News gathered 2024-06-29
(date: 2024-06-29 13:00:18)
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
Enjoy Fourth of July Responsibly
date: 2024-06-29, from: City of Santa Clarita
By City Manager Ken Striplin By day, the sounds of music and laughter fill the streets as we celebrate Independence Day in true Santa Clarita fashion with the annual Fourth of July Parade. By night, we come together as a community and watch as the sky ignites with flashes of color, ending the day of […]
The post Enjoy Fourth of July Responsibly appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/06/29/enjoy-fourth-of-july-responsibly/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Video: Lawrence O’Donnell Puts The Debate Into Its Proper Perspective.
Amber Alert issued for 14-day-old Vallejo boy and his mother
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
A 14-day-old Vallejo boy and his mother, who authorities said abducted him Thursday morning, are being sought and an Amber Alert has been issued for them by the CHP.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/29/amber-alert-issued-for-14-day-old-vallejo-boy-and-his-mother/
‘I’m playing the lottery twice a week:’ Newark councilman resigns, says he’s priced out of town
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Odds are Mike Bucci will leave the Tri-City area because he wants to purchase a home.
Jan. 6 shadows the 2024 campaign, but not on the debate stage. That alarms democracy advocates
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
In the first presidential debate, Republican Donald Trump skimmed over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, shifted blame for the violent mob siege and declined repeatedly to state unequivocally that he will accept the results of this year’s White House election.
US and Europe warn Lebanon’s Hezbollah to ease strikes on Israel and back off from wider Mideast war
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
U.S., European and Arab mediators are pressing to keep stepped-up cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months.
4 killed after law enforcement pursuit ends in crash; driver suspected of DUI
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Four people were killed early Friday after a six-minute pursuit by law enforcement ended in a two-vehicle crash in Southern California, authorities said.
Macklin Celebrini leads list of San Jose Sharks 2024 draft picks
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Who the San Jose Sharks have selected in the 2024 NHL Draft
Calvin Fire in Val Verde stopped at 5 acres
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
A brush fire that broke out in Val Verde on Saturday morning was stopped at 5 acres, according to officials with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Fire personnel responded […]
The post Calvin Fire in Val Verde stopped at 5 acres appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/calvin-fire-in-val-verde-reaches-10-acres-2nd-alarm-response/
Stockton parents arrested in death of month-old child
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
The parents of a one-month-old boy have been arrested in connection with the child’s death, Stockton police said Friday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/29/stockton-parents-arrested-in-death-of-month-old-child/
Monterey County: Fire crews respond to 100-acre blaze east of King City
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Firefighters responded to a 100-acre fire on Lonaok Road east of King City that began just after 8:40 p.m. on Friday, according to CalFire. The fire was 10% contained as of 10 p.m. Friday.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Get A Grip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUARxdMs1eo
US, Europe warn Lebanon’s Hezbollah to ease strikes on Israel
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S., European and Arab mediators are pressing to keep stepped-up cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months.
Hopes are lagging for a cease-fire anytime soon in Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza that would calm attacks by Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias. With that in mind, American and European officials are delivering warnings to Hezbollah, which is far stronger than Hamas but seen as overconfident, about taking on the military might of Israel, current and former diplomats say.
They are warning that the group should not count on the United States or anyone else being able to hold off Israeli leaders if they decide to execute battle-ready plans for an offensive into Lebanon. And Hezbollah should not count on its fighters’ ability to handle whatever would come next.
On both sides of the Lebanese border, escalating strikes between Israel and Hezbollah, one of the region’s best-armed fighting forces, appeared at least to level off this past week. While daily strikes still pound the border area, the slight shift offered hope of easing immediate fears, which had prompted the U.S. to send an amphibious assault ship with a Marine expeditionary force to join other warships in the area in hopes of deterring a wider conflict.
It’s not clear whether Israel or Hezbollah has decided to ratchet down attacks to avoid triggering an Israeli invasion into Lebanon, said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East. Despite this past week’s plateauing of hostilities, “it certainly seems the Israelis are still … arranging themselves in the expectation that there will be some kind of conflict … an entirely different magnitude of conflict,” he said.
The message being delivered to Hezbollah is “don’t think that you’re as capable as you think you are,” he said.
Beginning the day after Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has launched rockets into northern Israel and vowed to continue until a cease-fire takes hold. Israel has hit back, with the violence forcing tens of thousands of civilians from the border in both countries. Attacks intensified this month after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and Hezbollah responded with some of its biggest missile barrages.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths used the word “apocalyptic” to describe a war that could result. Israel and Hezbollah, the dominant force in politically fractured Lebanon, have the power to cause heavy casualties.
“Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said as he met recently with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with terrible consequences for the Middle East.”
Gallant, in response, said, “We are working closely together to achieve an agreement, but we must also discuss readiness on every possible scenario.”
Analysts expect other Iran-allied militias in the region would respond far more forcefully than they have for Hamas, and some experts warn of ideologically motivated militants streaming into the region to join in. Europeans fear destabilizing refugee flows.
While Iran, which is preoccupied with a political transition at home, shows no sign of wanting a war now, it sees Hezbollah as its strategically vital partner in the region — much more so than Hamas — and could be drawn in.
“Obviously if it does look like things are going seriously south for the Israelis, the U.S. will intervene,” Feierstein said. “I don’t think that they would see any alternative to that.”
While the United States helped Israel knock down a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones in April, it likely would not do as well assisting Israel’s defense against any broader Hezbollah attacks, said General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is harder to fend off the shorter-range rockets that Hezbollah fires routinely across the border, he said.
The Israeli army is stretched after a nearly nine-month war in Gaza, and Hezbollah holds an estimated arsenal of some 150,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel. Israeli leaders, meanwhile, have pledged to unleash Gaza-like scenes of devastation on Lebanon if a full-blown war erupts.
White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s point person on Israel-Hezbollah tensions, has not been successful so far in getting the two sides to dial back the attacks.
The French, who have ties as Lebanon’s former colonial power, and other Europeans also are mediating, along with the Qataris and Egyptians.
White House officials have blamed Hezbollah for escalating tensions and said it backs Israel’s right to defend itself. The Biden administration also has told the Israelis that opening a second front is not in their interest. That was a point hammered home to Gallant during his latest talks in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin, CIA Director William Burns, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Hochstein and others.
“We’re going to continue to help Israel defend itself; that’s not going to change,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said. “But as for a hypothetical — specifically with respect to the northern border line … again, we want to see no second front opened, and we want to see if we can’t resolve the tensions out there through diplomatic processes.”
White House officials, however, are not discounting the real possibility that a second front in the Mideast conflict could open.
In conversations with Israeli and Lebanese officials and other regional stakeholders, there is agreement that “a major escalation is not in anybody’s interest,” a senior Biden administration official said.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about White House deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity, bristled at the “purported logic” of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah arguing that Israel would see an end to Hezbollah attacks by reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hamas in Gaza.
But the official also acknowledged that an elusive cease-fire deal in Gaza would go a long way in quieting tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-europe-warn-lebanon-s-hezbollah-to-ease-strikes-on-israel/7678193.html
UN moving tons of aid from US-built pier after work suspended
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
JERUSALEM — Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a United States-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged territory, the United Nations said Saturday, an important step as the U.S. considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause due to heavy seas.
It was not clear when the aid might reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the war between Israel and Hamas militants is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the U.N.’s World Food Program suspended operations there due to security concerns on June 9.
Millions of pounds of aid have piled up. In just the last week, more than 4.5 million kilograms (10 million pounds) were moved ashore, according to the U.S. military.
A WFP spokesperson, Abeer Etefa, told The Associated Press this is a one-time operation until the beach is cleared of the aid and is being done to avoid spoilage.
Further U.N. operations at the pier depend on U.N. security assessments, Etefa said.
The U.N. is investigating whether the pier was used in an Israeli military operation last month to rescue three hostages.
If WFP trucks successfully bring the aid to warehouses inside Gaza, that could affect the U.S. military’s decision whether to reinstall the pier, which was removed due to weather Friday. U.S. officials said they were considering not reinstalling the pier because of the possibility that the aid would not be picked up.
Even if the U.N. decides to keep transporting aid from the pier into Gaza, lawlessness around humanitarian convoys will be a further challenge to distribution. The convoys have come under attack in Gaza. While most aid deliveries come by land, restrictions around border crossings and on what items can enter Gaza have further hurt a population that was already dependent on humanitarian aid before the war.
The June 9 pause at the pier came after the Israeli military used a nearby area to fly out hostages after their rescue in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians, prompting a U.N. review over concerns that aid workers’ safety and neutrality may have been compromised.
Battles continue
More than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since it began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll. The ministry said the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.
At least two people were killed and six injured, including a child, in a strike in Bureij camp in central Gaza.
The October 7 Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and another 250 people were taken hostage.
Israeli forces have been battling Palestinian militants in an eastern part of Gaza City over the last week. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes, according to the U.N.
“It’s like the first weeks of the invasion,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Masry, said of the intensity of the fighting. “Many people were killed. Many houses were destroyed. They strike anything moving.”
The Israeli military acknowledged an operation against Hamas fighters in Shijaiyah and Saturday noted “close-quarters combat.”
Elsewhere, thousands of Palestinians who remained in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah fled Friday for Muwasi, a crowded coastal tent camp designated by the Israeli army as a safe zone. Some told the AP they evacuated because Israeli gunfire and missiles had come close to where they were sheltering.
Over 1.3 million Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s incursion into the city in early May, while aid groups warn there are no safe places to go.
With the heat in Gaza reaching over 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit), many displaced people have found tents unbearable. The territory has been without electricity since Israel cut off power as part of the war, and Israel also stopped pumping drinking water to the enclave.
“Death is better than it, it is a grave,” said Barawi Bakroun, who was displaced from Gaza City, as others fanned themselves with pieces of cardboard.
https://www.voanews.com/a/un-moving-tons-of-aid-from-us-built-pier-after-work-suspended/7678180.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Supreme Court Just Broke America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F34mmgGX5P0
Biden appeals to donors concerned about debate performance
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — U.S. President Joe Biden is looking to recapture his mojo and reassure donors at a Saturday fundraiser that he is fully up to the challenge of beating Donald Trump.
The 81-year-old’s troubling performance at the first presidential debate Thursday rattled many Democrats, who see Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection as an existential threat to U.S. democracy. Biden’s meandering answers and struggles to respond to Trump prompted The New York Times editorial board to declare Friday that he should exit the race and that staying in would be a “reckless gamble.”
Biden and his wife, Jill, planned to attend an afternoon campaign meeting in East Hampton, New York, the Long Island beach town where the real estate firm Zillow prices the median home at $1.9 million. Scheduled later was an evening fundraiser in Red Bank, New Jersey.
In the aftermath of Thursday night’s debate, Biden flashed more vigor in speeches in North Carolina and New York on Friday, saying he believes with “all my heart and soul” that he can do the job of the presidency.
The Biden campaign said it has raised more than $27 million on Thursday and Friday, including $3 million at a New York City fundraiser focused on the LGBTQ+ community.
Jill Biden told supporters Friday that he said to her after the debate, “You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.” The first lady then said she responded to him, “Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.”
The Democratic president still needs to allay the fears stirred by the debate as it seeped into the public conscience with clips and memes spreading on the internet and public pressure for him to bow out of the race.
Democratic donors across New York, Southern California and Silicon Valley privately expressed deep concerns about the viability of Biden’s campaign in the wake of his debate performance.
In a series of text message chains and private conversations, they discussed the short list of possible replacements, a group that included Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.
But on Friday, there was no formal push to pressure Biden to step aside, and some suspected there never would be given the logistical challenges associated with replacing the presumptive nominee just four months before Election Day.
Some donors noted they were going to pause their personal giving. They said receipts from Biden’s weekend fundraiser would almost certainly be strong because the tickets were sold and paid for before the debate.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-makes-appeals-to-donors-as-concerns-persist-over-debate/7678168.html
Democracy advocates worry Jan. 6 Capitol riot is being forgotten
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — In the first presidential debate, Republican Donald Trump skimmed over the January 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, shifted blame for the violent mob siege and declined repeatedly to state unequivocally that he will accept the results of this year’s White House election.
And President Joe Biden, who has said the work of his presidency is to restore the soul of the nation, flubbed and floundered, failing to forcefully confront, contradict and hold Trump, the indicted former president, accountable for the attack on the election — and democracy.
It is an extraordinary moment, or lack of one, that is alarming to democracy advocates, the far-reaching effort to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent insurrection that defined the Trump presidency fading from view during the opening debate of the general election campaign.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who chaired the House’s January 6 committee investigation in the last Congress, said it is a deeply unfortunate situation.
“We could have a January 6, 2.0,” Thompson said Friday outside the Capitol.
The outcome underscores the choice Americans face this fall as the riot over the 2020 election remains fundamental to the 2024 campaign, but also obscured by it, despite the four-count federal indictment against Trump for working to overturn the results four years ago in the run-up to the violent siege and despite the convictions of more than 1,000 people in the Capitol attack.
It comes as the Supreme Court is weighing cases involving January 6, including a decision Friday that makes it easier for some rioters to contest their charges and convictions, and another expected Monday on whether Trump can claim immunity in the federal election case.
All told, what seemed politically untenable, as the defeated Trump departed Washington downcast on Biden’s inauguration day on January 20, 2021, is now within reach as the president who tried to overturn an election is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, edging toward an Oval Office return.
“We are four months away from the first presidential election since a violent attack on our Capitol. … And the man responsible for that — Donald Trump — is currently the leading candidate,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Democracy, which works to counter authoritarianism.
“You’d think that alone would be disqualifying, or at a minimum would be the central focus of the election,” he said.
And yet, Bassin said, the topic was “relegated to an afterthought” in the debate, “and the current president is struggling to press the case on why this issue should be of existential importance.”
The forum itself is not necessarily to blame. The moderators pressed the candidates, asking Trump not once, but repeatedly, whether he would commit to not having another January 6 and accepting the results of the election this time.
Trump insisted he had “virtually nothing to do” with the storming of the Capitol on January 6 and tried to shift blame to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, repeating his false claims about the delay in sending in the National Guard.
Biden, whose underwhelming debate performance of stunted answers and trailing thoughts has sent the Democratic Party into turmoil, struggled to deliver a cohesive response, despite having given high-profile speeches about January 6, including on the first anniversary.
“Look, he encouraged those folks to go up on Capitol Hill,” Biden said on the debate stage.
Thompson, whose committee produced a lengthy, 1,000-plus page report on its investigation into Trump’s monthslong attempt to overturn the election and the storming of the Capitol, said Biden missed a “golden opportunity” to set the record straight as millions of people watched the debate.
It was left to the people who actually experienced January 6, the lawmakers who fled to safety as the mob of Trump supporters approached, to respond. Rioters, many wielding flag poles and with tactical gear, engaged in brutal, bloody hand-to-hand combat, fighting the U.S. Capitol Police to gain access to the building.
“January 6 was a dark day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, on social media.
“Trump-inspired insurrectionists sought to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. Schumer decried Friday’s “shameful decision” from the Supreme Court that he said “will embolden anti-democracy radicals and make it harder for our judicial system to try insurrectionists.”
Pelosi said Trump presented “another pack of lies” during the debate. “How dare he place the blame for January 6th on anyone but himself, the inciter of an insurrection?”
On Friday, the Supreme Court limited a federal obstruction law that has been used to charge Trump, alongside hundreds of Capitol riot defendants. While the ruling is certain to cause a reconsideration of some cases against the rioters, it is unclear how it will impact Trump’s indictment, which includes other charges.
Trump, during a rally Friday in Chesapeake, Virginia, said a “great thing” just happened in response to the decision in the obstruction case, to the roar of “USA!” chants from the crowd.
“They should be immediately released — immediately,” Trump said about the defendants he called “the J6 hostages.”
A more energized Biden, at his own rally in the swing state of North Carolina, said, “The choice in this election is simple. Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”
Air tankers, helicopters attack Arizona wildfire near Phoenix
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Air tankers and helicopters helped douse flames from the sky as nearly 200 firefighters on the ground battled a wildfire northeast of Phoenix on Friday that threatened scores of homes and forced dozens of residents to evacuate.
Authorities expanded the evacuation area in a subdivision on the northeast outskirts of Scottsdale, closed roads and shut down part of a nature preserve as gusty winds continued to fan the flames in extremely hot, dry conditions.
But there were no immediate reports of injuries or structure damage, Arizona fire officials said.
Near Phoenix, where the high reached 43.3 degrees Celsius (110 Fahrenheit) Friday, about 60 residents evacuated homes in the Boulder Heights subdivision overnight after the human-caused fire broke out about 2:30 p.m. Thursday.
Fire officials said they were investigating exactly what sparked the blaze about 8 kilometers (5 miles) east of Carefree, just outside northern Scottsdale on the edge of the Tonto National Forest.
Dubbed the Boulder View Fire, it has burned about 13 square kilometers (5 square miles) with zero containment, authorities said.
“The southeast side of the fire remained active throughout the night producing 20-to-40-foot flame lengths in areas,” Tiffany Davila, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, said in a statement.
“Additional resources were redirected to that side of the fire last night to begin structure protection and help crews start firing operations to tie the fire into nearby roads,” she said.
The Red Cross set up an evacuation center at a high school in Scottsdale, and shelters for horses and other large animals were established at several locations, including the rodeo grounds at nearby Cave Creek.
Scottsdale officials closed part of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve as a precaution but said there was no immediate threat.
The air tankers armed with red retardant and helicopters hauling giant buckets of water helped ground crews keep the flames away from power lines in the area so far, fire officials said.
The National Weather Service said above-normal temperatures will persist well into next week, with many lower desert locations seeing highs near or exceeding 43.3 degrees C (110 F) each afternoon.
Meanwhile in central Oregon, fire officials were releasing some crews from the lines south of Bend because conditions have improved, and the threat posed by a wildfire to the community around La Pine has decreased after hundreds were evacuated earlier this week.
Firefighters said Friday they had dug fire lines around nearly half of the Darlene 3 fire, near La Pine, which has now burned an estimated 15.5 square kilometers (6 square miles) and was listed at 42% containment.
And in Central California, about 200 firefighters were making progress on a large blaze that has burned an estimated 23.3 square kilometers (9 square miles) about 97 kilometers (60 miles) east of Fresno. It was the only one still burning of 18 fires that were sparked by lightning along the western edge of the Sierra Nevada when a storm moved through this week, officials said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/air-tankers-helicopters-attack-arizona-wildfire-near-phoenix/7678149.html
Sharks buy out Knyzhov’s contract amid other changes
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Sharks placed defenseman Nikolai Knyzhov on waivers Saturday for the purpose of a buyout.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/29/sharks-buy-out-knyzhovs-contract-amid-other-changes/
CDC: New COVID-19 variant has potential to infect some people more easily
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
By Jack Phillips Contributing Writer The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that a new COVID-19 variant spreading across the United States shows a higher potential to […]
The post CDC: New COVID-19 variant has potential to infect some people more easily appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
‘The Lincolns of Springfield’ playing at the Colony Theater
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
News release Premier Theatrical Productions announced a limited engagement of the critically acclaimed musical, “The Lincolns of Springfield,” from July 4 to July 14 at the Colony Theater in the […]
The post ‘The Lincolns of Springfield’ playing at the Colony Theater appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/the-lincolns-of-springfield-playing-at-the-colony-theater/
Amid North Korea, China threats, US pursues partnerships with Asian allies
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
GIMHAE AIR BASE, South Korea — The United States wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea on Saturday, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to strengthen and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China.
The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities.
The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings — increasingly important as North Korea tests ever-more sophisticated systems.
Other than Australia, Japan and South Korea are the only U.S. partners in the region with militaries sophisticated enough to integrate operations with the U.S. so that if, for example, South Korea were to detect a target, it could quickly relay details so Japanese or American counterparts could respond, said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence company Janes.
“That’s the kind of interoperability that is involved in a typical war scenario,” Rahmat said. “For trilateral exercises like this, the intention is to develop the interoperability between the three armed forces so that they can fight better as a cohesive fighting force.”
Such exercises also carry the risk of increasing tensions, with China regularly denouncing drills in what it considers its sphere of influence, and North Korea already slamming the arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group in the port of Busan — home to South Korea’s navy headquarters and its Gimhae Air Base — in preparation for Freedom Edge as “provocative” and “dangerous.”
On Wednesday, the day after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited the Roosevelt in Busan, becoming the first sitting South Korean president to board a U.S. aircraft carrier since 1994, North Korea tested what it said was a multiwarhead missile, the first known launch of the developmental weapon, if confirmed.
South Korea’s military said a joint analysis by South Korean and U.S. authorities assessed that the North Korean missile launch failed.
The defense cooperation involving Japan and South Korea is also politically complex for Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, due to the lingering resentment over Imperial Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea before and during World War II.
The two countries have the largest militaries among American allies in East Asia — and together host some 80,000 American troops on their territories — but the U.S. has tended to work with them individually rather than together due to their history.
Kishida’s increase of defense spending and cooperation with South Korea have generally been well received by the Japanese public but has caused friction with the right wing of his own party, while Yoon’s domestic appeal has weakened, but he has stayed the course.
“South Korea’s shift under the Yoon administration toward improving its relations with Japan has been extremely significant,” said Heigo Sato, international politics professor and security expert at Takushoku University in Tokyo.
Both leaders are seen to be trying to fortify their defense relationships with Washington ahead of the inauguration of a new president, with South Korean officials saying recently that they hope to sign a formal security framework agreement with the U.S. and Japan this year that would lock in a joint approach to responding to a possible attack from North Korea.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has also long been working to increase cooperation between South Korea and Japan — something that many didn’t think was possible at the start of his presidency, said Euan Graham, a defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“Credit where it’s due — the fact that it’s happening is a significant achievement from the administration’s regional policy,” he said.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump caused friction with both allies during his time in office by demanding greater payment for their hosting of U.S. troops while holding one-on-one meetings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Under Biden, Washington is seeking to solidify its system of alliances, both with increasingly sophisticated exercises and diplomatic agreements, Graham said.
Tensions with North Korea are at their highest point in years, with the pace of Kim Jong Un’s weapons programs intensifying, despite heavy international sanctions.
China, meanwhile, has been undertaking a massive military buildup of nuclear and conventional weapons, and now has the world’s largest navy. It claims both the self-governing island of Taiwan and virtually the entirety of the South China Sea as its own territory and has increasingly turned to its military to press those claims.
China and North Korea have also been among Russia’s closest allies in its war against Ukraine, while Russia and China are also key allies for North Korea, as well as the military leaders of Myanmar who seized power in 2021 and are facing ever-stiffer resistance in that country’s civil war.
In Pyongyang this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim concluded a mutual defense pact, agreeing to come to the other’s aid in the event of an attack, rattling others in the region.
Despite a greater number of ships overall, China still only has three aircraft carriers compared to the U.S. fleet’s 11 — probably the most effective tool a country has to bring vast amounts of power to bear at a great distance from home.
China’s advantage, however, is that its primary concern is the nearby waters of the Indo-Pacific, while Washington’s global focus means that its naval assets are spread widely. Following the exercises in the East China Sea with Japan and South Korea, the Roosevelt is due to sail to the Middle East to help protect ships against attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
That has made strong security partnerships even more important, not only with Japan and South Korea but with Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan and others in the region, and building those up has been a priority for the Biden administration.
Lotto ticket worth almost $120,000 bought in Oakland
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
A lottery ticket worth almost $120,000 was sold at an Oakland convenience store Friday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/29/lotto-ticket-worth-almost-120000-bought-in-oakland/
A friendly guide to local AI image gen with Stable Diffusion and Automatic1111
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A picture is worth a 1,000 words… or was that a 1,000 TOPS
Hands On The launch of Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PCs brought with it a load of machine-learning-enhanced functionality, including an image generator built right into MS Paint that runs locally and turns your doodles into art.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/29/image_gen_guide/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
2008: I tried to imagine what a conference would be like if you held it in the hallway.
http://scripting.com/stories/2008/06/22/rethinkingTheConference.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Excerpt from Jon Stewart on the debate. #mustwatch
https://x.com/TheDailyShow/status/1806538824534639049
Who will Trump choose for vice president?
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
Who will U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump pick to be his vice presidential running mate? With the Republican National Convention approaching next month, Trump has been mum about his choice, but several contenders have emerged. VOA’s Tina Trinh tells us each of those prospective running mates brings an opportunity to expand Trump’s base of support.
https://www.voanews.com/a/who-will-trump-choose-for-vice-president-/7678045.html
Peter Easthope commented on issue #141 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
Thanks Sergey. Yes, appears the mentioned A2 key functionalities are disengaged by the F12 key.
When the Oberon subsystem is started, HotKeys should create the appropriate functionality; not yet working. In progress already? My thinking is incorrect?
Thanks, … P.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/141#note_192694
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A Eulogy for DevOps.
https://matduggan.com/a-eulogy-for-devops/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I just gave another $100 to Biden/Harris. We love Joe, for better or worse.
Sergey Durmanov opened issue #147: Critical bug - shading of record fields at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
shading of record fields
MODULE TestField;
TYPE
A* = RECORD
x*: SIZE;
END;
B* = RECORD(A)
x*: ARRAY 256 OF CHAR;
END;
END TestField.https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/147
Sergey Durmanov opened issue #146: issue with system.val for float constant at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
Issue with system.val for float constant
MODULE TestCast;
IMPORT SYSTEM;
CONST pi = UNSIGNED64(0x40091EB851EB851F); (*3.14*)
PROCEDURE Do*;
VAR d: RECORD f: FLOAT64; bits { OFFSET=0 }: SET64 END;
BEGIN
d.f := 3.14;
TRACE( d.f, d.bits);
d.bits := SET64(pi);
TRACE( d.f, d.bits);
VAR u64 := pi: UNSIGNED64;
d.f := SYSTEM.VAL(FLOAT64, u64); (* OK *)
TRACE( d.f, d.bits);
d.f := SYSTEM.VAL(FLOAT64, pi); (* BAD *)
TRACE( d.f, d.bits);
END Do;
END TestCast.
System.Free TestCast ~
TestCast.Do ~https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/146
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Press Freedom Gets WikiLeaked
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Lever News
Plus, scam victims get their money back, disabled people won’t have to work nonexistent jobs, a Native American reservation breaks new ground, and California gets beaver fever.
https://www.levernews.com/press-freedom-gets-wikileaked/
Sergey Durmanov opened issue #145: access violation when calling the method if the record is returned by reference at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
If the record has fields, then an Access Violation exception is raised when the method is called if the record is returned by reference.
MODULE TestSelf;
TYPE
R = RECORD
x := SIZE(100500);
PROCEDURE P(): VAR R;
BEGIN
TRACE("P");
RETURN SELF;
END P;
PROCEDURE Q(): VAR R;
BEGIN
TRACE("Q");
RETURN SELF;
END Q;
END;
PROCEDURE Do*;
VAR r: R;
BEGIN
r := r.P().P();
(* r := r.P().Q().P();*)
END Do;
END TestSelf.
System.Free TestSelf ~
TestSelf.Do ~https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/145
Paul Butler | A journey in customer service
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
Last week, I experienced one of those unforgettable travel days for work that leaves you both exhausted and contemplative. After working for a client in Iowa, I left my hotel […]
The post Paul Butler | A journey in customer service appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/paul-butler-a-journey-in-customer-service/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Biden supporters to New York Times: ‘F— off!’.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/06/biden-supporters-to-new-york-times-f-off.html
The Time Ranger | Hookers, Ka-Blooeys & Gerald Ford
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
Katie bar the door, what in Heaven’s name are you dear saddlepals doing? Me? The ponies? We’re stretching our necks toward the east and if I’m not mistaken, there seems […]
The post The Time Ranger | Hookers, Ka-Blooeys & Gerald Ford appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/the-time-ranger-hookers-ka-blooeys-gerald-ford/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
NYT columnists rule the world, or so they seem to think, except Jamelle Bouie who makes a lot of sense. I’d suggest asking Bernie Sanders what he thinks.
Guile, Guix and WASM, the future of the Web?
date: 2024-06-29, from: Tilde.news
Richard Budman | Celebrating America, Together
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
I wanted to wish everyone an early happy Fourth of July — and a safe one, too. July Fourth is one of my favorite holidays, as it unites the country. […]
The post Richard Budman | Celebrating America, Together appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/richard-budman-celebrating-america-together/
Scott Wilk | The Progressive ‘California Way’ Puts Politics Over People
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
A quick Google search of “California” will provide you with no shortage of depressing stories – stories about our failing education system or how only millionaires can afford a normal […]
The post Scott Wilk | The Progressive ‘California Way’ Puts Politics Over People appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/scott-wilk-the-progressive-california-way-puts-politics-over-people/
Christopher Lucero | The Myth of Pure Capitalism
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
A recent “Right Here Right Now” column (Denise Lite, June 22) railed against socialism and praised capitalism — a reasonable proposition. It stated, “America is at the precipice of choosing […]
The post Christopher Lucero | The Myth of Pure Capitalism appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/christopher-lucero-the-myth-of-pure-capitalism/
Antitrust latest: Europe’s Vestager warns Microsoft, OpenAI ‘the story is not over’
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
I’ll get you next time, Gadget, next time!
Despite a European Commission review in April clearing Microsoft of trying to exert control over OpenAI by the backdoor, the duo’s $13 billion partnership hasn’t escaped regulatory scrutiny just yet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/29/microsoft_openai_eu/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
WordPress used to have link management built into core. All the code is technically still there, but it’s been disabled by default for many years.
https://josh.blog/2024/05/blogrolls
US military says it destroyed 7 drones, vehicle in Yemen
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
Washington — American forces destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the past 24 hours, the U.S. military said Friday.
The strikes were carried out because the drones and the vehicle “presented an imminent threat to U.S. coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media platform X.
The Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023 in attacks they say are in solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for attacks on four vessels, including a “direct hit” on the Delonix tanker in the Red Sea after an operation involving a number of ballistic missiles.
However, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said five missiles were fired on Friday in “close proximity” to this vessel, which it said reported no damage.
The Delonix was located around 277 kilometers northwest of the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida when it was attacked, according to UKMTO, which is run by Britain’s Royal Navy.
The Houthis also claimed attacks on the Waler oil tanker and Johannes Maersk container ship in the Mediterranean Sea and the Ioannis bulk carrier in the Red Sea.
The United States in December announced a maritime security initiative to protect Red Sea shipping from Houthi attacks, which have forced commercial vessels to divert from the route that normally carries 12% of global trade.
CENTCOM said its strike on Friday was carried out “to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure.”
“This continued malign and reckless behavior by the Iranian-backed Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”
The attacks have sent insurance costs spiraling for vessels transiting the Red Sea and prompted many shipping firms to take the far longer passage around the southern tip of Africa instead.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-says-it-destroyed-7-drones-vehicle-in-yemen-/7677856.html
Mars is slam-dunked by hundreds of basketball-sized meteorites every year
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Impact studies crucial for accurately determining Red Planet’s age
Seismic data from Mars indicates that our neighboring planet is hit about three hundred times a year by meteorites the size of basketballs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/29/mars_meteorite_impacts/
Ask the Motor Cop | Seeking stop light clarification
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
Question: Hi Jerry. I have a question for you. I think that I know better but someone told me that, when I went through the intersection on a yellow light, […]
The post Ask the Motor Cop | Seeking stop light clarification appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/ask-the-motor-cop-seeking-stop-light-clarification/
Robert Lamoureux | Framing the question on building a gazebo
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
Question: Dear Robert: I thoroughly enjoy reading your article and have for years. What a great resource for those of us who are eager to perform some of our own […]
The post Robert Lamoureux | Framing the question on building a gazebo appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/robert-lamoureux-framing-the-question-on-building-a-gazebo/
Today in SCV History (June 29)
date: 2024-06-29, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1978 – Original Colossus coaster opens at Magic Mountain [watch it being built
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-29/
What is a Gutenberg Bible? And why is it relevant 500 years after its printing?
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — It’s not just a book.
Back in the 1450s, when the Bible became the first major work printed in Europe with moveable metal type, Johannes Gutenberg was a man with a plan.
The German inventor decided to make the most of his new technology — the movable-type printing press — by producing an unprecedented version of the scripture for wealthy customers who could interpret Latin: leaders of the Catholic Church.
Though he planned on printing 150 Bibles, increasing demand motivated him to produce 30 extra copies, which led to a total of 180. Currently known as the “Gutenberg Bibles,” around 48 complete copies are preserved.
None is known to be kept in private hands. Among those in the United States, a paper Bible can be seen at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City. Two more copies in vellum lie in the underground vaults, next to 120,000 other books.
Why should anyone — religiously observant or not — feel compelled to see a Gutenberg Bible up close? Here’s a look at how its printing influenced the history of books and the religious landscape. And what a 500-year-old volume can still reveal.
What is a Gutenberg Bible?
The term refers to each of the two-volume Bibles printed in Gutenberg’s workshop around 1454.
Before that, all existing Bibles were copied by hand. The process could take up to a year, said John McQuillen, associate curator at the Morgan Library. In contrast, it is believed that Gutenberg completed his work in about six months.
Each Gutenberg Bible has nearly 1,300 pages and weighs around 60 pounds. It’s written in Latin and printed in double columns, with 42 lines per page.
Most were printed on paper. A few others on animal skin.
When a Bible came off the press, only the black letters were printed. Hand decorations and bindings were added later, depending on each buyer’s taste and budget.
Some ornamentations were added in Germany. Others in France, Belgium or Spain.
Therefore, each Gutenberg Bible is unique, McQuillen said.
Why were these Bibles a turning point?
Gutenberg’s invention produced a massive multiplication of complete copies of biblical texts.
The first impact was among scholars and learned priests who had easier access than ever before, said Richard Rex, professor of Reformation History from the University of Cambridge.
“This massive multiplication even led to the wider adoption of the term ‘Bible’ (Biblia) to describe the book,” Rex said. “Medieval authors and others do speak sometimes of ‘the Bible’, but more commonly of ‘scripture.’”
Psychologically, Rex said, the appearance of the printed text — its regularity, precision and uniformity — contributed to a tendency to resolve theological arguments by reference to the biblical text alone.
Later on, the printing of Bibles in vernacular languages — especially from Luther’s Bible (early 1520s) and Tyndale’s New Testament (mid 1520s) onwards — affected the way that ordinary parishioners related to religion and the clergy.
The limits of literacy still meant that access to the Bible was far from universal. Gradually, though, religious leaders stopped being its main interpreters.
“The phenomenon of lay people questioning or interpreting the biblical text became more common from the 1520s onwards,” Rex said. “Although the early Protestant Reformers, such as Luther, emphasized that they did not seek to create an interpretative ‘free for all,’ this was probably the predictable consequence of their appeal to ‘scripture alone.’”
More than a book
Three times per year, a curator from the Morgan Library turns the page of the Gutenberg Bible on display. It’s leaves not only tell a tale of scripture, but of those who possessed it.
A few years ago, by studying its handmade initials, McQuillen was the one to figure out the origin of its decoration: a German monastery that no longer exists.
Similarly, in the 2000s, a Japanese researcher found little marks on the surface of the Old Testament’s paper copy. Her findings revealed that those leaves were used by Gutenberg’s successors for their own edition, printed in 1462.
“For as many times as the Gutenberg Bible have been looked at, it seems like every time a researcher comes in, something new can be discovered,” McQuillen said.
“This book has existed for 500 years. Who are the people that have touched it? How can we talk about these personal histories in addition to the greater idea of what printing technology means on a European or global scale?” he said.
Among the thousands of Bibles that J. P. Morgan acquired, owners made various annotations. Individual names, birth dates, details that reflect a personal story.
“A Bible is now sort of a book on the shelf,” McQuillen said. “But at one point, this was a very personal object.”
“In a museum setting, they become art and a little bit distanced, but we try to break that distance down.”
Everything is freeware
date: 2024-06-29, from: Manu - I write blog
<blockquote>I think that with respect to content that’s already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ’90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been “freeware,” if you like, that’s been the understanding.
Microsoft AI CEO—how many CEOs does Microsoft need?—Mustafa Suleyman sure has an interesting take on the web. I guess all the people sailing the high seas feel vindicated now. I mean, he said it: content that’s already on the open web is fair use if you want to copy it. I’m sure this is exactly what he meant and I’m definitely not misinterpreting what he’s saying. After all, all these companies are trying hard to follow both the literal and also the spirit of the laws so it’s only fair for me to try hard to not misinterpret their views am I right?
I also love that he used the term freeware and not free. Because the wiki definition of Freeware reads:
There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines freeware unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the freeware it offers. For instance, modification, redistribution by third parties, and reverse engineering are permitted by some publishers but prohibited by others.
So not only he spouted a bunch of garbage bullshit but he also used the perfectly wrong term. Hey, maybe he’s just running GPT in the background and he was just hallucinating. Always a possibility.
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https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/CntF6WFJsKpUuIcW
New York City hosts annual Pride march, opens Stonewall visitor center
date: 2024-06-29, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Why I’m still with President Biden.
https://marytrump.substack.com/p/why-im-still-with-president-biden
Kurtenbach: Instant reaction to the Sharks’ No. 11 pick in the NHL Draft
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
NHL Draft: The Sharks selected defenseman Sam Dickinson No. 11 overall Friday.
Chamber hosts 2024 Business Expo
date: 2024-06-29, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce held its annual Business Expo on Thursday at the Hyatt Regency Valencia, where attendees could visit the booths and learn about over 80 […]
The post Chamber hosts 2024 Business Expo appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/chamber-hosts-2024-business-expo/
San Jose police make arrest in 2016 stabbing death
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
The 26-year-old suspect was arrested on May 30 in the Central Coast community of Aromas.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/28/san-jose-police-make-arrest-in-2016-stabbing-death/
SF Giants activate LaMonte Wade Jr. but lose 2 more players to injured list
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Thairo Estrada and Wilmer Flores were placed on the 10-day injured list when the Giants activated LaMonte Wade Jr. before Friday’s game against the Dodgers.
FBI raids: Obscure Oakland homebuilder highlights ties between Duongs and East Bay’s messy politics
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
News about a small Oakland homebuilder adds to the questions about the Duong family, the influential Vietnamese business leaders and political donors at the center of last week’s FBI raids.
ChatGPT wrongly insists Trump-Biden CNN debate had 1 to 2-minute delay
date: 2024-06-29, updated: 2024-06-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Yes, Joe totally had editing help that night, he was certainly impresszzz….
Poll OpenAI’s ChatGPT fell for an inaccurate claim that Thursday night’s US presidential debate between Trump and Biden on CNN would have a one to two-minute delay, rather than the usual few seconds.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/29/chatgpt_presidential_debate/
NHL Draft: San Jose Sharks take 6-foot-3 defenseman 11th overall
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Sharks selected defenseman Sam Dickenson 11th overall at the NHL Draft
Better ways to save water than fake turf: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
“Artificial turf is not the answer to drought conditions.”
Brandon Aiyuk speaks about ‘dirty’ negotiations, options outside 49ers
date: 2024-06-29, from: San Jose Mercury News
Brandon Aiyuk envisions himself returning to the 49ers but he said on The Pivot podcast he could also see himself with the Washington Commanders or the Pittsburgh Steelers.
If your immutable Linux desktop uses Flatpak, I’m going to have a bad time
date: 2024-06-29, from: OS News
The openSUSE project recently announced the second release candidate (RC2) of its Aeon Desktop, formerly known as MicroOS Desktop GNOME. Aside from the new coat of naming paint, Aeon breaks ground in a few other ways by dabbling with technologies not found in other openSUSE releases. The goal for Aeon is to provide automated system updates using snapshots that can be applied atomically, removing the burden of system maintenance for “lazy developers” who want to focus on their work rather than desktop administration. System-tinkerers need not apply. The idea behind Aeon, as with other immutable (or image-based) Linux distributions, is to provide the core of the distribution as a read-only image or filesystem that is updated atomically and can be rolled back if needed. Google’s ChromeOS was the first popular Linux-based desktop operating system to follow this model. Since the release of ChromeOS a number of interesting immutable implementations have cropped up, such as Fedora Silverblue, Project Bluefin (covered here in December 2023), openSUSE’s MicroOS (covered here in March 2023), and Ubuntu Core. ↫ Joe Brockmeier at LWN With the amount of attention immutable Linux desktops are getting, and how much work and experimentation that’s going into them, I’m getting the feeling that sooner or later all of the major, popular desktop Linux distributions will be going this route. Depending on implementation details, I actually like the concept of a defined base system that’s just an image that can be replaced easily using btrfs snapshots or something like that, while all the user’s files and customisations are kept elsewhere. It makes intuitive sense. Where the current crop of immutable Linux desktops fall flat for me is their reliance on (usually) Flatpak. You know how there’s people who hate systemd and/or Wayland just a little too much, to the point it gets a little weird and worrying? That’s me whenever I have to deal with Flatpaks. Every experience I have with Flatpaks is riddled with trouble for me. Even though I’m a KDE user, I’m currently testing out the latest GNOME release on my workstation (the one that I used to conclude Windows is simply not ready for the desktop), using Fedora of course, and on GNOME I use the Mastodon application Tuba. While I mostly write in English, I do occasionally write in Dutch, too, and would love for the spell check feature to work in my native tongue, too, instead of just in English. However, despite having all possible Dutch dictionaries installed – hunspell, aspell – and despite those dictionaries being picked up everywhere else in GNOME, Tuba only showed me a long list of variants of English. After digging around to find out why this was happening, it took me far longer than I care to publicly admit to realise that since the latest version of Tuba is only really available as a Flatpak on Fedora, my problem probably had something to do with that – and it turns out I was right: Flatpak applications do not use the system-wide installed spellcheck dictionaries like normal applications do. This eventually led me to this article by Daniel Aleksandersen, where he details what you need to do in order to add spellcheck dictionaries to Flatpak applications. You need to run the following commands: The list of languages uses two-letter codes only, and the first language listed will serve as the display language for Flatpak applications, while the rest will be fallback languages – which happens to include downloading and installing the Flatpak-specific copies of the spellcheck libraries. Sadly, this method is not particularly granular. Since it only accepts the two-letter codes, you can’t, say, only install “nl-nl”; you’ll be getting “nl-be” as well. In the case of a widely spoken language like English, this means a massive list of 18 different varieties of English. The resulting menus are… Not elegant. This is just an example, but using Flatpak, you’ll run into all kinds of issues like this, that then have to be solved by hacks or obscure terminal commands – not exactly the user-friendly image Flatpak is trying to convey to the world. This particular issue might not matter to the probably overwhelming English-speaking majority of Flatpak developers, but for anyone who has to deal with multiple languages on a daily basis – which is a massive number of people, probably well over 50% of computer users – having to mess around with obscure terminal commands hidden in blog posts just to be able to use the languages they use every day is terrible design on a multitude of levels, and will outright make Flatpak applications unusable for large numbers of people. Whenever I run into these Flatpak problems, it makes it clear to me that Flatpak is designed not by users, for users – but by developers, for developers. I can totally understand and see why Flatpak is appealing to developers, but as a user, they bring me nothing but grief, issues, and weird bugs that all seem to stem from being made to make developers’ lives easier, instead of users’. If immutable Linux distributions are really hellbent on using Flatpak as the the means of application installation – and it seams like they are – it will mean a massive regression in functionality, usability, and discoverability for users, and as long as Flatpak remains as broken and badly designed as it is, I really see no reason to recommend an immutable Linux desktop to anyone but the really curious among us.
Putin calls to resume production of intermediate nuclear-capable missiles
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
CaliBunga water park pushes back opening to July 4
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Electrical issues cited as the reason for delay from original June 29 date.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/28/calibunga-water-park-pushes-back-opening-to-july-4/
Biden’s debate debacle rattles Bay Area Democrats, but replacing him would bring ‘chaos’
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Biden’s stumbling speech and weakened appearance rattled many Bay Area Democrats, but calls from the left for him to step aside are far from universal.
Kurtenbach: Macklin Celebrini is officially a San Jose Shark. Now comes the tough part
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Macklin Celebrini does everything and does it well. Can that undeniable talent turn the Sharks’ fortunes around?
Slack-Jawed and Agape After the Presidential Debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Biden’s sole mission Thursday night was to radiate and communicate some serious mojo; what we got instead was a man who at times looked like he’d woke up in the middle of the night uncertain where the bathroom was.
The post Slack-Jawed and Agape After the Presidential Debate appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/slack-jawed-and-agape-after-the-presidential-debate/
Microsoft CEO of AI: Your online content is ‘freeware’ fodder for training models
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Unless you’ve got a lawyer, that is
Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, said this week that machine-learning companies can scrape most content published online and use it to train neural networks because it’s essentially “freeware.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/microsoft_ceo_ai/
Damage from Post Fire Closes Hungry Valley SVRA
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State Parks has announced the temporary full closure of the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area in Gorman due to extensive damage caused by the Post Fire.
https://scvnews.com/damage-from-post-fire-closes-hungry-valley-svra/
Philly woman’s water breaks in Vasquez Rocks, premature baby Rocky shows resilience
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
Back in early November, Claire Lutz was out among Vasquez Rocks with her husband and some friends, 24 weeks pregnant, when her water broke. She was 2,500-plus miles from home. […]
The post Philly woman’s water breaks in Vasquez Rocks, premature baby Rocky shows resilience appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Review | Knight of White Satin Pop
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward delivers the romantic/nostalgic goods at the Lobero.
The post Review | Knight of White Satin Pop appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/review-knight-of-white-satin-pop/
July 1: COC Board Vacancy Prompts Call for Special Meeting
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting Monday, July 1, beginning at 10 a.m.
https://scvnews.com/july-1-coc-board-vacancy-prompts-call-for-special-meeting/
🐾 No animals were harmed in the making of this newsletter
date: 2024-06-28, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Some even got belly scritches during its editing.
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/no-animals-were-harmed-in-the-making
The Airport In Our Midst
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara has always been associated with aviation.
The post The Airport In Our Midst appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/the-airport-in-our-midst/
Biden-Trump debate draws 48M TV viewers
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
new york — Roughly 48 million TV viewers tuned in to watch Thursday’s U.S. presidential debate between Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump, according to preliminary Nielsen data.
The number suggests the final audience will be about one-third less than the 73 million people who watched the candidates’ first face-off in 2020, and among the three lowest-rated first presidential debates since 1976.
The relatively low number compared with past debates in recent election cycles could be indicative of low voter enthusiasm for both candidates. It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline.
Media experts were looking to see how a new format by host CNN would play out, and whether it would provide a template for future debates. The restrictions of that format, which included the option for CNN to mute the candidates’ microphones, imposed some discipline on the candidates and should be emulated by other networks, three media experts said.
CNN, which held the exclusive rights to present the debate, allowed candidates two minutes for each answer and one minute for rebuttals, and muted their microphones if they exceeded those limits. The studio did not have an audience, and moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not fact-check the candidates in real time.
CNN defended itself against the criticism from some media commentators that the absence of real-time fact-checking allowed both candidates to spread false claims.
“The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-debate-draws-48-million-tv-viewers-/7677698.html
Microsoft: all content on the web is fair use
date: 2024-06-28, from: OS News
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman: With respect to content that is already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the ’90s has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been freeware, if you like. That’s been the understanding. ↫ Mustafa Suleyman This is absolute bullshit from the first word to the very last. None of this is true – not even in the slightest. Content on the web is not free for the taking by anyone, especially not to be chewed up and regurgitated verbatim by spicy autocomplete tools. There is no “social contract” to that effect. In fact, when I go to any of Microsoft’s website, documents, videos, or any other content they publish online, on the open web, and scroll to the very bottom of the page, it’s all got the little copyright symbol or similar messaging. Once again, this underlines how entitled Silicon Valley techbros really are. If we violate even a gram of Microsoft’s copyrights, we’d have their lawyers on our ass in weeks – but when Microsoft itself needs to violate copyright and licensing on an automated, industrial scale, for massive profits, everything is suddenly peace, love, and fair use. Men in Silicon Valley just do not understand consent. At all. And they show this time and time again. Meanwhile, the Internet Archive has to deal with crap like this: The lawsuit is about the longstanding and widespread library practice of controlled digital lending, which is how we lend the books we own to our patrons. As a result of the publishers’ lawsuit, more than 500,000 books have been removed from our lending library. ↫ Chris Freeland at the Internet Archive Blogs Controlled lending without a profit motive is deemed illegal, but violating copyright and licensing on an automated, industrial scale is fair use. Make it make sense. Make it make sense.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140088/microsoft-all-content-on-the-web-is-fair-use/
County Mental Health Launches ‘Who Do I Call?’ Campaign
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
To better inform and educate the community on the differences between the county of Los Angeles’ emergency and resource phone numbers, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, in collaboration with the County of Los Angeles Fire Department, Sheriff’s Department, city of Los Angeles Police Department, 211 LA and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, has launched the “Who Do I Call for Help?” awareness campaign
https://scvnews.com/county-mental-health-launches-who-do-i-call-campaign/
Apple II graphics: more than you wanted to know
date: 2024-06-28, from: OS News
The Apple ][ is one of the most iconic vintage computers of all time. But since Wozniak’s monster lasted all the way until 1993 (1995 if you could the IIe card, which I won’t count until I get one), it can be easy to forget that in 1977, it was a video extravaganza. The competitors– even much bigger and established companies like Commodore and Tandy– generally only had text modes, let alone pixel-addressable graphics, and they certainly didn’t have sixteen colors. (Gray and grey are different colors, right?) ↫ Nicole Branagan If there’s ever anything you wanted to know about how graphics work on the Apple II, this is the place to go. It’s an incredibly detailed and illustrated explanation of how the machine renders and displays graphics, and an excellent piece of writing to boot. I’m a little jealous.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140086/apple-ii-graphics-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/
US, allies warn of North Korea-Russia military cooperation
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
new york — The United States and its allies warned Friday that expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is dangerous, illegal and a growing threat to the wider international community.
“Last week, Russian and DPRK leaders signed a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,’ paving the way for further deepening their military cooperation,” Robert Wood, U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters, surrounded by representatives of nearly 50 like-minded countries.
“We are deeply concerned about the security implications of the advancement of this cooperation for Europe, the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Wood spoke ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by the United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea to discuss North Korea’s transfer of arms and munitions to Russia, which are helping drive the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine. Such transfers would violate a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea.
“Before February 2022, it was hard to imagine that the war in Ukraine would pose such a direct threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told council members. “But now we are facing a new reality.”
He said South Korea’s national defense ministry has assessed that since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia in September, Pyongyang has shipped at least 10,000 containers to Russia that can hold a total of as many as 5 million artillery shells. His government has also determined that 122-millimeter artillery shells made in North Korea were included in the weapons Russia has used against Ukraine.
In return for the weapons, North Korea is seeking trade and military assistance from Russia, which would violate U.N. sanctions. It is also benefiting from Russia’s political protection in the Security Council.
“All these developments can bring about a shift in the global security landscape, and the potential long-term effects are dangerously uncertain,” Hwang said, adding that Seoul would “resolutely respond” to any threats to its security in a “prudent and measured” way.
U.N. sanctions experts detailed prohibited transfers of military equipment and munitions from North Korea to Russia in a report in February — which Moscow denied. Russia then used its Security Council veto to shut down the 14-year-old monitoring panel in April.
Russia’s envoy again dismissed accusations it is getting weapons from North Korea at Friday’s meeting.
“This is completely false,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council, adding that the two countries’ cooperation “is exclusively constructive and legitimate in nature.”
Nebenzia dismissed the panel of experts’ findings as controlled and directed by the West.
“The panel of experts have been following those orders given them and turning in the direction they were told to turn,” he said.
North Korea’s envoy defended Pyongyang and Moscow’s treaty, saying relations between the two countries “are completely peace-loving and defensive in nature.”
“Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about development of their bilateral relations, unless they have intention to undertake a military invasion of the DPRK and Russian Federation,” Ambassador Song Kim said.
China, which has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, expressed concern about heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
“China calls on parties concerned to be rational and pragmatic and to find joint efforts to find a solution,” Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang said.
Washington’s envoy urged Beijing to use its influence with both Pyongyang and Moscow to persuade them to cease their “increasingly dangerous cooperation.”
“So I appeal to my Chinese colleague to understand that if indeed the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues on the trajectory it’s going, the United States and its allies will have to take steps to defend their security,” Wood said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-allies-warn-of-north-korea-russia-military-cooperation/7677701.html
American interest in electric vehicles short circuits for first time in four years
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Funny what happens if you take Tesla out of the numbers, though
Interest in electric vehicles has waned slightly among US motorists for the first time since 2020 says Pew Research, with only three out of ten Americans right now saying they’re considering a battery-powered ride for their next purchase.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/us_ev_survey/
June 29: Western States Regional Speed Skating Championships
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Once again, the Santa Clarita Speed Skating Club will be hosting the Annual Western States Short Track Speed Skating Championships Saturday, June 29 at 1:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center, Powered by FivePoint Valencia, at 27745 Smyth Drive, Valencia, CA 91355.
https://scvnews.com/june-29-western-states-regional-speed-skating-championships/
This Week in the IndieWeb
date: 2024-06-28, from: This week in Indie Web
June 21-28, 2024
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Upcoming Events
From events.indieweb.org:
The Homebrew Website Club to discuss the writing and writing-related topics. If you write on the web, whenever this is short message, detailed blog posts, reviews, rantings or fiction, come join us.
Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to learn from each other about how to make code do what we want.
Come prepared to teach and learn!
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
- PORTLAND, Oregon: TBD
A one day IndieWebCamp Portland 2024 is planned for August 25th, the day after the XOXO conference and festival, pending confirmation of a venue! If you’re in Portland and have a suggested venue please get in touch via the IndieWeb chat!
New Community Members
From IndieWeb Wiki: New User Pages:
User:Zacharykai.net
Created by Zacharykai.net on Friday
Top New Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
handshake
handshake is a type of post, typically a short note, that has some text, then a handshake emoji (🤝), and some more text, indicating two things or parties who are different, yet seemingly agree or collaborate on something in common.
Created by [tantek] on Wednesday with 4 more edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
New Event Notes
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London: 2024-06-26
Top Edited Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: Recent Changes:
- colophon 2 edits by zacharykai.net and tantek.com
- git 2 edits by loqi.me
- discuss 2 edits by trainedmonkey.com and bw3.dev
- URL shortener 2 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- site-deaths 2 edits by loqi.me
- .bit 2 edits by gregorlove.com and martymcgui.re
- indielogin.com 2 edits by paulrobertlloyd.com
- search 2 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
https://indieweb.org/this-week/2024-06-28.html
‘New Muralism: Inclusive Visions of Self and Place’
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Slingshot / Alpha Art Studio’s “New Muralism” art exhibit at Santa Barbara County’s Channing Peake Gallery gives a new meaning to murals.
The post ‘New Muralism: Inclusive Visions of Self and Place’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/new-muralism-inclusive-visions-of-self-and-place/
AOOSTAR WTR Pro is a 4-bay NAS with an Intel N100 processor, 2.5 GbE Ethernet, and an M.2 2280 slot
date: 2024-06-28, from: Liliputing
The AOOSTAR WTR Pro is small desktop computer that’s positioned for use as a network-attached storage (NAS) device thanks to its support for up to four 3.5 inch hard drives or SSDs and an M.2 slot for an optional PCIe NVMe SSD. But it’s also a versatile little computer with an Intel N100 Alder Lake-N processor, broad […]
The post AOOSTAR WTR Pro is a 4-bay NAS with an Intel N100 processor, 2.5 GbE Ethernet, and an M.2 2280 slot appeared first on Liliputing.
World’s largest naval exercise sends message to China
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
pentagon — The United States and 28 partner nations have begun the world’s largest naval war exercise off the shores of Hawaii, known as the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC.
This year’s exercise brings international cooperation on a scale like no other: 40 surface ships, more than 150 aircraft, three submarines and 25,000 people.
Nations from around the globe are practicing a wide range of missions, from natural disaster response to attack skills needed for war. While most participants are nations with Pacific coastlines, this year’s RIMPAC also includes non-Pacific nations, including the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and Israel.
“Every nation in the world that has interests in the Pacific and will adhere to the same values is more than welcome to participate,” said Chilean Navy Commodore Alberto Guerrero, RIMPAC deputy commander.
One country not invited? China.
Why? Because the warm welcome RIMPAC gave to China in 2014 and 2016 backfired, according to Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
“There was this outreach to China, and definitely the U.S. and its allies and partners were essentially burned by the Chinese taking advantage of it … as an opportunity to essentially collect intelligence and to try and get more acceptance of what should be considered unacceptable behavior,” Garlauskas told VOA.
Since China’s last RIMPAC in 2016, he said, Beijing ramped up its aggressive behavior, building and militarizing more artificial islands in international waters, conducting aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan in recent months and pummeling Philippine ships with water cannons in recent days.
But the biennial exercise, officials say, can send a strong message to China to stop bullying its neighbors. RIMPAC nations this year will practice targeting the decommissioned assault ship USS Tarawa, in a rare chance to learn how effective their weapons are at sinking a large and protected adversary in open waters.
“They’re not just going to be facing the United States in the country they’re targeting, but they’re potentially going to have to deal with a response from a wide range of countries that have common interests in deterring and confronting Chinese aggression as threats to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Garlauskas said.
Israel’s inclusion this year sparked calls from pro-Palestinian activists wanting countries to skip the exercise in protest. Malaysia’s prime minister addressed the protesters ahead of the exercises, saying that while his country would continue to speak out in support of the Palestinian people, Malaysia needed to act in a way that was “not driven by anger,” while also considering the practical implications of missing the major military exercise.
RIMPAC is set to end in early August.
https://www.voanews.com/a/world-s-largest-naval-exercise-sends-message-to-china-/7677673.html
NatureTrack Film Fest Kicks Off Summer Series at El Cap
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Free screening of ‘The Beaver Believers’ on July 6.
The post NatureTrack Film Fest Kicks Off Summer Series at El Cap appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/naturetrack-film-fest-kicks-off-summer-series-at-el-cap/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
ChatGPT outperforms undergrads in intro-level courses, falls short later.
Volcanic Ash Preserved Trilobite Fossils in Surprising Detail at ‘Prehistoric Pompeii’
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The specimens date to more than 500 million years ago and provide new insights into trilobite anatomy, revealing previously unseen features
Barger issues statement on county homeless count results and Supreme Court ruling
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
News release Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger released a statement Friday regarding the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority’s 2024 Los Angeles Homeless Count results and the U.S. Supreme […]
The post Barger issues statement on county homeless count results and Supreme Court ruling appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
NASA astronauts to stay aboard ISS longer, troubleshooting Boeing capsule
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
July 2-3: Libraries Host Wine to Cup Etching Program
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Come elevate the drinking experience with a touch of eco-friendly sophistication as you fashion a repurposed wine bottle into a customized drinking glass.
https://scvnews.com/july-2-3-libraries-host-wine-to-cup-etching-program/
California State Parks Urges Safety for Fourth of July
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
This Fourth of July weekend California State Parks invites all Californians and visitors from around the world to celebrate the holiday in its parks and to recreate responsibly.
https://scvnews.com/california-state-parks-urges-safety-for-fourth-of-july/
Santa Barbara Rescue Mission Annual Fourth of July BBQ, Raffle, and Carnival
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, CA – The Santa Barbara Rescue Mission is excited to announce its seventeenth annual 4th of July BBQ,
The post Santa Barbara Rescue Mission Annual Fourth of July BBQ, Raffle, and Carnival appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Suspected Stolen Bike Recovered During Arrest Owner Encouraged to Contact Isla Vista Foot Patrol
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Isla Vista, Calif. – Deputies arrested a juvenile suspect in an animal abuse case and are attempting to locate the
The post Suspected Stolen Bike Recovered During Arrest Owner Encouraged to Contact Isla Vista Foot Patrol appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Explainer: Replacing Biden as a presidential candidate
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/explainer-replacing-biden-as-a-presidential-candidate/7677643.html
Drilling Operation Continues Following Roadway Cracking on Highway 154 Which Remains Closed Near San Antonio Creek Road
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY – Highway 154 remains closed in both directions from San Antonio Creek Road to Painted Cave Road due to roadway
The post Drilling Operation Continues Following Roadway Cracking on Highway 154 Which Remains Closed Near San Antonio Creek Road appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Supreme Court allows city’s ban on public homeless encampments
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
By Matthew Vadum Contributing Writer The Supreme Court on Friday on a 6-3 vote upheld a local ordinance banning public camping, which activists claimed unconstitutionally punished homeless people for being homeless. […]
The post Supreme Court allows city’s ban on public homeless encampments appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/supreme-court-allows-citys-ban-on-public-homeless-encampments/
CISA looked at C/C++ projects and found a lot of C/C++ code. Wanna redo any of it in Rust?
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
So, so many lines of memory-unsafe routines in crucial open source, and unsafe dependencies
The US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has analyzed 172 critical open source projects and found that more than half contain code written in languages like C and C++ that are not naturally memory safe.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/cisa_open_source/
July 3: Upcycle Tie Dye at Valencia Library
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Bring a shirt or bandana to the Valencia Library, 23743 West Valencia Blvd., Santa Clarita, CA 91355, on Wednesday, July 3 from 4 to 5 p.m. for Upcycle Tie Dye Program.
https://scvnews.com/july-3-upcycle-tie-dye-at-valencia-library/
Measurement Rules Takes Over as MOXI’s Newest Installation
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Height, weight, volume, and length take the spotlight at Santa Barbara’s STEAM-focused museum’s latest exhibit.
The post Measurement Rules Takes Over as MOXI’s Newest Installation appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/measurement-rules-takes-over-as-moxis-newest-installation/
Child airlifted after suffering medical emergency
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
A medical emergency that originated on the 22800 block of West Copper Hill Drive in Saugus resulted in a child being transported to Central Park and airlifted to a hospital […]
The post Child airlifted after suffering medical emergency appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/child-airlifted-after-suffering-medical-emergency/
June 30: Vet @ The Park Visits Heritage Park
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control will host Vet @ The Park on Sunday, June 30, at Heritage Park, 24155 Newhall Ranch Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91355 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
https://scvnews.com/june-30-vet-the-park-visits-heritage-park/
RCS in iOS 18 Beta
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Ryan Haines: Then, it was time to jump into an RCS-powered future, and by that, I mean flipping a toggle in the Settings app. Seriously, that’s all there is to it right now for beta testers on the most recent build.From there, it was time to send my first RCS text message on an iPhone, […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/rcs-in-ios-18-beta/
Removing Archives of Comedy Central and MTV News
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Rick Porter: A pop-up window on the Comedy Central site reads, “While episodes of most Comedy Central series are no longer available on this website, you can watch Comedy Central through your TV provider. You can also sign up for Paramount+ to watch many seasons of Comedy Central shows.”[…]As noted by LateNighter, the cleaning out […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/removing-archives-of-comedy-central-and-mtv-news/
Longevity, by Design
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Joe Rossignol: Apple today published a lengthy whitepaper that highlights the company’s approach to device repairability and longevity. In the document, Apple revealed that iPhones will better support third-party displays and batteries later in 2024.[…]First, Apple said True Tone will work with third-party iPhone displays later this year[…][…]Second, Apple said battery health metrics such as […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/longevity-by-design/
Porting Google Sheets Calculations to WasmGC
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Michael Thomas and Thomas Steiner Thomas Steiner (via Hacker News): The Google Sheets calculation engine was originally written in Java and launched in 2006. In the early days of the product, all calculation happened on the server. However, from 2013, the engine has run in the browser using JavaScript. This was originally accomplished through Google […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/porting-google-sheets-calculations-to-wasmgc/
NASA Awards Contract for Infrared Telescope Facility Operations
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has selected the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to maintain and operate the agency’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea in Hilo, Hawaii. The Management and Operations of NASA’s IRTF is a hybrid firm-fixed-price contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity provision. The contract has a maximum potential value of approximately $85.5 million, with a base […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-contract-for-infrared-telescope-facility-operations/
Python Apps Rejected From App Store
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Joe Brockmeier (via Hacker News): The problem at hand is that Apple’s macOS App Store is automatically rejecting apps that contain the string “itms-services”. That is the URL scheme for apps that want to ask Apple’s iTunes Store to install another app. […] That string is in the urllib parser in Python’s standard library, though […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/python-apps-rejected-from-app-store/
Rounded Quick Look Corners
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Robin Allen (via Hacker News): For whatever reason, QuickLook will now remove the corners of your images before showing them to you.It doesn’t matter if they’re photos, game assets, or UI elements you’re designing. Everything will be rounded off before you see it.[…]We can click through these views and get info about them, including their […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/rounded-quick-look-corners/
Mac Marketshare in Q1 2024
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Ben Lovejoy (via Hacker News): Mac shipments are estimated to have grown from 1.7M in the first quarter of 2023 to 2.1M in the same quarter this year. That represents year-on-year growth of 22%, giving Apple a 14.2% share of the US PC market.The launch of the new M3-powered MacBook Air models in March were […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/mac-marketshare-in-q1-2024/
Moaan InkPalm Plus
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
John Moltz (Hacker News): A post on Mastodon got boosted into my feed that touted the Xiaomi Moaan InkPalm 5 which sells for about $95. Now you’re talking my kind of cheap. Looking into the Moaan lineup, I then found the InkPalm Plus which features a slightly larger screen, more storage and a more up-to-date […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/moaan-inkpalm-plus/
Starlink Mini
date: 2024-06-28, from: Michael Tsai
Chris Wedel (via Hacker News): However, since I first began using these low-orbit satellites to power my internet, not only has the price gone up $30 per month, but the speeds and reliability have degraded significantly. I’ve talked to others in my area who use Starlink, and since January, we’ve experienced frequent downtime and fluctuating […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/28/starlink-mini/
July 3: CD Suncatchers Program at Old Town Newhall Library
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Visit The Old Town Newhall Library, 24500 Main St., Newhall, CA 91321 for a fun and eco-friendly CD Suncatchers program, Wednesday, July 3, at 3:30 p.m.
https://scvnews.com/july-3-cd-suncatchers-program-at-old-town-newhall-library/
HMD is bringing back the Nokia Lumia “Fabula” design for at least two new phones (leaks)
date: 2024-06-28, from: Liliputing
HMD is probably best known as the company that’s been selling Nokia-branded phones in recent years. But the Finnish company is starting to move away from the Nokia name by selling some phones under its own name. That doesn’t mean HMD isn’t still leveraging Nokia’s assets though. A series of leaks suggest that HMD is […]
The post HMD is bringing back the Nokia Lumia “Fabula” design for at least two new phones (leaks) appeared first on Liliputing.
How Ukraine Can Defeat Russian Glide Bombs
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: RAND blog
Fighting often requires multiple capabilities and innovative or flexible use. More of both will be needed to enable Ukraine to defeat the Russian glide bomb threat.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/06/how-ukraine-can-defeat-russian-glide-bombs.html
World’s largest navy exercise sends message to China
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
This week the United States and 28 partner nations began the world’s largest naval war exercise off the shores of Hawaii. Known as Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, analysts say this year’s exercise gives partners a chance to work together while sending a strong deterrence message to China. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
https://www.voanews.com/a/world-s-largest-navy-exercise-sends-message-to-china/7677593.html
Court records: Prom after-party ends in gunfire
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
The sound of a shotgun being racked sent a clear enough message that the prom after-party was over. Some ran from the house. A girl was seen crying on the […]
The post Court records: Prom after-party ends in gunfire appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/court-records-prom-after-party-ends-in-gunfire/
‘It Was a Sluggish Night’
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara Congressmember Salud Carbajal reacts to Biden’s performance in Thursday’s presidential debate while calling out Trump as a lying “would-be dictator.”
The post ‘It Was a Sluggish Night’ appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/it-was-a-sluggish-night/
July 15: Filing Period Opens for City Council Election
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita 2024 General Municipal Election, consolidated with the Los Angeles County Presidential General Election, will be held on Nov. 5. This will be the first by-district election in the city, with two district seats up for election.
https://scvnews.com/july-15-filing-period-opens-for-city-council-election/
Ballot measure madness: How California lawmakers are scrambling the November list
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
In late deals with Gov. Newsom and legislative leaders, proponents are pulling measures off the Nov. 5 ballot. But the Legislature may add others by next week.
NASA Announces Winners of Inaugural Human Lander Challenge
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
NASA’s 2024 Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) Forum brought 12 university teams from across the United States to Huntsville, Alabama, near the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, to showcase their innovative concepts for addressing the complex issue of managing lunar dust. The 12 finalists, selected in March 2024, presented their final presentations to a panel of […]
Debate notes
date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
It was a bad night. But at least its over. …Right?
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/debate-notes
NATO Needs to Revive Its Human Security Agenda
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: RAND blog
It is important that NATO not allow human security to slip down its political agenda. The 2024 NATO Washington summit will be a timely opportunity to reiterate the alliance’s commitment to its human security–centered approach.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/06/nato-needs-to-revive-its-human-security-agenda.html
US official: World should be ‘alarmed’ by growing North Korea-Russia cooperation
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-28, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Godot Community Poll:
https://godotengine.org/article/godot-community-poll-2024/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112695880071492018
Avalon VFW Post forced to close
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
As Catalina Island prepares to join the rest of the country in celebrating America’s Independence, Avalon will need to adjust a little bit, as a regular participant of its celebration has been lost. The Avalon chapter of the Veterans of Foreign War (VFW) Post is closing its doors, in a manner of speaking. It has […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-vfw-post-forced-to-close/
Pakistani parliament slams US demand for election probe
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistani-parliament-slams-us-demand-for-election-probe/7677503.html
Cabaret generates a win for former racehorses
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
Jaine Garcia grew up loving horses and began riding at the early age of 4. After traveling the world and riding horses in places such as South Africa and Australia, […]
The post Cabaret generates a win for former racehorses appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/cabaret-generates-a-win-for-former-racehorses/
Avalon 4th of July schedule of events
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
The USC Marching band free concert will be on July 3 on the Wrigley Stage. 10-11 a.m. House Judging 11-12 p.m. Golf Cart Judging on Lower Descanso. This year’s Theme is Avalon’s Golden Age of Avalon: Swinging into the 20s and 30s. Noon-12:30 p.m. Parade line up: No entrance through Casino way After 12:45 p.m. […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-4th-of-july-schedule-of-events/
What Killed the Last Woolly Mammoths? Scientists Say It Wasn’t Inbreeding
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
New research suggests some catastrophic event—such as a natural disaster or a virus—killed the world’s last known population of mammoths on Wrangel Island
Council appoints new planners
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
The Avalon City Council appointed new members to the Planning Commission at last week’s council meeting. The vote was 4-0 with Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa absent. Current terms for the Planning Commission end on June 30 of this year, according to the staff report by Administrative Analyst/Deputy City Clerk Devin Hart. Returning planners are: […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/council-appoints-new-planners/
Catalina Realtors, Hamilton Cove RE, Bravo’s Landscaping win
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
The start of the second round of CoEd Softball began with Catalina Realtors taking on Coyote Joe’s. Catalina Realtors was up first, and used five base hits to score three. Coyote Joe’s answered back with two runs off a base hit, a walk and a double from Ryan Hinkley. Catalina Realtors added another three runs […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/catalina-realtors-hamilton-cove-re-bravos-landscaping-win/
Conservancy announces hunting season for 2024
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
In response to requests from the public to increase recreational hunting opportunities on Catalina Island, the Conservancy will host a 2024 hunting season beginning July 22. The California Fish and Game Commission recently approved up to 1,000 tags for the 2024 season – twice the number allotted in previous years. The tags will be allocated […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/conservancy-announces-hunting-season-for-2024/
TeamViewer says Russia broke into its corp IT network
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Same APT29 crew that hit Microsoft and SolarWinds. How close were we to a mega backdoor situation?
TeamViewer says it was Russian intelligence that broke into its systems this week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/teamviewer_russia/
Filing Period for 2024 City Council Election Opens Monday, July 15
date: 2024-06-28, from: City of Santa Clarita
The City’s 2024 General Municipal Election, consolidated with the Los Angeles County Presidential General Election, will be held on November 5, 2024. This will be the first by-district election in the City, with two district seats up for election. Registered voters in the City of Santa Clarita District 1 and District 3 will have the […]
The post Filing Period for 2024 City Council Election Opens Monday, July 15 appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
Fishing Derby sees 27 kids haul in 134 fish
date: 2024-06-28, from: Catalina Islander
The return of the summer kids Fishing Derby had a big day on June 26. A total of 27 kids from Avalon, San Clemente, Dana Point, San Diego, Oregon to Idaho participated, and as a group the young anglers hauled in 134 fish. 10 and under most fish Caught – 1st-Logan Henry, Avalon 11. 2nd-Jonathon […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/fishing-derby-sees-27-kids-haul-in-134-fish/
The Maze is Afoot
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
This labyrinth – with a silhouette of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes at its center – is used as a calibration target for the cameras and laser that are part of SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), one of the instruments aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The image was […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/the-maze-is-afoot/
Showers of Hope restores dignity to homeless people
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
In Frederick, Maryland, when Tony Peterson got himself off the streets, he wanted to help others conquer their homelessness as well. He began by asking the homeless people he encountered what they needed, and the answer was simple but deeply personal. Arzouma Kompaore reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/showers-of-hope-restores-dignity-to-homeless-people/7677366.html
Is There a Viking Ship Burial Underneath This Norwegian Farm?
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Archaeologists have uncovered around 70 iron rivets that may have once held together a boat belonging to a king
ISS Astronauts Forced to Briefly Take Shelter as Russian Satellite Suddenly Breaks Up in Orbit
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Officials are unsure why the satellite fractured unexpectedly, splintering into nearly 200 pieces
NASA Opportunities Fuel Growth and Entrepreneurship for Bronco Space Club Students
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
NASA’s public competitions can catalyze big changes – not just for the agency but also for participants. Bronco Space, the CubeSat laboratory at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California, matured more than just space technology as a result of winning funds from NASA’s TechLeap Prize competition. It grew from its roots in a broom […]
Should the UK Bring Back National Service? Considerations and Lessons from International Research
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: RAND blog
In the absence of fully fledged national service, the United Kingdom should consider alternative avenues for strengthening societal links with the armed forces, contributing to societal resilience, and encouraging engagement in national security and defence.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper slips to end of 2024 for first full-scale launch
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Starlink rival slips again, but service still set for 2025
The first full-scale mission of Amazon’s Project Kuiper has slipped to the end of 2024, a year after the company finally got its prototype satellites into orbit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/amazon_project_kuiper_q4/
Milk-V Jupiter is a mini ITX board with a SpacemiT K1/M1 RISC-V processor
date: 2024-06-28, from: Liliputing
The Milk-V Jupiter is a mini ITX computer motherboard that combines an octa-core RISC-V processor with up to 16GB of onboard LPDDR4x memory, support for eMMC and PCIe NVMe storage, and a PCIe x8 expansion slot. It’s the latest in a line of RISC-V products from Milk-V, and it looks like one of the most versatile to […]
The post Milk-V Jupiter is a mini ITX board with a SpacemiT K1/M1 RISC-V processor appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/milk-v-jupiter-is-a-mini-itx-board-with-a-spacemit-k1-m1-risc-v-processor/
Behind the Blog: Too Many Tabs and Generative AI Hype
date: 2024-06-28, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss exciting new updates to the podcast, having too many tabs open, and the generative AI boom.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-too-many-tabs-and-generative-ai-hype/
It’s not unusual to port the Linux Vector Packet Processor (VPP) to FreeBSD
date: 2024-06-28, from: OS News
The Vector Packet Processor (VPP) is a framework for moving packets around at high rates. Its core concept is handling packets in groups known as “vectors,” which allows for the native use of vector processor instructions for packet classification and processing in different CPU architectures — currently amd64 and arm64. VPP can process packets at incredibly high rates and competes with many dedicated forwarding appliances. This is achieved using userspace networking that bypasses the host’s normal network stack. This article describes the porting of VPP to FreeBSD and working with the upstream VPP project to include FreeBSD as a supported target. ↫ Tom Jones It’s not unusual for me to link to something a little over my head, and this is another example of something I know y’all will like, but I don’t really understand fully.
What Happens After Chevron?
date: 2024-06-28, from: Heatmap News
It’s a sad day for the regulatory state. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down a 40-year-old precedent that deferred to agencies’ interpretations of their own mandates where the statutory guidance was incomplete or ambiguous, otherwise known as Chevron deference, after the losing side in the original case. Not only has it been cited in more than 19,000 federal opinions, it’s the one congressional aides — the ones actually writing the laws — are most familiar with, as Lisa Heinzerling, a professor of environmental law at Georgetown Law, told me.
“So there’s a way in which Congress has been relying on Chevron for decades, right?” she said. “If Congress banked on Chevron, banked on the idea that if they didn’t make things clear the agency would take care of it, then that reliance is not being honored.”
This is not the first time the court has come for regulators. Two years ago, in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court held that the authority to resolve questions of interpretation involving high-stakes political and economic questions, a.k.a. “major questions,” rests with Congress, not the agencies, raising the threat of legal nightmares should regulators attempt to take any kind of big swings. This explicitly concerns only “extraordinary cases,” and yet regulators already appear to be reining in their own ambition to gird against potential challenges.
Friday’s decision comes the day after the court struck down a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act giving certain enforcement powers to the Securities and Exchange Commission and granted a stay on enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “good neighbor” rule, aimed at preventing harmful pollution from crossing state lines.
The two cases decided this week — Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al. and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce — turned on whether private commercial fishing companies could be compelled to pay for federal monitors to ride along and ensure they were complying with applicable fishing rules. Or at least they did initially. “The court decided to decide only the question whether to overrule Chevron, the case that establishes deference for agencies legal interpretations,” Heinzerling explained the day before the ruling came down. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Without Chevron, are we going to get completely bogged down in revising statutes? Are our courts going to be clogged up with nuisance suits from people who simply don’t want to have to follow the rules?
I think there will be a lot of efforts to undo other precedent that relied on Chevron — and especially paired with the Corner Post case, which has to do with the timing of challenges to agency action. You know, realistically, if that case comes down, accepting a longer period of time in which to sue people could go nuts, challenging all sorts of agency interpretations from the past. So that’s disruptive.
The Supreme Court is constantly saying, well, go and get a new statute. Well, okay, we saw what happens when Congress passes a new statute: The court holds it unconstitutional. The Dodd-Frank Act. Look what happened to the Affordable Care Act. These major pieces of legislation, major, major political stakes, and the court has not respected those. So I feel like we’re kind of in a shell game, something that’s not quite honest. That in all of these cases, actually, Congress did pass a law, but the court either rules it unconstitutional, says it’s not clear enough. And so I don’t think they’re respecting Congress’s handiwork as it exists now.
You mentioned Corner Post, could you talk about that case?
It came to the court kind of quietly. It’s got rich backers. It’s just a little truckstop, just like the commercial fisherman, that wants to challenge a rule on credit cards. They were incorporated after the rule went into effect, and they want to say, we weren’t injured when it first passed, so we should get the benefit of a longer period of time in which to sue. And amazingly, the justices seemed willing to accept that. That just adds to the stakes of overruling Chevron.
The Chevron deference is a big part of how agencies do their job. But after West Virginia, does it still matter? I’m not a lawyer, but I’m going to pretend I am one when I ask: Does the major questions doctrine effectively invalidate Chevron anyway?
No. They said that the major questions idea was for extraordinary cases, to see how it turns out over the years, but it’s not every case. Where Chevron applied, theoretically, in every case. At least it was a mix.
What recent regulatory decisions would be most vulnerable in a post-Chevron world?
It is complicated to know because it has to be a question about a statute, a question about a statute that a court finds ambiguous, right? That’s where Chevron would have helped. And I think it depends on what court you’re in. If you’re in the Fifth Circuit, there’s a good chance — I mean, they’ve just stopped using Chevron, period.
Is there a world in which courts develop more subject matter expertise as a result of being forced to decide on questions of statutory interpretation?
Over the years people have offered the possibility of science courts or environmental courts — specialized courts where adjudicators have expertise. That’s never really taken off — never really at all taken off. Certainly the D.C. Circuit judges handle administrative cases all the time. Cases go exclusively to them, and I think the judges do develop some expertise. But it doesn’t turn them into ecologists or engineers. And the thing is that the structure of a judicial chambers is both tiny and insular: you have one judge; on the Supreme Court four clerks, but elsewhere two to three. It’s just not that much. Whereas EPA, they have teams of people on these rules from all over the agency, and then the rule gets reviewed by others.
We’re obviously focused on climate-related regulations, but is there an area of policy that you think will be most vulnerable immediately without Chevron?
The hallmarks of where Chevron has been really important: complicated statutes; technical and/or scientific subject matter; places where the language is either vague or just broad enough, it’s not clear how to fill it in. That’s environmental law, but there’s a lot of other law that’s also … I mean, it’s just OSHA, FDA, the FTC. Looking for those signature traits, that’s going to be a place where it pinches particularly hard. I think the agencies now are sort of bracing for this, but they still have a lot of rules in the works, and this is going to come down in the middle of that in election year.
Chevron started with Reagan wanting to change the way the EPA interpreted its mandate. Would removing it potentially make things more difficult for an incoming Trump administration?
I mean, it should. Chevron was supposed to work that way. But certainly the major questions doctrine, at least as it’s been practiced, so far cuts only against ambitious regulation. It doesn’t cut in favor of it.
The thing that worries me is the anti-regulatory skew that’s in some of the court’s other recent rulings. So for example, in West Virginia itself, the Supreme Court struck down Obama’s Clean Power Plan but upheld — without even explaining why — Trump’s plan. They were the same question under the same statute with the same evidence, the same costs and benefits. Everything was the same except for the direction. If one was a major question, the other should have been a major question. And so if you want to put it in the terms of these two possible administrations, they will go after Biden rules more than they’ll go after Trump rules, at least on the major questions idea.
https://heatmap.news/climate/supreme-court-chevron
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Episodes.fm is beautiful and useful and solves an important problem.
https://nathangathright.com/introducing-episodesfm/
New Blood Test for Predicting Parkinson’s Disease With A.I. Shows Promise, Study Suggests
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In preliminary research, scientists identified eight protein anomalies in the blood of patients with Parkinson’s, which they say can help diagnose the disease up to seven years before symptoms appear
Bill Gates says not to worry about AI gobbling up energy, tech will adapt
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
So that’s fine then
Bill Gates says the massive power draw required for AI processing is nothing to worry about as AI will ultimately identify ways to help cut power consumption and drive the transition to sustainable energy.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/bill_gates_ai_power_consumption/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Which Democrats could replace Biden as 2024 nominee? - The Washington Post
Ancient Egyptian Scribes Were Worked to the Bone
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The administrators spent long periods writing in odd postures, which damaged their joints, researchers discovered
In Space Production Applications News
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
Technological innovations make headlines every day, and NASA’s In Space Production Applications (InSPA) Portfolio of awards are driving these innovations into the future. InSPA awards help U.S. companies demonstrate in-space manufacturing of their products and move them to market, propelling U.S. industry toward the development of a sustainable, scalable, and profitable non-NASA demand for services and products […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/inspa-news/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What the Chevron Ruling Means for the Federal Government.
Stable Diffusion 3’s Disastrous Launch Could Change the AI Landscape Forever
date: 2024-06-28, from: 404 Media Group
Stability AI botched the launch of its latest model, proving the Stable Diffusion community doesn’t need the company that brought it to the world.
https://www.404media.co/stable-diffusion-3s-disastrous-launch-could-change-the-ai-landscape-forever/
US offers deportation relief to additional 309,000 Haitians in country already
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will expand deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 309,000 Haitians in the country already, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday.
The administration will expand access to the Temporary Protected Status program to Haitians through February 2026 because of violence and security issues in Haiti that limits access to safety, health care, food and water, the department said. The expanded program will be available to Haitians in the U.S. on or before June 3.
About 264,000 Haitians in the U.S. were already covered by the program, according to the U.S. government.
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat seeking another term in the November 5 elections, has walked a political tightrope when it comes to immigration, both trying to step up security at the U.S.-Mexico border and take a more humane approach to immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
In a presidential debate on Thursday, Biden’s Republican challenger, former president Donald Trump, criticized Biden for failing to stem high levels of illegal immigration.
Gang wars in Haiti have displaced over half a million people and nearly 5 million are facing severe food insecurity. Armed groups, which now control most of the capital, have formed a broad alliance while carrying out widespread killings, ransom kidnappings and sexual violence.
Responsible Inventing
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: Tantek Çelik’s blog
https://tantek.com/2024/180/b1/responsible-inventing
Supreme Court says prosecutors improperly charged some Jan. 6 defendants
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
The statute is also the basis for one of the four obstruction counts brought against former President Donald Trump in the criminal case currently pending against him in federal court in Washington.
US Supreme Court curbs federal agency powers, overturning 1984 precedent
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to federal regulatory power on Friday by overturning a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer, handing a defeat to President Joe Biden’s administration.
The justices ruled 6-3 in favor of fishing companies that challenged a government-run program partly funded by industry that monitored overfishing of herring off New England’s coast.
It marked the latest decision in recent years powered by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority that hemmed in the authority of federal agencies.
The precedent that the court overturned arose from a ruling involving oil company Chevron that had called for judges to defer to reasonable federal agency interpretations of U.S. laws deemed to be ambiguous. This doctrine, long opposed by conservatives and business interests, was called “Chevron deference.”
The decreasing productivity of Congress – thanks to its gaping partisan divide – has led to a growing reliance, especially by Democratic presidents, on rules issued by U.S. agencies to realize regulatory goals.
The 1984 precedent, set in a ruling involving oil company Chevron, has called for judges to defer to federal agency interpretations of U.S. laws that are deemed to be ambiguous.
This doctrine, long opposed by conservatives and business interests, is called “Chevron deference.”
Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration had defended the National Marine Fisheries Service regulation at issue and the Chevron deference doctrine. The fish conservation program was started in 2020 under Republican former President Donald Trump.
The regulation called for certain commercial fishermen to carry aboard their vessels U.S. government contractors and pay for their at-sea services while they monitored the catch.
The companies – led by New Jersey-based Loper Bright Enterprises and Rhode Island-based Relentless Inc – in 2020 sued the fisheries service, claiming the monitoring program exceeded the Commerce Department agency’s authority.
The bid by the fishermen was supported by various conservative and corporate interest groups including billionaire Charles Koch’s network. The litigation is part of what has been termed the “war on the administrative state,” an effort to weaken the federal agency bureaucracy that interprets laws, crafts federal rules and implements executive action.
The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has signaled skepticism toward expansive regulatory power, issuing rulings in recent years to rein in what its conservative justices have viewed as overreach by the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies.
The fish conservation program aimed to monitor 50 percent of declared herring fishing trips in the regulated area, with program costs split between the federal government and the fishing industry. The cost to commercial fishermen of paying for the monitoring was an estimated $710 per day for 19 days a year, which could reduce a vessel’s income by up to 20 percent, according to government figures.
The Biden administration said the program was authorized under a 1976 federal law called the Magnuson-Stevens Act to protect against overfishing in U.S. coastal waters. It said in court papers the program was suspended for the fishing year starting in April 2023 due to insufficient federal funding.
The Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the government.
The Biden administration said Chevron deference among other things “gives due weight to the expertise that agencies bring to bear” and promotes national uniformity in the administration of federal law.
An attorney for the commercial fishermen said Chevron deference “incentivizes a dynamic where Congress does far less than the Framers [of the U.S. Constitution] anticipated, and the executive branch is left to do far more by deciding controversial issues via regulatory fiat.”
The Supreme Court has issued other rulings this term involving the scope of agency powers, including two rulings on Thursday. It rejected the Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house enforcement of laws protecting investors against securities fraud. It also blocked an Environmental Protection Agency regulation aimed at reducing ozone emissions that may worsen air pollution in neighboring states.
The justices on May 16 upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism in a challenge brought by the payday loan industry.
NASA@ My Library and Partners Engage Millions in Eclipse Training and Preparation
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
The Space Science Institute, with funding from the NASA Science Mission Directorate and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, provided unprecedented training, support, and supplies to 15,000 libraries in the U.S. and territories in support of public engagement during the 2023 and 2024 eclipses. From September 2022 to September 2024, these efforts included: One public library […]
NASA tests the ups and downs of air taxi comfort with VR
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nobody would want a roller coaster ride in one of these long-promised flying cabs
NASA is testing what makes air taxi passengers comfortable – and uncomfortable – with a custom VR simulation rig.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/nasa_tests_rider_comfort_in/
Legendary San Jose State judo coach Yosh Uchida dies at age 104
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Uchida was a fixture at San Jose State over eight decades while turning the school into a national power in the martial art that made its Olympic debut at the 1964 Tokyo Games, where he coached the U.S. team.
Quicken 7.8
date: 2024-06-28, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/quicken-7-8/
Final Cut Pro 10.8, Compressor 4.8, and Motion 5.8
date: 2024-06-28, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/final-cut-pro-x-10-8-compressor-4-8-and-motion-5-8/
Analysis: 4 takeaways from the first presidential debate
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
Why so many Democrats are ringing the fire alarms after the first general election presidential debate of 2024.
https://laist.com/news/politics/analysis-4-takeaways-from-the-first-presidential-debate
OmniFocus 4.3.1
date: 2024-06-28, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/omnifocus-4-3-1/
Lightroom Classic 13.4
date: 2024-06-28, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/lightroom-classic-13-4/
The need for a President that speaks AI natively
date: 2024-06-28, from: Gary Marcus blog
Last night was a travesty, but that is just the beginning of our problems
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-need-for-a-president-that-speaks
Fantastical 3.8.19 and Cardhop 2.2.18
date: 2024-06-28, from: TidBITS blog
https://tidbits.com/watchlist/fantastical-3-8-19-cardhop-2-2-18/
Politics and “a tale of different economies”
date: 2024-06-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Last night, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump sparred off. Today, we’ll recap some of economic issues spotlighted in the presidential debate. Inflation was one of the hot topics, and the latest release of the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation shows inflation cooling — but how you experience rising prices can be splintered along partisan lines. We discuss. Also, Amazon plans on launching a “discount” section with goods shipped direct from China.
How to Empower Your Brand by Embracing the Good and Bad Reviews
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
How should you handle customer feedback and leverage reviews to your advantage? Let’s explore some strategies and best practices.
US Supreme Court backs anti-camping laws used against homeless people
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Friday anti-camping laws used by authorities in an Oregon city to stop homeless people from sleeping in public parks and public streets — a ruling that gives local and state governments a freer hand in confronting a national homelessness crisis.
The justices ruled 6-3 to overturn a lower court’s decision that found that enforcing the ordinances in the city of Grants Pass when no shelter space is available for the homeless violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition on “cruel and unusual” punishments. Various jurisdictions employ similar laws.
The court’s conservative justices were in the majority, while its three liberal members dissented.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote, “Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it. At bottom, the question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses. It does not.”
Homelessness remains a multifaceted problem for public officials in the United States as many municipalities experience chronic shortages of affordable housing. On any given night, more than 600,000 people are homeless, according to U.S. government estimates.
The case focused on three ordinances in Grants Pass, a city of roughly 38,000 people in southwestern Oregon, that together prohibit sleeping in public streets, alleyways and parks while using a blanket or bedding. Violators are fined $295. Repeat offenders can be criminally prosecuted for trespassing, punishable by up to 30 days in jail.
Advocates for the homeless, various liberal legal groups and other critics have said laws like these criminalize people simply for being homeless and for actions they cannot avoid, such as sleeping in public. They point to a 1962 Supreme Court ruling that the Eighth Amendment barred punishing individuals based on their status rather than their conduct.
A point of contention during the Supreme Court’s arguments in the case in April was whether homelessness can be deemed a status that would prohibit enforcing local laws.
President Joe Biden’s administration agreed with the plaintiffs that Grants Pass cannot enforce an “absolute ban” on sleeping in the city — which effectively criminalizes homelessness — but suggested the rulings by the lower courts against the city were too broad and should be reconsidered.
Proponents including various government officials have called such laws a necessary tool for maintaining public safety.
The case, which began in 2018, involved three homeless people who filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the measures impacting them in Grants Pass. One of the plaintiffs has since died.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke ruled that the city’s “policy and practice of punishing homelessness” violates the Eighth Amendment and barred it from enforcing the anti-camping ordinances. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Clarke’s injunction against the ordinances.
The city had defended itself in the case in part by noting that homeless people have alternatives outside the city, including nearby undeveloped federal land, county campsites or state rest stops. The judge said that argument “sheds light on the city’s attitude towards its homeless citizens” by seeking to drive them out or punish them if they stay.
Supreme Court makes it harder to charge Capitol riot defendants with obstruction, charge Trump faces
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
The justices ruled that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding, enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp., must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents.
Man shot in Oakland’s Fruitvale district
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Authorities said the man said he was walking when he heard gunfire and realized he had been shot.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/28/man-shot-in-oaklands-fruitvale-district-2/
Biden’s Disastrous Debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Biden’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Debate Overshadows Trump’s Torrent of Lies
The post Biden’s Disastrous Debate appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/28/2-0-debate-analysis/
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack?
date: 2024-06-28, from: Quanta Magazine
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.The post Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-this-shape-so-terrible-to-pack-20240628/
Map: Evacuations in Sierra foothills for Basin and Fresno June Lightning wildfires
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
The merged Bolt and Flash fires are now the fourth biggest of California’s season.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/28/map-evacuations-wildfire-basin-fresno-june-lighting/
California Clásico: Quakes to celebrate 50th anniversary during Saturday’s rivalry match against LA Galaxy
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Earthquakes will celebrate 50th year on Saturday in California Clásico against LA Galaxy at Stanford Stadium
How Lobbyists Could Now Install Biden’s Replacement
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Lever News
If the president steps down, the DNC committee that could pick the new nominee is stocked with corporate lobbyists looking to influence public policy.
https://www.levernews.com/how-lobbyists-could-install-bidens-replacement/
Google cuts ties with Entrust in Chrome over trust issues
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Move comes weeks after Mozilla blasted certificate authority for failings
Google is severing its trust in Entrust after what it describes as a protracted period of failures around compliance and general improvements.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/google_axes_entrust_over_six/
Supreme Court overturns 1984 Chevron precedent, curbing power of federal government
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Supreme Court on Friday significantly weakened the power of federal agencies to approve regulations in a major decision that could have sweeping implications for the environment, public health and the workplace.
California credit card use up 34% in two years
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Golden State credit card balances equal to $4,450 per resident, 11th-highest among the states.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/28/california-credit-card-use-up-34-in-two-years/
Here’s what you need to know about the guilty verdict in the ‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ trial and what’s next
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
Even though the jury of five men and three women in a U.S. District Court awarded nearly $4.8 billion in damages Thursday to residential and commercial subscribers of “Sunday Ticket,” don’t expect any settlement checks or the shuttering of the service anytime soon.
Supreme Court allows cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside
date: 2024-06-28, from: San Jose Mercury News
In a 6-3 decision, the high court reversed a ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court that found outdoor sleeping bans amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Why Our ‘Only Existential Threat’ Got Shortchanged at the Debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: Heatmap News
Advocates for televised presidential debates argue that they offer the best chance voters will have during the campaign to get an extended look at the candidates, beyond what they see in 30-second ads and 8-second sound bites. We can hear them defend their records as they critique their opponents, and answer tough questions from seasoned reporters about key issues. It’s a rare opportunity to delve deep into substance on important issues.
If only that were how televised debates actually turn out. The one exchange on climate change that occurred in Thursday’s meeting between Joe Biden and Donald Trump showed just how problematic a forum for voter education this is.
Perhaps we should be thankful that Biden and Trump were asked a single question about climate, since one is certainly more than zero. Unfortunately, to consider what ensued at all enlightening, you’d have to have a pretty low bar.
“Will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?” co-moderator Dana Bash asked Trump. “Let me just go back to what he said about the police,” Trump responded, then rambled for a while on a number of topics, none of which were climate change. So Bash tried again: “Thirty-eight seconds left, President Trump, will you take any action as president to slow the climate crisis?” Trump’s answer was characteristic gobbledygook:
“I want absolutely immaculate clean water. And I want absolutely clean air and we had it. We had H2O. We had the best numbers ever, and we did — we were using all forms of energy, all forms, everything. And yet, during my four years I had the best environmental numbers ever, and my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually.”
Though no viewer would have any idea what Trump was talking about with “the best environmental numbers ever,” I believe I know what he was referring to: Before the debate, Trump posted on Truth Social some suggested talking points he got from Andrew Wheeler, the coal lobbyist he appointed to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, including that Trump should mention that carbon emissions went down while he was president. It’s true that emissions dipped in 2020, when you may remember there was a pandemic that shut down much of the economy. That did not, however, answer the question of what actions he would take in a second term.
Perhaps marveling at Trump’s claim that “we had H2O” when he was president, Biden took a moment to respond. “I don’t know where the hell he’s been,” the president finally said. “I passed the most extensive climate change legislation in history.” It would have helped viewers unfamiliar with the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act if Biden had at least mentioned some of them, such as money for research into new sources of clean energy, incentives for domestic manufacturing of green technology, grants to help farmers cut emissions, and tax credits for electric vehicles and home electrification. After a digression into HBCUs, Biden returned to the issue: “He hadn’t done a damn thing for the environment. He pulled out of the Paris peace — Climate Accord. I immediately joined it, because if we reach 1.5 degrees Celsius at any one point there’s no way back. The only existential threat to humanity is climate change, and he didn’t do a damn thing about it. He wants to undo all that I’ve done.”
All of which is true, if probably too vague for most viewers to fully understand. But it did include a statement conveying the seriousness of the challenge (“The only existential threat to humanity is climate change”), and reference to some relevant facts. That led Trump to a criticism of the Paris agreement, that it’s “a rip-off of the United States.”
But any viewer not familiar with the details of the agreement would have had trouble following what Trump said; he seemed to be objecting to the fact that the agreement called on developed countries to help less developed countries adapt; he claimed that the agreement “was going to cost us a trillion dollars,” one of many fictitious numbers he tossed out. That left Biden to conclude that “we have made significant progress” under his administration, and tout his new Climate Corps.
In all, it wasn’t the least substantive exchange on climate one could imagine. A viewer who knew absolutely nothing about either of the candidates’ records would have learned that they disagree on the Paris agreement, and that Biden believes climate change is an existential threat. But as with the rest of this debate — and almost every televised debate — the best one can say from the standpoint of policy substance is, “That could have been worse.”
And now that there has been one climate question, chances are the moderators of the second debate will ignore the issue altogether. The prevailing view among political reporters is that, sure, climate is important, but the voters just don’t care about it all that much. Convinced by polls showing that other issues rank higher when voters are asked what their most important priorities are, they usually segregate climate coverage apart from the political stories that will dominate the news between now and November.
That creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: When news organizations run a thousand stories saying “Inflation dominates voter concerns” and then ask voters what their concerns are, most of them are going to talk about what seems to be on the political agenda. It’s not exactly a conspiracy to downplay climate as an issue in the presidential race, but it has much the same effect.
The savvy observer might suggest that it doesn’t really matter, since we know where the two candidates stand on climate change and the contrast couldn’t be clearer. And those of us who pay a great deal of attention to both politics and the climate issue do understand the difference. But that describes only a small portion of the electorate, which was why this debate was another missed opportunity. Even if it could have been worse.
https://heatmap.news/politics/biden-trump-debate-climate-change
An Eclipse Megamovie Megastar
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
Nazmus “Naz” Nasir is a software engineer by day, and an astrophotographer by night….and sometimes by day as well! This April, Naz participated in NASA’s Eclipse Megamovie 2024 project, photographing the total solar eclipse. He posted online a spectacular video composed of stabilized and aligned photographs of the sun taken during totality. The video includes links to tutorials Naz […]
https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/an-eclipse-megamovie-megastar/
Microsoft hits snooze again on security certificate renewal
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Seeing weird warnings in Microsoft 365 and Office Online? That’ll be why
Microsoft has expiration issues with its TLS certificates, resulting in unwanted security warnings.…
NASA Shares Two New Moon to Mars Architecture White Papers
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has released two white papers associated with the agency’s Moon to Mars architecture efforts. The papers, one on lunar mobility drivers and needs, and one on lunar surface cargo, detail NASA’s latest thinking on specific areas of its lunar exploration strategy. While NASA has established a yearly cadence of releasing new documents associated with […]
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-shares-two-new-moon-to-mars-architecture-white-papers/
A Woman Thrifted This Ancient Maya Vase for $3.99—and Then Gave It Back to Mexico
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Anna Lee Dozier started to wonder about the object’s origins when she realized it resembled artifacts in a Mexican museum
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/woman-thrifted-this-ancient-maya-vase-180984618/
Former Fujitsu engineer apologizes for role in Post Office IT scandal
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Horizon system expert denied tailoring evidence in convictions later quashed
Gareth Jenkins, former distinguished engineer at Fujitsu Services Ltd, said he “clearly got trapped into doing things that I shouldn’t have done” when giving technical evidence that led to the wrongful conviction of Post Office workers in one of the biggest IT scandals to hit the UK.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/fujitsu_witness_post_office/
Well That Was a Very Distressing Presidential Debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Forecasters are keeping an eye on a weather system moving toward the Caribbean that could strengthen into a tropical storm • Heavy rains have rejuvenated dried-up lakes and lagoons in Chile • Severe storms could bring strong wind, excessive rain, and hail to parts of Europe over the next few days.
THE TOP FIVE
- Biden squanders his climate moment at presidential debate
Well, last night’s first 2024 debate between President Biden and Donald Trump was “altogether distressing,” writes Heatmap’s Katie Brigham. And while climate was far from the main focus, the two candidates did have one notable exchange. Trump initially dodged a question about whether he would take action to slow the climate crisis, then briefly noted “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air. And we had it. We had H2O.” Biden responded by criticizing Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement. “I immediately [re]joined, because if we reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, at any one point, there’s no way back,” Biden said. “The only existential threat to humanity is climate change. And he didn’t do a damn thing about it.”
Making Paris the focus of the debate’s one exchange around climate was an odd choice, Brigham says. According to a poll conducted last November by Heatmap, only 35% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat familiar” with the Paris Agreement. The Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature piece of climate legislation, didn’t come up once. (Not that they’re that familiar with the IRA, either.) “Solar, wind, carbon emissions — all terms that resonate with Americans, none of which were mentioned,” Brigham adds.
HEATED’s Emily Atkin summed up reaction from climate-conscious viewers nicely, too:
X/emorwee
- SCOTUS blocks EPA’s ‘good neighbor’ pollution rule
The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to pause an EPA environmental rule while it is challenged in a lower court. The so-called good neighor plan would impose strict emissions limits on power plants and other industrial sources in 23 states, and was intended to prevent dangerous pollution that can cause breathing problems from drifting across state lines. The rule has been challenged by a number of Republican states, as well as companies. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that those challenges were “likely to succeed on a claim that the Good Neighbor Plan is ’arbitrary” or “capricious.’” The ruling blocks the EPA from ramping up pollution limits while the challenges are being heard. According to the EPA, the plan would prevent 1,300 premature deaths and cut down on ER visits.
- U.S. EV sales tick up
U.S. sales of electric vehicles were up 12% in April (the most recent month for which data is available) compared to the same month in 2023, “countering the widespread notion that American consumers have lost interest in the technology,” according to E&E News. The data, from S&P Global, also finds this increase was led by “traditional” automakers – Ford, Toyota, etc. – not Tesla. Those manufacturers have been encroaching on Tesla’s position as the dominant U.S. EV seller for a while, and may soon close the gap entirely. We’ll know more next week, when manufacturers are expected to report their second-quarter sales.
Get Heatmap AM directly in your inbox every morning:
- Biden administration blocks road proposed for mining in Alaska
The Biden administration today finalized a decision to block construction of a 211-mile mining road on federal land in north central Alaska. The move protects areas of pristine wilderness that are important to the traditions and livelihoods of Native communities from being carved up for copper and zinc mining. The venture behind the project, Ambler Metals, insists the materials it wants access to are essential for clean energy technologies like wind turbines and transmission lines, and says it will explore legal challenges. Below is a map of the proposed road:
In a separate decision, the Interior Department also said it would protect 28 million acres of land in Alaska that former President Donald Trump had tried to make available for drilling and mining. President Biden has a goal of conserving 30% of U.S. lands and waters.
- Vatican to build solar farm in Rome to power operations
Pope Francis has chosen a site for its solar farm, which will power Vatican City. Francis picked Santa Maria di Galeria, a patch of land on the outskirts of Rome that has long been used as the base for Vatican Radio transmitters. It’s not clear how big the solar farm will be or when construction will be completed. In a letter outlining the plan, Francis called for “a transition to a sustainable development model that reduces greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, setting the goal of climate neutrality.”
THE KICKER
Global offshore wind capacity increased 24% last year, which makes 2023 “the second-highest year in offshore wind history,” according to the Global Wind Energy Council.
https://heatmap.news/politics/biden-trump-debate-scotus-epa
Market movements and uncertainty in American politics
date: 2024-06-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A rule of thumb is that market players don’t like uncertainty. The question this morning is whether there’s more or less of it in the wake of President Joe Biden’s rough showing against former President Donald Trump during last night’s debate. We’ll track how the debate is affecting the movement of money. Plus, Social Security cuts are inevitable by 2035 unless lawmakers act. Can a similar crunch from the ’80s offer guidance?
California exempts transitional kindergarten students from English-language proficiency test
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
Supporters of the change said the test was designed for older students and wasn’t developmentally appropriate for 4-year-olds.
LAUSD extends home internet program for a year after federal funding ends. What then?
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
In the early months of the pandemic, researchers estimated about one-in-three LAUSD households lacked devices or a broadband connection.
https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-school-district-lausd-free-wifi-internet-2024
The Island Known as the Birthplace of Apollo Is Sinking
date: 2024-06-28, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers say climate change is to blame for the Greek island of Delos’ slow demise
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-birthplace-of-apollo-is-sinking-180984610/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Jon Stewart's Debate Analysis: Trump's Blatant Lies and Biden's Senior Moments.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3SJr44m-w1Y
Nokia to buy Infinera for $2.3B
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Aims to expand optical networking biz, particularly in North America
Nokia is set to buy optical networking biz Infinera in a $2.3 billion transaction, the companies have confirmed.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/nokia_to_expand_optical_networking/
Why Hasn’t Biden Stepped Down?
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Lever News
Democrats blocked a serious primary challenge to Biden — now after the first debate, the threat of a Trump presidency looms.
https://www.levernews.com/why-hasnt-biden-stepped-down/
John Boston | National Slap a Co-Worker Day Is Coming Soon
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
I’ve been completely in the dark about this. Just recently, I discovered that, every year, until the end of American Civilization, Oct. 23 is National Slap Your Co-Worker Day. Mark […]
The post John Boston | National Slap a Co-Worker Day Is Coming Soon appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/john-boston-national-slap-a-co-worker-day-is-coming-soon/
Elizabeth Barcohana | Democrats’ Sanctuary for Pedophiles
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
California became the first sanctuary state in the nation in 2017, which means our laws prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport illegal immigrants. […]
The post Elizabeth Barcohana | Democrats’ Sanctuary for Pedophiles appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/elizabeth-barcohana-democrats-sanctuary-for-pedophiles/
Hubble Examines an Active Galaxy Near the Lion’s Heart
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
It might appear featureless and unexciting at first glance, but NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations of this elliptical galaxy — known as Messier 105 — show that the stars near the galaxy’s center are moving very rapidly. Astronomers have concluded that these stars are zooming around a supermassive black hole with an estimated mass of […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-examines-an-active-galaxy-near-the-lions-heart/
P&B: Alison Wilder
date: 2024-06-28, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>This is the 44th edition of <em>People and Blogs</em>, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Alison Wilder and her blog, <a href="https://alisonwilder.net">alisonwilder.net</a></p>To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
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Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
I grew up on a ranch in West Texas. Horses, rodeo, and roping were my life. I was going to be a horse trainer. Then, when my life took a left turn in high school, I got much more serious about music, started writing songs, and ended up pursuing a music degree at the University of North Texas.
After college, I had a 3-year stint in Portland, Oregon, where I started the band Voodoo Economics. My bandmates and I moved to Philly in 2004-ish, where I wrote for, played in, and produced for Voodoo while completing a Master’s in music theory at Temple University. After a few years of adjunct teaching, I decided a PhD in music theory & cognition at McGill University in Montreal was the right move, so I went off to do that. The timing was epically bad – this was the beginning of the end of the humanities in North American universities, after all – and I realized after about a year that it would be nearly impossible to get a job in a place where I actually wanted to live. So I packed up the piano yet again and headed back to Philadelphia.
Back in Philly, I co-founded a music tech company with a super-cool and interesting composer/pianist/technologist named Greg Wilder. After a whirlwind couple of years in the depths of the music industry, we decided to move away from daily ops with that company, and I was very much at loose ends. I had never had any real marketable skills (don’t try to tell me songwriting and music theory are marketable!), and I had no idea what to do. So I asked Greg, “What should I do?”
“Learn Linux,” he said.
So I wiped my laptop, installed Debian, and was off to the races. Then I said, “but what should I do with Linux?”
“Maybe WordPress?” he said.
It was 2011, and the timing couldn’t have been better. I learned WordPress, started faffing about in PHP, Javascript, and all the rest, and somehow people started writing checks. Over the last 13 years, Greg and I have turned my faffing about into a couple of real businesses (Punkt Digital and Wicked Good Web). At some point during all of that, we got married, moved to New Hampshire, divorced, and stayed best friends.
Though I stopped music completely for about 7 years after the start-up (relationship status: it’s complicated), I’ve spent the last 6 years or so building my studio back up and pouring myself into songwriting and producing again (Blix Byrd and Doctor Body with Greg). Which brings us to today. Phew!
What’s the story behind your blog?
I’ve always loved writing. Some days, I harbor secret aspirations to be a real writer. (Uh-oh, secret’s out…) So blogging just comes naturally. I don’t think of my blog as part of a business, or as a way to promote myself exactly. It’s more of a place that gives me an outlet to organize my thoughts publicly.
I generally find myself writing about a combination of daily life, music, my own creative process, and things I’m doing or making. I haven’t used social media much (although I’ve been enjoying Mastodon for the last year or two!), so I sometimes use my blog as my own personal Insta-book feed. It’s fun to make a quick post of something I like and/or find amusing, and I enjoy perusing my old posts occasionally. My memory isn’t the greatest, so in the case of daily life posts, I often wouldn’t remember the thing at all if I didn’t blog about it!
Because blogging is purely for my own fun and enjoyment, I don’t force myself to keep any kind of posting schedule. I just post when I feel like it. I go through phases where that’s weekly, monthly, or even less. So if you’re looking for a consistent presence in your RSS feed, my blog is probably not for you.
I don’t have any blog posts from prior to my current website, although I did have other blogs on Tumblr and early Squarespace over the years. It looks like I started blogging on my own site in about 2014. See, told you my memory was bad…I had to sign in to find out when my earliest posts were!
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
My blogging process probably doesn’t qualify as a process. More like, “I just blog when I feel like it and say whatever I want to.” That said, I do also write quite a bit privately, so maybe it would be interesting to explore the difference between my public and private writing?
I’m generally an open book – the kind of person who will tell strangers whatever they want to know about me. That said, I do write differently on my blog than in my personal journals. Obviously, I edit a lot more on the blog. I also tend to post the kinds of things that I think others might find interesting, which means I don’t often post about my own internal thoughts and feelings.
That said, I enjoy reading blogs where people get personal, so now I’m wondering why I don’t do that! Perhaps a topic for a future blog post?
And to the second question: the above paragraphs illustrate how I get my inspiration – navel gazing and over-thinking. ;)
For quick posts, I write directly in WordPress. For longer bits or things that come out of my private journaling, I write in Markdown in Obsidian. (Yes, I’m one of those obsessive Obsidian people.)
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I’m a very aesthetically-minded person who is most satisfied when I feel like I’m immersed in beautiful and creative objects. I’ve tried to craft my home environment so that I feel inspired in every seat in the house. Right now, I’m sitting on my back porch looking my gardens and typing on my laptop. It’s May in New Hampshire, and you can almost hear the plants growing.
I tend to write short bits on my laptop wherever I want to be sitting, because my office/studio is a place I work seriously. That said, my studio is beautiful, ergonomic, and has a powerful computer, so anything that takes awhile or requires lots of research/editing/photo work, I’ll tend to do there.
I don’t typically listen to music while I work, because my brain won’t agree to keep it in the background. And if music can be in the background, I probably don’t want to hear it at all. (Not a judgment about wallpaper music, that’s just how it is for me.) So there’s lots of silence at my house.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
Greg and I operate our own managed WordPress hosting platform (Digital Ocean + Serverpilot) for our clients, so we also host all of our own personal websites there. How convenient!
Sometimes I think about switching to a static site generator, and have certainly enjoyed playing around with them and occasionally using them for client projects, but since I know so much about WordPress, it’s kinda my default.
We register all our domains at Namecheap, which has been rock solid over the years.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
I don’t think so. If I weren’t a WordPress person for work, I would probably use a static site generator and really enjoy that experience. I could easily see using an Obsidian vault at my CMS, and in face, I maintain a public-not-public recipe site where I do exactly that, using Obsidian to write, and Jekyll to website.
Financial question since the web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost or does it generate some revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?
That’s a tough question since we run our own Digital Ocean servers. If I were a client of ours, I would pay $486/year for our managed hosting plan. But since I’m not, I don’t.
My blog generates absolutely no revenue. I haven’t tried, and I doubt I will, because I prefer keeping my creative life separate from my financial life. (Now that’s a blog post topic! I’m surprised I haven’t written about that before. Who knows, maybe I have.)
That said, I don’t see anything wrong with other people monetizing their blog. More power to ’em! I don’t regularly financially support any bloggers, although I do tend to throw folks the occasional bone when I enjoy their work for awhile.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
Here’s a link to all the personal blogs I subscribe to in my RSS reader:
A few quick blog recs:
- Gotta plug Greg Wilder’s blog, which is an awesome and regularly-updated account of being a composer/pianist/synthesizer wizard/mountain man.
- Peter Rukavina is a writer, printer and developer on Prince Edward Island. I don’t know him, but I so enjoy his description of his life on his blog. He seems like a wonderful person!
- Ruben Schade is an prolific blogger/developer who I also don’t know, but whose writing style and perspective I totally enjoy.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
I’ve been obsessed with Peter Strickland’s films over the last few years. Berberian Sound Studio and its soundtrack (by the super-cool band Broadcast) are AMAZING. Check them out if your taste tends toward the weird and wild.
More in weird electronic music: don’t sleep on Mort Garson. He may be dead, but he’s still on Bandcamp!
If you like hearing over-educated musicians who used to be married blathering about music, check out Greg’s and my podcast, Too Much Music.
This was the 44th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Alison. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.
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Dan Walters | State of the State or a Stump Speech?
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
The California Constitution requires that “the governor shall report to the Legislature each calendar year on the condition of the state and may make recommendations.” Traditionally, that has meant that […]
The post Dan Walters | State of the State or a Stump Speech? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/dan-walters-state-of-the-state-or-a-stump-speech/
Funding for Ukraine up for debate again
date: 2024-06-28, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a security pact with the European Union during a visit to Brussels. We’ll delve in. Then, following weeks of protests in Argentina over proposed austerity reforms, the country’s parliament has approved controversial measures put forward by President Javier Millei. And later, prolonged heatwaves in India have boosted sales of air conditioning units.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/funding-for-ukraine-up-for-debate-again
Raspberry Pi AI Kit review | HackSpace #80
date: 2024-06-28, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
In the latest issue of HackSpace magazine, out now, Ben Everard puts the new Raspberry Pi AI Kit through its paces.
The post Raspberry Pi AI Kit review | HackSpace #80 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-ai-kit-review-hackspace-80/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Heather Cox Richardson on the debate.
OpenAI, Google ink deals to augment AI efforts with news – it was Time for better sources
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tech giants can’t play the RAG-time blues until they pay their dues – in this case to quality publishers
OpenAI and Google on Thursday independently announced fresh collaborations with major publishers as they work to expand paid access to information used by their AI products and services.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/openai_google_ai/
AI to boost datacenter capex by 28.5% and become the top server workload
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cooling tech left to sweat the details
AI is currently the big driver in datacenter investment and will push capital expenditure on the facilities up by nearly 30 percent this year, and is also on track to become the top server workload by deployment within a few years.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/datacenter_capex_tai/
Windows: Insecure by design
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Get your hands off my computer, Microsoft!
Opinion I’ve been pointing out Windows security bugs since Windows for Workgroups showed up in 1992 and I showed how you could steal data from your coworker’s spreadsheets using Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). You’d think Microsoft would have figured security out by now.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/windows_insecure_by_design/
For the record: You just ordered me to cause a very expensive outage
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
And ordered so rudely this techie had little interest in sticking around to fix the subsequent chaos
On Call Techies are often beset by undeserving and despicable dolts who demand daunting feats of tech support. Which is why each Friday The Register brings you a fresh instalment of On Call – the reader-contributed column in which you share stories of defeating those dunderheads.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/on_call/
FLTK 1.4.x Weekly Snapshot (master)
date: 2024-06-28, from: Fast Light Tool Kit
A new weekly snapshot of FLTK 1.4.x (master) is now available
https://www.fltk.org/articles.php?L1929
Today in SCV History (June 28)
date: 2024-06-28, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1926 – Film director Mel Brooks born in Brooklyn; shot “Blazing Saddles” at Vasquez Rocks and “Robin Hood: Men In Tights” in Sand Canyon. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-28/
‘Skeleton Key’ attack unlocks the worst of AI, says Microsoft
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Simple jailbreak prompt can bypass safety guardrails on major models
Microsoft on Thursday published details about Skeleton Key – a technique that bypasses the guardrails used by makers of AI models to prevent their generative chatbots from creating harmful content.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/microsoft_skeleton_key_ai_attack/
Webcurios 28/06/24
date: 2024-06-28, from: Web Curios blog
Reading Time: 38 minutes HELLO I AM BACK HELLO! How are we all? I mean, I say ‘all’ – as is inevitable at this time of year, my already-vanishingly-small audience is further thinned by what I imagine is a significant number of you being in a field in Somerset, and a large proportion of the rest of you still…https://webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-28-06-24/
Felix Oliver Friedrich commented on issue #143 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
A compiler cannot catch all semantic errors. An infinite recursion is often not caught by a compiler. Again, I argue for (in)completeness reasons: it would, probably, be not that difficult to catch cases like this one
PROCEDURE P();
BEGIN
P()
END P;but it already becomes more difficult when the error is not that obvious any more like in the following wrong attempt to implement the factorial function
PROCEDURE F(i: INTEGER): INTEGER;
BEGIN
IF (i > 1) RETURN i*F(i)
ELSE RETURN i
END
END F;So, for the time being, I don't know how to handle this. The compiler would need to do much more sophisticated things than it is currently doing in order to detect a lot of infinite recursion cases (and it would never be guaranteed to catch all cases).
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/143#note_192639
Felix Oliver Friedrich commented on issue #144 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
The example I made was pretty artificial and I don't think it is a good idea to mark errors (only) for very special situations. If at all, we might issue a warning when a local variable is returned by reference because this is a case that can easily happen. But, to be honest, I am not that happy with this kind of incomplete solution either. The concept of return by reference is inherently dangerous and we will have to live with it or get rid of the concept altogether. I prefer the former because I cannot stand having getters and setters all over the place when an assignment operator shall be overloaded – here I prefer the C++ way over the Java way. (Niklaus Wirth would not have admitted a return by reference in the first place).
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/144#note_192635
OpenAI develops AI model to critique its AI models
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
When your chatbots outshine their human trainers, you could pay for expertise … or just augment your crowdsourced workforce
To help catch code errors made by ChatGPT, OpenAI uses human AI trainers in the hope of improving the model. To help the human trainers, OpenAI has developed another AI model called CriticGPT – in case the humans don’t spot the mistakes.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/openai_criticgpt_ai/
Infosys CEO to pay a whole $30K in penance for non-disclosure that enabled insider trading
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Staff were told of lucrative partnership before the rest of us
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh has agreed to pay a fine of ₹25 lakh ($30,000) for failing to implement adequate insider trading controls, according to Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) documents filed on Wednesday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/infosys_ceo_fined_sebi/
Biden-Trump debate: A look at some of the false claims
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-trump-debate-a-look-at-some-of-the-false-claims/7676656.html
ISS ’nauts told to duck and cover after dead Russian sat sprays space junk
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
This has happened before after Moscow made a mess with a missile
Astronauts on the International Space Station were told to duck and cover on Thursday after a Russian satellite broke up.…
Biden Had His Climate Moment and He Used It to Talk About Paris
date: 2024-06-28, from: Heatmap News
In an altogether distressing debate in which climate was far from a main focus, the two candidates did have one notable exchange regarding the Paris Agreement. The 2015 treaty united most countries around the world in setting a goal to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, with 1.5 degrees as the ultimate target.
After Trump initially dodged a question about whether he would take action to slow the climate crisis, he then briefly noted “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air. And we had it. We had H2O.”
While it is true that there was H2O during Trump’s presidency, Biden responded by criticizing Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement. “I immediately [re]joined, because if we reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, at any one point, there’s no way back,” Biden said. “The only existential threat to humanity is climate change. And he didn’t do a damn thing about it.”
But according to a poll conducted last November by Heatmap, only 35% of Americans say they are at least “somewhat familiar” with the Paris Agreement at all, perhaps making it an odd choice to anchor the debate’s one exchange around climate. By contrast, the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature piece of climate legislation, didn’t come up once. (Not that they’re that familiar with the IRA, either.) Solar, wind, carbon emissions — all terms that resonate with Americans, none of which were mentioned.
Of his decisions to leave the Paris Agreement in 2017, Trump claimed, “The Paris Accord was going to cost us $1 trillion,” while it would cost China, Russia, and India “nothing.”
The $1 trillion number actually appears to be a discount on Trump’s previously cited estimate. In his Rose Garden address announcing his decision to exit the agreement, he said that by 2040, compliance would entail a cost to the economy that would approach “$3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs,” citing a study conducted by NERA Economic Consulting.
According to the fact-checking website PolitiFact, the study’s authors were explicit that these projections are highly uncertain and do not take into account all the job gains and GDP growth that could be associated with the energy transition. PolitiFact also said NERA put forth a news release (which now appears to be unavailable online) stating that “the Trump administration selectively used results” from its study, and that “NERA’s study was not a cost-benefit analysis of the Paris Agreement, nor does it purport to be one.”
When Trump said that China, Russia, and India would not have financial commitments under the Paris Agreement, he was perhaps referencing the obligation (which the Paris Agreement reaffirmed) for wealthier nations like the U.S. to direct hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations to both aid their transition to clean energy and help them adapt to the impacts of climate change. It’s true that there’s controversy around whether China or India, which have giant (but still developing) economies, should either provide this funding or receive this funding. Russia, which joined the agreement in 2019, hasn’t really been a part of this conversation though.
In response to Trump’s defense of his decision to exit the agreement, Biden countered, “We were the only ones of consequence who were not members of the Paris Accord. How can we do anything if the United States can’t get its pollution under control?” He said the U.S. had made significant progress on climate, and while it felt like a moment to, I don’t know, note the job growth from the administration’s investment in cleantech manufacturing (in predominantly red states), Biden instead cited the formation of the Climate Corps, a nice but thus-far modest fellowship program that puts young Americans to work fighting the climate crisis. Most of the public likely hasn’t heard of it, and Biden has been mostly quiet about it of late.
The exchange ended when Biden said, “We’re moving in directions that are going to significantly change the elemental cause of pollution. But the idea that [Trump] claims that he has the biggest heart up here and is really concerned about pollution, and about climate, I’ve not seen any indication of that.”
And just like that, it was onto prescription drugs, who is better at golf, and Trump’s weight. You know, the usual debate stuff.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/biden-trump-debate-paris-agreement
Notebook: Biden, Trump face off in first 2024 presidential debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
Compiled by Catherine Yang, Jacob Burg, T.J. Muscaro and Jackson Richman Contributing Writers CNN hosted the first presidential debate of the 2024 election Thursday night with President Joe Biden and former President […]
The post Notebook: Biden, Trump face off in first 2024 presidential debate appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/notebook-biden-trump-face-off-in-first-2024-presidential-debate/
Polyfill.io owner punches back at ‘malicious defamation’ amid domain shutdown
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
No supply-chain attacks to see over here!
Updated After having its website shut down, the polyfill.io owner is fighting back against claims it smuggled suspicious code onto websites all across the internet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/polyfillio_cloudflare_malware/
Sols 4226-4228: A Powerful Balancing Act
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Tuesday, June 25, 2024 As documented in a previous blog last week, we continue to juggle power constraints as we focus on analyzing our newest drilled sample on Mars: “Mammoth Lakes 2.” Today, the star of the show is a planned dropoff to SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite) and evolved […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4226-4228-a-powerful-balancing-act/
Interesting Rock Textures Galore at Bright Angel
date: 2024-06-28, from: NASA breaking news
Upon the rover’s arrival at Bright Angel, it was so exciting to see all the interesting features in the rocks of this interval! In particular, these rocks contain an abundance of veins and nodules. Veins are linear features containing mineral crystals that often form thin plates or sheets that cut through the rocks and across […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/interesting-rock-textures-galore-at-bright-angel/
Biden, Trump clash at first presidential debate of 2024 election
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
What Were Trump’s ‘Environmental Numbers,’ Actually?
date: 2024-06-28, from: Heatmap News
Former President Donald Trump has been known, on occasion, to exaggerate. Still, an assertion he made during the first presidential debate on Thursday night is one for the books: “During my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever,” he said.
It was “unclear” what Trump was “talking about,” The New York Times diplomatically said. But Thursday was hardly the first time Trump has claimed to be “the number one” environmentalist president. He’s said that the “environment is very important to me” and that “I’m a big believer in that word: the environment.” And for proof, he’s historically pointed to a book written by a longtime Trump Organization staffer that called him “An Environmental Hero” as well as the fact that “I did the best environmental impact statements.”
Trump’s actions tell a different story. Despite insisting on Thursday that he wants “absolutely immaculate clean water and … absolutely clean air,” Trump’s Project 2025 roadmap for a second term describes targeting California’s Clean Air Act waiver, reducing fuel economy requirements, and making it harder to keep big polluters in check. Trump’s presidential record also speaks for itself: During his four years in office, he rolled back 100 environmental rules or more, including removing pollution controls on streams and wetlands and gutting Obama-era emission standards. According to one estimate in the esteemed British medical journal The Lancet, Trump’s environmental policies resulted in 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone. He’s been described as the worst president for the environment in U.S. history.
President Biden put it even more succinctly in his rebuttal: Trump has “not done a damn thing for the environment.”
https://heatmap.news/sparks/trump-debate-best-environmental-numbers
Top takeaways from the Biden-Trump debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/top-takeaways-from-the-biden-trump-debate-/7676594.html
Apple crippled watchOS to corner heart-tracking market, doctors say
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Normally it’s the iGiant’s prices that give the ol’ ticker a hard time
A quartet of heart doctors are trying to resuscitate health-monitoring tech outfit AliveCor’s antitrust lawsuit regarding the Apple Watch, by arguing changes made to the iMaker’s gadget “resulted in a loss of access to a potentially life-saving product.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/apple_watch_alivecor/
Nearly 200 charged in $2.75 billion US health care fraud
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/nearly-200-charged-in-2-75-billion-us-health-care-fraud-/7676563.html
LASD: Suspect released after deputies seize 16 pounds of methamphetamine
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
Two weeks after Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies were spotted piling sizable bags of white powder on the hood of a car in the parking lot of a bustling […]
The post LASD: Suspect released after deputies seize 16 pounds of methamphetamine appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Man arrested in connection with fatal shooting on Lyons
date: 2024-06-28, from: The Signal
The Detective Bureau of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station arrested a man in connection with the investigation into a June 17 shooting death on Lyons Avenue. Fernando Bernabe, 31, of […]
The post Man arrested in connection with fatal shooting on Lyons appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/man-arrested-in-connection-with-fatal-shooting-on-lyons/
Californians will decide — in 2024 — whether to ban slavery. What will the measure do?
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The LAist
The oil industry’s decision will mean that state rules protecting homes and schools near oil and gas wells will go into effect. The companies instead will fight them in court.
Live Blog: Biden-Trump Debate
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/live-blog-biden-trump-debate/7676546.html
2 former police officials indicted over Uvalde shooting response, reports say
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
AUSTIN, Texas — The former Uvalde schools police chief and another former officer have been indicted over their role in the slow police response to the 2022 massacre at a Texas elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, according to multiple reports Thursday.
The Uvalde Leader-News and the San Antonio Express-News reported former schools police Chief Pete Arredondo and former officer Adrian Gonzales were indicted by a grand jury on multiple counts of felony child endangerment and abandonment. The Uvalde Leader-News reported that District Attorney Christina Mitchell confirmed the indictment.
The Austin American-Statesman also reported two former officers had been indicted but did not identify them.
Mitchell did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Several family members of victims of the shooting did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The indictments would make Arredondo, who was the on-site commander during the attack, and Gonzales the first officers to face criminal charges in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. A scathing report by Texas lawmakers that examined the police response described Gonzales as one of the first officers to enter the building after the shooting began.
The indictments were kept under seal until the men were in custody, and both were expected to turn themselves in by Friday, the news outlets reported. The indictments come more than two years after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire in a fourth-grade classroom, where he remained for more than 70 minutes before officers confronted and killed him. In total, 376 law enforcement officers massed at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, some waiting in the hallway outside the classroom, even as the gunman could be heard firing an AR-15-style rifle inside.
The office of a former attorney for Arredondo said they did not know whether the former chief has new representation. The AP could not immediately find a phone number to reach Gonzales.
Arredondo lost his job three months after the shooting. Several officers involved were eventually fired, and separate investigations by the Department of Justice and state lawmakers faulted law enforcement with botching their response to the massacre.
Whether any officers would face criminal charges over their actions in Uvalde has been a question hanging over the city of 15,000 since the Texas Rangers completed their investigation and turned their findings over to prosecutors.
Mitchell’s office has also come under scrutiny. Uvalde city officials filed a lawsuit last year that accused prosecutors of not being transparent and withholding records related to the shooting. Media outlets, including the AP, have sued Uvalde officials for withholding records requested under public information laws.
But body camera footage, investigations by journalists and damning government reports have laid bare how over the course of over an hour, a mass of officers went in and out of the school with weapons drawn but did not go inside the classroom where the shooting was taking place. The hundreds of officers at the scene included state police, Uvalde police, school officers and U.S. Border Patrol agents.
In their July 2022 report, Texas lawmakers faulted law enforcement at every level with failing “to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” The Justice Department released its own report in January that detailed “cascading failures” by police in waiting far too long to confront the gunman, acting with “no urgency” in establishing a command post and communicating inaccurate information to grieving families.
Uvalde remains divided between residents who say they want to move past the tragedy and others who still want answers and accountability. During the first mayoral race since the shooting, locals voted in a man who had served as mayor more than a decade ago over a mother who led calls for tougher gun laws after her daughter was killed in the attack.
Robb Elementary School is now permanently closed. The city broke ground on a new school in October 2023.
TeamViewer can’t bring itself to say someone broke into its network – but it happened
date: 2024-06-28, updated: 2024-06-28, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Claims customer data, prod environment not affected as NCC sounds alarm
Updated TeamViewer on Thursday said its security team just “detected an irregularity” within one of its networks – which is a fancy way of saying someone broke in.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/teamviewer_network_breach/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-28, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Meta Moves To More Directly Connect To ActivityPub, But Is It Really Open?
IMF says US needs to tackle debt despite robust growth
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
washington — The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called on the U.S. to raise taxes to curb rising debt levels while applauding “robust, dynamic” growth in the world’s largest economy and progress toward bringing inflation under control.
The IMF said in a closing statement for its “Article IV” review of U.S. economic policies that high deficits and debt “create a growing risk to the U.S. and global economy, potentially feeding into higher fiscal financing costs and a growing risk to the smooth rollover of maturing obligations.”
The IMF’s statement slightly revised down its 2024 U.S. GDP growth forecast to 2.6% from the 2.7% forecast in the global lender’s World Economic Outlook in April.
The IMF forecasts U.S. growth in 2025 to dip to 1.9%, unchanged from the April outlook, and remaining above 2% through the end of the decade.
“The U.S. economy has proven itself to be robust, dynamic and adaptable to changing global conditions,” the IMF said. “Activity and employment continue to expectations … and the disinflation process has been considerably less costly than many had feared.”
The IMF said it expects U.S. inflation to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target by mid-2025, considerably sooner than the Fed’s own forecast of returning to target in 2026.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters that the IMF’s forecast is more optimistic because of the current trajectory of inflation indicates a quicker return to target, partly because strong U.S. consumer spending driven by wealth built up during the COVID-19 pandemic is subsiding and the labor market is cooling.
Debt, trade prescriptions
But the IMF chided Washington for rising deficits that, if continued, would bring the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio to a concerning level of 140% by the end of the decade. The IMF measure includes Social Security pension and Medicare health care obligations.
“Such high deficits and debt create a growing risk to the U.S. and global economy, potentially feeding into higher fiscal financing costs and a growing risk to the smooth rollover of maturing obligations,” the Fund said.
For the second year in a row, the fund prescribed that the U.S. increase income tax rates progressively, not only on the wealthiest Americans but also for households earning less than $400,000 a year — a threshold that U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed not to cross in his re-election campaign pledges.
The fund said the U.S. also should reform entitlement programs, cuts that Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump have both vowed not to pursue, and raise the threshold for eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers without children.
Georgieva said the fund was trying to present a policy path for the U.S. “that in our view would serve the economy and its people well,” as it would for any IMF member country.
With the U.S. economy strong, it was a “good time” for the U.S. to consolidate its fiscal position, she said, adding: “It is in good times where you can do more to prepare yourself for risks in the future.”
The IMF also said that intensifying U.S. tariffs and other trade barriers along with the increased use of industrial policy to favor domestic firms represented a downside risk for the U.S. and global economies, with the potential to distort investment flows and undermine the global trading system.
Instead, the fund called for Washington to work out differences with trading partners through negotiations and strengthen the World Trade Organization.
In her discussion with Georgieva, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated the importance of “frank and thorough assessments” of IMF member economies and discussed the “remarkable performance of the U.S. economy over the past few years,” the Treasury said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/imf-says-us-needs-to-tackle-debt-despite-robust-growth-/7676503.html
CDC recommends updated COVID shots for everyone older than 6 months
date: 2024-06-28, from: VOA News USA
siegfried 1.11.1 released
date: 2024-06-28, from: IT for Archivists
Version 1.11.1 of siegfried is now available. Get it here. CHANGELOG v1.11.1 (2024-06-28) WASM build. See pkg/wasm/README.md for more details. Feature sponsored by Archives New Zealand. Inspired by Andy Jackson -sym flag enables following symbolic links to files during scanning. Requested by Max Moser XDG_DATA_DIRS checked when determining siegfried home location. Requested by Michał Górny Windows 7 build on releases page (built with go 1.20). Requested by Aleksandr Sergeev update PRONOM to v118 update LOC to 2024-06-14 zips piped into STDIN are decompressed with -z flag.
https://www.itforarchivists.com/post/sf1111/
Full Circle Magazine 206
date: 2024-06-28, from: Full Circle Magazine
This month:
- Command & Conquer
- How-To : Python, Stable Diffusion and Latex
- Graphics : Inkscape
- Review : Kubuntu 24.04 and Wo-We Mini PC
- Book Review : The Linux Devops Handbook
- UbPorts Touch
- My Opinion : Non-Snap Ubuntu’s
- Ubuntu Games - Cat Games
plus: News, Micro This, Q&A, The Daily Waddle, and more.
Other Languages
https://fullcirclemagazine.org/magazines/issue-206/
The Steam Deck ships with WireGuard
date: 2024-06-28, from: Ze Iaso’s blog
One less install required!