echoing through the corridors of power. Again. This time, the corridors are British and the klaxonner is the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital & Data Office.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/cloud_vendor_opinion_column/

The Total Eclipse of Donald Trump

date: 2024-04-08, from: Robert Reich on Substack

The cons will end, inevitably

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-full-eclipse-of-donald-trump

Windows 95 support chap skipped a step and sent user into Micro-hell

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Every byte, and executable, counted when trying to fix Redmond’s finest

Who, Me?  Greetings, gentle reader, and welcome once again to Who, Me? in which Reg readers like yourself try to make each Monday a little less manic by sharing tales of foible and fallibility.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/who_me/

Where Nursing Homes Hide Their Profits

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Lever News

While industry leaders plead poverty to fight a proposed staffing standard, private equity owners are funneling cash into their affiliated real estate and management firms.

https://www.levernews.com/where-nursing-homes-hide-their-profits/

Classifieds – April 8, 2024

date: 2024-04-08, 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 – April 8, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/classifieds-april-8-2024/

Today in SCV History (April 8)

date: 2024-04-08, from: SCV New (TV Station)

1874 – Work completed at Lyon’s Station (now Eternal Valley) on first version of Pioneer Oil Refinery. [story

https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-april-8/

Folt’s campus is changing, and students are left behind

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Despite the University’s growth since major scandals, many students feel that it’s abandoning an essential part of its architectural identity.

The post Folt’s campus is changing, and students are left behind appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/folts-campus-is-changing-and-students-are-left-behind/

‘Rent’ is due at Bing Theatre

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

The School of Dramatic Arts takes on Jonathan Larson’s sprawling musical.

The post ‘Rent’ is due at Bing Theatre appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/rent-is-due-at-the-bing-theatre/

How one relationship reignited USC women’s basketball

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Guard McKenzie Forbes has played with Lindsay Gottlieb at two schools.

The post How one relationship reignited USC women’s basketball appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/how-one-relationship-reignited-usc-womens-basketball/

Native American Student Assembly celebrates past and future with second annual Popup Powwow

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Attendees gathered to dance and reconnect with their Native American heritage.

The post Native American Student Assembly celebrates past and future with second annual Popup Powwow appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/native-american-student-assembly-celebrates-past-and-future-with-second-annual-popup-powwow/

Film festival celebrates student artistry

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Cinema and media studies students gathered at the Norris Cinema Theatre.

The post Film festival celebrates student artistry appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/film-festival-celerbrates-student-artistry/

Attendees vocalize frustration over USC links to fossil fuel industry at research forum

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Participants questioned the ethics of fossil fuel funding during the heated panel.

The post Attendees vocalize frustration over USC links to fossil fuel industry at research forum appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/participants-vocalize-frustration-toward-usc-links-to-fossil-fuel-industry-during-research-forum/

The future of women’s basketball, today

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

A star-studded McDonald’s All-American game featured three future Trojan players.

The post The future of women’s basketball, today appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/the-future-of-womens-basketball-today/

‘Monkey Man’ offers great action but poor writing

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Dev Patel’s feature-length screenwriting and directorial debut disappoints, failing to tie loose ends.

The post ‘Monkey Man’ offers great action but poor writing appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/monkey-man-offers-great-action-but-poor-writing/

JuJu’s freshman season highlights USC history

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)

Trojan legends lie behind the numerous USC records Watkins broke this season.

The post JuJu’s freshman season highlights USC history appeared first on Daily Trojan.

https://dailytrojan.com/2024/04/08/jujus-freshman-season-highlights-usc-history/

April 7, 2024

date: 2024-04-08, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog

In August 1870 a U.S. exploring expedition headed out from Montana toward the Yellowstone River into land the U.S. government had recognized as belonging to different Indigenous tribes. By October the men had reached the Yellowstone, where they reported they had “found abundance of game and trout, hot springs of five or six different kinds…basaltic columns of enormous size” and a waterfall that must, they wrote, “be in form, color and surroundings one of the most glorious objects on the American Continent.” On the strength of their widely reprinted reports, the secretary of the interior sent out an official surveying team under geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. With it went photographer William Henry Jackson and fine artist Thomas Moran.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-7-2024-sunday

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Jerry Grote, Mets Catcher for 1969 World Series, Dies at 81.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/sports/baseball/jerry-grote-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.i00.Gkb4.g3mhi_Zk1Nja&smid=url-share

Head of Israeli cyber spy unit exposed … by his own privacy mistake

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plus: Another local government hobbled by ransomware; Huge rise in infostealing malware; and critical vulns

Infosec in brief  Protecting your privacy online is hard. So hard, in fact, that even a top Israeli spy who managed to stay incognito for 20 years has found himself exposed after one basic error.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/infosec_news_roundup/

Trump rejects national abortion ban, says up to states to decide

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-says-he-will-disclose-abortion-policy-on-monday/7560875.html

Biden to talk student debt relief in Wisconsin after primary voting delivers warning signs

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is traveling to Wisconsin to announce details of a new plan to ease student loan debt for millions, a trip that comes a week after primary voting in the Midwest battleground highlighted weaknesses for the Democratic president and Donald Trump, his Republican challenger.

Biden is slated to make the announcement Monday in Madison, the state’s liberal capital and home of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus.

The new federal rule paving the way for student debt relief is not expected to be issued by the time the president speaks, but Biden plans to highlight a plan the Department of Education started working on after the U.S. Supreme Court last year foiled his first attempt to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

Immediately after the court said Biden needed Congress to approve his original plan, the president said the decision was a “mistake” and “wrong” and announced that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona would undertake a new process using his authority under the Higher Education Act to waive or compromise student loan debt in specific cases.

A fresh announcement on student loan relief, an important issue for younger voters, could help energize parts of Biden’s political coalition that have become disillusioned by his job performance. These are people whose support the president will need to defeat Trump in November.

In Wisconsin’s primary elections on April 2, nearly 119,000 Republicans voted for a GOP candidate other than Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee. And more than 48,000 Democratic voters chose “uninstructed” instead of Biden, more than double Biden’s narrow margin of victory in Wisconsin in 2020.

Nearly 15% of Democrats in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin and Madison, voted “uninstructed.” That is nearly double the statewide total of 8%.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents Madison in Congress, said he was struck that concerns about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza were top of mind among voters at five town halls over the past two weeks in more rural parts of his district.

“I was surprised to see the intensity on the issue of Gaza coming not from a student voice out of Madison, but older voters in more rural parts of the district,” Pocan said.

Pocan said the number of “uninstructed” votes shows the concern in Wisconsin and that Biden needs to address it. He said he planned to talk directly with Biden about it on Monday.

“I just want to make sure he knows that if we’re going to have a problem, that could be the problem in Wisconsin,” Pocan said.

Biden’s new plan would expand federal student loan relief to new yet-targeted categories of borrowers through the Higher Education Act, which administration officials believe puts it on a stronger legal footing than the sweeping proposal that was killed by a 6-3 court majority last year.

The plan is expected to be smaller and more targeted than his original plan, which would have canceled up to $20,000 in loans for more than 40 million borrowers.

The department laid out five categories of borrowers who would be eligible to get some or all of their federal loans canceled. The plan is focused on helping those with the greatest need, including many who might otherwise never repay their loans.

Among those targeted for help are people whose unpaid interest has snowballed beyond the size of the original loan. The proposal would reset their balances back to the initial amount by erasing up to $10,000 or $20,000 in interest, depending on their income.

Borrowers paying down their student loans for decades would get all remaining debt erased under the plan. Loans used for a borrower’s undergraduate education would be canceled if they had been in repayment for at least 20 years. For other types of federal loans, it’s 25 years.

The plan would automatically cancel loans for those who were in for-profit college programs deemed “low-value.” Borrowers would be eligible for cancellation if, while they attended the college, the average federal student loan payment among graduates was too high in relation to their average salary.

Those who are eligible for other types of cancellation but haven’t applied would automatically get relief. It would apply to Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Borrower Defense to Repayment, programs that have been around for years but require infamously difficult paperwork.

Under pressure from advocates, the department also added a category for those facing “hardship.” It would offer cancellation to borrowers considered highly likely to be in default within two years. Additional borrowers would be eligible for relief under a wide-ranging definition of financial hardship.

A series of hearings to craft the rule wrapped up in February, and the draft is now under review. Before it can be finalized, the Education Department will need to issue a formal proposal and open it to a public comment period.

The latest attempt at cancellation joins other targeted initiatives, including those aimed at public service workers and low-income borrowers. Through those efforts, the Biden administration says it has canceled $144 billion in student loans for almost 4 million Americans.

https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-talk-student-debt-relief-in-wisconsin-after-primary-voting-delivers-warning-signs/7560871.html

Use of India’s CBDC declines, but central bank presses ahead

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Work to make the digital rupee programmable has begun

India’s Reserve Bank deputy governor has revealed that transaction volumes using the nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) have trended downwards since December 2023 – and may even have been inflated by one-off uses of the currency.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/india_cbdc_decline/

A Family-Friendly Quick Trip to Temecula Valley

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Outdoor activities and culinary indulgences make this SoCal spot a good pick for the whole family — pups included.

The post A Family-Friendly Quick Trip to Temecula Valley appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/07/a-family-friendly-quick-trip-to-temecula-valley/

Cloud Software Group and Microsoft pledge another eight years of co-opetition

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Consortium will spend $1.65 billion on Azure, 365 – and of course some AI

Cloud Software Group (CSG) and Microsoft have renewed their alliance for another eight years, this time with a $1.65 billion commitment for the Group to use Redmond’s cloud, productivity tools, and AI.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/csg_citrix_azure_partnership/

Santa Barbara Sky Football Club Held Up

date: 2024-04-08, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News

Inaugural Santa Barbara Sky Season delayed until 2025

The post Santa Barbara Sky Football Club Held Up appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

https://www.independent.com/2024/04/07/santa-barbara-sky-football-club-held-up/

The Shallows

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ed Summers blog, Inkdroid

I didn’t read Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows when it came out in 2011. I was working as a software engineer at the Library of Congress helping put historical newspapers on the web, and felt indicted by the thesis of the book, which, it seemed to me, boiled down to the idea that the Web was making us stupid. I had built a career around web technology and I wasn’t interested in reading anything that questioned whether the web was a net positive.

Recently, in light of all that’s going on with AI at the moment, and my critical takes on it, I thought perhaps I had dismissed Carr’s book too quickly. Just how long has this project been going on? Did Carr see where things were headed? I mentioned the idea, and a few other people agreed to do a popup bookclub about it.

I’m glad I did get around to reading it finally. I got Carr wrong, he was (is?) a fan of the web, just like I was at the time. But noticing a decline in his ability to focus for long periods prompted him to research and write The Shallows. He draws on the history of the book, media studies and the history of technology more generally to illustrate how technologies like clocks, maps, writing, and the book shaped how we remember and thought itself. In the second half of the book he talks about the development of universal machines (the computer) have absorbed prior media into the web using hypermedia. He also brings in neurology and psychology research literature to explain how different phases of memory formation are disturbed by rapid attention shifts that browsing the web encourages:

The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to personal memory, but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal memory, bypassing the inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our minds of their riches. (Carr, 2011, p. 192)

I thought this line of critique was especially interesting in light of the recent popularization of AI in the form of “chatting” with Large Language Models (LLM) like ChatGPT. ChatGPT provides a smooth surface where you conversationally interact with a computer to obtain information. It doesn’t given you links to things on the web to consult, it just gives you a response, and you either continue the discussion, or decide to stop. You don’t see a list of search results, which you need to click on and move laterally into, perhaps with distracting web design, ads or other boilerplate. You don’t need to read the linked documents. You just read the AI’s response. Much to my dismay, it seemed like perhaps the affordances of ChatGPT style interaction may not present the same problems as classic web navigation, at least in terms of distractions that lead to quick context shifts, and disturb our ability to form memories. I imagine there are hordes of education and pyschology looking into this as a type.

It was bit surreal reading the detailed descriptions in the final chapters about how neurons store memories through repetitive training … which echo the same language that is used to talk about deep learning today. These are powerful metaphors that have been deployed. Almost anticipating recent developments in AI, Carr ends the book talking about the goals of classic AI, and specifically the warnings of Joseph Weizenbaum in his book Computer Power and Human Reason.

What Makes us most human, Weizenbaum had come to believe, is what is least computable about us–the connections between our mind and our body, the experiences that shape our memory and our thinking, our capacity for emotion and empathy. The great danger we face as we become more intimately involved with our computers–as we come to experience more of our lives through the disembodied symbols flickering across our screens–is that we’ll begin to lose our humanness, to sacrifice the very qualities that separate us from machines. The only way to avoid that fate, Weizenbaum wrote, is to have the self-awareness and the courage to refuse to delegate to computers the most human of our mental activities and intellectual pursuits, particularly “tasks that demand wisdom”. (Carr, 2011, pp. 207–208).

Weizenbaum was the creator the original chatbot Eliza. I didn’t realize that his experience of seeing how ELIZA was used prompted him to critique the goals of Artificial Intelligence community. Maybe it’s not surprising because according to Carr Weizenbaum’s book was trashed by leaders in the computer science community at the time. Perhaps digging up a copy of Weizenbaum’s book might be interesting reading in light of AI’s resurgence now.

The Shallows had lots of citations to current states of affairs, demographics and statistics that gave authority to Carr’s arguments. But these got a little bit repetitive at times, but the drudgery drives the points home I guess. It is striking reading it 13 years later how much the web has changed.

In discussing the technologies of literacy and the book I felt a little bit like Carr’s would have benefited at looking at the book and literacy as instruments of power, that mobilized colonialism and capitalist extraction. I found myself thinking a lot about Bernard Stiegler while reading The Shallows, especially for the idea that writing and computational devices are memory prostheses, and that they are a pharmakon (contain both a remedy and a poison). A quick Kagi search and I can see Stiegler had a sequence of lectures about Carr. So I guess they knew of each other?

Overall I enjoyed The Shallows, even though I’m still working as a web developer. Nowadays I’m explicitly interested in the web’s role in memory practices, and what can be done from an architecture and design perspective to work against the grain of the web’s most pernicious features. There are some good threads to tug on in The Shallows.

References

https://inkdroid.org/2024/04/08/shallows/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Great map of Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 Apr 08. I've been looking for this for weeks. I still wasn't going to drive to see the eclipse. I've seen a total eclipse. Imho its not magical. We have an eclipse every night at sunset. YMMV of course.

https://www.eclipsewise.com/solar/SEgmapx/2001-2100/SE2024Apr08Tgmapx.html

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

Back in the day, many of the early writing tools were called Word-something. WordStar, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect.

http://scripting.com/2024/04/07.html#a035119

@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)

I wrote four posts on micro.blog just before midnight. Probably some of the ideas will appare on Scripting News before too long.

http://scripting.com/2024/04/07.html#a034329

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense.’

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience

Naver debuts multilingual HyperCLOVA X LLM it will use to build sovereign AI for Asia

date: 2024-04-08, updated: 2024-04-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Because English isn’t the only language

Korean web giant Naver last week debuted a family of large language models named HyperCLOVA X, which it claimed perform better at cross-lingual reasoning in Asian languages than other models – and may therefore help the region to develop sovereign large language models.…

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/04/08/naver_cloud_hyperclova_llm_sovereign_ai/

Different kinds of networks

date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News

Somewhat-related notes about different kinds of networks, ActivityPub and RSS, various twitter-like systems, as the social web spreads out and tries out new ideas.

• With ActivityPub you know who’s following you and in RSS you don’t. This may sound like a negative until you think about it from the user’s standpoint: no spam, spyware, etc. Which is probably why Google didn’t like RSS btw.
• It has been pointed out that some level of spying happens based on IP address, and I can testify to that, I get podcasts with ads for a local supermarket, kind of spooky but I guess ok. I can’t recall ever receiving spam as a result of subscribing to a feed, and I never get messages from them when I unsub begging me to come back. So it isn’t a huge problem in a real way at least for me, yet.
• I block spammers. In twitter-like systems, like Mastodon, spam means you attached a post to my post that is in no way responsive to it. You’re just trying to coast on the flow generated by other posts. I don’t abide that. Have a nice day.

http://scripting.com/2024/04/07/024505.html?title=differentKindsOfNetworks

Man arrested following domestic dispute in Castaic

date: 2024-04-08, from: The Signal

A man was arrested after a domestic dispute Sunday afternoon on Castaic Road, according to the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.  “The caller called at approximately 4:10 p.m., and we arrived at 4:18 p.m.,” said Deputy Adolfo Gonzalez. “Female adult called, stated she was assaulted by male adult. Male adult was arrested.”  Any injuries sustained […]

The post Man arrested following domestic dispute in Castaic appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

https://signalscv.com/2024/04/man-arrested-following-domestic-dispute-in-castaic/

Daily EV Recap: Tesla Robotaxi unveiling & Lithium free batteries

date: 2024-04-08, 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/2024/04/07/daily-ev-recap-tesla-robotaxi-unveiling-lithium-free-batteries/

South Carolina finishes perfect season with NCAA championship, beating Iowa, 87-75

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

CLEVELAND — Kamilla Cardoso delivered once again for Dawn Staley and South Carolina.

A perfect finish. A dynasty. A team too big for Caitlin Clark and Iowa this time around.

Cardoso had 15 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, and South Carolina completed its perfect season with an 87-75 victory over Clark and the Hawkeyes in the NCAA championship game on Sunday.

With Staley directing a relentless attack from the sideline, the Gamecocks (38-0) became the 10th Division I team to go through a season without a loss. And they accomplished the feat after they lost all five starters from last season’s team that lost to Clark’s squad in the national semifinals.

“When young people lock in and have a belief, and have a trust, and their parents have that same trust, this is what can happen,” Staley said. “They made history. They etched their names in the history books.”

Clark did all she could to lead the Hawkeyes to their first championship. She scored 30 points, including a championship-record 18 in the first quarter. She rewrote the record book at Iowa (34-5), finishing as the career leading scorer in NCAA Division I history with 3,951 points.

She hopes her legacy isn’t defined by falling short in two NCAA championship games, but more by the millions of new fans she helped bring into the game and the countless young girls and boys that she inspired.

“I think the biggest thing is it’s really hard to win these things, I think I know that better than most people by now, to be so close twice really hurts,” Clark said.

As the final buzzer sounded, a stoic Clark walked off the court, through the confetti, and into the tunnel heading to the locker room.

“I personally want to thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport. She carried a heavy load for our sport,” Staley said. “She’s going to lift that league (WNBA) up as well. Caitlin Clark if you’re out there, you’re one of the GOATs of our game. We appreciate you.”

South Carolina has won three titles in the last eight years, including two of the past three, to lay claim to being the latest dynasty in women’s basketball. Staley became the fifth coach to win at least three national championships, joining Geno Auriemma, Pat Summitt, Kim Mulkey and Tara VanDerveer.

The Gamecocks, who have won 109 of their last 112 games, became the first team since UConn in 2016 to go undefeated. South Carolina had a couple scares throughout the season, but always found a way to win.

With most of the team returning next year, Staley’s team is in a good position to keep this run going.

“This team, we’re going to be good. Coach Staley, we have the best coach, what, in the country, in the nation, in the whole wide world?” Raven Johnson said. “It’s no telling what she’s going to add to the pieces that’s already here. I just say be on the lookout.”

Tessa Johnson led South Carolina with 19 points. Cardoso, the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player, also blocked three shots.

“Kamilla Cardoso was not going to let us lose a game in the NCAA Tournament,” Staley said. “She played through an injury, she played like one of the top picks in the WNBA draft, and her teammates did something that no teammates have done for somebody who went to the WNBA in our program. They send her off as a national champion. So this is history for us.”

Led by the 6-foot-7 Cardoso and Ashlyn Watkins, South Carolina enjoyed a 51-29 rebounding advantage. It also finished with 30 second-chance points.

The Gamecocks also showed off their impressive depth. Tessa Johnson helped the team to a 37-0 difference in points by reserves.

South Carolina trailed 46-44 late in the second quarter before going on an 11-0 run spanning halftime to open a 55-46 advantage early in the third quarter. Clark finally ended the run with a layup.

The Hawkeyes closed to 59-55 and had a chance to get even closer, but Hannah Stuelke missed a wide-open layup on a brilliant pass from Clark.

South Carolina responded with the next eight points, including two 3-pointers. The Gamecocks, who were 4 for 20 from behind the 3-point line during last season’s Final Four loss to Iowa, went 8 for 19 from deep against the Hawkeyes in the victory.

Iowa was down 80-75 after a three-point play by Sydney Affolter with 4:12 left. But the Hawkeyes were shut out the rest of the way.

Clark checked out with 20 seconds left when Iowa coach Lisa Bluder subbed in fellow senior Molly Davis, who hadn’t played since she got hurt in the regular-season finale against Ohio State.

Unlike the semifinals, when Clark struggled against UConn’s defense, she got going early against South Carolina. Clark scored 13 straight points, including another logo 3, for Iowa as the Hawkeyes were up 11 early. South Carolina cut it to 22-20 with 1:30 left in the period before Clark scored the final five points, including a 3-pointer over Cardoso.

Clark’s 18 points in the opening quarter set a championship game record, surpassing the 16 that Jasmine Carson of LSU had last year against the Hawkeyes.

The Gamecocks trailed 46-44 in the final minute when Te-Hina PaoPao hit a 3-pointer and Raven Johnson stole the ball from Clark near midcourt and went in for a layup. South Carolina led 49-46 at the half.

https://www.voanews.com/a/south-carolina-finishes-perfect-season-with-ncaa-championship-beating-iowa-87-75/7560808.html

fend - an arbitrary-precision unit-aware calculator

date: 2024-04-08, from: Tilde.news

Comments

https://printfn.github.io/fend/

@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-04-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)

Why is the Press Making Trump Seem More Normal?

https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/why-the-press-ignored-trump-accusing?publication_id=65026&post_id=143301652&isFreemail=false&r=334i4&triedRedirect=true

Southwest Boeing 737-800 loses engine cover, prompts FAA probe

date: 2024-04-08, from: VOA News USA

WASHINGTON — An engine cover on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800 fell off Sunday during takeoff in Denver and struck the wing flap, prompting the U.S. FAA to open an investigation.

No one was injured and Southwest Flight 3695 returned safely to Denver International Airport around 8:15 a.m. local time Sunday and was towed to the gate after losing the engine cowling.

The Boeing aircraft bound for Houston Hobby airport with 135 passengers and six crew members aboard rose to an elevation of about 3,140 meters (10,300 feet) before returning 25 minutes after takeoff.

Passengers arrived in Houston on another Southwest plane about four hours behind schedule. Southwest said maintenance teams are reviewing the aircraft.

The plane entered service in June 2015, according to FAA records. Boeing referred questions to Southwest.

The airline declined to say when the plane’s engine last had maintenance.

ABC News aired a video posted on social media platform X of the ripped engine cover flapping in the wind with a torn Southwest logo.

Boeing has come under intense criticism since a door plug panel tore off a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet at about 4.88 kilometers (16,000 feet) on Jan. 5.

In the aftermath of that incident, the FAA grounded the MAX 9 for several weeks, barred Boeing from increasing the MAX production rate and ordered it to develop a comprehensive plan to address “systemic quality-control issues” within 90 days.

Boeing production has fallen below the maximum 38 MAX planes per month the FAA is allowing. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the MAX 9 incident.

The 737-800 is in the prior generation of the best-selling 737 known as the 737 NG, which in turn was replaced by the 737 MAX.

The FAA is investigating several other recent Southwest Boeing engine issues.

A Southwest 737 flight aborted takeoff Thursday and taxied back to the gate at Lubbock airport in Texas after the crew reported engine issues. The FAA is also investigating a March 25 Southwest 737 flight that returned to the Austin airport in Texas after the crew reported a possible engine issue.

A March 22 Southwest 737-800 flight returned to Fort Lauderdale airport after the crew reported an engine issue. It is also being reviewed by the FAA.

https://www.voanews.com/a/southwest-boeing-737-800-loses-engine-cover-prompts-faa-probe/7560804.html

“No way to prevent this” say users of only language where this regularly happens

date: 2024-04-08, from: Ze Iaso’s blog

https://xeiaso.net/shitposts/no-way-to-prevent-this/CVE-2024-2511/