News gathered 2024-05-03
(date: 2024-05-03 22:45:46)
Santa Barbara Eliminated From CIF-SS Division 3 Playoff After 3-0 Loss to Mission Viejo
date: 2024-05-04, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Dons claimed the Channel League title, but failed to advance in the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs.
The post Santa Barbara Eliminated From CIF-SS Division 3 Playoff After 3-0 Loss to Mission Viejo appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Don’t just walk by
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC’s Gaza Solidarity Camp is a space worth fighting for.
The post Don’t just walk by appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/05/03/dont-just-walk-by/
Perfection! Valley Christian pitcher fires perfect game as Warriors clinch share of WCAL title
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Prep roundup: Kole Laubach retires all 21 St. Ignatius batters; Serra routs Mitty to claim its piece of WCAL crown.
Sears spins quality start as A’s win fifth straight game
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
JP Sears tossed 6.1 shutout innings in a bounce-back outing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/sears-spins-quality-start-as-as-win-fifth-straight-game/
Body found concealed days after deadly Hayward shooting
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
A 38-year-old resident has been arrested in connection with the city’s fourth homicide of the year.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/body-found-concealed-days-after-deadly-hayward-shooting/
Student journalists cover campus protests at their peril
date: 2024-05-04, from: VOA News USA
Protests related to the Israel-Hamas war have boiled over on college campuses across the United States, some leading to clashes with police and confrontations between student groups. And despite the dangers, student journalists and their news organizations are leading the press coverage. VOA’s Robin Guess has the story. Camera: Keith Lane
https://www.voanews.com/a/student-journalists-cover-campus-protests-at-their-peril/7597713.html
West Ranch takes boys’ golf title
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Signal
Leading by a pair of strokes heading into the final Foothill League golf match, West Ranch coach Jeff Holen just wanted his players to play and forget about the high stakes. Holen believes his guys played relaxed and confidently, and in doing so, returned the Foothill League title to West Ranch for the first time […]
The post <strong>West Ranch takes boys’ golf title</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/west-ranch-takes-boys-golf-title/
In deals to end protests, some colleges invite discussion of their investments
date: 2024-05-04, from: VOA News USA
new york — Anti-war demonstrations ceased this week at a small number of U.S. universities after school leaders struck deals with pro-Palestinian protesters, fending off possible disruptions of final exams and graduation ceremonies.
The agreements at schools including Brown, Northwestern and Rutgers universities stand out amid the chaotic scenes and 2,400-plus arrests on 46 campuses nationwide since April 17. Tent encampments and building takeovers have disrupted classes at some schools, including Columbia University and the University of California-Los Angeles.
Deals included commitments by universities to review their investments in Israel or hear calls to stop doing business with the longtime U.S. ally. Many protester demands have zeroed in on links to the Israeli military as the war grinds on in Gaza.
The agreements to even discuss divestment mark a major shift on an issue that has been controversial for years, with opponents of a long-running campaign to boycott Israel saying it veers into antisemitism. But while the colleges have made concessions around amnesty for protesters and funding for Middle Eastern studies, they have made no promises about changing their investments.
“I think for some universities, it might be just a delaying tactic” to calm the protests, said Ralph Young, a history professor who studies American dissent at Temple University in Philadelphia. “The end of the semester is happening now. And maybe by the time the next semester begins, there is a cease-fire in Gaza.”
Some university boards may never vote on divesting from Israel, which can be a complicated process, Young said. And some state schools have said they lack the authority to do so.
But Young said dialogue is a better tactic than arrests.
Talking “at least gives the protesters the feeling that they’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Whether they are getting somewhere or not is another question.”
Israel has called the protests antisemitic; its critics say the country uses such allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters were caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — have called it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.
Administrators at the University of California at Riverside announced an agreement Friday with protesters to close their campus encampment. The deal included the formation of a task force to explore removing Riverside’s endowment from the broader UC system’s management and investing those funds “in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university with consideration to the companies involved in arms manufacturing and delivery.”
The announcement marked an apparent split with the policy of the 10-campus UC system, which last week said it opposes “calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel.”
Demonstrators at Rutgers — where finals were paused because of the protests on its New Brunswick, New Jersey, campus — similarly packed up their tents Thursday afternoon. The state university agreed to establish an Arab Cultural Center and to not retaliate against any students involved in the camp.
Protesters at Brown in Rhode Island agreed to dismantle their encampment on Tuesday. School officials said students could present arguments for divesting Brown’s endowment from companies contributing to and profiting from the war in Gaza.
In addition, Brown President Christina Paxson will ask an advisory committee to make a recommendation on divestment by September 30, which will be put before the school’s governing corporation for a vote in October.
Northwestern’s Deering Meadow in suburban Chicago also fell silent after an agreement Monday. The deal curbed protest activity in return for reestablishing an advisory committee on university investments and other commitments.
The arrangement drew dissent from both sides. Some pro-Palestinian protesters condemned it as a failure to stick to their original demands, while some supporters of Israel said it represented cowardly capitulation.
Seven of 18 members subsequently resigned from a university committee that advises the administration on addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia and expressions of hatred on campus, saying they couldn’t continue to serve “with antisemitism so present at Northwestern in public view for the past week.”
Michael Simon, the executive director of an organization for Jewish students, Northwestern Hillel, said he resigned after concluding that the committee could not achieve its goals.
Faculty at Pomona College in California voted in favor of divesting from companies they said are funding Israel’s war in Gaza, a group of faculty and students said Friday.
The vote Thursday is not binding on the liberal arts school of nearly 1,800 students east of Los Angeles. But supporters said they hoped it would encourage the board to stop investing in these companies and start disclosing where it makes its investments.
Meanwhile, arrests of demonstrators continued elsewhere.
About a dozen protesters who refused police orders to leave an encampment at New York University were arrested early Friday, and about 30 more left voluntarily, NYU spokesperson John Beckman said. The school asked city police to intervene, he added.
NYPD officers also cleared an encampment at The New School in Greenwich Village at the request of school administrators. No arrests were announced.
Another 132 protesters were arrested when police broke up an encampment at the State University of New York at New Paltz starting late Thursday, authorities said.
And nine were arrested at the University of Tennessee, including seven students who Chancellor Donde Plowman said would also be sanctioned under the school’s code of conduct.
The movement began April 17 at Columbia, where student protesters built an encampment to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
Over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive after October 7, when Hamas militants entered Israel and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.
When Will Housing Talk Become Homes?
date: 2024-05-04, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
With an average rental price of more than $4,000 for the average apartment and record-low vacancies, I had been unwillingly thrust into one of the most competitive and expensive housing markets in the country.
The post When Will Housing Talk Become Homes? appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/when-will-housing-talk-become-homes/
Standoff on I-80 in Fairfield ends in shooting suspect’s death
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Both directions of the freeway were shut down at the Green Valley Road-Interstate 680 interchange.
Is the Bicycle Movement Failing Santa Barbara?
date: 2024-05-04, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Ridership is decreasing, injuries are increasing.
The post Is the Bicycle Movement Failing Santa Barbara? appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/is-the-bicycle-movement-failing-santa-barbara/
Miscues loom large in SF Giants’ series-opening loss to Phillies
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Jordan Hicks failed to cover home plate, and Jorge Soler made three outs in two chances with the bases loaded.
May 7: Regular Meeting of the Saugus School Board
date: 2024-05-04, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The regular meeting of the Saugus Union School District Governing Board will take place Tuesday, May 7, with closed session beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed immediately by public session at 6:30 p.m
https://scvnews.com/may-7-regular-meeting-of-the-saugus-school-board/
May 9: Arts Commission to Hear Updates on Civic Art Projects
date: 2024-05-04, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita Arts Commission is holding its regular meeting in City Hall’s Council Chambers Thursday, May 9 at 6 p.m. The meeting will be held at Santa Clarita City Hall, 23920 Valencia Blvd., Valencia, CA
https://scvnews.com/may-9-arts-commission-to-hear-updates-on-civic-art-projects/
Carousel Ranch holds 15th annual ‘How the West Was Won’
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Signal
Carousel Ranch recently hosted its 15th annual “How the West Was Won” shooting fundraising event at Moore N’ Moore Sporting Clays in Sylmar, where over 30 teams and 90 attendees competed for trophies and prizes. For the first time since its inception, teams competed over the course of two days, April 18-19, and all proceeds […]
The post <strong>Carousel Ranch holds 15th annual ‘How the West Was Won’</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/carousel-ranch-holds-15th-annual-how-the-west-was-won/
Free Speech on College Campuses
date: 2024-05-04, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Kent State students were protesting America’s bombings in Cambodia. Today’s students are protesting Israel’s indiscriminate bombings of civilians in Gaza.
The post Free Speech on College Campuses appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/free-speech-on-college-campuses/
Amid violence and tear gas, USC students treat wounded UCLA protesters
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
As pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked members of UCLA’s “Palestine Solidarity Encampment,” police stood watching, and no emergency medical services came. Two USC students stepped up to help.
The post Amid violence and tear gas, USC students treat wounded UCLA protesters appeared first on Daily Trojan.
Statistics, prayer, personal stories: How Protestants helped bring Ukraine aid to US House floor
date: 2024-05-04, from: VOA News USA
Washington — On Saturday, March 2, at 2:20 a.m., Serhii Gadarzhi woke up to a drone approaching his apartment building in Odesa, Ukraine. He heard an explosion just outside his windows and rushed to his 2-year-old daughter’s bedroom. She was there. He grabbed the child, wrapped her in a blanket and went to check on his wife and their 4-month-old son.
“The door was open. There was nothing behind it — just emptiness. My Anichka is gone. My boy Timosha is gone,” Gadarzhi relates on the Odesa Baptist YouTube channel.
Their bodies were found in the rubble after almost 24 hours of searching. All seven floors had collapsed on top of his wife and the baby sleeping on her chest, Gadarzhi said. That Russian attack with Iranian-made drones killed 12 people, including five children and seven adults.
“I want to say to Mr. James Michael Johnson: Dear brother, we have a war going on. A terrible war. And so many believers, brothers and sisters, are being killed. Little children are being killed. Help is very important to us. Especially military help because if there were a missile to shoot down that drone, the drone wouldn’t have flown in our house,” he says on the video.
Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, had for months delayed bringing to the floor of the House a bill providing $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, including ammunition for its air defense systems. The bill was finally approved on April 20 despite resistance from some members of Johnson’s own Republican Party.
Just three days before the vote, Gadarzhi, a Ukrainian Baptist and son-in-law of a local Baptist pastor, told his story to Johnson in person. Gadarzhi told VOA that the speaker already knew about his family’s tragedy.
“One can see in his eyes that he was compassionate, that he wanted to support us and his response was very sincere,” he said.
That meeting followed eight months of behind-the-scenes efforts by Ukrainian Protestants and their allies in the United States to tell Republican members of Congress about the suffering of the faithful at the hands of the Russian forces in the occupied portions of Ukraine.
Steven Moore, an Oklahoma native, was behind some of these efforts. He worked as a chief of staff in the House of Representatives to a leading Republican member for seven years, after which he lived in Ukraine for a year.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, he was visiting his mother in Tulsa but was back in Ukraine on day five of the full-scale invasion. Moore founded the Ukraine Freedom Project NGO (UFP), which began delivering food and supplies to the front for the residents and Ukraine’s armed forces.
Through his work, he learned about abuses inflicted on Ukrainian civilians by the Russian occupying forces, but one story struck him. Victor, an Evangelical pastor from Lugansk, was evacuating a group of civilians, including a pregnant woman and a baby, when Russians stopped his car and took him to a basement.
“They tortured him for 25 days, including one day when they were torturing him with an electrical Taser. And a Russian Orthodox priest was standing over him, trying to cast demons out of him because he was an Evangelical Christian. It blew my mind,” Moore told VOA.
He shared this story with a friend, Karl Ahlgren, a fellow Oklahoman and former chief of staff of a Republican congressman.
“When the full-scale invasion started, Republicans in particular were pretty supportive of Ukraine, and then their support waned. We had to regroup and figure out what we could do to get the right message out to Republicans,” said Ahlgren, who joined UFP as a vice president for public policy.
Beginning in September 2023, Moore, Ahlgren and their Chief Operating Officer Anna Shvetsova met with about 100 members of Congress and their staff, telling them about the persecution of Ukrainian Protestants by Russians.
UFP conducted a survey that showed 70% of Evangelical Christians who vote Republican are more likely to support Ukraine if they learn about Russia torturing and murdering people of their faith, Moore said. They were surprised to discover that most members of Congress knew nothing about it.
“Of the people we met with, there were probably three or four who knew some of the things we were talking about,” Ahlgren said.
Moore said the group “had video of people talking about being tortured, and we would show these videos to members of Congress, to their staff, and they would tear up.”
Other organizations, including the advocacy group Razom for Ukraine, joined the effort.
“I’m an American Baptist. I was shocked, in particular, that so many Baptist churches in occupied Ukraine have been harassed,” said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser for Razom for Ukraine. “More than 26 pastors have been killed since the full-scale war, and 400 Baptist congregations have lost their premises or some of their property.”
She said that at the meetings with the members of Congress and their staffers, she and her colleagues provided statistics of damage caused by Russia to the Ukrainian Christians, told personal stories and prayed together.
Some efforts specifically targeted Johnson, a Southern Baptist from Louisiana.
“We sponsored a billboard with Mike Johnson’s favorite Bible verse,” Haring said. “It’s a passage from the Book of Esther. Esther is before her uncle Mordecai, and she’s afraid to see the king; if she goes and sees the king without his permission, she can be killed, and Mordecai says, ‘You were chosen for a time like this.’
“We learned that Mike Johnson believed he was chosen to be the speaker of the House for an important time. So, our billboard had a picture of a destroyed Baptist church in Berdiansk with that Bible quote.”
Razom placed six of the billboards in Louisiana, including one in front of Johnson’s Cypress Baptist Church in Shreveport.
Razom, UFP and other organizations cosponsored multiple trips by Ukrainian religious leaders to the United States and helped them to organize meetings with members of Congress.
In November, 18 religious leaders and members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations visited the United States. In early February, dozens of representatives of Ukrainian churches attended Ukrainian Week in Washington, organized around the National Prayer Breakfast.
Then, four of them met with Johnson.
“The meeting with the speaker was very warm, and the conversation was constructive,” said Anatoliy Kozachok, the senior bishop of the Ukrainian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith.
He said they handed Johnson two letters urging him to support Ukraine, one from all Ukrainian Christians and one from the Protestants. The speaker told them he and his colleagues were working hard to resolve the issue.
“We felt united as people with the same values. There was a desire to help and to find a solution to the issue of aid for Ukraine,” Kozachok told VOA.
Another meeting participant, Valeriy Antonyuk, head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, said the group discussed shared values with Johnson.
“We Baptists have always defended everyone’s right to practice their faith freely,” he told VOA.
The Ukrainian church leaders were far from the only ones bringing intense pressure on Johnson to defy much of his own party and allow the aid bill to come to a vote, and only Johnson knows how decisive their efforts were in his final decision.
But with Ukrainian forces losing ground and desperately short of ammunition, the bill sailed through Congress on a vote of 311 to 112 and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24, clearing the way for the military assistance to begin flowing again.
Arizona boosts heat protection after hundreds died last year
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Among the new measures the state is introducing are at least a half dozen mobile cooling centers made with shipping containers that are solar powered and can be moved to wherever they may be needed.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/arizona-boosts-heat-protection-after-hundreds-died-last-year/
Experience the Butterfly Encounter at Gilchrist Farm
date: 2024-05-04, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Experience the Butterfly Encounter at Gilchrist Farm open now on weekends thorugh Sunday, June 18. Walk through a tent of beautiful flowers hosting live butterflies that fly freely throughout the tent
https://scvnews.com/experience-the-butterfly-encounter-at-gilchrist-farm/
The Power of Not Driving
date: 2024-05-04, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I felt sad when I saw the Independent encouraging people to drive to Carrizo Plain National Monument.
The post The Power of Not Driving appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/the-power-of-not-driving/
Oracle’s database family gets trendy AI makeover
date: 2024-05-04, updated: 2024-05-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Say goodbye to 23c and hello to 23ai
Oracle has celebrated the general availability of its latest database upgrade by renaming it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/04/oracle_database_rebrand/
Democratic US congressman indicted over ties to Azerbaijan
date: 2024-05-04, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges and taken into custody Friday in connection with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the couple’s ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
From 2014 to 2021, Cuellar, 68, and his wife allegedly accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico, according to the indictment. In exchange, Cuellar is accused of agreeing to advance the interests of the country and the bank in the U.S., also according to the indictment.
Among other things, Cuellar agreed to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House, the indictment states.
The Department of Justice said the couple surrendered to authorities on Friday and were taken into custody. They made an initial appearance before a federal judge in Houston and were each released on $100,000 bond, the DOJ said.
The longtime congressman released a statement Friday saying he and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, 67, “are innocent of these allegations.”
Neither Cuellar nor his attorney immediately responded to calls seeking comment on the matter.
In addition to bribery and conspiracy, the couple face charges including wire fraud conspiracy, acting as agents of foreign principals and money laundering. If convicted, they face up to decades in prison and forfeiture of any property linked to proceeds from the alleged scheme.
The payments to the couple initially went through a Texas-based shell company owned by Imelda Cuellar and two of the couple’s children, according to the indictment. That company received payments from the Azerbaijan energy company of $25,000 per month under a contract, purportedly in exchange for unspecified strategic consulting and advising services.
“In reality, the contract was a sham used to disguise and legitimate the corrupt agreement between Henry Cuellar and the government of Azerbaijan,” the indictment states.
The indictment also alleges an Azerbaijani diplomat referred to Henry Cuellar in text messages as “boss” and also that a member of Cuellar’s staff sent multiple emails to officials at the Department of State pressuring them to renew a U.S. passport for an Azerbaijani diplomat’s daughter.
Cuellar was at one time the co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.
The FBI searched the congressman’s house in the border city of Laredo in 2022, and Cuellar’s attorney at that time said Cuellar was not the target of that investigation. That search was part of a broader investigation related to Azerbaijan that saw FBI agents serve a raft of subpoenas and conduct interviews in Washington and Texas, a person with direct knowledge of the probe previously told The Associated Press.
https://www.voanews.com/a/democratic-us-congressman-indicted-over-ties-to-azerbaijan-/7597687.html
Biden bestows Medal of Freedom to Pelosi, Evers, Ledecky, others
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
The White House said the recipients are “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”
Continuing a legacy: Women like Sally Colón-Petree
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Signal
It all started nearly a decade ago — after her mother’s death, Sally Colón-Petree was inspired to carry on her legacy, from mother to daughter, and create a documentary titled “Women Like Us.” Named after the Women Like Us Foundation, Colón-Petree traveled to Kenya in 2014 with the nonprofit to learn more about the conditions […]
The post <strong>Continuing a legacy: Women like Sally Colón-Petree </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/continuing-a-legacy-women-like-sally-colon-petree/
Political will to support journalism faltering, watchdog finds
date: 2024-05-04, from: VOA News USA
The latest global press freedom rankings from media watchdog Reporters Without Borders present a discouraging picture, including a lack of political will to defend a free press. Afghanistan, Argentina and the U.S. are among countries whose rank fell. For VOA, Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.
https://www.voanews.com/a/political-will-to-support-journalism-faltering-watchdog-finds/7597300.html
May 8: COC Board Business Meeting Considers Contracts
date: 2024-05-04, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will hold a business meeting Wednesday, May 8, beginning at 5 p.m. The board will first meet in closed session at 4:15 p.m.
https://scvnews.com/may-8-coc-board-business-meeting-considers-contracts/
Conservative party suffers historic losses in UK local elections
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Labour won control of councils in England that the party hasn’t held for decades, and was successful in a special election for a seat in Parliament.
May 8: Castaic Union School Board Regular Meeting
date: 2024-05-04, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Castaic Union School District Governing Board will hold its regular meeting Thursday, May 8, at 6 p.m. A closed session will be held at 5:30 p.m
https://scvnews.com/may-8-castaic-union-school-board-regular-meeting/
Parks Commission hears ‘The Rink’ report
date: 2024-05-04, from: The Signal
City of Santa Clarita staff Thursday presented their plans for The Rink Sports Pavilion to the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission, a $25 million multiuse roller skating rink the city is looking to open between April and June 2026. The presentation by Araz Valijan, city project manager, included goals for a projected timeline, features […]
The post <strong>Parks Commission hears ‘The Rink’ report </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/parks-commission-hears-the-rink-report/
Patrick Bailey leaves SF Giants game vs. Phillies after foul ball off face mask
date: 2024-05-04, from: San Jose Mercury News
Tom Murphy took over for Bailey, who initially remained in the game after Alec Bohm fouled a pitch off his face mask.
As deadly floods grip Kenya, president postpones school reopening
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Kenya, along with other parts of East Africa, has been overwhelmed by floods, with more than 150,000 displaced people living in camps across the country. The government has ordered people living near 178 dams and reservoirs that are either full or nearly full to evacuate or be forcefully moved.
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Receives $818,000 to Transform Cuyama Valley from a Dry Wasteland to Biodiversity Hot Spot
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The USDA grant will fund a three-year project on conservation outreach, education, and native gardens for the water-tight farming community.
The post Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Receives $818,000 to Transform Cuyama Valley from a Dry Wasteland to Biodiversity Hot Spot appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Schiavo introduces ‘click to cancel’ bill
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
News release Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo announced the introduction of Assembly Bill 2863, a bill aimed at protecting consumers and putting more money back in people’s pockets by simplifying the cancellation process for subscription services, according to a news release from Schiavo’s office. This legislation aligns with similar Federal Trade Commission initiatives by consumers with […]
The post Schiavo introduces ‘click to cancel’ bill appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/schiavo-introduces-click-to-cancel-bill/
United Methodists drop ban on clergy celebrating same-sex marriages
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Rev. Rebecca Girrell of Vermont told fellow delegates that she regretted having initially declined a request to perform a same-sex marriage because of church rules. “I promised I would never betray my heart or my call to offer ministry and grace to all persons again,” she said.
Patient airlifted after vehicle overturned in Gorman
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
A patient was airlifted from Quail Lake in Gorman after a rollover crash on northbound Interstate 5 Friday afternoon, according to Kaitlyn Aldana, spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Firefighters were dispatched at 2:56 p.m., and arrived on the scene at 3:01 p.m. The patient was extracted from the vehicle at 3:20 p.m. […]
The post Patient airlifted after vehicle overturned in Gorman appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/patient-airlifted-after-vehicle-overturned-in-gorman/
May 4: LACoFD Hosts Countywide Open House at All Fire Stations
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Fire Service Day Open House will be held at all County of Los Angeles Fire Department fire stations on Saturday, May 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m
https://scvnews.com/may-4-lacofd-hosts-countwide-open-house-at-all-fire-stations/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Read the wild email Tesla is sending to suppliers amid Supercharger chaos.
Letters: November vote | Clinton let off | Not pro-Palestine | Align with peace | Breeding enemies
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for May 5, 2024
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/letters-1710/
Relax, Google’s drop in search market share in April was just an illusion
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Decline shown in data from StatCounter attributed to ‘anomaly’
Google’s share of web searches appeared to suffer an unusually large drop in April, according to StatCounter. But the metrics biz now says that’s incorrect.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/google_search_share_blip/
Police arrest 3 in Canada linked to Sikh separatist’s slaying
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic feud with India in September when he said that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the slaying of Nijjar.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/police-arrest-3-in-canada-linked-to-sikh-separatists-slaying/
Captain of the ‘Conception’ Sentenced to Four Years in Boat Fire that Killed 34 People
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Judge leans to the middle of sentencing span, believing Jerry Boylan was ‘incredibly remorseful’; families find the sentence unfair.
The post Captain of the ‘Conception’ Sentenced to Four Years in Boat Fire that Killed 34 People appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/captain-of-the-conception-sentenced-to-four-years/
Letters: Wildfire safety | Affordable housing | Measure A | Senior rates | Trump scam | Embracing radicalism
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Mercury News Letters to the Editor for May 5, 2024
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/letters-1709/
Photos: Sea lions swarm the docks at San Francisco’s Pier 39
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Nearly 1,000 barking blubbery sea lions can be seen basking at San Francisco’s Pier 39.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/03/photos-sea-lions-swarm-the-docks-at-san-franciscos-pier-39/
May 18: Support Young Creatives at NextGen MediaMakers Festival
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Media Collaborative invites the public as well as local creatives, media industry professionals, students, parents, teachers and others to celebrate the next generation of media makers participating in the inaugural NextGen MediaMakers Festival on Saturday, May 18 from 2-5 p.m. at the Canyon Country Community Center.
https://scvnews.com/may-18-support-young-creatives-at-nextgen-mediamakers-festival/
Jewish voters could sway US presidential election
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
washington — “Is it good for the Jews?” That has been a question long asked by Jewish Americans, especially immigrants and those of the second generation, scarred by memories of the Holocaust, when assessing the policies of the U.S. government and the pledges of political candidates.
Most of them, most of the time since Franklin Roosevelt first ran for president in 1932, have voted for the Democrat at the top of the ticket.
Fast forward 92 years. More Jews have been voting Republican in recent elections, while many younger and left-leaning Jewish voters no longer see unequivocal support for Israel as a litmus test.
Instead, rising antisemitism is reforging a sense of Jewish self-identity — especially among those who consider themselves fully assimilated and accepted in the American mainstream culture.
Antisemitism “comes from all sides,” said Rachel Sass, antisemitic incident specialist at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “There are right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, anti-Israel protesters. There isn’t necessarily a clear political or ideological bent, just antisemitism.”
There has been a 900% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the past decade, with a spike since the Israel-Hamas conflict blew up last year, according to the ADL.
Jewish Americans are further alarmed by chants on college campuses — in reaction to Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terror attack — of “from the river to sea” and “go back to Poland,” along with some physical assaults on Jewish students.
“I’ve seen people respond with a level of fear, being afraid to reveal their Jewish identity. I’ve seen other people who have even leaned more into pride in their Jewish identity, wanting to be even more open because they feel that it’s very important,” said Sass.
Bestselling novelist Allison Winn Scotch said on the social media platform Threads, “Every day, as a Jewish American, I get increasingly nervous that we can’t come back from the brink of this. I don’t know where my family could go though, and I don’t know how we would stay safe when we got there anyway.”
She continued, “Your Jewish friends are living with a blooming seed of dread in the pits of our stomachs.”
America provided a refuge for Eastern European Jews escaping 19th-century pogroms, who followed the emigration from the more established and prosperous German Jewish community.
Many Jews in the United States, however, did not feel totally accepted into broader American culture until the civil rights movement. Changes not only benefited Blacks but also removed remaining barriers to Jews — such as housing covenants and restricted country club memberships, as well as hiring discrimination at prestigious law firms and entry quotas at the Ivy League universities that such attorneys were drawn from.
The contemporary surge in antisemitism is not institutional.
“It’s children being targeted at school with antisemitic bullying, synagogues being targeted with threats of bombs or shootings, people even being assaulted on the street because they are visibly Jewish or Orthodox,” according to Sass at the ADL.
American Jews, as is the case with other ethnic or minority groups, do not wholly cast votes based on a single issue.
“We swing with the rest of the country around economic issues, war and peace and all kinds of issues,” Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told VOA.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s political and communications director, Sam Markstein, said, “I think this will be the first time for a lot of Jewish voters who’ve never even considered voting Republican in their lives seriously making that consideration this year because of the dereliction of leadership by the Biden administration on these issues.”
Donald Trump, hoping for a second term as president but defeated by Joe Biden four years ago, received somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the Jewish vote in 2020, according to several polls and Jewish organizations.
“Anybody who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that his alliances are based on people’s commitment to him personally, not to a set of values, not to a set of strategic interests,” said Mellman.
Republicans have done a better job than Democrats in condemning politicians in their respective parties who make antisemitic remarks, Markstein contended, pointing out the RJC supports primary challengers to Republicans in Congress who make such discriminatory comments.
“Unfortunately, there are too many on the Democratic side that don’t seem to want to follow that path and want to either run and hide or issue mealy-mouthed responses that piss everybody off,” Markstein told VOA.
Although Jews constitute only 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, they are more likely to vote than the general registered voting population and to make political donations.
“The Jewish vote in those [swing] states is going to be the decisive [factor],” Markstein predicted.
The Republicans tend to draw most of their Jewish strength from the religious Orthodox, the fastest-growing but still smallest Jewish community among the three largest denominations. Most Orthodox Jews strongly support Israel.
“Day after day, the administration’s response gets less and less supportive of Israel,” Markstein contended.
A majority of Conservative and Reform Jews tend to vote for Democrats and are more open-minded about a two-state solution in the Middle East that would create a sovereign Palestine.
“To retain Jewish support, Biden’s campaign needs to keep doing exactly what they’re doing — standing strong with Israel, against antisemitism and behind the American Jewish community,” Mellman said. “That’s exactly what I think American Jews are looking for at this very difficult time. It’s exactly what the president is doing.”
VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/jewish-voters-could-sway-us-presidential-election/7597306.html
Hart High unveils Hawks at pep rally
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
With a loud screech, some boos and eventually some cheers, the Hart High School community celebrated the beginning of a new tradition Friday, with Rachel, a Harris hawk, unveiled to represent the mascot replacement for the Indians in the school’s gymnasium. Rachel initially hung out in the rafters when Hart High School Principal Jason d’Autremont […]
The post <strong>Hart High unveils Hawks at pep rally</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/hart-high-unveils-hawks-at-pep-rally/
RHEL stays fresh with 9.4 while CentOS 7 gets a Rocky retirement plan
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meanwhile, Alma Linux gets into supercomputers
Good news for users of RHEL versions old and new – and for the freebie CentOS Linux 7, which is approaching its end of life next month.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/rhel_94_centos_7/
‘A Powerful Woman We Need in the World Today’
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Amanda Gorman at the Arlington in Santa Barbara, April 30, 2024.
The post ‘A Powerful Woman We Need in the World Today’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/a-powerful-woman-we-need-in-the-world-today/
A Year in Review From ASI Student Government
date: 2024-05-03, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
A Letter From ASI Student Government President Daisy Navarrete and Vice-President Jazmin Guajardo Student Government would like to congratulate you on finishing the 2023-2024 academic […]
Vasquez Rocks Full Moon Twilight Hikes
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Explore Vasquez Rocks during the magical twilight and early evening full moon hours. These fun, collaborative, interpretive hikes are led by trained staff and volunteers and will highlight the park’s natural and human history
https://scvnews.com/vasquez-rocks-full-moon-twilight-hikes/
This Week in the IndieWeb
date: 2024-05-03, from: This week in Indie Web
April 26 through May 3, 2024
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Upcoming Events
From events.indieweb.org:
Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to learn from each other about how to make code do what we want.
Come prepared to teach and learn!
- FÜRTH, Bayern: Fab Lab Region Nürnberg e.V.
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
- DÜSSELDORF, Nordrhein-Westfalen: Düsseldorf city libraries
IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf 2024 is scheduled for 2024-05-11…12, the weekend before btconf Düsseldorf 2024, at The City Library on Saturday, and Organizers have a Create Day lobbycon backup plan but are looking for local suggestions for a Sunday venue!
Tickets are now available, grab one and book your travel arrangements!
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
- FÜRTH, Bayern: Fab Lab Region Nürnberg e.V.
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
What We’re Reading
From news.indieweb.org:
Top New Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
communities
There are many communities and groups that are adjacent to and overlap with the IndieWeb community that many of us participate in, have participated in, that may interest you as well.
Created by Tantek.com on Friday and edited 4 more times
EyeEm
EyeEm is a photo hosting silo that unilaterally changed its terms of service in 2024 to license any photos users have contributed to train generative AI models, including by external companies, which may be enough reason to avoid POSSEing your posts there.
Created by [tantek] on Monday with 4 more edits by tantek.com and loqi.me
The Web We Want
The Web We Want is a website and community for independent designers and developers to surface ideas they have for improving the web.
Created by Tantek.com on Friday and edited 2 more times
echofeed
EchoFeed is a service to cross post from feeds to other services and includes support for sending Webmentions.
Created by Starrwulfe.xyz on Wednesday and edited 2 more times
New Event Notes
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London: 2024-05-01
Galactic Bonus Homebrew Website Club: 2024-04-27
Top Edited Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: Recent Changes:
- to-do 8 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- library 4 edits by tantek.com
- OpenSocial 4 edits by tantek.com and loqi.me
- community 3 edits by tantek.com and aaronparecki.com
- indieweb-carnival 3 edits by hamatti.org and foreverliketh.is
- web we want 2 edits by tantek.com
- indieweb-carnival/feed 2 edits by sarajaksa.eu
- 2024/Düsseldorf 2 edits by notiz.blog and lostfocus.de
- faxmachine 2 edits by tantek.com and loqi.me
- discuss 2 edits by aaronparecki.com and www.ciccarello.me
https://indieweb.org/this-week/2024-05-03.html
Princess Cruises Sails to Prime Viewing Spot for 2026 Total Solar Eclipse in Europe
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Astrotourism is top of mind for travelers making special trips for experiences in the sky, and with the recent “take-your-breath-away” total solar eclipse, thousands of cruisers onboard Emerald Princess and Discovery Princess off the coast of Mexico caught a glimpse of the total darkness event
Kaspersky hits back at claims its AI helped Russia develop military drone systems
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ready, set, sanctions?
AI built by Russian infosec firm Kaspersky was used in Russian drones for its war on Ukraine, volunteer intelligence gatherers claim.…
⚔️💻 #199 - Hack and Backslash
date: 2024-05-03, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
I’m in.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/199-hack-and-backslash
NASA’s Orion Capsule Heat Shield Wore Away in More Than 100 Places During 2022 Test Flight, Posing ‘Significant Risks’
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A new report highlights safety issues that NASA must address before using the spacecraft to send astronauts to the moon, and the agency is already working on fixing the problems
CI Superlatives: 2023-2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
Compiled by Aileen Lawrence
May 7: City Council Conducts Budget Study Session
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita City Council will hold a study session on Tuesday, May 7 at 5 p.m. The council will meet at City Hall, Carl Boyer Room, 23920 Valencia Blvd., First Floor, Santa Clarita, CA
https://scvnews.com/may-7-city-council-conducts-budget-study-session/
‘Liberty Leading the People’ Returns to the Louvre After a Breathtaking Restoration
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Eugène Delacroix’s 1830 oil painting had been covered in grime and discolored by eight layers of varnish
FreeBSD is building a graphical installer
date: 2024-05-03, from: OS News
FreeBSD is working on a graphical installer. Finally. The first hurdle to overcome when testing a new Operating System is to get it installed. What is more, the first impression new users gather from an Operating System is its installation process. The state of the art for Operating System installers nowadays definitely involves a graphical process. This is the case for mainstream systems but also for other UNIX systems comparable to FreeBSD: RedHat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, Debian GNU/Linux, or even Devuan GNU+Linux Regardless of the technical level of the actual user, this is how the platform will be compared in the public eye. Instead, with knowledge of the current bsdinstall(8) and bsdconfig(8) utilities, I envisioned a BSD-licensed replacement for Xdialog(1). Just like when invoking bsdconfig with the -X switch for graphical mode, it could be dropped in instead of bsddialog(1) and allow graphical installation – while sharing the infrastructure of the current installer. To avoid confusion with the current implementation of Xdialog from the x11/xdialog port, I have named its replacement gbsddialog(1). It also has to be said that Xdialog is quite obsolete (latest release in 2006) and this shows visually too. ↫ Pierre Pronchery in the FreeBSD status report I can’t believe it’s taken FreeBSD this long to both consider and build a graphical installer. Currently being enveloped in the world of OpenBSD, there’s clearly so much the BSD world has to offer to desktop users such as myself, but at the same time, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that the various BSDs can address to make the experience just that little bit more pleasant. They obviously don’t have to – not every project is aiming at desktop use – but it just makes onboarding so much nicer. The next step – perhaps in 2037 – would be to offer a desktop-oriented installation image, with a default desktop environment and settings optimised for desktop use. Right now, a lot of fiddling and optimisation for this use case is left to the user, and for newcomers such as myself this means a lot of reading, making sense of contradictory advice and suggestions, wading through endless, often outdated, online guides, and so on. Now, I don’t particularly mind doing this, but I’m sure it’s chasing people away who could end up making meaningful contributions. Meanwhile, after trying out FreeBSD for a while a few weeks ago but it not being a good fit for me, I’m now exploring and using OpenBSD and it’s been a great experience. Although unlikely, I hope OpenBSD, too, can perhaps consider making some minor affordances to desktop users – because as I’ve learnt, OpenBSD feels right at home on a desktop, more so than I ever expected.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139545/freebsd-is-building-a-graphical-installer/
How to install the COSMIC desktop environment on Fedora 40
date: 2024-05-03, from: OS News
COSMIC Desktop Environment (DE) is a new project by System76, the company behind the popular Linux distribution Pop!_OS. In this tutorial, we will give you an overview about COSMIC DE and its features, and then we will walk you through the steps to install COSMIC Desktop Environment in the latest Fedora 40 Linux system. ↫ Senthilkumar Palani at OSTechNix A very easy way to try out the current pre-alpha state of COSMIC. I’ll definitely be waiting on a more official release later this year, but man, does COSMIC ever seem way more polished and complete than it has any right to be at this point in time.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139549/how-to-install-the-cosmic-desktop-environment-on-fedora-40/
South County Black Grad Celebration Honors More than 100 Graduates
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara, Calif. (May 3, 2024) — The Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) Umoja Program hosted the second annual Black Grad
The post South County Black Grad Celebration Honors More than 100 Graduates appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
See you Later!
date: 2024-05-03, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Ashley Tolteca and Allen Monge
Microsoft overhaul treats security as ‘top priority’ after a series of failures
date: 2024-05-03, from: OS News
Microsoft is making security its number one priority for every employee, following years of security issues and mounting criticisms. After a scathing report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board recently concluded that “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul,” it’s doing just that by outlining a set of security principles and goals that are tied to compensation packages for Microsoft’s senior leadership team. ↫ Tom Warren at The Verge The devil is in the details regarding tying executive pay to security performance, but it we take it at face value and assume good intent – which is a laughable assumption in our corporatist world, but alas – I would like to see more of this. It’s high time executives start paying – literally and figuratively – for the failings of the companies and teams they claim to run.
Elon Musk’s Supercharger Chaos Could Slow The EV Transition. But It Doesn’t Have To.
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
Tesla is pumping the brakes on EV charging. That creates opportunities for competitors, industry analysts told InsideEVs.
https://insideevs.com/news/718437/tesla-supercharger-layoffs-ev-adoption/
Error -609 Launching App From the Mac App Store
date: 2024-05-03, from: Michael Tsai
Matthias Gansrigler: Does anybody here know what macOS’ error -609 is when launching an app from the App Store? “The application “XYZ” can’t be opened. -609” And, maybe more importantly, how to fix it? Relaunches, re-installs and restarts have not helped. Mark Cornelisse: Are you behind a firewall? This usually occurs when MacOS can’t communicate […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/03/error-609-launching-app-from-the-mac-app-store/
Apple’s Q2 2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (transcript, Hacker News, MacRumors): The Company posted quarterly revenue of $90.8 billion, down 4 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.53. “Today Apple is reporting revenue of $90.8 billion for the March quarter, including an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. […] “Given our confidence […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/03/apples-q2-2024/
Everything you Want to Know About the Commencement and Affinity Ceremonies but Didn’t Know who to Ask
date: 2024-05-03, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
By Aileen Lawrence and Ashley Tolteca As the 2023-24 school year comes to a close, students are preparing for finals, moving up in grades, and […]
Beats Solo Buds
date: 2024-05-03, from: Michael Tsai
Chance Miller: Alongside the launch of Beats Solo 4 today, Apple has also announced new Beats Solo Buds earbuds. The new Beats Solo Buds pack a truly wireless design with an incredibly impressive 18 hours of battery life and $79.99 price. […] While they miss out on features like Active Noise Cancellation, auto play/pause, and […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/03/beats-solo-buds/
Tracking Through MarketplaceKit
date: 2024-05-03, from: Michael Tsai
Mysk: @brave for iOS just got updated to support the new “marketplace-kit” scheme. Brave only calls the scheme when trackers blocking is disabled. As we reported earlier, Apple implemented the new scheme in a way that allows tracking across websites based on the unique client_id.Now users in the EU can use Brave to safely install […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/03/tracking-through-marketplacekit/
See 1,000 Perfect Replicas of Objects Unearthed From King Tut’s Tomb
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A traveling exhibition on view in Washington, D.C. blends education and entertainment, letting visitors get up close and personal with the ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s treasures
Graduating Class of 2024, Congratulations to you all!
date: 2024-05-03, from: CI View (CSCI Student Paper)
Letter from Dr. Richard Yao, President of California State University Channel Islands I commend you on achieving this significant milestone in your academic journey. As […]
Lilbits: Rabbit R1 portable AI device reviews are in… and they’re bad (Also: Microsoft makes security a top priority, and abxylute makes a mobile controller)
date: 2024-05-03, from: Liliputing
This year two buzzy startups have been trying to cash in on the AI craze by introducing portable devices designed to let you use AI assistant software on the go without pulling your phone out of your pocket. But if early reviews are anything to go by, neither of those companies has delivered a compelling […]
The post Lilbits: Rabbit R1 portable AI device reviews are in… and they’re bad (Also: Microsoft makes security a top priority, and abxylute makes a mobile controller) appeared first on Liliputing.
AI Catholic ‘priest’ defrocked after recommending Gatorade baptism
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Devotees were speaking to an entity who didn’t exist – imagine that
An attempt by a Catholic advocacy group to spread the word of God using an AI model has backfired, and chat bot – Father Justin – has been pulled down and reworked.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/ai_catholic_priest/
Garbage Inspectors to Look for Improper Recycling
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Garbage inspectors will soon be paying a visit to neighborhoods throughout the Santa Clarita Valley to inspect recycling bins to ensure residents are following the recycling rules in the SCV.
https://scvnews.com/garbage-inspectors-to-look-for-improper-recycling/
Biden: All jailed journalists should be released
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the release of all imprisoned journalists — including three American reporters — who have been jailed over their work, in a Friday statement commemorating World Press Freedom Day.
“Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth,” Biden said in the statement. “On World Press Freedom Day, the United States calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists who have been put behind bars for simply doing their jobs. And we call for the protection of journalists everywhere, including during military operations.”
At the end of 2023, 320 journalists were jailed for their work around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
That total includes three American journalists: Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in Russia, and Austin Tice in Syria.
Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has also declared him wrongfully detained.
“We’re so proud of him. I can’t believe he’s holding up so well. And he works so, so hard to be able to keep his spirits up,” Gershkovich’s sister Danielle said at a Friday in Washington Friday commemorating World Press Freedom Day.
Danielle said her family manages to stay in touch with Evan through letters.
“I get a letter from him — it’s like Christmas morning. And I hear his voice in my head when I’m reading it. And it just feels like I get to chat to my brother. It’s a lifeline to my parents and I,” she said at the event, which was held at The Washington Post headquarters.
Since his jailing, Russian authorities have not publicly revealed any evidence to substantiate the spying accusations against Gershkovich, who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work in the country. The reporter will be held in pretrial detention until at least June.
Meanwhile, Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been jailed for more than six months and is also set to be held in pretrial detention until at least June.
The dual U.S.-Russian national traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June 2023. She was waiting for them to be returned when she was arrested in October 2023.
Kurmasheva stands accused of failing to self-register as a so-called “foreign agent” and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russia military. The journalist and her employer reject the charges against her.
“She’s the mom of two wonderful young women who had to grow up awfully quickly over the last six months that she’s been in prison,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said at the event.
In a prerecorded video message, Kurmasheva’s 15-year-old daughter Bibi called for her mother’s immediate release.
“My mom, Alsu, has been behind bars in Russia for six months now, because she is a journalist,” she said. “My sister and I are so proud of her, and we miss her so, so much. She needs to be freed immediately so she can come home to us. Free Alsu.”
Press freedom groups have criticized the State Department for not yet declaring Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open additional resources to help secure her release.
Russia’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
This year’s World Press Freedom Day takes place against a backdrop that experts say is concerning for journalists around the world.
“Media freedom is under siege,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday in a statement. “Without facts, we cannot fight mis- and dis-information. Without accountability, we will not have strong policies in place. Without press freedom, we won’t have any freedom. A free press is not a choice, but a necessity.”
In particular, the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has led to the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, began gathering data in 1992. As of Friday, at least 97 journalists have been killed since the war began, including 92 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ.
“Journalists are civilians, so they need to be protected as any civilian is during a war zone. They shouldn’t be targeted,” CPJ chief Jodie Ginsberg said at the event on Friday.
New York-based CPJ has accused Israel of targeting journalists, which the Israeli government has denied.
About half of the world’s population is set to vote in national elections in 2024, which has press freedom experts concerned about the safety of reporters and potentially harmful effects for press freedom.
“This year is going to be really indicative not just of the future of a free press, but the future of democracy, because how we treat our media in the run-up to these elections is a litmus test for how the other freedoms that we enjoy, and the other democratic rights we enjoy, are likely to be treated afterwards,” Ginsberg said.
Discussions about press freedom tend to center on the negative, but Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. office of Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said it’s also important to recognize governments that are defending press freedom.
“World Press Freedom Day should be a celebration of the values of the free press,” Weimers said.
RSF on Friday released its annual press freedom index, which ranks 180 countries and territories in terms of media freedom. Norway and Denmark topped the list this year.
“There’s no freedom without press freedom,” Weimers said. “It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-all-jailed-journalists-should-be-released/7597229.html
Rare Tornado Spinning the ‘Wrong’ Direction Forms Over Oklahoma
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A powerful anticyclonic tornado uprooted trees and damaged some buildings on the night of April 30, and a second unusual twister changed direction, doubling back on its path
Kia EV9 DC Fast Charging Test Confirms Outstanding Speed
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
The car can replenish up to roughly 200 miles of range in about 24 minutes.
https://insideevs.com/news/718400/kia-ev9-dc-fast-charging-test/
Wildcats volleyball beats Paraclete in QF thriller
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
Deadlocked in sets but down big in the third game, West Ranch boys’ volleyball found its spark. West Ranch trailed 20-13 in the pivotal set but somehow, some way, charged back into its CIF Division 4 quarterfinals match with the Paraclete Spirits. The Wildcats chipped away thanks to some proficient defense and timely kills on […]
The post <strong>Wildcats volleyball beats Paraclete in QF thriller </strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/wildcats-volleyball-beats-paraclete-in-qf-thriller/
Patient airlifted via helicopter to hospital
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
A patient was airlifted via helicopter from Central Park after suffering a medical emergency on Friday morning, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department officials. First responders were called to a medical emergency on the 20600 block of West Barcotta Drive near Pamplico Park on Friday, according to Geovanni Sanchez, a spokesman with the L.A. […]
The post Patient airlifted via helicopter to hospital appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/patient-airlifted-via-helicopter-to-hospital/
BASICally still alive: Classic language celebrates 60 years with new code and old quirks
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Visual Small BASIC, Chloe System, and QB64 Phoenix all updated
May Day 2024 was the 60th anniversary of the BASIC programming language, and multiple FOSS BASIC-related projects released new versions in celebration.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday_releases/
BASICally still alive: Classic language celebrates 60 years with new code and old quirks
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Visual Small BASIC, Chloe System, and QB64 Phoenix all updated
May Day 2024 was the 60th anniversary of the BASIC programming language, and multiple FOSS BASIC-related projects released new versions in celebration.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/basic_60th_birthday/
ROG Ally 2nd Screen Mod turns the handheld gaming PC into a dual-screen device
date: 2024-05-03, from: Liliputing
The Asus ROG Ally is a handheld gaming PC with a 7 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel touchscreen display, an AMD Ryzen Z1 or Z1 Extreme processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. But what if it had two screens instead of one. Asus may not offer an official dual screen […]
The post ROG Ally 2nd Screen Mod turns the handheld gaming PC into a dual-screen device appeared first on Liliputing.
Records break all around Foothill League track finals
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
Personal, league and meet records fell all day during the Foothill League track and field finals at College of the Canyons. The Santa Clarita’s Valley’s best went head-to-head one last time last week, fighting for automatic postseason spots. Leading the day with wins was no other than Castaic’s Meagan Humphries, who brought home four league […]
The post <strong>Records break all around Foothill League track finals</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/records-break-all-around-foothill-league-track-finals/
Happy 400th Birthday to New Amsterdam, the Dutch Settlement That Became New York
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In 1624, Dutch settlers arrived in Manhattan. Now, officials are marking the milestone with an honest examination of the past
Podcast: more Tesla layoffs, charging team all gone, what is going on? Let’s talk about it
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
On the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss the additional Tesla layoffs, the entire charging team’s departure, and more. Let’s talk about it.
Sponsored by SplitVolt: The Splitvolt Splitter Switch automatically shares power from your existing 240V dryer socket with your Level 2 EV charger. Learn more here.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/podcast-more-tesla-layoffs-charging-team-all-gone-what-is-going-on/
May 2, 2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-2-2024-8fb
Hundreds Of Teslas Are Piling Up In A Vacant Mall Parking Lot
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
A local service center says that its lot can’t handle the “growing inventory,” which includes dozens of Cybertrucks.
https://insideevs.com/news/718406/tesla-vehicles-lot-demand-texas/
ARMD Solicitations
date: 2024-05-03, from: NASA breaking news
This ARMD solicitations page compiles the opportunities to collaborate with NASA’s aeronautical innovators and/or contribute to their research to enable new and improved air transportation systems. A summary of available opportunities with key dates requiring action are listed first. More information about each opportunity is detailed lower on this page. University Leadership InitiativeKey date: May […]
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/armd-solicitations/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Publishing recommended feeds.
https://github.com/Dan-Q/well-known-feeds/issues/2#issuecomment-2093588109
Former NASA Center Director, Scientist to Receive Presidential Medals
date: 2024-05-03, from: NASA breaking news
President Joe Biden will present Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former center director and astronaut at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Dr. Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, each with the Presidential Medal of Freedom Friday in a ceremony at the White House in Washington. The Presidential Medal of […]
In a First, an Orangutan Healed His Own Wound Using a Known Medicinal Plant
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The primate named Rakus chewed up yellow root and applied it to an open facial wound, closing the sore within days
Santa Barbara Police Arrest Man for Attempted Shooting in March 2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A 25-year-old from Ventura was charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting out of a vehicle.
The post Santa Barbara Police Arrest Man for Attempted Shooting in March 2024 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
A new standard in Avalon boys volleyball
date: 2024-05-03, from: Catalina Islander
For the first time in Avalon boys’ volleyball history the Lancers have advanced to the CIF Southern Section Semifinals where they will take on the Calvary Chapel Downey. The time and date was yet to be determined as of press time. “I am really excited for this team, our school and community. I’m excited for […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/a-new-standard-in-avalon-boys-volleyball/
AWS promotes itself as alternative to its own VMware service
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Why? Maybe because it looks likely VMw Cloud on Amazon is changing
Amazon Web Services is doing something rather odd – promoting itself as a migration target for users of its own VMware Cloud on AWS service.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/vmc_on_aws_changes/
Sheriff’s Log: April 25 to May 1, 2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: Catalina Islander
The following is the Avalon’s Sheriff’s Stations significant incidents report for the period April 25 to May 1, 2024.All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Many people who are arrested do not get prosecuted in the first place and many who are prosecuted do not get convicted. April 26 […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/sheriffs-log-april-25-to-may-1-2024/
Mrs. Montage 2nd Grade Class ’71-72
date: 2024-05-03, from: Catalina Islander
Some long-time islanders might recognize some of these kids. they might even find themselves among the youngsters who were in Mrs. Montage’s (sorry Mrs. Montage, we couldn’t fit you in the photo). second-grade class in 1971-72. Tell us who you recognize (row 1, at bottom, through 5) and let’s see who we can find. Send […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/mrs-montage-2nd-grade-class-71-72/
Earth Day Cleanup
date: 2024-05-03, from: Catalina Islander
This month, just three volunteers worked hard to pull 29.66 lbs. of debris from the Avalon community. This event was made better by Avalon Public Works crew setting up tables and passing out information about waste management and recycling in town. The volunteers included Love Catalina Island CEO Jim Luttjohann. Download QR
https://thecatalinaislander.com/earth-day-cleanup/
Save up to $570 on Lectric e-bike bundles, Rad Power flash sale, EVOLV e-scooter special, and more
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
Today’s Green Deals are jam-packed once more with EV sales to get you geared-up for the cruising months ahead, led by Lectric eBikes’ 5-year anniversary celebration that is taking up to $570 off select e-bikes, like the XPedition Single-Battery Cargo e-bike at $1,399, while also giving away choices of five add-on accessories. It is joined by Rad Powers’ latest flash sale that is dropping the RadRunner 2 Utility e-bike to $1,299 and also offering free accessories on two other models, as well as a rare special from EVOLV that is dropping the PRO V2 Electric Scooter to its $1,799 low. Plus all of the other days’ Green Deals that are still going.
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.
‘Tesla Left Some Really Good Sites On The Table’: How Revel Aims To Fill A Charging Vacuum
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
The CEO of rideshare (and charging) company Revel talks Toyota’s involvement, picking up Tesla’s mantle and why being “first to market” matters.
https://insideevs.com/news/718289/revel-charging-nyc-tesla/
Trump 2016 campaign worried about salacious remarks, aide testifies
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-trump-aide-hope-hicks-begins-testifying-against-him/7596993.html
A Moonlit Trio
date: 2024-05-03, from: NASA breaking news
The Moon (left), Saturn, and Jupiter (lower right; Saturn is above and to the left of Jupiter) were seen in the sky above the Washington Memorial on Dec. 17, 2020. At the time, Saturn and Jupiter were nearing each other in the sky, culminating in a “great conjunction” on Dec. 21, where they appeared a […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/a-moonlit-trio/
It may take decade to shore up software supply chain security, says infosec CEO
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sure, we’re waking to the risk, but we gotta get outta bed, warns Endor Labs founder Varun Badhwar
interview The more cybersecurity news you read, the more often you seem to see a familiar phrase: Software supply chain (SSC) vulnerabilities. Varun Badhwar, founder and CEO at security firm Endor Labs, doesn’t believe that’s by coincidence. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/it_might_take_a_decade/
Lawmakers May Tussle With University Of California Over Undocumented Students, But Their Power Is Limited
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The LAist
The University of California has refused to extend employment benefits to undocumented students, setting up a clash with state lawmakers. They have had tensions before.
https://laist.com/news/education/university-of-california-compelling-napolitano-brown-drake-history
Apple Revenues Drop 4% in Q2 2024, with Bright Spots from Services and Mac
date: 2024-05-03, from: TidBITS blog
Though Apple revenues declined compared to the same quarter last year, the drop was less precipitous than many had feared, and Apple still announced profits of $23.6 billion. Revenue increases came from the Services and Mac segments.
ON the Beat | Willie, Presidential Wishful, Hits the Bowl
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Willie Time, earth dailies, and French baroque on the local menu.
The post ON the Beat | Willie, Presidential Wishful, Hits the Bowl appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/on-the-beat-willie-presidential-wishful-hits-the-bowl/
US updates EV tax credit rules, enabling more electric cars to be eligible
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) updated the EV tax credit rules today with new requirements that should enable more electric cars to become eligible.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/us-updates-ev-tax-credit-rules-enabling-more-electric-cars-eligble/
Toyota Execs Say Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Ideal For A Tundra-Sized Pickup
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
Having a hydrogen fuel cell power an electric pickup would allow it to match the range of combustion trucks.
https://insideevs.com/news/718402/toyota-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tundra/
Chatreey TK12-F is a fanless mini PC with up to an Intel Core i7-1255U processor
date: 2024-05-03, from: Liliputing
The Chatreey TK12-F is a small desktop computer with a 12th-gen Intel Core U-series processor, a Thunderbolt 4 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and support for up to four displays. But the most unusual thing about this mini PC is that it’s a passively cooled computer with a fanless design for silent operation and a case […]
The post Chatreey TK12-F is a fanless mini PC with up to an Intel Core i7-1255U processor appeared first on Liliputing.
This Pro Mountain Biker’s Polaris XPEDITION Is One Slick Off-Roader
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
You can really do anything with these rigs.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718295/brandon-semenuk-polari-xpedition-utv-draco/
Decades in the Making: Reflections on the Permanent Protection of Molok Luyuk
date: 2024-05-03, from: California Native Plants Society
CNPS Conservation Director Nick Jensen reflects on the decades-long journey to protect Molok Luyuk forever.
The post Decades in the Making: Reflections on the Permanent Protection of Molok Luyuk appeared first on California Native Plant Society.
Analysts: Tesla-China EV market race still tough, despite self-driving win
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
World War II-Era Bomb Successfully Defused Near German Soccer Stadium
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The 1,110-pound ordnance is one of many bombs that have surfaced in Europe decades after the war’s end
World’s First Race of A.I.-Driven Cars Was Filled With Spins, Swerves and Stops
date: 2024-05-03, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Though the cars could not compare to human drivers, the event may help improve self-driving technology, experts say
Apple confirms iPadOS will fall under its Alternative Business Terms in the EU
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cupertino drops the Core Technology Fee for hobbyist developers with no revenue
Apple is reluctantly bowing to the European Commission’s demands that it align iPadOS with the changes planned for iOS. It has also grudgingly added two conditions in which the Core Technology Fee will not apply.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/ipados_apple_abt_eu/
Bird Flu Making Its Way Across the States by Way of Dairy Cows
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Health officials monitor the spread of avian influenza, though the virus is “not a significant public health threat” at this time.
The post Bird Flu Making Its Way Across the States by Way of Dairy Cows appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/03/bird-flu-making-its-way-across-the-states-by-way-of-cows/
Front Row Center to Present “Lone Star, Laundry, and Bourbon”
date: 2024-05-03, from: City of Santa Clarita
Step into the Heart of 1970s Texas at The MAIN Experience two classic one-act comedies by James McLure that dive deep into the lives of small-town folks navigating the aftermath of the Vietnam War. “Lone Star, Laundry, and Bourbon” takes place in the small town of Maynard, Texas in the 1970s. In these acts, the […]
The post Front Row Center to Present “Lone Star, Laundry, and Bourbon” appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/05/03/front-row-center-to-present-lone-star-laundry-and-bourbon/
@Chris Coyier blog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Chris Coyier blog)
If you long for a web of yore were things were better, somehow: The thing is: none of this is gone. Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it’s become a lot easier. We can return. Better, yet: we can restore the things we loved about the old web while incorporating […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/05/03/11348/
Behind the Blog: Learning to Code and How the Merch Gets Made
date: 2024-05-03, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss learning to code, merch, and gaming journalism.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-learn-to-code/
U.S. Government Delays Even-Stricter EV Tax Credit Rules
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
Vehicles were set to become ineligible for the tax credit in 2025 if their batteries contained Chinese-sourced graphite. The new rules delay that requirement.
https://insideevs.com/news/718410/ev-tax-credit-graphite-source-delayed/
Your Low Code Solution Needs an Escape Hatch
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: Deno blog
A low-code solution is a simple way to offer some flexibility for your users. However, to accommodate further customization (especially for enterprise users), you should have an “escape hatch” — simple, code-level customization. Here are three product scenarios and where an escape hatch makes most sense.
https://deno.com/blog/low-code-needs-an-escape-hatch
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
If you were starting a new, multi-staff publication from scratch, what would you want to use for a tech platform? Ghost? Indiegraf? Something else?
https://www.threads.net/@ezra/post/C6gvG_tOS2g
AWS | Crossaccount IAM role assumption
date: 2024-05-03, from: Memo Garcia blog
In AWS, in order to access resources in other accounts without creating new users or handling passwords, you can use sts:AssumeRole. Let’s say that you have some resources in AccountA (AWS Managed Prometheus for example) that you want to access from AccountB Account A In AccountA create a role account_a_role that has 2 types of policies: a Trust Relationship that define which entities can assume this role { "Version": "2012-10-17", "Statement": [ { "Sid": "AllowAssumeRoleFromAccountB", "Effect": "Allow", "Principal": { "AWS": "arn:aws:iam::ACCOUNT_B_ID:role/account_b_role" }, "Action": "sts:AssumeRole" } ] } You can also set Conditions to filter which entities can AssumeRole and even configure AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity for users who have been authenticated with a web identity provider.
https://memo.mx/posts/aws-iam-crossaccount-roles/
China ‘the most competitive market in the world’ for the iPhone says Tim Cook
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Put another way, iPhone sales were down 8%
Apple CEO Tim Cook called China “the most competitive market in the world” on the back of a somewhat poor quarter for the iPhone.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/china_iphone/
This German startup is pioneering recyclable wooden wind turbine blades
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
In a first, German startup Voodin Blade Technology just installed wooden blades on a prototype wind turbine.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/german-startup-pioneering-recyclable-wooden-wind-turbine-blades/
AYANEO Retro Mini PC AM02 Review: A powerful, versatile mini PC (that also looks like a vintage game console
date: 2024-05-03, from: Liliputing
Many of the mini PCs that have flooded the market in recent years have drawn inspiration from the Intel NUC line of products that debuted in 2012. Some models manage to stand out with pocket-sized designs, additional storage options, or gaming features. But the AYANEO AM02 is one of the most unusual looking mini PCs […]
The post AYANEO Retro Mini PC AM02 Review: A powerful, versatile mini PC (that also looks like a vintage game console appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/ayaneo-retro-mini-pc-am02-review/
Tesla’s Supercharger Retreat Could ‘Threaten’ EV Transition: Analysts
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
We also discuss Rivian’s plans to add hundreds of new jobs and the leadership change at Mercedes’ Alabama plant.
https://insideevs.com/news/718401/tesla-layoffs-threaten-ev-transition-critical-materials/
Tesla reveals Cybertruck’s finger-pinching frunk is using a ‘learning algorithm’
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla has revealed that the Cybertruck’s frunk is using a ‘learning algorithm,’ which explains some of the inconsistent results in finger-pinching tests.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/tesla-cybertrucks-finger-pinching-frunk-learning-algorithm/
Understanding An Electric Car’s Window Sticker: Range, MPGe, Charge Time, Savings
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
There’s a lot of info on this one sticker.
https://insideevs.com/news/718226/epa-rating-ev-range-mpge/
US, Australia, Japan, Philippines hold talks in Hawaii
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
Defense ministers from the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines met for a second round of quadrilateral talks in less than a year this week amid further aggression from the Chinese military. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports on the allies’ growing military ties.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-australia-japan-philippines-hold-talks-in-hawaii/7596643.html
Concord hair salon owner charged with sex crimes against minor
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Among the charges against 41-year-old Chi Ngoc Vu is forcible rape, according to court records.
Map: School Fire west of Grapevine, biggest California wildfire this year
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
The School Fire was reported Thursday afternoon east of the city of Maricopa.
Watch These Dirt Bike Side Cars Fly Off Jumps and Shred a Muddy Field
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Where’s our checkbook?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718393/cboys-dirt-bike-side-car-racing-video-jump/
Companies are hiring, just not like mad
date: 2024-05-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The bond market is surging after news that 175,000 people were in payrolls in April versus March. That’s less than expected and 44% lower than a month earlier. And it’s the sort of result that those anxious about elevated interest rates want to see. We’ll discuss. Also on the program: Nonprofit hospitals say legislative efforts requiring them to provide more free care could actually hurt the people they’re intended to help.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/companies-are-hiring-just-not-like-mad
Beelink SEi14 is a Meteor Lake mini PC
date: 2024-05-03, from: Liliputing
Chinese mini PC maker is launching its first model with an Intel Meteor Lake processor. the Beelink SEI14 is a 135 x 135 x 45mm (5.3″ x 5.3″ x 1.8″) computer with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H 14-core, 18-thread processor with Intel Arc graphics. It’s the latest in the company’s SEI line of mini […]
The post Beelink SEi14 is a Meteor Lake mini PC appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/beelink-sei14-is-a-meteor-lake-mini-pc/
Windows users left to fend for themselves after BitLocker patch bungle
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Need a bigger partition for the update? You’ll be manually resizing it then
Microsoft has decided that there will be no automatic resolution for a problem with some Windows 10 devices as they attempted to install a BitLocker security vulnerability patch.…
California man mistakenly jailed for 5 days on child molestation charge, suit alleges
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
A simple traffic stop by Southern California police turned into a wrongful arrest and “five days of psychological torment,” claims an attorney for the defendant
US employers add 175,000 jobs in April
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The nation’s employers pulled back on their hiring in April but still added a decent 175,000 jobs in a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to slow the robust U.S. job market.
Friday’s government report showed that last month’s hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March. And it was well below the 233,000 gain that economists had predicted for April.
Yet the moderation in the pace of hiring, along with a slowdown last month in wage growth, will likely be welcomed by the Federal Reserve, which has kept interest rates at a two-decade high to fight persistently elevated inflation. Hourly wages rose a less-than-expected 0.2% from March and 3.9% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain since June 2021.
The Fed has been delaying any consideration of interest rate cuts until it gains more confidence that inflation is steadily slowing toward its target. Fed rate cuts would, over time, reduce the cost of mortgages, auto loans and other consumer and business borrowing.
Stock futures jumped Friday after the jobs report was released on hopes that rate cuts might now be more likely sometime in the coming months.
Even with the April hiring slowdown, last month’s job growth amounted to a solid increase, although it was the lowest monthly job growth since October. With the nation’s households continuing their steady spending, many employers have had to keep hiring to meet their customer demand.
The unemployment rate ticked up 3.9% — the 27th straight month in which it has remained below 4%, the longest such streak since the 1960s.
Last month’s hiring was led by health care companies, which added 56,000 jobs. Warehouse and transportation companies added 22,000 and retailers 20,000.
The state of the economy is weighing on voters’ minds as the November presidential campaign intensifies. Despite the strength of the job market, Americans remain generally exasperated by high prices, and many of them assign blame to President Joe Biden.
America’s job market has repeatedly proved more robust than almost anyone had predicted. When the Fed began aggressively raising rates two years ago to fight a punishing inflation surge, most economists expected the resulting jump in borrowing costs to cause a recession and drive unemployment to painfully high levels.
The Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times from March 2022 to July 2023, taking it to the highest level since 2001. Inflation did steadily cool as it was supposed to — from a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.5% in March.
Yet the resilient strength of the job market and the overall economy, fueled by steady consumer spending, has kept inflation persistently above the Fed’s 2% target.
The job market has been showing other signs of eventually slowing. This week, for example, the government reported that job openings fell in March to 8.5 million, the fewest in more than three years. Still, that is nevertheless a large number of vacancies: Before 2021, monthly job openings had never topped 8 million, a threshold they have now exceeded every month since March 2021.
On a month-over-month basis, consumer inflation hasn’t declined since October. The 3.5% year-over-year inflation rate for March was still running well above the Fed’s 2% target.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-employers-add-175-000-jobs-in-april/7596621.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Shaping WordPress: AI, Colors & Typography.
https://rich.blog/shaping-wordpress-002/
Trump’s possible return reignites South Korea nuclear debate
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
Seoul, South Korea — South Korean calls to acquire nuclear weapons, which were subdued for the past year following steps to strengthen the U.S.-South Korea alliance, are once again bubbling to the surface ahead of the possible return of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump, who appears locked in a tight race with President Joe Biden as November’s election approaches, sparked concern this week after making comments that many Korean media interpreted as a threat to pull U.S. troops from South Korea.
In an interview with Time magazine, Trump lamented that U.S. troops are “in a precarious position” — a reference to nuclear-armed North Korea — and said Seoul should pay much more for U.S. protection.
“Why would we defend somebody … and we’re talking about a very wealthy country,” asked Trump, who elsewhere in the interview said U.S. troops were “in a lot of places they shouldn’t be.”
Those kinds of statements are not new. Trump has long questioned the value and necessity of the U.S. military presence in South Korea.
Trump’s supporters say the comments are simply a negotiating tactic meant to persuade South Korea to pay more for the cost of hosting approximately 28,500 U.S. troops. Trump, they insist, does not intend to abandon Seoul.
South Koreans appear less certain about Trump, who once said he “could go either way” on the idea of U.S. troops staying in South Korea.
Many are also concerned Trump could pursue a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that would effectively recognize the North as a nuclear weapons state.
“We can’t allow this. We must have our own nuclear arsenal, in a limited sense,” Yoon Sang-hyun, a five-term conservative lawmaker, said in a Facebook post this week.
Conservative South Korean newspapers have also begun publishing articles reassessing the idea of nuclear arms — an idea once considered unthinkable.
“The level of concern is really high,” said a researcher at a government-linked think tank in Seoul, who supports South Korea considering nuclear weapons in certain Trump-related scenarios.
“Almost every research institution has a project on preparations for the Trump administration,” said the researcher, who noted growing support among colleagues for acquiring a nuclear deterrent.
Many, including the Seoul-based academic, are hesitant to publicly disclose their openness to attaining nuclear capabilities, seeing little incentive to make statements that would risk antagonizing the current or potential leaders of a country that South Korea has relied on for protection for over 70 years.
Public support
If South Korea ever pursues a nuclear arsenal, the decision will come with massive economic, reputational and regional security risks.
Not only could the move upend South Korea’s alliance with the United States, but it could also prompt others in the region to pursue similar weapons, invite international economic sanctions, and would almost certainly elicit a fierce reaction from China, according to analysts.
Despite such barriers, opinion polls consistently indicate between 60% to 70% of South Koreans support their country developing nuclear weapons.
Even many national security experts, who are presumably more aware of the consequences, back such a move.
According to a poll released this week by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, 34% of South Korean elite support acquiring nuclear weapons. That support likely would increase significantly if Trump wins in November, the poll found.
Kim Gunn, who will soon begin a term in South Korea’s National Assembly after recently stepping down as the country’s top nuclear envoy, said he can “fully understand” the sentiment of wanting a nuclear deterrent, considering North Korea’s development of tactical nuclear weapons.
But Kim does not advocate for acquiring nuclear weapons. Instead, he says, it is vital that the South Korean public be assured that the U.S.-South Korean alliance is “well-prepared” to cope with any eventuality.
Last January, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made global headlines when he suggested South Korea could easily develop its own nuclear arms if the security situation with North Korea worsens.
At the time, South Korea was seeing an unprecedented wave of mostly conservative academics, ex-officials and other commentators calling for nuclear weapons.
Reassurances
Those calls subsided after Yoon and Biden agreed in April 2023 to strengthen the U.S. defense commitment to South Korea in a document known as the Washington Declaration.
In the statement, the United States vowed to deploy more “strategic assets,” such as nuclear-capable submarines, long-range bombers and aircraft carriers, to South Korea. In return, South Korea reaffirmed it would not pursue nuclear weapons.
“The problem is if Trump comes back to the White House, he will probably undermine the very basic pillars of extended deterrence — that is, the deployment of strategic assets and joint military exercises,” said Park Won-gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University.
As president, Trump often slammed what he said were provocative and expensive military exercises with South Korea. During his first summit with Kim in June 2018, Trump unilaterally suspended what he referred to as “war games” with South Korea, stunning some observers in Seoul.
Blunt talk
There is also growing concern about recent comments by former Trump officials, who have hinted at major changes to Washington’s South Korea policy, Park said.
Most recently, former senior Pentagon advisor Elbridge Colby told VOA’s Korean Service last month that South Korea’s nuclear armament should no longer be seen as off-limits.
“Nuclear proliferation, even to our allies, is a bad thing. But we live in a world of hard choices, so I think everything needs to be on the table,” said Colby, who is viewed as a leading candidate for a top national security position in a second Trump administration.
Colby also said the United States may not be able to live up to its defense commitments to South Korea if North Korea can conduct nuclear attacks on American cities.
“We need to have clarity between ourselves and our own thinking so we come up with a strategy and force posture … that actually mitigates this threat from North Korea,” Colby said.
While analysts have long questioned whether the United States would really sacrifice an American city to save that of a U.S. ally, Colby’s comments stand in sharp contrast to those of U.S. officials, who regularly insist that the U.S. defense commitment to Seoul is “ironclad.”
“Those kinds of simple statements can seriously undermine the U.S. commitment to defend allies,” said Park, who predicts a “huge wave” of nuclear advocacy in Seoul if such comments continue.
Actions or words?
Not all Trump allies support South Korea getting nuclear weapons.
One of those who opposes the idea is Alex Gray, chief of staff in Trump’s White House National Security Council. In an interview with VOA, Gray rejected the notion that Trump should serve as a rationale for any U.S. ally, including South Korea, to acquire nuclear weapons.
“I would really encourage everyone to look at the policies that came out of the first Trump administration — not just the media reporting, not just language and statements,” Gray said.
In Gray’s estimation, Trump was only trying to drive a hard bargain in military cost-sharing negotiations so that the alliance could become more beneficial to the United States.
But Gray also hinted at tensions ahead — especially after U.S. and South Korean officials last week launched early negotiations on a new military cost-sharing arrangement, 20 months before the current six-year deal expires.
The negotiations, which have been characterized by some media as an attempt to “Trump-proof” the alliance, show a “lack of respect” for Trump, Gray said.
Robert Rapson, who served as a senior U.S. diplomat in Seoul during Trump’s terms, said the cost-sharing negotiations and other efforts to “mitigate the risks” of a second Trump presidency are “fully understandable” but also risky.
“I would suggest that ROK officialdom not let its angst over the uncertainty drive them to take preemptive actions that don’t necessarily help them with Trump and may even backfire,” he said.
Rapson, however, cautions anyone from feeling too sure about how Trump might act toward South Korea.
“The only real certainty about a prospective second Trump administration,” he said, “is that there will be a high degree of uncertainty.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-s-possible-return-reignites-south-korea-nuclear-debate/7596584.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Amazon has all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica. One of the best binges ever.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B000UU2YKE/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s1
Mexico questions three people over missing California and Australian tourists
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
American Jack Carter Rhoad and Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson were reported missing on April 29. The three friends are believed to have been on a surfing and camping trip near the municipality of Ensenada.
Updated Volkswagen ID.3 Has Larger Screen, Better Infotainment, More Power
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
The electric equivalent of the Golf is improving with every update.
https://insideevs.com/news/718377/volkswagen-id3-larger-screen/
Friday’s preps spotlight: Granada’s Stanford-bound Parker Warner reflects on past four years
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Injured two-sport superstar McKenna Woliczko takes needed break. A’s pitcher Paul Blackburn has high school number retired. Willow Glen softball standout having no sophomore dip.
Threats to democracy top concern for US voters, poll finds
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
“Threats to democracy” have overtaken the economy and immigration as the chief concern of U.S. voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, according to a recent Ipsos poll. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias breaks down the results.
https://www.voanews.com/a/threats-to-democracy-top-concern-for-us-voters-poll-finds/7596598.html
Biden administration: 100,000 new migrants expected to enroll in ‘Obamacare’ next year
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children are expected to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance next year under a directive the Biden administration released Friday.
The move took longer than promised to finalize and fell short of Democratic President Joe Biden’s initial proposal to allow those migrants to sign up for Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides nearly free coverage for the nation’s poorest people.
But it will allow thousands of people, known as “Dreamers,” to access tax breaks when they sign up for coverage after the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace enrollment opens Nov. 1, just days ahead of the presidential election.
“I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
While it may help Biden boost his appeal at a crucial time among Latinos, a crucial voting bloc that he needs to turn out to win the election, the move is certain to prompt more criticism among conservatives about the president’s border and migrant policies.
The action opens the marketplace to any participant in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, many of whom are Latino.
Xavier Becerra, the nation’s top health official, said Thursday that many of those migrants have delayed getting care because they have not had coverage.
“They incur higher costs and debts when they do finally receive care,” Becerra told reporters on a call. “Making Dreamers eligible to enroll in coverage will improve their health and well-being and strengthen the health and well-being of our nation and our economy.”
The administration’s action changes the definition of “lawfully present” so DACA participants can legally enroll in the marketplace exchange.
Then-President Barack Obama launched the DACA initiative to shield from deportation immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children and to allow them to work legally in the country. However, the “Dreamers” were still ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance programs because they did not meet the definition of having a “lawful presence” in the U.S.
The administration decided not to expand eligibility for Medicaid for those migrants after receiving more than 20,000 comments on the proposal, senior officials said Thursday. Those officials declined to explain why the rule, which was first proposed last April, took so long to finalize. The delay meant the migrants were unable to enroll in the marketplace for coverage this year.
At one point, there were as many as 800,000 people enrolled in DACA at one time, though now that figure is roughly 580,000. The administration predicts only 100,000 will actually sign up because some may get coverage through their workplaces or other ways. Some may also be unable to afford coverage through the marketplace.
Other classes of immigrants, including asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status, are already eligible to purchase insurance through the marketplaces of the ACA, Obama’s 2010 health care law, often called “Obamacare.”
The president last year also unveiled a regulation that was aimed at fending off legal challenges to DACA; former President Donald Trump tried to end it, and it has bounced back and forth in federal court. Last fall, a federal judge said the current version can continue at least temporarily.
“President Biden and I will continue to do everything in our power to protect DACA, but it is only a temporary solution,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement. “Congress must act to ensure Dreamers have the permanent protections they deserve.”
Triumph Launches Dope Looking New Clothing Collection in the US
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Forget trips to your nearest Triumph dealer for gear. Just a few clicks will get you Triumph’s latest Heritage Collection and a lot more.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718296/triumph-online-clothing-usa/
Why I’ve Finally Lost Faith in Tesla
date: 2024-05-03, from: Heatmap News
When I finally succumbed and opened Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithm sized up my demographics and fed me two kinds of posts it thought would juice my engagement. First were the people shouting, incorrectly, that IPA is a bad style of beer and framing themselves as too hip to sip something so basic. Second: Posts from the loud, dedicated cadre of Threads users who are actively rooting against Tesla.
I understand the spite. When I bought my Model 3 five years ago, Elon Musk had begun his public heel turn. Some of the signs of what was to come were already there. However, Model 3 was the best reasonably affordable EV on the market, and the Supercharger network made it possible for us (California residents as we are) to own only an electric vehicle. You couldn’t say that for the electric Hyundai Kona.
In the time since then, Musk’s erratic or adolescent behavior has caused a rising tide of people, especially among the very online and the political left, to openly hope for and celebrate Tesla’s failures. I have not been among them. Musk’s brand was the best bet for getting Americans to quit internal combustion, a goal that’s more important to me than the man’s personal failings. Nor did I believe declarations that the company was doomed. No matter what crazy thing Elon Musk devoted his money or his attention to, it seemed like Tesla’s dominance in both the EV market and the stock market could paint over the crazy.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Last month, we covered the big problems with Tesla’s EV lineup. The only new vehicle released since 2020 was the Cybertruck, which is suffering through slow sales and a sudden unintended acceleration crisis. The sub-$30,000 model that would open up Tesla to the masses was sort of canceled, then sort of uncanceled, and now sits in limbo. Whatever that car’s fate, it’s clear that Musk is obsessed with self-driving software and his “robotaxi” at the expense of EVs actually driven by their human occupants.
But if a self-inflicted wound proves fatal, it might be the one Musk created this week by laying off essentially the entire team in charge of Tesla’s Supercharger network. That includes Rebecca Tinucci, his senior director of EV charging, who led the effort starting in 2022 to convince the other automakers to adopt Tesla’s formerly proprietary plug standard as their own.
Tinucci’s achievement was one of the company’s few undisputed success stories during the past several years of chaos. One by one, the other automakers ditched plug standards that were supported by third-party charging companies like EVgo and Electrify America to adopt the Tesla plug, which was christened the North American Charging Standard. Ford and Rivian EVs have begun this year to use a big part of Tesla’s robust Supercharger network. I cannot tell you how many excited, targeted Instagram ads I’ve gotten from Rivian celebrating the new access.
This was a huge deal for American EV adoption. Tesla’s fast-chargers are widespread, simple to use, and far more reliable than the oft-busted charging stations other EVs previously had to rely on. And it was a huge deal for Tesla, which created out of nowhere a huge new customer base ready to pay for its electricity.
And now, at what should be a moment of triumph at winning the charging wars, Musk has pivoted away. He wrote on his social network formerly named Twitter: “Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations.”
Frankly, this sounds like an attempt to hand-wave away a spectacular self-own. As The Verge reported: “Station installations were up 26% year over year, while the number of connectors was up 27%. It was a rare area of growth for the company, which has seen its sales and profits fall since last year as demand for EVs cools down.” In trying to become lean and innovative, all Musk managed to do was kneecap a part of Tesla that’s actually working.
The company has to keep making money while Musk busies himself with
trying to solve AI and autonomous driving. What with its inattention to
its EV lineup and shooting itself in the foot over Supercharging,
suddenly the winning options are few. Tesla’s other business is in home
energy, where it installs solar panels and sells its
Powerwall
home batteries. This is a lucrative market as energy storage becomes
increasingly important to the grid and home of the future — unless Musk
decides that, like selling cars, it’s too boring.
Given its huge lead in EV sales and EV charging, Tesla is forever just a few good decisions away from trending upward again. It’s just getting more difficult each day to imagine the company doing so.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/why-i-lost-faith-in-tesla
An Open Database Leaked Submissions to Utah’s Transphobic ‘Bathroom Bill’ Snitch Form
date: 2024-05-03, from: 404 Media Group
House Bill 257, “Sex-Based Designations for Privacy, Anti-Bullying, and Women’s Opportunities,” requires the state to investigate reports of people and institutions violating the “bathroom bill” law, but they left the submissions database wide open.
https://www.404media.co/utah-bathroom-bill-hotline-form/
Google Updates Ad Policy to Ban All AI-Generated Porn
date: 2024-05-03, from: 404 Media Group
Google will now ban all ads for “synthetic sexually explicit content,” even if the ad itself is not explicit.
https://www.404media.co/google-updates-ad-policy-to-ban-all-ai-generated-porn/
Bay Area News Group boys athlete of the week: Daniel Saavedra, Lincoln
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Lincoln’s Daniel Saavedra knocked in two runs in his team’s crucial league victory over Piedmont Hills.
Two San Jose police officers shot and wounded while investigating hotel disturbance
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
One officer has what police described as life-threatening injuries; the suspect was also seriously wounded after officers fired back during the South San Jose encounter.
Irish government hands Intel millions to offset energy price hikes
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Euro facility reportedly qualified under Ukraine Enterprise Crisis Scheme
Intel was awarded €30 million ($32.2 million) by Ireland last year as part of a state aid package for companies affected by energy price increases.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/intel_energy_ireland/
Bay Area News Group girls athlete of the week: Laila Wang, Archbishop Mitty
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
Archbishop Mitty’s Laila Wang won two badminton matches in sweeps, earned top seed in league tournament.
San Jose tenor Pasquale Esposito: On Puccini, Freddie Mercury and singing the songs that make audiences melt
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
The man behind the voice: He’s a singer from Caruso’s Naples neighborhood, but a chance meeting in Budapest brought him to the Bay Area.
John Boston | Our New Reality: City Speed Bumps Just Everywhere!
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
COLUMNIST NOTE: This pains me to add the clarification of “SATIRE” prior to this alleged prose. It’s like adding the disclaimer of, “LOOK OUT! WITCHES!!” before staging “MacBeth.” To be clear, our beloved city is NOT planning to install speed bumps every few dozen picas NOR are baristas about to be paid $60 an hour […]
The post John Boston | Our New Reality: City Speed Bumps Just Everywhere! appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/john-boston-our-new-reality-city-speed-bumps-just-everywhere/
Rick Barker | No Thank You
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
To all of the people who have voiced their support on these pages for a university in the Santa Clarita Valley, I would suggest they watch the news and tell me how all those universities are working out for communities all across the country. And if you want a really big laugh, watch some of […]
The post Rick Barker | No Thank You appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/rick-barker-no-thank-you/
Ron Perry | Another Round of Dots to Connect
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
Here we go again! It will never end because all of the left-wing voters in our state don’t want it to. Once again they do not know how to connect the dots. Well here are some pretty big dots. Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett explained Thursday, as law enforcement officers were dismantling a protest […]
The post Ron Perry | Another Round of Dots to Connect appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/ron-perry-another-round-of-dots-to-connect/
Diane Zimmerman | Ditching the Impact Fees?
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 12 that individuals, developers and home builders in California may protest impact fees commonly imposed by cities and counties to supposedly pay for new roads, schools, sewers and other public improvements as unconstitutional taxes. To those who have been paying these unconstitutional taxes, Chriss Street, with New California […]
The post Diane Zimmerman | Ditching the Impact Fees? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/diane-zimmerman-ditching-the-impact-fees/
Cinco de Mayo in San Jose: Preparations for weekend celebrations take on healing tone
date: 2024-05-03, from: San Jose Mercury News
The city and police have planned roadblocks for select events and contingencies for swelling crowds and traffic.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-05-03, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Good post by @heckj on what he learned and the tradeoffs he did when designing an API for strict swift concurrency support.
The best part are the regrets he has, good guidance for those of us starting on our strict journey:
https://rhonabwy.com/2024/04/29/designing-a-swift-library-with-data-race-safety/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112377304931427463
Big Brother Is Watching The Protesters, Sponsored By Corporate America
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Lever News
The intelligence community is using consumer tracking tools to spy on student protesters and everyone else they deem a threat.
Electrify America Had Its Biggest Year Yet In 2023 And 2024 Could Be Even Bigger
date: 2024-05-03, from: Inside EVs News
The company reports over 10 million charging sessions in 2023 and plans to have 5,000 chargers by year-end.
https://insideevs.com/news/718270/electrify-america-2023-charging-stats/
Big Oil’s Big Spending on U.S. Elections
date: 2024-05-03, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration across 88 counties as flooding there continues • 48 people have died in China after record rainfall caused a landslide that swept away part of a highway • Louisville is forecast to see a brief dry spell during the Kentucky Derby, but rain ahead of the race could still leave the track muddy.
THE TOP FIVE
- Oil and gas cash covering Trump’s legal fees
Individuals who’ve gotten wealthy from the oil and gas industry funneled more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee, the Trump 47 Committee, in the first three months of 2024, nearly equaling the $6.9 million the industry contributed during all of 2023, Heatmap’s Jeva Lange reported. Some of that money has gone toward covering the former president’s legal fees, via a political action committee that has mainly been used for legal spending and has paid 70 different lawyers and law firms. The committee has prioritized directing the funds toward the PAC ahead of the Republican National Committee (though these donations are still subject to the $5,000 annual individual contribution limit).
Fossil fuel interests “have made it super clear that they are willing to help pay Trump’s legal defense to help keep him out of jail,” Alex Witt, senior advisor on oil and gas for the strategic communications group Climate Power, told Lange.
- Other Republican candidates rake in oil and gas funds
Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry is also pouring money into other federal campaigns, Capital & Main reported. The candidate who has received the most oil and gas money so far this election cycle is August Pfluger, a Republican from Texas, who represents the 11th congressional district in the central part of the state. Pfluger is not in a tight reelection race but has been a consistent ally of the industry, including by challenging the Biden administration’s suspension of new liquefied natural gas export licenses. So far this election cycle, oil and gas interests have contributed seven times more money to Republicans and conservatives than to Democrats and liberals, campaign finance data from Open Secrets shows. The renewable energy sector has contributed nearly twice as much to Democrats as to Republicans over the same period.
Capital & Main asked the American Petroleum Institute, a major political contributor, why it favored GOP candidates. Scott Lauermann, an API spokesperson, responded: “API supports leaders from both parties who align with our policy priorities and recognize the importance of the U.S. natural gas and oil in supporting millions of American jobs, meeting demand for affordable and reliable energy, and reducing emissions through cleaner fuels.”
Pfluger
in the U.S. Capitol.
Photo
by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
- Treasury releases final EV tax credit eligibility
The Treasury Department and the Department of Energy finalized rules that determine which EVs are eligible for the $7,500 consumer tax credit and $4,000 used vehicle tax credit on Friday. More specifically, the rules govern what percentage of battery components and critical minerals have to be sourced from the U.S. or our trade allies, how to determine whether those components were made by a “foreign entity of concern,” and how manufacturers must document their sourcing to the government. The administration made only minor adjustments to the initial guidance released last year, such as a requirement to conduct more detailed critical mineral supply chain tracing beginning in 2027.
This is important news for automakers, who will have a more complete picture moving forward of the investments they’ll need to make in new supply chains and domestic manufacturing to ensure their vehicles qualify. For consumers, though, it won’t change much. The administration isn’t anticipating any immediate changes in the number of eligible vehicles, and buyers will still be able to claim the tax credit as a rebate off the listing price at the dealership, a program that started at the beginning of this year.
- U.S. concerned about Chinese offshore nuclear
China is taking steps toward putting floating nuclear reactors in the South China Sea, the Washington Post reported. Chinese state media has said that the reactors would power military facilities there, according to U.S. officials, and though the reactors are likely still several years away from being built, the plan is ringing alarm bells. “Our concern is that the closer they get to deploying floating nuclear power plants, the faster they’ll use them for purposes contrary to the national security of the United States and broader security in the region,” an unnamed senior State Department official told the Post.
Many countries are working on floating reactor designs, but most such projects are still in development. International standards have not been established for the reactors’ construction or safe operation.
- U.S. oil and gas heavyweight accused of OPEC collusion
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday approved oil giant Exxon Mobil’s acquisition of Permian Basin extraction company Pioneer Natural Resources — but only if the latter company’s founder and CEO, Scott Sheffield, refrained from taking a seat on the board. In doing so, the FTC accused Sheffield of colluding with OPEC, the organization that sets output levels for many of the world’s biggest oil producers. The goal of his cooperation, the agency said, was to “reduce output of oil and gas, which would result in Americans paying higher prices at the pump, to inflate profits for his company.” Pioneer issued a statement saying it was surprised by the FTC’s claim and disagreed with its contention, but that it would not take any steps to prevent the merger from closing.
THE KICKER
The first of two NASA satellites that will study the relationship between Earth’s poles and climate change could launch as soon as May 22, according to Space.com. Each roughly the size of a shoebox and equipped with a temperature sensor, the satellites that make up the PREFIRE mission — that’s Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment — will measure the amount of thermal energy that escapes via the poles.
https://heatmap.news/politics/big-oil-trump-campaign-china-nuclear
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
RSS > ActivityPub. I agree with this. And RSS is not exclusively polling based. If you support rssCloud protocol, as WordPress does, you can have instant news with RSS. It's built into FeedLand of course.
https://danq.me/2024/03/08/rss-is-better-than-activitypub/
Clock is ticking for NASA to fix bucket of issues before next Artemis mission
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Heat shield that looks like the surface of the Moon plus fiberglass doors on the launch platform on the list
A report from the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) provides new insight into the heat shield and power problems that bedeviled its Orion capsule in the uncrewed Artemis I mission and delayed the agency’s first crewed mission to the Moon in more than half a century.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/nasa_artemis_oig/
The Honda Pioneer 700 UTV Returns To Get You Out Into the Woods
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
It’s offered in a sick TrueTimber Camo colorway, too.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718294/2025-honda-pioneer-700-utv-announced/
Wheel-E Podcast: New Pedego e-bikes, potted batteries, Yadea visit, more
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes new electric bike models launched by Pedego, a discussion of the rising trend of potted e-bike batteries, Bosch-powered e-bikes enter Taiwan, I also entered Taiwan to test Gogoro’s new Pulse electric scooter, and I also went to China to visit Yadea’s factory for a tour and test riding. Oh, and a lot more!
https://electrek.co/2024/05/03/wheel-e-podcast-new-pedego-e-bikes-potted-batteries-yadea-visit-more/
The truth about Truth Social
date: 2024-05-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
It’s been just over a month since Trump Media & Technology Group — ticker symbol DJT — started trading on the Nasdaq. The initial public offering has come with lawsuits, wild swings in the share price and potential windfalls for former President Donald Trump. We unpack it all. Plus, Apple reported lackluster results on Thursday, and we’ll take the pulse of the comic book sector ahead of Free Comic Book Day.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-truth-about-truth-social
Nissan Partners With Battery-Swapping Scooter Company
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The Spanish EV Silence firm will expand its footprint throughout the continent in 2024.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718291/nissan-silence-ev-partnership-europe/
Cloud Big Three take lion’s share as market expands 21%
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Q1 2024 sees strongest growth since Q3 2022
The global cloud market showed strong growth for the first quarter of this year, with the big three providers continuing to consolidate their stranglehold over this vital area of IT services.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/global_cloud_market_growth/
BMW Motorrad Days Returns To Barber Motorsports Park
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Last year’s event was such a hit that they just had to do it again this year.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718151/bmw-motorrad-days-americas-2024/
Turkey suspends trade with Israel
date: 2024-05-03, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Turkey says trade with Israel — worth around $7 billion a year — will halt until a permanent ceasefire is secured in Gaza and sufficient humanitarian aid is allowed in. Plus, the Japanese government appears to have spent $35 billion propping up the yen this week, according to data released by the Bank of Japan. However, the weak yen is boosting tourism, and some people aren’t happy about that.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/turkey-suspends-trade-with-israel
The Kremlin brands comments on Ukraine by France’s Macron and Britain’s Cameron as ‘dangerous’
date: 2024-05-03, from: Associated Press, World News
The Kremlin’s spokesman says recent statements by France’s president and Britain’s foreign secretary about the war in Ukraine are “dangerous” and will deepen international tension around the conflict.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-cameron-weapons-3eb749fff9fb9593f23d42c9d920c9aa
Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays
date: 2024-05-03, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf galaxy IC 776. This swirling collection of new and old stars is located in the constellation Virgo, in the Virgo galaxy cluster, 100 million light-years from Earth. Although IC 776 is a dwarf galaxy, it’s also classified as a SAB-type or ‘weakly barred’ spiral. This highly […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-hunts-visible-light-sources-of-x-rays/
P&B: Cory Dransfeldt
date: 2024-05-03, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>This is the 36th edition of <em>People and Blogs</em>, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Cory Dransfeldt and his blog, <a href="https://coryd.dev">coryd.dev</a></p>To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
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Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
My name is Cory Dransfeldt and I’m located in Camarillo, California (a suburban town north of Los Angeles and where I grew up). I studied business in college and minored in economics. At the time I thought it was a practical choice and I was also terrified of the math involved in studying computer science. In hindsight, I wish I’d made a different choice, but don’t necessarily regret the one I made at the time.
My first job out of college was working on the website of the local newspaper (I started as a freelance employee during college and became full-time after). This role was focused on updating the website with content the night before the print edition became available and was done in a utilitarian, but reliable Django-based CMS. I picked up some basic front end development knowledge working on multimedia projects and building my own tools to make the job easier.
I began to learn JavaScript by writing themes for Bowtie and Ecoute as part of the MacThemes forum community. I expanded my web development knowledge by volunteering to build websites for metal bands I remain a fan of and friends with like Cynic and Augury. I gained a lot of knowledge and ended up with merch, concert tickets and some really great experiences out if it all.
I’ve built a career out of being a self-taught frontend-focused developer and have worked at startups, nationally recognized retailers (I’ve worked on every eCommerce stack short of Shopify) and several different SaaS providers. The backend developer I worked with at my first startup told me to learn languages and pickup frameworks as needed — that advice continues to serve me well.
Unsurprisingly, programming and blogging remain my favorite hobbies, along with searching for and discovering new music (I enjoy everything from artists like Tom Waits to punk acts like NoMeansNo and myriad death metal artists like Carcass, Autopsy and newer groups like Tomb Mold). If I’m not at the computer, I’m spending time with my lovely wife of 9 years, our two children and our 4 rescue dogs (all terrier/chihuahua mixes). I also mentor via Underdog Devs and help organize the Eleventy meetup. I’ve been getting tattooed more over the past few years and am in the process of completing a sleeve on my right arm but am not sure that qualifies as a hobby.
What’s the story behind your blog?
I started blogging after I graduated from college in 2010 and have managed to recover posts dating back to 2013 that I’ve imported into the current iteration on my site. I was inspired by blogs like Daring Fireball and MacStories, though I don’t follow them quite as closely as I once did. I viewed blogging as both a creative outlet and as a way to continue practicing web development by having my own project to experiment on and iterate with.
I started out on Tumblr, before moving to the first version of Kirby, then on to Statamic, Jekyll, Next.js, omg.lol’s weblog service and now, finally (and quite happily) Eleventy. All of these presented me with an opportunity to learn new languages, frameworks, tools and development approaches. I love the simplicity and flexibility of Eleventy and adore the community around both it and omg.lol. I like the simplicity of blogging under my own name and settled on a domain name that reflects both that and the development/technology focus.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
My creative process tends to be very informal — I read a lot of articles via the blogs I follow through RSS and enjoy both audio and written books. I’m interested in web development, the state of the industry and music, so my posts typically center around those topics (and, occasionally, how they connect or overlap). I’ll often write a single draft, edit it for clarity, brevity and correctness before my confidence in the post wanes and publish it.
I want to grow into doing more research-focused writing to compliment these briefer pieces and am excited about that approach as an area where I can grow as a writer.
I write posts in markdown using Bear and then insert Eleventy frontmatter that I store as a snippet in Sublime Text.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I typically write in an office that I share with my wife — I work from home and have a corner desk with my personal machine (a typically docked M2 MacBook Air), work machine and a lightly-used TV in between. I struggle to concentrate in silence and will typically write and program with death or black metal playing. I find the music helps me focus and the lack of intelligible lyrics keeps it from distracting me.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
My blog is hosted at Netlify and I pay for the pro plan while staying well under its limits, but this allows me the piece of mind to rebuild the site regularly to update my now page and other dynamically populated elements like my links page.
I moved my domains to DNSimple last year after Gandi was acquired.
The code for my site is versioned and available to view at GitHub. I use a GitHub action to trigger hourly rebuilds of my site, another to post content from a feed that combines my blog posts, shared links, read books and watched movies to Mastodon, another to add my blog posts to my README, another to test my site’s performance using a Speedlify instance and yet another to retrieve and cache the chart data for music I’ve listened to over the last week from the charts I derive from Plex (this is then syndicated to Mastodon via the aforementioned feed and action).
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
If I were to start a blog today, I suppose I’d start from where I’ve arrived at now, but I don’t think I could’ve arrived here without the experience and discovery I went through along the way. I’m not a particularly great designer, so I favor simplicity and performance in presentation and, from a technical perspective, 11ty really lends itself to that. I think I’ve found a set of tools and a community that I deeply enjoy engaging with.
Financial question since the web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost or does it generate some revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?
The expenses to run my site are fairly straightforward: hosting (Netlify), analytics (Clicky) and feed hosting/analytics (Feedpress). A quick estimate for a given year would be around $400 which I’m happy with for something I enjoy so much. There’s also a tiny fee monthly for a Backblaze B2 bucket I use to cache JSON used to populate my links page (they’re fetched from the Readwise Reader API which is paginated and rate-limited — this allows me to persist link data and puts less of a burden on their service).
I’m not opposed to bloggers monetizing their sites, but I appreciate when, say, content is clearly marked as sponsored. I have a Buy Me a Coffee link in my site’s navigation, but nothing outside of that — if someone wants to send something along I appreciate it and, if not, that’s totally fine too!
I support a few larger publications that started on and have since left Substack. Among my favorites are Paris Marx’s Disconnect and Garbage Day.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
I’ll start off by saying I love the resurgence of blogs and personal sites we’re seeing. I have a blogroll on my site with some of my favorites (they’re also bundled into a .opml file that you can download). Robb Knight’s blog remains one of my favorites — the design is stellar and he’s constantly experimenting with and adding new features. I also thoroughly enjoy Adam Newbold’s writing and seeing what he’s working on for omg.lol. I could go on and on I love Keenan’s writing, Mayank is a gifted developer and similarly talented writer, Sara Joy is exceedingly kind and has created awesome projects like RS.S JOY.lol dev. The internet’s changing and seeing everyone writing and building makes me so happy.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
If you want to mentor some great, deserving folks, check out Underdog Devs. If you’re building with Eleventy we’d love to have you present at the meetup. The best book I’ve finished this year has been NoMeansNo: From Obscurity to Oblivion — they’re my favorite band so, naturally, I’m biased, but it’s a fun read and is built around interviews with the band, their friends, family and other popular musicians.
I don’t have any active side projects at the moment (but I’m kicking around some ideas) — fitting everything in is tough! I’d love to build something that makes it easier for small bands to quickly build lightweight websites that they can host anywhere and really bring my journey full circle — a static site generator as a service with portable code and easy CMS integration? More robust than LinkTree, with less overhead than Squarespace and more open than both. I’m more interested in supporting musicians than I am in monetizing anything I suppose.
I’m also excited to see what Robb Knight is cooking up with EchoFeed.
Thanks for reading! I post a lot on my site and on Mastodon so come say hi!
This was the 36th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Cory. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.
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This Gorgeous Yamaha XSR900 Might Make You Forget The GP
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
If you can’t buy your own retro-faired XSR900 at the dealer, homemade is fine.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718264/hoobue-yamaha-xsr900-cs-fairing/
Some scientists can’t stop using AI to write research papers
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If you read about ‘meticulous commendable intricacy’ there’s a chance a boffin had help
Linguistic and statistical analyses of scientific articles suggest that generative AI may have been used to write an increasing amount of scientific literature.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/ai_scientific_articles/
The Oil Money Funding Trump’s Legal Defense
date: 2024-05-03, from: Heatmap News
With $6.4 million, you could pay to remove 4,923 tons of carbon from the atmosphere. You could buy 533 used Chevy Bolts — far more than enough to give one to every incoming freshman at Swarthmore College — or supply an entire county with low- and no-emissions buses.
Or, if you’re the oil and gas industry, you could donate it to the former president of the United States to help cover his mounting legal fees.
According to new analysis by the strategic communications group Climate Power, allies of Big Oil pumped more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee in just the first three months of 2024 — on pace to surpass the $6.9 million the industry contributed in all of 2023. “From the private equity firm execs to investors to anti-climate activists like Linda McMahon, Trump’s Small Business administrator — they all want Trump to undo our climate and clean energy progress,” Alex Witt, Climate Power’s senior advisor on oil and gas, told me. “And they want their jobs back.”
It’s no secret that the oil and gas industry has bolstered Trump’s money-strapped campaign. The recent slate of donations to a fundraising vehicle called the Trump 47 Committee, has allowed the former president to accept large checks from individuals and prioritize the allotment of those funds. In this way, the Trump 47 Committee works like a one-stop shop for well-heeled supporters like Linda McMahon, formerly Trump’s Small Business Administration head and a vocal proponent and investor in the Keystone XL pipeline and promoter of offshore drilling, and Kelcy Warren, the billionaire CEO of the pipeline operator Energy Transfer Partners. Both maxed out the committee’s $814,600 allowed contribution.
Trump 47 is technically a joint fundraising committee, a type of entity allowed by the Federal Election Commission to bundle donations going to multiple channels. This is nice for donors, who can cut a single check that then gets divided among various buckets — in this case, the Trump campaign, the Save America PAC, the RNC, and 39 different state committees, in that sequence. Critics say this form of fundraising is a way around election laws that aim to limit how much a wealthy individual can donate to a given candidate. Importantly, super PACs can’t donate to candidates or their campaigns, or coordinate things like messaging with them; the money raised by a joint fundraising committee is directed by a candidate (including into PACs), giving them fuller influence over the donations. (Joe Biden uses joint fundraising committees, too.)
The Trump 47 Committee has prioritized funneling these donations toward a PAC that covers the president’s legal fees, rather than toward the Republican National Committee, which is also struggling financially. While this strategy does not allow donors to get around the individual contribution limit of $5,000 per year to a political action committee, it does mean that after the first $6,600 of a donation made to the Trump 47 Committee (which goes toward Trump’s primary and general election accounts), the subsequent $5,000 of each donation is earmarked for the Save America PAC.
As a “leadership PAC,” Save America can’t be used on Trump’s campaign activities; instead, it is structured to cover administrative expenses. That has kept it plenty busy: The PAC has covered fees for 70 different lawyers and law firms, USA Today reports, with legal spending making up about 85% of its overall use. Between January and the end of March, Save America put a total of $8.5 million toward Trump’s legal woes, including $5.5 million in March alone. (Fossil fuel allies have also donated large amounts to MAGA Inc., a PAC that has refunded millions to Save America.)
The higher donation limits of a JFC make it more appealing for supporters who want to cut big checks, and most individuals quickly pass the $6,600 threshold. In my review of the 30 oil and gas industry executives, investors, and allies who donated to the Trump 47 Committee, according to Climate Power, I found none who donated less than $100,000.
The Trump campaign has been quick to defend itself against allegations that it is prioritizing ex-president over party by pointing out that “out of an individual donor’s maximum contribution of $824,600, less than 1% goes to Save America.” (The Trump campaign had not replied to Heatmap’s request for comment by press time.) It’s true that of the $6.4 million Big Oil allies donated to the Trump 47 Committee this year, roughly 2% has ended up in Save America’s coffers, per my own back of the envelope math.
What’s shocking isn’t how much money this amounts to in the grand scheme of the obscene amounts of capital going toward defending Trump, however. Rather, it’s that oil and gas allies — including Ray Washburn, on Sunoco’s board of directors; Peter Leidel, an oil and coal company director; and Robert Mercer, who’s funded climate misinformation — have given gobs of money to help defeat criminal charges against a former holder of, and candidate for, the presidency of the United States. For this there is no precedent. Fossil fuel interests “have made it super clear that they are willing to help pay Trump’s legal defense to help keep him out of jail,” Witt told me.
As an especially ironic footnote, Biden has in certain senses been better for the oil and gas industry than his predecessor. A more unpredictable leader, Trump was evidently a second or third choice among for many of the fossil fuel industry’s biggest donors among the crowded field of Republican candidates, both in 2016 and this time around. Oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm, for example, initially avoided committing to a Trump second term — only to come around to such an extent that he was even rumored to have helped the former president meet his recent $454 million bond.
It’s, frankly, a canny move. Plenty has already been written about Big Oil effectively buying influence over policy. Just yesterday, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who has received $750,000 from the fossil fuel industry since his election in 2010, pulled the Senate’s Big Oil disinformation hearing off track by ranting about “climate change alarmism.”
It doesn’t take much creativity to imagine what Trump might do for his friends if he retakes the highest office.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that he would deliver Big Oil’s wish list wrapped up in a bow,” Witt said.
https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-47-committee-big-oil
Atlassian outsources office drudgery to GenAI agents
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Rovo will write to-do lists, create graphics, become virtual colleagues to whom you offload scutwork
Atlassian is the latest vendor to have a crack at addressing the perennial problem of enterprises scattering data across multiple applications and then finding it’s impossible to understand what’s happening and why.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/atlassian_rovo_generative_ai/
May the fourth be with you and this 3D printed stormtrooper helmet
date: 2024-05-03, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Our Maker in Residence decided to 3D print a full-size stormtrooper helmet to wear at work on Star Wars Day.
The post May the fourth be with you and this 3D printed stormtrooper helmet appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/may-the-fourth-be-with-you-and-this-3d-printed-stormtrooper-helmet/
Faculty express disappointment in administration after webinar
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Some professors said the University has failed to provide the transparency the USC community deserves.
The post Faculty express disappointment in administration after webinar appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/05/03/210595/
UK inertia on LLMs and copyright is ‘de facto endorsement’
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Lords committee slams government response to complaints from creators
A committee of UK legislators has slammed the government for its response to alleged copyright theft as a “de facto endorsement” of the way tech companies build large language models.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/uk_lords_llm_copyright/
Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger, US official says
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger’s junta to expel U.S. forces.
The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington’s fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with U.S. troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital.
The move by Russia’s military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts U.S. and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations’ military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine.
It also raises questions about the fate of U.S. installations in the country following a withdrawal. “(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable,” the official said.
Asked about the Reuters report, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin played down any risk to American troops or the chance that Russian troops might get close to U.S. military hardware.
“The Russians are in a separate compound and don’t have access to U.S. forces or access to our equipment,” Austin told a press conference in Honolulu.
“I’m always focused on the safety and protection of our troops … But right now, I don’t see a significant issue here in terms of our force protection.”
The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from Western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, U.S. troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso.
At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African nations, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent.
Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia’s closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight jihadist insurgents.
Russia has described relations with the United States as “below zero” because of U.S. military and financial aid for Ukraine in its effort to defend against invading Russian forces.
The U.S. official said Nigerien authorities had told President Joe Biden’s administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number.
After the coup, the U.S. military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez.
It was not immediately clear what U.S. military equipment remained at Airbase 101.
The United States built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters with armed drones.
Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel region, who may be able to expand without the presence of U.S. forces and intelligence capabilities.
Niger’s move to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior U.S. officials raised concerns including the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium.
While the U.S. message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear U.S. forces could not be on a base with Russian forces.
“They did not take that well,” the official said.
A two-star U.S. general has been sent to Niger to try to arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal.
While no decisions have been taken on the future of U.S. troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to U.S. Africa Command’s home bases, located in Germany.
May 2, 2024
date: 2024-05-03, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
More than 2,000 people have been arrested at protests on college and university campuses around the country opposing Israel’s military strikes on Gaza since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, and the subsequent humanitarian crisis there. It is unclear how many of the protesters are students, as many of those arrested have not been affiliated with the universities, or how many of the arrests will result in charges—sometimes arrests at protests are designed simply to clear an area.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-2-2024
My T-group in Big Sur, 1969
date: 2024-05-03, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, From time to time, I share with you some of my personal history so that you understand where my values come from. The late 1960s was a time of experimentation — “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” and a lot more. The giant baby-boom generation was heading out into the world that seemed to many of us to be nuts. Some of us joined cults. Others, urban communes. Others, utopian communities in the countryside.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/my-t-group-in-big-sur-1969
I can fix this PC, boss, but I’ll need to play games for hours to do it
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Loyal Wingman has fond memories of memory register exceptions
On Call The working week is no game, which is why The Register eases readers into the weekend with a fresh instalment of On Call – our weekly reader-contribute tales recalling the lighter side of tech support.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/on_call/
Timothy Chow on the NF consistency proof and Lean
date: 2024-05-03, from: Logic Matters blog
Timothy Chow has sent a long comment, adding to the discussion following the previous post NF is really consistent. I think the points he makes are interesting enough to highlight as a standalone guest post. He writes: First, let me congratulate Randall and Sky on a magnificent achievement! I’m afraid I have to agree with […]
The post Timothy Chow on the NF consistency proof and Lean appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/05/03/timothy-chow-on-the-nf-consistency-proof-and-lean/
Austin: US sees no indications of intent to hurt US troops building Gaza pier
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said late Thursday he does not see signs that Hamas is going to attack U.S. forces who are building a pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver aid to the war-torn strip by sea.
“I don’t see any indications currently that there is an active intent to do that,” Austin told reporters at a press conference in Hawaii.
Austin stressed that the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, CENTCOM chief Gen. Erik Kurilla, has put several security measures in place to keep the troops who are building the pier and helping with aid distribution safe.
“Our allies are also providing security in that area as well, and so it’s going to require that we continue to coordinate with them very closely to ensure that if anything happens that, you know, our troops are protected,” Austin said.
The new port is just southwest of Gaza City. Last week a mortar attack targeted the port site but officials said no one was hurt.
“This is an accident, a very serious accident waiting to happen,” Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA.
Bowman, who is also a U.S. Army veteran, said Thursday that efforts to feed those in desperate need are “laudable,” but security concerns since the inception of this U.S. mission appear to remain unanswered while some of the plans are still being developed.
“The kind of terrorists, the kind of person – I hesitate to use that term – that would … wage the October 7 terror attack, use human shields and hold innocent men, women and children as hostages, those are the very same people that will not hesitate to attack those trying to bring food and water to hungry and thirsty people,” Bowman said.
Crews from the USNS Roy P. Benavidez and several Army vessels started building the floating platform for the operation last week, according to a senior military official. Next will come construction of the causeway, which will be anchored to the shore by the Israel Defense Forces.
U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to complete construction and begin operations this month.
The senior military official told reporters the Pentagon expects deliveries to “begin at about 90 trucks a day … and then quickly increase to 150 trucks a day.”
Aid has been slow to get into Gaza because of long backups of vehicles at Israeli inspection points. The U.S. and other nations have been air-dropping food into Gaza, but each military plane only holds about one to three truckloads of food, a U.S. official told VOA.
Aid organizations have said several hundred truckloads of food are needed in Gaza each day.
Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken hostage. In the nearly seven months since the attack, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gazan health officials.
Today in SCV History (May 3)
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1842 – California’s first mining district established in SCV; Ygnacio del Valle, chairman. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-may-3/
First Bosch-powered electric bikes enter Taiwan thanks to Tern
date: 2024-05-03, from: Electrek Feed
It feels like e-bikes powered by Bosch’s popular mid-drive electric motors have been around in just about every market for as long as many of us can remember. But there are still major markets getting their first taste of the highly-engineered drivetrains. Bosch’s mid-drive motors are now entering Taiwan, rolling in on Tern’s Vektron and Quick Haul e-bikes.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/first-bosch-powered-electric-bikes-enter-taiwan-thanks-to-tern/
Boffins suggest astronauts should build a Wall of Death on the Moon
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Relax! It’s for low-gravity exercise
Astronauts living on the Moon will need to maintain a strict exercise regimen to avoid physical deterioration due to the low gravity, and one proposed solution will have them bouncing off the walls to do so.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/astronauts_exercise_moon/
Webcurios 03/05/24
date: 2024-05-03, from: Web Curios blog
Reading Time: 37 minutes Hello everyone, hello hello! For those of us in the UK, this weekend is a GLORIOUS THREE-DAY WEEKEND, and oh look what a surprise it’s going to rain all weekend FFS BRITAIN CAN YOU DO NOTHING RIGHT?!?! Still, on the plus side, at least we get to watch some of the worst cnuts in the…https://webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-03-05-24/
Europol op shutters 12 scam call centers and cuffs 21 suspected fraudsters
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cops prevented crims from bilking victims out of more than €10m - but couldn’t stop crime against art
A Europol-led operation dubbed “Pandora” has shut down a dozen phone scam centers, and arrested 21 suspects. The cops reckon the action prevented criminals from bilking victims out of more than €10 million (£8.6 million, $11 million).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/operation_pandora_europol/
Damaged in war, a vibrant church in Ukraine rises as a symbol of the country’s faith and culture
date: 2024-05-03, from: Associated Press, World News
An extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka this Orthodox Easter season.
Indonesia sneakily buys spyware, claims Amnesty International
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A ‘murky’ web sees many purchases run through Singapore in a way that hides potential users
Indonesia has acquired spyware and surveillance technologies through a “murky network” that extends into Israel, Greece, Singapore and Malaysia for equipment sourcing, according to Amnesty International.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/amnesty_indonesia_surveillance/
Faculty march in support of student protest rights
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The United USC group marched from Bovard Auditorium to Trousdale gates and read a prepared statement.
The post Faculty march in support of student protest rights appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/05/02/faculty-march-in-support-of-student-protest-rights/
US maternal mortality rates return to prepandemic level
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-maternal-mortality-rates-return-to-prepandemic-level-/7596212.html
What’s really motivating the protests?
date: 2024-05-03, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, I’ve been spending the last several weeks trying to find out what’s really going on with the campus protests. I’ve met with students at Berkeley, visited with faculty at Columbia University, and talked with young people and faculty at many other universities.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/whats-really-motivating-the-protests
Familiar face to lead Hart district superintendent search
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
The governing board of the William S. Hart Union High School District has tabbed Leadership Associates as the search firm that will find external candidates to fill the district’s impending open superintendent position. The decision was made during the board’s regular meeting on Wednesday following a two-plus-hour special meeting held earlier in the day to […]
The post <strong>Familiar face to lead Hart district superintendent search</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/familiar-face-to-lead-hart-district-superintendent-search/
Apple sales slip, but investors offered bite of $110B stock buyback
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Mac sales rose, iPads predicted to soar, and AI is riding to the rescue
Apple has announced the biggest stock buyback in US history: a $110 billion plan to slurp shareholders’ scrip.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/apple_q2_2024/
Chinese government website security is often worryingly bad, say Chinese researchers
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Bad configurations, insecure versions of jQuery, and crummy cookies are some of myriad problems
Exclusive Five Chinese researchers examined the configurations of nearly 14,000 government websites across the country and found worrying lapses that could lead to malicious attacks, according to a not-yet-peer-reviewed study released last week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/china_gov_web_vuln/
Occidental administration agrees to bring divestment proposal to Board of Trustees in June
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)
According to a memo obtained by The Occidental titled “Investment Committee Response to SJP Proposal,” Ronald Hahn, Chair of Occidental’s Board of Trustees’ Investment Committee, has agreed to bring Oxy Students Justice for Palestine (Oxy SJP) and Oxy Jewish Voice for Peace’s (Oxy JVP) divestment proposal to the Board of Trustees next meeting, in June.* […]
The post Occidental administration agrees to bring divestment proposal to Board of Trustees in June appeared first on The Occidental.
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-05-03, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
You know what really grinds my gears?
At some point some real jerk-of-a-boss told his team, “I don’t care if it’s not done. Ship it anyway and we’ll charge the customer to get the rest,” and it actually worked. And now we get games that require DLCs to play anything. I hate that we fell for it and that guy probably got promoted.
(This is not a commentary on Unity’s new CEO… but in a way…)
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112374658129898406
US remains committed to diplomacy despite North Korea’s nuclear escalation
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
washington — The U.S. says it has been trying to engage North Korea by sending messages repeatedly despite Pyongyang’s apparent lack of interest in dialogue and its escalation of threats in the region.
“We have sent such messages in multiple ways – through third parties and directly, orally and in writing – and have included specific proposals on humanitarian cooperation and other topics for discussion,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“We have also emphasized our willingness to discuss practical steps both sides could take to address the security situation in the region,” the spokesperson continued via email to VOA’s Korean Service on April 26.
“To date, however, the DPRK has shown no indication it is interested in engaging. Instead, we have seen a marked increase in the scope and scale of DPRK provocations, which have only served to raise regional tensions and increase the risk of accidental or unintentional escalation,” the spokesperson added.
North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korea has been conducting multiple missile and rocket tests, including what it said was its first nuclear counterattack drills using “super-large” artillery rockets carrying mock nuclear warheads on April 22.
Pyongyang has also ramped up its cooperation with Russia, sending arms to support Moscow’s fight against Ukraine. Russia has been shipping refined petroleum to North Korea above the limit of 500,000 barrels annually set by the U.N. Security Council, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.
The North Korean mission to the U.N. did not respond to a VOA inquiry on its reaction to the U.S. description of its efforts made to resume talks.
Dialogue between the two has been deadlocked since October 2019 when working-level talks failed to reconcile differences over denuclearization and sanctions relief that became apparent a few months earlier at a summit in Hanoi.
Washington has maintained that it is open to renewed dialogue on Pyongyang’s nuclear program without preconditions.
Former U.S. officials suggested that the Biden administration provided the unusually detailed account of its efforts to engage Pyongyang in response to criticisms saying it has not done enough.
“The Biden team is quite sensitive to the attacks coming from ‘liberals,’ especially critics who claim the administration has not attached sufficient priority to North Korea and has not done enough to pursue diplomacy with Pyongyang,” said Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea.
Revere added that some of these critics are arguing that Washington needs to change its approach, offer concessions and engage in arms control and threat reduction talks with North Korea. He said this explains not only the administration’s detailed description of its efforts at talks but its willingness to discuss “interim steps” toward denuclearization.
Two senior U.S. officials said in March that Washington is willing to consider such steps and discuss sanctions and confidence-building measures.
Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said the Biden administration may be trying to address China’s call for talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
“It’s possible Beijing may have laid out a quid pro quo for any support with North Korea by calling on the U.S. to up its efforts to engage with Pyongyang – hence the statement” from the State Department, said Rapson.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference in Beijing after talks with Chinese officials that he “encouraged” Beijing “to press Pyongyang to end its dangerous behavior and engage in dialogue.”
Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, said, “The Biden administration wants to make it clear, for the record and as we approach the November presidential election, that the administration was proactive in its policy toward North Korea and they did everything possible” to have Pyongyang “return to negotiations.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-03, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Twitter is changing how the block button works.
https://www.engadget.com/x-is-changing-how-the-block-button-works-225338769.html
US tax service to audit wealthy more, fix disparity on lower-income Blacks
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. tax agency, said Thursday that it has taken steps to address a wide disparity in audit rates between Black taxpayers and other filers. And it said it is more closely examining the returns of larger numbers of wealthy people and major companies.
“We are overhauling compliance efforts to advance our commitment to fair, equitable, and effective tax administration and hold ourselves accountable to taxpayers we serve,” according to an annual update from the agency.
A study from January 2023 involving university researchers and the Treasury Department found that IRS data-driven algorithms selected Black taxpayers for auditing at up to 4.7 times the rate of non-Black taxpayers. The study said the IRS disproportionately audited people who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is aimed at low- to moderate-income workers and families: While Black taxpayers accounted for 21% of the claims for that tax break, they were the focus of 43% of the audits concerning the credit.
“We have taken swift initial action to dramatically reduce the number of those audits. We have also made changes to the selection criteria for those audits,” IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said.
Werfel, who was sworn in a little more than a year ago, has testified before Congress about the issue and last September he wrote to the Senate Finance Committee that the IRS would make changes.
The discriminatory audits, he told reporters, “degrade trust in our tax system.”
Werfel and the IRS have tried over the past year to show how money from the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s big climate, health and tax law, has helped to modernize the agency and improve taxpayer services.
He also said that people making less than $400,000 per year would not be subject to more audits because of the new funding.
Noting the promise to keep audit rates for people making $400,000 per year and less at 2018 levels, he said on Thursday that “we haven’t in any way exceeded that rate.”
He added: “There is no new wave of audits coming for middle and low income” taxpayers — “that is not in our plans in any way, shape or form.”
The IRS is focusing the next year on using the funding boost to conduct higher rates of audits on suspected wealthy tax cheats after having collected hundreds of millions of back taxes this year.
Ensuring that people pay their taxes is one of the tax collection agency’s biggest challenges. The audit rate of millionaires fell by more than 70% from 2010 to 2019 and the rate on large corporations dropped by more than 50%.
The IRS plans to raise audit rates on companies with assets of more than $250 million to 22.6% in 2026, from an 8.8% rate in the tax year 2019. It also plans to increase audit rates by tenfold on large complex partnerships with assets of more than $10 million.
“While the IRS has accomplished a lot so far with IRA funding,” he said, “we need to do much more to make improvements and transform the IRS for the benefit of taxpayers.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/7596173.html
Arizona’s governor signs bill to repeal 1864 abortion law
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
phoenix — Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has relegated a Civil War-era ban on most abortions to the past by signing a bill Thursday to repeal it.
Hobbs said the move was just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona. The repeal of the 1864 law that the state Supreme Court recently reinstated won’t take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which typically happens in June or July.
Abortion rights advocates say they’re hopeful a court will step in to prevent what could be a confusing landscape of access for girls and women across Arizona as laws are introduced and then reversed.
The effort to repeal the long-dormant law, which bans all abortions except those done to save a patient’s life, won final legislative approval Wednesday in a 16-14 vote of the Senate, as two GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats.
Hobbs denounced “a ban that was passed by 27 men before Arizona was even a state, at a time when America was at war over the right to own slaves, a time before women could even vote.”
“This ban needs to be repealed, I said it in 2022 when Roe was overturned, and I said it again and again as governor,” Hobbs said during the bill signing.
In early April, Arizona’s Supreme Court voted to restore the 1864 law that provides no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. The majority opinion suggested doctors could be prosecuted and sentenced to up to five years in prison if convicted.
Democrats, who are the minority in the Legislature, struck back with the help of a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate to advance a repeal in a matter of weeks to Hobbs’ desk.
A crowd of lawmakers — mostly women — joined in the signing ceremony with celebratory airs, including taking selfies and exchanging congratulations among Democrats.
The scene stood in sharp contrast to Wednesday’s vote in the Senate that extended for hours as Republicans described their motivations in personal, emotional and even biblical terms — including graphic descriptions of abortion procedures and amplified audio recordings of a fetal heartbeat.
Meanwhile, across the country, an abortion rights initiative in South Dakota submitted far more signatures than required to make the ballot this fall. In Florida, a ban took effect against most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people even know they are pregnant.
In Arizona, once the repeal takes effect in the fall, a 2002 statute banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy will become the state’s prevailing abortion law.
Whether the 1864 law will be enforced in the coming months depends on who is asked. The anti-abortion-rights group defending the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the Supreme Court’s decision becomes final, which hasn’t yet occurred.
Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a motion Wednesday asking the court to prevent a pause in abortion services until the repeal takes effect. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined in that action.
The Supreme Court set deadlines next week for briefings on the motion.
https://www.voanews.com/a/arizona-s-governor-signs-bill-to-repeal-1864-abortion-law-/7596170.html
Lateral Thinking
date: 2024-05-03, from: Memo Garcia blog
For me, lateral thinking is: Solving problems using an indirect and creative approach. Using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that might not be obtainable by using traditional step-by-step logic. One “simple” approach to “think outside the box” is: Understanding WHAT you want to achieve. Understanding WHY you want to achieve it. Knowing the rules of the game (constraints like environment, budget, physical limitations, etc.) Reframing WHAT you want in a way that ignores these rules of the game.
https://memo.mx/posts/lateral-thinking/
Trump wants to restore travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
Presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says if elected he would restore a travel ban on some majority-Muslim countries on the first day of his new administration. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports.
Simplicity vs familiarity
date: 2024-05-03, from: Memo Garcia blog
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we interact with technology, and I’ve come to realize that being familiar with something doesn’t always mean it’s simple. In fact, it can sometimes make things more complicated. For example, when I’m working on code or documentation, I find myself getting too close to the issue. It’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and get caught up in the details. That’s why it’s important for us to take a step back, look at our work from a different perspective, and ask for feedback.
https://memo.mx/posts/simplicity-vs-familiarity/
Optimizations
date: 2024-05-03, from: Memo Garcia blog
In order to make it faster, we need to understand why it is slow.
https://memo.mx/posts/optimization/
Judge declares mistrial in lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib prisoners
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury said it was deadlocked in the trial of a military contractor accused of contributing to the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq two decades ago.
The mistrial came in the jury’s eighth day of deliberations. The deliberations went far longer than the trial itself.
The eight-member civil jury in Alexandria deadlocked on accusations the civilian interrogators who were supplied to the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004 had conspired with soldiers there to abuse detainees as a means of “softening them up” for questioning.
The trial was the first time a U.S. jury heard claims brought by Abu Ghraib survivors in the 20 years since photos of detainee mistreatment — accompanied by smiling U.S. soldiers inflicting the abuse — shocked the world during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Reston, Virginia-based CACI had argued that it wasn’t complicit in the detainees’ abuse. It said that its employees had minimal interaction with the three plaintiffs in the case and that any liability for their mistreatment belonged to the government, not CACI.
Multiple jurors told The Associated Press that most of the jury sided with the plaintiffs, but they declined to give an exact numerical breakdown among the eight-member panel.
CACI, as one of its defenses, has argued it shouldn’t be liable for any misdeeds by its employees if they were under the control and direction of the Army.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers tried to bar CACI from making that argument at trial, but the jury was allowed to consider it.
Both sides argued about the scope of the doctrine. Fundamentally, though, if CACI could prove its interrogators were under the command and control of the Army at the time any misconduct occurred, then the jury was instructed to find in favor of CACI.
The issue of who controlled CACI interrogators occupied a significant portion of the trial. CACI officials testified that they basically turned over supervision of the interrogators to the Army.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued otherwise, and introduced evidence including CACI’s contract with the Army, which required CACI to supervise its own employees. Jurors also saw a section of the Army Field Manual that pertains to contractors and states that “only contractors may supervise and give direction to their employees.”
In their note explaining their deadlock, the jury said the Field Manual was one of the pieces of evidence over which they disagreed.
The jurors who spoke to AP said there was conflicting evidence in the case about whether CACI retained control of its employees while they were in Abu Ghraib.
The plaintiffs can seek a retrial.
Asked if they would do so, one of their lawyers, Baher Azmy with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that “the current expectation is that we’ll continue to fight.”
The lawsuit was first filed in 2008 and was delayed by 15 years of legal wrangling and multiple attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed.
CACI’s lawyers declined to comment as they left court. A company spokesperson did not respond to an email seeking comment.
While it took a monumental effort on the plaintiffs’ part to get the case to trial, it’s possible that a retrial might be easier to conduct than normal. Many of the witnesses testified through recorded depositions that could simply be replayed. The three plaintiffs, though, provided live testimony — one in person and the other two through video hookups from Iraq.
Starlink geofence appears to have some gaping holes
date: 2024-05-03, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
I guess the brains down in Africa gonna take some time to do the things they never should have had
Starlink’s self-imposed end of April deadline to crack down on roaming users who abuse the service has come and gone without appearing to have worked.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/spacex_roaming_lockdown/
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-05-03, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
I don’t have a cat. I rent this apartment and there’s no pets allowed. If we were allowed we would have a cat. I would pet the cat. It would be warm and soft and lovely.
Do you have a cat? If so can you pet it for me and report back. Warm? Soft? Lovely?
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112374406957913282
Four Occidental students arrested at UCLA pro-Palestinian encampment
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College Student Newspaper)
Four Occidental students were arrested at UCLA early May 2 when the Los Angeles Police Departmet cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment, according to Occidental Students for Justice in Palestine (Oxy SJP) spokesperson Matthew Vickers (junior). Vickers, who was not present at the UCLA protest May 1 or May 2, said via text that the four students […]
The post Four Occidental students arrested at UCLA pro-Palestinian encampment appeared first on The Occidental.
Daily EV Recap: Tesla’s AI training tile
date: 2024-05-03, 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/2024/05/02/daily-ev-recap-teslas-ai-training-tile/
May 4: SCV Relay for Life ‘May the Cure Be With You’
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Santa Clarita Valley will be held Saturday, May 4, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. at Central Park, with the theme “May The Cure Be With You,” a Disney/Star Wars celebration.
https://scvnews.com/may-4-scv-relay-for-life-may-the-cure-be-with-you/
US journalist held in Russian prison for 400 days
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
united nations — Four hundred days.
That’s how long American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been held in a Russian prison.
Russia’s Federal Security Service detained him while he was on assignment for U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal in the city of Yekaterinburg and accused him of espionage.
The newspaper and the U.S. government have denied the charges against the now 32-year-old reporter.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Thursday at a U.S.-hosted event on the eve of World Press Freedom Day that reporters are too often wrongfully detained for “simply telling the truth.”
“That was Evan’s crime. Reporting the facts about Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine,” she said.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Gershkovich was arrested a day after publishing a report on how the war had hurt Russia’s economy.
Thomas-Greenfield said the Biden administration will not rest until Gershkovich is reunited with his family. His parents and sister were present at the event.
Mariana Katzarova, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, told the gathering by video from Bulgaria that she is very concerned that Gershkovich has been held for over a year without a trial or evidence.
“The arrest and detention of Evan raises serious concerns about his personal safety, as well as the safety of all foreign journalists conducting their legitimate business in Russia,” she said.
In October 2023, dual U.S.-Russian national Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, who works for VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also arrested in Russia. She remains jailed on charges of failing to self-register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military. If convicted, she could face up to 15 years in prison.
Kurmasheva was in Russia to visit her elderly and ailing mother.
Katzarova said Russia has one of the highest conviction rates in the world.
“Once charged, the likelihood of being found guilty in the Russian court is very high,” she said, “raising concerns about the fairness and independence of the judiciary in Russia and about the rights of the accused to a fair trial.”
David Rohde, an American journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2008 but escaped after seven months in captivity, told the gathering that the source of attacks on journalists has shifted in the past several years.
“There has been a dramatic change where the people detaining and in some places killing journalists has shifted from extremist groups and criminal groups to a large number of states,” he said.
“It has been more than a year now, and every day is a day too long,” Danielle Gershkovich said of her brother’s detention.
“We need to do whatever it takes to bring him home now.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-journalist-held-in-russian-prison-for-400-days-/7596124.html
US defense secretary meeting with Pacific allies in Hawaii
date: 2024-05-03, from: VOA News USA
pentagon — U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Hawaii on Thursday to meet with leaders from Australia, Japan and the Philippines amid increasing concerns about Chinese military aggression in the Pacific.
Defense officials said the talks would continue the allies’ “historic progress” on cooperation in their defense industries and military activities, including air and missile defense.
Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called the quadrilateral group an “anti-aggression coalition” whose efforts protect “many countries around the world who depend on the ability for commercial vessels to sail freely and unimpeded through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.”
“The single biggest reason for what we’re witnessing in Hawaii this week is the increasingly aggressive behavior of the People’s Republic of China,” Bowman told VOA.
“I think Japan, Australia and the Philippines understand that investments in deterrence are far less costly than dealing with a war that could have been prevented, and they understand that deterrence will be much stronger and more effective if they work with the United States and they work with each other,” he said.
Austin was to meet with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles on Thursday following Australia’s commitment last month to increase defense spending by 20% over the next decade.
Austin also planned to meet with Japanese Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara. During an April state visit in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced deepening military cooperation, including creation of a trilateral air defense architecture with Australia and trilateral exercises with the United Kingdom.
Trilateral session
The U.S., Japan and Australia were to convene a trilateral meeting following the bilateral talks, where a senior defense official said they were expected to sign a new trilateral agreement on strategic research and development.
Austin then planned to host a quadrilateral meeting with Filipino Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro and their Japanese and Australian counterparts. It will be the second such meeting of the four countries’ defense ministers.
A senior defense official, speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, said talks would focus on deterring actors from activities that could “undermine peace and stability in the region, whether it’s in East Asia, the East China Sea, South China Sea or the Pacific Islands.”
Tensions have risen between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, with China’s coast guard using water cannons last month to threaten Filipino fishing ships. China has also used collision and ramming tactics, undersea barriers and a military-grade laser to stop Philippine resupply and patrol missions.
Bowman said he expected Beijing to complain about the talks as an attempt to form a coalition like NATO in the Pacific.
“I think as a general rule, the People’s Republic of China wants to deal with everything in the region in a bilateral way that allows Beijing to take advantage of power asymmetries. … The bully on the playground … doesn’t want to deal with four or five kids at the same time,” he said.
Last month, Austin spoke with Chinese Admiral Dong Jun in the first dialogue between the two countries’ defense chiefs in nearly 17 months.
The Pentagon said Austin and his Chinese counterpart discussed “defense relations” and global security issues ranging from Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine to recent provocations from North Korea. A Pentagon press release said Austin stressed the importance of “respect for high seas freedom of navigation as guaranteed under international law, especially in the South China Sea.”
Beijing has asserted its desire to control access to the South China Sea and bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary.
Biden has said U.S. troops will defend the democratically run island from attack.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-defense-secretary-meeting-with-pacific-allies-in-hawaii-/7596137.html
Microservices vs monoliths
date: 2024-05-03, from: Memo Garcia blog
Which architecture should I choose? I don’t think this is the right question to ask. A better question would be, given the current state of my service/product, which architecture will provide what I’m looking for? For example, performance, independent deployments, application boundaries, etc. For example, many people mention that we should start with a monolith and while I agree with some of the arguments (simplified development and deployment, consistent performance), it tends to ignore the fact that it might be better to prioritize freedom and experimentation at early stages rather than performance.
https://memo.mx/posts/microservices-vs-monoliths/
St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara Going to Highest Bidder
date: 2024-05-03, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The historic property on Mission Hill will be auctioned off in June, starting with a price of $25 million.
The post St. Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara Going to Highest Bidder appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
CalArts Announces 2024 Herb Alpert Award Winners
date: 2024-05-03, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Ten risk-taking, mid-career artists were announced Thursday as the recipients of the 2024 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (HAAIA)
https://scvnews.com/calarts-announces-2024-herb-alpert-award-winners/
Shop owners plan to appeal over parking
date: 2024-05-03, from: The Signal
The city of Santa Clarita has denied an initial appeal of plans to put an apartment complex into a Bouquet Canyon Road parking lot behind the Cinema Drive business park. The plans for Promenade Flats call for 7,230 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, 26 one-bedroom and four live-work one-bedroom apartments on the floors above, […]
The post Shop owners plan to appeal over parking appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/shop-owners-plan-to-appeal-over-parking/
Building a social network from scratch on a whiteboard
date: 2024-05-03, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
https://xeiaso.net/talks/2024/shashin/
The Schedule is out for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024!
date: 2024-05-03, from: PostgreSQL News
Amazing Talks & Speakers for POSETTE 2024
The talk selection team is so excited about all the talks planned for our 3rd annual free & virtual developer event, happening June 11-13, 2024. Take a look at the schedule for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024, and see which talks you’re most interested in.
Save the Date
Before your schedule books up, we hope that you will Save the Date. Add one or more livestreams to your calendar:
- #1: June 11th @ 8:00am – 1:30pm PDT
- #2: June 12th @ 8:00am – 1:30pm CEST
- #3: June 12th @ 8:00am – 1:30pm PDT
- #4: June 13th @ 8:00am – 1:30pm CEST
Things to know about the Schedule
42 talks from 44 amazing speakers—with 10-11 unique talks in each of the 4 livestreams
Look at all 4 tabs on the Schedule page—one for each livestream
Speakers page is live too: You can get a good overview of who’s presenting by looking at the new Speakers page.
Individual Speaker pages for each of the speakers. Just click on their photo on the POSETTE Speakers page to access their expanded bio and this year’s talk & abstract. Plus, you’ll find YouTube & Episode links for speakers who have spoken at our previous events including Citus Con and the Path To Citus Con podcast.
Keynote Speakers
Charles Feddersen, Partner Director Product Management @ Microsoft, will speak on “All the Postgres Things at Microsoft, POSETTE edition”
Regina Obe, CEO @ Paragon Corporation & PostGIS PSC, will talk about “The Open Source Geospatial Community, PostGIS & Postgres”
Sarah Novotny, Open Source Wonk, will tell us “Why I love open source development & what I learned from K8s”
Thomas Munro, PostgreSQL hacker working @ Microsoft, will give us “A Walking Tour of Postgres”
We hope to see you (virtually) in June.
Santa Barbara Library Needs More Money to Finish Long Delayed Renovation
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Public Works is asking for $850,000 to cover expenses, bringing project total to $11.4 Million
The post Santa Barbara Library Needs More Money to Finish Long Delayed Renovation appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Talks about mall changes create ‘confusion’
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Signal
After hearing a report on its possible demise, a representative from JCPenney’s corporate office reached out Thursday to state its Valencia store — an anchor since the Valencia mall opened in 1992 — has no plans to go anywhere. The issue began after an article on the Town Center Specific Plan, or TCSP, mentioning a […]
The post <strong>Talks about mall changes create ‘confusion’</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/talks-about-mall-changes-create-confusion/
LAPD asks for public’s help on shooting with possible local ties
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Signal
A car-to-car shooting Wednesday on Rinaldi Street in Granada Hills left one person dead, and the crime may have a Santa Clarita Valley connection. A Los Angeles Police Department news release identified the victim only as a 19-year-old man pending the notification of his next of kin. Homicide detectives from the LAPD’s Valley Bureau are […]
The post <strong>LAPD asks for public’s help on shooting with possible local ties</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/lapd-asks-for-publics-help-on-shooting-with-possible-local-ties/
Mustangs Post-Season Play Continues After First Round Win
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The Master’s University men’s volleyball team won their opening match of the 2024 NAIA National Championship with a 3-set win over the No. 9-seed Mount Mercy (IA) Mustangs
https://scvnews.com/mustangs-post-season-play-continues-after-first-round-win/
Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Recalls Tusk 2Track Adventure Tires
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The recall affects its newly launched 2Track rear tires.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718137/rocky-mountain-atvmc-recall-tusk-2track-adv-tire/
My issue with Github Actions
date: 2024-05-02, from: Memo Garcia blog
GitHub actions are a problem because they lock you by the balls and you cannot reproduce your pipelines. Getting to depend on all those small Actions saves 5 minutes today, only to make migrations immensely painful tomorrow. Build, package, and release software should be written as standalone scripts that in principle could even run in the developer’s machine. Moving them to CI is just changing the machine that will run the scripts.
https://memo.mx/posts/github-actions/
Microsoft, Google do a victory lap around passkeys
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Windows giant extends passwordless tech to everyone else
Microsoft today said it will now let us common folk — not just commercial subscribers — sign into their Microsoft accounts and apps using passkeys with their face, fingerprint, or device PIN.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/microsoft_google_passkeys/
CSUN library hosts Maria Varela photo exhibit
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Dozens of CSUN faculty, students and others attended the “Time To Get Ready: Fotografía Social with Maria Varela” on March 26 at the University Library. The event was an opportunity…
https://sundial.csun.edu/181357/news/csun-library-hosts-maria-varela-photo-exhibit/
Rivian Gets $827 Million To Expand Factory For R2 Production
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
The American startup aims to start selling its Tesla Model Y-fighting R2 SUV in 2026.
https://insideevs.com/news/718286/rivian-r2-factory-expansion-incentive/
Prof asks court to protect his Unfollow Everything 2.0 extension from Facebook’s ire
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You’ve got to fight for your right to personalize
A professor has asked the US courts to confirm he has the right to release a browser extension to help people disengage with Facebook by automatically changing certain settings.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/meta_facebook_tool/
TMU Student Set to be School’s First Electrical Engineering Graduate
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Andrew Skerratt did not anticipate graduating with an electrical engineering degree from The Master’s University.
https://scvnews.com/tmu-student-set-to-be-schools-first-electrical-engineering-graduate/
Final list of layoffs for Hart district classified employees approved
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Signal
The final list of 36 William S. Hart Union High School District classified employees who are set to be laid off at the end of the school year was approved at Wednesday’s governing board meeting. The layoffs are part of the district’s fiscal stabilization plan that was approved in January to help get the district’s […]
The post <strong>Final list of layoffs for Hart district classified employees approved</strong> appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/final-list-of-layoffs-for-hart-district-classified-employees-approved/
Councilmember Imelda Padilla holds Armenian rally in Sun Valley
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
A day of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide took place at Sun Valley Recreation Center on Saturday, April 27. Lake Balboa Field Deputy Rosie Avetisyan, who works for CSUN alumnus…
RISC OS Open 5.30 arrives with Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi support
date: 2024-05-02, from: OS News
This is, in a way, a mature OS with an ecosystem and an aftermarket. (Which, we feel we must explicitly spell out, means that quite a few of those third-party applications and drivers will cost you money.) There are emulators that will let you run 20th century Acorn apps that you can find online, but this isn’t an emulated vintage environment like Amiga Forever. It’s not meant for running games from thirty years ago. This is a native bare-metal OS, built on 1980s roots but updated for 21st century hardware. It’s also not an experimental project with little practical use, like Redox OS or Serenity OS, interesting though those are. ↫ Liam Proven at The Register I grew up with RISC OS and still run a RISC OS machine to this day. As Liam Proven explains affectionately in this article, while as an operating system it’s missing many features we now take for granted (memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking, compositing), some of the user interface ideas it implements still manage to feel advanced compared to modern-day desktops (no need for menu bars, no clunky file dialogues, elegant mouse button assignments). The fact it’s found a home on the Raspberry Pi and continues to support an active community is testament to its enduring appeal and the amazing work of the RISC OS Open project. Some additional notes from Thom: this new release supports 7 ARM platforms, most notably the Raspberry Pi Zero, 1, 2, 3 and 4 (but not the 5), and it even supports WiFi on the 3 and 4, which is an absolutely incredible achievement. The number of fixed bugs and addressed issues is massive, and there’s even more to come later during the year, as The Register’s article notes. I was waiting on this release to spur me on to buy a new Raspberry Pi (my only other Pi is our Pi-Hole), so I’ll definitely be on the lookout for a good deal. This release deserves my full attention for OSNews.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139527/risc-os-open-5-30-arrives-with-raspberry-pi-wi-fi-support/
India criticizes 2024 religious freedom report from US agency
date: 2024-05-02, from: VOA News USA
How the DHS AI Roadmap Could Reach Its Intended Destination
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: RAND blog
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently released its 2024 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Roadmap. But for AI applications to enhance operations as the department envisions, the roadmap needs to include real-world testing and experimental efforts.
The BASIC programming language turns 60
date: 2024-05-02, from: OS News
Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at Dartmouth College. That’s when mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz successfully ran the first program written in their newly developed BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) programming language on the college’s General Electric GE-225 mainframe. Little did they know that their creation would go on to democratize computing and inspire generations of programmers over the next six decades. ↫ Benj Edwards at Ars Technica Even I have used BASIC in the past, when I was a child and discovered QBasic (or possibly GW-BASIC, I’m a bit hazy on the details) and started messing around with it. My experiences with BASIC didn’t lead to a path of ever more complex programming languages, but for huge numbers of people, it did – it’s wild just how many people over a certain age got their programming start with BASIC in the 8 bit home computer era. I mean, 30 GOTO 10 is such a widespread morsel of knowledge it made its way into all kinds of popular media, such as a few Easter egg jokes in Futurama. BASIC has effectively achieved immortality.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139534/the-basic-programming-language-turns-60/
2025 Kia EV6: Here’s Our First Look At The Updated Design
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
As always, Kia’s design game is extremely on point.
https://insideevs.com/news/718287/2025-kia-ev6-update/
Storm at Valley State protestor pardoned by Governor Newsom
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
California Governor Gavin Newsom granted a posthumous pardon to William Burwell, a former San Fernando Valley State College (SFVSC) student, now known as California State University, Northridge, and founding member…
https://sundial.csun.edu/181366/news/storm-at-valley-state-protestor-pardoned-by-governor-newsom/
US Senate hearing addresses gift card fraud schemes
date: 2024-05-02, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-senate-hearing-addresses-gift-card-fraud-schemes-/7595726.html
Inside the Snapdragon 855’s iGPU
date: 2024-05-02, from: OS News
Qualcomm’s Adreno 6xx architecture has been superseded Adreno 7xx, but it’s still used in countless devices, including the current-gen Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. Here, I’ll be looking at the Adreno 640 GPU in the Snapdragon 855. Zarif98 on Reddit kindly provided a OnePlus 7 Pro, and I’ll be using that to check out Adreno 640. Compared to the older Snapdragon 821’s Adreno 530, Adreno 640 dramatically increases compute throughput while still working within a very constrained power and thermal envelope. Process node improvements help, and TSMC’s 7 nm process should be far better than the 14 nm Samsung node used in the Snapdragon 821. But cell phone SoC constraints meant Qualcomm couldn’t go around copy-pasting basic GPU building blocks and call it a day. ↫ Chips and Cheese Chips and Cheese with another deep dive.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139531/inside-the-snapdragon-855s-igpu/
At Microsoft, years of security debt come crashing down
date: 2024-05-02, from: OS News
Years of accumulated security debt at Microsoft are seemingly crashing down upon the company in a manner that many critics warned about, but few ever believed would actually come to light. Microsoft is an entrenched enterprise provider, owning nearly one-quarter of the global cloud infrastructure services market and, as of Q1 last year, nearly 20% of the worldwide SaaS application market, according to Synergy Research Group. Though not immune to scandal, in the wake of two major nation-state breaches of its core enterprise platforms, Microsoft is facing one of its most serious reputational crises. ↫ David Jones at Cybersecurity Dive It’s almost like having the entire US government dependent on a single vendor is a bad idea. Just spitballing here.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139528/at-microsoft-years-of-security-debt-come-crashing-down/
Connect up to 4 M.2 NVMe SSDs to a Raspberry Pi 5 with the Geekwork X1011 board
date: 2024-05-02, from: Liliputing
A few months ago Geekworm launched one of the first boards that allows you to connect up to two M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe SSDs to a Raspberry Pi 5. Now the company is back with another model that supports up to four. The Geekworm X1011 add-on board for the Raspberry Pi 5 is available now […]
The post Connect up to 4 M.2 NVMe SSDs to a Raspberry Pi 5 with the Geekwork X1011 board appeared first on Liliputing.
A fully-electric 10,000 ton container ship has begun service equipped with over 50,000 kWh in batteries
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Chinese state-owned company COSCO Shipping has launched what it calls the “world’s largest” river-to-sea electric container ship. The Green Water 01 is a 10,000-ton+ fully electric vessel that sets a new benchmark in sustainability in the marine logistics industry.
Photos: SCAA Spring Art Festival
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita Artists Association held its 5th annual “Spring Art Festival and Sale” on Sunday at the La Chene French Cuisine where attendees could shop original artworks created by local artists and support the organization’s scholarship program for high school students pursuing art in higher education.
The post Photos: SCAA Spring Art Festival appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/photos-scaa-spring-art-festival/
Biden says ‘order’ must accompany free speech in campus protests
date: 2024-05-02, from: VOA News USA
After weeks of pro-Palestinian protests escalating at universities across the U.S., President Joe Biden warned Thursday that order must prevail, even as he underscored that dissent is “essential for democracy.” White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
NASA Research Park Public Documents
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
Economic Benefits Study: Development Plans: NASA Research Park Environmental Reports: Environmental Management Division Public Documents: Environmental Impact Statement: RFP Housing Asbestos & Lead Based Paint Documents: FP Housing Misc Due Diligence Documents: Miscellaneous Documents:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/nasa-research-park-public-documents/
Lady Cougs Advance to Next Round in Regional Playoffs
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Nichole Muro was brilliant in the circle through seven shutout innings and Gigi Garcia broke the game open with a two-run double in the sixth inning as No. 15 College of the Canyons got past No. 18 Cuesta College 4-0 in its 3C2A Southern California Regional Playoffs play-in game at Whitten Field on Tuesday
https://scvnews.com/lady-cougs-advance-to-next-round-in-regional-playoffs/
BYD Global Plug-In Car Sales Increased 49% In April 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
Overseas rechargeable car sales almost tripled year-over-year to a new record.
https://insideevs.com/news/718208/byd-global-plugin-car-sales-april2024/
Researchers Breed Mice With Hybrid Brains Containing Cells From Rats
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In one experiment, rat neurons helped mice restore their senses of smell—the first time any animal has perceived the world through the sensory hardware of another species
Florida man gets 6 years behind bars for flogging fake Cisco kit to US military
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Operation busted after dodgy devices ended up at Air Force
Miami resident Onur Aksoy has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for running a multi-million-dollar operation selling fake Cisco equipment that ended up in the US military.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/fake_cisco_prison/
Message from Carlos Orozco JCI President
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As we kick off the new month, I am proud to reflect on the incredible growth and achievements we’ve witnessed over the past four months
https://scvnews.com/message-from-carlos-orozco-jci-president/
Patch up – 4 critical bugs in ArubaOS lead to remote code execution
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ten vulnerabilities in total for admins to apply
Network admins are being urged to patch a bundle of critical vulnerabilities in ArubaOS that lead to remote code execution as a privileged user.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/hpe_aruba_patches/
Cybertruck Teardown: See The Inner Workings Of Its Huge Windshield Wiper
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
The Tesla Cybertruck’s massive, single windshield wiper is arguably its standout feature. See how it works.
https://insideevs.com/news/718267/cybertruck-windshield-wiper-teardown/
Core Technology Fee Exemptions
date: 2024-05-02, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (MacRumors): Today, we’re introducing two additional conditions in which the CTF is not required: First, no CTF is required if a developer has no revenue whatsoever. This includes creating a free app without monetization that is not related to revenue of any kind (physical, digital, advertising, or otherwise). This condition is intended to give […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/02/core-technology-fee-exemptions/
EagleFiler 1.9.14
date: 2024-05-02, from: Michael Tsai
EagleFiler 1.9.14 is a maintenance release for my Mac information organizer app. Some interesting bugs were: EagleFiler uses NSXMLParser to read Evernote’s ENEX files, which it then converts to standard RTF/RTFD files that any app can read. Some customers had files that were causing it to fail with NSXMLParserUndeclaredEntityError even though the referenced entities did […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/02/eaglefiler-1-9-14/
Delta Emulator in the App Store
date: 2024-05-02, from: Michael Tsai
Kyle Orland (MacRumors): Apple’s decision earlier this month to open the iOS App Store to generic retro game emulators is already bearing fruit. Delta launched Wednesday as one of the first officially approved iOS apps to emulate Nintendo consoles from the NES through the N64 and the Game Boy through the Nintendo DS (though unofficial […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/02/delta-emulator-in-the-app-store/
AltStore PAL
date: 2024-05-02, from: Michael Tsai
Riley Testut: I’m thrilled to announce a brand new version of AltStore — AltStore PAL — is launching TODAY as an Apple-approved alternative app marketplace in the EU. AltStore PAL is an open-source app store made specifically for independent developers, designed to address the problems I and so many others have had with the App […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/05/02/altstore-pal/
The 2024 Chevy Blazer EV has a quirky $4k discount for Tesla drivers
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Chevy is offering a $4,000 discount for owners and lessees of Teslas and other EVs for the 2024 Blazer EV but with some quirky conditions.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/2024-chevy-blazer-ev-discount/
The Louvre Is Thinking About Moving the ‘Mona Lisa’ to Its Own Room Underground
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Officials hope to improve visitors’ experience in the Paris museum’s Salle des États
Here’s What Ukraine Needs in Missiles, Shells, and Troops to Win. It’s Completely Doable
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: RAND blog
After two years of the Russia-Ukraine war with still no end in sight, NATO members have begun asking what it will take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. To fully expel Russian forces in the next two years, U.S. support and broad NATO investments will be required.
NYPD Produces Propaganda Instead of Legally Required Public Records
date: 2024-05-02, from: 404 Media Group
NYPD was able to spin out a hype video in less than 24 hours, which is notable because New York City has been horrendously slow to producing public records they are obligated by law to provide to the taxpayers who fund them.
https://www.404media.co/there-is-no-transparency-in-new-york-city-nypd-arrests-columbia/
Dozens of vulnerabilities fixed in Xiaomi, Google Android flavors … slowly
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oversecure details bugs spotted and stamped since private disclosure
Oversecured, a business that scans mobile apps for security issues, says it has identified more than two dozen vulnerabilities over the past few years affecting Android apps from smartphone maker Xiaomi and Google’s Android Open Source Project (AOSP).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/google_xiaomi_flaws_oversecured/
3 Ways to Make Sense of Elon Musk’s Supercharger Massacre
date: 2024-05-02, from: Heatmap News
“Delete, delete, delete,” Elon Musk reportedly told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, describing his approach to management. “Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.”
Musk has taken his own advice: He is slicing to the bone. Earlier this week, he dismissed the head of Tesla’s Supercharger network, Rebecca Tinucci, as well as her more than 500-person team. As of today, Tesla has only a barebones crew, at best, tasked with maintaining and expanding its high-speed car charging network. It has already pulled out of a planned expansion in New York City.
Musk also laid off what remained of the company’s policy and new vehicle teams. These severe cuts follow layoffs announced in March, when Musk dismissed about 10% of Tesla’s employees. According to Electrek, the two events may be related: Musk asked Tinucci to make deeper cuts in her team in April, she pushed back, and he fired her to set an example. The company has cut more than 14,000 employees worldwide since the beginning of the year.
The news is — and there is no way of sugarcoating this — either sort of stupid, bad, or very bad for the electric vehicle transition. Here are three ways of looking at it:
- It’s worrisome for other automakers
Over the past year, every other major automaker in the United States has switched to Tesla’s charging plug, the North American Charging Standard, or NACS. They have struck deals that will let them use much of Tesla’s existing Supercharger network; Ford is in the process of mailing its drivers a free NACs adapter plug. These agreements were meant to give consumers more certainty about the EV transition: No matter what car they bought, they would be able to use most of Tesla’s superior charging network.
Now, that certainty is gone. Which chargers will work in the future? How much more will the Tesla network expand? And what will happen to those deals with automakers now that the Supercharger team is gone? The employees laid off this week included those who worked closely with other companies.
At least publicly, Ford is keeping its cool. “Our plans for our customers do not change,” Marty Günsberg, communications director for Ford’s electric vehicle division, told Heatmap. And yet contractors and others with business in front of Tesla’s charging team were left completely in the dark Tuesday, their emails bouncing back from addresses that no longer existed, according to E&E News. No other equivalent charging network exists in the U.S., meaning there’s no other easy place for them to go.
- It’s about hype
Musk, for his part, has intimated that the company will begin to look into wireless charging. Although wireless charging may make slightly more sense for self-driving cars — the car could drive itself into a given spot, et voilà! — it is a puzzling decision from a man who has said the only real constraints are those imposed by the laws of physics. More than half of current and prospective EV owners say that they worry about charger availability and convenience, yet wireless charging is slower and less efficient than wired charging, meaning it will require more charging spots and each vehicle will have to stay there longer.
So again we must ask, why? The answer may lie in the animal spirits of the market — and Elon’s dependence on the market for his personal wealth. Tesla’s stock has more or less held steady since the cuts. As my colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote, Musk has spun the layoffs as part of a corporate turn away from selling electric vehicles, chargers, and home batteries and toward achieving artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.
That is partly because Musk must keep justifying — or, if we really want to be blunt, propping up — Tesla’s astronomical share price, which itself is premised on the idea that Tesla is a technology company, not a car company. In order to do that, he must continually steer his sometimes-profitable company toward the buzziest, most hyped-up phenomenon in the economy. Never mind his actually existing EV charger business; that can’t justify the fantasy of the share price. He needs to find something new.
- It’s a bad sign
One of the more useful ways of understanding Elon Musk is that he seeks to create and control private infrastructure. SpaceX creates privatized access to rocket launches. Starlink allows for privatized access to the global, satellite-provided internet. The Hyperloop — to the degree that it existed at all — sought to create a privatized and individualized form of mass transit. (Musk, fittingly, hates public transit.) Even Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now rechristened X, reflected a desire to enclose the public sphere.
And for the past year, you could understand Tesla in the same light. Sure, Tesla was an electric vehicle company. But it was rapidly becoming an infrastructure company. Through its deals with other automakers, it was cementing itself as the premier provider of electric vehicle charging in the United States. It was also the part of the company that elicited the least suspicion from Tesla’s many critics. Drivers might not always be able to rely on a third-party charger, but a Tesla Supercharger? It worked.
It hasn’t always been this way. For years, the Supercharger network seemed like Tesla’s key competitive advantage, its Warren Buffett-style moat. If you wanted access to America’s most famous and reliable fast-charging network, you had to buy a Tesla. But starting with Ford a year ago, Musk struck deals with other automakers allowing their cars to use some of its charger network. At the same time, Tesla also bowed to federal pressure and standardized its NACS charger with SAE International. That helped it win more than $17 million in grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build even more chargers.
Why pull back now? None of the options is very encouraging. The most hopeful answer is Tesla-specific: Maybe demand for the automaker’s vehicles is sinking so quickly that Musk is, in essence, reaching for things he can throw overboard. Tesla has historically relied on Chinese consumers to buoy its sales, but it has hemorrhaged market share in China as the country’s home-grown automakers have come out with newer and often superior EVs. But things there took a turn for the better earlier this week as Musk won approval (albeit conditional) to use Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving software on Chinese roads. And even if a sales slump were the explanation, why also ditch the team working on new vehicles at Tesla?
The other possibilities are bleaker. BloombergNEF has ballparked that Tesla’s charging business could generate $740 million in annual profits by 2030. But that relies on Musk’s estimate that the Supercharging business has a 10% margin. If that margin has since shrunk — or if its chargers just aren’t getting used as much as Tesla once anticipated — then further investment right now might not make sense.
That’s a problem, though, as most prospective buyers say that there need to be even more public chargers before they would consider buying an EV. If the economics don’t justify a further investment in chargers, however, even with all that apparently pent up demand, then the country is in a pickle. In that case, Musk’s decision looks self-defeating, a panicky and downturn-averse reaction that will ultimately undercut the market for Tesla’s cars.
About the only bright spot here is that Musk has surrendered hundreds of the most talented charging employees to the market. Tesla excelled at using a mix of policy and engineering prowess to integrate their chargers into local utilities’ systems and rate structures; other automakers can now snap up the people with those skills.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/tesla-supercharger-layoffs-musk
Rivian gets $827m incentives to expand Normal, Illinois factory for R2
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Rivian has secured $827 million worth of incentives from the state of Illinois to expand its main factory in Normal.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/rivian-gets-827m-incentives-to-expand-normal-illinois-factory-for-r2/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Was There A Trojan Horse Hidden In Section 230 All Along That Could Enable Adversarial Interoperability?
Archaeologists Discover Medieval Artifacts Ahead of Bridge Demolition in England
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Found during a construction project near the railway station in York, the trove includes pottery and bones
In Photos: A nation shaken by camps for Gaza
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
A first-of-its-kind collaborative photo essay, compiled from seven student-run newspapers across the country.
The post In Photos: A nation shaken by camps for Gaza appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/05/02/in-photos-a-nation-shaken-by-camps-for-gaza/
From Fear Of Pirates To Dreams Of Leisure — How LA’s Beaches Evolved
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The LAist
We talk to historian Elsa Devienne about how beaches developed and her new book Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles.
https://laist.com/news/la-history/los-angeles-beach-elsa-devienne-history-sand-rush
Costco Auto Program Is Selling Some EVs And PHEVs At Discounted Prices
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
You can save up to $2,000 if you buy certain new EVs from Costco.
https://insideevs.com/news/718251/costco-auto-ev-phev-incentives/
COC Names Sydney Tamondong, Nathaniel Wilkinson Athletes of the Week
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
College of the Canyons student-athletes Sydney Tamondong (women’s tennis) and Nathaniel Wilkinson (men’s track and field) have been named the COC Athletic Department’s Women’s and Men’s Student-Athletes of the Week for the period running April 22-
https://scvnews.com/coc-names-sydney-tamondong-nathaniel-wilkinson-athletes-of-the-week/
Daily Deals (5-02-2024)
date: 2024-05-02, from: Liliputing
The new Onn 4K media streamer that’s available in select Walmart stores for $50 may be hard to beat when it comes to bang for the buck, but not everyone wants or needs the features that make this device stand out in its price range, like its mic, speakers and USB and Ethernet ports. So […]
The post Daily Deals (5-02-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-5-02-2024/
Huawei’s hidden hand in optics research contest shocks scholars
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-04, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
US universities awarded money from a corp they had severed ties with
Updated Huawei sponsored an optics technology research competition run by the Optica Foundation, and donated at least a million dollars to the organization.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/huawei_optics_research_sponsorship/
Rising Waters, Hidden Threats: Exploring the Unseen Risks of Basement Flooding in Pittsburgh
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: RAND blog
Often dismissed as “nuisance flooding,” recurrent basement flooding is much more than a nuisance. It costs homeowners, many financially vulnerable, a lot to clean up and poses significant threats to public health and safety. It is time to stop thinking about wet basements as simply a nuisance, and understand the role of flooded basements in some of the critical health issues facing communities.
2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Prediction vs. Reality
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
Before a total solar eclipse crossed North America on April 8, 2024, scientists at Predictive Science Inc. of San Diego aimed to foresee what the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, would look like during totality. The predictions help researchers understand the accuracy of their models of the Sun’s corona, which extends along its magnetic field. […]
https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/2024-total-solar-eclipse-prediction-vs-reality/
These Five Chinese EV Brands Would Sell Like Crazy In The U.S.
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
China has a lot of upstart EV brands, but these five could do really well here with little effort.
https://insideevs.com/news/718246/five-chinese-brands-us-sales/
Researchers Develop ‘Founding Document’ on Synthetic Cell Development
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
Cells are the fundamental units of life, forming the variety of all living things on Earth as individual cells and multi-cellular organisms. To better understand how cells perform the essential functions of life, scientists have begun developing synthetic cells – non-living bits of cellular biochemistry wrapped in a membrane that mimic specific biological processes. The […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/researchers-develop-founding-document-on-synthetic-cell-development/
Seven Major Nations Agree to Phase Out Coal by 2035, Though Vague Language Leaves Wiggle Room
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The wealthy, industrialized countries set a flexible schedule to cut one of the dirtiest fossil fuels from their economies
Ken Striplin | Hit the Trails During Santa Clarita Bike Challenge
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
With spring in full effect, now is the best time to hit the trails and enjoy the natural scenery of Santa Clarita
https://scvnews.com/ken-striplin-hit-the-trails-during-santa-clarita-bike-challenge/
Here’s what Electrify America’s EV charging plans are for 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Electrify America (EA) increased its total number of chargers to over 4,000 in 2023 – here’s what it’s aiming to achieve in 2024.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/electrify-america-ev-charging-2024/
NASA plasma propulsion project promises Mars in a flash
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
System would also make it easier to transport much heavier spacecraft
Engineering research outfit Howe Industries is working with NASA to develop a new plasma-based propulsion system that might help solve the problem of moving around the solar system faster with bigger payloads.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/nasa_plasma_propulsion/
What Do You Need To Charge An Electric Car At Home?
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
Not much for basic charging, but if you want higher-speed charging, then you’ll need some equipment.
https://insideevs.com/news/718122/charging-electric-car-your-home/
Hi-C Rocket Experiment Achieves Never-Before-Seen Look at Solar Flares
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
By Jessica Barnett After months of preparation and years since its last flight, the upgraded High Resolution Coronal Imager Flare mission – Hi-C Flare, for short – took to the skies for a never-before-seen view of a solar flare. The low-noise cameras – built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama – are […]
Save $300 on Denago’s City 1 e-bike at $999, EGO Power+ pole saw $269, Greenworks electric 3-tool combo, and more
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Today’s Green Deals are headlined by Denago eBikes’ ongoing Earth Month Sale that is still taking $500 off a selection of e-bikes, like the City 1 High-Step Commuter e-bike for $999. It is joined by the EGO Power+ 10-inch Pole Saw and Power Head at $269, with extra ways to save, as well as the return of the popular Greenworks 80V 21-inch Lawn Mower, 13-inch String Trimmer, and 730 Leaf Blower Combo with 4.0Ah Battery for $600. Plus all of the other days’ Green Deals that are still going.
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.
Can Anger Affect Your Heart Health? Scientists Find the Strong Emotion Impacts How Blood Vessels Function
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The results could even help explain why stress from anger may trigger a heart attack
NATO members ‘deeply concerned’ by activities such as sabotage on alliance soil. They blame Russia
date: 2024-05-02, from: Associated Press, World News
NATO countries say they are deeply concerned by a campaign of hybrid activities on the military alliance’s soil they attribute to Russia, and which they say constitute a threat to their security.
https://apnews.com/article/nato-russia-ukraine-war-73a3a226a6d036f8eafade7afca0ca5c
Biden Adds Local Acreage to Mountains Monument
date: 2024-05-02, from: SCV New (TV Station)
President Joe Biden will use his authority under the Antiquities Act to expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument near Los Angeles, his administration announced Thursday
https://scvnews.com/biden-adds-local-acreage-to-mountains-monument/
Galaxy Evolution Explorer Searches for Light
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
This Dec. 21, 2002, artist’s concept of NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer imagines what the space telescope would look like during its mission. Launched April 28, 2003, it studied the shape, brightness, size and distance of galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic history. By observing ultraviolet wavelengths, the telescope measured the history of star formation […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/galaxy-evolution-explorer-searches-for-light/
Joby completes pre-production eVTOL testing, segues into production prototype flight certification
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Urban Air Mobility specialist Joby Aviation is touting its latest milestone in eVTOL development today, relaying that it has completed testing of its pre-production aircraft and will now move into getting air certified using its production-intent eVTOL prototypes.
Sols 4173-4174: Reflections
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 1, 2024 Today’s planning was a little out of the ordinary. Not in terms of the plan itself, Curiosity’s team built an exciting plan utilizing much of its science toolkit. Today’s plan was unusual rather due to my role as APXS PUDL Reverse Shadow (PUDL = Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead). While I normally staff […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4173-4174-reflections/
SIROTA’S SIGNALS: We’ll Have To Wait Until 2065 — Unless This Changes
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Lever News
Plus, Boeing drops incriminating evidence on an attorney, gambling takes over old-fashioned arcade games, and that time Nixon almost fought climate change.
https://www.levernews.com/sirotas-signals-well-have-to-wait-until-2065-unless-this-changes/
Lights about to go out on US Affordable Connectivity Program
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A partial benefit in May then subsidy gets unplugged once and for all
The end is nigh for the US Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) as funds finally run out after months of warnings.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/affordable_connectivity_program_ends/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
New York Knicks tickets at StubHub. There a lot fewer tickets available and they’re much more expensive.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-02, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
76ers owners buy Game 6 tickets to block Knicks fans.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40068728/76ers-owners-buy-game-6-tickets-block-knicks-fans
Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro single-board PC has an RK3576 processor, an M.2 slot and dual Ethernet ports
date: 2024-05-02, from: Liliputing
The Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro is a single-board PC that measures 92 x 62mm (3.62″ x 2.44″) and features hardware that could make it an interesting option as a compact router, file server, media player, or edge AI device. Powered by a Rockchip RK3576 processor, the little board supports up to 16GB of RAM and features […]
The post Banana Pi BPI-M5 Pro single-board PC has an RK3576 processor, an M.2 slot and dual Ethernet ports appeared first on Liliputing.
Ford U.S. EV Sales More Than Doubled In April 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
Almost one in 20 new Ford vehicles were all-electric.
https://insideevs.com/news/718192/ford-us-ev-sales-april2024/
Short-Term Gain for Long-Term Pain: Why a North Korea Deal Could Come at a High Price
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: RAND blog
Kim Jong-un may be prepared to reduce his provocations and provide a more peaceful atmosphere on the Korean peninsula in exchange for what would be longer-term gains for Pyongyang. But is short-term peace worth making it possible for North Korea to establish a dominant position on the Korean peninsula in the coming years?
NASA Is Helping Protect Tigers, Jaguars, and Elephants. Here’s How.
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
As human populations grow, habitat loss threatens many creatures. Mapping wildlife habitat using satellites is a rapidly expanding area of ecology, and NASA satellites play a crucial role in these efforts. Tigers, jaguars, and elephants are a few of the vulnerable animals whose habitats NASA is helping track from space. “Satellites observe vast areas of […]
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-is-helping-protect-tigers-jaguars-and-elephants-heres-how/
April 29 Palestine Rally
date: 2024-05-02, from: The California Tech (Caltech student paper)
On Monday, April 29th, a group of demonstrators led by Caltech Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in conjunction with Pasadena for Palestine and other faith-based groups from local churches.
https://tech.caltech.edu/2024/04/26/palestine-rally/
Pokémon Go Players Invent Fake Beaches on Real Maps to Catch Rare Wigletts
date: 2024-05-02, from: 404 Media Group
Volunteer maintainers of the widely used OpenStreetMap are battling Pokémon Go players who are vandalizing the map with fake data in order to cheat in the game.
https://www.404media.co/pokemon-go-players-invent-fake-beaches-on-real-maps-to-catch-rare-wigletts/
Donations matched this month!
date: 2024-05-02, from: Theodore Paine Foundation
The first Farewell-to-Spring (Clarkia) blooms of the season are upon us, signaling that spring is in full effect in Southern California! As you admire the blooms this month, consider making a tax-deductible donation to support Theodore Payne Foundation (TPF). Just like our beloved native plants, TPF’s revenues go through a seasonal cycle, with a busy […]
https://theodorepayne.org/donations-matched-this-month/
Microsoft continues multibillion-dollar cloud and AI sprinkle in Malaysia
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Satya reaches once more into his wallet
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced a $2.2 billion investment to advancecloud and AI infrastructure in Malaysia.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/microsoft_malaysia_ai_cloud/
An Ugly American, 1924
date: 2024-05-02, from: National Archives, Text Message blog
The term “ugly American” was popularized by the 1958 book of the same name by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. It referred to certain types of behavior exhibited by some Americans in foreign lands. These included being self-absorbed, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless, and ignorant of local customs. An early example of such behavior is found in … Continue reading An Ugly American, 1924
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2024/05/02/an-ugly-american-1924/
NASA Partner Zooniverse Receives White House Open Science Award
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
Congrats to NASA partner Zooniverse for being named winners in the White House’s Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge! The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) designated 2023 as the year of Open Science, and invited innovators to submit stories of how they’ve advanced equitable open science. OSTP and its federal partners selected five challenge project submissions as […]
NASA Technology Grants to Advance Moon to Mars Space Exploration
date: 2024-05-02, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has awarded nearly $1.5 million to academic, non-profit, and business organizations to advance state-of-the-art technology that will play a key role in the agency’s return to the Moon under Artemis, as well as future missions to Mars. Twenty-four projects from 21 organizations have been awarded under NASA’s Dual-Use Technology Development Cooperative Agreement Notices, or […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-technology-grants-to-advance-moon-to-mars-space-exploration/
Jonny D. Wallis Park Closed Temporarily for Splash Pad Construction
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
GOLETA, CA, April 30, 2024 – Construction of the long-awaited Splash Pad at Jonny D. Wallis Neighborhood Park (170 S. Kellogg) continues
The post Jonny D. Wallis Park Closed Temporarily for Splash Pad Construction appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
La ciudad de Santa Bárbara propone ajustes anuales de las tarifas para apoyar y mantener los sistemas críticos de agua y aguas residuales
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, CA – 1 de mayo de 2024 La ciudad de Santa Bárbara ha propuesto ajustes en las tarifas del
The post La ciudad de Santa Bárbara propone ajustes anuales de las tarifas para apoyar y mantener los sistemas críticos de agua y aguas residuales appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
City of Santa Barbara Proposes Annual Rate Adjustments to Support and Maintain Critical Water and Wastewater Systems
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, CA – May 1, 2024 The City of Santa Barbara has proposed rate adjustments to water and wastewater
The post City of Santa Barbara Proposes Annual Rate Adjustments to Support and Maintain Critical Water and Wastewater Systems appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Gilbert
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Sweet Maltese needs a home!
The post Gilbert appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/02/gilbert/
CAUSE Action Fund Raises Funds for Electoral Work
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Fundraiser honors Oscar Gutierrez and CAF’s Grass Roots Leaders.
The post CAUSE Action Fund Raises Funds for Electoral Work appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/02/cause-action-fund-raises-funds-for-electoral-work/
Antarctica’s Ozone Hole Is Persisting Later Into the Year, Raising Concerns for Wildlife
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
As a result of the longer-lasting hole, harmful ultraviolet radiation is reaching Earth during a time when young penguins and seals are more vulnerable, scientists say
Cadillac balks on plans to go all-EV by 2030, may still offer gas cars for ‘a number of years’
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
GM luxury brand Cadillac has yet to give up on its plans to go electric by the end of the decade, but that strategy has wavered to the point where it might also include combustion vehicles, at least for the foreseeable future. Cadillac’s global vice president recently told reporters that the company has plans for its EV and combustion powertrains to “coexist for a number of years.”
Trump defense begins its attacks on his one-time lawyer, political fixer
date: 2024-05-02, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-faces-more-contempt-of-court-accusations/7595178.html
Amazon boss receives tap on wrist for statements violating labor laws
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Jass sass gets a pass
A US National Labor Relations Board judge has decided that public remarks made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor laws.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/amazon_ceo_nlrb/
Covering the Capitol: Regional reporters play watchdog role for audiences back home
date: 2024-05-02, from: VOA News USA
The number of Washington-based journalists covering the Capitol for local news outlets is dwindling. As the beat shrinks, so, too, does the ability of these regional reporters to hold elected officials to account, media advocates say. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit and Liam Scott have the story, narrated by Caicedo Smit.
Laid-Off Tesla Employee Tells All In YouTube Video
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
He showered at the factory and camped in his Model Y thanks to his workload. Now he’s out.
https://insideevs.com/news/718230/laid-off-tesla-employee-recalls-experience/
Billions on the line for Google as web search monopoly trial nears end
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chocolate Factory relies on dominance for bulk of its revenues, says US
Both the US government and Google will today present their closing arguments in the search engine monopoly case from September.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/google_search_antitrust_closing/
Freeing the chatbot
date: 2024-05-02, from: One Useful Thing
Intelligence, of a sort, is going to be all around us
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/freeing-the-chatbot
Tesla is preparing to launch its own in-car voice assistant
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Tesla is preparing to launch its own in-car voice assistant, according to information in the source code of the latest update.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/tesla-preparing-launch-own-in-car-voice-assistant/
Dos Pueblos Boys’ Volleyball Eliminated by Redondo Union in Quarterfinals of CIF-SS Division 2 Playoffs
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
San Marcos and Santa Barbara also dropped their quarterfinals matches in CIF-SS Division 2
The post Dos Pueblos Boys’ Volleyball Eliminated by Redondo Union in Quarterfinals of CIF-SS Division 2 Playoffs appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
California Native Plant Society Applauds President Biden’s National Monument Expansions
date: 2024-05-02, from: California Native Plants Society
The President’s actions create permanent protection for more than 122,000 acres, including Molok Luyuk.
The post California Native Plant Society Applauds President Biden’s National Monument Expansions appeared first on California Native Plant Society.
https://www.cnps.org/news-releases/biden-national-monument-expansion-molok-luyuk-san-gabriel-38368
Online scammers are upping up their game
date: 2024-05-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A new report from FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center shows people 60 and older lost $3.4 billion to fraudsters and scammers last year. That’s up 11% in a year, with an average loss of $34,000 per victim. On today’s show, we’ll hear the latest in elder financial exploitation. We’ll also learn more about Tesla’s surprising move to scrap its EV charging team. Plus, a rate hike could still be on the table.
Cadillac Walks Back EV Commitment, Will Sell Gas Cars Past 2030
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
Plus, Fisker’s future looks grim as it warns of job cuts, and lobbyists argue AM radio will zap your EV’s range.
https://insideevs.com/news/718215/cadillac-walks-back-2030-ev/
The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes
date: 2024-05-02, from: Quanta Magazine
Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size.The post The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-mystery-of-the-missing-multicellular-prokaryotes-20240502/
Federal frenzy to patch gaping GitLab account takeover hole
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Warning comes exactly a year after the vulnerability was introduced
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is forcing all federal agencies to patch a critical vulnerability in GitLab’s Community and Enterprise editions, confirming it is very much under “active exploit.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/critical_gitlab_vulnerability/
Gogoro Pulse first ride: Testing the most high-tech performance electric scooter
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
When Gogoro rolled out its new high-performance electric scooter, the Pulse, the world got its first glimpse of an entirely new side of the company. Best known for its battery-swapping system and cute, brightly-colored scooters, the Pulse launched an edgy new look for Gogoro. But even more importantly, it also showed off an entire suite of new high-tech innovations.
And so when I received an invite to be the first Westerner to test ride the Pulse and share the experience with the world, I jumped on it. Every company seems to proclaim that their new e-scooter is like none other before, but only the Gogoro Pulse is one of the few that can truly mean it. This electric scooter marks a paradigm shift in what is possible for this form factor and with Gogoro’s swappable battery standard.
Subaru Solterra U.S. Sales Surged To A New Record In April 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
EVs accounted for 2.6% of Subaru total’s volume.
https://insideevs.com/news/718131/subaru-solterra-us-sales-april2024/
Facebook’s AI Spam Isn’t the ‘Dead Internet’: It’s the Zombie Internet
date: 2024-05-02, from: 404 Media Group
Facebook is the zombie internet, where a mix of bots, humans, and accounts that were once humans but aren’t anymore interact to form a disastrous website where there is little social connection at all.
https://www.404media.co/facebooks-ai-spam-isnt-the-dead-internet-its-the-zombie-internet/
Venice’s First-of-Its-Kind ‘Day-Tripper Tax’ Sparks Outrage
date: 2024-05-02, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Protestors say the entry fee is an ineffective solution to the city’s overtourism challenges
‘Quality Is Going To Deteriorate’: Laid-Off Tesla Employees On Superchargers’ Future
date: 2024-05-02, from: Inside EVs News
Now-former Tesla employees tell InsideEVs about the chaos at the company, and why they worry about Supercharger quality and uptime.
https://insideevs.com/news/718132/tesla-laid-off-employee-interview/
Motorcycle Parts Supplier Fined $300,000 for Child Labor
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
They also had to set aside $1.5 million in profits for those kids.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718142/motorcycle-parts-supplier-yamaha-john-deere-tuff-torq/
May 1, 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-1-2024-86e
Flood of AI-Generated Submissions ‘Final Straw’ for Small 22-Year-Old Publisher
date: 2024-05-02, from: 404 Media Group
“The problem with AI is the people who use AI. They don’t respect the written word,” the founder of Bards and Sages said.
https://www.404media.co/bards-and-sages-closing-ai-generated-writing/
SK hynix’s high bandwidth memory buffet fully booked till 2025
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Micron also riding the AI wave with 128 GB DDR5 RDIMMs
Memory chipmaker SK hynix has already sold all the high bandwidth memory (HBM) it will manufacture this year and most of its expected 2025 production, citing increased demand driven by the AI craze. Micron is also getting in on the act with availability of 128 GB DDR5 RDIMMs for servers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/sk_hynix_hbm_sold/
CSUN Theater brought attendees to Bikini Bottom
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
The CSUN theatre department took attendees to Bikini Bottom for their interpretation of “The Spongebob Musical” on Monday, April 15 at the Campus Theatre located in Nordhoff Hall. The immersive…
https://sundial.csun.edu/181305/arts-entertainment/csun-theater-brought-attendees-to-bikini-bottom/
I’d love your feedback
date: 2024-05-02, from: Distilled Earth blog
How can I improve the Distilled newsletter?
https://www.distilled.earth/p/id-love-your-feedback
Acura ZDX S-Line first drive: A smooth, comfy ride, but it doesn’t scream ‘performance EV’ [Video]
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
Acura has officially launched its first-ever BEV – the ZDX, and we at Electrek got the invite to Montecito, California, to test drive the top-tier S-Line trim of the crossover SUV. Acura did many things right in its first venture into electrification, but is it worthy of the performance grade the Honda division is known for? Even more, is it worth the price tag? You be the judge.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/acura-zdx-s-line-first-drive-smooth-comfy-ride-performance-ev-video/
The Getty Center welcomes students to its annual College Night event
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
The Getty Center held its annual College Night event on Monday, Apr. 15 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Open to all college students across Southern California, the event included…
This Guy Turned a Jetski Into a Snowmobile
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Why can’t you have it all?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718139/jetski-snowmobile-shred-eighty/
Vivaldi composes Split View sonata for browser on iPadOS
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tweaks to sorting in Notes and Bookmarks, but WebKit still holds conductor’s baton
Vivaldi has updated its eponymous browser on iPadOS to take advantage of Split View, although the browser engine remains WebKit-based for now.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/vivaldi_multiple_windows_ipad/
America Has a Growing Power Outage Problem
date: 2024-05-02, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Heavy rain in southern Brazil killed at least 10 people • Flood watches are in effect across North Texas • It will be 75 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny today in California’s Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, which has just been expanded by 13,700 acres.
THE TOP FIVE
- One key moment from the Big Oil hearing
Democratic lawmakers testified at a congressional hearing yesterday that Big Oil companies were guilty of decades of “denial, disinformation, and doublespeak” on climate change. The hearing followed the release of damning internal documents suggesting executives from major fossil fuel producers sought to “deceive the public about the enormous climate crisis we are in and the role that Big Oil has played in bringing it about,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee.
Heatmap’s Jillian Goodman was watching the hearing and found the most interesting part to be when Sharon Eubanks, who led the Department of Justice case against Big Tobacco, called for an end to the hand-wringing about what should be done, and suggested the DOJ swiftly launch an investigation into the petroleum industry, the outcome of which could force it to change the way it does business. And that, Eubanks said, is the point of all this — not extracting money, although that’s nice too, but rather to force companies to operate in a more open and honest fashion. “I myself am not a lawyer, of course, but it might be time to listen to Eubanks,” Goodman wrote. “She seems to know what she’s talking about.”
- Study: Climate change is causing more blackouts in New York
A new study published in PLOS Climate shows how climate change is driving power outages in New York. Between 2017 and 2020, about 40% of the power outages that plagued the state were the result of extreme weather events – mainly flooding and intense precipitation. Many of the areas most exposed to outages have overlapping vulnerabilities, like low-quality housing or lack of green space. “Eastern Queens, upper Manhattan and the Bronx of NYC, the Hudson Valley, and Adirondack regions were more burdened with severe weather-driven outages,” the study found. In Queens, neighborhoods such as Jamaica, Flushing, and Richmond Hills experienced more than 100 outages over three years. “We’re focusing on New York state, but power outages are a growing problem nationally,” Columbia University’s Nina Flores, lead author on the study, told Bloomberg. A recent report from the nonprofit research group Climate Central found that the number of weather-related power outages in the U.S. have doubled in the last 10 years or so compared to the decade prior.
- Youth-led climate lawsuit against U.S. government ordered dismissed
A federal appeals court yesterday dealt what could be a fatal blow to a long-standing climate lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the U.S. government. Juliana v. United States was originally filed in 2015 by plaintiffs aged between 8 and 18 who said the government’s support for fossil fuels had contributed to the climate crisis and violated their constitutional rights. The case was ordered dismissed in 2020 when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals basically said Congress, not judges, should decide the nation’s climate policies. A federal judge in Oregon allowed the plaintiffs to adjust their suit and said it could go to trial. But the Biden administration petitioned the court to dismiss the case, and so it has.
“The case had long been a potential bright spot for such youth-led climate litigation that has usually failed to take off,” Politico said. “This is a tragic and unjust ruling, but it is not over,” said Julia Olson, lead attorney at legal nonprofit Our Children’s Trust. “President Biden can still make this right by coming to the settlement table.”
This is one of many youth-led climate lawsuits filed by Our Children’s Trust. Last year a similar suit was successful in Montana. In June, a lawsuit brought by a group of Hawaiian young people against the state’s Department of Transportation will go to trial.
- Experts worry ‘enclosed flaring’ prevents satellites from seeing
greenhouse gases
The growing effort to monitor and crack down on greenhouse gas emissions could be hindered by a new kind of flaring, The Guardian reported. Venting natural gas into the atmosphere produces a flame that can be detected by current satellite imaging technology. Some oil and gas facilities have started using “enclosed” flaring devices, which they claim can reduce noise and light disturbances for surrounding communities. But “it also means [flaring is] not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volumes,” said Eric Kort, a climate and space sciences professor at the University of Michigan.
- Crowdsourcing campaigns for natural disaster recovery are on the
rise
GoFundMe’s “Weather Resilience Fund” launches this week, Axios reported. The fund will raise money to help communities that are vulnerable to extreme weather build resilience and adapt, starting with California’s Central Valley and Imperial Valley. The crowdsourcing site is seeding the fund with $1.5 million, and all donations are tax-deductible. The platform told Axios that natural disaster crowdfunding campaigns are becoming more common as climate change leads to more frequent extreme weather events. The site has seen a 90% increase in natural disaster fundraisers over the last five years.
THE KICKER
More than 40 million students across Asia and North Africa have missed out on school in recent weeks due to extreme heat waves.
https://heatmap.news/power-outages-climate-change
Is The Oruga Unitrack A Stroke Of Off-Road Genius Or An Accident Waiting To Happen?
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
The Latvian startup wants to turn the tractor factor up to eleven.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718140/oruga-unitrack-electric-offroad-concept/
Federal subsidies aim to provide a boost to sustainable jet fuel
date: 2024-05-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The Biden administration has issued guidelines for a tax credit aimed at promoting greener aviation fuel. Currently, sustainable aviation fuel accounts for a fraction of all jet fuel and costs more than twice as much as fossil fuels. Will the tax subsidy work as intended? Plus, interest rates are a good news, bad news story. And we’ll take a closer look at the changing economics of sports broadcasting.Federal subsidies aim to provide a boost to sustainable jet fuel
Microsoft confirms spike in NTLM authentication traffic after Windows Server patch
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Still using ancient protocol suite? April update might make you wish you weren’t
Microsoft’s April 2024 security update blues continue with confirmation of a “significant increase” in NTLM authentication traffic in Windows Server.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/microsoft_ntlm_windows_server/
The 24 Heures Motos Drew A Massive Crowd at Le Mans
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
More than 78,000 people camped out to watch the opening round of the 2024 FIM Endurance World Championship.
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718138/2024-24-heures-motos-massive-success/
Peak Design’s Collab With EV-Motorcycle Maker LAND Looks Like Backyard Fun
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Who’s ready to hit some dirt with this giveaway?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718135/peak-design-land-moto-collab-ev-motorcycle-scrambler/
Can-Am Ryker Centers Accessibility, Makes It Look Easy
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ride Apart, Electric Motorcycle News
Real talk: Why don’t more OEMs follow suit?
https://www.rideapart.com/news/718104/canam-ryker-adjustable-handlebar-footpeg/
Is it too late to prevent AI from interfering in global elections?
date: 2024-05-02, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The European Union is looking into how Meta handles political content. Now, one of Britain’s top computer scientists has warned that it’s too late to prevent artificial intelligence from being misused to influence voters. Plus, cocoa prices have plunged in the last few weeks. And the electric vehicle industry is struggling right now, but the mood’s been optimistic at this week’s Beijing Auto Show.
NASA solar sail boom demonstrator reaches orbit
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Big things come in small packages
NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission has made contact with Earth and confirmed that all is well with the diminutive spacecraft.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/nasa_solar_sail_boom_demonstrator/
Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, literally, something else
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-03, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
V5.30 arrives – with RPi Wi-Fi support
The new version of RISC OS, the original native Arm OS, runs on eight or nine Arm-based platforms, including the Raspberry Pi Zero, 1, 2, 3 and 4 – and on that last two, this release supports wireless networking.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/rool_530_is_here/
WHOO!
date: 2024-05-02, from: Howard Jacobson blog
Whooping seems to be back. Shouting ‘whoo!’ as a way of expressing your enthusiasm. Either that, or it never went away and I have grown inured to it. Explain it how you will, but after five whooping experiences in the last three weeks - one at a concert, one at a play, two at anniversary parties and one at Passover - I can now say definitively that I’m hearing it again. Did I say whooping at Passover? All right, I
https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/whoo
Not a Genius move: Resurrecting war hero Alan Turing as your ‘chief AI officer’
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Chatbot vendor should end the campaign and apologize
Comment Genius Group has broken free of a crowded field to launch what can only be described as the most tasteless marketing campaign in tech history.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/genius_group_alan_turing/
There’s a new trend making electric bike batteries safer
date: 2024-05-02, from: Electrek Feed
A new type of electric bicycle battery is gaining traction in the industry, potentially ushering in unprecedented levels of safety and security for riders. Get ready, because we’re quickly approaching the age of the potted e-bike battery.
https://electrek.co/2024/05/02/theres-a-new-trend-making-electric-bike-batteries-safer/
Lawless Trump demands law and order on campuses
date: 2024-05-02, from: Robert Reich on Substack
Friends, Trump yesterday urged college presidents to be tougher on students protesting the war in Gaza, calling them “raging lunatics.” He continued: “To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately. Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/conflict-discord-and-the-2024-election
Alibaba Cloud details storage tech that’s doubled its VMs per host
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Using one disk as a write cache eases stresses created by manycore CPUs
Exclusive Alibaba Cloud has detailed the tech it developed to run local storage in its servers and bust bottlenecks created by new-generation manycore processors.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/alibaba_cloud_csal_ecs_scaling/
What Does ‘Good Bones’ Actually Mean?
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Questions to ask as you look at how to you use your living space.
The post What Does ‘Good Bones’ Actually Mean? appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/02/what-does-good-bones-actually-mean/
Summary of changes for April 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Hundred Rabbits blog
Hey everyone!
This is the list of all the changes we’ve done to our projects during the month of April.
Summary Of Changes
- 100r.co, added Twilight, updated our notes on chainplates, wheel to tiller conversion, cabin lights standing rigging replacement, Princess Louisa Inlet(added maps), Goji no Chaimu(added maps), and Sailing to Japan(fixed some dead links).
- Hakum, released a new comic sequence called Kaizah.
- Wunderland Rabbits, released a new Rabbit travel photo
- Orca, added a note on the repository for the Javascript version titled Is Orca dead?
Devine has been busy working on the implementation and documentation of wryl’s fantastic programming language Modal. Rewriting systems are a computation paradigm that is generally unknown and under-explored that might have some fascinating features that might be able help us to tackle some of our future projects.
In other news, Pino is ready to head northward! We finished all of our boats projects and left the dock on May 1st. See a photo of our first day of the year on the water, taken as we exited Enterprise Channel, just north of Trial Island south of Victoria. On our travels we will continue to push updates every month like usual, but the updates will only go live when we find internet, and this may or may not coincide with the start of every month. We will keep a log of our travels, populated with plenty of drawings!
Pino book & movie club
Book Club: This month we are reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
https://100r.co/site/log.html#apr2024
Think tank: China’s tech giants refine and define Beijing’s propaganda push
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Taking down TikTok won’t stop the CCP’s attempt to control global narratives
Chinese tech companies that serve as important links in the world’s digital supply chains are helping Beijing to execute and refine its propaganda strategy, according to an Australian think tank.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/china_big_data_proganda/
IndieWeb Carnival: Natural creativity
date: 2024-05-02, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>I spend the vast majority of my time doing creative work. I code for a living, sometimes I design for a living. I code as a hobby, sometimes I do design as a hobby. I also write. Being creative ain’t easy. At least not for me. I sit at my desk, staring at the same screen day after day and sometimes it’s hard to find inspiration. But every time I find myself stuck I can get unstuck with one simple trick: I leave.</p>My creative environment is when I’m outside, not trying to do anything creative. And this is especially true when I’m walking in nature. I’m not the first one to realise that there’s a connection between walking in nature and creativity. There’s something about moving through space that makes my brain work differently.
Nature is, more often than not, my creative environment. Back in 2019, I started a very random project called From the Summit. It was an attempt to capture this exact phenomenon, the bursts of creativity born from moving through space. It’s easily my favourite digital experiment.
At the end of the day though, the only environment that matters, when it comes to creativity, is the mental space I’m in. That’s why I find nature so useful. The cadence of the walk, the sounds, the light, the smell. All the senses are engaged when I’m outside in nature and as a result, my brain becomes more creative.
The next time you’re creatively stuck, if you can, go for a walk in nature. You won’t regret it.
This post was part of May’s IndieWeb Carnival on the topic of Creative environments. If you have a blog, consider writing something for this month’s theme. And if you don’t have a blog I encourage you to start one. Blogging is fun!
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REvil ransomware scum sentenced to almost 14 years inside, ordered to pay $16 million
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
After extorting $700 million from thousands of victims
A Ukrainian man has been sentenced to almost 14 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $16 million in restitution for his role in infecting thousands of victims with REvil ransomware.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/revil_ransomware_prison/
This camera writes poems
date: 2024-05-02, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Poetry Camera uses Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, one of our camera modules, and a thermal printer to create poems instead of pictures.
The post This camera writes poems appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/this-camera-writes-poems/
May 1, 2024
date: 2024-05-02, from: Heather Cox Richardson blog
Today, Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks—earlier than most women know they’re pregnant—went into effect. The Florida legislature passed the law and Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed it a little more than a year ago, on April 13, 2023, but the new law was on hold while the Florida Supreme Court reviewed it. On April 1 the court permitted the law to go into operation today.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-1-2024
Daily EV Recap: Tesla pulls back on Supercharger
date: 2024-05-02, 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/2024/05/01/daily-ev-recap-tesla-pulls-back-on-supercharger/
A million Australian pubgoers wake up to find personal info listed on leak site
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Man arrested and blackmail charges expected after allegations of unpaid contractors and iffy infosec
Updated Over a million records describing Australians who visited local pubs and clubs have apparently been posted online.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/australian_pubs_data_breach/
Pointers
date: 2024-05-02, from: Ed Summers blog, Inkdroid
I like how the fourth Noble Truth is just a pointer to to the Noble Eightfold Path, and the eighth division of the Eightfold Path is a pointer to the practice of meditation (dhyāna).
Hypermedia yo.
https://inkdroid.org/2024/05/02/pointers/
Santa Barbara Wine Week’s Second Vintage
date: 2024-05-02, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
It’s time again to enjoy $10 glasses from more than one dozen establishments.
The post Santa Barbara Wine Week’s Second Vintage appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/01/santa-barbara-wine-weeks-second-vintage/
Japan will use AI to find out what bears do in the woods
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Because nobody wants a big surprise
Japan’s Toyama Prefecture is launching an AI bear monitoring system, following a recent string of encounters with the wildlife.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/japan_ai_bear_detection/
Catalog One-year Anniversary Report
date: 2024-05-02, from: Playdate Blog
April 18, 2024 marked the two-year anniversary of the launch of Playdate. To commemorate the occasion, for the first time, we are publicly sharing data on the sales of Playdate games on our own game storefront, Catalog, and are excited to announce that over 150,000 games have been sold since the store launched - netting out to $544,290.12 in gross revenue for developers after taxes, processing fees, and Panic’s 25% revenue share for distribution on Catalog.
https://news.play.date/news/catalog-report-2024/
Behind the scenes with Advanced Games Project directors
date: 2024-05-02, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
What’s it like being in the USC Games program? What goes into making a video game? Advanced Games Project directors Luke Todaro and Edward Cheng answer these and more on this episode of Rhythm and News, as they sit down with host Abi Mann to talk about the video games they have been creating for the past year.
This episode was hosted by Abi Mann; written by Aubrie Cole; edited by Amrita Sundaresan; and produced by Auburn D’Artell and Jonathan Park. “Rhythm and News” is one of four shows on the Daily Trojan podcast network. You can find more episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts, as well as our website, dailytrojan.com
The post Behind the scenes with Advanced Games Project directors appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/05/01/behind-the-scenes-with-advanced-games-project-directors/
Dropbox dropped the ball on security, haemorrhaging customer and third-party info
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Only from its digital doc-signing service, which is isolated from its cloudy storage
Dropbox has revealed a major attack on its systems that saw customers’ personal information accessed by unknown and unauthorized entities.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/02/dropbox_sign_attack/
Block accused of mass compliance failures that saw digi-dollars reach terrorists
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Developer of Square and Cash App reportedly has big back-end problems it was slow to fix
Fintech biz Block is reportedly under investigation by US prosecutors over claims by a former employee that lax compliance checks mean its Square and Cash App services may have been used by terrorists – or in countries that US orgs are not permitted to do business.…
Secure Randomness in Go 1.22
date: 2024-05-02, updated: 2024-05-02, from: Go language blog
ChaCha8Rand is a new cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator used in Go 1.22.
https://go.dev/blog/chacha8rand
pgAdmin 4 v8.6 Released
date: 2024-05-02, from: PostgreSQL News
The pgAdmin Development Team is pleased to announce pgAdmin 4 version 8.6. This release of pgAdmin 4 includes 15 bug fixes and new features. For more details please see the release notes.
pgAdmin is the leading Open Source graphical management tool for PostgreSQL. For more information, please see the website.
Notable changes in this release include:
Features:
- Added the new columns “last_seq_scan” and “last_idx_scan” from the pg_stat_all_tables and pg_stat_all_indexes tables respectively to the Statistics tab.
- Added support for excluding multiple tables while taking Backup.
Bugs/Housekeeping:
- Fixed an XSS vulnerability in the /settings/store endpoint (CVE-2024-4216).
- Fixed Multi-Factor Authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2024-4215).
- Update UI library MUI from v4 to v5.
- Upgraded Flask, Flask-Security-Too, Werkzeug, and other dependencies, ensuring compatibility with Python 3.7.
- Fixed violates check constraint issue when creating a pgAgent schedule.
- Fixed an issue where pressing backspace should remove the spaces and not the entire tab width, on enabling ‘Use spaces?’ in the preferences.
- Fixed an issue where incorrect select/exec scripts were generated for functions/procedures.
- Fixed an issue when closing the view data second tab; it raises the error that the ‘ViewCommand’ object has no attribute ‘auto_commit’.
- Install dbus-python, an in-direct dependency of the Keyring package as a system package for Debian platforms.
Builds for Windows and macOS are available now, along with a Python Wheel, Docker Container, RPM, DEB Package, and source code tarball from the tarball area.
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgadmin-4-v86-released-2853/
pgEdge Distributed PostgreSQL Introduces Automatic DDL Replication and Snowflake Sequences for Postgres
date: 2024-05-02, from: PostgreSQL News
New capabilities advance state of the art in Postgres logical replication
Alexandria, VA - April 17, 2024 - pgEdge, Inc., the leading company dedicated to distributed Postgres, today unveiled two major advances in logical replication for the widely adopted open-source PostgreSQL database. These are automatic DDL (Data Definition Language) replication, and snowflake sequences, an innovative solution to the problem of maintaining unique sequence identifiers across a distributed Postgres cluster. pgEdge Distributed PostgreSQL is the first and only fully distributed PostgreSQL database solution that is open (source available) and completely based on the PostgreSQL database itself.
Automatic Replication of DDL Commands. DDL is used to create and modify Postgres objects like tables, indexes, views and constraints through command statements like CREATE, ALTER, and DROP. DML (data manipulation language) is used to perform operations on the data within those database objects through command statements such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.
Traditionally, logical replication in Postgres only allowed for the replication of DML statements and not DDL. Manual efforts were required on each node to modify table definitions through DDL commands that had to be executed on every node.
With the introduction of automatic DDL replication on pgEdge, developers can now update the database schema on a single node and have it automatically propagated to other nodes in the cluster. This feature makes it far easier to support distributed Postgres applications where the database schema is frequently updated because of active development or maintenance.
Snowflake Sequence in Postgres Extension: Managing sequences in a distributed PostgreSQL environment can be complex, especially in multi-master replication scenarios. A Postgres sequence provides a unique integer number to use as an ID for the database table and its records. If you insert new records it will assign the next number in the sequence without issue.
In a distributed application, however, the sequence must be updated across different regions and if each node updates the sequence independently you will have conflicts that cannot be resolved. For example, if a sequence is being used as a primary key, the next value of the sequence on a node in the US could be selected at the exact same time the next value of the sequence is selected on a node in Australia, resulting in a primary key conflict.
To address this challenge, pgEdge has integrated snowflake sequences into a Postgres extension. A snowflake sequence allows for the utilization of a guaranteed unique sequence within a cluster without the need for application code or schema modifications. By automatically installing the Snowflake extension in pgEdge Platform and pgEdge Cloud databases, users can easily maintain unique sequence numbers across different regions, eliminating conflicts and enhancing scalability.
An exclusive presentation and paper on the Snowflake extension will be showcased at the Silicon Valley Postgres conference in San Jose this week.
“By offering these cutting-edge capabilities built on open, standard-based Postgres, we demonstrate our ongoing commitment to making advanced distributed Postgres capabilities available to the Postgres community. Our goal is to make it easier and faster to deliver distributed Postgres applications that are always on, always available and always responsive,” remarked Phillip Merrick, Co-founder and CEO of pgEdge.
Availability Automatic DDL Replication and Snowflake Sequences are available now within both pgEdge Platform (self hosted) or pgEdge Cloud (fully managed cloud service).
For more information, to signup for pgEdge Cloud, or to download pgEdge Platform, visit www.pgedge.com. To learn how to configure pgEdge’s Auto DDL, view the documentation at https://docs.pgedge.com/platform/advanced/autoddl. The pgEdge Snowflake extension is available on the project’s GitHub repository at https://github.com/pgEdge/snowflake-sequences.
About pgEdge pgEdge, the leading company dedicated to distributed Postgres, has made its mission to make it easy for developers to build and deploy highly distributed database applications across the global network. Founded by industry veterans who have championed enterprise usage of the PostgreSQL database for several decades and helped run the world’s largest managed database cloud services, pgEdge is headquartered in Northern Virginia. The founders have previously founded and/or led successful companies such as webMethods (NASDAQ: WEBM), EnterpriseDB (acquired by Bain Capital), SparkPost (acquired by MessageBird), OpenSCG (acquired by AWS) and Fugue (acquired by Snyk). Investors in pgEdge include Sands Capital Ventures, Grotech Ventures and Sand Hill East.