Supreme
Court strikes down Trump-era ban on gun ‘bump stocks’
date: 2024-06-14, from: San Jose Mercury News
Trump had pushed for the ban in response to a 2017 mass shooting that
killed 58 people at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas. Bump stocks
allow a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can
fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute.
The
Brainstem Fine-Tunes Inflammation Throughout the Body
date: 2024-06-14, from: Quanta Magazine
The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and
heart rate also regulates the immune system — a discovery about the
brain-body axis made by experts on taste.
Investigation
underway into rare, unsafe ‘Dutch roll’ experienced by a Boeing 737 Max
during Oakland-bound flight
date: 2024-06-14, from: San Jose Mercury News
The incident occurred almost three weeks ago and was added to a FAA
database this week. There were 175 passengers and six crew onboard,
according to the airline.
Johnson
Celebrates LGBTQI+ Pride Month: Meet Margaret Kennedy
date: 2024-06-14, from: NASA breaking news
Although surrounded by the big and bold missions of human
spaceflight, Margaret Kennedy, an aerospace systems engineer on the
Human Health and Performance Contract, still appreciates the little
things. Ask about her favorite NASA experience to date and she will tell
you it is getting to show her badge to the gate guards at Houston’s
[…]
Imagine a life where you dictate your own schedule, free from the
confines of a traditional job.
That’s a thought experiment I’ve been playing with lately: what would it
look like if this was my last ever job? How might I optimize my
lifestyle for freedom?
By that I don’t mean that it would be the last time I needed to earn
money. I work in non-profit news;
nobody does this because they want to become rich beyond their wildest
dreams. Even tech salaries feel distant from this vantage point. To be
clear, I’m doing this work because it’s important, and I have no plans
to leave.
Regardless, I think it’s an important thought experiment. What if this
was the last time I worked a job with regular hours and a boss and a
hierarchy? What would it look like to have a lifestyle that was less
bound to working norms, so that I could choose how to spend my day, or
my week, or my year?
This desire to seek a lifestyle less bound by traditional working norms
is shaped by two big influences:
My working life in startups, which was very much self-driven
My own parents, who had their own publishing startup for a key part of
my childhood.
My parents’ ability to dictate their schedules and norms meant that I
was able to have childhood experiences — in particular, trips to
mainland Europe and the US — that would have been much harder otherwise.
(These things didn’t need all that much money; they needed
time.) That lifestyle did something else important, too: it
showed me that it was attainable, and that a person doesn’t
need a 9-5 to live. That perspective, in turn, allowed me to
become a founder and build new things.
I would like to do the same for our son. Honestly, selfishly, I would
also like to do it for me.
What are the roads to more independence when you aren’t independently
wealthy?
Here are some options I’ve considered:
Startups
The first potential path to independence is through entrepreneurship.
I’ve founded two startups in my life. The first one was bootstrapped for
the first couple of years before raising a round from British investors;
the second was kicked off with a small amount ($50K) of accelerator seed
money.
My life has changed since then. In particular, my capital needs have
shot up. There’s a child and daycare and a mortgage in the picture,
which is radically different from my life as a twenty-something prepared
to live on Pot Noodles and scrape by with little money. A working life
of open source, mission-driven startups, and non-profit news means that
my savings are meager and wouldn’t support a new venture. A friends and
family round is out of the question for me, as it is for anyone who
doesn’t come from wealth.
Building a startup means working hard on it while holding down my day
job, until it reaches the point where it has enough traction to raise a
seed round. The barrier for that traction is rising steadily; it
probably needs to be making tens of thousands of dollars a month for a
seed investor to find it interesting. Still, that isn’t insurmountable —
particularly with a co-founder. I have more product, engineering, and
organizational growth skills than ever before, and I believe that I
could do it.
But also: at the point where it’s making tens of thousands of
dollars a month, assuming a low running cost, that’s more than enough to
sustain me! It doesn’t need to be a high-growth startup. It could be a
small business that is content to do quite well.
A Zebra, perhaps. The
disadvantage is that the upside is limited: it’s unlikely to make me
wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. But what if that isn’t the goal? If
the goal is freedom, a modest income is wonderful.
Consulting or Coaching
I have coaching training, and I’ve previously coached founders across a
portfolio of mission-driven startups. In many ways, my roles as a CTO /
Head of Engineering / Director of Technology have been largely
coaching-based too: effective 1:1s and frameworks for feedback are the
lifeblood of building a team.
I’ve also got strong product design and design thinking training, and
have run workshops and design sprints with many teams. I understand
product fundamentals, how to instill product thinking in a team, and can
shepherd a product (and product team) from insight to launch.
And I’m technical. I can architect software and write code; I can advise
teams about how to think about new technologies like AI, or how to build
their own software. I’ve done this in many different contexts, many,
many times.
So I think I can offer a lot. The challenge with consulting of any kind,
though, is that it’s essentially a freelance job: you’re working from
contract to contract, or from session to session, which means that
you’re constantly having to sell yourself for the next thing, at least
until your reputation has reached the point where people are asking for
you.
Perhaps a retainer model would work: enough people subscribing to
receive your attention and you have a steady income. Too many, though,
and you can’t support them all. Too few, and you need to be in sales
mode all the time. Still, it seems attractive from the provider end; the
question, of course, is whether any customers would actually go for
that. My guess is probably not — at least until you have enough glowing
referrals.
Selling Products
In a way, this seems like the most attractive option: sell a finite
product that doesn’t require your direct involvement, so that you can
spend your time building the next product to sell, until you
have a portfolio of products that sell without you and generate a
reasonable income.
There are plenty of influencers who peddle “passive income”. My strong
belief is that they’re all scammers, and that the dream of financial
independence is what they’re all actually selling. Still, there
are clearly people who sell things on the internet, and some of them do
quite well.
These include:
Books: Yay for books! Of course, the idea that you’ll
make an income from books alone is a pipe dream. Even bestselling
published authors often don’t leave their jobs until they’ve had a few
successes in a row. There are more books being published and it’s harder
to break out. Full disclosure: I am writing a book! But I don’t expect
it to cover my costs. I’m doing it because there’s a story I want to
tell. (And then I’ll do it again, because there are more stories to
tell.)
Courses: Do people really make a lot of money from
these? I mean, maybe. It feels like courses mostly fall into the same
category as books: something you do because you want to share some
knowledge or potentially demonstrate some expertise, but not something
you do as a money-making venture in its own right.
Apps: Hmm. This was a great idea in 2008. Some software
really does support independent developers, though — but my suspicion is
that the software that does the best are actually services,
which fit better into my “startup / small business” description above.
A Portfolio
I think this is the real answer: it isn’t just one thing. Likely, a
repeatable income is cobbled together from threads of at least some of
the above elements: building a service, offering coaching or consulting,
and selling individual products.
One danger here is that attention is spread too thinly: because multiple
threads are required, you necessarily have less time to spend on each.
Consequently, the quality of each element may suffer.
This approach no longer puts all eggs in one basket, which means there’s
(in theory) more tolerance for one thread to fail. But it also means
that you’re spinning plates in order to try and keep them all working.
Because there’s less time for each, and attention is split, there’s a
real chance of all of them failing.
Still, overall, it feels like the most resilient approach, with the most
room for experimentation. It’s by no means the least work, but
minimizing work isn’t the goal: that would be maximizing freedom, which
isn’t the same thing.
What do you think? Have you made this leap? Did it work for you? I’d
love to learn more.
Ukraine
busts SIM farms targeting soldiers with spyware
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Russia recruits local residents to support battlefield goals
Infrastructure that enabled two pro-Russia Ukraine residents to break
into soldiers’ devices and deploy spyware has been dismantled by the
Security Service of Ukraine (SSU).…
The emergence of a conflict between Qualcomm and Arm over desktop
chip dominance feels like a revival of one of the PC industry’s most
important conflicts.
Tesla
shareholders agree to pay Musk staggering sum of $48B
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
The value falls but the rocket man still gets his gas money
Human ingenuity is not sufficient to construct a violin small enough to
lament the fortunes of Elon Musk. The serial entrepreneur, polymath and
media figure is facing the knowledge that the nominal value of his stock
options from electric car company Tesla fell by $8 billion in the time
it took to persuade shareholders to hand them over.…
Current conditions: Mexico recorded its hottest
June day ever, with temperatures reaching 125.4 degrees Fahrenheit •
Southern China is bracing for heavy rain that could last through next
week • It is warm and sunny in Italy’s Puglia region, where the 50th G7
summit will wrap up tomorrow.
THE TOP FIVE
An update on extreme flooding in Florida – and across the globe
Much of south Florida remains under water as a tropical storm system
dumps buckets of rain on the region. The deluge began Tuesday and will
continue today with
“considerable
to locally catastrophic urban flooding,” but should diminish over
the weekend,
according
to the National Weather Service. In Hallandale Beach, near Fort
Lauderdale, about 20 inches of rain had fallen by Thursday with more on
the way. Seven million people in the state were under flood watches or
warnings.
Joe
Raedle/Getty Images
Flooding
in Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, Florida.
Joe
Raedle/Getty Images
Spain,
Indonesia,
Chile,
and
Moscow
are also experiencing extreme flooding due to excessive rainfall.
Tesla shareholders re-approve Musk’s pay package
In case you missed it: Tesla shareholders voted yesterday to re-approve
CEO Elon Musk’s enormous pay package. “The vote puts to bed a variety of
rumors and threats surrounding the electric car company,”
wrote
Andrew Moseman at Heatmap, “including, most seriously, that Musk
would neglect Tesla in favor of his other companies if he didn’t get his
way and might consider leaving for good, taking his talents for
artificial intelligence and autonomous driving elsewhere. With his
colossal payday back in place, he appears likely to stay and to push
Tesla toward those fields.” The shareholders also
voted
to reincorporate the company in Texas.
Oil trade group sues EPA over tailpipe rules
The American Petroleum Institute yesterday filed a federal lawsuit
against the EPA to block the agency’s
new
tailpipe emissions rules. The standards “strengthen greenhouse gas
emission limits, in terms of grams of CO2 per mile, that automakers will
have to adhere to, on average, across their product lines,” Heatmap’s
Emily Pontecorvo
explained
when the rules were announced in March. The regulations will encourage
manufacturers to make more electric vehicles. API is the largest oil
trade group in the U.S. and includes industry giants Exxon Mobil and
Chevron. Attorneys general from 25 states are also suing the EPA over
the same emissions rules. As Reutersreported,
“the U.S. auto industry has largely endorsed the new tailpipe
standards.”
El Niño is officially over
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration yesterday
declared
the El Niño weather pattern officially over and
said
La Niña will likely be upon us sometime between July and September:
NOAA
El Niño, combined with human-caused climate change, has brought record
warm temperatures and drought conditions across the world, but weather
experts worry the shift toward La Niña could make matters worse. Right
now we’re in a sort of in-between zone – neither El Niño or La Niña –
and “summers between the phases have
higher-than-average
temperatures,”
reportedGrist. And La Niña is expected to supercharge storms
in the Atlantic, making for a severe hurricane season.
Insurance industry keeps underestimating natural disaster costs
The insurance industry apparently keeps underestimating the severity of
natural disasters.
According
to the Financial Times, reinsurer Swiss Re is warning the
industry that its annual models have been “off by factors as opposed to
10 or 20%,” as insured losses topped $100 billion last year for the
fourth year in a row and may very well do so again this year. The
inaccuracy comes down to a lack of data, Swiss Re said, adding that it
is investing heavily in improving its own disaster prediction models.
THE KICKER
Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, will break ground today on
a
transit microgrid that will eventually power 200 zero-emission buses
and be the largest renewable energy-powered bus depot in the U.S.
Bay
Area attorney on trial for child sexual assaults is found not guilty on
16 of 17 counts, with jurors hung on one
date: 2024-06-14, from: San Jose Mercury News
With the jury verdict, James Glenn Haskell— who was charged with
crimes for between October 2018 and up until early February 2022, when
his four adopted children were removed from the Vacaville home he shared
with wife Emily — avoided the possibility of receiving two life
sentences had the verdicts gone against him.
Fans
mourn passing of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s oldest otter
date: 2024-06-14, from: San Jose Mercury News
Rosa lived to the age of 24. Along with being the oldest otter at the
aquarium, Rosa was one of the longest-lived individuals of her species.
In the wild, female sea otters live for about 15-20 years, according to
the aquarium.
Israel is withholding $35 million in tax revenues from the Palestinian
Authority, which provides limited self-governance for the Palestinian
people in the West Bank. The move threatens to worsen an already dire
financial situation there, even as a war devastates Gaza, the other
Palestinian enclave. Plus, big questions linger following the end of a
strike at University of California campuses. And Wells Fargo fired some
employees for “fake working.”
“Our lives are consumed with the consumption of content, but we no
longer know the truth when we see it. And when we don’t know how to
weigh different truths, or to coordinate among different real-world
experiences to look behind the veil, there is either cacophony or a
single victor: a loudest voice that wins.”
This is a piece about information, trust, the effect that AI is already
having on knowledge.
When people said that books were more trustworthy than the internet, we
scoffed; I scoffed. Books were not infallible; the stamp of a
traditional publisher was not a sign that the information was correct or
trustworthy. The web allowed more diverse voices to be heard. It allowed
more people to share information. It was good.
The flood of automated content means that this is no longer the case.
Our search engines can’t be trusted; YouTube is certainly full of the
worst automated dreck. I propose that we reclaim the phrase pink
slime to encompass this nonsense: stuff that’s been generated by a
computer at scale in order to get attention.
So, yeah, I totally sympathize with the urge to buy a real-world
encyclopedia again. Projects like Wikipedia must be preserved at all
costs. But we have to consider if all this will result in the effective
end of a web where humans publish and share information. And if that’s
the case, what’s next?
From the BBC World Service: Every year, more than a million Muslims from
around the globe make a pilgrimage in Mecca. But there’s a lucrative
trade in fake permits, and the number of scams has caused raised
concerns for Saudi authorities. Then, Thailand scraps a planned $8
tourism fee for visitors arriving by air. And Virgin Australia is set to
allow dogs and cats to fly in the main cabin of its planes.
French state
bidding for piece of Atos, offers €700M
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Big data + security division could be owed by the government and its
people
The French government has confirmed an offer of €700 million ($748
million) for key assets of ailing IT services giant Atos, following the
company’s acceptance of a restructuring deal earlier this week.…
<p>This is the 42nd edition of <em>People and Blogs</em>, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Jessica Nickelsen and her blog, <a href="https://discombobulated.co.nz">discombobulated.co.nz</a></p>
If I’m not mistaken I discovered Jess thanks to her
100 blog post. There’re
enough ideas in there to power a blog for at least a few years.
To follow this series subscribe to
the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every
Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the
interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the
RSS feed.
If you’re enjoying the People and Blogs series and you want to see it
grow, consider supporting on
Ko-Fi.
Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
Hi, I’m Jessica. Jess really. I live in Wellington, New Zealand. I’ve
lived in New Zealand on and off since 1990, when my family moved here
from the States. My mother is a kiwi and Dad’s american. They met when
my dad came out to NZ as a ski instructor in the 60s.
I had a “very American” childhood and briefly went to Junior High School
before moving. One of my favourite stories from that time is that
everyone at my new school wanted to know if my old school was “like
Beverly Hills 90210.” I had to break it to them that no, my junior high
in Vancover, Washington wasn’t exactly the same, though we did have
lockers and foosball tables and fake-cheese nachos for lunch, haha.
I went to university in NZ - a place called Otago University in Dunedin.
It’s a university town waaaaay down in the South Island. It’s an awesome
city, a bit wild–it even has an albatross colony. I started off as
pre-med, because I always enjoyed science and maths at school, but then
veered off when I failed Chemistry. I studied music, archaeology,
geology, history, english. At one point I was going to do my degree in
geology but then at the end I wound up doing English literature. Later
on when I was working in IT and bored, I finished my honours degree,
part-time. Somehow I studied the Old Norse language (we translated
excerpts from the Eddas, as well as some amazing prose stuff) and also
wrote my thesis on Literature and Technology. I think I’ve always been
all over the place.
I still work in IT, and it’s still boring, even though I am just part
time these days (my husband and I have an eleven-year-old daughter and I
do all the runaround stuff with her too). But maybe that lets me focus
on everything else I do. I have a lot of hobbies, but I’ve probably run
out of room to talk about them here. But a few that could be worth
mentioning are my writing of course, as well as some assistant editorial
stuff I do for Utopia Science Fiction magazine. I like taking photos and
develop film as well. I play piano and do karate. I knit socks. I was a
video game reviewer for ten years too.
What’s the story behind your blog?
I actually have a few blogs. I think you found me through my writing
one? I was wanting to self-publish some books and thought I needed a
blog with my name on it to do it properly. That one has all of my books
on it, but I guess my “real” blog is the one at discombobulated.co.nz,
though that’s had a few iterations over the years.
It started out in 2000, when I was doing my “OE” (or Overseas
Experience, what kiwis call the migration of most NZ young people
overseas for an indefinite period of time) in Dublin. I lived and worked
there for about three years. I had another boring IT job and decided
when I was sitting around waiting for releases (I was working as a
localisation engineer at Microsoft) I might as well do something online.
I found a service called Diary-x that some of your readers might
remember. My domain in those days was herself.diary-x.com, but the blog
itself was named “Discombobulated in Dublin.” A sort of Sleepless in
Seattle reference, I guess, but I really was discombobulated in those
days so it seemed to fit.
That all fell over, and the owner confessed that he hadn’t made any
backups, or the backups had failed, or something. It was my first
introduction to the concept of resiliency and I guess it was a good
lesson, because I still adhere to the concept of
3-2-1
with most of my stuff. Later I moved to Wordpress like everyone else,
and I think it was then that I first bought my domain
(discombobulated.co.nz). I like having a ‘co.nz’ domain. I think it’s
cute. I’m in the process of trying to bring over all of my old wordpress
posts but that may take some time.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
My blog is a completely personal one, so I don’t tend to write multiple
drafts or get proofreading done. I figure any typos or weirdness is just
part of the experience, which is less about a professional image and
more of a slice-of-life moment.
I’ve always struggled with the way blogging changed so much and became
just another way for people to market things or sell you stuff. I really
did enjoy how it was back in the early days, where you would follow
people and get a sense of their internal monologues, what it was like
for them to live in certain places. I’ve always loved having little
windows into other people’s lives.
So basically my process is, I go, “hm, it’s been a while, I should
probably do a blog post.” And sometimes I start with the weather, or I
have some news I want to write about. Or I look back through some recent
photographs and find one I want to write about. Sometimes I note down
quotes I like from books I’m reading, or the post might turn into a
longer piece about an actual topic. But most of the time they are just
stream-of-consciousness brain dumps. (Sorry.)
I guess it is pretty self-absorbed, really, writing like this and making
it public. But I just think back on those blogs that I really loved in
the past, and how it made me feel when I read them. And I sort of want
to re-create that, I guess. So those are my touchstones, in a way. A
vague guiding principle.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the
physical space influences your creativity?
I’m not too concerned about where I write, although I really don’t like
the feeling that someone might be behind me, looking over my shoulder. I
used to work in an open office, back in my office IT days, and I could
never get used to the feeling.
For the most part I write at my desk in my study–I have a mac mini and a
nice big screen. (I also work from home, but that’s on a windows
machine, so everything is pretty separate.) I’m also quite happy typing
in bed on my laptop too; for some reason generally I find writing in bed
works really well for me. On the weekends I really like opening the door
to the balcony by the bed and sitting there to write.
I keep quite a few notebooks and I journal in those, but composing a
blog post in a notebook feels a little strange. Recently I’ve set up a
chair outside the study, under some punga ferns that hang over the fence
there, and I have found that sitting there with a notebook, and brain.fm
on my headphones has been pretty wild in terms of getting into the zone.
Probably like most people I’m drawn to beautiful photos of desks in
minimal offices, or a spot at a beautiful cafe, but to be honest by the
time I’m in the flow of writing I hardly even notice my surroundings.
I’m in that in-between space, somewhere between the text on the screen
and my brain.
I’d love to work other places apart from home, but the libraries in New
Zealand are pretty much public spaces these days, and because most of
them are small and suburban (our big one in Wellington is currently out
of action due to earthquake strengthening) there aren’t many places to
just find a quiet desk. There’s also a bit of a mood among cafes where
they don’t seem to like you “bludging” a seat for too long. Of course
there are coworking spaces–I even signed up for one a while ago, but
they are pretty expensive and it’s just a bit hard to justify.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech
stack?
Sure! My writing blog is one of those Jekyll templates hosted on GitHub
pages, though I am looking at simplifying that. (It also got a really
bad score on the websitecarbon.com website, which is another reason I’m
considering moving.) What I do really like about it is that I have the
site mirrored locally, and I can edit the html and css in Zed
(https://zed.dev) (currently my code
editor of choice, though I sometimes go back to Vim). I like writing a
post in a text file and then pushing a copy out to where it’s hosted. It
feels more like writing that way.
My personal blog is similar, though I use Blot.im for that. All the
files sit on Dropbox, and everything just syncs and updates as I edit
them. I have the templates and structure sitting there and it’s very
easy to make changes.
I recently implemented a weird sort of flow though, involving Obsidian
and an automator folder monitoring workflow. I have, in Obsidian, a Blog
folder, with drafts and posts subfolders. I create a draft blog post
based on a template I’ve created with the right YAML front matter, write
it in Obsidian, and then when I’m ready, I drag it over to the posts
folder. Once it arrives there, automator kicks in and makes a copy to my
Blot folder.
I like writing blog posts in markdown in Obsidian; everything syncs to
GitHub pretty easily. The only faff is with implementing photos, which I
usually resize by hand and copy to an assets folder within the Blot
structure. But it’s easy enough to implement without too much flicking
around.
I don’t know if this seems really weird or not. But I’ve come to realise
that I really dislike writing anything in a web browser; everything just
feels very slow and mouse-oriented. My next challenge is to try and find
a newsletter option that I can use in a similar way. If anyone has any
suggestions I’d love to hear them!
Both my domains are registered through 1stdomains.nz. I couldn’t even
tell you why I first signed up with them. The site is a bit clunky but I
like that they are a kiwi company.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do
anything differently?
Going way back, I think despite everything that happened with the
diary-x fiasco, it was a really great place to hang out and meet other
people online. (I even reconnected with someone on micro.blog who I had
been friends with back in those days; it was very surreal!) I think all
I would do differently really is make sure I kept even some basic text
copies of what I’d written–even the wayback machine hasn’t been able to
find everything.
I do think that using Wordpress was a bit of a lesson in how hard it can
be to get everything out of a hulking CMS. Yes there are some good
scripts that can do it, but I still have over three hundred posts that I
have to now go back through and sort the links for images. It’s just
turned into a complete chore.
More recently, I think I wish I’d just used the shortened version of my
name for the author blog. Jess Nickelsen rather than Jessica Nickelsen.
It seems like a small thing, but Jess feels more like me. Maybe I’ll
just do it, heh!
Financial question since the web is obsessed with money: how much does
it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost or does it generate some
revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?
The domain names are around $30 NZ a year, each. Blot is about $20 USD a
year, because I got in on early pricing quite a few years ago. I think
it’s around $60 a year now.
(I also have mini blogs with omg.lol; those are $20 USD a year but I
think I subscribed when they were having a sale. I also pay for
micro.blog because I really like what they are doing there and it’s a
lovely community. That’s $5 USD a month.)
I don’t have anything against people monetising their blogs at all, but
don’t you think that a monetised blog has a different feel? They become
more…performative? Less of a window and more of a presentation? I guess
in my mind I separate those sort of blogs out into the same realm as
recipe blogs or youtube channels. It becomes more about a business and
less about openness. And while I completely understand that for some
people this is their main form of income, I almost wish there was
another name for “this sort of thing,” other than “blog.”
I’m really still just working out my thoughts on the whole thing. Maybe
my stumbling block is that I’m a Gen-Xer who remembers when all of this
was just a giant playground, and now it’s all become quite serious.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out?
And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
Ohh, this is hard. There are so many interesting blogs out there, and I
love that this is a problem. It was awesome to see you interviewing some
bloggers who I genuinely love reading (like Adrianna Tan, Derek Sivers
and Winnie Lim). Here are a few other blogs that I really like:
arnoldhoogerwerf.nl - he does
all sorts of interesting field recordings in nature and sometimes makes
films to accompany them
wonderpens.ca -
though they are a stationery shop, this is a commercial blog I genuinely
enjoy; sincere and well-written, with lovely photography.
saigonboy.me I discovered this blog
while I was investigating Montaigne.io (which still looks pretty cool; a
blog created via apple notes?) This is a snippety sort of travel blog,
with illustrations rather than photographs. I really like it.
danwang.co - Dan Wang pretty much does
just one post a year, but I’ve been reading them for a few years now and
always feel smarter and more human after reading them.
muan.co - I like Mu-An Chiou’s blog (it’s
dreamy) but she’s also got a nice mix of personal and professional there
too.
robertvanvliet.com - Robert
Van Vliet’s blog is a nice example of how I’d like to bring my two blogs
together. He also seems quite dreamy and artsy as well as being techy,
which is a nice combination.
brainbaking.com - I think Winnie
Lim also recommended this blog. It’s another one of my favourites as
well.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
Thanks to mental floss I was able to track down the very first web page
I think I ever visited on the internet:
Strawberry Pop-Tart
Blow-Torches. It gave me such genuine delight to know this page
still exists!
Also check out Anthony Alvarado’s DIY Magic. It’s such a great
book on creativity!
This was the 42nd edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed
this interview with Jess. Make sure to
follow her blog
(RSS) and get in
touch with her if you have any questions.
Awesome supporters
You can support this series on
Ko-Fi and all supporters
will be listed here as well as on the
official site of the
newsletter.
suggest a person to
interview next. I’m especially interested in people and blogs outside
the tech/web bubble.
<hr>
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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular
cluster NGC 2005. It’s not an unusual globular cluster in and of itself,
but it is a peculiarity when compared to its surroundings. NGC 2005 is
located about 750 light-years from the heart of the Large Magellanic
Cloud (LMC), which is the Milky Way’s largest satellite […]
AI
Octopus predicts results of Euro 2024: It isn’t looking good for
England
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Who needs a real live cephalopod?
The Euro 2024 international football tournament gets underway today, and
we’re delighted to report that AI has finally been turned into something
useful in the form of a virtual pundit for sports fans.…
How
Apache Spark lit up the tech world and outshone its big data
brethren
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
The Register queries author Matei Zaharia on a decade of the project
Interview Big data is no longer hailed as the “new
oil.” It has gone out of fashion, both in terms of hype and because its
foundational technology – Apache Hadoop – was surpassed by cloud-based
blob storage such as AWS S3. However, a sister project born in the big
data era has become more influential in the modern world of LLMs and
internet-scale data systems.…
John Boston |
D-Day & the Busted Circle of J.Q. Adams
date: 2024-06-14, from: The Signal
D-Day was last week. That would be the World War II turning-point
invasion of Europe. Not the robust brassiere cup size. June 6, 1944, was
six years before I was […]
Why aren’t you angry? Imagine if many high-ranking members of Congress
conspired to lie to you. Would you be mad? Now imagine after those
high-ranking officials conspired to lie to […]
I always find it quite amusing when people on the left applaud our
courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, whenever their rulings
favor a left-wing position. The most […]
Dan Walters |
Californians’ Crime Stance Hardening
date: 2024-06-14, from: The Signal
Over the past dozen years, Democrats have gained, lost and finally
nailed down supermajorities in the California Legislature. Now they hold
more than 75% of its 120 seats. Having achieved […]
We just returned from Napa Valley, attending the Napa Collective Barrel
Auction, one of the top wine charity events in the world. My future
columns will cover that. While there […]
We
need a volunteer to literally crawl over broken glass to fix this
network
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Downside: High chance of injury. Upside: Permanent bragging rights at
performance reviews
On CallThe Register knows that readers often
put themselves in harm’s way to ensure tech keeps ticking over, which is
why each Friday we salute those efforts with a fresh installment of On
Call – the reader-contributed column that details true tales of tech
support.…
Microsoft
cancels universal Recall release in favor of Windows Insider
preview
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Wider release coming real soon – promise – after the Windows faithful
give it a thrashing
Microsoft has cancelled the wide release of Recall – the controversial
tool for Copilot+ PCs that takes regular snapshots of a machine to
create a record of everything users do with their machines – and will
instead make it available only to Windows Insiders for the foreseeable
future.…
Reading Time: 36minutes Hello everyone, hello
hello – firstly THANKYOU to everyone who shared the Tiny Awards link
over the past week, it is HUGELY appreciated and I would thank each and
every one of you personally if that wouldn’t involve a degree of
stalking that would almost certainly make you exceptionally
uncomfortable. If you would like to…
Microsoft’s
controversial “Recall” feature delayed: won’t ship as a day one feature
for Copilot+ PCs as initially planned
date: 2024-06-14, from: Liliputing
Microsoft’s Copilot PC+ initiative launches on June 18, when the first
PCs with NPUs meeting the company’s minimum requirements for on-device
AI performance hit the streets. On these laptops with Qualcomm
Snapdragon X Plus or Elite professors, Windows will be able to leverage
the NPU for things like upscaling photos, providing real-time
transcripts for video […]
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-06-14, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
This is what we don't do in software – study each others' creations.
You can barely get anyone to even look at the simplest stuff.
Amazing how people bet their whole careers and businesses without any
information on what other people are creating. No wonder new generations
of software knock out previous generations. No one has any curiosity,
respect.
Japan’s
space agency helps to target advertising with satellite photos of
crops
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Some would say ads for cabbage are futile – can pics from space at least
make them timely?
Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and marketing agency Dentsu
have developed a means to use snaps captured by satellites to smooth out
agricultural supply chains and enhance advertising.…
South
Florida rainstorms lead to flight delays, streets jammed with stalled
cars
date: 2024-06-14, from: VOA News USA
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — A tropical disturbance that brought a rare
flash flood emergency to much of southern Florida delayed flights at two
of the state’s largest airports and left vehicles waterlogged and
stalled in some of the region’s lowest-lying streets.
“Looked like the beginning of a zombie movie,” said Ted Rico, a tow
truck driver who spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning
helping to clear the streets of stalled vehicles. “There’s cars littered
everywhere, on top of sidewalks, in the median, in the middle of the
street, no lights on. Just craziness, you know. Abandoned cars
everywhere.”
Rico, of One Master Trucking Corp., was born and raised in Miami and
said he was ready for the emergency.
“You know when it’s coming,” he said. “Every year it’s just getting
worse, and for some reason people just keep going through the
puddles.”
Travelers across the area were trying to adjust their plans on
Thursday morning. More than 50 centimeters of rain had fallen in some
areas of South Florida since Tuesday, with more predicted over the next
few days.
Ticket and security lines snaked around a domestic concourse at Fort
Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport just before noon Thursday.
The travel boards showed about half of that terminal’s flights had been
canceled or postponed.
Bill Carlisle, a Navy petty officer first class, had spent his
morning trying to catch a flight back to Norfolk, Virginia. He had
arrived at Miami International Airport about 6:30 a.m., but 90 minutes
later he was still in line and realized he couldn’t get his bags checked
and through security in time to catch his flight.
“It was a zoo,” said Carlisle, a public affairs specialist. He was
speaking for himself, not the Navy. “Nothing against the [airport]
employees — there is only so much they can do.”
He used his phone to book an afternoon flight out of Fort Lauderdale.
He took a shuttle the 32 kilometers north, only to find that the flight
had been canceled. He was then heading back to Miami for a 9 p.m.
flight, hoping it wouldn’t get canceled by the heavy rains expected
later in the day. He was resigned, not angry.
“Just a long day sitting in airports,” Carlisle said. “This is kind
of par for the course for government travel.”
Wednesday’s downpours and subsequent flooding blocked roads, floated
vehicles and even delayed the Florida Panthers on their way to Stanley
Cup games in Canada against the Edmonton Oilers.
The disorganized storm system was pushing across Florida from the
Gulf of Mexico at roughly the same time as the early June start of
hurricane season, which this year is forecast to be among the most
active in recent memory amid concerns that climate change is increasing
storm intensity.
The disturbance has not reached cyclone status and was given only a
slight chance to form into a tropical system once it moves into the
Atlantic Ocean after crossing Florida, according to the National
Hurricane Center.
In Hallandale Beach, Alex Demchemko was walking his Russian spaniel
Lex along the still-flooded sidewalks near the Airbnb where he’s lived
since arriving from Russia last month to seek asylum in the U.S.
“We didn’t come out from our apartment, but we had to walk with our
dog,” Demchemko said. “A lot of flashes, raining, a lot of floating cars
and a lot of left cars without drivers, and there was a lot of water on
the streets. It was kind of catastrophic.”
On Thursday morning, Daniela Urrieche, 26, was bailing water out of
her SUV, which got stuck on a flooded street as she drove home from work
on Wednesday afternoon.
“In the nine years that I’ve lived here, this has been the worst,”
she said. “Even in a hurricane, streets were not as bad as it was in the
past 24 hours.”
The flooding wasn’t limited to the streets. Charlea Johnson spent
Wednesday night at her Hallendale Beach home barreling water into the
sink and toilet.
“The water just started flooding in the back and flooding in the
front,” Johnson said.
By Wednesday evening, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and mayors in
Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Miami-Dade County each declared a state
of emergency.
It’s already been a wet and blustery week in Florida. In Miami, about
15 centimeters of rain fell Tuesday and 17 centimeters fell in Miami
Beach, according to the National Weather Service. Hollywood got about 12
centimeters.
More rain was forecast for the rest of the week, with some areas
getting another 15 centimeters of rain.
The western side of the state, much of which has been in a prolonged
drought, also got some major rainfall. Nearly 16.5 centimeters of rain
fell Tuesday at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the weather
service said, and flash flood warnings were in effect in those areas as
well.
Forecasts predict an unusually busy hurricane season.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates there
is an 85% chance that the Atlantic hurricane season will be above
average, predicting between 17 and 25 named storms in the coming months,
including up to 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes. An average
season has 14 named storms.
US President Joe Biden and leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy
democracies are meeting in Italy, underscoring support for Ukraine’s
fight against Russia’s invasion and the need for a cease-fire in Gaza.
White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara is traveling with the
president and brings this report from Borgo Egnazia, the G7 summit
venue.
American
held by Taliban needs urgent medical care, UN expert says
date: 2024-06-14, from: VOA News USA
GENEVA — The Taliban must provide Ryan Corbett, an American held in
Afghanistan for nearly two years, with immediate medical care to prevent
irreparable harm to his health or even his death, a United Nations
expert said on Thursday.
“The Taliban must provide Ryan Corbett with medical treatment in a
civilian hospital without delay,” said Alice Jill Edwards, the U.N.
special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.
Corbett, an aid worker, has been held without charge in conditions
“utterly inadequate and substantially below international standards,”
she said.
“This is having a significant impact on his physical and mental
health, which is declining rapidly,” Edwards added. She said she had
raised the issue directly with the Taliban.
“Without adequate medical care, he is at risk of irreparable harm or
even death,” she said.
The United States is in contact with Edwards’ office and welcomes
efforts to call for more humane conditions for Corbett and others held
by the Taliban, a spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United
Nations in New York said.
“We consider Ryan’s detention to be wrongful and we will continue to
work securing his immediate release,” the spokesperson said.
Corbett and his family moved to Afghanistan in 2010. He worked with
nongovernmental organizations and then started his own — Bloom
Afghanistan — to bolster the country’s private sector through
consulting, microfinance and project evaluation.
He left with his family following the Taliban takeover in 2021 but
continued working with his organization, returning in January 2022 to
renew his business visa.
Despite having a valid visa, he was arrested by the Taliban in August
2022 after he returned to pay and train his staff, his lawyers said. A
German and two Afghans with whom Corbett was arrested have since been
released.
The U.N. expert said Corbett has developed several medical problems,
including ringing in his ears, and severe weight loss. He has also
repeatedly expressed intentions of suicide and self-harm.
The United States has had no diplomatic presence in Kabul since it
fell to the Taliban in August 2021 as U.S. troops pulled out after 20
years of war.
Blue
Origin, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance picked to vie for Pentagon
contracts
date: 2024-06-14, from: VOA News USA
washington — The U.S. Department of Defense picked Jeff Bezos’ Blue
Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United
Launch Alliance (ULA) to compete for national security space missions,
making initial selections under a $5.6 billion award program.
The Pentagon did not say which of the companies’ rockets it selected
but noted seven companies bid for entry into the program, which seeks
rockets that must be ready to fly their first missions to space by
December.
The three companies are the first to be selected under the Pentagon’s
lucrative National Security Space Launch Phase 3 procurement program, a
multibillion-dollar competition among U.S. rocket companies vying to
launch some of the country’s most sensitive military and intelligence
satellites into space for roughly the next decade.
SpaceX and ULA, two titans in the launch industry, have since 2020
been the Pentagon’s primary rocket launch providers under a predecessor
program, called Phase 2. That program gave ULA a 60% share of all
Pentagon missions through 2027, with SpaceX getting the rest.
But in the program’s third phase, the Pentagon has sought a wider
variety of companies for its space missions into the next decade, mainly
to stimulate more competition in the U.S. launch sector.
The announcement on Thursday brings Bezos’ rocket launch and human
spaceflight company Blue Origin into a competitive arena it has long
wanted to enter as it tries to bring its giant New Glenn rocket to
market and ramp up its competitive footing with SpaceX.
SpaceX’s partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket has dominated the launch
industry while the company test launches its next-generation Starship
rocket, a massive, fully reusable launch system that Musk sees as
crucial to flying humans into space and launching large batches of
satellites into orbit.
While ULA’s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket nears retirement, its
next-generation Vulcan rocket is poised to become the company’s
centerpiece launcher. Vulcan first launched this year, and its second
mission – a crucial step to receive certification for Pentagon missions
– has been delayed but is expected to fly later this year.
The three companies did not immediately reply to requests for comment
about their rockets’ role in the Pentagon program.
The Pentagon’s Phase 3 program is divided into two categories, Lane 1
and Lane 2. Lane 1, the category of Thursday’s announcement, allows more
novel or specialized rockets to fly national security missions that have
less-stringent requirements. More companies, such as Rocket Lab, are
expected to be added to Lane 1 in the coming years.
The U.S. Space Force, which manages the launch procurement program,
said Blue Origin received $5 million to provide an assessment of how it
will meet the Pentagon’s launch requirements. SpaceX and ULA – companies
Space Force is more familiar with – each got $1.5 million.
Lane 2, whose awards are expected in autumn, will tap three companies
whose rockets are capable of meeting a wider variety of national
security mission requirements, indicating the most experienced players
such as SpaceX and ULA will be most fit for awards.
Hart
school district honors excellence in spring sports
date: 2024-06-14, from: The Signal
A host of athletes at William S. Hart Union High School District schools
were honored at last week’s governing board meeting for their success
during the spring postseasons. Both the […]
SCV School
Food Services Agency offers summer meals
date: 2024-06-14, from: The Signal
News release Santa Clarita Valley School Food Services Agency announced
that it is serving free meals to students under the Seamless Summer
Option now through Aug. 2. All children 18 […]
News release Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, voted in favor of the
FY2025 Defense Appropriations bill, which passed out of the House
Committee on Appropriations and will now advance to the […]
Earth planning date: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 Planning today was
defined by the decision about whether or not to drill at “Mammoth
Lakes,” the potential drill target that we selected on Monday. This
decision is made based on the answer to two questions. First, does this
location meet our science objectives? On Monday, we undertook […]
Microsoft
bigwig says the Feds catching Chinese spies in Exchange Online is the
cloud working as intended
date: 2024-06-14, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
‘It’s not our job to find the culprits – That’s what we’re paying you
for’ lawmaker scolds Brad Smith
Lawmakers on Thursday grilled Microsoft president Brad Smith about the
Windows giant’s businesses dealing in China — and the super-corp’s
repeated security failings — at a time when Beijing-backed spies are
accused of breaking into Microsoft-hosted email accounts of American
government officials.…
Voyager
1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments
date: 2024-06-13, from: NASA breaking news
The spacecraft has resumed gathering information about interstellar
space. NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is conducting normal science
operations for the first time following a technical issue that arose in
November 2023. The team partially resolved the issue in April when they
prompted the spacecraft to begin returning engineering data, which
includes information about the health […]
Former
Canyon Country man sentenced for video with minor
date: 2024-06-13, from: The Signal
A 21-year-old former Canyon Country resident was sentenced Thursday to
two years’ formal probation after his girlfriend reported to Santa
Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies there was video on her […]
Oakmont
of Valencia residents shine in Sarah McLachlan tour video
date: 2024-06-13, from: The Signal
While people throughout the world enjoy ice cream on a hot summer day,
not many can say that they were featured in a concert video eating ice
cream in a […]
June
20: SCV Water Public Outreach, Legislation Committee Meeting
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Water Public Outreach and Legislation
Committee will hold a meeting Thursday, June 20, at 5:30 p.m., in the
Engineering Services Section Boardroom, 26521 Summit Circle in Santa
Clarita
Canonical
and DeepComputing announce new RISC-V laptop shipping with Ubuntu
date: 2024-06-13, from: OS News
Speaking of PCs that don’t use x86 chips, Canonical and DeepComputing
today announced a new RISC-V laptop running Ubuntu, available for
pre-order in a few days. It’s the successor to the DC-ROMA, which
shipped last year. Adding to a long list of firsts, the new DC-ROMA
laptop II is the first to feature SpacemiT’s SoC K1 – with its 8-cores
RISC-V CPU running at up to 2.0GHz with 16GB of memory. This
significantly doubled its overall performance and energy efficiency over
the previous generation’s 4-cores SoC running at 1.5GHz. Moreover,
SpacemiT’s SoC K1 is also the world’s first SoC to support RISC-V high
performance computing RVA 22 Profile RVV 1.0 with 256 bit width, and to
have powerful AI capabilities with its customised matrix operation
instruction based on IME Group design principle! This second-generation
DC-ROMA RISC-V laptop also features an all-metal casing making it more
durable, as well as improving heat dissipation and more on its premium
class look and feel compared to previous generation. ↫ Canonical’s blog
The DC-ROMA II is clearly aimed at developers, as it has what is
essentially a GeekPort on the side of the laptop, to aid in porting and
debugging software. Aside from that and the RISC-V processor, it’s a
rather mid-range kind of device, and no pricing has been published yet
so I’m not sure if this is something I could afford for an OSNews
review. Once the preorders go live in a few days, we’ll know more. If
you’d like to see this RISC-V laptop make an appearance on OSNews, let
me know, and I’ll see what I can do.
US
Space Force wanted $77M to reinforce GPS – and Congress shot it
down
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Can’t we do this another way, like without these mini-sats costing $1B
over 5 years, House reps wonder
A plan by America’s Space Force to harden GPS against spoofing attacks
may be going nowhere: A request by the service branch for $77 million of
public cash to finish the work is struggling to get approval from
Congress.…
The
Qualcomm Snapdragon X architecture deep dive: getting to know Oryon and
Adreno X1
date: 2024-06-13, from: OS News
In the last 8 months Qualcomm has made a lot of interesting claims
for their high-performance Windows-on-Arm SoC – many of which will be
put to the test in the coming weeks. But beyond all the performance
claims and bluster amidst what is shaping up to be a highly competitive
environment for PC CPUs, there’s an even more fundamental question about
the Snapdragon X that we’ve been dying to get to: how does it work?
Ahead of next week’s launch, then, we’re finally getting the answer to
that, as today Qualcomm is releasing their long-awaited architectural
disclosure on the Snapdragon X SoC. This includes not only their new,
custom Arm v8 “Oryon” CPU core, but also technical disclosures on their
Adreno GPU, and the Hexagon NPU that backs their heavily-promoted AI
capabilities. The company has made it clear in the past that the
Snapdragon X is a serious, top-priority effort for the company – that
they’re not just slapping together a Windows SoC from their existing IP
blocks and calling it a day – so there’s a great deal of novel
technology within the SoC. ↫ Ryan Smith at AnandTech I cannot wait until
AnandTech can move beyond diving into information provided by Qualcomm,
and can start doing their own incredibly in-depth benchmarks and
research. Assuming the effort succeeds, the Snapdragon X line will most
likely form the backbone of ARM PCs for years – if not decades – to
come, meaning that when you and I go shopping for a new laptop, this
chip will be the one heavily promoted by stores and outlets. How closely
independent benchmarks line up with Qualcomm’s eight months of promises
and cherry-picked benchmarks will also tell us a lot about how
trustworthy the company will be about the performance of its chips going
forward. In smartphones – where we mostly see Qualcomm today –
performance simply doesn’t matter as much, but when you’re dealing with
laptops, and in the future possibly even desktops, performance suddenly
matters a lot more, and Qualcomm’s claims will be facing a level of
scrutiny and detail I don’t think they’ve ever really had to deal with
before. PC enthusiasts don’t mess around. If the Linux support turns out
to be as solid as Qualcomm claims, and if the performance figures
they’ve been putting out are verified by quality independent reviewers
like the people at AnandTech, I honestly don’t think my next laptop will
be using x86. I just hope weird companies like Chuwi will release a
version of their MiniBook X with one a Qualcomm chip, because I’ll be
damned if I go back to anything larger than 10″.
The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon; the Flower, Hot, Hoe, or
Planting Moon; the Mead or Honey Moon; the Rose Moon; Vat Purnima; Poson
Poya; and the LRO Moon. The next full Moon will be Friday evening, June
21, 2024, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 9:08
PM EDT. This will […]
At a meeting on Thursday,
Tesla
shareholders voted to re-approve an enormous pay package for
Musk, the CEO, worth $45 billion or more depending on Tesla’s
fluctuating stock price. The deal had been struck down in January by a
judge in Delaware, where the EV company is
(for
now) incorporated. Musk spent much of the intervening months
campaigning on his social network, X, for the gigantic package to be
reinstated.
The vote puts to bed a variety of rumors and threats surrounding the
electric car company — including, most seriously, that Musk would
neglect Tesla in favor of his other companies if he didn’t get his way
and might consider leaving for good, taking his talents for artificial
intelligence and autonomous driving elsewhere. With his colossal payday
back in place, he appears likely to stay and to push Tesla toward those
fields.
It means, for better and for worse, that Tesla the company will remain
tethered to the whims of its mercurial chief. While Musk excels at
generating hype and driving up Tesla’s stock price (the thing that
earned him the enormous payday in question), we may have lost our last
chance to see what Tesla would look like if it matured into a
normal,
steady company that just makes good electric vehicles.
New companies, especially flashy startups out of Silicon Valley, often
go through a transition moment when they must decide how to grow up.
Sometimes that means moving on from the combustible, blue-sky founder or
CEO who helped the company become a hit, but isn’t the right fit for
growing into a large company on a solid foundation.
Now would have been Tesla’s time. With the introduction of the Model 3
and especially the Model Y, the EV-maker reached remarkable scale, with
the latter becoming the best-selling EV in the United States and the
best-selling car in the entire world in 2023. A more conventional
business leader might have tried to expand Tesla’s huge lead in the EV
market, and double down on the advantage it gained by convincing the
other carmakers to adopt its charging standard by re-commiting to the
Supercharger team. We might have seen this alternate universe Tesla fill
the burgeoning EV space with crossovers of varying size to beat GM and
Hyundai/Kia to the punch. We might have seen it commit to the
entry-level EV project to grab the next group of Americans who’ll go
electric.
Musk, though, built his entire brand on being seen as unconventional.
Instead of introducing an electrified pickup truck that resembled
everything else on the road, he built the Cybertruck. He laid off the
Supercharger team just when things were looking up. Rather than
introducing a slightly bigger or smaller version of the Model Y, he
bought Twitter, and then tweeted a lot about AI while Tesla sales
started to decline.
You take the bad with the good when it comes to Musk. With their ‘yes’
vote on his stock package, the company’s board and shareholders decided
the good was worth it — and that by backing the horse that brought them,
the company and its stock value could continue on to new heights. In
doing so, they hitched their wagons to Musk’s notion that Tesla is
decidedly not a car company, but rather
a
software and AI company that happens to put those things into
vehicles. The Tesla in our timeline will live or die with projects such
as the fully autonomous robotaxi Musk has promised to reveal in some
capacity later this summer.
As many
analysts
predicted, the shareholders decided they needed Musk. Perhaps even more
than he needed Tesla, if his big bluff can be believed. “Tesla is Elon,”
as one investor
put
it. The chairperson of the Tesla board
came
right out and said that the shareholders needed to approve
Musk’s stock deal to keep his attention focused on Tesla rather than
SpaceX, X, or his other ventures.
Now, as the company recommits to his path, the question for everybody
else is: How badly do we need Tesla?
Very badly is what I would have said just a few years
ago. When I bought my Model 3 in 2019, the available competitors weren’t
inspiring and the competing fast-charging networks were utterly
unreliable. Tesla was responsible for taking EVs mainstream in the
United States and it was by far the best hope for those who wanted to
see more and more American cars go electric.
Things change in five years, though. The Model Y still rules the roost,
but Tesla is
losing
ground to the good electric offerings that are finally coming
from the legacy carmakers. With other EVs already using or soon to be
able to use Tesla’s Supercharger network, one major competitive
advantage that Musk’s company had in selling electric vehicles is
disappearing. Maybe Musk will crack true-self driving. But as far as how
important Tesla is to getting the average person into an EV, the answer
looks to be: less and less all the time.
Gavin
Newsom And Top Democrats Are Deciding California’s Budget Behind Closed
Doors
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The LAist
The Legislature passes a placeholder state budget, but must still
negotiate with Gov. Newsom on the final deal. How the state spends
taxpayer money is largely being decided out of public view.
Nycote
Labs Expands Operations with New Santa Clarita Headquarters
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Nycote Laboratories Corporation, a leading provider of advanced
coatings solutions, is proud to announce a significant expansion with
the purchase of a modern detached industrial building in Santa
Clarita
Wells
Fargo fires employees accused of faking keyboard activity to pretend to
work
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Homer Simpson was ahead of his time
Wells Fargo fired a bunch of employees accused of pretending to work, by
using some tech to fake their keyboard typing, instead of doing their
actual jobs, it emerged today.…
Diplomat:
US committed to work with Bangladesh on corruption
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The United States is “committed to working with
Bangladesh to fight corruption,” Donald Lu, U.S. assistant secretary of
state for South and Central Asian Affairs, told VOA’s Bangla
Service.
Lu visited Bangladesh in mid-May and met with senior government
officials and civil society leaders. Shortly after his visit, the U.S.
announced sanctions against former Bangladesh army chief General Aziz
Ahmed for what it termed his involvement in “significant
corruption.”
In an interview conducted by email on Monday, Lu spoke about topics
that included economic cooperation, the climate crisis, women’s rights
and the commitment of the United States to work with the people of
Bangladesh on issues of democracy and human rights. This interview has
been edited for brevity and clarity.
VOA: In your recent visit to Bangladesh, you expressed the
administration’s intention to move beyond the tension between Bangladesh
and the U.S., which was caused by your administration’s initiative to
promote democracy and a free, fair and peaceful election in Bangladesh
in January this year. Is this an indication of a U.S. policy shift
toward Bangladesh where you intend to focus more on geopolitical,
economic, environmental and strategic bilateral issues rather than
promoting democracy?
Donald Lu: As I said during my recent visit to Dhaka, we are looking
forward, not back. We are ready and eager to advance our partnership
with Bangladesh across a broad range of issues. We hope to continue
deepening our trade ties with Bangladesh. We want to advance our shared
interest in women’s economic security. We are already working together
to address the climate crisis. We are optimistic about the opportunities
for continued partnership on our shared priorities.
Promoting democracy and human rights in Bangladesh remains a priority
for us. We will continue to support the important work of civil society
and journalists and to advocate for democratic processes and
institutions in Bangladesh, as we do in countries around the world.
VOA: Opposition political parties in Bangladesh and sections of civil
society have criticized the U.S. administration for being “soft” on the
current government of Bangladesh regarding the January 7 election
issues, which include human rights violations. How would you respond to
this criticism?
Lu: The United States staunchly supports free and fair elections and
is firmly committed to promoting respect for human rights. Throughout
the election cycle, we regularly engaged with the government,
opposition, civil society and other stakeholders to urge them to work
together to create conditions for free and fair elections. We were
outspoken in our condemnation of the violence that marred the election
cycle and we have urged the government of Bangladesh to credibly
investigate incidents of violence and hold perpetrators accountable. We
will continue to engage on these issues.
VOA: In your recent visit, you did not meet with the representatives
from the opposition parties who boycotted the election, although you met
with members of the civil society. Why did you decide not to meet with
the opposition members?
Lu: It is true that last year ahead of the elections I had the
opportunity to meet with a roundtable of leaders from several political
parties. It’s not a pre-election period, so I didn’t meet with political
parties during this visit.
I was fortunate to meet with a diverse group of Bangladeshis while in
Dhaka, from civil society representatives to government officials, to
the Bangladesh National Women’s Cricket Team, who taught me a thing or
two about bowling and batting.
VOA: You highlighted your government’s plan to work together with
Bangladesh to fight corruption and ensure financial good governance. Is
the recent sanction against the former Bangladesh army chief General
Aziz a part of that fight against corruption? Are you satisfied with the
Bangladesh government’s willingness to cooperate to mitigate these
issues?
Lu: When I was ambassador to Albania and the Kyrgyz Republic, we
sanctioned corrupt officials. This was not popular with the governments
at the time, but now those sanctioned former corrupt officials are all
in jail. Societies around the world are eager to see justice for
corruption.
We are committed to working with Bangladesh to fight corruption, and
on May 20, we announced the public designation of former General Aziz
Ahmed under Section 7031(c), due to his involvement in significant
corruption. We welcome statements by government ministers that this
corruption allegation will be fully investigated.
VOA: You have offered Bangladesh authorities free real-time use of
satellite data to monitor the impact of climate change. How has
Bangladesh responded to this? Which areas, in your opinion, should be
prioritized in the cooperation between the two countries regarding
climate change?
Lu: I felt firsthand the impact of climate change during my visit to
Dhaka in May as I sweltered alongside Bangladeshis in the extreme heat.
We are committed to partnering with Bangladesh to address the climate
crisis. We’re focused on building clean energy capacity, reducing
greenhouse gas emissions in sectors like agriculture and power, and
conserving ecosystems to maintain biodiversity and reduce vulnerability
to climate change. Our discussions with Bangladeshi officials were
extremely positive.
VOA: In what ways can Bangladesh play an important role in the U.S.
government’s Indo-Pacific policy? What are the priority areas where you
seek Bangladesh government’s cooperation?
Lu: The United States and Bangladesh share a vision of an
Indo-Pacific region that is free and open, connected, prosperous, secure
and resilient. With a dynamic and fast-growing economy, Bangladesh is
positioned to act as a bridge for commerce and an anchor for prosperity
in the region. We’re focused on working with our Bangladeshi partners to
boost inclusive economic growth in the region, as well as increasing
security cooperation, addressing the climate crisis, and promoting
democracy and human rights. Coordination on these and other issues
benefits the people of both of our countries.
Assemblymember
Hart to Lead Oversight Hearing on Wage Theft
date: 2024-06-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SACRAMENTO, CA – Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara), Chair of
the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, announced a legislative oversight
hearing
Lilbits:
Samsung Galaxy Watch FE, LineageOS for the Chromecast 4K, and a closer
look at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips
date: 2024-06-13, from: Liliputing
The first laptops with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon
X Plus chips will be available starting June 18th. Over the past few
months Qualcomm has released benchmarks and some limited details about
its new processors, which it says offer best-in-class
performance-per-watt. Now the chip maker has provided additional
technical details for folks that […]
NASA
Announces New System to Aid Disaster Response
date: 2024-06-13, from: NASA breaking news
In early May, widespread flooding and landslides occurred in the
Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, leaving thousands of people
without food, water, or electricity. In the following days, NASA teams
provided data and imagery to help on-the-ground responders understand
the disaster’s impacts and deploy aid. Building on this response and
similar successes, on […]
Meet
the ‘Echidnapus,’ an Extinct Creature That Resembles Both the Echidna
and Platypus of Today
date: 2024-06-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The species is among three newly identified monotremes, or egg-laying
mammals, discovered from fossils in Australia that are shedding light on
the odd animals’ evolution
Washington
state’s Makah tribe clears hurdle toward resuming whale hunts
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Seattle, Washington — The United States granted the Makah Indian
Tribe in Washington state a long-sought waiver Thursday that helps clear
the way for its first sanctioned whale hunts since 1999.
The Makah, a tribe of 1,500 people on the northwestern tip of the
Olympic Peninsula, is the only Native American tribe with a treaty that
specifically mentions a right to hunt whales. But it has faced more than
two decades of court challenges, bureaucratic hearings and scientific
review as it seeks to resume hunting gray whales.
The decision by NOAA Fisheries grants a waiver under the Marine
Mammal Protection Act, which otherwise forbids harming marine mammals.
It allows the tribe to hunt up to 25 Eastern North Pacific gray whales
over 10 years, with a limit of two to three per year. There are roughly
20,000 whales in that population, and the hunts will be timed to avoid
harming endangered Western North Pacific gray whales that sometimes
visit the area.
Nevertheless, hurdles remain. The tribe must enter into a cooperative
agreement with the agency under the Whaling Convention Act, and it must
obtain a permit to hunt, a process that involves a monthlong public
comment period.
Animal rights advocates, who have long opposed whaling, could also
challenge NOAA’s decision in court.
Archeological evidence shows that Makah hunters in cedar canoes
killed whales for sustenance from time immemorial, a practice that
ceased only in the early 20th century after commercial whaling vessels
depleted the population.
By 1994, the Eastern Pacific gray whale population had rebounded, and
they were removed from the endangered species list. Seeing an
opportunity to reclaim its heritage, the tribe announced plans to hunt
again.
The Makah trained for months in the ancient ways of whaling and
received the blessing of federal officials and the International Whaling
Commission. They took to the water in 1998 but didn’t succeed until the
next year, when they harpooned a gray whale from a hand-carved cedar
canoe. A tribal member in a motorized support boat killed it with a
high-powered rifle to minimize its suffering.
It was the tribe’s first successful hunt in 70 years.
The hunts drew protests from animal rights activists, who sometimes
threw smoke bombs at the whalers and sprayed fire extinguishers into
their faces. Others veered motorboats between the whales and the tribal
canoes to interfere with the hunt. Authorities seized several vessels
and made arrests.
After animal rights groups sued, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals overturned federal approval of the tribe’s whaling plans. The
court found that the tribe needed to obtain a waiver under the 1972
Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Eleven Alaska Native communities in the Arctic have such a waiver for
subsistence hunts, allowing them to kill bowhead whales — even though
bowheads are listed as endangered.
The Makah tribe applied for a waiver in 2005. The process repeatedly
stalled as new scientific information about the whales and the health of
their population was uncovered.
Some of the Makah whalers became so frustrated with the delays that
they went on a rogue hunt in 2007, killing a gray whale that got away
from them and sank. They were convicted in federal court.
Santa
Clarita-Based Construction Firm Honored for Leadership
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Fonder-Salari, a Santa Clarita-based construction management firm,
and Beverly Hills Unified School District as the distinguished Owner,
have been recognized for their exemplary leadership in the modernization
of the historic El Rodeo Elementary School
Oracle
Ads have had it: $2B operation shuts down after dwindling to $300M
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
In this slightly more private era, your data ain’t as profitable as it
once was
Analysis Oracle Advertising is shutting down, CEO
Safra Catz said during the database goliath’s fiscal 2024 Q4 earnings
call with Wall Street this week.…
NSTGRO Homepage Claire LesslerUniversity of ChicagoPrecision
Spectroscopic Calibration and Next-Generation Millimeter-Wave
Spectrometers Miron LiuUniversity of MichiganDevelopment of a
Magnetically Shielded Hall Thruster without Pole Erosion Ashley
MaldonadoOtero University of Southern CaliforniaOptimizing heterogeneous
nanostructured materials for space applications Camille
McDonnellUniversity of Maryland, College ParkLow-SWaP Nanophotonic
Quantum Enhanced Sensors with Highly Squeezed Light Daniel
MiliateUniversity of California, […]
Astronaut
health and a VIP tour of Boeing’s Starliner capsule
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
New studies examine the effects of spaceflight on amateur astronauts.
Plus, a VIP tour of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, and we remember a
spaceflight pioneer. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in
Space.
With the Las Vegas sun bearing down and temperatures heading into triple
digits, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the warmup acts at a recent
Donald Trump rally, offered the crowd a vision more terrifying than the
heat that would
send
six attendees to the hospital. “If you think gas prices are high now,”
Greene
said, “just wait until you’re forced to drive an electric
vehicle!”
Amid the lusty boos that ensued at the mention of legally mandated EV
purchases, there must have been at least a few rallygoers saying to
themselves, Wait, if we all have to drive EVs, would that mean
we’re … not using any gas at all?
A future of 100% EV deployment (forced by a tyrannical government or
not) won’t be arriving any time soon. But with more EVs on the road each
year, and as a wider array of models become available and sticker prices
get closer to comparable cars with internal combustion engines, we can
at least foresee the day when the price of gas isn’t so potent a
political issue.
Just imagine it: No more politicians holding press conferences at gas
stations so they can be photographed pointing angrily at the sign with
today’s prices, no more ads with candidates
pretending
to fill up their pickups, no more disingenuous thundering about
how the president ruined your life by letting gas prices rise.
Contra Rep. Greene, wider adoption of EVs should in
theory produce lower gas prices (though oil-producing
countries will certainly do
whatever
they can to stop that), since every EV on the road reduces demand
for gas. That’s in the aggregate, but on a personal level, switching to
an EV reduces your demand for gas to zero. Anyone who drove one in June
2022, when retail prices reached their
recent
peak of nearly $5 a gallon, knows what I’m talking about:
Driving past a gas station, noticing a price on the sign higher than
they could remember it ever being, then saying “Doesn’t matter to me!”
(Average electricity prices were up a modest
13%
in June 2022 compared to a year earlier, whereas gas shot up
60%.)
But they were the minority, and Republicans were eager to blame that
price spike — caused by a combination of the post-pandemic economic
revival and restrictions on Russian oil following the invasion of
Ukraine — on President Biden. Entrepreneurs began selling stickers with
a picture of Biden pointing and the words “I did that” so you could
stick them on your local gas pump. Republicans
called
it “Joe Biden’s gas hike,” and took every opportunity to lay the
increase at the president’s feet. “I’ll tell you what, the little
stickers on gas pumps all across the country illustrate the American
people know exactly whose fault this is,”
said
Sen. Ted Cruz in May 2022. “This was deliberate. This isn’t an
accident.” Oddly, when prices came down, neither Cruz nor his colleagues
thanked the president for saving American drivers so much money.
At the moment, gas prices are
averaging
$3.45 a gallon nationwide — not particularly low, but not
so
high that they’re going to doom Biden’s reelection bid (and they
may
fall further in the coming months). As a result, the issue
hasn’t dominated the presidential campaign, which is a relief not only
for those who cringe when both parties promote cheaper and more
plentiful fossil fuels, but also for anyone who wishes politics weren’t
so gripped by inanity.
Unfortunately, rising gas prices fill politicians with terror,
incentivizing them not only to engage in ridiculous posturing but to
make policy decisions that only reinforce the fiction that prices are
within the government’s direct control. They all know that gas occupies
a unique place in people’s economic perceptions, since no other product
has its ever-changing price advertised on large signs on
145,000
street corners around the country. Even a slight bump sends them rushing
to reassure the voters that they will move heaven and earth to get those
prices down.
The truth that few politicians want to admit — neither the president’s
party, which wants to portray him as powerful and decisive, nor the
opposition, which wants to blame him for everything people don’t like —
is that the president has very little ability to bring down the price of
gas in the short run.
One thing the country’s chief executive can do is sell off part of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase the supply on world markets, but
the effect of doing so is limited and temporary. President Biden has
been
unusually
aggressive on that score, starting with an unprecedented release
of 180 million barrels in 2022. The administration moved to refill the
reserve
when
the price dropped, making a tidy profit, but it’s also been
eager to trumpet more releases, as it did last month when it
announced
a release of 1 million barrels from a Northeast reserve. “The
Biden-Harris administration is laser-focused on lowering prices at the
pump for American families, especially as drivers hit the road for
summer driving season,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
But it’s unlikely to make much of a difference. Even by the
administration’s
own
estimates, the 2022 release of 180 million barrels temporarily
reduced prices at the pump by at most around thirty cents a gallon, and
perhaps much less. In other words, SPR releases are mostly about the
president looking like he’s taking action.
The politics of gas prices are simultaneously real and fake: Real
because higher prices impose genuine hardship on millions of people,
especially those with modest incomes who have no choice but to drive,
and fake because everyone pretends that the government can control
whether prices rise or fall. The result is a political debate that could
hardly be more divorced from the actual issues involved.
Which is why, even apart from the climate and economic benefits, a
(mostly) post-internal combustion future will be so much better than the
present. Not only will most of us be able to drive past the remaining
gas stations and not even care what the prices are, there will be one
fewer topic for cynical politicians to use for pandering and
demagoguery. That’s certainly something to look forward to.
Occidental
Board says no to Oxy SJP and JVP divestment demands. “Stay tuned,” says
Oxy SJP
date: 2024-06-13, from: The Occidental News (Occidental College
Student Newspaper)
The Board’s Announcement In a June 10 email from the Occidental Board of
Trustees, Board Chair Lisa H. Link P’18 announced the rejection of a
divestment proposal from Oxy Students for Justice in Palestine (Oxy SJP)
and Oxy Jewish Voice for Peace (Oxy JVP). The announcement comes a month
to the day after Oxy SJP, […]
MINISFORUM
UM880 Pro and UM890 Pro mini PCs combine OCuLink, 2.5 GbE LAN, and Ryzen
8045HS Hawk Point chips
date: 2024-06-13, from: Liliputing
The MINISFORUM EliteMini UM880 Pro is a small desktop computer with an
AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, support for up to four displays, an
OCuLink port, and two 2.5 GbE LAN ports. And the MINISFORUM EliteMini
UM890 Pro is a nearly identical system, except it has a Ryzen 9 8945HS
processor. MINISFORUM isn’t offering the little computers […]
One
of America’s Most Conservative Politicians Is a Crypto Skeptic Now
date: 2024-06-13, from: Heatmap News
Load growth is becoming controversial in Texas, where its isolated,
uniquely free market electricity system makes a sometimes awkward fit
with the state’s distinctive right-wing politics. They crashed together
Wednesday, when the state’s conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick, who a few weeks ago was
attending
Donald Trump’s criminal trialin New York City, expressed
skepticism of the state’s bitcoin mining industry and the prospect of
more data centers coming to Texas.
Responding to “shocking” testimony from the head of ERCOT,
which manages about 90% of Texas’s electricity grid,
Patrick
wrote on X, “We need to take a close look at those two industries
[crypto and AI]. They produce very few jobs compared to the incredible
demands they place on our grid. Crypto mining may actually make more
money selling electricity back to the grid than from their crypto mining
operations.”
Texas has become a center of the crypto mining industry precisely
because of how flexible and market-oriented the state’s grid is. Crypto
miners in Texas can take advantage of ERCOT’s “demand response”
programs, which pay large users of electricity to be willing to shut
down when power is scarce and expensive on the grid, and have a
relatively easy time getting onto the grid.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated that crypto
mining makes up about 2% of the country’s electricity demand, and the
industry’s power usage has come under scrutiny from politicians before,
but
typically from Democrats.
Riot Networks, a crypto miner based in Texas, has at times made
dramatically more money from its interactions with the grid than by
actually generating Bitcoin. Last August, when Texas was setting records
for electricity demand, the company made $31.6 million from selling
power back to the grid that it had previously bought for a prearranged
price, or from incentive payments for being willing to power down in
moments of peak demand, compared to $8.6 million from crypto mining. The
result, the
company’s
chief executive said in a statement, “was a landmark month for
Riot in showcasing the benefits of our unique power strategy.”
The miners have also been blamed for
raising
pricesfor Texas residents and businesses who can’t be as
flexible with their power demand, as well as for the greenhouse gas
emissions generated by their activity.
Patrick, oddly enough and almost certainly inadvertently, echoed an
extensive 2013 New York Timesstory
when he said that “Texans will ultimately pay the price” for high power
demand from this crypto and data operations. “I’m more interested in
building the grid to service customers in their homes, apartments, and
normal businesses and keeping costs as low as possible for them instead
of for very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce
few jobs. We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West of
data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights
off,” Patrick wrote.
(The New York Times: “Other major energy users, like factories
and hospitals, cannot reduce their power use as routinely or
dramatically without severe consequences,” and “other industries,
including metals and plastics manufacturing, also require large amounts
of electricity, causing pollution and raising power prices. But Bitcoin
mines bring significantly fewer jobs.”)
At the same time, Trump has been making a concerted play for the crypto
community, including miners. He has promised to
commute
the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who operated The Silk Road, an
online marketplace (for, among other things, illegal drugs) that used
crypto. (He’s serving
a
life sentencefor
narcotics distribution and a host of conspiracy charges.) On
Wednesday, Trump posted to Truth Social, “Bitcoin mining may be our last
line of defense against a CBDC,” a.k.a. a central bank digital currency.
“Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical
Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE
USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”
Trump in the past has sounded the Bitcoin skeptic, having tweeted in
2019, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are
not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.
Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including
drug trade and other illegal activity….,” but has since seemed to have,
for now,
come
around.
While Trump is making a concerted play to win over new constituencies
for his election bid, Patrick was responding to testimony from the head
of ERCOT that Texas’s power demand will grow faster than previously
estimated, and that electricity supply may need to
almost
double in the next 10 years at the latest.
That will require substantial new supply. While Texas is
leading
the nationin
installation of utility-scale solar and is the number one state
for wind thanks to a combination of its large size, growing population
and electricity demand, large sunny and windy areas,and a more
light-touch
approachto regulation and
hooking up to the grid, it is also embracing state
planning for its fossil energy sector. Texas has established a $5
billion fund to provide low-cost financing to developers of
dispatchable
power generatorsthat
can be turned on and off at any time — largely natural gas.
Patrick
had said earlier in a statement, “We must bring new
dispatchablegeneration (primarily new natural gas plants) to
Texas to ensure we maintain reliable power under any circumstance.”
NASA’s
Webb Reveals Long-Studied Star Is Actually Twins
date: 2024-06-13, from: NASA breaking news
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory through launch, Webb’s
Mid-Infrared Instrument also revealed jets of gas flowing into space
from the twin stars. Scientists recently got a big surprise from NASA’s
James Webb Space Telescope when they turned the observatory toward a
group of young stars called WL 20. The region has been studied since
[…]
Filipe Espósito (Reddit): Both macOS 15 and iOS 18 introduce iPhone
Mirroring, which is a new way of interacting with your iPhone from your
Mac. The feature lets you see and control your iPhone screen from your
computer without having to touch your phone. You can also drag and drop
files between macOS and the […]
Apple: People can customize the appearance of their app icons to be
light, dark, or tinted. You can create your own variations to ensure
that each one looks exactly the way you way you want. See Apple Design
Resources for icon templates.Design your dark and tinted icons to feel
at home next to system app […]
Federico Viticci: The Photos app is getting a big redesign in iOS 18
that is surely going to take some time getting used to. The new design
revolves around a single-page UI that eschews a tab bar in favor of a
split-screen approach with your grid of photos shown at the top,
followed by a […]
As far as I can tell, there were no Catalyst sessions this year.
Apple hasn’t talked about it much since 2021. The Mac developer page
says: Choose your app-builder technology Another early choice to make is
which app-builder technology to use for your interface. Apple’s
app-builder technologies provide the core infrastructure macOS needs to
communicate […]
Andrew Cunningham (Hacker News): But up until now, you haven’t been
able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less
useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS,
or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who
just wanted easy […]
Washington — VOA’s Mandarin Service recently took Google’s artificial
intelligence assistant Gemini for a test drive by asking it dozens of
questions in Mandarin, but when it was asked about topics including
China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang or street protests against the
country’s controversial COVID policies, the chatbot went silent.
Gemini’s responses to questions about problems in the United States
and Taiwan, on the other hand, parroted Beijing’s official
positions.
Gemini, Google’s large-language model launched late last year, is
blocked in China. The California-based tech firm had quit the Chinese
market in 2010 in a dispute over censorship demands.
Congressional lawmakers and experts tell VOA that they are concerned
about Gemini’s pro-Beijing responses and are urging Google and other
Western companies to be more transparent about their AI training
data.
Parroting Chinese propaganda
When asked to describe China’s top leader Xi Jinping and the Chinese
Communist Party, Gemini gave answers that were indistinguishable from
Beijing’s official propaganda.
Gemini called Xi “an excellent leader” who “will lead the Chinese
people continuously toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese
nation.”
Gemini said that the Chinese Communist Party “represents the
fundamental interest of the Chinese people,” a claim the CCP itself
maintains.
On Taiwan, Gemini also mirrored Beijing’s talking points, saying the
United States has recognized China’s claim to sovereignty over the
self-governed island democracy.
The U.S. only acknowledges Beijing’s position but does not recognize
it.
Silent on sensitive topics
During VOA’s testing, Gemini had no problem criticizing the United
States. But when similar questions were asked about China, Gemini
refused to answer.
When asked about human rights concerns in the U.S., Gemini listed a
plethora of issues, including gun violence, government surveillance,
police brutality and socioeconomic inequalities. Gemini cited a report
released by the Chinese government.
But when asked to explain the criticisms of Beijing’s Xinjiang
policies, Gemini said it did not understand the question.
According to estimates from rights groups, more than 1 million
Uyghurs in Xinjiang have been placed in internment camps as part of
campaign by Beijing to counter terrorism and extremism. Beijing calls
the facilities where Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities are being held
vocational training centers.
When asked if COVID lockdowns in the U.S. had led to public protests,
Gemini gave an affirmative response as well as two examples. But when
asked if similar demonstrations took place in China, Gemini said it
could not help with the question.
China’s strict COVID controls on movement inside the country and
Beijing’s internet censorship of its criticisms sparked nationwide
street protests in late 2022. News about the protests was heavily
censored inside China.
Expert: training data likely the problem
Google touts Gemini as its “most capable” AI model. It supports more
than 40 languages and can “seamlessly understand” different types of
information, including text, code, audio, image and video. Google says
Gemini will be incorporated into the company’s other services such as
search engine, advertisement and browser.
Albert Zhang, a cyber security analyst at Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, told VOA that the root cause of Gemini making pro-Beijing
responses could result from the data that is used to train the AI
assistant.
In an emailed response to VOA, Zhang said it is likely that the data
used to train Gemini “contained mostly Chinese text created by the
Chinese government’s propaganda system.”
He said that according to a paper published by Google in 2022, some
of Gemini’s data likely came from Chinese social media, public forums
and web documents.
“These are all sources the Chinese government has flooded with its
preferred narratives and we may be seeing the impact of this on large
language models,” he said.
By contrast, when Gemini was asked in English the same questions
about China, its responses were much more neutral, and it did not refuse
to answer any of the questions.
Yaqiu Wang, research director for China at Freedom House, a
Washington-based advocacy organization, told VOA that the case with
Gemini is “a reminder that generative AI tools influenced by
state-controlled information sources could serve as force multipliers
for censorship.”
In a statement to VOA, a Google spokesperson said that Gemini was
“designed to offer neutral responses that don’t favor any political
ideology, viewpoint, or candidate. This is something that we’re
constantly working on improving.”
When asked about the Chinese language data Google uses to train
Gemini, the company declined to comment.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington’s spokesperson, Liu Pengyu,
responded in an emailed statement, saying, “The relevant comments are
full of Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice.”
He said there are opportunities and unpredictable risks to AI that
require a global response.
“The Global AI Governance Initiative launched by President Xi Jinping
puts forward that we should uphold the principles of mutual respect,
equality and mutual benefit in AI development, and oppose drawing
ideological lines,” Liu wrote. “We support efforts to develop AI
governance frameworks, norms and standards based on broad consensus and
with full respect for policies and practices among countries.”
US lawmakers concerned
Lawmakers from both parties in Congress have expressed concerns over
VOA’s findings on Gemini.
Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told VOA
he is worried about Beijing potentially utilizing AI for disinformation,
“whether that’s by poisoning training data used by Western firms,
coercing major technology companies, or utilizing AI systems in service
of covert influence campaigns.”
Marco Rubio, vice chairman of the committee, warned that “AI tools
that uncritically repeat Beijing’s talking points are doing the bidding
of the Chinese Communist Party and threatens the tremendous opportunity
that AI offers.”
Congressman Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, is worried about the national security and foreign policy
implications of the “blatant falsehoods” in Gemini’s answers.
“U.S. companies should not censor content according to CCP propaganda
guidelines,” he told VOA in a statement.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking member on the House Select Committee on
the Chinese Communist Party, urges Google and other Western tech
companies to improve AI training.
“You should try to screen out or filter out subjects or answers or
data that has somehow been manipulated by the CCP,” he told VOA. “And
you have to also make sure that you test these models thoroughly before
you publish them.”
Google’s China problems
In February, a user posted on social media platform X that Gemini
refused to generate an image of a Tiananmen Square protester from
1989.
In 2022, a Washington think tank study shows that Google and YouTube
put Chinese state media content about Xinjiang and COVID origins in
prominent positions in search results.
According to media reports in 2018, Google was developing a search
engine specifically tailored for the Chinese market that would conform
to Beijing’s censorship demands.
That project was canceled a year later.
Yihua Lee and Elizabeth Lee contributed to this report.
Google
datacenters in Nevada to go full steam ahead with geothermal energy
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Part of Mountain View’s aim for carbon-free power by 2030
Google has signed a deal with NV Energy to help power its Nevada
datacenters using geothermal energy under an arrangement the megacorp
claims is more progressive than existing renewable energy contracts.…
Out of 14 finalist teams that encompassed collegiate and university
representation from across the globe, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University team with their concept, “Project Draupnir,” in the
AI-Powered Self-Replicating Probe theme, took home top prize in NASA’s
Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL)
competition. The University of Maryland took second […]
You
Could Own Rare Copies of the Nation’s Founding Documents, Just in Time
for the Fourth of July
date: 2024-06-13, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Sotheby’s is auctioning early printings of the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as a 1790
Rhode Island broadside
NASA in the Park is coming back to Big Spring Park East in
Huntsville, Alabama, on Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. CDT.
The event is free and open to the public. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight
Center, its partners, and collaborators will fill the park with space
exhibits, music, food vendors, and […]
Apple
ID to Be Renamed to Apple Account, Disrupting Independent
Documentation
date: 2024-06-13, from: TidBITS blog
Starting later this year, Apple will replace all instances of “Apple ID”
in its operating systems and documentation with “Apple Account.”
Documentation that covers multiple versions of Apple operating systems
will become more awkward.
X
marks the spot where Twitter’s severance math doesn’t add up
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Surely an everything app includes a working currency converter?
A group of former Australian Twitter employees are reportedly being
asked to return oversized severance checks seemingly because their
ex-employer doesn’t understand how to convert currency.…
The Asus ROG Ally X handheld gaming PC is available for pre-order for
$800 and it will begin shipping in July. With a bigger battery, more
memory and storage, and an updated design, it’s a noticeable upgrade
over the original ROG Ally… but it has the same processor and display so
it’s not that big an […]
By Councilwoman Marsha McLean It is disturbing and unfortunate that
children ages one to four have the highest drowning rate. According to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fatal drowning is the
leading cause of death for children and the second leading cause of
unintentional deaths. As a mother and grandmother living in Southern […]
Trump
back in Washington, feted by Republican lawmakers
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. President Donald Trump enjoyed an effusive
welcome on his return to Washington on Thursday as he rallied support
from Republican lawmakers following his criminal conviction in New
York.
Trump, who is neck-and-neck with his successor Joe Biden in the race
for the White House, thanked members of the House of Representatives at
a private club near the U.S. Capitol who sang “Happy Birthday” to the
billionaire, who turns 78 on Friday.
It was Trump’s first meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill since
leaving the White House in 2021 and his first trip to Washington since
he was convicted last month in New York on all 34 felony counts of
falsifying business records.
He was in a defiant mood, according to U.S. media citing people in
the room, as he called out the Republicans who had voted to impeach him
after the 2021 assault on the Capitol and called the Justice Department
“dirty, no-good bastards.”
“Great meeting with Republican Representatives. Lots discussed, all
positive, great poll numbers!” Trump posted on Truth Social
afterward.
The Republican, who was due to speak with senators and business
leaders later Thursday, took credit for the Supreme Court ending federal
protections for abortion access in 2022 and railed against Biden’s
foreign policy.
Since his conviction, Republicans have circled the wagons around
Trump — who faces more than 50 further felony charges — with numerous
lawmakers denigrating a justice system they baselessly claim is biased
against conservatives.
House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Democrats of being behind the two
federal and two state criminal cases engulfing Trump’s reelection
bid.
“He raised $53 million in the first 24 hours after the verdict in
that terrible, bogus trial in Manhattan. And I think that shows that
people understand what’s happening here,” Johnson told reporters after
the meeting.
Republicans in the House face an uphill battle to defend the lower
chamber from a Democratic takeover in November’s elections. Senate
Republicans have a more favorable map as they seek to flip their 49-51
minority in the upper chamber.
Several centrist senators said they would not show up on Thursday,
although Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has not spoken to Trump
since berating him from the Senate floor over the 2021 insurrection,
said he would attend.
Trump was impeached for inciting the attack, when a mob of his
supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to prevent the peaceful transfer
of power to Biden, who beat his predecessor by more than 7 million
votes.
The Republican faces federal and state prosecutions over his alleged
role in a criminal conspiracy to overturn his defeat, which culminated
in the insurrection.
“People see that … that’s a threat to our system of justice, and they
want to push back,” Johnson said. “In many ways, President Trump has
become a symbol of that pushing back against corruption, the deep state,
the weaponization of the judicial system, and that’s a very encouraging
development.”
Johnson has been struggling however to deliver on Trump’s demands for
a robust defense from Congress, with a razor-thin majority that leaves
him unable to lose more than two representatives for any vote.
Republicans have failed in efforts to impeach Biden, as a monthslong,
multimillion-dollar corruption investigation has turned up no evidence
of wrongdoing by the president, and congressional efforts to rein in the
criminal cases targeting Trump have been largely ineffective.
The former president is also due to make his case for a White House
return to chief executives at a meeting of Washington lobby group
Business Roundtable.
The Biden campaign released a statement pointing to Trump’s many
failed business ventures and bankruptcies, contrasting the Republican’s
record of mass job losses during the pandemic with the economic recovery
under Biden.
“Donald Trump couldn’t run a lemonade stand, let alone our country.
He is a fraud, a crook and a failed businessman and president who left
America in economic ruin,” a spokesperson said.
June 19:
Deadline to Enter SCV Fourth of July Parade
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Fourth of July Parade Committee has extended
the deadline to enter the parade to Wednesday, June 19. The committee is
seeking entries from the commumity for the 92nd Annual Santa Clarita
Valley Fourth of July Parade.
Exclusive:
Mozilla reverses course, re-lists extensions it removed in Russia
date: 2024-06-13, from: OS News
Two days ago, I broke the news that Mozilla removed several Firefox
extensions from the add-on store in Russia, after pressure from Russian
censors. Mozilla provided me with an official statement, which seemed to
highlight that the decision was not final, and it seems I was right –
today, probably helped by the outcry our story caused, Mozilla has
announced it’s reversing the decision. In a statement sent to me via
email, an unnamed Mozilla spokesperson says: In alignment with our
commitment to an open and accessible internet, Mozilla will reinstate
previously restricted listings in Russia. Our initial decision to
temporarily restrict these listings was made while we considered the
regulatory environment in Russia and the potential risk to our community
and staff. As outlined in our Manifesto, Mozilla’s core principles
emphasise the importance of an internet that is a global public
resource, open and accessible to all. Users should be free to customise
and enhance their online experience through add-ons without undue
restrictions. By reinstating these add-ons, we reaffirm our dedication
to: – Openness: Promoting a free and open internet where users can shape
their online experience.– Accessibility: Ensuring that the internet
remains a public resource accessible to everyone, regardless of
geographical location. We remain committed to supporting our users in
Russia and worldwide and will continue to advocate for an open and
accessible internet for all. ↫ Mozilla spokesperson via email I’m glad
Mozilla reversed its decision, because giving in to a dictatorship never
ends well – it starts with a few extensions today, but ends up with the
kind of promotional tours for China that Tim Cook goes on regularly.
Firefox is a browser that lives or dies by its community, and if that
community is unhappy with the course of Mozilla or the decisions it
makes, especially ones that touch on core values and human rights, it’s
not going to end well for them. That being said, this does make me
wonder what would’ve happened if the forum thread that started all this
died in obscurity and never made its way to the media. Would Mozilla
have made the same reversal?
GSAC
Names TMU’s Dave Caldwell Sports Information Director of the Year
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Dave Caldwell, the play-by-play voice of The Master’s University
athletic department for more than a decade and the school’s sports
information director for the last two, earned a significant distinction
this month
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — California lawmakers on Thursday passed the
state budget for fiscal year 2024-25, meeting a key legislative deadline
after months of facing a massive deficit
State
Insurance Commissioner Reveals Changes for Wildfire-Prone Areas
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
LOS ANGELES (CN) — California’s insurance commissioner on Wednesday
said his office is pushing forward with regulatory reform, pointing to
new requirements he said will lead to more policies in wildfire-prone
areas
Google
further blurs the lines between ChromeOS (Chromebooks will use the
Android Linux kernel and Android frameworks)
date: 2024-06-13, from: Liliputing
When Google unveiled ChromeOS more than a decade ago, the company made
it clear that this was an operating system designed for desktop and
laptop computers, while Android would continue to be its smartphone and
tablet OS. But over the years the lines have gotten blurry. These days
there are some tablets on the market […]
AI
copyright fight turns to disclosing original content
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Artists and other creators say their works have been used to build
the multibillion-dollar generative AI industry without any compensation
for them. Matt Dibble reports on a proposed U.S. law that would force AI
companies to reveal their sources.
FBI
chief visits Kenya to bolster security collaboration
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Nairobi — The top U.S. law enforcement officer has concluded a
five-day visit to Kenya, pledging to continue working with the East
African nation to ensure peace and stability in the region. FBI Director
Christopher Wray said there was a need for continued cooperation and
collaboration with Kenyan security agencies to deal with ongoing terror
threats from groups such as al-Shabab.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation will partner with
Kenya’s security agencies to enhance operations for the stability of
Kenya and the region.
Speaking at Kenya’s Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI), FBI
Director Christopher Wray said there was a need to work together to stop
criminals who threaten the country and global peace and stability.
“I have said before that the bad guys are not constrained by
international borders, so the good guys should not be either. And
together, leveraging our collective insights and authorities and
perspectives, we’re making a huge impact on the threats we face.
Terrorism, of course, is very much top among them,” he said.
While in Kenya, the FBI head visited shopping malls, a national park,
and the Dusit D2 Hotel, which was attacked by al-Shabab militants in
January 2019, resulting in the deaths of 21 people.
In February 2020, a year after the Dusit D2 hotel terror attack, the
FBI and the U.S. State Department partnered to assist Kenya in creating
the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which consists of the country’s security
agencies and some ministries. The agencies rely on each other’s
expertise to fight threats.
Kenyan security agencies have been accused of lacking coordination in
dealing with terrorists when they storm populated areas like the
Westgate Mall attack in 2013 and the Garissa University attack in
2015.
Kenya’s head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Amin
Mohamed, said the Joint Terrorism Task Force has helped his country
provide better security to its citizens and visitors.
“Our various security agencies were operating in silos. Then we said,
why can’t we all bring them like a one-stop shop, whereby now we can
exchange information and ideas. And we have really registered a lot of
success,” he said.
Kenyan security expert Richard Tuta said a security collaboration can
defeat criminals who have defied borders.
“I think what is of importance is that aspect of collaboration.
Collaboration in terms of intelligence gathering, intelligence analyzing
and intelligence dissemination. That is something that is very important
because one thing that we should agree among us, all of us, is that it
takes a network to beat a network. Criminals are networked, so security
agencies must be networked,” said Tuta.
He said there are also more persistent security threats and
challenges in the world that will require U.S. support for Kenya to
manage.
“Some aspects of crime defies country boundaries, like, for instance,
matters to do with human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism, other
issues, like, for instance, matters to do with cybercrime. All of it
now, it requires a concerted effort to counter such like aspect of
crime,” said Tuta.
The al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabab has been unsuccessful in
conducting terror attacks in the capital, Nairobi, for the last couple
of years, but the group continues to carry out attacks against
government forces and civilians in northeastern and coastal regions that
border Somalia.
In his five-day visit to Nairobi, Wray met with the ethics and
anti-corruption agency head and officials, and focused on countering
corruption, money laundering, and other economic crimes.
Washington said it will provide support, training, and modern
investigation tools to help agencies prosecute economic crimes suspects
that have contributed to terrorism and insecurity in the continent.
Kenyan government agencies hope the visit will make them better
prepared to manage the security of the country and, if need be, the
region.
A flotilla of Russian warships has arrived in Cuban waters to carry
out joint maneuvers with Cuban armed forces, a visit that Moscow and
Havana assure does not represent a threat to the region. Western
governments are watching closely. Jonathan Spier narrates this report by
Ricardo Marquina.
Could Trump
legally seek a third presidential term?
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
By law, a U.S. president can serve only two terms. So, whether Joe
Biden or Donald Trump wins in November, it would be his final term.
Trump, however, is musing about a possible third. From Washington, VOA’s
chief national correspondent Steve Herman explains. Videographer: Adam
Greenbaum.
G7
agrees to Biden’s plan to loan $50B to Ukraine, using Russian frozen
assets
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
BORGO EGNAZIA, ITALY — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies
announced Thursday that it would provide Kyiv with tens of billions of
dollars in loans that will be paid back to Western allies using interest
income from Russian assets frozen in Western financial institutions.
“We have reached a political agreement to provide additional
financial support to Ukraine of approximately $50 billion by the end of
the year,” said the summit host, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia
Meloni.
The announcement came as the G7 leaders met at the luxury resort of
Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, Italy, on the first day of their summit.
The announcement was a win for U.S. President Joe Biden. He had been
pushing G7 leaders to agree to his plan to provide funds up front to
help Ukraine in its fight against Moscow’s invasion.
The G7 deal is “another reminder to [Russian President Vladimir]
Putin that we’re not backing down,” Biden said Thursday evening during a
joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “In
fact, we’re standing together against his illegal aggression.”
Approximately $280 billion in Russian funds are frozen in Western
financial institutions. Those funds are expected to generate interest
income of at least $3 billion a year. The $50 billion loan will be paid
back with that income for 10 years or more or until the loan is paid or
Russia pays reparation.
The U.S. will not be part of a “lending syndicate” with other G7
members, a senior administration official told reporters traveling with
Biden on Thursday.
Other G7 countries are expected to declare how much they’re willing
to provide to Ukraine.
“The finance ministers are now going through the details - for
example, topics of backstops that are necessary - and clarify this as
soon as possible,” said Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission
president. The EC is the executive body of the European Union.
Funds available in 2024
The administration official said that the U.S. is willing to front
the full $50 billion if needed. The money can be made available “this
calendar year” depending on how quickly Ukraine will be able to absorb
it.
The U.S. Agency for International Development “has loan authority
already established from Congress,” the official told VOA during the
briefing for reporters. “There’s not a set schedule that is required or
a capped amount, but we have decided that we can provide up to $50
billion.”
The European Union in May had agreed on a less aggressive plan that
would provide Ukraine with the interest income as it is generated
annually.
Under EU rules, the sanctions regime that freezes the funds must be
unanimously renewed every six months by the bloc’s 27 member states. The
senior Biden administration official said that Germany, France, Italy,
the European Commission and the president of the European Council - the
EU members’ heads of state - have committed to keep the funds frozen and
will seek approval from the full membership of the EU.
Other requirements still need to be worked out, including adoption by
the EU, as well as contracts between lenders, Ukraine and any
intermediaries, the official added.
In April, Biden signed legislation to seize the roughly $5 billion in
Russian assets that are frozen in U.S. financial institutions. The bulk
of the frozen money, $190 billion, is in Belgium, and much of the rest
is in France and Germany.
Much is still unknown about the plan. However, the U.S. goal is to
have a leaders declaration at the end of the summit that lays out a
“framework that is not generic, that is quite specific in terms of what
it would entail,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan
told VOA Wednesday.
Attending the summit for the second consecutive year, Ukrainian
President Zelenskyy welcomed the deal’s passage.
US-Ukraine security agreement
On Thursday evening, Zelenskyy and Biden signed a separate bilateral
security agreement outlining U.S. support for Ukraine.
The 10-year agreement says both sides will work together to build and
maintain Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capability,
strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to sustain its fight over the long term
and achieve a just peace that respects Ukraine’s rights under
international law, according to a White House fact sheet.
The agreement also says both sides will consult at the highest levels
in case of any future Russian attack, and they will “accelerate
Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration, including through Ukraine’s
implementation of reforms to its democratic, economic and security
institutions in line with its EU accession goals and NATO’s program of
reforms.”
Still Zelenskyy expressed concern about how much longer “the unity in
the world will remain - the unity in the U.S., together with European
leaders.” He was referring to the November U.S. election that could see
former President Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of supporting Kyiv
with military aid, back in the White House.
Zelenskyy said his country urgently needed additional air defense
systems to protect Ukrainians and the nation’s infrastructure from
Russia’s attacks. Biden promised to prioritize the transfer of existing
Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine.
“We have acquired commitment from five countries so far for Patriot
batteries and other air defense systems, as well as we’ve let it be
known to those countries that are expecting from us air defense systems
in the future that they’re going to have to wait,” Biden said.
“Everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met,
and then we will make good on the commitments we made to other
countries.”
A few weeks ago I wrote about
how solving
the challenges facing the news industry requires fundamentally changing
newsroom culture. While newsrooms have depended on referrals from
social media and search engines to find audiences and make an impact,
both of those segments are in flux, and audiences are therefore
declining. The only way to succeed is to experiment and try new things —
and, therefore, to have a culture where experimentation and trying new
things are supported.
While the article was focused on journalism, the same changes are
required for any organization to succeed in the face of rapid
technological change. Building an open culture of experimentation is
just as important for technology and manufacturing companies as it is
for news: every organization experiences challenges in the face
of major change.
Okay, but how?
Building a great culture is non-negotiable. The question, of course, is
how you build it.
There are a few versions of this question to consider. For me, the most
interesting are:
How do you build a great culture from scratch in a new organization?
How do you build a great culture in an established organization that has
not yet invested in building one?
How do you build a great culture in an established organization that has
an entrenched bad culture?
Of course, to consider this, you have to have a firm opinion of what
constitutes a good or bad culture. I strongly believe it relates to
building an open, nurturing culture of experimentation, which I have
previously written
about in depth:
The best teams have a robust, intentional culture that champions
openness, inclusivity, and continuous learning — which requires a lot of
relationship-building both internally and with the organization in which
it sits. These teams can make progress on meaningful work, and make
their members valued, heard, and empowered to contribute.
One indicator
I believe the litmus test of such cultures is inclusivity.
Consider this hypothetical scenario: the individual contributors in an
organization complain to management that underrepresented members of the
team are not able to be heard in meetings and that their ideas are
always overlooked.
The managers could react in a few different ways:
Dismiss the complaints outright.
Try to make the complaints go away as quickly as possible so everyone
can get back to work.
Listen deeply to the complaints and to the people affected, then work
with the whole organization to get real training and build better
processes in order to ensure everyone can participate and is heard.
Only the third option represents an open, inclusive organization. The
first is obviously dismissive; the second is arguably even worse, as it
allows managers to delude themselves that they’re doing something while
actively trying to do the bare minimum. (They might privately roll their
eyes at having to do it to begin with.) In the third scenario, managers
stop and listen to the people affected and work with them in order to
effect real change.
Now consider: what happens if nobody brings that complaint to begin
with?
In a truly inclusive organization, nobody has to bring that
complaint, because managers are constantly assessing the well-being of
their teams, and likely receiving continuous, honest feedback. This
doesn’t happen by default: the culture of the organization has to be
well-considered to ensure that a focus on inclusivity is a cherished
value, and that everyone feels emotionally safe to contribute without
needing to put on a work persona or mask away aspects of their
identities.
This has certain prerequisites. In particular, it’s impossible for an
organization with a top-down leadership style to be inclusive, by
definition. Even if upper management is truly representative of the
demographics and backgrounds of the wider organization and its customers
(which is never true), top-down leadership misses the perspectives and
ideas of people lower down the hierarchy. Gestures like “ideas boxes”
are performative at best. If they wouldn’t be out of place in your
organization, its culture is probably top-down.
Organizations can foster inclusivity by implementing regular feedback
mechanisms, providing training on both inclusivity and management,
promoting transparent communication, and establishing clear systems and
boundaries which allow managers to say “yes” more often.
The received wisdom is that rules are barriers to innovation. But it
turns out that establishing the right kind of structure helps innovation
thrive.
The tyranny of structurelessness
News often does have a top-down culture, inherited from the
editorial cultures of old-school newspapers. It’s not alone: finance,
law, and many other legacy industries also suffer from this problem.
This is a giant headwind for any kind of real innovation, because every
new idea essentially has to achieve
royal assent.
There’s no leeway for experimentation, trying stuff, or getting things
wrong — and managers are more likely to take credit for any successes.
If something doesn’t fit into the manager’s worldview, the “no”s come
freely. But, of course, that worldview is derived from their own
experiences, backgrounds, and contexts, rather than the lived
experiences of other people.
Structureless organizations, where culture has been under-invested in,
tend to have these characteristics. If it’s not the managers dictating
what happens, it’s the loudest people in the room, who tend to be the
people who come from relative privilege. Without structure to
ensure inclusivity, inevitably you’ll lose out on valuable
perspectives and ideas.
It just so happens that the structures that establish inclusive
practices also form the backbone of intentional cultures for
everyone. It’s not just people from vulnerable communities who
aren’t necessarily heard; by creating structures that intentionally lift
those voices up, we lift up everybody and ensure
everyone gets an equitable say.
Ensuring that all voices collaborate on the strategy of the organization
and are able to define the work makes for better work, because
a wider set of ideas and perspectives are considered — particularly
those that managers might otherwise be blind to.
Inclusivity should never be considered a nice-to-have: in addition to
being the morally correct path, it’s the key to unlocking an innovative
culture that has the power to save existing industries and establish new
ones. The people who roll their eyes at it are doomed to live out the
status quo. Ultimately, inevitably, they will be left behind.
DC-ROMA
Laptop II packs an octa-core RISC-V processor, 16GB of RAM and Ubuntu
Linux
date: 2024-06-13, from: Liliputing
The DC-ROMA was the first first laptop to ship with a RISC-V processor.
It first launched in very limited quantities in late 2022, and became
more widely available the following year. But with a 1.5 GHz StarFive
JH7110 quad-core processor and shipped with support for OpenKylin or
Debian Linux operating systems. Now the makers of the […]
Startup
Diraq taps GlobalFoundries to forge silicon-based quantum chips
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Vows to have a ‘commercially relevant’ system within five years
Quantum startup Diraq is to produce sample devices at GlobalFoundries
fabs, making it another developer following Intel down the route of
using standard CMOS production techniques to build toward full-scale
quantum systems.…
Federal campaigns get much of the spotlight, but state and local races
can be as consequential for residents’ lives. Funders know that. Today,
we’ll trace some of this year’s campaign spending behind state
elections, local elections and ballot initiatives. We’ll also hear about
a G7 plan to use seized Russian assets to help Ukraine. Plus, inflation
for wholesalers was negative last month. What’s a central bank to do
with that?
I’m not claiming that these hearing aids make me any cooler or, as my
generation used to say, “groovy”, but they are definitely not my
grandfather’s hearing aids. If you hear what I’m saying.
‘Remote’
Amazonian Tribes Have Been Using the Internet for a Long Time
date: 2024-06-13, from: 404 Media Group
The Marubo people written about by the New York Times have been using
the internet—and grappling with its implications—long before Starlink
came to their village.
China
miffed over electric vehicle tariff tiff with EU
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Trade body bemoans move as ‘notably unfair’ but no countermeasures yet
China has issued a withering response to the EU’s decision to raise
tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, describing the move as
“notably unfair.”…
American
journalist Gershkovich to stand trial in Russia
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Russian authorities on Thursday said American journalist
Evan Gershkovich will stand trial in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he
was detained over a year ago on charges his employer says are bogus.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office said an indictment of
Gershkovich has been finalized and his case filed to the Sverdlovsky
Regional Court in Yekaterinburg. The city is about 1,400 kilometers (870
miles) east of Moscow.
Gershkovich, a Russia correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has
been jailed in Moscow since he was arrested in March 2023 on espionage
charges.
Gershkovich, his employer and the U.S. government all deny the
accusations, and the U.S. State Department has declared the reporter
wrongfully detained.
The 32-year-old is accused of “gathering secret information” about a
facility in the Sverdlovsk region that produced and repaired military
equipment, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
It is the first time that Russia has publicly detailed the
accusations against the journalist. Russian officials have not provided
any evidence to substantiate the accusations against Gershkovich, who
was accredited by the Foreign Ministry to work in the country.
A State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday that the
U.S. government will continue to work to secure Gershkovich’s
release.
“We have been clear from the start that Evan has done nothing wrong.
He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not
a crime,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
“The charges against him are false, and the Russian government knows
that they’re false. He should be released immediately,” Miller
continued.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday also reiterated its calls for
Gershkovich’s immediate release.
“Evan Gershkovich is facing a false and baseless charge. Russia’s
latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing
and still no less outrageous,” Journal Publisher Almar Latour and
Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said in a statement.
“Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is
repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies.
Journalism is not a crime. Evan’s case is an assault on free press,”
they said in the statement.
Press freedom groups also reaffirmed their condemnation of
Gershkovich’s jailing.
“He’s held hostage by the Russian government, and the spying charges
are completely fabricated,” Jeanne Cavelier, who heads the Eastern
Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders, told VOA from
Paris.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to VOA’s
email requesting comment.
It is unclear when the trial will take place. Press freedom experts
have previously told VOA that a trial will almost certainly be a sham,
but that it is a necessary step to securing Gershkovich’s release
through a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
Moscow and Washington have been discussing a possible prisoner
exchange over the past several months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that any deal to free
Gershkovich would have to be mutually beneficial for Moscow. Putin has
previously indicated that the Kremlin would be willing to trade
Gershkovich for a convicted killer jailed in Germany.
“If anything, we hope it [the indictment] adds an element of urgency
to those negotiations, so that he doesn’t have to endure a trial,” said
Paul Beckett, an assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal, who is
leading the newspaper’s campaign to secure Gershkovich’s release.
“We hoped that he would be back home by now,” Beckett told VOA. “We
remain optimistic that this will be brought to a close before too long.
We just want him home.”
Gershkovich is one of two American journalists currently jailed in
Russia. The second — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Alsu Kurmasheva —
has been jailed since October 2023 on charges of failing to
self-register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow
views as false information about the Russian military.
Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, has denied the charges
against her. The U.S. government has also called for her immediate
release.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
Cops
Released a Car’s Travel History to a Total Stranger
date: 2024-06-13, from: 404 Media Group
In a rare instance of too much transparency, an Ohio police
department released the precise movements of a particular vehicle in
response to a public records request, showing just how invasive license
plate reading technology can be.
Unanimous
Supreme Court preserves access to widely used abortion medication
date: 2024-06-13, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Supreme Court has preserved access to a medication used in nearly
two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year. It’s the court’s
first abortion decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v.
Wade two years ago. The justices ruled Thursday abortion opponents
lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug
Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s
subsequent actions to ease access to it. The case had threatened to
restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states
where abortion remains legal. The Biden administration and New
York-based manufacturer Danco Laboratories argued mifepristone is among
the safest drugs the FDA has ever approved.
Google’s
Privacy Sandbox more like a privacy mirage, campaigners claim
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Chocolate Factory accused of misleading Chrome browser users
Updated Privacy campaigner noyb has filed a GDPR
complaint regarding Google’s Privacy Sandbox, alleging that turning on a
“Privacy Feature” in the Chrome browser resulted in unwanted tracking by
the US megacorp.…
Ukrainian
winemakers visit Napa Valley to learn how to heal war-ravaged
vineyards
date: 2024-06-13, from: San Jose Mercury News
As the head of an association of winemakers in southern Ukraine,
Georgiy Molchanov knows a lot about how to cultivate grapes; not so much
how to grow them amid undetonated mines.
Biden,
G7 leaders focus on Ukraine, Gaza, global infrastructure, Africa
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
BORGO EGNAZIA, ITALY — U.S. President Joe Biden is in Apuglia, Italy,
meeting with leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies Thursday,
aiming to address global economic security amid wars in Europe and the
Middle East and U.S. rivalry with China.
The G7 leaders arrived at the luxury resort of Borgo Egnazia, the
summit venue, welcomed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni’s hard-right party took nearly 29% of the vote in last weekend’s
European Parliament election, making her the only leader of a major
Western European country to emerge from the ballots stronger.
Meanwhile Biden is dealing with a contentious reelection campaign
against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, and a personal
ordeal. On Tuesday, a day before departing for the summit, his son,
Hunter, was found guilty on federal charges for possessing a gun while
being addicted to drugs.
Still, Biden came to the summit hoping to convince the group to
provide a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using interest from Russian frozen
assets, and deal with Chinese overcapacity in strategic green
technologies, including electric vehicles.
The European Union signaled their support by announcing duties on
Chinese EVs a day ahead of the summit, a move that echoed the Biden
administration’s steep tariff hike on Chinese EVs and other key sectors
in May.
Biden is also lending his support to key themes in Meloni’s
presidency – investing in Africa, international development, and climate
change. Those topics were covered in the opening session of the G7 on
Thursday, followed by discussions on the Gaza and Ukraine wars.
Gaza cease-fire
With cease-fire negotiations at a critical juncture, Biden could face
tough questions from leaders on whether he is doing enough to pressure
Israel to pause its military campaign, reduce civilian casualties and
provide more aid for Palestinians.
Leaders are “focused on one thing overall; getting a cease-fire in
place and getting the hostages home as part of that,” White House
national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA as he spoke to
reporters on board Air Force One en route to Italy. Biden has “their
full backing,” Sullivan added.
Leaders will also discuss increasing tension along the Israeli border
with Lebanon, Sullivan told reporters Thursday morning.
“They’ll compare notes on the continuing threat posed by Iran both
with respect to its support for proxy forces and with respect to the
Iranian nuclear program,” he added.
While the group has thrown its weight behind the cease-fire, G7
members are split on other Gaza-related issues, including the
International Criminal Court’s decision last month to seek arrest
warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
The United States denounced the court’s decision, and Britain called
it “unhelpful.” France said it supports the court’s “fight against
impunity,” while Berlin said it would arrest Netanyahu on German soil
should a warrant is released.
Sullivan dismissed a United Nations inquiry result released Wednesday
that alleges both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and grave
violations of international law.
“We’ve made our position clear,” he told VOA, referring to a review
published in April by the State Department concluding that Israel’s
campaign did not violate international humanitarian law.
Russian assets
Biden is pushing G7 leaders to provide Kyiv with a loan of up to $50
billion that will be paid back to Western allies using interest income
from the $280 billion Russian assets frozen in Western financial
institutions, estimated at $3 billion a year, for 10 years or more.
The goal is a leaders declaration at the end of the summit, a
“framework that is not generic, that is quite specific in terms of what
it would entail,” Sullivan told VOA Wednesday. Core operational details
would still need to be worked out, he added.
In April, Biden signed legislation to seize the roughly $5 billion in
Russian assets that had been immobilized in U.S. financial institutions.
The bulk of the money, though, $190 billion, is in Belgium, and much of
the rest is in France and Germany.
“There’s a tension here between a Biden administration ambition on an
issue in which they do not have the final say, hitting against very
staunch European fiscal conservatism and simply the mechanics of, how do
you get something done in Europe in the week of European [parliamentary]
elections,” Kristine Berzina, managing director of Geostrategy North at
the German Marshall Fund think tank, told VOA.
Attending the summit for the second consecutive year, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is advocating for the deal to pass. He and
Biden will sign a separate bilateral security agreement outlining U.S.
support for Ukraine and speak in a joint press conference Thursday
evening.
From Italy, Zelenskyy heads to Switzerland for a Ukraine peace
conference over the weekend.
Africa, climate change and development
Meloni, a far-right politician who once called for a naval blockade
to prevent African migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea to
Europe, now wants to achieve the goal by bolstering international
investments to the continent.
Most of the nearly 261,000 migrants who crossed the Mediterranean Sea
from northern Africa in 2023 entered Europe through Italy, according to
the United Nations.
She has aligned her G7 presidency with this agenda, and the group is
set to release a statement on providing debt relief for low- and
middle-income countries, dealing with irregular migration and calling
for more investments in Africa.
The G7 statement will reflect the Nairobi/Washington vision that
Biden signed with Kenyan President William Ruto, Sullivan said.
Meloni invited several African leaders as observers to the G7
meeting, including Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Tunisia’s
Kais Saied, Kenyan President William Ruto and Mohamed Ould Ghazouani,
the president of Mauritania. The invitation follows the first
Italy-Africa summit in Rome in January, where Meloni launched her
investment initiative called the Mattei Plan for Africa.
The Mattei Plan has been integrated into the G7’s Partnership for
Global Infrastructure and Investment, which aims to mobilize $600
billion private infrastructure funding by 2027 as an alternative to
Chin’s Belt and Road initiative.
On climate change, the G7 has an uphill climb. None of the group’s
members are on track to meet their existing emission reduction targets
for 2030 to align with the Paris Agreement goal, according to data
compiled by Climate Analytics.
NASA
hits wrong button, broadcasts ISS emergency training by mistake
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Simulation stimulates social media panic
NASA provided an inadvertent insight into its training techniques when
it accidentally broadcast audio that sounded like an emergency on the
International Space Station.…
Gay bars are often a fixture of queer nightlife and can help foster a
sense of community. Yet across the country, gay bars have shuttered at
an alarming pace, down around 45% between 2002 and 2023. But queer
nightlife isn’t disappearing — it may just be evolving. We’ll hear more.
But first: Interest rates are staying where they are, so where do we go
from here?
“Former [Microsoft] employee says software giant dismissed his warnings
about a critical flaw because it feared losing government business.
Russian hackers later used the weakness to breach the National Nuclear
Security Administration, among others.”
This is a damning story about profit over principles: Microsoft failed
to close a major security flaw that left the government (alongside other
customers) vulnerable because it wanted to win their business. This
directly paved the way for
the
SolarWinds hack.
This doesn’t seem to have been covert or subtext at Microsoft:
“Morowczynski told Harris that his approach could also undermine the
company’s chances of getting one of the largest government computing
contracts in U.S. history, which would be formally announced the next
year. Internally, Nadella had made clear that Microsoft needed a piece
of this multibillion-dollar deal with the Pentagon if it wanted to have
a future in selling cloud services, Harris and other former employees
said.”
But publicly it said something very different:
“From the moment the hack surfaced, Microsoft insisted it was blameless.
Microsoft President Brad Smith assured Congress in 2021 that “there was
no vulnerability in any Microsoft product or service that was exploited”
in SolarWinds.”
It will be interesting to see what the fallout of this disclosure is,
and whether Microsoft and other companies might be forced behave
differently in the future. This story represents business as usual, and
without external pressure, it’s likely that nothing will change.
What
Is Transitional Kindergarten? What to Expect When Enrolling Your
Child
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The LAist
California is making transitional kindergarten available to all
4-year-olds. So what is it, and how do you know if it’s right for your
child and your family?
UK
Labour Party promises end to datacenter planning ‘barriers’
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
With a strong lead going into general election, opposition claims it
will ‘supercharge’ tech sector
The UK’s opposition Labour Party – which boasts a sizable poll lead
heading into July’s general election – has promised to ease planning
restrictions holding back investment in datacenters.…
Google’s
Plan to Power Data Centers with Geothermal
date: 2024-06-13, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Extreme flooding has displaced
hundreds of people in Chile • Schools and tourist sites are closed
across Greece due to dangerously high temperatures • A heat wave is
settling over the Midwest and could last through next weekend.
THE TOP FIVE
Tesla shareholders vote on Musk’s pay package
We’ll know today whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk gets to keep his $56
billion pay package. The compensation deal was originally approved in
2018, but a Delaware court voided it earlier this year, saying it was
“deeply flawed” and that shareholders weren’t made fully aware of its
details. So the board is letting shareholders have their say once more.
Remote voting
closed
at midnight last night. This morning Musk
“leaked”
the early vote results, claiming the resolution – along with a ballot
measure to move the company from Delaware to Texas – was passing by a
wide margin.
Google to buy geothermal energy from Nevada utility to power data
centers
Google is
teaming
up with Nevada utility NV Energy Inc., and startup Fervo Energy, to
power its data centers in the state with enhanced geothermal energy. The
deal still needs to be approved by state regulators, but if it goes
through, Fervo would develop a geothermal power plant to supply 115
megawatts of carbon-free electricity to NV Energy, which the utility
would sell to Google. It represents “a new way that companies with very
large emerging electricity loads and climate goals may get their power
in regulated power markets,” Reutersexplained.
Fervo is already supplying Google with about 3.5 MW of power as part of
a pilot program. Its
enhanced
geothermal process involves drilling down beneath the Earth’s
surface to harness the constant heat that radiates there.
Fires ravage world’s largest tropical wetland
Brazil’s tropical wetlands are on fire. The Pantanal, in central-western
Brazil, spans an area twice the size of Portugal, making it the world’s
largest tropical wetland. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a
refuge
for wildlife including the world’s largest species of jaguar,
approximately 10 million caiman crocodiles, giant anteaters, and many
monkeys. But all those creatures are in danger. Thanks to climate change
and the El Niño weather pattern, ongoing drought in the region has led
to early-season wildfires of epic proportions. In the first five months
of the year there have been
more
than 1,300 fires, a huge increase over the 127 fires reported in the
same period last year. The “real” wildfire season doesn’t start until
next month and won’t peak until August or September.
New report quantifies climate impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused $32 billion in climate damages
and has a greenhouse gas footprint equivalent to releasing at least 175
million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a
new
report published by Ukraine’s environment ministry and several
climate NGOs. This is more than the annual emissions of The Netherlands,
and would be like putting 90 million new combustion engine vehicles on
the road. The calculation includes “reconstruction” emissions that will
be generated from rebuilding infrastructure, which requires
carbon-intensive materials like steel and cement.
Ford is reportedly building a ‘secretive low-cost EV team’
Ford has reportedly been snapping up workers from its rivals to beef up
its own EV talent. The company is building a “secretive low-cost EV
team,”
according
toTechCrunch. The 300-person team includes around
50 former Rivian workers, 20 former Tesla employees, as well as people
from Lucid Motors and Apple’s ill-fated EV project. Internally, Ford’s
EV team is known as “Ford Advanced EV.” Doug Field, Ford’s chief EV,
digital and design officer, told TechCrunch that “this
team is leading the development of breakthrough EV products and
technologies.”
THE KICKER
“Conservation shouldn’t just happen in ‘pristine’ and ‘untouched’
landscapes, but in areas where wildlife have used and adapted to the
human-induced changes in habitats.” –Emilie Hardouin, a
conservation geneticist at Bournemouth University in the U.K.,
advocates
for better conservation efforts in cities.
date: 2024-06-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
As a young ’80s-era county planner, I was privileged to know and drink
with Jack and other ’80s era environmental giants such as Supervisors
Bill Wallace and Tom Rogers.
From the BBC World Service: Demonstrators argued that the
measures, which include cutting state spending and watering down
workers’ rights, will hurt millions of working Argentinians. Meanwhile,
leaders of the G7 are meeting in Italy to discuss increasing economic
pressure on Russia in response to its war against Ukraine. And around
the world, hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste are piling up
in temporary storage, but Finland thinks it has a solution.
Every year, millions of tons of sodium sulfate waste are generated
throughout the lithium-ion battery supply chain. And although the
chemical compound seems relatively innocuous — it looks just like table
salt and is not particularly toxic — the sheer amount that’s produced
via mining, cathode production, and battery recycling is a problem.
Dumping it in rivers or oceans would obviously be disruptive to
ecosystems (although that’s generally what happens in China), and with
landfills running short on space, there are fewer options there, as
well.
That is where Aepnus Technology is attempting to come in. The startup
emerged from stealth today with $8 million in seed funding led by Clean
Energy Ventures and supported by a number of other cleantech investors,
including Lowercarbon Capital and Voyager Ventures. The company uses a
novel electrolysis process to convert sodium sulfate waste into sodium
hydroxide and sulfuric acid, which are themselves essential chemicals
for battery production.
“It’s a fully circular approach,” Bilen Akuzum, Aepnus’ co-founder and
CTO, told me. “Rather than in the current paradigm where companies are
buying chemicals and having to deal with disposing of the waste, we can
co-locate with them and they give us the waste, and we give them back
the chemicals.” This recycling process, he says, can happen an
indefinite number of times.
Akuzum told me that companies using Aepnus’ tech can “speed up their
environmental permits because they’re not going to be producing that
waste anymore. Instead, they can just turn it into value.” In an ideal
scenario, this could increase domestic production of critical minerals
and battery components, which will decrease the U.S.’s reliance on
China, a major goal of the Biden administration. On-site chemicals
production will also help to decarbonize the supply chain, as it
eliminates the need for these substances to be trucked into remote
mining sites or out to battery manufacturing and recycling facilities.
To do the chemical recycling, Aepnus has developed an electrolysis
system that it says is 50% more efficient than the processes normally
used to produce sodium hydroxide, and is uniquely tailored to process
sodium sulfate waste. Energy nerds might associate electrolysis with the
pricey production of green hydrogen, but this has actually always been
the process by which sodium hydroxide is made.
Making sulfuric acid, however, doesn’t traditionally involve
electrolysis, but because sodium hydroxide is the more valuable of the
two chemicals, combining their production via a single, more efficient
electrochemical process gives Aepnus a much better chance at being cost
competitive with other chemical producers than, say, the likelihood of
green hydrogen being cost competitive with natural gas. Akuzum told me
that the company’s electrolyzers can operate at lower voltages and
higher temperatures than the industry standard, thereby increasing
efficiency, and don’t require rare earth elements, thereby reducing
costs.
Ultimately, Akuzum said that Aepnus aims to become an electrolyzer
manufacturer rather than a chemicals producer. “We just want to be the
technology provider and almost like application agnostic in a sense that
this [the battery industry] is just the first market that we’re going
after,” Akuzum told me, citing a number of other potential markets such
as textile and pigment manufacturing, which also produce sodium sulfate
waste.
The company is currently working to get initial customers onboard for
pilot demonstrations, which are planned to take place over the next 18
months. In the extended near term, Aepnus wants to expand its platform
to produce a greater variety of chemicals. As the tech scales and is
deployed across various industries, the company says it has potential to
mitigate a total of 3 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions between now
and 2050, as calculated by Clean Energy Ventures’
Simple
Emissions Reduction Calculator.
Version
256 of systemd boasts ‘42% less Unix philosophy’
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
And it’s subsuming another bit of Linux by replacing sudo
The latest version of the systemd init system is out, with the
openly
confrontational tag line: “Available soon in your nearest distro,
now with 42 percent less Unix philosophy.”…
Neil
Fitzgerald | Is This What We Want Our Elections to Be?
date: 2024-06-13, from: The Signal
When I first started writing these articles, I said that America needed
a new Ronald Regan. I had hoped one would be found during the primary
process and would become […]
Could someone please explain why in Canyon Country, near Discovery Park,
that a pump station in the river is pumping thousands of gallons of
water back into the river. It’s […]
I almost upchucked my oatmeal breakfast when I read the recent (June 11)
Signal deckhead, “Local Salvation Army chapter hosts inaugural Donut Day
event.” Most of the rest of the […]
Rep. Mike Garcia’s April 20 column in The Signal proved that he panders
to the most radical wing of his party. He seems to have forgotten how to
be a […]
Moore Foundation supports The Lens’ growth as the definitive open
global innovation resource. Canberra, Australia and Palo Alto, USA. 13
June 2024 Cambia today announced a major grant from the Gordon and Betty
Moore Foundation to enhance global reach of its flagship project The
Lens, as it becomes the pre-eminent free and open, multi-lingual,
non-surveilled […]
President Joe Biden has done more to promote transgender ideology than
any president, ever. A scroll through the White House archives shows
statement after statement, proclamation after proclamation, speech after
[…]
It is disturbing and unfortunate that children ages 1 to 4 have the
highest drowning rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, fatal drowning is the leading […]
Preventing
another chip shortage on G7 summit agenda
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Group will also look into protecting subsea communications
infrastructure
More than three years after the pandemic crippled semiconductor supply
chains, it seems G7 nations are getting ready to do something to prevent
future disruptions.…
ASUS
quietly built supercomputers, datacenters and an LLM. Now it’s quietly
selling them all together
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
The plan is a slow build – not a breakout into enterprise tech
Taiwan’s ASUS is best known for its laptops and Wi-Fi kit, but it’s
quietly building an enterprise tech and cloud business – and slowly
introducing it to the world after big successes at home.…
WESTBURY, New York — There was no upset this time for the United
States as the home team was easily beaten by cricket heavyweight India
at the Twenty20 World Cup on Wednesday.
Suryakumar Yadav’s half-century powered India to a seven-wicket win
over the U.S., which had shocked Pakistan last week.
With the win, India reached the Super 8 round. The U.S. can advance
by beating Ireland on Friday.
In a later match at Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad, Sherfane
Rutherford scored an unbeaten 68 from 39 deliveries to help the West
Indies in their great escape — the co-hosts beat New Zealand by 13
runs.
The Caribbean lineup, 149-9 in its 20 overs, was 76-7 before its
Rutherford-led recovery. Alzarri Joseph snared four New Zealand wickets
and Gudakesh Motie took three — including New Zealand captain Kane
Williamson for 1 — to restrict the Black Caps to 136-9 in reply.
On Long Island, Yadvav’s 50 runs came off 49 balls and included two
boundaries and two sixes. He put on 72 runs off 65 balls in an unbeaten
fourth-wicket stand with Shivam Dube, who scored 31 not out as India
finished with 111-3 in 18.2 overs in reply to 110-8 by the United
States.
Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh returned figures of 4-9 — including two
wickets in the first over — to restrict the co-hosts after India had won
the toss and opted to field at the Nassau County International
Stadium.
India was in early trouble in its chase as Indian-born medium pacer
Saurabh Netravalkar continued his golden run for the Americans.
After bowling the co-hosts to the upset over Pakistan, he celebrated
the wickets of Indian superstars Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
Kohli was caught behind for a golden duck — dismissed off the first
delivery he faced — in what surely will become a career highlight for
Netravalkar. Sharma (3) fell to a slower delivery as Netravalkar
finished with 2-18 in four overs.
Rishabh Pant scored 18 off 20 balls batting at No. 3 before he was
bowled by Ali Khan delivery. With India struggling at 39-3 in 7.3 overs,
the U.S. team momentarily raised visions of an even bigger shock.
West Indies advanceLeft-hander Rutherford turned the home team’s
fortunes around, going to the crease with the West Indies reeling at
22-4 after 5.4 overs. Rutherford scored 18 off the last over that
culminated with a six and a boundary.
The loss left New Zealand with a strong possibility it will not make
the second round. If Afghanistan beats Papua New Guinea on Thursday,
three-time runner-up New Zealand will be out of contention.
For most of the first half of the game, the Black Caps were on
top.
But Rutherford went on the attack as the West Indies added 58-2 in
the last five overs of their innings.
He was 15 off 14 deliveries when star allrounder Andre Russell was
out for 14 in the 13th over, and he accelerated with the lower-order in
a counter-attacking, 72-minute innings containing six sixes and two
boundaries.
“It’s a good feeling, to help my team. That is what we live for and
work hard for,” man-of-the-match Rutherford said during the innings
break. “It was a very tough surface to start on. I think 149 is a
brilliant score on this wicket.”
After the match, Rutherford had a more optimistic tone: “It is only
the start of something big to come and hopefully we can keep winning and
momentum going.”
New Zealand started well after winning the toss and fielding, with
Trent Boult (3-16) bowling opener Johnson Charles to end the first
over.
Tim Southee (2-21), recalled after missing New Zealand’s opening loss
to Afghanistan, dismissed dangerman Nicholas Pooran for 12 in the fourth
over, trigging a run of three wickets for three runs.
Lockie Ferguson deceived Roston Chase with a slower ball to make it
21-3 and skipper Rovman Powell (1) was caught behind off Southee five
balls later.
Russell went on the attack but his dismissal — caught in the deep of
Boult’s bowling — appeared to be an insurmountable setback until
Rutherford took up the challenge.
“The quality of Sherfane’s innings was high,” New Zealand skipper
Williamson said. “The batting depth in their side was beneficial for
sure. We cannot make excuses and have to find ways.”
Japan
forces Apple and Google to allow third-party app stores and
payments
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
DMA-like law passes in pursuit of a more innovative and open smartphone
market
Japan’s parliament has passed a law that will require Apple and Google
to allow access to third-party app stores and payment providers on
devices running their mobile operating systems.…
Anti-Muslim
hate groups in US surge back into spotlight
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Once seemingly fading into obscurity, anti-Muslim hate
groups in the United States have surged back into the spotlight in
recent months, reinvigorated by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Many of these groups, such as Jihad Watch and ACT for America,
emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. and thrived on
public fears of terrorism. But as those fears waned in recent years, so
did the groups’ sway. Some disbanded, while others gravitated to other
hot-button issues.
From a peak of 114 in 2017, their number dropped to a mere 34 last
year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that
tracks hate groups.
In early 2023, “Islamophobia was down to a slow trickle,” SPLC senior
research analyst Caleb Kieffer said.
Then came the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, which claimed about
1,200 lives and triggered a massive Israeli military response in
Gaza.
Anti-Muslim groups that had “opportunistically” seized on divisive
issues, such as critical race theory and LGBTQ-inclusive policies, swung
back into action.
“These anti-Muslim groups went right back to their core messaging,”
Kieffer said in an interview with VOA. “They’ve been going hard on the
rhetoric since October last year.”
Take ACT for America. Founded in 2007 by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese
American political activist and self-described “survivor of terrorism,”
it grew into one of the country’s leading anti-Muslim organizations.
At its peak, the group had more than 50 active chapters, each counted
as a separate hate group by the SPLC. But in recent years, most of those
chapters either shut down or shifted into other areas, leaving ACT for
America with just eight on SPLC’s most recent list.
According to the SPLC, ACT for America embraced a “nativist tone”
before October 7, circulating, among other things, a petition calling to
“Stop the Taxpayer Funded Border Invasion.”
After October 7, the group launched another petition more in line
with its agenda and with a call by former U.S. President Donald Trump to
stop admitting Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
Warning her followers about homegrown jihadi terror, Gabriel, a
staunch Trump supporter, began peddling her bestselling anti-Muslim
book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, in
exchange for a $25 donation.
In a video titled “Wake Up America” in October, she claimed, “Hamas
has a large network of cells spreading all across America,” from Laurel,
Maryland, to Tucson, Arizona.
Other groups that had also latched onto contentious issues similarly
pivoted back to their core agenda.
Jihad Watch, a website run by prominent anti-Muslim figure Robert
Spencer, published an article last October claiming, “We’re in a war
between savages and civilization. Everything else is a detail.”
Eight days later, an affiliated political website called FrontPage
Magazine ran a piece titled “It’s Islam, Stupid,” arguing that
everything Hamas did “has been done by Muslims throughout history and is
still being practiced today.’’
FrontPage Magazine is published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center,
another leading anti-Muslim group. Jihad Watch is a project of the
center.
ACT for America, Jihad Watch and the David Horowitz Freedom Center
are part of what experts describe as a well-funded, close-knit
anti-Muslim industry, with each group playing a distinct role in the
ecosystem.
With chapters across the country, Washington-based ACT for America
provides the “grassroots muscle” to the movement, Kieffer said. The
Center for Security Policy serves as its think tank, he said.
The SPLC-designated groups appear on other hate lists. Several
SPLC-branded groups contacted by VOA condemned their designation.
In a statement to VOA, a spokesperson for ACT for America rejected
the “anti-Muslim” label, saying the organization has “always welcomed
and included members of all faiths,” including Muslims, and hosted
Muslim keynote speakers at its conferences.
ACT for America works “on a broad range of issues, none of which are
anti-Muslim,” the spokesperson said. “As a matter of fact, since the
defeat of ISIS and al-Qaida between 2018 and 2024, you didn’t hear a
blurb from ACT for America about radical Islam.”
In response to a VOA query, Jihad Watch’s Spencer accused the SPLC of
smearing and defaming “organizations that oppose its far-left political
agenda by lumping them in with the likes of the KKK and neo-Nazis.”
In a brief interview with VOA, J. Michael Waller, a senior analyst
for strategy at the Center for Security Policy, called the designation
“slander,” saying it was tied to his group’s criticism of the Iranian
government and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Kieffer defended the SPLC’s methodology, saying it only designates
groups that “vilify” and “demonize” people because of their race,
religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.
The SPLC defines anti-Muslim hate groups as organizations that
“broadly defame Islam and traffic in conspiracy theories of Muslims
being a subversive threat to the nation.”
Not every anti-Muslim hate group has stood the test of time. In
recent years, dozens of ACT for America chapters have closed.
The ACT for America spokesperson said most of its member groups have
“turned into digital chapters meeting via zoom or other technology
platforms.”
Last year, an anti-refugee and anti-Muslim blog called Refugee
Resettlement Watch became inactive and was dropped from SPLC’s list of
hate groups.
Another well-known anti-Muslim group called Understanding the Threat
announced last year it was shutting down. The group was operated by a
former FBI agent known for spreading anti-Muslim conspiracy
theories.
Other groups have rebranded. One former ACT for America chapter now
operates as AlertAmerica.News, according to SPLC. Its focus ranges from
“strengthening national security” to “fighting communism and American
Marxism.”
Kieffer said while the group’s central focus may have shifted away
from Islamophobia, it continues to invite well-known, anti-Muslim
speakers to its events.
With the war in Gaza still raging, the resurgence in Islamophobia
remains unabated, Kieffer said. But that’s likely to change in the
run-up to the presidential election in November.
“I imagine that we’re going to slowly see a decline again as these
groups start to push other issues,” he said.
Brian Levin, a criminologist and hate crime researcher, noted that
anti-Muslim hate crimes have surged in recent years, even as the number
of hate groups has dwindled.
That’s because hatred has found a new home in the mainstream,
rendering niche groups such as Islamophobic outfits increasingly
obsolete, he said.
“The bottom line is, the way we associate to express and amplify
hatred has changed,” Levin said in an interview with VOA. “Up-and-coming
bigots of all sorts will find an array of xenophobic bigotry and
conspiracism within general mainstream platforms.”
Biden
arrives at G7 in Italy with sanctions for Russia, support for Ukraine,
but no deal on Gaza
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Brindisi, Italy — U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Brindisi,
Italy, late Wednesday ahead of his meeting with leaders of the Group of
Seven industrialized democracies.
He came armed with fresh sanctions for Russia, a new bilateral
security agreement for Ukraine, but no breakthrough on Gaza cease-fire
negotiations that now sit at a critical juncture.
The United States is working with mediators Egypt and Qatar after
reviewing Hamas’ response to the proposal, White House national security
adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to
Italy early Wednesday.
“Many of the proposed changes are minor and not unanticipated,” he
said. “Others differ quite substantively from what was outlined in the
U.N. Security Council resolution.”
As Biden was in flight to Italy, the U.S. Treasury Department
announced fresh sanctions that target foreign individuals and companies
aiding Moscow’s military industrial base. They include companies based
in China, that are selling semiconductors to Russia.
It includes an expansion of secondary sanctions that allow the United
States to blacklist any bank around the world that does business with
Russian financial institutions already facing sanctions. The goal is to
prevent smaller banks in China and other countries from funding the
Russian war effort.
The sanctions also target networks Russia uses to obtain critical
materials for building aerial drones, anti-drone equipment, industrial
machinery and for the country’s chemical and biological weapons program,
the Treasury Department said.
“We are increasing the risk for financial institutions dealing with
Russia’s war economy and eliminating paths for evasion, and diminishing
Russia’s ability to benefit from access to foreign technology,
equipment, software, and IT services,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
said in a statement.
The Moscow Exchange, Russia’s top financial marketplace, announced it
was halting trading of dollars and euros after being listed in the new
sanctions.
Biden is also set to sign on Thursday a bilateral security agreement
with Ukraine during his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The
agreement is intended to show U.S. resolve to strengthen Ukraine’s
defense and deterrence capabilities without committing American troops
on the Ukrainian battlefield. The agreement would include Ukrainian
commitment to reform and on end-use monitoring of U.S.-provided
weapons.
It will be Biden’s second meeting with Zelenskyy in the span of days;
the two met in Paris on the sidelines of the 80-year commemoration of
D-Day last week.
Russian frozen assets
Zelenskyy will be urging G7 leaders to get behind Biden’s plan to
provide Kyiv with a loan of up to $50 billion for Ukraine’s war efforts
against Russia, amid Moscow’s strategic advances in the battlefield. The
U.S. proposal would pay back Western allies using interest income from
the $280 billion in Russian assets frozen in Western financial
institutions, estimated at $3 billion a year, for 10 years or more.
The goal is a Leaders’ Declaration at the end of the summit, a
“framework that is not generic, that is quite specific in terms of what
it would entail,” Sullivan told VOA as he spoke to reporters in flight.
However, “core operational details” would still need to be worked out.
It’s unclear whether the loan will be provided by the G7 or only some of
its members.
In April, Biden signed legislation to seize the roughly $5 billion in
Russian assets that had been immobilized in U.S. financial institutions.
But the bulk of the money, $190 billion, is in Belgium and much of the
rest, is in France and Germany.
A big source of concern for Europeans is who will be responsible to
cover losses should interest rates fall below expectations or if the
sanctions that immobilize the funds are not renewed. Russia considers
the immobilizing of its assets following its invasion on Ukraine as
theft and has threatened retaliation.
Although Ukraine is not a G7 member, this is the second consecutive
year Zelenskyy is attending the summit. From Italy, he heads to
Switzerland for a Ukraine peace conference over the weekend.
EU puts tariffs on Chinese EVs
Biden imposed a drastic tariff hike in May to confront what he calls
Chinese overcapacity in strategic green technologies and has been urging
the G7 to do the same.
On Wednesday, the European Union responded to the call by announcing
it would slap Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) with higher tariffs, up to
38.1%, saying the imports benefit “heavily from unfair subsidies” and
pose a “threat of economic injury” to producers in Europe.
U.S. tariffs on Chinese EVs were quadrupled to a 100% rate, while
solar cell and semiconductor import tariffs were doubled to 50%. The
rates on certain steel and aluminum imports were tripled to 25%. The
additional duties covered $18 billion in Chinese products.
Europe is taking action to address Chinese overcapacity just as the
United States has done, Sullivan said. A “common framework” on how to
deal with various economic security issues posed by China will likely be
included in the G7 final communique, he added.
The punitive moves could prompt retaliation from Beijing, which
accuses the West of hyping overcapacity claims to blunt China’s
competitive edge.
Biden arrived on the global forum after a family drama. On Tuesday, a
day before departing for the summit, his son Hunter Biden was found
guilty on federal charges of possessing of a gun while being addicted to
drugs.
Biden has said he would not use presidential powers to pardon his
son. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to respond
to further questions, including the possibility of commuting Hunter
Biden’s sentence when it is given by the judge.
US
voices support for South Korean ‘balloon war’ efforts
date: 2024-06-13, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. expressed its support for providing outside
information to the people of North Korea even as attempts are made in
South Korea to block leaflet campaigns aimed at sending information to
the North.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been rising in recent weeks due
to tit-for-tat exchanges between Pyongyang and Seoul over balloons they
both have been sending across the inter-Korean border.
Responding to an inquiry by VOA’s Korean Service, a State Department
spokesperson said on Monday that “it is critical for the people of North
Korea to have access to independent information not controlled by the
DPRK regime.”
“We continue to promote the free flow of information into, out of,
and within the DPRK,” continued the spokesperson, referring to North
Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea.
“We continue to urge North Korea to reduce tensions and cease any
actions that could increase the risk of conflict,” the spokesperson
added.
North Korea, listed by Human Rights Watch among “the most repressive
countries in the world,” considers outside information a threat to the
ruling regime’s survival and denies its people access to
information.
The government heavily controls all forms of media and cracks down on
people distributing, watching or listening to any South Korean cultural
content.
In what it said was a response to South Korean activists sending
balloons carrying leaflets into the North, Pyongyang has floated more
than 1,600 balloons filled with trash and waste into South Korea since
May 28.
In response, Seoul on June 4 fully suspended an inter-Korean military
deal made in 2018 and resumed loudspeaker broadcasts at the border
Sunday before halting them the following day.
The South Korean balloons, sent aloft by human rights activists, have
carried leaflets conveying information about the outside world and the
North Korean regime. They also carried thumb drives containing K-pop
songs and dramas.
But the effort has caused controversy in South Korea, where attempts
are being made to halt the campaign.
In September 2023, the South Korean constitutional court struck down
a law banning the sending of leaflets to North Korea, saying it violated
the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
Nevertheless, the opposition Democratic Party of Korea is attempting
to apply other existing laws to block the campaign.
The opposition party, preferring engagement with North Korea, has
been opposed to sending leaflets to North Korea. The anti-leaflet law
was passed in December 2020 by the liberal party of former President
Moon Jae-in six months after North Korea, expressing discontentment over
leaflet activities, blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, a
town in North Korea near the border.
On Tuesday, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the party, called leaflet
activities “illegal under the current law.”
In June 2020, Lee, the then-governor of Gyeonggi Province, declared
five cities in the province as “danger zones” under the Framework Act on
the Management of Disasters and Safety. Gyeonggi Province borders North
Korea.
Lee then issued an administrative order banning people from entering
the areas to launch balloons.
Kim Dong-yeon, from the opposition party and the current governor of
Gyeonggi Province, said on Wednesday a consideration is being made to
declare some areas in the province “danger zones” to “prevent the launch
of propaganda leaflets in accordance with related laws.”
He said he will “immediately dispatch provincial police to potential
leaflet sites to bolster patrols and surveillance,” according to South
Korea’s liberal daily Hankyore.
Questions have been raised in South Korea whether the police can stop
leaflet-sending activities based on the Act on the Performance of Duties
by Police Officers, according to Seoul-based news agency Yonhap. The act
allows police to restrain people from causing damage to property or harm
other people.
Yoon Hee-keun, National Police Agency commissioner, told reporters
Monday that the leaflet campaigns cannot be blocked on the basis of that
law.
He said this is because it is “unclear whether the trash-carrying
balloons” sent by North Korea “would constitute an urgent and grave
threat to the lives and bodies of the public, which is prerequisite for
restricting them under the law.”
David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific
Strategy, told VOA on Tuesday via email that Seoul is “complying with
the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry that calls on people around the
world to call out North Korea for its human rights abuses, one of which
is the isolation of the people and the denial of all information going
into the North.”
Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation,
said, “The North Korean balloons are government actions and thus a
violation of the armistice,” whereas balloons from the South are sent by
non-government organizations.
Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of
mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in 2018-21, said while Seoul’s
“decision to pause loudspeaker broadcasts” is “a positive step toward
de-escalation, it should go further by also pausing balloon launches
from the South.”
VMware
revenue plunges $600M, but Broadcom assures investors growth plan is on
track
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-14, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Costs cut deeply, with more to come, and forward bookings surge
VMware’s quarterly revenue appears to have fallen by $600 million during
its first full quarter of ownership by Broadcom, which revealed strong
growth in forward bookings and huge cost cuts at the virtualization
giant.…
SK
hynix shimmies towards AI silicon by driving merger of South Korean
Nvidia challengers
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Sapeon and Rebellions think they can do better together
Two South Korean members of the AI Platform Alliance – a group that
advocates an open alternative to Nvidia – have proposed a merger to
accelerate their work and achieve greater scale, and perhaps give local
chipmaker SK hynix a way into the market for AI silicon.…
Crooks
crack customer info at tracking device vendor Tile, issue ‘extortion’
demands
date: 2024-06-13, updated: 2024-06-13, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Who tracks the trackers?
Life360, purveyor of “Tile” Bluetooth tracking devices and developer of
associated apps, has revealed it is dealing with a “criminal extortion
attempt” after unknown miscreants contacted it with an allegation they
had customer data in their possession.…
News release Soroptimist International of Valencia is scheduled Aug. 2
to host “Laughs for a Cause,” a special event celebrating the
organization’s 50th anniversary benefiting its dream programs: Live Your
[…]
As the city’s monthslong budgeting process comes to a close, the Santa
Clarita City Council gave its first approval of the city’s spending plan
and annual review of its capital […]
“Inhale. Exhale. Find the space between… Calm Company Fund is going on
sabbatical and taking a break from investing in new companies and
raising new funds. Here’s why.”
Calm Company Fund’s model seems interesting. It’s a revenue-based
investor that makes a return based on its portfolio companies’ earnings,
but still uses a traditional VC model to derive its operating budget.
That means it makes a very small percentage of funds committed from
Limited Partners, rather than sharing in the success of its portfolio
(at least until much later, when the companies begin to earn out).
That would make sense in a world where the funds committed were
enormous, but revenue-based investment tends to raise smaller fund
sizes. So Calm Company Fund had enough money to pay for basically one
person - and although the portfolio was growing, the staff size couldn’t
scale up to cope.
So what does an alternative look like? I imagine that it might look like
taking a larger percentage of incoming revenue as if it were an LP
itself. Or maybe this kind of funding simply doesn’t work with a
hands-on firm, and the models that attract larger institutional
investors are inherently more viable (even if that isn’t always
reflected in their fund returns).
I want something like this to exist, but the truth is that it might live
in the realm of boring old business loans, and venture likely is able to
exist because of the risks involved in those sorts of
companies.
More than a dozen residents came together Tuesday to express their
concerns about what they called the city’s attempt to expand weekday or
weekend service at the expense of its […]
Earth planning date: Monday, June 11, 2024 Curiosity is gearing up to
drill! Last week, it encountered a rock with unusual coloration and
texture that was just out of reach (you can read about it and see
pictures here and here). So that Curiosity could learn more about the
geology around these rocks, it “bumped” […]
County
Receives Highest Credit Rating From Two Major Ratings Agencies
date: 2024-06-13, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Fitch Ratings has raised the County’s long-term issuer credit rating
to AAA from AA+, garnering the highest possible credit rating available
in the financial markets
date: 2024-06-13, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
It is no secret that the supply of restrooms in downtown Los Olivos is
woefully inadequate to support the tourism generated by a hotel, three
restaurants, dozens of wine tasting rooms, a couple of sandwich shops
and coffee houses, and a brewery.
A guilty pleasure of mine is the pursuit of perfection. It is
certainly a vice in most contexts, but there are some problems whose
solutions demand a measure of perfection. These are problems that I will
refer to as “5-9 problems”: problems whose solutions need five 9’s (or
more) in some dimension. Usually, those nines are correctness of some
kind, but they can also be availability or for some systems, speed.
Joe
Raedle/Getty Images
Flooding
in Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, Florida.
Joe
Raedle/Getty Images
NOAA
