News gathered 2024-06-27
(date: 2024-06-27 16:59:09)
Code for Model-Free Nonlinear Feedback Optimization
date: 2024-07-01, from: ETH Zurich, recently added
He, Zhiyu
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/646002
SCV Water dedicates treatment plant
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
A collection of past and present water officials, city leaders and some of those closest to Jerry Gladbach gathered Thursday at Central Park to honor the memory of the former […]
The post SCV Water dedicates treatment plant appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/scv-water-dedicates-treatment-plant/
SCV-Based Honda Racing Corp Partners with Meyer Shank
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Santa Clarita-based Honda Racing Corporation USA confirmed Thursday it will partner with championship-winning Meyer Shank Racing to field a pair of Acura ARX-06 entries in the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, starting with the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona in January
https://scvnews.com/scv-based-honda-racing-corp-partners-with-meyer-shank/
Uvalde
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna neque viverra justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed…
https://sundial.csun.edu/182323/news/uvalde/
The Mental Health Pandemic in Texas
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
On a sunny and windy morning in Uvalde, sun beams illuminate crosses surrounding a water fountain in the middle of the town’s central plaza. Some of the crosses have been…
https://sundial.csun.edu/182344/news/the-mental-health-pandemic-in-texas/
A Club No One Wants To Be A Part Of
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Grief strikes at the most unexpected times. Never wished for, grief never goes away. Twenty-one families and dozens more community members in Uvalde, Texas, were forever changed on May 24,…
https://sundial.csun.edu/182266/news/a-club-no-one-wants-to-be-a-part-of/
Fragments of Failed Policing in Uvalde
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
The Uvalde Police Department has been on the lookout for new hires in recent months. Near the men’s bathroom is a locked entrance for duty dispatchers and command staff. A…
https://sundial.csun.edu/182329/news/fragments-of-failed-policing-in-uvalde/
Half Moon Bay residents appealed approval of senior farmworker housing. Here’s what the City Council just decided
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Half Moon Bay City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to deny appeals attempting to block a 40-unit, downtown apartment complex for senior farmworkers, clearing the way for the project to continue.
Iration x Autumn Brands Launch Party
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This partnership between homegrown band and homegrown brand is good, clean farm fun.
The post Iration x Autumn Brands Launch Party appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/27/iration-x-autumn-brands-launch-party/
Letters: Replace Thao | Reconsider RCV | Natural resources | Applying reason | Left to Congress | Unqualified opinion
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
East Bay Times Letters to the Editor for June 28, 2024
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/letters-1778/
Kurtenbach: Instant reaction to the Warriors’ second-round pick
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Warriors need shooters. They picked up two Thursday.
Bay FC coach Albertin Montoya ‘wishing the best’ for Lucy Rushton after general manager’s abrupt resignation
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Montoya on Thursday: ‘We lost someone that we have so much respect for.’
Oklahoma state superintendent orders schools to teach the Bible in schools
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
oklahoma city, oklahoma — Oklahoma’s top education official on Thursday ordered public schools to incorporate the Bible into lessons for grades 5 through 12, the latest effort by conservatives to incorporate religion into classrooms.
The directive drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and supporters of the separation of church and state, with some calling it an abuse of power and a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The order sent to districts across the state by Republican State Superintendent Ryan Walters says adherence to the mandate is compulsory and “immediate and strict compliance is expected.”
“The Bible is an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone,” Walters said in a statement. “Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation which is why Oklahoma educational standards provide for its instruction.”
Oklahoma law already explicitly allows Bibles in the classroom and lets teachers use them in instruction, said Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for state Attorney General Gentner Drummond.
But it’s not clear if Walters has the authority to mandate that schools teach it. State law says individual school districts have the exclusive authority to decide on instruction, curriculum, reading lists, instructional materials and textbooks.
The head of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized the directive as a clear violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion.
“We adamantly oppose any requirements that religion be forcefully taught or required as a part of lesson plans in public schools, in Oklahoma, or anywhere else in the country,” Adam Soltani said in a statement.
“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a statement. “This is textbook Christian Nationalism: Walters is abusing the power of his public office to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else’s children. Not on our watch.”
The directive is the latest salvo in an effort by conservative-led states to target public schools: Louisiana has required them to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms, while others are under pressure to teach the Bible and ban books and lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Earlier this week the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked an attempt by the state to have the first publicly funded religious charter school in the country.
A former public school teacher who was elected to his post in 2022, Walters ran on a platform of fighting “woke ideology,” banning books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he claims are indoctrinating children in classrooms.
He has clashed with leaders in both parties for his focus on culture-war issues including transgender rights and banning books, and in January he faced criticism for appointing a right-wing social media influencer from New York to a state library committee.
Brush fire near Magic Mountain quickly put out
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
A brush fire that broke out Thursday afternoon near Six Flags Magic Mountain had forward progress stopped prior to the arrival of firefighters, according to L.A. County Fire Department officials. […]
The post Brush fire near Magic Mountain quickly put out appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/brush-fire-near-magic-mountain-quickly-put-out/
CNN bans White House pool reporters from debate room
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
washington — The White House Correspondents’ Association said Thursday that CNN had rejected multiple requests to include White House pool reporters inside the studio during the first presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump.
The press pool, made up of representatives of major news organizations, accompanies the president on foreign and domestic trips and normally has access to any event where he speaks or appears in public, with the goal of keeping the U.S. public informed.
It is extremely rare for it to be barred from an event in the United States.
“WHCA is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio,” Kelly O’Donnell, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in a statement.
“The pool is there for the ‘what ifs?’ in a world where the unexpected does happen,” she said, and to provide “context and insight by direct observation and not through the lens of the television production.”
These reporters are there to see what is said and done when the microphones and cameras are off, and provide independent observation, she wrote, with duties “separate from the production of the debate as a news event.”
O’Donnell said both the Biden and Trump campaigns agreed to the WHCA’s request.
CNN has agreed to allow only one White House print pool reporter to enter the studio during a commercial break to “briefly observe the setting.”
The network will also allow still photographers from other outlets to cover the candidates inside the studio and will provide a television feed of the debate to other networks.
CNN has put in place many other rules for the first showdown, including two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when the candidates are recognized to speak. The network did not respond to a request for comment.
“Precedent matters for future debates,” O’Donnell said, alluding to the next Biden-Trump face-off in September.
The National Association of Black Journalists also asked CNN to accredit reporters from local Black-owned news organizations, after none of Atlanta’s Black news groups got credentials to be on-site for the debate.
https://www.voanews.com/a/cnn-bans-white-house-pool-reporters-from-debate-room-/7676463.html
Opinion: Why this student is X-ing out Latinx
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Solve the problem by changing the language, not manufacturing a word.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/opinion-why-this-student-is-x-ing-out-latinx/
Letters: Willie Mays | Enviable effort | Bad use | Google’s folly | Going digital | Risking legacy
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Mercury News Letters to the Editor for June 28, 2024
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/letters-1777/
Windows 10 will be covered by 0patch, a third-party paid patching service
date: 2024-06-27, from: OS News
So I learned something new today: there are companies that provide security patches for Windows that aren’t Microsoft. I never even considered this could be a thing, but it turns out that a paid service called 0patch seems to have been around for a long time, and the consensus seems to be that not only can it be trusted, it also sometimes provides patches sooner than Microsoft does. Today, 0patch announced it’ll also be providing this service for Windows 10 after the end of support next year. With October 2025, 0patch will “security-adopt” Windows 10 v22H2, and provide critical security patches for it for at least 5 more years – even longer if there’s demand on the market. We’re the only provider of unofficial security patches for Windows (“virtual patches” are not really patches), and we have done this many times before: after security-adopting Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 in January 2020, we took care of 6 versions of Windows 10 as their official support ended, security-adopted Windows 11 v21H2 to keep users who got stuck there secure, took care of Windows Server 2012 in October 2023 and adopted two popular Office versions – 2010 and 2013 – when they got abandoned by Microsoft. We’re still providing security patches for all of these. ↫ Mitja Kolsek on the 0patch blog This service implements patching through what it calls “micropatches”, which are very small sets of CPU instructions injected into running code in memory without modifying – in this case – Microsoft’s own code. These micropatches are applied by briefly stopping the offending program, injecting the fix, and continuing the program – without having to close the program or reboot. Of course, they can be unapplied in the same, non-disruptive way. The 0patch service will provide patches for 0days that Microsoft hasn’t fixed yet, patches for issues Microsoft won’t fix, and sometimes patches for third party code. As the headline clearly states, this service isn’t free, but honestly, at roughly 25 dollars plus tax per computer per year, it’s not exactly expensive, and definitely cheaper than Microsoft’s own Windows 10 Extended Security Update program it’s going to offer for Windows 10 after the end of support date next year. Diving a bit deeper into who is providing this service, it comes from a company called ACROS Security, a small company out of Slovenia. The company details its micropatches on its 0patch blog if you want more information on how each individual ones works. I still don’t know exactly what to make of this, and I definitely wouldn’t rely on something like this for mission-critical Windows computers or servers, but for something like a home PC that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11 but still works just fine, or perhaps some disposable virtual machines you’re using, this might be a good stopgap solution until you can upgrade to a better operating system, like Linux or one of the BSDs. Are there any people in the OSNews audience who’ve used 0patch, or perhaps a service similar to it?
UC Santa Barbara’s Ajay Mitchell Becomes 14th Gaucho Drafted to NBA
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Oklahoma City Thunder acquires the 38th pick, the eighth of the second round, through a deal with the New York Knicks.
The post UC Santa Barbara’s Ajay Mitchell Becomes 14th Gaucho Drafted to NBA appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Warriors re-acquire pick, draft stretch 5 from Boston College: reports
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Quinten Post is reportedly the newest Golden State Warrior.
Laurene Weste | Celebrating Our Heroes, Open Spaces
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.”
https://scvnews.com/laurene-weste-celebrating-our-heroes-open-spaces/
Sharks reportedly had interest in Canucks forward before trade to Blackhawks
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Sharks reportedly had some interest in bringing in Ilya Mikheyev from the Vancouver Canuck
New migration patterns could fuel IS plans for US, some officials contend
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
washington — Recent changes in global migration patterns and smuggling routes have created an opening for terror groups like the Islamic State to set their sights on the U.S. southern border.
For years, top U.S. counterterrorism officials have pushed back against critics who sounded alarms about would-be terrorists streaming across the U.S. border with Mexico. But changes within the past year have increased the likelihood of such a reality.
“What we face today is a greater vulnerability to the possibility that terrorist organizations might use that pathway to get individuals into the United States,” according to Nick Rasmussen, the counterterrorism coordinator for the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS.
“The diversity of the migrant population arriving at our borders — this is not in any way, shape or form a problem of the Western Hemisphere,” Rasmussen told a conference Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska.
“It’s a global migration problem with migrants from literally every corner of the world, including from most conflict zones around the world, showing up and arriving on our shores,” he said, describing the convergence of the migration routes with concerns about terror groups like Islamic State “relatively recent.”
Concerns about possible infiltration by migrants linked to the Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS, have spiked in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, The New York Post reported the FBI arrested eight men from Tajikistan who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border partly with the help of an IS-linked network.
And earlier this week, NBC News reported more than 400 immigrants from Central Asia crossed into the U.S., again with help from IS-linked smugglers. Of those, some 150 have been arrested, while another 50 remain at large. The officials did not comment on the status of the remaining 200.
Senior DHS officials say there is no evidence to suggest any of the 400 Central Asian migrants are IS operatives.
But officials have said the eight men from Tajikistan were arrested because of potential ties to IS. All eight are in the middle of removal hearings and face deportation.
U.S. officials have sought to allay concerns.
White House deputy homeland security adviser Jen Daskal told the counterterrorism conference in Omaha on Wednesday that there is now increased vigilance along the U.S. southern border.
“We have enhanced our screening and vetting, instituted recurrent vetting of migrants to identify newly uncovered threats and detain those who pose a public safety threat,” Daskal said. “We know that there is a continued risk posed by those inspired by these terrorist organizations, and we are acutely focused on that risk.”
Rasmussen, speaking a day later, likewise pushed back against fears of a terrorist free for all.
“Most of the last decade there have been political critics who have said that terrorists are streaming across the southern border, and we could look at that analytically as our intelligence and law enforcement really did, and say, no, that’s actually not happening,” he said. “I would argue it’s not true today, as well.”
Rasmussen agreed, though, the newfound focus by groups like IS on exploiting migration to the Western Hemisphere deserves immediate attention.
The convergence of migration patterns and terrorism is “probably highest on my worry and priority list today,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/new-migration-patterns-fuel-islamic-state-s-plans-for-the-us-/7676413.html
History-making milestone for San Jose school’s new buidling
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 44,000 square-foot Wade Academic Center is expected to be finished in time for Fall 2025.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/history-making-milestone-for-san-jose-schools-new-buidling/
COC board member resigns, third closed session meeting to be held
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
Chuck Lyon has announced his resignation from the Santa Clarita Community College District board of trustees, which oversees College of the Canyons, effective Thursday. Lyon’s resignation means the board likely […]
The post COC board member resigns, third closed session meeting to be held appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/coc-board-member-resigns-third-closed-session-meeting-to-be-held/
Bronny James drafted No. 55 to Lakers
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Bronny James will join forces with his father in Los Angeles.
The post Bronny James drafted No. 55 to Lakers appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/27/bronny-james-drafted-no-55-to-lakers/
SF Giants denied four-game sweep of Cubs before Dodgers’ final visit
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The sweep-seeking Giants fell 5-3 to the Cubs on Ian Happ’s 10th-inning home run at Oracle Park.
Backlog of identity theft cases at IRS leaving many without refunds
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
By Zachary Stieber Contributing Writer A backlog of identity theft cases at the Internal Revenue Service is growing, hitting 500,000 in April, according to a new report from National Taxpayer Advocate […]
The post Backlog of identity theft cases at IRS leaving many without refunds appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/backlog-of-identity-theft-cases-at-irs-leaving-many-without-refunds/
SCV Water Dedicates Water Treatment Plant After Jerry Gladbach
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
SCV Water recently held a dedication ceremony to rename its Rio Vista Water Treatment as the E. G. “Jerry” Gladbach Water Treatment Plant in honor of the late SCV Water Board Vice President Jerry Gladbach
https://scvnews.com/scv-water-dedicates-water-treatment-plant-after-jerry-gladbach/
Closer Russia-North Korea ties may create opportunity for US, China
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
washington — The recent defense pact between Russia and North Korea could present a diplomatic opportunity for the United States and China to work together for stability on the Korean Peninsula, an issue of mutual interest to both countries, some experts say.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Monday that China would be “somewhat anxious” about enhanced cooperation between Russia and North Korea, adding that Chinese officials have “indicated so in some of our interactions, and we can see some tension associated with those things.”
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters after the Russia-North Korea summit last week in Pyongyang that concern about the new defense agreement between the two countries “would be shared by the People’s Republic of China” — China’s official name.
During their keenly watched summit, Russian President Vladmir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, vowing to challenge the U.S.-led world order.
Under the treaty, the two countries, which share a short border along the lower Tumen River, are now required to provide military assistance using all available means if either of them is attacked by a third country.
High-precision weapons
Putin further raised the stakes in this newly cemented relationship, saying he is not ruling out the possibility of Russia providing high-precision weapons to North Korea.
According to some experts in Washington, China’s frustration with its two neighbors could make room for a Sino-American effort to dissuade Russia and North Korea from moving forward with their nascent defense pact.
Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told VOA’s Korean Service earlier this week that there is a way for the U.S. to find “some common ground” with China on this issue.
He explained that it is in China’s interest not to see the transfer of Russia’s advanced, offensive military technologies to North Korea, which could be destabilizing on the Korean Peninsula.
“That opens up a common ground for the United States to deal with China to limit any destabilizing transfer of technology to the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday that the U.S. and China need to come together on this issue.
DeTrani said North Korea has to be on the list of “the issues of mutual concern” between the top two powers, as the U.S. pursues dialogue with China on subjects such as artificial intelligence and trade.
Dennis Wilder, who served as senior director for East Asia affairs at the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, was more cautious about the possibility of U.S.-China coordination.
Wilder told VOA’s Korean Service this week that the current state of U.S.-China relations makes Beijing averse to working with Washington on North Korea.
“No, they have no interest in joining with us, considering how they feel we are treating them,” Wilder said. “I very much doubt that the Chinese would be interested. A far possibility would be that they might want to share information, but that would be the only place.”
No ties to call on
Robert Gallucci, who was the chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis, offered a similar view.
“We don’t have a relationship with Beijing right now that we could call on,” he said earlier this week.
Gallucci told VOA’s Korean Service that China will not appreciate the possibility of its influence on North Korea being undercut.
Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Wednesday that China might have a limited influence on what is happening between Russia and North Korea, although Washington and Beijing share an interest in keeping things calm on the Korean Peninsula.
“I expect that Beijing will discourage any military assistance from Russia to North Korea that could be destabilizing,” he said. “Whether Putin or Kim Jong Un will respect China’s wishes, I can’t say.”
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service via email earlier this week that “in principle, China welcomes Russia to consolidate and develop traditional friendly relations with relevant countries,” without referring to North Korea.
Meanwhile, Washington is holding out hope that Beijing can still leverage its historical ties with Pyongyang to drive a solution.
“We urge Beijing to use its influence to encourage the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to refrain from destabilizing behavior and return to the negotiating table,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-27, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
To get a bunch of Godot games to work on mobile without changes, it is possible to use Apple's virtual controller, which gives you a mobile controller on top of your code for free, and you get to keep your physical controller code:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/gamecontroller/gcvirtualcontroller
We will be upstreaming this change soon.
Here it is with Godot on iPad:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112690800659059613
Fourth of July Parade Road Closures, Detours Announced
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
In celebration of the Fourth of July Parade, the city of Santa Clarita has announced several road closures in the Newhall area, which will require Santa Clarita Transit Route 4/14 and 5/6 to operate detours from 5:30 a.m. to 12 p.m
https://scvnews.com/fourth-of-july-parade-road-closures-detours-announced/
US sanctions Iran over nuclear escalations, petroleum transport
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The United States on Thursday issued fresh sanctions targeting Iran in response to “continued nuclear escalations,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“Over the past month, Iran has announced steps to further expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose,” Blinken said. “We remain committed to never letting Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, and we are prepared to use all elements of national power to ensure that outcome.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday’s action imposes sanctions on three companies based in the United Arab Emirates the U.S. accused of being involved in the transport of Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products, as well as 11 associated vessels.
Earlier this month, the Group of Seven advanced industrialized economies warned Iran against advancing its nuclear enrichment program, and members said they would be ready to enforce new measures if Tehran were to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia.
Iran rebuked the statement, calling on the G7 to distance itself from “destructive policies of the past,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani.
Earlier in June, the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Iran to step up cooperation with the watchdog and reverse its recent barring of inspectors.
Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity — close to the 90% of weapons grade — and has enough material enriched to that level, if enriched further, for three nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick.
Western powers say there is no credible civilian reason for that. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but officials have recently said it could change its “nuclear doctrine” if it is attacked or its existence was threatened by arch-foe Israel. That has prompted alarm at the IAEA and in Western capitals.
NASA, Boeing to Provide Commercial Crew, Space Station Update
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Leadership from NASA’s International Space Station and Commercial Crew Programs, as well as Boeing, will participate in a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, June 28. NASA and Boeing continue to evaluate Starliner’s propulsion system performance before returning from the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Crew Flight Test. The agency also […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-boeing-to-provide-commercial-crew-space-station-update/
Neanderthal Child May Have Had Down Syndrome, Fossil Suggests
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The child’s survival until at least 6 years old could be evidence of collaborative caregiving in Neanderthal societies, according to a new paper
Appeals court reanimates lawsuit accusing Meta of hiring bias against US citizens
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Software techie says he was snubbed because he wasn’t on an H-1B
Meta is headed for a legal showdown after judges ruled a hiring discrimination case in the US shouldn’t have been dismissed and can go to trial.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/lawsuit_appeals_meta_h_1b/
Leveraging Social Psychology to Overcome Barriers to Climate Action
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
UC Santa Barbara professor David Sherman looks to solve why public views on climate change haven’t translated into bold enough action.
The post Leveraging Social Psychology to Overcome Barriers to Climate Action appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Tourist Carves His Name Into Ancient House in Pompeii
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The man damaged a wall in the House of Ceii, a dwelling celebrated for its beautiful frescoes
Vierra talks plans as Hart district interim head
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
Most people know the phrase, “hit the ground running.” For Michael Vierra, recently appointed as interim superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District, he’s starting off his […]
The post Vierra talks plans as Hart district interim head appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/vierra-talks-plans-as-hart-district-interim-head/
Lilbits: Intel Lunar Lake lineup leaked, Rabbit R1’s security fail, and the FCC could require carriers to unlock smartphones within 60 days, Rabbit R1
date: 2024-06-27, from: Liliputing
The Rabbit R1 has been off to a rough start. When the portable AI device hit the streets in May it was widely panned by reviewers for its limited functionality and unreliable performance. It turns out the company also failed to protect user data: a team of folks who have been working to jailbreak the […]
The post Lilbits: Intel Lunar Lake lineup leaked, Rabbit R1’s security fail, and the FCC could require carriers to unlock smartphones within 60 days, Rabbit R1 appeared first on Liliputing.
Champ, Tiger, Tiger Lily, Rex, and Racer
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Sweet pup and LOTS of kitties need homes!!!
The post Champ, Tiger, Tiger Lily, Rex, and Racer appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/27/champ-tiger-tiger-lily-rex-and-racer/
And the Winner Is … #014634!
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Historic St. Anthony’s property in Santa Barbara has sold for $16.7 million to a purchaser who remains unknown.
The post And the Winner Is … #014634! appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/27/and-the-winner-is-014634/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I love the design of the schedule for this conference.
https://config.figma.com/agenda?lang=en
Supreme Court temporarily allows emergency abortions in Idaho
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
By Matthew Vadum Contributing Writer The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to dismiss Idaho’s appeal against a lower court ruling that granted an exception to its strict abortion law for abortions […]
The post Supreme Court temporarily allows emergency abortions in Idaho appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/supreme-court-temporarily-allows-emergency-abortions-in-idaho/
NASA Awards Contract for Cargo Mission Support
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has awarded a contract to Leidos, Inc. of Reston, Virginia, to provide mission support for the agency’s International Space Station Program, Artemis campaign, and more. The Cargo Mission Contract 4 has a total potential value of $476.5 million, with a base period from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2026, followed by three option […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-contract-for-cargo-mission-support/
Station Nation: Meet Katie Burlingame, ETHOS Flight Controller and Instructor in the Flight Operations Directorate
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Katie Burlingame is an ETHOS (Environmental and Thermal Operating Systems) flight controller and instructor in the Flight Operations Directorate supporting the International Space Station. Burlingame trains astronauts and flight controllers on the International Space Station’s environmental control systems, internal thermal control systems, and emergency response. Burlingame shares about their path to NASA, what Pride Month […]
FCC wants to force telcos to carrier unlock cellphones 60 days after activation
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Should you stay or should you go now? If Rosenworcel gets her way, there won’t be trouble
Long-term carrier lock-in could soon be a thing of the past in America after the FCC proposed requiring telcos to unlock cellphones from their networks 60 days after activation. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/fcc_carrier_unlock_proposal/
Teen Boy Arrested for Allegedly Killing Chickens at Isla Vista Church
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The 14-year-old is suspected of bludgeoning four hens to death at a chicken coop at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church earlier this June.
The post Teen Boy Arrested for Allegedly Killing Chickens at Isla Vista Church appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
NASA Prepares for Air Taxi Passenger Comfort Studies
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
A new custom virtual reality flight simulator built by NASA researchers will allow them to explore how passengers experience air taxi rides and collect data that will help designers create new aircraft with passenger comfort in mind. Wayne Ringelberg, a test pilot at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, recently completed a series […]
News nonprofit sues ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Microsoft for ‘exploitative’ copyright infringement
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — The Center for Investigative Reporting said Thursday it has sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its closest business partner, Microsoft, marking a new front in the news industry’s fight against unauthorized use of its content on artificial intelligence platforms.
The nonprofit, which produces Mother Jones and Reveal, said that OpenAI used its content without permission and without offering compensation, violating copyrights on the organization’s journalism. The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court, describes OpenAI’s business as “built on the exploitation of copyrighted works” and focuses on how AI-generated summaries of articles threaten publishers.
“It’s immensely dangerous,” Monika Bauerlein, the nonprofit’s CEO, told The Associated Press. “Our existence relies on users finding our work valuable and deciding to support it.”
Bauerlein said that “when people can no longer develop that relationship with our work, when they no longer encounter Mother Jones or Reveal, then their relationship is with the AI tool.”
That, she said, could “cut the entire foundation of our existence as an independent newsroom out from under us” while also threatening the future of other news organizations.
OpenAI and Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The lawsuit is the latest against OpenAI and Microsoft to land at Manhattan’s federal court, where the companies are already battling a series of other copyright lawsuits from The New York Times, other media outlets and bestselling authors such as John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and George R.R. Martin. The companies also face a separate case in San Francisco’s federal court brought by authors including comedian Sarah Silverman.
Some news organizations have chosen to collaborate rather than fight with OpenAI by signing deals to get compensated for sharing news content that can be used to train its AI systems. The latest to do so is Time magazine, which announced Thursday that OpenAI will get access to its “extensive archives from the last 101 years.”
OpenAI and other major AI developers don’t typically disclose their data sources but have argued that taking troves of publicly accessible online text, images and other media to train their AI systems is protected by the “fair use” doctrine of American copyright law.
CIR’s lawsuit says a dataset that OpenAI has acknowledged using to build an earlier version of its chatbot technology contained thousands of links to the website of Mother Jones, a 48-year-old print magazine that’s been publishing online since 1993. But the text used for AI training was usually missing information about a story’s author, title or copyright notice.
Last summer, more than 4,000 writers signed a letter to the CEOs of OpenAI and other tech companies accusing them of exploitative practices in building chatbots.
“It’s not a free resource for these AI companies to ingest and make money on,” Bauerlein said of news media. “They pay for office space. They pay for electricity. They pay salaries for their workers. Why would the content that they ingest be the only thing that they don’t [pay for]?”
The AP is among the news organizations that have made licensing deals over the past year with OpenAI; others include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post publisher News Corp., The Atlantic, Axel Springer in Germany and Prisa Media in Spain, France’s Le Monde newspaper and the London-based Financial Times.
Mother Jones and CIR were both founded in the 1970s and merged earlier this year. Both are based in San Francisco, as is OpenAI.
The lawsuit from CIR, also known for its Reveal podcast and radio show, outlines the expense of producing investigative journalism and warns that losing control of copyrighted content will result in less revenue and even fewer reporters to tell important stories in “today’s paltry media landscape.”
“With fewer investigative news stories told, the cost to democracy will be enormous,” the lawsuit says.
Meta must face lawsuit claiming it prefers foreign workers over US citizens
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
HIGOLE F9B is an Intel N100 mini PC with options for a 7 inch touchscreen, battery, and 4G LTE
date: 2024-06-27, from: Liliputing
The HIGOLE F9B is an odd little computer that’s positioned a mini PC with a low-power Intel N100 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a decent set of ports that includes two 2.5 GbE Ethernet ports and support for up to two external displays. But while the entry-level model is clearly a small fanless desktop computer with a […]
The post HIGOLE F9B is an Intel N100 mini PC with options for a 7 inch touchscreen, battery, and 4G LTE appeared first on Liliputing.
Celebrating Our Heroes and Open Spaces
date: 2024-06-27, from: City of Santa Clarita
By Councilmember Laurene Weste “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.” This quote by John Muir in his book “The Yosemite” perfectly articulates the importance of our environment and its profound impact on our well-being. […]
The post Celebrating Our Heroes and Open Spaces appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/06/27/celebrating-our-heroes-and-open-spaces/
‘One Less Car’ Uber bets a grand you’ll ditch your wheels
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Taxi app wants to prove it itself is cheaper, greener than owning a motor
Comment Uber is launching a month-long trial dubbed the “One Less Car” challenge to demonstrate people are better off using its app-hailed rides rather than each owning a personal vehicle.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/uber_one_less_car/
Fixing KWin’s performance on old hardware
date: 2024-06-27, from: OS News
KWin had a very long standing bug report about bad performance of the Wayland session on older Intel integrated graphics. There have been many investigations into what’s causing this, with a lot of more specific performance issues being found and fixed, but none of them managed to fully fix the issue… until now. ↫ Xaver Hugl An excellent deep dive into a very annoying problem KWin on Wayland running on older Intel hardware was facing. It turns out the issue was related to display timings, and older Intel hardware simply not being powerful enough to render frames within the timing window. The solution consisted of a various smaller solutions, and one bigger one: triple-buffering. The end result is a massive performance improvement for KWin on Wayland on older Intel hardware. This detailed post underlines just how difficult it is to simply render a bunch of windows and UI elements on time, without stutters or tearing, while taking into account the wide variety of hardware a project like KDE Plasma intends to run on. It’s great to see them paying attention to the older, less powerful systems too, instead of only focusing on the latest and greatest like Apple, and recently Microsoft as well, do.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140076/fixing-kwins-performance-on-old-hardware/
‘Frog Saunas’ May Be the Key to Saving Amphibians From a Deadly Fungal Infection
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Providing frogs with sun-warmed bricks inside mini-greenhouses can help them recover from chytrid and make them more resilient against the disease in the future, a new study finds
Chinese maritime aggression seen as test of US-Philippine alliance
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
manila, Philippines — Analysts see China’s increasingly aggressive attacks on Philippine vessels in the South China Sea as a test of the U.S.-Philippines alliance. What happens next, they say, will depend largely on how Manila and Washington respond.
Dramatic footage released last week by the Philippine military showed Chinese coast guard personnel wielding knives, an ax and other weapons as they intercepted Philippine soldiers who were in rubber boats delivering supplies to a garrison at Second Thomas Shoal.
The June 17 clash was the worst so far in the escalating tension in the disputed waters, with several Philippine soldiers injured, including one who lost a thumb, according to Manila.
But while the Philippines tried to de-escalate the tension with diplomacy, analysts say future such incidents are likely.
“China will seek to push the Philippines further,” said Don McLain Gill, an international studies lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.
“The main challenge here is to apply considerable cost on China in order for it not to illustrate this sort of behavior and turn it into something regular, like the same way it had regularized water canonning and ramming [of Philippine vessels],” he told VOA.
There have been several incidents in the past months in which Chinese coast guard ships blasted Philippine patrol boats with water cannons and performed dangerous maneuvers in attempts to stop resupply missions to Philippine troops stationed at the shoal.
The flash point of the conflict is the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated warship that Manila deliberately ran aground in 1999 to stake its claim to Second Thomas Shoal, a maritime feature in the Spratly Islands that is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, including the Spratly chain, based on historical maps that an international tribunal has ruled have no legal basis.
Parallel strand of negotiation
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his first media interview since the incident, acknowledged Thursday that more must be done than to just file diplomatic protests against China.
“We have [lodged] more than 100 protests already. … [What usually happens is] we summon the ambassador, we tell him our position, that we don’t want what happened, and that’s it. But we have to do more than that, so we are. We are doing more than just that,” Marcos told reporters Thursday, without elaborating.
But Collin Koh, a fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said there must also be a “parallel strand of negotiation and dialogue” between China and the United States to de-escalate the tension.
The United States is a treaty ally of the Philippines and is obligated to defend Manila against external armed attack, including in areas in the South China Sea.
Given the high stakes for all three countries, Koh said, China might listen to another superpower.
“I think in large part it will depend very greatly on U.S. signaling explicitly to China on things that it should refrain from doing, and it must come with a very explicit threat of repercussions or consequences,” Koh told VOA.
“If the messaging isn’t done clearly, then we are going to see a repetition of what’s happening,” he added.
Mutual defense treaty
Marcos has ruled out invoking the mutual defense treaty over the latest incident, saying it could not be considered an “armed attack.”
Marcos had earlier said he wanted a review of the treaty, which was signed in 1951, to respond to the changing security challenges in the region.
The recent escalation might provide urgency for Washington and Manila “to expedite the process of defining particular provisions and enhancing consultations,” according to Gill of De La Salle University.
One such clarification was provided earlier this year by Marcos, who said the death of a Philippine serviceman in “an attack or an aggressive action by another foreign power” could trigger the treaty.
This specific requirement, however, might work in China’s favor.
“If you set the bar so high, then it means that you are allowing China to keep doing whatever it is doing just under that threshold,” Koh said, although he agreed that it was not yet necessary to activate the treaty.
“Nobody died and there were no other serious injuries other than the poor guy who lost his thumb. The question is: Are we going to be lucky in the future like that?” Koh asked.
Canada’s 2023 fires spewed more heat-trapping gas than millions of cars
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Catastrophic Canadian wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than the U.S. state of West Virginia, new research finds.
Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts were of the monthslong fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figured it put 2.98 billion metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to a study update published in Thursday’s Global Change Biology. The update is not peer-reviewed, but the original study was.
The fire spewed nearly four times the carbon emissions as airplanes do in a year, study authors said. It’s about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647 million cars put in the air in a year, based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.
Forests “remove a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and that gets stored in their branches, their trunks, their leaves and kind of in the ground as well. So, when they burn all the carbon that’s stored within them, [it] gets released back into the atmosphere,” said the study’s lead author, James MacCarthy, a research associate with WRI’s Global Forest Watch.
When and if trees grow back, much of that can be recovered, MacCarthy said, adding, “It definitely does have an impact on the global scale in terms of the amount of emissions that were produced in 2023.”
MacCarthy and colleagues calculated that the forest burned totaled 77,574 square kilometers (29,951 square miles), which is six times more than the average from 2001 to 2022. The wildfires in Canada made up 27% of global tree cover loss last year; usually it’s closer to 6%, MacCarthy’s figures show.
These are far more than regular forest fires, but researchers focused only on tree cover loss, which is a bigger effect, said study co-author Alexandra Tyukavina, a geography professor at the University of Maryland.
Syracuse University geography and environment professor Jacob Bendix, who wasn’t part of the study, said, “The loss of that much forest is a very big deal, and very worrisome.
“Although the forest will eventually grow back and sequester carbon in doing so, that is a process that will take decades at a minimum, so that there is a quite substantial lag between addition of atmospheric carbon due to wildfire and the eventual removal of at least some of it by the regrowing forest,” he said.
“So, over the course of those decades, the net impact of the fires is a contribution to climate warming.”
It’s more than just adding to heat-trapping gases and losing forests; there were health consequences as well, Tyukavina said.
“Because of these catastrophic fires, air quality in populated areas and cities was affected last year,” she said, mentioning New York City’s smog-choked summer. More than 200 communities with about 232,000 residents had to be evacuated, according to another not-yet-published or peer-reviewed study by Canadian forest and fire experts.
One of the authors of the Canadian study, fire expert Mike Flannigan at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, puts the acreage burned at twice what MacCarthy and Tyukavina do.
“The 2023 fire season in Canada was [an] exceptional year in any time period,” Flannigan, who wasn’t part of the WRI study, said in an email. “I expect more fire in our future, but years like 2023 will be rare.”
Flannigan, Bendix, Tyukavina and MacCarthy all said climate change played a role in Canada’s big burn. A warmer world means a longer fire season, more lightning-caused fires and especially drier wood and brush to catch fire “associated with increased temperature,” Flannigan wrote.
The average May-to-October temperature in Canada last year was almost 2.2 degrees Celsius warmer than normal, his study found. Some parts of Canada were 8 to 10 degrees Celsius hotter than average in May and June, MaCarthy said.
There’s short-term variability within trends, so it’s hard to blame one specific year and area on climate change, and geographic factors play a role, Bendix said in an email, but still, “there is no doubt that climate change is the principal driver of the global increases in wildfire.”
With the world warming from climate change, Tyukavina said, “The catastrophic years are probably going to be happening more often, and we are going to see those spikier years more often.”
Five Reasons Why Putin Is Reshuffling His Government
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: RAND blog
Fresh off his reelection, Vladimir Putin has shuffled some senior officials in his government to bolster his rule in the years ahead. What is Putin trying to accomplish with these moves? How will they affect Russia’s future?
Kaiser Permanente Appoints New Senior VP, Area Manager
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Kaiser Permanente is proud to announce the appointment of Camille Applin-Jones as the new Senior Vice President and Area Manager for the Panorama City and Antelope Valley service areas, which includes the Santa Clarita Valley
https://scvnews.com/kaiser-permanente-appoints-new-senior-vp-area-manager/
Cambodian rapper makes US debut as music festival headliner
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Cambodian rapper VannDa was featured at a California festival of Asian music and culture called Sabaidee Fest. VOA’s Malis Tum and Chetra Chap report on this young rapper who’s shining a spotlight on Cambodian music, culture and history. Chetra Chap narrates.
https://www.voanews.com/a/cambodian-rapper-makes-us-debut-as-music-festival-headliner/7676184.html
July 4th cookout cost reaches ‘record high’ due to inflation, Farm Bureau says
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
By Jack Phillips Contributing Writer The average cost for a Fourth of July cookout has increased in 2024 to a “record high,” in part due to higher inflation, according to a […]
The post July 4th cookout cost reaches ‘record high’ due to inflation, Farm Bureau says appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Washington folklife festival honors Indigenous culture, communities
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Historic Washington garden gets eco-friendly makeover
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
In Washington, the garden of former President Woodrow Wilson’s historic home is being reimagined to accommodate a changing climate. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports. Camera: Adam Greenbaum.
https://www.voanews.com/a/historic-washington-garden-gets-eco-friendly-makeover-/7676179.html
Another chance at life
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
West Ranch cross country team runs with the dogs of the Castaic shelter to promote adoption Karen Cirricione, co-head coach for the West Ranch Girls cross country team, may have […]
The post Another chance at life appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/another-chance-at-life/
US denies Zimbabwe’s claims it is militarizing Zambia
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The head of U.S. Africa Command denied Thursday claims by Zimbabwean government officials that Washington is setting up a military base in neighboring Zambia and wants to move AFRICOM operations there from Germany.
At an online press briefing, General Michael Langley, head of AFRICOM, rejected Zimbabwe’s claims that the United States is establishing a base in neighboring Zambia.
“That’s absolutely false,” Langley said from an African Chiefs of Defense Conference in Botswana. “We have no bases in Zambia. We have no plans to put one there.”
He said the U.S.’s approach on the continent is “African-led and U.S.-enabled.”
“We have a deep partnership with Zambia,” he said. “We have increased security cooperation with them. But there is no footprint. There’s no posture. There’s no base.”
Zimbabwean officials declined to comment to VOA about Langley’s remarks. But Rutendo Matinyarare, chairperson of the pro-government Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, alleged that Langley held a briefing in Lusaka and that the U.S. was setting up the AFRICOM hub in Zambia.
Matinyarare claimed that several businesspeople who have flown into the country have seen a substantial amount of American military equipment at Zambia’s airport.
“And so, the question is, ‘What are these weapons doing in Zambia?’” he said.
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema denies that his country is being militarized by the U.S. He says Zambia’s army has exchange programs with a number of countries, including the U.S., which should not be mistaken for the U.S. establishing a base.
Zambia says it has called on two regional bodies — the African Union and the Southern African Development Community — to mediate talks with Zimbabwe. Zambia and Zimbabwe are members of both organizations.
Zambian officials have also said the fallout stems from comments that Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa made during a recent trip to Russia — namely, the accusation that the U.S. has been militarizing Zambia to consolidate power in the region and isolate Zimbabwe.
Western countries imposed travel and financial sanctions on Zimbabwe’s leadership and affiliated companies in the early 2000s for alleged election rigging and human rights abuses. The U.S. recently removed sanctions on most Zimbabweans, but a few prominent figures — including Mnangagwa — remain on the list.
Meanwhile, Langley told reporters that top regional security challenges throughout Africa were discussed at the just-ended defense conference.
“Our African partners want this conference here because they want to own it. But we are AFRICOM, and the U.S. government is here because we have common values, common objectives, that will affect stability, security and prosperity on the continent,” he said.
This year’s conference provided a “valuable wealth of information” and lessons ahead of talks next year, Langley said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-denies-zimbabwe-claims-it-is-militarizing-zambia/7676189.html
A Jewish Soldier Found in a German Mass Grave Has Been Reburied in an American Cemetery
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Nathan Baskind received a Jewish burial exactly 80 years after his death in World War II
Innovative Coronary Disease Device Comes to Henry Mayo
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital recently became one of the first hospitals in Los Angeles County to treat patients with the “AGENT Drug-Coated Balloon (DCB),” a device that is used to treat patients with coronary artery disease who are experiencing in-stent restenosis (the narrowing of a previously stented coronary vessel caused by plaque or scar tissue)
https://scvnews.com/innovative-coronary-disease-device-comes-to-henry-mayo/
Engineers risk blasting US missile defense to smithereens, say auditors
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now the 2028 deadline is at risk
Engineers at the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) continue to ignore concerns about their next-generation missile interceptors, leaving serious technical shortcomings on the table and threatening the program’s 2028 deadline.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/missile_defense_agency_audit/
Daily Deals (6-27-2024)
date: 2024-06-27, from: Liliputing
The Steam Summer Sale is live with discounts up to 90% on select titles in the Steam game store. And as has become the norm over the past few years, other game stores including GOG and the Humble Store have launched their own game sales to coincide with Steam’s sale. Meanwhile Amazon is giving away […]
The post Daily Deals (6-27-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-6-27-2024/
Will This Be the Hottest Presidential Debate Ever?
date: 2024-06-27, from: Heatmap News
In spite of a deadly heat wave that has seen temperatures touch 100 degrees Fahrenheit and a first-ever summer date, today’s presidential debate in Atlanta won’t even come close to being the hottest ever. Temperatures will reach 84 degrees this afternoon and are forecasted to settle around 80 degrees by the time the debate begins at 9 p.m. Eastern.
This is the first presidential debate not to be held in September or October, when most American cities have started to cool down. And of the cities that have hosted debates, just four are further south Atlanta. Yet this is just the eighth-hottest debate in history.
The story would’ve been different if the debate had been held in any of the past six days. Thermometers in Atlanta have hit 93 degrees all week — which would’ve made this debate the hottest ever.
Even more remarkably, there have been three previous debates on days when temperatures surpassed 90 degrees.
The high of 92 degrees the day of the third presidential debate in 2004 between then-President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry was ordinary for a mid-October day in Tempe, Arizona, where the debate was held. There, temperatures regularly reach into the 90s late into the month.
But the September 21, 1980 presidential debate in Baltimore between insurgent Republican nominee Ronald Reagan and Independent John B. Anderson (Democrat Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, declined the invitation) saw temperatures soar about 14 degrees higher than average, reaching 90 degrees. And in San Francisco on October 6, 1976, the thermometer also hit 90 degrees — more than 20 degrees above the average for the city at that time of year.
On average, debate-day high temperatures have been trending higher in recent years. But in truth, there aren’t many conclusions to be drawn from that metric. Temperatures can vary widely from day to day, and this will be only the 36th general-election presidential debate since then-candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon faced off for the first time on national television in 1960. That doesn’t give us a huge data set to work with.
Of the four cities that have hosted 90 degree debates, temperature
variability is especially pronounced in Baltimore, where at least 23
days out of the past year have been 10 degrees hotter or cooler than the
day before. The figure is lower but still pronounced for Atlanta, San
Francisco, and Tempe, underscoring the difficulty of drawing reliable
conclusions on the trajectory of debate-day forecasts.
Plus, every debate has been held in the evening, after heat has subsided for the day. On that scorching day in San Francisco, for instance, temperatures had fallen to the 70s by the time Carter and then-President Gerald Ford were making their opening statements.
But even if presidential debates go back to their usual early autumn time slot, we might still see a rise in debate temperatures as the seasons themselves change. One 2021 study found that climate change had increased the length of summer by 17 days from 1952 to 2011, while spring, autumn, and winter all lost days. By 2100, summer could last up to half the year, the study found.
https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-biden-debate-heat
Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
“My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. “I am afraid that I won’t be able to return after I go back [to China].”
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
“We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I’ve seen in quite a while,” he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
“I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants.”
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China’s ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
“Beijing’s intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People’s Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they’ve learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades.”
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
“I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures.”
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said “99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality” and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of ‘national security,’ unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students’ willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it’s still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers,” he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
“In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
‘Constellations’ playing this weekend at The Main
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
News release “Constellations,” described as a love story about an unlikely romance, is playing this weekend at The Main in Old Town Newhall. “Constellations” is a play by Nick Payne […]
The post ‘Constellations’ playing this weekend at The Main appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/constellations-playing-this-weekend-at-the-main/
Americans abroad cut off as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile US suffer roaming outages
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Why all three at once? Blame Syniverse – everyone else is
AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile US are today experiencing international roaming outages, leaving at least some American subscribers unable to use their phones as they expect while overseas.…
NASA Kennedy Team Recognized During White House Sustainability Awards
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
A team of seven NASA Kennedy employees was recognized by the White House for charging ahead with the expansion of the agency’s sustainable electric vehicle (EV) fleet at Kennedy Space Center. They did so at minimal cost to taxpayers while also offering zero emission EV charging for any workers and visitors willing to pay out […]
FERC Says Yes to the LNG Terminal
date: 2024-06-27, from: Heatmap News
The Department of Energy may not be ready to say yes to more liquified natural gas export projects, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is. In a meeting on Thursday, FERC approved plans for a massive LNG terminal project in Louisiana by a 2-1 vote, with Allison Clements, an outgoing Democratic commissioner, as the lone dissenter.
The Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, project would install some 20 million metric tons of export capacity in a hurricane-battered coastal Louisiana community near the Texas border. You may have heard of it if you followed the drama in January around the Biden administration’s decision to pause approving new LNG export terminals, which will allow the DOE to reexamine how it assesses whether new energy projects are in the “public interest.” Republicans haven’t stopped talking about it since, arguing that the pause chokes off a major American export and that it both was tantamount to a fossil fuel ban and that it undermined the administration’s climate goals. Democrats — especially those running for reelection in swing states — have been lukewarm.
CP2 has enjoyed bipartisan political support within Louisiana but became a target for national and local environmental groups who want the Biden administration to do more to prevent the development of new fossil fuel resources. These groups argued that CP2 would both “lock in” substantial greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction and transport of natural gas (one former Environmental Protection Agency official called it a “carbon mega bomb”) and have deleterious environmental effects on an area that’s already heavily industrialized.
“Venture Global is a bad actor in the energy space and FERC is enabling them to start another disastrous project that puts polluters over people,” the Sierra Club’s Cathy Collentine said in a statement. “CP2 is an environmental justice, climate, and economic disaster waiting to happen, and with this decision, FERC has ignored the harm that will be caused by CP2 — and gas exports more broadly — and sided with the greedy fossil fuel industry.”
FERC evaluated CP2’s environmental impacts last year and concluded that they would be “less than significant,” but that the “visual resources” of the area would see “significant adverse effect” — in other words, it would be an ugly and permanent addition to the landscape.
But final approval has been delayed for months, much to the annoyance of the industry. FERC released its final environmental impact statement in July of last year, making the wait for approval one of “the longest to sit before the commission,” according to Bloomberg. The climate effect of LNG exports is a matter of some debate, with some researchers arguing that if LNG is replacing fuels with higher associated emissions, it can lead to lower overall global emissions over time.
LNG projects exist in a kind of regulatory Venn diagram. While FERC has jurisdiction over natural gas pipelines, natural gas exports to countries that don’t have free trade agreements with the U.S. — which make up the bulk of the natural gas market — requires DOE approval, and that’s still in limbo. “No major LNG terminal has ever reached a final investment decision or started construction without this critical export authorization,” the Sierra Club noted in its statement.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/ferc-cp2-lng-pause
Langley Celebrates Pride Month: Derek Bramble
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Derek Bramble has served in a variety of mission and program support roles over his 14-year career at NASA Langley. He currently serves as an HR Business Partner in LaRC’s Human Capital Office, where he works closely with a number of organizations across the Center providing them with strategic and operational HR support. Derek previously […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/langley-celebrates-pride-month-derek-bramble/
Researchers Make a Smiling Robotic Face From Living Skin
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The team designed a new way for their lab-grown skin to adhere to the robot’s face, in a creation that could help produce soft robots or train plastic surgeons
Boeing sanctioned over release of 737 MAX investigation details
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON/SEATTLE — U.S. investigators on Thursday sanctioned Boeing for revealing details of a probe into a 737 MAX mid-air blowout and said they would refer its conduct to the Justice Department, prompting the embattled planemaker to issue an apology.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Boeing had “blatantly violated” its rules by providing “non-public investigative information” and speculating about possible causes of the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines ALK.N door-plug emergency during a factory tour attended by dozens of journalists.
The decision sheds new light on strains between the crisis-hit planemaker and government agencies at a time when it is trying to avoid criminal charges being weighed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) ahead of a July 7 deadline.
“As a party to many NTSB investigations over the past decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing,” the NTSB said.
The NTSB said Boeing would keep its status as a party to the investigation into the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines emergency but would no longer see information produced during its probe into the accident, which involved the mid-air blowout of a door plug with four missing bolts.
Unlike other parties, Boeing will now not be allowed to ask questions of other participants at a hearing on August 6-7.
“We deeply regret that some of our comments, intended to make clear our responsibility in the accident and explain the actions we are taking, overstepped the NTSB’s role as the source of investigative information,” Boeing said in a statement.
The NTSB’s criticism revolves around comments made during a media briefing about quality improvements on Tuesday at the 737 factory near Seattle - widely seen as part of an exercise to showcase greater transparency ahead of the Farnborough Airshow.
During the briefing, which was held on Tuesday under an embargo allowing contents to be published on Thursday, an executive said the plug had been opened on the assembly line without the correct paperwork to fix a quality issue with surrounding rivets, and that missing bolts were not replaced.
The team that came in and closed the plug was not responsible for reinstalling the bolts, Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, added.
The NTSB said that by providing investigative information and giving an analysis of information already released, Boeing had contravened its agreement with the agency.
“Boeing offered opinions and analysis on factors it suggested were causal to the accident,” it added.
In May, the DOJ said Boeing had violated a 2021 settlement with prosecutors that shielded it from criminal charges over interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration prior to MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
U.S. prosecutors have recommended criminal charges be brought, Reuters reported on Sunday. The DOJ already has a separate criminal probe into the door-plug episode.
Thursday’s rare exchange marks the latest sign of strains between Boeing and the NTSB.
In 2018, Boeing was widely criticized for issuing a statement appearing to question the performance of pilots in the first of two fatal crashes that led to a grounding of the MAX. Later investigations emphasized the role of flawed software.
In March this year, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told a U.S. Senate hearing Boeing had failed to provide names of employees on its 737 MAX door team for two months, drawing criticism from lawmakers. Boeing then quickly provided the names.
On Thursday, the NTSB said Boeing had portrayed its investigation of the Alaska air incident to media as a search to locate the individual responsible for plug work.
“The NTSB is instead focused on the probable cause of the accident, not placing blame on any individual or assessing liability,” the agency said.
Asked during Tuesday’s briefing who had failed to fill in documentation, Lund said: “There may have been one or more than one employee. What I will say is the ‘who’ is absolutely in the responsibility of the NTSB. That investigation is still going on and I am going to not comment on that right now”.
The role of individuals is a particularly sensitive topic in air safety amid an increasing focus on litigation and, in some countries, a trend towards criminalizing air accidents.
Under global rules, agencies carry out civil probes into air accidents for the sole purpose of finding the cause and making recommendations to improve safety in future. Such actions are separate from any judicial probes seeking to attribute blame.
Aviation experts say an 80-year-old international treaty that encourages people to speak freely and focus on causes rather than blame allowed the industry to cut the number of accidents dramatically since the start of the jet age, but depends on curbing any special pleading by the parties involved.
Critics, including some lawyers, say this system does not sufficiently take account of the need of the families of victims for detailed answers.
In 2013, the NTSB barred United Parcel ServiceUPS.N and its pilots union from an investigation of a crash in Alabama that killed two UPS pilots.
In 2018, it removed Tesla as a party to an investigation into a fatal crash involving a vehicle’s “Autopilot” system. Tesla hit back publicly, saying it had already decided to withdraw and accusing the NTSB of violating its own rules.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump's "absolute immunity" argument won't be decided until after the debate.
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/trump-immunity-decision-debate-scotus
Mapping the Red Planet with the Power of Open Science
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Mars rovers can only make exciting new discoveries thanks to human scientists making careful decisions about their next stop. The Mars 2020 mission is aimed at exploring the geology of Jezero Crater and seeking signs of ancient microbial life on Mars using the Perseverance rover. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California […]
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/mars-mapping-open-source/
Sept 21: JCI Hosting Veterans Resource Fair
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
JCI is proud to announce the upcoming Veterans Resource Fair, scheduled to take place Sept. 21, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at William S. Hart Park
https://scvnews.com/sept-21-jci-hosting-veterans-resource-fair/
Nokia to sell submarine network business to France in $375M deal
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Comms giant to dump undersea internet cable unit by early 2025
Nokia is planning to sell off its undersea internet cable business unit to France.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/nokia_submarine_network_france/
NASA Parachute Sensor Testing Could Make EPIC Mars Landings
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Landing rovers and helicopters on Mars is a challenge. It’s an even bigger challenge when you don’t have enough information about how the parachutes are enduring strain during the descent to the surface. Researchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, are experimenting with readily available, highly elastic sensors that can be fixed […]
Discoveries from Disasters: A Conversation with Oceanographer David Valentine
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The UC Santa Barbara professor who discovered a massive DDT dumping ground off the coast of Los Angeles provides a glimpse of his life behind the headlines, discussing his research, policy work, and professional trajectory.
The post Discoveries from Disasters: A Conversation with Oceanographer David Valentine appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Hubble Captures Infant Stars Transforming a Nebula
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust. Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. Nebulae are areas rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-captures-infant-stars-transforming-a-nebula/
Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #143 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
The problem is that this code compiles without any warnings and gives the impression that the code is working. But when executed we will receive an error.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/143#note_192621
NASA Celebrates 10 Years of Human Spaceflight’s NExT Pioneers
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Experienced spacewalkers, university students, flight controllers, and NASA team members at all stages of their career recently came together at Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) for an anniversary celebration that looked to the future as much as the past. The Office of STEM Engagement’s Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) marked […]
The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) Announces Appointment of Next Executive Director
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, CA (June 25, 2024) – Following a comprehensive statewide search, the CADA Board of Directors announced their unanimous
The post The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) Announces Appointment of Next Executive Director appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Santa Barbara’s Prime Time Band To Perform at FREE 4th of July Concert
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara, CA, June 25, 2024 – Santa Barbara’s Prime Time Band will perform at Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation’s free outdoor Independence
The post Santa Barbara’s Prime Time Band To Perform at FREE 4th of July Concert appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
First SBHS Interpretation/ Translation Pathway Class Graduates
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
One of the newest pathway programs at Santa Barbara Unified is celebrating its first graduating class. The Interpretation/ Translation program
The post First SBHS Interpretation/ Translation Pathway Class Graduates appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Supreme Court rejects US opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would have shielded members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids but also would have provided billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic.
After deliberating more than six months, the justices in a 5-4 vote blocked an agreement hammered out with state and local governments and victims. The Sacklers would have contributed up to $6 billion and given up ownership of the company but retained billions more. The agreement provided that the company would emerge from bankruptcy as a different entity, with its profits used for treatment and prevention.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said “nothing in present law authorizes the Sackler discharge.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“Opioid victims and other future victims of mass torts will suffer greatly in the wake of today’s unfortunate and destabilizing decision,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The high court had put the settlement on hold last summer, in response to objections from the Biden administration.
It’s unclear what happens next.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling marks a major setback for the families who lost loved ones to overdose and for those still struggling with addiction,” Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said in a statement.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750 million for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives. As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.”
An opponent of the settlement praised the outcome.
Ed Bisch’s 18-year-old son Eddie, died from an overdose after taking OxyContin in Philadelphia in 2001.
The older Bisch, who lives in New Jersey, has been speaking out against Purdue and Sackler family members ever since and is part of a relatively small but vocal group of victims and family members who opposed the settlement.
“This is a step toward justice. It was outrageous what they were trying to get away with,” he said Thursday. “They have made a mockery of the justice system and then they tried to make a mockery of the bankruptcy system.”
He said he would have accepted the deal if he thought it would have made a dent in the opioid crisis.
He’s now calling on the Department of Justice to seek criminal charges against Sackler family members
Arguments in early December lasted nearly two hours in a packed courtroom as the justices seemed, by turns, unwilling to disrupt a carefully negotiated settlement and reluctant to reward the Sacklers.
The issue for the justices was whether the legal shield that bankruptcy provides can be extended to people such as the Sacklers, who have not declared bankruptcy themselves. Lower courts had issued conflicting decisions over that issue, which also has implications for other major product liability lawsuits settled through the bankruptcy system.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department, argued that the bankruptcy law does not permit protecting the Sackler family from being sued. During the Trump administration, the government supported the settlement.
The Biden administration had argued to the court that negotiations could resume, and perhaps lead to a better deal, if the court were to stop the current agreement.
Proponents of the plan said third-party releases are sometimes necessary to forge an agreement, and federal law imposes no prohibition against them.
OxyContin first hit the market in 1996, and Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of it is often cited as a catalyst of the nationwide opioid epidemic, with doctors persuaded to prescribe painkillers with less regard for addiction dangers.
The drug and the Stamford, Connecticut-based company became synonymous with the crisis, even though the majority of pills being prescribed and used were generic drugs. Opioid-related overdose deaths have continued to climb, hitting 80,000 in recent years. Most of those are from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.
The Purdue Pharma settlement would have ranked among the largest reached by drug companies, wholesalers and pharmacies to resolve epidemic-related lawsuits filed by state, local and Native American tribal governments and others. Those settlements have totaled more than $50 billion.
But the Purdue Pharma settlement would have been only the second so far to include direct payments to victims from a $750 million pool. Payouts would have ranged from about $3,500 to $48,000.
Sackler family members no longer are on the company’s board, and they have not received payouts from it since before Purdue Pharma entered bankruptcy. In the decade before that, though, they were paid more than $10 billion, about half of which family members said went to pay taxes.
https://www.voanews.com/a/supreme-court-rejects-us-opioid-settlement-with-purdue-pharma/7675956.html
Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #144 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
It seems to me that this particular problem can be solved if the compiler marks the formal parameter, which is (possibly) returned by reference, and checks the actual parameter when calling the procedure. This will not solve all problems with returning by reference, but it will eliminate a significant number of errors.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/144#note_192620
Microsoft is bringing Xbox cloud game streaming to the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Max
date: 2024-06-27, from: Liliputing
Microsoft and Amazon have announced plans to bring Xbox cloud gaming to the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2023) and Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2023). Starting in July you’ll be able to install an Xbox app on either of those devices and if you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership you’ll be able […]
The post Microsoft is bringing Xbox cloud game streaming to the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and 4K Max appeared first on Liliputing.
Paramount Concerns
date: 2024-06-27, from: Tedium feed
In an immediate austerity measure after a failed merger, Paramount kills a ton of online content—an ironic move for a brand that has long exploited nostalgia.
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16727401/paramount-online-content-erasure
COC Fall 2024 Registration Continues
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The College of the Canyons fall 2024 semester will offer more than 1,780 sections of high demand “core” classes in a wide range of academic subjects and disciplines, as well as various noncredit offerings.
https://scvnews.com/coc-fall-2024-registration-continues/
AI query optimization in IBM’s Db2 shows you can teach a tech dinosaur new tricks
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The database Big Blue doesn’t like to talk about gets makeover in November
IBM likes to be secretive about Db2, the 41-year-old database still used by some of the world’s largest banks and retailers, but occasionally something leaks out.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/ibm_ai_optimization_db2/
Article Spotlight: Structured peer review: pilot results from 23 Elsevier journals
date: 2024-06-27, from: PeerJ blog
Lawsuit Claims Microsoft Tracked Sex Toy Shoppers With ‘Recording in Real Time’ Software
date: 2024-06-27, from: 404 Media Group
The complaint claims that Babeland and Good Vibrations websites uses Microsoft’s Clarity tracking software to see what visitors searched for and bought.
Two Massive Asteroids Will Fly Past Earth This Week. Here’s What to Know
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Within 42 hours of each other, the pair of large asteroids, which both have no chance of impacting our planet, will approach Earth as they orbit the sun
Snapshots for IPC Fuzzing
date: 2024-06-27, from: Mozilla Developer Network blog
Process separation remains one of the most important parts of the Firefox security model and securing our IPC (Inter-Process Communication) interfaces is crucial to keep privileges in the different processes separated. We take a more detailed look at our newest tool for finding vulnerabilities in these interfaces – snapshot fuzzing.
The post Snapshots for IPC Fuzzing appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2024/06/snapshots-for-ipc-fuzzing/
Postcard from Aldeburgh
date: 2024-06-27, from: Logic Matters blog
A few days away, staying in a familiar cottage near Aldeburgh, less than two hours from home. And the best weather we have ever had here. Usually, at least in our memory, it is windswept and intermittent rain: this time, warm sun and welcome breezes. So, favourite walks, and favourite places to eat. Very relaxing. […]
The post Postcard from Aldeburgh appeared first on Logic Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/06/27/postcard-from-aldeburgh/
Around the World in 175 Days, 1924: Department of State Contributions to the U.S. Army Flight Around the World: Part VI: Calcutta, India
date: 2024-06-27, from: National Archives, Text Message blog
This is the sixth in a series of occasional blog posts. When we last left the Army Around the World Flight, the planes were departing Amoy, China on June 8 heading for Hong Kong. From Hong Kong they flew on, making official stops at Haiphong, Tourane, Saigon, Bangkok, Rangoon, Akyab, and Chittagong before arriving in … Continue reading Around the World in 175 Days, 1924: Department of State Contributions to the U.S. Army Flight Around the World: Part VI: Calcutta, India
OnePlus Pad Pro 12.1 inch tablet with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 launches in China
date: 2024-06-27, from: Liliputing
Smartphone maker OnePlus launched its first Android tablet in 2023 and then expanded the lineup earlier this year with a new cheaper model. Now the company is filling out the OnePlus Pad family with a new OnePlus Pad Pro model that’s up for pre-order in China ahead of a July 3rd launch in that country. […]
The post OnePlus Pad Pro 12.1 inch tablet with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 launches in China appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/oneplus-pad-pro-12-1-inch-tablet-with-snapdragon-8-gen-3-launches-in-china/
California Legislature gets nearly $300 billion budget done
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The LAist
Democrats, including Senate leader Mike McGuire of Santa Rosa, defended the budget process and the deal, saying the Legislature held more than a hundred public hearings.
https://laist.com/news/politics/california-legislature-gets-nearly-300-billion-budget-done
Perseverance pays off as Mars rover’s SHERLOC brought back from the brink
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Bot’s arm used to free instrument’s dust cover and return to science
NASA engineers have performed another remarkable feat of remote debugging and restored the SHERLOC instrument of the Perseverance Mars rover to operation.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/perseverance_sherloc_operational/
Taco Bell has a new $7 Luxe Cravings Box
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The new combo costs more than McDonald’s high-profile $5 Meal Deal but includes more food and will be available longer.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/taco-bell-has-a-new-7-luxe-cravings-box/
California passes new workplace indoor heat rules. Again.
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Eight years and two votes later, state-mandated relief from sweltering heat might finally be on its way to warehouse workers and other Californians who toil indoors.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/california-passes-new-workplace-indoor-heat-rules-again/
Supreme Court halts enforcement of EPA plan to limit downwind pollution from power plants
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
With its conservative majority, in recent years the justices have restricted the federal agency’s authority to fight air and water pollution.
Hawaii court orders deconstruction of house built on wrong lot
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The house itself cost roughly $300,000 to construct on a one-acre lot worth approximately $100,000, on the current market with clear title. The mistakes made by the developer and construction company may amount to even more.
Perplexity’s Origin Story: Scraping Twitter With Fake Academic Accounts
date: 2024-06-27, from: 404 Media Group
CEO Aravind Srinivas explained how the company took off after it created a demo by scraping twitter with fake academic accounts using fake AI-generated research proposals.
https://www.404media.co/perplexitys-origin-story-scraping-twitter-with-fake-academic-accounts/
US Javelin anti-tank missile, a cherished weapon among Ukrainian soldiers
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
Javelin anti-tank missile systems are part of a new $275 million aid package the U.S. is sending to Ukraine. Since 2022, the Javelin has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance against Russia’s aggression. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy.
Magid: The Balkanization of messaging apps
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
In some ways, today’s messaging environment reminds me of what it was like before the internet when you had to be on the same email system as the person you were messaging. Services like MCI Mail, AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy weren’t interconnected. Internet email changed all that but now we’re back to a gaggle of unconnected messaging apps.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/magid-the-balkanization-of-messaging-apps/
Alphabet Soup: NASA’s GOLD Finds Surprising C, X Shapes in Atmosphere
date: 2024-06-27, from: NASA breaking news
Who knew Earth’s upper atmosphere was like alphabet soup? NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has revealed unexpected C- and X-shaped formations in an electrified layer of gas high above our heads called the ionosphere. While these alphabetical shapes have been observed before, GOLD sees them more clearly than other instruments […]
Gathering at the Pierce campus celebrates Juneteenth
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)
On a hot summer weekend preceding Juneteenth, as attendees walked deeper along the Pierce College Mall between the long lines of various vendors, they were
The post Gathering at the Pierce campus celebrates Juneteenth appeared first on .
President position at Pierce now filled until 2027
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Round Up (Peirce College Student Paper)
Ara Aguiar, who has been the Interim President at Pierce College for about two and a half years, was recommended by LACCD Chancellor Francisco Rodriguez
The post President position at Pierce now filled until 2027 appeared first on .
Supreme Court halts enforcement of the EPA’s plan to limit downwind pollution from power plants
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution-fighting “good neighbor” plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations.
The justices in a 5-4 vote on Thursday rejected arguments by the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled states that the plan was cutting air pollution and saving lives in 11 states where it was being enforced and that the high court’s intervention was unwarranted.
The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution. It will remain on hold while the federal appeals court in Washington considers a challenge to the plan from industry and Republican-led states.
The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted the EPA’s authority to fight air and water pollution — including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. The court also shot down a vaccine mandate and blocked President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.
The court is currently weighing whether to overturn its 40-year-old Chevron decision, which has been the basis for upholding a wide range of regulations on public health, workplace safety and consumer protections.
Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — have challenged the air pollution rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. They had asked the high court to put it on hold while their challenge makes it way through the courts.
The challengers pointed to decisions in courts around the country that have paused the rule in a dozen states, arguing that those decisions have undermined the EPA’s aim of providing a national solution to the problem of ozone pollution because the agency relied on the assumption that all 23 states targeted by the rule would participate.
The issue came to the court on an emergency basis, which almost always results in an order from the court without arguments before the justices.
But not this time. The court heard arguments in late February, when a majority of the court seemed skeptical of arguments from the administration and New York, representing Democratic states, that the “good neighbor” rule was important to protect downwind states that receive unwanted air pollution from other states.
The EPA has said power plant emissions dropped by 18% last year in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule, which was finalized a year ago. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In California, limits on emissions from industrial sources other than power plants are supposed to take effect in 2026.
The rule is on hold in another dozen states because of separate legal challenges. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
States that contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog, are required to submit plans ensuring that coal-fired power plants and other industrial sites don’t add significantly to air pollution in other states. In cases in which a state has not submitted a “good neighbor” plan — or in which the EPA disapproves a state plan — the federal plan was supposed to ensure that downwind states are protected.
Ground-level ozone, which forms when industrial pollutants chemically react in the presence of sunlight, can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. People with compromised immune systems, the elderly and children playing outdoors are particularly vulnerable.
Supreme Court allows emergency abortions in Idaho for now in a limited ruling
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
The Supreme Court allows emergency abortions in Idaho for now in a limited ruling
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The final opinion appears largely similar to the draft released early. It reverses the court’s earlier order that had allowed an Idaho abortion ban to go into effect, even in medical emergencies.
Intel flashes 4 Tbps optical chiplet to supercharge datacenters
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Likens tech to going from horse-drawn carriages to trucks
Intel has demonstrated an optical chiplet co-packaged with a CPU capable of supporting 4 Tbps data links to feed the increasing datacenter bandwidth requirements of AI and high performance computing (HPC) applications.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/intel_says_its_optical_chiplet/
California home prices hit another record high at $908,040
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
May sales were 32% below 2018-19 average.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/california-home-prices-hit-another-record-high-at-908040/
Personal Finance Added to State’s High School Graduation Requirements
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond celebrated the passage of Assembly Bill (AB) 2927 (McCarty) Thursday through the California State Senate, which would make California the 26th state in the union to require personal finance as a high school graduation requirement
https://scvnews.com/personal-finance-added-to-states-high-school-graduation-requirements/
Are new stadiums a good use of taxpayer dollars?
date: 2024-06-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
As cities look to grow and innovate in the recovery from the pandemic, some are pushing for new sports stadiums. The idea is that fresh ballparks attract visitors and create jobs, but these projects are almost always funded by public dollars. We’ll do the numbers on the investment and payoff. Also on the show: A ransomware attack could put a sizable dent in auto sales this month, and marketing around Pride is down this year.
Supreme Court rejects multibillion-dollar Purdue Pharma opioid settlement that shielded Sackler family
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a controversial settlement that would have sent billions of dollars to treatment programs and victims of the nation’s opioid epidemic but that also shielded the Sackler family from future lawsuits.
Ocean Water Use Warning Continues for L.A. County Beaches
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health cautions residents who are planning to visit the following Los Angeles County beaches to avoid swimming, surfing and playing in ocean waters due to bacterial levels exceeding health standards when last tested
https://scvnews.com/ocean-water-use-warning-continues-for-l-a-county-beaches/
eBay Removes Listing for StingRay Cellphone Spying Tech
date: 2024-06-27, from: 404 Media Group
The StingRay was listed at $100,000 before being removed for violating the platform’s policy on not selling electronic surveillance equipment.
https://www.404media.co/ebay-removes-listing-for-stingray-cellphone-spying-tech/
US lawmakers wave red flags over Chinese drone dominance
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Congressman warns tech is getting the ‘Huawei Playbook’ treatment
US Congress members warned against Chinese dominance of the drone industry on Wednesday, elevating the threat posed by Beijing’s control of the technology as similar to that of semiconductors and ships.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/congress_china_drones/
Coolest Projects 2024: 7197 young tech creators showcase their projects online
date: 2024-06-27, from: Raspberry Pi (.org)
Our Coolest Projects 2024 online showcase has come to a close, with 7197 young people from 43 countries sharing the incredible things they have made with code. A huge congratulations to everyone who took part! Coolest Projects is our annual global celebration of young digital creators and the cool things they make with technology. This…
The post Coolest Projects 2024: 7197 young tech creators showcase their projects online appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Three-alarm fire rips through West Oakland warehouse
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Firefighters contained the blaze in about two hours but were still working to extinguish it completely early Thursday. Crews stayed at the scene past sunrise to monitor hot spots and keep the blaze from flaring up again.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/three-alarm-fire-rips-through-west-oakland-warehouse/
7 awesome Bay Area things to do this weekend, June 28-30
date: 2024-06-27, from: San Jose Mercury News
Got your weekend plans? We have some nifty ideas, from cool concerts to a sunflower explosion and the return of ’The Bear.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/27/7-awesome-bay-area-things-to-do-this-weekend-june-28-30-2/
Carbon Removal’s Existential Question
date: 2024-06-27, from: Heatmap News
Carbon removal would seem to have a pretty clear definition. It’s the
reverse of carbon emissions. It means taking carbon out of the
atmosphere and putting it somewhere else — underground, into products,
into the ocean — where it won’t warm the planet. But a new kind of
carbon removal project shows how this formula can conceal consequential
differences between approaches.
A few months ago, Puro.earth, a carbon removal registry, certified a small ethanol refinery in North Dakota to sell carbon removal credits — the first ethanol plant to earn this privilege. Red Trail Energy, which owns the facility, captures the CO2 released from the plant when corn is fermented into ethanol, and injects it into a porous section of rock more than 6,000 feet underground. Since Red Trail started doing this in June of 2022, it’s prevented some 300,000 metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, according to data published by the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources.
There are two ways to look at what’s happening here.
If you just follow the carbon, it started in the atmosphere and ended up underground. In between, the corn sucked up carbon through photosynthesis; when it was processed into ethanol, about a third of that carbon went into the fuel, a third was left behind as dried grain, and the remainder was captured as it wafted out of the fermentation tank and stashed underground. “That is, in a broad sense, how that looks like carbon removal,” Daniel Sanchez, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies biomass carbon removal, told me.
But if you zoom out, the picture changes. For the carbon to get from the atmosphere to the ground, a few other things had to happen. The corn had to be grown, harvested, and transported in trucks to the plant. It had to be put through a mill, cooked, and then liquified using heat from a natural gas boiler. And this was all in service, first and foremost, of producing ethanol to be burned, ultimately, in a car engine. If you account for the CO2 emitted during these other steps, the process as a whole is putting more into the atmosphere than it’s taking out.
So, is Red Trail Energy really doing carbon removal?
Puro.earth takes the first view — the registry’s rules essentially draw a box around the carbon capture and storage, or CCS, part of the process. Red Trail has to count the emissions from the energy it took to capture and liquify and inject the carbon, but not from anything else that happened before that. So far, Puro has issued just over 157,000 carbon removal credits for Red Trail to sell.
This is, essentially, industry consensus. Other carbon market registries including Gold Standard, Verra, and Isometric more or less take the same approach for any projects involving biomass, though they haven’t certified any ethanol projects yet. (Isometric’s current rules disqualify ethanol plants because they only allow projects that use waste biomass.)
But the nonprofit CarbonPlan, a watchdog for the carbon removal industry, argues that it’s a mistake to call this carbon removal. In a blog post published in December, program lead Freya Chay wrote that because the carbon storage is “contingent upon the continued production of ethanol,” it’s wrong to separate the two processes. The project reduces the facility’s overall emissions, Chay argued, but it’s not “carbon removal.”
This debate may sound semantic, and to some extent, it is. As long as an action results in less pollution warming the planet, does it matter whether we label it “carbon removal” or “emission reduction”?
The point of carbon credits is that they are paying for an intervention that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. “You have to look at, what part of the project is being built because they receive carbon removal credits?” Marianne Tikkanen, the co-founder and head of standard at Puro told me. “In this case, it was the capture part.” Previously, the emissions from the fermentation tank were considered to be zero, since the carbon started in the atmosphere and ended up back in the atmosphere. If you just look at the change that the sale of credits supported, those emissions are now negative.
But the logic of carbon credits may not be totally aligned with the point of carbon removal. Scientists generally see three roles for technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere. The first is to reduce net emissions in the near term — Red Trail’s project checks that box. In the medium term, carbon removal can counteract any remaining emissions that we don’t know how to eliminate. That’s how we’ll “achieve net-zero” and stop the planet from warming.
But those who say these labels really matter are thinking of the third role. In the distant future, if we achieve net-zero emissions, but global average temperatures have reached dangerous heights, doing additional carbon removal — and lowering the total concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere — will be our only hope of cooling the planet. If this is the long term goal, there is a “clear conceptual problem” with calling a holistic process that emits more than it removes “carbon removal,” Chay told me.
“I think the point of definitions is to help us navigate the world,” she said. “It will be kind of a miracle if we get there, but that is the lighthouse.”
Red Trail may have been the first ethanol company to get certified to sell carbon removal credits, but others are looking to follow in its footsteps. Chay’s blog post, written in December, was responding to news of another project: Summit Carbon Solutions, a company trying to build a major pipeline through the midwest that will transport CO2 captured from ethanol refineries and deliver it to an underground well in North Dakota, announced a deal to pre-sell $30 million worth of carbon removal credits from the project; it plans to certify the credits through Gold Standard. In May, Summit announced it planned to sell more than 160 million tons of carbon removal credits over the next decade.
Decarbonization experts often refer to the emissions from ethanol plants as low-hanging fruit. Out of all the polluting industries that we could be capturing carbon from, ethanol is one of the easiest. The CO2 released when corn sugar is fermented is nearly 100% pure, whereas the CO2 that comes from fossil fuel combustion is filled with all kinds of chemicals that need to be scrubbed out first.
Even if it’s relatively easy, though, it’s not free, and the ethanol industry has historically ignored the opportunity. But in the past few years, federal tax credits and carbon markets have made the idea more attractive.
Red Trail’s CCS project has been a long time in the making. The company began looking into CCS in 2016, partnering with the Energy and Environmental Research Center, the North Dakota Industrial Commission Renewable Energy Council, and the U.S. Department of Energy on a five-year feasibility study. Jodi Johnson, Red Trail’s CEO, answered questions about the project by email. “Building a first-of-its-kind CCS project involved significant financial, technical, and regulatory risks,” she told me. “The technology, while promising, required substantial upfront investment and a commitment to navigating uncharted regulatory frameworks.”
The primary motivation for the project was the company’s “commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability,” Johnson said, but low-carbon fuel markets in California and Oregon were also a “strategic incentive.” Ethanol companies that sell into those states earn carbon credits based on how much cleaner their fuel is than gasoline. They can sell those credits to dirtier-fuel makers who need to comply with state laws. The carbon capture project would enable Red Trail to earn more credits — a revenue stream that at first, looked good enough to justify the cost. A 2017 economic assessment of the project found that it “may be economically viable,” depending on the specific requirements in the two states.
But today, two years after Red Trail began capturing carbon, the company’s application to participate in California’s low-carbon fuel market is still pending. Though the company does sell some ethanol into the Oregon market, it decided to try and sell carbon removal credits through Puro to support “broader decarbonization and sequestration efforts while awaiting regulatory approvals,” Johnson said. Red Trail had already built its carbon capture system prior to working with Puro, but it may not have operated the equipment unless it had an incentive to do so.
Puro didn’t just take Red Trail’s word for it. The project underwent a “financial additionality test” including an evaluation of other incentives for Red Trail to sequester carbon. For example, the company can earn up to $50 in tax credits for each ton of CO2 it puts underground. (The Inflation Reduction Act increased this subsidy to $85 per ton, but Red Trail is not eligible for the higher amount because it started building the project before the law went into effect.) In theory, this tax credit alone could be enough to finance the project. A recent report from the Energy Futures Initiative concluded that a first-of-a-kind CCS project at an ethanol plant should cost between $36 and $41 per ton of CO2 captured and stored.
Johnson told me Red Trail does not pay income tax at the corporate level, however — it is taxed as a partnership. That means individual investors can take advantage of the credit, but it’s not a big enough benefit to secure project finance. The project “requires significant capital expenditure, operating expense, regulatory, and long-term monitoring for compliance,” she said. “Access to the carbon market was the needed incentive to secure the investment and the continuous project operation.”
Ultimately, after an independent audit of Red Trail’s claims, Puro concluded that the company did, in fact, need to sell carbon removal credits to justify operating the CCS project. (Red Trail is currently also earning carbon credits for fuel sold in Oregon, but Puro is accounting for these and deducting credits from its registry accordingly.)
All this helps make the case that it’s reasonable to support projects like Red Trail’s through the sale of carbon credits. But it doesn’t explain why we should call it carbon removal.
When I put the question to Tikkanen, she said that the project interrupts the “short cycle” of carbon: The CO2 is captured during photosynthesis, it’s transferred into food or fuel, and then it’s released back into the air in a continuous loop — all in a matter of months. Red Trail is turning that loop into a one-way street from the atmosphere to the ground, taking more and more carbon out of the air over time. That’s different from capturing carbon at a fossil fuel plant, where the carbon in question had previously been trapped underground for millennia.
Robert Hoglund, a carbon removal advisor who co-founded the database CDR.fyi, had a similar explanation. He told me that it didn’t make sense to categorize this project as “reducing emissions” from the plant because the fossil fuel-burning trucks that deliver the corn and the natural gas boilers cooking it are still releasing the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere. “If we say only processes that, if they’re scaled up, lead to lower emissions in the atmosphere are carbon removal, that’s looking at it from a system perspective,” he said. “I can understand where they come from, but I think it does add some confusion.”
Red Trail Energy and Summit Carbon Solutions defended the label, noting that this is the way carbon market registries have decided to treat biomass-based carbon sequestration projects. “The fact that emissions remain from the lifecycle of the corn itself is not the focus of the removal activity,” Johnson told me. “The biogenic CO2 is clearly removed from the atmosphere permanently.”
Sanchez, the Berkeley professor, argued that Puro’s rules are adequate because there’s a path for ethanol plants to eventually achieve net-negative emissions. They will have to capture emissions from the boiler, in addition to the fermentation process, and make a few other tweaks, like using renewable natural gas, according to a recent peer-reviewed study Sanchez authored. “That’s not what’s happening here,” he told me, “but I view that as indicative that this is part of the basket of technologies that we use to reach net-zero and to suck CO2 out of the air.”
(Red Trail is working on reducing its emissions even more, Johnson told me. The company is finishing engineering on a new combined heat and power system that will improve efficiency at the plant.)
In addition to teaching at Berkeley, Sanchez is a principal scientist for the firm Carbon Direct, which helps corporate buyers find “high quality” carbon removal credits. He added that he felt the project was “worthy” of the dollars companies are designating for carbon removal because of the risk it involved, and the fact that it would blaze a trail for others to follow. Ethanol CCS projects will help build up carbon storage infrastructure and expertise, enabling other carbon removal projects in the future.
Though there is seeming consensus among carbon market participants that this is carbon removal, scientists outside the industry are more skeptical. Katherine Maher, an Earth systems scientist who studies the carbon cycle at Stanford University, said she understood the argument for calling ethanol with CCS carbon removal, but she also couldn’t ignore the fact that capturing the carbon requires energy to grow the corn, transport it, and so on. “You really need to be conscious about, what are the other emissions in the project, and are those being accounted for in the calculation of the CO2 removed?”
Carbon180, a nonprofit that advocates for carbon removal policy, shares that perspective. “When it comes to ethanol with CCS, we want to see the actual net negativity,” Sifang Chen, the group’s managing science and innovation advisor, told me.
In the U.S. Department of Energy’s Road to Removals report, a 221-page document that highlights all of the opportunities for carbon removal in the United States, the agency specifically chose not to analyze ethanol with CCS “due largely to its inability to achieve a negative [carbon intensity] without substantial retrofitting of existing corn-ethanol facilities.”
It’s possible to say that both views are correct. Each follows a clear logic — one more rooted in creating practical rules for a market in order to drive innovation, the other in the uncompromising math of atmospheric science.
At times throughout writing this, I wondered if I was making something out of nothing. But the debate has significance beyond ethanol. Sanchez pointed out to me that you could ask the same question about any so-called carbon removal process that’s tied to an existing industry. Take enhanced rock weathering, for example, which involves crushing up special kinds of rocks that are especially good at absorbing carbon from the air. A lot of the companies trying to do this get their rocks from mining waste, but they don’t include all the emissions from mining in their carbon removal calculation.
Similarly, Summit Carbon Solutions noted that CarbonPlan supports claims of carbon removal by Charm Industrial, a company that takes the biomass left behind in corn fields, turns it into oil, and sequesters the oil underground. In that case, the company is not counting emissions from corn production or the downstream uses of corn.
Chay admitted that she didn’t have a great answer for why she drew the boundaries differently for one versus the other. “We don’t claim to have all the answers, and this back-and-forth illustrates just how much ambiguity there is and why it’s important to work through these issues,” she told me in an email. But she suggested that one point of comparison is to look at how dependent the carbon removal activity is on “the ongoing operation of a net emitting industry, and how one thinks about the role of that emitting industry in a net-zero world.” There is no apparent version of the future where we no longer have mining as an industry, or no longer grow corn for food. But there is a path to eliminating the use of ethanol by electrifying transportation.
It’s worth mentioning that this niche debate about carbon removal is taking place within a much larger and longer controversy about whether ethanol belongs in a low-carbon future at all.
Red Trail told me the company sees the adoption of electric vehicles as an opportunity to diversify into making fuels for aviation and heavy-duty transportation, which are more difficult to electrify. But some environmental groups, like the World Resources Institute, argue that a more sustainable approach would be to develop synthetic fuels from captured carbon and hydrogen. I should note that experts from both sides of this debate told me that carbon credit sales should not justify keeping an ethanol plant open or building a new one if the economics of the fuel don’t work on their own.
In Chay’s blog post, she presented real stakes for this rhetorical debate. If we call net-emitting processes carbon removal, we could develop an inflated sense of how much progress we’ve made toward our overall capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere, which in turn could warp perceptions of how quickly we need to reduce emissions.
Peter Minor, the former director of science and innovation at Carbon180 who is starting a company focused on measurement and verification, raised the same concern. “When the definition of what it means to remove a ton of CO2 from the air is subjective, what happens is you get a bunch of projects that might have quite different climate impacts,” he told me. “And you may or may not realize it until after the fact.”
There’s also a risk of diverting funding that could go toward scaling up more challenging, more expensive, but truly net-negative solutions such as direct air capture. This risk is compounded by the growing pressure on carbon market players like Puro and Carbon Direct to identify new, more affordable carbon removal projects. Over the past several years, influential groups like the Science Based Targets initiative and corporate sustainability thought leaders like Stripe and Microsoft have decided that old-school carbon credits — the cheaper so-called “offsets” that represent emissions reductions — are not good enough. Now companies are expected to buy carbon removal credits to fulfill their climate promises to customers, lest they be accused of greenwashing.
As a result, the industry has backed itself into a corner, Minor told me. “We have come out as a society and said, the only thing that is worth it, the only thing that is allowed to be used is carbon removal,” he said. “So if that’s the only thing with economics behind it, then yeah, like, magic! Everything is now all of a sudden carbon removal! Who would have predicted that this could have happened?”
The success of carbon removal depends, ultimately, on integrity — the industry’s favorite word these days. From the companies trying to remove carbon, to the carbon credit registries validating those efforts, to the nonprofits, brokers, and buyers that want to see the market scale, everyone is talking about developing transparent and trustworthy processes for measuring how much carbon is removed from the atmosphere by a given intervention. But how good is good measurement if experts don’t agree on what should be measured?
“There hasn’t been a way to standardize the climate impacts that are being promised,” said Minor. “And so I think unless we solve that problem, I just don’t see how we’re going to build the trust we need, to create the economics that we need and justify an industry that can’t really exist outside of the millions or billions of tons scale.”
https://heatmap.news/climate/what-is-carbon-removal
Laurene Weste | Celebrating our Heroes and Open Spaces
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
By Councilwoman Laurene Weste “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and […]
The post Laurene Weste | Celebrating our Heroes and Open Spaces appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/laurene-weste-celebrating-our-heroes-and-open-spaces/
Who Will Bring Up Climate at the First Presidential Debate?
date: 2024-06-27, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Severe storms dropped hail stones on Madrid • More than 500 people have died during a heat wave in Pakistan • A home near Minnesota’s failing Rapidan Dam was swept into the raging Blue Earth River.
THE TOP FIVE
- Biden and Trump to debate in Atlanta
President Biden and former President Donald Trump will meet in Atlanta tonight for the first presidential debate of 2024. The head-to-head comes as millions of Americans endure extreme weather events – from dangerous heat waves to wildfires to unprecedented flooding – made worse by climate change and our use of fossil fuels. If climate change comes up at the debate (and it may not), it’ll be interesting to see how both candidates handle it. Trump will probably attack Biden for cracking down on the fossil fuel industry. And while oil and gas production is soaring under Biden, he may not want to draw attention to that particular accolade as he vies for young progressive voters and touts his green agenda. “The dynamic could force Biden, who has made fighting climate change a pillar of his second-term pitch, to walk a rhetorical tightrope,” E&E News noted.
- Report: Corporate climate lawsuits are on the rise
A new report finds that climate lawsuits have risen in the last 20 years. While the overall number of cases has leveled off slightly recently, those filed against companies (as opposed to governments) are growing. About 230 were filed between 2015 and 2023, and the majority of those were launched in the last three years, according to the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Here you can see the number of cases targeting corporations specifically since 2015:
Grantham
Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
The report says the trend is driven in part by a rise in lawsuits targeting the “professional and financial services that enable the work of fossil fuel companies.” For example, marketing and advertising companies that create positive campaigns for oil and gas firms. And another factor here is sectors that rely heavily on fossil fuels (airlines, for example) but may attempt to “climate wash” by overstating their environmental initiatives. These kinds of corporate lawsuits are becoming more and more common, and more than 70% have been successful. The report concludes that “companies from many sectors are now at risk of being taken to court over the climate.”
- Ford picks Long Beach for low-cost EV hub
Ford has chosen Long Beach, California, as the place where it will build its low-cost EV platform. The city’s mayor, Rex Richardson, announced the news yesterday. Ford has been bulking up its “secretive low-cost EV team” in recent months, hiring workers away from rivals like Rivian and Tesla. The Long Beach campus will open in early 2025 and house 450 employees who will focus on “developing a new generation of small, affordable vehicles,” according to Emma Bergg, a spokesperson for Ford’s EV division.
- Many Midwesterners hit by flooding lack flood insurance
Many Midwesterners don’t have flood insurance that would help them cover the damage from recent flooding events, ABC News reported. In the parts of Iowa that were inundated over the weekend, less than 1% of single-family homes have flood insurance from the government. One reason is because residents don’t expect to be flooded because they don’t live near major rivers or in areas that have historically been at high risk. But climate change is making extreme rainfall more common. As Heatmap’s Jeva Lange explained, “put simply, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water, which means worse deluges.”
- Heat battery startup Rondo Energy lands new customers
Rondo Energy, a Silicon Valley startup building “heat batteries” to replace fossil fuels in heavy industries, announced three new customers yesterday. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, in just a few months’ time, the company has gone from serving a single industry — ethanol — at its pilot plant in California, to making deals around the globe that demonstrate the technology’s potential versatility. With grant funding from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, as well as the European Investment Bank, the company will install three commercial-scale batteries at factories in Denmark, Germany, and Portugal. Each one will prove Rondo’s compatibility with a different industry: In Denmark, the battery will be used to produce low-carbon biogas. In Germany, it will power a Covestro chemical plant that produces polymers. In Portugal, it will power a to-be-announced food and beverage factory.
THE KICKER
Scientists are surprised to find that some small, low-lying islands in the tropics aren’t sinking even as sea levels rise due to climate change, The New York Times reported. Instead, it seems the islands can “adjust naturally” to the sea level changes, which offers a glimmer of hope to the islands’ residents.
https://heatmap.news/politics/debate-biden-trump-climate-2024
Anthropic tries ‘to enable beneficial uses’ of AI by government agencies
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Not keen on smart weapons, more interested in stopping human trafficking
Anthropic wants governments to think of it when they want AI to make the world a better place. No, seriously.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/anthropic_claude_government/
Biden and Trump will debate tonight. Here’s what you need to know
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The LAist
President Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election on Thursday night in Atlanta. Find out how to watch and what to watch for.
https://laist.com/news/politics/biden-and-trump-will-debate-on-thursday-heres-what-you-need-to-know
Stephen B. Maseda | Irreparable Harm to the Republic
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
One of the comments I heard concerning the events in the New York judicial system was made by constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, that he […]
The post Stephen B. Maseda | Irreparable Harm to the Republic appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/stephen-b-maseda-irreparable-harm-to-the-republic/
Podcast: Replacing 404 Media with AI
date: 2024-06-27, from: 404 Media Group
Emanuel’s AI-powered ripoff news site; we listen to the music that has record labels suing startups; and chatbots have changed their personalities overnight.
https://www.404media.co/podcast-replacing-404-media-with-ai/
A Gentle Intro to TypeScript
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Deno blog
Quick, digestible bites of TypeScript goodness for Deno developers. In this first bite, we introduce TypeScript, how to add type annotations to your code and why you should.
https://deno.com/blog/deno-bites-ts-intro
Tasmania Is Hiring for a ‘Wombat Walker’ and Other Odd Jobs
date: 2024-06-27, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The Australian island state is trying to drum up tourism during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter
Byron York | Trump Talks Debate Ahead of Rematch
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
Former President Donald Trump knows he overdid it in his first debate with Joe Biden back in September 2020. In a recent conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I asked Trump, “A lot […]
The post Byron York | Trump Talks Debate Ahead of Rematch appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/byron-york-trump-talks-debate-ahead-of-rematch/
Microsoft yanks Windows 11 update after boot loop blunder
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tour of recovery options not supposed to be part of KB5039302
Microsoft has pulled a Windows 11 update after users reported boot loops and startup failures.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/windows_11_faulty_update/
When a politician is paid out matters, Supreme Court says
date: 2024-06-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
In a 6-3 ruling, Supreme Court justices have narrowed the scope of federal corruption law, as it pertains to state and local officials. Justices ruled that a former mayor in Indiana did not commit a crime when he took $13,000 as a purported consulting fee after — not before — awarding city contracts to a trucking company. We’ll also have an honest conversation about Social Security funding. Plus, is Nike a dinosaur brand?
Joe Guzzardi | The Newest Big Immigration Lie: ‘Fully Vetted’
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
If Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, the Committee on the Judiciary’s ranking member, can’t properly explain the vetting process for illegal immigrants to a national television audience, then the border […]
The post Joe Guzzardi | The Newest Big Immigration Lie: ‘Fully Vetted’ appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/joe-guzzardi-the-newest-big-immigration-lie-fully-vetted/
Lee Resolution: Declaring the Thirteen Colonies Free
date: 2024-06-27, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
On June 21, 2024, the exhibition Road to Revolution opened in the National Archives Building. The series features National Archives records that tell the story from colonial resistance to American independence and the diverse experiences of the nation’s founding generation. Today’s post from Mary Ryan on the Lee Resolution is an update of her 2002 … Continue reading Lee Resolution: Declaring the Thirteen Colonies Free
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/06/27/lee-resolution-declaring-the-thirteen-colonies-free/
Japanese Yen hits new low
date: 2024-06-27, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The Japanese Yen has fallen to its weakest level against the U.S. dollar for nearly 40 years. It’s causing jitters in the markets, and analysts warn about potential government intervention. Then, protests are continuing in Kenya over the unpopular new finance bill. And as Barcelona becomes the latest city to crack down on short-term rentals, we hear from an unhappy property owner.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/japanese-yen-hits-new-low
Atos’s UK auditor raises ‘material uncertainty’ about future
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Looming debt repayments and stalling restructure talks cause for concern
The UK wing of Atos, the ailing IT services provider that has scored billions of pounds in government contracts locally, has pointed to a “material uncertainty” over its ability to continue trading as a going concern.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/atos_uk_going_concern/
Front-runners emerge in contest for Trump vice president
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/front-runners-emerge-in-contest-for-trump-vice-president-/7675278.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-27, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
“The night won’t end” - five month investigation into Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza.
Now freshly demoted by YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECFpW5zoFXA
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112687993041528225
Colour Word Clock | The MagPi #143
date: 2024-06-27, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
The Gurgle Apps siblings have created a kit that you can build yourself using Raspberry Pi Pico – the Colour Word Clock.
The post Colour Word Clock | The MagPi #143 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/colour-word-clock-the-magpi-143/
Elon Musk to destroy the International Space Station – with NASA’s approval, for a fee
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
SpaceX wins contract for ‘deorbit vehicle’ at a pleasing price
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has won a NASA contract to de-orbit the International Space Station (ISS).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/spacex_wins_iss_deorbit_contract/
How many Microsoft missteps were forks that were just a bit of fun?
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Raymond Chen on cutting loose with a copy of the code
Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen has dropped another nugget of Microspeak – the “fun fork.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/microsoft_windows_fun_fork/
long term curl versions
date: 2024-06-27, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
In the curl project we ship new releases based on the master branch of our git repository, in a clean and linear commit history. We have never maintained an old branch for long term or stability etc. Instead we promise to not break user behavior nor the ABI or API. All users should be able … Continue reading long term curl versions
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/06/27/long-term-curl-versions/
Felix Oliver Friedrich commented on issue #144 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
The observation is correct. However, return by reference is an inherently dangerous thing to do and soundness cannot be guaranteed. The following is an example:
PROCEDURE P(VAR i: INTEGER): VAR INTEGER;
VAR j := -1;
BEGIN
j := -1;
IF i<0 THEN RETURN i
ELSE RETURN P(j)
END
END P;This returns the local variable but cannot be detected by the compiler.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/144#note_192550
Felix Oliver Friedrich commented on issue #143 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
I don't see the problem. The assignment operator
:= is used within its own
declaration. That yields an infinite recursion that should be avoided
but not something that the compiler should syntactically reject.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/143#note_192547
Private Prisons Want You To Go Directly To Jail
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Lever News
Private prison companies are pushing states to get tougher on crime, then cashing in on the profits.
https://www.levernews.com/private-prisons-want-you-to-go-directly-to-jail/
Reddit hopes robots.txt tweak will do the trick in scaring off AI training data scrapers
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Pay up or go away, pretty please?
For many Reddit has become the go to repository of community and crowdsourced knowledge, a fact that has no doubt made it a prime target for AI startups desperate for training data.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/reddit_ai_info/
Sergey Durmanov opened issue #144: issue with returning a local variable by reference. at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
There is no check that a local variable or parameter is being returned (for a variable parameter, returning by reference is acceptable)
MODULE Test;
TYPE
R = RECORD
PROCEDURE P*(): VAR INTEGER;
VAR i: INTEGER;
BEGIN
RETURN i;
END P;
PROCEDURE Q*(i: INTEGER): VAR INTEGER;
BEGIN
RETURN i;
END Q;
PROCEDURE X*(CONST i: INTEGER): VAR INTEGER;
BEGIN
RETURN i;
END X;
PROCEDURE Y*(VAR i: INTEGER): VAR INTEGER;
BEGIN
RETURN i; (* OK *)
END Y;
END;
END Test.https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/144
Sergey Durmanov opened issue #143: problem when matching parameter types in the ":=" operator at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
This code compiles although it contains a parameter type matching error:
MODULE Test;
TYPE
R = RECORD END;
OPERATOR ":="(VAR l: R; r: BOOLEAN);
BEGIN
l := r; (*!*)
END ":=";
OPERATOR ":="(VAR l: R; r: INTEGER);
BEGIN
l := r; (*!*)
END ":=";
END Test.https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/143
Today in SCV History (June 27)
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1542 – Explorer Juan Cabrillo sets sail from Mexico; will stop for a drink at mouth of Santa Clara River. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-27/
99 Years Since the 6.5: Dispatches from the Epicenter
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Reporting the story of the 1924 Santa Barbara earthquake.
The post 99 Years Since the 6.5: Dispatches from the Epicenter appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/27/99-years-since-the-6-5-dispatches-from-the-epicenter/
Reducing the Strain on the Power Grid
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Two-way charging of car batteries can save utilities and customers money.
The post Reducing the Strain on the Power Grid appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/27/reducing-the-strain-on-the-power-grid/
Ads hypocrisy
date: 2024-06-27, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>I was browsing the web—like I often do—and I stumbled on a message on a website that read:</p>If you’re reading this, you blocked our ad. That’s cool, we block ads too. This site is free though, so maybe unblock the ad so we can keep paying for this website that you’re on, thanks.
This message rubbed me in the wrong way for a variety of reasons. First, the hypocrisy of its content is annoying: we do something to others but you should not do the same to us. Isn’t the whole “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.” common wisdom at this point? Second, the “This site is free though” is a shitty attempt to justify having ads served by an AD network because that’s literally what every goddamn site out there does. Facebook is free. Should I allow the tracking because of it? And lastly, the “so we can keep paying for this website” is a desperate attempt to guilt trip me into disabling my adblocker. I know very well how much running a site like that costs. And I know for a fact the people behind that site all have daily jobs. And so they can easily afford to pay for this site exactly like countless others are paying for theirs.
The discourse around advertising on the web is messy. And the pervasiveness of ads doesn’t help. You can just see how advertising manages to find its way into almost everything. But if you’re a creator of any kind it’s important to recognise the hypocrisy in some of the arguments that are floating out there. The most glaring example is YouTube. People often argue that by watching YouTube with adblockers I’m stealing revenues from creators. Fair. The proposed solution is to pay for YouTube Premium. Again, fair. My question is: are creators going to upload YT Premium exclusive versions of the videos without their sponsors’ ad reads baked in? The answer is no because that’s where the vast majority of the revenues come from for them. And that’s another example of the hypocrisy that’s powering this entire business model.
I don’t hate the general concept of an AD. I think sponsorships and partnerships can be a net benefit if done correctly, especially when done without tracking and profiling. If you run a site that’s focused on a niche, the profiling is implicit. For example, the people who visit minimalissimo.com probably have an interest in design and architecture otherwise they wouldn’t waste their time on that site. And so if I were to do some sort of partnership it would make sense to work with companies that make products within those niches. That’s how “good” advertising should work on the web. And that’s how it used to be before hyper-targeting was a thing. Mind you, it’s still an option and plenty of people do do it. It pays less than targeting advertising, for obvious reasons. But creators need to do their part if we hope to make progress on this front. Because the future can’t be targeted advertising everywhere at anytime.
I’m not going to disable my adblocker for you. I’m running two at the same time precisely because I don’t give a fuck about your stupid targeted ad. But if you give me an option to donate something to you directly I’m gonna do it. Because I believe contributing directly is the most sane way to keep this whole boat afloat.
<hr>
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https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/4DdokDfMsxRrNBWS
Alibaba Cloud reveals its datacenter design, homebrew network used for LLM training
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
15,000 GPUs per DC, in hosts packing eight apiece, plus nine NICs – helped by switches with custom heat sinks
Exclusive Alibaba Cloud has revealed the design of an Ethernet-based network it created specifically to carry traffic for training large language models – and has used in production for eight months.…
Indian govt probes claims Foxconn won’t hire married women
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cultural traditions clash with manufacturing ambitions
Updated India’s Ministry of Labor and Employment has ordered an investigation of Foxconn – the contract manufacturer supplier also known as Hon Hai Precision and one of Apple’s main suppliers – after reports emerged alleging the company will not hire married women to work at its main iPhone assembly plant on the subcontinent.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/foxconn_hiring_married_women/
Indy Hops 2024
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
July 1 – July 311 Month. 7 Breweries. 10 Locations. Indy Hops is back again! Join us for Santa Barbara’s
The post Indy Hops 2024 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/indy-hops-2024/
2 pandas en route from China to US under conservation partnership
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
SAN DIEGO — A pair of giant pandas are on their way from China to the U.S., where they will be cared for at the San Diego Zoo as part of an ongoing conservation partnership between the two nations, officials said Wednesday.
Officials with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance were on hand in China for a farewell ceremony commemorating the departure of the giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao.
The celebration included cultural performances, video salutations from Chinese and American students and a gift exchange among conservation partners, the zoo said in a statement. After the ceremony, the giant pandas began their trip to Southern California.
“This farewell celebrates their journey and underscores a collaboration between the United States and China on vital conservation efforts,” Paul Baribault, the wildlife alliance president, said in a statement. “Our long-standing partnership with China Wildlife Conservation Association has been instrumental in advancing giant panda conservation, and we look forward to continuing our work together to ensure the survival and thriving of this iconic species.”
It could be several weeks before the giant pandas will be viewable to the public in San Diego, officials said.
Yun Chuan, a mild-mannered male who’s nearly 5 years old, has connections to California, the wildlife alliance said previously. His mother, Zhen Zhen, was born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007 to parents Bai Yun and Gao Gao.
Xin Bao is a nearly 4-year-old female described as “a gentle and witty introvert with a sweet round face and big ears.”
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has a nearly 30-year partnership with leading conservation institutions in China focused on protecting and recovering giant pandas and the bamboo forests they depend on.
Island Breeze Farms Goes Back to the Drawing Board
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Cannabis operation next to the Polo Condos in the Carpinteria Valley must install carbon scrubbers for odor control, Santa Barbara County Planning Commission says.
The post Island Breeze Farms Goes Back to the Drawing Board appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/island-breeze-farms-goes-back-to-the-drawing-board/
Santa Barbara’s State Street Master Plan Begins to Take Form
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The city presents its latest vision for a “people-first” future of downtown.
The post Santa Barbara’s State Street Master Plan Begins to Take Form appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/santa-barbaras-state-street-master-plan-begins-to-take-form/
How Prisoners Find Freedom Behind Bars
date: 2024-06-27, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Two Santa Barbara psychologists help heal traumatic wounds.
The post How Prisoners Find Freedom Behind Bars appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/how-prisoners-find-freedom-behind-bars/
Isaiah Collier slides to No. 29 in NBA Draft
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The former No. 2 overall recruit will join the Utah Jazz.
The post Isaiah Collier slides to No. 29 in NBA Draft appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/isaiah-collier-slides-to-no-29-in-nba-draft/
Lenovo brings virtualization, cloud stack to Chinese chip designer Loongson’s CPU arch
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
NAS slingers, healthcare software makers, government buyers join the march to silicon sovereignty
Chinese chip shop Loongson, which has built modest CPUs based on its own MIPS-like architecture, is on the march towards enterprise workloads.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/lenovo_loongson/
Religious freedom report: US notes rising bigotry amid Gaza war
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
An annual U.S. government report has sounded an alarm about rising bigotry worldwide against both Jews and Muslims amid the war in Gaza. It also has found that religious freedom is under assault globally and offers rare criticism of the U.S. ally India. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-27, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Cityside launches Richmondside, its third local news site in California.
Korean telco allegedly infected its P2P users with malware
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
KT may have had an entire team dedicated to infecting its own customers
A South Korean media outlet has alleged that local telco KT deliberately infected some customers with malware due to their excessive use of peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading tools.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/kt_p2p_malware_claim/
Evidence mounts Islamic State is looking to the US southern border
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence and security officials are increasing their focus on the country’s southern border, worried the constant flow of migrants has attracted the attention of the Islamic State terror group.
The heightened concern follows the arrests earlier this month of eight men from Tajikistan, all of whom entered the United States via its southern border with Mexico, some making the trip over a year ago.
While the initial background checks came up clean, U.S. law enforcement subsequently turned up information indicating potential ties to the Islamic State group, also known as IS or ISIS.
“It’s not lost on us that the people who killed over 150 Russians in that theater were from the same part of the world,” said Ken Wainstein, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, referring to the March attack on a Moscow concert hall, claimed by the terror group’s Afghan affiliate.
Wainstein, testifying Wednesday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, said concern about the potential for IS to exploit the border has led to daily meetings with the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), as well as unprecedented cooperation with the FBI.
But he sought to downplay concerns stemming from intelligence suggesting that the IS-linked human smuggling network may have brought more than 400 migrants from Central Asia into the U.S., across the southern border.
“There is not information which suggests those particular individuals are terrorist operatives,” Wainstein told lawmakers.
Information on the 400 migrants, first reported by NBC News, indicates more than 150 of the migrants have been arrested. But officials told NBC that the whereabouts of more than 50 others are unknown.
The newfound concerns about terror groups like IS actively trying to exploit the southern border seems to indicate a significant shift in the threat landscape.
For years, U.S. counterterrorism officials have maintained there was no evidence that IS or other Sunni terror groups were trying to infiltrate the U.S. along its border with Mexico.
And this past November, NCTC Director Christine Abizaid told lawmakers that while counterterrorism officials “absolutely recognize the risk,” evidence for such plots was lacking.
“We don’t have indications that are credible or corroborated,” she told members of the House of Representatives at the time.
But U.S. and Turkish sanctions unveiled earlier this month may point to the Islamic State terror group’s growing interest in human smuggling.
The sanctions focus on what the U.S. Treasury Department described as a Eurasian human smuggling network that was providing support for IS members in Turkey.
One of the key operatives, Olimkhon Ismailov, is based in Uzbekistan. And Ismailov had high-level help, with Treasury alleging he was given guidance by the leader of IS in the Republic of Georgia, Adam Khamirzaev.
According to the U.S. State Department, Khamirzaev apparently had his sights set on the U.S.
The IS-Georgia emir “provided guidance to this network on a range of activities supporting ISIS and was aware of its efforts to facilitate travelers to the United States,” the State Department said in a statement.
Multiple U.S. agencies, including DHS, the FBI and the State Department declined to respond to questions about the reach of the Eurasian human smuggling network involved with IS operatives in Turkey and Uzbekistan.
There are also no indications that the sanctioned network is connected to the same IS-linked network that brought the eight men from Tajikistan, or the hundreds of other Central Asian migrants, into the U.S. through the southern border.
As for the eight men from Tajikistan, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters in Tucson, Arizona, Wednesday that, “They are in removal proceedings as we speak.”
And other U.S. officials say they have stepped up security measures.
“We have increased our vigilance at our border,” said Jen Daskal, the White House deputy Homeland Security adviser, virtually addressing a counterterrorism conference Wednesday in Omaha, Nebraska.
“We have enhanced our screening and vetting, instituted recurrent vetting of migrants to identify newly uncovered threats and detain those who pose a public safety threat,” she said.
But Daskal admitted the threat from IS, and especially its Afghan affiliate, persists.
“Both ISIS and ISIS-Khorasan, or what we call ISIS-K, have demonstrated a capability and intent to conduct external operations,” she said.
US criticizes China in international religious freedom report
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-criticizes-china-in-international-religious-freedom-report/7675328.html
Saugus school district recognizes Joan Lucid Award honorees
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
Multiple studies, and test scores from the past couple years, have shown the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has had on students. To that end, the Saugus Union School District has […]
The post Saugus school district recognizes Joan Lucid Award honorees appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/saugus-school-district-recognizes-joan-lucid-award-honorees/
Saugus school board signs off on budget, union contracts
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
The Saugus Union School District governing board at Tuesday’s meeting signed off on the 2024-25 budget and ratified the union contracts that were agreed to earlier this month. Both items […]
The post Saugus school board signs off on budget, union contracts appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/saugus-school-board-signs-off-on-budget-union-contracts/
US health agency issues dengue virus infection advisory
date: 2024-06-27, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-health-agency-issues-dengue-virus-infection-advisory/7675298.html
Ocean Water Warning for June 26
date: 2024-06-27, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health cautions residents who are planning to visit the below Los Angeles County beaches to avoid swimming, surfing, and playing in ocean waters
https://scvnews.com/ocean-water-warning-for-june-26/
Hart district budget given OK by board
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
School districts across the state are facing a year in which funding could be well below what they have been used to in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. With […]
The post Hart district budget given OK by board appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/hart-district-budget-given-ok-by-board/
City takes action against Plumwood home
date: 2024-06-27, from: The Signal
After a closed session discussion Tuesday evening, the Santa Clarita City Council authorized the takeover of a property on Plumwood Avenue in Canyon Country due to problems with an ongoing […]
The post City takes action against Plumwood home appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/city-takes-action-against-plumwood-home/
WhisperGate suspect indicted as US offers a $10M bounty for his capture
date: 2024-06-27, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Russian national accused of attacks in lead-up to the Ukraine war
The US Department of Justice has indicted a 22-year-old Russian for allegedly attacking Ukrainian government computers and destroying critical infrastructure systems in the so-called “WhisperGate” wiper attack that preceded Russia’s illegal invasion of the European nation.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/whispergate_malware_suspect_bounty/
PostgreSQL 17 Beta 2 Released!
date: 2024-06-27, from: PostgreSQL News
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the second beta release of PostgreSQL 17 is now available for download. This release contains previews of all features that will be available when PostgreSQL 17 is made generally available, though some details of the release can change during the beta period.
You can find information about all of the PostgreSQL 17 features and changes in the release notes:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html
In the spirit of the open source PostgreSQL community, we strongly encourage you to test the new features of PostgreSQL 17 on your systems to help us eliminate bugs or other issues that may exist. While we do not advise you to run PostgreSQL 17 Beta 2 in production environments, we encourage you to find ways to run your typical application workloads against this beta release.
Your testing and feedback will help the community ensure that the PostgreSQL 17 release upholds our standards of delivering a stable, reliable release of the world’s most advanced open source relational database. Please read more about our beta testing process and how you can contribute:
https://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta/
Upgrading to PostgreSQL 17 Beta 2
To upgrade to PostgreSQL 17 Beta 2 from an earlier version of
PostgreSQL, you will need to use a strategy similar to upgrading between
major versions of PostgreSQL (e.g. pg_upgrade or
pg_dump / pg_restore). For more information,
please visit the documentation section on
upgrading.
Changes Since Beta 1
Fixes and changes in PostgreSQL 17 Beta 2 include:
-
Correctly enforce the default behavior of the
ON EMPTYclause when it’s not present in a SQL/JSON query. -
Fixed issue with
pg_logical_slot_get_changesrelated to resource ownership. - Several fixes around the new data structure for vacuum-related data.
Please see the release notes for a complete list of new and changed features:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html
Testing for Bugs & Compatibility
The stability of each PostgreSQL release greatly depends on you, the community, to test the upcoming version with your workloads and testing tools in order to find bugs and regressions before the general availability of PostgreSQL 17. As this is a Beta, minor changes to database behaviors, feature details, and APIs are still possible. Your feedback and testing will help determine the final tweaks on the new features, so please test in the near future. The quality of user testing helps determine when we can make a final release.
A list of open issues is publicly available in the PostgreSQL wiki. You can report bugs using this form on the PostgreSQL website:
https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/
Beta Schedule
This is the second beta release of version 17. The PostgreSQL Project will release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more release candidates, until the final release around September/October 2024. For further information please see the Beta Testing page.
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- PostgreSQL 17 Open Issues
- Feature Matrix
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https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-17-beta-2-released-2885/
The anatomy of metadata matching
date: 2024-06-27, from: Crossref Blog
In our previous blog post about metadata matching, we discussed what it is and why we need it (tl;dr: to discover more relationships within the scholarly record). Here, we will describe some basic matching-related terminology and the components of a matching process. We will also pose some typical product questions to consider when developing or integrating matching solutions.
Basic terminology
Metadata matching is a high-level concept, with many different problems falling into this category. Indeed, no matter how much we like to focus on the similarities between different forms of matching, matching affiliation strings to ROR IDs or matching preprints to journal papers are still different in several important ways. At Crossref and ROR, we call these problems matching tasks.
Simply put, a matching task defines the kind or nature of the matching. Examples of matching tasks are bibliographic reference matching, affiliation matching, grant matching, or preprint matching.
Every matching task has an input, which is all the data that is needed to perform the matching. Input data can come in many shapes and forms, depending on the matching task. For example, all of the following could be inputs to a matching task:
Department of Molecular Medicine, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo 060-8556, Japan
<fr:program xmlns:fr="http://www.crossref.org/fundref.xsd" name="fundref">
<fr:assertion name="fundgroup">
<fr:assertion name="funder_name">
European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program through Marie Sklodowska Curie
<fr:assertion name="funder_identifier">http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000780</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
<fr:assertion name="award_number">721624</fr:assertion>
</fr:assertion>
</fr:program>
Everitt, W. N., & Kalf, H. (2007). The Bessel differential equation and the Hankel transform. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 208(1), 3–19.
{
"title": "Functional single-cell genomics of human cytomegalovirus infection",
"issued": "2021-10-25",
"author": [
{"given": "Marco Y.", "family": "Hein"},
{"given": "Jonathan S.", "family": "Weissman", "ORCID": "http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2445-670X"}
]
}
Every matching task also has an output. For our purposes, this is almost exclusively zero or more matched identifiers. In the context of a specific matching task, output identifiers may be of a specific type (e.g. we might match to a ROR ID, and never to an ORCID ID). In some cases, there can be a certain target set as well (i.e. matching only to DataCite DOIs). The output identifiers can have different cardinality depending on the task, meaning that the matching task might allow for zero, one, or more identifiers as a result of matching to a single input.
A matching strategy defines how the matching is done. Multiple strategies can exist for a specific matching task. Compound strategies can run other strategies and combine their outcomes into a single result.
In some cases, we may also want the matching strategy to output a confidence score for each matched identifier. A confidence score represents the degree of certainty or likelihood that the matched identifier is correct, typically expressed as a value between 0 and 1. This score may help with post-processing or further interpretation of the results.
To summarise, the anatomy of the matching task can be diagrammed as follows:
How to specify a matching task
Whenever we plan the development or integration of a matching solution, it is good to begin by answering a few basic questions:
- What problem do we plan to solve with our matching task? What would we call our matching task and how would we describe it?
- What do we expect as the input for this matching task? Which input formats do we need to be able to accept? What information do we expect to find in this input?
- What kind of identifiers should be output? Is there a target set of identifiers? Can our matching output zero/one/or multiple identifiers, and under what conditions might that occur?
These sound fairly simple, but the answers to these questions can be remarkably complex. Once one tries to apply these concepts to real-world problems, they might encounter several non-obvious challenges.
For example, one common concern is at what level we should define each matching task. Consider the following problems:
- Matching bibliographic reference strings to DOIs. Example input:
Everitt, W. N., & Kalf, H. (2007). The Bessel differential equation and the Hankel transform. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 208(1), 3–19.
- Matching structured bibliographic reference to DOIs. Example input:
{
volume: "208",
author: "Everitt",
journal-title: "J. Comput. Appl. Math.",
article-title: "The Bessel differential equation and the Hankel transform",
first-page: "3",
year: "2007",
issue: "1"
}
Are those discrete matching tasks (unstructured reference matching vs. structured reference matching), or are they the same task (reference matching) that can accept different types of inputs (unstructured or structured)?
Similarly, let’s compare the following tasks:
- Matching affiliation strings to ROR IDs. Example input:
Department of Molecular Medicine, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo 060-8556, Japan
- Matching funder names to ROR IDs. Example input:
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Are these different matching tasks (affiliation matching vs. funder matching), or the same task with different inputs (organisation matching)?
Defining the boundaries of a matching task can also be difficult. Consider, for example, the need to obtain ROR IDs for organisations mentioned in the acknowledgements section of a full-text academic paper. To begin, one may first extract the acknowledgement section from the full text, then run something like a named entity recognition (NER) tool to isolate the organisation names from the extracted text, and finally match these names to ROR IDs. Is this entire process matching, with the input being the full text of a paper? Or perhaps matching starts with the acknowledgement section as the input? Instead, is it only the last phase, where we try to match the extracted name to the ROR ID, that constitutes the matching task, with the extraction phases being completely separate processes?
There are also important questions related to the expected behaviour of a matching strategy. Consider, for example, developing an affiliation matching strategy where we define our input as “an affiliation string”. What should happen when the strategy gets something else on the input, for example, song lyrics? Perhaps the strategy should simply return no matches, or an error, or we could say that in such a situation the behaviour is undefined and it simply doesn’t matter what is returned. But what should happen if in this input we have the lyrics of Street Life by Roxy Music, a song that mentions the names of a few universities that happen to have ROR IDs?
It is likewise important to consider what should happen if different parts of the input match to different identifiers, like in the following example:
Department of Haematology, Eastern Health and Monash University, Box Hill, Australia
Here, “Eastern Health” matches to https://ror.org/00vyyx863 and “Monash University” to https://ror.org/02bfwt286. Should the matching strategy return all the identifiers, one of them (if so, which one?), or nothing at all?
Similar questions arise when it is possible to match to multiple versions (or duplicates) in the target identifier set. This can happen, for example, in the context of bibliographic reference matching or preprint matching. Multiple matches may occur when there are different editions, reprints, or variations of the same publication in the target dataset, each with its own unique identifier.
If you are waiting for an answer to these questions, we unfortunately must disappoint you here. These can only be answered in the context of a specific problem, considering who the users are and what it is they need and expect.
Did you notice any other subtleties related to metadata matching and its concerns? Are there other non-obvious questions that should be considered when planning to develop or integrate metadata matching strategies? Let us know—we’d love to hear from you!
https://www.crossref.org/blog/the-anatomy-of-metadata-matching/
The Anatomy of Metadata Matching (cross-post)
date: 2024-06-27, from: ROR Research ID Blog
The second blog post about metadata matching by ROR’s Adam Buttrick and Crossref’s Dominika Tkaczyk describes some basic matching-related terminology and the components of a matching process, then poses some typical product questions to consider when developing or integrating matching solutions.
https://ror.org/blog/2024-06-27-anatomy-of-metadata-matching/
“No way to prevent this” say users of only language where this regularly happens
date: 2024-06-27, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
https://xeiaso.net/shitposts/no-way-to-prevent-this/CVE-2024-5535/
“No way to prevent this” say users of only language where this regularly happens
date: 2024-06-27, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
https://xeiaso.net/shitposts/no-way-to-prevent-this/CVE-2024-28820/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Governor Hochul Abruptly Ends COVID Sick Leave for NY State Employees.
https://hellgatenyc.com/governor-hochul-ends-covid-sick
Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s tech museum closes, sells off collection
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Letter from Einstein, vintage space suit, and ancient computers all up for sale
The estate of the late Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has decided to close Living Computers: Museum + Labs, the Seattle site which housed his beloved collection of vintage technology.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/paul_allen_museum_closes/
July 2: Regular Meeting of SCV Water Board
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
SCV Water Agency will be holding their next regular board meeting next Tuesday on July 2 at their pine street location.
https://scvnews.com/july-2-regular-meeting-of-scv-water-board/
Marilyn Monroe’s Brentwood home is LA’s newest historic-cultural monument
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The LAist
The 5th Helena Drive home is the only one Monroe ever owned and is where the Hollywood icon died at 36 years old.
June 28: Sunset Sessions at Trek Bike Park are Back
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Summer is officially here and what better way to get outdoors and enjoy the cool evenings than attending one of the free Sunset Sessions at the Trek Bike Park of Santa Clarita.
https://scvnews.com/june-28-sunset-sessions-at-trek-bike-park-are-back/
Soft Rock Duo Air Supply is Dropping in at Chumash Casino Resort
date: 2024-06-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Aussie favorites bring their hits to Santa Ynez July 12.
The post Soft Rock Duo Air Supply is Dropping in at Chumash Casino Resort appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
As expected, Apple set to vanish Batterygate, dodgy audio lawsuits with money
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Pocket-change payouts of $6M and $35M await approval in July
Apple is preparing to settle two lawsuits next month over alleged iPhone flaws, provided the respective judges agree to the terms of the deals.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/apple_settlement_repair/
Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office Issues Warning About Hidden Cameras in Gardens
date: 2024-06-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Gardeners found a recording device in the front yard of a family’s home on the 200 block of Via El Encantador.
The post Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office Issues Warning About Hidden Cameras in Gardens appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Emotional homecoming for WikiLeaks’ Assange
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
London — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in his home country of Australia a free man Wednesday after agreeing to a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors over espionage charges, ending a 14-year legal odyssey.
Supporters of the 52-year-old journalist and political activist welcomed his release, but said the prosecution sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom.
Assange received an emotional welcome as he arrived at Canberra Airport by private jet Wednesday morning. He was embraced by his wife Stella, and his father, John Shipton, before punching the air as he was cheered by a group of supporters gathered nearby.
“Julian wanted me to sincerely thank everyone. He wanted to be here, but you have to understand what he’s been through. He needs time. He needs to recuperate,” Stella Assange told reporters at a press conference in Australia’s capital.
She thanked his supporters around the world.
“It took millions of people. It took people working behind the scenes. People protesting on the streets for days and weeks and months and years. And we achieved it,” she said.
Assange spends years in prison
Assange spent more than five years in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison as he fought a legal battle over extradition to the United States.
Britain’s High Court finally ruled in May that he could appeal the extradition order. That decision prompted the U.S. Department of Justice, British and Australian authorities, and Assange’s legal team to expedite negotiations on a deal in which Assange pleaded guilty to one charge of espionage.
He was flown Monday evening from London to the U.S. Pacific territory of Saipan, where a brief hearing at a U.S. District Court on Tuesday concluded the prosecution.
Assange was sentenced to the equivalent of the time he had already spent in prison and was free Wednesday morning.
Defense criticizes US prosecutors
Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, criticized U.S. prosecutors’ pursuit of a conviction.
“In order to win his freedom, Julian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage for publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes, human rights abuse and U.S. wrongdoing around the world. This is journalism. This is the criminalization of journalism,” said Robinson.
“And while the plea deal does not set a judicial precedent — it’s not a court decision — the prosecution itself sets a precedent that can be used against the rest of the media,” Robinson said at the press conference in Canberra on Wednesday.
‘Democracy demands this’
U.S. prosecutors charged Assange in 2019 with 17 counts of espionage and one count of hacking, relating to the publication of stolen diplomatic cables covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Wikileaks said the material revealed abuses by the U.S. military. Campaigners for press freedom say Assange was simply doing his job.
“Essentially what he does is what all journalists want to do: expose incompetence, expose wrongdoing and hold the power to account. Because essentially, democracy demands this. I mean, without this, we wouldn’t have democracy,” said Abdullahi Tasiu Abubakar, a senior lecturer in journalism at City, University of London.
US State Department defends US’ action
The U.S. Department of Justice has not yet commented on the plea deal. The State Department defended the United States’ actions.
“I do think it is important when we talk about Julian Assange to remind the world that the actions for which he was indicted and for which he has now pled guilty are actions that put the lives of our partners, our allies and our diplomats at risk, especially those who work in dangerous places like Afghanistan and Iraq,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday.
“The documents they published gave identifying information of individuals who were in contact with the State Department that included opposition leaders, human rights activists around the world, whose positions were put in some danger because of their public disclosure,” Miller added. “It also chilled the ability of American personnel to build relationships and have frank conversations with them.”
Australian PM lobbies for release
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who personally lobbied U.S. President Joe Biden to allow Assange’s release, welcomed the plea deal.
“Regardless of your views about his activities — and they will be varied — Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on for too long. I have said repeatedly that there was nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.
“We have used all appropriate channels. This outcome has been the product of careful, patient and determined work, work I am very proud of,” Albanese told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Supporters say they’ll seek pardon
Assange spent seven years in self-imposed confinement in Ecuador’s embassy in London from 2012, as he evaded unrelated rape charges filed by Swedish prosecutors, which were later dropped. Assange said he always believed the U.S. was seeking his extradition.
He was arrested by British authorities for breach of bail after the Ecuadorian Embassy ejected him in 2019. Assange was held in Belmarsh Prison as he fought U.S. attempts to secure his extradition.
Assange’s supporters say they will seek a full pardon of his espionage conviction and have vowed to fight for the principle of press freedom.
https://www.voanews.com/a/emotional-homecoming-for-wikileaks-assange/7675230.html
June 27: “Constellations” Comes to The MAIN
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The MAIN Theatre is presenting its next play, Constellations, later this month.
https://scvnews.com/june-27-constellations-comes-to-the-main/
The Marshall Star for June 26, 2024
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Blasting into Summer: Thousands Enjoy NASA in the Park By Wayne Smith It was a super Saturday in the park to celebrate space and the Rocket City. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center joined Downtown Huntsville Inc. and other community partners to host NASA in the Park, a public outreach event that attracted thousands to Big […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-june-26-2024/
Sunset Sessions Are Back at the Trek Bike Park of Santa Clarita!
date: 2024-06-26, from: City of Santa Clarita
Join Us on Select Fridays During the Summer! Summer is officially here and what better way to get outdoors and enjoy the cool evenings than attending one of our FREE Sunset Sessions at the Trek Bike Park of Santa Clarita! Join us on June 28, July 26 and August 23 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. […]
The post Sunset Sessions Are Back at the Trek Bike Park of Santa Clarita! appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
The Supreme Court Just Legalized Bribery
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Lever News
Conservative justices, swimming in gifts from billionaire benefactors, just ruled that corruption is perfectly legal.
https://www.levernews.com/the-supreme-court-just-legalized-bribery/
Theatricus and Eclipse Theatre L.A. to Present “Constellations”
date: 2024-06-26, from: City of Santa Clarita
Experience the Spellbinding Love Story About an Unlikely Romance Constellations is a play by Nick Payne that explores the unexpected romance between Roland, a beekeeper and Marianne, a physicist. Their chance encounter at a barbeque unravels a series of parallel moments that defy the limits of our understanding of time and space. Through their relationship, […]
The post Theatricus and Eclipse Theatre L.A. to Present “Constellations” appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
(Midweek Edition) Field Notes 06.26.2024
date: 2024-06-26, from: Om Malik blog
On My Mind I recently shared on Threads the following: “Social Media is like a mirror that makes objects appear bigger than they really are. It amplifies what was already there.” To expound on it a bit further, what I mean is that no matter what we do, somehow we let our true selves out. …
https://om.co/2024/06/26/midweek-edition-field-notes-06-26-2024/
Heroic Birth of a Short-Lived Orchestra
date: 2024-06-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Music Academy of the West’s Academy Festival Orchestra, led by Maestro Osmo Vänskä, kicked off the summer series with Wagner/Mahler/Sibelius power menu.
The post Heroic Birth of a Short-Lived Orchestra appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/heroic-birth-of-a-short-lived-orchestra/
July 2: Hart High’s Annual Youth Baseball Camp is Back
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Hart High School’s renowned baseball program is excited to announce its annual Youth Baseball Camp, in collaboration with the Santa Clarita Boys and Girls Club
https://scvnews.com/july-2-hart-highs-annual-youth-baseball-camp-is-back/
Feds put $5M bounty on ‘CryptoQueen’ Ruja Ignatova
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
OneCoin co-founder allegedly bilked investors out of $4B
Uncle Sam has put a $5 million bounty on any information leading to the arrest or conviction of self-titled “CryptoQueen” Ruja Ignatova, who is wanted in the US for apparently bilking victims out of more than $4 billion in what the Feds describe as the “one of the largest global fraud schemes in history.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/fbi_ruja_ignatova/
June 29: Support the Fight Against Ovarian Cancer with Teal Wisdom’s Inaugural Event
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Teal Wisdom, a local nonprofit, is holding it inaugural fundraising event to support those battling ovarian cancer
ePiPod is a Raspberry Pi-powered music player with an E Ink display
date: 2024-06-26, from: Liliputing
Smartphones may be the portable do-everything device that fits in your pocket. But sometimes you want to leave all the distractions of a smartphone behind and use a device that does just a few things well. Some folks are turning to “dumbphones” for communication, while others are using portable Android devices with less distracting displays […]
The post ePiPod is a Raspberry Pi-powered music player with an E Ink display appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/epipod-is-a-raspberry-pi-powered-music-player-with-an-e-ink-display/
Ciudad de Goleta estrena vídeo del Proyecto Connect
date: 2024-06-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
GOLETA, CA- 26 de Junio, 2024 – La Ciudad de Goleta ha publicado un video informativo sobre el Proyecto Connect,
The post Ciudad de Goleta estrena vídeo del Proyecto Connect appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/26/ciudad-de-goleta-estrena-video-del-proyecto-connect/
FCC slaps Verizon with $1M fine for dropping 911 calls, again
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Less than an hour’s profit - that sends a strong message for emergency cover
America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined Verizon a little over a million dollars for failing to route 911 calls during a cellular outage.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/fcc_verizon_911_fine/
Extreme weather, flooding grip US Midwest
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
DES MOINES, Iowa — A house that was teetering on the edge of an eroding riverbank near a Minnesota dam collapsed into the river in the latest jarring example of extreme weather gripping the upper Midwest.
Video shows the house owned by the Barnes family falling into the flood-swollen Blue Earth River near Mankato on Tuesday night. The dam’s west abutment failed Monday, sending the river around the dam and eroding the bank where the home sat. The family had evacuated the house before the collapse.
“It’s been a very scary and hard situation,” Jenny Barnes, whose family has run the nearby Dam Store for decades, told KARE-TV on Tuesday before the house fell into the river. She also was worried about the store.
“That’s our life, as well. That’s our business; that’s our livelihood. It’s everything to us,” Barnes said.
A swath through Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota has been under siege from flooding because of torrential rains since last week, while also suffering through a scorching heat wave. Up to 46 centimeters of rain have fallen in some areas, pushing some rivers to record levels. Hundreds of people were rescued, homes were damaged and at least two people died after driving in flooded areas.
Tornado warnings, flash flooding and large hail Tuesday night added insult to injury for some Midwesterners. The National Weather Service said several tornadoes were reported in Iowa and Nebraska. The service was assessing damage to some buildings, crops and trees to confirm whether tornadoes touched down. No major injuries were reported.
The weather service also extended flood warnings for multiple rivers in the region. On Tuesday, floodwaters breached levees in Iowa, creating dangerous conditions that prompted evacuations.
Preliminary information from the weather service shows the recent flooding brought record-high river levels at more than a dozen locations in South Dakota and Iowa, surpassing previous crests by an average of about (1 meter). The Big Sioux River reached nearly 12 meters in Hawarden, Iowa, on Saturday and nearly 14 meters in Sioux City, Iowa, on Monday, exceeding previous highs by 1.5 to 2.1 meters, respectively.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Missouri River flooding.
In South Dakota, Kathy Roberts lost nearly everything she had when she escaped flooding Sunday night with her cat and the clothes on her back, KTIV-TV reported.
“I heard screaming outside and looked outside and I had neighbors that had water rushing into their place and water was slowly rising in my driveway,” Roberts said.
In the residential development where Roberts lived in North Sioux City, streets, utility poles and trees collapsed, and some homes were washed off their foundations. There was no water, sewer, gas or electrical service in that area, Union County Emergency Management said Tuesday in a Facebook post.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X Tuesday night that people needed to stay out of the area unless escorted by public safety officials.
“We are working on a schedule for families to get their belongings,” Noem said. “Until then, downed power lines, sinkholes, and other threats make it too dangerous to go in alone.”
The sheriff’s office in Monona County, near the Nebraska border, said the Little Sioux River breached levees in several areas. In neighboring Woodbury County, the sheriff’s office posted drone video on Facebook showing the river overflowing the levee and flooding land in rural Smithland. No injuries were immediately reported.
In the Sioux City, Iowa, area, water spilled over the Big Sioux River levee, damaging hundreds of homes, officials estimated. And the local wastewater treatment plant has been so overwhelmed by the floodwaters that officials say they’re having to dump about 3.8 million liters of untreated sewage per day into the Missouri River.
As new areas were flooding this week, some cities and towns were cleaning up after the waters receded while others downstream were piling sandbags and taking other measures to protect against the oncoming swelled currents.
Many streams, especially with additional rainfall, may not crest until later this week as the floodwaters slowly drain down a web of rivers to the Missouri and Mississippi. The Missouri will crest at Omaha on Thursday, said Kevin Low, a weather service hydrologist.
https://www.voanews.com/a/extreme-weather-flooding-grip-us-midwest/7675145.html
NASA Selects International Space Station US Deorbit Vehicle
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is fostering continued scientific, educational, and technological developments in low Earth orbit to benefit humanity, while also supporting deep space exploration at the Moon and Mars. As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-international-space-station-us-deorbit-vehicle/
US judge sentences Honduran ex-president to 45 years for drug trafficking
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
The Climate Tech Accelerator with a Football Team
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
Backed by a whopping $1.69 billion endowment, Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability — its first new school in more than 70 years — opened its doors two years ago, and what else came along with it but a new sustainability-focused accelerator specifically for the Stanford community. Seeking to move research out of the lab and into the real world, the Sustainability Accelerator provides early stage funding and a deep network of university-affiliated support to its grantees.
Now that the accelerator has staffed up, gathered insights from its first funding cohort, and given more structure to what is still a very flexibly organized program, I wanted to know more.
The basic concept sounded very Stanford-y indeed — gobs of money, a hugely valuable network, entrepreneurial vibes out the wazoo. But that’s nothing new. When I was at Stanford as an undergrad over a decade ago, The New Yorker’s Nicholas Thompson, now the CEO of the Atlantic (and a fellow Stanford alumnus), quipped that the school had come to resemble “a giant tech incubator with a football team.” This was in the early days of Snapchat and around the time when over a dozen computer science students dropped out to work on the Venmo-wannabe Clinkle, which went up in smoke soon after. Concerns about the university’s deep ties to Silicon Valley and the preponderance of potentially pointless startups coming out of it coexisted with plaudits poured on alumni founders with started-in-a-garage-now-we’re-here type stories.
I thought it was all a bit much. But now there’s a sustainability accelerator, and man, does that sound like something we could all get behind. So I talked with the accelerator’s faculty director, Yi Cui, and managing director, Jeff Brown, about the accelerator’s goals, what sets it apart from the infinite other funding avenues in Silicon Valley, and how they go about deciding what concepts have the potential for widespread adoption, either in the commercial or the policy space.
Brown himself is a Stanford alum with a deep background as a Silicon Valley engineer and founder — in other words, he can talk the talk as well as he walks the walk. Prior to his current role at the sustainability accelerator, he was founder and CEO of Novvi, which makes plant-based oils for use in the lubricants industry. He told me that one of the primary elements that sets Stanford’s accelerator apart from other incubators or venture capital funds is that it’s not just focused on technical solutions to climate and sustainability problems.
“There’s a lot of challenges beyond technology,” Brown told me. “This is market development, this is frameworks that need to be globally aligned, this is policy that leads to new legislation in a global scenario. And so at the accelerator, we’re thinking about these things at that scale, and working in a very interdisciplinary manner across all those spaces.”
Thirty-one projects were selected to join the accelerator’s initial cohort in the summer of 2022, their teams generally comprised of researchers with deep subject area expertise — mostly professors partnering with other professors, faculty members or postdocs. Topics spanned the gamut from highly technical ideas like electrifying steam cracking reactors for industrial chemical production to policy projects such as reforming California’s approach to wildfire management or partnering with stakeholders to support the energy transition in Southeast Asia.
“We are interested in water, food. We are interested in climate adaptation,” Cui, a Stanford professor in both the Materials Science & Engineering department as well as the Energy Science & Engineering Department, told me. “We are also interested in new approaches that could be highly scalable for sustainability — for example, synthetic biology.” He also cited grid decarbonization and industrial decarbonization as focus areas.
And yet Brown also told me it’s vital that all teams, even policy-focused ones, demonstrate that they have potential backers outside the Stanford bubble. For legislative solutions, “you have to go out into the community and find that people agree and are willing to adopt that and move forward with you.” And for technical solutions, Brown said, “you’ve got to show that customers are willing to receive it, and there are other funding sources that buy into that, as you’re going to need increasing capital to scale.”
For the accelerator’s first cohort, projects were organized into one of three categories based on their level of maturity — planning, mid-range, and large-scale, which dictated the amount of funding they were eligible to receive. Brown didn’t want to disclose how much money Stanford is pouring into these projects (although he did say they have a “large budget” to work with) but a 2022 request for proposals indicates that Level 1 projects could secure up to $100,000, Level 2 up to $400,000, and Level 3 up to $1,000,000. It also noted that project teams can specify their own timelines, ranging from three months up to a year, with the option for follow-on funding based on a project’s progress.
Going forward, cohorts will be organized around particular climate themes, a.k.a. “flagship destinations,” which will include key metrics for scalability and speed. The first focus area for the 2024 group is greenhouse gas removal, for which 16 projects were chosen based on their potential to remove a gigaton (that’s a billion tons, folks) of greenhouse gas from the atmosphere by 2050, either by technical or policy means. Examples include transforming rocks and mining waste into efficient CO2 sponges, and developing a monitoring, reporting, and verification framework for ocean-based carbon removal.
Brown emphasized the importance of MRV particularly, the Achilles’ heel of many well-intentioned carbon removal efforts. Reforestation, for example, “is not a technology problem,” he told me. “It’s a framework problem around the MRV challenge, and getting the legislation in place, and getting community alignment around the world on how to execute this properly.”
Some in the Stanford community worry, however, that the choice of greenhouse gas removal as a focus area was influenced by the university’s fossil fuel connections, as big oil and gas companies often tout carbon capture as a solution that would allow them to continue producing fossil fuels. The Doerr School does accept research funding from fossil fuel companies, and three years ago, Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy collaborated with Shell, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies to host a workshop on carbon management. The Doerr School itself cited the meeting as one of two events that led to the focus on greenhouse gas removal.
Cui, though, has downplayed the meeting’s influence on the accelerator. In an interview with the Stanford Daily, he said that “greenhouse gas removal has always been incredibly important to everybody. It’s not because of the workshop.” It’s one of a few key climate solutions he always brings up in his talks, he added. “So it wasn’t hard at all to get to the point and say this should be the first flagship destination.”
In an effort to build the right internal partnerships, the accelerator is launching a postdoc fellowship program, in which entrepreneurial fellows will team up with faculty members to work on projects that align with flagship destinations. The inaugural class should be announced by the end of July. Cui told me the accelerator staff is also contemplating an entrepreneur-in-residence type of program and finding ways to deepen connections with the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which has already partnered with the Doerr School for its ecopreneurship programs.
The point, of course, is to leverage the full weight of the Stanford network, giving project teams access to the entrepreneurial expertise of Silicon Valley as well as the interdisciplinary skillset among the university’s different schools and departments. It’s a much higher-touch experience than teams would get at other incubators or accelerators, Cui told me.
“We actually build an ecosystem,” he explained. “We provide coaching if it [a project] needs coaching. If it needs outside partners and connections, we build that in, we help the team to do that. And if the team doesn’t have an entrepreneur type of person, we might hire a person to work with the team.”
And given the university’s reputation as, well, a tech incubator with a (now bad, I hear) football team, Cui stressed that there’s a surprising amount of promising research that never sees the light of day. “There are many technologies, many solutions actually developed in Stanford faculty’s lab — they don’t come out, you’re not even aware of them,” he told me. But their potential in the sustainability space could be huge, Cui said. “The accelerator’s function is super important to further grow and amplify the entrepreneurial spirit on Stanford campus, and also orient the faculty into working on scalable ideas.”
https://heatmap.news/technology/stanford-climate-tech-accelerator
SZBOX S7 is a handheld PC with a 7 inch display, Intel Alder Lake-N processor, and full-sized ports
date: 2024-06-26, from: Liliputing
The SZBOX S7 is a small computer that walks the fine line between mini PC and tablet. Like a tablet it has a 7 inch touchscreen display and a built-in battery. But it’s also a little chunky by tablet standards, because there’s a fan inside the case for active cooling and room along the sides for […]
The post SZBOX S7 is a handheld PC with a 7 inch display, Intel Alder Lake-N processor, and full-sized ports appeared first on Liliputing.
China Brings Samples From the Moon’s Far Side to Earth in First-Ever Feat
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The China National Space Administration retrieved more than four pounds of lunar soil samples, which scientists hope will shed light on the early history of Earth and the moon
Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World
date: 2024-06-26, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">[Jonathan Zeller at McSweeney’s]
“We do not live in some tech dystopia in which our smartphones clandestinely use their mics to pick up every word we say and then feed us commercial messages based on them. The truth is simpler and not at all alarming: your phone only seems to be listening to you because it’s collecting data about every word you type, every website you visit, and, through GPS tracking, everywhere you go in the physical world.”
No notes: this is pretty good.
<p>[<a href="https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/calm-down-your-phone-isnt-listening-to-your-conversations-its-just-tracking-everything-you-type-every-app-you-use-every-website-you-visit-and-everywhere-you-go-in-the-physical-world">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>https://werd.io/2024/calm-downyour-phone-isnt-listening-to-your-conversations-its-just
USC will not discipline professor for viral remarks on Hamas
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The University dismissed all student complaints against professor John
Strauss
telling students participating in a pro-Palestinian
walkout and march that “Hamas
are murderers … Every one should be
killed, and I hope they all are.”
The post USC will not discipline professor for viral remarks on Hamas appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/usc-will-not-discipline-professor-for-viral-remarks-on-hamas/
16th-Century Skeletons of Children Infected With Smallpox Discovered in Peru
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The toddlers’ remains were buried around the beginning of the Spanish conquest of South America
AI’s appetite for power could double datacenter electricity bills by 2030
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Believe it or not, this is modest relative to other predictions
A study predicts that US power consumption from datacenters will more than double by 2030.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/datacenter_electricity_demand_study/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
One Million Checkboxes.
https://onemillioncheckboxes.com/
July 25: VIA After Five Business Mixer at Prosperitas Financial
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Connect with other businesses and attend the Valley Industry Association After Five networking mixer on Thursday, July 25, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at Prosperitas Financial.
https://scvnews.com/july-25-via-after-five-business-mixer-at-prosperitas-financial/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Season 3 of The Bear is out at 9pm Eastern.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bear_(TV_series)
EU Charges Microsoft for Bundling Teams and Office
date: 2024-06-26, from: Michael Tsai
Kelvin Chan (via Hacker News): The European Commission said Monday it informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the U.S. tech giant has been “restricting competition” by bundling Teams with core office productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365.The commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said it suspects Microsoft might have granted […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/26/eu-charges-microsoft-for-bundling-teams-and-office/
Slack to Delete Old Messages in Free Accounts
date: 2024-06-26, from: Michael Tsai
Slack (Hacker News, Slashdot): Slack will no longer keep messages and files for the lifetime of your free workspace. Starting 26th August 2024, Customer Data – such as messages and file history – older than one year may be deleted on a rolling basis from workspaces on the free subscription[…] […] If you choose to […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/26/slack-to-delete-old-messages-in-free-accounts/
Apple News Publisher Sign-in Required
date: 2024-06-26, from: Michael Tsai
Apple sent me an e-mail this morning: It has been several months since you signed in to News Publisher. If you do not sign in within the next 30 days, your role will be changed. Your role will change from Administrator to Editor for the following Apple News channels: Michael Tsai - Blog Dave Verwer: […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/26/apple-news-publisher-sign-in-required/
Half-Life’s Canceled Mac Port
date: 2024-06-26, from: Michael Tsai
Greg Gant: It was natural for the game to be ported to Mac OS and OS X, as other high-profile first-person shooters from the era, like the Doom series, Hexen series, Quake series, Dark Forces, Deus Ex, Duke Nukem, and Unreal series, were all ported to the Mac.[…]In April 1999, Logicware under Sierra Studios announced […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/26/half-lifes-canceled-mac-port/
Minimum Wage Increases for Unincorporated Areas of Los Angeles County July 1
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The minimum wage in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County will be increasing to $17.27 per hour beginning July
https://scvnews.com/minimum-wage-increases-for-unincorporated-areas-of-los-angeles-county-july-1/
40 Years Ago: STS-41D – First Space Shuttle Launch Pad Abort
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
In 1983, NASA received delivery of Discovery, the third space qualified vehicle in the agency’s space shuttle fleet. During the launch attempt for the STS-41D mission on June 26, 1984, Discovery’s onboard computers halted the countdown four seconds before liftoff, and after two of its main engines had already ignited. The six astronauts safely egressed […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/40-years-ago-sts-41d-first-space-shuttle-launch-pad-abort/
Emotional homecoming for WikiLeaks’ Assange, but supporters say free speech under threat
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in his home country of Australia a free man Wednesday – after agreeing to a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors over espionage charges. The deal ends an extraordinary 14-year legal odyssey. Supporters of Assange welcomed his release but say the prosecution sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Huawei struggling to ramp GPU production as US sanctions bite
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
President Xi tells nation that battle for tech dominance, game between ‘international powers’ are ‘intertwined’
US efforts to curb China’s advanced chip industries may be having an effect, amid claims that Huawei is having difficulty ramping up production of its Ascend 910B accelerator. The news comes as China’s president aims to bolster the country’s self-reliance in key technologies including chips.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/huawei_struggling_to_ramp_gpu/
🐇 On Alice in Wonderland
date: 2024-06-26, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Detours down the rabbit hole.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/on-alice-in-wonderland
Aug. 4: RVSP For a Free Back to School Backpack Giveaway
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Assemblywomen Pilar Schiavo is inviting residents to her second annual Back-to School Backpack Giveaway on Aug. 4.
https://scvnews.com/aug-4-rvsp-for-a-free-back-to-school-backpack-giveaway/
Disabled Patron Asks Publishers: ‘Let us read, let us learn.’
date: 2024-06-26, from: Internet Archive Blog
Editorial note: The following message came into our patron services team this week. We are posting here in full with the patron’s permission as it explains the full scope of […]
https://blog.archive.org/2024/06/26/disabled-patron-asks-publishers-let-us-read-let-us-learn/
Detective Work Enables Perseverance Team to Revive SHERLOC Instrument
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
After six months of effort, an instrument that helps the Mars rover look for potential signs of ancient microbial life has come back online. The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the […]
Hilton tells Congress youth care programs need more oversight
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Reality TV star Paris Hilton called for greater federal oversight of youth care programs at a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on Wednesday as she described her traumatic experience in youth care facilities.
Hilton, 43, the great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, has spoken publicly about the emotional and physical abuse she endured when she was placed in residential youth treatment facilities as a teen.
In remarks to the committee on Wednesday, she described being taken from her bed in the middle of the night at age 16 and transported across state lines to a residential facility where she experienced physical and sexual abuse.
“This $23 billion industry sees this population [of vulnerable children] as dollar signs and operates without meaningful oversight,” she said.
“There’s no education in these places; there’s mold and blood on the walls,” she said in response to lawmaker questions. “It’s horrifying what these places are like. They’re worse than some dog kennels.”
Hilton said private equity firms that have taken a greater stake in the industry in recent years focus on maximizing profits, prompting them to hire unqualified workers.
“They’re caring more about profit than the safety of children,” she said.
Hilton first described her experience at a Utah facility in 2021 and has been a vocal advocate for greater oversight of the system.
“These programs promised ‘healing, growth, and support,’ but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely, or even look out of a window for two years,” Hilton told the committee. “My parents were completely deceived, lied to and manipulated by this for-profit industry, so you can only imagine the experience for youth who don’t have anyone checking in on them.”
Several lawmakers agreed that more federal oversight was necessary.
“We must always be concerned about fraud and guard against Wall Street vultures snatching public funds to line their pockets,” Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell said. “We cannot allow the private equity octopus to reach its tentacles into child services.”
Curator Uncovers Lost Roman-Era Bust of the Emperor Caligula
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The small bronze statue, which was unearthed at Herculaneum, had been missing for two centuries
Honeybees Can Sniff Out Lung Cancer, Scientists Suggest
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
New research opens the door for doctors to one day use bees as a living diagnostic tool
Supreme Court won’t stop Biden leaning on social media giants to tackle disinfo
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
White House can get back to asking Facebook and co to kindly bin off what the Feds say is misinformation
The US Supreme Court has reversed a prior decision barring federal agencies from coordinating with social media platforms to fight misinformation, on the grounds the plaintiffs in the case lacked standing to argue it to begin with.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/supreme_court_social_media_biden/
NOAA’s GOES-U Satellite Launches
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) satellite lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 25, 2024. GOES-U is the fourth and final satellite in the current series of advanced weather satellites; it will provide continuous coverage of weather and hazardous environmental […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/noaas-goes-u-satellite-launches/
US convicts crypto-robbing gang leader who kidnapped victims before draining their accounts
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Said to have zip tied elderly crypto investors, held them at gunpoint, and threatened to kill them
The US has convicted the 24-year-old leader of an international robbery crew that kidnapped and terrorized wealthy victims during home invasions that were carried out to steal cryptocurrency tokens.…
Report: Supreme Court seems poised to allow emergency abortions in Idaho
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appears poised to allow emergency abortions in Idaho when a pregnant patient’s health is at serious risk, according to Bloomberg News, which said a copy of the opinion was briefly posted Wednesday on the court’s website.
The document suggests the court will conclude that it should not have gotten involved in the case so quickly and will reinstate a lower court order that had allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect a pregnant patient’s health, Bloomberg said. It does not appear likely to fully resolve the issues at the heart of the case.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that a document was inadvertently posted Wednesday. That document was quickly removed.
“The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website. The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course,” court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said in a statement.
The case would continue at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals if the Supreme Court dismisses the proceedings.
WATCH: Are abortion laws in Idaho hurting maternal health care?
The finding may not be the court’s final ruling because the justices’ decision has not been officially released.
The Biden administration sued Idaho, arguing that hospitals must provide abortions to stabilize pregnant patients in rare emergency cases when their health is at serious risk.
Most Republican-controlled states began enforcing restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. Idaho is among 14 states that outlaw abortion at all stages of pregnancy with very limited exceptions. Idaho argued its ban does allow abortions to save a pregnant patient’s life and that federal law does not require the exceptions to expand.
The opinion briefly posted would reverse the Supreme Court’s earlier order that allowed the Idaho law to go into effect, even in medical emergencies, while the case played out. Several women have since needed medical airlifts out of state in cases in which abortion is routine treatment to avoid infection, hemorrhage and other dire health risks, Idaho doctors have said.
The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling could have ripple effects on emergency care in other states with strict abortion bans. Reports of pregnant women being turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit came under a federal law that requires hospitals accepting Medicare to provide stabilizing care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. The law is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA.
Nearly all hospitals accept Medicare, so emergency room doctors in Idaho and other states with bans would have to provide abortions if needed to stabilize a pregnant patient and avoid serious health risks such as the loss of reproductive organs, the Justice Department argued.
Idaho argued that its exception for a patient’s life covers dire health circumstances and that the Biden administration misread the law to circumvent the state ban and expand abortion access.
Doctors have said Idaho’s law has made them fearful to perform abortions, even when a pregnancy is putting a patient’s health severely at risk. The law requires anyone who is convicted of performing an abortion to be imprisoned for at least two years.
A federal judge initially sided with the Democratic administration and ruled that abortions were legal in medical emergencies. After the state appealed, the Supreme Court allowed the law to go fully into effect in January.
Editorial Note: On Medicine and the Body in Tech
date: 2024-06-26, from: Care
<p>Editorial Note from Editor Khadijah Abdurrahman for Logic(s) Issue 21</p>https://logicmag.io/policy/editorial-note-on-medicine-and-the-body-in-tech
NASA Advances Research to Grow Habitats in Space from Fungi
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
As NASA prepares for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars for the benefit of all, a habitat-growing concept selected Wednesday by the agency could help “grow” homes using fungi for future explorers. A team of researchers at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will receive new funding under the NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-advances-research-to-grow-habitats-in-space-from-fungi/
In Your Face Provides Persistent Notifications for Events and Tasks
date: 2024-06-26, from: TidBITS blog
Tired of being late to meetings because you were focused on a task and missed a subtle notification in the corner of the screen? The In Your Face app takes over the entire Mac screen for its alerts, ensuring you never miss an event again.
https://tidbits.com/2024/06/26/in-your-face-provides-persistent-notifications-for-events-and-tasks/
@IIIF Mastodon feed (date: 2024-06-26, from: IIIF Mastodon feed)
Join us for the July
#IIIF
Community Call, a discussion regarding potential changes to Collections
in Presentation API 4.0, on July 10 at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm BST / 6pm
CEST.
Zoom information is available on the IIIF Community Calendar: iiif.io/community.
https://glammr.us/@IIIF/112684292717335860
She crashed and got a DUI. Now this SoCal lawmaker is on a mission to talk about booze
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The LAist
After her DUI arrest, Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo hasn’t stopped talking about her struggles with alcohol. Now she has introduced legislation to educate high school students about the harms of booze.
https://laist.com/news/politics/wendy-carillo-dui-mission-to-talk-about-booze
Felicia Washington, USC’s first senior vice president of HR, to leave position
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Washington oversaw the University’s human resources department after ex-gynecologist George Tyndall’s assaults came to light.
The post Felicia Washington, USC’s first senior vice president of HR, to leave position appeared first on Daily Trojan.
Google begs court for relief from Epic Games’ Play Store demands
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
$137M needed to overhaul Play Store too great to bear, Google argues. Oh, and user security is important, too
Google has asked a California judge to deny Epic Games’ requested remedies after the Play Store was found to be an illegal monopoly, arguing the changes would be too costly and create new security risks for Android users. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/google_begs_court_for_relief/
Surprising Phosphate Finding in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Scientists have eagerly awaited the opportunity to dig into the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine asteroid Bennu sample collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission since it was delivered to Earth last fall. They hoped the material would hold secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry […]
Extreme Wildfires Became Twice as Frequent and Intense in 20 Years, Study Finds
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
As measured by satellites, wildfires have markedly increased in boreal and temperate conifer forests, and rising nighttime temperatures allow flames to keep burning intensely after dark
Biden pardons veterans convicted by US military for gay sex
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-pardons-veterans-convicted-by-us-military-for-gay-sex/7674869.html
Pakistan hits back at US Congress’ call for election probe
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan strongly objected Wednesday to a U.S. congressional resolution calling for an investigation into interference and fraud allegations related to Pakistan’s February 8 parliamentary elections.
“We believe that the timing and context of this particular resolution does not align well with the positive dynamics of our bilateral ties,” said the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad.
The statement said the resolution “stems from an incomplete understanding of the political situation and electoral process” in Pakistan.
The rebuke came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted (368-7) to approve a resolution urging “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s election.
The U.S. lawmakers also condemned what they described as “attempts to suppress” participation of Pakistanis in their democracy “through harassment, intimidation, violence, arbitrary detention, restrictions on access to the internet and telecommunications.”
In its response, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry stated that Islamabad was committed to “the values of constitutionalism, human rights, and the rule of law in pursuance of our own national interest.” It urged the U.S. Congress to play its role in strengthening bilateral relations and mutual collaboration benefiting both countries.
“We believe in constructive dialogue and engagement based on mutual respect and understanding. Such resolutions are, therefore, neither constructive nor objective.”
Khawaja Asif, the Pakistani defense minister, also went on social media platform X to criticize the U.S. lawmakers’ call for an impartial election probe.
“This is from the country that spent the 20th century overthrowing democratically elected governments, and currently facilitating the Palestinian genocide,” Asif wrote. “Let’s look at their history of irregularities in 2016 & 2020 elections, both Democrats and Republicans accused of foreign intervention and rigging, how about asking U.N. for probe.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller declined to comment specifically on the resolution while addressing a regular news conference in Washington.
“Our most senior officials, including Secretary [of State] Antony Blinken and Ambassador Donald Blome [in Islamabad], have consistently, both privately and publicly, urged Pakistan to respect the rights of its people and live with its constitutional and international obligations,” Miller said.
“We continuously urge the government of Pakistan to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, religion, as well as the rights of marginalized populations such as women and religious minorities,” he said.
Analysts, such as Washington-based Michael Kugelman, said the resolution would not have much impact on U.S. policy toward Pakistan, noting that the Biden administration already has called for an investigation into charges of election irregularities.
“But the vote does raise questions about what additional legislation we could see re Pakistan,” Kugelman, the South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, wrote on X. “What really stands out for me is the margin of the vote, and the number of Members that voted. 85% of House members voted on it, and 98% voted in favor of the resolution. This is quite significant.”
Pakistani authorities have vehemently defended the February 8 vote and its outcome. Opposition parties and independent domestic and foreign observers, however, have complained of nationwide mobile phone and internet shutdowns on the polling day, unusually delayed results, and a state crackdown against jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party in the run-up to the election.
Khan, who has been in jail since last August on controversial graft charges, was convicted in several other cases just days before election day in an apparent bid to keep him from contesting or campaigning.
His Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party was blocked from using its iconic cricket bat symbol on ballot papers in a country where symbols are important to help illiterate voters, in particular, identify which party to vote for.
Despite the crackdown, legal setbacks and alleged military-plotted vote rigging by election authorities, independent candidates backed by Khan’s PTI won the most seats in the 342-seat National Assembly but were short of a simple majority.
That enabled rival Pakistan Muslim League-N, or PML-N, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, or PPP, to form a coalition government with the backing of the military. The PML-N leader, Shehbaz Sharif, became the prime minister.
Khan has since been forcefully raising the electoral fraud issue in statements from his prison cell. PTI leaders at news conferences have persistently stated their party was on the way to sweeping the elections but its mandate was stolen.
“Washington already had been uneasy for months, frustrated, since brazen electoral fraud in Pakistan, and it looked like the regime in Pakistan mistook their silence as approval,” the PTI stated in its response to Tuesday’s U.S. congressional resolution.
The victory of PTI-linked candidates surprised observers and was seen as a landmark upset in Pakistan, where political success has long been tied to the military’s backing.
Khan, a cricket star turned prime minister, was removed from power in a vote of no confidence in April 2022. The 71-year-old politician dismissed the move as illegal and plotted by the military.
Pakistan’s military has ousted democratically elected governments through several coups and has ruled the country for more than three decades since it gained independence in 1947.
https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-hits-back-at-us-congress-call-for-election-probe/7674881.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Volkswagen Will Invest Up to $5 Billion in EV Maker Rivian.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/business/volkswagen-rivian-vw-investment.html
NASA’s Juno Gets a Close-Up Look at Lava Lakes on Jupiter’s Moon Io
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Infrared imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft heats up the discussion on the inner workings of Jupiter’s hottest moon. New findings from NASA’s Juno probe provide a fuller picture of how widespread the lava lakes are on Jupiter’s moon Io and include first-time insights into the volcanic processes at work there. These results come courtesy of […]
Homeland Security: Border arrests fell more than 40% since Biden’s halt to asylum processing
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
TUCSON, Arizona — Arrests for illegal border crossings have dropped more than 40% during the three weeks that asylum processing has been suspended, the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday.
The announcement comes just one day before President Joe Biden is set to debate former President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in what is expected to be a crucial moment in the election campaign.
Biden is considered especially vulnerable with voters when it comes to immigration. Trump has hammered him repeatedly on border security by painting a picture of the border as out of control and migrants as a threat to the nation’s security and economy.
Biden has both sought to crack down on new arrivals at the border and to offer new immigration pathways.
The restrictions he announced at the beginning of June cut off asylum access when arrivals at the border reached a certain number, infuriating immigration advocates who say the policy differs little from what Trump attempted. Then a few weeks later Biden announced a new program aimed at undocumented spouses of American citizens who had been in the country for a decade or more that could ultimately provide them a pathway to citizenship.
The figures announced Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security show that the Border Patrol’s average daily arrests over a seven-day period have fallen below 2,400, down more than 40% from before Biden’s proclamation took effect June 5. That’s still above the 1,500 mark needed to resume asylum processing, but Homeland Security says it marks the lowest number since Jan. 17, 2021, just before Biden took office.
Last week, Customs and Border Protection said in its monthly release of statistics that border arrests had fallen 25% since Biden’s order took effect, indicating they have decreased much more since then.
The monthly data releases are a closely watched metric of border security and how many people are coming to the southern border of the U.S. The numbers reached a record high last December before falling roughly in half in January and staying in that range throughout the spring. A large part of that decrease was believed to be due to Mexican enforcement on its side of the border.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was to address reporters Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings during much of the last year. U.S. authorities say the seven-day daily average of arrests in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector was just under 600 on Tuesday, down from just under 1,200 on June 2.
Speaking to MSNBC/Morning Joe on Wednesday, Mayorkas said the numbers were moving in the right direction and lauded the agency’s staff. But he also noted that opponents have sued to stop the restrictions.
“We are conducting more removal flights than ever before. We are moving people through the system and those who do not qualify are being removed or returned more rapidly. It’s a remarkable feat that our personnel have accomplished in just such a short period of time. It’s really important to remember though that the president’s executive action is being challenged in the court,” Mayorkas said.
Under the asylum suspension, which takes effect when daily arrests are above 2,500, anyone who expresses fear or an intention to seek asylum is screened by a U.S. asylum officer but at a higher standard than currently used. If they pass the screening, they can pursue more limited forms of humanitarian protection than asylum, including the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Self Tanner and Cheap Ties: Bankruptcy Filings Reveal Rudy Giuliani’s Amazon Purchases
date: 2024-06-26, from: 404 Media Group
Court documents show what the former mayor of NYC has been buying on Amazon lately, including a lot of socks, ties, and self-tanning lotion.
https://www.404media.co/rudy-giuliani-bankruptcy-filing-amazon-purchase-history/
OneHouse takes $35M to fight for Hudi in table format wars
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
After Databricks snaffled Iceberg-linked Tabular, CEO insists there are more than two horses in this race
OneHouse, a data lake company based around the open source Apache Hudi table format, has secured $35 million in Series B funding led by Craft Ventures.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/onehouse_35_million_hudi/
AI Poetry Camera? Seriously?
date: 2024-06-26, from: Om Malik blog
Some days randomly remind you of the uniqueness of the place you call home. Yesterday was one of those days. I met Ryan Mather, who works for Sudowrite*, for coffee. He was in town for the Figma Design Conference. We chatted about writing, books, and how I use “AI” in my process. We discussed what …
https://om.co/2024/06/26/a-poetic-ai-camera/
Pine64 Oz64 is a single-board PC with ARM and RISC-V CPU cores
date: 2024-06-26, from: Liliputing
Most of Pine64’s single-board computers, laptops, phones, and tablets are powered by ARM-based chips. But the company has dipped its toe into RISC-V waters in recent years with devices like the Ox64 and STAR64 SBCs, the Pinecil smart soldering iron, and the PineTab-V tablet. Now the company is preparing to launch a single-board computer with […]
The post Pine64 Oz64 is a single-board PC with ARM and RISC-V CPU cores appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/pine64-oz64-is-a-single-board-pc-with-arm-and-risc-v-cpu-cores/
Mycotecture off Planet: En route to the Moon and Mars
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Lynn RothschildNASA Ames Research Center (ARC) A turtle carries its habitat. While reliable, it costs energy in transporting mass. NASA makes the same trade-off when it transports habitats and other structures off planet “on the back” of its missions. While this approach is reliable, to save upmass and increase mission flexibility, NASA must be more […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/mycotecture-off-planet-en-route-to-the-moon-and-mars/
Hong Kong’s Furi Labs shakes up smartphone scene with dash of Debian
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The FLX1 runs its own build of ‘Trixie’ but has an Android layer
DEVCONF.CZ Furi Labs’ FLX1 is a Debian-based smartphone with decent specs at a competitive price.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/furi_phone_flx1_debian_smartphone/
Brazen attacks outside Iran’s borders prompt push to better protect journalists
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
As Tehran ramps up attacks on the diaspora news outlet Iran International, lawyers are working with U.S. officials to push back. From Washington, VOA’s Liam Scott has the story. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum.
Google festoons Chrome Enterprise browser with more controls
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Because if there’s one thing it really needed more of…
Google on Wednesday rolled out additional enterprise browser management features to help IT admins to keep corporate browsing software fit for purpose.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/google_chrome_enterprise/
5 Reasons Why Critical Decisions Should Be Made with a Business Plan
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Making critical decisions without a solid framework can be a recipe for disaster when you are starting or growing your business. A well-crafted business plan serves as that essential framework, […]
The post 5 Reasons Why Critical Decisions Should Be Made with a Business Plan appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/5-reasons-why-critical-decisions-should-be-made-with-a-business-plan/
Mozilla integrating AI chatbots into Firefox
date: 2024-06-26, from: OS News
Mozilla has announced it’s adding easy access to tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, and so to Firefox. Whether it’s a local or a cloud-based model, if you want to use AI, we think you should have the freedom to use (or not use) the tools that best suit your needs. With that in mind, this week, we will launch an opt-in experiment offering access to preferred AI services in Nightly for improved productivity as you browse. Instead of juggling between tabs or apps for assistance, those who have opted-in will have the option to access their preferred AI service from the Firefox sidebar to summarize information, simplify language, or test their knowledge, all without leaving their current web page. Our initial offering will include ChatGPT, Google Gemini, HuggingChat, and Le Chat Mistral, but we will continue adding AI services that meet our standards for quality and user experience. ↫ Ian Carmichael My biggest worry is not so much Mozilla adding these tools to Firefox – other browsers are doing it, and people clearly want to use them, so it makes sense for Firefox, too, to integrate them into the browser. No, my biggest worry is that this is just the first step on the way to the next major revenue agreement – just as Google is paying Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox, what if OpenAI starts paying to be the default AI tool in Firefox? Once that happens, I’m afraid a lot of the verbiage around choice and the ability to easily disable it all is going to change. I’m still incredibly annoyed by the fact I have to dive into about:config just to properly remove Pocket, a service I do not use, do not want, and annoys me by taking up space in my UI. I’m afraid that one or two years from now, AI integration will be just another complex set of strings I need to look for in about:config to truly disable it all. It definitely feels like Firefox is only going to get worse from here on out, not better, and this AI stuff seems more like an invitation for a revenue agreement than something well thought-out and useful. We’ll see where things go from here, but my worries about Firefox’ future are only growing stronger with Mozilla’s latest moves. As a Linux user, this makes me worried.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140074/mozilla-integrating-ai-chatbots-into-firefox/
Alex Morgan left off U.S. soccer Olympic roster; Stanford well represented
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Bay Area will send several key players to Paris despite Morgan’s absence from the roster under new coach Emma Hayes.
AOOSTAR GEM12 Review: Mini PC with OCuLink, 2.5 GbE LAN and up to Ryzen 7 8845HS
date: 2024-06-26, from: Liliputing
The AOOSTAR GEM12 is a small desktop computer with a lot of features and a lot of customization options. It features a set of ports that includes OCuLink, USB4, and 2.5 GbE LAN. It’s available with a choice of AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, Ryzen 7 7840HS or Ryzen 9 6900HX processor options. And it can […]
The post AOOSTAR GEM12 Review: Mini PC with OCuLink, 2.5 GbE LAN and up to Ryzen 7 8845HS appeared first on Liliputing.
Biden, Trump to square off in 90-minute presidential debate
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-to-square-off-in-90-minute-presidential-debate/7674625.html
US Supreme Court rules for Biden administration in social media dispute with conservative states
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices threw out lower-court rulings that favored Louisiana, Missouri and other parties in their claims that officials in the Democratic administration leaned on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that the states and other parties did not have the legal right, or standing, to sue.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The case is among several before the court this term that affect social media companies in the context of free speech. In February, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. In March, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers.
The cases over state laws and the one that was decided Wednesday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints.
The states had argued that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who applied “unrelenting pressure” to coerce changes in online content on social media platforms.
But the justices appeared broadly skeptical of those claims during arguments in March and several worried that common interactions between government officials and the platforms could be affected by a ruling for the states.
The Biden administration underscored those concerns when it noted that the government would lose its ability to communicate with the social media companies about antisemitic and anti-Muslim posts, as well as on issues of national security, public health and election integrity.
The Supreme Court had earlier acted to keep the lower-court rulings on hold. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the restrictions on government contacts with the platforms to go into effect.
Free speech advocates had urged the court to use the case to draw an appropriate line between the government’s acceptable use of the bully pulpit and coercive threats to free speech.
A panel of three judges on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that the Biden administration had probably brought unconstitutional pressure on the media platforms. The appellate panel said officials cannot attempt to “coerce or significantly encourage” changes in online content. The panel had previously narrowed a more sweeping order from a federal judge, who wanted to include even more government officials and prohibit mere encouragement of content changes.
The case is Murthy v. Missouri, 23-411.
The Coolest Thing in Climate Tech Just Got More Buyers
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
Rondo Energy, a Silicon Valley startup building “heat batteries” to replace fossil fuels in heavy industries, announced three new customers on Wednesday. In just a few months’ time, the company has gone from serving a single industry — ethanol — at its pilot plant in California, to making deals around the globe that demonstrate the technology’s potential versatility.
With grant funding from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, as well as the European Investment Bank, the company will install three commercial-scale batteries at factories in Denmark, Germany, and Portugal. Each one will prove Rondo’s compatibility with a different industry: In Denmark, the battery will be used to produce low-carbon biogas. In Germany, it will power a Covestro chemical plant that produces polymers. In Portugal, it will power a to-be-announced food and beverage factory.
Rondo warms up literal tons of bricks to more than 1,000 degrees Celsius (more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) using electric heaters powered by renewable energy. The bricks can retain the heat for up to 18 hours, my colleague Katie Brigham reported earlier this year. When the heat is needed, air flows through the system and releases energy as either hot air or steam. At the site in Denmark, for instance, the battery will generate high pressure steam to drive a turbine generator, delivering steady heat and power to the plant. Rondo sells the energy as a service, retaining ownership and control of the equipment.
The projects announced Wednesday follow a series of recent deals across a diverse list of industries: a cement plant in Thailand, a plastic recycling plant in Texas, and even whiskey — Diageo will use the tech to electrify its Bulleit Bourbon plant in Kentucky. The fast fashion giant H&M is exploring use of the tech, and the company has also announced partnerships with the renewable energy developer EDP as well as Saudi Aramco.
As Katie noted in her piece, there are a lot of technologies competing to solve the challenge of producing industrial-grade heat. Carbon capture and storage equipment can be added to existing fossil fuel boilers, or natural gas and coal can be replaced with clean hydrogen fuel. There are also industrial heat pumps that can produce lower-temperature heat. But all of these solutions have the same challenge — overcoming the “green premium” compared with the fossil fuel boilers and furnaces used today.
Just because Rondo has made inroads in some industries, doesn’t mean all its potential customers are ready or able to fork over that green premium today. That’s why, in addition to being an investor in Rondo, Breakthrough Energy Catalyst decided to provide grant funding to these three new deployments, said Mario Fernandez, the head of the Catalyst program. The hope is these projects will help bring down the cost and catalyze greater adoption.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/rondo-battery-deal
‘Righting an historic wrong’: President Biden pardons veterans convicted under military law banning gay sex
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The proclamation is set to affect roughly 2,000 people, according to a US official. The granting of pardons won’t automatically change convicted veterans’ records but allows those impacted to apply for a certificate of pardon that will help them receive withheld benefits.
Map: Fresno June Lightning wildfires and evacuation zone
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Two wildfires that have grown to within a mile of each other prompted evacuation orders in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Fresno.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/26/map-fresno-june-lightning-wildfires-and-evacuation-zone/
Utah Is Sending a Conservative Climate Believer to the Senate
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
The United States Senate is almost certainly getting another Republican who at least thinks climate change is a real problem.
Utah Congressman John Curtis, the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, won the Republican primary for Mitt Romney’s Senate seat over a gaggle of more conservative opponents, including one endorsed by former president Donald Trump. The primary victory puts Curtis in position to win the general election in November. (Utah hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1970.)
His victory was fueled in part by conservative environmental groups and donors, who put considerable resources toward his campaign. American Conservation Coalition Action, which seeks to mobilize young conservatives around climate, endorsed Curtis and hosted events with him, while its affiliated political action committee, ACC PAC, knocked on doors in Utah and spent around $250,000 in support of his candidacy, according to OpenSecrets. The most substantial support came from Clear Path Action, another center-right environmental group, which has spent almost $500,000 so far on Curtis, making up the overwhelming majority of its spending this cycle. The group’s founder, Jay Faison, is the biggest donor (to the tune of $2 million) to Conservatives Values for Utah, an outside group that’s spent $5 million to boost Curtis.
During his four terms in the House, Curtis largely steered clear of large scale, Democrat-backed climate and energy bills, instead supporting energy policies that have or could have broad, bipartisan support. He worked on the legislation that would become the ADVANCE Act, the nuclear regulatory reform bill that passed the House and Senate with huge bipartisan majorities; he’s also a supporter of geothermal energy, and has introduced legislation to ease the permitting process for new projects. Like all Republicans in Congress, he voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, and, like most Republicans in Congress, he also opposed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more typically called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which contained billions of clean energy funding.
Curtis is unlikely to garner support from the mainstream environmental groups that typically support Democrats, especially considering his opponent, Caroline Gleich, is an environmental activist. But he has gotten far more respectful notice than is typical for Republicans.The Sierra Club’s magazine profiled Curtis earlier this year, saying he “would be one of the few — perhaps the only — Senate Republicans who say that climate action is a priority.”
But Curtis is still unmistakably a Republican. Yes, he attended the United Nations climate conference in the United Arab Emirates and told Fox News, “the goal at COP should be to reduce global emissions, not energy choices;” but afterward, he also told the Deseret News, “you’re not going to replace [fossil fuels] with windmills and solar farms,’ and “we need to start having a discussion about the role of fossil fuels in our clean energy future.” When he appeared on the Climate One podcast, he said his interest in climate change derived from “an innate desire to be good stewards over this earth,” but also insisted that “it’s been a mistake to focus solely on fossil fuels [as] the problem here.”
It’s unlikely that Curtis will show up in the Senate and demand investigations of fossil fuel companies. More likely, he’ll continue his efforts to respond to Europe’s carbon border adjustment alongside fellow Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
“Representative Curtis’ thought leadership on environmental issues while staying true to his conservative values is a major step forward for the conservative environmental movement. We’re fortunate to have a strong ally like Representative Curtis in Congress, and we’re excited to hopefully continue working with him in the Senate to make America the most prosperous and cleanest country in the world,” ACC Action chief executive Danielle Butcher Franz told me in an emailed statement.
Curtis’ conservative environmentalism has helped him fundraise, but it’s also been the primary line of attack from his more conservative opponents, who seek to paint him as too liberal for the conservative state and whose climate politics are, at best, a misplaced priority, and at worst, at bat signal for out of state donors. (Faison, Curtis’ biggest supporter, lives in North Carolina.)
Curtis will likely join a small gaggle of Republican Senators who push policies to support American clean energy while remaining skeptical of the Democratic Party’s efforts to restrict fossil fuels, including Cassidy and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowksi.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to distinguish between
American Conservation Coalition Action and ACC PAC’s
activities.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/john-curtis-senate
Supreme Court sides with mayor accused of accepting a bribe in latest ruling to limit public anti-corruption laws
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, was convicted of accepting $13,000 from a trucking company weeks after it was awarded a contract. Snyder argued the payment was an after-the-fact “gratuity” that wasn’t covered by the federal bribery statute.
A Goliath vs. Goliath story 20 years in the making
date: 2024-06-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A federal judge has rejected an antitrust settlement that would have lowered the fees Visa and Mastercard charge every time you use your credit card to pay for a purchase. The judge ruled the settlement did not go far enough, agreeing with retailers who want to chip away at the power held by credit card companies. We’ll hear more. Then, hundreds of thousands of home sitting empty in Japanese cities. Expatriates are noticing.
Sights, sounds and smells of nature rule at this new Cal Academy of Sciences exhibit
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
New permanent exhibit promises a nature feast for the senses – from grizzly bears to a forest “Smell-o-Vision.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/26/nature-rules-at-this-new-cal-academy-of-sciences-exhibit/
Microsoft makes it harder to avoid OneDrive during new Windows 11 installs
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Hey, OneDrive! Leave my files alone
User data is being slurped into Microsoft’s cloud via OneDrive folder backup without user permission.…
Man dies in East Oakland shooting
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Tuesday night killing is the 46th homicide investigated by police this year.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/26/man-dies-in-east-oakland-shooting-4/
For Bay Area weather, a return to normal after two electric days
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
By Tuesday night, most of the lightning in the Bay Area had moved out, according to the weather service.
Researchers Prove Rabbit AI Breach By Sending Email to Us as Admin
date: 2024-06-26, from: 404 Media Group
The researchers claim they could see “all Rabbit R1 responses ever given.”
https://www.404media.co/researchers-prove-rabbit-ai-breach-by-sending-email-to-us-as-admin/
Doppio Zero in Campbell adds up to great Italian food
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Los Gatos’s Bywater adds jazz to its Sunday brunch menu.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/26/doppio-zero-in-campbell-adds-up-to-great-italian-food/
How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It
date: 2024-06-26, from: Quanta Magazine
Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science.The post How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-ai-revolutionized-protein-science-but-didnt-end-it-20240626/
Resource burden of electric vehicles set to triple by 2050
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Experts say ‘circular economy strategies’ could keep demand at 2015 levels
Demand for raw materials to make electric vehicles will triple by 2050, while lithium-ion batteries could account for more than half the total resources needed for the auto industry by the same date, research from Japan has found.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/resource_burden_ev/
Supreme Court allows White House to press social media companies to remove disinformation
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Of immediate significance, the decision means that the Department of Homeland Security may continue to flag posts to social media companies such as Facebook and X that it believes may be the work of foreign agents seeking to disrupt this year’s presidential race.
Los Gatos residents come together to plan multigenerational community center
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Idea grew from desire for more senior services in town.
Kurtenbach: Answering your biggest Warriors questions ahead of the NBA Draft, free agency
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
There’s a lot going on, folks.
Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Made famous in 1995 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula have captured imaginations worldwide with their arresting, ethereal beauty. Now, NASA has released a new 3D visualization of these towering celestial structures using data from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This is the […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/new-hubble-webb-pillars-of-creation-visualization/
The 1998 Florida Firestorm and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
Lightning Crashes East central Florida’s natural environment and climate have shaped, and delayed, Kennedy Space Center launch operations since the 1960s. Torrential pop-up thunderstorms, Atlantic hurricanes, roasting heat, and other climatic phenomena, including lightning and fire, repeatedly hampered mission timelines and created dangerous conditions for astronauts and workers. Kennedy Space Center personnel understood the dangers […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/the-1998-florida-firestorm-and-nasas-kennedy-space-center/
GM brings in new CEO to steer troubled Cruise robotaxi service while Waymo ramps up in San Francisco
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
General Motors on Tuesday named a veteran technology executive with roots in the video game industry to steer its troubled robotaxi service Cruise as it tries to recover from a gruesome collision that triggered the suspension of its California license.
Hakone executive director to step down
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
Shozo Kagoshima is leaving the Saratoga landmark gardens after 9 years.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/26/hakone-executive-director-to-step-down/
Emergency track work causes BART to close one of its commute lines
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
According to BART, a maintenance vehicle derailed overnight.
ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses
date: 2024-06-26, from: 404 Media Group
As social networks and porn sites move towards a verified identity model, the actions of one cybersecurity researcher show that ID verification services themselves could get hacked too.
https://www.404media.co/id-verification-service-for-tiktok-uber-x-exposed-driver-licenses-au10tix/
Batten down the hatches, it’s time to patch some more MOVEit bugs
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Exploit attempts for ‘devastating’ vulnerabilities already underway
Thought last year’s MOVEit hellscape was well and truly behind you? Unlucky, buster. We’re back for round two after Progress Software lifted the lid on fresh vulnerabilities affecting MOVEit Transfer and Gateway.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/batten_down_the_hatches_its/
Taste-Off: The best sour cream at Bay Area supermarkets — and the duds
date: 2024-06-26, from: San Jose Mercury News
There are some divine sour creams in dairy cases at local markets - and there are some ghastly ones. Here’s what to buy and what to avoid.
Why VW and Rivian are Teaming Up
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Puerto Rico issued a heat advisory for the entire island for the first time ever • Flooding and landslides in Ivory Coast left at least 24 people dead • A fast-growing wildfire in central Oregon prompted evacuations.
THE TOP FIVE
- Volkswagen and Rivian team up in $5 billion joint venture
Volkswagen announced it will invest $5 billion ($1 billion now, another $4 billion over a few years) in EV pickup company Rivian as part of a joint venture “to create next generation software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms to be used in both companies’ future electric vehicles.” The move will give VW access to Rivian’s technology, and Rivian a much-needed financial lifeline as it tries to launch its new R2 vehicles while cutting production costs. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said the money will allow Rivian to move ahead with plans to build a new manufacturing plant in Georgia. The news sent Rivian’s stock soaring, and Scaringe said the cash will help the company reach profitability. The company reported a $5.4 billion net loss last year.
- Cybertruck recalled for 4th time since November
Tesla’s Cybertruck was recalled again yesterday. This time, Tesla says the recall (which applies to more than 11,000 trucks) addresses a faulty front windshield wiper, and trim pieces that can apparently fly off the vehicle and hit people nearby. This is the pickup’s fourth recall since sales began last November. The wiper will be replaced free of charge. As for the trim, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tesla will apply an “adhesion promoter and pressure sensitive tape” to make sure it stays in place, or replace it if it’s already missing.
- Researchers identify new ‘tipping point’ for melting ice sheets
Our current projections for sea level rise from the melting ice sheets may be “significant underestimates,” according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The researchers said they identified a potential melting process by which warm seawater makes its way into the gap between the ice and the ground beneath it, known as the “grounding zone.” This water melts holes in the ice, allowing more warm water through, creating a feedback loop. “We find that grounding zone melting displays a ‘tipping point like’ behavior, where a very small change in ocean temperature can cause a very big increase in grounding zone melting, which would lead to a very big change in flow of the ice above it,” said Alex Bradley, an ice dynamics researcher at the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the new paper. Bradley said this finding could help explain why the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are melting faster than scientists would expect, and called for incorporating seawater intrusion into the existing models.
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- Heat waves are shaping Americans’ summer vacation plans
Data from Booking.com shows how the heat waves baking the U.S. are influencing Americans’ summer travel plans. Nearly 64% of vacationers indicated that rising local temperatures were a factor in their choice of vacation spot for the July 4 holiday, and about one-third of travelers are considering coastal areas, hoping that proximity to water will keep temperatures cool, Reuters reported. Panama City Beach, Florida, and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina were among the destinations seeing a rise in searches.
- Denmark will become first country in the world to tax farmers for
methane-emitting livestock
In a world first, Denmark will start taxing farmers for the methane their livestock emit. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and livestock are a major source of emissions because ruminant animals like cows belch the stuff. Denmark’s new measure will charge farmers the equivalent of about $17 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent starting in 2030, increasing to roughly $28 by 2035. According to The Associated Press, a typical Danish cow produces methane emissions equivalent to 6.6 tons of CO2, so the new tax could add up to about $112 per year per cow in 2030, jumping to nearly $185 per cow per year by 2035. The hope is that other countries follow Denmark’s lead and that the tax will “lay the groundwork for a restructured food industry.”
THE KICKER
“We have fought many wars over oil. We will fight bigger wars over food and water.” –Sunny Verghese, chief executive of Singapore-based agricultural trading house Olam Agri, speaking to the Financial Times
https://heatmap.news/volkswagen-rivian-5-billion-evs
An apology for my comments about the British election
date: 2024-06-26, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
I want to apologize for yesterday’s rant about British politics. That kind of rhetoric isn’t big or clever, and it runs against the tone I usually try for*. Over time, this space has shifted from more personal thoughts towards more directed opinions at the intersection of tech and society, so newer readers may have been a bit confused.
I am angry, and I did take Brexit exceptionally personally. But it might have been more productive to discuss the details of why. For that, I encourage you to check out Richard Murphy’s Funding the Future, a blog about developing a fairer and sustainable economy, which has a UK focus.
* Aside from my comments about David Cameron. The guy deserves it. It’s hard to aporcine blame.
https://werd.io/2024/an-apology-for-my-comments-about-the-british-election
Atos in chaos as bailout talks unravel faster than you can say ‘restructuring’
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Time for plan B (or will it be C?)
Crisis-stricken Atos says the chosen bailout proposal from its largest shareholder has fallen through, just weeks after being confirmed, leaving the IT services biz to consider two alternative bids.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/atos_restructure_deal_fails/
Smart bee hotel features 11 Raspberry Pis
date: 2024-06-26, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Ten Raspberry Pis work with individual live-streaming cameras, and an eleventh powers six weather stations around this smart bee hotel.
The post Smart bee hotel features 11 Raspberry Pis appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/smart-bee-hotel-features-11-raspberry-pis/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump trusted more than Biden on democracy among key swing-state voters. When can we stop subsidizing Fox News?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/26/biden-trump-swing-state-poll-democracy/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Knicks trade for Mikal Bridges.
Etched looks to challenge Nvidia with an ASIC purpose-built for transformer models
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Startup says Sohu chip will be 20x faster than Nvidia’s H100 in Llama 70B … assuming it’s actually built
Following ChatGPT’s debut in late 2022, GPUs – Nvidia’s in particular – have become synonymous with generative AI.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/etched_asic_ai/
3 things you need to know about student loans this summer
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The LAist
The Biden administration’s student loan relief program, SAVE, is set to reduce payments this summer for many borrowers, but there are legal challenges looming.
https://laist.com/news/education/3-things-you-need-to-know-about-student-loans-this-summer
California Senate could approve a ballot measure to end forced labor in prison. Here’s why advocates have been pushing for it
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The LAist
Advocates say forcing incarcerated people to work deprives them of the ability to focus on other things like life training and education to better their lives after prison.
What do you get when you cross a VW with a Rivian electric?
date: 2024-06-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Volkswagen says it’s putting $5 billion into U.S. electric truck company Rivian. The cash infusion comes at a crucial time for Rivian, as it watches other EV startups go under. But VW also needs something out of this. We unpack. Plus, why it’s so difficult to maintain America’s aging bridge infrastructure and how the market for online comics is doing as Webtoon Entertainment looks to go public.
Glastonbury to turn festivalgoer pee into eco-friendly fertilizer
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now that’s what you call a golden harvest
As normies arrive at the world’s most middle-of-the-road festival today, by the end of the week Glastonbury will be awash with hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemical-laced urine.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/glastonbury_pee_fertilizer/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Golf shirts and classified docs: New court filings show Trump’s clutter.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Silicon Valley wants unfettered control of the tech market. That’s why it’s cosying up to Trump.
Kenya anti-tax protests turn violent
date: 2024-06-26, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: At least 13 people have been killed and many more injured after police fired into crowds protesting Kenya’s controversial finance bill in Nairobi. An angry crowd stormed the parliament before setting parts of it on fire. Protests have taken place for several days. How did Kenya get here? Also: a look at the expats buying and renovating some of the 9 million empty homes in Japan.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/kenya-anti-tax-protests-turn-violent
British Airways blames T5 luggage chaos on fault ‘outside of our control’
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It was Vodafone, basically
Exclusive The Register can exclusively reveal that the “IT issue” behind the ongoing chaos at British Airways was due to problems with how its systems interact with the Vodafone platform.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/british_airways_t5_luggage/
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returns to Australia after US legal battle ends
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
Was This Mysterious Woman a Medieval Warrior?
date: 2024-06-26, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Buried at a castle in Spain, the woman was found alongside the remains of 22 men who likely died on the battlefield
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-this-mysterious-woman-a-medieval-warrior-180984605/
Jim de Bree | An Interesting Tax Decision from SCOTUS
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Last summer, I wrote two columns about a peculiar tax case that the Supreme Court decided to hear. Although the amount of tax involved in the case was less than […]
The post Jim de Bree | An Interesting Tax Decision from SCOTUS appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/jim-de-bree-an-interesting-tax-decision-from-scotus/
Rick Barker | Advice?
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
In re: Thomas Oatway, “Risky Medical Advice,” letters, June 21. Mr. Oatway ends his most recent rambling diatribe with: “My advice: Take medical advice from Mr. (Rob) Kerchner at your […]
The post Rick Barker | Advice? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/rick-barker-advice/
Arthur Saginian | Getting What They Asked For
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Former President Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts by a jury of his “peers.” “Peers …” I find that a rather amusing characterization, but whatever. Sweeping […]
The post Arthur Saginian | Getting What They Asked For appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/arthur-saginian-getting-what-they-asked-for/
Joe Guzzardi | This Isn’t JFK’s Boston Anymore
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Journalists who cover the immigration beat have a maxim: “Never say you’ve been witness to every conceivable violation of immigration law; you’ll soon be proven wrong.” In her relatively short […]
The post Joe Guzzardi | This Isn’t JFK’s Boston Anymore appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/joe-guzzardi-this-isnt-jfks-boston-anymore/
Walk On The Blade: The Marc Rich & Co Commodities Story
date: 2024-06-26, from: RIP Corp
RIP Corp is a Charts & Leisure production. Find us at ripcorp.biz, or follow in places @ripcorpdotbiz for all your dead business needs.
To support the show, please consider aligning yourself even more deeply with the brand, via our merch shop: ripcorp.threadless.com
RIP Corp is written and hosted by Ingrid Burrington. Produced by Meghal Janardan and Mike Rugnetta. Associate producer, Taylor Behnke. Original music and sound design from Andrew Atkin and Michael Simonelli. Fact-checking from Matt Giles. Logo design by Beatriz Lozano and illustrations by Megan Mulholland. Executive produced by Jason Oberholtzer.
https://ripcorp.biz/episodes/walk-on-the-blade-the-marc-rich-co-commodities-story-uenn68M9
AT&T wants Big Tech to help fund US internet access
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Affordable Connectivity funding coming to an end soon…
AT&T thinks that internet-based technology giants should contribute to a fund that subsidizes access to telecoms and broadband services in the US, and wants the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to force them to do so.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/att_wants_big_tech_network_fund/
Americans favored for overall Olympic medals, China will challenge for most gold
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
America’s Nuclear Policy Is Getting … Pretty Good!
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
Congress just passed perhaps its biggest support for zero-carbon energy since the Inflation Reduction Act. The ADVANCE Act, which the Senate adopted overwhelmingly last week, aims to keep America at the cutting edge of the global nuclear industry by cutting regulatory fees, making it easier for U.S. companies to build nuclear power plants abroad, and reforming the agency that oversees it all, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk with Ryan Norman, a senior policy advisor at Third Way’s climate and energy program, about how America got here. We talk about why nuclear is such a bipartisan issue, what the ADVANCE Act will actually do, and how soon new nuclear power plants could actually get built. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Ryan Norman: The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a very well-regarded reputation, around the world partially because of the way it thinks about layers of different issues.
Stepping back for a brief second, when we talk about these relationships with other countries — I had mentioned that it’s an interagency option, but it’s also much deeper than financial. There’s a market piece, but there’s also a long-term relationship that you end up building with the country because your regulators understand each other. You’ve built a relationship with the international regulators and the monitoring agencies. You’re more or less introduced into that relationship by your partner, so by the U.S,. or by the French, or the Koreans, or whoever it is. So there’s a long-term relationship of trust that needs to be built there between those two poles.
So it’s really important that you work with a country that has experience mitigating some of these social issues and working that into the process effectively. Because when those disputes happen in a partner country, they want to be able to replicate the discourse process of transparency and all the different things that the NRC does.
When you think about how that translates to some of our competitors, countries like Russia and China, the dynamic of those countries’ regulators in the industry is very opaque. It’s much closer to the way the NRC’s precursor, the Atomic Energy Commission, used to operate in the United States, right? There’s just a lot of issues that those industries in Russia and China aren’t concerned with. Practically speaking, there’s no such thing as environmental or energy justice in China, right? Like there’s no community benefits plan process that they have to go through to build a new reactor. They have a lot of space. The density is very different. The authority and the permitting process is so different that they basically just make a decision and that’s how it goes.
So then that means that when you’re basing — when a country, you know, like a partner like Ghana, for example, is trying to base, okay, how do I want my regulator to look? Well, if I take the structure they have in another country that is not used to incorporating social engagement and understanding around some of these issues, and really mitigating social backlash, you’re really just replicating a system that is not going to be as equitable as what you could do if you were a partner with the U.S. So it’s another reason that U.S. leadership is really an imperative.
Robinson Meyer: And this is what makes nuclear reactors so different from solar, or onshore wind, or really any kind of wind or other kinds of energy technologies, I suppose, is that you’re signing up … You alluded to, like, a 50-year agreement, basically, between two countries, and you’re pledging a very long-term integration between those two regulatory states. In between, for lack of better term, energy-planning elites in those two countries.
Norman: Yeah, they call it the 100-year relationship, and that’s a long time. But it’s super real, and it’s super important because there’s a lot of influence that comes with being an energy partner, and you have the ability and I would say even the responsibility to guide that energy partner to do things responsibly and do things equitably. And I think that if we want a clean energy future that is abundant but also just, we can’t just defer leadership in these spaces to folks who are not focused on these principles.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-episode-21-advance-act
PeerJ Award Winners at APF 2024
date: 2024-06-26, from: PeerJ blog
The 2024 Annual Congress of the Association Paléontologique Française (APF) convened over sixty researchers, postdoctoral academics, PhD students, and amateur palaeontologists in the southwestern French city of Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne) from the 3rd to the 7th of June. The congress was organised with the support of the Victor Brun Natural History Museum of Montauban, the Lot […]
https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284889389/peerj-award-winners-at-apf-2024/
SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 to receive support right up to end of Unix epoch
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
And there’s a special offer on the CentOS-compatible Liberty Linux
As SUSE ascends its self-imposed ALP, this version may be the last of the fixed release cycle for openSUSE Leap.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/sle_opensuse_15_6/
Can You Stop and Restart Social Security Benefits?
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Dear Savvy Senior, Can I stop my Social Security retirement benefits and restart them later to get a bigger payment? I recently got a nice unexpected inheritance, so I don’t […]
The post Can You Stop and Restart Social Security Benefits? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/can-you-stop-and-restart-social-security-benefits/
Big Tech Wants Your Paycheck
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Lever News
Tech companies and a corporate-funded right-wing bill mill aim to pave the way for app-based payday-lending scams.
https://www.levernews.com/big-tech-wants-your-paycheck/
Classifieds – June 26, 2024
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition. Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the Classifieds.
The post Classifieds – June 26, 2024 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/classifieds-june-26-2024/
Want to save the planet from AI? Chuck in an FPGA and ditch the matrix
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Watts down, doc: Boffins find machine learning models can function with more modest power requirements
Large language models can be made 50 times more energy efficient with alternative math and custom hardware, claim researchers at University of California Santa Cruz.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/ai_model_fpga/
Today in SCV History (June 26)
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1972 – Upper (main) Castaic Lake opens for swimming and boating; afterbay opened in May [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-26/
Julian Assange pleads guilty, leaves courtroom a free man
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now, about that bill for the private jet that’s taking him home to Australia …
Julian Assange is a free man.…
USC student will not be charged in fatal stabbing of unhoused carjacking suspect
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Xavier Cerf allegedly told Ivan Gallegos he had a gun, but no gun was ever found.
The post USC student will not be charged in fatal stabbing of unhoused carjacking suspect appeared first on Daily Trojan.
JuJu Watkins throws out Dodgers’ first pitch
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The basketball superstar showed off her baseball skills at Dodger Stadium.
The post JuJu Watkins throws out Dodgers’ first pitch appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/juju-watkins-throws-out-dodgers-first-pitch/
Student Health discusses respiratory health, environmental issues
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Extreme heat and poor air quality increase health risks to students during summer.
The post Student Health discusses respiratory health, environmental issues appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/student-health-discusses-respiratory-health-environmental-issues/
Everything reminds me of ‘Her’
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Crying isn’t always pointless, and it can sometimes be the catharsis one needs.
The post Everything reminds me of ‘Her’ appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/everything-reminds-me-of-her/
Onigiri satisfies on-the-go snack cravings
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Rice & Nori serves various hand-rolls, raw fish and finger foods.
The post Onigiri satisfies on-the-go snack cravings appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/onigiri-satisfies-on-the-go-snack-cravings/
Sometimes all you need is a good cry
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Crying isn’t always pointless, and it can sometimes be the catharsis one needs.
The post Sometimes all you need is a good cry appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/sometimes-all-you-need-is-a-good-cry/
Inside the biggest Summer Game Fest announcements
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Numerous new and exciting video game productions were revealed this June.
The post Inside the biggest Summer Game Fest announcements appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/inside-the-biggest-summer-game-fest-announcements/
João Neves wants the ball
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Benfica midfielder is the latest prospect from Portugal’s talent conveyor belt.
The post João Neves wants the ball appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/26/joao-neves-wants-the-ball/
Apple tells emulator developers it’s OK with retro games – not entire OSes
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
We sure hope this won’t upset European regulators given how great their relationship is with Apple right now
Updated A pair of developers have come away from encounters with Apple’s latest rules regarding video game emulators in its App Store and concluded the iGiant is not okay with software that emulates a whole operating system.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/apple_emulation_eu/
What share of lithium-ion batteries are recycled?
date: 2024-06-26, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
We don’t know, is the honest answer. But the 5% figure seems to be a myth.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/battery-recycling-myth
Yahoo! Japan to waive $189 million ad revenue after detecting fraudulent clicks
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Admits it’s not sure some clicks came from humans, points to bettter quality as sign not all is rotten
Yahoo! Japan will waive $189 million charged to advertisers after deciding they were fraudulently charged, the portal’s corporate parent revealed on Tuesday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/yahoo_japan_ad_fraud/
City renews LASD contract with little discussion
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
The city of Santa Clarita handled important annual items Tuesday ahead of the fiscal year’s end, including a discussion of annual levying of fees, its service contracts and of course, […]
The post City renews LASD contract with little discussion appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/city-plans-to-renew-lasd-contract-without-discussion/
UC Santa Barbara Baseball Coach Andrew Checketts Named West Region Coach of the Year
date: 2024-06-26, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Gauchos finished the 2024 season with a 44-14 overall record.
The post UC Santa Barbara Baseball Coach Andrew Checketts Named West Region Coach of the Year appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
The Living Computers Museum finally isn’t
date: 2024-06-26, from: Old Vintage Computer Research
First off, apologies for a quiet month as I’ve been dealing with family matters which hopefully are now on a better footing (more articles are in the hopper). Unfortunately, the same apparently can’t be said for the once-great Living Computers Museum + Labs in Seattle, established by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and closed in 2020 during the COVID pandemic after his death, at least some of which is going up for auction. The specific pieces have not yet been announced by Christie’s, but will ostensibly include his personal DECsystem-10, a 1971 KI10 DEC PDP-10 from the MIT AI Lab which is the first computer he and Bill Gates ever used. (There’s just something about your first. I still have my actual first computer too, and with only around 1500 systems built the unit at the LCM was apparently the exact machine they used also. Here’s a picture of it from when it was in residence at the LCM and used to develop a replica.)Obviously, while I think it’s a crying shame, the estate can do what it likes with its own stuff and I hope the machine, plus the other 149 pieces reportedly to be auctioned off, goes to someone who appreciates it. (Bill Gates himself perhaps.) What’s more problematic is the people who donated systems and peripherals with the expectation they would remain there in some capacity, especially since the museum reportedly didn’t accept items as long-term loans. (Wikipedia has a substantially complete list of those items.) That’s not per se an unreasonable position, and one that helps protect the museum, but it’s also one that leaves their prior owners with no firm recourse for recovery before they get liquidated or scrapped in a situation like this. Throwing them away is bad enough but if those items also go up for sale, though doing so may be technically legal depending on how the transfer was written up, it’s pretty darn sleazy. Allen’s estate, notably his sister Jody who is the trustee and executrix, would then be profiting off items donated in good faith on the understanding that they would be in a museum. That’s bad and they should feel bad.
But then perhaps museums aren’t what they used to be. On cctalk someone mentioned the now defunct? National Museum of Communications in Irving, TX which downsized in 1998 by taking about five commercial dumpsters’ worth of radios and other items to the dump. It looks like one guy ran that shop and it probably became too large for him to handle, a story which is probably more common than most of us know, though it’s still bad news for the equipment that got junked — some of which was almost certainly rare or irreplaceable, even if specific items themselves weren’t particularly valuable. Every collector has had well-intentioned dreams at one time or another of opening our own museums, not realizing that they turn into massive sinks of time and money and regulatory filings, and they’re never as much fun to operate as the private computer room or display case you used to have in your house. Situations like this should also remind us that donating our own beloved items to any institution in the hopes they’ll “survive” us is no guarantee they’ll remain there either.
We’re amateurs, though. Paul Allen, on the other hand, was not an amateur and was an incredibly wealthy man who had to have some awareness of estate planning, and one who knew his cancer was likely to return. It is widely reputed that the LCM was expensive to run and hard to manage even with his sizeable fortune and a lot of diligent volunteers. Now his collection and quite a few artifacts I imagine some folks would like back are in the hands of his sister, who allegedly doesn’t have any interest in them other than the price they might fetch. Let that be a lesson to us that no one and nothing lives forever.
https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-living-computers-museum-finally-isnt.html
Organized crime and domestic violence perps are big buyers of tracking devices
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Australian study finds GPS trackers – and sometimes AirTags – are in demand for the wrong reasons
Tracking devices are in demand from organized crime groups and known perpetrators of domestic violence, according to an Australian study.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/criminals_use_gps_bluetooth_trackers/
NASA, SpaceX Launch NOAA’s Latest Weather Satellite
date: 2024-06-26, from: NASA breaking news
NASA successfully launched the fourth and final satellite in a series of advanced weather satellites for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) at 5:26 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) will benefit the nation by providing continuous coverage of weather and hazardous environmental conditions across much of the Western Hemisphere. The satellite […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-spacex-launch-noaas-latest-weather-satellite/
China’s Chang’e-6 capsule returns with lunar loot from the far side
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now to figure out if it really is rich in useful stuff that could fuel further exploration
China’s Chang’e-6 re-entry capsule reached Earth on Tuesday after a 53-day mission to the far side of the Moon. And it came back with a sample onboard.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/china_far_side_sample/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-26, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
This is why we can’t have nice
things
https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon/112679629018556753
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112680425382508559
John Sullivan opened issue #142: SVN History? at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
Hi, I was curious about browsing some of the pre-2000s sources for A2, particularly to see the history of the X11 interface https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/blob/main/source/Unix.X11.Mod#L11
I tried using git-svn to pull the history from the ETH
hosted SVN server, but it doesn't appear to work unfortunately. I could
try again or take some pointers, but I don't want to blindly mash
against what's meant to be an archive. Maybe the SVN repo could be
dumped to an object storage service as a permanent download? In general
I think it would be illustrative to have a more complete history of the
source code, but I understand if that's not a priority of the faculty.
Thanks!
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/142
The First Crack Just Opened in the Climate Left
date: 2024-06-26, from: Heatmap News
There will be many chances this week to dissect why two-term New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer, which The Associated Press called less than an hour after the polls closed on Tuesday. Post mortems will focus on the financial angle (the 16th District primary was the most expensive in House history) and, of course, the Israel-Palestine angle (nearly $15 million alone came from an American Israel Public Affairs Committee-affiliated super PAC that aggressively portrayed Bowman as antisemitic). Others will say it had been a forgone conclusion and point to the disturbing way Latimer co-opted Republican racial dog-whistles in his attacks, or claim Bowman sabotaged his own chances by shifting too far to the left.
It’s probably still a stretch to say that Bowman’s resounding loss was a referendum on progressive climate movements like Sunrise, which attached itself both to Bowman and to the Green New Deal. But look at it the other way around: In the context of Governor Kathy Hochul’s reneging on congestion pricing and the state legislature’s failure to pass the NY HEAT Act, one of the staunchest allies of progressive climate policy losing his election represents another blow to New York’s image as a national leader on the issue — and its ability to remain one.
The Sunrise Movement played a pivotal role in Bowman’s 2020 win against 30-year incumbent Eliot Engel — who was, himself, an original co-sponsor of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal bill. But Bowman, then 44, represented a fresh face for environmentally minded progressives in a district that once voted more overwhelmingly for Barack Obama than any other locality in the county. When Bowman ultimately defeated the then-73-year-old establishment figure, he also became the first Black representative of the majority minority district that covers the southern half of Westchester County and the northern lip of the Bronx.
In Congress, Bowman’s senior policy advisor reportedly helped spur Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer into action on the Inflation Reduction Act during the summer of 2022. Somewhat less gloriously, Bowman became only the 27th member of Congress to be censured after he pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol during spending bill negotiations. (He claimed he thought it opened a door.) But his legacy also includes the pursuit of progressive climate policies, such as the Sunrise-backed Green New Deal for Public Schools Act, which he’s introduced in each of the past two congressional sessions and, if passed, would invest $1.6 trillion to reduce emissions and lower environmental justice-related barriers at public schools. Still, that sort of aggressive public spending hasn’t always sat right with the powers that be in the Democratic Party; tellingly, Hillary Clinton endorsed Bowman’s challenger, Latimer, even as pro-Trumpers poured money into his campaign.
Fast-forward to 2024, and the Sunrise Movement is going through a reckoning of its own over whether President Biden’s climate record outweighs his handling of the crisis in Gaza. (Ironically, Bowman “probably had the worst politics on the issue of any Squad member early on in his tenure,” the progressive Discourse Blog has argued.)
That’s not to say that the climate is “losing” to Middle East policy in Americans’ hearts and minds, exactly; on the contrary, climate is a proven election winner, albeit not always in those words. “The NY16 race is a setback for the climate movement, but it also shows the popularity of our ideas,” Saul Levin, the campaigns and political director of the Green New Deal Network, wrote me. “It took the most money in primary history and GOP donors to buy Green New Deal champion Jamaal Bowman’s seat.”
But elections are about, and influenced by, many things, and whatever the combination of reasons may be, the truth stands that with Bowman’s defeat, Congress is now down one more progressive climate ally than it otherwise would have been. (Latimer has called climate change an “existential threat” but has not foregrounded it as a primary concern.)
Bowman’s loss might not sound like much in the bigger picture of the many climate elections happening this year — including, of course, the Big One. But if former President Donald Trump manages to take back the White House this November, every House and Senate seat sympathetic to the urgent realities of climate change will matter critically. That’s not to say, necessarily, that Latimer won’t fight for such causes, but it seems unlikely he’ll be a leader the way Bowman and other Squad members have been, at times pushing more centrist Democrats further to the left and to action.
So yes, you can draw many conclusions from the 16th District primary — that it represents the collapse of the progressive influence of groups like Sunrise; or that, with Bowman being the first Squad member to lose reelection, it reveals a growing impatience with absolutist politics; or that big-money interests have finally figured out a winning strategy in outspending scrappy underdogs; or how all these things in combination might spell trouble for Biden in a few months. But a loss is a loss, and it’s the nature of post mortems to leave out the most important question: What happens next?
https://heatmap.news/politics/jamaal-bowman-primary-loss
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-26, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
My friends in the Bay Area who started Berkeleyside and Oaklandside, now have a sister pub for Richmond.
We’re Fighting for Library Rights in Court This Friday – Join Us!
date: 2024-06-26, from: Internet Archive Blog
Friday is our day in court. After four long years of legal action, we will be in New York for the appellate oral argument in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the […]
https://blog.archive.org/2024/06/26/were-fighting-for-library-rights-in-court-this-friday-join-us/
Stability AI stabilized by investment from Silicon Valley royalty, new executive team
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Text-to-image AI outfit can now buy time to build products and profit
Generative AI company Stability AI says it’s poised to accelerate development of its text-to-image products thanks to a fresh round of investments and a management shakeup.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/stability_ai_latest/
Stability AI stablized by investment from Silcon Valley royalty, new executive team
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Text-to-image AI outfit can now buy time to build products and profit
Generative AI company Stability AI says it’s poised to accelerate development of its text-to-image products thanks to a fresh round of investments and a management shakeup.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/stability_ai_refinances/
US transportation official says railroad company interfered with derailment probe
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that Norfolk Southern repeatedly tried to interfere with the agency’s investigation into the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and shape its conclusions about the flawed decision to blow open five tank cars and burn the vinyl chloride inside.
The NTSB also confirmed at Tuesday’s hearing that the February 2023 derailment was caused by a wheel bearing that video showed was on fire for 32.19 kilometers (more than 20 miles) beforehand but wasn’t caught in time by inaccurate trackside detectors. The board also approved more than two dozen recommendations to prevent similar disasters, including establishing federal rules for those detectors and the way railroads respond to them along with reviewing how officials decide whether to ever conduct a vent and burn again.
More than three dozen freight cars derailed February 3, 2023, on the outskirts of East Palestine near the Pennsylvania border, including 11 carrying hazardous materials. Some residents were evacuated that night, but days later more had to leave their homes amid fears of an imminent explosion. Despite potential health effects, officials intentionally released and burned toxic vinyl chloride three days after the crash, sending flames and smoke into the air.
COC AST receives $136,000 grant from NASA
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
News release It’s all systems go for the College of the Canyons Aerospace and Science Team, which has received a $136,000 grant from NASA to support its High-Altitude Student Platform, […]
The post COC AST receives $136,000 grant from NASA appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/coc-ast-receives-136000-grant-from-nasa/
LAUSD budget shrinks, but continues salary increases, class size reductions
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The LAist
L.A. Unified’s board approved an $18.4 billion budget that avoids layoffs and continues to fund raises and class size reductions despite the expiration of billions in federal pandemic relief funding.
https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-school-district-board-approves-budget-2024-2025
Ecuador ends visa-free entry for Chinese nationals
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
Austin, Texas — Ecuador says it will suspend visa-free entry into the country for Chinese citizens, starting July 1, citing a “worrying” increase in irregular migration.
Over the past few years, Ecuador has been the starting point for many of the thousands of Chinese citizens who have decided to take the long and treacherous journey through South America, Central America and Mexico to reach the southern U.S. border.
Some who have already migrated to the United States say Ecuador’s decision and the growing resolve of both Washington and Beijing to stop the flow of illegal migration is a sign that the door may be closing for those seeking to “zouxian” or “walk the line” – as the journey is popularly described in Chinese.
Wang Zhongwei, a 33-year-old Chinese from Anhui, came to the U.S. by “walking the line” from Ecuador in May 2023. He said that after the Ecuadorian government’s announcement, “the discussion [among Chinese illegal immigrants] has been heated, and this has a great impact [because] more than 80% of the people came through Ecuador.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics, the monthly number of encounters for Chinese nationals at the southwestern border hit a record high of nearly 6,000 in December of 2023. In recent months, those encounters have started to come down, slipping to just more than 3,600 in May.
In addition to a recent decision by U.S. President Joe Biden to temporarily restrict asylum eligibility at the U.S.-Mexico border, there are signs that Washington and Beijing are finding ways or at least trying to work together on the issue.
In May, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Associated Press that Beijing is “willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation with the United States in the field of immigration enforcement” and accept the repatriation of people with verified Chinese nationality.
In April, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told a congressional hearing that he had “engaged” with his Chinese counterparts and that China had begun to accept the repatriation of Chinese immigrants who have no legal basis to stay in the United States.
VOA emailed the Department of Homeland Security to inquire about U.S.-Chinese cooperation on the deportation of Chinese nationals but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Guo Bin, a Chinese citizen from Guangxi who arrived in the United States at the end of last year with his 12-year-old daughter, said he has heard of some Chinese who “walked the line” being deported in Los Angeles since May.
“There are indeed deportations, and they can be deported on the spot,” he said.
According to posts from social media influencer Teacher Li, Chinese authorities recently issued two documents to public prosecutors that highlight their determination to crack down on those who “walk the line” and to strengthen border control.
VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, but when it asked the Chinese Embassy about the documents the spokesman did not say they were fabricated.
In an emailed response to questions about the post, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said: “China’s Supreme Court performs its duty in keeping with the law.”
“On illegal migration, China’s position is clear and consistent,” he said. “We oppose and firmly combat all forms of illegal migration and human smuggling.”
Li also said that “China’s law-enforcement agencies are working with the relevant countries to combat human smuggling and on extradition as well, in a joint effort to uphold the orderly flow of people across the countries.”
Earlier this year, Mexico strengthened its border control by setting up new checkpoints on major roads and increasing patrols at the more heavily used crossing points into the U.S. More illegal migrants have been intercepted as a result.
According to the Washington Office on Latin America, Mexican immigration forces set a new record for the number of immigrant arrests in a single month in January and February of this year.
Guo said that he has heard about some Chinese who were intercepted while crossing Mexico.
“U.S. immigration officers cooperate with the Mexican government and go deep into central Mexico to intercept immigrants,” he said.
Once Chinese migrants are intercepted, they are sent to southern Mexico, he said.
If they want to continue “walking the line,” they must start again from a place farther away from the U.S., which will cost them more money and time.
Challenges aside, Wang and Guo say there are still ways to make it to the border.
Wang says the desire of people to leave China is still strong and that some are exploring new routes.
“You can fly to Cuba, and you can also fly to Bolivia,” Wang said.
In May, the Cuban government began allowing 90-day visa-free entry for Chinese citizens. Bolivia allows Chinese citizens holding ordinary passports to receive tourist visas upon arrival. Those with a transit visa can stay for 15 days or on a tourist visa for 30 days.
The straight-line distance from Cuba to the southernmost tip of Florida is about 150 km. The narrow waterway has been a smuggling route for decades. And some Chinese have already tried, despite the risks.
In October 2023, authorities in Florida say, 11 male and six female Chinese citizens were arrested after illegally entering Key Largo, Florida, from Cuba.
Li Xiaosan, a Chinese dissident, arrived in the U.S. in February 2023 by “walking the line.” He says he feels fortunate to be able to start a new life and sad for others who want to leave China now. Since arriving in the U.S., Li opened a translation company in New York and has passed his preliminary hearing for his political asylum application. He also obtained a work permit.
He says that once Ecuador’s new policy takes effect on July 1, even if Chinese people use other routes, the chances of successfully reaching the U.S. and staying will be significantly reduced.
“The door is closed,” Li said, adding that the question now is: “How many people can squeeze in through the cracks?”
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ecuador-ends-visa-free-entry-for-chinese-nationals/7671139.html
In deal with US, WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty, secures freedom, ends legal fight
date: 2024-06-26, from: VOA News USA
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty to a single felony charge for publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his freedom and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about press freedom and national security.
The plea was entered Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific. He arrived at court shortly before the hearing was to begin and did not take questions.
Though the deal with prosecutors required him to admit guilt to a single felony count, it would also permit him to return to his native Australia without spending any time in an American prison. He had been jailed in the United Kingdom for the last five years, fighting extradition to the United States on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction.
The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of victory, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.
WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website that Assange founded in 2006, applauded the announcement of the deal, saying it was grateful for “all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.”
The deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest and presumably final chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his disdain for government secrecy put lives at risks, and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties.
The U.S. Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental U.S. and because it’s near Australia, where he will return.
The guilty plea resolves a criminal case brought by the Trump administration Justice Department in connection with the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors alleged that he conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces.
But his activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.
The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange’s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it.
Weeks after the release of the largest document cache in 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. Assange has long maintained his innocence, and the investigation was later dropped.
He presented himself in 2012 to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and spent the following seven years in self-exile there, hosting a parade of celebrity visitors and making periodic appearances from the building’s balcony to address supporters.
In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how Assange would be treated by the American criminal justice system.
Ultimately, though, the resolution sparing Assange prison time in the U.S. is a repudiation of sorts of years of ominous warnings by Assange and his supporters that the American criminal justice system would expose him to unduly harsh treatment, including potentially the death penalty — something prosecutors never sought.
July 16: Trash Talk with Burrtec at Valencia Library
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Step into the Valencia Branch community room for a session on the Santa Clarita Valley’s new waste collection partnership with Burrtec, Tuesday July 16, 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Valencia Public Library,23743 W. Valencia Blvd. Santa Clarita, CA 91355.
https://scvnews.com/july-16-trash-talk-with-burrtec-at-valencia-library/
Microsoft blamed for million-plus patient record theft at US hospital giant
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-27, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Probe: Worker at speech-recog outfit Nuance wasn’t locked out after firing
Updated American healthcare provider Geisinger fears highly personal data on more than a million of its patients has been stolen – and claimed a former employee at a Microsoft subsidiary is the likely culprit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/geisinger_nuance_microsoft_worker/
July 2: Tie Dye Craft Event at Canyon Country Library
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Come tie-dye a bandana at the Canyon Country Jo Anne Darcy Library, 18601 Soledad Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91351 on Tuesday, July 2 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Bring an item from home or dye a bandana that the Library will provide
https://scvnews.com/july-2-tie-dye-craft-event-at-canyon-country-library/
Senior Center nutrition program funding down millions
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
Roughly $5.1 million in temporary COVID funding no longer available; multiple services to be discontinued after Friday, approximately 900 to miss out on daily meals The Santa Clarita Valley Senior […]
The post Senior Center nutrition program funding down millions appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/senior-center-nutrition-program-funding-down-millions/
Hoedown raises funds for Circle of Hope cancer services
date: 2024-06-26, from: The Signal
When Alison Lindemann was diagnosed with breast cancer, she endured a harrowing experience with multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. During her battle, Lindemann didn’t receive mental or emotional support due […]
The post Hoedown raises funds for Circle of Hope cancer services appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/hoedown-raises-funds-for-circle-of-hope-cancer-services/
June 27: Suncatcher Windchime Workshop for Teens, Tweens
date: 2024-06-26, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Santa Clarita teens and tweens are invited to stop by to make a suncatcher windchime Thursday, June 27 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at the Canyon Country Jo Anne Darcy Library
https://scvnews.com/june-27-recycled-suncatcher-windchime-workshop-for-teens-tweens/
How Emotional is Trump?
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: Tom Kellog blog
Join us as we analyze the emotional ebb and flow of Trump’s social media posts
http://timkellogg.me/blog/2024/06/26/politics-analysis
Emopoint: Extract and measure emotion from text
date: 2024-06-26, updated: 2024-06-26, from: Tom Kellog blog
Can AI understand emotion? They must, ChatGPT responds to me in the appropriate tone of voice. So they certainly encode emotion. In this blog we’ll dive deep into how LLMs understand emotion, as well as how to take advantage of that.