News gathered 2024-08-21
(date: 2024-08-21 08:47:33)
Convention
Day 2: Obama Says Election Is About ‘Who Will Fight for You’
date: 2024-08-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara’s Salud Carbajal hits Trump–Vance for “Insults” to
military.
The post
Convention
Day 2: Obama Says Election Is About ‘Who Will Fight for You’
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/21/convention-day-2-obama-says-election-is-about-who-will-fight-for-you/
Never
Can Say Goodbye: Gary Fruin Honored at Santa Barbara City Hall
date: 2024-08-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The K-LITE early morning radio host was recognized on National Radio Day
for his 34 years on air.
The post
Never
Can Say Goodbye: Gary Fruin Honored at Santa Barbara City Hall
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/21/never-can-say-goodbye-gary-fruin-honored-at-santa-barbara-city-hall/
Russia
tells citizens to switch off home surveillance because the Ukrainians
are coming
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Forget about your love life too, no dating apps until the war is over
Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is warning residents of
under-siege regions to switch off home surveillance systems and dating
apps to stop Ukraine from using them for intel-gathering purposes.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/russia_memo_ukraine_invasion/
A Logo on
a Prosthesis Is Like a Tattoo You Didn’t Ask…
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045176-a-logo-on-a-prosthesis
A big
convention should bring big business … right?
date: 2024-08-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
A lot of Chicagoland restaurants were hoping for a shot in the arm
courtesy of the Democratic National Convention this week. But so far,
that hasn’t seemed to be the case for some businesses. We hear more.
Then: a look at why Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s word choice in Jackson
Hole will be so closely scrutinized. And later, older workers with
disabilities have made gains thanks to remote work.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-big-convention-should-bring-big-business-right
date: 2024-08-21, from: NASA breaking news
This view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope plunges into the center
of spiral galaxy Messier 33 (M33), also known as the Triangulum Galaxy.
Located within the triangle-shaped constellation Triangulum and about
half the size of our Milky Way galaxy, M33 is the third-largest member
of our Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda galaxy (M31) […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-peers-into-the-center-of-a-star-forming-powerhouse/
Mathematicians
Prove Hawking Wrong About the Most Extreme Black Holes
date: 2024-08-21, from: Quanta Magazine
For decades, extremal black holes were considered mathematically
impossible. A new proof reveals otherwise.
The post
Mathematicians
Prove Hawking Wrong About the Most Extreme Black Holes first
appeared on
Quanta
Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-prove-hawking-wrong-about-extremal-black-holes-20240821/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
"You stopped feeding the troll. And science has proven over and over
if you do that, the troll will go away."
https://this.how/trolls/
Bulgarian
beach bar sarcophagus turns out to be genuine Roman artefact.
“Despite…
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045169-bulgarian-beach-bar-sarco
When it
comes to cloud, it’s China against the world
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate the west, but the Middle Kingdom
plays by its own rules
The global cloud ecosystem shows a clear split, with China dominated by
an almost completely different set of companies compared to the rest of
the world - a divide as much due to political reasons as economic
factors.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/china_cloud_market/
Your
SoCal Weather Report For Wednesday, August 21: Warm today, below normal
temperatures into the weekend
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The LAist
Slightly warm today, but another cooling trend begins tomorrow.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/la-weather-report-august-21-cool-down-begins-tomorrow
Fannie
Lou Hamer rattled Democratic convention 60 years ago with ‘Is this
America?’ speech
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/fannie-lou-hamer-rattled-democratic-convention-60-years-ago-with-is-this-america-speech/7751156.html
The
FTC’s noncompete agreements ban has been struck down
date: 2024-08-21, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">
[Jess
Weatherbed at The Verge]
“A federal judge has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on
noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to join their
employers’ rivals or launch competing businesses. The ruling prevents
the FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements from taking effect on September
4th, though the agency could still appeal the decision.”
This is such a blow. Non-competes are already illegal in California;
they’re inherently anti-worker and are also very clearly a hindrance to
innovation.
Hopefully the FTC appeals. The judge’s argument that it would cause
“irreparable harm” is nonsense: any business that has to protect itself
by not allowing its workforce to go work for a competitor is obviously
not competitive at what it does. Instead, businesses should seek to do
good work and create conditions so that workers don’t want to leave
in the first place. The solution is a better workplace, not legal
restrictions that prevent people from finding a different employer.
#Business
<p>[<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/21/24225112/ftc-noncompete-agreement-ban-blocked-judge">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>
https://werd.io/2024/the-ftcs-noncompete-agreements-ban-has-been-struck-down
Scientists
have found liquid water on Mars, located in the planet’s outer…
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045173-scientists-have-found-liq
Using AI to feed my
toddler on a road trip
date: 2024-08-21, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
This past week I embarked upon two long car drives — from Philadelphia
to Cape Cod and back again — with an almost-two year-old. He’s a
remarkably good traveler who takes everything in his stride (as long as
he has his puffy stickers and you agree to put Elmo on the radio from
time to time).
The biggest challenge was finding places for him to eat well:
restaurants that wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a toddler doing toddler
things at the table, that also would have the kinds of food that he
likes. (Yes, I packed snacks. But sometimes it’s time to sit down for a
real meal.)
We made it work, but it was always a bit of a guessing game. Would X
chain or Y mom-and-pop accommodate his needs? I found myself wishing
that there was some kind of app that would just recommend somewhere to
go — particularly as he could get hungry at a moment’s notice, and
faffing around with restaurant reviews while I was driving was an
impossibility.
So out of interest, once I returned, I asked ChatGPT for
recommendations:
Find a restaurant suitable for attending with a toddler in Elkins Park,
PA. Please just return the restaurant name and address; don’t share any
other information.
It returns:
The Creekside Co-op
7909 High School Rd, Elkins Park, PA 19027
That’s pretty good! Creekside is a local marketplace and brewery near
where I live that absolutely is suitable for hanging out with a toddler.
I tried it in a few locations. In the part of Cape Cod where we were
staying, it suggested the Moonakis
Cafe, which is a superb choice. In the part of Oxford, England,
where I grew up, it suggested
The
Victoria Arms — again, no complaints whatsoever. I’d eat there with
my little one in a heartbeat.
So what if I want to make this a simple app, starting on the web?
It turns out that you can replace the name of the location in the query
with its GPS coordinates, which simplifies matters a great deal. You can
get the user’s current
location via the web geolocation API: you can then plug that
straight into the query, make an API call, and forward the user directly
to a Google Maps view for the restaurant. Reverse geocoding APIs, which
take latitude and longitude and return a human-readable name,
are also
available, and might be useful — but they tend to cost money, and
the API call to ChatGPT is already an expense.
More refinements are possible, of course. Most crucially, it would be
helpful to know if a given restaurant is actually open; on a road trip,
it would also be very useful to find restaurants that are close to the
freeway. I wouldn’t mind seeing a top 3 or top 5 list with the relative
merits of each one. And being able to plan a trip around
toddler-friendly eating spots in advance would be gold.
What’s sort of neat about the technology is that this is all actually
very feasible — in an hour or two. Using AI as an engine in
this way cuts out a lot of development time, not to mention the need to
gather your own database. There are obviously ethical issues related to
how these models were trained, which are sure to be litigated for years
to come. But here we’re not creating any new content or replacing an
artist: we’re making it easier to find our way to a local business.
The next time I’m on a road trip with my little one and I see that he’s
starting to get hungry, I’ll be able to hit a button on my phone and get
directions to a nearby place that will probably be appropriate for him
to sit down and eat at. I think that’s cool.
https://werd.io/2024/using-ai-to-feed-my-toddler-on-a-road-trip
US
Feds Are Tapping a Half-Billion Encrypted Messaging Goldmine
date: 2024-08-21, from: 404 Media Group
European cops hacked the encrypted phone provider Sky in 2021. More
and more cases in the U.S. are using that mass of collected
messages.
https://www.404media.co/us-feds-are-tapping-a-half-billion-encrypted-messaging-goldmine-2/
The Savvy
Senior | How to Choose a Walk-In Bathtub
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
Dear Savvy Senior, Because of my back pain and mobility problems, I’m
interested in getting a walk-in bathtub that’s safe and easy to get in
and out of. What […]
The post
The
Savvy Senior | How to Choose a Walk-In Bathtub appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/the-savvy-senior-how-to-choose-a-walk-in-bathtub/
Ticketmaster
Used Revolving Barcodes to Control Ticket Resale Market and Surveil
Customers, DOJ Alleges
date: 2024-08-21, from: 404 Media Group
“We now not only know the person that bought the ticket, but we’re
going to know those three people that you are taking to the show, which
we have not known historically.”
https://www.404media.co/ticketmaster-used-revolving-barcodes-to-control-ticket-resale-market-and-surveil-customers-doj-alleges/
Automating ZFS
snapshots for peace of mind
date: 2024-08-21, from: OS News
One feature I couldn’t live without anymore is snapshots. As system
administrators, we often find ourselves in situations where we’ve made a
mistake, need to revert to a previous state, or need access to a log
that has been rotated and disappeared. Since I started using ZFS, all of
this has become incredibly simple, and I feel much more at ease when
making any modifications. However, since I don’t always remember to
create a manual snapshot before starting to work, I use an automatic
snapshot system. For this type of snapshot, I use
the excellent zfs-autobackup tool – which I also use for backups. The
goal is to have a single, flexible, and configurable tool without having
to learn different syntaxes. ↫ Stefano Marinelli I’m always a little sad
about the fact that the kind of advanced features modern file systems
like ZFS, btrfs, and others offer are so inaccessible to mere desktop
users like myself. While I understand they’re primarily designed for
server use, they’re still making their way to desktops – my Fedora
installations all default to btrfs – and I’d love to be able to make use
of their advanced features straight from within KDE (or GNOME or
whatever it is you use). Of course, that’s neither here or there for the
article at hand, which will be quite useful for people administering
FreeBSD and/or Linux systems, and who would like to get the most out of
ZFS by automating some of its functionality.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140548/automating-zfs-snapshots-for-peace-of-mind/
Book note:
Westerstähl, Foundations of Logic, I & II
date: 2024-08-21, from: Logic Matters blog
Dag Westerstähl’s Foundations of Logic: Completeness, Incompleteness,
Computability is, by some margin, the most attractively written book at
its level that I have newly encountered for some years. The book is
based on lecture courses give at Stockholm University and latterly at
Tsinghua University, Beijing, and evidently reflects long teaching
experience. The expositional choices are […]
The post
Book
note: Westerstähl, <I>Foundations of Logic</I>, I &
II appeared first on Logic
Matters.
https://www.logicmatters.net/2024/08/21/book-note-westerstahl-foundations-of-logic-i-ii/
Podcast:
How Taylor Swift Could Sue Trump for AI Images
date: 2024-08-21, from: 404 Media Group
We break down how Taylor Swift could sue Donald Trump for a fake,
AI-generated endorsement of the presidential candidate; how the U.S. is
tapping an intelligence goldmine of encrypted chats; and how we approach
generating impact with our journalism.
https://www.404media.co/podcast-how-taylor-swift-could-sue-trump-for-ai-images/
Top
companies ground Microsoft Copilot over data governance concerns
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Securiti’s Jack Berkowitz polled 20-plus CDOs, and half have hit pause
Security and corporate governance concerns are weighing heavily on large
enterprises as they try to work Microsoft Copilots into their
organizations amid a complex web of existing tech products and access
rights.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/microsoft_ai_copilots/
Shake, Rattle, and Roll
date: 2024-08-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
To the tune of Elon Musk / as he gets richer
The post
Shake,
Rattle, and Roll appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/21/shake-rattle-and-roll/
So you want to
build an embedded Linux system?
date: 2024-08-21, from: OS News
This article is targeted at embedded engineers who are familiar with
microcontrollers but not with microprocessors or Linux, so I wanted to
put together something with a quick primer on why you’d want to run
embedded Linux, a broad overview of what’s involved in designing around
application processors, and then a dive into some specific parts you
should check out — and others you should avoid — for entry-level
embedded Linux systems. ↫ Jay Carlson Quite the detailed guide about
embedded Linux.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140546/so-you-want-to-build-an-embedded-linux-system-2/
Juice
probe scores epic fuel save after snapping selfies with Earth and
Moon
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Onward to Venus!
ESA’s Juice spacecraft has had close-ups with the Moon and Earth and is
on its way to Venus, having snapped images with its monitoring cameras
and collected scientific data as it passed.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/esa_juice_gravity_assist/
As Easy as Hacking a Bike
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/08/21/as-easy-as-hacking-a-bike/
Why
LAUSD is betting school wellness centers can keep students healthy — and
in the classroom
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The LAist
When health researchers looked at the outcomes of students after they
visited L.A. school health clinics, they found attendance stabilized or
improved — particularly for students who sought mental health
treatment.
https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-school-wellness-centers-student-health-care-chronic-absenteeism-attendance
How
highways brought some SoCal animals to the brink
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The LAist
Their plights inspire ambitious projects to undo some of the
damage.
https://laist.com/news/shows/imperfectparadise/road-ecology-wildlife-ben-goldfarb
All
that new AI-fueled datacenter space? Yeah, that’s mostly ours – cloud
giants
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Construction surged 70% … with 80% already snapped up
The number of bit barns currently under construction has exploded in the
wake of the AI boom, surging nearly 70 percent in North America’s top
markets over the past year to a record high of 3.87 gigawatts, according
to a newly published CBRE report.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/dc_na_boom/
What’s Going On with
Coal Power in China?
date: 2024-08-21, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Extreme storm warnings are in
place across Europe • Large hail could terrorize the High Plains today
and tomorrow • It will feel like 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Houston,
Texas.
THE TOP FIVE
- A quick climate roundup from the DNC
It’s Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention. The Obamas took center
stage last night. Now the focus shifts to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who
will accept the vice-presidential nomination this evening. There are a
few climate-specific events on the schedule today, including a
meeting
hosted by major environmental groups (some of which are behind a new
$55
million climate ad push for Kamala Harris) to “present the latest on
climate,” and a
meeting
of the Council on the Environment & Climate Crisis. Today’s events
will also feature speeches from climate advocates Sens. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
- Climate change threatens U.S. medical blood supply
The American Red Cross
says
that extreme weather events are pushing down attendance at its blood
drives. In July alone, the organization experienced a shortfall of
19,000 donations and its blood inventory dropped by a quarter, in part
because of heat waves. And so far in August, 60 blood drives have been
canceled because of extreme weather. “That limits our ability to meet
hospital requests for blood,” Rodney Wilson, the senior biomedical
communications specialist for the American Red Cross,
told
The Guardian. “So as hospitals request blood to treat
patients, we’ve had to limit our distributions of some of those key
types that they need the most, because there isn’t enough for
everybody.” The American Red Cross supplies 40% of the country’s donated
blood.
- NextDecade cancels carbon capture and storage plans for Texas LNG
facility
Liquefied natural gas company
NextDecade
yesterday canceled its plans to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS)
facility on its $18.4 billion Rio Grande LNG export project in Texas,
officially
withdrawing
its application from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
The company had big plans for the Rio Grande facility, which will be one
of the largest LNG facilities in the country once completed. It was
touted
as the first U.S. LNG project expected to reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions by 90% through CCS. FERC approved the export project, but a
few weeks ago the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out that approval
citing serious “procedural defects.” The court said FERC hadn’t
sufficiently examined the project’s environmental impact.
According
to Gas Outlook, the Rio Grande facility will emit
more than 8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent every year and be “the
largest polluter in the Rio Grande Valley.”
- Rivian VP of manufacturing departs
Rivian this week got approval to expand its plant in the city of Normal,
Illinois, to build its upcoming R2 crossover SUV,
Electrek
reported.
The R2 is expected to enter production in 2026, but the company needs to
continue to expand its Normal operations first. The town council
approved a whole new “R2” building and more square footage overall. In
other Rivian news, the company’s vice president of manufacturing, Tim
Fallon, is leaving to join Stellantis. Fallon is the latest in a wave of
recent high-level departures for the company. “The exits highlight the
volatility at the EV startup as it navigates production hurdles and a
broader slowdown in demand for plug-in vehicles also afflicting its
rivals,”
explained
Bloomberg.
- China’s approvals for new coal power plants plummet
New
analysis
from Greenpeace East Asia finds that China cut approvals for new coal
power operations by 80% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same
period last year, “marking a potential turning point in China’s energy
transition, as wind and solar power capacity continues to expand.”
However, while many fewer projects have been given the green light,
those that have are quite large. China is the world’s top emitter of
coal carbon emissions.
Greenpeace
THE KICKER
Virtually the
entire
population of the United States has received at least one extreme
weather alert since the beginning of May.
https://heatmap.news/climate/china-coal-emissions-nextdecade-lng
The legal fight over
noncompete agreements
date: 2024-08-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Noncompete agreements, where your employer has you sign a contract
promising you won’t work for a competitor in the future, were originally
used to protect intellectual property but now are so widespread that
they can apply to fast food workers. The Federal Trade Commission wanted
to ban noncompetes but a federal judge in Texas has blocked the ban.
Also: Chicago’s economic landscape during the DNC and greater access to
work permits for undocumented immigrants.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-legal-fight-over-noncompete-agreements
China
‘concerned’ after report alleging US nuclear strategy change
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
Seoul, South Korea — China on Wednesday said it was “seriously
concerned” after a report alleged the United States recently approved a
secret plan to shift some of the focus of its nuclear strategy away from
Russia to deal with Beijing’s nuclear weapons buildup.
In a report late Tuesday, The New York Times reported that U.S.
President Joe Biden in March approved a new “nuclear employment
guidance,” a highly classified document outlining how the U.S. would use
nuclear weapons in a potential conflict.
The report said the document, updated every four years, reorients
U.S. nuclear deterrent strategy to deal with China’s massive expansion
of its nuclear arsenal. The document also orders U.S. forces to prepare
for the possibility of “coordinated nuclear challenges” from China,
Russia, and North Korea, according to the report.
Asked about the report during a press briefing Wednesday, a Chinese
foreign ministry spokesperson accused the United States of “peddling the
China nuclear threat narrative” and “finding excuses to seek strategic
advantage.”
“China is seriously concerned about the relevant report, and the
facts have fully proven that the United States has constantly stirred up
the so-called China nuclear threat theory in recent years,” said Chinese
foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
Russia has not responded to the report.
For decades, U.S. nuclear policy has been primarily focused on
Russia, the only other country with comparable nuclear weapons
capabilities.
However, U.S. officials have increasingly warned that China’s nuclear
buildup under President Xi Jinping is proceeding faster than previously
expected.
In an unclassified document released late last year, the Pentagon
estimated that the Chinese military had more than 500 operational
warheads in its arsenal and will have more than 1,000 warheads by
2030.
That compares to the United States, which possesses a nuclear
stockpile of about 3,700 active warheads, according to estimates
compiled by the U.S.-based Arms Control Association.
Russia has roughly 4,380 nuclear warheads, including about 1,550 on
strategic delivery systems, according to estimates cited by the
group.
Given those numbers, Russia remains the “major driver” behind U.S.
nuclear strategy, said Daryl G. Kimball, the director of the Arms
Control Association, in a post on social media site X.
The Times report overstates the changes outlined in the U.S. nuclear
weapons guidance document, according to Kimball, who insisted there has
been no reorientation away from Russia toward China.
“Despite China’s nuclear expansion, Russia’s arsenal significantly
exceeds that of China’s - even after Xi’s ambitious plan is complete.
Until that changes, focus will remain on Russia’s arsenal,” said Hans
Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the
Federation of American Scientists.
“But planning against China is increasing, as reflected in the
document,” Kristensen added in a post on X.
U.S. officials have publicly referred to the nuclear weapons document
at least twice, without offering much detail on its contents.
In June, Pranay Vaddi, the White House National Security Council’s
senior director for arms control and nonproliferation, said the new
guidance “emphasizes the need to account for the growth and diversity”
of China’s nuclear arsenal, as well the need to deter Russia, China, and
North Korea simultaneously.
According to Vaddi, the U.S. will continue to pursue nuclear arms
restraints with Russia and China, but “without a change in the
trajectory that Russia, [China], and North Korea are on,” the U.S. “will
need to continue to adjust our posture and capabilities to ensure our
ability to deter and meet other objectives going forward.”
Vipin Narang, an MIT nuclear security specialist who until recently
focused on nuclear policy in the Pentagon, said earlier this month that
Biden “recently issued updated nuclear weapons employment guidance to
account for multiple nuclear-armed adversaries, and, in particular, the
significant increase in the size and diversity of [China’s] nuclear
arsenal.”
“It is our responsibility to see the world as it is, not as we hoped
or wished it would be,” said Narang. “It is possible that we will one
day look back and see the quarter century after the Cold War as ‘nuclear
intermission’.”
U.S. and Chinese officials both frequently speak of the dangers of
nuclear war, but efforts to hold dialogue on the issue have failed.
Last year, U.S. and Chinese officials agreed to negotiations on
nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, ahead of a meeting between
Biden and Xi. But China suspended the talks last month, citing U.S. arms
sales to the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its
own.
Many analysts are also concerned about growing military and
diplomatic cooperation between Russia and China. In 2022, Xi and Russian
President Vladimir Putin agreed on a “no-limits” partnership and have
recently expanded joint military exercises and other cooperation.
Earlier this year, Russia also restored a Cold War-era mutual defense
treaty with nuclear-armed North Korea and hinted at further defense
cooperation.
Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly issued thinly
veiled threats about using nuclear weapons against Western-backed forces
there.
https://www.voanews.com/a/china-concerned-after-report-alleging-us-nuclear-strategy-change-/7750939.html
It’s Shein versus Temu in
court
date: 2024-08-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: First on the program, Shein is
suing Temu for copyright infringement. The court case comes as Shein
itself fends off similar allegations from a host of brands and
independent artists. Then, Australia has just approved plans for the
world’s largest solar plant. And later, the search for six people
missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily is now in its
third day.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/its-shein-versus-temu-in-court
Prior
UK goverment planned £485M four-year budget for Palantir-based
healthcare system
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Documents from NHS England meeting reveal scope of politicos spending
intent
Exclusive The total planned budget for the English
health service’s controversial Palantir-based analytics system was set
to reach £485 million over four years, according to figures seen by
The Register.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/conservative_palantir_nhs_budget/
Slack
AI can be tricked into leaking data from private channels via prompt
injection
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Whack yakety-yak app chaps rapped for security crack
Slack AI, an add-on assistive service available to users of Salesforce’s
team messaging service, is vulnerable to prompt injection, according to
security firm PromptArmor.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/slack_ai_prompt_injection/
This Isn’t the Same
Kind of Climate Election
date: 2024-08-21, from: Heatmap News
Democrats are gathering in Chicago this week for their quadrennial
convention and to celebrate Kamala Harris’s nomination for president.
This year’s convention will look different from 2020’s for many reasons
— but one of them is that we’re likely to hear far less about climate
change. Unlike in 2020, when President Joe Biden described global
warming as one of “four overlapping crises” confronting the country,
Harris has been more subtle when discussing it.
So … is that a problem? Should we be freaked out? On this week’s episode
of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse discuss the modern electoral politics of
climate change. We talk about whether the electorate’s interest in
climate issues has faded, how the Inflation Reduction Act could affect
voting, and why a “quiet on climate” strategy might be okay. Shift Key
is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap,
and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at
Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on
Apple
Podcasts,
Spotify,
Amazon,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add
the
show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: The other thing that I think is really
fascinating — and I’ve felt like this is a case that a political
scientist could certainly have more to say about — but it feels like
this is a case that the focus on climate in the 117th Congress, the
Congress that passed the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction
Act, was, I think, largely elite-driven. Like inside-the-Beltway
priority-setting, not so much a general response to polling, even though
you’re right, there was an energy crisis that actually happened towards
the tail end of that legislative debate.
And the original
agenda was the Build Back Better agenda from the Biden administration,
which is really trying to center these investments in new economies, new
industries — including clean energy — as part of a broader post-COVID
economic recovery.
What was fascinating to me is that, you
know, the Build Back Better Act was really a cost of living-focused
bill. It had a huge amount of programs focused on the cost of childcare,
on elder care, on healthcare. And all of that got stripped out as the
bill moved on and eventually became the Inflation Reduction Act, which
primarily centered around climate and clean energy investment with a
small residual piece around prescription drugs and extending Affordable
Care Act subsidies for lower middle class folks that rely on the
insurance exchanges. Most of the stuff that would now, I think, be
hugely popular in this electoral cycle because it much more centrally
spoke to the concerns about cost of living got pulled out at the behest
of folks like Joe Manchin, who wanted to strip the bill down and not
focus on expanding social programs.
So it’s kind of an
interesting dynamic. If I were to look at polls and use those polls to
have predicted which pieces would fall out of the bill as the Build Back
Better Act moved through the hand to hand combat of congressional
passage, I would have expected it would have been climate because it’s
always low on the priority list when you look at polling, but it was
actually the exact opposite.
I think there was a sense in
the halls of Congress that climate was the one thing you couldn’t
jettison because that was their one chance to take a shot at it. And
they didn’t know when they would get another shot.
Robinson Meyer: I want to moderate that — or I want to
disagree slightly on a few things. I totally agree, first of all, that
climate acted in the IRA negotiations primarily as an elite-driven
issue. And I think that is often ignored in conversations about the IRA,
and I think it is actually quite important to hit home that point
because it should lead to better decision-making in the future — both as
people who want to see the federal government continue to push on
decarbonization and also people interested in political actors making
smart choices and decisions around decarbonization.
It is
true that a lot of that so-called care-focused policy in the IRA, I
think it fell out for two reasons. The first is that Democrats thought
that they were going to be able to get a better deal from Manchin.
Manchin agreed to terms in October 2021, he agreed to a set of terms
that Democrats kind of then just blew past. They thought that basically
by bullying him, by ignoring his demands, he was going to give way and
allow a larger bill, and he ultimately did not.
But No. 2, I
guess I would add that the other place where the care economy stuff got
really hit was that some of the policy design seemed pretty bad. There
were white papers that came out or blog posts that came out during the
October 2021 to March 2022 period that suggested that there were going
to be real unintended consequences, especially around the childcare
policy, that had not been seriously looked at. And while I don’t think
those blog posts or analysis played a decisive role, I do think that — I
remember Matt Bruenig wrote
a
big piece here — I do think that that led to Democrats being
more willing to jettison the policy because they felt like that policy
had emerged from kind of a morass of foundation-funded nonprofits and
maybe hadn’t gotten the close inspection that it needed —
Jenkins: It wasn’t quite ready for …
Meyer: It wasn’t quite ready for primetime, and in a
different way than the energy tax credits in the IRA were ready for
primetime — because to some degree, they were a giant expansion on
policy that Congress had already done for a while, right? And obviously
there were new tax credits, too. But there was an existing economic
record that Congress could subsidize clean via the tax code and not
create massive, massive unintended, distortionary effects in the economy
that did not exist for, say, childcare.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure
and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an
audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get
the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at
watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow
invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the
boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why
Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by
visiting
sungrowpower.com.
Antenna Group helps you connect with customers,
policymakers, investors, and strategic partners to influence markets and
accelerate adoption. Visit
antennagroup.com
to learn more.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-s2-e2-climate-election
Retro Pico-powered
incandescent lamp
date: 2024-08-21, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
This beautiful Pico-powered desk lamp was handmade by one of our ASIC
engineers, Dave Bell.
The post
Retro
Pico-powered incandescent lamp appeared first on
Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/retro-pico-powered-incandescent-lamp/
UK
competition regulator’s cloud probe remedies have global
implications
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Egress fees? Ticked. Spend discounts? Not yet. Software licensing? Might
need to shape up, Microsoft
Britain’s competition watchdog is scheduled to announce a provisional
decision in the coming weeks on its examination into whether the major
cloud players engage in practices that may limit customer choice. Its
ruling could have far-reaching implications for the cloud sector.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/cma_cloud_market_investigation/
ConTejas Code Podcast
date: 2024-08-21, from: Kilian Valkhof’s blog
I’ve been a fan of Tejas’ podcast since he started it. He is an
extremely gracious host that asks interesting questions and brings out
the best in the people he has on. I was thrilled when he asked me to
record an episode with him. We recorded this back in April when I was
struggling […]
The post
ConTejas
Code Podcast first appeared on
Kilian Valkhof.
https://kilianvalkhof.com/2024/web/contejas-code-podcast/
Deadbeat
dad faked his own death by hacking government databases
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Hoped to dodge child support payments, now faces 81 months inside – and
a bigger bill than ever
A US man has been sentenced to 81 months in jail for faking his own
death by hacking government systems and officially marking himself as
deceased.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/man_jailed_faking_death_online/
Classifieds – August 21, 2024
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The Daily Trojan features Classified advertising in each day’s edition.
Here you can read, search, and even print out each day’s edition of the
Classifieds.
The post
Classifieds
– August 21, 2024 appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/classifieds-august-21-2024/
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
Former President Barack Obama addressed Democrats in his home city of
Chicago Tuesday, saying Vice President Kamala Harris is the right choice
to take on Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election this November.
VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from the
second night of the Democratic National Convention.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-president-obama-rallies-democrats-for-harris-in-chicago/7750842.html
Today in SCV History
(Aug. 21)
date: 2024-08-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1961 – CalArts grad (MFA ’92) and marine biologist Stephen
Hillenburg, creator of Spongebob SquarePants, born in Oklahoma;
developed prototype for Spongebob while studying at CalArts in 1989.
Estimated net worth in 2012: $90 million. Died 2018. [story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-21/
Alone
and searching for meaning: Inside USC’s ‘high-pressure group’
problem
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Amid a crisis of loneliness, some religious clubs offer more than
spiritual guidance. Vulnerable students are paying the price.
The post
Alone
and searching for meaning: Inside USC’s ‘high-pressure group’
problem appeared first on Daily
Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/alone-and-searching-for-meaning-inside-uscs-high-pressure-group-problem/
SDA reveals fall
semester plays, musicals
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Eight theater performances are ready for action across different
University venues.
The post
SDA
reveals fall semester plays, musicals appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/sda-reveals-fall-semester-plays-musicals/
The
invisible labor of children of immigrants deserves to be seen
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
I want appreciation for helping my family expressed through words, not
fruit.
The post
The
invisible labor of children of immigrants deserves to be seen
appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/the-invisible-labor-of-children-of-immigrants-deserves-to-be-seen/
Big Ten’s biggest
winners and losers in 2024
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
What you can expect from this fall’s flurry of football in the Trojans’
new conference.
The post
Big
Ten’s biggest winners and losers in 2024 appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/big-tens-biggest-winners-and-losers-in-2024/
Students,
administration reflect on Culture Survey results as new semester
begins
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC released the full results of the Culture Survey in July and will
host public feedback forums throughout the year.
The post
Students,
administration reflect on Culture Survey results as new semester
begins appeared first on Daily
Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/students-administration-reflect-on-culture-survey-results-as-new-semester-begins/
Women’s basketball
nabs stars before Big Ten
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Coming off an Elite Eight run, USC refills roster with two new key
contributors.
The post
Women’s
basketball nabs stars before Big Ten appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/womens-basketball-nabs-stars-before-big-ten/
Exploring ‘Veep’ on election
year
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign reminded the world of the great
Julia Louis-Dreyfus-led sitcom.
The post
Exploring
‘Veep’ on election year appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/exploring-veep-on-election-year/
Paris brings gold for
Trojan Olympians
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC added 15 more medals, including seven gold, to its tally at the
Summer Games
The post
Paris
brings gold for Trojan Olympians appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/paris-brings-gold-for-trojan-olympians/
Student
Health shares campus health reminders, medical services
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Specialty services, including dermatology, physical therapy, dietary
counseling and reproductive health care, are available at the campus
health centers.
The post
Student
Health shares campus health reminders, medical services appeared
first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/student-health-shares-campus-health-reminders-medical-services/
There is no pleasure in
modern hedonism
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Instead of our true desires, the algorithm only knows how to instantly
gratify us.
The post
There
is no pleasure in modern hedonism appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/there-is-no-pleasure-in-modern-hedonism/
Presidential resumes are
up for debate
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The division between public and private sectors in party affiliation is
not obsolete.
The post
Presidential
resumes are up for debate appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/presidential-resumes-are-up-for-debate/
Alumni film wins
$100,000 festival grand prize
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
“Noodles Forever” won big at the Cards Against Humanity film festival.
The post
Alumni
film wins $100,000 festival grand prize appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/alumni-film-wins-100000-festival-grand-prize/
USC
updates campus access policies for fall semester
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Pedestrian gates will be opened 24/7, but ID checks are still in place.
The post
USC
updates campus access policies for fall semester appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/usc-updates-campus-access-policies-for-fall-semester/
Paris brings gold for
Trojan Olympians
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC added 15 more medals, including seven gold, to its tally at the
Summer Games
The post
Paris
brings gold for Trojan Olympians appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/paris-brings-gold-for-trojan-olympians-2/
Market on Mateo
celebrates grand opening
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The flea market plans on hosting monthly events to uplift small, local
vendors.
The post
Market
on Mateo celebrates grand opening appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/market-on-mateo-celebrates-grand-opening/
As you
enter freshman year, rely on yourself to improve
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
I discovered my confidence by writing for the Daily Trojan opinion
section.
The post
As
you enter freshman year, rely on yourself to improve appeared first
on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/as-you-enter-freshman-year-rely-on-yourself-to-improve/
Past USC players
vying for NFL roster spots
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Multiple Trojans are fighting for their careers in training camp and
preseason games.
The post
Past
USC players vying for NFL roster spots appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/past-usc-players-vying-for-nfl-roster-spots/
USG passes new bill for
2024-25
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Senator Patrick Nguyen and Jeremiah Boisrond’s new legislation changes
USG’s open forum rules.
The post
USG
passes new bill for 2024-25 appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/usg-passes-new-bill-for-2024-25/
Soccer’s BIG season is
underway
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
USC is still crafting a fresh identity, but it is already a team to keep
an eye on.
The post
Soccer’s
BIG season is underway appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/soccers-big-season-is-underway/
Creating a foundation for
the future
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Improving our paper’s culture means improving our internal standards —
and keeping a written record.
The post
Creating
a foundation for the future appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/creating-a-foundation-for-the-future/
Summer does not
slow down for unions at USC
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Unions consider contracts, strikes, pickets, and negotiations during
break.
The post
Summer
does not slow down for unions at USC appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/21/union-recap-2024/
Shein, Temu
escalate epic e-commerce squabble
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Chinese fast fashion slingers get their Spider-Man meme moment
Shein, a well-known purveyor of desperately cheap goods, has raised
lurid claims against its rival Temu in a lawsuit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/shein_temu_lawsuit/
Atlassian
CEO’s idea to build 4,000-kilometer extension cord plugged in
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Giant solar farm in Australia will make ’leccy that flows under the
ocean to Singapore
Atlassian CEO Mike Atlassian Cannon-Brookes’s plan to pipe electricity
from Australia to Singapore has been approved by the land down under’s
government.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/suncable_atlassian_ceo_approved/
DNC’s
Day 2: Double dose of Obama firepower, a doting spouse and a dance
party
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
CHICAGO — The Democratic National Convention’s second night showcased
a double dose of Obama firepower to validate Vice President Kamala
Harris and deliver an unsparing indictment of Republican Donald Trump.
The convention also served up a raucous roll call of states that was
essentially one big dance party.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, ducked out of
Chicago to hold a rally just up the interstate in Milwaukee, wooing
voters in battleground Wisconsin. It was a recognition that, regardless
of whatever good vibes may exist at the convention, Democrats expect
this presidential election to be razor-close.
Here are some takeaways from the convention’s second night.
The ex-presidents club
If the Republican convention was all about Trump, the Democrats on
Tuesday wanted to put Harris in a pantheon with past presidents.
The biggest validators of the night were former President Barack
Obama and his wife, Michelle. The latter linked Harris with her husband
by telling the rapt crowd, “America, hope is making a comeback.”
Barack Obama, for his part, reached back to his own 2004 convention
speech to tie Harris to his legacy. “I am feeling hopeful – because this
convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who
believe in a country where everything is possible,” he said.
It wasn’t just the Obamas making the case for the vice president. The
grandsons of Jimmy Carter and John F. Kennedy also portrayed her as the
natural heir of past Democratic leaders.
As groundbreaking as Harris’ candidacy is as the first woman of color
to be her party’s nominee, these speeches by an ex-president and
presidential progeny were all about linking her to a broader historical
arc and evoking the excitement of Obama’s 2008 run that Harris hopes to
replicate.
Diverting from the high road
The Obamas did not hold back in lacing into Trump. Michelle Obama’s
well-worn adage from years past that “when they go low, we go high” no
longer seemed operative.
Barack Obama called Trump “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t
stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden
escalator nine years ago.”
Michelle Obama also took a personal swipe, saying: “For years, Donald
Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. His
limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the
existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who
also happened to be Black.”
Playing off her famous line about Republicans going low, Michelle
Obama suggested that Trump was going “small” and that “it’s unhealthy,
and quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.”
DNC dance party
Political conventions technically happen so that delegates can
nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates.
This year, the Democrats took care of that job in advance. But that
didn’t stop them from holding a ceremonial do-over and turning it into a
raucous dance party.
DJ Cassidy strode on stage in a bright blue double-breasted suit and
spun tunes for every state as they nominated Harris and Walz. Minnesota
got “1999” by native son Prince, Kansas got “Carry on Wayward Son” by,
well, Kansas. “Born in the U.S.A.” by Bruce Springsteen played as New
Jersey weighed in.
Usually it was governors or state party chairs calling out the votes,
but some states passed the mic to make serious points. Kate Cox, who
unsuccessfully sued her home state of Texas while seeking an abortion
for a non-viable fetus, announced Texas’ votes. A survivor of the 2017
Las Vegas strip gun massacre announced Nevada’s votes.
The roll call highlight was when Atlanta rapper Lil Jon strode
through the United Center to the beats of “Turn Down for What,” his song
with DJ Snake, and rapped his support for Harris and Walz.
Democrats are eager to highlight how Harris’ ascension has energized
the party. The roll call fit that vibe.
America’s blind date with Doug Emhoff
Doug Emhoff wants America to love his wife as much as he does.
His convention speech Tuesday night focused on their love story and
offered a personal glimpse meant to pull in voters, too. He dished on
the deets of their first phone call, after he left her a rambling
voicemail that she still makes him listen to every year on their
anniversary.
“I love that laugh,” he said adoringly, a rebuttal to Trump’s
criticism of Harris’ laughter.
As Harris flew back to Chicago from Milwaukee after her rally there,
Air Force Two spent an extra 10 minutes in the air so she could watch
her husband speak, according to an aide.
Emhoff said he “just fell in love fast” with Harris, adding that she
finds “joy in pursuing justice” and “stands up to bullies.” It’s not how
most husbands describe their partners, but, then, Emhoff is trying to
convince voters that the woman he’s been married to for 10 years this
Thursday knows how to take on Trump.
A message for Republicans: It’s OK to quit Trump
The Democrats are making a play for disaffected Trump voters — and
they used one of his former White House staffers to make their case.
Stephanie Grisham worked in various roles in the Trump White House,
including communications director and press secretary, allowing
Democrats to argue that those who know Trump best have seen him at his
worst.
“He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth,” Grisham
said. “I couldn’t be part of the insanity any longer.”
Kyle Sweetser, a Trump voter from Alabama, told the convention the
former president’s tariffs made life harder for construction workers
like him. Republican Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, also spoke about
why he’s backing Harris. Giles sees Trump’s policies as hurting cities
like his.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dnc-s-day-2-double-dose-of-obama-firepower-a-doting-spouse-and-a-dance-party/7750819.html
Leonard Leo’s Swing-State
Voter Purge
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Lever News
Lawyers with deep connections to the Supreme Court dark-money
operative are attacking voting rights in battleground states in the
lead-up to the 2024 election.
https://www.levernews.com/leonard-leos-swing-state-voter-purge/
Obamas
close DNC’s second night with rousing Harris endorsement
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
CHICAGO — Warning of a difficult fight ahead, former President Barack
Obama and Michelle Obama on Tuesday called on the nation to embrace
Kamala Harris in urgent messages to the Democratic National Convention
that were at times both hopeful and foreboding.
“America, hope is making a comeback,” the former first lady declared.
She then tore into Republican Donald Trump, a sharp shift from the 2016
convention speech in which she told her party, “When they go low, we go
high.”
“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by
the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who
also happened to be Black,” Obama said of Trump.
Her husband, the nation’s first Black president pushing for America
to elect its second, called Trump “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t
stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden
escalator nine years ago.”
“It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually
gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala,” he charged.
The fiery messages from two of the Democratic Party’s biggest stars
underscored the urgency of the moment as Harris works to stitch together
a broad coalition in her bid to defeat Trump this fall. She is drawing
on stars like the Obamas and other celebrities, officials from the far
left to the middle, and even some Republicans to boost her campaign.
And while the theme of the night was “a bold vision for America’s
future,” the disparate factions of Harris’ evolving coalition
demonstrated, above all, that they are connected by a deep desire to
prevent a second Trump presidency.
Just ahead of the Obamas’ remarks, Harris addressed an estimated
15,000 people in battleground Wisconsin in the arena where Republicans
held their convention last month. She declared that she was running “a
people-powered campaign.”
“Together we will chart a new way forward,” the vice president said
in remarks that were partially broadcast to the DNC. “A future for
freedom, opportunity, of optimism and faith.”
Back in Chicago, Senators Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic
leader, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent beloved by
progressives, both praised Harris. And in an appearance perhaps intended
to needle Trump, his former press secretary Stephanie Grisham — now a
harsh critic of her former boss — also took the convention stage.
Trump “has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth,”
Grisham said. “I love my country more than my party. Kamala Harris tells
the truth. She respects the American people. And she has my vote.”
Still, it was not all serious on the second night of the four-day
convention.
A symbolic roll call in which delegates from each state pledged their
support for the Democratic nominee turned into a party atmosphere. A DJ
played a mix of state-specific songs — and Atlanta native Lil Jon ran
out during Georgia’s turn to his hit song with DJ Snake, “Turn Down for
What,” to the delight of the thousands inside the cavernous United
Center.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who will become the nation’s first
gentleman if his wife wins the presidency, shared personal details about
his relationship with Harris — their cooking habits, their first date
and her laugh, which is often mocked by Republican critics.
“You know that laugh. I love that laugh!” Emhoff said as the crowd
cheered. Later, he added, “Her empathy is her strength.”
Trump, meanwhile, was out on the campaign trail as part of his
weeklong swing-state tour during the Democratic convention. He went to
Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday and stood aside sheriff’s deputies as he
labeled Harris the “ringleader” of a “Marxist attack on law enforcement”
across the country.
“Kamala Harris will deliver crime, chaos, destruction and death,”
Trump said in one of many generalizations about an America under
Harris.
Harris, meanwhile, cast the election in dire, almost existential
terms. She implored Americans not to get complacent in light of the
Supreme Court decision carving out broad presidential immunity, a power
she said Trump would abuse.
She has also seized on Trump’s opposition to a nationally guaranteed
right to abortion.
“They seemingly don’t trust women,” she said of Trump and his
Republican allies. “Well, we trust women.”
The vice president’s speech evoked some of the same themes that
underlaid Biden’s case for reelection before he dropped out, casting
Trump as a threat to democracy. Harris argued that Trump threatens the
values and freedoms that Americans hold dear.
Someone with that record “should never again have the opportunity to
stand behind the seal of the president of the United States,” Harris
said. “Never again.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/obamas-close-dnc-s-second-night-with-rousing-harris-endorsement/7750802.html
Vegetation
Fires Burn 25 Acres Along Highway 101
date: 2024-08-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Firefighters stopped the progress of the small spot fires by Tuesday
night, but remained on scene to mop up hotspots.
The post
Vegetation
Fires Burn 25 Acres Along Highway 101 appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/vegetation-fires-burn-25-acres-along-highway-101/
China’s
chip tech still lags the West – by up to five generations
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Think tank warns US and friends they can’t assume Beijing won’t catch up
China’s chip design and fabrication capabilities lag significantly
behind the US and its allies, according to a report from US think tank
the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/china_us_chip_tech_gap_report/
Single Mothers
Outreach Celebrates New Offices
date: 2024-08-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce held a grand opening and
ribbon cutting on Thursday, Aug. 15 for the new offices of Single
Mothers Outreach in Valencia.
https://scvnews.com/single-mothers-outreach-celebrates-new-offices/
Protesters
arrested after clash with police outside Chicago’s Israeli
consulate
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
CHICAGO — Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters charged a line of
police in an intense standoff with hundreds of officers outside the
Israeli consulate Tuesday on the second night of the Democratic National
Convention.
After the larger gathering began to disperse, splintering off into
smaller groups, other interactions with police led to more than a dozen
arrests. Officers called the demonstrations “an unlawful assembly.”
Earlier in the night, officers carrying wooden clubs shouted “move”
and penned the demonstrators in on the street, preventing them from
marching.
Some demonstrators set an American flag on fire in the street as the
celebratory roll call for Vice President Kamala Harris took place inside
the United Center about 3.2 kilometers away. Others carried Palestinian
flags, while many others wore black and covered their faces.
As protesters regrouped and approached a line of police in riot gear
in front of a Chicago skyscraper that houses the Israeli consulate, an
officer said into a megaphone, “You are ordered to immediately
disburse.” A woman in the front of the march shouted back with her own
megaphone: “We’re not scared of you.”
A man in a Chicago Bulls hat, his face covered by a balaclava, called
on protesters to “shut down the DNC.” The group, which is not affiliated
with the coalition of over 200 groups that organized Monday’s protests,
advertised the demonstration Tuesday under the slogan of “Make it great
like ’68,” invoking the anti-Vietnam War protests that seized the city
during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
The atmosphere with rows of police in riot gear was a stark contrast
to a day earlier when thousands of pro-Palestinian activists, including
families pushing babies in strollers, marched near the convention site
calling for a cease-fire.
Police kept protesters confined to a block of Madison Street, a
normally bustling downtown thoroughfare where traffic was halted on both
ends Tuesday evening.
Law enforcement had closed down most of the entrances to the building
on Tuesday, allowing commuters to come in only one entrance where armed
officers were also posted. Many of the building’s shops were closed.
Martha Hill, a spokeswoman for the Metra commuter rail service, said
train service was running as normal.
The consulate has been the site of numerous demonstrations since the
war in Gaza began in October. It is in a building connected to the
Ogilvie Transportation Center, a major commuter rail station.
Mohammed Ismail, a 29-year-old psychiatry resident who lives in
Chicago, described the police presence as “excessive,” and questioned
why the group had been blocked from marching. He said he joined the
protest to urge Democrats to cease funding to Israel.
“It’s not right that we’re sending our tax money to fund an ongoing
slaughter, an ongoing genocide,” Ismail said. “We’re a part of this
conflict because our money is paying for it.”
Meanwhile, the sites of demonstrations from the previous night were
largely quiet. Thirteen people were arrested during Monday’s protests,
most them related to a “brief breach” of security fencing “within sight
and sound of the United Center,” the city’s police superintendent
said.
Israel supporters, including some relatives of people kidnapped by
Hamas, gathered earlier in the day at a pro-Israel art installation not
far from the consulate to call on U.S. leaders to continue backing
Israel and pushing for the release of hostages. The art installation
included giant milk cartons bearing photos of some of the hostages.
Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli-American Council, condemned the
pro-Palestinian protesters who have descended on Chicago this week,
calling them “fringe crazies” and demanding that U.S. leaders “stand
unequivocally with the state of Israel.”
More protests were planned throughout the week. However, attendance
at the main rally on Monday was far below estimates of organizers who
had predicted more than 20,000 would show up.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Tuesday that the
crowd was around 3,500 strong and that the vast majority of the
protesters were peaceful.
However, some clashed with police, used pepper spray against them and
threw water bottles at officers during the clash in the park where there
was a breach in security fencing, Snelling said. He said officers did
not use any chemical sprays.
“Our officers showed great restraint,” he said at a news conference.
“We’re not going to tolerate vandalism and violence in our city. … We’re
going to continue to protect the city.”
Snelling said with more protests planned, his department is prepared
to de-escalate situations whenever possible.
“Again, we’re up to the challenge,” Snelling said. “The city is up to
the challenge.”
The park where the most arrests were made, located a block from the
convention arena, served as a destination point for a march of thousands
calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Several dozen
activists broke off from the main group, breached the fencing, and were
pushed back by police.
Authorities said the inner security perimeter surrounding the United
Center was not breached and there was no threat to those attending the
convention.
On Tuesday morning, an extra line of fencing was installed at the
park and the tall metal barriers were reinforced to prevent protesters
from lifting and removing the panels. No police officers or protesters
were in the park early Tuesday.
The 13 people arrested during Monday’s protest were detained on
charges ranging from criminal trespass and resisting and obstructing an
arrest, to aggravated battery of police officers, Snelling said.
At least 10 of them were arrested in connection with the fence, he
said.
Snelling said he did not connect those who tore down the fence with
the entirety of the march. He said the vast majority of participants
were peaceful, and he praised his officers’ conduct in the moment.
The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild said two of the
people arrested were hospitalized. Snelling said they were not taken to
the hospital for injuries, but “so they could be provided the treatment
they needed when it came to their medications.”
Two people were also arrested on misdemeanor property damage and
resisting arrest charges during a protest march Sunday night. As of
Tuesday morning, 15 people had been arrested.
Most of the largest demonstrations have been organized by the
Coalition to March on the DNC, which has focused on calling for a
cease-fire in Gaza. But smaller protests have popped up around the city,
during the convention’s welcome party at Navy Pier.
https://www.voanews.com/a/protesters-arrested-after-clash-with-police-outside-chicago-s-israeli-consulate/7750774.html
Oct. 5:
Deadline for L.A. County Bookmark Contest
date: 2024-08-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Los Angeles County Library Bookmark Contest is now accepting
entries. Deadline for entries is Oct.
https://scvnews.com/oct-5-deadline-for-l-a-county-bookmark-contest/
Oct. 5
Harvest Moon Fundraiser at The Painted Turtle
date: 2024-08-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Harvest Moon: A Gathering benefiting The Painted Turtle and The
Bridge School will be held Saturday, Oct. 5 at The Painted Turtle camp
in Lake Hughes.
https://scvnews.com/oct-5-harvest-moon-fundraiser-at-the-painted-turtle/
Political
criticism and controversy swirls ahead of China video game release
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
washington — The release of a Chinese video game touted as the
country’s first to meet Triple-A standards, has sparked a flurry of
online criticism of the Chinese government.
Video games are given a AAA label when they are backed by big funds,
highly developed and distributed by well-known publishers.
The Aug. 20 worldwide release of the Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong
has been anticipated since its demo got more than 56 million views on
the Chinese video-sharing website Bilibili in 2020.
On YouTube, which is banned in China, the game demo had more than 10
million views.
Developed by China-based Game Science, the game has players take on
the role of the Monkey King, a character from the Chinese classic novel
Journey to the West, and defeat monsters wreaking havoc on the
world.
Although the game has no direct connection to politics, Chinese
commenters took to a U.S.–based gaming discussion board ahead of the
release to criticize the Chinese government and President Xi Jinping.
The discussion board on Steam, a Washington state-based online gaming
platform, was hit with a slew of comments in Chinese last week that
directly and indirectly criticized Chinese authorities and Xi.
One mocked Xi’s unprecedented third term as leader, saying, “I will
continue to be Jade Emperor in Black Myth: Wukong. Raise your hands if
you oppose it.”
Most critical posts ranted against the Chinese government, in ways
unrelated to the game.
“Overthrow the Communist Party of China and establish a democratic
constitutional system where everyone has a vote,” read what appeared to
be the first critical comment.
“Thank you to the party, thank you to our great chief accelerator, Xi
Jinping,” another comment reads, mocking Xi’s policies as accelerating
China’s economic decline.
Another post listed the timeline of the weeks-long 1989 Tiananmen
Square pro-democracy protests and the subsequent violent crackdown that
occurred when Chinese troops used lethal force against student-led
demonstrators, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands.
Such critical comments of China’s government and leaders are not
allowed on China’s internet, where an army of censors frequently scrubs
websites and discussion boards of comments that do not follow the
Chinese Communist Party’s line.
Observers were surprised to find by the afternoon of Aug. 16, many of
the critical posts on Steam’s U.S. discussion board had similarly been
removed.
Li Ying, a Chinese social media influencer and government critic
known online as Teacher Li, posted his opposition to the removal on
Aug. 14 on X with screenshots of the original posts.
“Steam is inherently a free platform, with a wide variety of games
here, and players are free to express any opinions and opinions about
the game,” he wrote on X.
Steam’s China-based website does not have a discussion board, and the
U.S.-based discussion board is only available to users outside China.
Those inside China need to use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, which
helps users bypass controls to access internet content outside the
country that is blocked.
VOA reached out to Steam seeking comment about why the posts were
deleted but did not receive a reply. Steam’s discussion board rules do
not explicitly prohibit political posts but say that users are not
allowed to post “disrespectful” content and to avoid posting content
unrelated to the topic.
While the game is not directly connected to the Chinese government,
it did receive some official help and praise. The city government of
Hangzhou, where Game Science is located, gave the game a grant in 2022.
State media in the province, Zhejiang, described the game as “one of the
most important explorers in the history of AAA games in China – an
explorer that deserves applause and encouragement.”
It’s not the first time Black Myth: Wukong has stirred up some
controversy.
The game’s developers have been accused of making lewd and sexist
remarks.
Feng Ji, the founder and CEO of Game Science, in a Weibo post last
year lamenting the difficulties in development, used words with erotic
connotations and compared his desire for expanding development to oral
sex.
Yang Qi, the game’s artistic director, remarked as early as 2013 on
Weibo that they would not pander to female players in the game’s
production.
“I don’t need the reverse drive of female players. I don’t take care
of those lewd insects who come to pick up girls; some things are made
for pure men,” he wrote.
In response, a female influencer posted on the gender-focused WeChat
account Orange Umbrella, urging Game Science to respect female
gamers.
“As a fellow player, I know how much hard work and dedication it
takes to make a game, and Black Myth: Wukong’s dedication and
seriousness in the production are commendable,” she wrote. “However,
don’t let the backward gender consciousness push players who are also
full of expectations for the game in the opposite direction more and
more.”
When Western media, including IGN, one of the most influential U.S.
online news sites for video games, reported last year on the
controversial comments, nationalist Chinese commenters called the
coverage an attempt to impose western values and put down China’s gaming
industry.
“Judging the Chinese game with the politically correct stance of the
West is really biased for the media,” a review article reads. The
article said whether the developers’ remarks constituted sexism “depends
on the perspective.”
On Weibo, one commenter called IGN a “clown” and wrote, “In order to
suppress the rise of Chinese games, the gender card is unsurprisingly
played again.”
Despite the controversies, gaming industry experts expect Black Myth:
Wukong to be a big hit.
Daniel Camilo, a game industry consultant based in southern China’s
Shenzhen city, noted to VOA that sexism in the gaming industry is not
new and has little impact on commercial success.
“Hardcore gamers and fans that actively discuss these issues and are
aware of them usually represent a very small [loud] minority online that
accounts for a small residual amount of those who actually buy games,”
he said.
The game has already received high praise from reviewers in China and
abroad.
IGN gave the game an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 on Aug. 16, calling it a
“great action game with great fights and exciting and powerful
opponents, albeit with a few bugs.”
The Chinese version of IGN gave the game a perfect score of 10,
writing, “This is a truly competitive domestic game in the global
market, and I believe it will be a strong contender for this year’s Game
of the Year.”
Camilo noted the high quality of the homegrown game has given Chinese
players something to be proud of that might even help improve China’s
international image.
“Black Myth will change perceptions people have regarding Chinese
games and, to some extent, China and its cultural output and soft power
really,” he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/political-criticism-and-controversy-swirls-ahead-of-china-video-game-release/7750751.html
US
appeals court revives Google privacy class action lawsuit
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-appeals-court-revives-google-privacy-class-action-lawsuit/7750736.html
How to
Build Your Reputation While Still in College
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
When you start building your career, you’ll need to focus on
developing your professional reputation. Your reputation is something
that will build and accumulate naturally over time as you make…
https://sundial.csun.edu/183868/sundialbrandstudio/sundial-marketplace/how-to-build-your-reputation-while-still-in-college/
Fediverse Governance Drop
date: 2024-08-21, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">
[Erin
Kissane]
“Back in the fall, I wrote about a research project I was diving into
with Darius Kazemi. Now, after a few months of prepping and conducting
interviews with people who run Mastodon and Hometown servers about how
they govern their parts of the network and then many more months of
analyzing and writing up what we found, we’re releasing our findings. We
found so much.”
This is an
impressively in-depth report by Erin Kissane and Darius Kazemi,
which has some important conclusions about how moderation can work in a
federated system (including the not-insignificant conclusion that it
can work). There’s room for more tooling, and better
communication between instances - but this is all doable stuff.
The shorter satellite documents -
opportunities
for funders and developers who want to serve this ecosystem and a
quick-start
guide to fediverse governance - are super helpful, too.
#Fediverse
<p>[<a href="https://erinkissane.com/fediverse-governance-drop">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>
https://werd.io/2024/fediverse-governance-drop
AI in Journalism Futures
2024
date: 2024-08-21, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">
[Open
Society Foundations]
“In February 2024, the Open Society Foundations issued a call for
applications for a convening in which selected participants would share
their visions of an AI-mediated future.”
I thought this, from the concluding observations, was telling:
“Participants were generally reluctant or unable to articulate exactly
how AI might transform the information ecosystem. […] Relatively few
submitted scenarios described an AI-driven transformation in specific
detail, and it was clear that many participants who were convinced that
AI would fundamentally restructure the information ecosystem also had no
specific point of view on how that might occur.”
In other words, while many people in journalism see that this set of
technologies may transform their industry, and are potentially excited
or terrified that it will, they have no idea how that will happen. This
is the very definition of hype: one can imagine people proclaiming that
blockchain, or push notifications, or RealMedia, or WebTV might do the
same.
It’s not that there are no uses for AI (just like it’s not that there
are no uses for blockchain). It will find its way into end-user
applications, underpin newsroom tools, and power data-driven newsroom
investigations, without a doubt. But the hype far exceeds that, and will
eventually, inevitably, deflate.
In the meantime, journalists are not as worried about the technologies
themselves as who controls them:
“Throughout the application process and workshop discussions, it became
clear that much of the conversation was not actually about AI, nor about
journalism, nor about the current or future information ecosystem, but
instead about power. It was clear that power, and the potential for
transfers of power from one group to another, was the explicit or
implicit subject of many of the submitted scenarios as well as the five
final scenarios that were distilled from the workshop.”
Technologists, in turn, were blind to these power dynamics, while
simultaneously predicting more dramatic changes. There’s a fundamental
truth here: it’s ultimately about money, and who controls the platforms
that allow readers to read about the world around them.
Same as it ever was: that’s been the struggle on the web since its
inception. AI just shifts the discussion to a new set of platforms.
#AI
<p>[<a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/ai-in-journalism-futures-2024">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>
https://werd.io/2024/ai-in-journalism-futures-2024
US
says classified nuclear strategy not response to single country,
threat
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — A classified nuclear strategic plan approved by
President Joe Biden this year is not a response to a single country or
threat, the White House said on Tuesday, after the New York Times
reported it reoriented the U.S. deterrence strategy to focus on China’s
expansion of its nuclear arsenal for the first time.
The U.S.-based Arms Control Association said it understood U.S.
nuclear weapons strategy and posture remained the same as described in
the administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, and there had been no
reorientation away from Russia and toward China.
The New York Times said the White House never announced that Biden
approved the revised strategy, titled the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,”
but an unclassified notification to Congress of the revision is expected
to be sent before Biden leaves office.
The newspaper said that in recent speeches, two senior administration
officials were allowed to allude to the strategy revision. It said the
strategy is updated every four years or so.
Asked about the report, White House spokesperson Sean Savett said:
“This administration, like the four administrations before it, issued a
Nuclear Posture Review and Nuclear Weapons Employment Planning
Guidance.
“While the specific text of the Guidance is classified, its existence
is in no way secret. The Guidance issued earlier this year is not a
response to any single entity, country, nor threat.”
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association,
said that while U.S. intelligence estimates suggest China may increase
the size its nuclear arsenal from 500 to 1,000 warheads by 2030, Russia
has about 4,000 nuclear warheads “and it remains the major driver behind
U.S. nuclear strategy.”
Kimball cited June remarks by one of the officials referred to in the
Times report, White House Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament,
and Nonproliferation Pranay Vaddi.
According to those remarks, U.S. strategy was to pursue nuclear arms
restraints with China and Russia, but if China continued on its current
trajectory and if Russia exceeds New START limits, the U.S. at some
point in the future may need to consider adjustments to the size and
makeup of its nuclear force, Kimball said.
“My understanding is that the point at which the current
administration thinks it might want to consider such changes won’t come
until 2030, or some time after,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-says-classified-nuclear-strategy-not-response-to-single-country-threat/7750733.html
Trump
campaigns in Michigan with ‘Make America Safe Again’ speech
date: 2024-08-21, from: VOA News USA
HOWELL, Michigan — Former President Donald Trump pledged Tuesday to
“Make America Safe Again” while campaigning in Michigan as Democrats
gathered in Chicago to nominate Kamala Harris.
As part of a battleground campaign swing designed to counter the
Democratic National Convention, Trump stood alongside sheriff’s deputies
in the city of Howell and tarred Harris, a former San Francisco district
attorney and California attorney general, as the “ringleader” of a
“Marxist attack on law enforcement” across the country.
“Kamala Harris will deliver crime, chaos, destruction and death,”
Trump said in one of many generalizations about an America under Harris.
“You’ll see levels of crime that you’ve never seen before. … I will
deliver law, order, safety and peace.”
Trump has sought in recent weeks to blunt the enthusiasm that Harris
has attracted since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign
and endorsed her. That has involved both dark predictions about what
electing Harris would mean for the country and efforts by Trump’s
advisers to set up events where he can try to draw specific policy
contrasts. On Tuesday in Michigan, the subject was crime and public
safety.
In excerpts released before his speech, Trump’s campaign also said he
would call for the death penalty for child rapists and child
traffickers; he did not mention that during his remarks.
The event was the latest billed as focused on a specific issue. But
on these occasions, Trump has spent considerable time attacking Harris
personally and taking shots at Biden, and the same was true after their
appearances Monday at the Democratic convention.
“I watched last night in amazement as they tried to pretend
everything was great,” Trump said, singling out inflation and the
U.S.-Mexico border as topics Democrats glossed over. “We have a fool as
president,” he said of Biden.
Trump presented a bleak portrait of life in the U.S. and the threat
of a Harris presidency, though he was short on specifics and heavy on
hyperbole.
“It’s just insane,” Trump said. “You can’t walk across the street to
get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped, you
get whatever it may be. And you’ve seen it, and I’ve seen it, and it’s
time for a change.”
Trump making such claims, surrounded by supportive law enforcement
officers, stood in stark contrast to the Democrats’ convention. Speaker
after speaker found ways Monday night in Chicago to remind Americans
that Trump is the first former president ever convicted of felony
crimes, has been found civilly liable for sexual assault, and still
faces multiple indictments, including for his efforts to overturn his
2020 defeat to Biden.
Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas skewered Trump on Monday
night as “a career criminal, with 34 felonies, two impeachments and one
porn star,” a reference to his payments to an adult film actress at
issue in his New York conviction for business fraud.
The derision reached its peak as Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated
in 2016, stood back from the podium and smiled as delegates chanted:
“Lock him up! Lock him up!” — a turnabout from Trump supporters’ chants
about Clinton eight years ago despite the former secretary of state
never having been charged with any crime.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-campaigns-in-michigan-with-make-america-safe-again-speech-/7750725.html
Brush fire breaks out in
Newhall
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
A brush fire broke out in Newhall shortly before 6 p.m. on Tuesday near
the intersection of Newhall Avenue and Needham Ranch Parkway, according
to first responder radio dispatch traffic. […]
The post
Brush
fire breaks out in Newhall appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/brush-fire-breaks-out-in-newhall/
Chipmaker
Microchip reveals cyber attack whacked manufacturing capacity
date: 2024-08-21, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Defense contractor gets hacked – what’s the worst that could happen
US semiconductor manufacturing firm Microchip Technology has revealed an
“unauthorized party disrupted the Company’s use of certain servers and
some business operation.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/21/microchip_technology_security_incident/
Chiquita
Canyon attorneys express concern over AQMD abatement modifications
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
Waste Connections attorneys have criticized the proposed modification
order from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to install
remote monitoring systems for approximately 240 gas collection wells at
Chiquita […]
The post
Chiquita
Canyon attorneys express concern over AQMD abatement modifications
appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley
Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/chiquita-canyon-attorneys-express-concern-over-aqmd-abatement-modifications/
City won’t challenge
ruling on solar panels
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
Despite years of legal wrangling and appeals, the Santa Clarita City
Council seems to have exhausted all its efforts to take down more than
6,000 solar panels on the hillside […]
The post
City
won’t challenge ruling on solar panels appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/city-wont-challenge-ruling-on-solar-panels/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump is losing his audience.
https://www.editorialboard.com/trump-is-losing-his-audience/
SOhO So Good
date: 2024-08-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I was delighted to see SOhO and the owners on the cover of the
Independent’s August 15 edition.
The post
SOhO
So Good appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/soho-so-good/
County
mandates Castaic school district’s Measure QS tax rate be raised
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
Property owners in the Castaic Union School District’s boundaries will
have a higher tax rate under the fourth issuance of the district’s
Measure QS bond authorization that voters approved in […]
The post
County
mandates Castaic school district’s Measure QS tax rate be raised
appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley
Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/county-mandates-castaic-school-districts-measure-qs-tax-rate-be-raised/
Aug. 24:
Author Claudia Donally to Meet Readers at The Open Book
date: 2024-08-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Author Claudia Donally will meet readers and sign her new book,
“Emily’s Beach Day,” a new children’s book at The Open Book, in Canyon
Country, from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24.
https://scvnews.com/aug-24-author-claudia-donally-to-meet-readers-at-the-open-book/
Dustin
Roberto, L.A. County Fire firefighter, dies
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
Family members are reeling from the loss of active-duty Los Angeles
County firefighter-paramedic Dustin Roberto, who died from stage 4
multi-system neuroendocrine cellular cancer on Aug. 10 at the age […]
The post
Dustin
Roberto, L.A. County Fire firefighter, dies appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/dustin-roberto-l-a-county-fire-firefighter-dies/
Exploring
the Future of Global Education: Opportunities and Trends
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
In an era where technology transcends geographical boundaries, the
landscape of education is evolving at an unprecedented pace. As students
of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), you stand at the…
https://sundial.csun.edu/183865/sundialbrandstudio/sundial-marketplace/exploring-the-future-of-global-education-opportunities-and-trends/
COC
soliciting applications for vacant board seat
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita Community College District board of trustees voted
last week to appoint a new member representing Trustee Area No. 5
following the recent resignation of Joan MacGregor. The […]
The post
COC
soliciting applications for vacant board seat appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/coc-soliciting-applications-for-vacant-board-seat/
date: 2024-08-21, from: The Signal
No arrests were made after a man fired a gun inside a Valencia hotel on
Monday evening in an incident that prompted a request for a “psych eval”
by first […]
The post
Hotel
gunfire incident related to apparent mental health incident
appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley
Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/hotel-gunfire-incident-related-to-apparent-mental-health-incident/
US
judge strikes down Biden administration ban on worker ‘noncompete’
agreements
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-judge-strikes-down-biden-administration-ban-on-worker-noncompete-agreements-/7750378.html
FreeBSD
and AMD collaborating on FreeBSD IOMMU driver
date: 2024-08-20, from: OS News
The FreeBSD project has published its latest quarterly status report,
and there’s a lot in there. The most prominent effort listed in the
report is a close collaboration between FreeBSD and AMD on an IOMMU
driver for AMD’s server processors. Work continued on a joint project
between Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and The FreeBSD Foundation to
develop a complete FreeBSD AMD IOMMU driver. This work will allow
FreeBSD to fully support greater than 256 cores with features such as
CPU mapping and will also include bhyve integration. Konstantin Belousov
has been working on various parts of the project, including driver
attachment, register definitions, an ACPI table parser, and utility
functions. Two key components that need to be completed are context
handling, which is mostly a generalization of Intel DMAR code, and page
table creation. After this, the AMD driver’s enable bit can be turned on
for testing. ↫ FreeBSD status report page It’s great to see AMD and
FreeBSD working together like this, and it highlights that FreeBSD is a
serious player in the server space. Other things mentioned in the status
report are continued work in improving the audio experience, wireless
networking, RISC-V support, OpenZFS, and more. Through the work of Tom
Jones, FreeBSD is also getting the Vector Packet Processor, a userspace
networking stack that delivers fast packet processing suitable for
software-defined networking and network function virtualization
applications. Of course, this is just a selection, and there’s way more
listed in the report. I would also like to highlight the ongoing,
neverending work of improving the experience of using KDE on FreeBSD.
The FreeBSD KDE team notes that due to the massive release of KDE 6, and
the associated flurry of follow-up releases, requiring a lot of work and
testing, KDE on FreeBSD still hasn’t fully caught up with the latest
releases. KDE Frameworks is currently at 6.3.0 (6.5.0 is current), KDE
Plasma Desktop is currently 6.0.3 (6.1.4 is current), and KDE Gear 6
hasn’t been ported at all yet. In other words, while progress is being
made, it’s clear the team could use a hand, too.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140540/freebsd-and-amd-collaborating-on-freebsd-iommu-driver/
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Sundail (CSUN student paper)
Considering an investment in precious metals like gold and silver (or
even platinum)? It’s a savvy move for diversifying your portfolio and
safeguarding wealth. However, before diving in, it’s crucial…
https://sundial.csun.edu/183861/sundialbrandstudio/sundial-marketplace/6-questions-to-ask-before-investing-in-precious-metals/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Stephanie Grisham reveals Trump's mockery of supporters.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4838001-grisham-trump-supporter-mockery/
If
Santa Barbara Voters Pass Sales Tax, Where Should the Funds Go?
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The finance committee decided Tuesday to leave the priority list as is
and send the discussion to the full council.
The post
If
Santa Barbara Voters Pass Sales Tax, Where Should the Funds Go?
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/if-santa-barbara-voters-pass-sales-tax-where-should-the-funds-go/
Santa
Clarita Runners Club Donates to SCV Cross-Country Teams
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Runners Club continues a long-standing tradition of
supporting Santa Clarita Valley high school cross-country teams through
its annual Independence Day Classic.
https://scvnews.com/santa-clarita-runners-club-donates-to-scv-cross-country-teams/
The Best Dam Dinner
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Goleta community gathered together at the Lake Los Carneros Dam on
August 17.
The post
The
Best Dam Dinner appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/the-best-dam-dinner/
From
‘Cobra Kai’ to ‘Blue Beetle’: Actor Xolo Maridueña’s journey to first
Latino superhero
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
Xolo Maridueña is currently starring in the sixth and final season of
the hit karate series “Cobra Kai,” which premiered on Netflix in July.
But he also made waves last year when he was cast as the first Latino
superhero lead in “Blue Beetle.” The actor spoke with Veronica Villafañe
about the impact of these roles in his career and the need for Latino
representation in Hollywood.
https://www.voanews.com/a/from-cobra-kai-to-blue-beetle-actor-xolo-maridue%c3%b1a-s-journey-to-first-latino-superhero/7750297.html
Sept. 14:
Inaugural Motorcycle Poker Ride Benefits Blue Star Ranch
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Inaugural Motorcycle Poker Ride fundraiser to benefit Blue Star
Ranch will be held Saturday, Sept. 14 at the Mint Canyon Moose Lodge in
Canyon Country
https://scvnews.com/sept-14-inaugural-motorcycle-poker-ride-benefits-blue-star-ranch/
Hardly a ‘Coronation’
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
I was disappointed to read the headline referring to Kamala Harris’s
upcoming nomination as a “coronation.”
The post
Hardly
a ‘Coronation’ appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/hardly-a-coronation/
Review | Rebelution
at the Santa Barbara Bowl
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Isla Vista favorites deliver on the good vibes as promised.
The post
Review
| Rebelution at the Santa Barbara Bowl appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/review-rebelution-at-the-santa-barbara-bowl/
Santa
Barbara Supervisors Endorse State Bills to Revise Plastic Bag Ban
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Although the state legislature banned single-use plastic bags in 2016, a
loophole in that law has allowed for the use of heavy-duty bags in their
stead.
The post
Santa
Barbara Supervisors Endorse State Bills to Revise Plastic Bag Ban
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/santa-barbara-supervisors-endorse-state-bills-to-revise-plastic-bag-ban/
USC Housing
workers reach tentative agreement
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The tentative agreement with the University averted an unfair labor
practices strike that was set for Aug. 21.
The post USC
Housing workers reach tentative agreement appeared first on
Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/08/20/212675/
date: 2024-08-20, from: City of Santa Clarita
Walk of Remembrance and Ceremony to Be Held August 28 The City of Santa
Clarita invites residents to the annual Evening of Remembrance on
Wednesday, August 28, to honor Santa Clarita Valley youth who died in
traffic-related incidents and bring awareness to safe and responsible
driving. The event will begin with the Walk of Remembrance […]
The post
The
City of Santa Clarita Remembers Young Lives Lost in Traffic-Related
Incidents at Annual Evening of Remembrance appeared first on
City of Santa Clarita.
https://santaclarita.gov/blog/2024/08/20/the-city-of-santa-clarita-remembers-young-lives-lost-in-traffic-related-incidents-at-annual-evening-of-remembrance-2/
NASA
Awards 15 Grants to Support Open-Source Science
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
NASA awarded $1.4 million to 15 teams developing new technologies
that advance and streamline the open sharing of scientific information.
High Priority Open-Source Science (HPOSS) awards fund projects that aim
to increase the accessibility, inclusivity, or reproducibility of NASA’s
Science Mission Directorate (SMD) research. Projects include open-source
tools, software, frameworks, data formats, or libraries that […]
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/funding-winners-open-source/
Aug. 30
Deadline COC Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee Applications
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
College of the Canyons seeks qualified individuals to serve on the
Independent Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee
https://scvnews.com/aug-30-deadline-coc-citizens-bond-oversight-committee-applications/
AMD
reverses course: Ryzen 3000 CPUs will get SinkClose patch after all
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Still no love for 1000- or 2000-series
In an apparent reversal, AMD has decided that its Ryzen 3000-series
processors released in 2019 are actually worth patching against the
recently disclosed SinkClose vulnerability.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/amd_sinkclose_ryzen_3000/
Sept. 6:
Deadline to Submit Application for Vacant COC Board Trustee Seat
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita Community College District Board of Trustees will
appoint a new member to fill the seat representing Trustee Area No.
https://scvnews.com/sept-6-deadline-to-submit-application-for-coc-board-seat/
El
Aeropuerto de Santa Bárbara Anuncia las Reuniones Públicas Finales para
la Actualización del Plan Maestro del Aeropuerto
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BÁRBARA, CA– 19 de agosto de 2024 El Aeropuerto de Santa Bárbara
(SBA) invita a la comunidad a participar
The post
El
Aeropuerto de Santa Bárbara Anuncia las Reuniones Públicas Finales para
la Actualización del Plan Maestro del Aeropuerto appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/el-aeropuerto-de-santa-barbara-anuncia-las-reuniones-publicas-finales-para-la-actualizacion-del-plan-maestro-del-aeropuerto/
Santa
Barbara Airport Announces Final Public Meetings for Airport Master Plan
Update
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, CA – August 19, 2024 The Santa Barbara Airport (SBA)
invites the community to participate in the final
The post
Santa
Barbara Airport Announces Final Public Meetings for Airport Master Plan
Update appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/santa-barbara-airport-announces-final-public-meetings-for-airport-master-plan-update/
It’s Getting Harder to
Close a Coal Plant
date: 2024-08-20, from: Heatmap News
To fully decarbonize the electricity system will require more than just
the rapid deployment of non-carbon-emitting generation capacity, plus
the transmission necessary to get that electricity to where it needs to
go. It will also require that our existing stock of electricity
generation — which is largely natural gas- and coal-powered — get mostly
mothballed. So far, this process has been proceeding briskly. Renewable
deployment is on the way up and is projected to accelerate, and older
electricity generation was sliding quickly but gracefully into
retirement — until recently.
Retirements of existing generation have slowed down dramatically in the
first half of this year, which is on pace to be the slowest for existing
generation retirements since 2011, according to
new
data from the Energy Information Administration.
In the first half of the year, some 5.1 gigawatts of generating capacity
have been retired, and another 2.4 gigawatts are scheduled to be retired
by year’s end, for a projected total of 7.5 retired gigawatts. From 2004
to 2023, by contrast, just over 12 gigawatts of capacity were retired
each year on average, with almost 15 gigawatts retired per year this
decade. Since 2022, according to EIA data, over 90% of retired capacity
has been coal or natural gas.
What’s behind the slowdown? “Reliability is threatened because the grid
conditions are tightening,” Douglas Giuffre, executive director of gas,
power and renewables analysis at S&P Global Commodity Insights,
explained in an email. “This is partly due to the recent pace of coal
and natural gas retirements in the U.S., which worked off some of the
excess capacity in power markets. Now we are seeing tighter reserve
margins, and a relatively thin pipeline of new gas-fired projects that
can come online quickly.” That’s especially concerning for utilities at
a time when projected electricity demand is
way,
way
up.
The wave of retirements was a national phenomenon, often having nothing
to do with state-level plans to decarbonize. Coal and gas were being
retired so steadily over the past 20 years not just because plants were
aging, but also because power use was essentially flat from the early
2000s through, essentially, yesterday. This meant that older plants —
especially dirty coal plants — became uneconomic to run, especially as
natural gas prices began to fall.
Now, we are in a completely different world. Electricity use is forecast
to start growing again, thanks to a buildout of new data centers and
manufacturing, plus the ongoing electrification of automobiles and home
heating and cooling.
The Southeast offers an example of how these trends have played out on
the ground. In December 2020, the Mississippi Public Service Commission
determined
that the state had “excess reserves … largely due to decreases in
projected load” and ordered a 950 megawatt reduction in generating
capacity by Mississippi Power by 2027. A consulting firm hired by the
commission determined that Plant Daniel, a coal plant, was “relatively
inefficient compared to other available resources;” a few months later,
the utility said it would
decommission
Plant Daniel by 2027.
Then Georgia Power, the utility that covers most of the state (and, like
Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company), rushed out a new
three-year plan for its future power usage less than a year after
finalizing its old one. Its demand forecast through the end of the
decade had jumped from 400 megawatts to 6,600 megawatts, the result of a
projected
boom
in data center construction.
“They came in with a preselected list of ways it wanted to meet that
power need,” including buying power from Plant Daniel and new gas, Bob
Sherrier, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center,
told me. Georgia Power told the state’s utility commission that to
respond to growing demand it would need to extend contracts with its
sister utility in Mississippi — which meant not only that Daniel would
remain open for at least another year — and build new new plants that
could run on gas or diesel, plans for which
regulators
approved on Tuesday. The utility also hinted that its existing
plans to
euthanize,
for the most part, its coal-fired generation fleet by the end of 2028
were likely to be revised.
“To meet that projected need, the utilities are reverting to what they
know, which is fossil fuels,” Sherrier said.
In vertically integrated markets, where utilities own generating assets
and sell power to customers, environmentalists have seen delayed
retirements and the building of new fossil plants as examples of
utilities slipping into their comfort zone, building and operating
expensive projects instead of developing or procuring renewables to
handle rising demand.
But it’s not just in vertically integrated markets where fossil
retirements are being delayed. In Maryland, for instance, Brandon
Shores, a coal-fired power plant that was scheduled to close in 2025, is
staying
open because PJM Interconnection, the regional electricity
market, determined that a plan to replace it with battery storage was
not a “realistic option at present” nor “technically viable to resolve
the reliability violations or avoid the need for an RMR agreement at
this time,” PJM president Manu Asthana said in a letter to Paul Pinsky,
the director of the Maryland Energy Administration. The transmission
investments required to make up the difference, meanwhile, would take
several years.
Along with the neighboring Wagner plant, which burns a mix of coal, oil,
and natural gas, Brandon Shores will likely stay open more than three
years past its planned retirement date thanks to what’s known as a
“reliability must run” contract, which “would put Maryland ratepayers on
the hook for over $600 million dollars in out-of-market payments,”
according to a
letter
written by several Maryland congressional representatives to PJM.
Environmental advocates have blamed PJM for not doing enough proactive
transmission planning to account for
predictable
and scheduled plant retirements.
The slowing retirements mean that emissions from the electricity sector,
which
have been falling since the mid-2000s (with occasional bumps up as
the economy has recovered from downturns), are expected to plateau over
the next year or so. EIA forecasts show carbon dioxide emissions from
electricity as essentially flat from 2023 to 2025,
with
increased natural gas emissions essentially offsetting falling coal
emissions.
There is a bright side to the data, however. So far this year, the U.S.
has installed just over 20 gigawatts of new generation, 80% of which has
been solar and battery storage, including a 600-plus megawatt projects
in Nevada and Texas. If added generation comes on in the second half of
this year as planned, the EIA projects we’ll have 15 gigawatts of
battery storage by year’s end. Along with the large and growing solar
generation in states like California, Nevada, and Texas, the U.S. is
getting closer to a grid that can, at least, run without carbon
emissions day or night.
https://heatmap.news/economy/coal-gas-plant-retirements
Consolo
is a modular cyberdeck with a Raspberry Pi 5 for brains, a 7 inch
display and 7 hours of battery life
date: 2024-08-20, from: Liliputing
The Consolo is a tablet computer with a 7 inch touchscreen display and a
modular design that lets you attach a physical keyboard or other add-ons
via a slot on the bottom. Powered by a Raspberry Pi 5, the system should
support a wide range of GNU/Linux distributions and software designed
for that credit card-sized […]
The post
Consolo
is a modular cyberdeck with a Raspberry Pi 5 for brains, a 7 inch
display and 7 hours of battery life appeared first on
Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/consolo-is-a-modular-cyberdeck-with-a-raspberry-pi-5-for-brains-a-7-inch-display-and-7-hours-of-battery-life/
University
of California bans encampments, face masks
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
By Aldgra Fredly Contributing Writer The president of the University of
California said on Monday that the 10-campus university system would
enforce policies banning encampments and the wearing of masks to […]
The post
University
of California bans encampments, face masks appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/university-of-california-bans-encampments-face-masks/
5
takeaways from Democratic National Convention’s opening night
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
By Jacob Burg, Nathan Worcester Contributing Writers CHICAGO — Day one
of the Democratic National Convention kicked off with excitement as
delegates and attendees listened to speeches from major lawmakers and
[…]
The post
5
takeaways from Democratic National Convention’s opening night
appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley
Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/5-takeaways-from-democratic-national-conventions-opening-night/
NASA
Marshall Names Roger Baird Associate Director
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
Roger Baird has been selected as associate director of NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In this role, Baird
will lead execution and integration of the center’s business operations,
mission support enterprise functions, and budget management. In
addition, he will be a senior adviser in advancing the direction of the
center’s future. Baird […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-marshall-names-roger-baird-associate-director/
2025 Gateways to Blue Skies
Competition
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
The agriculture industry faces several challenges, including limited
resources and growing demands to reduce agriculture’s environmental
impact while increasing its climate resilience. NASA Aeronautics is
dedicated to expanding its efforts to assist commercial, industry, and
government partners in advancing aviation systems that could modernize
capabilities in agriculture. In NASA’s 2025 Gateways to Blue Skies
Competition: […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/2025-gateways-to-blue-skies-competition/
Archaeologists
May Have Identified the Bones of a Celebrated Ninth-Century Bishop in
Spain
date: 2024-08-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Bishop Teodomiro was a central figure in the creation of the Camino
de Santiago pilgrimage
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-may-have-identified-the-bones-of-a-celebrated-ninth-century-bishop-in-spain-180984922/
In Memoriam Lawrence
Lesser 1941–2024
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
At the recent memorial for my brother-in-law Lawrence Lesser, my
husband, Bobby, and his brothers spoke about Larry’s fundamental
goodness.
The post
In
Memoriam Lawrence Lesser <br> 1941–2024 appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/in-memoriam-lawrence-lesser-1941-2024/
Writers
sue Anthropic for feeding ‘stolen’ copyrighted work into Claude
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Another day, another lawsuit over how AI lands training sets
Anthropic was sued on Monday by three authors who claim the
machine-learning lab unlawfully used their copyrighted work to train its
Claude AI model.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/anthropic_claude_copyright/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Will the Harris Justice Department prosecute Trump to the full extent
of the law?
https://feedland.org/?item=14712402
Free Will Astrology
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Week of August 22.
The post
Free
Will Astrology appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/free-will-astrology-224/
UP
Squared 7100 is a 3.5 PC board with Alder Lake-N, 2 M.2 slots, and
40-pin GPIO headers
date: 2024-08-20, from: Liliputing
The UP Squared 7100 is a palm-sized computer board from AAEON
Technology, with an Intel Alder Lake-N low-power processor, up to 16GB
of LPDDR5 memory and up to 128GB of eMMC storage. It also has plenty of
expansion options including two M.2 slots: one for storage and another
for a wireless card, support for dual displays, […]
The post
UP
Squared 7100 is a 3.5 PC board with Alder Lake-N, 2 M.2 slots, and
40-pin GPIO headers appeared first on
Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/up-squared-7100-is-a-3-5-pc-board-with-alder-lake-n-2-m-2-slots-and-40-pin-gpio-headers/
Good
news! The new Covid-19 vacines are scheduled to be approved soon…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045179-good-news-the-new-covid-1
@Dave Winer’s
Scripting News (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting
News)
What should we expect from the Department of Justice in the Harris
Administration?
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20.html#a200511
Jason Gibbs
Retains City Council Seat for New Term
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita City Council held a special meeting on Monday,
Aug. 19 to determine how to proceed in the Nov. 5 general election for
the city council District 3 seat. The options were to appoint Jason
Gibbs, the lone candidate who had filed for the seat, or to pay the cost
for an election offering only one candidate.
https://scvnews.com/jason-gibbs-retains-city-council-seat-for-new-term/
Why
California’s AI safety bill should (still) be signed into law - and why
that won’t be nearly enough
date: 2024-08-20, from: Gary Marcus blog
Thursday broke my heart.
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/why-californias-ai-safety-bill-should
Tortoise Takes a Leisurely
Stroll
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
A NASA photographer captured this gopher tortoise walking on the
Launch Pad 39B beach road at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on
June 4, 2014. The undeveloped property on Kennedy Space Center is
managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Merritt Island
National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge provides a habitat for […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/tortoise-takes-a-leisurely-stroll/
The
Reason Social Security Currently Has a Funding Shortfall
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/the-reason-social-security-currently-has-a-funding-shortfall
Push
to build more homes on California coast stifled after lawmakers derail
housing bills
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The LAist
Several efforts to minimize the power and influence of the California
Coastal Commission have stalled.
https://laist.com/news/politics/push-to-build-more-homes-on-california-coast-stifled-after-lawmakers-derail-housing-bills
Rare
‘Doomsday’ Oarfish Surfaces in California, Just the 20th Discovered in
the State Since 1901
date: 2024-08-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Kayakers spotted and hauled ashore the 12-foot-long oarfish, a
deep-sea species known for its connection to earthquakes in Japanese
folklore
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-deep-sea-doomsday-fish-surfaces-in-california-just-the-20th-discovered-in-the-state-since-1901-180984942/
@Miguel de
Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-20, from: Miguel de Icaza
Mastondon feed)
Yesterday I met a human version of the Hacker News comment section.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112995925544728469
@Miguel de
Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-08-20, from: Miguel de Icaza
Mastondon feed)
The mansplainer exploits a loophole in relationships, the desire to not
pour fuel in a burning fire.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112995924105119370
Photos: Carl Sonny Layland
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
Residents came out to the final installment of the year of Valencia
Marketplace’s Summer Concerts series on Friday, where Carl Sonny
Layland’s Boogie Woogie Boys performed vintage pop, jazz, swing, […]
The post
Photos:
Carl Sonny Layland appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/photos-carl-sonny-layland/
EagleFiler 1.9.15
date: 2024-08-20, from: Michael Tsai
EagleFiler 1.9.15 is a maintenance release for my Mac information
organizer app. This version greatly improves the quality of imports from
X/Twitter and expands the import-tweet-via-hotkey support to more
browsers. Preserving the selected text when capturing whole Web pages
also works in non-Safari browsers now. Some interesting bugs were: macOS
Sequoia has changed the way […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/20/eaglefiler-1-9-15/
tvOS 17.6.1
date: 2024-08-20, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (no release notes, no security, no developer): We do not
yet know what’s included in the update. Previously: tvOS 17.6
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/20/tvos-17-6-1/
watchOS 10.6.1
date: 2024-08-20, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (no release notes, no security, no developer): According
to Apple’s release notes, the watchOS 10.6.1 update fixes an issue that
could prevent access to the Apple Fitness+ service. Previously: watchOS
10.6
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/20/watchos-10-6-1/
Apple Maps on the Web
date: 2024-08-20, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (Hacker News): Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in
public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly
from their browser.[…]All developers, including those using MapKit JS,
can also link out to Maps on the web, so their users can get driving
directions, see detailed place information, and more. Juli […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/20/apple-maps-on-the-web/
Open
source biz promises to slash bills with observability-as-a-service in
the cloud
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-21, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
AWS first, others to follow
VictoriaMetrics has become the latest open source company to offer a
hosted product, claiming around five times the savings for customers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/victoriametrics_cloud/
Apple Maps in Sequoia and iOS
18
date: 2024-08-20, from: Michael Tsai
Ryan Christoffel: Building on the existing Guides feature, Maps in
iOS 18 lets you save places with a quick tap of the + button on their
Maps listing. Saved places are accessible from the new Library menu,
where you’ll also find your Guides, Pinned locations, and more. […] A
great component of saving a place […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/20/apple-maps-in-sequoia-and-ios-18/
Dazzling
Jewels Stolen in Green Vault Heist Go Back on Display in Dresden
date: 2024-08-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In the early morning hours of November 25, 2019, thieves made away
with 4,300 valuable diamonds and other stones
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dazzling-jewels-stolen-in-green-vault-heist-go-back-on-display-in-dresden-180984925/
date: 2024-08-20, from: Om Malik blog
In its story about the Democratic National Convention 2024 (behind a
paywall), Wired pointed out that the DNC is all-in on influencers. It
has created an influencer paradise at its Chicago convention, with
exclusive yacht parties and creators’ lounges, while journalists
struggle to find power outlets and CNN anchors wait in security lines.
“Bringing creators …
https://om.co/2024/08/20/influencers-media-and-relevance/
On the value of context
date: 2024-08-20, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>I was reading a discussion about a new text editor and, as is often the case online, a bunch of people started discussing the adjacent topic of coding more broadly. The discussion started because someone was pointing out—correctly—that “typing speed” is irrelevant when it comes to programming because the art of programming is mostly about the thinking behind the code and so the majority of the time is not spent typing code.</p>
People started going back and forth and it was fascinating to observe
because everyone was talking about “programming” and sharing their own
experience to either prove or disprove this theory that 90% of the job
is not typing code but no one was providing context to help others
understand what “programming” meant in their specific case. Everyone was
using the word but it was clear that it meant very different things for
the people involved because they’re likely to work in very different
situations, doing a very different job. So yes, they were all
technically “programming” but the word was meaningless without the
appropriate context.
Reading that made me wonder how often this must happen, both online and
in meatspace, people talking about something and assuming the words they
use must have the same meaning for everyone while in fact that’s far
from the truth.
Context matters. Providing details is important. Especially if you care
about helping people understand what you mean when you say something.
<hr>
<p>Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.</p>
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https://manuelmoreale.com/@/page/IBZHJGZDNNXBBDu0
Disney
has cancelled The Acolyte after one season. Such a high ratings…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045178-disney-has-cancelled-the-
Building
a Steampipe Plugin — and Powerpipe Dashboards — for WordPress
date: 2024-08-20, from: John Udell blog
“Users of the WordPress API may enjoy the abstraction — and
standardization — that a SQL interface provides. If you need to query
multiple WordPress sites, Steampipe’s connection aggregator will be
really handy. And if you want to integrate data from WordPress with data
from other APIs wrapped by other plugins in the Steampipe hub, …
Continue
reading Building a Steampipe Plugin —
and Powerpipe Dashboards — for WordPress
https://blog.jonudell.net/2024/08/20/building-a-steampipe-plugin-and-powerpipe-dashboards-for-wordpress/
The
World’s Largest Animal Genome Belongs to an Odd, Air-Breathing Fish
date: 2024-08-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Scientists sequenced the 91 billion base pairs in the South American
lungfish’s genome, setting a record and revealing insights into
vertebrate evolution
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-largest-animal-genome-belongs-to-an-odd-air-breathing-fish-180984938/
Cilantro
used to be a key ingredient in Italian cooking. “Roman chefs…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045153-cilantro-used-to-be-a
xMEMS
“fan-on-a-chip” could bring solid-state cooling to smartphones and
tablets
date: 2024-08-20, from: Liliputing
A company that makes tiny, solid state speakers is adapting its
technology to make a solid-state cooling chip for smartphones, tablets,
and other small electronic devices. The xMEMS XMC-2400 µCooling chip is
an “active micro-cooling fan for ultramobile devices. According to
xMems, it’s a silent, vibration-free solution that measures just 9.26 x
7.6 x 1.08 […]
The post
xMEMS
“fan-on-a-chip” could bring solid-state cooling to smartphones and
tablets appeared first on
Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/xmems-fan-on-a-chip-could-bring-solid-state-cooling-to-smartphones-and-tablets/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Mask bans violate disabled Americans’ rights.
https://www.statnews.com/2024/08/20/mask-bans-nassau-county-north-carolina-new-york-disabled-rights/
400 Warriors Arrive at
Westmont
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
About 400 new incoming students, including the Grotenhuis Nursing cohort
of 24, arrive at Westmont to begin their first week
The post
400
Warriors Arrive at Westmont appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/400-warriors-arrive-at-westmont/
SpaceX
set to surpass Gemini 11’s altitude record with Polaris Dawn
mission
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Let’s hope the spacesuits hold up for extravehicular activity
The Polaris Dawn mission to send humans to a 1,400 km orbit – higher
than 1966’s Gemini 11 – is set for launch in less than a week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/spacex_polaris_dawn/
Review
| Khruangbin Returns: An Otherworldly Journey at the Hollywood Bowl
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
A magical blend of influences resonates beautifully with the audience.
The post
Review
| Khruangbin Returns: An Otherworldly Journey at the Hollywood Bowl
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/review-khruangbin-returns-an-otherworldly-journey-at-the-hollywood-bowl/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Procreate defies AI trend, pledges “no generative AI” in its
illustration app.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/08/procreate-defies-ai-trend-pledges-no-generative-ai-in-its-illustration-app/
Tyler
Parsotan Takes a Long Look at the Transient Universe with NASA’s
Swift
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
Through a nonlinear path to success, research astrophysicist Tyler
Parsotan discovers transformational science using Swift’s observations.
Name: Tyler ParsotanFormal Job Classification: Research
astrophysicistOrganization: Astroparticle Physics Laboratory (Code 661),
Astrophysics Science Division, Sciences and Exploration Directorate
What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at
Goddard? I help operate the Burst Alert […]
https://www.nasa.gov/people-of-nasa/goddard-people/tyler-parsotan-takes-a-long-look-at-the-transient-universe-with-nasas-swift/
Music
Under the Stars with Mads Tolling and “The Danish-American
Songbook”
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Solvang’s Elverhøj Museum of History and Art hosts Mads Tolling and
Colin Hogan on August 24.
The post
Music
Under the Stars with Mads Tolling and “The Danish-American Songbook”
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/music-under-the-stars-with-mads-tolling-and-the-danish-american-songbook/
Vivian Maier: Unseen Work
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/vivian-maier-unseen-work
Danish
Instrument Helps NASA’s Juno Spacecraft See Radiation
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
Using cameras designed for navigation, scientists count ‘fireflies’
to determine the amount of radiation the spacecraft receives during each
orbit of Jupiter. Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission have developed the
first complete 3D radiation map of the Jupiter system. Along with
characterizing the intensity of the high-energy particles near the orbit
of the icy moon […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/danish-instrument-helps-nasas-juno-spacecraft-see-radiation/
FAQ: NASA’s
Boeing Crew Flight Test Return Status
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
Editor’s note: This article was updated Aug. 20, 2024, to reflect the
latest information from NASA’s Office of Communications. NASA astronauts
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the orbiting laboratory on
June 6 aboard the Boeing Starliner after lifting off on June 5 from
Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in […]
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/commercial-crew/starliner-faq/
Cuenta
Regresiva para el Festival del Orgullo LGBTQ+ 2024
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Bárbara, CA — El muy anticipado Festival del Orgullo LGBTQ+ 2024
está por llegar y, este sábado 24 de agosto,
The post
Cuenta
Regresiva para el Festival del Orgullo LGBTQ+ 2024 appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/cuenta-regresiva-para-el-festival-del-orgullo-lgbtq-2024/
Countdown to the
2024 Pacific Pride Festival
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara, CA — The highly anticipated 2024 Pacific Pride Festival
is almost here, and this Saturday, August 24th, Chase Palm
The post
Countdown
to the 2024 Pacific Pride Festival appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/countdown-to-the-2024-pacific-pride-festival/
Want
to Learn How to Podcast? Sign Up for This Free Workshop Series at
Workzones
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
SANTA BARBARA, California – Did you know in the next 6 years Podcast
Listeners are predicted to grow from approximately 100 million
The post
Want
to Learn How to Podcast? Sign Up for This Free Workshop Series at
Workzones appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/20/want-to-learn-how-to-podcast-sign-up-for-this-free-workshop-series-at-workzones/
Beelink
EQi12 is a mini PC with 12th-gen Intel Core, 24GB RAM, and integrated
power supply
date: 2024-08-20, from: Liliputing
The Beelink EQi12 is a compact desktop computer that measures 126 x 126
x 44.2mm (4.96″ x 4.96″ x 1.74″), dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, two HDMI
ports, and support for up to two PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSDs. While it’s not
the smallest mini PC around, the EQi12 has another space-saving feature
up its sleeve: an integrated […]
The post
Beelink
EQi12 is a mini PC with 12th-gen Intel Core, 24GB RAM, and integrated
power supply appeared first on
Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/beelink-eqi12-is-a-mini-pc-with-12th-gen-intel-core-24gb-ram-and-integrated-power-supply/
The
Good Milk List. “These locations, around the world, are where
happy…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045172-the-good-milk-list-these
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
DNC speakers tonight: Who is on stage Tuesday in Chicago.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/20/g-s1-18014/speakers-dnc-day-2-tuesday-obama
55
Years Ago: Apollo 11 Astronauts End Quarantine, Feted from Coast to
Coast
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
On Aug. 10, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael
Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin completed their 21-day quarantine
after returning from the Moon. The historic nature of their mission
resulted in a very busy postflight schedule for Armstrong, Collins, and
Aldrin, starting with celebrations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
and Houston. […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-apollo-11-astronauts-end-quarantine-feted-from-coast-to-coast/
Your
SoCal Weather Report For Tuesday August 20: Just a few days of heat
before cool down
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The LAist
Beginning Thursday, the region will see comfy temperatures in the
upper 70’s.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/la-weather-report-august-20-waning-heat
date: 2024-08-20, from: Liliputing
The NanoPi M6 is a single-board computer that’s a little larger than a
Raspberry Pi 5, but it’s also a much more versatile little board that
features a Rockchip RK3588S processor, support for up to 32GB of RAM,
and multiple storage options including a microSD card reader, eMMC
socket, and M.2 slot with support for PCIe […]
The post
NanoPi
M6 single-board RK3588S PC is available optional 3.5 inch touchscreen
display integrated in a metal case appeared first on
Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/nanopi-m6-single-board-rk3588s-pc-is-available-optional-3-5-inch-touchscreen-display-integrated-in-a-metal-case/
Smart
Anand Giridharadas piece about the Democrats’ shift in political style,
one…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045174-smart-anand-giridharadas-
PostgreSQL
in line for DuckDB-shaped boost in analytics arena
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Microsoft-backed extension aims to address open source database’s
perceived weaknesses
A Microsoft-backed open source project aims to help address PostgreSQL’s
weaknesses as an analytics database.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/postgresql_duckdb_extension/
Honoring
C.L. Daniel, World War I Veteran and Tulsa Race Massacre Victim
date: 2024-08-20, from: National Archives, Text Message blog
Today’s post is by Rachael Salyer, Archivist in the Textual Reference
Branch at the National Archives in College Park, MD. “I have travled
this country over […] and want to get home” – C.L. Daniel, World War I
Veteran and Victim of the Tulsa Race Massacre Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum
recently announced that World War …
Continue
reading Honoring C.L. Daniel, World War
I Veteran and Tulsa Race Massacre Victim
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2024/08/20/honoring-c-l-daniel-world-war-i-veteran-and-tulsa-race-massacre-victim/
date: 2024-08-20, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">
[Alexander
Saeedy and Dana Mattioli at The Wall Street Journal]
“The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into
the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial
crisis.”
“[…] The banks haven’t been able to offload the debt without incurring
major losses—largely because of X’s weak financial performance—leaving
the loans stuck on their balance sheets, or “hung” in industry jargon.
The resulting write-downs have hobbled the banks’ loan books and, in one
case, was a factor that crimped compensation for a bank’s merger
department, according to people involved with the deal.”
Let that sink in.
It’s not like this was unpredictable: it was obvious that Elon Musk was
not going to turn Twitter into a roaring success. While Twitter was, at
its heart, a media company, Musk’s direction has been a muddle of three
sometimes-competing priorities: his long-held desire to create X, an
“everything” app; his desire to build his own brand in an effort to
boost his own equity and therefore wealth, sometimes in ways that
got him
in trouble with the SEC; and his desire to influence global
politics.
There’s no three-dimensional chess being played here; this likely isn’t
an intentional plan by Musk to write off the debt. It’s simply
narcissistic mismanagement, and one has to wonder how this will affect
his businesses at Tesla and SpaceX in the longer term. There will come a
time when shareholders declare that enough is enough - although given
that
they
approved his ludicrous pay deal, perhaps that time isn’t coming
soon.
#Technology
<p>[<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-is-now-the-worst-buyout-for-banks-since-the-financial-crisis-3f4272cb">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>
https://werd.io/2024/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-is-now-the-worst-buyout-for
Toltec
- a community-maintained repository of free software for the reMarkable
tablet
date: 2024-08-20, from: Tilde.news
Comments
https://toltec-dev.org
Conflict and Stakes
Compendium
date: 2024-08-20, from: John August blog
In this compendium episode, John and Craig look at two of the most
fundamental building blocks of compelling stories – conflict and stakes.
We define six forms of conflict common in movies, and explore ways to
sustain conflict within a scene and throughout a story. We also look for
ways to find the root of […] The post
Conflict
and Stakes Compendium first appeared on
John August.
https://johnaugust.com/2024/conflict-and-stakes-compendium
@Dave Winer’s
Scripting News (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting
News)
My linkblog, which posts to the
Links tab on Scripting
News, as well as
Bluesky,
Mastodon
and RSS, now
also posts to
Twitter
and
Threads.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20.html#a152945
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Osnos wrote a biography of Joe Biden.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/proud-and-impassioned-biden-passes-the-torch
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
"The new Democratic Party must not make the mistake Biden made, it
must not subjugate itself to the press. When they attack, you must
respond."
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20/135836.html
Shein Is Suing
Temu For Copyright Infringement
date: 2024-08-20, from: 404 Media Group
Shein, notorious for being accused of copyright infringement by small
artists and big brands alike, is suing its competitor Temu for…
copyright infringement.
https://www.404media.co/shein-temu-copyright-lawsuit/
Ephemeral
tic-tac-toe. Each player’s moves disappear after 4 turns….
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045170-ephemeral-tic-tac-toe-eac
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on
Haiti’s former president, Michel Joseph Martelly, over drug trafficking,
accusing him of playing a significant role in perpetuating the ongoing
crisis in the country.
The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said Martelly “abused his
influence to facilitate the trafficking of dangerous drugs, including
cocaine, destined for the United States.”
The department said he also worked with Haitian drug traffickers,
sponsored multiple gangs and engaged in the laundering of illicit drug
proceeds.
“Today’s action against Martelly emphasizes the significant and
destabilizing role he and other corrupt political elites have played in
perpetuating the ongoing crisis in Haiti,” Treasury’s Acting
Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith
said in the statement.
“The United States, along with our international partners, is
committed to disrupting those who facilitate the drug trafficking,
corruption and other illicit activities fueling the horrific gang
violence and political instability.”
Tuesday’s action freezes any of Martelly’s U.S. assets and generally
bars Americans from dealing with him.
Gang wars have displaced more than 578,000 Haitians, while nearly 5
million — almost half the population of 11.7 million — face acute
hunger, with 1.6 million of those people at risk of starvation, the
United Nations says.
Armed gangs have formed a broad alliance while carrying out
widespread killings, ransom kidnappings and sexual violence.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-former-haitian-president-over-drug-trafficking/7749717.html
Plane
tracker FlightAware admits user passwords, SSNs exposed for years
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Notification omits a number of key details
Popular flight-tracking app FlightAware has admitted that it was
exposing a bunch of users’ data for more than three years.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/flightaware_data_exposure/
The Daily Kitten
date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
I do a daily episode of the adventures of
Wordle
Kitty as art I do with ChatGPT, on
Facebook.
There often is a NY Times headline in the image, saying something silly
like how prisons are dealing with an influx of convicted house pets
(like the kitten).
In this
drawing
the NYT is reporting on how the kitten loves lasagna, and of course how
cute she is (it’s important to emphasize that in the AI prompt because
otherwise you get less cute kittens in the drawing).
This is therapeutic. Finally I can see the NYT doing something useful!
Keeping me entertained while we try to get through this election. If I’m
forced to accept lies from the NYT, without any voice given to
opposition, they might as well be lies that entertain me! 😄
Kitty in prison, via Facebook.
PS: I wonder if the NYT minds that we think of them as no more straight
than Fox News. They’ve fallen really far, and have so far shown they
totally don’t care if we know.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20/142602.html?title=theDailyKitten
Sols 4280-4281: Last
Call at Kings Canyon
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Monday, Aug. 19, 2024
Curiosity successfully completed the drill sequence at the Kings Canyon
site within the Gediz Vallis channel. Today was a smooth planning day as
we decided to stay put for sols 4280 and 4281 to obtain APXS data of the
drill tailings (the crushed rock removed from the drill hole) before
[…]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4280-4281-last-call-at-kings-canyon/
Are You a Local?
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/are-you-a-local
Dueling economics on
the campaign trail
date: 2024-08-20, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Former President Barack Obama is set to speak tonight at the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. The theme today: “A Bold Vision for
America’s Future.” Part of that vision? The U.S. economy. President Joe
Biden spoke at the convention last night, highlighting his
administration’s economic policies. Former President Donald Trump was
also talking about the economy on the campaign trail. We’ll discuss.
Then, the Department of Transportation wants the nation’s infrastructure
to get a tech upgrade.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/dueling-economics-on-the-campaign-trail
The National
Archives Building’s Landmark Plaque
date: 2024-08-20, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
On August 22, 2024, the National Archives Building’s National
Historic Landmark Plaque is being unveiled. Visit National Archives News
and the National Archives History websites to learn more about this
historic building. In December 2023, 90 years after its cornerstone was
dedicated, the National Archives Building became a National Historic
Landmark. This week the plaque …
Continue
reading The National Archives
Building’s Landmark Plaque
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/08/20/the-national-archives-buildings-landmark-plaque/
Ignore the NY Times
date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting News
When President Biden took the stage last night at the DNC, I had a
moment of buyer’s remorse. He looked so good in his black suit, and the
pictures of the new candidates, and their spouses, looked comical in
comparison to the president who was about to speak.
Why did Walz have a permanent frown on his face. I find his presence
next to Harris is almost always awkward. He’s taller, and moves a lot. I
noticed this with Sanders when he was debating Clinton in 2016. She
stood still and Sanders waved his hands a lot. She spoke quietly, he
shouted.
Biden shouted last night, and he was mostly unplugged. On the team, but
you have to wonder, how did the journos get so much power that they
could force this change. He gave a fine speech. I’m not sure that
pushing him aside, net-net, was a win for us. Maybe Harris will be a
sugar high.
One thing I know for sure, the new Democratic Party must not make the
mistake that Biden did, must not subjugate itself to the press. When
they go on the attack, you must respond. Break their wall of
objectivity, these people are political players, and so far not subject
to rebuttal. That must end. If they want to be in the middle, then don’t
pretend they aren’t.
They will yell about the First Amendment, which also applies to elected
leaders and candidates for office, and there is no special right for
publications like the NYT, they have no immunity to First Amendment
speech about them.
To the extent we can, it’s time to push them aside.
When someone quotes the NYT in frustration, I have a mantra I repeat
over and over, “Ignore the NY Times.” I’m going to paste it in 25 times
now so you get the idea. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times.
Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore
the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY
Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times.
Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore
the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY
Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times.
Ignore the NY Times. Ignore the NY Times.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20/135836.html?title=ignoreTheNyTimes
Yayoi
Kusama’s Largest Permanent Public Sculpture Arrives in London
date: 2024-08-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Stainless steel archways and reflective spheres stretch for more than
300 feet at Liverpool Street station
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-new-reflective-sculpture-from-yayoi-kusama-arrives-at-a-tube-station-in-london-180984906/
The
search for Celebrity Number Six. The internet has been unable to…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045171-the-search-for-celebrity-
@Dave Winer’s
Scripting News (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting
News)
Today would have been
my
mother’s 92nd birthday. She died in 2018, and I still haven’t, deep
inside, fully gotten the message that she’s gone. Probably the most
significant person in my life. I find most of my adult relationships can
be traced back to my relationship with her.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/20.html#a134439
Entrepreneurs
Challenge Prize Winner Uses Artificial Intelligence to Identify Methane
Emissions
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) instituted the
Entrepreneurs Challenge to identify innovative ideas and technologies
from small business start-ups with the potential to advance the agency’s
science goals. Geolabe—a prize winner in the latest Entrepreneurs
Challenge—has developed a way to use artificial intelligence to identify
global methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas that […]
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/science-enabling-technology/entrepreneurs-challenge-prize-winner-uses-artificial-intelligence-to-identify-methane-emissions/
Pixar’s
Inside Out movies have changed how therapists talk about feelings
with…
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Jason Kottke blog
https://kottke.org/24/08/0045162-pixars-inside-out-movies-
Google
to websites: let us train our AI on your content, or we’ll remove you
from Google Search
date: 2024-08-20, from: OS News
Google now displays convenient artificial intelligence-based answers
at the top of its search pages — meaning users may never click through
to the websites whose data is being used to power those results. But
many site owners say they can’t afford to block Google’s AI from
summarizing their content. That’s because the Google tool that sifts
through web content to come up with its AI answers is the same one that
keeps track of web pages for search results, according to publishers.
Blocking Alphabet Inc.’s Google the way sites have blocked some of its
AI competitors would also hamper a site’s ability to be discovered
online. ↫ Julia Love and Davey Alba OSNews still relies partially on
advertising right now, and thus Google continues to play a role in our
survival. You can help by reducing our dependency on Google by
supporting us through Patreon, making donations using Ko-Fi, or buying
our merch. The more of you support us, the closer to reality the dream
of an ad-free OSNews not dependent on Google becomes. OSNews is my sole
source of income, and if that does not work out, OSNews will cease to
exist if I’m forced to find another job. Due to Google’s utter dominance
on the internet, websites and publishers have no choice but to accept
whatever Google decides to do. Not being indexed by the most popular
search engine on the web with like 90% market share is a death sentence,
but feeding Google’s machine learning algorithms will be a slow death by
a thousands cuts, too, for many publishers. The more content is fed to
Google’s AI tools, the better they’ll get at simply copying your style
to a T, and the better they’ll get at showing just the little paragraph
or line that matters as a Google result, meaning you won’t have to visit
the site in question. It’s also not great for Google in the long-term,
either. Google Search relies on humans making content for people to
find; if there’s no more quality content for people to find, people
aren’t going to be using Google as much anymore. In what is typical of
the search giant, it seems they’re not really looking ahead very far
into the future, chasing short-term profits riding the AI hype train,
while long-term profits take a back seat. Maybe I’m just too stupid to
understand the Silicon Valley galaxy brain business boys, but to a
simple man like me it seems rather stupid to starve the very websites,
publishers, authors, and so on that your main product relies on to be
useful in the first place. I honestly don’t even know how much of
OSNews’ traffic comes from Google, so I don’t know how much it would
even affect us were we to tell Google’s crawlers to get bent. My guess
is that search traffic is still a sizable portion of our traffic, so I’m
definitely not going to gamble the future of OSNews. Luckily we’re quite
small and I doubt many people are interested in AI generating my writing
style and the topics I cover anyway, so I don’t think I have to worry as
much as some of the larger tech websites do.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140536/google-to-websites-let-us-train-our-ai-on-your-content-or-well-remove-you-from-google-search/
Hubble Examines a Possible
Relic
date: 2024-08-20, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the dwarf irregular
galaxy UGC 4879 or VV124. As this image illustrates, Hubble’s high
resolution can detect individual stars, even in the densest parts of the
galaxy. This allows astronomers to better determine the galaxy’s
distance, and the composition and age of its stars. UGC 4879 is an
[…]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-examines-a-possible-relic/
2024-08-20 An
offline Bulletin Board System (BBS) using NNCP
date: 2024-08-20, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-20 An offline Bulletin Board System (BBS) using NNCP
OK, plugd has done it! The
Offline Bulletin
Board System system works by sending out QWK files and accepting
back REP files.
One tool that does this is
MultiMail. And it’s in
Debian!
Before you can participate, plugd has to know about your node.
#NNCP
#Social Media
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-20-offline-bbs
Elon
Musk’s X Corp faces $61M lawsuit over unpaid tech tabs
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Taiwanese IT infrastructure provider claims platform ghosted it
X is facing yet another legal case in the shape of a breach of contract
claim from IT infrastructure provider Wiwynn over non-payment for $120
million in components it procured for the Elon Musk-owned biz.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/x_corp_wiwynn_lawsuit_unpaid_bills/
Console
yourself – research finds gaming may actually boost mental health
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Digital athletes enjoy positive effects in Japan study, but too much
screentime sees diminishing returns
A study of nearly 100,000 people in Japan has found that gaming may be
good for the player’s mental health, contrary to the prevailing
narrative around the popular pastime.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/research_gaming_mental_health/
Can
Harris Rebrand Climate Policy as an Economic Strategy?
date: 2024-08-20, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Typhoon Jongdari is expected to
bring flooding to South Korea when it makes landfall tomorrow • Wildfire
smoke from North America turned the moon red for stargazers in the U.K.
• California’s Park Fire, which started on July 24, is
still
burning.
THE TOP FIVE
- Trump attacks Harris on energy and environment
While the Democratic National Convention got underway in Chicago
yesterday, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate
JD Vance went on the offensive in the battleground state of
Pennsylvania. In separate speeches, Trump and Vance slammed Democratic
presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ energy and environmental policies.
Trump
accused
her of waging “war on American energy” and promised to “unlock American
energy” if he is elected to the White House again in November. He
reiterated his pledge to scrap the Biden administration’s rules limiting
power plant pollution, saying Harris is on “a regulatory jihad to shut
down power plants all across America.” He also
hinted
at giving Tesla CEO a cabinet position. Vance told a crowd: “We are
going to drill, baby, drill.” In a Wall Street Journal
opinion
piece,
Vance claimed Harris “cares more about climate change than about
inflation.” A New York Times/Sienna poll last week
showed
Harris inching ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania, as well as in Michigan
and Wisconsin.
Allies have encouraged Harris to lean into the environmental wins of the
past four years, including the Inflation Reduction Act, but it’s
anyone’s guess how much of her big speech on Thursday will be about
climate. For his part, President Biden used his moment in the spotlight
yesterday to
tout
emission reductions and his initiatives to expand EV charging stations
across the country.
- Climate groups launch $55 million ad push for Harris
A group of climate organizations are putting out a $55 million ad
campaign for Kamala Harris in swing states this week, The New
York Times
reported.
The ads frame the current administration’s climate and energy policies
as economic wins. “The goal of her presidency: strengthen America’s
middle class,” one ad says. “We get there by investing in growing fields
like advanced manufacturing and clean energy – good-paying jobs that
don’t need a four-year degree.” The ad campaign is backed by L.C.V.
Victory Fund, E.D.F. Action Votes, Climate Power Action, and the Future
Forward super PAC.
- Maine to build first U.S. floating offshore wind research site
The first floating offshore wind research site in the
U.S. will be located in the Gulf of Maine. The Biden administration this
week
issued
a lease for the research site, which “will inform how floating offshore
wind operates and can co-exist with ocean users and ecosystems,” the
Maine governor’s office said in a statement. The area is about 28
nautical miles from the shore and covers 9,700 acres, enough to
accommodate 12 floating offshore wind turbines designed by the
University of Maine. Floating offshore wind platforms enable wind power
generation in deeper waters, and the Interior Department has a
goal
of deploying 15 gigawatts of floating capacity by 2035. Construction on
the Maine site won’t start for another few years.
- Sinking of luxury yacht off Sicily could have climate link
Climate change may have contributed to the freak storm that sank a
luxury yacht Monday off the coast of Sicily, leaving one person dead and
six missing, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch. As rescue efforts
continue, one Italian climatologist
told
Reuters the accident could have been caused by a water
spout that produced high winds. Data suggests these weather events are
becoming more frequent in Italy. “The sea surface temperature around
Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3
degrees more than normal,” said Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian
meteorological society. “This creates an enormous source of energy that
contributes to these storms. So we can’t say that this is all due to
climate change, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect.” The
Mediterranean is
bracing
for more intense storms today.
- U.S. grid’s utility-scale electric capacity continues to grow
The U.S. power grid added 20.2 gigawatts of utility-scale electric
generating capacity in the first half of 2024,
according
to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s a 21% jump
compared to the same period last year. In the second half 2024, the grid
could expand capacity by another 42.6 GW “if utilities add all the solar
capacity they are currently planning.” Solar accounted for 59% of
additions through June this year. Battery storage made up 21% of
additions, and wind power made up 12%. Meanwhile, coal and gas plant
retirement has slowed.
EIA
THE KICKER
Starting this fall, both
Arizona
State University and the
University
of California San Diego are requiring students to take a course on
climate change and sustainability.
https://heatmap.news/economy/harris-trump-climate-energy-economy
Unknowingly Hiring North
Koreans
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/08/20/unknowingly-hiring-north-koreans/
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The NYT is now publishing fiction presented as “news.” They must
think we’re idiots.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/politics/biden-convention.html
Oreon Lime is
AlmaLinux with a desktop twist
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Liam Proven’s articles
at the Register
Enterprise-level long-term stability, but a little friendlier
<p>Oreon Lime R2 blends AlmaLinux with a bunch of extra tools and repositories, plus some helpful tweaks for the GNOME desktop. It's sort of akin to an LTS version of Fedora 34.</p>
https://go.theregister.com/i/cfa/https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/oreon_lime_desktop_almalinux/
Oreon Lime is
AlmaLinux with a desktop twist
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Enterprise-level long-term stability, but a little friendlier
Oreon Lime R2 blends AlmaLinux with a bunch of extra tools and
repositories, plus some helpful tweaks for the GNOME desktop. It’s sort
of akin to an LTS version of Fedora 34.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/oreon_lime_desktop_almalinux/
The
economic issues bubbling up on the floor of the DNC
date: 2024-08-20, from: Marketplace Morning Report
President Joe Biden’s victory lap at the Democratic National Convention
last night included a lot of mentions of how far the economy has come
from the depths of pandemic lockdowns. While there’s a lot to celebrate,
the nation’s mayors have a message for convention-goers: Do more to
address housing affordability. Plus, consumers are waiting for a rate
cut to make big financial decisions, and AI is changing how we predict
the weather.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-economic-issues-bubbling-up-on-the-floor-of-the-dnc
MASTER
PLAN, Ep 2: Watergate’s Magic Window Of Corporate Cash
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Lever News
As brand-name companies fund the break-in, a White House memo
envisions dark money and Nixon leaves a ticking time bomb in D.C.
https://www.levernews.com/master-plan-ep-2-watergates-magic-window-of-corporate-cash/
U.K.
tech tycoon and Morgan Stanley boss among those missing in yacht
disaster
date: 2024-08-20, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Morgan Stanley International bank
chairman Jonathan Bloomer and British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch are
among the six still missing after a yacht sunk in bad weather in Sicily
on Monday. One body has been recovered. We’re hear the latest on the
incident and learn more about those missing. And later, a Scottish
horror film has finally been released — 17 years after filming first got
under way.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/u-k-tech-tycoon-and-morgan-stanley-boss-among-those-missing-in-yacht-disaster
Rocket
Factory Augsburg engine test ends in explosion at SaxaVord
spaceport
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
First stage destroyed during hot fire in Scotland
A hot-fire test of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One ended in explosion
at Scotland’s SaxaVord spaceport.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/german_rocket_explodes_scotland/
Powell
may use Jackson Hole speech to hint at how fast, how far Fed could cut
rates
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
Washington — Federal Reserve officials have said they’re increasingly
confident that they’ve nearly tamed inflation. Now, it’s the health of
the job market that’s starting to draw their concern.
With inflation cooling toward its 2% target, the pace of hiring
slowing and the unemployment rate edging up, the Fed is poised to cut
its benchmark interest rate next month from its 23-year high. How fast
it may cut rates after that, though, will be determined mainly by
whether employers keep hiring. A lower Fed benchmark rate would
eventually lead to lower rates for auto loans, mortgages and other forms
of consumer borrowing.
Chair Jerome Powell will likely provide some hints about how the Fed
sees the economy and what its next steps may be in a high-profile speech
Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the Fed’s annual conference of
central bankers. It’s a platform that Powell and his predecessors have
often used to signal changes in their thinking or approach.
Powell will likely indicate that the Fed has grown more confident
that inflation is headed back to the 2% target, which it has long said
would be necessary before rate cuts would begin.
Economists generally agree that the Fed is getting closer to
conquering high inflation, which brought financial pain to millions of
households beginning three years ago as the economy rebounded from the
pandemic recession. Few economists, though, think Powell or any other
Fed official is prepared to declare “mission accomplished.”
“I don’t think that the Fed has to fear inflation,” said Tom
Porcelli, U.S. chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income. “At this point,
it’s right that the Fed is now more focused on labor versus inflation.
Their policy is calibrated for inflation that is much higher than
this.”
Still, how fast the Fed cuts rates in the coming months will depend
on what the economic data shows. After the government reported this
month that hiring in July was much less than expected and that the
jobless rate reached 4.3%, the highest in three years, stock prices
plunged for two days on fears that the U.S. might fall into a recession.
Some economists began speculating about a half-point Fed rate cut in
September and perhaps another identical cut in November.
But healthier economic reports last week, including another decline
in inflation and a robust gain in retail sales, have largely dispelled
those concerns. Wall Street traders now expect three quarter-point Fed
cuts in September, November and December, though in December it’s nearly
a coin-toss between a quarter- and a half-point cut. Mortgage rates have
already started to decline in anticipation of a rate reduction.
A half-point Fed rate cut in September would become more likely if
there were signs of a further slowdown in hiring, some officials have
said. The next jobs report will be issued on Sept. 6, after the Jackson
Hole conference but before the Fed’s next meeting in mid-September.
Raphael Bostic, president of the Fed’s Atlanta branch, said in an
interview Monday with The Associated Press that “evidence of
accelerating weakness in labor markets may warrant a more rapid move,
either in terms of the increments of movement or the speed at which we
try to get back” to a level of rates that no longer restricts the
economy.
Even if hiring stays solid, the Fed is set to cut rates this year
given the steady progress that’s been made on inflation, economists say.
Last week, the government said consumer prices rose just 2.9% in July
from a year ago, the smallest such increase in more than three
years.
Bostic noted that the economy has changed from just a couple of
months ago, when he was suggesting that a rate cut might not be
necessary until the final three months of the year.
“I’ve got more confidence that we are likely to get to our target for
inflation,” he said. “And we’ve seen labor markets weaken considerably
relative to where they were” last year. “We might need to shift our
policy stance sooner than I would have thought before.”
Both Bostic and Austan Goolsbee, president of the Fed’s Chicago
branch, say that with inflation falling, inflation-adjusted interest
rates — which are what many businesses and investors pay most attention
to — are rising even as inflation has slowed. When the Fed first set its
key rate at its current 5.3%, inflation — excluding volatile energy and
food costs — was 4.7%. Now, it’s just 3.2%.
“Our policies are getting tighter with every moment in that type of
situation,” Bostic said. “We have to be concerned” that rates are so
high they could cause an economic slowdown.
Still, Bostic said that for now, the job market and the economy
appear mostly healthy, and he still expects a “soft landing,” whereby
inflation falls back to the Fed’s 2% target without a recession
occurring.
With the economy’s outlook unclear and the Fed focusing heavily on
what future data shows, there may be only so much Powell will be able to
say Friday about the central bank’s next steps.
Given the Fed’s focus on how the economic data comes in, “it will be
difficult for Powell to pre-commit to a particular trajectory at Jackson
Hole,” Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, said in
a research note.
https://www.voanews.com/a/powell-may-use-jackson-hole-speech-to-hint-at-how-fast-and-how-far-the-fed-could-cut-rates/7749448.html
‘Right
to switch off’ initiative aims to boost economy by beating burnout
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Your country needs you… to quit it with all those sick days
UK government believes its proposed “right to switch off” will bring
crucial economic and productivity benefits to the country, while also
improving the well-being of workers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/uks_right_to_switch_off/
date: 2024-08-20, from: O’Reilly Radar
Platform engineering is the latest buzzword in IT operations. And
like all other buzzwords, it’s in danger of becoming meaningless—in
danger of meaning whatever some company with a “platform engineering”
product wants to sell. We’ve seen that happen to too many useful
concepts: Edge computing meant everything from caches at a cloud
provider’s data center […]
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/platform-engineering-the-next-step-in-operations/
Cloudflare
calls for regulatory harmonization amid rising internet challenges
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Removing security services not always the best way to tackle problematic
content
Interview Cloudflare wants harmonization of all the
regulation and compliance frameworks springing up around the world,
according to the networking service provider’s deputy chief legal
officer and global head of public policy, Alissa Starzak.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/cloudflare_harmonization/
City
council faces £216.5M loss over Oracle system debacle
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Europe’s largest local authority canceled expected savings baked into
financial plans
The total cost of Birmingham City Council’s Oracle implementation
disaster is set to reach £216.5 million ($280.4 million) by April 2026,
according to a new audit report.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/birmingham_oracle_cost/
Euro
antitrust cop Margrethe Vestager to depart after decade of reining in
Big Tech
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Her legacy hinges on her successor – will they double down?
Europe’s top competition cop, Margrethe Vestager, will reportedly be
stepping down later this year, a development certain to please the US
tech firms she called to the carpet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/eu_competition_cop_depart/
Today in SCV History
(Aug. 20)
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1967 – New Town of Valencia dedicated; homes sell for $25,000
[story
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-aug-20/
2024-08-19 Something new: intrigue
date: 2024-08-20, from: Alex Schroeder’s Blog
2024-08-19 Something new: intrigue
A while ago,
@enfors said he wanted
his sandbox generator supplement to have something special. I wasn’t
exactly sure what he was thinking of, but I started thinking about the
things that I feel are under-explored.
A while ago, for example, I wondered: What would be the simplest game
that emphasises how many friends you make, that rewards the size of the
community you build? Back in 2016 I wrote a game called
Best Friends that I never
used. It was still an
adventure game. Basically, replace your “level” with the number of
friends you have. Something like that.
But that still doesn’t get into really new territory. Something I would
like to see is a system for how to run an intrigue as a party –
including everybody at the table, for all the classes and skill
profiles. I feel that A Song of Ice and Fire attempted to do
this but the result wasn’t great, at least at my table.
Quoting my past self:
I’m also not too happy with A Song of Ice and Fire. We’ve only played
three times, so I’m willing to give it more time. When I ran one of the
sessions I basically split the party to the max since since all
characters are so diverse. There is no D&D like party and that also
requires me to rethink my adventure design. –
2010-04-08 Spring
I can always switch into a movie director stance, go around the table,
point at players, “now you!” and after a bit when the exchange happened
and a die was maybe cast, “as we wait for that, we cut to…” and soon
enough “in the mean time…” – and I do this aggressively, in small time
slots. This results in a somewhat military style of pointing at people
to let them know that now is their turn, while simultaneously waving at
others to hold their thoughts, or maybe cutting talkative players off
when they’re running too long. It’s weird, but when there’s a lot of
players, or when there’s no party play to return to, it works well
enough. We’ve made these kinds of mistakes in games where there are
characters that are well suited for fighting and others that are not,
with their players trying to solve problems by fighting, and players do
not. This happened to me when I ran a one-shot of A Song of Ice and
Fire. It worked for a session, but it was exhausting and I don’t
want to claim that it’s a good solution. It was simply a short term
solution that worked, for me. Next time, however, make sure players
create characters that will adventure together. –
2021-02-27 Cohesion
Perhaps the split into combat and intrigue that the game introduced
wasn’t good game design because it made sense from the perspective of
emulating the books but it didn’t make sense from the perspective of
some people wanting to play a game together. Or maybe it just didn’t fit
my expectations of what it means to play together. Or maybe we just
missed the implied recommendation to focus on either combat or intrigue
and everybody having two characters, one for each domain. Or maybe just
run either a combat campaign or an intrigue campaign.
So what I’m looking for is a way to get intrigue results, using
procedures like we do for combat or exploration, for dungeons or the
wilderness. The goal is to bring about a change in leadership of a town,
a gang, a castle, an army unit, or to succeed in an act of sabotage, to
incite a rebellion – things that are either hand-waved or the party is
hired for the dirty work while the non-player characters are the
politicians and rabble-rousers. I know this can work. It’s OK for the
party to do the dirty work, to assassinate a tyrant and the non-player
characters then taking the throne and similar things, but I want to go
further. I want to involve all the players at the table. I want the
players to think about the logistics of war, the organising and
preparations of revolutions, the intricacies of marriage politics.
What if B/X D&D went levels 1–3 is for dungeons, 4–6 is for the
wilderness and 7–9 is for politics. Doesn’t that sound
fantastic? What sort of rules would you find in that third book? You
would not get to name level by being a colonizer and clearing the land
but by taking over an existing position of power – through intrigue.
Oust the abbot, kick out the bishop, marry into the baron’s family, take
over the guild. With the help of your friends. Without resorting to
combat, but with dice rolling.
The dice rolling and the procedures are important to me because
otherwise it all goes in a direction I don’t like:
the referee decides everything and that is
exhausting.
Not something like Burning Wheel’s Duel of Wits but something like
social combat for Fate games, like the social
combat system in Diaspora, for example. Note
@bradjmurray’s most
recent take on those rules:
social
combat in diaspora.
This space deserves more attention.
#RPG
2024-08-20. I find that urban adventures suffer from
the same problem. If it’s just two or three buildings and those act like
dungeons, my games work. If it’s just social encounters that can be
resolved with reaction rolls, my games work. But everything else in an
urban environment seems to be politics, to me. And I have no good
procedures to resolve those. So if anybody reading this is thinking
about writing a blog post on the topic, I’d love to read it.
https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2024-08-19-rpg-intrigue
Iran named
as source of Trump campaign phish, leaks
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Political stirrer Roger Stone may have been a weak link after personal
emails cracked
US authorities have named Iran as the likely source of a recent attack
on the campaign of the US Republican Party’s presidential nominee,
Donald Trump.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/iran_trump_phishing_attribution/
Final
report outlines missed opportunities to stop Maine’s deadliest
shooting
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
LEWISTON, Maine — Both the Army Reserve and police missed
opportunities to intervene in a gunman’s psychiatric crisis and initiate
steps to seize weapons from the spiraling reservist responsible for the
deadliest shootings in Maine history, according to the final report
released Tuesday by a special commission created to investigate the
attacks, which killed 18 people.
The independent commission, which held 16 public meetings, heard from
scores of witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence,
reiterated its earlier conclusion that Maine law enforcement officers
had authority under the state’s yellow flag law, but didn’t use it, to
seize reservist Robert Card’s guns and put him in protective custody
weeks before the shootings.
The 215-page report also faulted the Army Reserve for failing to do
more to ensure Card’s health and deal with his weapons. And it pointed
out that no one used New York’s red flag law to initiate steps to seize
the gunman’s weapons when he was hospitalized last summer, even though
the law had been used on non-New York residents before.
The commission, created by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, announced
its conclusions at Lewiston City Hall, less than 3 miles (5 kilometers)
from the two sites where the shootings took place Oct. 25, 2023.
“Our ability to heal — as a people and as a state — is predicated on
the ability to know and understand, to the greatest extent possible, the
facts and circumstances surrounding the tragedy in Lewiston. The release
of the independent commission’s final report marks another step forward
on that long road to healing,” the governor said in a statement.
While the report contained no major surprises, the commission’s
chair, Daniel Wathen, noted the facts laid out in the document can be
used by others to make changes to prevent future tragedies.
Megan Vozzella, who lost her husband two weeks shy of their first
anniversary, expressed through an American Sign Language interpreter
that she wants accountability for those who failed to act to stop the
shootings.
“We are dealing with grief, loss of our loved ones. And it’s a
journey. All we can do is learn from this and make our lives better,”
she said, likening the process to dealing with broken pieces. “It’s like
we’re walking through the shards,” she said.
Ben Gideon, a lawyer for Vozzella and other relatives of those who
died, described the shootings as the product of a dangerous intersection
of gun ownership and mental illness with failures to intervene that were
outlined in the report.
“At the end of the day, what happened here was a pairing of someone
who was known to be paranoid, delusional and suffering from a diagnosed
psychosis with someone who owned numerous weapons of warfare,” Gideon
said.
The commission began its work a month after the mass shootings by
Card, who killed his victims at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston
and then took his own life. Over nine months, there has been emotional
testimony from family members and survivors of the shooting, law
enforcement officials and U.S. Army Reserve personnel, and others.
The commission praised the swift response by police to the shootings
but also noted what Wathen, a former chief justice of Maine’s highest
court, described Tuesday as “utter chaos” as hundreds of law enforcement
officers arrived to search for the gunman.
Family members and fellow reservists said Card had exhibited
delusional and paranoid behavior months before the shootings. He was
hospitalized by the Army during training in July 2023 in New York, where
his unit was training West Point cadets, but Army Reserve officials
acknowledged that no one made sure Card was taking his medication or
complying with his follow-up care at home in Bowdoin, Maine.
The starkest warning came in September text from a fellow reservist:
“I believe he’s going to snap and do a mass shooting.”
The commission report contained new details of Card’s time at a
private psychiatric hospital — Four Winds in Katonah, New York — where
Card acknowledged having a “hit list” and officials planned to ask a
judge to extend Card’s hospitalization. But the court hearing never
happened, and his psychiatrist felt the hospital’s request would have
been unsuccessful, given Card’s stabilization and progress and his
agreement to continue medications and participate in therapy. The
psychiatrist thought he was safe to discharge after 19 days.
The report also took up New York’s red flag law but didn’t reach a
conclusion on whether it should have been used to initiate the removal
of Card’s weapons while he was hospitalized at Four Winds. An Army
health care worker testified he thought the law applied only to New York
residents. But the report noted that petitions were successfully
initiated in New York against at least 10 nonresidents, like Card,
between 2021 and June 2024.
Army officials conducted their own investigation after the shootings
that Lt. Gen. Jody Daniels, then the chief of the Army Reserve, said
found “a series of failures by unit leadership.” Three Army Reserve
leaders were disciplined for dereliction of duty, according to the
report.
After the shootings, Maine’s Legislature passed new guns laws for the
state, which has a tradition of hunting and firearms ownership, after
the shootings. A three-day waiting period for gun purchases went into
effect this month.
In addition to Wathen, the seven-member commission included two
former federal prosecutors; two additional former judges, including a
former member Maine’s highest court; the state’s former chief forensic
psychologist; and a private psychiatrist who is an executive at a
psychiatric hospital.
https://www.voanews.com/a/final-report-on-lewiston-mass-shooting-to-be-released-/7749335.html
Pakistan’s
internet slows to uncomfortable levels, allegedly due to new China-style
firewall
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Minister issues denial – it’s just an upgrade to the ‘web-management
system’
Industry group Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT (P@SHA) last
week accused the Pakistan government late last week of implementing a
China-style internet firewall – a claim the nation’s IT minister denied
over the weekend.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/pakistan_minister_denies_firewall/
Alibaba
and Tencent clouds see demand for CPUs level off, GPUs accelerate
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Lenovo also cashes in on AI demand, without being able to turn it into
profit
Demand for cloudy CPUs has levelled out at top Chinese clouds Alibaba
and Tencent, whose customers increasingly want GPUs instead.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/tencent_alibaba_cloud_lenovo_results/
Firefighters
significantly tame California’s fourth-largest wildfire on record
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
CHICO, Calif. — California’s largest wildfire this year has been
significantly tamed as the state’s initially fierce fire season has, at
least temporarily, fallen into a relative calm.
The Park Fire was 53% contained Monday after scorching nearly 1,738
square kilometers in several northern counties, destroying 637
structures and damaging 49 as it became the state’s fourth-largest
wildfire on record.
A large portion of the fire area has been in mop-up stages, which
involves extinguishing smoldering material along containment lines, and
residents of evacuated areas are returning home. Timber in its northeast
corner continues to burn.
The fire is burning islands of vegetation within containment lines,
the Cal Fire situation summary said.
The Park Fire was allegedly started by arson on July 24 in a
wilderness park outside the Central Valley city of Chico. It spread
northward with astonishing speed in withering conditions as it climbed
the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.
July was marked by extraordinary heat in most of California, where
back-to-back wet winters left the state flush with grasses and
vegetation that dried and became ready to burn. Wildfires erupted up and
down the state.
The first half of August has been warmer than average but not
record-breaking, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
“We’re still seeing pretty regular ignitions and we’re still seeing
significant fire activity, but the pace has slowed and the degree of
that activity, the intensity, rates of initial spread, are not as high
as they were,” he said in an online briefing Friday.
“Nonetheless, vegetation remains drier than average in most places in
California and will likely remain so nearly everywhere in California for
the foreseeable future,” he said.
There are signs of a return of high heat in parts of the West by late
August and early September, Swain said.
“I would expect to see another resurgence in wildfire activity then
across a broad swath of the West, including California,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/firefighters-significantly-tame-california-s-fourth-largest-wildfire-on-record-/7749319.html
Biden
gets rousing ovation, gives Harris enthusiastic endorsement
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
Chicago — President Joe Biden delivered his valedictory address to
the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, as his decision to
end his reelection bid released newfound energy within his party with
Vice President Kamala Harris’ elevation to the top of the ticket.
After 52 years rising to the pinnacle of influence within his party,
Biden, 81, received a hero’s welcome for the act of stepping aside for
Harris, weeks after many in his party were pressuring him to drop his
bid for reelection. One month after an unprecedented mid-campaign
switch, the opening night of the convention in Chicago was designed to
give a graceful exit to the incumbent president and slingshot Harris
toward a faceoff with Republican Donald Trump, whose comeback bid for
the White House is viewed by Democrats as an existential threat.
A visibly emotional Biden was greeted by a more than four-minute-long
ovation and chants of “Thank you, Joe.”
“America, I love you,” he replied.
Speaking clearly and energetically, Biden appeared to relish the
chance to defend his record, advocate for his vice president and go on
the attack against Trump. His delivery was more reminiscent of the Biden
who won in 2020 than the mumbling and sometimes incoherent one-time
candidate whose debate performance against Trump in June sparked the
downfall of his reelection campaign.
Biden, in his remarks, repeated his 2020 theme that “we’re in a
battle for the very soul of America,” and pressed the case for why
Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were best prepared to wage it.
“Because of you, we’ve had the most extraordinary four years of
progress ever, period,” Biden declared. And then he interjected, “I say
‘we,’ I mean me and Kamala,’” sharing the credit for his most popular
successes with the vice president to whom he handed over his political
operation.
Harris made an unannounced appearance onstage as the convention’s
prime-time program began Monday evening to thank Biden for his
leadership and watched his remarks from the stands.
“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of
service to our nation, and for all you’ll continue to do,” she said. “We
are forever grateful to you.”
Biden’s speech, billed as the marquee event of the evening, was
pushed into late night as the convention program lagged more than an
hour behind schedule.
The president recalled the 2017 “unite the right” rally, when
torch-carrying white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia,
an episode he cites as cementing his decision to run for president in
2020 despite his ongoing grief over the death of his son Beau Biden.
“I could not stay on the sidelines,” Biden said. “So I ran. I had no
intention of running again. I’d just lost part of my soul. But I ran
with a deep conviction.”
Biden celebrated the successes from his administration, including a
massive boost in infrastructure spending and a cap on the price of
insulin. The spending resulted in more money going to Republican-leaning
states than Democratic states, he said, because “the job of the
president is to deliver for all of America.”
During one of the crowd’s many chants of “thank you, Joe,” he added,
“Thank you, Kamala, too.”
Not even a month ago, Democrats were riven over foreign policy,
political strategy and Biden himself, who was holding on after a
disastrous debate by claiming he had a better chance than any other
Democrat — including Harris — of beating Trump.
On Monday, Biden insisted he did not harbor any ill will to the many
voices in the arena before him who had pushed him to the exits and
called on the party to unite around Harris. Accusing Trump of “bowing
down” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden said, “I never have and
I promise you Kamala Harris will never do it.”
“She’ll be a president we can all be proud of,” he said.
First lady Jill Biden alluded to her husband’s wrenching decision to
leave the race in her remarks minutes before Biden took the stage. She
said she fell in love with him all over again “just weeks ago, when I
saw him dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek reelection
and endorse Kamala Harris.”
Still, there was little question that the Democratic Party would
almost certainly have been in a far worse state if Biden had continued
to cling to his campaign, despite growing concerns about his mental and
physical acuity after struggling to complete sentences during his debate
against Trump.
Democrats took turns praising Biden’s leadership and his choice in
Harris to succeed him. “I’ve never known a more compassionate man than
Joe Biden,” said his longtime confidant Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who
led the crowd in a “we love Joe” chant.
They tried to connect both Biden and Harris to what the party sees as
the governing pair’s most popular accomplishments: leading the country
out of the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing for massive
investments in the country’s infrastructure, working to lower health
care costs and promoting clean energy.
“Thanks to Joe and Kamala, we reduced the price of prescription
drugs, repaired roads and bridges and replaced lead pipes,” said South
Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement was critical
to Biden winning that primary. He added that one of Biden’s best
decisions was “selecting Kamala Harris as his vice president and
endorsing her to succeed him.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was greeted with
prolonged applause, saluted Harris while noting her potential to break
the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” to become America’s first female
president. Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016, but she lost that
election to Trump.
“Together, we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass
ceiling,” Clinton said, invoking a metaphor she referenced in her
concession speech eight years ago. “On the other side of that glass
ceiling is Kamala Harris taking the oath of office as our 47th president
of the United States. When a barrier falls for one of us, it clears the
way for all of us.”
Clinton also saluted Biden for stepping aside, saying, “Now we are
writing a new chapter in America’s story.”
Highlighting the party’s generational reach, Clinton, 76, followed
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 34, who endorsed Harris while
delivering the first mention of the war in Gaza from the convention
stage, addressing an issue that has split the party’s base ever since
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s resulting offensive.
Outside the arena, thousands of protesters descended on Chicago to
decry the Biden-Harris administration’s support for the Israeli war
effort.
Harris “is working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and
bringing the hostages home,” Ocasio-Cortez said, drawing cheers from the
crowd.
Biden acknowledged the protests outside the convention and inside the
arena as he spoke, saying, “Those protesters out in the street have a
point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” He
reiterated his push to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire
deal that would also see the release of hostages taken by Hamas on
Oct. 7 in the attack that sparked the 10-month war.
Meanwhile, Democrats also looked to keep the focus on Trump, whose
criminal convictions they mocked and who they asserted was only fighting
for himself, rather than “for the people” — the night’s official
theme.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow hoisted an oversized copy of
“Project 2025” — a blueprint for a second Trump term that was put
together by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank — onto
the lectern and quoted from portions of it.
“So we read it,” McMorrow said. “Whatever you think it might be. It
is so much worse.”
Trump, the former president, has publicly disavowed any interests in
the policies outlined in Project 2025, but he has close ties to its
authors and campaign aides had praised its work in the past.
Democrats kept abortion access front and center for voters, betting
that the issue will propel them to success as it has in other key races
since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. Speakers
Monday included three women whose health care suffered as a result of
that decision. And the convention program included a video of Trump
praising his own role in getting Roe struck down.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-gets-rousing-ovation-gives-harris-enthusiastic-endorsement/7749312.html
DNC’s
Day 1: Biden’s exit, talk of the glass ceiling, nod to Gaza
protesters
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
CHICAGO — The Democratic National Convention ’s first night showcased
speeches from the last Democrat to lose to Donald Trump and the last one
to beat him.
Hillary Clinton spoke hopefully of finally breaking the “glass
ceiling” to elect a female president. Joe Biden laced into Trump and
directly acknowledged the concerns of protesters against the war in Gaza
who demonstrated a few blocks from the convention hall.
Here are some takeaways from the first night of the convention.
Biden begins long political exit
President Joe Biden wrapped up the convention’s opening night by
beginning his long political farewell with an address that both framed
his own legacy and signaled he was ready to start ceding control of the
party to Vice President Kamala Harris.
He took the stage to a long, raucous ovation from delegates hoisting
“We love Joe” placards and told them in turn, “I love you!” After the
affectionate opening, Biden spent long stretches of his 50-minute speech
lacing into Trump, returning to a key theme of the reelection campaign
he’s no longer running.
Biden ticked through many of his administration’s achievements,
including a major public works package and climate program, and shared
the credit with Harris. But the convention ran so late that Biden took
the stage after prime time had ended in much of the country. That didn’t
stop Biden from declaring, “America’s winning.”
Biden called Harris a “close friend” and said picking her as his
running mate was the best decision he ever made. He also vowed to help
get the new Democratic ticket elected, promising to be the “best
volunteer” that Harris and Walz have ever seen.
He ended by telling those still listening, “I gave my best to you for
50 years.”
He had no plan to linger at the convention, though. Biden was set to
fly to California’s wine country for a vacation immediately after his
speech.
A surprise Harris appearance to pay tribute to Biden
The vice president made an unscheduled appearance onstage to pay
tribute to Biden ahead of his own address to the convention. She told
the president, “Thank you for your historic leadership, for your
lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you’ll continue to
do.”
On a night meant to honor the president who stepped aside to make way
for Harris, the vice president added, “We are forever grateful to you.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and her husband, Doug Emhoff,
were in the stands to cheer her message.
Gaza gets little attention inside DNC hall — except from Biden
Thousands of marchers churned through Chicago’s streets protesting
U.S. support for Israel during the war in Gaza. But inside the
convention hall, the combustible issue went largely unmentioned until
Biden got to the microphone.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez got cheers when she praised Harris for
working “tirelessly to get a cease-fire in Gaza and get the hostages
home.” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia made a brief allusion to the
conflict.
A handful of delegates who ran on an “uncommitted” ticket protesting
Biden’s position on the war unfurled a banner during his speech that
read “Stop Arming Israel.” But it was blocked by supporters waving Biden
signs before it was wrestled away and the lights over that section of
the audience were shut off.
Biden himself addressed the issue head-on, saying he’d keep working
to “end the war in Gaza and bring peace and security to the Middle
East.”
“Those protesters out in the streets have a point,” Biden said. “A
lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.”
The crowd cheered, and for a moment the war didn’t seem like it was
dividing the party at all.
Clinton revives talk of breaking that ‘glass ceiling’
Clinton was greeted with wild and sustained applause that lasted for
more than two minutes before she quieted the crowd. She delivered a
fiery speech hoping that Harris could do what she could not –- become
the first woman president by beating Trump.
Clinton evoked her 2016 concession speech by referencing all the
“cracks in the glass ceiling” that she and her voters had achieved. And
she painted a vision of Harris “on the other side of that glass ceiling”
taking the oath of office as president.
She closed her speech with a striking desire for someone who’s stood
at the pinnacle of American politics and power: “I want my grandchildren
and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment. That we were
here and that we were with Kamala Harris every step of the way.”
Clinton dipped into traditional political attacks in her speech,
including mocking Trump’s criminal record. That led to chants of “lock
him up” — mirroring the ones that Trump’s supporters directed at Clinton
in 2016.
Tracing a line from Jesse Jackson to Kamala Harris
An early theme of the evening was celebrating the Rev. Jesse Jackson,
a longtime civil rights leader in Chicago and former presidential
candidate in 1984 and 1988. Many Democrats credit him with blazing a
trail that helped Barack Obama win the White House in 2008 and Kamala
Harris become the first woman of color nominated for the presidency.
Jackson was saluted from the stage by several speakers, including
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and California Rep. Maxine Waters. There
was a video montage of Jackson’s career and legacy that played before
the 82-year-old Jackson himself came to the stage in a wheelchair,
thrusting his arms skyward and grinning. Jackson has been diagnosed with
Parkinson’s disease.
During the 1984 Democratic convention in San Francisco, Jackson gave
a speech declaring that America is “like a quilt: Many patches, many
pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common
thread.” The address became known as the “Rainbow Coalition” speech, and
Jackson used momentum from it to seek the Democratic nomination again in
1988.
Harris has called Jackson “one of America’s greatest patriots.”
Remember COVID? Democrats don’t want voters — or Trump — to
forget
Democrats opted to shine the convention spotlight on the harrowing
subject of the coronavirus pandemic.
It was a reflection of Democratic frustration at how Trump has
portrayed his tenure in office as a golden age for the country, even
though hundreds of thousands of Americans died of COVID-19 during the
last year of his term.
There are plenty of risks for Democrats in hammering the pandemic.
Even more people died of the virus during Biden’s presidency than during
Trump’s, voters have shown an eagerness to move on and some preventative
measures championed by Democrats — like school closures and masking —
are not popular in retrospect.
Still, the lineup of early speakers focused on Trump’s performance
during the pandemic. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan recalled how her
brother was the second person in Tennessee to die of the disease and how
she couldn’t visit him or hold a memorial service. Rep. Lauren Underwood
of Illinois, a nurse, said of Trump: “He took the COVID crisis and
turned it into a catastrophe. We can never ever let him be our president
again.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, whose mother and stepfather died of the disease
in 2020, recalled Trump’s missteps and concluded with one of the slogans
of Harris’ young campaign: “We are not going back.”
Democrats one-up Republicans on labor
Trump’s convention last month featured a rare appearance from a union
leader at such a GOP event: Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. That’s
reflective of how Trump’s populism has cut into Democrats’ advantage
with union households.
In that speech, O’Brien did not endorse Trump. But he criticized both
major political parties for not doing enough to help working people.
Democrats didn’t invite O’Brien to their convention, but they
countered with a half-dozen other union leaders onstage Monday. And then
Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers, led a blistering chant of
“Trump’s a scab!” while wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with those
words.
Fain noted that Biden visited a UAW picket line last year and, when
autoworkers struck in 2019, Harris, not Trump, walked the picket lines.
“Donald Trump is all talk and Kamala Harris walks the walk,” Fain
said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/7749309.html
Dem
Convention Day 1: Speakers Sound Themes of Patriotism and Hope
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Kamala Harris biographer says she’s “winning the vibes.”
The post
Dem
Convention Day 1: Speakers Sound Themes of Patriotism and Hope
appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/19/dem-convention-day-1-speakers-sound-themes-of-patriotism-and-hope/
Jury
hears ex-politician on trial for murder amassed photos, ID records about
slain Vegas reporter
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
Las Vegas — Hundreds of photos of a slain investigative journalist’s
home and neighborhood were found on the cellphone and computer of a
local Democratic politician accused of “lying in wait” and killing the
reporter, who had written several articles critical of the official, a
Nevada jury was told Monday.
Other photos taken from Robert Telles’ devices included an image of a
single gray athletic shoe with a distinctive black pattern and a shot of
Telles’ work computer at the Clark County Public Administrator and
Guardian office with results of internet searches through a
password-protected site that retrieved slain reporter Jeff German’s
name, home address, vehicle registration and date of birth.
Prosecutor Christopher Hamner noted for jurors that photo was taken
Aug. 23, 2022 — less than two weeks before German was slashed and
stabbed to death in a side yard of his home.
“This image came out of Mr. Telles’ phone?” Hamner asked Matthew
Hovanec, a Las Vegas digital forensics supervisor who testified Monday
about “extracting” the data from Telles’ devices.
“It did,” Hovanec responded.
Detective Justine Gatus, the primary Las Vegas police homicide
investigator of German’s death, was the main — and final — witness
called Monday as prosecutors rested their case after four days of
testimony from more than two dozen witnesses.
Telles has pleaded not guilty to murder and faces the possibility of
life in prison if the jury finds him guilty. Prosecutors are not seeking
the death penalty.
Telles insists he didn’t kill German and was framed for the crime. He
intends to testify, defense lawyer Robert Draskovich said Monday, and is
expected to take the witness stand to cap his own defense case, possibly
Tuesday afternoon.
Gatus cited Las Vegas Review-Journal articles about Telles and the
county office that German wrote, published in May and June 2022, about a
county office in turmoil.
“They weren’t flattering,” the detective observed.
Social media posts by Telles at the same time derided German and the
articles as false depictions of his efforts to fight corruption amid a
political and social “old guard” real estate network.
Gatus testified that the gray sneaker with a Nike logo and four black
marks on the sole was “identical” to one jurors saw earlier in
neighbors’ security camera images of a figure wearing orange who slipped
into a side yard of German’s home where German was later found dead on
Labor Day weekend 2022.
Neither an orange shirt nor a murder weapon was entered as evidence
in the case. But one of those shoes, cut to pieces and bearing spots of
blood from an unidentified source, was found in plastic shopping bag in
Telles’ home following his arrest.
German’s killing in September 2022, at age 69, made him the only
reporter killed in the U.S. among 69 news media workers killed worldwide
that year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. German
spent 44 years covering Las Vegas mobsters and public officials at the
Las Vegas Sun and then at the rival Review-Journal.
About 10 of his family members and friends have attended each day of
Telles’ trial but have not spoken publicly about the killing. They
declined as a group on Monday to comment.
Jurors last week heard from forensic scientists who said Telles’ DNA
was found beneath German’s fingernails and saw security video of the
suspect driving through German’s neighborhood.
https://www.voanews.com/a/jury-hears-ex-politician-on-trial-for-murder-amassed-photos-id-records-about-slain-vegas-reporter/7749304.html
Oct. 19: Fourth Annual
OCD Awareness Walk
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Fourth Annual OCD Awareness SCV Walk and community event will be
held in Santa Clarita on Saturday, Oct.
https://scvnews.com/oct-19-fourth-annual-ocd-awareness-walk/
Hello, President Biden!
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Joe and Jill Biden to arrive in Santa Ynez Valley following the
president’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on
Monday night.
The post
Hello,
President Biden! appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/19/hello-president-biden/
Orange
County announces lawsuit against another nonprofit with connections to
Supervisor Andrew Do
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The LAist
Supervisor Katrina Foley announced Monday that the county has filed a
lawsuit against Hand to Hand Relief Organization and its CEO to recover
millions of taxpayer dollars.
https://laist.com/news/politics/orange-county-announces-lawsuit-against-another-nonprofit-with-connections-to-supervisor-andrew-do
LASD
Reminds Drivers, Keep Final Days of Summer Fun, Not Fatal
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
As the end of summer approaches and families prepare for Labor Day
celebrations, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reminds
everyone to prioritize safety on the roads
https://scvnews.com/lasd-reminds-drivers-to-keep-the-final-days-of-summer-fun-not-fatal/
Missing
scissors cause 36 flight cancellations in Japan
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Plus a further 200 delays, rockstars knocked off stage … all on a
holiday weekend
Thirty-six flights were cancelled at Japan’s New Chitose airport on
Saturday after a pair of scissors went missing.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/missing_scissors_cut_flights_japan/
Pentagon:
US State Department OKs $3.5B sale of helicopters to South Korea
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/pentagon-us-state-department-oks-3-5b-sale-of-helicopters-to-south-korea/7749252.html
New
Film Festival Partnership Offers Cash Grants up to $10K to Santa Barbara
Filmmakers
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara International Film Festival teams with Veraison Fund for
SBIFF Filmmaker Fund.
The post
New
Film Festival Partnership Offers Cash Grants up to $10K to Santa Barbara
Filmmakers appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/19/new-film-festival-partnership-offers-cash-grants-up-to-10k-to-santa-barbara-filmmakers/
Texas
jury finds school shooter’s parents not liable for violence
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/texas-jury-finds-school-shooter-s-parents-not-liable-for-violence/7749242.html
Deputies: Shots fired at
Residence Inn
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
Deputies from the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station responded to a
call about shots fired at the Residence Inn on Wayne Mills Place in
Valencia at approximately 6 p.m. on Monday. […]
The post
Deputies:
Shots fired at Residence Inn appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/deputies-shots-fired-at-residence-inn/
Council names Gibbs to
District 3 seat
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita City Council appointed Councilman Jason Gibbs as the
first-ever representative of the city’s 3rd District during a special
meeting Monday evening. City Council members basically had two […]
The post
Council
names Gibbs to District 3 seat appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/council-names-gibbs-to-district-3-seat/
Digital
wallets can allow purchases with stolen credit cards
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: The Register (UK I.T.
News)
Researchers find it’s possible to downgrade authentication checks, and
shabby token refresh policies
Digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal can be used to
conduct transactions using stolen and cancelled payment cards, according
to academic security researchers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/20/digital_wallets_simplify_fraud/
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
CHICAGO — Delegates at the Democratic National Convention voted
Monday night to approve their 2024 party platform, which lays out
familiar priorities for the party but wasn’t updated to reflect that
President Joe Biden is no longer running for reelection.
The largely ceremonial vote at Chicago’s convention signaled the
party coalescing around a singular vision for the next four years —
though a somewhat outdated one, as Vice President Kamala Harris has only
outlined a few of her own specific policy positions since she took over
the Democratic presidential ticket last month. The platform makes
repeated reference to Biden’s “second term” despite the president’s
decision a month ago to no longer seek one.
The Democratic National Committee said the more than 90-page document
“makes a strong statement about the historic work that President Biden
and Vice President Harris have accomplished hand-in-hand and offers a
vision for a progressive agenda that we can build on as a nation and as
a Party as we head into the next four years.”
Regina Romero, the mayor of Tucson, Arizona, and co-chair of the
convention platform committee, told delegates that the platform was
passed “prior to the president passing the torch in an act of love and
patriotism.” She said that the platform nonetheless included input from
all corners of the party and has a “forward-looking vision for our party
that echoes the voice of all.”
“Vice President Harris is now carrying the torch,” Romero said.
The platform was approved on the floor by a voice vote.
The convention’s platform committee voted to approve the platform on
July 16, days before Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed Harris on
July 21. As a result, the document repeatedly refers to Biden’s second
term and his administration’s accomplishments. It mentions Harris’ work
as vice president but does not describe her candidacy or go into detail
on her views on key issues.
“President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are running to
finish the job,” it states, a sentiment that is now out of date.
Republican former President Donald Trump’s campaign has sought to tie
Harris to Biden, arguing that his policies on the economy and other key
issues are deeply unpopular. In a statement released shortly before the
convention vote, it said, “There is no daylight between Kamala Harris
and Joe Biden. The proof? The DNC just released Kamala’s party platform,
and it includes at least (asterisk)nineteen(asterisk) mentions of
‘Biden’s second term.’”
Harris has indeed talked generally about supporting the Biden
administration’s key goals, which are more or less endorsed in the
platform as written. It calls for restoring abortion rights nationwide,
continuing to advance green energy initiatives that can create jobs and
help slow climate change, capping low-income families’ child care costs
and urging Congress to approve a pathway to U.S. citizenship for
“long-term” people in the country illegally.
The platform also says Israel’s right to defend itself is “ironclad”
while endorsing the Biden administration’s efforts to broker a lasting
cease-fire deal that could suspend the fighting between Israel and Hamas
in Gaza.
Harris laid out a string of new economic proposals last week but
otherwise hasn’t released a detailed list of her policy positions since
taking over the top of the Democratic ticket. Her campaign aides have
suggested she no longer adheres to some of the more liberal positions
she took during her first run for president in 2020, including endorsing
a ban on hydraulic fracturing.
In any event, candidates are not bound to adhere to their party’s
platform and often don’t. What the platforms spell out usually has
little effect on the race and is unlikely to have much impact on
Election Day this cycle.
https://www.voanews.com/a/democrats-approve-platform-that-mentions-biden-s-second-term-despite-his-making-way-for-harris/7749223.html
@Dave Winer’s
linkblog (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Elon Musk bought the biggest airport on the social web.
http://scripting.com/2024/08/19/200828.html
@Dave Winer’s
Scripting News (date: 2024-08-20, from: Dave Winer’s Scripting
News)
Note: I had a quote here that
appeared
to be from actor
Keanu Reeves.
It was a good sentiment, but it apparently was not from Reeves. Thanks
to
Andy
Piper for catching this. Here’s the quote. “If you see someone
falling behind, walk beside them. If you see someone being ignored, find
a way to include them. Always remind people of their worth. One small
act could mean the world to them.”
http://scripting.com/2024/08/19.html#a010710
Procreate’s
anti-AI pledge attracts praise from digital creatives
date: 2024-08-20, from: Ben Werdmuller’s blog
<div class="known-bookmark">
<div class="e-content">
[Jess
Weatherbed at The Verge]
““Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a
foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren
future,” Procreate said on the new AI section of its website. “We think
machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the
path generative AI is on is wrong for us.”“
This is a company that knows its audience: the lack of concern for
artist welfare demonstrated by AI vendors has understandably not made
the technology popular with that community. Adobe got into trouble with
its userbase for adding those generative AI features.
It’s a great way for Procreate to deepen its relationship with artists
and take advantage of Adobe’s fall from grace. There’s also something a
bit deeper here: if work created with generative AI does run into
copyright trouble at the hands of current and future lawsuits, work
created with Procreate will be clean of those issues.
#AI
<p>[<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/19/24223473/procreate-anti-generative-ai-pledge-digital-illustration-creatives">Link</a>]</p>
</div>
</div>
https://werd.io/2024/procreates-anti-ai-pledge-attracts-praise-from-digital-creatives
Ernesto
retains strength as hurricane over open Atlantic
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/ernesto-retains-strength-as-hurricane-over-open-atlantic-/7749219.html
Decoding the Art of
Franceschi House
date: 2024-08-20, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Pearl Chase Society continues their Kellam de Forest speaker series
with a presentation on Friday, August 30 at 5:30
The post
Decoding
the Art of Franceschi House appeared first on
The Santa Barbara
Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/08/19/decoding-the-art-of-franceschi-house/
House
Republicans issue report urging Biden’s impeachment
date: 2024-08-20, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/house-republicans-issue-report-urging-biden-s-impeachment/7748862.html
Lady Matadors Fall
to No. 8 Texas Tech 0-4
date: 2024-08-20, from: SCV New (TV Station)
California State University, Northridge women’s soccer fell to No. 8
Texas Tech on Sunday at John Walker Soccer Complex
https://scvnews.com/lady-matadors-fall-to-no-8-texas-tech-0-4/
City
awards four animal care nonprofits $10,000 grants
date: 2024-08-20, from: The Signal
The Santa Clarita City Council has awarded four nonprofit organizations
with the city’s first animal care grants, totaling $40,000, to help
local organizations that support animals residing in or rescued […]
The post
City
awards four animal care nonprofits $10,000 grants appeared first on
Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/08/city-awards-four-animal-care-nonprofits-10000-grants/
Range Over Function Types
date: 2024-08-20, updated: 2024-08-20, from: Go language blog
A description of range over function types, a new feature in Go
1.23.
https://go.dev/blog/range-functions