(date: 2024-09-08 07:36:35)
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
BlueSky has a 300 character limit, which is less than the other services I cross-post to. This will be a problem when we eventually get peering working across twitter-like systems.
https://bsky.app/profile/scripting.com/post/3l3njg5jhft2k
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-08, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I'm trying to understand "flex" in CSS, but it seems to be one of those things you have to understand before you can read about it. I'm interested because ChatGPT has told me to use it to solve some of my layout problems, and it's suggestions work, even though I don't understand how they work.
https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-08, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Fascinating development in face of Milei’s austerity economics:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/argentine-currency-launched-offset-milei-110000323.html
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113102162386019173
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/boeing-seattle-workers-reach-tentative-pay-deal-avert-strike-/7775922.html
date: 2024-09-08, updated: 2024-09-08, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nvidia is embroiled in an antitrust’n’patent lawsuit, which alleges the GPU giant colluded with Microsoft and the intellectual property risk management firm RPX to rip off the data processing unit (DPU) developer Xockets’ designs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/08/xockets_dpu_patent_nvidia_microsoft/
date: 2024-09-08, from: Tilde.news
https://github.com/mattl/wordpress-to-eleventy
date: 2024-09-08, from: The Lever News
A “bonkers” political memo, a corporate lunchroom bully, and more from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-this-corporation-is-bullying-you/
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-immigration-weekly-recap-september-1-7-/7775856.html
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka beat American sixth seed Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5 in the U.S. Open women’s final on Saturday.
Sabalenka blocked out the wild cheers of the home crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium to break Pegula in the final game and win her first title at Flushing Meadows.
A year after coming up short in the final, the second seed fought back from a break down in both sets to claim victory and fell to the court in her moment of triumph.
The 30-year-old Pegula had waited a long time to reach her first major final but could not match her opponent’s raw power despite the noisy backing of the New York crowd.
The roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium was closed because of heavy rain, and the players traded breaks twice as they settled into the stormy affair in front of a celebrity-packed house.
Sabalenka held her serve through a four-deuce 11th game and fought through a spine-tingling 12th, mixing precision at the net with her usual power from the baseline before breaking her opponent on the fifth set point.
Pegula struggled with her rackets throughout the match, complaining to her coaches as she seemed unable to find the right tension on her strings, and it looked as though she would not put up a fight in the second set when Sabalenka went 3-0 up.
But the American found another level and brought the fans to their feet when she won the next five games in a furious fight back.
Sabalenka leveled when she sent over a forehand winner that just kissed the line on break point in the 10th game and sought to bring a swift end to the contest, holding serve and then applying pressure from the baseline in the final game.
The tears flowed immediately for Sabalenka as she claimed her third Grand Slam title after winning the Australian Open twice, and she high-fived fans as she ran up the stands to share a joyful celebration with her team.
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/active-shooter-reported-near-us-highway-numerous-people-shot/7775766.html
date: 2024-09-08, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Debate-Night Coaching: 10 Pointers for Kamala Harris.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/debate-night-coaching-10-pointers-for-kamala-harris
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Doctor Hannibal Lecter, he will have you for dinner. You know that he will have you for dinner
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1832504908819395053
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
date: 2024-09-07, from: OS News
The MAS project, a group of people working on an open source Windows and Office activator featuring HWID, Ohook, KMS38, and Online KMS activation methods, discovered quite a neat and interesting bug in the code responsible for licensing in Windows. In our ongoing work to bypass Windows licensing checks, we occasionally stumble upon bugs that we choose to keep secret. This decision allows us to preserve potential future activation methods by avoiding bug fixes, while also giving us valuable tools for testing or developing new methods. One such discovery, which we’ve named “Keyhole”, turned out to be a highly effective DRM bypass. It gave users the ability to license any Microsoft Store app or any modern Windows edition with ease. ↫ The MAS project There were quite a number of roadblocks to overcome here, such as Microsoft’s code obfuscation tool, called Warbird, which was already done by someone else, after which they could really start digging into the code responsible for handling Microsoft Store and Windows licenses. They then discovered that circumventing the license blocks that hold the actual license information was dead simple – every license block is followed by a signature block covering all the data that comes before it. It turns out that messing with the licensing system was as simple as… Adding data after that signature block. That was it. As it turns out, data after the signature block isnt checked at all… and it can even override data that came before it. Whenever two blocks of the same type are stored together, the last one overrides all the others before it. So, if we want to change any license data, we can just make a block for it and put it after the signature block! This method lets us make licenses for anything sold on the Microsoft Store, including Windows, from any other Microsoft Store license. And since there are so many free apps with licenses, we now had the ability to make as many as we wanted for whatever we wanted. This bug essentially punched a hole straight through CLiP’s DRM, so we decided to name it “Keyhole”. ↫ The MAS project This opened up a massive hole in Microsoft’s licensing tools and DRM, and allowed the MAS project to pretty much do whatever they wanted. They could even do things that used to be impossible, such as “activating Enterprise LTSC with a digital license, or even activating a legitimate KMS server with a generic key”. Sadly, the fun didn’t last long, as right around the same time, Cisco TALOS discovered this same bug, reported it to Microsoft, who then proceeded to fix it. the MAS project also discovered something else incredibly interesting, something which further highlights the seemingly terrible lack of quality assurance and code quality inside Microsoft. They noted that the kernel driver responsible for licensing looked incredibly shoddy, full of what they call “odd choices and compromises”. In fact, they soon realised that they had seen this code before: it was a straight-up copy/paste job from the licensing DRM found on the Xbox One. And there’s the same bug that’s in CLiP, but in Xbox code. In fact, we weren’t too surprised to find this, as we found that almost all of CLiP, from the XML format of the licenses to the TLV-based license blocks, is copy-pasted straight from the Xbox One’s DRM system. ↫ The MAS project Code reuse obviously makes sense in some situations, but the fact Microsoft even copy/pasted entire sections of code from the Xbox One straight into the Windows kernel as a kernel driver seems rather irresponsible. Shouldn’t code added to the Windows kernel and installed on billions of devices be vetted a little better than this?
date: 2024-09-07, from: Tilde.news
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-07, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
My kids will never let me forget my promises:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113097824793751794
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Apalachee HS teacher shares account of protecting students during shooting.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/07/nx-s1-5104200/georgia-apalachee-high-school-shooting
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-07, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I found this thing the other day at the super market, and my cooking went into garlic overdrive:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113097734420605187
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Media’s Trump Sanewashing Problem.
https://newrepublic.com/article/185530/media-criticism-trump-sanewashing-problem
date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Karpf’s blog
Institutional cowardice is not a good way to run a professional association.
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/what-is-the-claremont-institute-doing
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/white-house-warns-iran-on-missile-transfers-to-russia/7775433.html
date: 2024-09-07, updated: 2024-09-07, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Feature The Uber driver who picked me up the other day doesn’t think the ride-sharing app has much of a future in San Francisco.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/07/uber_driver_waymo/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump’s New E. Jean Carroll Defense Is That He Assaulted Other Women.
https://newrepublic.com/post/185680/donald-trump-new-e-jean-carroll-defense-assaulted-women
date: 2024-09-07, updated: 2024-09-07, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Boeing’s Calamity Capsule has returned to Earth, bringing to an end a test mission that did not go entirely according to plan. Not least because the Starliner’s crew had to stay behind aboard the International Space Station.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/07/boeing_starliner_returns/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-07, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Lovely post: https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/313862.html
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113097237516254428
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Chrysler parent Stellantis said Saturday it is recalling 1.46 million vehicles worldwide due to a software malfunction in the anti-lock brake system that can increase the risk of a crash.
The recall includes nearly 1.23 million Ram 1500 trucks from the 2019 and 2021-2024 model years in the United States, as well as about 159,000 vehicles in Canada, 13,000 in Mexico and 61,000 outside North America.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a software malfunction might result in the anti-lock brake system control module disabling the electronic stability control system.
The issue means the vehicles do not comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard on electric stability control systems.
Stellantis said if the issue occurs, the ABS, ESC, adaptive cruise control and forward collision warning indicator lights will be illuminated at vehicle start up, indicating the systems are not working. Foundational braking would be working, it added.
The company said it is unaware of any related injuries or crashes.
Stellantis also said Saturday it is recalling about 33,000 Jeep Gladiator models from 2020-2024 and Jeep Wrangler vehicles from 2018-2024 due to a potential internal short circuit issue in the instrument panel cluster.
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistani-man-faces-20-years-in-new-york-jewish-center-plot/7775327.html
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
Six years after Jifeng Bookstore was forced to close its doors in Shanghai, the shop has reopened in Washington to bring debate and literature to a new audience. Liam Scott has the story for VOA News. Videographer: Yi Ruokun
https://www.voanews.com/a/7775314.html
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
Close to the U.S. capital of Washington, the rural state of West Virginia was solidly Democratic for most of the 20th century. But now it’s a Republican stronghold, delivering overwhelming wins for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. VOA’s congressional correspondent, Katherine Gypson, went to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, to see how the 2024 election season is playing out. Videographers: Adam Greenbaum, Henry Hernandez and Mary Cieslak
https://www.voanews.com/a/west-virginia-has-consistently-delivered-for-donald-trump/7775308.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Fantastic interview on the Bulwark podcast with David Frum, another Republican who will vote for Harris.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-frum-villains-and-monsters/id1447684472?i=1000668516811
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Witnesses in the criminal cases against Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.
https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-criminal-cases-witnesses-financial-benefits
date: 2024-09-07, from: Status-Q blog
Regular readers will know that I like electrifying things. Our car has been electric for nearly a decade now, and we also have a lawnmower, a strimmer, two hedge-trimmers, two bicycles and a range of other devices powered by batteries. We also generate most of our own electricity, and buy the rest overnight at cheap Continue Reading
https://statusq.org/archives/2024/09/07/12175/
date: 2024-09-07, from: Liliputing
The Icy Dock ExpressSlot MB204MP-B is a PCIe expansion card that can accepts up to four m.2 SSDs. While it’s not the first device that lets you use a single PCIe slot to add up to four SSDs, the company says it’s the first to offer “easy additional and removal” thanks a mechanism that lets […]
The post Icy Dock ExpressSlot MB204MP-B makes it easy to swap up to 4 m.2 SSDs appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/icy-dock-expressslot-mb204mp-b-makes-it-easy-to-swap-up-to-4-m-2-ssds/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-07, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Will this be the year that I make a commitment to cross into New Hampshire and use my Apple Card to buy all the new hardware for that sweet discount?
Or as a vessel of animal desires, I will place my orders online as soon as the keynote is over?
Stay tuned as this war rages inside of me.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113096558108868245
date: 2024-09-07, from: mrusme blog
This is a follow-up build log on the Corne V3 post, in which I finalize the Kunai case.
https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/kunai-corne-v3/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Dick Cheney Says He Will Vote for Kamala Harris. #history
date: 2024-09-07, updated: 2024-09-07, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Feature It sounds like the start of a bad joke: Digital trespassers from China, Russia, and Iran break into US water systems.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/07/us_water_cyberattacks/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-07, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
The European Union demands Apple turn iOS into the Cheesecake Factory menu option, with hilarious results.
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=zglax7gc
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113096265602498979
date: 2024-09-07, from: The Markup blog
Is it possible?
date: 2024-09-07, from: The Lever News
Plus, AI gets reined in, Mississippi thinks of the children, and electric school buses power on.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-a-dam-good-idea/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
New Harris campaign ad.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0lKA_GeGwIo&feature=youtu.be
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner made its long-awaited return to Earth on Saturday without the astronauts who rode it up to the International Space Station, after NASA ruled the trip back too risky.
After years of delays, Starliner launched in June for what was meant to be a roughly weeklong test mission — a final shakedown before it could be certified to rotate crew to and from the orbital laboratory.
But unexpected thruster malfunctions and helium leaks en route to the ISS derailed those plans, and NASA ultimately decided it was safer to bring crewmates Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on a rival SpaceX Crew Dragon — although they’ll have to wait until February.
The gumdrop-shaped Boeing capsule touched down softly at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags, having departed the ISS around six hours earlier.
As it streaked red-hot across the night sky, ground teams reported hearing sonic booms. The spacecraft endured temperatures of 1,650 degrees Celsius during atmospheric reentry.
NASA lavished praise on Boeing during a post-flight press conference, where representatives from the company were conspicuously absent.
“It was a bullseye landing,” said Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program. “The entry in particular has been darn near flawless.”
Still, he acknowledged that certain new issues had come to light, including the failure of a new thruster and the temporary loss of the guidance system.
He added it was too early to talk about whether Starliner’s next flight, scheduled for August next year, would be crewed, instead stressing NASA needed time to analyze the data it had gathered and assess what changes were required to the design of the ship and the way it is flown.
Ahead of the return leg, Boeing carried out extensive ground testing to address the technical hitches encountered during Starliner’s ascent, then promised — publicly and behind closed doors — that it could safely bring the astronauts home. In the end, NASA disagreed.
Asked whether he stood by that decision, NASA’s Stich said: “It’s always hard to have that retrospective look. We made the decision to have an uncrewed flight based on what we knew at the time and based on our knowledge of the thrusters and based on the modeling that we had.”
History of setbacks
Even without crew aboard, the stakes were high for Boeing, a century-old aerospace giant.
With its reputation already battered by safety concerns surrounding its commercial jets, its long-term prospects for crewed space missions hung in the balance.
Shortly after undocking, Starliner executed a powerful “breakout burn” to swiftly clear it from the station and prevent any risk of collision — a maneuver that would have been unnecessary if crew were aboard to take manual control if needed.
Mission teams then conducted thorough checks of the thrusters required for the critical “de-orbit burn” that guided the capsule onto its reentry path around 40 minutes before touchdown.
Although it was widely expected that Starliner would stick the landing, as it had on two previous uncrewed tests, Boeing’s program continues to languish behind schedule.
In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to develop spacecraft to taxi astronauts to and from the ISS, after the end of the Space Shuttle program left the U.S. space agency reliant on Russian rockets.
Although initially considered the underdog, Elon Musk’s SpaceX surged ahead of Boeing and has successfully flown dozens of astronauts since 2020.
The Starliner program, meanwhile, has faced numerous setbacks — from a software glitch that prevented the capsule from rendezvousing with the ISS during its first uncrewed test flight in 2019, to the discovery of flammable tape in the cabin after its second test in 2022, to the current troubles.
With the ISS scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030, the longer Starliner takes to become fully operational, the less time it will have to prove its worth.
date: 2024-09-07, updated: 2024-09-07, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
An international team of scientists has developed a drug delivery system that could one day treat human brain aneurysms in a way without the need for traditional surgery.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/07/nanobots_brain_aneurysms/
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
LONDON — The heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies said in a joint essay published Saturday that ongoing support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia is essential.
They pledged to enhance cooperation between their agencies and address other global challenges.
CIA Director William Burns and Richard Moore, head of Britain’s MI6 secret intelligence service, wrote the opinion piece in the Financial Times newspaper.
This marks the first time the leaders of the two agencies have co-written an essay.
The spy chiefs highlighted that their partnership is a cornerstone of the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain.
They noted that their agencies have collaborated for 75 years and are united in opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Staying the course in Ukraine is more vital than ever,” they wrote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, they said, “will not succeed in extinguishing Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.”
They committed to continuing support for Ukrainian intelligence.
Russian forces are making slow progress in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian troops continue their activities in Russia’s Kursk region.
Kyiv has been seeking additional air defense support from the U.S. and its allies.
The spy chiefs also addressed Russian intelligence operations, accusing them of sabotage and disinformation across Europe.
Russia has denied those allegations.
Burns and Moore said their agencies have reorganized to confront a growing challenge from China, which they described as the principal intelligence and geopolitical concern of the 21st century.
They also emphasized their efforts to use intelligence to promote restraint and de-escalation in the Middle East, including working toward a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Burns is leading U.S. negotiations to resolve the conflict and address humanitarian issues.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged military allies to provide more weaponry to strengthen Ukraine’s defense as Russia continues its invasion.
Speaking at Germany’s Ramstein Airbase during the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting, Zelenskyy stressed the need for improved air defense systems and permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range weapons to target locations in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
Zelenskyy highlighted the urgent need for additional air defense systems due to recent drone and missile attacks.
He noted that while some support has been provided, several promised systems have not yet arrived.
U.S. policy currently restricts Ukraine from using U.S. weapons to strike deep within Russia.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby confirmed that the policy remains unchanged but noted that discussions with Ukrainian officials are ongoing.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking at the UDCG meeting, reiterated support for Ukraine’s immediate needs, including air defense and armor.
He also emphasized the importance of Ukraine boosting its own defense production for long-term security.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, in a related development, called for continued military support for Ukraine, echoing Zelenskyy’s appeal.
He stressed that a strong Ukraine is crucial for ending the war and urged all allies to maintain their support during this critical period.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
https://www.voanews.com/a/britain-us-spy-chiefs-call-for-staying-the-course-on-ukraine/7775130.html
date: 2024-09-07, from: NASA breaking news
NASA and Boeing safely returned the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft following its landing at 10:01 p.m. MDT Sept. 6 at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, concluding a three-month flight test to the International Space Station. “I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-boeing-welcome-starliner-spacecraft-to-earth-close-mission/
date: 2024-09-07, from: The Lever News
Legal operatives tied to Trump, power broker Leonard Leo, and a hate group are aiming to make dark-money donations tax deductible.
https://www.levernews.com/buying-elections-could-become-a-tax-deduction/
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
When someone leaves an idiotic comment on one of your posts, you..
https://x.com/davewiner/status/1832227623860138201
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
washington — Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled on Friday their legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the month and fund the government into late March, when a new president and Congress would make the final decision on agency spending and priorities for fiscal 2025.
Republicans also added a hot-button immigration issue to the measure by requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when someone registers to vote. Inclusion of the citizenship requirement is a nonstarter in the Senate, complicating prospects for the spending bill’s passage.
Lawmakers are returning to Washington next week following a traditional August recess spent mostly in their home states and districts. They are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund the agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins October 1.
“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”
Bipartisanship urged
But in a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray said avoiding a shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party.
“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” Schumer and Murray said.
It is a crime under federal law for a noncitizen to vote, or even register to vote, in a federal election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Johnson’s decision to add the proof of citizenship requirement to the spending measure comes after the House Freedom Caucus called for it in a position statement last month. The group of conservatives, banking on a win by Republican nominee Donald Trump, also urged that the measure fund the government into early next year so Republicans could get more of their priorities in legislation.
Some Republican leaders had wanted to pass the final spending bills by the end of this Congress so that the new president, whether it be Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, could focus more on getting staffed and pursuing their own top priorities rather than dealing with spending disagreements.
Republicans say requiring proof of citizenship would ensure American elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system. But opponents say the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare and such a requirement would disenfranchise millions of Americans who don’t have the necessary documents readily available when they want to register.
What remains to be seen is what happens if the bill passes the House this week and the Senate declines to take it up or votes it down.
The bill would fund agencies at current levels until March 28, although there’s also money to help cover additional security costs associated with Inauguration Day and $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
date: 2024-09-07, from: VOA News USA
ASHEVILLE, north carolina — Seth Kaller, an appraiser and collector of historic documents, spreads a broad sheet of paper across a desk. It’s in good enough condition that he can handle it, carefully, with clean, bare hands. There are just a few creases and tiny discolorations, even though it’s just a few weeks shy of 237 years old and has spent who knows how long inside a filing cabinet in North Carolina.
At the top of the first page are familiar words but in regular type instead of the sweeping Gothic script readers are accustomed to seeing: “WE the People.”
And the people will get a chance to bid for this copy of the U.S. Constitution — the only one of its type thought to be in private hands — at a sale by Brunk Auctions on September 28 in Asheville, North Carolina.
The minimum bid for the auction of $1 million has already been made. There is no minimum price that must be reached.
This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting that it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.
Few copies remain
It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned.
Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them. They were sent to special ratifying conventions, where representatives, all white and male, wrangled for months before accepting the structure of the U.S. government that continues today.
“This is the point of connection between the government and the people. The Preamble — ‘we, the people’ — this is the moment the government is asking the people to empower them,” auctioneer Andrew Brunk said.
What happened to the document up for auction between Thomson’s signature and 2022 isn’t known.
Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and he oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution.
The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book.
“I get calls every week from people who think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address and most of the time it is just a replica, but every so often something important gets found,” said Kaller, who appraises, buys and sells historic documents.
“This is a whole other level of importance,” he added.
Washington letter
Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health.
“To secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each and yet provide for the interest and safety for all — individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first U.S. president.
Brunk isn’t sure what the document might go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution like this sold, it went for $400 - in 1891. In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document.
But that document was meant to be distributed to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The signed copy being sold later this month was one meant to be sent to leaders in every state so people all around the country could review and decide if that’s how they wanted to be governed, connecting the writers of the Constitution to the people in the states who would provide its power and legitimacy.
The auction listing doesn’t identify the seller, saying it’s part of a collection that is in private hands.
Other items up for auction in Asheville include a 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation and a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating if ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the nation instead of the states.
https://www.voanews.com/a/rare-copy-of-us-constitution-to-be-sold-at-auction/7775063.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-07, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
They’re worse than “going easy” they’ve let him hijack their reps for doing journalism, replacing best efforts to tell truth, to openly and knowingly transmitting lies.
date: 2024-09-07, from: PostgreSQL News
Hello,
Greetings from India PostgreSQL User Group! We are pleased to announce that PGConf India 2025 will be held in Bengaluru, India from March 5th 2025 to March 7th 2025.
Call for papers is out now! Please submit your proposal by signing up on PGConf.in and following the instructions there. The last date for submission is October 15th, 2024. We would encourage everyone to submit their proposals as early as possible without waiting till the last date.
With growing popularity and adoption of PostgreSQL, PGConf India has become one of the largest events in this part of the world. We expect more than 400 delegates to attend this upcoming event. So this gives you a great opportunity to present your work in front of a large audience. More details about the conference are available on the conference website.
If you are doing something interesting with PostgreSQL, please submit a proposal. You might be one of the backend hackers or work on a PostgreSQL related project and want to share your know-how with others. You might be developing an interesting system using PostgreSQL as the foundation. Perhaps you migrated from another database to PostgreSQL and would like to share details.
Here are a few ideas to jump start your proposal process:
This is just an indicative list of topics. If you’ve something else in mind, feel free to submit and our program committee will consider it.
The conference is attended by a large variety of folks, including CxOs, PostgreSQL engine developers, application developers and database administrators. So you are bound to find enough people interested in any topic around PostgreSQL.
To receive further updates about the conference, please register with us on our website, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You may also write to us at contact@pgconf.in for general queries/suggestions.
We use multiple email addresses to communicate with our community members. Please white list all emails from pgconf.in and ensure that the emails are not going into the spam folder. The following email addresses are used commonly.
Thank you,
Organising Committee
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/call-for-papers-pgconf-india-2025-2925/
date: 2024-09-07, from: PostgreSQL News
Nordic PGDay will once again return to Copenhagen for a day of PostgreSQL by the sea on March 18 2025. Nordic PGDay is a one-day single track event (with an adjoining sponsor track) focusing on bringing together the postgres community in the Nordic region. The conference will be held at the Copenhagen Marriott Hotel on the Copenhagen waterfront.
Our call for papers has opened and we look forward to hearing your stories. We have also opened for sponsorships with two levels available at a first come first serve basis.