News gathered 2024-06-30
(date: 2024-06-30 11:30:22)
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
Zelenskyy appeals to West to relax targeting limits for Ukraine as glide bombs hammer front line
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Drone footage from Ukraine’s military released Sunday has shown what appears to be bodies in a civilian area in the embattled eastern town of Toretsk, which has come under heavy Russian bombardment in recent days.
Santa Rosa: Felon on a bike found with 2 guns, knives, metal knuckles
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Santa Rosa officers who stopped a bicyclist for a traffic violation found the rider armed with two pistols, a knife, metal knuckles and a metal knuckle/knife combination, police said Saturday.
Cafe Dio in Los Gatos closes for ‘restructuring’
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Julian Platis, a member of Cafe Dio’s management team, said in an email that he anticipates reopening within the next few weeks.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/cafe-dio-in-los-gatos-closes-for-restructuring/
Map: Basin wildfire grows in the Sierra foothills near Fresno
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
It’s now the fourth largest fire of California’s season.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/map-basin-wildfire-grows-in-the-sierra-foothills-near-fresno/
US continues push for stalled Israel-Hamas peace plan
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
The United States continues pushing for an Israel-Hamas peace plan involving regional intermediaries Egypt and Qatar. Meanwhile, both Israel and Hamas say there’s been no progress as fighting in Gaza intensifies. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-continues-push-for-stalled-israel-hamas-peace-plan/7678664.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-30, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Always has been.gif
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112706746060599896
Supreme Court overturns ‘Chevron Doctrine,’ curtailing federal government power
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
By Matthew Vadum Contributing Writer The Supreme Court in a vote of 6–3 overturned the so-called Chevron deference, a bureaucracy-empowering judicial doctrine that critics say led to the explosive growth of […]
The post Supreme Court overturns ‘Chevron Doctrine,’ curtailing federal government power appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
San Jose Sharks re-sign two forwards to one-year deals
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Luke Kunin, who turns 27 in December, will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of his contract.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/san-jose-sharks-re-sign-two-forwards-to-one-year-deals/
The 2024 BMW X6 M Competition High Performance SUV
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
What is an X6? The X6 is a midsize luxury SUV built in the Spartanburg, SC assembly plant, and sold worldwide by BMW. The BMW’s with the M Competition package includes an adaptive M suspension system, which has been extensively tuned for enhanced performance and handling, and features new springs, dampers and anti-roll bars, along with reconfigured driving modes for comfort, sport and sport+ plus.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/the-2024-bmw-x6-m-competition-high-performance-suv/
Explore the city’s public art
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
In 2009, the Santa Clarita City Council demonstrated its commitment to public art when it founded the Santa Clarita Arts Commission. The council approved the Arts Master Plan in 2016 […]
The post Explore the city’s public art appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/explore-the-citys-public-art/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-30, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I am irrationally excited about having an API for building user-level
file
systems.
https://mastodon.tz.is/@khaost/112692784808334666
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112706552567892364
Why is Independence Day celebrated on July 4th?
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
The Continental Congress declared its independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. If that date raises an eyebrow, it should. Independence Day in the United States has long been […]
The post Why is Independence Day celebrated on July 4th? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/why-is-independence-day-celebrated-on-july-4th/
The history of America’s Independence Day
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
Few summertime holidays elicit as much excitement as the Fourth of July, also known as Independence Day in the United States. Each year, family, friends and revelers anticipate the arrival […]
The post The history of America’s Independence Day appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/the-history-of-americas-independence-day-2/
Enjoy a fruit-infused Fourth of July
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
As patriotic parties roll on throughout the day and fireworks light up the night, Fourth of July fun calls for favorite snacks that complement the excitement. Whether you’re a pyro […]
The post Enjoy a fruit-infused Fourth of July appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/enjoy-a-fruit-infused-fourth-of-july/
Newsom rejects calls for Biden to be replaced after debate: ‘I Will Never Turn My Back’
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
By Jack Phillips Contributing Writer California Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to concerns surrounding President Joe Biden’s debate performance on Thursday night, saying he “would never turn my back” on the president. […]
The post Newsom rejects calls for Biden to be replaced after debate: ‘I Will Never Turn My Back’ appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
BMW debuts worthy EV sedan
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Automobile manufacturers are offering new electric vehicles as if the future of the technology is a sure thing. It’s resulted in new competitive segments, including a growing collection of luxury EV sedans.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/bmw-debuts-worthy-ev-sedan/
I Bought 5 Broken GAMEBOY Games on eBay | How Many Can I FIX?
date: 2024-06-30, from: Tilde.news
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg21VeFM-_Y
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-30, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
That and the safe pointer
APIs.
https://mastodon.social/@marcoarment/112706163165431458
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112706204489790458
Photos: Quakes shutout by Galaxy at Stanford
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
Joseph Paintsil scored a first-half goal, L.A. added two scores late in the second half, and the Galaxy blanked the San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 for their fourth consecutive win.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/30/photos-quakes-shutout-by-galaxy-at-stanford/
Travel Troubleshooter: I got downgraded a class on my flight, so do I get a refund?
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
After American Airlines downgrades Margarethe Hoenig on her flight from Dallas to Auckland, New Zealand, the airline promises her a partial refund. Then it says it can’t. What’s going on?
Wish You Were Here: Exploring the ancient treasures of the Adriatic
date: 2024-06-30, from: San Jose Mercury News
An Adriatic cruise included stops in some of the most legendary cities of antiquity, including Olympia and Troy.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-30, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The fediverse has the same problem as RSS, subscription is too hard. The only way we avoid the domination of tech giants is to work together. 12 minute podcast on a Sunday, worth it, imho.
http://scripting.com/2024/06/27/175207.html
The Mimo Diaries: Feedback and Directory
date: 2024-06-30, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>Another quick update for those who are interested on the <a href="http://minimalissimo.com">Minimalissimo</a> side of my digital life. For those who don’t know, at the beginning of 2024 I took charge of Minimalissimo and I’m now curating it, updating it, designing and coding for it, and steering it towards its future. It’s a fun project to work on and I have a ton of ideas but also very little time. It’s a one man show and there’s a lot to do.</p>Today I pushed live a feedback page because I have a couple of decisions to take and I don’t want to do it blindly. So if you are a reader of the site I’d really appreciate if you can take a moment and share your thoughts on a few subjects. It shouldn’t take too long, maybe 5 minutes at most.
The other thing I’ve been working on is a new directory that collects in one place links to people and brands that are aligned with the Minimalissimo vision. It’s something that’s incredibly useful for me to have online because it will make the curation of the site easier and that’s huge because curation can be very time consuming.
The directory is ready form a technical point of view but now I need to add content to it and that will take me some time. I have more than a thousand links to go through and my hope is to have it live before the end of the summer. We’ll see how it goes.
<hr>
<p>Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.</p>
<p><a href="mailto:hello@manuelmoreale.com">Email me</a> ::
<a href="https://manuelmoreale.com/guestbook">Sign my guestbook</a> ::
<a href="https://ko-fi.com/manuelmoreale">Support for 1$/month</a> ::
<a href="https://manuelmoreale.com/supporters">See my awesome supporters</a> ::
<a href="https://buttondown.email/peopleandblogs">Subscribe to People and Blogs</a></p>
https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/THC8UIlT8t78ALNN
LEVER WEEKLY: Which Democrat Could Replace Biden?
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Lever News
The high court greenlit corruption and kneecapped the government, while Biden blundered on stage, and other news from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-which-democrat-could-replace-biden/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-30, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Impact of the US-Mexico border wall on wildlife.
David Hegg | Living to Serve
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
By David Hegg The past months have been a constant barrage of stories about tragedy. Horror in Newtown, bombs in Boston, flooding in the Midwest, fires in SoCal … all […]
The post David Hegg | Living to Serve appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/david-hegg-living-to-serve/
Sandy Cassidy | A New Low in California
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
After reading the article on the front page of today’s Signal (June 26) regarding the cuts to the senior meal programs, I am angered and saddened. The state has billions […]
The post Sandy Cassidy | A New Low in California appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/sandy-cassidy-a-new-low-in-california/
Arthur Saginian | Democracy Under Attack from Both Sides
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
It seems some Democrats are giddy with delight and are celebrating the unanimous guilty verdicts against former President Donald Trump. It’s vulgar and tasteless, but such is the nature of […]
The post Arthur Saginian | Democracy Under Attack from Both Sides appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/arthur-saginian-democracy-under-attack-from-both-sides/
Rob Kerchner | Waiting for an Apology?
date: 2024-06-30, from: The Signal
Quick poll: Has anyone you know personally apologized to you for their overreaction to COVID-19? Has anyone apologized to you for insisting that you follow those ridiculous rules? Test after […]
The post Rob Kerchner | Waiting for an Apology? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/rob-kerchner-waiting-for-an-apology/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-30, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
NBA free agency starts tonight.
https://www.nba.com/players/free-agent-tracker/2024
Expanding extremist groups in Africa fuel worries that they could attack the US, allies
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
GABORONE, Botswana — Violent extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are growing in size and influence across Africa, fueling worries that as they improve their tactics they could attack the U.S. or Western allies.
U.S. defense and military officials described the threats and their concerns about growing instability in Africa, where a number of coups have put ruling juntas in control, leading to the ouster of American troops and a decline in U.S. intelligence gathering.
“Threats like Wagner, terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations continue to sow instability in multiple regions,” Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in opening remarks Tuesday at a conference of African chiefs of defense in Botswana. “I think we can all agree, what happens in one part of the world, does not stay in one part of the world.”
Wagner is the Russian mercenary group that has gone into African nations to provide security as Western forces, including from the U.S. and France, have been pushed out. The group is known for its brutality, and human rights organizations have accused its members of raping and killing civilians.
While Brown only touched briefly on the terror threat in the region, it was a key topic among others at the conference and spurred questions from military chiefs in the audience after his speech. They wanted to know what the U.S. could do to help stem the spread of insurgents in West Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel.
This is the first time that the chiefs of defense conference has been held on African soil. And it is the first time the U.S. joint chiefs chairman has visited a sub-Saharan country since 1994, when Gen. John Shalikashvili visited Rwanda and Zaire.
A senior U.S. defense official said al-Qaida linked groups — such as al-Shabab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, known as JNIM, in the Sahel region — are the largest and most financially viable insurgencies. JNIM is active in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and is looking to expand into Benin and Togo, which it uses as hubs to rest, recuperate, get financing and gather weapons but also has increased attacks there.
At the same time, the Islamic State group has key cells in West Africa and in the Sahel. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a threat assessment, said the Islamic State cells were getting increasing direction from the group’s leadership that relocated to northern Somalia. That has included how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones and how to building their own small quadcopters.
A U.S. military airstrike in Somalia on May 31 targeted Islamic State militants and killed three, according to U.S. Africa Command. U.S. officials have said the strike targeted the group’s leader, but the defense official said Monday that it’s still unclear if he was killed.
Roughly 200 Islamic State insurgents are in Somalia, so they are vastly outnumbered by al-Shabab, which has grown in size to between 10,000 and 12,000.
The growth of the insurgent groups within Africa signals the belief by both al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that the continent is a ripe location for jihadism, where extremist ideology can take root and expand, the official said.
And it comes as the U.S. was ordered to pull out its 1,000 troops from Niger in the wake of last July’s coup and also about 75 from Chad. Those troop cuts, which shut down a critical U.S. counterterrorism and drone base at Agadez, hamper intelligence gathering in Niger, said Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command.
Surveillance operations before the coup gave the U.S. a greater ability to get intelligence on insurgent movements. Now, he said, the key goal is a safe and secure withdrawal of personnel and equipment from both Agadez and a smaller U.S. facility near the airport.
Langley met with Niger’s top military chief, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, during the conference, and said military-to-military communications continue but that it’s yet to be determined how much the new transitional government will deal with the U.S.
Currently, he said, there are about 400 troops still at Agadez and 200 near the airport.
But, he added that “as we’re in transition and resetting, we need to maintain capabilities to get enough intelligence to identify warnings of a threat out there.”
Langley said the U.S. is still trying to assess the militant groups’ capabilities as they grow.
“Yes, they’ve been growing in number. Have they been growing in capability where they can do what we call external ops attacks on the homeland and attacks on allies, whether we’re talking about Europe or anyone? That’s what we closely watch,” he said. “I’d say it has the potential as they grow in numbers.”
Both Langley and Brown spoke more extensively about the need for the U.S. and African nations to communicate more effectively and work together to solve security and other problems.
And Brown acknowledged that the U.S. needs to “do better at understanding the perspectives of others, ensuring their voices and expertise don’t get drowned out.”
The U.S has struggled to maintain relations with African nations as many foster growing ties to Russia and China.
Some African countries have expressed frustration with the U.S. for forcing issues, such as democracy and human rights, that many see as hypocrisy, given Washington’s close ties to some autocratic leaders elsewhere. Meanwhile, Russia offers security assistance without interfering in politics, making it an appealing partner for military juntas that seized power in places like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in recent years.
Today in SCV History (June 30)
date: 2024-06-30, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1943 – Army Air Force pilot Loncie L. Tucker, on training run, dies when his P-38 fighter crashes at Wayside Honor Rancho (later Pitchess Detention Center) in Castaic [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-30/
New blood tests may help predict who is at risk of preeclampsia
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
Parties, protests mark the end of Pride month in US and beyond
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reaches its exuberant grand finale on Sunday, bringing rainbow-laden revelers to the streets for marquee parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere across the globe.
The wide-ranging festivities will function as both jubilant parties and political protests, as participants recognize the community’s gains while also calling attention to recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, such as bans on transgender health care, passed by Republican-led states.
This year, tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are also seeping into the celebrations, exposing divisions within a community that is often aligned on political issues.
Already this month, pro-Palestinian activists have disrupted pride parades held in Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia. Several groups participating in marches Sunday said they would seek to center the victims of the war in Gaza, spurring pushback from supporters of Israel.
“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Pérez, the executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”
The first pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.
In addition to the NYC Pride March, the nation’s largest, the city will also play host Sunday to the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched five years ago amid concerns that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.
Another one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations will also kick off Sunday in San Francisco. Additional parades are scheduled in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle.
On top of concerns about protests, federal agencies have warned that foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters could target the parades and adjacent venues. A heavy security presence is expected at all of the events.
San Francisco store is shipping LGBTQ+ books to places where they are banned
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
SAN FRANCISCO — In an increasingly divisive political sphere, Becka Robbins focuses on what she knows best — books.
Operating out of a tiny room in Fabulosa Books in San Francisco’s Castro District, one of the oldest gay neighborhoods in the United States, Robbins uses donations from customers to ship boxes of books across the country to groups that want them.
In an effort she calls “Books Not Bans,” she sends titles about queer history, sexuality, romance and more — many of which are increasingly hard to come by in the face of a rapidly growing movement by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from public schools and libraries.
“The book bans are awful, the attempt at erasure,” Robbins said. She asked herself how she could get these books into the hands of the people who need them the most.
Beginning last May, she started raising money and looking for recipients. Her books have gone to places like a pride center in west Texas and an LGBTQ-friendly high school in Alabama.
Customers are especially enthusiastic about helping Robbins send books to places in states like Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, often writing notes of support to include in the packages. Over 40% of all book bans from July 2022 to June 2023 were in Florida, more than any other state. Behind Florida are Texas and Missouri, according to a report by PEN America, a nonprofit literature advocacy group.
Book bans and attempted bans have been hitting record highs, according to the American Library Association. And the efforts now extend as much to public libraries as school libraries. Because the totals are based on media accounts and reports submitted by librarians, the association regards its numbers as snapshots, with many bans left unrecorded.
PEN America’s report said 30% of the bans include characters of color or discuss race and racism, and 30% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.
The most sweeping challenges often originate with conservative organizations, such as Moms for Liberty, which has organized banning efforts nationwide and called for more parental control over books available to children.
Moms for Liberty is not anti-LGBTQ+, co-founder Tiffany Justice has told The Associated Press. But about 38% of book challenges that “directly originated” from the group have LGBTQ+ themes, according to the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Justice said Moms for Liberty challenges books that are sexually explicit, not because they cover LGBTQ+ topics.
Among those topping banned lists have been Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, George Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Robbins said it’s more important than ever to makes these kinds of books available to everyone.
“Fiction teaches us how to dream,” Robbins said. “It teaches us how to connect with people who are not like ourselves, it teaches us how to listen and emphasize.”
She’s sent 740 books so far, with each box worth $300 to $400, depending on the titles.
At the new Rose Dynasty Center in Lakeland, Florida, the books donated by Fabulosa are already on the shelves, said Jason DeShazo, a drag queen known as Momma Ashley Rose who runs the LGBTQ+ community center.
DeShazo is a family-friendly drag performer and has long hosted drag story times to promote literacy. He uses puppets to address themes of being kind, dealing with bullies and giving back to the community.
DeShazo hopes to provide a safe space for events, support groups and health clinics, and to build a library of banned books.
“I don’t think a person of color should have to search so hard for an amazing book about history of what our Black community has gone through,” DeShazo said. “Or for someone who is queer to find a book that represents them.”
Robbins’ favorite books to send are youth adult queer romances, a rapidly growing genre as conversations about LGBTQ+ issues have become much more mainstream than a decade ago.
“The characters are just like regular kids — regular people who are also queer, but they also get to fall in love and be happy,” Robbins said.
School’s out and NYC migrant families face a summer of uncertainty
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — When Damien Carchipulla started his first school year in New York City in September, the first grader’s family was living in a Manhattan hotel for migrant families.
In the 10 months since, the family of four from Ecuador has moved shelters three times under a policy Mayor Eric Adams imposed in the fall that limits the number of days migrants can stay in a single place. Every 60 days they must give up their shelter beds and reapply for housing or leave the system.
With a fourth move expected in a matter of weeks, Damien’s mother Kimberly Carchipulla hopes the family isn’t pulled too far from the 6-year-old’s school in Harlem this summer. Her son is set to attend a summer program starting in July.
“A lot has changed because new laws were put in place,” Carchipulla said in Spanish while picking up Damien after school one day. “They get stressed. They get upset. Every 60 days, it’s a new home.”
The New York City school year ended Wednesday, but for thousands of migrant families the shuffle from shelter to shelter continues. With it come the concerns about how they’ll navigate their children’s education needs, both this summer and into the next school year.
“These families were already coming in with a great deal of trauma, which was impacting their children’s attendance at school and their ability to engage once they’re there,” said Sarah Jonas, a vice president at Children’s Aid, a nonprofit that provides mentoring, health services and after-school programs at city schools. “With that added burden of the 60-day rule, we’ve seen even more disruption for our families getting these eviction notices and all of the anxiety that comes with that.”
Like the Carchipullas, most families chose to stick with the same school through the year, even if they were reassigned to shelters in a different part of the city. The tradeoff for many was longer and more complex commutes, leading to children who were exhausted before the school day even started. Absenteeism spiked too, as parents struggled to get their children to school on time.
Carchipulla, who is 23, counts her family among the lucky ones: the three moves they made during the school year were all to other midtown Manhattan hotels, so her son’s daily commute remained relatively the same.
For the grandchildren of Rosie Arias, the moves were more disruptive.
The 55-year-old from Ecuador said her daughter arrived in January with her 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. They were immediately placed in a shelter and enrolled in a local school where Spanish was widely spoken.
But when their 60 days ran out, they had to move to another shelter and transfer to another school, Arias said. Then when the family secured their own apartment in Brooklyn, the children had to switch schools again, this time to a smaller one where few people spoke Spanish.
“As a grandmother, I’m worried. The children don’t want to go to school. They’re not adjusting because of the language and because they don’t have friends.,” Arias said in Spanish. “They cry.”
School officials didn’t have a final tally for how many migrant students were affected by the shelter time limits.
As of the first week of May, 44% of migrant students had remained in the same shelter and same school since February 14, according to Tamara Mair, a senior director with Project Open Arms, the district’s program supporting asylum seekers and other new students in temporary housing.
Another 40% of migrant students moved shelters but remained enrolled at the same school, while 4% moved both schools and shelters, she said. Roughly 10% left the school system entirely, with the “vast majority” of those dropping out because they left the city.
District officials will be keeping tabs on migrant families in the shelters through the summer, Mair said.
“The one thing we want to remain constant for our kids is school,” she said. “But we also want to support our families with their choices, because the families have the right to remain in their school, or they may choose to go to a new school closer to their new residence.”
Adams, a Democrat, instituted shelter limits to encourage migrant families to leave the city’s emergency shelter system, which includes huge tent shelters and converted hotels that have swollen with thousands of newcomers to the U.S.
Over the summer, more needs to be done to prepare newly arriving families for the next school year, immigrant advocates say.
That includes better outreach to migrant parents and more investment in translation services, said Liza Schwartzwald, a director at the New York Immigration Coalition.
Schools also need more specialists to assess and help get migrant students up to grade level in their studies, said Natasha Quiroga, director of education policy at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs.
Damien Carchipulla’s mother remains optimistic about her son’s future.
Eventually, she said, the family hopes to save up enough money for their own place, perhaps in Queens, where her husband recently found steady work.
“He is learning more and more every day,” Kim Carchipulla said of her son. “Even if he misses school, his teacher tells me, he catches up quickly.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-30, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What Is the Fediverse?
https://about.fb.com/news/2024/06/what-is-the-fediverse/
VOA immigration weekly recap, June 23- 29
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/voa-immigration-weekly-recap-june-23--29/7678339.html
Prosecutors meet with Boeing, victims’ families as charging decision looms, say sources
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — U.S. prosecutors are meeting with Boeing and the families of crash victims as a July 7 deadline looms for the Justice Department to decide whether to criminally charge the plane maker, according to two people familiar with the matter and correspondence reviewed by Reuters.
Justice Department officials met with Boeing lawyers on Thursday to discuss the government’s finding that the company violated a 2021 agreement with the department, one of the sources said. That deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), had shielded it from criminal prosecution over two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and a crash in 2019 in Ethiopia that together killed 346 people.
Separately, federal prosecutors are slated to meet with victims’ family members on Sunday to update them on the progress of their investigation, according to the second person. U.S. officials are working on a “tight timeline,” according to an email sent by the DOJ and reviewed by Reuters.
Boeing lawyers present case
Boeing’s lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis on Thursday presented their case to officials from the Deputy Attorney General’s office that a prosecution would be unwarranted and that there is no need to tear up the 2021 deal, one of the people said.
Such appeals from companies in the DOJ’s crosshairs are typical when negotiating to resolve a government investigation.
Officials want input from family members as they consider how to proceed, the email said. Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s criminal fraud division and the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas will attend the Sunday meeting, it said.
Spokespeople for the DOJ and Boeing declined to comment.
Boeing has previously said it has “honored the terms” of the settlement and formally told prosecutors it disagrees with the finding that it violated the agreement.
Prosecutors recommend criminal charges
U.S. prosecutors have recommended to senior Justice Department officials that criminal charges be brought against Boeing after finding the plane maker violated the 2021 settlement, two people familiar with the matter previously told Reuters.
The two sides are in discussions over a potential resolution to the Justice Department’s investigation, and there is no guarantee officials will move forward with charges, they said last week.
The deliberations follow a January 5 flight during which a panel blew out on a Boeing plane just two days before the company’s DPA expired. The incident exposed ongoing safety and quality issues at Boeing.
Boeing had been poised to escape prosecution over a criminal charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration arising from the 2018-2019 fatal crashes.
Prosecutors had agreed to drop a criminal charge so long as Boeing overhauled its compliance practices and submitted regular reports over a three-year period. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the investigation.
In May, officials determined the company breached the agreement, exposing Boeing to prosecution. The DOJ said in a court filing in Texas that the plane maker had failed to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”
Two tiny 65816 DTV consoles
date: 2024-06-30, from: Old Vintage Computer Research
The 21st century direct-to-TV game console: a dirt-cheap toy dragging poor ports of cherished games to a more downmarket age. If you couldn’t afford the real device, your alternative was these inexpensive, inadequate facsimiles faithful only to one’s gauzy recollection. As their chipsets are generally grossly underpowered and optimized solely for cost, the vast majority didn’t even try to run the original games precisely as they were, and the quality of the resulting rewrites sometimes showed their software to be as rushed as the hardware. (Even today, where true emulators are more plentiful, the SoCs these devices use often still require compromise.) There were certainly standouts that are practical miniatures of the original systems, notably the Commodore 64 Direct-to-TV and Atari Flashback 2, but the remainder during their zenith in the early 2000s were more like this Intellivision and two Atari 2600 imposters, playing uneven resurrections on unrelated silicon.
I confess I fell into the DTV trap a couple times other than the C64 DTV, which is enhanced over the original and really should be considered a distinct Commodore computer of its own. I was Team Intellivision as a kid (we went from an Atari Ultra Pong Doubles to a Tandyvision One), I got the Intellvision Lives! CD for my Mac, and I figured the DTV version would be a great cartridge-free small version. Instead, I ended up being so disgusted with the abysmal quality of the ports that I’m pretty sure it went in the
Recently, however, someone mentioned the Winbond W55V9x series of “TV-Toy” chips and this piqued my interest to see how hackable they might be. But first let’s beat up on the Inty direct-to-TVs a bit more, partially because I despise them in particular, but also because they make a good technical lead-in.
There is no loyalty to any particular architecture in DTVs because cost is always the leading consideration. As such, notice the ominous disclaimer on the box that I originally didn’t: “Original games have been modified for optimal play on this device.” From a design perspective, they already started in the hole because the NES architecture was an especially bad fit for the Intellivision. Besides the issue of an 8-bit CPU (the 6502) implementing games written for a 16-bit one (the Intellivision’s General Instrument CP1610), the NES PPU maps somewhat poorly onto the Inty’s STIC video chip. The STIC can have independent background and foreground colours for each 8x8 “card,” but the PPU only supports selecting colours from four pre-specified palettes in groups of 4 tiles (also 8x8 each), unless you use one of the more sophisticated mappers. Moreover, the STIC generates a 159x96 (20x12 cards) display, so you can’t get around that by doubling up on the PPU because its display is 256x240 (32x30 tiles), though at least you’d have more than enough pattern table overhead to support all 240 Inty on-screen cards at once. Similarly, STIC sprites, eight per scanline, can all have different colours and be dynamically stretched in hardware. Although the PPU matches the sprites per scanline and allows multicoloured sprites, it also does so off pre-specified palettes (modulo mapper) and doesn’t have support for hardware resizing (i.e., for stretched sprites you’d need additional precomputed sprite images). About the only thing that did more or less directly port to NES hardware was the audio. While most Inty games were simple enough to be translated with some thought, it so happens that the NES PPU is not capable of accurately representing every possible STIC frame, and it will become clear very quickly that the programmers here didn’t use any thought anyway.
Intellivision Productions, then the owners of the Inty IP, licensed various games and the trademark to Hong Kong-based Techno Source, who in turn contracted out the software development to Chinese developer Nice Code. Nice Code already had experience programming simple games for famiclones and some of the work they did here turned up under other names or with minor changes in other famiclone collections. (Later Inty DTVs such as the X2 had games ported by an unknown Chinese firm instead of Nice Code. However, they are still NOAC-based DTVs, and they still sucked.)
The menu is very simple and selects from the 10 available games. Let’s start with the very famous Astrosmash!. This is a simple shoot-em-up with straightforward gameplay. If you can’t get this one right …
On the top is the DTV version and on the bottom is a grab from my usual GTE Sylvania Intellivision (ignore the red at the top, my TV tuner box doesn’t like the picture even though it looks fine on my CRT games TV). It makes sense they’d change the copyright message, and I’m prepared to admit that at least some of the inaccurate colours may be my capture box or problems with this specific unit (compare with the contemporary 25 game version), but everything else is wrong. The font has incorrect metrics, the digits in particular are vertically squashed, and they even missed the exclamation point in the title. And let’s not forget that pillarboxed background, either.
The funny part is comparing this with the screenshots on the back of the box, above, and even in the menu — which are correct, and which were obviously taken from an actual Inty. Class action lawsuits have been filed for less.
Astrosmash!’s poor conversion was sadly no fluke. Let’s move onto Star Strike, a sometimes difficult but graphically impressive rail shooter which spokesman George Plimpton infamously remarked contained the “total destruction of a planet” (Earth, natch). Again, the problems start immediately from the very first screen.
Even if we ignore the questionable palette — the stars are supposed to be twinkling in various colours and I can barely make out the continents on the planet — Earth doesn’t start in the middle, it’s supposed to start on the side behind the moon. Also, because the PPU’s screen geometry doesn’t match the STIC’s, we get a different perspective background, and we still have those squished digits.
And if you came here for the planet destruction pr0n, you’ve just been disappointed, because here’s what it should have looked like:
Oh well, let’s crack it open.
For as cheap as these things were, they are not generally difficult to disassemble. We open the battery compartment (screwed in) and remove the screw there, then remove the screws on the side and pop the plastic halves apart.
And, yeah, that’s it. Other than the controller logic, you’re looking at the entire show in two globchipped chip-on-board halves.
But if that didn’t convince you, the markings on the board should. Eight lines run to the controller board and A/V outputs. From right to left (in this view) they are ground, power, sound, a reset line, composite video — and then three NES-specific lines used to interface with the controller board, OUT0, RD4016 and 4016D0. NES controllers are read out bit by bit from locations $4016 and $4017 by writing to the control register, which goes out to the controller on the OUT line to select it, and then reading each bit (4016D0) on each clock (RD4016). This has a single controller, so it only has lines for working with $4016; the two player Inty DTVs have additional lines for $4017. It’s fabulously unlikely two lines clearly labeled with that specific address would be present if the underlying architecture weren’t NES-based.
The chip closest to the crystal appears to be the actual SoC. Its pinout, such as it is, and the use of a single oscillator are both consistent with the UM6561, a very common NOAC used in many games that has its own internal clock generator. The other chip is essentially a tiny multicart containing the PRG-ROM (code for the CPU) and CHR-ROM (image data for the PPU) for the main menu and each game along with any needed mapper(s). As the two chips are connected by what is more or less a hardwired NES cartridge port, it is possible, albeit after some work, to dump its contents.
That’s the basics of a NOAC-based DTV and a particularly unadorned example. We’re going to use it as a point of comparison for the remainder of the article, but I promised you 16-bit DTVs, and now I’ll bring you two — maybe even three.
Compared to the 6502 the 65816 got comparatively few design wins (though, in fairness, the 6502 got a lot of design wins), and consequently is a much less frequently embedded processor. The two major systems with a 65816 were the Apple IIgs, for which it was designed, and the Super Nintendo, but what we’re about to talk about is most definitely not a Super NES-on-a-chip. Let’s meet the Winbond W55V91.
Winbond calls this chip a “TV-toy Controller.” It is an entire SoC with a 65C816 core licensed from the Western Design Center, plus on-chip video, sound, ROM, RAM and I/O. (We’re talking about it like it’s a single chip, and the data sheet only ever depicts it as a single chip, but I’ll drop a spoiler now that this is not the case for the units we’ll look at.)
Winbond developed at least four chips in this line starting with the W55V91 around 2000, then the W55V92 and W55V93 in 2004, and finally the (wait for it) W55V94 in 2005. They were produced more or less simultaneously through at least 2006 and differ primarily in amount of available RAM and ROM, plus (starting with the V93) a CMOS camera interface for integrating video input. This interface only supports display and is mixed in at the video encoder level, meaning capture data can be seen onscreen without CPU assistance but is consequently inaccessible to reading or manipulation by programs.
How a complex scene might be generated appears in this sample screenshot from the V93/V94 datasheets. Input from an attached CMOS sensor has the lowest priority and is overlaid first by background zero (the blue backdrop) and then background one (the yellow “stage”), which is higher priority than both. Both figures standing on stage are composite sprites which can be individually above or below background one. Finally, the text layer has the highest priority, with 16x16 glyphs used for “CMOS interface” and 8x8 glyphs used for the “Manual Mode” text at the bottom. However, these two DTVs don’t seem to use many of these features and primarily treat the onboard video as a framebuffer with sprites.
Both units are Atari 2600 DTVs produced by Jakks Pacific and were some of the earliest such hardware. Jakks Pacific was Jack Friedman’s final toy and games company before his death after LJN (sold initially to MCA and later Acclaim and subsequently dissolved in 1994) and THQ (bankrupt in 2013), founded in 1995 and expanded rapidly through acquisitions. Toymax was one of these buyouts which had produced an early Activision-specific 2600 DTV unit in 2001 and seems to have been what launched Jakks’ own line.
NOACs have a notorious history in Atari 2600 DTVs (the original Atari Flashback being the exemplar), but the Toymax Activision DTV is actually another 65816 Winbond-based unit because Jakks used the exact same hardware and developer (DC Studios) for their own joystick-based VCS DTV in 2002, as we’ll demonstrate. Jakks also recased and sold the same Activision DTV under their own brand using a joystick instead of a gamepad, while the paddle-based VCS DTV came out in 2004. As HDTVs and more advanced consoles proliferated, Jakks eventually jettisoned their DTV line in the mid-2010s, though they’re still in business selling other toys.
Jakks generally consolidated its DTV offerings under the TV Games and Plug-it-in-and-Play TV Games brands, including several models with toy and character tie-ins unrelated to classic video gaming. Despite being the later of those models, we’re going to talk about the paddle Atari DTV first because there is first-person recollection that it was Winbond W55V9x-based. The development period would make it most likely a W55V91, and none of these toys have a need to use the more expensive V93/V94 because they don’t have video input. From that information we’ll derive the joystick Atari DTV’s architecture and by extension the “primordial” Toymax, though I don’t personally have that unit here.
The exact formal name of this product is subject to some debate, but it goes something like (deep breath) “Jakks Pacific Atari 2600 Plug-it-in-and-Play 13 TV Games Paddle.” It seems to have sold in decent numbers as it’s not hard to track down (this unit was a few bucks on the eBay), though the two-player version here is somewhat more uncommon. The paddles really impressed me, particularly for ones intended purely as toys. Each wheel has pretty good throw and spin feel and nice detents, and the buttons are solid with a satisfying travel distance except for RESET which is obnoxiously all but inaccessible. The plastic is similarly thick and durable. Overall, I found the build quality surprisingly high and a competent facsimile of my CX30s.
The reason we know the CPU/SoC in this unit is because of its developer, Digital Eclipse. Digital Eclipse had a cottage industry during the growing interest in emulation in the 1990s developing highly precise emulations and recreations of older software and hardware. One of their early specialties was Williams Electronics’ 6809-based arcade games like Sinistar and Joust. In 1995 Dad had just bought an AT&T Globalyst PC from Computer City, a Pentium 75 that we were told came with Windows 3.1 but actually came with the brand-spanking-new Windows 95. There was some consternation as a result because he primarily used the PC for word processing with Ami Pro, though fortunately it worked just fine (thanks, Raymond Chen!). I took advantage of this to buy the Activision Commodore 64 15-Pack here (this is my original copy) which was also out that year and also ran on Windows 95, but what I really wanted it for was its legally cracked D64 versions of my favourite titles like Portal, Park Patrol and Hacker. Unfortunately for Digital Eclipse their own early emulator wasn’t quite as authentic as my Commodore 128DCR sitting right next to the Pentium, but that was okay because C64S wasn’t either, and their games loaded way faster than the 128 since they didn’t emulate the disk drive and started from preloaded memory images.
Plugging the main paddle in and turning it on, we get these copyright messages, amusingly delivered in a modified Commodore 64 font (which is itself a modification of the Atari 8-bit font). These two screens immediately tell us it can’t be a standard NOAC. The text display is fixed-width and C64 font glyphs are 8x8, which would limit any NOAC-based hardware using them to 32 characters per line (i.e., 256 divided by 8), while these screens have several lines longer than that. The TMS 9918A in the 99/4A and Tomy Tutor and many others does have a 40-column mode at 256x192, but by compressing character glyphs to 6x8.
The main menu. You select games and options by rolling the primary paddle and pressing the button. Only eleven of the titles are actually VCS games; the other two are a recreation of Atari Pong and a visually different but still entertaining take on arcade Warlords. This is a bit of a skunk because that practically eliminates any incentive to play the 2600 Warlords also present, effectively cutting the “real” game count down to twelve.
The source for the Winbond being used in this device was reportedly technical director Jeff Vavasour, who developed or co-developed many Digital Eclipse titles, including this one and the Activision Commodore 64 15-Pack. On this unit, among other tasks, he developed a debugger to tease out the fine details of the original games, reworked arcade Warlords, and did some of the artwork like the menu. I tried contacting him about it but couldn’t locate a current E-mail address, so if you know him or are him, please post in the comments or drop me a line at ckaiser at floodgap dawt com.
I don’t intend this to be a review, but looking at a couple games to get an idea of its hardware features is instructive. Fortunately, unlike a NOAC trying to act like a STIC (badly), the W55V9x is fully able to draw an accurate 2600 TIA screen. Here is Breakout. The players and missiles are easily represented with the W55V9x’s sprites, and the TIA 160x192 display and 128 colour NTSC palette are well within the Winbond’s capabilities. As a practical matter it looks like Digital Eclipse simply chose to double the horizontal pixels and vertically centre the TIA display rows within the Winbond’s 240 line viewport, which takes care of the TV-safe region. Sound at least in theory should also be within the W55V9x’s tone generators’ range, both being two-channel audio, though the sound effects in these games don’t sound quite exact since the timbre differs. Still, it’s pretty close.
In each game, the menu button on the main paddle (not the side fire button, which is the regular paddle button) brings up an array of options you can modify. These vary from game to game. At the bottom is a “virtual console” also drawn by Vavasour which you can use to flip the VCS’s physical switches such as difficulty. You return to the main menu by selecting the cartridge slot, since you’re wanting to insert a new “cartridge.” Makes sense.
The simulations are generally complete enough to even model things like those black “comb” lines on the left from positioning the TIA players at the beginning of a scan line (remember that 2600 games must “race the beam” with the CPU emitting screen data every line, every frame), here shown in Night Driver. With minor exceptions, audio notwithstanding, I found the games in this DTV to be very consistent with my real Darth Vader 2600.
The Pong game is probably the weakest of the set and seems mostly thrown in as a bonus easy-to-implement paddle title. Adding some of the variation games would have seemed a logical step but this is “just Pong.” It’s still a competent knockoff of Pong Doubles, at least compared to my Ultra Pong Doubles unit; it’s just not as interesting as the other games and there are other Pong consoles I like better.
Yeah, okay, you want me to crack it open now.
The screws are glued in a bit tight and I had to grab the jeweler’s screwdriver with a set of pliers to get them loosened.
After doing the four in the battery compartment, don’t forget about the one at the base of the TV connectors. We’re just going to open the main compartment, not the second paddle.
A bigger question is that the Winbond data sheet makes the SoC sound like a single chip, but we have two blobtops here. The crystal feeds U2, so the CPU core is probably there, but we can’t make too many conclusions about U1 without digging the board out to trace the vias. Some of the marked spots on the board are not populated and there is a whole string of test points on one side.
Unfortunately, the hot glue fairy worked her viscous magic within as well as without and I was unwilling to whale on it with a metal pry tool lest I damage the board or its components. But we still have one more thing we can crack open which might give us a clue.
(Pro tip when reassembling: this is the wrong way for the side button. Turn it over so those divots sit on the case outcroppings provided for them.)
The stick itself, while fatter and a little bottom heavy due to the electronics in the base, actually feels a little flimsier and less substantial than my real CX40. You can still “grab” it pretty well, but I always preferred Wico sticks to these anyway.
Title screen, using a PC-like CGA 8x8 font.
Interestingly, the menu and background colour on this device extend right out to the very edges of the display. There is no text there, but there is colour and some lines. These could be sprite effects or the use of a register not documented in the datasheet to widen the viewport.
The text on the instruction screen is wide enough to demonstrate it has the same basic resolution as the paddle DTV, and thus can’t be generated as such by a standard NOAC. If you compare these grabs to video captures of the Toymax Activision DTV, you’ll see it’s the same in nearly every respect except for the included games.
Again, as a simulation it would have been exceptionally difficult to track down all the behavioural edges in a game this densely packed, and it shows. It would have been a big job for anybody. But that doesn’t mean it gets a pass.
Besides the inexact paddle-to-joystick conversions, another game that got some criticism was its port of Yars’ Revenge (not to be confused with Yar and a Man Called Insipid, a reference I refuse to explain).
The easy stuff: it properly simulates the game’s internal copyright message.
On all of these titles, sound was largely regarded as “inspired by” rather than “perfect cover band.” Most of the games didn’t sound much like the VCS originals at all, whereas at least the paddle DTV sounds were close, just not perfect.
Okay, time to gut it. I am amused by the Radio Shack tag on this one and apparently Radio Shack had some exclusives deals with Jakks, which was a very Tandy thing to do.
Removing the four base screws allows the top stick to come off, but to get to the top of the mainboard we’ll need to remove a second set of screws and then pry it up. Take note of how the wires are packed for reassembly because everything is crammed in tight.
Fortunately the hot glue fairy hadn’t blessed this stick too much and we could dig it out along with the attached front board where the game control and reset buttons are.
We again see our U1 and U2 globtops along with the 27MHz crystal we saw in the paddle DTV. This almost certainly has to be the same Winbond 65816 SoC, and because the Toymax DTV uses the same menu and interface, it’s almost certainly the same hardware as well. The crystal again feeds U2.
The audio line is the white wire at the top left (northwest) corner of the board. We can trace it along L4 down to C1 to enter U2. The video line is the red wire between sound and ground (ha ha). It goes through L6 and past an unpopulated C6 to enter U1. U1 also has an interesting “P/N” jumper at JP2 that is not bridged (the solder blob is on N). In the W55V91 datasheet pin 28 selects PAL (high) or NTSC (low), so leaving the circuit broken appears to be setting it to NTSC.
The button pads are bit harder to trace because they start on the back and exit in the front under some of the gobs of glue, but appear to enter U2. Similarly, the lines from the front control board (yellow, blue, teal and orange wires) also track into U2, including what looks like the reset line, which is one of the yellow wires.
A number of lines bridge between U1 and U2 but some cursory continuity testing of the exposed vias didn’t connect them with anything else. These are likely some sort of bus. The block diagram shows two halves with DMA between them, but the division isn’t clean on these boards because while U1 seems to have more of the video features, to match the block diagram it should also have the audio PSG, which is apparently in U2. U2, however, appears to have all of the CPU facilities and I/O. Whatever split we’re seeing here doesn’t seem to match the documentation.
Ideally we would like this to be set up the same as the NOAC where the ROMs are on one side and the full SoC is on the other, but if first appearances are to be believed, this apparently divides into a video chip and “everything else.”
The NOAC DTVs are cheap and nasty, but they’re surprisingly hackable if you’re prepared to do some fiddling, and their contents can be transplanted to bigger units. Unfortunately, assuming the ROMs on each end (VROM in U1, PROM in U2) are all blobbed together in each die, it doesn’t look like it’s possible to dump — let alone reprogram — the Winbond 65C816 SoCs without decapping and destroying them to visually inspect their contents. Maybe that was on purpose. But these devices at least are so cheap and exist in such numbers that such a sacrifice seems reasonable to yield useful insight into other such units. If you’ve done this or want to partner on it, post in the comments.
Either way, though, it turns out the 65816 was in a lot more devices than just the obvious explicit ones. The Winbond W55V9x series is no Super NES in a chip, but it’ll do until one comes along. Let’s hear it for tiny 16-bit consoles.
https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/06/two-tiny-65816-dtv-consoles.html
Marcus goes gaga over Gates clip
date: 2024-06-30, from: Gary Marcus blog
It’s been a long while since I have felt really positive about most of what I have been reading and seeing in AI. Not because I inherently dislike AI, but because I feel like so many folks have been brainwashed by the “scale is all you need” notion and “AGI in 2025” (or 2027 or 2029) nonsense, none of which seems remotely plausible to me as a cognitive scientist.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/marcus-goes-gaga-over-gates-clip
State’s Ten Commandments’ law raises issue of religious freedom
date: 2024-06-30, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/7678321.html
Full Circle Weekly News 372
date: 2024-06-30, from: Full Circle Magazine
Credits
- Host: @bardictriad, @zaivala
- Bumper: Canonical
- Theme Music: From The Dust - Stardust
- https://soundcloud.com/ftdmusic
- CC BY 4.0
https://fullcirclemagazine.org/podcasts/podcast-372/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump's mismanagement helped fuel coronavirus crisis.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/07/trump-coronavirus-management-style-123465
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race. #bravo
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Biden Raised $27 Million After Debate.
https://politicalwire.com/2024/06/29/biden-raised-27-million-after-debate/
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 Iran-backed Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months.
Iran and Israel traded threats Saturday of what Iran said would be an “obliterating” war over Hezbollah.
Hopes are lagging for a cease-fire in Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza that would calm attacks by Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias. With the stalled talks in mind, American and European diplomats and other 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.
The Americans and Europeans are warning the group it 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.
Strikes appear to level off
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 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.
Despite this past week’s plateauing of hostilities, said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East,” 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.”
The message being delivered to Hezbollah is “don’t think that you’re as capable as you think you are,” he said.
Potentially ‘terrible consequences’
Beginning the day after Hamas’ October 7 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.
United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths used the word “apocalyptic” to describe a war that could result. Both 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,” Defense Secretary 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 that 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.
And if it looks like any Israeli offensive in Lebanon is “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 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.
Upping tensions, Iran’s U.N. mission said in a posting Saturday on X that an “obliterating” war would ensue if Israel launches a full-scale attack in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded by pledging his country would move against Hezbollah with “full force” unless it stopped attacks.
While the U.S. helped Israel knock down a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones in April, the U.S. 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 9-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 spokesman 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(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: 2024-06-30, 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.”
Summary of changes for June 2024
date: 2024-06-29, from: Hundred Rabbits blog
Hey everyone!
This is the list of all the changes we’ve done to our projects during the month of June.
Summary Of Changes
- 100r.co, added Ketchikan, Snug Cove, Ratz Harbor, Frosty Bay, Berg Bay, Wrangell, Petersburg and Ruth Island Cove. Updated library.
- Oekaki, optimized and added a selection tool.
- Nasu, fixed selection issue.
- Uxn5, redesigned and made responsive for mobile.
- Uxndis, wrote a disassembler.
- Uxnrepl, added step-by-step evaluation.
We spent all of June cruising through Southeast Alaska, we visited 4 cities and stopped by 14 different anchorages. On June 27th, 420 nautical miles later, we arrived in the beautiful town of Sitka — our favorite city so far.
We have sailed as far north as we are willing to go this year, at 57°N — the same latitude as Kodiak. Sailing in these waters has been challenging, there is a lot of current, and the wind is often light, or absent. Because of these frequent calms, Calcifer II has seen a lot of use this year. We will now slowly make our way back south, exploring new anchorages along the west coast of Southeast Alaska all the while. We continue to update our path in Alaska here, when we cross back into Canada we’ll resume updates here.
Book Club: This month we are reading West With the Night by Beryl Markham.
https://100r.co/site/log.html#jun2024
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.