News gathered 2024-08-17
(date: 2024-08-17 22:47:57)
Bringing Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass to Life in Solvang
date: 2024-08-18, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
PCPA’s production of “The Agitators” delves into two pivotal figures in American history.
The post Bringing Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass to Life in Solvang appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Santa Barbara’s Iconic Friendship Paddle Set for September 8
date: 2024-08-18, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This year’s Paddle to usher in waves of support for teacher Courtney Brewer.
The post Santa Barbara’s Iconic Friendship Paddle Set for September 8 appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/17/santa-barbaras-iconic-friendship-paddle-set-for-september-8/
AQMD reps: Chiquita Canyon behind schedule
date: 2024-08-18, from: The Signal
South Coast Air Quality Management staff members proposed modifications to the Order of Abatement issued to Chiquita Canyon Landfill on Saturday during a hearing at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts […]
The post AQMD reps: Chiquita Canyon behind schedule appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/aqmd-reps-chiquita-canyon-behind-schedule/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-18, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Journalism is very important part of how our country works yet there is no accountability, no checks and balances, no requirement of transparency. There isn’t even a mechanism to disagree with them. most of the time they have the only voice. We don’t even know what they’re trying to do, what their goals are.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a011636
Epic Games Store for iOS in the EU
date: 2024-08-18, from: Michael Tsai
Thomas Claburn: The latest addition, the Epic Games Store, now offers iOS-using Euro-folk access to entertainment titles like Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe and Fall Guys.[…]The process for installing the Epic Games Store on iOS in the EU is rather convoluted, requiring numerous steps as demonstrated in this video. Epic attributes this “to Apple and Google […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/17/epic-games-store-for-ios-in-the-eu/
Vicki Ben-Yaacov: My Priorities as a School Board Member
date: 2024-08-17, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Addressing mathematical advancement is another priority of mine. While our schools have made significant strides in improving math scores, there is still considerable progress to be made.
The post Vicki Ben-Yaacov: My Priorities as a School Board Member appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/17/vicki-ben-yaacov-my-priorities-as-a-school-board-member/
Lockouts at Canada’s 2 largest railroads may disrupt US supply chain
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
DETROIT — Canada’s two largest railroads are starting to shut down their shipping networks as a labor dispute with the Teamsters union threatens to cause lockouts or strikes that would disrupt cross-border trade with the U.S.
Both the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National railroads, which haul millions of tons of freight across the border, have stopped taking certain shipments of hazardous materials and refrigerated products.
Both are threatening to lock out Teamsters Canada workers starting Thursday if deals are not reached.
On Tuesday, CPKC will stop all shipments that start in Canada and all shipments originating in the U.S. that are headed for Canada, the railroad said Saturday.
The Canadian Press reported Friday that, Canadian National barred container imports from U.S. partner railroads.
Jeff Windau, industrials analyst for Edward Jones & Co., said his firm expects work stoppages to last only a few days, but if they go longer, there could be significant supply chain disruptions.
“If something would carry on more of a longer term in nature, then I think there are some significant potential issues just given the amount of goods that are handled each day,” Windau said. “By and large the rails touch pretty much all of the economy.”
The two railroads handle about 40,000 carloads of freight each day, worth about $1 billion, Windau said. Shipments of fully built automobiles and auto parts, chemicals, forestry products and agricultural goods would be hit hard, he said, especially with harvest season looming.
Both railroads have extensive networks in the U.S., and CPKC also serves Mexico. Those operations will keep running even if there is a work stoppage.
CPKC said it remains committed to avoiding a work stoppage that would damage Canada’s economy and international reputation. “We must take responsible and prudent steps to prepare for a potential rail service interruption next week,” spokesperson Patrick Waldron said in a statement.
Shutting down the network will allow the railroad to get dangerous goods off IT before any stoppage, CPKC said.
Union spokesperson Christopher Monette said in an email Saturday that negotiations continue, but the situation has shifted from a possible strike to “near certain lockout” by the railroads.
CPKC said bargaining is scheduled to continue Sunday with the union, which represents nearly 10,000 workers at both railroads. The company said it continues to bargain in good faith.
Canadian National said in a statement Friday that there had been no meaningful progress in negotiations, and it hoped the union “will engage meaningfully” during a meeting scheduled for Saturday.
“CN wants a resolution that allows the company to get back to what it does best as a team, moving customers’ goods and the economy,” the railroad said.
Negotiations have been going on since last November, and contracts expired at the end of 2023. They were extended as talks continued.
The union said company demands on crew scheduling, rail safety and worker fatigue are the main sticking points.
Windau said the trucking industry currently has a lot of excess capacity and might be able to make up some of the railroads’ shipping volumes, but “You’re not going to be able to replace all of that with trucking.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Summer COVID-19 wave: Infections high across US.
https://thehill.com/homenews/4832099-covid-19-summer-surge-us/
Google threatened tech influencers unless they ‘preferred’ the Pixel
date: 2024-08-17, from: OS News
The tech review world has been full of murky deals between companies and influencers for years, but it appears Google finally crossed a line with the Pixel 9. The company’s invite-only Team Pixel program — which seeds Pixel products to influencers before public availability — stipulated that participating influencers were not allowed to feature Pixel products alongside competitors, and those who showed a preference for competing phones risked being kicked out of the program. For those hoping to break into the world of tech reviews, the new terms meant having to choose between keeping access or keeping their integrity. ↫ Victoria Song at The Verge Even though this ended up being organised and run by a third party, and Google addressed it immediately, it doesn’t surprise me at all that stuff like this happens. Anyone who has spent any time on tech YouTube, popular tech news sites, and content farms knows full well just how… Odd a lot of reviews and videos often feel. This is because a lot of review programs subtly – or not so subtly – imply that if you’re not positive enough, you’re going to be kicked out and won’t get the next batch of cool products to review, thereby harming your channel or website. Apple is a great example of a company that uses the threat of not getting review samples, event invites, and similar press benefits to gain positive media attention. I myself was kicked out of Apple’s review program and press pool way back during the Intel transition, because I mentioned the new Intel MacBook Pro got uncomfortably hot, and Apple really didn’t like that. They tried to pressure me to change the wording, but I didn’t budge, and consequently, that was the end of me getting any review items or press invites. I only ever accepted one Apple press invite, by the way, to their headquarters in The Netherlands, which was in Bunnik, of all places. Not much of value was lost without Apple press invites. Nobody wants to go to Bunnik. With every review of a loaned item on OSNews, you can be 100% sure there are no shenanigans, because I simply do not let anyone influence me. OSNews doesn’t live or die by getting reviews of the latest and greatest tech, so I have no incentive to deal with pushy, manipulative companies or PR people. I refused to budge to Apple 17 years ago, during my first year at OSNews, when I was in my early 20s – and I’ve never budged since, either. Now look at everyone getting press access from Apple, and think to yourself – would any of them tell Apple to get bent? That being said, I’d love to review the new Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, if only to make fun of that horrid name. Hit me up, Google.
Construction to Begin on Vista Canyon Bridge in Canyon Country
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita is announcing the start of construction on the Vista Canyon Bridge and Road Improvements Project in Canyon Country
https://scvnews.com/construction-to-begin-on-vista-canyon-bridge-in-canyon-country/
Cheers for Charity to Benefit MHF Seeks Volunteers
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The nonprofit Michael Hoefflin Foundation for Children’s Cancer is seeking volunteers for its “Cheers for Charity” fundraising event to be held Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Canyon Country Community Center
https://scvnews.com/cheers-for-charity-to-benefit-mhf-seeks-volunteers/
skip a curl transfer
date: 2024-08-17, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
This is episode three in my mini-series of posts describing news in the coming curl 8.10.0 release. Part one was more help, part two verbose, verbose and verbosest. This new command line option in curl 8.10.0 is a simple one that has been requested by users repeatedly over the years so I figure it was … Continue reading skip a curl transfer
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/08/17/skip-a-curl-transfer/
Aug. 20: Regular Meeting of Saugus Union School Board
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The regular meeting of the Saugus Union School District Governing Board will take place Tuesday, Aug. 20, with closed session beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed immediately by public session at 6:30 p.m
https://scvnews.com/aug-20-regular-meeting-of-saugus-union-school-board/
Single-command Windows 11 system requirements bypass trick for unsupported PCs blocked
date: 2024-08-17, from: OS News
In October last year, we covered a very simple bypass trick that involved just a single command when running the Windows 11 Setup. While this passthrough got popular in the tech community during this time as a result of the media coverage from Neowin as well as others, it was actually something even older. To use this, all a user had to do was add “/product server” when running the setup, and Windows would just skip the hardware requirements check entirely. As it turns out, Microsoft has blocked this bypass method on the latest Canary build 27686 as discovered by X user and tech enthusiast Bob Pony. When trying to use the Server trick now, the hardware requirements check is not bypassed. ↫ Sayan Sen It’s such an own goal to limit Windows 11 as much as Microsoft is doing. Windows 11 runs pretty much identically, performance-wise, to Windows 10 on the same hardware, so there’s no reason other than to enable the various security features through TPMs and the like. The end result is that people simply aren’t upgrading to Windows 11 – not only because Windows 10 is working just fine for them, but also because even if they want to upgrade, they often can’t. Most people don’t just buy a brand new PC because a new version of Windows happens to be available. There’s been a variety of tricks and methods to circumvent the various minimum specifications checks Microsoft added to the regular consumer versions of Windows, and much like with the activation systems of yore, Microsoft is now engaging in a game of whack-a-mole where as soon as it kills on method, ten more pop up to take its place. There’s a whole cottage industry of methods, tools, registry edits, and much more, spread out across the most untrustworthy-looking content farms you can find on the web, which all could’ve been avoided if Microsoft just offered consumers the choice of disabling these restrictions, accompanied by a disclaimer. So Microsoft is now in the unfortunate situation where most of its Windows users are still using Windows 10, yet the end of Windows 10’s support is coming up next year. Either Microsoft extends this date by at least another five years to catch the wave of ‘natural’ PC upgrades to a point where Windows 10 is a minority, or it’s going to have to loosen some of the restrictions to give more people the ability to upgrade. If they don’t, they’re going to be in a world of hurt with security issues and 0-days affecting the vast majority of Windows users.
Aug. 21: Hart Board to Appoint New Principals
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The regular meeting of the William S. Hart Union High School District’s Governing Board will be held Wednesday, Aug. 21, beginning with closed session at 6 p.m., followed by open session at 7 p.m.
https://scvnews.com/aug-21-hart-board/
L.A. County Water Plan Earns LADWP Approval
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners, the entity that oversees and sets policy for the nation’s largest municipal utility, has formally adopted the Los Angeles County Water Plan. This marks an important step in the region’s pursuit of safe, clean and reliable water resources for all communities in Los Angeles County
https://scvnews.com/l-a-county-water-plan-earns-ladwp-approval/
Californians: Your Rent May Go Up Because of Rising Insurance Rates
date: 2024-08-17, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The state’s landlords see rising insurance costs, so they say they’re going to have to raise rents. But they complain about laws that limit how much they can do so.
The post Californians: Your Rent May Go Up Because of Rising Insurance Rates appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Sept. 30: 40th Annual Oak Tree Golf Classic
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The 40th Annual Oak Tree Golf Classic to benefit the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce will be held Monday, Sept. 30, 8 a.m.-6:30 p.m. at the Valencia Country Club.
https://scvnews.com/sept-30-40th-annual-oak-tree-golf-classic/
Aug. 24: Clothes for Cash Benefits Saugus Marching Centurions
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Saugus High School Marching Centurions will be collecting new and clean, used clothing, shoes, backpacks, purses, bedsheets, blankets and towels for donation. The Clothes for Cash fundraiser will be held Saturday, Aug. 24, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at Saugus High School
https://scvnews.com/aug-24-clothes-for-cash-benefits-saugus-marching-centurions/
Shootings reported at U.S. base between guards, passing vehicle
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/shootings-reported-at-u-s-base-between-guards-passing-vehicle/7746657.html
SCV Sheriff’s Station Deputies Clear 17 Homeless Encampments
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station reported that deputies from the Crime Prevention Unit recently cleared 17 homeless encampments in the SCV with the assistance of city of Santa Clarita Code Enforcement and Los Angeles County Homeless Services
https://scvnews.com/scv-sheriffs-station-deputies-clear-17-homeless-encampments/
Reliable SSH access via pubnix with portforwarding, AutoSSH, and proxyjump
date: 2024-08-17, from: Tilde.news
https://klu.sdf.org/articles/reliable_public_ssh.html
LASD Requests Public Help Locating Missing Hiker
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Missing Persons Unit investigators are asking for the public’s help locating an at-risk missing hiker last seen in Castaic.
https://scvnews.com/lasd-requests-public-help-locating-missing-hiker/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Ten months into a genocide, this is also a reason to block anyone on the spot, no questions asked that wants to discuss any of the merits of it:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UbH1gJSwYg3Dc9bK1ptSiN-mvpgaZUaP0CY-bjJrQ3E/mobilebasic
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112978373853025101
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I would almost add a rule that journalists should have respect for critics, we’ll save that for the rules of 2030 if there is any journalism left.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a164335
At least one dead in traffic collision on I-5
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
At least one person was pronounced dead at the scene of a traffic collision involving a big rig on the northbound side of Interstate 5 near the Calgrove Boulevard exit […]
The post At least one dead in traffic collision on I-5 appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/at-least-one-dead-in-traffic-collision-on-i-5/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
John Goodman explains what to do if you get ahead by $2.5 million.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a163945
Pro-Palestinian ‘uncommitted’ movement hits impasse with top Democrats as DNC begins
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
DEARBORN, Michigan — Of the thousands of delegates expected to gather Monday at the Democratic National Convention, only 36 will belong to the “uncommitted” movement sparked by dissatisfaction with U.S. President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
But that small core has an outsized influence.
Anger over U.S. backing for Israel’s offensive in Gaza could generate unwelcome images for convention organizers, with raucous protests expected outside and potentially inside the Chicago arena where Vice President Kamala Harris will accept the nomination Thursday.
Top Democrats have spent weeks meeting with “uncommitted” voters and their allies — including a previously unreported sit-down between Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan — in an effort to respond to criticism in key swing states such as Michigan, which has a significant Arab American population.
Months of meetings and phone calls between pro-Palestinian activists and the Harris campaign have fallen into an effective impasse. The activists want Harris to endorse an arms embargo to Israel and a permanent cease-fire. Harris has supported Biden’s negotiations for a cease-fire but rejected an arms embargo.
Rima Mohammad, one of Michigan’s two “uncommitted” delegates, said she sees the convention as a chance to share their movement’s concerns with the party leadership.
“It is a way for protesters outside to be able to share their frustration with the party,” she said.
Harris meets key Arab American mayor
Questions remain about the leverage “uncommitted” voters hold now that Biden has stepped aside and Harris has taken his place. Democrats have seen a significant surge in enthusiasm for Harris’ campaign, and concerns about voter apathy in key areas, such as Detroit’s large Black population, appear to have diminished.
But Harris and her team have still made communication with Arab American leaders a priority.
During a campaign trip to Michigan last week, Harris met with Abdullah Hammoud, the 34-year-old mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that has the largest number of Arab Americans of any city in the United States. The meeting was disclosed by a person who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The person familiar with the meeting did not provide specific details but said the focus was on Harris’ potential policy, if elected, on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hammoud declined to comment.
“Vice President Harris supports the deals currently on the table for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and for the release of hostages,” her campaign said in a statement. “She will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as she has throughout her vice presidency.”
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez on Thursday held separate one-on-one meetings with leaders in the Arab American community and “uncommitted” movement in metro Detroit.
“They are listening, and we are talking,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, who met with Chavez Rodriguez. “But none of us can garner votes in the community without public statements from Harris. She doesn’t need us; she can win over votes by saying and doing the right thing.”
According to Siblani, Chavez Rodriguez agreed that “the killing has to stop.” In response, Siblani said he pressed: “How? There is no plan.”
Lavora Barnes, the Democratic chair in Michigan, said the party would “continue working toward our goal of coming together to defeat Donald Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.”
“We are committed to continuing these conversations with community leaders, activists and organizations because we want to ensure that everyone in the Michigan Democratic Party has a seat at the table,” Barnes said in a statement.
No agreement on an arms embargo
Some on the Democratic Party’s left have called for including a moratorium on the use of U.S.-made weapons by Israel in the platform of policy goals that will be approved during next week’s convention. But such language isn’t included in a draft platform party officials released earlier this summer, and it’s unlikely that those close to Harris’ campaign would endorse including it.
The Uncommitted National Movement has also requested a speaking slot at the convention for a doctor who has worked on the frontlines in Gaza, along with a leader of the movement. And they have asked for a meeting with Harris “to discuss updating the Gaza policy in hopes of stopping the flow of unconditional weapons and bombs” to Israel, said Abbas Alawieh, another “uncommitted” delegate from Michigan and one of the founders of the movement.
Before a Harris rally just outside Detroit last week, Alawieh and Layla Elabed, co-founders of the movement, briefly met with the vice president. They requested a formal meeting with Harris and urged her to support an embargo on weapons shipments to Israel. According to them, Harris seemed open to the idea of meeting.
However, shortly after news of the meeting became public, Harris’ national security adviser, Phil Gordon, reaffirmed that she does not support an arms embargo. Alawieh mentioned Wednesday that the group has not received any further response from Harris’ team or the DNC regarding their requests ahead of the convention.
“I hope she doesn’t miss the opportunity to unite the party,” said Alawieh.
Trump campaign continues its outreach
Elsewhere in metro Detroit this week, Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter and now a leader in his Arab American outreach, was holding meetings with various community groups. Boulos has come to Michigan often for the outreach, along with Arab Americans for Trump chair Bishara Bahbah.
According to Bahbah, their pitch highlights the situation in Gaza under Biden’s administration and a promise from Trump’s team to give the community a seat at the table if he wins.
“We have been told by the Trump circle, which is not part of the campaign, that in return for our votes, there would be a seat at the table and a voice to be heard,” said Bahbah.
But any apparent political opportunity for Trump in the Arab American community or the “uncommitted” movement may be limited by his past remarks and policies.
Many Arabs remain offended by Trump’s ban, while in office, on immigration from several majority Muslim countries, as well as remarks they consider insulting. Trump also has criticized Biden for not being a strong enough supporter of Israel.
Speaking to an audience of Jewish supporters Thursday, Trump painted the protesters expected in Chicago as antisemitic and invoked an Arabic term that is sometimes used by Muslims to mean war or struggle.
“There will be no jihad coming to America under Trump,” he said.
But Bahbah acknowledges that his and Boulos’ strategy isn’t necessarily aimed at converting voters to support Trump — but to stop them from voting for Harris.
“If I can’t convince people to vote for Trump, having them sit at home is better,” said Bahbah.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7746585.html
Know Your District
date: 2024-08-17, from: City of Santa Clarita
By City Manager Ken Striplin “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” – Thomas Jefferson This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of active participation in the democratic process. It suggests that while democratic systems are designed to reflect the will of the majority, this […]
The post Know Your District appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/08/17/know-your-district/
County in US state of Pennsylvania has uncanny ability to choose presidents
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
The voters of Northampton County in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania have chosen the victor of all but three U.S. presidential elections since 1920. VOA’s chief national correspondent Steve Herman looks at how things are shaping up for Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in this bellwether county.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
No
more lies in news. We’ve had to live with journalism that tries to
give lies equal stature to actual news, but the two just don’t mix. What
happens if your news is half lies, the users don’t believe
anything you carry. This was predicted, in 2016 when it was clear
that Putin’s Russia was heavily influencing American journalism. They
had developed their techniques in Ukraine in previous years, and the
Ukraine press and government came to the same conclusion we’re now
arriving at – stop at the first lie, turn the microphone off. That’s the
main rule, main change that has to take place now, in advance of the
November election. They may not do it, but at least now we all
understand that what they’re doing is stupid, wrong, even corrupt. No
matter what they don’t get to keep their rep if they are laundering
lies.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a153253
Radxa X4 SBC Unites Intel N100 and Raspberry Pi RP2040
date: 2024-08-17, from: Jeff Geerling blog
Radxa X4 SBC Unites Intel N100 and Raspberry Pi RP2040
<div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>At first glance, especially from the top, the <a href="https://radxa.com/products/x/x4/">Radxa X4</a> is your typical Arm SBC:</p>
But you’ll quickly notice the lack of an SoC—that’s on the bottom. Looking more closely, what’s a Raspberry Pi chip doing on top?! First, let’s flip over the board to investigate. There’s the SoC: definitely not Arm inside, this thing’s an Intel N100:
I have all my benchmarks and notes bringing up this board stored in my sbc-reviews GitHub repository: Radxa X4 - geerlingguy’s sbc-reviews, and I also summarized everything in a video on YouTube, which you can watch inline (or skip past and read this blog post instead):
<span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/radxa-x4-sbc-unites-intel-n100-and-raspberry-pi-rp2040
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Thank you for reading the NY Times so I don’t have to.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a151435
Not all reviews are really reviews
date: 2024-08-17, from: Om Malik blog
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again — most of what passes for reviews and coverage on social media is nothing butthinly veiled product placement, with influencers spouting nonsense. For years, brands and influencers have engaged in a delicate dance, with early access to coveted gadgets dangled in exchange for coverage. Apple has controlled access to its devices, well aware that a …
https://om.co/2024/08/17/not-all-reviews-are-a-review/
Search finds 3 more Tulsa Race Massacre victims with gun wounds
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA — The latest search for the remains of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre victims has ended with three more sets containing gunshot wounds, investigators said Friday.
The three are among 11 sets of remains exhumed during the latest excavation in Oaklawn Cemetery, state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said.
“Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons,” Stackelbeck said. “The third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning.”
Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, who will remain on site to examine the remains, said one victim suffered bullet and shotgun wounds while the second was shot with two different caliber bullets.
Searchers are seeking simple wooden caskets because they were described at the time in newspaper articles, death certificates and funeral home records as the type used for burying massacre victims, Stackelbeck said.
The exhumed remains will then be sent to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, Utah, for DNA and genealogical testing in an effort to identify them.
The search ends just over a month after the first identification of remains previously exhumed during the search for massacre victims were identified as World War I veteran C.L. Daniel from Georgia.
There was no sign of gunshot wounds to Daniel, Stubblefield said at the time, noting that if a bullet doesn’t strike bone and passes through the body, such a wound likely could not be determined after the passage of so many years.
The search is the fourth since Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum launched the project in 2018, and 47 remains have now been exhumed.
Bynum, who is not seeking reelection, said he hopes to see the search for victims continue.
“My hope is, regardless of who the next mayor is, that they see how important it is to see this investigation through,” Bynum said. “It’s all part of that sequence that is necessary for us to ultimately find people who were murdered and hidden over a century ago.”
Stackelbeck said investigators are mapping the graves in an effort to determine whether more searches should be conducted.
“Every year we have built on the previous phase of this investigation. Our cumulative data have confirmed that we are finding individuals who fit the profile of massacre victims,” Stackelbeck said.
“We will be taking all of that information into consideration as we make our recommendations about whether there is cause for additional excavations,” said Stackelbeck.
Brenda Nails-Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors and a member of the committee overseeing the search for victims, said she is grateful for Bynum’s efforts to find victim’s remains.
“It is my prayer that these efforts continue, to bring more justice and healing to those who were lost and to those families in our community,” Nails-Alford said.
Earlier this month, Bynum and City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper announced a new committee to study a variety of possible reparations for survivors and descendants of the massacre and for the area of north Tulsa where it occurred.
The massacre took place over two days in 1921, a long-suppressed episode of racial violence that destroyed a community known as Black Wall Street and ended with as many as 300 Black people killed, thousands of Black residents forced into internment camps overseen by the National Guard and more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches destroyed.
Bickleton, Washington and the Carousel Museum
date: 2024-08-17, updated: 2024-08-17, from: Russell Graves, Syonyk’s Project Blog
https://www.sevarg.net/2024/08/17/bickleton-washington-carousel-museum/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I used to say “this is a weekend hack” when I vastly underestimated efforts.
But Eric Schmidt has me beaten with “ask the ai to clone TikTok, clone your friends and boom boom boom you are done and let the lawyers clean up”
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112977839259142093
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Watch
out when reporters say something said on their air or in their pub is
“misleading.” What they really mean is someone just lied in their space.
Heard it just now
on
NPR after a Republican was using “talking points” that were
“misleading.” Of course lies are misleading, but they are also
lies. What these reporters hope to do (I guess) is convince you that the
lies they just broadcast don’t reflect poorly on them. If they said
“that guy just lied five times” you’d have to wonder why they included
it. What’s wrong with them. But if they just were “misleading” oh I
guess that’s okay. Same thing happened in an otherwise pretty honorable
piece by Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post. “When not one but
multiple rants call ‘into question not only his fitness for office but
his basic cognitive abilities,’ the media’s refusal to convey Trump’s
unfitness amounts to misleading the public.” No. It’s not just
misleading, it’s deadly – to the reputation of the publication that
didn’t convey what they saw clearly with their own two eyes. The rest of
the Rubin piece is worth reading. I expect she softened her criticism
because she has to work with the editors at the Post who decided to keep
cutting Trump slack. You and I don’t have that problem. The news
industry in the US must be scrapped and replaced with one that tells the
truth, otherwise what’s the point.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/17.html#a142340
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
This is a big deal because I have been dreading doing this work for about four months, expecting it to be a ton of work.
The patch was about 80 lines of code. But like all good sauces, it had
to simmer for a long time for the flavors to lock in
place.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112975358258229343
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112977743903699751
Japan’s outgoing prime minister plans US visit, media reports
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
TOKYO — Outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is finalizing plans to visit the United States in late September for the U.N. General Assembly and a possible meeting with President Joe Biden, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday.
The visit may take place for several days starting on September 22, the report said, citing multiple government sources it did not identify.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry, in response to a request for comment from Reuters, said “nothing has been decided yet.”
Kishida on Wednesday dropped out of the leadership race for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, meaning he will step down as prime minister when his term as party leader ends in late September.
The date of the LDP election is not yet set. It could be as early as September 20, in which case Kishida would likely address the General Assembly after Japan’s parliament, where the LDP has a majority, has chosen his replacement as prime minister, according to Yomiuri.
Some in the Japanese government think it best if Kishida’s successor does not develop close ties with Biden, who is scheduled to leave office in January, the newspaper said.
Biden, who dropped out of November’s U.S. presidential election, was replaced as the Democratic Party nominee last month by Vice President Kamala Harris. She faces the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
https://www.voanews.com/a/japan-s-outgoing-prime-minister-plans-us-visit-media-reports/7746468.html
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Press A Button, Get A Human
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Lever News
Plus, natural gas projects lose steam, taxing millionaires nets billions, a financial app pays up, and customers wise up to corporate greed.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-press-a-button-get-a-human/
Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally
date: 2024-08-17, from: OS News
San Francisco’s city attorney David Chiu is suing to shut down 16 of the most popular websites and apps allowing users to “nudify” or “undress” photos of mostly women and girls who have been increasingly harassed and exploited by bad actors online. These sites, Chiu’s suit claimed, are “intentionally” designed to “create fake, nude images of women and girls without their consent,” boasting that any users can upload any photo to “see anyone naked” by using tech that realistically swaps the faces of real victims onto AI-generated explicit images. ↫ Ashley Belanger at Ars Technica This is an incredibly uncomfortable topic to talk about, but with the advent of ML and AI making it so incredibly easy to do this, it’s only going to get more popular. The ease with which you can generate a fake nude image of someone is completely and utterly out of whack with the permanent damage it can do the person involved – infinitely so when it involves minors, of course – and with these technologies getting better by the day, it’s only going to get worse. So, how do you deal with this? I have no idea. I don’t think anyone has any idea. I’m pretty sure all of us would like to just have a magic ban button to remove this filth from the web, but we know such buttons don’t exist, and trying to blast this nonsense out of existence is a game of digital whack-a-mole where there are millions of moles and only one tiny hammer that explodes after one use. It’s just not going to work. The best we can hope for is to get a few of the people responsible behind bars to send a message and create some deterrent effect, but how much that would help is debatable, at best. As a side note, I don’t want to hang this up on AI and ML alone. People – men – were doing this to to other people – women – even before the current crop of AI and ML tools, using Photoshop and similar tools, but of course it takes a lot more work to do it manually. I don’t think we should focus too much on the role ML and AI plays, and focus more on finding real solutions – no matter how hard, or impossible, that’s going to be.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump’s interviews and lies get worse and journalism covers it up because they’re thoroughly corrupt though the Washington Post columnist doesn’t admit the last part.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/16/newsletter-harris-election/
The Time Ranger | Tricky Dick & SCV’s Most Spectacular Blaze
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
Top of the Sunday morn to you, saddlepals. C’mon. Stretch. Breathe. Take a swig of juice, milk, coffee, or whiskey in a dirty glass (provided you’re over 21 both legally […]
The post The Time Ranger | Tricky Dick & SCV’s Most Spectacular Blaze appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/the-time-ranger-tricky-dick-scvs-most-spectacular-blaze/
Robert Lamoureux | What to do about a hole under the bathtub
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
Question: Hi Robert. We are in the midst of doing a bathroom remodel where currently there are fiberglass walls surrounding a cast iron tub. First question is, can we go […]
The post Robert Lamoureux | What to do about a hole under the bathtub appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/robert-lamoureux-what-to-do-about-a-hole-under-the-bathtub/
Rejecting Dogmas Around AI, User Privacy, and Tech Policy
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Markup blog
A conversation with AI scientist Jonathan Frankle
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2024/08/17/rejecting-dogmas-around-ai-user-privacy-and-tech-policy
The Markup’s “Clear and Beautiful” Reporting Wins Online Journalism Award
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Markup blog
Series on digital book banning wins first place for technology reporting — the Markup’s second win in a row in that category.
On hobbies, side projects, and money
date: 2024-08-17, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>I had a bunch of conversations recently that revolved around the intersection of making things on the web and the financial aspect of them. Talking about money is never particularly fun or inspiring but I think it’s sometimes helpful and worth doing.</p>I think the first thing we need to do is make a distinction between side projects and hobbies. They might look the same but to me, there’s a clear distinction between the two. A hobby is something one does for themselves. This blog is a hobby. I write on it because I find it enjoyable and the primary user is myself. And since it’s a hobby, money is not taken into consideration because I’m expected to pay for my hobbies. That’s just how the world works. If you like to go running you don’t expect other people to pay for your gear or your runs. It’s your hobby, you’re the beneficiary, you pay for it. And sure, other people might see you running and find that enjoyable—kinda weird but hey, not judging—but you still wouldn’t expect them to pay or contribute to that activity. So in a hobby, the creator and the user overlap.
A side project is a bit different. The way I see it, the users of a side project don’t necessarily overlap with the creator. That’s for example the case of People and Blogs. P&B is not a hobby but a side project. The goal is to make something not for myself, but for others. I obviously enjoy reading the interviews but if I didn’t have to send out a newsletter every week I’d do this entirely differently. I’d not send out a series of 9 questions to people but I’d rather email them and have conversations about things we both find interesting which is something I often do privately.
That’s the main distinction between a hobby and a side project in my view. Now, as I said before, hobbies are something you’re supposed to pay for yourself. But what about side projects? This is where things get messy. Sometimes side projects are straight-up commercial products and in that case, the financial implications are fairly easy to understand: I make something, and you pay for it. Easy enough. But what about side projects where there’s not something up for sale? P&B—just to stick with the same example—is free for everyone. The newsletter is free, the interviews here on the site are free, and the RSS is also free. As they should! After all the goal is to promote a healthier way to inhabit the web and to encourage more people to go back to personal sites and personal blogs. And so putting the content behind a paywall makes no sense because it goes against the goal of the project. But at the same time, it costs money to run and those costs only go up over time. At the moment, running P&B is relatively inexpensive but as the project slowly grows, so do costs. That’s just the reality of doing anything on the web. And at some point, everyone who has run a side project of some sort has to figure out what to do. I always went with donations because I believe in the kindness of people and at the moment—at least for P&B—it is working out. Another popular option is to rely on either ads or some form of sponsorship. I’m gonna say more about ads in a future post but for now, let’s just say that ads can’t be the only solution. We’re all tired of ads. Ads are everywhere. But we also do need to accept the fact that it’s either ads or we have to start paying for the things we enjoy if we want them to stay around.
The problem with contributing directly is that sometimes creators don’t provide a reasonable way to do it. I’ve seen PLENTY of sites that have one way to contribute and it’s 10/month. And personally, I can’t afford to support dozens of sites for 10/month. I’d love to, but I just can’t. And I’m sure I’m not the only person in this situation. I “solved” this problem for myself with my one-a-month approach—and others are following—but from a purely financial standpoint, it’s a terrible solution. On a 1$ donation, the payment providers take almost 40% and I’m left with around 60c. This is obviously not ideal and the math would work a lot better if I were to set up a 12-a-year club rather than a 1-a-month one. But the point of making 1$ is to lower the friction and make it easy for the people out there to contribute. Because what we actually need is a shift in mentality. We need to accept that in order for the open, non hyper-commercial web to stay alive, we all have to do our part and we have to contribute something to it. Because running the sites you enjoy takes time and effort. And it costs money. We can’t expect everyone to do everything for free, forever. And we also can’t complain about the endless proliferation of ads and paywalls if we’re not willing to contribute even as little as 1$ ourselves.
I’m personally trying to be transparent with what I do: the amount people contribute is public on my site and I’m also listing the sites I’m personally contributing to. I don’t think it matters how much or how little we all donate because we’re all in different life circumstances but I do think it’s important to at least try to contribute something. And if you are not in a position to help the sites you like financially, try something else: take the time to email the creators and let them know that what they do matters or share the links on your own site or on social media. It all helps.
The reason why the current web sucks is because way too many people are expecting things to magically get better without doing their part. The web is a collaborative product and we all have to do our part to make it better.
<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/TpKnG3SkcwL74k20
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Burning Man tickets sold at huge losses by desperate Burners.
https://sfstandard.com/2024/08/15/burning-man-tickets-resale-low-prices/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Dems finally embrace Sources Go Direct.
https://www.oliverexplains.com/p/time-for-a-break-democrats-dont-need
Stargazing with the Beaverlab Finder TW2
date: 2024-08-17, updated: 2024-08-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Good for beginners, but a few missing features will annoy
Hands On Purveyor of optics Beaverlab has unveiled its an inexpensive telescope for wannabe star-gazers: the Finder TW2.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/17/beaverlab_finder_tw2/
2024-08-16 JSON feed for indexing
date: 2024-08-17, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-16 JSON feed for indexing
Recently, @dredmorbius wrote about Google and search and posed the question:
What if websites indexed their own content, and published a permuted index in a standard format, in a cache-and-forward model similar to how DNS works?
A while ago I wondered about self-published indexes. We have software to generate feeds. Why not software to generate indexes? Back then I proposed a JSON format. Today I finally took a look at JSON Feed. I think it has everything we need.
Take a look at the example for this site: .well-known/search-feed.json.gz. This file has about 251KiB. The source material is 6740 Markdown pages, a total of about 21MiB.
Using the next_url attribute, it would be possible to split
this file up into chunks of 100 pages each, or a chunk per year, if the
platform promises that older pages never change. This wouldn’t work for
my wiki, but perhaps it would for certain platforms.
Somebody will have write up a best-practice on how to use HTTP headers to avoid downloading the whole file when nothing has changed. Sadly, section 13 of RFC 2616 is pretty convoluted. Basically something about the use of If-Modified-Since and ETags headers.
We also need to agree on how to use some of the JSON Feed attributes.
content_text: If used, all markup should be ignored by the
server (no guessing whether the text is Markdown or not). It would be
fine if this contained just the text nodes of the HTML, separated by
spaces. This can be useful to see whether words occur in the text, how
frequent they are, etc.
content_html: This is the preferred way to include pages in
the index. It is up to the search engine provider to extract useful
information from the HTML, including summaries, extracts, scoring, etc.
It is up to index providers to provide the kind of HTML they think
serves search engines best. This includes using the semantic HTML tags
and dropping style, scripts, footers and other elements that might be
used by search engines to reduce the relevance of the item.
I also find RFC 5005 to be very instructive in how to think about feeds for archiving.
@jonny commented, saying that it was important to think about how search indexes were going to be used:
so given that no single machine would or should store a whole index of the internet or even all your local internet, you can go a few ways with that, take the global quorum sensing path and you get a bigass global dht-like thing like ipfs. if instead you think there should be some structure, then you need proximity. is that social proximity where we swap indexes between people we know? or webring like proximity dependent on pages linking to each other and mutually indexing their neighborhood?
It’s an interesting question but I think I want incremental improvements to the current situation. So if a person has a website right now, on server, what’s the simplest thing they can do so that they aren’t drowned in crawlers and can still be found via search? That would be publishing an index, analogous to publishing a feed. Having more search engines (even if using legacy centralized architecture) would be better than what we have now. Not depending on crawlers would be better what we have now.
In terms of decentralisation, I think I like community search engines like lieu. The idea is great: a community lists a bunch of sites. Lieu generates a web ring and crawls them to build an index of all the member sites. Instead of crawling, it could fetch the indexes. This would be much better than what it does right now, because right now, lieu uses colly for crawling and colly ignores robots.txt. This means that lieu instantly bans itself when it visits my site because it’s not rate limited. It’s just an implementation detail, but sadly I am biased. I’ve been on a Butlerian Jihad since 2009 when I discover that over 30% of all requests I serve from my sites are for machines, not humans.
It makes me want to raise my keyboard and scream “CO₂ for the CO₂ god!!”
Somebody should draw a Hacker Elric doing that, standing on a mountain of electro-trash with the burnt and dead landscape of the post-apocalypse in the background.
But back to the problem of indexing. Right now, search engine operators and their parasites, the search engine optimisation enterprises, crawl every single page including page histories, page diffs, and more, on my wikis. If every wanna-be search engine downloaded my index once a day, I would be saving resources. Whether that’s a step in the right direction, I don’t know.
@jonny also said:
i just think that the ability to fundamentally depart from the commercial structure of the web and all its brokenness doesn’t happen gradually and esp. not with the server/client stack we have now
Indeed, there must be another way. I just don’t see it, right now. It’s always hard to imagine a new world while you’re still living in the old one. I’m sure the solution will seem obvious to the next generation, looking back.
#Search #Feeds #Butlerian Jihad
2024-08-17. @splitbrain suggested that this was the same as the sitemaps.org concept, but I think the sitemap lists the URLs available and you still have to crawl the site. At least now you never miss a page.
Would having such an index generate too much traffic? I think it would worm if all other crawling would stop. That’s the necessary trade-off, of course. No stupid crawlers lost in my wiki admin links (history pages, diffs) wasting resources – that is my goal. Also, since I ask for a crawl delay, crawling has to reconnect all the time, negotiate TLS all the time, start up CGI scripts all the time… having basically a static snapshot for download would obviate that (in a world where crawlers are smart enough to understand that the don’t need to crawl).
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-16-json-feed-for-indexes
Paul Butler | Why We All Need Supervision
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
Each week during the summer months, Gaynor and I take Mondays off and head to a beach we’ve never visited before. We call our excursions “Summer Loving,” and we’ve truly […]
The post Paul Butler | Why We All Need Supervision appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/paul-butler-why-we-all-need-supervision-2/
Today in SCV History (Aug. 17)
date: 2024-08-17, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1925 – Newhall School Board announces meeting to determine fate of 3rd consecutive Newhall School at Lyons & Kansas Street (it was cut up and turned into homes) [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-17/
Game not over: Epic brings Fortnite back to iOS in Europe, using its own app store
date: 2024-08-17, updated: 2024-08-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
But the cost of battling Apple and Google? A hefty $1B lost in revenue
Epic Games, booted from Apple’s walled garden four years ago for crimes against App Store policy, has built its own digital store for customers in Europe.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/17/epic_games_fortnite_ios_eu/
Discarded gender and diversity books trigger new culture clash at Florida college
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
As climate change spurs more wildfires, smoke threatens farmworkers, study says
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — As wildfires scorched swaths of land in the wine country of Sonoma County in 2020, sending ash flying and choking the air with smoke, Maria Salinas harvested grapes.
Her saliva turned black from inhaling the toxins, until one day she had so much trouble breathing she was rushed to the emergency room. When she felt better, she went right back to work as the fires raged on.
“What forces us to work is necessity,” Salinas said. “We always expose ourselves to danger out of necessity, whether by fire or disaster, when the weather changes, when it’s hot or cold.”
As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, a new study shows that farmworkers are paying a heavy price by being exposed to high levels of air pollution. And in Sonoma County, the focus of the work, researchers found that a program aimed at determining when it was safe to work during wildfires did not adequately protect farmworkers.
They recommended a series of steps to safeguard the workers’ health, including air quality monitors at work sites, stricter requirements for employers, emergency plans and trainings in various languages, post-exposure health screenings and hazard pay.
Farmworkers are “experiencing first and hardest what the rest of us are just starting to understand,” Max Bell Alper, executive director of the labor coalition North Bay Jobs with Justice, said Wednesday during a webinar devoted to the research, published in July in the journal GeoHealth. “And I think in many ways that’s analogous to what’s happening all over the country. What we are experiencing in California is now happening everywhere.”
Farmworkers face immense pressure to work in dangerous conditions. Many are poor and don’t get paid unless they work. Others who are in the country illegally are more vulnerable because of limited English proficiency, lack of benefits, discrimination and exploitation. These realities make it harder for them to advocate for better working conditions and basic rights.
Researchers examined data from the 2020 Glass and LNU Lightning Complex fires in northern California’s Sonoma County, a region famous for its wine. During those blazes, many farmworkers kept working, often in evacuation zones deemed unsafe for the general population. Because smoke and ash can contaminate grapes, growers were under increasing pressure to get workers into fields.
The researchers looked at air quality data from a single AirNow monitor, operated by the Environmental Protection Agency and used to alert the public to unsafe levels, and 359 monitors from PurpleAir, which offers sensors that people can install in their homes or businesses.
From July 31 to November 6, 2020, the AirNow sensor recorded 21 days of air pollution the EPA considers unhealthy for sensitive groups and 13 days of poor air quality unhealthy for everyone. The PurpleAir monitors found 27 days of air the EPA deems unhealthy for sensitive groups and 16 days of air toxic to everyone.
And on several occasions, the smoke was worse at night. That’s an important detail because some employers asked farmworkers to work at night due in part to cooler temperatures and less concentrated smoke, said Michael Méndez, one of the researchers and an assistant professor at University of California-Irvine.
“Hundreds of farmworkers were exposed to the toxic air quality of wildfire smoke, and that could have detrimental impact to their health,” he said. “There wasn’t any post-exposure monitoring of these farmworkers.”
The researchers also examined the county’s Agricultural Pass program, which allows farmworkers and others in agriculture into mandatory evacuation areas to conduct essential activities like water or harvest crops. They found that the approval process lacked clear standards or established protocols, and that requirements of the application were little enforced. In some cases, for example, applications did not include the number of workers in worksites and didn’t have detailed worksite locations.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at the University of California-Davis who was not part of the study, said symptoms of inhaling wildfire smoke — eye irritation, coughing, sneezing and difficulty breathing — can start within just a few minutes of exposure to smoke with fine particulate matter.
Exposure to those tiny particles, which can go deep into the lungs and bloodstream, has been shown to increase the risk of numerous health conditions such as heart and lung disease, asthma and low birth weight. Its effects are compounded when extreme heat is also present. Another recent study found that inhaling tiny particulates from wildfire smoke can increase the risk of dementia.
Anayeli Guzmán, who like Salinas worked to harvest grapes during the Sonoma County fires, remembers feeling fatigue and burning in her eyes and throat from the smoke and ash. But she never went to the doctor for a post-exposure health checkup.
“We don’t have that option,” Guzmán, who has no health coverage, said in an interview. “If I go get a checkup, I’d lose a day of work or would be left to pay a medical bill.”
In the webinar, Guzman said it was “sad that vineyard owners are only worried about the grapes” that may be tainted by smoke, and not about how smoke affects workers.
A farmworker health survey report released in 2021 by the University of California-Merced and the National Agricultural Workers Survey found that fewer than 1 in 5 farmworkers have employer-based health coverage.
Hertz-Picciotto said farmworkers are essential workers because the nation’s food supply depends on them.
“From a moral point of view and a health point of view, it’s really reprehensible that the situation has gotten bad and things have not been put in place to protect farmworkers, and this paper should be really important in trying to bring that to light with real recommendations,” she said.
Deputies believe man killed by fence injury, not shots fired
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
By Lucas Nava & Habeba Mostafa Signal Staff Writers Deputies from the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station responded to a call at the 27300 block of Valle Del Oro Friday […]
The post Deputies believe man killed by fence injury, not shots fired appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/deputies-investigating-possible-shots-fired-near-via-canon/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Got nested properties working. Here this shows the resource associated with "Mesh" as being of type BoxMesh, with the material chosen, and its preview.
Now need to add support for the custom controls that Godot defines:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112975358258229343
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
And even better – here’s the RSS feed for my Threads account. This is a huge gateway for interop. I wonder how often the feed updates.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a020451
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
RSS.app can create an RSS 2.0 feed for any Threads account. Nice discovery.
https://rss.app/rss-feed/create-threads-rss-feed
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
And here’s the RSS feed. 😄
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a015336
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
And here’s the timeline for Kamalahq, via FeedLand.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a015201
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-17, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
The way I see it, if the journos are going to lie to us, why shouldn’t we listen to lies that make us feel good?
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a014946
Supreme Court keeps new rules about sex discrimination in education on hold in half of US
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday kept on hold in roughly half the country new regulations about sex discrimination in education, rejecting a Biden administration request.
The court voted 5-4, with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the three liberal justices in dissent.
At issue were protections for pregnant students and students who are parents, and the procedures schools must use in responding to sexual misconduct complaints.
The most noteworthy of the new regulations, involving protections for transgender students, were not part of the administration’s plea to the high court. They remain blocked in 25 states and hundreds of individual colleges and schools across the country because of lower court-orders.
The cases will continue in those courts.
The rules took effect elsewhere in U.S. schools and colleges on August 1.
The rights of transgender people — and especially young trans people — have become a major political battleground in recent years as trans visibility has increased. Most Republican-controlled states have banned gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, and several have adopted policies limiting which school bathrooms trans people can use and barring trans girls from some sports competitions.
In April, President Joe Biden’s administration sought to settle some of the contention with a regulation to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, the 1972 law against sex discrimination in schools that receive federal money. The rule was two years in the making and drew 240,000 responses — a record for the Education Department.
The rule declares that it’s unlawful discrimination to treat transgender students differently from their classmates, including by restricting bathroom access. It does not explicitly address sports participation, a particularly contentious topic.
Title IX enforcement remains highly unsettled. In a series of rulings, federal courts have declared that the rule cannot be enforced in most of the Republican states that sued while the litigation continues.
In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority wrote that it was declining to question the lower-court rulings that concluded that “the new definition of sex discrimination is intertwined with and affects many other provisions of the new rule.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the lower-court orders are too broad in that they “bar the government from enforcing the entire rule — including provisions that bear no apparent relationship to respondents’ alleged injuries.”
No Longer Homeless in Goleta
date: 2024-08-17, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
New permanent supportive housing debuts to a joyful crowd of officials and residents happy to finally be home.
The post No Longer Homeless in Goleta appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/16/no-longer-homeless-in-goleta/
Sheriff’s Department seeking help in locating missing hiker
date: 2024-08-17, from: The Signal
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is asking for the public’s help in locating a hiker who was reported missing in Castaic two weeks ago. Rafael Orozco Bravo, 45, was […]
The post Sheriff’s Department seeking help in locating missing hiker appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/sheriffs-department-seeking-help-in-locating-missing-hiker/
New Jersey governor’s ex-chief of staff will replace Menendez until election
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
NEWARK, New jersey — New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy tapped his former chief of staff Friday to temporarily replace convicted U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and said he would appoint whoever wins the post in November as soon as election results were certified.
Democratic Representative Andy Kim and Republican hotelier Curtis Bashaw are competing in the race. Murphy said that he spoke to both about his plans.
“I expressed to them that this approach will allow the democratically chosen winner of this year’s election to embark on the smallest possible transition into office,” Murphy said at a news conference.
Former chief of staff George Helmy promised during Friday’s announcement to resign after the election.
Helmy’s appointment underscored Murphy’s decision to not appoint Kim, who is in a strong position in the November election. Kim and first lady Tammy Murphy were locked in a primary struggle for the Senate seat earlier this year before Tammy Murphy dropped out, citing the prospects for a negative, divisive campaign.
The stakes in the Senate election are high, with Democrats holding on to a narrow majority. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Democratic-leaning New Jersey in over five decades.
Helmy’s appointment won’t take effect until after Menendez’s resignation on August 20. The governor said he picked Helmy because he understands the role after serving as an aide to New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker and former New Jersey U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Murphy also praised Helmy’s work as his top aide, and the two embraced briefly after Helmy spoke.
Helmy, 44, served as Murphy’s chief of staff from 2019 until 2023 and currently serves as an executive at one of the state’s largest health care providers, RWJBarnabas Health. He previously served as Booker’s state director in the Senate. The son of Egyptian parents who immigrated to New Jersey, Helmy attended public schools in New Jersey and then Rutgers University.
“New Jersey deserves its full voice and representation in the whole of the United States Senate,” he said.
Menendez, 70, used his influence to meddle in three different state and federal criminal investigations to protect the businessmen, prosecutors said. They said he helped one bribe-paying friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund and another keep a contract to provide religious certification for meat bound for Egypt.
He was also convicted of taking actions that benefited Egypt’s government in exchange for bribes, including providing details on personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators regarding lifting a hold on military aid to Egypt. FBI agents found stacks of gold bars and $480,000 hidden in Menendez’s house.
Menendez denied all the allegations.
“I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country,” he said after his conviction.
Menendez said in a letter to Murphy last month that he was planning to appeal the conviction but would step down on August 20, just over a month after the jury’s verdict.
Border arrests drop 33% after asylum restrictions take hold
date: 2024-08-17, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico plummeted 33% in July to the lowest level since September 2020, a result of asylum being temporarily suspended, authorities said Friday.
The Border Patrol made 56,408 arrests last month, down from 83,536 arrests in June, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, its parent agency.
Asylum was halted at the border June 5 because arrests for illegal crossings topped a threshold of 2,500 a day, though a lack of deportation flights prevents authorities from turning away everyone. U.S. authorities say arrests dropped 55% after the measure took effect, which followed a steep decline earlier this year that was widely attributed to Mexican authorities increasing enforcement within their borders.
“In July, our border security measures enhanced our ability to deliver consequences for illegal entry,” said Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner.
The numbers, which were roughly in line with preliminary estimates, may give Democrats some breathing room on an issue that has dogged them throughout Joe Biden’s presidency.
“The Biden-Harris administration has taken effective action, and the Republicans continue to do nothing,” said White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández.
More than 38,000 people were admitted at land crossings through an online appointment system called CBP One, bringing the total to more than 765,000 since it was introduced in January 2023.
More than 520,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were admitted through July under a separate policy allowing people from those four countries to apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at an airport. Permits were recently halted amid concerns about fraud by sponsors.
“[The Department of Homeland Security] is working to restart applications processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards,” CBP said in a statement.
CBP said Friday that it will expand areas where non-Mexican migrants can apply online for appointments to seek U.S. asylum on August 23 to a large swath of southern Mexico.
Migrants will be able to schedule appointments on the CBP One app from the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, extending the zone from northern and central Mexico. Mexicans can apply anywhere in the country.
The move requested by Mexico could ease the strain on the Mexican government by allowing migrants to wait for their appointments in the south farther from the U.S. border and lessen dangers for people trying to reach the U.S. border to claim asylum.
U.S. Representative Mark Green, Republican chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, criticized the Biden administration’s new and expanded legal pathways at the border.
“This administration is orchestrating a massive shell game, encouraging otherwise-inadmissible aliens to cross at ports of entry instead of between them, thereby creating a façade of improved optics for the administration, but in reality imposing a growing burden on our communities,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/border-arrests-drop-33-after-asylum-restrictions-take-hold-/7746266.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I just had an epiphany.
I have been struggling with the UI for the "Resource Picker" on the Godot inspector and to overload all the actions there.
And I think the solution is clear, make this "push" to a dedicated page where the user can pick New/Load/Quick Load/Clear instead.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112974543315267788
From Online to On-Campus, From Death Valley to Del Playa
date: 2024-08-17, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Meet incoming UC Santa Barbara student Autumn Smith.
The post From Online to On-Campus, From Death Valley to Del Playa appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/16/from-online-to-on-campus-from-death-valley-to-del-playa/
An Oasis of Tranquility in Santa Barbara
date: 2024-08-17, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Tyler x Lieu Dit tasting room is a welcome — and welcoming — addition to downtown.
The post An Oasis of Tranquility in Santa Barbara appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/16/an-oasis-of-tranquility-in-santa-barbara/
Former USAGM chief John Lansing, credited with modernizing agency, dies at 67
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
washington — John Lansing, who served as chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, died Wednesday at his lakeside home in Wisconsin at the age of 67. His cause of death was not immediately announced.
Lansing became the chief of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, known as USAGM, in 2015. The USAGM is the parent organization that oversees outlets including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.
In a written statement, USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett called Lansing “a relentless advocate for press freedom, journalist safety, and connecting people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”
While CEO of USAGM, Lansing created a committee made up of the heads of each of the agency’s networks “so we could regularly talk through the state of the world together,” Bennett said.
“John did a lot to modernize this agency,” said Bennett. “From adopting a digital-first content strategy, to enhancing internet freedom initiatives, to renaming the agency USAGM from BBG — his vision was transformative.”
While leading USAGM, Lansing stood up for press freedom.
“Despite some very dark moments, we have not been silenced,” he said on World Press Freedom Day in 2019. “We will continue to report the truth. We will continue to find new ways to get independent reporting and programming to global audiences who rely on it.”
Under Lansing’s leadership, USAGM networks increased their global weekly audience by more than 100 million. He also expanded the agency’s use of platforms ranging from encrypted live broadcasting to shortwave radio in order to push content into countries that jam or ban American programming.
While Lansing led USAGM, the agency in 2017 launched Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.
Left ‘indelible positive impact’ at NPR
Lansing stepped down from his role at USAGM in 2019. After leaving USAGM, he joined National Public Radio, where he served as chief executive until stepping down early this year.
In a statement, Lansing’s successor at NPR, CEO Katherine Maher, lauded how he understood the importance of NPR’s role in supporting American democracy.
“John had a tremendous impact on NPR’s workplace culture and led the organization through some of its most difficult times,” Maher said in the statement. “His commitment to improving NPR’s audience and staff diversity has left an indelible positive impact.”
Maher said Lansing “inspired those around him with his integrity and compassion, and his loss will be felt deeply by our staff and across the public radio system.”
Lansing led NPR throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, which began just months into his start at the news outlet. During his tenure at NPR, the outlet won more than 90 awards for its reporting, including its first Pulitzer in 2021.
Career included leading Scripps
Lansing started in journalism when he was 17 years old at a local television station in Kentucky. Later in his career, he served for nine years as president of the Scripps Networks, which oversees stations such as the Food Network and the Travel Channel.
He also served as CEO of Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, a marketing association comprised of 90 of the top U.S. and Canadian cable companies and television programmers.
Lansing is survived by his wife Jean, and their four children, Alex, Jackson, Nicholas and Jennifer.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-usagm-chief-john-lansing-dies-at-67/7745942.html
Learning to Live with Wildfire Rather than Just Fighting It
date: 2024-08-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Leaders in wildfire prevention and management discuss how adaptation and mitigation are paving the way to a more resilient future in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
The post Learning to Live with Wildfire Rather than Just Fighting It appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/16/learning-to-live-with-wildfire-rather-than-just-fighting-it/
DoD spins up supercomputer to accelerate biothreat defense
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Officials claim it’ll be able to develop defensive solutions in ‘days, if not hours’
The Pentagon’s newest toy isn’t a fancy warfighting machine – it’s a combined supercomputer and rapid response laboratory (RRL) dedicated to beefing up the US’s biodefenses.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/dod_drug_discovery_supercomputer/
Drive North to Another Portal | Sensorio’s ‘DIMENSIONS’ Light Exhibit
date: 2024-08-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Talking with the creator of the Paso Robles art destination’s latest light extravaganza.
The post Drive North to Another Portal | Sensorio’s ‘DIMENSIONS’ Light Exhibit appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-08-16, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
Y’all remember ChaCha?
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/112974129063793759
Harris Has To Decide: Senate Decorum Or Working-Class Policy
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Lever News
Harris capitulated to niceties rather than help workers — will she act differently now?
https://www.levernews.com/harris-has-to-decide-senate-decorum-or-working-class-policy/
Nvidia Sued for Scraping YouTube After 404 Media Investigation
date: 2024-08-16, from: 404 Media Group
David Millette, a YouTube creator, filed a class action lawsuit against Nvidia citing “unjust enrichment and unfair competition” for how the company built its training data for the “Cosmos” project video model.
https://www.404media.co/nvidia-sued-for-scraping-youtube-after-404-media-investigation/
NASA-Designed Greenhouse Gas-Detection Instrument Launches
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
Developed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the imaging spectrometer will provide actionable data to help reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. Tanager-1, the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s first satellite, which carries a state-of-the-art, NASA-designed greenhouse-gas-tracking instrument, is in Earth orbit after lifting off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E […]
Are We Allowed To Ask What President Harris Would Do?
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Lever News
Harris is only now starting to leak details of her policy agenda — but do voters even care?
https://www.levernews.com/are-we-allowed-to-ask-what-president-harris-would-do/
This Week in the IndieWeb
date: 2024-08-16, from: This week in Indie Web
August 9-16, 2024
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
Upcoming Events
From events.indieweb.org:
- PORTLAND, Oregon: TBD
A one day IndieWebCamp Portland 2024 is planned for August 25th, the day after the XOXO conference and festival, pending confirmation of a venue! If you’re in Portland and have a suggested venue please get in touch via the IndieWeb chat!
Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to learn from each other about how to make code do what we want.
Come prepared to teach and learn!
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
New Community Members
From IndieWeb Wiki: New User Pages:
User:Benharri.org
Ben Harris (photo) Pronouns: he/him I write code and do stuff on the internet. Pinball and IRC nerd. https://benharri.org/ Chat Nickname: ben Contact: mail@benharr.is
Created by Benharri.org on Thursday and edited 6 more times
User:Fab@redterminal.org
Created by Fab@redterminal.org on Tuesday and edited 3 more times
New Event Notes
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
Homebrew Website Club - Pacific: 2024-08-14
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London: 2024-08-14
Homebrew Website Club Nürnberg: 2024-08-14
Top Edited Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: Recent Changes:
- indieweb-carnival 4 edits by www.maxwelljoslyn.com and yabozdar.com
- link prefetching 3 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- silo-quits 3 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- chat-names 2 edits by benharri.org
- Bluesky 2 edits by benharri.org
- Mastodon 2 edits by benharri.org
- Planning 2 edits by martymcgui.re and www.ciccarello.me
- webmention.io 2 edits by fab@redterminal.org
- navigation 2 edits by tantek.com and loqi.me
- slop 2 edits by loqi.me
https://indieweb.org/this-week/2024-08-16.html
Real Climate Plans Don’t Give Big Oil a Free Pass
date: 2024-08-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
According to scientists, the next few years are critical ones for climate action. Local Climate Action Plans should be real ones that meaningfully contribute to California’s goals.
The post Real Climate Plans Don’t Give Big Oil a Free Pass appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/16/real-climate-plans-dont-give-big-oil-a-free-pass/
Rare Plant of the Month: Tahquitz ivesia
date: 2024-08-16, from: California Native Plants Society
Rare plant of the month, Tahquitz ivesia (Ivesia callida), was once thought extinct but now lives on the steep cliffs of the San Jacinto Mountains.
The post Rare Plant of the Month: Tahquitz ivesia appeared first on California Native Plant Society.
https://www.cnps.org/rare-plants/rare-plant-of-the-month-tahquitz-ivesia-ivesia-callida-39948
😜 #213 - Resisting Toxic Normalcy
date: 2024-08-16, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
Who gets to decide what normal is?
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/213-resisting-toxic-normalcy
California trims AI safety bill amid fears of tech exodus
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
And as Anthropic boss reckons there’s ‘a good chance … we’ll be able to get models that are better than most humans at most things’
Legislation to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) software in California has been revised in response to industry discontent with the bill, which awaits a State Assembly vote later this month.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/california_ai_safety_bill/
COVID-19 cases in US surge; experts
suggest keeping vaccinations current
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-on-the-upswing-in-the-us-/7745907.html
The Apple IIGS megahertz myth
date: 2024-08-16, from: OS News
A story you hear all the time about the Apple IIGS is that Apple purposefully underclocked or limited its processor in some way to protect the nascent Macintosh, and ensure the IIGS, which could build upon the vast installed base of Apple II computers, would not outcompete the Macintosh. I, too, have always assumed this was a real story – or at least, a story with a solid kernel of truth – but Dan Vincent decided to actually properly research this claim, and his findings tell an entirely different story. His research is excellent – and must have been incredibly time-consuming – and his findings paint a much different story than Apple intentionally holding the IIGS back. The actual issue lied with the production of the 65816 processor that formed the beating heart of the IIGS. It turns out that the 65816 had serious problems with yields, was incredibly difficult to scale, and had a ton of bugs and issues when running at higher speeds. What a ride, huh? Thanks for making it this far down a fifty-plus minute rabbit hole. I can’t claim that this is the final take on the subject—so many of the players aren’t on the record, but I’m pretty confident in saying that Apple did not artificially limit the IIGS’ clock speed during its development for marketing purposes. Now, I’m not a fool—I know Apple didn’t push the IIGS as hard as it could, and it was very much neglected towards the end of its run. If the REP/SEP flaws hadn’t existed and GTE could’ve shipped stable 4MHz chips in volume, I’m sure Apple would’ve clocked them as fast as possible in 1986. ↫ Dan Vincent Promise me you’ll read this article before the weekend’s over. It’s a long one, but it’s well-written and a joy to read. You’ll also run into Tony Fadell – the creator of the iPod – somewhere in the story, as well as a public shouting match, and an almost fistfight, between the creator of the 65816 and Jean-Louis Gassée during San Francisco AppleFest in September 1989, right after Gassée placed the blame for the lack of a faster IIGS on the 65816’s design. This is an evergreen article.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140515/the-apple-iigs-megahertz-myth/
OpenAI blocks Iranian group from ChatGPT, says it targeted US election
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
The Macroeconomics of Space Symposium
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
Join OTPS and NASA’s Agency Chief Economist at the Macroeconomics of Space Symposium on September 5, 2024
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/otps/the-macroeconomics-of-space-symposium/
After nearly 3B personal records leak online, Florida data broker confirms it was ransacked by cyber-thieves
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, more all out there
A Florida firm has all but confirmed that millions of people’s sensitive personal info was stolen from it by cybercriminals and publicly leaked.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/national_public_data_theft/
Harris, Trump duel on inflation, taxes
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump laid out their economic visions for the country this week, promising to rein in inflation and slash federal taxes on workers’ tips. While both ideas are popular with voters ahead of the November presidential election, experts say they are not so easy to implement. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/harris-trump-duel-on-inflation-taxes-/7745882.html
Texas Instruments calculates its US CHIPS Act winnings at $1.6B
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Another $3B in loans also on the table to support $18B foundry enlargement
Texas Instruments is set to receive up to $1.6 billion and as much as $3 billion in loans from good-old Uncle Sam under the CHIPS and Science Act, the US Commerce Department announced on Friday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/ti_chips_act/
What’s Everyone Reading These Days?
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/whats-everyone-reading-these-days
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
A few minutes later, the feed is in my blogroll. 😄
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a200756
Amateur Sleuth Identifies the Mystery Women in a Museum’s Fabergé Frames
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The portraits were on display at a museum in England, where staffers had been wondering about the two subjects for years
Unicoin hints at potential data meddling after G-Suite compromise
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Attacker locked out all staff for four days
The cryptocurrency offshoot of reality TV and entrepreneurship show Unicorn Hunters has confirmed that an unknown attacker compromised its G-Suite, locking all staff out of their accounts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/unicoin_gsuite_compromise/
Weight Loss and Diabetes Drug Could Slow Alzheimer’s Progression, Preliminary Study Suggests
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In a year-long trial, people who received a daily injection of liraglutide showed an 18 percent lower cognitive decline than people who received a placebo
Rescuers at the Ready at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
If there’s an emergency at the launch pad during a launch countdown, there’s a special team engineers at Kennedy Space Center teams can call on – the Pad Rescue team. Trained to quickly rescue personnel at the launch pad and take them to safety in the event of an unlikely emergency, NASA’s Pad Rescue team at […]
Biden signs order to establish 1908 Springfield race riot monument
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday designated a national monument at the site of the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, a seminal moment in the United States’ long and difficult history with racial violence targeting Black people.
Biden was joined in the Oval Office by lawmakers as well as civil rights and community leaders as he signed the proclamation establishing the monument on 1.57 acres of federal land. The monument is intended to be a solemn reminder of the two-day riot sparked by mobs of white residents tearing through Illinois’ capital city under the pretext of meting out judgment against two Black men — one jailed on a sexual assault charge involving a white woman, and the other jailed in the separate murder of a white man.
The Democratic president’s effort to establish the monument comes as he looks to burnish his legacy in his final months in office. Biden is also looking to help Vice President Kamala Harris contrast herself with former President Donald Trump, who is aiming to cut into Democrats’ historic edge with Black voters.
“We can’t let these things fade,” Biden said before signing the proclamation. He added, “I know this may not seem significant to most Americans, but it’s of great significance. … It can happen again if we don’t take care of and fight for our democracy.”
The issue of racial violence continues to reverberate throughout the country. The monument designation was announced less than six weeks after the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by a white sheriff’s deputy in her Springfield home after she called 911 for help.
Biden said he saw the establishment of the Springfield monument as an opportunity to recognize a significant moment of the Black community’s resilience. The event helped spur the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Still, Biden, who has repeatedly criticized Trump for sowing racial discord and failing to speak out against white supremacy, expressed concern in his Oval Office remarks that the country is at a moment where he continues “worrying about people wanting to erase history.”
The 1908 riot was a chilling episode that started just blocks from where Abraham Lincoln had once lived.
After authorities secretly moved the prisoners from the jail and sent them to another lockup about 60 miles away, the mob took out their anger on the city’s Black population.
Two Black men, Scott Burton and William Donnegan, were lynched, dozens of Black-owned and Jewish-owned businesses were looted and vandalized, and several Black-owned homes were damaged or destroyed. At least eight white people were also killed in the violence, and more than 100 were injured, mostly by members of the state’s militia or one another, according to news articles from that period.
The National Guard was called in to restore order. White rioters were charged but later acquitted for their roles in the lynching and destruction.
Fed-up civil rights leaders met in New York and chose the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, 1909, to form the NAACP, whose original board included scholar W.E.B. Du Bois.
The National Park Service in 2018 completed a reconnaissance survey of sites associated with the Springfield riot and a special resource study in 2023 that found the sites met the criteria for inclusion in the National Park System.
“Good things can come out of bad things as long as you don’t forget what happened,” said Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who was on hand for the signing.
Over the course of his presidency, Biden has signed into law legislation codifying lynching as a federal hate crime, established Juneteenth as a federal holiday, and signed a proclamation establishing a national monument across three sites in Illinois and Mississippi honoring Emmett Till, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
The 14-year-old Emmett was tortured and killed in 1955 after he had been accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. His mother, Till-Mobley, insisted on an open casket at the funeral to show the world how her son had been brutalized. Jet magazine’s decision to publish photos of his mutilated body helped galvanize the Civil Rights Movement.
Rings and Things
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is situated in the Perseus Cluster, also known as Abell 426, 320 million light-years from Earth. It’s a barred spiral galaxy known as MCG+07-07-072, seen here among a number of photobombing stars that are much closer to Earth than it is. MCG+07-07-072 has quite an unusual shape for a spiral galaxy, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/rings-and-things/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
When was the last time the owner of the NYT did a press conference?
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a192502
How Are Calories in Food Really Measured?
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/how-are-calories-in-food-really-measured
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I’m looking for an RSS feed for Kamalahq.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a192133
Keck workers begin strike authorization vote
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Voting began Thursday morning and ends on Aug. 21.
The post Keck workers begin strike authorization vote appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/16/keck-workers-begin-strike-authorization-vote/
Community-Driven Recovery: The Lahaina Wildfires a Year Later
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: RAND blog
Lahaina can benefit tremendously from a community-driven approach to identifying recovery needs. This involves working closely with survivors themselves to understand their housing, health, economic, social, and other needs.
Former Nevada official stands trial for murder of investigative journalist
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
Washington — As the trial into the murder of a Las Vegas investigative journalist got underway this week, defense attorney Robert Draskovich argued in court that “killing a journalist does not kill a story.”
The statement came on the opening day of the trial against Robert Telles. The 47-year-old former Clark County public administrator is accused of murder with a deadly weapon against a victim aged 60 or older.
The victim is Jeff German, a 69-year-old reporter at The Las Vegas Review-Journal, who was found stabbed to death outside his suburban Las Vegas, Nevada, home on September 3, 2022.
Telles has pleaded not guilty.
German had reported on alleged mismanagement in Telles’ office. When Telles later lost a reelection bid in 2022, he posted a letter online in which he attacked the Review-Journal for its coverage.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors outlined what they have previously said is “overwhelming” evidence against Telles, including that the former public administrator had downloaded images of German’s house onto his work computer and had done research on German’s car. Prosecutors have also previously said that DNA matching that of Telles was found beneath German’s fingernails and on his hands.
“In the end, this case isn’t about politics. It’s not about alleged inappropriate relationships. It’s not about who’s a good boss or who’s a good supervisor or favoritism at work,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly said. “It’s just about murder.”
As part of the defense’s argument, Telles’ attorney said that his client did not have a motive to kill German because “killing a journalist does not kill a story.”
Multiple press freedom experts told VOA that line of reasoning stood out to them as shocking — including because it’s factually incorrect, they said.
“That’s absurd. It’s a little preposterous,” Kirstin McCudden, vice president of editorial for Freedom of the Press Foundation, told VOA. “Killing a journalist kills stories. It kills stories every day, all over the world, and it certainly has a chilling effect on any journalist who wants to hold powerful people to account.”
Other press freedom experts agreed.
“It makes no sense. Very often the death of a journalist is the death of a story. No one knows what additional reporting Jeff German could have done if he were still alive,” Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. bureau of Reporters Without Borders, told VOA in an email.
In the first week of the trial, three of German’s neighbors testified, including the man who first found German’s body. Other witnesses included detectives, a medical examiner and former associates of the defendant.
Based on surveillance footage, former Metropolitan Police Department homicide detective Cliff Mogg testified that he believed Telles’ vehicle, a maroon Yukon Denali, “was the one used in the commission of Jeffrey German’s murder.”
After German’s killing, police publicized images of the suspect walking on a sidewalk near the reporter’s home and the Denali car driving away.
Real estate agent Zackary Schilling, who helped sell homes through the public administrator’s office and first met Telles in 2020, testified that he recognized the suspect’s walk, his shoes and the vehicle.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hamner asked, “Who was the person you were thinking of?”
“I was thinking of Mr. Telles,” Schilling said. When asked about the suspect’s shoes, Schilling said, “They’re the cheap Nikes he always wore.”
Schilling also testified that he knew about the stories German had written about Telles and that he saw images published in the media of the suspect’s vehicle.
“It just came down my spine,” Schilling said. “I was like holy crap. I didn’t want to believe it, but the facts are the facts. That was Rob Telles’ car.”
The case is the first in U.S. history in which an elected official is accused of murdering an American journalist.
“Understanding that this is believed to be a crime about the work that he was doing is incredibly chilling and scary for journalists,” said McCudden, who is based in New York.
Journalist killings are rare in the United States. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, in New York, 17 journalists and media workers have been killed in the U.S. since the watchdog started keeping records in 1992. Of those, the CPJ has said it believes 15 cases — including German’s — were in relation to the journalist’s work.
And while impunity is high globally — journalist murders go unpunished in nearly 80% of cases around the world, according to the CPJ — pending a verdict in the German case, no journalist murder in the United States that has gone entirely unpunished since the group started keeping track.
Accountability in these cases is especially important because it sends the message that targeting journalists is unacceptable, according to Katherine Jacobsen, the U.S. and Canada program coordinator at the CPJ. Attacks against journalists can also have a chilling effect on other reporters, she said.
“Because of that public face that many journalists have, killing them does have a ripple effect throughout the community,” she told VOA.
ONEXGPU 2 graphics dock features Radeon RX 7800M GPU
date: 2024-08-16, from: Liliputing
A bunch of Chinese PC makers have launched compact GPU docks recently that are designed to bring better graphics performance to laptops, handhelds, and mini PCs. But so far most, like the AYANEO AG01, BoostR, GPD G1, MINISFORUM R3GAF, and ONEXGPU all have the same AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT GPU inside. Now One Netbook […]
The post ONEXGPU 2 graphics dock features Radeon RX 7800M GPU appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/onexgpu-2-graphics-dock-features-radeon-rx-7800m-gpu/
It Is Finally, Possibly, Almost Time for Fusion
date: 2024-08-16, from: Heatmap News
There’s a reason they call a seemingly impossible technological reach a “moonshot.” Over the years, the term has been used to refer to virtual reality, self-driving cars, and biometric identification such as DNA fingerprinting. Now, it’s fusion’s turn.
“Where we are on fusion is kind of where we were on getting to the moon when Kennedy gave his speech,” Phil Larochelle, a founding partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures who leads its fusion investment strategy, told me, referencing John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech about putting a man on the moon by 1970. “Did they have any idea how they were going to make a guidance computer that was actually going to get on the moon? No. Did they have the rockets that they needed that were strong enough to get to the moon? No. And so it’s kind of like that in fusion.”
There have already been some high-profile milestones over the past few years. Toward the end of 2022, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab beat breakeven, creating a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to heat up the fusion plasma. Or when the startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a.k.a. CFS, announced that it had developed a new type of extremely powerful magnet to better contain and control superheated plasma. Now, startups and investors think the next decade will be critical for commercialization.
“When we started BEV, we kind of assumed that fusion was going to be too far off,” said Larochelle. But after talking with CFS and learning more about the company’s magnet tech, minds changed. Breakthrough invested in the company — and eventually three other fusion startups, too. “These better magnets matter a lot,” Larochelle told me. “It matters as much as the transistor did to a computer. It’s that level of component level breakthrough that totally changes the game.”
For the ordinary optimist, fusion energy might invoke a cheerful Jetsons-style future of flying cars and interplanetary colonization. For the cynic, it’s a world-changing moment that’s perpetually 30 years away. But investors, nuclear engineers, and physicists see it as a technology edging ever closer to commercialization and a bipartisan pathway towards both energy security and decarbonization.
To some extent at least, the data backs them up. According to the Fusion Industry Association, over 60% of all private fusion companies were founded in 2019 or later. And in the past three years alone, fusion companies have brought in over $5.1 billion, over 70% of the sector’s total funding since 1992.
“We would hope to see a breakeven moment by private companies in the next two to three years, by 2028-ish,” followed by a commercial reactor in the mid-2030s, Julien Barber, an investor at Emerson Collective, told me. Thus far, Emerson, which is headed by Laurene Powell Jobs, has invested in two fusion companies, CFS and Xcimer Energy.
The major players in the startup ecosystem say they’re on track to get there. “The progress has actually been faster than Moore’s law,” Ally Yost, senior vice president of corporate development at CFS, told me, “but people weren’t looking at that.”
Moore’s law is a prediction — largely validated for decades — that the number of transistors on a microchip, and thus a computer’s processing speed, would generally double every two years. The performance of fusion reactors, especially the donut-shaped tokamak reactors that CFS uses, has historically improved at an even faster rate. But due to some midcentury researchers and technology enthusiasts overpromising on the near-term feasibility of fusion, cynicism remains. It also doesn’t help that the large, intergovernmental fusion megaproject known as ITER has consistently faced delays and huge cost overruns due to the technical complexity of the project, as well as the difficulty of wrangling 35 countries to work together.
Thus far, though, the private sector is faring better. CFS has raised over $2 billion, more than any other private company in the space. It uses an approach known as magnetic confinement fusion, which involves using strong magnets to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. If you can keep the plasma dense enough and hot enough for long enough, atoms start fusing together, releasing a vast amount of energy in the process. ITER, as well as startups including Type One Energy, Thea Energy, and Renaissance Fusion are pursuing the same fundamental route, though with their own technical twists.
Lawrence Livermore, on the other hand, achieved its breakthrough fusion reaction (which it’s since repeated several times) using an approach known as inertial confinement, in which powerful lasers fire at a pellet of fusion fuel, causing rapid compression and heating that leads to nuclear fusion. But the national lab is not aiming to create a commercial reactor. So when the founders of the startup Xcimer Energy saw that the National Ignition Facility was closing in on its goal, they jumped to get inertial confinement tech ready for market.
“In August of 2021, NIF achieved a fusion gain of about 0.6,” Xcimer’s President and CTO, Alexander Valys, told me, referring to the ratio of the energy generated by the fusion reaction to the energy required to heat the fusion plasma. An energy gain of one constitutes breakeven, so the moment didn’t get any mainstream press to speak of. “But inside the field, everyone knew that the previous NIF shot record was effectively a gain of like 0.01,” Valys said. The massive jump indicated to him that, “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.” Since then Xcimer has gotten backing from the biggest names in the space, including BEV, Lowercarbon Capital, and Emerson Collective, as it looks to build lasers at lower cost and higher power.
One thing that ties fusion’s various technical approaches together is the fact that they’ve all benefited tremendously from advances in supercomputing, which allows researchers to better model plasma physics and rapidly simulate fusion experiments. “It’s really taken the advent of modern computational methods and supercomputers to be able to model that process with sufficient accuracy, that you can actually develop a machine that recreates those conditions,” Christofer Mowry, CEO of the magnetic confinement startup Type One Energy, told me.
At this point, many leading companies say that the problem is no longer about basic science, but cost. Clea Kolster, head of science at Lowercarbon Capital, told me that once CFS turns on its demonstration reactor, the company knows its fusion gain will be “at least greater than two.” (Lowercarbon is a CFS investor.) That said, there’s still loads of uncertainty around the reactor’s performance, as outside studies project that its energy gain will be more like 11 — although even that might not be enough for it to make economic sense.
So while the economics of fusion are a large part of what venture capitalists are betting on these days, private investment in the industry has actually fallen over the past two years, after peaking in 2022 at $2.8 billion. “A step change in growth will be required once private companies deliver results on their prototype machines,” Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association, said in a statement, adding that last year’s $900 million in funding “will not be enough to deliver fusion’s ambitious goals.”
To date, government funding has comprised a mere 6% of the industry’s total, but contra the private funding trend, that figure has been ticking up as of late. Last year, the Department of Energy announced $46 million in funding for eight private fusion companies to help the administration reach its goal of demonstrating fusion at pilot scale within a decade.
All the companies I spoke with were awardees, and all agreed that much more would be needed, pointing to the public-private partnership between NASA and SpaceX as a model for how the government could more deeply support commercialization of fusion. That partnership was the product of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, designed to catalyze the development of private spacecraft and funded to the tune of $800 million.
China, meanwhile, is outspending the U.S. on fusion, just as it’s done with solar, and launched a national fusion consortium at the beginning of this year.
“We are about to harness the sun a second time, and we can’t make that mistake again. We have to get serious about building this industry here in the United States,” Clay Dumas, a partner at Lowercarbon Capital, told me. The firm has a dedicated $250 million fusion fund, and has invested in a total of eight companies in the space, spanning a wide array of technical approaches. “That is going to take the combined efforts of investors and entrepreneurs and policymakers and energy companies and governments to make sure that we can drive this forward on the timeframe that it needs to happen.”
https://heatmap.news/technology/fusion
@Robert’s feed at BlueSky (date: 2024-08-16, from: Robert’s feed at BlueSky)
Thought Alex’s post, https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-16-json-feed-for-indexes was interesting. It’s something I thought about before. With tools like PageFind and early work lke Oliver Nightengale’s Lunr this seems ripe to explore.
https://bsky.app/profile/rsdoiel.bsky.social/post/3kzua5khapq2t
Ace drone video by Turkish photographer İbrahim Şimşek. “The wheat is laid…
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045133-ace-drone-video-by-turkis
Epic Games Store goes mobile, brings Fortnite and other games to iPhones (in the EU) and Android (around the world)
date: 2024-08-16, from: Liliputing
Six years ago Epic Games launched mobile versions of popular game Fortnite for Android and iOS. And two years later the company intentionally violated the rules for Apple and Google’s mobile app stores by offering an alternate payment method. Both Apple and Google kicked Fortnite out of their respective app stores, and a long-running legal […]
The post Epic Games Store goes mobile, brings Fortnite and other games to iPhones (in the EU) and Android (around the world) appeared first on Liliputing.
Asteroid That Ended the Dinosaurs Came From Beyond Jupiter, Study Finds
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Metal isotopes delivered to Earth by the asteroid reveal it’s consistent with space rocks formed in the outer solar system
Appeals court rejects challenge to California’s vote-by-mail system
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Signal
By Zachary Stieber Contributing Writer A U.S. appeals court on Thursday turned away a challenge to California’s vote-by-mail laws. Even though some invalid ballots may be counted in California under the […]
The post Appeals court rejects challenge to California’s vote-by-mail system appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/appeals-court-rejects-challenge-to-californias-vote-by-mail-system/
Aug. 28: Youth Grove Evening of Remembrance
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The annual Evening of Remembrance will take place on Wednesday, Aug,23 at 7:15 p.m., in the Santa Clarita Youth Grove at Central Park in Saugus.
https://scvnews.com/aug-28-youth-grove-evening-of-remembrance/
Harris campaign agrees to 2 debates after Trump proposes 3
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Signal
By Tom Ozimek Contributing Writer Vice President Kamala Harris is prepared to hold no more than two debates against former President Donald Trump — one is the previously agreed to Sept. […]
The post Harris campaign agrees to 2 debates after Trump proposes 3 appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/harris-campaign-agrees-to-2-debates-after-trump-proposes-3/
Catching up with artist Kymberlee Stanley
date: 2024-08-16, from: Catalina Islander
Former Catalina resident and lifelong visitor to the island, Kymberlee Stanley, had one of her paintings chosen by the Catalina Art Festival for this year’s 65th Annual Catalina Island Festival of Art. The event is scheduled for September 20-22 and Stanley and her family recently spent a month or so on the island. Kymberlee was […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/catching-up-with-artist-kymberlee-stanley/
Ancient Prisoners Carved Graffiti Into the Floors of a Roman-Era Prison
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
An archaeologist has identified vengeful inscriptions etched into a 1,600-year-old prison in Greece
Avalon junior golfers compete at Irvine tournament
date: 2024-08-16, from: Catalina Islander
By Bill Sewell Two of our local junior golfers, Jose Pedroza and Aaron Meza recently competed in a Southern California Section Professional Golfers’ Association of America Junior Tour event at Rancho San Joaquin Golf Course in Irvine. Both boys played well and did a fine job representing Avalon. The tournament staff were pleasantly surprised and […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-junior-golfers-compete-at-irvine-tournament/
Artificial General Intelligence Might Be Humanity’s Last Invention
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/artificial-general-intelligence-might-be-humanitys-last-invention
Construction to Begin on Vista Canyon Bridge in Canyon Country
date: 2024-08-16, from: City of Santa Clarita
The City of Santa Clarita is announcing the start of construction on the Vista Canyon Bridge and Road Improvements Project in Canyon Country. This project is an integral component of the Santa Clarita 2025 Strategic Plan, focused on building and creating community. The Vista Canyon Bridge and Road Improvements Project includes the construction of a two-lane bridge approximately 780 […]
The post Construction to Begin on Vista Canyon Bridge in Canyon Country appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
NASA-Funded Research Institute Selects New Class of Space Health Fellows
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
The NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) announced its selections for the institute’s 2024 postdoctoral fellowship, a space health program intended to launch the careers of a new generation of researchers tackling various challenges involved with human space exploration. The program supports early-career scientists pursuing research with the potential to reduce the health […]
Santa Clarita receives investment policy certificate
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Signal
News release For the 30th year in a row, the city of Santa Clarita has received an Investment Policy Certificate of Excellence Award from the Association of Public Treasurers of […]
The post Santa Clarita receives investment policy certificate appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/santa-clarita-receives-investment-policy-certificate/
Avalon Awards reverse vending machine contract
date: 2024-08-16, from: Catalina Islander
The council last week unanimously awarded a contract to Olyns Inc. to provide the city with a reverse vending machine. The maximum cost: $35,000. Reverse vending machines are “defined as machines that pay customers for beverage containers placed in the machine,” according to CalRecycle.com. Discussion During the council meeting, Assistant City Manager Jocelyn Francis said […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-awards-reverse-vending-machine-contract/
Sheriff’s Log: Aug. 8 to Aug. 14, 2024
date: 2024-08-16, from: Catalina Islander
The following is the Avalon’s Sheriff’s Stations significant incidents report for the period of Aug. 8 to Aug. 14, 2024. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Many people who are arrested do not get prosecuted in the first place and many who are prosecuted do not get convicted. […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/sheriffs-log-aug-8-to-aug-14-2024/
CHP arrests driver after crash investigation
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Signal
California Highway Patrol officers arrested a man Wednesday night following a close call on San Francisquito Canyon Road in Saugus. The CHP Newhall Area Office began receiving calls around 8:35 […]
The post CHP arrests driver after crash investigation appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/chp-arrests-driver-after-crash-investigation/
Pentagon leaker Teixeira arraigned on military charges ahead of March trial
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Massachusetts — Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard accused of leaking classified U.S. national security documents online, was arraigned Friday on charges brought by the U.S. Air Force that he violated military laws.
During a brief appearance before a military judge at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, 22-year-old Teixeira deferred entering a plea to charges that he obstructed justice and failed to obey a lawful order until closer to when his court-martial trial is scheduled to begin on March 10.
The Air Force announced in May it was pursuing charges that he violated military laws after Teixeira had already pleaded guilty in March to separate charges in federal court brought by the U.S. Justice Department.
Air Force prosecutors say Teixeira ignored an order to cease accessing classified information unrelated to his duties and obstructed justice by disposing of an iPad, computer hard drive and iPhone after the leaks were uncovered and instructing someone to delete online messages Teixeira had sent.
Military Judge Colonel Vicki Marcus at Friday’s hearing said she would hold hearings in November and January where she would address any pre-trial motions from defense lawyers. They have argued the charges were brought in violation of Teixeira’s constitutional right to not be prosecuted twice for the same offense.
Teixeira was arrested in April 2013 after authorities said he carried out one of the most serious U.S. national security breaches in years while working as a cyber defense operations journeyman, or information technology support specialist.
Despite being a low-level airman, Teixeira held a top-secret security clearance, and starting in January 2022 began accessing hundreds of classified documents related to topics including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to prosecutors.
Teixeira shared classified information on the messaging app Discord in private servers — a kind of chat room — while bragging that he had access to “stuff for Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iran and China,” according to prosecutors.
The U.S. Justice Department plans to seek a sentence of more than 16 years when Teixeira is sentenced on November 12.
Margaret G. Hall Scholarship Golf Tournament returns
date: 2024-08-16, from: Catalina Islander
For the past 17 years the Hall family has organized a golf tournament at the Catalina Island Golf Course to raise money for a scholarship given to a senior basketball player who plans on continuing their education in either college or a trade school. Tournament organizers announced that this year’s recipient is Darren Hall. Darren […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/margaret-g-hall-scholarship-golf-tournament-returns/
A website for taking selfies using NYC traffic cameras. “People can then…
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045131-a-website-for-taking-self
Windows 11 Insider preview brings new Sandbox features and fatter FAT32
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Arrives in the Canary Channel and updated via the Microsoft Store
Build 27686 of Windows 11 is out for Canary Channel Windows Insiders including the Sandbox Client preview, a fix for a potentially alarming registry issue and a warning for owners of Copilot+ PCs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/microsoft_windows_sandbox_preview/
Burglary suspect arrested at gunpoint in Newhall
date: 2024-08-16, from: The Signal
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies took a burglary suspect into custody at gunpoint Friday morning in Newhall, sheriff’s officials said. According to Lt. Luis Molina of the Santa Clarita Valley […]
The post Burglary suspect arrested at gunpoint in Newhall appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/burglary-suspect-arrested-at-gunpoint-in-newhall/
Friday Links: August 16, 2024
date: 2024-08-16, from: California Native Plants Society
Can native plants make LA ready for the Olympics? Also find out about the soul of soil, giant saguaros, fern nectaries, and more!
The post Friday Links: August 16, 2024 appeared first on California Native Plant Society.
https://www.cnps.org/friday-links/friday-links-august-16-2024-39931
Featured Friday: Back to School
date: 2024-08-16, from: John August blog
Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week. This week, it’s back to school! We look at stories that articulate the excitement and ease the pain of starting another academic year. Our collection includes: 10 Things I Hate About You by Karen McCullah Lutz […] The post Featured Friday: Back to School first appeared on John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/featured-friday-back-to-school
Jamelle Bouie: “If Democrats win control of Washington in November, they should…
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045130-jamelle-bouie-if-democrat
Rare Ocelot Caught on Camera in Arizona, the First Sighting in Its Area for 50 Years
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Ocelots were federally listed as endangered in 1972, and their current U.S. population is thought to be fewer than 100 individuals
Radxa ROCK E20C is a tiny 2.6 inch PC with a RK3528A chip and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for $25 and up
date: 2024-08-16, from: Liliputing
The Radxa ROCK E20C is a palm-sized computer designed for use as a router, firewall, or other simple applications. It features two Gigabit Ethernet ports, support for up to 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB of eMMC flash storage, a microSD card reader for removable storage, and a few USB ports for power, data, and debugging. It’s […]
The post Radxa ROCK E20C is a tiny 2.6 inch PC with a RK3528A chip and two Gigabit Ethernet ports for $25 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
Behind the Blog: Lost in Translation
date: 2024-08-16, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss LLMs and languages, and a big data breach.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-lost-in-translation/
Hopefulness Is the Warrior Emotion
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/hopefulness-is-the-warrior-emotion
Art Dealer Arrested for Trying to Sell a Fake Leonardo da Vinci for $1.4 Million
date: 2024-08-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
French customs officers seized the imitation when they discovered the man’s export license had expired
Shots fired as AT&T and Verizon ask FCC to block Starlink’s direct-to-cell plans
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Rivals claim signal waiver would interfere with terrestrial networks
Starlink’s rivals in the satellite phone service race are asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject its request for a waiver relating to out-of-band emission limits on signals, claiming this would cause interference with terrestrial cell networks.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/att_verizon_starlink/
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
Feature requests for Threads.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a151423
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
‘Fridgescaping’ Is the Trend That Has People Decorating the Inside of Their Fridges.
https://www.foodandwine.com/fridgescaping-trend-8685640
Not a joke: The Onion is bringing back its monthly print newspaper….
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045129-not-a-joke-the-onion
Kansas Students to Hear from NASA Astronauts Aboard Station
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
Students from Topeka, Kansas, will have the opportunity Wednesday, Aug. 21, to have NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Tracy C. Dyson answer their prerecorded questions aboard the International Space Station. The 20-minute space-to-Earth call with students from Mose J. Whitson Elementary, Most Pure Heart Catholic School, and Aviation Explorers Post 8, will stream live at […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/kansas-students-to-hear-from-nasa-astronauts-aboard-station/
The embroiled battle over nursing home staffing minimums
date: 2024-08-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A landmark federal staffing mandate has prompted fierce disagreement between resident advocates and the nursing home industry. Nursing home owners describe the minimums as extreme, warning they could force some facilities out of business. Though advocates welcomed the new mandate, they say it’s more lenient than ideal. We hear about this fierce — and personal — debate. Plus: a major Social Security number data breach and parsing more retail sales data.
Can you hack our new chip?
date: 2024-08-16, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
We think RP2350 is pretty safe and sturdy. Care to test that theory?
The post Can you hack our new chip? appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/can-you-hack-our-new-chip/
San Sebastián, Spain
date: 2024-08-16, from: mrusme blog
“San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, 20 km (12 miles) from the France–Spain border. The capital city of the province of Gipuzkoa, the municipality’s population is 188,102 as of 2021, with its metropolitan area reaching 436,500 in 2010. Locals call themselves donostiarra (singular), both in Spanish and Basque. It is also a part of Basque Eurocity Bayonne-San Sebastián.”
https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/travel/spain/san-sebastian/
US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — As students return to colleges across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza, and some schools are adopting rules to limit the kind of protests that swept campuses last spring.
While the summer break provided a respite in student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war, it also gave both student protesters and higher education officials a chance to regroup and strategize for the fall semester.
The stakes remain high. At Columbia University, President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after coming under heavy scrutiny for her handling of the demonstrations at the campus in New York City, where the wave of pro-Palestinian tent encampments began last spring.
Some of the new rules imposed by universities include banning encampments, limiting the duration of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated spaces and restricting campus access to those with university identification. Critics say some of the measures will curtail free speech.
The American Association of University Professors issued a statement Wednesday condemning “overly restrictive policies” that could discourage free expression. Many of the new policies require protesters to register well in advance and strictly limit the locations where gatherings can be held, as well as setting new limits on the use of amplified sound and signage.
“Our colleges and universities should encourage, not suppress, open and vigorous dialogue and debate even on the most deeply held beliefs,” said the statement, adding that many policies were imposed without faculty input.
The University of Pennsylvania has outlined new “temporary guidelines” for student protests that include bans on encampments, overnight demonstrations, and the use of bullhorns and speakers until after 5 p.m. on class days. Penn also requires that posters and banners be removed within two weeks of going up. The university says it remains committed to freedom of speech and lawful assembly.
At Indiana University, protests after 11 p.m. are forbidden under a new “expressive activities policy” that took effect August 1. The policy says “camping” and erecting any type of shelter are prohibited on campus, and signs cannot be displayed on university property without prior approval.
The University of South Florida now requires approval for tents, canopies, banners, signs and amplifiers. The school’s “speech, expression and assembly” rules stipulate that no “activity,” including protests or demonstrations, is allowed after 5 p.m. on weekdays or during weekends and not allowed at all during the last two weeks of a semester.
A draft document obtained over the summer by the student newspaper at Harvard University showed the college was considering prohibitions on overnight camping, chalk messages and unapproved signs.
“I think right now we are seeing a resurgence of repression on campuses that we haven’t seen since the late 1960s,” said Risa Lieberwitz, a Cornell University professor of labor and employment law who serves as general counsel for the AAUP.
Universities say they encourage free speech as long as it doesn’t interfere with learning, and they insist they are simply updating existing rules for demonstrations to protect campus safety.
Tensions have run high on college campuses since the October 7 Hamas terror attack in southern Israel killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Many student protesters in the U.S. vow to continue their activism, which has been fueled by Gaza’s rising death toll, which surpassed 40,000 on Thursday, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
About 50 Columbia students still face discipline over last spring’s demonstrations after a mediation process that began earlier in the summer stalled, according to Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator working on behalf of Columbia student protesters. He blamed the impasse on Columbia administrators.
“The university loves to appear that they’re in dialogue with the students. But these are all fake steps meant to assure the donor community and their political class,” said Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan was roiled earlier this year by student demonstrations, culminating in scenes of police officers with zip ties and riot shields storming a building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Similar protests swept college campuses nationwide, with many leading to violent clashes with police and more than 3,000 arrests. Many of the students who were arrested during police crackdowns have had their charges dismissed, but some are still waiting to learn what prosecutors decide. Many have faced fallout in their academic careers, including suspensions, withheld diplomas and other forms of discipline.
Shafik was among the university leaders who were called for questioning before Congress. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about antisemitism on the Columbia campus.
She announced her resignation in an emailed letter to the university community just weeks before the start of classes on September 3. The university on Monday began restricting campus access to people with Columbia IDs and registered guests, saying it wanted to curb “potential disruptions” as the new semester draws near.
“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in the community,” Shafik wrote in her letter. “Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent encampments on Columbia’s campus during Shafik’s congressional testimony in mid-April, when she denounced antisemitism but faced criticism for how she responded to faculty and students accused of bias.
The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, only for the students to return and inspire a wave of similar protests at campuses across the country as students called for schools to cut financial ties with Israel and companies supporting the war.
The campus was mostly quiet this summer, but a conservative news outlet in June published images of what it said were text messages exchanged by administrators while attending a May 31 panel discussion titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future.”
The officials were removed from their posts, with Shafik saying in a July 8 letter to the school community that the messages were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.”
Other prominent Ivy League leaders have stepped down in recent months, largely because of their response to the volatile protests on campus.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after less than two years on the job. She faced pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
And in January, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid plagiarism accusations and similar criticism over her testimony before Congress.
Time’s 2024 Kid of the Year
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/times-2024-kid-of-the-year
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
One advantage of using GitHub for questions tied into a blog is that you get a great archive of all the questions you asked and how people answered or contributed, going back to 2016.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a135030
Warren Buffett ditches his near-$1B Snowflake investment
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Oracle of Omaha’s exit follows revenue growth shortfall, CEO switch, and customer data leak
Berkshire Hathaway has offloaded nearly $1 billion in Snowflake stock as it exits the former IPO chart-smashing cloud data warehousing and analytics specialist.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/warren_buffett_ditches_snowflake/
Russia’s Post-War Military Recruiting Strategy Emerges
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: RAND blog
Russia’s military recruiting efforts generally include offering higher wages and benefits, tightly managing public engagement and perceptions of the war to suppress bad news, and increasing military–patriotic education in schools to target the next generation of recruits.
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
BTW,
I’ve started
using
Mastodon in place of GitHub for comments on posts like the one
below. GitHub
has a better model for text with comments, supports full Markdown the
way it was meant to work. I have an instance of Masto that I can use
that supports Markdown but they do an
unacceptable
rendering of links.
Example
post. I want a simple, widely accepted easy place to comment, on the
social web, not Discourse or GitHub, that isn’t controlled by one vendor
(so ActivityPub for now is probably the best approach) and supports
plain old Markdown without any weird embellishments. I don’t work in the
Mastodon world, I’m already committed to the projects I’m doing. But we
could really use something nice, designed to plug into blogs. This is a
good use-case, and it’s pretty close.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a134005
A Very Bad Look for Disney
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/08/16/a-very-bad-look-for-disney/
Saw this in the bookstore yesterday: The Missing Thread: A Women’s History…
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045126-saw-this-in-the-bookstore
@Dave Winer’s Scripting News (date: 2024-08-16, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News)
I wrote rules for standards-makers and it caught on, and has been used by a few open source projects. I hope that the new rules for journalism, which is just getting started, will be similarly influential. If existing journalism is going to start working again, they’re going to have to have some rules. Comments welcome on Mastodon.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/16.html#a133136
Hubble Rings in a New Galactic View
date: 2024-08-16, from: NASA breaking news
The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is situated in the Perseus Cluster, also known as Abell 426, 320 million light-years from Earth. It’s a barred spiral galaxy known as MCG+07-07-072, seen here among a number of photobombing stars that are much closer to Earth than it is. MCG+07-07-072 has quite an unusual shape for a […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-rings-in-a-new-galactic-view/
US climate agency: Last month hottest July on record
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-climate-agency-last-month-hottest-july-on-record/7745283.html
The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories
date: 2024-08-16, from: Quanta Magazine
Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other viruses. Their evolutionary stories can help treat modern outbreaks and prepare for future ones.The post The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Hanging out in urban green spaces helps prevent heart disease, study finds
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
Access to nature isn’t just good for your mental health. A long-term study suggests that spending time in green spaces, or by water, can help prevent heart disease. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has more.
To celebrate the 15th anniversary of Kind of Bloop: An 8-Bit Tribute…
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045125-to-celebrate-the-15th-ann
Windows can now create 2TB FAT32 file systems
date: 2024-08-16, from: OS News
Even though FAT32 supports disk sizes of up to 2TB, and even though Windows can read FAT32 file systems of up to 2TB, Windows can’t actually create them. The maximum file system limit Windows can create with FAT32 is 32GB, a limitation that dates back to Windows 95 which has never been changed. It seems Microsoft is finally changing this with the latest Insider Preview build of Windows 11, as the format command can now finally create FAT32 file systems of up to 2TB. When formatting disks from the command line using the format command, we’ve increased the FAT32 size limit from 32GB to 2TB. ↫ Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc Sadly, this only works through the format command; it’s not yet reflected in the graphical user interface, which is just so typically Microsoft. Of course, most of us will be using exFAT at this point for tasks that require an interoperable file system, but not every device accepts exFAT properly, and even those that do sometimes have issues with exFAT that are not present when using FAT32. A more interesting new addition in this preview build is the Windows Sandbox Client Preview. This build includes the new Windows Sandbox Client Preview that is now updated via the Microsoft Store. As part of this preview, we’re introducing runtime clipboard redirection, audio/video input control, and the ability to share folders with the host at runtime. You can access these via the new “…” icon at the upper right on the app. Additionally, this preview includes a super early version of command line support (commands may change over time). You can use ‘wsb.exe –help’ command for more information. ↫ Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc Windows Sandbox is a pretty cool feature that provides a lightweight desktop environment in which you can run applications entirely sandboxed, separate from your actual Windows installation. Changes and files made in the sandbox do not persist, unless the sandbox is shut down from within the sandbox itself. There’s a whole variety of uses this could be good for, and having it integrated into Windows is awesome. Windows Sandbox is available in Windows Pro or Enterprise – not Home – and is quite easy to use. Open up its window, copy/paste an executable to the sandbox, and run it inside the sandbox. As said, after closing the sandbox, all your changes will be lost. That process is still a bit clunky, but with a bit more work it should be possible for Microsoft to smooth this out, and, say, add an option in the right-click menu to just launch any executable in the sandbox that way.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140513/windows-can-now-create-2tb-fat32-file-systems/
New Zealand minister OKs Kim Dotcom extradition to US
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Entrepreneur vows to keep on buffering
Kim Dotcom, founder and CEO of defunct file hosting service Megaupload, revealed this week that his long-fought extradition to the United States was finally approved.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/kim_dotcom_us_extradition/
Think the LA Aqueduct was the city’s first water system? Nope, it’s the Zanja Madre
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The LAist
The zanja system of pipes and trenches was first built in 1781, and remnants can still be seen in the city today.
https://laist.com/news/la-history/los-angeles-water-zanja-ditch-trench
Starting tomorrow, a very different way of buying or selling homes
date: 2024-08-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Some big changes to the real estate market are on the way this weekend. Under a settlement reached earlier this year, the National Association of Realtors is changing rules that determine how real estate agents make their money. Buyers and sellers, this matters to you. Then, a new McKinsey Global Institute report finds it’ll take sweeping transformation to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Vaccine-maker asks EU to extend mpox shot license to adolescents
date: 2024-08-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Bavarian Nordic — the manufacturer of the only mpox vaccine — wants to extend the shot’s license in Europe to include those ages 12 to 17, as a more deadly version of the virus spreads largely through young children in Africa. Also on the program: Protests in response to the violent rape and murder of a female doctor in Kolkata has reignited talks of women’s workplace safety.
If a cheesy ’80s flick is a good metaphor for how you run projects, something is wrong
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
There can be only one … annoying management technique
Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen has penned a blog that gives further insight into the inner workings of the software titan under Bill Gates’s leadership.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/microsoft_highlander/
The Inflation Reduction Act Turns 2
date: 2024-08-16, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: A large wildfire is burning out of control in Izmir, Turkey • Typhoon Ampil has prompted thousands of evacuation orders in Japan • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that last month was the hottest July ever recorded.
THE TOP FIVE
- Democrats commemorate IRA anniversary with Harris-Walz climate
fundraiser
Today marks the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden’s signature climate legislation. To commemorate the event, the Democratic National Committee is hosting a virtual fundraiser for the Harris-Walz presidential campaign at 3pm EDT. The “Climate Voters for Harris Kickoff Call” will highlight the IRA’s accomplishments, and feature comments from former climate envoy John Kerry, Jane Fonda, educator Bill Nye (The Science Guy), and other guests. VP Harris herself will be busy today giving her first major policy speech in North Carolina. She reportedly plans to call for the construction of 3 million new housing units during her first term, a move Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer applauds. After all, he says, housing policy is a climate policy issue: “If America hopes to reach net-zero by 2050, then one of the easiest and cheapest ways for it to do so will be to build more housing, especially in cities and transit-connected suburbs.”
- East Coast skies darkened by Canadian wildfire smoke
Hazy skies have returned to the East Coast as Canadian wildfire smoke drifts across the country. Air quality has been affected in cities including New York, Baltimore, Boston, D.C., and Philadelphia. The smoke is expected to linger today but could disappear this weekend with the arrival of rain.
Climate change is making wildfires more frequent and more destructive. There are nearly 900 fires burning in Canada right now, many of which remain out of control, as illustrated below by the red and purple dots:
Canadian
Interagency Forest Fire Centre
- First U.S. sodium-ion battery gigafactory coming to North Carolina
Leading sodium-ion battery startup Natron Energy announced yesterday it is building a massive $1.4 billion manufacturing plant in North Carolina. Natron already has a facility in Michigan, which is the only commercial scale sodium-ion battery plant in the country. Its new operation will be the first sodium-ion battery gigafactory in the U.S., capable of producing 24GW of batteries every year and representing a 40-times scaling up of production. The factory will create 1,000 clean energy jobs. As Heatmap’s Katie Brigham explained, sodium-ion technology “performs roughly the same as lithium-ion in energy storage systems,” but is far more abundant in the U.S. than lithium, cheaper, and also appears less likely to catch fire than lithium-ion. Research and consulting firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence expects to see a 350% jump in announced sodium-ion battery manufacturing capacity this year alone. And while the supply of these batteries is only in the tens of gigawatts today, Benchmark forecasts that it will be in the hundreds of gigawatts by 2030.
- Orsted delays Revolution Wind project
Danish renewable energy company Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced yesterday it is pushing back the launch of its Revolution Wind project, located off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The project is now expected to start commercial operations in 2026 instead of 2025. The construction delay will cost Orsted $472 million. The company also abandoned its plan to develop green fuels for various industries including shipping and aviation, even though it had already begun construction on the plant. In total, Orsted recorded $575 million in impairment losses in the second quarter of this year.
- Carbon Mapper methane satellite set for launch today
Yet another methane satellite is launching into orbit today, as early as 11:19 a.m. Pacific time, on a SpaceX rocket. Developed by a coalition of public and private partners and led by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, the Tanager-1 satellite’s precision imaging helps fill a gap in the methane detection universe and complements the abilities of MethaneSAT, the Environmental Defense Fund-developed, Google-backed satellite launched back in March. “While MethaneSAT can detect the total emissions emanating from a particular basin, state, or country, Carbon Mapper can zoom in to figure out what’s going on within 50 meters of accuracy so that operators and regulators can be notified,” explained Heatmap’s Katie Brigham. If you want to watch the launch live, you can do so here.
THE KICKER
Tesla is selling a stainless steel cooler for its Cybertruck that can hold 90 canned beverages and “keep perishables cold and ice frozen for days at a time.” It costs $700.
https://heatmap.news/politics/the-inflation-reduction-act-turns-2
P&B: Ploum
date: 2024-08-16, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>This is the 51st edition of <em>People and Blogs</em>, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Lionel "Ploum" Dricot and his blog, <a href="https://ploum.net">ploum.net</a></p>To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.
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Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
You should, like my wife and my children, call me Ploum!
I’m a 43 years Belgian writer, free software developer and blogger. I write novels (in French) and teach open source development at École Polytechnique de Louvain. I’m also a cyclist and a freediver. As a native French speaker, I apalogise for the English mistakes. Please read my answer with an atrocious French accent.
On the Wikipedia page about me, the first word next to my name is “blogueur” (blogger in French). I conclude that my most important activity is being a blogger. All important things in my life happened, directly or indirectly, because of my blog.
I’ve been hired in most of my professional positions because of my blog. I’ve met my wife because, after reading a tweet of mine that went viral, she started to read my blog. I’ve written the first book ever about Ubuntu because of my blog. I’ve met my current publisher through my blog. I’ve even started doing long distance bikepacking trips thanks to Thierry Crouzet, a French writer that I knew for years because we were reading each other blog.
My blog is thus irremediably linked to my identity. I would say that the only part of my life insulated from my blog is my passion for freediving. Being a freediver at heart but living far from the sea, I’ve been practising under water hockey for years. It allows me to spend time at the bottom of the pool.
What’s the story behind your blog?
I started my first website in 1998, a few weeks after my parents got an Internet connection. I quickly had multiple websites, one of them being a kind of online journal for which I was updating a monthly page by hand. I also started a quite popular generalist wiki which attracted many external contributors.
Around 2002, I declared that blog was just a stupid name for what was a normal website, that I would never have a blog myself. I’m a visionary, you see. In 1995, after trying to browse the web for the first time on a friend’s computer, I’ve said that the web had no future, that it was only a temporary fad.
At the same time, I was very active on many different forums. Remember forums? I was often repeating myself on them and posting same stuff for various communities. So, at some point, I wanted to centralise all my writing in one place. Inspired by the blogger Tristan Nitot, I installed the Dotclear CMS and opened my blog.
On forums, my avatar was often a small Waldo from the “Where is Waldo?” books. A roommate suggested that if I ever started a blog, it should be called “Where is Ploum?” So I called my first blog with that name on a subdomain from one of my websites.
There was also a hidden motivation behind the blog. At the time, I was really involved in a project called “no-name-yet” that would soon become public. And I wanted a platform to spread the word about that project. That “no-name-yet” was later released under the name “Ubuntu”. So it happens that my blog has the exact same age as Ubuntu and shares a lot of its history.
Writing on my blog quickly became a lifestyle. The success of my blog also took me by surprise: people I didn’t know were reading me, commenting, contacting me, inviting me to conferences. For 4 years, I used Dotclear. As a side gig, I started a small business hosting people’s blogs on a Dotclear version 2 platform but kept Dotclear version 1 for my own blog.
In 2008, I eventually migrated to Wordpress because it was the de facto standard in the industry. I’ve always been self-hosted and made sure to import all my old blog posts. Beside a theme change, the migration was totally transparent for my readers. Even URLs were kept because cool URLs never change.
I started to hate Wordpress more every year but, despite multiple attempts, I could not get rid of it. In 2020, I encountered the Gemini protocol and started a gemlog (a blog on Gemini), completely separated from my blog. It started to grow and I wanted to integrate my gemlog posts into my historical blog (that I was still using).
In 2022, I had a “Eureka” moment. Instead of integrating my gemlog into my wordpress blog, I would do the opposite and import all my historical blog posts into my gemlog. Then, I would make an HTML version of my gemlog.
I called that “the last version of ploum.net” because I’m not dependent anymore on any external tools. Everything is now done through a handmade python script. All I have to do is to write text files in the Gemtext format. It cannot be simpler.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
Firstly, I never force myself to write or publish. I don’t have any schedule or any mandatory thing to do.
Every single post is there because I wanted to write it and publish it. I’ve been through many iterations of my creative process, using stuff like Evernote or other. I threw it all away.
I simply have an “inbox” folder where there are drafts in gemtext format. They could linger there for months or years. Sometimes, they are published one hour after starting them. There’s no rule.
I’ve been greatly influenced by Cory Doctorow and his memex method. In my inbox, I keep a “today.gmi” file in which I write small reflections and links to interesting articles. When the file is bigger than 1000 words, I try to give it a direction, I reorder the nuggets and publish it without thinking too much about it.
As a consequence, my blog is a mix of focused posts that took a long time to write, focused posts that were written in a whim and posts containing random thoughts and links. I let you try to guess in which category is a given post.
The gemtext format had a great influence on my process. It doesn’t allow inline links and forces a link to be alone on its own line. This constraint was a liberating tool. Instead of putting links everywhere in my posts, I started to really think about each link. A link can only be added if it is clear why it is there and if it is not interrupting too much the reading flow. Which means that it should add real value for the reader. I feel my writing greatly improved because of this. I can write without thinking in HTML, without thinking about the links. Every post is a standalone with optional links for readers who want to investigate more the subject.
I must add that I write my own journal on a mechanical typewriter. Sometimes, I realise that an entry could be made public so I copy it to a file by hand (I’ve tried OCR but without much success. It is easier to copy everything by hand as it allows me to make corrections).
One day, I will write a whole book about my typewriter creative process.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
Yes, I do believe that the body associate a physical space with a given activity. It is a learned habit. The bad news is that my body learned that my home office is the place to answer emails, read stuff and do administrative work.
When I need to work on a new book, I often need to walk away. I would take my typewriter in a hotel room or a cabin in the wood and spend multiple days disconnected to « just write ».
I also hate every single noise and don’t listen to music during the creative phase. But I may listen to loud metal, punk rock or classic music during all the “boring” steps: proofreading, general corrections, spelling, etc.
Hopefully, writing blog posts is now part of my daily automatic tasks so I can do it in my home office.
The editor is also important. I’ve been using Gedit, Pyroom, Ulysses, Zettlr. But, a few years ago, I decided to really improve my Vim skills and I’m now doing everything in Vim without any plugins nor special configuration. Vim and my Bépo keyboard are unbeatable power tools. I see my writing on the screen before thinking of it.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
I’ve told above the history of my blogs. The current setup is quite interesting.
I write gemtext files and give them a name that starts with the date such as “2024-06-25-blogpost.gmi”. When this is done, I have a simple python script that does two things: first it creates an index.gmi file with a list of all blog posts in anti-chronological order. This is the gemini capsule. Then, the python file convert all the gemtext into html, creating the website itself.
There are some subtleties: the script also handle the atom feed, the fact that I write in French and English (thus generating two indexes) and send an email version for my mailing-list subscribers. But everything is done by one python file without any dependency. It is extremely simple.
The HTML template itself has around 40 lines of CSS and nothing else. Very clean, very efficient, very fast to load even on bad connections.
Currently, I host it on Sourcehut. It allows me to simply do a “git push” and have the HTML version generated on the server. Sourcehut is also, to my knowledge, one of the only Gemini hosting providers.
But if I had to move, it would be only a matter of changing my git remote.
I don’t need to backup anything from the server side: my blog and all its history are now in a git repository.
It should be highlighted than I’m a command-line junkie. So I do everything in Vim and even developed a command-line offline-first browser to read Gemini, RSS and other blogs. It is called Offpunk .
So, yeah, my screen is fully black with tiled terminals. I live with Neovim, Offpunk, Neomutt and a couple of bash/python scripts. This is so comfy that I’m frustrated each time I need to open Firefox or any other GUI application.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
My blog is exactly where I want it to be. If I had to start again, I would simply do it like I did in 2022. I was quick to remove any form of comments from my blog and, later, any kind of statistics. As far as I know, I’m one of the few strong advocates for the complete removal of statistics/analytic/tracking tools. It’s not ethical to spy on users but it is also completely counterproductive. Statistics on websites are a brainworm. People are obsessed by it and it makes them write dumb stuff in order to increase a dumb counter. Getting rid of any audience-measuring tool is one of the best things I did in 2013.
There’s another thing I want to say to past me if time travel is ever invented: don’t fall into the social networks trap!
I’ve spent way too many time chasing followers on Twitter, Facebook, Medium and Google+. I’ve written many interesting stuff on those platforms, thinking they were not “interesting enough” for my blog. I regret all I’ve written on proprietary platforms. My blog is my personal history and I plan to keep it until I die.
I’ve completely deleted all my social network accounts and never felt so free. Ironically, the less I was using social networks, the more readers I had on my blog. Social networks don’t bring you an audience. This is a lie! Social networks distract you from your real work and prevent your audience from reaching you. That’s their whole business! I know how frightening it is to delete permanently an account with thousands of followers. But this number is also a lie.
Removing permanently those accounts (and not merely “deactivating them”, as I’ve done multiple times before) changed my life and my blog.
The only account I still have is a Mastodon account. That I access through the command-line “toot”. You can find me there if you really like but I don’t encourage you to follow me. Use RSS!
https://mamot.fr/@ploum - @ploum@mamot.fr
I don’t use Mastodon to reach an audience but only to communicate with interesting people. I hope Mastodon will one day hide the followers counter so we stop being obsessed with those silly numbers.
Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?
In 2006, I experimented with advertising on my blog, earning something between 35€ and 100€ every month (through Google).
I quickly realised the moral implications of that money and now consider that advertising is, by essence, a scam. Its goal is to make us consume stuff we don’t need and, in the process, make people dishonest. If you earn money through advertising, you are, by definition, dishonest. You cannot be honest as the whole definition of advertising is paying you to be dishonest. All in the name of destroying our natural resources as fast as possible.
Later, I was one of the first French bloggers to popularise the concept of “prix libre” (free price in French), asking my readers to make free donations. I managed to earn a regular income between 200€-300€ per month, mainly on the Flattr platform but also through direct donations. This was well before Patreon and similar platforms.
This experience was awesome. I was paid but I also received pictures, hand-written letters of support, nice messages. People really understood that it was not about money only, it was about supporting my work. I can never thank enough those who supported me.
With the advent of platforms like Patreon, the “free price” concept become a bit too popular for my taste. Everybody was asking for money. Also, I started to publish books. Now, I ask people that want to support me to simply buy my books. It’s the best way to support me but to also support my publisher (who took the risk of putting most of his catalogue into the Creative Commons license) and to support small bookstore.
Running the blog itself is cheap. 10€/year for a domain. To support the project, I decided to pay the maximum tier for Sourcehut, which is 100€/year. All in all, my blog costs me less than 10€ per month.
In 20 years, I’ve published ±900 blog posts. With all the pictures, this amount to less than 150Mo. If it was really needed, it could probably be hosted for next to nothing. Blogging is really cheap.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
I read many blogs and gemlogs. The whole Gemini community is really interesting as it reminds me of the blogosphere I was reading in 2003-2004.
Maybe the most interesting are people I’m still reading after all those years, people that have a great influence on how I blog.
- Tristan Nitot (in French)
- Thierry Crouzet (in French)
- Cory Doctorow (in English)
I’m still reading and was also influenced a lot by Low-Tech Magazine:
- Low-Tech Magazine (in English)
For those that would like to try discovering Gemini and its gemlogs, I recommend starting with those two aggregators:
- Antenna - gemini://warmedal.se/~antenna/
- Cosmos - gemini://skyjake.fi/~Cosmos/recent.gmi
There are many gemlogs I like but you should probably follow Solderpunk as he’s the creator of the Gemini protocol.
- Solderpunk’s gemlog - gemini://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/~solderpunk/gemlog/
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
I think I’ve covered it all about myself in all the previous questions. I’m currently working on several novels and one book about the history of computer science.
As that last one is in English and as we discuss translating my novels with my publisher, I find myself increasingly wanting to work with a literary agent. If you happen to know one, I would be happy to be put in touch.
And to all blog readers across the world: use RSS readers! Those are awesome and allows you to quickly subscribe/unsubscribe at your own pace.
This was the 51st edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Ploum. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.
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Equinix pilots use of fuel cell in ‘shipping container’ outside datacenter
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Future of low carbon sustainable tech? Not so fast, this is still a trial and only for backup power
Equinix is moving forward with trials of fuel cell technology as an alternative backup power source, revealing it has a demonstration unit at one of its facilities in Dublin, Ireland.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/equinix_shows_off_demo_fuel/
The Bright Side of the Trump-Musk Summit
date: 2024-08-16, from: Heatmap News
When Donald Trump speaks at length — at a rally, at a press conference, or in an interview — subsequent news reports often clean up his remarks through well-placed ellipses and generous paraphrases, imposing a coherence nowhere to be found in the original. So it was with his recent conversation with Elon Musk on X, during which the two spent a fair amount of time laying out their deep thoughts on climate change, to the horror of many observers. (Bill McKibben called it “The dumbest climate conversation of all time.”)
At the risk of being too kind to both men, there was a silver lining to be found in their tête-à-tête, even if its purpose was to help get Trump back in the White House. For all he has devolved into a right-wing internet troll, Musk might convince Trump — and the millions who follow them both — to shift their perspective on climate change a critical few degrees in a useful direction.
That’s not to say the Trump-Musk confab wasn’t uncommonly stupid, because it was. In addition to a litany of false statements and odd non sequiturs, Trump was illogically dismissive of climate concerns: “The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean’s going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years and you’ll have more oceanfront property.” He also lamented the imaginary fact that “you have farmers that are not allowed to farm anymore and have to get rid of their cattle,” an area apparently of deep concern to him; elsewhere he has claimed that Kamala Harris “wants to pass laws to outlaw red meat to stop climate change.” Neither of these things is remotely true (though farmers forced to sell their cattle due to drought are now eligible for extra tax relief as of 2022).
The Tesla chief offered his own brand of misinformation; like many a semi-informed autodidact, he often says things that are true in some sense but deeply misleading. Talking about carbon in the atmosphere, he told Trump, “Eventually, it actually simply gets uncomfortable to breathe. People don’t realize this. If you go past 1,000 parts per million of CO2, you start getting headaches and nausea. And so we’re now in the sort of 400 range … we still have quite a bit of time. We don’t need to rush.” While it’s true that it would be difficult to breathe at a CO2 concentration of 1,000 parts per million, the danger of rising carbon emissions isn’t that someday we might all choke to death; as climate scientist Michael Mann said in response, by the time we reach that point the myriad effects of climate change “will be so devastating as to have already caused societal collapse.”
On the whole, the interview showed Musk praising Trump and nodding along with some of the former president’s loopier statements, but eventually attempting to convince him that carbon emissions can be lowered painlessly (albeit in ways that would just happen to make Musk even richer). “People can still have a steak and they can still drive gasoline cars, and it’s okay,” he reassured Trump. “When you look at our cars, we don’t believe that environmentalism, that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer. So we make sure that our cars are beautiful, that they drive well, that they’re fast, they’re sexy. They’re cool,” Musk said, concluding that “I’m a big fan of, let’s have an inspiring future and let’s work towards a better future.”
That has always been Musk’s position, and while one certainly might disagree with parts of his argument (or his prior claim that “I’ve done more for the environment than any single human on Earth”), if the goal were to talk Trump into lessening his opposition to any and all efforts to mitigate climate change, that might be the only way to do it. Even in the course of the conversation one could see Trump coming around, at least here and there. “I’m sort of waiting for you to come up with solar panels on the roofs of your cars,” he told Musk. “I’m sure you’ll be the first, but it would seem that a solar panel on the roofs, on flat surfaces, on certain surfaces might be good, at least in certain areas of the country or the world where you have the sun.” There are already a number of cars with solar panels on their roofs — no one is waiting for Musk to devise one — but the fact of Trump speaking positively about any kind of solar power is more significant than whether he is aware of the latest technology.
For the moment, Trump’s bromance with Musk — or marriage of convenience — has even led the former president to moderate his rhetoric on electric vehicles, which he has often condemned in the past. “I’m constantly talking about electric vehicles but I don’t mean I’m against them. I’m totally for them,” he said at a rally in July. “I’ve driven them and they are incredible, but they’re not for everybody.”
None of this is to say that Trump has anything but a deeply reactionary climate agenda. The oil magnates pouring money into his campaign are not being fooled about the return they can expect on their investment. The Republican nominee himself may have few fixed ideas about climate, but the people he appoints to another administration and the Republicans in Congress that support him will be committed to rolling back President Biden’s climate programs and finding new ways to promote fossil fuels and undermine the policy changes that are beginning to reduce emissions.
Nevertheless, rhetoric does matter, and Trump doesn’t have to become a climate hawk to begin influencing his admirers to see the issue in a slightly different way. Even if all it means is that they become a little more open to looking at climate mitigation as not a dire threat to their way of life, but rather something that won’t make much of difference to them one way or the other — in other words, if they move from being hostile to climate efforts to being simply indifferent — that would be a significant change.
The theory behind favoring carrots over sticks in climate policy — more subsidies, fewer mandates — is in part that diffusing opposition is an important component of policy success. If Elon Musk encourages Trump to start talking about climate in ways that make addressing the problem sound less threatening to his supporters, it couldn’t hurt.
https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-musk-live-batteries
Australia, US look to joint production of hypersonic missile, US lawmaker says
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
SYDNEY — Joint production of hypersonic missiles by Australia and the United States could reduce strain on the U.S. defense industrial base and boost deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, U.S. Republican lawmaker Michael McCaul said in Sydney on Friday.
In an interview, the chair of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said the Australian manufacture of the cutting-edge weapons provided an example of how streamlined licensing of sensitive U.S. defense technology, and license exemptions on 70% of defense exports to Australia from September 1, would help the U.S. compete with China in developing advanced weapons.
Hypersonic missiles, which travel in the upper atmosphere more than five times faster than sound, were tested by China in 2021, prompting a technology race with the United States. Their recent use by Russia in the Ukraine war, sparked concern among members of NATO.
A Chinese hypersonic weapon “could hit Australia in a matter of minutes and Australia cannot stop that right now. So we need to catch up to that,” McCaul said.
“I was at a hypersonic company just yesterday and we want to move towards co-production,” he added.
“It is already starting and that is the exciting thing and it will help relieve the stress that we see on the defense industrial base,” he added.
Australia is testing a Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) with the United States, which it will consider as its first such weapon for fighter jets, the defense and foreign ministers of the two countries said after talks last week.
McCaul said his visit focused on the AUKUS partnership with the United States and Britain to transfer nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, as well as develop other advanced defense technologies.
The AUKUS alliance was an example of a U.S. ally spending more on its own defense, he said, when asked if a reelected Donald Trump would continue to back a growing U.S. defense posture in Australia, and the sale of U.S. nuclear submarines next decade.
AUKUS talks had started under the Republican Trump presidency, he added.
“I think there will be strong support for it,” he said.
Rotations of U.S. nuclear submarines through Australia under AUKUS are a deterrent factor in the region, where the Philippines is under pressure from China in the South China Sea, he said, after visiting the Philippines.
“Chairman Xi, I think, fears this alliance more than anything else because he knows what it means - it means that nuclear submarines will be rotating, but also these innovative technologies that we have,” he added, in a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In Beijing this week, the Chinese foreign ministry said AUKUS “harms efforts” to keep the region peaceful and secure and exacerbates the arms race.
PeerJ Award Winners at IBC 2024
date: 2024-08-16, from: PeerJ blog
The XXth International Botanical Congress (IBC) was recently held at IFEMA in Madrid from July 21st to July 27th, bringing together a remarkable assembly of 3,011 delegates. This prestigious event featured over 1,500 oral presentations across more than 200 symposia and showcased over 1,600 poster presentations, reflecting the vibrant and diverse field of botanical science. […]
https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284889585/peerj-award-winners-at-ibc-2024/
UK farm ministry offers £27M to support legacy systems for another three years
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Controversial payment systems set for another lease of life
The UK’s government department for farming and the environment is offering up to £27 million to keep its controversial legacy farm payments systems running for another three years as it develops a replacement.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/uk_farm_ministry_offers_27m/
From windfarms to Amazon Prime, UK plans to long range test six drone services
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
BVLOS operations to modernize airspace
The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has approved six new trials to test the use of drones in deliveries, inspections and emergency services, including one from e-commerce megabiz Amazon.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/uk_test_drones_bvlos/
Client tells techie: You’re not leaving the country until this printer is working
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A long and strange tech support story that starts in Africa and ends in a Presidential Suite
On Call Welcome yet again to On Call, the reader-contributed column in which The Register immortalizes readers’ stories of escaping tech support traumas.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/on_call/
Today in SCV History (Aug. 16)
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1956 – Battle of Palmdale rages over the skies of Santa Clarita [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-16/
Webcurios 16/08/24
date: 2024-08-16, from: Web Curios blog
Reading Time: 37 minutes Look, I need to be honest with you – I am VERY VERY TIRED. For reasons literally none of you need or want to know about, this has been a week of relatively-minimal shuteye and as such I have written what follows through a general fug of insomniac incomprehension – can we all pretend that…https://webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-16-08-24/
Chancellor Henry Yang Is Retiring After 30 Years
date: 2024-08-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The longest serving Chancellor in UC Santa Barbara’s history.
The post Chancellor Henry Yang Is Retiring After 30 Years appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/15/chancellor-henry-yang-is-retiring-after-30-years/
A Better Way to Do News
date: 2024-08-16, from: Doc Searls (at Harvard), New Old Blog
Twelfth in the News Commons series Last week at DWeb Camp, I gave a talk titled The Future, Present, and Past of News—and Why Archives Anchor It All. Here’s a frame from a phone video: DWeb Camp is a wonderful gathering, hosted by the Internet Archive at Camp Navarro in Northern California. In this post I’ll […]
https://doc.searls.com/2024/08/15/better-way-to-do-news/
Hurricane Ernesto moves toward Bermuda
date: 2024-08-16, from: VOA News USA
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — U.S. forecasters said Hurricane Ernesto remained a category 2 storm Friday as it churns in the Atlantic Ocean on a path toward the island of Bermuda, where it is predicted to bring high winds, heavy rain and strong surf.
At last report, Ernesto was about 415 kilometers (258 miles) south-southwest of Bermuda and was moving to the north-northeast at 20 kph (13 mph). It has maximum sustained winds of 155 kph (about 100 mph).
A hurricane warning remains in effect for Bermuda, where Ernesto is expected to produce 15 to 30 centimeters (up to 12 inches) of rain with isolated maximum amounts up 38 centimeters (15 inches). Forecasters said this could result in considerable life-threatening flash flooding.
Officials in the British territory announced Thursday they would suspend public transportation and close the airport by Friday night. National Security Minister Michael Weeks had urged people to complete their hurricane preparations by Thursday.
While forecasters initially predicted Ernesto would continue to strengthen and possibly become a major storm — a Category 3 hurricane or stronger — by the time it reached Bermuda, they now say that strengthening seemingly halted overnight, although it has not lost its punch.
Ernesto was expected to strengthen further Friday before it passes near or over Bermuda sometime Saturday.
Forecasters said the size is generally larger than their previous forecast, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 425 kilometers (265 miles), so the life-threatening hazards from Ernesto are unchanged.
Even though Ernesto is expected to remain well off the U.S. East Coast, forecasters said the storm is expected to generate swells along the shoreline into the weekend. The swells could pose a significant risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents.
High surf and rip currents are also possible in the northern Caribbean along the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, and the Bahamas
during the next few days.
Ernesto brought heavy wind and rain to the northern Caribbean as it moved through Wednesday. It knocked out power, downed trees and forced schools and businesses to close in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, where many of the island’s businesses and homes lost power.
Ernesto is the fifth named storm and the third hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press.
Aug. 19: Road Rehab Overlay Construction Begins in Saugus
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita has announced that the Road Rehab Overlay Program which will start construction on residential streets in various neighborhoods throughout the city is kicking off in Saugus on Monday, Aug. 19.
https://scvnews.com/aug-19-road-rehab-overlay-construction-begins-in-saugus/
Oct. 5: Fil-Am of SCV 2024 Annual Cultural Festival
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Fil-Am Association of SCV, Inc. and Santa Clarita Sister Cities Program will present the 2024 Annual Cultural Festival, “Bakasyon Sa Pinas” (Vacation in the Philippines) in celebration of Filipino American History Month on Saturday, Oct.
https://scvnews.com/oct-5-fil-am-of-scv-2024-annual-cultural-festival/
Launch This
date: 2024-08-16, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I just wanted to thank Nick Welsh for all his fabulous reporting throughout the years.
The post Launch This appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/15/launch-this/
TMU Ranks No. 1 for Student Life Among California Christian Colleges
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Master’s University has been ranked as having the best student life among Christian colleges in California, according to the 2024 numbers for mid-sized colleges released by Niche, a leading college review and ranking site
https://scvnews.com/tmu-ranks-no-1-for-student-life-among-california-christian-colleges/
Matadors Open Exhibition Play with 6-1 Win Over TMU
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State University, Northridge Men’s Soccer recently opened up exhibition play with a 6-1 victory over The Master’s University at Matador Soccer Field
https://scvnews.com/matadors-open-exhibition-play-with-6-1-win-over-tmu/
Chamber Announces 2024 Candidate Forum
date: 2024-08-16, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber announced Thursday their Election Watch 2024 Candidate Forum, an essential event designed for local business and community members to engage with candidates ahead of the November elections
https://scvnews.com/chamber-announces-2024-candidate-forum/
Reckoning: Part 4 — The Way Out
date: 2024-08-16, updated: 2024-08-16, from: Alex Russel’s blog
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/
Highlighting Community Starter Packs
date: 2024-08-16, from: Bluesky web news
Join a starter pack today!
https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-16-2024-community-starter-packs