News gathered 2024-05-28
(date: 2024-05-28 08:38:18)
NASA, Boeing opt to fly leaky thruster as-is for first crewed Starliner CST-100 mission
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Will Boeing’s Padstayer become Padleaver on June 1?
NASA and Boeing have set another date – June 1 – for the first crewed launch of the Starliner CST-100, a capsule more noted for its reluctance to leave the ground than for its commercial crew capability.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/boeing_padstayer_to_become_padleaver/
The Power of the Cold Open
date: 2024-05-28, from: John August blog
John and Craig explore one of the most powerful and versatile tools in episodic television: the cold open. But how does it work? What kind of scenes does it showcase best? How can it play with point of view, perspective and time? What makes it memorable? And how do you make it work for your […] The post The Power of the Cold Open first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/the-power-of-the-cold-open
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
There's no need to explain the need to organize for women's rights given what's already come from the Supreme Court in recent years.
Sols 4195-4198: Feels Like Summer
date: 2024-05-28, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Friday, May 24, 2024 The first sol of this weekend includes an extremely long, 6-hour DAN activity to measure the amount of hydrogen near the surface, in parallel with a standard midday remote science block including: ChemCam LIBS on a smooth, dark rock named “Shadow Lake,” an RMI 7-frame mosaic of the […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4195-4198-feels-like-summer/
15 Years Ago: First Time all Partners Represented aboard the International Space Station
date: 2024-05-28, from: NASA breaking news
From May 29 to July 17, 2009, for the first time in its history, each of the five partner agencies participating in the International Space Station Program had a crew member living and working aboard the orbiting facility at the same time. The period also marked the beginning of six-person crew habitation, greatly increasing the […]
Climate change
date: 2024-05-28, from: Logic Matters blog
Some years ago, the University Botanic Gardens here in Cambridge started a special area for the interest of local gardeners, displaying plants particularly tolerant of the low local rainfall. Because this part of East Anglia officially counted as a ‘semi-arid’ region. Today, another sodden day. And the garden, if not awash, is lush to say […]
The post Climate change appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/05/28/climatechange/
Pope apologizes after using vulgar term in reference to gay men
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
“The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms,” a Vatican spokesperson said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/28/pope-apologizes-vulgar-term-gay-men/
Asus NUC 14 Performance is a Meteor Lake mini PC with NVIDIA RTX 40 Series graphics (a ROG NUC by another name)
date: 2024-05-28, from: Liliputing
The Asus NUC 14 Performance is a small desktop computer with the guts of a gaming laptop. It supports up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H Meteor Lake processor and up to NVIDIA GeForce RTC 4070 graphics. But since the NUC 14 Performance is a desktop rather than a laptop, there’s room for more […]
The post Asus NUC 14 Performance is a Meteor Lake mini PC with NVIDIA RTX 40 Series graphics (a ROG NUC by another name) appeared first on Liliputing.
Do These Coins Belong to a Legendary 18th-Century Polish Fraudster?
date: 2024-05-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Mountain hermit Antoni Jaczewicz tricked sick people into thinking he had healing powers. A Polish treasure-hunting group believes they’ve found his fortune
Microsoft’s Recall preview doesn’t need a Copilot+ PC to run
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Just because you could doesn’t mean you should
Windows Recall has been coaxed into life on a computer lacking the AI hardware shown off by Microsoft at its recent unveiling event.…
Man refuses to exit running garbage truck in Campbell
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
He’s charged with being drunk in public.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/28/man-refuses-to-exit-running-garbage-truck-in-campbell/
San Francisco’s Chinatown: Forged by discrimination, now a cultural treasure
date: 2024-05-28, from: VOA News USA
America’s oldest Chinatown sustains traditions even as members of the Chinese diaspora continue to spread out and evolve. Matt Dibble has the story from San Francisco, California.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7629846.html
Man fatally shot driving in East Oakland
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
A motive is being sought for the fatal shooting of a man driving in East Oakland Monday night who was able to drive into San Leandro before crashing.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/28/man-fatally-shot-driving-in-east-oakland/
Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands
date: 2024-05-28, from: Quanta Magazine
To calculate the amount of carbon stored inside peatlands, researchers developed a unified theory of “bog physics” applicable around the world.The post Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nvidia said to be prepping AI PC chip with Arm and Blackwell cores
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Rivalry in Windows on Arm space would intensify once GPU giant enters the fray
Competition could be heating up in the Windows on Arm space amid talk in the industry that Nvidia is readying a chip pairing next-gen Arm cores with its Blackwell GPU architecture.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/nvidia_ai_pc_arm_blackwell_core/
XL Raspberry Pi 5 Game Boy
date: 2024-05-28, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Gameboy XL is powerful enough to run NES and PS2 emulators and, yes, you can play Doom on it.
The post XL Raspberry Pi 5 Game Boy appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/xl-raspberry-pi-5-game-boy/
Oil, gas and hurricane season don’t mix
date: 2024-05-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Hurricane season officially begins this week, and forecasters are predicting a record number of storms to barrel through the Atlantic Ocean this year. While that means potential destruction to homes, businesses and infrastructure, one industry is particularly at risk: oil and natural gas. We’ll unpack. Plus, “there is no economic solution for a political problem”: Trinity College professor of economics Ibrahim Shikaki reflects on Gaza’s economy at time of war.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/oil-gas-and-hurricane-season-dont-mix
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Tumblr launches its semi-private Communities in open beta.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/28/tumblr-launches-its-semi-private-communities-in-open-beta/
How Floods Are Contributing to Pregnancy Loss in India
date: 2024-05-28, from: Heatmap News
Ashwini Khandekar was in her first few months of pregnancy when the flood came. This was July 2021, the peak of the annual monsoon season, when a downpour destroyed more than 300 houses in Ganeshwadi, a village 400 kilometers south of Mumbai in India’s Maharashtra state. Authorities instructed Khandekar and her husband to evacuate, she told me, “but I couldn’t leave my house because all the evacuation centers were full. I had nowhere to go.” Though in the end her home was spared, for the next 15 days, Khandekar lived in constant fear, praying until the waters finally abated.
Four months later, Khandekar went to the doctor for a prenatal checkup. Her child, she learned, showed signs of anencephaly, a condition in which the fetal brain and skull fail to develop normally. Usually, babies born with anencephaly die within a few hours, and most pregnancies end in miscarriage. To cross-check the doctor’s claims, Khandekar visited eight more hospitals. Everyone confirmed the same. “I was heartbroken,” she said.
When a community health-care worker, Kavita Magdum, examined Khandekar’s medical records, she found that Khandekar had suffered from a severe deficiency of iron and folic acid, a known risk factor for anencephaly. This, in turn, pointed back to the storm. “She was traumatized by the flood and wasn’t getting a nutrient-rich diet for several weeks,” Magdum told me. The roads in and out of the village were closed for 20 days, cutting off food supplies. During this time, she ate only cooked rice and wheat flatbread. Sometimes she didn’t eat at all.
By the end of December, a month after she learned of her child’s condition, Khandekar had lost the pregnancy. She was 20 years old at the time.
Though tragic, stories like Khandekar’s are not rare. A research paper published in Nature this year found that from 2010 to 2020, maternal exposure to floods led to an average of 107,888 lost pregnancies per year in low- and middle-income countries, with South Asia reporting the most cases. Lack of access to nutrient-rich foods was one of the causes the researchers identified, along with physical and mental stress, disease, and lack of housing and safe childbirth services.
This year’s monsoon season will begin in June and stretch through September. The Indian Government has forecast above-average rainfall this year, at 106% of the long-term average. In the first two decades of this century, floods impacted 1.5 billion people in Asia, accounting for 93% of the globally affected population. Last year, over 80% of hydrometeorological disasters in Asia were floods and storms.
About 89% of the world’s flood-exposed population resides in low- and middle-income countries that lack adequate health-care facilities. India alone has more than 378 million women of childbearing age, and has experienced an average of 17 yearly flood events in the past two decades. Floods affected more than 218 million people in India from 2015 to 2020, and destroyed crops on nearly 35 million hectares of farmland, leading to rampant food insecurity. During this time, stillbirths in India increased 28.6%.
For women and their children, the risk begins even before a pregnancy occurs. Simran Jamadar was also 20 years old and living in Maharashtra’s tiny Kanwad village when the floods arrived in 2021. “The water was at least four feet in our house at 5 p.m.,” said Jamadar, forcing her to evacuate. Walking through muddy water with her family to the evacuation center 10 kilometers away, she had to tread carefully lest she disturb an unseen snake. After she reached her destination, she spent 12 days crammed in with 6,000 people from 15 villages. Overstressed and underslept, Jamadar found it difficult to eat. On top of everything else, the experience brought up painful memories from just over a year before, when another flood had wiped out her home, along with all its furniture, crucial papers, and six months of food supplies.
Five months later, still grappling with the trauma of the flood, Jamadar became pregnant. At about the seven-month mark, she experienced a sudden and unbearable stomachache and vomited. Sonography reports showed that she had developed an incompetent cervix — a weakened womb unable to hold a baby. Six hours later, Jamadar gave birth. The child was born and “passed away within a day,” Anita Kamble, a community health-care worker from Jamadar’s village, told me.
Kamble spoke to more than 30 community health-care workers from the flood-affected villages and found a similar pattern of stillbirths associated with stress — even when that stress began before the women became pregnant. This squares with other findings from the Nature study, which showed a significant association between pregnancy loss and exposure to floods even six months before conception. A controlled study of 340 women from Sweden who’d been pregnant in the same year found that 54% of those who experienced stress during pregnancy such as depression or anxiety gave birth prematurely.
With flooding, disruptions and their attending stressors can last for months, and sometimes even years. “The trauma was visible on her face,” Kamble said of Jamadar.
“The most important buffer for stressed pregnant women is social support,” Gloria Giarratano, a professor of nursing at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, told me. That includes resources to help cope with psychiatric stressors. Giarratano was the lead author of a study of women in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, which found that women without a network of trusted people to rely on were the most likely to become depressed while pregnant. The more support they have, Giarratano told me, the more that risk decreases.
India, however, for its population of 1.3 billion people, has just 9,000 psychiatrists and 1,000 psychologists. In the face of this challenge, community health-care workers like Magdum and Kamble have devised ad hoc solutions.
What India lacks in licensed medical practitioners, it somewhat makes up for in community-based health programs. India has over a million all-women community health-care workers, known as Accredited Social Health Activists, or ASHAs, who make public health care accessible. Appointed for every 1,000 people from the same village, they are responsible for at least 70 health-care tasks, including providing ante- and postnatal care and ensuring that infants and children are vaccinated on time. In the past seven years, they have gone beyond their duty to help pregnant women recover from the trauma caused by floods and other climate disasters.
After Jamadar lost her baby, for instance, Kamble began visiting her every three to four days, asking about her problems and listening patiently to the answers, sometimes for several hours. Often, Jamadar spoke of her fear of floods. Kamble started talking to more women and found that they all needed someone to share their frustration and fears with. “In several villages, even today, women aren’t allowed to talk about their stress,” Kamble told me.
She started organizing informal discussions in the community where women including Jamadar could be free to share their trauma — and where Kamble could monitor their stress levels and nutrition. “I knew I wasn’t alone in this, and listening to others gave me confidence that we could recover together,” Jamadar told me.
In April 2024, Jamadar gave birth to a child, Aiza, without complications. “From the start, we did everything right and made sure Jamadar wasn’t stressed,” Kamble told me proudly.
In addition to listening, Kamble also started making a list of where pregnant women could be evacuated safely in case of another flood. She would then check if these places had essential facilities like access to good-quality drinking water and sanitation. ASHAs also started pre-arranging private vehicle transport for pregnant women in case of emergency.
Through lengthy and careful community engagement, the ASHAs have started to compile lists of women they expect to become pregnant well before they actually are. “Three months before someone decides to conceive, we start providing them with iron and folic acid tablets,” Magdum told me. This has helped her reduce the anemia rate in her village by 50%. “Earlier, people didn’t take it seriously, but now everyone inquires beforehand about the tablets,” she said.
None of this has been easy, especially because many ASHAs themselves are victims of recurring floods and have faced tremendous personal losses. The state doesn’t consider them full-time workers, and pays them only an honorarium based on the number of tasks completed. In India’s wealthiest state, Maharashtra, the average income is just 4,000 to 7,000 Indian Rupees, or $48 to $83, per month, and often the payments are delayed. As a result, many ASHAs are forced to double up as farmworkers to make ends meet.
Despite the challenges, ASHAs keep coming up with solutions. “If we stop working in such stressful times, how will the health-care system survive?” asked Kamble, who handles around 20 pregnancy cases every year and has counseled over 100 pregnant women since 2017. Since ASHAs are unionized, they often meet to discuss best practices and share their experiences. Today, thousands of ASHAs across India are helping women recover emotionally from the trauma caused by climate change.
“ASHA means hope in several Indian languages,” Kamble said, “and I am proud to bring a smile and hope to several women.”
https://heatmap.news/climate/india-flooding-pregnancy-stillbirths
Evolution of the ELF object file format
date: 2024-05-28, from: OS News
The ELF object file format is adopted by many UNIX-like operating systems. While I’ve previously delved into the control structures of ELF and its predecessors, tracing the historical evolution of ELF and its relationship with the System V ABI can be interesting in itself. ↫ MaskRay The article wasn’t lying. I had no reason to know this – and I’m pretty sure most of you didn’t either – but it turns out the standards that define ELF got caught up in the legal murkiness and nastiness of UNIX. After the dissolution of the committee governing ELF in 1995, stewardship went from one familiar name to the next, first Novell, then The Santa Cruz Operation, then Caldera which renamed itself to The SCO Group, and eventually ending up at UnXis (now Xinuos) in 2011. In 2015, the last maintainer of ELF left Xinuos, and since then, it’s been effectively unmaintained. Which is kind of wild, considering ELF is a crucial building block of virtually all UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems today. The article mentions there’s a neutral Google Group that discusses, among other things, ELF, but that, too, has seen dwindling activity. Still, that group has reached consensus on some changes; changes that are now not reflected in any of the official texts. It’s a bit of a mess. If you ever wanted to know the status of ELF as a standard, this article’s for you.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139809/evolution-of-the-elf-object-file-format/
A Berkeley art show’s massive photos celebrate California’s trees
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
The imperiled beauty of our diverse trees is highlighted in Stefan Thuilot’s “California Forest Project.”
Auction house Christie’s confirms criminals stole some client data
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Centuries-old institution dodges questions on how it happened as ransomware gang claims credit
International auctioning giant Christie’s has confirmed data was stolen during an online attack after a top-three ransomware group claimed credit.…
Google Researchers Say AI Now Leading Disinformation Vector (and Are Severely Undercounting the Problem)
date: 2024-05-28, from: 404 Media Group
It’s much easier to produce AI-generated disinformation than it is to fact check it.
A Mental Health Awareness Month Message from Your MAF EAP office: “Suicide and Crises Lifeline”
date: 2024-05-28, from: NASA breaking news
While NASA promotes the availability of EAP counselors at each Center, there may be reasons when, during a mental health crisis, employees do not think about EAP or cannot remember how to access. Now, the Suicide and Crises Lifeline (https://988lifeline.org/) is available to anyone, anytime nationwide by calling or texting three numbers from your cell […]
One of every five new homes built in California last year was an ADU
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Homeowners and developers are taking advantage of new state legislation that speeds up the permitting process for these tiny homes.
Illegal trash dumping is a problem in Silicon Valley. Here’s how one South Bay town is trying to solve it.
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
San Martin does not have dedicated staff to deal with trash, so instead, a group of volunteers has taken matters into their own hands, cleaning up literal tons of trash in the process.
Google is bringing new features to Chromebooks, with an emphasis on AI
date: 2024-05-28, from: Liliputing
2024 is the year AI is taking over the tech world… not in a Skynet kind of way, but in the sense that pretty much every major tech company (and plenty of startups) are pushing AI as the next must-have feature. And while it’s too soon to tell whether there’s as much demand for that feature […]
The post Google is bringing new features to Chromebooks, with an emphasis on AI appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/google-is-bringing-new-features-to-chromebooks-with-an-emphasis-on-ai/
Acer launches two premium Chromebooks: the Chromebook Plus Spin 714 convertible and Chromebook Plus 516 GE for cloud gaming
date: 2024-05-28, from: Liliputing
Acer is expanding is Chromebook Plus lineup with upgraded versions of two models. One is a general purpose model with a touchscreen display, 360-degree hinge, support for an optional stylus, and the first Intel Meteor Lake chip available in an Acer Chromebook. The other is a gaming Chromebook with an RGB backlit keyboard and big […]
The post Acer launches two premium Chromebooks: the Chromebook Plus Spin 714 convertible and Chromebook Plus 516 GE for cloud gaming appeared first on Liliputing.
Will Windows drive a PC refresh? Everyone’s talking about AI
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
As Lenovo says it’ll cram hybrid AI into multiple devices, CIOs and analysts remain unconvinced
Morgan Stanley is betting AI PCs will drive the next wave of commercial fleet refreshes after Microsoft made public its line-up at Build, and is forecasting the machines will comprise 65 percent of total sales by 2028.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/windows_to_drive_pc_refresh/
A Weekend of Deadly Weather
date: 2024-05-28, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Early summer heat wave threatens the South • Temperatures climb to a near-record 125 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan • It’s 60 degrees and rainy in Paris where the French Open is underway.
THE TOP FIVE
- Over 2,000 people buried by landslide in Papua New Guinea
A massive landslide reportedly buried alive more than 2,000 people in northern Papua New Guinea on Friday. Over 670 people have already been reported dead but experts warn the death toll will rise far higher as rescuers pick through the devastation. Aid workers have also reportedly struggled to reach the affected area with roads blocked and the ground still unstable.
- At least 23 killed by weekend storms in the South
Severe storms killed almost two dozen people across the southern United States over Memorial Day weekend and left hundreds of thousands without power. Arkansas reported eight dead, Texas seven, Kentucky five, and Oklahoma two, with the causes of death ranging from falling debris to a weather-induced heart attack. With 622 preliminary reports of severe weather, including 14 tornadoes, Sunday was the most active severe storm day of the year so far.
- Biden administration sets principles for voluntary carbon markets
The Biden administration on Tuesday released a joint policy statement and a set of seven principles for voluntary carbon credit markets. Highlighting the discrepancies among crediting methodologies and the resulting doubts about the credits’ integrity, the documents are intended to serve as guidance for credit buyers and sellers and will shape how the U.S. government interacts with the market.
The “voluntary principles” include:
- Carbon credits should meet credible standards and represent real
decarbonization.
2. Credit-generating activities should avoid environmental and social harm.
3. Corporate buyers should prioritize credits that reduce emissions from their own value chains.
4. Users should publicly disclose the credits they’ve used.
5. Users should be precise about the climate impact of credits and should only rely on credits that meet high integrity standards.
6. Market participants should contribute to efforts that improve market integrity.
7. Policymakers and market participants should work to make the market more efficient and cheaper to use.
- EPA denies Alabama coal ash plan
The EPA rejected Alabama’s plan to manage its coal waste last week, with federal officials deeming the state proposal “significantly less protective of people and waterways than federal law requires.” The decision comes amid a push from the agency to strengthen its oversight of the toxic coal ash stored in ponds and landfills around the country. Only three states — Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia — have secured permission to run their own coal ash programs. Alabama is the first state to have its plan rejected. The EPA cited “deficiencies in Alabama’s permits with closure requirements for unlined surface impoundments, groundwater monitoring networks, and corrective action (i.e., investigation and clean up) requirements” as reasons for the denial. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has said it will appeal the decision.
- Study: Communities will benefit from electric school buses
Electrifying school bus fleets is good for health and the climate, a new study found. Researchers at Harvard University’s school of public health determined that replacing the average diesel school bus in the U.S. with an electric version yields $40,400 per bus in climate benefits and $43,800 per bus in health benefits. The health benefits of replacing particularly old and polluting diesel buses in urban areas could amount to more than $200,000 per bus. But electric buses will still cost schools an estimated $156,000 more over their lifetimes compared to new diesel buses, according to the study. “In a dense urban setting where old diesel buses still comprise most school bus fleets, the savings incurred from electrifying these buses outweigh the costs of replacement,” said Kari Nadeau, a professor of climate and population studies, in a statement.
THE KICKER
On Saturday, NASA launched the first of two small satellites that will study heat loss at the poles and collect data that can be used to refine climate models.
https://heatmap.news/climate/a-weekend-of-deadly-weather
Walters: California Supreme Court weighs two cases that could limit the ballot initiative process
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Business interests are increasingly using initiatives to counter what they regard as too much regulation, taxes and fees.
Empty San Jose office building is foreclosed and seized by lender
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
An empty San Jose office building has been foreclosed and seized by its lender.
Elon Musk’s xAI scores $6B in its series B funding round
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Investors continue to buy into the AI hype
Elon Musk’s xAI has announced a series B funding round of $6 billion that takes the company to a valuation of $24 billion, according to the billionaire.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/elon_musks_xai_scores_a/
The state of Palestine’s economy
date: 2024-05-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Beneath the tremendous human suffering wrought by war in Gaza is a harsh economic reality. Today, we’re examining the state of the Palestinian economy before, during and potentially after the war, and will hear more about Palestine’s entrenched dependency on Israel’s economy. But first: The White House is introducing a set of carbon credit standards to help figure out if carbon offsets are achieving what they purport to.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-state-of-palestines-economy
Opinion: Take ranked choice voting national for presidential elections
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
With Americans fundamentally restless with their ballot choices, RCV could solve the spoiler problem.
Sale closed in Fremont: $1.7 million for a condominium
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
A 1,911-square-foot condominium built in 2008 has changed hands. The property located in the 400 block of Ironwood Terrace in Fremont was sold on April 23, 2024, for $1,700,000, or $890 per square foot.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/28/sale-closed-in-fremont-1-7-million-for-a-condominium/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Behind the Curtain: AI's ominous scarcity crisis.
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/28/ai-power-energy-data-chips-talent
Opinion: Will California’s new tax on gun sales reduce firearm violence?
date: 2024-05-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
By making a given product more expensive, excise taxes lead people to buy less of it, reducing the harm to society.
Parliamentarians urge next UK govt to consider ban on smartphones for under-16s
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Digital age of consent at 13 not even enforced, committee finds
A committee of MPs has urged the next government to consider a total ban on smartphones for under-16s in the UK.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/smartphone_youth_ban_uk/
Introduction: DBus and systemd
date: 2024-05-28, from: OS News
systemd uses DBus as the mechanism to interact with it. This article introduces just enough DBus concepts and the usage of busctl to communicate with systemd. These concepts should be useful when using DBus libraries. ↫ Beartama Exactly what it says on the tin.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139807/introduction-dbus-and-systemd/
David Beckham scores Euros deal with AliExpress
date: 2024-05-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Soccer superstar David Beckham has signed a deal to be a global ambassador for AliExpress, an online retail platform owned by Chinese technology giant Alibaba. The announcement comes as the Euros soccer tournament is due to kick off in Germany next month. Plus, billions of dollars are being poured into AI despite lack of uptake, and the FBI is investigating the sale of stolen British Museum goods.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Jews Are Coming - Never again all over again.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KjwrV0wG9E0
How The Wolves Of K Street Ate America
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Lever News
In their new book The Wolves of K Street, Brody and Luke Mullins explore how corporate power came to dominate American politics.
https://www.levernews.com/how-the-wolves-of-k-street-ate-america/
We polled thousands of IT pros – and sustainability just ain’t a priority right now
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The planet can wait, pal, we’ve got other problems
Survey results While Big Tech wrings its hands about things like greenhouse gas emissions, IT teams out in the trenches aren’t nearly as concerned about the eco-sustainability of their infrastructure.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/register_it_sustainability/
Pilar Schiavo | Honoring Our Veterans — and Serving Them
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Signal
Yesterday, we honored those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. My family is so fortunate that my dad and brother returned home safely. We still have […]
The post Pilar Schiavo | Honoring Our Veterans — and Serving Them appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/pilar-schiavo-honoring-our-veterans-and-serving-them/
AWS leads UK cloud market while Microsoft dominates growth and new customers
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
And guess who has highest margins? Some interesting findings from fresh market watchdog report
Microsoft is achieving the highest margins while at the same time achieving the strongest growth in the UK cloud market, according to a working paper from the competition watchdog.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/aws_leads_uk_cloud_market/
Rick Barker | Abuse of Power
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Signal
It’s one thing for a sitting president or other political candidate or citizen to contest an election AFTER it has taken place, which is very common and totally legal under […]
The post Rick Barker | Abuse of Power appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/rick-barker-abuse-of-power/
What would an IPO mean for the Raspberry Pi Foundation?
date: 2024-05-28, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
On 22 May 2024, we announced that we are intending to list the Foundation’s commercial subsidiary, Raspberry Pi Ltd, on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. This is called an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The IPO process is — quite rightly — highly regulated, and information about the company and the potential listing…
The post What would an IPO mean for the Raspberry Pi Foundation? appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/what-would-an-ipo-mean-for-the-raspberry-pi-foundation/
Take two APIs and call me in the morning: How healthcare research can cure cyber crime
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
In evolving smarter security, open source is the missing link
Opinion Some ideas work better than others. Take DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Launched by US President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 response to Sputnik, its job is to create and test concepts that may be useful in thwarting enemies. Along the way, it’s helped make happen GPS, weather satellites, PC technology, and something called the internet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/take_two_apis_and_call/
Richard Bussell | Celebrating Hanoi Jane?
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Signal
We are told that Jane Fonda’s Vietnam protests “can still cause objections among some older veterans” like myself (101st Airborne, 1968-69). She helped the Vietnam prison camp commander undermine the […]
The post Richard Bussell | Celebrating Hanoi Jane? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/richard-bussell-celebrating-hanoi-jane/
Rob Kerchner | A Double Standard
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Signal
Foreigners breaking into the country is not much of a crime these days, but citizens walking into the Capitol on Jan. 6 gets you decades in prison … even if […]
The post Rob Kerchner | A Double Standard appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/rob-kerchner-a-double-standard/
Ukraine gets more military aid from Europe but Putin warns of consequences if Russian soil is hit
date: 2024-05-28, from: Associated Press, World News
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has received a second $1 billion promise of military aid in as many days during a whirlwind tour of three European Union countries.
A Corporate Poisoner Two-Steps Out Of Its Toxic Liability
date: 2024-05-28, from: The Lever News
A Koch-owned company is exploiting bankruptcy law to avoid responsibility for their asbestos assets and rewrite judicial precedent.
https://www.levernews.com/a-corporate-poisoner-two-steps-out-of-its-toxic-liability/
By 2030, software developers will be using AI to cut their workload ‘in half’
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Prepare for the HyperAssistant of the future, maybe
Half a decade hence, software development will be transformed by AI assistance, argue four academics from the University of Lugano in Switzerland.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/software_development_2030/
Today in SCV History (May 28)
date: 2024-05-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1888 – Olympian Jim Thorpe, “America’s greatest athlete,” born in Indian Territory (probably near Prague, Okla.); later in life, appeared in many B-Westerns shot in Placerita Canyon. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-may-28/
Alibaba Cloud built its edge network hardware on Intel Ethernet ASICs
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Custom 2U boxen with Tofino inside are in production and mean Chinese cloud has more space for servers
Alibaba Cloud has revealed the hardware design it uses to run networking at its edge locations, and those devices’ reliance on Intel Tofino ASICs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/alibaba_cloud_edge_network_switches/
Do electric cars use more water than petrol cars?
date: 2024-05-28, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
With current electricity mixes, yes. In a low-carbon world, no.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electric-vehicles-water
Indonesia’s president orders government to stop developing new applications
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nation of 17,000 islands operates 27,000 bits of software
Indonesian president Joko Widodo on Monday ordered government officials to stop developing new applications.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/indonesia_app_sprawl/
Refurb weekend: Canon Cat
date: 2024-05-28, from: Old Vintage Computer Research
It’s the Memorial Day holiday weekend and it’s time for a little deferred maintenance, especially on those machines I intend to work on more in the near future. So we’ll start with one that’s widely considered to be a remarkable cul-de-sac in computing history: the Canon Cat.
Canon, however, never fully grasped the concept either. Apart from the tone-deaf marketing, Canon sold the device through their typewriter division and required the display to only show what a daisywheel printer could generate, limiting its potential as a general purpose workstation. There was also an infamous story where Canon engineers added a hard power switch not present in the original prototype, believing its absence to be an oversight — over Raskin’s objections, who intended the machine as an always-on, instantly useable system. The Cat nevertheless launched at an MSRP of $1495 ($4125 in 2024 dollars) in July that year to many plaudits and design awards, but alleged corporate shenanigans and uncertainty within Canon doomed it internally, causing them to dropkick the product after just six months and 20,000 sales. In the wake of the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash Raskin’s investors subsequently pulled the plug and the company closed in 1991.
We’ll have more to say about that in a future entry when we get into the guts of the OS. Today, we have two tasks: replace its settings battery and shore up the nearly unobtainium custom Canon floppy drive, its most common point of failure. It’s time for a Refurb Weekend.
Before we begin the job, let’s have a little tour. The Cat’s notability is such that there are many analyses of it (PDF), including Raskin’s own musings in The Humane Machine, and I probably couldn’t do justice to it in this particular article. But a brief historical digression is always in order around these parts.
After Raskin left Apple in 1982, he took his ideas and founded Information Appliance, Inc. in Palo Alto later that year. “By choosing to focus on computers rather than the tasks we wanted done, we inherited much of the baggage that had accumulated around earlier generations of computers,” Raskin wrote in 1986. “It is more a matter of style and operating systems that need elaborate user interfaces to support huge application programs.” He envisioned an environment that provided word processing, information retrieval (i.e., search), programming and telecommunications in a single integrated package — it would do the basic tasks you need and be expandable to the later ones you’d want. This concept was first formalized as the original Swyft project. Swyft started as a 6502-based platform which quickly evolved into a system not unlike the released Cat except for using a 68008 CPU (i.e., a 68000 with an 8-bit data bus and a 1MB addressing range). However, IAI’s investors were concerned that its development was taking too long and prevailed upon Raskin’s team to commercially surface the technology earlier.
Like the Swyft, the SwyftCard came up in a word processor mode as its default interface in which you could immediately type and print text. The workspace stored everything centrally: data from any source, even serial telecommunications such as a modem call, went right into the document too (you could even dial up a Swyft system if it had an auto-answer modem and send it text remotely). The workspace was one big document, subdivided into smaller ones which could be printed, edited or erased individually — which is to say, there was no file system at all. To switch workspaces, you just switched floppies, and the software kept track of whether the current document workspace matched the disk in the drive. The Swyft’s most notable innovation was the concept of “leaping,” where you held a “leap” key down and typed in the phrase you were looking for, and special attention was paid to making this unique means of workspace navigation as fast as possible. For the SwyftCard, this was implemented with the two Apple keys.
Porting from the Swyft was relatively straightforward since much of the high-level operating system was written in Forth, a language well-established on the 6502 as well, though the 6502’s smaller 64K addressing space mandated using the banking logic on the card for memory management. However, a notable difference from Swyft was that SwyftCard users programmed it in good old Applesoft BASIC. You could type a BASIC program directly into the editor, highlight it, and then have it execute — and the output went into your document. This was an easy way to do calculations, for example, but most any appropriate BASIC operation would work such as string variables for templates and frequently used text. IAI offered the entire package in 1985 for $89.95 (in 2024 about $260) with the SwyftCard, a tutorial disk and a ProDOS interchange utility, and won strong reviews from Apple II magazines at the time. David Thornburg wrote in A+ that “[i]t not only outperforms any Apple II word-processing system, but it also lets the Apple //e outperform the Macintosh.”
While the Cat was reportedly developed on time and on budget, IAI’s investors remained unhappy with its gestational pace, and refused to invest sufficient capital to allow IAI to sell it under its own name. This forced IAI management to find a willing licensee for the product, and they found it in Japanese electronics manufacturer Canon, who was looking for another way to crack the microcomputer market after years of repeated failures. Raskin’s original target price point was $795, but this was again vetoed and the higher price instituted for better margins. Internally the machine is called the Canon V777.
Here’s the default editor. The Cat inherits the same interface as the Swyft (and, by descent, the SwyftCard). What’s most noticeable is what’s not visible: other than a small section at the bottom showing document settings, margins and a free memory gauge, there are no windows or menus of any kind. There’s a cursor, but no pointer.
In fact, there aren’t even conventional cursor keys. The Cat has the same “leap” keys as the Swyft and SwyftCard, in a bright but tasteful pink, and they work the same way to jump to portions of the document or into other documents. You can also use them to scroll with the SHIFT key, or move by single letters, sentences or paragraphs. The LEAP keys are also how you highlight text blocks to manipulate by LEAPing to the beginning, LEAPing to the end, and then pressing them together.
Much, but not all, of the rest of the interface is exposed on blue labels on the front of the keys. These are accessed by USE FRONT, which is basically the Cat’s Command key, and even the LEAP keys have special functions with USE FRONT. For some operations you’ll keep USE FRONT and other keys down and add others into chords. Raskin was emphatic that the Swyft and Cat should not have modes — when you release the keys, the operation is over, whatever that ends up meaning.
For everything else, there’s built-in online help with the EXPLAIN key combination (USE FRONT+N). Besides on-demand assistance, the EXPLAIN facility also serves as the “error centre.” If the Cat hits an error, you don’t get a modal dialogue; instead, it just politely beeps. You can then ask it to explain itself and it will give its objections in prose.
Canon did not mention its programming capability in their user documentation, but IAI discussed it at length in their own documents, as the “secret” programmer’s setting was never intended to be truly secret. When Forth is enabled, you can either type in Forth words at a traditional ok prompt, or you can type Forth code into your document, highlight it and execute it (USE FRONT+ANSWER). When running code this way, any output appears in your document.
I’ll have a lot more to say about Forth and the Cat’s operating system in the upcoming entry. Let’s get inside.
The logic board sits in a “pan” on the underside. Undo the screws (except for the ones in the feet).
The pan is now loose. With a little gentle tugging with a nylon spudger or some such, you should be able to free the lip on the side opposite the rear ports and get it lifted up slightly.
Doing so carefully because there are still cables attached, slide the ports out from their openings on the back.
The logic board is attached to the top case by three cables: a white flat ribbon to the keyboard, a 20-pin ribbon to the floppy disk, and power and video lines to the CRT. Gently pull out the end of the white ribbon from the keyboard. You should be able to get enough play in the floppy disk and power cables to pull the board up and to the side. We’re going to pull off those cables shortly but if you’re just replacing the battery for the settings RAM, you only need to disconnect the keyboard.
Lay the logic board flat and remove the screws holding the Faraday cage on. If you have chosen not to disconnect the other two cables then you can’t remove the cage completely, but with care you’ll be able to elevate and rotate it enough for the next step.
The Cat uses a full 68000 instead of the 68008 of the Swyft (at IC1), which also makes it faster. The 256K system ROM is provided as four 64K EPROMs with coloured labels interleaved to yield the standard 68K big-endian 32-bit long. The 128K ROM at IC6 south of (under) the coloured EPROMs is the spellcheck dictionary, referred to as the SV-ROM. This is the USA/Japan chip; other locales may be at any position of IC6, IC7 or IC8.
In the northeast (top right) corner is the RAM, each one a Fujitsu MB81464 32K (256Kbit) 150ns DRAM chip, used both as the system memory and partially as the frame buffer. This unit has the default 256K of RAM (eight), with sockets to add another 128K to equal 384K. An upgrade to do some other time. It should be possible to populate the other unsocketed row as well but I’d prefer not to solder on a rare system if I can avoid it.
The show is primarily run by three custom Canon gate arrays at IC30 (NH4-5001, GA#1), IC13 (NH4-5002, GA#2) and IC31 (NH4-5003, GA#3). GA#1 controls the main system oscillator X1, a “20MHz” (actually 19.968MHz) crystal used directly for RAS, CAS and the video data shift clock, which it divides by four for the CPU’s “5MHz” (actually 4.992MHz) clock, and also generates the horizontal and vertical video sync for the CRT. It handles fetching video data from shared RAM which is fed into GA#2. GA#2 actually emits the pixels to the monitor, as well as handling the watchdog timer (if the CPU doesn’t regularly reset this timer, GA#2 will pass it an NMI, and then reset it if necessary), sending the regular keystrobe interrupt (via the 68681 DUART at IC34), and controlling the modem off-hook status. GA#3 handles the printer, keyboard and floppy drive.
The Motorola MC68681P DUART is a two-port UART. One port handles serial communications from the internal modem and the other port handles either the external RS-232 or the printer port, as configured. It also manages the beeper at “BZ” and is a source of two IRQs, the keystrobe interrupt from GA#2 (keyscan is done every 6.5ms), and when a telephone ring is detected by the modem. It takes a 3.6864MHz clock provided by GA#1; earlier board revisions had a discrete crystal for this located where the large trace is northeast of the DUART.
The modem hardware is logically in the southwest (bottom left) corner, closest to the phone jacks. The major chips here are the AMI S35213 at IC37, a Bell 212A 300/1200bps modem-on-a-chip, an AMI S2579 DTMF touch tone generator at IC40 and the AMI S35212A Bell 212/V.22 modem filter at IC38. The S35213 is clocked by the 2.4576MHz crystal at X3 and the S2579 is clocked by the 3.579545MHz crystal at X4. The modem feeds into the DUART.
The “ROM” at IC11 is actually an 8K 150ns static RAM, an NEC D4364C with specific support for battery backup. The service manual calls this the SV-RAM. This is what the CR2032 battery powers at the southeast (lower right) corner. It’s dead, of course, so with a little gentle levering we pop it out with the nylon spudger and replace it.
To get into the top case, we’ll now need to free the CPU board from the other two connectors, so once we’ve replaced the battery and put back on the Faraday cage, we’ll disconnect the mainboard completely. These connectors, fortunately, are keyed.
Now to get at the floppy drive. We remove two screws from the back and two screws under the handle, and pull the back cover off.
This exposes the rear of the CRT cage and the power supply. The rear of the floppy drive is on the left in this view.
The floppy drive bracket is secured to the side of the CRT cage with four mounting screws. If you have a slim enough 90-degree screwdriver, you might be able to just get the floppy drive unscrewed directly. Mine isn’t thin enough, so I had to take out the bracket first.
The bracket is secured in three locations like a triangle. This is the triangle’s “apex.” In this view, it is the bottommost screw sitting on that tab. It was very difficult to extract, very easy to strip and just as hard to tighten. You may have to work on it for awhile to get it and the tab it’s bolting to the CRT cage free.
The other two are easier. They are the two screws on either side of the bracket’s tab (not the third, lower one on the right). You’ve already disconnected the floppy drive by unplugging it from the motherboard, so the bracket can come straight out. Unscrew those four mounting screws on the bracket and pull out the floppy drive.
This drive fortunately still works, so what we’re going to do next is a little preventive maintenance (other than the usual inspection, cleaning, etc.).
There are two tiny little screws on each side holding on the metal cover. Once removed, this side goes down to take the cover off.
I’m fortunate to have a drive still in very good condition. A close inspection showed no obvious damage.
The problem that occurs with this drive has to do with the head’s guide rail. (This part is with thanks to Dwight Elvey, the unofficial “godfather” of the Canon Cat.) In this view the head is the white square with the black line through the middle, and the rail it rides on is the metal post to the east (right) of it. This is a 2x enlargement, so the head is actually a fairly small part.
Along that rod are two white nylon pieces secured by screws. These nylon tabs, in particular the rearmost, serve to clamp down the rod so it can’t pop up. These tabs here are luckily in excellent condition, but that isn’t the case for many Cat drives where the nylon has degenerated with age. When both tabs either crack or loosen, the rod is no longer held in. Ejecting a disk, even gently, could now cause the head to tilt into the open metal window of the floppy disk and get stuck. Should that happen and you innocently attempt to remove the floppy, you might accidentally end up pulling the head off. Doing so is catastrophic and would be extremely difficult to repair.
There are several strategies for dealing with this problem. While the middle tab is subject to the same age-related breakdown as the rearmost tab, the drive can survive the middle tab failing as long as the rearmost one is still intact. Unfortunately, the rearmost tab is correspondingly the one under the most mechanical stress. Here, both tabs are in very good shape, so we’re going to concentrate on the rear tab, though what you do to the rear tab could also be done to the middle one.
If the nylon tabs are still holding, then you could reinforce them with something like a very small layer of JBWeld (other kinds of epoxy may not be strong enough), though this is fiddly and you’d better not get the goop anywhere else in the drive. It should also be possible to fashion a similar plastic piece of similar thickness. I don’t know if a 3D printed one would have enough strength, so you might consider starting with a solid piece of good quality high-strength polymer and shaving and drilling it to fit.
Or you can do what Canon probably should have done in the first place and back it up with metal. I went to Home Despot and bought a roll of 28-gauge galvanized steel pipe hanger tape which at 0.015” thick (0.38mm) is still thin enough to fit on top of the piece. (It also gave me an excuse to use those metal snips I bought that were just sitting around.)
The nice thing about this particular type of pipe hanger strap (Oatey #33526) is that it has a pre-drilled hole of just about the right size. We’ll get out the snips and trim it down.
Looks good.
Secured in position. The screw is not very long, so you can’t use a very thick piece of metal here, but there was still enough room to get it attached firmly. I inserted a disk and checked that it fed in and the head stayed clear when it ejected.
Now with the machine reassembled and ready to go, it’s time to get into that project I’ve been meaning to. It boots now, so I’ll just leave you with this teaser since I’ve made some progress on it already:
IAI developed one additional Swyft-family unit, the prototype Swyft Model III. This was supposed to be a portable unit with an external floppy drive, a 640x200 supertwist LCD, 512K of RAM and a 2400bps internal modem. Since it had no hard disk or internal floppy drive, battery life was reputed to be six hours with 8 AA NiCads (longer with alkalines), though the processor wasn’t specified. It was never released before IAI closed its doors. While Raskin retained the patents and even tried resurrecting the concept in software with the Archy environment, no one ever developed a full system like it again. Raskin died of pancreatic cancer in 2005 at the age of 61.
https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/05/refurb-weekend-canon-cat.html
People’s CDC COVID-19 Weather Report
date: 2024-05-28, from: Peoples CDC blog
This is the @PeoplesCDC weekly update for May 27, 2024! This Weather Report from the People’s CDC sheds light on the ongoing COVID situation in the US.
https://peoplescdc.org/2024/05/27/peoples-cdc-covid-19-weather-report-75/
China creates $47B chiptech investment fund
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Third ‘Big Fund’ is close to the level of US and EU subsidy programs
China has allocated a big pool of money, hoping to spur domestic semiconductor development.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/china_semiconductor_big_fund_3/
Johnson Celebrates AA and NHPI Heritage Month: Britney Tang
date: 2024-05-28, from: NASA breaking news
When you think about personal property, your home, clothes, and electronic devices probably come to mind. For NASA, personal property comprises government-owned government-held assets ranging from laptops to spacecraft and space station components. Managing the financial records for these assets is the responsibility of the Property Accounting Team, which includes Personal Property Accountant Britney Tang. […]
South Korea targets Moon and Mars landings after launching unified space agency
date: 2024-05-28, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Meanwhile, North Korea’s latest rocket fails
South Korea launched its first unified space agency on Monday, when the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) took flight in the city of Sacheon.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/korea_space_agency_kasa/
TMU Communications Professor Retiring After ‘A Marvelous 40 Years’
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Several months ago, a student paused before class to ask Julie Larson, Ph.D., how she was feeling about her upcoming retirement. She laughed
https://scvnews.com/tmu-communications-professor-retiring-after-a-marvelous-40-years/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-05-27, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Part 7 of bringing Godot to the iPad, where I discuss the Project Settings reorganization:
https://blog.la-terminal.net/project-settings-2/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112515760261455322
Pouliot Comes Up Short in Quest for Third National Title
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
MARION, Ind. - The Master’s University’s Caleb Pouliot came less than two inches from claiming his third national title in two years on the final day of the 2024 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Track & Field National Championships in Marion, Ind
https://scvnews.com/pouliot-comes-up-short-in-quest-for-third-national-title/
Memorial Day Ceremony honors women in the military
date: 2024-05-27, from: The Signal
A Boeing F/A -18 Superhornet flew over hundreds of people wearing red, white and blue. The roaring sound from the engine of the aircraft as it passed over the American […]
The post Memorial Day Ceremony honors women in the military appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/memorial-day-ceremony-honors-women-in-the-military/
Goleta’s Old Town Is Changing Its Stripes
date: 2024-05-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Residents rallied for a last-ditch effort to change council’s mind about Hollister striping project; supporters argue safety.
The post Goleta’s Old Town Is Changing Its Stripes appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/27/goletas-old-town-is-changing-its-stripes/
Investigation Continues in Forklift Fatality at Santa Maria Airport
date: 2024-05-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Passenger fatally injured when forks of heavy equipment driven by airport board member hit pickup truck.
The post Investigation Continues in Forklift Fatality at Santa Maria Airport appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Biden, Trump campaign for Black votes
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both campaigning for the support of Black voters. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns looks at how the presidential campaigns are trying to build African American support.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-campaign-for-black-votes-/7629044.html
A New Generation Confronts the Moral Grey Zones of War
date: 2024-05-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This Memorial Day, this graduation season, our students are once again asking for an end to senseless bloodshed, and to hold their country accountable to ideals it has long promised but failed to provide.
The post A New Generation Confronts the Moral Grey Zones of War appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/05/27/a-new-generation-confronts-the-moral-grey-zones-of-war/
Washington man killed in crash identified
date: 2024-05-27, from: The Signal
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner Coroner’s office has identified 54-year-old Benjamin Kelley, of Washington, as the person who died in a fatal traffic collision in Castaic on May 15. […]
The post Washington man killed in crash identified appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/05/washington-man-killed-in-crash-identified/
Award-Winning Documentary by TMU Alumni Now on YouTube
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The award-winning documentary “SPELLERS,” the crew of which included alumni from The Master’s University and a TMU faculty member, is now available to watch for free on YouTube
https://scvnews.com/award-winning-documentary-by-tmu-alumni-now-on-youtube/
Keyboard Maestro 11.0.3
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/keyboard-maestro-11-0-3/
Piezo 1.9.2
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/piezo-1-9-2/
Quicken 7.7.1
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/quicken-7-7-1/
Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 2.5
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/affinity-designer-photo-and-publisher-2-5/
Veteran Peer Access Merges with Military Affairs Department
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
On May 21, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to approve a recommendation submitted by Supervisors Kathryn Barger, whose Fifth District includes the Santa Clarita Valley, and Lindsey Horvath instructing the L.A. County Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (MVA) to take the lead on future collaboration and coordination with the state and federal Departments of Veterans Affairs
https://scvnews.com/veteran-peer-access-merges-with-military-affairs-department/
State’s Fiscal Watchdog Sees Positive Signs in Reducing Deficit
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget has helped some of the Golden State’s budget woes, though financial problems continue to loom on the horizon, the state Legislative Analyst’s Office said Friday
https://scvnews.com/states-fiscal-watchdog-sees-positive-signs-in-reducing-deficit/
Commodore does the iPad “crush” concept right … in 1985
date: 2024-05-27, from: Old Vintage Computer Research
I get what Apple was trying to say with their infamous Crush ad, even though they made it a little weird. They should have simply done what Commodore did for the C128 — ironically, competing with the Apple IIc. Notice the emphasis on audio and sound, plus the Commodore 64 perched on top. And no musical instruments were flattened in the making of this ad, though it looks like a number of keycaps were traumatically separated.
https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/05/commodore-does-ipad-crush-concept-right.html
Find Hidden Cameras While Traveling
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
Airbnb’s policy change to ban all indoor cameras at listed properties highlights the scourge of tiny cameras used for snooping. Here’s how to discover if you’re being watched in a rental, hotel, or elsewhere.
https://tidbits.com/2024/05/27/find-hidden-cameras-while-traveling/
TMU’s Larson Struggles in NAIA Championships’ Final Round
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Jonathan Larson started the final round of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men’s Golf Championships tied for ninth, but a 9-over 81 dropped him to T27 on the final day of competition
https://scvnews.com/tmus-larson-struggles-in-naia-championships-final-round/
AI Slop is the new spam!
date: 2024-05-27, from: Om Malik blog
Slop is the new Spam. Slop is unwanted AI-generated content. Most AI-powered products don’t truly have product/market fit. That’s because they are easy to build (wrappers) and it’s easy to make grandiose promises on a website. Delivering value is an entirely other thing. Product marketing is far ahead of product value in most cases. Hiten …
https://om.co/2024/05/27/ai-slop-is-the-new-spam/
Bill Walton, Hall of Fame basketball player, dies of cancer at 71
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
UCSB Baseball Will Host Fresno State, University of San Diego and Oregon at Santa Barbara Regional
date: 2024-05-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Tuesday at 4 p.m.
The post UCSB Baseball Will Host Fresno State, University of San Diego and Oregon at Santa Barbara Regional appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Study Finds That 52 Percent of ChatGPT Answers to Programming Questions Are Wrong
date: 2024-05-27, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">On answering programming questions: “We found that 52 percent of ChatGPT answers contain misinformation, 77 percent of the answers are more verbose than human answers, and 78 percent of the answers suffer from different degrees of inconsistency to human answers.”
To be fair, I do expect AI answers to get better over time, but it’s certainly premature to use it as a trusted toolkit for software development today. One might argue that its answers are more like suggestions for an engineer to check and adapt as appropriate, but will they really be used that way?
I think it’s more likely that AI agents will be used to build software by people who want to avoid engaging with a real, human engineer, or people who want to cut corners for one reason or another. So I think the warnings are appropriate: LLMs are bad at coding and we shouldn’t trust what they say. #AI
<p>[<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/study-chatgpt-answers-wrong">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>https://futurism.com/the-byte/study-chatgpt-answers-wrong
Inkplate 6 MOTION is a hacker-friendly E Ink display with an 11 Hz refresh rate (crowdfunding)
date: 2024-05-27, from: Liliputing
E Ink displays offer a paper-like viewing experience that makes them popular for eBook readers and digital signage applications. You can view an E Ink display using nothing but ambient light and they only consume power when changing the image on the screen – a static image can be displayed indefinitely. But E Ink displays […]
The post Inkplate 6 MOTION is a hacker-friendly E Ink display with an 11 Hz refresh rate (crowdfunding) appeared first on Liliputing.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bill Walton dies at 71: 'Truly one of a kind' Basketball Hall of Famer succumbs to cancer.
Silicon Valley’s Empathy Vacuum
date: 2024-05-27, from: Om Malik blog
In a recent podcast, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky said that startups and founders jump into the fray and desire to do the impossible but overlook one small thing — empathy. I have talked about the need for empathy for more than a decade now — in 2013, 2014, 2016, and then in 2017. I am glad Scott is taking up the issue. “What should have …
https://om.co/2024/05/27/silicon-valleys-empathy-vacuum/
June 2: Blue Plate Special Barbershop Quartet at Rancho Camulos
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The community is invited to come tour Rancho Camulos National Historic Landmark and enjoy the harmonies of the Blue Plate Special Barbershop Quartet Sunday, June
https://scvnews.com/june-2-blue-plate-special-barbershop-quartet-at-rancho-camulos/
Measles Case Confirmed in L.A. County
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has been notified of one case of measles in a non-Los Angeles County resident who traveled to Los Angeles International (LAX) airport while infectious on May 19, 2024.
https://scvnews.com/measles-case-confirmed-in-l-a-county-2/
AYANEO is selling motherboard upgrades for two of its older handheld gaming PCs
date: 2024-05-27, from: Liliputing
When the AYANEO 2 and AYANEO GEEK handheld gaming PCs launched in late 2022, they were powered by AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processors graphics. A few months later AMD introduced its Ryzen 7040 mobile chips, which brought big boosts in CPU performance and even bigger gains in graphics performance, and most Windows handheld gaming PCs […]
The post AYANEO is selling motherboard upgrades for two of its older handheld gaming PCs appeared first on Liliputing.
Biden says each generation has to ‘earn’ freedom, in solemn Memorial Day remarks
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Washington — President Joe Biden marked Memorial Day with a pledge that the country would continue the work of the nation’s fallen toward creating a more perfect union, “for which they lived, and for which they died for.”
Delivering remarks at a solemn remembrance ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Biden said each generation must ensure the sacrifice of the country’s service members is not in vain.
“Freedom has never been guaranteed,” Biden said under gray skies in the memorial amphitheater. “Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, defend it in the battle between autocracy and democracy, between the greed of a few, and the rights of many.”
He added: “On this day, we came together again to reflect, to remember, and above all, to recommit to the future they fought for, a future grounded in freedom, democracy, opportunity and equality. Not just for some, but for all.”
Before the ceremony began, Biden, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
In his remarks, Biden invoked the anniversary this week of the death of his son Beau, who served in Iraq and later died from brain cancer that the president attributes to his time stationed near toxic burn pits, to highlight the importance of honoring the service of those who came home with injuries, in addition to the dead.
“Last year, the VA delivered more benefits and processed more claims than ever in our history,” Biden said, crediting the PACT Act which grants automatic coverage for certain health conditions suffered by veterans by presuming they result from their military service. “For too long after fighting for our nation, these veterans had to fight to get the right health care, to get the benefits they had earned, not anymore.”
Biden began the day hosting a breakfast at the White House for administration officials, military leaders, veterans, and Gold Star family members.
How’s Uncle Sam getting on with Biden’s AI exec order? Pretty good, we’re told
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Former Pentagon deputy CIO Rob Carey tells us guardrails should steer Feds away from bad ML
Interview President Biden’s October executive order encouraging the safe use of AI included a ton of requirements for federal government agencies that are developing and deploying machine learning technologies.…
How to Identify Good Uses for Generative AI Chatbots and Artbots
date: 2024-05-27, from: TidBITS blog
Adam Engst explores how you can use generative AI chatbots and artbots productively by helping you identify good uses such as brainstorming, programming, summarizing lengthy PDFs, and drafting difficult email messages. He also examines the utility of AI in Internet searches.
https://tidbits.com/2024/05/27/how-to-identify-good-uses-for-generative-ai-chatbots-and-artbots/
Closing arguments set for Tuesday in Trump’s hush money trial
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Ken Striplin | 2024 Summer Reading Program
date: 2024-05-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As the summer approaches, the Santa Clarita Public Library offers our community the opportunity to embrace the power of reading
https://scvnews.com/ken-striplin-2024-summer-reading-program/
Daily Deals (5-27-2024)
date: 2024-05-27, from: Liliputing
A bunch of Amazon, Apple, and Samsung tablets are on sale this Memorial Day, and if you’re looking for something to do with your new tablet, Humble Bundle has some great deals on digital comics, which are often a lot easier to read on a phone or laptop. Meanwhile eBay is offering 20% off on […]
The post Daily Deals (5-27-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-5-27-2024/
Ongoing Venus Volcanic Activity Discovered With NASA’s Magellan Data
date: 2024-05-27, from: NASA breaking news
An analysis of data from Magellan’s radar finds two volcanoes erupted in the early 1990s. This adds to the 2023 discovery of a different active volcano in Magellan data. Direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity on Venus has been observed for a second time. Scientists in Italy analyzed archival data from NASA’s Magellan mission […]
Severe storms in US kill at least 22, injure hundreds
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Tensions between airlines and regulators just in time for Memorial Day travel
date: 2024-05-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Higher fares, crowded airports, cancellations and delays have done little to dampen the appetite for air travel going into the summer months. Airlines say they’ve done a lot to ramp up for the strong demand but are being hampered by a shortage of air traffic controllers. Plus, a pulse check on Houston’s clothing resale market and a new device in Australia to help farmers save livestock during drought.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
RSS blogrolls are a federated social network. (Yes they are!)
https://alexsci.com/blog/blogroll-network/?campaign=rss
Los Angeles’ suburban Chinatown grows with new waves of immigrants
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles’ Chinatown has undergone many changes, as immigrants from mainland China join those from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of Southeast Asia. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the growing community has also expanded to the suburbs, where recent arrivals find much that is familiar. Mo Yu contributed.
Major retailers are offering summer deals to entice inflation-weary shoppers
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Americans who spend Memorial Day scouting sales online and in stores may find more reasons to celebrate the return of warmer weather. Major retailers are stepping up discounts heading into the summer months, hoping to entice inflation-weary shoppers into opening their wallets.
Target, Walmart and other chains have rolled out price cuts — some permanent, others temporary — with the stated aim of giving their customers some relief. The reductions, which mostly involve groceries, are getting introduced as inflation showed its first sign of easing this year but not enough for consumers who are struggling to pay for basic necessities as well as rent and car insurance.
The latest quarterly earnings reported by Walmart, Macy’s and Ralph Lauren underscored that consumers have not stopped spending. But multiple CE0s, including the heads of McDonald’s, Starbucks and home improvement retailer Home Depot, have observed that people are becoming more price-conscious and choosy. They’re delaying purchases, focusing on store brands compared to typically more expensive national brands, and looking for deals.
“Retailers recognize that unless they pull out some stops on pricing, they are going to have difficulty holding on to the customers they got,” Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData, said. “The consumer really has had enough of inflation, and they’re starting to take action in terms of where they shop, how they shop, the amount they buy.”
While discounts are an everyday tool in retail, Saunders said these aggressive price cuts that cover thousands of items announced by a number of retailers represent a “major shift” in recent strategy. He noted most companies talked about price increases in the past two or three years, and the cut mark the first big “price war” since before inflation started taking hold.
Where can shoppers find lower prices?
Higher-income shoppers looking to save money have helped Walmart maintain strong sales in recent quarters. But earlier this month, the nation’s largest retailer expanded its price rollbacks — temporary discounts that can last a few months — to nearly 7,000 grocery items, a 45% increase. Items include a 28-ounce can of Bush’s baked beans marked down to $2.22, from $2.48, and a 24-pack of 12-ounce Diet Coke priced at $12.78 from $14.28.
Company executives said the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is seeing more people eating at home versus eating out. Walmart believes its discounts will help the business over the remainder of the year.
“We’re going to lead on price, and we’re going to manage our (profit) margins, and we’re going to be the Walmart that we’ve always been,” CEO Doug McMillon told analysts earlier this month.
Not to be outdone by its closest competitor, Target last week cut prices on 1,500 items and said it planned to make price cuts on another 3,500 this summer. The initiative primarily applies to food, beverage and essential household items. For example, Clorox scented wipes that previously cost $5.79 are on shelves for $4.99. Huggies Baby Wipes, which were priced at $1.19, now cost 99 cents.
Low-cost supermarket chain Aldi said earlier this month that it was cutting prices on 250 products, including favorites for barbecues and picnics, as part of a promotion set to last through Labor Day.
McDonald’s plans to introduce a limited-time $5 meal deal in the U.S. next month to counter slowing sales and customers’ frustration with high prices.
Arko Corp., a large operator of convenience stores in rural areas and small towns, is launching its most aggressive deals in terms of their depth in roughly 20 years for both members of its free loyalty program and other customers, according to Arie Kotler, the company’s chairman, president and CEO. For example, members of Arko’s free loyalty program who buy two 12-packs of Pepsi beverages get a free pizza. The promotions kicked off May 15 and are due to end Sept. 3.
Kotler said he focused on essential items that people use to feed their families after observing that the cumulative effects of higher gas prices and inflation in other areas had customers hold back compared to a year ago.
“Over the past two quarters, we have seen the trend of consumers cutting back, consumers coming less often, and consumers reducing their purchases,” he said.
In the non-food category, crafts chain Michaels last month reduced prices of frequently purchased items like paint, markers and artist canvases. The price reductions ranged from 15% to up to 40%. Michaels said the cuts are intended to be permanent.
Do these cuts bring prices back to pre-pandemic levels?
Many retailers said their goal was to offer some relief for shoppers. But Michaels said its new discounts brought prices for some things down to where they were in 2019.
“Our intention with these cuts is to ensure we’re delivering value to the customer,” The Michaels Companies said. ”We see it as an investment in customer loyalty more than anything else.”
Target said it was difficult to compare what its price-reduced products cost now to a specific time frame since inflation levels are different for each item and the reductions varied by item.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks consumer prices, said the average price of a two-liter bottle of soda in April was $2.27. That compares with $1.53 in the same month five years ago. A pound of white bread cost an average of $2 last month but $1.29 in April 2019. One pound of ground chuck that averaged $5.28 in April cost $3.91 five years ago.
Why are companies cutting prices on some items?
U.S. consumer confidence deteriorated for the third straight month in April as Americans continued to fret about their short-term financial futures, according to the latest report released late last month from the Conference Board, a business research group.
With shoppers focusing more on bargains, particularly online, retailers are trying to get customers back to their stores. Target this month posted its fourth consecutive quarterly decline in comparable sales — those from stores or digital channels operating at least 12 months.
In fact, the share of online sales for the cheapest items across many categories, including clothing, groceries, personal care and appliances, increased from April 2019 to the same month this year, according to Adobe Analytics, which covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites.
For example, the market share for the cheapest groceries went from 38% in April 2019 to 48% last month, while the share for the most expensive groceries went down from 22% to 9% over the same time period, according to Adobe.
How are retailers funding price cuts?
GlobalData’s Saunders said he thinks companies are subsidizing price cuts with a variety of methods — at the expense of profits, at the cost of suppliers and vendors, or by reducing expenses. Some retailers may be using a combination of all three, he said.
Saunders doesn’t think retailers are raising prices on other items to make up for the ones they lowered since doing that would bring a backlash from customers.
Target declined to disclose details but said its summer price promotion was incorporated into the company’s projected profit range, which falls below analysts’ expectations at the low end.
GPM Investments, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of ARKO Corp. said its suppliers are funding the convenience store promotions.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
“The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you've got it made.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7132775-the-key-to-success-is-sincerity-if-you-can-fake
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Meet the Hidden Architect Behind America's Racist Economics.
MSI shows off motherboard with CAMM2 memory
date: 2024-05-27, from: OS News
Earlier this month, we talked about the arrival of the new CAMM2 memory module standard, specifically designed to make replaceable memory modules as fast and capable as soldered memory. There’s technically no reason for CAMM2 to not also be beneficial to desktop use, and it turns out MSI is experimenting with this. MSI on Thursday published the first image of a new desktop motherboard that supports the innovative DDR5 compression attached memory module (CAMM2). DDR5 CAMM2 modules are designed to improve upon the SO-DIMM form factor used for laptops, alleviating some of the high-speed signaling and capacity limitations of SO-DIMMs while also shaving down on the volume of space required. And while we’re eagerly awaiting to see CAMM2 show up in more laptops, its introduction in a PC motherboard comes as a bit of a surprise, since PCs aren’t nearly as space-constrained. ↫ Anton Shilov at AnandTech This MSI motherboard is a bit of an experiment, as it also contains other more experimental choices like back-mounted power connectors. While CAMM2’s space savings won’t mean much for most desktop builds, it does leave more room for CPU coolers, and it looks a bit cleaner, too.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139804/msi-shows-off-motherboard-with-camm2-memory/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Scissors, the Paste-Pot, and the Large Language Model.
https://ryancordell.org/research/scissors-paste-LLMs
When Is A Strike Legal? And Who Gets To Decide? What’s At Stake As UC Strikes Ramp Up
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The LAist
If a state agency says the University of California’s academic workers can’t stay on strike, “a whole cascade of bad things” could happen.
https://laist.com/news/education/when-are-strikes-legal-university-of-california-perb-uaw
Military labs do the detective work to identify soldiers decades after they died in World War II
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts.
But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are steadily answering those lingering questions, aiming to offer 200 families per year the chance to honor their relatives with a proper burial.
“They may not even have been alive when that service member was alive, but that story gets carried down through the generations,” said Carrie Brown, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab manager at Offutt. “They may have seen on the mantle a picture of that person when they were little and not really understood or known who they were.”
Memorial Day and the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6 are reminders of the urgency of Brown’s work. The forensic anthropologists, medical examiners and historians who work together to identify lost soldiers are in a race against time as remains buried on battlefields around the globe deteriorate.
But advances in DNA technology, combined with innovative techniques including comparing bones to chest X-rays taken by the military, mean the labs can identify more of the missing soldiers every year. Some 72,000 World War II soldiers remain unaccounted for, along with roughly 10,000 more from all the conflicts since. The experts believe about half of those are recoverable.
The agency identified 59 servicemembers in 2013, when the Offutt lab first opened. That number has steadily risen — 159 service members last year, up from 134 in 2022 — and the labs have a goal of 200 identifications annually.
The labs’ work allowed Donna Kennedy to bury her cousin, Cpl. Charles Ray Patten, with full military honors this month in the same Lawson, Missouri, cemetery where his father and grandfather are buried. Patten died 74 years ago during the Korean War, but spent decades buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
“I just I ached. I mean, it hurt. You know, I just felt so bad. Even though I didn’t know him, I loved him,” Kennedy said.
Patten’s funeral was a simple affair with just a few family members. But often when veterans who fought decades earlier are identified, people waving flags and holding signs line the streets of their hometowns to herald the return of their remains.
“This work is important first and foremost because these are individuals that gave their lives to protect our freedom, and they paid the ultimate sacrifice. So we’re here holding that promise that we’ll return them home to their families,” Brown said.
“It’s important for their families to show them that we’ll never stop, no matter what,” she said.
Often there are compelling details, Brown said.
One of her first cases involved the intact remains of a World War I Marine found in a forest in France with his wallet still in his pocket. The wallet, initialed G.H., contained a New York Times article describing plans for the offensive in which he ultimately died. He also had an infantryman badge with his name and the year he received it on the back.
Before leaving France with the remains, the team visited a local cemetery where other soldiers were buried and learned there were only two missing soldiers with the initials G.H.
Brown had a fair idea who that soldier was before his remains even arrived in the lab. That veteran was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and Brown often visits his grave when she is in Washington D.C.
Most cases aren’t that easy.
The experts who work at the lab must piece together identities by looking at historical records about where the remains were found and which soldiers were in the area. They then consult the list of possible names and use the bones, objects found with them, military medical records and DNA to confirm their identities. They focus on battles and plane crashes where they have the greatest chance of success because of available information.
But their work can be complicated if soldiers were buried in a temporary cemetery and moved when a unit was forced to retreat. And unidentified soldiers were often buried together.
When remains are brought to the lab, they sometimes include an extra bone. Experts then spend months or even years matching the bones and waiting for DNA and other test results to confirm their identities.
One test even can identify if the soldier grew up primarily eating rice or a corn-based diet.
The lab also compares specific traits of collar bones to the chest X-rays the military routinely took of soldiers before they were deployed. It helps that the military keeps extensive records of all soldiers.
Those clues help the experts put together the puzzle of someone’s identity.
“It’s not always easy. It’s certainly not instantaneous,” Brown said. “Some of the cases, we really have to fight to get to that spot, because some of them have been gone for 80 years.”
When crypto enters campaign finance
date: 2024-05-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
In this election cycle, campaigns are looking to get your votes — and political contributions — any way they can. The Donald Trump campaign recently announced it will accept campaign contributions in cryptocurrencies, joining independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But there are nuances and transparency issues that come with such donations. Also on the show: a preview of the economic data-heavy week ahead and an investment in hurricane forecasting.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/when-crypto-enters-campaign-finance
Venerable ICQ messaging service to end operations in June
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Suggested heir is Putin-approved and hard to download outside Russia
Venerable instant messaging service ICQ has announced it will shut down for good in June.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/icq_end_of_service/
Ex-boss appears at inquiry over UK’s “biggest miscarriage of justice”
date: 2024-05-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Paula Vennells was CEO of the government-owned Post Office business from 2012 to 2019, when forensic accountants looked into claims that sub-postmasters had been wrongly prosecuted for errors caused by software. We hear some takeaways from her testimony. Then, the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan have vowed to speed up negotiations to reach a free trade deal. Also: What would persuade more of us to take up electric vehicles?
Life expectancy bouncing back globally after COVID pandemic
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Life expectancy in Europe has returned to the level it reached before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, while the U.S. is still trying to regain lost ground. Overall, new numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades. Henry Ridgwell reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/life-expectancy-bouncing-back-globally-after-covid-pandemic-/7626193.html
Russia-Ukraine war: Ukraine secures more air defense missiles from Spain
date: 2024-05-27, from: Associated Press, World News
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has secured from Spain a pledge of additional air defense missiles to help fight the about 3,000 bombs that he says Russia launches every month at Ukraine.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-spain-1392c62d6e71f63a0929d831723b24b2
National Spelling Bee reflects the economic success and cultural impact of immigrants from India
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Tribes say their future is at stake as they push for Congress to consider Colorado River settlement
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-05-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Durbin needs to get off the stick and act on Alito.
IceWM 3.5.0 released
date: 2024-05-27, from: OS News
IceWM, the venerable window manager we’ve all used at some point in our lives, has released a new version, 3.5.0. It’s a relatively minor release, so you’ve got things like a new install option which will install an extra theme, a fix for porting to NetBSD 10, translation updates, and more such small improvements. The AddressBar, a command line in the taskbar that can be summoned with ctrl+alt+space, also got some love, with file argument completion and support for the cd and pwd commands. You can compile IceWM yourself, of course, but it’ll most likely find its way into your distribution’s repository quickly enough.
https://www.osnews.com/story/139801/icewm-3-5-0-released/
The Exxon Climate Scientist Who Couldn’t Clean Up Its Act
date: 2024-05-27, from: The Lever News
Amid accountability lawsuits and mounting public outcry, a prominent climate expert on ExxonMobil’s board is throwing in the towel.
https://www.levernews.com/the-exxon-climate-scientist-who-couldnt-clean-up-its-act/
A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No, nothing’s broken. I’m just working under this desk for … reasons
Who, Me? As a fresh working week commences, The Register understands that many readers may feel like giving the kit they tend to a good thump. Which is why each week we offer a fresh and hopefully cathartic instalment of Who, Me? so you can take heart from fellow readers’ tales of tech support agonies rather than letting irritation overwhelm you and create your own.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/who_me/
US lawmakers vow to help Taiwan strengthen defense against growing Chinese aggression
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Taipei, Taiwan — A bipartisan congressional delegation from the United States met Taiwan’s new president in Taipei Monday, and reiterated Washington’s strong support for the democratic island.
During the meeting with the U.S. delegation Lai Ching-te, who took office on May 20, promised to keep pushing for defense reform in Taiwan and show the world that “Taiwanese people are determined to defend their homeland.”
He hopes that “the U.S. Congress will continue to help strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities and increase exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and the U.S. through a variety of legislative actions.”
At a news briefing following the meeting with Lai, Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the U.S. remains committed to supporting Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its defense capabilities as China increases military pressure on the island.
“We will support you, and we will get the weapons you purchased to you as soon as possible,” he told dozens of journalists, adding that strength and deterrence are key to ensuring the Taiwan Strait remains peaceful and prosperous.
The visit comes three days after the Chinese military staged a two-day, large-scale military exercise encircling Taiwan. Describing the Chinese war game around Taiwan as “an intimidation tactic to punish democracy,” McCaul said there is more urgency to ensure Taiwan receives the weapons that it has bought from the United States.
“We are moving forward on [the delivery] of these weapons systems, but I’d like to see it faster,” he said during the news conference, noting that the $95 billion foreign aid package that the U.S. passed last month, which includes a $8 billion package for the Indo-Pacific region and Taiwan, is a sign of Washington’s support for Taiwan.
While he promises to help accelerate the pace of weapons delivery to Taiwan, McCaul admitted that the backlog of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which is about $19 billion, is partially caused by the limited military industrial capacity in the U.S.
“We have to wait a period of two to five years for the weapons to go into the country and that is way too long,” he said, vowing to push U.S. defense contractors and the Biden administration to address the issue.
Since China focused on simulating a maritime blockade around Taiwan through its latest military exercise, McCaul said Taipei and Washington should focus on helping the island acquire more maritime assets to deal with a potential Chinese attack.
“What they did the last couple of days was essentially a preview of what a blockade would look like [and] by looking at what type of military assets would likely help deter Beijing from [imposing] a blockade around Taiwan, my view is that maritime assets are key here,” he told journalists.
Bipartisan support for Taiwan
Some analysts say the U.S. Congressional delegation’s visit shows that the support for Taiwan in Washington is consistent and bipartisan. “There have been many U.S. congressional delegations in Taiwan over the last few years and one feature to highlight is that all these delegations are bipartisan,” Chen Fang-yu, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone.
Despite the stern warning from Beijing, other experts say the visit shows both Taipei and Beijing that the U.S. is committed to deepening ties with Taiwan. “The delegation sends a message that the United States is not afraid of angering China by maintaining its engagement with Taiwan,” said Li Da-Jung, director of the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.
Since the delegation will spend four days in Taiwan, Li thinks it could give U.S. lawmakers more opportunities to meet more Taiwanese officials and visit specific places of their interests. “I believe the delegation will meet Taiwanese officials in charge of national security and cross-strait relations,” he told VOA by phone.
In addition to military sales and weapons delivery, Chen said the U.S. delegation will likely discuss topics related to bilateral trade relations and Taiwan’s divided legislature.
“I believe the U.S. lawmakers will try to talk about the ongoing trade negotiation between Taipei and Washington and the potential impact of Taiwan’s divided legislature on Taiwan’s defense and foreign policies when they meet Lai and other Taiwanese officials,” he told VOA.
Earlier this month, Taiwan and the U.S. held a new round of trade negotiations focusing on potential cooperation in areas such as labor, environmental protection, and agriculture. Taiwan’s deputy trade representative Yang Jen-ni said Taipei hopes to increase the volume of Taiwanese agricultural exports to the U.S. through the trade talks.
As Taiwan’s new government looks to deepen ties with the U.S., the Chinese government has repeatedly warned Washington not to use the democratic island, which Beijing views as its territory, to contain China.
“China firmly opposes official interaction in any form between Taiwan and the United States and opposes U.S. interference in Taiwan affairs in any form or under any pretext,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during the daily news conference on May 21.
Since relations between Taiwan and China are unlikely to improve in the short term, Li at Tamkang University said the Lai administration may try to double down on Taipei’s relations with like-minded democracies around the world, especially the U.S.
“At a time when there is very little room to improve cross-strait relations, Lai may consider putting the focus of his foreign policy agenda on the U.S. and rely more on Washington’s support for Taipei,” he told VOA.
My BDFL guiding principles
date: 2024-05-27, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
The thing about me being a BDFL for curl is that it has the D in there. I have the means and ability to push for or veto just about anything I like or don’t like in the project, should I decide to. In my public presentations about curl I emphasize that I truly try … Continue reading My BDFL guiding principles
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/05/27/my-bdfl-guiding-principles/
Google goes shopping for Indian e-commerce dominance … at Walmart
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Invests $350 million in Flipkart
Google has invested in Walmart’s Indian e-commerce operation Flipkart, which holds almost half of the market for e-commerce on the subcontinent.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/google_invest_flipkart/
Tape is so dead, 152.9 EB of LTO media shipped last year
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Blame AI. No, seriously
Tape – as a digital storage medium – has been considered dead for your correspondent’s entire 29-year career. But that didn’t stop manufacturers behind the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) standard shipping 152.9* exabytes worth of the stuff last year.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/tape_shipments_2023/
Santa Barbara High Runner Andreas Dybdahl Wins State Championship in the 1600 Meter for Second Consecutive Year
date: 2024-05-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Dybdahl is the first back-to-back state champion in the 1600 meter in ten years.
The post Santa Barbara High Runner Andreas Dybdahl Wins State Championship in the 1600 Meter for Second Consecutive Year appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Bayer and 12 other major drug companies caught up in Cencora data loss
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: US water systems fail at cyber security
Infosec in brief More than a dozen big pharmaceutical suppliers have begun notifying individuals that their data was stolen when US drug wholesaler Cencora was breached in February.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/security_in_brief/
US philanthropist builds homes for displaced Ukrainians
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
Since the spring 2022, Dell Loy Hansen has spent over $70 million to build homes for internally displaced Ukrainians. The U.S. philanthropist says he has been to Ukraine four times and is just getting started. Anna Kosstutschenko met him in the Kyiv region and has more in this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-philanthropist-builds-homes-for-displaced-ukrainians-/7628156.html
Josef Newgarden repeats as Indy 500 winner
date: 2024-05-27, from: VOA News USA
INDIANAPOLIS — Josef Newgarden put his cheating scandal behind him to become the first back-to-back winner of the Indianapolis 500 since Helio Castroneves 22 years ago and give Roger Penske a record-extending 20th win in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
The Tennessean passed Pato O’Ward on the final lap of Sunday’s rain-delayed race to become the first driver to win consecutive 500s since Castroneves did it for Penske in 2001 and 2002. And just like last year, Newgarden stopped his Chevrolet-powered car on the track and climbed through a hole in the fence to celebrate with fans in the grandstands.
“I love this crowd. I’ve got to always go in the crowd if we win here, I am always doing that,” Newgarden said.
O’Ward slumped his head over his steering wheel in bitter disappointment. He was trying to become the first Mexican in 108 runnings to win the Indy 500.
It looked as if he had been crying when he finally removed his helmet. He finished sixth in his Indy 500 debut, then fourth and then second in 2022 when he was accused of not being aggressive enough to race Marcus Ericsson for the win.
He refused to back down last year and wound up crashing as he raced for the win. As O’Ward bided his time in the closing laps — he and Newgarden traded the lead several times — he waited to make the winning pass on the final lap.
Newgarden got it right back two turns later.
“It is hard to put it into words — we went back, we went forward, we went back, some people were driving like maniacs,” O’Ward said. “We had so many near-race enders. Just so close again. … I put that car through things I never thought it was going to be able to do. It is always a heartbreak when you’re so close, especially when it’s not the first time and you don’t know how many opportunities you have.”
The win was an incredible bounceback for Newgarden, who last month had his March season-opening victory disqualified because Team Penske had illegal push-to-pass software on its cars. Newgarden used the additional horsepower three times in the win and it took IndyCar nearly six weeks to discover the Penske manipulation.
Roger Penske, who owns the race team, IndyCar, the Indy 500 and the speedway, suspended four crew members, including Team President Tim Cindric. The Cindric suspension was a massive blow for Newgarden as Cindric is considered the best strategist in the series.
Newgarden was thrilled to have the win and put the push-to-pass scandal behind him.
“Absolutely, they can say what they want, I don’t even care anymore,” he said.
The start of the race was delayed four hours by rain and it ruined NASCAR star Kyle Larson’s chance to run “The Double.” The delay in Indy made him miss the start of the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Although Larson was decent most of the day, two rookie mistakes led to an 18th-place finish. He was on a helicopter headed to a plane for North Carolina within minutes of the race ending.
“I’m proud to have finished but disappointed in myself,” said Larson, who has a two-year deal with Arrow McLaren and Hendrick Motorsports for Indy and could return in 2025.
Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing finished third as the highest-finishing Honda driver and was followed by Alexander Rossi, O’Ward’s teammate at Arrow McLaren Racing. Chevrolet took three of the top four spots.
https://www.voanews.com/a/josef-newgarden-repeats-as-indy-500-winner/7628135.html
Samsung disputes report Nvidia isn’t happy with its HBM quality
date: 2024-05-27, updated: 2024-05-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
PLUS: Indian TV channel adopts 24x7 AI anchors; Google building first Africa-Australia sub cable; Singtel’s strategy reset; and more
Asia In Brief Samsung has disputed a report which claimed its high-bandwidth memory products are not performing to Nvidia’s satisfaction.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/27/asia_tech_news_in_brief/