News gathered 2024-09-17
(date: 2024-09-17 07:41:04)
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Good morning earthlings!
Reporting live from Sequoia!
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113153378215772996
Oracle brews Java 23 for just-in-time delivery
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Predictably paced programming language plods onward
Oracle on Tuesday released Java 23 (Oracle JDK 23), in keeping with its now well-established six-month cadence.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/oracle_java_23/
NASA’s Hubble Finds More Black Holes than Expected in the Early Universe
date: 2024-09-17, from: NASA breaking news
With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help scientists understand how supermassive black holes were created. Currently, scientists do not […]
Facebook owner Meta bans Russia state media outlets over ‘foreign interference’
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
London — Meta said it’s banning Russia state media organization from its social media platforms, alleging that the outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow’s propaganda. The announcement drew a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said late Monday that it will roll out the ban over the next few days in an escalation of its efforts to counter Russia’s covert influence operations.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a prepared statement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lashed out, saying that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” and that “Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves.”
“We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call.
RT was formerly known as Russia Today. Rossiya Segodnya is the parent company behind state news agency RIA Novosti and news brands like Sputnik.
“It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West — who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better,” RT said in a release.
Rossiya Segodnya did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Meta’s actions comes days after the United States announced new sanctions on RT, accusing the Kremlin news outlet of being a key part of Russia’s war machine and its efforts to undermine its democratic adversaries.
U.S. officials alleged last week that RT was working hand-in-hand with the Russian military and running fundraising campaigns to pay for sniper rifles, body armor and other equipment for soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They also said RT websites masqueraded as legitimate news sites but were used to spread disinformation and propaganda in Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two RT employees of covertly providing millions of dollars in funding to a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish English-language social media videos pushing pro-Kremlin messages.
Moscow has rejected the allegations.
Meta had already taken steps to limit Moscow’s online reach. Since 2020 it has been labeling posts and content from state media. Two years later, it blocked state media from running ads and putting their content lower in people’s feeds, and the company, along with other other social media sites like YouTube and TikTok, blocked RT’s channels for European users. Also in 2022 Meta also took down a sprawling Russia-based disinformation network spreading Kremlin talking points about the invasion of Ukraine.
Meta and Facebook “already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” RT said in its statement.
Moscow has fought back, designating Meta as an extremist group in March 2022, shortly after sending troops into Ukraine, and blocking Facebook and Instagram. Both platforms — as well as Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, which is also blocked — were popular with Russians before the invasion and the subsequent crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical speech. The social media platforms are now only accessible through virtual private networks.
Predator spyware kingpins added to US sanctions list
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Designations come as new infrastructure spins up in Africa
Five individuals and one company with ties to spyware developer Intellexa are the latest to earn sanctions as the US expands efforts to stamp out spyware.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/predator_spyware_sanctions/
Innovative Instrument Reveals Hidden Features Deep Inside the Van Allen Radiation Belts
date: 2024-09-17, from: NASA breaking news
A new instrument is using advanced detection techniques and leveraging an orbit with specific characteristics to increase our understanding of the Van Allen belts—regions surrounding Earth that contain energetic particles that can endanger both robotic and human space missions. Recently, the instrument provided a unique view of changes to this region that were brought on […]
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-17, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
A true friend will message you privately when your design has a misaligned pixel.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113153121982558210
Larry Ellison’s AI-Powered Surveillance Dystopia Is Already Here
date: 2024-09-17, from: 404 Media Group
“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
https://www.404media.co/larry-ellisons-ai-powered-surveillance-dystopia-is-already-here/
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been hit with three federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
Combs, 54, was arrested in Manhattan by federal agents on Monday night, following a year in which his career was derailed by several lawsuits accusing him of physical and sexual abuse.
Marc Agnifilo, Combs’ lawyer, said he was disappointed with the decision to pursue an “unjust prosecution” of the rapper and producer.
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community,” Agnifilo said on Monday night. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”
Agnifilo added that Combs voluntarily relocated to New York in anticipation of the charges.
Combs, who has also been known as P. Diddy and Puff Daddy, was a major figure in hip-hop in the 1990s and 2000s. He founded the label Bad Boy records, and is credited with helping turn rappers and R&B singers such as Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans, Notorious B.I.G. and Usher into stars.
His reputation came under fire last November when former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, an R&B singer known as Cassie, accused him in a lawsuit of serial physical abuse, sexual slavery and rape during their decade-long relationship. She agreed to an undisclosed settlement one day after suing, even as Combs denied her allegations.
His legal pressures mounted, and he has faced several civil lawsuits by women and men who accused him of sexual assault and other misconduct. His lawyers have been fighting those cases in court. Federal agents raided his homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach, Florida six months ago.
Singer Dawn Richard, formerly of Danity Kane, last week accused Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault, battery, sex trafficking, gender discrimination and fraud.
A Michigan judge this month ordered Combs to pay $100 million to Derrick Lee Smith, who said Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him at a party almost 30 years ago, after Combs failed to show up to defend himself in court. A lawyer for Combs said he would seek to dismiss that judgment.
Combs has also rejected claims in a February sex trafficking lawsuit by Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, who Combs employed as a producer on his 2023 release “The Love Album: Off the Grid.”
The indictment is not Combs’ first brush with the law. He was acquitted in March 2001 of bribery and weapons charges in a criminal trial stemming from a nightclub shooting that left three people wounded.
https://www.voanews.com/a/sean-diddy-combs-arrested-indictment-expected-to-be-unsealed/7787440.html
SAP CTO under investigation amid allegations of sexual harassment
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Jürgen Müller agreed to step down from his role at the end of September
German prosecutors have confirmed to The Register that SAP’s outgoing CTO is under investigation following allegations of sexual harassment.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/sap_cto_investigation/
Investigators search for motive of would-be Trump assassin
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/investigators-search-for-motive-of-would-be-trump-assassin/7787418.html
65 Years Ago: First Powered Flight of the X-15 Hypersonic Rocket Plane
date: 2024-09-17, from: NASA breaking news
The X-15 hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft, built by North American Aviation (NAA), greatly expanded our knowledge of flight at speeds exceeding Mach 6 and altitudes above 250,000 feet. A joint project among NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy, the X-15’s first powered flight took place on Sept. 17, 1959, at the Flight Research […]
https://www.nasa.gov/history/65-years-ago-first-powered-flight-of-the-x-15-hypersonic-rocket-plane/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-17, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
To fight climate change, we must create political will.
US boosts military ties with Southeast Asian countries
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
The United States has deepened its cooperation with allies in the Indo-Pacific region in recent years, including Japan and South Korea. But it has also reached out to non-allies, including non-aligned countries of Southeast Asia like Indonesia. VOA’s Virginia Gunawan reports. Camera: Ahadian Utama, Hafizh Sahadeva.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-boosts-military-ties-with-southeast-asian-countries/7787394.html
Analysts say Vietnam official’s US trip could set path to C-130 deal
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Analysts say this week’s visit to Washington by Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang shows advances in cooperation between the two countries, despite rising Vietnamese nationalism that may indicate rising anti-American sentiment in Vietnam.
A U.S.-based analyst told VOA on September 12 that Giang’s trip set the groundwork for Hanoi to potentially purchase military cargo planes from the United States this year.
Giang met with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Monday. [September 9] Both leaders “reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Vietnam partnership,” the Defense Department said in a statement, and noted the one-year anniversary of the elevation of the countries’ ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest tier in Hanoi’s diplomatic hierarchy.
The leaders also underscored the importance of working together to address the lasting impacts of the U.S.-Vietnam War. Austin announced that the U.S. would budget $65 million over the next five years to complete the decontamination of Bien Hoa airbase of dioxin, bringing the total from department to $215 million. The airbase was the primary storage site for the toxic chemical Agent Orange during the U.S.-Vietnam War and remains an environmental and public health hazard for those nearby.
Andrew Wells-Dang, who leads the Vietnam War Legacies and Reconciliation Initiative at the United States Institute of Peace, told VOA by phone on September 5 that diplomatic visits are key to advancing war-remediation efforts, including finding and identifying the remains of missing soldiers. He said that along with the U.S. visit of Deputy Defense Minister Vo Minh Luong in July, visits from authorities provide “opportunity for them to have high level support.”
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an expert on Southeast Asia, said joint war-reconciliation efforts also set the groundwork for defense cooperation more broadly.
“The United States is very pleased with the growth in bilateral defense relations, and it started from very low levels and was built on humanitarian missions,” Abuza said during the August 29 call.
“We’ve just continued to build on that,” he added.
Cargo planes
Reuters reported in July that Hanoi was considering purchasing Lockheed Martin C-130 cargo planes from the U.S., according to unnamed sources.
The U.S.-based analyst, who asked that his name to be withheld because he has not been cleared to discuss the topic, said the C-130 deal was discussed but not finalized during Giang’s visit. The analyst said the deal was held back by the “massive [U.S.] bureaucracy” and because solidifying the purchase during the Washington visit would be “too inflammatory for the Chinese.”
Ian Storey, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, noted Vietnam’s delicate diplomatic balancing act, illustrated by Giang’s travel itinerary before the Washington trip.
“Vietnam aims to keep its relations with the major powers in balance,” he wrote in an email on August 30. “As such, Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang visited Russia and China in August.”
Storey added that the purchase of C-130 planes would not pose a threat to China in its maritime territorial disputes with Vietnam.
“C-130 aircraft would enable the Vietnamese to transport troops and supplies to its occupied atolls in the South China Sea, but these assets are non-strategic and won’t shift the dynamics in the South China Sea,” he wrote.
Nguyen The Phuong, a maritime security expert at the University of New South Wales Canberra, said the C-130 purchase would be a “symbolic move.”
“Vietnam will try to explore more areas of security and defense cooperation between Vietnam and the United States to upgrade to a higher, more meaningful level,” he told VOA on August 30. “The C-130 would be the symbol of that kind of evolving relationship,” he said.
Phuong said a C-130 is a likely entry point as there is still mistrust between the former foes regarding lethal weapons, and the deal would not rankle China too much.
“It could be quite advantageous for Vietnam,” he said of a potential C-130 purchase. “Vietnam can improve its relationship with the United States, and at the same time, we could not anger China because Vietnam would just buy non-lethal weapons.”
Rising nationalism
Although there are positive signs to improving Hanoi-Washington relations, there have also been recent instances of anti-Western sentiment that could be an impediment to the countries relations, Phuong said.
Fulbright University Vietnam, which has significant backing from the United States, is facing accusations of fomenting a “color revolution,” similar to the popular uprisings in former Soviet republics.
On August 21, Vietnam National Defense TV aired a critique of Fulbright for allegedly not displaying the Vietnamese flag at a graduation ceremony and facilitating a color revolution.
The report has since been taken down, but Phuong said the Fulbright issue and other recent incidents show tension between Vietnam’s conservative and liberal factions.
“It’s a presentation of a continuous struggle between different factions, one conservative and one liberal,” Phuong said.
Abuza said that Vietnamese authorities may be attempting to tighten control ahead of the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
“Next April is the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon,” he said. “The Vietnamese want to control that narrative 100%. There are a lot of sensitivities.”
Along with the Fulbright incident, Phuong pointed to recent uproar around Vietnamese celebrities who were pictured with the South Vietnam flag while traveling to the United States. In addition, a Vietnamese high school student faced cyber bullying and was summoned by police after posting in September that he wanted to leave the country and would “probably never see the [Communist] Party positively again.”
“There’s extreme nationalism in Vietnam at the moment,” Phuong said. “It’s against Western values.”
What’s in the COP29 ‘Action Agenda’
date: 2024-09-17, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Thousands of firefighters are battling raging blazes in Portugal • Shanghai could be hit by another typhoon this week • More than 18 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours in Carolina Beach, which forecasters say is a one-in-a-thousand-year event.
THE TOP FIVE
- Azerbaijan unveils COP29 ‘action agenda’
Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s COP29, today put forward a list of “non-negotiated” initiatives for the November climate summit that will “supplement” the official mandated program. The action plan includes the creation of a new “Climate Finance Action Fun” that will take (voluntary) contributions from fossil fuel producing countries, a call for increasing battery storage capacity, an appeal for a global “truce” during the event, and a declaration aimed at curbing methane emissions from waste (which the Financial Times noted is “only the third most common man-made source of methane, after the energy and agricultural sectors”). The plan makes no mention of furthering efforts to phase out fossil fuels in the energy system.
- Biden administration announces date for Gulf of Maine offshore wind
lease sale
The Interior Department set a date for an offshore wind energy lease sale in the Gulf of Maine, an area which the government sees as suitable for developing floating offshore wind technology. The auction will take place on October 29 and cover eight areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. The area could provide 13 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, if fully developed. The Biden administration has a goal of installing 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030, and has approved about half that amount so far. The DOI’s terms and conditions for the October lease sale include “stipulations designed to promote the development of a robust domestic U.S. supply chain for floating wind.” Floating offshore wind turbines can be deployed in much deeper waters than traditional offshore projects, and could therefore unlock large areas for clean power generation. Last month the government gave the green light for researchers to study floating turbines in the Gulf of Maine.
- BP to sell its U.S. onshore wind business
In other wind news, BP is selling its U.S. onshore wind business, bp Wind Energy. The firm’s 10 wind farm projects have a total generating capacity of 1.3 gigawatts and analysts think they could be worth $2 billion. When it comes to renewables, the fossil fuel giant said it is focusing on investing in solar growth, and onshore wind is “not aligned” with those plans.
- Solar jobs grew last year but hiring challenges remain
The number of jobs in the U.S. solar industry last year grew to 279,447, up 6% from 2022, according to a new report from the nonprofit Interstate Renewable Energy Council. Utility-scale solar added 1,888 jobs in 2023, a 6.8% increase and a nice rebound from 2022, when the utility-scale solar market recorded a loss in jobs. The report warns that we might not see the same kind of growth for solar jobs in 2024, though. Residential installations have dropped, and large utility-scale projects are struggling with grid connection. The report’s authors also note that as the industry grows, it faces a shortage of skilled workers.
Interstate
Renewable Energy Council
Most employers reported that hiring qualified solar workers was difficult, especially in installation and project development. “It’s difficult because our projects are built in very rural areas where there just aren’t a lot of people,” one interviewee who works at a utility-scale solar firm said. “We strive to hire as many local people as possible because we want local communities to feel the economic impact or benefit from our projects. So in some communities where we go, it is difficult to find local people that are skilled and can perform the work.”
- Death toll rises from Europe’s floods
The torrential rain that has battered central Europe is tapering off a bit, but the danger of rising water remains. “The massive amounts of rain that fell is now working its way through the river systems and we are starting to see flooding in areas that avoided the worst of the rain,” BBC meteorologist Matt Taylor explained. The Polish city of Nysa told its 44,000 residents to leave yesterday as water rose. In the Czech Republic, 70% of the town of Litovel was submerged in 3 feet of flooding. The death toll from the disaster has risen to 18. Now the forecast is calling for heavy rain in Italy. “The catastrophic rainfall hitting central Europe is exactly what scientists expect with climate change,” Joyce Kimutai, a climate scientist with Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, told The Guardian.
THE KICKER
A recent study examining the effects of London’s ultra-low emissions zone on how students get to school found that a year after the rules came into effect, many students had switched to walking, biking, or taking public transport instead of being driven in private vehicles.
https://heatmap.news/climate/cop29-action-agenda-fossil-fuels
S&P 500’s AI FOMO fizzles: Less than half mentioned it in Q2 earnings
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Is the hype over already?
Despite all the hype and billions poured into AI, fewer than half of S&P 500 firms actually mentioned it in their Q2 2024 earnings reports. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/ai_sp_500_q2/
“Mini” Is Overselling It
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/17/mini-is-overselling-it/
Retailers try to get just enough on the shelves for the holidays
date: 2024-09-17, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Later this morning, we’ll to get an update on how much inventory businesses built up in July, courtesy of the Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the Logistics Managers’ Index found that inventory levels picked up in August after contracting throughout the summer, ahead of this year’s holiday shopping season. It appears to be a return to just-in-time inventory for companies. And later: the secretive and scandalous world of offshore finance.
China says it tailed US aircraft over Taiwan Strait
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
Beijing — The Chinese military tailed a U.S. aircraft that flew through the politically sensitive Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, Beijing’s army said, vowing to “resolutely defend national sovereignty.”
“On September 17, a U.S. P-8A anti-submarine patrol aircraft flew through the Taiwan Strait,” Li Xi, a senior captain and spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, PLA, said in a statement.
The PLA theater command “organized fighter jets to tail and stand guard against the US aircraft’s flight, dealing with it in accordance with the law,” Li said.
“Theater troops are on constant high alert to resolutely defend national sovereignty and security and regional peace and stability.”
Beijing views self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province and claims jurisdiction over the body of water that separates the island from the Chinese mainland.
The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet said in a statement that a “P-8A Poseidon transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace on Sept. 17 (local time).”
The statement did not mention the aircraft being tailed by the Chinese military.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said.
“The aircraft’s transit of the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement “a US P-8A aircraft passed through Taiwan Strait from south to north this morning.”
“The military has monitored the situation and no anomaly was detected in our surroundings,” it said.
China also accused Germany of heightening security risks in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday after two of its military vessels sailed through the waterway.
Taipei thanked Washington on Tuesday for approving $228 million worth of “return, repair, and reshipment of spare parts” for its aircraft and related equipment, the 16th such sale of arms to the island under U.S. President Joe Biden.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a separate statement the deal was expected to take effect in a month and “will help maintain the combat readiness and safety of various types of aircraft equipment of our air force”.
The end is in sight for Windows 10, but Microsoft keeps pushing out fixes
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Persistent SSO prompts after DMA update addressed in release preview
Microsoft continues to apply the electrodes to Windows 10 with an Insider build to deal with single sign-on problems arising from changes made for the European Digital Markets Act and Edge freezing when using Internet Explorer mode.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/windows_10_insider_update/
The Sprawling Sculpture at the Center of the National World War I Memorial Has Been Unveiled in Washington, D.C.
date: 2024-09-17, from: Smithsonian Magazine
“A Soldier’s Journey,” a 58-foot-long bronze artwork depicting vivid scenes from the war, was illuminated for the first time at a ceremony on September 13
Economists say Brexit bureaucracy is hitting UK-EU goods trade — and is getting worse
date: 2024-09-17, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: A comprehensive study has found goods imports and exports between the United Kingdom and European Union have slumped since Brexit, with red tape continuing to tie up British businesses. The value of U.K. goods exported to the EU fell by 27%. We dig in. Also on the program: Farmers in Malawi are looking for ways to use harvests damaged by extreme weather, such as turning bananas into wine.
On Call’s Greatest Hits, as voted for by you, the readers
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The 20 most-commented-on tech support columns from On Call’s first 500 instalments
On Call To celebrate the recent 500th appearance of On-Call, the column that features your tales of tech support torture, The Register has trawled through the archives to find the 20 columns that generated the most comments.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/on_call/
Preparing for AI
date: 2024-09-17, from: O’Reilly Radar
AI is everywhere—we’re in a middle of a technology shift that’s as big (and possibly bigger) than the arrival of the web in the 1990s. Even though ChatGPT appeared almost two years ago, we still feel unprepared: we read that AI will change every job and we don’t know what that means or how to […]
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/preparing-for-ai/
Using AI in your tech stack? Accuracy and reliability a worry for most
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Churns out apps, but testing needed to iron out performance woes
Researchers are finding that most companies integrating AI into their tech stack have run headlong into performance and reliability issues with the resulting applications.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/ai_is_great_for_churning/
NASA, GE Aerospace Advancing Hybrid-Electric Airliners with HyTEC
date: 2024-09-17, from: NASA breaking news
Hybrid-electric cars have been a staple of the road for many years now. Soon that same idea of a part-electric-, part-gas-powered engine may find its way into the skies propelling a future jet airliner. NASA is working in tandem with industry partner GE Aerospace on designing and building just such an engine, one that burns […]
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/nasa-ge-hybrid-electric-research-092024/
New book release: Design an RP2040 board with KiCad
date: 2024-09-17, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
We’re releasing a new book that helps you design and manufacture your own RP2040 boards.
The post New book release: Design an RP2040 board with KiCad appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/new-book-release-design-an-rp2040-board-with-kicad/
Objections to datacenter builds may be overruled now they are ‘Critical National Infrastructure’
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Well you wouldn’t get far protesting a water system or a power grid, right?
The UK government’s decision to designate datacenters as critical national infrastructure (CNI) may do more than just offer protection against critical incidents; it may also allow developers to override any local objections to such facilities being built.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/objections_to_datacenter_builds_cni/
Sainsbury’s bags a ticket to RISE with SAP, hoping not to trip like Asda
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
UK’s second largest retailer set to move ERP to the cloud with AWS, Accenture, and the German software gaint
Sainsbury’s has become the third top-ten UK retailer to join the SAP program to lift legacy applications to the cloud and migrate them to its latest S/4HANA ERP system.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/sainsburys_rise_with_sap/
Oracle urged again to give up JavaScript trademark
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If there’s one thing we know about Big Red, it’s being entirely reasonable
JavaScript luminaries and at least 2,500 other interested parties have again asked Oracle to set the programming language free by walking away from the trademark for its name.…
MASTER PLAN, Ep 6: The Maverick Vs. The Corruption Machine
date: 2024-09-17, from: The Lever News
After John McCain got caught up in a corruption scheme, he went to war with his own party to try to make sure it never happened again.
https://www.levernews.com/master-plan-ep-6-the-maverick-vs-the-corruption-machine/
Alibaba Cloud waiting for hardware to dry out before trying to restore customer data
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Digital Realty’s Singapore disaster still complicating cloud after a week
A week after a fire broke out at a Singapore datacenter, Alibaba Cloud is waiting for some hardware to dry out before it restores services and customer data.…
Desktop hypervisors are like buses: none for ages, then four at once
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
VirtualBox, Parallels, and VMware have all upgraded
September has been a big month for desktop hypervisors, with the field’s big players all delivering significant updates.…
China claims Starlink signals can reveal stealth aircraft – and what that really means
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If this really was that useful, they wouldn’t be telling us
According to a Chinese state-sanctioned study, signals from SpaceX Starlink broadband internet satellites could be used to track US stealth fighters, such as the F-22.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/china_starlink_stealth/
Judge rejects former Trump aide’s bid to move Arizona case to federal court
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
PHOENIX — A judge has rejected a bid by Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges out of state court.
In a decision Monday, U.S. District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court, didn’t offer a good reason for doing so and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president.
Meadows faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what authorities allege was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor. He had unsuccessfully tried to move charges in the Georgia case last year. It’s unknown whether Meadows will appeal the decision. The Associated Press left phone and email messages for two of Meadows’ attorneys.
While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows, while chief of staff, worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Arizona and Georgia.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.
The decision sends Meadows’ case back down to Maricopa County Superior Court.
In both Arizona and Georgia, Meadows argued his charges should be moved to federal court because his actions were taken when he was a federal official working as Trump’s chief of staff and that he has immunity under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps state law.
Arizona prosecutors said Meadows’ electioneering efforts weren’t part of his official duties at the White House.
Meadows last year tried to get his Georgia charges moved but his request was rejected by a judge whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. Meadows has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.
The Arizona indictment says Meadows confided to a White House staff member in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also had arranged meetings and calls with state officials to discuss the fake elector conspiracy.
Meadows and other defendants are seeking a dismissal of the Arizona case.
Meadows’ attorneys said nothing their client is alleged to have done in Arizona was criminal. They said the indictment consists of allegations that he received messages from people trying to get ideas in front of Trump — or “seeking to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts by the president’s campaign.”
In all, 18 Republicans were charged in late April in Arizona’s fake electors case. The defendants include 11 Republicans who had submitted a document falsely claiming Trump had won Arizona, another Trump aide and five lawyers connected to the former president.
In August, Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.
The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the forgery, fraud and conspiracy charges in Arizona.
Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.
The 11 people who were nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state.
A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.
Suspect in apparent attempt to assassinate Trump charged in federal court
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
An apparent assassination attempt on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the weekend raised new questions Monday about political violence in the United States. Democratic and Republican leaders called for more resources for the U.S. Secret Service. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more
Chinese national accused by Feds of spear-phishing for NASA, military source code
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
May have reeled in blueprints related to weapons development
A Chinese national has been accused of conducting a years-long spear-phishing campaign that aimed to steal source code from the US Army and NASA, plus other highly sensitive software used in aerospace engineering and military applications.…
Next generation of Buffetts is poised to become one of the biggest forces in philanthropy
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
OMAHA, Neb. — The next generation of Buffetts — Howard, Susie and Peter — is poised to become one of the most powerful forces in philanthropy when their 94-year-old father, the legendary businessman and leader of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, eventually passes away.
But it wasn’t always going to be that way.
Buffett announced in June that he would donate his fortune, now valued at nearly $144 billion, to a charitable trust managed by his three children when he dies, instead of giving it to the Gates Foundation, as he indicated 18 years ago.
The next generation of Buffetts will then have 10 years to give the money away, Warren Buffett said.
In the meantime, the elder Buffett continues to make huge annual donations to the Gates Foundation and his four family foundations, which will continue throughout his lifetime. He first mentioned plans for a new charitable trust in November.
Howard Buffett told The Associated Press he’s learned what his father told him and his siblings about philanthropy was true: “It’s not so easy to give away money if you want to do it smart, if you want to be intelligent about it.”
The middle Buffett child, Howard said his father is as sharp as ever and that he hopes he lives a long time, adding: “It’s pretty amazing that he’s giving us this opportunity.”
Buffett has entrusted Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates with significant annual gifts to their foundation since 2006 — a remarkable $43 billion to date.
“Wealthy people don’t tend to give their money to other people to give away,” said James Ferris, founding director of The Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. But many of the wealthiest people are also hesitant to hand over their fortunes to the next generation over concerns that it hampers their ingenuity, he said.
Ferris thinks the story of Buffett’s changing philanthropic intentions is a positive one. “It shows how a donor is making choices and is adapting to circumstances,” he said.
The Gates Foundation did not say when it learned of Buffett’s decision or what the impact will be on its budget. It previously said in a statement that “Warren Buffett has been exceedingly generous,” and that he has “played an invaluable role in championing and shaping the foundation’s work to create a world where every person can live a healthy, productive life.”
Over the years, Buffett gave the Gates Foundation large annual donations, but also donated billions to foundations run by his three children and a fourth family foundation. Their work offers some insight into the priorities of the next generation of Buffetts.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after Warren Buffett’s first wife, is the largest in terms of donations. It supports organizations that provide reproductive health care and access to contraception and abortion around the world. Susie Buffett, 71, is its board chair and Peter Buffett, 66, is a board member.
Susie Buffett also leads The Sherwood Foundation, a major supporter of early childhood development nationally that gives grants to organizations and projects within Omaha, Nebraska, the Buffetts’ hometown.
Peter Buffett’s NoVo Foundation has been an important funder of organizations advocating for the autonomy of girls and women and against gender-based violence. In 2020, Peter and his wife, Jennifer, decided to reorient their focus, expanding their support for Native American communities and projects to build sustainable, local communities with a focus on agriculture and food access.
The Howard G. Buffett Foundation has focused on conflict mitigation and agriculture around the world. Since 2022, it has donated some $800 million — more than most countries — to humanitarian initiatives in Ukraine during the country’s war with Russia. These include supporting food distribution at schools, demining activities, and the rebuilding of a major publishing company and a key bridge transporting grain.
In a relatively rare interview for a family that seldom makes time to speak with the media, Howard Buffett, 69, said he couldn’t predict exactly how he and his siblings would give away their father’s fortune. However, he said they would continue to take risks and find ways to make the biggest difference as their father recommended.
“I can tell you, we’ll sit down in a room when the time comes, and we’ll get it figured out pretty quickly,” he said, acknowledging that the directive to donate all the money within 10 years was a challenge.
The siblings’ different ways of thinking and approaches to giving are assets, he said.
“What this is going to do is we’re going to bring all of our collective experience together,” he said.
But don’t expect to find the family name on a lot of buildings, which the siblings have largely avoid even as they’ve given away more than $15 billion of their father’s money since 2006.
Kathleen Enright, president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, said the Buffetts have effectively made philanthropy a family business, with the next generation now seasoned donors who have built enduring institutions in their foundations.
“It is a big deal,” she said, of the amount of money that the Buffetts are poised to give away, noting that because the fortune will likely continue to grow, they will have to give away highly visible sums to spend it down.
The tight timeframe to give away his fortune after his death reflects one of Warren Buffett’s longstanding conditions for receiving charitable funding. He has instructed the Gates Foundation and his family’s foundations to grant out the full amount they received within a year.
The next generation of Buffetts have run their foundations with tiny staffs — much like how Warren Buffett oversees his massive Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate with only about two dozen people at its headquarters in Omaha.
Howard Buffett said his foundation employs just 22 staff members. It granted $458.1 million in 2023, according to tax documents. He acknowledged that his “lean” staff puts some limits on their capacity, but said the way they’ve scaled their work is through creating strong and enduring relationships with other organizations to help implement their ideas.
In contrast, the Gates Foundation has one of the largest endowments at $75.2 billion, funded by donations from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. It employs more than 2,000 people, many of them technical experts all over the world, and is known for making highly directed grants with rigorous reporting requirements. The foundation has said it will wind down its operations within 25 years after its founders’ deaths.
Howard Buffett said he likes a challenge and thinks that in general, wealthy people should give their money away within their lifetimes, rather than holding it in perpetual foundations.
“Somebody is going to spend that money. Somebody is going to give that money away,” he said. “So, I would rather do that with my brother and sister and do it together, as a partnership, than see it done any other way.”
US will ‘continue to push’ for release of detainees in China, State Department says
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — On Monday, after the U.S. State Department announced the release of David Lin, an American pastor, from nearly two decades of imprisonment in China, officials said more work remains to secure the freedom of other Americans held in China.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that the U.S. government had been working to secure Lin’s release for some time.
“When it comes to David Lin, we are glad to see he is released. We welcome it. We’ll continue to push the release of other Americans,” Miller said during a regular press briefing.
Lin, 68, was detained in 2006 after entering China. He was later convicted of contract fraud and given a life sentence in 2009. After Chinese courts reduced his sentence, he was set to be released from Beijing in 2029.
Bob Fu, a pastor and founder of ChinaAid, a nonprofit dedicated to religious freedom in China, called the original charges against Lin a “scam” and said they were facilitated by the Chinese government as a gambit to unjustly take hostages.
The imprisonment and now release of Lin, Fu told VOA, is especially significant as China is increasingly cracking down on religious practices within the country, with human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet and growing governmental restrictions on Christian traditions.
Despite this, Fu said that the success of Lin’s release could be attributed to two factors: the souring of the global public opinion on China and the hard work of U.S. officials.
“This shows that if our top political leaders really take this seriously and persistently, it will bear fruits for our citizens’ freedom,” he said.
According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to freeing detainees through dialogue with China, over 200 American nationals in China under coercive measures, including wrongful detentions and exit bans.
The State Department has listed two other detained individuals as priority cases: Businessman Kai Li, accused of espionage in 2016, and Mark Swidan, convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.
“We’ll continue to push the release of other Americans,” Miller said. “It’s something that we have been working on for some time.”
Miller declined to say if Lin’s release had been the result of a swap, according to a report by Reuters.
China’s embassy in Washington declined to comment when asked if Beijing had received anything from the U.S. in return for Lin’s release, according to Reuters. The embassy also told Reuters that Chinese authorities handle criminal suspects in accordance with the law and “treat them equally regardless of their nationality.”
Later this week, a U.S. congressional hearing is set to be held on Americans who have been arbitrarily imprisoned in China.
Some material for this report came from Reuters.
Microsoft confirms IE bug squashed in Patch Tuesday was exploited zero-day
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The C in these CVEs stands for Confusing
Analysis Microsoft, in a low-key update to its September Patch Tuesday disclosures, has confirmed a just-fixed Internet Explorer vulnerability was exploited as a zero-day before it could be patched.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/microsoft_zero_day_spoofing_flaw/
Boeing says it’s weighing temporary layoffs to save cash during machinists strike
date: 2024-09-17, from: VOA News USA
seattle — Boeing plans to freeze hiring and reduce travel and is considering temporary layoffs to save cash during a factory worker strike that began last week, the company told employees Monday.
The company said the moves, which include reduced spending on suppliers, were necessary because “our business is in a difficult period.”
Chief financial officer Brian West detailed 10 immediate cutbacks in a memo to employees. They include a freeze on hiring across all levels, a pause in pay increases for managers and executives who get promoted, and a cancellation of all travel that isn’t critical.
“We are also considering the difficult step of temporary furloughs for many employees, managers and executives in the coming weeks,” West said.
Boeing’s business is in a difficult spot, he said, adding: “This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way.”
About 33,000 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers began a strike early Friday. The walkout came after workers rejected an offer of a 25% increase in pay over four years. The union originally sought a pay hike of at least 40%.
Representatives of the company and the union are scheduled to meet Tuesday with federal mediators. The union has started to survey its members to learn what they want most in a new contract.
Striking workers are picketing at several locations around Washington state, Oregon and California.
Outside Boeing’s huge factory in Everett, Washington, Nancie Browning, a materials-management specialist at Boeing for more than 17 years, said last week’s offer was worse than the one that prompted a two-month strike in 2008. She said that without annual bonuses that workers have come to depend on, the proposed pay increase was more like 9%, not 25%.
“We just want a piece of the pie like everybody else,” she said. “Why should we work all this overtime and bust our backs while these guys [Boeing executives] are sitting up in their suites just raking in the cash?”
The bonuses have emerged as a flash point for union members. Workers say they range from $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
Boeing says it is hard to calculate bonuses in a way that is fair to 33,000 people who perform different jobs. So instead, the company proposes to ditch the payouts and replace them with automatic contributions of $4,160 per year to each employee’s 401(k) retirement account.
Workers are bitter that in contract extensions over the past 16 years, Boeing ended its traditional pension plan and lowered health care benefits.
“We want our pension back,” said Jacob Bustad, a machinist with Boeing for 14 years who was also on the picket line in Everett. “We just keep losing and we never gain, while the people at the top just get more and more money. Boeing has done really good for me and my family, but these last years have been hard.”
Boeing has lost more than $25 billion since the start of 2019 and burned through $4.3 billion in the second quarter of 2024 alone as it stood poised to post another money-losing year. The strike will delay deliveries of new planes, which are an important source of cash for the company.
Stephanie Pope, the head of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division, cited the company’s $60 billion in total debt in urging blue-collar workers to accept the contract offer last week. She called it the best offer Boeing had ever made — and it was endorsed by the union’s local president and negotiators.
But workers rejected the recommendation of their own leaders, which had not happened since 1995.
Additional cost-cutting moves spelled out in the chief financial officer’s memo included eliminating first- and business-class service for anyone on travel that is deemed critical and stopping spending on outside consultants.
West also said Boeing plans to make “significant reductions in supplier expenditures” and will stop most supplier purchase orders related to the 737, 767 and 777 airplane models.
After the strike started, Moody’s put Boeing on review for a possible credit downgrade, and Fitch said a strike longer than two weeks would make a downgrade more likely. Both agencies rate Boeing debt one notch above noninvestment or junk status.
Intel frees its Foundry biz – and that’s just one of many major shake-ups today
date: 2024-09-17, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Pauses European fabs, scores secret US gig, teams up with Amazon, re-orgs its innards, and more!
Intel will spin out its Foundry division as an independent subsidiary with its own board, in the hopes of bringing in new sources of capital for the ailing business unit.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/17/intel_foundry_aws_dod/
Communal Luxury: The Public Bathhouse
date: 2024-09-17, from: Blog Muffinlabs
No Running Water at Home
For people in industrial societies, few activities demand more privacy than washing and grooming the body. We usually do it alone, in our private bathrooms, with locked doors. Seen in a historical context, that is unusual. Bathing in the presence of others has been the rule rather than the exception. As late as the first half of the twentieth century, many households, even in the most advanced industrial societies, did not have running water at home, let alone a private bathroom. 1
A bathroom requires a domestic water supply, but also a sewer drain, and an energy source to heat the water. Of course, it’s possible to have a hot bath at home without these infrastructures. Ever since Antiquity, the rich have built private baths in their houses. Most often, they could do that because less well-off people - either servants or slaves - filled and emptied their bathtubs with bucketloads of water and collected firewood to heat them.
However, for most people, it was more practical to take their bodies to the water rather than the other way around. For some, that meant bathing in rivers, lakes, and springs. For others, especially in urban environments, it meant visiting the public bathhouse.
Is Bathing Unsustainable?
Modern bathing practices are a textbook example of an unsustainable lifestyle based on fossil fuels. Hot water production is the second largest energy use in many homes (after space heating and/or cooling), and much of it is used for bathing or showering. 2 The modern bathroom also uses a lot of water and adds extra energy use through space heating and waste-water treatment. Building and renovating bathrooms requires resources, too.
Sustainability advocates follow two strategies to address these problems. The first strategy concentrates on technological solutions, such as low-flow showerheads, water boilers heated by solar collectors, waste-water heat recovery systems, and greywater recycling. The second strategy counts on behavioral or social changes by questioning modern standards of cleanliness: bathing or showering shorter and less frequently, taking cold showers, or doing a cat wash at the sink. 23
These strategies are unlikely to bring much results. Many technological fixes are difficult or impossible to install in existing buildings, especially in cities. For example, as the number of floors increases, an apartment building quickly runs out of roof space to install solar collectors for all residents. On the other hand, promoting discomfort as a sacrifice for sustainability is unlikely to engage broader environmental practices. 34
Communal bathing makes it easier to disconnect bathing practices from fossil fuels.
Communal bathing could be a third approach, but it’s rarely mentioned. That’s remarkable because, in terms of resource efficiency, it’s hard to beat. Building and operating a bathhouse for 1,000 people requires much less energy than building and operating 1,000 individual bathrooms. A public bathhouse is also more efficient concerning materials, money, and space. 5
Just as importantly, public bathing makes applying the sustainable technologies mentioned above more feasible. That further reduces energy consumption and makes it possible to disconnect bathing practices from fossil fuels. Finally, a public bathhouse can achieve significantly improved sustainability without promoting discomfort. On the contrary, pooling resources to build something for a community rather than for every household separately allows for a high level of sustainable extravagance. That may be an easier sell than cold showers.
Bathing in Rivers, Lakes, and Hot Springs
Nature has provided humans with bathing facilities through streams, rivers, pools, lakes, waterfalls, and rain showers. Humanity spent much time in tropical Africa, where bathing did not require artificially heated water for comfort. When we moved into colder climates, Nature presented us with another solution: hot springs. Many tens of thousands of thermal springs exist around the planet — only a few present-day countries lack them entirely. 67
Bathing in hot springs was common in ancient civilizations all over the world. However, it’s a practice that goes back even further in time. Archeological evidence abundantly shows that many prehistoric settlements established themselves near hot springs. 68 It’s impossible to prove rock solid that people used those waters for bathing, but why wouldn’t they, especially in cold regions? 9
Enjoying a hot bath is a practice that predates recorded history.
Today’s bathing culture relies on fossil fuels, but if we consider the historical context, enjoying a hot bath is not unsustainable. In the case of hot springs, the entire infrastructure and operation — water supply, drainage, and heat source — are already in place.
Our ancestors also invented the steam or sweat bath to take advantage of cold water in all seasons and climates. Rather than heating water, it heats people so they can bathe comfortably in cold water. The earliest steam huts, from prehistoric times, were little more than small log cabins or tent-like structures covered with woolen blankets or hides. 10111213
The Birth of the Bathhouse
Artificial bathing facilities made from brick or stone appeared around 4,000 years ago. 14 They could be an open-air pool, a bathhouse, or a private bathroom. Many bathhouses and bathing pools were built on top of natural hot springs, modifying the natural environment to make it more convenient, safe, and attractive.68 People also began to divert water into urban bathing facilities using canals, pipes, and aqueducts. They started building baths that used artificially heated water as well.
The Ancient Romans are most famously associated with the public bathhouse, although they took much inspiration from the Ancient Greeks. Greek bathhouses comprised rooms with individual hip baths against the walls. Sitting up straight, the bathers threw hot water over themselves or had this done by a servant. In contrast, Roman bathers shared the water in large bathtubs or pools. Both used steam baths as well. 15161718
At the height of the Empire, there were around 1,000 public baths in the city of Rome alone for a population of about 1 million people - one bathhouse per 1,000 people. 819 The most prominent bathhouses were the “thermae,” which could hold up to a few thousand people bathing at the same time. These facilities, which only appeared in the largest cities, were richly decorated with mosaics, marble floors and pools, granite columns, and statues. However, most Ancient Roman bathhouses were smaller neighborhood baths called “balnea.” 15
The Preindustrial Bathhouse
The public bathhouse’s history continues after the Roman Empire’s demise. In the East, the Roman bathhouse evolved into the hammam, which ditched the pools and concentrated more on sweating as a cleaning method.2021 After a sweat bath, people threw water over themselves. Reminiscent of the small Roman baths known as balnea, hammams spread in large numbers in all cities of the Islamic world as they facilitated bodily cleanliness and the accomplishment of body ablutions before praying. 22
In Western Europe, many Roman baths fell into disrepair. However, the public bathhouse returned in full swing during the late Middle Ages, when a new period of urbanization set in. 232425 In the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, a lot of European cities had a public bathhouse per 2,000 to 5,000 citizens.26 Many were steam baths inspired by the hammam. A second type of bathhouse offered wooden bathtubs to seat a small group of people. The medieval bathhouse was known as a “stew,” which refers to the oven that either heated water for the bathtubs or filled the room with steam. 2325
Northern Europe and Russia - never conquered by Roman or Islamic Empires - stuck to sweat and hot air baths. For example, public “banyas” existed in towns throughout Muscovy during the Middle Ages. 12 Asia also developed independent bathing cultures. For instance, in late medieval Japan, people shared private hot baths among families, neighbors, and friends for economic reasons. For these “cooperative baths” of mostly four to ten individuals, every bather brought a portion of firewood to heat the water. That practice evolved into larger public baths - “sento” - which experienced rapid growth from the fifteenth century onwards.2728
Bathing for Pleasure
Nowadays, sustainability advocates who promote shorter or less frequent showers implicitly regard bathing as a strictly utilitarian practice. However, for most of history, bathing was never just about hygiene. Apart from getting clean, people also visited public baths to relax, have fun, and socialize. Rather than a quick affair, the bathing process — no matter its form — often went on for hours. 1528
The Ancient Greeks sat together in individual bathtubs, having conversations, for which the space’s acoustics were optimally suited. 29 In Ancient Rome, public baths were places where people went almost daily to be seen, mingle, relax, gossip, dine, or play sports and study. Bathers accessed beauty treatments such as massages, shaving, hairdressing, and depilating. They celebrated parties and anniversaries and honored foreign guests. 1517192530
Rather than a quick affair, the bathing process — no matter its form — often went on for hours.
The medieval European bathhouse continued these traditions with less splendor but not necessarily with less revelry. In particular, medieval stews with wooden bathtubs were often a place of amusement that also furnished food, drink, music, and various types of bodily care. 23 In Japan, during the 16th century, public baths became places to gather and socialize, with large groups of people eating, drinking, and singing. 2728 River bathing, which continued around cities and in rural areas until the 20th century, was a kind of play in which swimming was a potential element. 31
At the same time, bathing was considered essential to prevent and cure diseases, following the Hippocratic ideas that people could maintain or restore the balance of bodily fluids by exposing the body to cold, hot, moist, or dry circumstances. The layout of preindustrial baths reflected these ideas, featuring pools and spaces of different temperatures. 1521
Communal Luxury
While these elements of pleasure, social interaction, and health continue today in mineral spas, there is a crucial difference with earlier bathing practices. The present-day spa is far too expensive to substitute for a private bathroom. In contrast, the historical public bathhouse was an egalitarian institution.
Roman public baths had no or low entrance fees and were open to everyone. There were no areas reserved for higher-ranking patrons. Combined with the splendid architecture and opulent decoration of the baths, this ensured that even the most humble servant would have a taste of luxury. 151719 These customs continued into the European Middle Ages and were shared by bathing cultures across the world. 23 For example, in Japan, the bathhouse aided in “slowly deconstructing the existing social hierarchy and created a new cultural flow between the elite and the commoners.” 2832
The only separation happened between men and women, and it was far from universal across space and time. They would either go to different bathhouses, occupy different sections, or share the same spaces at different times of the day or the week. 1215171923
The Fuel Use of Roman Bathhouses
How sustainable was that communal luxury? Most research about the energy use of bathhouses concerns Ancient Roman baths. Historians have sometimes faulted the large bathhouses from the Empire for their wastefulness, arguing that their widespread use caused deforestation. 333435 However, in recent years, archeological research, thermal analysis, and heat transfer studies have made it increasingly clear that Ancient Roman bathhouses, in spite of their opulence, were remarkably energy-efficient buildings. 3633
The first reason was the hypocaust system. It consisted of one or more underground furnaces that distributed hot air under the floor and into the hollow walls (some baths had heated ceilings, too). Because of the large radiant surfaces, the spaces in the building could be heated at a lower temperature, saving energy. Although the water for the pools was reheated periodically in an insulated boiler close to the furnace, the heat in the floors and the walls helped to keep it warm for an extended period. 3633
A study of the Stabian Baths, one of the oldest surviving thermae, shows a fuel consumption of between 5 and 8 kg of firewood per hour, depending on the season. 3637 That corresponds to a wood supply of slightly more than 60 ash trees per year, which was unlikely to cause deforestation. 36 Firewood consumption was probably even lower because Roman baths routinely supplemented wood with other locally available fuels, often waste products: reeds, harvest by-products (olive pits, orchard trimmings, chaff), and animal wastes (dung and bones). 33
Many Roman baths were heated almost exclusively by solar energy on sunny days.
Following the same methodology, a study of a later bathing complex - the Forum Baths in Ostia - shows that the Romans continued improving their bathhouses’ energy efficiency. 3839 The Forum Baths were three times larger than the Stabian Baths - 923m2 versus 310m2 of heated spaces - but their calculated annual wood consumption is not even twice as high: roughly 100 trees per year. 3836 The newer bathhouse had thicker walls (two meters instead of one meter), as well as much larger glazed windows, which increased the share of solar radiation. 40 Earlier research has shown that the Forum baths were heated almost exclusively by solar energy on sunny days. 41
The studies above assume that the Romans heated their baths for 24 hours daily and only shut them down for maintenance. Roman bathhouses likely continued to be heated through the night, as it was more practical and energy-efficient. Many baths were open daily, and it could take a whole day to heat them from a cold state. In later centuries, medieval stews and hammams often used the heat or the ashes of the furnace to bake bread and other foods at night. 42 Hammams and medieval stews were less energy-efficient than Roman baths. Hammams had heated floors but no heated walls and few windows, while medieval stews often had none of these.
Roman Bathhouse Versus Private Shower
How does the energy use of the Roman bathhouse compare to that of the modern shower? Academic research does not provide an answer, but a quick calculation shows that the Roman bathing experience, which lasted for hours, was more energy-efficient than the present-day private shower, which lasts, on average, 9 minutes. The daily energy use of the Forum baths corresponds to the daily energy use of 557 showers. 43 While we don’t know how many people visited the Forum Baths daily, they likely surpassed that number: the baths could host up to 500 bathers simultaneously. 44
The Roman bathing experience, which lasted for hours, was more energy-efficient than the present-day private shower, which lasts, on average, 9 minutes.
Furthermore, in the calculation above, the energy use for the shower only concerns water heating, while the fuel use for the public baths also - and mainly - includes space heating. 36 For example, assuming that the water in the pools of the Stabian baths was changed only once per day, heating the water accounted for less than 10% of the total energy use, corresponding to the energy use of only 52 showers. The low energy use for water heating is partly explained by the excellent thermal insulation of the heated floors and walls, meaning that space and water heating cannot be separated. However, it is also because the Romans shared the water in pools, while every shower requires freshly heated water.
The Roman bathhouse also compares favorably to the typical backyard sauna, for which the fuel consumption hovers between 5 and 15kg of firewood per session. 45 Only sixteen such sauna sessions require as much fuel as the Stabian baths used daily. The sauna has no heated floor and walls. Furthermore, historically, it was often built partly underground to save fuel, but nowadays, it’s usually a badly insulated building standing in a cold climate.
The Public Baths of the Industrial Revolution
Bathing practices have changed quite a lot since Roman and late medieval times, particularly in most of the Western world. Few of us will have the time or even the need to linger in a bathhouse for several hours daily, and some of us may feel uncomfortable bathing in public. 30 However, a bathhouse can also take a form more in line with modern bathing habits. The public bathhouse of the Industrial Revolution demonstrates this.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cities received large numbers of immigrants who came to work in factories. Most of these people were housed in overcrowded tenement buildings without running water, leading to unsanitary conditions. 46 Recurring epidemics and new medical insights led to a “gospel of cleanliness” that resulted in a new wave of public bathhouses across the Western world. Many of these baths only disappeared between the 1950s and 1980s.
The public hygiene movement began in England and peaked there in the 1840s. By 1896, more than 200 municipalities in Britain were maintaining public baths. The English bathhouse emulated the splendor of Roman baths in its architecture and decoration: it was “large, handsome, and costly.” 46 However, it did not copy the Ancient bathing customs. It now reserved different sections of the bathhouse for different social classes. Furthermore, while the pools still provided social interaction, the bathtubs were now placed in individual compartments. Finally, the modern bathhouse instituted maximum time limits for using the pool and the bathtubs. 464748
The Shower Bathhouse
Germany, the first to follow the British on the continent, also built monumental bathhouses. 49 However, in the 1880s, Berlin physician Oscar Lasser argued that the large baths were too costly to build in the necessary numbers. He proposed the introduction of smaller bathhouses with nothing but showers in individual compartments. Until then, the shower was only attached to a bathtub or used in barracks and prisons, where soldiers and inmates were showered with cold water. 484625
The shower bathhouse became the dominant public bath type in most of Western Europe and also in North America, where the sanitary reform movement took off in the 1890s. 5051 It cleared away the last vestiges of the Ancient bathing culture by ditching the pools and switching to a more practical architecture. For better or worse, the public bathhouse from the Industrial Revolution was the “antithesis of the preindustrial bathhouse.” 47 Although bathers still made use of communal infrastructure, there was no more space for pleasure, social interaction, public nakedness, and social mixing.
For better or worse, the public bathhouse from the Industrial Revolution was the antithesis of the preindustrial bathhouse.
As the higher social classes gradually gained access to their private water supply and bathrooms, the public bath became increasingly associated with poverty. Although shower bathhouses did not have separate sections for different social classes, they were mainly built in low-income neighborhoods, aimed at the poor only. Bathers were led to their shower cubicle by an attendant, who opened the tap, decided on the water temperature, and started a timer. People had at most 20 minutes to undress, shower, and dress again.4647 “The poor had to be clean but not enjoy it too much.” 46
Bring Back the Public Bathhouse?
In Europe and North America, the public bathhouse disappeared once everyone got their private bathroom - although we still bathe together in sports centers and continue using communal bathrooms in hostels or campings. The public bathhouse survives elsewhere but is in decline almost everywhere. For example, Cairo had only eight hammams in 2000, compared to more than seventy at the beginning of the 19th century.5253 In 1968, greater Tokyo boasted 2,687 public bathhouses. In 2022, only 462 were left. 5455
Historically, the bathhouse was born out of the need for efficiency: bathing was too resource-intensive to organize individually. That is no longer the case thanks to the advance of central infrastructures - fossil fuels, electricity, water supply, sewers. However, in the context of the present environmental crisis, the resource efficiency of the public bathhouse has become relevant once again. It’s a solution that could reduce energy use relatively quickly without the need for new technologies or sacrificing comfort. Resilience is another argument for the bathhouse. 56
What Type of Public Bathhouse Do We Want?
The metamorphosis of the public bath in the 19th and 20th centuries, which also affected public baths outside the Western world, presents a challenge to anyone wanting to revive public bathing for sustainability. What type of bathhouse do we want? Of course, the Roman bath and the shower bathhouse are both extremes, and many intermediate forms are imaginable. Nevertheless, any designer of a future bathhouse will have to make decisions that are likely to be controversial.
For example, one could argue that the shower bathhouse not only fits modern bathing practices but also maximizes resource efficiency. That is especially true when the government, rather than the bather, controls shower duration and water temperature. In that way, the public bathhouse could become a technology to enforce frugality upon the whole population. However, to put it mildly, such an approach is unlikely to generate enthusiasm for reviving public bathhouses. Neither does it do much to improve social interaction. 57
Any designer of a future bathhouse will have to make decisions that are likely to be controversial.
Advocating for the return of the preindustrial public bathhouse, which centers around social interaction and communal luxury, may be more successful in luring people away from their private bathrooms, but it also runs into obstacles. The public bathhouse has faced resistance for 2,000 years, mostly because of conflicting views about health and morals. 58 For example, concerns about debauchery and prostitution - real and imagined - run throughout the history of the bathhouse in all cultures. 59 Separating males and females does not fully address those worries.
Any plea for reviving public baths will also have to deal with the fear of contagious disease. For example, a “lockdown” of society, as many governments applied during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021, is incompatible with public bathhouses. Such a measure only works when everybody has a private bathroom. 60 The link between communal bathing and health is complex. Science has confirmed many of the health benefits of cold, hot, and steam baths and has also shown the importance of social interaction. However, bringing people together will always raise health risks, too.
How to Build a Low-tech Bathhouse?
There’s another distinction between bathhouses built before and after the Industrial Revolution: preindustrial baths worked with renewable fuels, while industrial baths ran on fossil fuels. Many modern bathhouses had an on-site coal power plant, which heated the space and the water and provided electricity for lighting. Fossil fuel-powered bathhouses are more energy efficient than fossil fuel-powered private bathrooms, but we can do better than that.
A large bathhouse heated by a hypocaust system and large windows is still hard to beat as a carbon neutral technology, at least based on sustainable wood production. 6162 However, biomass combustion creates air pollution, while we could also power a bathhouse with renewable energy sources that don’t have that problem. The most apparent solution for space and water heating is flat plate solar collectors in which the sun heats water. Heat-generating windmills are a low-tech alternative to solar thermal collectors in less sunny climates. 63 Other potential heat sources are geothermal energy and factory waste heat.
Fossil fuel-powered bathhouses are more energy efficient than fossil fuel-powered private bathrooms, but we can do better than that.
A solar or wind-powered bathhouse’s biggest drawback is its dependency on favorable weather conditions. To compensate for that, solar or wind power can be combined with thermal energy storage, such as insulated water tanks. Storing heat in a thermal mass for longer periods is much cheaper and more sustainable than storing electricity in chemical batteries. However, it requires space that only communal bathing can offer. Steam baths and saunas are more difficult to disconnect from biomass combustion, but some innovative examples exist. 64
Clustering bathing facilities in a shared infrastructure also creates sufficient space for a bathhouse to have extensive heat insulation (a decisive factor in energy consumption) and provide for its water supply (for example, by catching and storing rainwater) as well as wastewater treatment (for example through phytoremediation using plants).
Architects have applied some of these ideas in countries where public baths are still used. For example, in a mountain village in China, a community bathhouse for 5,000 people is largely off-the-grid, pumping up its water from a well, heating it with solar collectors, and filtering the run-off wastewater from the showers and the toilets in basins filled with bamboo plants. 65
However, a public bathhouse also fits the more high-tech vision of a centralized energy infrastructure based on solar PV panels and wind turbines that provide electricity. In such a configuration, public bathhouses could absorb excess electricity during abundantly sunny or windy days. Rather than curtailing the electricity from surplus solar and wind power, we could use it to power electric heat pumps and store the heat in the thermal mass of public baths. 66 While this approach is less resource-efficient than off-grid bathhouses operating without electricity, it still beats a scenario in which a centralized renewable power grid supplies energy to many private bathrooms.
Kris De Decker
Many thanks to Jonas Görgen and Elizabeth Shove for their feedback on an earlier version of this article.
Marie Verdeil and Roel Roscam Abbing contributed to the selection of images.
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The spread of water supply and sewer networks took a lot of time, especially in older European cities. Before 1900, only the most expensive Paris flats had a bathroom. 26 Plumbed-in private baths appeared in the wealthiest British households in the 1860s. Still, it was not until the 1950s that working-class homes were routinely supplied with hot and cold running water. 3 In the newer cities of the USA, installing a water supply and sewer infrastructure was easier. From the 1870s, American plumbing outstripped that of every other country. More than half of all American houses had a complete bathroom in 1940. For comparison, in the whole of France, only one house or apartment in ten had a shower or bath in 1954. 20 ↩︎
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Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence?, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, 2019. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/10/mist-showers-sustainable-decadence/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Pickerill, Jenny. “Cold comfort? Reconceiving the practices of bathing in British self-build eco-homes.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105.5 (2015): 1061-1077. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00045608.2015.1060880 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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The trend is towards more and longer showers 2 and more, larger and more luxurious private bathrooms. For example, more than one-third of new single-family homes in the US had three or more bathrooms in 2021, compared to “only” a quarter in 2005. Source: Number of Bathrooms in New Homes in 2021, Jesse Wade, National Association Of Home Builders, November 2022. https://eyeonhousing.org/2022/11/number-of-bathrooms-in-new-homes-in-2021/ ↩︎
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How much water public bathing can save depends on how exactly people bathe together. Shared pools and bathtubs bring water savings, but individual showers and bathtubs do not, even if placed in a communal space. ↩︎
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Erfurt, Patricia. “Hot springs throughout history. The Geoheritage of hot springs.” Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021. 119-182. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Tamburello, Giancarlo, et al. “Global thermal spring distribution and relationship to endogenous and exogenous factors.” Nature Communications 13.1 (2022): 6378. ↩︎
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Cataldi, Raffaele, Susan F. Hodgson, and John W. Lund. Stories from a heated earth: our geothermal heritage. No. 19. Nicholson, 1999. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Even some animals - like snow monkeys and capybaras - are known to enjoy bathing in hot springs. See, for example: Matsuzawa, Tetsuro. “Hot-spring bathing of wild monkeys in Shiga-Heights: origin and propagation of a cultural behavior.” Primates 59.3 (2018): 209-213. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10329-018-0661-z.pdf. ↩︎
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Sonntag, C. F. “The History of Baths and Bathing in Britain before the Norman Conquest.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 13.sect_hist_med (1920): 25-46. ↩︎ ↩︎
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Aaland, Mikkel. “Sweat: The illustrated history and description of the Finnish sauna, Russian bania, Islamic hammam, Japanese mushi-buro, Mexican temescal and American Indian & Eskimo sweat lodge.” (1978). ↩︎
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Pollock, Ethan. Without the banya we would perish: a history of the Russian bathhouse. Oxford University Press, USA, 2019. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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The first written reference to the steam bath dates back to the fifth century BC, when Greek historian Herodotus compared the Scythian sweat bath north of the Black sea to the Greek steam bath of his time. However, it’s very likely that its origins go back to prehistoric times. Not surprisingly, the steam bath and the hot air bath initially spread in regions with cold and long winters: northwestern Europe, Russia, Alaska, and Canada. It was also used by Native Americans, and spread to Central and South America as well. 10 ↩︎
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One of the earliest archeological records of human-made bathing facilities dates back to around 2300 BC in what is now Pakistan. The inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro, the probable capital of the Indus civilization, built wells and drainage systems allowing for private bathrooms in most residential buildings, as well as a large, communal bathing pool. The private bathrooms had a 1m2 shallow platform, where people threw buckets of water over themselves. The “Great Bath” was a brick basin with steps on either side and a capacity for 160 m3 of water. As the city was located in a hot desert climate, there was no need for heating the water. Sources: Graeber, David, and David Wengrow. The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin UK, 2021 + Jansen, Michael. “Mohenjo-Daro, Indus Valley civilization: water supply and water use in one of the largest Bronze Age cities of the third millennium BC.” Geo: A new world of knowledge (2011). https://openarchive.icomos.org/id/eprint/1541/1/110601geo_06_2011_indian_edition_email.pdf ↩︎
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Maréchal, Sadi. Public baths and bathing habits in Late Antiquity: a study of the archaeological and historical evidence from Roman Italy, North Africa and Palestine between AD 285 and AD 700. Diss. Ghent University, 2016. https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/7235534/file/7235545.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Fagan, Garrett G. “The genesis of the Roman public bath: recent approaches and future directions.” American Journal of Archaeology 105.3 (2001): 403-426. ↩︎
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Kosso, Cynthia, and Anne Scott, eds. The nature and function of water, baths, bathing, and hygiene from antiquity through the Renaissance. Vol. 11. Brill, 2009. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Both the Greeks and the Romans also used cold baths in combination with sports facilities. Here, the act of washing was secondary. 1519 ↩︎
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Hoagland, Alison K. The bathroom: a social history of cleanliness and the body. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Ashenburg, Katherine. The dirt on clean: An unsanitized history. Vintage Canada, 2010. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Fournier, Caroline. Les bains d’al-Andalus: VIIIe-XVe siècle. Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018. https://books.openedition.org/pur/44617#anchor-resume ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Sibley, Magda, Camilla Pezzica, and Chris Tweed. “Eco-hammam: the complexity of accelerating the ecological transition of a key social heritage sector in Morocco.” Sustainability 13.17 (2021): 9935 ↩︎
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Coomans, Janna. “Janna Coomans - The Medieval Bathhouse (MA Thesis - 2013).” The Medieval Bathhouse: Bathing Culture in the Late Medieval Low Countries (2013): n. pag. Print. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Wurtzel, Ellen. “Passionate Encounters, Public Healing: Medieval Urban Bathhouses in Northern France.” French Historical Studies 46.3 (2023): 331-360. https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article/46/3/331/381254/Passionate-Encounters-Public-HealingMedieval-Urban ↩︎ ↩︎
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Büchner, Robert. Im städtischen Bad vor 500 Jahren: Badhaus, bader und Badegäste im alten Tirol. Böhlau, 2014. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Thirteenth century Paris, with 200,000 inhabitants, counted around 30 public bathhouses 2324, while 14th century London, with a population of 80,000, had at least 18 public baths. 20 In the late 14th century Low Countries, Bruges (30,000 inhabitants) and Ghent (40,000 inhabitants) each had around twenty public baths, while smaller cities like Maastricht and Leuven (15,000 inhabitants) had around five. Vienna (Austria) counted 29 bathhouses in the fifteenth century. 23 Medieval bathhouses, like hammams, were smaller than Roman baths. Medieval stews found in Germany and the Low Countries had a ground surface of between 100 and 200 square meters. 23 The typical roman city bath had a surface of about 500 m2. 15 ↩︎ ↩︎
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Butler, Lee. “Washing Off the Dust”: Baths and Bathing in Late Medieval Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 60.1 (2005): 1-41. https://web.archive.org/web/20190818120651id_/http://muse.jhu.edu:80/article/182356/pdf ↩︎ ↩︎
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Merry, Adam M., “More Than a Bath: An Examination of Japanese Bathing Culture” (2013). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 665. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/665 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Gill, A. A. ““Chattering” in the Baths: The Urban Greek Bathing Establishment and Social Discourse in Classical Antiquity.” (2011). https://tobias-lib.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/61481/CD27_Gill_CAA2008.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y ↩︎
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Górnicka, Barbara. Nakedness, shame, and embarrassment: A long-term sociological perspective. Vol. 12. Springer, 2016. ↩︎ ↩︎
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A Cultural History of Parson’s Pleasure, George Townsend, PhD, Birkbeck, University of London, 2022, unpublished. See also: Dive in! A history of river swimming in Oxford. Museum of Oxford, expo 2023. https://moxdigiexhibits.omeka.net/exhibits/show/dive-in#:~:text=Dive%20In!-,A%20history%20of%20river%20swimming%20in%20Oxford,places%20for%20bathing%20and%20swimming. ↩︎
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The egalitarian nature of the public bath was reinforced by the fact that people were partly or completely naked. “One stripped not only of their clothes but also of their social rank and material wealth, which become largely invisible”, concludes a historian of the Japanese public bath. 28 “The true collective is a naked collective”, observes another, referring to the Russian banya. Source: Gearsimova, A. “My Banya, Your Banya: From Reality to Myth.” (2016). ↩︎
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Mietz, Michael. “The fuel economy of public bathhouses in the Roman Empire.” Master’s thesis, Ghent University, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Campus Boekentoren, Blandijnberg 2 (2016): 9000. https://libstore.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/002/303/996/RUG01-002303996_2016_0001_AC.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Wilson, A (2012) Raw materials and energy, in “The cambridge companion to the roman economy, scheidel 2012. ↩︎
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Ancient deforestation revisited, Journal of the history of biology, 44 (1), 43-57. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J-Donald-Hughes/publication/45407393_Ancient_Deforestation_Revisited/links/08ce17d911d2244431641d70/Ancient-Deforestation-Revisited.pdf ↩︎
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Miliaresis, Ismini. “Heating the Stabian Baths at Pompeii.” Curious (2021): 83. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/58973/1/external_content.pdf#page=91 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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The study assumes that the baths were heated for 24 hours per day and only shut down for maintenance. The fuel used for heating up the bath initially (calculated at 35 kg in the case of the Stabian Baths) is added only once to the total yearly energy use. The results are also based on the assumption that the water of the baths was changed once per day (and thus had to be heated from a cold state once per day). ↩︎
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Veal, Robyn, and Victoria Leitch. Fuel and Fire in the Ancient Roman World: Towards an integrated economic understanding. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/c349fc20-11d0-4ad4-a2e9-55dccca9f2df/download ↩︎ ↩︎
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Miliaresis, Ismini Alexandra. Heating and Fuel Consumption in the Terme del Foro at Ostia. Diss. University of Virginia, 2013. https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/5d86p0445 ↩︎
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Whether or not the (small) windows in the Stabian baths had glass or shutters is not entirely clear. The study concludes that energy use is pretty similar with both glazed and unglazed windows. However, the Forum baths, with windows several meters high, would have required almost 1.5 times more wood to heat rooms with unglazed windows during the month of May, and more than twice as much in the coldest month. ↩︎
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Ring, James W. “Windows, baths, and solar energy in the Roman empire.” American Journal of Archaeology 100.4 (1996): 717-724. ↩︎
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This may have been true for Roman bathhouses as well, but I could not find any reference to it. For hammamns, see, for example: Sibley, Magda, and Martin Sibley. “Hybrid transitions: combining biomass and solar energy for water heating in public bathhouses.” Energy Procedia 83 (2015): 525-532. ↩︎ ↩︎
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A fuel use of 7.5 to 12 kg/hr averages at 9.75 kg/hr, which corresponds to 234 kg firewood per day. One kg of wood contains roughly 5 kWh of thermal energy, which brings the daily fuel use of the Forum baths to 1,170 kWh. A shower of 8.9 minutes (the average in the netherlands) takes 2.1 kWh of thermal energy. 2 Conclusion: the daily energy use of the Forum Baths equals that of 557 showers. The daily fuel use of the smaller and less energy efficient Stabian baths corresponds to the energy use of 378 showers. ↩︎
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Brünenberg–Jens-Arne, Monika Trümper–Clemens, et al. “Stabian Baths in Pompeii. New Research on the Development of Ancient Bathing Culture.” (2019). https://www.academia.edu/download/67567783/Truemper_et_al._Stabian_Baths_RM_2019.pdf ↩︎
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The energy use of a sauna is more variable than the energy use of a shower, and I could not find any reliable academic research. The data I use are a rough estimation based on numbers that I found on internet forums and websites. Also note that climate explains part of the difference in energy efficiency: the sauna is often located in a cold climate, while most Roman baths stood around the Mediterranean. ↩︎
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Williams, Marilyn T. Washing” the great unwashed": public baths in urban America, 1840-1920. Ohio State University Press, 1991. https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/6282/1/Washing_the_Great_Unwashed.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Dillon, Jennifer Reed. Modernity, sanitation and the public bath: Berlin, 1896–1933, as archetype. Duke University, 2007. https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/bitstreams/33e2fe84-16ec-4044-91d6-75d5c87d37e3/download ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
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Ladd, Brian K. “Public baths and civic improvement in nineteenth-century German cities.” Journal of urban history 14.3 (1988): 372-393. ↩︎ ↩︎
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The Stuttgart Bathhouse, for example, had two large pools, 300 dressing rooms, 102 bath tubs, two Russian-Roman baths, two cold water baths, a sun bath, and a bath for dogs. By the end of the century, almost every German city had erected at least one monumental bathhouse, which often included a restaurant and barber shop as well. 2546 ↩︎
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New York City built 25 monumental bathhouses, and Boston included swimming pools and gymnasiums. However, other American cities exclusively built shower bathhouses for the poor classes. For example, by 1920, Chicago had erected more than twenty shower bathhouses throughout the poor and working class districts. 46 ↩︎
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Germany and Austria built shower bathhouses in poor neighbourhoods but also continued to build elaborate and expensive facilities for the higher social classes, many of them having a water supply but still lacking bathrooms. 46 ↩︎
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Talmisānī, Mayy, and Eve Gandossi. The last hammams of Cairo: a disappearing bathhouse culture. American Univ in Cairo Press, 2009. ↩︎
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Damascus went down from 40 hammams in the 1940s to 13 in 2004. Source: Sibley, Magda. “The Historic hammāms of Damascus and Fez: lessons of sustainability and future developments.” The 23rd conference on passive and low energy architecture (PLEA). 2006. https://www.academia.edu/download/52232181/The_Historic_Hammms_of_Damascus_and_Fez_20170321-32624-5s2lbk.pdf Morocco is an exception. Various sources present different numbers for operating hammams which vary between 6,000 and 10,000 hammams that still operate using the traditional heating system. 42 ↩︎
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“Tokyo starts effort to revive public bathhouses”, Julian Ryall Tokyo, October 1, 2022. https://www.dw.com/en/japan-launches-campaign-to-revive-fading-public-bathhouses/a-63282747#:~:text=In%20an%20effort%20to%20protect,pop%20into%20their%20local%20bathhouse. ↩︎
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“Public baths fade from Tokyo, with nearly half gone over 15 years”, Natsumi Nakai, October 10, 2023. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15025294#:~:text=Public%20bathhouses%20are%20swiftly%20disappearing,to%20the%20Tokyo%20metropolitan%20government. ↩︎
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“Fuel Crisis Forces Syrians to Use Public Baths”, Sputnik International, 2023. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230131/fuel-crisis-forces-syrians-to-use-public-baths-1106687250.html See also: “Aleppo bathhouse boom as Syria crisis turns showers cold”, Africanews, 2021. https://www.africanews.com/2021/12/30/aleppo-bathhouse-boom-as-syria-crisis-turns-showers-cold/ ↩︎
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“Why we need to bring back the art of communal bathing”. Jamie Mackay, Aeon Magazine, 2016. https://aeon.co/ideas/why-we-need-to-bring-back-the-art-of-communal-bathing ↩︎
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This is especially true in Western Europe, where opposition grew so strong that the bathhouse eventually disappeared in some regions between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century. 23 The reasons for the temporal demise of bathing in Western Europe - a unique event in world history - are controversial among historians. Some point to the pressure of the Catholic and Protestant church, who increasingly perceived the medieval stews as places of immorality and sin. 59 Others see the cause in epidemics, or point to changing medical views - doctors no longer considered hot water and steam healthy. 23 Opposition started even before organized religion appeared. Ancient Roman philosopher Seneca was critical of the larger Roman baths and wrote several rants against them. He complained about the noise in the thermae, and accused them of extravagance and hedonism. See, for example: Moral letters to Lucilius by Seneca. Letter 86. On Scipio’s villa. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_86 ↩︎
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In Ancient Rome, some bathhouses allowed mixed bathing, while others separated male and female bathers. Prostitution was legal, but the fact that a man’s wife had bathed with other men was a legitimate reason for divorce. 15 In Muslim Spain, substantial fines were assessed to men who either slipped into the bathhouse on days assigned to women, or who were caught spying through the windows of the structure. Women risked their legal rights if they did the same. Abusing a woman in a bathhouse, even verbally, carried the death penalty. See: Powers, James F. “Frontier municipal baths and social interaction in thirteenth-century Spain.” The American Historical Review 84.3 (1979): 649.667. In the Low Countries during the middle ages, authorities distinguished “honest” from “dishonest” stews. To maintain the quality of the “honest” bathhouses, they abolished, mixed bathing, set rules for bathmaids, and made prostitution in the bathhouse illegal. 23 ↩︎ ↩︎
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There’s no doubt that public bathhouses were a vector in historical epidemics. Medical tracts even advised against visiting the bathhouse. However, almost all baths remained open, very likely because they were seen as a service too essential to withdraw. At least, that was the case in the medieval Low Countries and in the Roman Empire, see: 2321 ↩︎
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How to make biomass energy sustainable again? Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, September 2020. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again/ ↩︎
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Moreover, the hypocaust was further improved in the middle ages, meaning that it could be made even more energy efficient than in Roman times. See: Heat storage hypocausts: air heating in the middle ages, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, March 2017. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/03/heat-storage-hypocausts-air-heating-in-the-middle-ages/ ↩︎
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Heat your house with a mechanical windmill, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, February 2019. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/02/heat-your-house-with-a-mechanical-windmill/ ↩︎
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For example, researchers at the University of Stuttgart have devised a hybrid storage system consisting of a pressurized water and steam tank that serves as a storage for solar energy. The steam can be released in a sauna anytime, while the water serves to heat the space. See: Schaefer, M., et al. “Development of a zero-energy-sauna: Simulation study of thermal energy storage.” Energy and Buildings 256 (2022): 111659. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778821009439. A very low-tech example is “Solauna”, which works with solar heat alone, basically by building a very large and well-insulated solar box cooker. See: https://www.biopiscinas.pt/en/solar-sauna/. “Lytefire” creates heat and steam by sunlight from mirrors concentrated on a metal plate or a bag of stones. See: https://lytefiresauna.com/en. ↩︎
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See: https://www.designboom.com/architecture/bao-split-bathhouse/. Another example is a bathhouse in Eastern Iran, built in 2004, which runs on two solar collector fields (195 m2 total) and two thermally insulated storage tanks (3m3 each). The facility supplies hot water for twelve showers and four baths, serving the hot water demands of 150 people per day. Source: Azad, E. “Design, installation and operation of a solar thermal public bath in eastern iran.” Energy for Sustainable Development 16.1 (2012): 68-73. Researchers are also investigating the combined use of biomass furnaces and solar thermal collectors for hammams in Morocco. See: Krarouch, M., et al. “Simulation of floor heating in a combined solar-biomass system integrated in a public bathhouse located in Marrakech.” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering. Vol. 353. No. 1. IOP Publishing, 2018. See also: Mohamed, Krarouch, and Haller Michel. “Design optimisation of a combined pellets and solar heating systems for water heating in a public bathhouse.” Energy Reports 6 (2020): 1628-1635. See also: Sibley, Magda, Camilla Pezzica, and Chris Tweed. “Eco-hammam: the complexity of accelerating the ecological transition of a key social heritage sector in Morocco.” Sustainability 13.17 (2021): 9935. See also: Zbaidi, Mourad, et al. “Improving the Energy Efficiency of a Traditional Hammam by Using Two Types of Heat Exchanger.” International Journal on Engineering Applications 11.6 (2023). ↩︎
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How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, September 2017. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-not-to-run-a-modern-society-on-solar-and-wind-power-alone/ See also: Battery Killers: Grid-Interactive Water Heaters, Kris De Decker, No Tech Magazine, May 2015. https://www.notechmagazine.com/2015/05/battery-killers-grid-interactive-water-heaters.html ↩︎
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024/09/communal-luxury-the-public-bathhouse/
Releasing Windows as open source is the only viable way forward for Microsoft, and it’s going happen
date: 2024-09-16, from: OS News
Last week, Julio Merino published an article I wish someone had written ages ago: a fair, unbiased look at the differences between Windows NT in its original form and UNIX roughly at the time of the initial releases of Windows NT. Merino, who has a long career in tech and has made contributions to several operating systems, does a great job cutting through the fanboyism and decades’ worth of conventional wisdom, arriving at the following conclusion that I think many of us here will share even without diving into the great depth of his article. NT was groundbreaking technology when it launched. As I presented above, many of the features we take for granted today in systems design were present in NT since its inception, whereas almost all other Unix systems had to gain those features slowly over time. As a result, such features don’t always integrate seamlessly with Unix philosophies. Today, however, it’s not clear to me that NT is truly “more advanced” than, say, Linux or FreeBSD. It is true that NT had more solid design principles at the onset and more features that its contemporary operating systems, but nowadays… the differences are blurry. Yes, NT is advanced, but not significantly more so than modern Unixes. What I find disappointing is that, even though NT has all these solid design principles in place… bloat in the UI doesn’t let the design shine through. The sluggishness of the OS even on super-powerful machines is painful to witness and might even lead to the demise of this OS. ↫ Julio Merino You should definitely read the whole thing, and not just the conclusion, as it will give you some great insight into some of the differences between the two approaches, and how the UNIX and Windows NT worlds learned from each other and grew together. It’s well-written, easy to read, and contains a ton of information and details about especially Windows NT most people are probably not aware of. Reading through the article helped my crystallise a set of thoughts I’ve been having about the future of Windows, and in particular, the future of Windows NT as a short-hand for the kernel, lower-level frameworks, and everything else below the graphical layer. I think there’s a major change coming to Windows NT, something so big and unheard of it’s going to be the most defining moment in Windows NT history since its very first release. There’s a few facts that lie at the root of my conclusion. First, ever since the very beginning, Windows NT has been developed in roughly the same way: behind closed doors by a group of specialists inside Microsoft, and every now and then we got a massive dump of new code in the form of a major Windows release. It’s only recently that Microsoft has started taking a more rolling release approach to Windows development, with smaller updates peppered throughout the year, with different release branches users can subscribe to. Second, despite many of us almost equating Microsoft with Windows – or perhaps with Windows and Office – the reality of it is that Windows hasn’t been the primary driver for revenue for Microsoft for a while now. In Microsoft’s fiscal year of 2023, Windows made up just 10% of the company’s total revenue that year, which amounts to $22 billion out of a total revenue of $211 billion. Azure alone is almost four times as large at $80 billion, and even LinkedIn – yes, LinkedIn – is good for $15 billion in revenue, making Windows only about a third more profitable than the most soulless social network in human history. Third, despite Windows’ decreasing revenue share, the operating system is becoming ever larger in scope. Not only does it need to cover the literally infinite possible combinations of x86 hardware in both the desktop/laptop and server space, it now also needs to cover what is surely going to be a growing market for ARM hardware, starting with laptops, but surely expanding to desktops and servers, too. Microsoft needs to foot the bill for all of this development, and for how much longer can the company justify spending an inordinate amount of money on a massive army of Windows developers, when the revenue they bring in is such a small part of the company, and a part that’s decreasing every year, to boot? Fourth, the competition Windows faces is surprisingly strong. Not only are macOS, Chrome OS, and even the Linux desktop doing better than ever, mobile computing is also competing with Windows, and that’s a space Microsoft is simply not present in at all. This is especially pressing in the developing world, where often people’s first and only computing experience is mobile – through Android, mostly – and Microsoft and Windows simply don’t play any role. Given these facts, there’s only one reasonable course of action for Microsoft. I think the company is going to address all of these issues by releasing large parts of Windows NT as open source. I base this on a gut feeling bourne out of the above facts, and not on any form of insider information, and there is a 99.9% chance that I am wholly, completely, and utterly wrong. Still, deep down, I feel like releasing Windows as open source makes the most sense considering the challenges the operating system and its parent company are facing. You and I are going to witness Windows NT’s source code being published as open source on GitHub by Microsoft within 5-7 years, accompanied by an open governance model wherein contributions are welcomed and encouraged. Even if such a step will not be taken by Microsoft, I am convinced that, in the future, when today’s employees and executives write and publish their memoirs, it will contain a lot of discourse on the very serious consideration that took place within the company in the past to do so. You can quote me on this. And then laugh at me when it inevitable turns out I’m wrong.
Slurs against Haitian immigrants echo long history of racism in US
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Biden tackles trade loophole used by cheap Chinese e-tailers
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Removing de minimis exemption could stymie Beijing’s plans to grow its cyber-bazaar abroad
The Biden administration announced on Friday it was cracking down on a tax loophole that has enabled Chinese web souks like Shein and Temu to thrive.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/de_minimis_exemption/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-16, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Another Godot panel reimplemented, now the search/replace functionality.
I drew inspiration from both Codea and Swift Playgrounds. And VSCode for the selection:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113149834707125165
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Scripting News: How I cross-post to Threads. I move my linkblog posts to micro.blog via RSS, and it cross-posts to Threads via their API.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/16/135141.html
US military completes withdrawal from junta-ruled Niger
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
DAKAR, Senegal — The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Niger is complete, an American official said Monday.
A small number of military personnel assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy remain, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.
Earlier this year, Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement that allowed U.S. troops to operate in the West African country. A few months later, officials from both countries said in a joint statement that U.S. troops would complete their withdrawal by the middle of September.
The U.S. handed over its last military bases in Niger to local authorities last month, but about two dozen American soldiers had remained in Niger, largely for administrative duties related to the withdrawal, Singh said.
Niger’s ouster of American troops following a coup last year has broad ramifications for Washington because it’s forcing troops to abandon critical bases that were used for counterterrorism missions in the Sahel. groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group operate in the vast region south of the Sahara desert.
One of those groups, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, known as JNIM, is active in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and is looking to expand into Benin and Togo.
Niger had been seen as one of the last nations in the restive region that Western nations could partner with to beat back growing jihadi insurgencies. The U.S. and France had more than 2,500 military personnel in the region until recently, and together with other European countries had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance and training.
In recent months Niger has pulled away from its Western partners, turning instead to Russia for security. In April, Russian military trainers arrived in Niger to reinforce the country’s air defenses.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-completes-withdrawal-from-junta-ruled-niger-/7786759.html
Lilbits: Furi FLX1 Linux smartphone, Tile’s new Bluetooth trackers, and Haiki OS R1 Beta 5
date: 2024-09-16, from: Liliputing
The Furi FLX1 is a $499 smartphone from with a 6.6 inch FHD+ 120 Hz IPS LCD display, a MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 50MP primary camera. Basically it has the specs of a mid-range Android phone, but instead of Android this phone ships with a Linux-based operating […]
The post Lilbits: Furi FLX1 Linux smartphone, Tile’s new Bluetooth trackers, and Haiki OS R1 Beta 5 appeared first on Liliputing.
TikTok, US face off in court over law that could lead to ban on popular platform
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Blinken to visit Egypt for talks on securing Gaza cease-fire
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Ohio city cancels cultural festival after political furor over Haitians
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Springfield, Ohio — An Ohio city at the center of a political furor over Haitian migrants canceled its annual celebration of cultural diversity on Monday in response to days of violent threats that have closed schools and government offices. The governor, meanwhile, said resources would be surged to Springfield to help city officials deal with the fallout.
Springfield’s two-day CultureFest, which highlights diversity, arts and culture, had been scheduled to begin Sept. 27 but was canceled “in light of recent threats and safety concerns,” the city announced.
“We deeply regret having to cancel CultureFest, as we know it is a beloved event for our community,” City Manager Bryan Heck said in a statement. “However, the safety of our residents and visitors must come first.”
Springfield has been the focus of intense attention in recent days after former President Donald Trump, his running mate JD Vance, and the Republican presidential campaign have amplified debunked claims about Haitian immigrants eating domestic pets and waterfowl.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has denounced the false rumors, saying there is no evidence of it. He said at a news conference in Springfield on Monday that dozens of members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol will be stationed in Springfield schools starting Tuesday, sweeping each building every morning before the arrival of faculty or students. Security cameras have also been stationed at various spots in the city.
Springfield City Hall, several schools, and state motor vehicle offices in Springfield were forced to evacuate last week after receiving bomb threats. At least 33 separate bomb threats were made in recent days, all of them hoaxes, DeWine said. He said some of the threats came from overseas but declined to name the country.
“We cannot let the bad guys win. Our schools must remain open. They are going to remain open,” DeWine said.
Two colleges in Springfield held classes virtually on Monday. Wittenberg University said it received two threats over the weekend, “both of which were targeted toward members of the Haitian Community.” Clark State College said it would operate virtually through Friday “due to recent events in Springfield.”
Thousands of Haitian immigrants have settled in recent years in the predominantly white, blue-collar city of about 60,000, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) from the state capital of Columbus, where they have found work in factories and warehouses that had been struggling to fill job openings. The sudden influx has strained schools, health care facilities and city services and driven up the cost of housing.
President Joe Biden, appearing in Philadelphia at the National HBCU Week Conference on Monday, addressed the situation in Springfield, condemning what he called the “lies and hate.”
“It’s wrong. It’s simply wrong. And it must stop,” he said.
Amazon CEO wants his staff back in the office full time
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
And vows to cut ratio of managers-to-employees to ‘flatten’ the ranks
The COVID-19 work-from-home era is over, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has told staff in a Monday memo, signaling his desire for staff to return to working in an office five days a week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/hybrid_amazon_return_to_work/
See Footage of a Thief Breaking Into a London Gallery and Stealing Banksy’s Iconic ‘Girl With Balloon’
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Officials launched an investigation and recovered the $360,000 print less than a week after it vanished from Grove Gallery. Two men have been charged for the crime
Rare Yellow-Eyed Penguin Wins New Zealand’s Bird of the Year Contest
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The noisy-but-shy bird, known as the hoiho, has earned the most votes for a second time amid threats to its survival
The empire of C++ strikes back with Safe C++ blueprint
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You pipsqueaks want memory safety? We’ll show you memory safety! We’ll borrow that borrow checker
After two years of being beaten with the memory-safety stick, the C++ community has published a proposal to help developers write less vulnerable code.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/safe_c_plusplus/
A California Port Gambles on Dirty Hydrogen
date: 2024-09-16, from: Heatmap News
Officials at the Port of Stockton, an inland port in the Central Valley of California, were facing a problem. Under pressure from California regulators to convert all port vehicles to zero-emissions models over the next decade or so, they had made some progress, but had hit a wall.
“Right now we only have one tool, and that is to electrify everything,” Jeff Wingfield, the port’s deputy director, told me. The Port of Stockton has actually been something of a national leader in electrifying its vehicles, having converted about 40% of its cargo-handling equipment from diesel-powered to battery-electric machines to date. But there aren’t electric alternatives available for everything yet, and the electric machines they’ve purchased have come with challenges. Sensors have malfunctioned due to colder weather or moisture in the air. Maintenance can’t be done by just any mechanic; the equipment is computerized and requires knowledge of the underlying code. “We’ve had a lot of downtime with the equipment unnecessarily. And so when we’re trying to sell that culture change, you know, these things can set back the mindset and just the overall momentum,” said Wingfield.
The port also needs its tenant companies to make the switch, but according to Wingfield, they are hesitant to invest in the electric truck models available today. They’re more interested in hydrogen fuel-cell trucks, he said, which are also zero-emissions, and there’s even a vendor selling them right down the street. The problem was there was no source of hydrogen within an hour and a half of the port.
It was these conditions that got Wingfield and his colleagues excited about BayoTech, a company that wanted to build a new hydrogen plant there — even though BayoTech was going to make hydrogen from methane, the main component of natural gas, in a carbon emissions-intensive process. Hydrogen fuel-cell powered trucks don’t release any of the carbon or toxic pollutants that diesel trucks release, but the process of making the hydrogen fuel can still be dirty.
While the port was considering BayoTech’s proposal, California leadership was committing the state to building out a climate-friendly hydrogen industry. In July, the Biden administration awarded California $1.2 billion for a $12.6 billion plan to build new, zero-emissions hydrogen supply chains. “California is revolutionizing how a major world economy can clean up its biggest industries,” Governor Gavin Newsom said. “We’re going to use clean, renewable hydrogen to power our ports and public transportation – getting people and goods where they need to go, just without the local air pollution.”
Nonetheless, the port approved the fossil fuel-based hydrogen plant in August.
The case illustrates the complexities of this moment in the energy transition. At its center is a question: Should we gamble with higher emissions today on the premise that it could help lower emissions in the future? It’s a gamble that many climate advocates, guided by warnings from scientists about the consequences of continued fossil fuel use, fear will do more harm than good.
The port, which was the lead agency for the environmental review process, estimated that if all of the fuel BayoTech produced was used as a replacement for diesel, it would result in a net decrease in emissions of 4,317 metric tons of CO2 per year, which is like taking 1,000 cars off the road. Still, the plant will emit about 18 kilograms of carbon for every kilogram of hydrogen it produces — more than four times higher than the Department of Energy’s standard for “clean” hydrogen.
Climate and environmental groups in Stockton oppose the project. They’ve raised a number of concerns about it and the conditions under which it was approved, but one is the missed opportunity. “At a time when incentives are lining up for cleaner production methods,” Davis Harper, the carbon and energy program manager at the local group Restore the Delta, told me, “and at a time when the state in particular is really trying to transition away from methane, to approve a new steam methane reforming project in a community that’s already suffering from so many cumulative impacts of industrial pollution — it’s a major regression.”
Between operations at the port, highways, warehouses, and other industrial activity, Stockton ranks in the 96th percentile for pollution burden in California, and in the 100th percentile for cases of asthma. In addition to carbon dioxide, the BayoTech plant will release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. Harper and other local advocates want the community to have more of a say in shaping regional economic development and defining what its hydrogen future looks like. “I think it puts a stain on what the opportunity for hydrogen might be in the community,” he said.
But Wingfield told me it wasn’t an either/or scenario. “I mean, nobody was approaching us with a green hydrogen project,” he said. Even if someone was, Wingfield said green hydrogen was still too expensive and that no one would buy it. The port is supporting state-wide efforts to develop a more sustainable supply of hydrogen in the future, he said, “but it is slow, and for us, we need something now.”
There’s a chicken-and-egg challenge to getting a clean hydrogen economy going. In addition to a new supply of fuel, it will require investments in new vehicles, fueling stations, and modes of delivering the gas — and that’s just for trucking. Decarbonization experts also see potential to use hydrogen for cargo ships, steelmaking, and aviation. “I agree, you know, don’t wait around for the green projects that are being planned to come online,” Lew Fulton, the director of the energy futures research program at the U.C. Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, told me. “There’s a whole bunch of things we need to learn by doing. And so from that point of view, you could argue, well, in the first few years, it doesn’t matter that much what kind of hydrogen it is.”
When I asked Catharine Reid, BayoTech’s chief marketing officer, what brought the company to Stockton, she told me California is a key market and the San Joaquin Valley is currently a dead-zone for the fuel. The Regional Transit District recently purchased five new fuel-cell buses, but to fuel them, it will have to truck in hydrogen from other parts of the state. BayoTech’s business model is designed to address this kind of local need. The company builds small, modular plants and sites them as close to the point of consumption as possible to avoid the cost and emissions associated with transporting the fuel. The project in Stockton will produce just 2 tons of hydrogen per day, or enough to fill the tanks of about 50 trucks. By contrast, the average hydrogen plant in California, which mostly delivers the gas to oil refineries and fertilizer plants, produces closer to 200 tons per day. “We anticipate that that demand will be snapped up quickly,” said Reid.
The port approved the plant using an abbreviated environmental review process — another aspect that troubled the advocates I spoke to — which required BayoTech to mitigate some of its most significant impacts. To reduce pollution, the company will install equipment that cuts the plant’s nitrogen oxide emissions. It has also committed to using zero-emissions vehicles for at least 50% of deliveries. But the biggest pollutant that will come out of the plant is carbon dioxide — just over 12,000 metric tons of it per year. That’s not much compared to the average hydrogen plant. The smallest existing hydrogen plant in California, Air Products’ Sacramento facility, has the capacity to produce more than twice as much hydrogen as BayoTech will, but emitted nearly four times as much carbon in 2021, according to state data. One of BayoTech’s selling points is its technology’s efficiency.
The company has also committed to developing a community benefits plan, which is still in the works, though BayoTech has already signed an agreement to use local union labor and committed to donate $200,000 over the next four years to the community.
Part of BayoTech’s agreement with the port is that it will lower its emissions by purchasing carbon credits from producers of so-called “renewable natural gas,” or RNG, which can mean methane captured from landfills or from cow manure pits. It’s considered low-carbon because the methane would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, where it would warm the planet far more than carbon dioxide. In theory, credit sales help finance systems to capture the gas and use it for energy instead.
I asked Reid why, when there was so much focus on and funding available for clean hydrogen, like California’s $12.6 billion initiative and lucrative new federal tax credits, the company was investing in the fossil-fueled kind. She suggested that once the federal tax credit rules are finalized, the plant may in fact be eligible for the subsidies. That’s because the guidelines might allow hydrogen plants that buy RNG credits to qualify. “It’s a well established system that’s validated,” Reid said of the credits, “and the environmental benefits are there.”
It’s true that this system of RNG credits is well-established. It’s already written into California climate policy. The state has a low carbon fuel standard designed to drive down the average carbon intensity of transportation fuels over time. When it comes to calculating the carbon intensity of hydrogen for the regulations, there’s a workaround. If the hydrogen is made from natural gas, but the supplier purchases RNG credits, they can report their hydrogen as having a very low or even negative carbon intensity.
But the environmental benefits of these credits are the subject of much debate. Notably, fuel producers can buy credits from all over the country, and they don’t have to prove that their purchase had an additional effect on emissions beyond what might have happened otherwise. Though these credits may have some environmental benefit, they are certainly not causing carbon to be removed from the atmosphere, as implied by a negative carbon intensity. In an op-ed for Heatmap, scholars Emily Grubert and Danny Cullenward urged the Treasury Department not to adopt this same carbon accounting scheme for the federal tax credit, writing that it “would undermine the tax credit’s entire purpose.” They estimate that a fossil hydrogen project could qualify as zero-emissions by offsetting just 25% of its natural gas use. This could make it much harder for truly green hydrogen — like the kind made from electricity and water — to compete.
Interestingly, California’s new $12.6 billion clean hydrogen initiative appears to renounce RNG credits. A frequently asked questions page for the plan says that it “will not include the use of plastics, dairy biogas, or fossil methane paired with biomethane credits.”
Still, the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development praised the BayoTech project in public comments, writing that it would “contribute to achieving California’s ambitious climate and pollution reduction goals.”
The letter seemed to be mistaken about what it was supporting, however, noting that the facility would “utilize woody biomass, helping to address two needs — utilization of a waste stream and production of renewable hydrogen.” When I reached out to the governor’s office, spokesperson Willie Rudman told me the reference to woody biomass was an accident, “resulting from a mix-up with another project.” Still, the office supports the project, he said, due to “commitments made by the developer to utilize renewable natural gas as the feedstock, which can be transported to the production facility via existing natural gas pipelines.”
When I noted that this, too, was a mix-up, and that BayoTech would be buying RNG credits, not using the fuel directly, Rudman responded that this was a cost-effective and perfectly acceptable practice under California’s low-carbon fuel standard.
If you view BayoTech’s plant as a bridge to get the hydrogen economy underway, Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, told me, it’s important to know how to get to the other side. “Is this just a lifeline for the oil and gas industry, to give them another product that they can sell, which those profits then go back into drilling more oil and gas?” He said he wasn’t categorically opposed to the idea of using natural gas to produce hydrogen for now, as long as there were built-in mechanisms to convert the facility to zero-emissions down the line.
Wingfield of the Port of Stockton asserted that BayoTech’s plant would become cleaner over time, but the port has no such commitment in writing, and it’s also not entirely clear how. BayoTech’s Reid was not sure whether the Stockton plant would find a local source of RNG. She said the company was looking, but that it was rare to find alignment between BayoTech’s business model — putting hydrogen production very close to demand — and RNG suppliers. The only other route to cleaner production, other than completely replacing the plant with one that runs on electricity, would be to install carbon capture equipment. But Reid said the amount of carbon the plant produces will be so small that it may not justify the expense. “We continue to talk to players in the industry and evaluate what they’re bringing out commercially to see if there’s a match with our production units,” she said.
Construction on the plant will begin in a few months, Reid told me, and won’t take long. BayoTech expects to be delivering hydrogen in 2025.
https://heatmap.news/economy/hydrogen-port-stockton-bayotech
Divers Discover the Long-Lost Wreckage of a Passenger Steamship That Sank in a Hit-and-Run in 1856
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
“Le Lyonnais” descended into the depths off the coast of Massachusetts after colliding with the “Adriatic,” a sailing vessel that left the floundering steamship to fend for itself
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Pretty sure I understand why Jack Dorsey is disappointed with Bluesky. The mistake at Twitter was taking responsibility for enforcing decorum, which is diseconomic. A fully decentralized system is different. That was why he funded Bluesky, to make a social web that wouldn't have at its center a company responsible for content.
https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana?data-crypto-dot-news=undefined
Apple releases iOS/iPadOS 18, macOS 15, and a ton more
date: 2024-09-16, from: OS News
It’s Apple operating system release day, so if you’re in the Apple ecosystem, it’s like Christmas morning, but for your devices. The two major platforms are, of course, iOS/iPadOS 18: iOS 18 adds new customization options for the Home Screen, with the option to arrange apps and widgets with open spaces and add new tints to app icons. Control Center has been entirely overhauled with support for multiple pages, third-party controls, and the option to put controls on the Lock Screen and activate them with the Action Button. ↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors And macOS 15: macOS Sequoia features iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to control and monitor your iPhone right from your Mac. You can use your iPhone’s apps and get your iPhone’s notifications all while your iPhone is tucked away and locked. Window tiling has been improved to make it easier to arrange multiple windows on your Mac’s display, and there are new keyboard and menu shortcuts for organizing your windows. In Safari, Highlights will now show you the information you want most from websites, and there’s a new Viewer mode for watching videos without distractions. ↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors It doesn’t stop there, though, as Apple also released watchOS 11, visionOS 2, tvOS 18, and the most import ant most hotly anticipated out of all of Apple’s platforms, HomePod Software 18. It’s genuinely kind of staggering how Apple manages to update all of these various platforms at the same time, each coming with a ton of new features and bugfixes, and ship them out to consumers – generally without any major issues or showstoppers. Especially in the case of iOS and macOS, that’s definitely a major difference with the Windows and Android worlds, where users are confronted with strict hardware requirements, lack of update availability altogether, or just stick with previous versions because the new versions contain tons of privacy or feature regressions. Do note that Apple’s AI/ML features announced during WWDC aren’t shipping yet, and that iPhone Mirroring is not available in the EU because someone told Tim Cook “no” and he threw a hissy fit.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140756/apple-releases-ios-ipados-18-macos-15-and-a-ton-more/
Russia Is Riding an Anti-Colonial Wave Across Africa
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: RAND blog
Modern authoritarian regimes exploit anti-colonial rhetoric to advance their own geopolitical agendas and undermine Western influence. Unlike the genuine anti-colonial movements of the Cold War, today’s wave is driven by opportunistic regimes using propaganda and disinformation to inflame grievances and distract from their own interventionist actions.
macOS 15 Sequoia
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (feature list, release notes, developer, security, enterprise, full installer, IPSW): macOS Sequoia brings exciting new features, including iPhone Mirroring, which expands Continuity by enabling access to and control of iPhone directly from macOS; big updates to Safari; a new Passwords app; and more. Starting next month, macOS Sequoia will introduce Apple Intelligence, the personal […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/macos-15-sequoia/
macOS 14.7 and macOS 13.7
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (release notes, full installer): This document describes the security content of macOS Sonoma 14.7. Apple (release notes, full installer): This document describes the security content of macOS Ventura 13.7. Previously: macOS 14.6.1 macOS 13.6.9
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/macos-14-7-and-macos-13-7/
iPadOS 18
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (feature list, release notes, security, enterprise, developer): iPadOS 18 makes the iPad experience more versatile and intelligent than ever, and is available today as a free software update. iPadOS 18 brings incredible new features designed for the unique capabilities of iPad, making it even easier for users to get tasks done. With iPadOS 18, […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/ipados-18/
iOS 18
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (feature list, release notes, security, enterprise, developer): iOS 18 is now available, bringing iPhone users around the world new ways to personalize their iPhone with deeper customization to the Home Screen and Control Center; the biggest-ever redesign to Photos, making it even easier to find and relive special moments; and major enhancements to Messages […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/ios-18/
watchOS 11
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (release notes, security, developer): Apple today released watchOS 11, bringing powerful health and fitness insights, along with even more personalization, intelligence, and ways to stay connected, to the world’s most popular watch. Apple Watch now offers a feature to help identify signs of sleep apnea, and the new Vitals app allows users to quickly […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/watchos-11/
tvOS 18
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (no release notes, security, developer): Today, tvOS 18 introduces intelligent features like InSight, which displays timely information about actors, characters, and music from every live-action Apple TV+ movie and show onscreen in real time. Enhance Dialogue also gets smarter with tvOS 18, leveraging machine learning and computational audio to deliver greater vocal clarity. Subtitles […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/tvos-18/
audioOS 18
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover: The HomePod Software 18 adds the option to choose a Home Hub rather than having HomeKit select one automatically, a useful feature for people with multiple HomePods and Apple TV models.There is a new SharePlay feature, allowing multiple people to share control of what’s playing on a HomePod through Apple Music. To use […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/audioos-18/
visionOS 2
date: 2024-09-16, from: Michael Tsai
Apple (release notes, security, enterprise, developer): visionOS 2 is available today, bringing new spatial computing experiences to Apple Vision Pro users around the world. Existing photos can now be turned into spatial photos with remarkable depth and dimension, intuitive new hand gestures make navigating Vision Pro even faster and easier, and powerful enhancements to key […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/16/visionos-2/
No Longer Full of Commuters, Atlanta’s Old Subway Cars Are Now Filled With Fish
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Two Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority railcars were added to an artificial reef off the coast of Georgia to create more wildlife habitat
Engineer Zaida Hernandez
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
“I would say family and part of that ‘first-gen experience’ [shaped me]. Being born in the U.S. gave me a lot of opportunities that my family and parents were robbed of because of situations in their home country. It shaped me to be a hard worker and to aspire to large things because not only was it […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/engineer-zaida-hernandez/
Reaching New Heights to Unravel Deep Martian History!
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
The Perseverance rover is reaching new heights as it ascends the rim of Jezero crater (over 300 meters in elevation higher than the original landing site)! The rover is now enroute to its first campaign science stop Dox Castle (image in the far ground) a region of interest for its potential to host ancient Mars’ […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/reaching-new-heights-to-unravel-deep-martian-history/
Is AI Threatening Health Care Jobs? Or Just Changing Them?
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: RAND blog
Are artificial intelligence (AI)–based chatbots coming for your health care job? As with any new technology, fears over potential unintended consequences of AI abound, but haven’t been realized—for now.
Station Science Top News: September 13, 2024
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) researchers examined the structures of four titanium-based compounds solidified in levitators in microgravity and on the ground and found that the internal microstructures were generally similar. These results could support development of new materials for use in space manufacturing. To produce glass or metal alloys on Earth, raw materials are placed into a […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/station-science-top-news-september-13-2024/
Russia, Iran looking to snare, sway US voters
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
America’s adversaries are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin reports on the expanding array of sophisticated influence operations taking aim at U.S. voters
https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-iran-looking-to-snare-sway-u-s-voters-/7786467.html
Ottawa’s Fall Rhapsody
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this view of peak fall foliage around Ottawa, Canada on Oct. 14, 2020. Sugar maple leaves turn orange-red, and hickories turn golden-bronze during autumn, regionally known as “the Fall Rhapsody.” Fall color reaches its peak when air temperatures drop and shortened daylight triggers plants to slow and stop […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/ottawas-fall-rhapsody/
Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it’ll keep everyone in line
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cops to citizens will be ‘on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting’
AI is on the verge of ushering in a new era of mass surveillance, says Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, adding that his juggernaut is ready to serve as the technological backbone for such applications.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/oracle_ai_mass_surveillance_cloud/
AOOSTAR WTR Pro 4-bay NAS with Ryzen 7 5825U now available for $389 and up
date: 2024-09-16, from: Liliputing
The AOOSTAR WTR PRO is a small desktop computer designed to be used as a NAS (network attached storage device) thanks to support for up to four 3.5 inch hard drives. After introducing a model with an Intel N100 low-power processor earlier this year, AOOSTAR unveiled a higher-performance model with an AMD Ryzen 7 5825U chip in […]
The post AOOSTAR WTR Pro 4-bay NAS with Ryzen 7 5825U now available for $389 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/aoostar-launches-a-ryzen-7-5825u-version-of-the-wtr-pro-4-bay-nas/
Going Back-to-School with NASA Data
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
As students head back to school, teachers have a new tool that brings NASA satellite data down to their earthly classrooms. For over 50 years of observing Earth, NASA’s satellites have collected petabytes of global science data (that’s millions and millions of gigabytes) – with even more terabytes more coming in by the day. Since 2004, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-educators/going-back-to-school-with-nasa-data/
A Mysterious Seismic Signal Lasted Nine Days Last Year. It Was a Mega-Tsunami Caused by Climate Change, Researchers Say
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A melting glacier caused a mountain in Greenland to collapse into a narrow fjord, setting off an oscillating wave that rattled seismic detectors around the world
Pakistani man pleads not guilty to US assassination plot charges
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate an American politician in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards top commander Qassem Soleimani.
Asif Merchant, 46, entered his plea to one count of attempting to commit terrorism across national boundaries and one count of murder for hire at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy in Brooklyn.
The judge ordered that Merchant be detained pending trial.
Federal prosecutors say Merchant spent time in Iran before traveling to the United States to recruit people for the plot.
Merchant told a confidential informant he also planned to steal documents from one target and organize protests in the United States, prosecutors said.
The defendant named Donald Trump as a potential target but had not conceived the scheme as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Court papers do not name the alleged targets, and no attacks were made. As president, Trump had in 2020 approved the drone strike on Soleimani.
There are no suggestions that Merchant was tied to an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course on Sunday, or a separate shooting of the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania in July.
Merchant was arrested in Texas on July 15.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in August that the “modus operandi” described in Merchant’s court papers ran contrary to Tehran’s policy of “legally prosecuting the murder of General Soleimani.”
Suspect in apparent Trump assassination attempt had previous run-ins with the law
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Learning the basics of Fedify.
https://fedify.dev/tutorial/basics
A Thief Replaced This Iconic Churchill Portrait With a Fake. Two Years Later, the Original Has Been Recovered
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Investigators discovered that the original print of “The Roaring Lion” had been sold to a buyer in Italy
Biden decries second assassination attempt targeting Trump
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Aura at 20 Years
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
Introduction In the 1990s and early 2000s, an international team of engineers and scientists designed an integrated observatory for atmospheric composition – a bold endeavor to provide unprecedented detail that was essential to understanding how Earth’s ozone (O3) layer and air quality respond to changes in atmospheric composition caused by human activities and natural phenomena. […]
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/aura-at-20-years/
@Chris Coyier blog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Chris Coyier blog)
Jeff Bridgforth: A front-end developer is the one that makes the design come alive. He or she is the person responsible for bringing the creative vision of the designer into being through code and can even push the design further by adding the interactivity or animation layer that the designer may not have even thought […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/09/16/11581/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Who is Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the Trump golf course incident.
Milk-V DuoModule 01 Evaluation Board is a $42 single-board PC with RISC-V and ARM CPU cores
date: 2024-09-16, from: Liliputing
The Milk-V DuoModule 01 is a tiny computer-on-a-module that features integrated eMMC storage, support for WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4, and a Sophgo SG2000 processor featuring a single ARM Cortex-A53 CPU core and two XuanTie C906 RISC-V cores, as well as a microcontroller and neural processing unit. But the module itself isn’t much use unless […]
The post Milk-V DuoModule 01 Evaluation Board is a $42 single-board PC with RISC-V and ARM CPU cores appeared first on Liliputing.
Snowflake slams ‘more MFA’ button again – months after Ticketmaster, Santander breaches
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Now it’s the default for all new accounts
Snowflake continues to push forward in strengthening its users’ cybersecurity posture by making multi-factor authentication the default for all new accounts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/snowflake_mfa_default/
Elon Musk’s assassination ‘joke’ bombs, internet calls for his deportation
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘No one is trying’ to kill Biden or Harris, mogul says after alleged second attempt on Trump’s life
Calls to deport Elon Musk from the US are trending on the billionaire’s very own social media platform after he wondered aloud, following an apparent second attempt on the life of former President Trump, why no one has tried to assassinate President Biden or Veep Kamala Harris.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/calls_to_deport_elon_musk/
Techno-financial imperium
date: 2024-09-16, from: Enlightenment Economics
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman is a rip-roaring read and simultaneously terrifying. The reader is left with the clear impression of fragility in the world financial system – bad enough in … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/09/techno-financial-imperium/
This Remote Region in Spain Could Pay You Up to $16,000 to Move There
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Officials in Extremadura are hoping to attract digital nomads and tech workers in a bid to boost the region’s shrinking population
Mientras las Elecciones se Aproximan, los Republicanos Invierten Millones en Campañas Antiinmigrantes
date: 2024-09-16, from: Capital and Main
Los candidatos republicanos y sus partidarios han gastado 117 millones de dólares en propaganda en la que la problemática migratoria en la frontera pareciera una invasión.
The post Mientras las Elecciones se Aproximan, los Republicanos Invierten Millones en Campañas Antiinmigrantes appeared first on .
As Election Nears, Republicans Pour Millions Into Anti-Immigrant Ad Campaign
date: 2024-09-16, from: Capital and Main
Candidates and their supporters have spent $117 million to portray the situation at the border as an invasion.
The post As Election Nears, Republicans Pour Millions Into Anti-Immigrant Ad Campaign appeared first on .
Stuck in Space
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/16/stuck-in-space/
NanoPi Zero2 is a tiny, versatile headless PC with Gigabit Ethernet and an M.2 2230 connector for $18 and up
date: 2024-09-16, from: Liliputing
The NanoPi Zero2 is a tiny single-board computer that measures just 49.5 x 4.95 x 29mm (1.95″ x 1.95″ x 1.14″) when placed in an optional case, or just 45 x 45mm (1.77″ x 1.77″) when used without a case. But it’s a pretty versatile little machine too, with a Rockchip RK3528A quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, […]
The post NanoPi Zero2 is a tiny, versatile headless PC with Gigabit Ethernet and an M.2 2230 connector for $18 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Has it ever been suggested that journalists take an oath, similar to the one the President takes to: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Could be voluntary. Sports reporters might take a different oath.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S1-C8-1/ALDE_00001126/
Google Serves AI Slop as Top Result for One of the Most Famous Paintings in History
date: 2024-09-16, from: 404 Media Group
The first thing people saw when they searched Google for the artist Hieronymus Bosch was an AI-generated version of his Garden of Earthly Delights, one of the most famous paintings in art history.
Depending on what they are searching for, Google Search sometimes serves users a series of images above
Every webpage deserves to be a place
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/every-webpage-deserves-to-be-a-place/
Postal Service chief ‘fully committed’ to timely US ballot deliveries
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Washington — U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Monday he is “personally fully committed” to ensuring all 2024 presidential election ballots are delivered in a timely fashion and vowed to respond to concerns raised by state and local officials.
A group of about three dozen election officials from the National Association of State Election Directors and other groups on Wednesday raised serious concerns about USPS’s ability to deliver millions of ballots for the 2024 presidential election, citing questions “about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies impacting USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner.”
DeJoy said in a letter released on Monday that he would hold a call with state officials to address specific concerns.
The officials said that, despite repeated meetings with USPS election staff, “we have not seen improvement or concerted efforts to remediate our concerns.”
DeJoy said the USPS Office of Inspector General is auditing its plants and delivery units and will report any election mail issues they discover “and we will address those issues expeditiously.”
Starting Oct. 1, USPS will deploy ballot monitors and others in processing, retail and delivery units “to reinforce and amplify our policies and procedures on the ground”
USPS said on average it is currently delivering mail in 2.7 days but continues “to recommend as a common-sense measure that voters should mail their completed ballot before Election Day, and at least one week prior to their state’s deadline.”
The inspector general has said 46% of votes were cast by mail in the November 2020 presidential election, compared with 21% in the 2016 election.
USPS said in the 2020 general election, it delivered 99.89% of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days. Voting by mail in some states is set to start in the coming weeks.
Microsoft’s Copilot ‘Wave 2’ is a tsunami of unanswered questions
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
What the next few months hold for the productivity chatbot
updated Microsoft’s Copilot Wave 2 has arrived, bringing agents and unanswered questions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/microsoft_copilot_wave_2/
Time to Vote for the September 2024 + Post Topic
date: 2024-09-16, from: Computer ads from the Past
Your options are a couple of games, a Japanese computer and a word processor
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/time-to-vote-for-the-september-2024
How are you doing, consumer?
date: 2024-09-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Retail sales data out Tuesday morning will offer a peek into how consumers are doing right now. As we inch closer to the holiday shopping season, a new forecast from consulting firm Deloitte predicts that holiday spending is likely to grow this year — but not quite as much as in the recent past. We’ll discuss. Also: backlash to digital nomads, and interest rate decisions this week in the U.S., U.K, and Japan.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/how-are-you-doing-consumer
Germany’s CDU still struggling to restore data months after June cyberattack
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Putting a spanner in work for plans of opposition party to launch a comeback during next year’s elections
One of Germany’s major political parties is still struggling to restore member data more than three months after a June cyberattack targeting its systems.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/nein_luck_for_germanys_cdu/
NASA Mobilizes Resource for HBCU Scholars, Highlighted at Conference
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
NASA will spotlight its program to engage underrepresented and underserved students in science, technology, engineering, and math at the 2024 National Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Week Conference in Philadelphia, from Sunday, Sept. 15, to Thursday, Sept. 19. As part of the White House’s initiative to advance educational equity and economic opportunities through HBCUs, […]
Easter Island’s Ancient Population Never Faced Ecological Collapse, Suggests Another Study
date: 2024-09-16, from: Smithsonian Magazine
New DNA analysis adds to growing research indicating the famous Pacific island did not collapse from overuse of resources before the arrival of Europeans
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Comments on Manton's piece on cross-posting in the twitterverse.
https://micro.blog/manton/45594373
Snowflake’s Unistore still on ice years after announcement
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Cloud unicorn struggles to make database that can do everything ‘margin positive’
Two years after announcing a database that can do analytics and transactions in the same system, Snowflake has yet to commercially launch Unistore, its CFO admitted.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/snowflake_unistore_delay/
The Air Force Is Researching a ‘MAD.AI’ That Would Adapt Drones to New Environments
date: 2024-09-16, from: 404 Media Group
The Air Force has contracted with a company called Qylur, whose tool is designed to continuously improve the AI systems of autonomous devices such as drones and UAVs.
Extreme Floods Are Devastating Europe
date: 2024-09-16, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Severe flooding in west and central Africa has displaced nearly one million people • Brazil is choking on wildfire smoke that can be seen from space • Shanghai was struck by Typhoon Bebinca, the strongest storm to hit the city in 75 years.
THE TOP FIVE
- Parts of Europe washed out by flooding from Storm Boris
Flooding across central and eastern Europe has killed at least 10 people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. Since late last week, the slow-moving Storm Boris has dumped huge amounts of rain on the region, causing dams to burst and rivers to overflow and inundating communities in Austria, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Parts of eastern Germany are also on alert. In the Austrian capital of Vienna, the Wien River’s water level rose from about 20 inches to more than seven feet in the course of a day. Meanwhile some mountain regions received more than three feet of snow. In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk today declared a state of natural disaster. According to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, the floods could be the worst since 2002.
Flooding
in
ViennaChristian
Bruna/Getty Images
The European Environment Agency has warned that flooding is likely to be “one of the most serious effects from climate change in Europe over coming decades.”
- Tropical cyclone approaches Carolinas
Both U.S. coasts are experiencing wild weather but of very different kinds. The National Hurricane Center issued tropical storm warnings for the Carolinas as “Tropical Cyclone Eight” approaches with 50 mph winds. The system could bring up to 8 inches of rain and flash floods. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, parts of California are expecting snow. The state issued its earliest snow advisory in 20 years for the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where up to 4 inches could fall through Monday afternoon.
- A quick roundup of COP29 developments
With COP29 now less than two months away, key players are working hard to lay the groundwork for the outcomes they’d like to see from the annual climate summit. Here are some recent developments:
- Host country Azerbaijan plans to call for a six-fold increase in energy storage capacity by 2030 at the summit in November, according to Bloomberg. The Global Green Energy Storage Pledge will ask more than 190 countries to back the goal, which would see storage capacity reach 1,500 gigawatts, up from 230 GW in 2022.
- A new report from the UN’s Standing Committee on Finance says $500 billion is needed each year to help poor nations adapt to climate change and transition to renewable energy. Setting a new goal on climate finance – up from $100 billion annually – will be one of the main agenda items in Baku.
- Large oil-producing countries are reportedly trying to impede any further progress on the global plan to phase out fossil fuels. Negotiators for western countries told the Financial Times that they’re exerting pressure on Azerbaijan to prioritize conversations at COP29 about how to go forward with the phase out, which was agreed at last year’s summit in Dubai. One negotiator told the FT that large emitters may try to use the finance negotiations to “block any meaningful progress on mitigation.”
- Study: U.S. to see rise in weather-related supply chain disruptions
A recent study finds that the risk of weather-related supply chain disruptions will rise more in the U.S. than in any other country over the next 15 years. This is because the country is starting from a pretty low baseline risk, thanks to the interconnectivity of all the states. “If a heatwave or period of extreme rainfall hits one part of the U.S., it is easily able to import goods and services from other areas,” CarbonBrief explained. But the risk won’t stay that low forever, and indeed the authors note that the U.S. “is subject to the strongest relative increases in consumption risks” through 2040 as weather shocks increase.
- Tesla’s surging Cybertruck sales are turning heads
Tesla sold 5,175 Cybertrucks in July, according to data from S&P Global Mobility. Sales of all other EV pickups combined during that month reached 5,546. Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor and energy systems engineering expert (and co-host of Heatmap’s climate podcast Shift Key) predicted back in December that the Cybertruck would be crushed by EV pickup rivals like the Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian’s R1. But now…
THE KICKER
The U.S. Postal Service recently started rolling out its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles — most of which will be electric. The vehicles may not be beautiful, but as Paul Waldman argued for Heatmap, if you want to normalize EVs, “what better way than to have a funky-looking EV rolling down your street every day, delivering mail to your door?”
https://heatmap.news/climate/europe-flood-storm-boris-climate
HPE CEO: ‘Best interest of shareholders’ to pursue $4B damages from Lynch estate
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘These are difficult decisions,’ says Antonio Neri
Antonio Neri, the former engineer turned chief executive at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, says the company has to pursue its $4 billion claim against former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch’s estate because it is “in the best interest of shareholders.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/hpe_lynch_damages/
55 Years Ago: Space Task Group Proposes Post-Apollo Plan to President Nixon
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
The Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 completed the goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade. At the time, NASA planned nine more Apollo Moon landing missions of increasing complexity and an Earth […]
Prison just got rougher as band of heinously violent cybercrims sentenced to lengthy stints
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Orchestrators of abductions, torture, crypto thefts, and more get their comeuppance
One cybercriminal of the most violent kind will spend his best years behind bars, as will 11 of his thug pals for a string of cryptocurrency robberies in the US.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/prison_just_got_rougher_as/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
If you ever think there’s no beauty in the details, watch this episode of The Bear. It stands alone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forks_(The_Bear)
Remembering Iris Harrelson
date: 2024-09-16, from: Doc Searls (at Harvard), New Old Blog
In the late ’70s, I worked for a while at the Psychical Research Foundation, which then occupied a couple of houses on Duke University property and did scientific research into the possibility of life after death. My time there was a lever that has lifted my life on Earth ever since, including many deep and […]
https://doc.searls.com/2024/09/16/remembering-iris-harrelson/
ESA and Neuraspace ink 2-year deal for Space Traffic wrangling
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Multi-million euro package to control satellite swerving and debris dodging
Neuraspace and the European Space Agency have signed a multi-million Euro contract spanning two years for the Portuguese company’s skills in space traffic management (STM).…
A new type of TikTok dance — one in court
date: 2024-09-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Later today, TikTok and U.S. government lawyers will face off at the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. It’s a crucial hearing that will help determine the fate of the video-sharing app in the United States, which could potentially be banned over national security concerns. Then, to kick off our “Office Politics” series examining how companies are responding to polarization, we’ll hear from Sticker Mule’s CEO about endorsing Trump and denouncing political divisiveness.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-new-type-of-tiktok-dance-one-in-court
Scaling: The State of Play in AI
date: 2024-09-16, from: One Useful Thing
A brief intergenerational pause…
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/scaling-the-state-of-play-in-ai
Soccer’s “trial of the century” starts
date: 2024-09-16, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: A hearing looking into the English club Manchester City’s alleged breaking of the Premier League’s financial rules is underway. The outcome could have enormous ramifications for the Premier League as a whole. Plus, Shanghai — China’s financial hub — has been hit by its worst typhoon in 70 years. And it’s becoming increasingly popular to travel while working remotely, but in some cities, there’s been a backlash against so-called “digital nomads.”
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/soccers-trial-of-the-century-starts
Chrome on the Mac uses less battery than Safari
date: 2024-09-16, from: OS News
It’s one of the most pervasive common wisdoms shared all over the web, no matter where you go – it’s one of those things everybody seems to universally agree on: Chrome will absolutely devastate your battery life on the Mac, and you should really be using Safari, because Apple’s special integration magic pixie dust sprinkles ensures Safari sips instead of gulps electricity. Whether you read random forum posters, Apple PR spokespeople, or Apple’s own executives on stage during events, this wisdom is hard to escape. Is it true, though? Well, Matt Birchler decided to do something entirely revolutionary and entirely unheard of: a benchmark. Back in the olden days of yore, we would run benchmarks to test the claims from companies and their PR departments, and Birchler decided to dust off this old technique and develop a routine to put the Chrome battery claims to the test. After 3 days of continuous testing on a freshly installed 14” MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro processor and 16 GB RAM running the latest stable releases of both browsers, Birchler came to some interesting conclusions. In my 3-hour tests, Safari consumed 18.67% of my battery each time on average, and Chrome averaged 17.33% battery drain. That works out to about 9% less battery drain from Chrome than Safari. Yes, you read that right, I found Chrome was easier on my battery than Safari. While I did experience some variability in each 3 hour test run, Chrome came out on top in 5 of the 6 direct comparisons. ↫ Matt Birchler His methodology seems quite sound and a good representation of what most laptop users will use their browser for: YouTube, social media, a few news websites, and editing a Google Doc, in a 20 minute loop that was repeated for three hours per test. Multiple of these three hour tests were then ran to counter variability. I highly doubt using different websites will radically change the results, but I obviously am curious to see a similar test ran on Windows and Linux, x86 and ARM, for a more complete picture that goes beyond just the Mac. Conventional wisdom is sometimes wrong, and I think we have a classic case of that here. While there may have been a time in the past where Chrome on the Mac devastated battery life, it seems Chrome and Chromium engineers have closed the gap, and in some cases even beat Safari. Now, this doesn’t mean everybody should rush and switch to Chrome, since there are countless other reasons to use Safari over Chrome other than supposed battery life advantages. With Apple PR arguing that alternative browser engines should not be allowed on iOS because Chrome would devastate iOS’ battery life, tests like these are more important than ever, and I hope we’re going to see more of them. Tech media always just seems to copy/paste whatever manufacturers and corporations claim without so much as a hint of skepticism, and this benchmark highlights the dangers of doing so, in case you didn’t already know believing corporations was a terribly idea.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140751/chrome-on-the-mac-uses-less-battery-than-safari/
The future of software? Imagine a bot, stamping on a human face – forever
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Automation is driving the next wave of commoditization, threatening to replace skilled workers
Part 1 As we have said before, the software industry has a decades-long history of cost-cutting, commoditization, and a successful sales model of “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap.” This has worrying consequences if your skill set is the next one to be commoditized. But there may be ways out of this narrowing commercial bottleneck.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/the_future_of_software_part_one/
10 amazing Raspberry Pi Zero projects | #MagPiMonday
date: 2024-09-16, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
The tiny microcomputer is still an incredible piece of kit.
The post 10 amazing Raspberry Pi Zero projects | #MagPiMonday appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/10-amazing-raspberry-pi-zero-projects-magpimonday/
Telcos scolded for unwanted erection of utility poles in race to wire up Britain
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Telecoms minister pleads with operators to work together
The UK issue of multiplying telegraph poles is arising again, with telecoms minister Chris Bryant meeting operators over sharing their infrastructure and consulting residents before installation.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/uk_telegraph_poles/
NASA Johnson Honors Hispanic Heritage: Meet Manuel Retana
date: 2024-09-16, from: NASA breaking news
Manuel Retana arrived in the U.S. at 15 years old, unable to speak English and with nothing but a dream and $200 in his pocket. Now, he plays a crucial role implementing life support systems on spacecraft that will carry humans to the Moon and, eventually, Mars—paving the way for the next frontier of space […]
RISE with SAP sinking year on year
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Gartner: ERP giant’s flagship cloud-and-upgrade package falls as a ratio of total sales with support deadline looming
Updated The latest figures from Gartner indicate SAP is struggling to convince users of the value of its RISE with SAP package, launched to accelerate users’ ERP upgrades and switch to the cloud.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/gartner_finds_rise_with_sap/
The Coast Guard will hear from former OceanGate employees about the Titan implosion
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Condemnations, calls for better Secret Service protection follow apparent Trump assassination attempt
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
House Republicans break with Trump in vow to accept 2024 election results.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/14/house-republicans-trump-2024-election
Tito Jackson, member of the Jackson 5, has died at 70, family says
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
China’s quantum* crypto tech may be unhackable, but it’s hardly a secret
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
- Quite Unlikely A New Technology’s Useful, Man
Opinion We have a new call to arms in the 21st century battlefront between the West and China. The Middle Kingdom is building an uncrackable national infrastructure based on quantum key distribution (QKD). The laws of physics are being used against us, and we’re not keeping up, claims a think tank.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/opinion_column_quantum/
I don’t know what pressing Delete will do, but it seems safe enough!
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You’ve got mail … actually no, you’ve got nothing
Who, Me? Welcome once again to yet another Monday and another instalment of Who, Me? in which Register readers own up to the … let’s say “learning experiences” … they’ve enjoyed up in their careers.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/who_me/
250 million-plus unused IPv4 addresses should be left alone, argues network boffin
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tests show it’s just too hard to put the unused 240/4 block to work
The 240/4 block of IPv4 addresses – the six percent of the available IPv4 space that is currently not available for public use – should be left alone rather than being added to the pool of available internet resources, according to Geoff Huston, chief scientist of the Asia Pacific Network Internet Center.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/240_4_ipv4_block_unnecessary/
Bank fines HPE’s financial services arm in India
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Alleges its governance was MIA and its KYC SNAFU
The Reserve Bank of India has fined HP Financial Services (India) the equivalent of $12,400 for not complying with regulations – some related to know your customer (KYC) measures – and failing to have necessary IT committees.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/india_rbi_fines_hpe_fs/
Indian central bank fines HP’s financial services arm
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Alleges its governance was MIA and its KYC SNAFU
The Reserve Bank of India has fined HP Financial Services the equivalent of $12,400 for not complying with regulations – some related to Know Your Customer (KYC) measures – and failing to have necessary IT committees.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/india_rbi_fines_hp_finance/
Trump safe after second assassination attempt, authorities say
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
Donald Trump is safe after what officials say was the second, unsuccessful assassination attempt in two months. The FBI took the lead after Sunday’s shooting with the suspect in custody – and with Americans facing another dramatic event in what is already a high-stakes, high-drama election. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
China wants red flags on all AI-generated content posted online
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Visible and audible warnings, plus metadata, with absence of info considered suspicious
China’s internet regulator on Saturday proposed a strict regime that will, if adopted, require digital platforms to label content created by artificial intelligence.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/china_ai_content_draft_regulations/
‘Shogun’ and ‘Hacks’ win top series Emmy Awards
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — “Hacks” won the comedy series at Sunday’s Emmy Awards, topping “The Bear,” which took home several of the night’s honors.
“Shogun” won the best drama series win, collecting a whopping 18 Emmys for its first season, just one of several historic wins.
Hiroyuki Sanada won best actor in a drama for “Shogun” on Sunday night at the Emmy Awards, and Anna Sawai won best actress as they became the first two Japanese actors to win Emmys.
Their wins gave the FX series momentum going into one of the night’s top awards, where “Shogun” won best drama series.
“The Bear” came back for seconds in a big way at the ceremony four times including best actor, best supporting actor and best supporting actress in a comedy, while British upstart “Baby Reindeer” won four of its own, including best limited series.
The star of FX’s “The Bear” Jeremy Allen White won best actor in a comedy for the second straight year, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach repeated as best supporting actor.
A surprise came when Liza Colón-Zayas won best supporting actor over major competition.
“How could I have thought it would be possible to be in the presence of Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett,” Colón-Zayas said as tears welled in her eyes as she accepted the award on the stage of the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
She is the first Latina to win in the category.
“To all the Latinas who are looking at me,” she said, “keep believing and vote.”
Netflix’s darkly quirky “Baby Reindeer” won best actor and best writing for the show’s creator and star Richard Gadd and best supporting actress for Jessica Gunning, who plays his tormentor.
Accepting the best limited series award, Gadd urged the makers of television to take chances.
“The only constant across any success in television is good storytelling,” he said. “Good storytelling that speaks to our times. So take risks, push boundaries. Explore the uncomfortable. Dare to fail in order to achieve.”
“Baby Reindeer” is based on a one man-stage show in which Gadd describes being sexually abused along with other emotional struggles.
Accepting that award, he said, “no matter how bad it gets, it always gets better.”
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Gadd has.
Jodie Foster won her first Emmy to go with her two Oscars when she took best actress in a limited series for “True Detective: Night Country.”
The creator of “The Bear” was also a repeat winner. Christopher Storer took his second straight Emmy for directing, an award handed out by reunited “Happy Days” co-stars Ron Howard and Henry Winkler.
White said backstage that he was watching in the wings as Colón-Zayas won and “that was just the greatest.”
He also shouted out two acting wins the show had already scored at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards, when Jamie Lee Curtis won best guest actress in a comedy for playing his mother, and Jon Bernthal won best guest actor for playing his big brother.
“The Bear” won six times including most of the top comedy categories at the strike-delayed Emmys in January.
While the third season of FX’s “The Bear” has already dropped, the trio won their second Emmys for its second, in which White’s chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto attempts to turn his family’s grungy Chicago sandwich shop into an elite restaurant. It could still win more Sunday night including best comedy series.
The father-son hosting duo of Eugene and Dan Levy in their monologue at the top of the show mocked the very dramatic “The Bear” being in the comedy category.
“In honor of ‘The Bear’ we will be making no jokes,” Eugene Levy said, to laughs.
Jean Smart won best actress in a comedy for “Hacks.” She has won for all three seasons of “Hacks,” and has six Emmys overall.
She beat nominees including Ayo Edebiri, who as co-star of “The Bear” moved from supporting actress, which she won in January, to lead actress.
Coming into the show the big story was “Shogun,” which had already taken the most Emmys for a show in a single season with 14 at the Creative Arts ceremony.
The FX series about lordly politicking in feudal Japan can still win best drama series.
If “Shogun” faces competition for the best drama prize, it could come for the sixth and final season of “The Crown,” the only show among the nominees that has won before in a category recently dominated by the retired “Succession.”
Elizabeth Debicki took best supporting actress in a drama for playing Princess Diana at the end of her life in the sixth and final season of the show.
“Playing this part, based on this unparalleled, incredible human being, has been my great privilege,” Debicki said. “It’s been a gift.”
Billy Crudup won best actor in a drama for “The Morning Show.”
Streep wasn’t the only Oscar winner trumped by a little-known name. Robert Downey Jr., the reigning best supporting actor winner for “Oppenheimer,” was considered the favorite to win best supporting actor in a limited series for “The Sympathizer,” but that award went to Lamorne Morris for “Fargo.”
“Robert Downey Jr. I have a poster of you in my house!” Morris said from the stage as he accepted his first Emmy.
Several awards were presented by themed teams from TV history, including sitcom dads George Lopez, Damon Wayans and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and TV moms Meredith Baxter, Connie Britton, and Susan Kelechi Watson.
https://www.voanews.com/a/shogun-and-hacks-win-top-series-emmy-awards/7785693.html
The winners: 76th annual Emmy Awards
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — The 76th annual Emmy Awards were handed out Sunday at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
“Shogun” set a single season record for most wins with 18. “Shogun” won best drama series, and Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai won acting awards for their roles.
“Hacks’’ won the award for best comedy series.”Baby Reindeer” and “The Bear’’ won four awards apiece.
Early winners included Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jeremy Allen White and Liza Colón-Zayas, who won awards for their work in the comedy series “The Bear.”
Stars presenting Emmys to their peers included: Billy Crystal, Viola Davis, Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, Maya Rudolph and Martin Sheen.
Several actors and shows, including Rudolph, won last week. Rudolph won her sixth Emmy Award at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys for her voice work on “Big Mouth.” Jamie Lee Curtis also picked up a supporting actress Emmy last weekend for her appearance on “The Bear.”
Here’s a list of winners at Sunday’s Emmys:
Supporting actor in a comedy series
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”
Supporting actor in a drama series
Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”
Actor in a comedy series
Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
Supporting actress in a comedy series
Liza Colón-Zayas, “The Bear”
Supporting actress in a drama series
Elizabeth Debicki, “The Crown”
Actress in a comedy series
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Reality competition program
“The Traitors,” Peacock
Supporting actress limited
Jessica Gunning, “Baby Reindeer”
Scripted variety series
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” HBO/Max
Writing for a variety special
Alex Edelman, “Just for Us”
Directing for a limited or anthology series
Steven Zaillian, “Ripley”
Writing for a comedy series
Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, “Hacks”
Talk series
“The Daily Show,” Comedy Central
Supporting actor in a limited or anthology series
Lamorne Morris, “Fargo”
Writing for a drama series
Will Smith, “Slow Horses”
Writing for a limited series, anthology or movie
Richard Gadd, “Baby Reindeer”
Directing for a comedy series
Christopher Storer, “The Bear”
Governors award
Greg Berlanti
Directing for a drama series
Frederick E.O. Toye, “Shogun”
Actor in a limited, anthology series or movie
Richard Gadd, “Baby Reindeer”
Actress in a limited, anthology series or movie
Jodie Foster, “True Detective: Night Country”
Limited, anthology series or movie
“Baby Reindeer”
Actor in a drama series
Hiroyuki Sanada, “Shogun”
Actress in a drama series
Anna Sawai, “Shogun”
Drama series
“Shogun”
Comedy series
“Hacks”
https://www.voanews.com/a/the-winners-76th-annual-emmy-awards/7785694.html
23andMe settles class-action breach lawsuit for $30 million
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Also: Apple to end NSO Group lawsuit; Malicious Python dev job offers; Dark web kingpins busted; and more
Infosec In Brief Genetic testing outfit 23andMe has settled a proposed class action case related to a 2023 data breach for $30 million.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/security_in_brief/
Small town in Kansas finds itself at the center of abortion debate
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
PITTSBURG, Kan. — The Rev. Anthony Navaratnam stood before his congregation and urged them to pray for the women from surrounding states who will flock to the new abortion clinic in town that opened in August.
“God is giving us an opportunity to be missionaries in Pittsburg, Kansas,” he told those at Flag Church, which hosted a training on how to protest outside of the clinic.
The debate over reproductive rights has landed in this college town of 20,000 in the southeast corner of one of the few states left in the region still allowing abortions. It is near Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas and not terribly far from Texas.
A place this size, especially one in a historically red state, was unlikely to have an abortion clinic before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Since then, Kansas has become one of five states that people are most likely to travel to in order to get an abortion when they’re unable to at home, said Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policies.
Abortions spiked in Kansas by 152% after Roe, according to a recent analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Using Myers’ count, six of the clinics in Kansas, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia that have opened or relocated post-Roe are in communities with fewer than 25,000 people. Two others are in communities of fewer than 50,000.
“Kansas is really the only one in this region that can provide care to many people in these surrounding states,” said Kensey Wright, a member of the board of directors for the Roe Fund in Oklahoma, which supports Kansas abortion clinics through grants.
“Without abortion clinics in that state, we would be without hope,” Wright said.
Providing abortions for out-of-state people
Housed in a former urology office, Pittsburg’s Planned Parenthood clinic sits across the street from a medical clinic run by a Catholic health care system. Behind the clinic are houses.
Clinic manager Logan Rink said her mother used to work in this building as a nurse — a connection that’s “small-town stuff.” She loves this town, and said her neighbors agree the clinic is needed. But she was guarded in her optimism, saying ” the reception that we are going to get from the community is going to be favorable in some ways and probably not always.”
Experts said smaller-sized clinics can be less overwhelming for women who are coming from rural areas, like those surrounding Pittsburg. But there is no anonymity in these smaller communities, where religious and family ties often run deep. Pittsburg was established in 1876, and settled largely by immigrants from Catholic-leaning countries who came to work at surrounding coal mines. There’s a typical main street and a state university with about 7,400 students.
“In a small town, it’s not just that you’ll know that person. Your family will know them. You will have known them for 40 years,” said Dr. Emily Walters, a supporter of the Pittsburg clinic who works as an anesthesiologist at a hospital in neighboring Missouri. “Your stories will be intertwined.”
She wondered aloud, “How do I see you at a protest and then see you the next day at the grocery store and still be able to be polite and civil with each other?”
Walters also chairs the Crawford County Democratic Party in an area that is increasingly Republican and has no Democratic state legislators — a change from 20 years ago when there were six. The county also has become increasingly religious in the same span; it now has twice as many white evangelical Protestants as the national average, and slightly more Catholics, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
Just five weeks after Roe was overturned in 2022, voters in Kansas had to decide whether to strip the right to an abortion from the state constitution, which could have led to an outright ban. Despite the Republican and religious leanings, 55% of Crawford County voters were part of the 59% of voters statewide who killed the proposal.
It’s in line with an Associated Press-NORC poll from 2024 that showed 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason. But the rural counties that surrounded Pittsburg chose otherwise at the ballot box.
“I remember people were stealing yard signs, putting up different ones in people’s yards,” said Anastin Journot, an 18-year-old from Independence, Kansas, who is majoring in elementary education at Pittsburg State. She said she was alarmed by Roe getting overturned, remembering she thought: “What if I’m in a situation where I’m needing to get an abortion and it’s not an option?”
Abortion in Kansas is generally legal up until the 22nd week of pregnancy. The clinic’s southern location puts it closer to states that have banned abortions instead of sending people to Kansas’ larger cities, where hours have been expanded and appointments are still in short supply.
About 60% to 65% of people who call Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas for an abortion appointment are turned away because there isn’t enough capacity, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Already, Wales said, the bulk of people seeking abortions in Kansas are from out of state — mostly Texas, which is about five hours south. After that, it’s Missouri, a few minutes’ drive east and Oklahoma, less than an hour away. She said some come from as far away as Louisiana and even Florida, which now prohibits the procedure after six weeks.
Clinics “strategically placed near (a state’s) border can really help ease the congestion,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California San Francisco who studies abortion.
Most of the area that’s 100 miles from the new clinic has been designated as medically underserved for primary care by the federal government, and the number of obstetricians and gynecologists for every 100,000 female residents is less than half of the U.S. average.
For now, though, the focus at the Pittsburg clinic will be on abortion. Wales said Planned Parenthood wants to slowly add more services over the next two to three months, and one future goal for the clinic is to provide gender-affirming care. Neighboring states have restricted that, too.
“Pittsburg is going to lift up a whole lot of states in the South and help people get care,” Wales said.
But those additions, she added, will come after staff gets used to the patients and the presence of protesters and opposition.
Protesters are at the ready
Donations are up at Vie Medical Clinic, the town’s crisis pregnancy center, executive director Megan Newman said. Such centers are typically religiously affiliated and encourage clients to continue their pregnancies.
People opposed to the Planned Parenthood clinic also are picking up pamphlets about Vie so they can hand them out to those seeking abortions. “When we got word that Planned Parenthood was coming, you could just kind of feel that in the town,” Newman said.
Jeanne Napier, a 68-year-old who attends a local Baptist church, vowed as she shopped at the local mall that she’ll “be there every day with signs.”
Her daughter, Terri Napier, said in a phone interview she believes part of her parents’ opposition to the clinic is from watching her struggle about 20 years ago. She was in an abusive relationship with someone who has since died. She got pregnant. The family was fearful of bringing a child into the situation.
She had an abortion and spiraled into drug use. “I was at war with forgiving myself,” said the 43-year-old, who is now clean.
Jeanne Napier said she felt like she encouraged the abortion. “And I hate that,” she said, “because I wish I could take that sin upon myself, so it’s real personal. I had an active play in terminating a life, and we don’t have that right.”
Brianna Barnes, a 19-year-old journalism major at Pittsburg State who is from Wichita, has protested and prayed outside of a clinic in her hometown.
“If someone made eye contact with us, we just smiled at them, kind of showing that love and care because no one responds well to screaming, yelling, violence no matter what side it’s on,” she said just after arriving on campus for the fall semester. Most of the students the AP talked to voiced support for the clinic.
Her mother, Crystal Barnes, 42, turned to her daughter: “You’re going to be the odd man out being a Catholic, and conservative, especially with things like abortion. It is so heated.”
The Friday before the clinic opened, crews installed a wooden facade outside, the air filled with the smell of fresh-cut lumber. Walters, the local anesthesiologist, had stopped by to check on the progress.
Walters’ support comes from a personal place. When she was 20 and the same number of weeks pregnant, she went to an emergency room, bleeding. She said she was sent home to miscarry instead of having her labor induced or having a procedure to remove the fetus.
That experience — “horrific, and wouldn’t be considered standard of care, in modern practice,” she said — left her with a deep empathy for women in tough positions.
Just before the 2022 vote, an ad backed by 400 Kansas doctors who support abortion rights ran in some of the state’s largest papers, including The Kansas City Star. Walters’ name was listed first. During that time, her home address appeared online, a frightening prospect in a state where abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot dead in 2009 at his Wichita church by an anti-abortion extremist.
“It is critical health care for women,” she said. “It is going to be disruptive to Pittsburg. And that part hurts my heart.”
Which candidate is better for tech innovation? Venture capitalists divided on Harris or Trump
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — Being a venture capitalist carries a lot of prestige in Silicon Valley. Those who choose which startups to fund see themselves as fostering the next big waves of technology.
So when some of the industry’s biggest names endorsed former President Donald Trump and the onetime venture capitalist he picked for a running mate, JD Vance, people took notice.
Then hundreds of other venture capitalists — some high profile, others lesser-known — threw their weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris, drawing battle lines over which presidential candidate will be better for tech innovation and the conditions startups need to thrive.
Venture capitalist and Harris backer Stephen DeBerry says some of his best friends support Trump. Though centered in a part of Northern California known for liberal politics, the investors who help finance the tech industry have long been a more politically divided bunch.
“We ski together. Our families are together. We’re super tight,” said DeBerry, who runs the Bronze Venture Fund. “This is not about not being able to talk to each other. I love these guys — they’re almost all guys. They’re dear friends. We just have a difference of perspective on policy issues.”
It remains to be seen if the more than 700 venture capitalists who’ve voiced support for a movement called “VCs for Kamala” will match the pledges of Trump’s well-heeled supporters such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
“There are a lot of practical reasons for VCs to support Trump,” including policies that could drive corporate profits and stock market values and favor wealthy benefactors, said David Cowan, an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners. But Cowan said he is supporting Harris as a VC with a “long-term investment horizon” because a “Trump world reeling from rampant income inequality, raging wars and global warming is not an attractive environment” for funding healthy businesses.
Several prominent VCs have voiced their support for Trump on Musk’s social platform X. Public records show some of them have donated to a new, pro-Trump super PAC called America PAC, whose donors include powerful tech industry conservatives with ties to SpaceX and Paypal and who run in Musk’s social circle. Also driving support is Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrency and promise to end an enforcement crackdown on the industry.
Although some Biden policies have alienated parts of the investment sector concerned about tax policy, antitrust scrutiny or overregulation, Harris’ bid for the presidency has reenergized interest from VCs who until recently sat on the sidelines.
“We buy risk, right? And we’re trying to buy the right type of risk,” Leslie Feinzaig, founder of “VCs for Kamala” said in an interview. “It’s really hard for these companies that are trying to build products and scale to do so in an unpredictable institutional environment.”
The schism in tech has left some firms split in their allegiances. Although venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, founders of the firm that is their namesake, endorsed Trump, one of their firm’s general partners, John O’Farrell, pledged his support for Harris. O’Farrell declined further comment.
Doug Leone, the former managing partner of Sequoia Capital, endorsed Trump in June, expressing concern on X “about the general direction of our country, the state of our broken immigration system, the ballooning deficit, and the foreign policy missteps, among other issues.” But Leone’s longtime business partner at Sequoia, Michael Moritz, wrote in the Financial Times that tech leaders supporting Trump “are making a big mistake.”
Much of the VC discourse about elections is in response to a July podcast and manifesto in which Andreessen and Horowitz backed Trump and outlined their vision of a “Little Tech Agenda” that they said contrasted with the policies sought by Big Tech.
They accused the U.S. government of increasing hostility toward startups and the VCs who fund them, citing Biden’s proposed higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations and regulations they said could hobble emerging industries involving blockchain and artificial intelligence.
Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio who spent time in San Francisco working at Thiel’s investment firm, voiced a similar perspective about “little tech” more than a month before he was chosen as Trump’s running mate.
“The donors who were really involved in Silicon Valley in a pro-Trump way, they’re not big tech, right? They’re little tech. They’re starting innovative companies. They don’t want the government to destroy their ability to innovate,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News in June.
Complicating the allegiances is that a tough approach to breaking up the monopoly power of big corporations no longer falls along partisan lines. Vance has spoken favorably of Lina Khan, who Biden picked to lead the Federal Trade Commission and has taken on several tech giants. Meanwhile, some of the most influential VCs backing Harris — such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, an early investor in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI — have sharply criticized Khan’s approach.
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat whose California district encompasses part of Silicon Valley, said Trump supporters are a vocal minority reflecting a “third or less” of the region’s tech community. But while the White House has appealed to tech entrepreneurs with its investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and semiconductors, Khanna said Democrats must do a better job of showing that they understand the appeal of digital assets.
Naseem Sayani, a general partner at Emmeline Ventures, said Andreessen and Horowitz’s support of Trump became a lightning rod for those in tech who do not back the Republican nominee. Sayani signed onto “VCs for Kamala,” she said, because she wanted the types of businesses that she helps fund to know that the investor community is not monolithic.
“We’re not single-profile founders anymore,” she said. “There’s women, there’s people of color, there’s all the intersections. How can they feel comfortable building businesses when the environment they’re in doesn’t actually support their existence in some ways?”
Plunging printer sales see Japan’s Ricoh plan 2,000 redundancies
date: 2024-09-16, updated: 2024-09-16, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: Superapps in trouble across Asia; Indonesia connectivity doubles; Alibaba turns 25; and more!
ASIA IN BRIEF Japanese imaging device manufacturer Ricoh last week announced plans to cut 2,000.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/16/asian_tech_news_in_brief/
Trump unharmed after second assassination attempt, authorities say
date: 2024-09-16, from: VOA News USA
washington — Former U.S. President Donald Trump thanked the Secret Service and local police late Sunday, after what the FBI said was an apparent assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“I would like to thank everyone for your concerns and well wishes – It was certainly an interesting day!” Trump said on his Truth Social service. “The job was done outstanding.”
The incident, in which Trump was not hurt, came two months after he was shot in the ear during a campaign event in Pennsylvania.
Members of Trump’s security detail were securing areas of the golf course ahead of where Trump was playing Sunday when they spotted a gunman in the bushes. Secret Service agents fired at the suspect, who fled the area and was later arrested.
The local sheriff said the suspect left behind an “AK-47-style rifle” with a scope, a GoPro camera and two backpacks.
“The Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, in a briefing held by law enforcement shortly after. “What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at. And he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual, at which time the individual took off.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said in a Sunday evening statement that he was relieved Trump was unharmed.
“As I have said many times, there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country, and I have directed my team to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the November presidential election, said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump.”
“As President Biden said, our Administration will ensure the Secret Service has every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to carry out its critical mission,” Harris said in a statement.
Various national media sources, including The Associated Press, The New York Times and Fox News Channel, cited unnamed law enforcement officials who identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii. Those officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Social media posts show Routh backing Trump’s 2020 election campaign, but more recent posts expressing support for Biden and Harris.
Routh also repeatedly discussed the war in Ukraine and appeared to try to recruit soldiers to aid in Ukraine’s war effort.
Trump has not announced any changes to his schedule and is set to speak live on X on Monday night from his Mar-a-Lago resort to launch his sons’ crypto platform.
Meanwhile, the leaders of a congressional bipartisan task force investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump said they have requested a briefing by the Secret Service.
Some of the material for this story is from Reuters and The Associated Press.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-16, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump pledges to deport Haitians in Ohio city, but most are in US legally.
GSoC 2024: Reviving NewGVN
date: 2024-09-16, from: LLVM Blog
This summer I participated in GSoC under the LLVM Compiler Infrastructure. The goal of the project was to improve the NewGVN pass so that it can replace GVN as the main value numbering pass in LLVM.
Background
Global Value Numbering (GVN) consists of assigning value numbers such that instructions with the same value number are equivalent. NewGVN was introduced in 2016 to replace GVN. We now highlight a few aspects in which NewGVN is better than GVN.
A key advantage of NewGVN over GVN is that it is complete for loops,
while GVN is only complete for acyclical code. NewGVN is complete for
loops because when it first processes loops, it assumes that only the
first iteration will be executed, later corroborating these
assumptions—this is known as the optimistic assumption. In practice, the
optimistic assumption boils down to assuming that backedges are
unreachable and, consequently, that when evaluating phi instructions,
the values carried by them can be ignored. For instance, in the example
below, %a is optimistically evaluated to 0.
This leads to evaluating %c to %x, which in
turn leads to evaluating %a.i to 0. At this
point, there are two possibilities: either the assumption was correct
and the loop actually only executes once, and the value numbers computed
so far are correct, or the instructions in the loop need to be
reevaluated. Assume, for this example, that NewGVN could not prove that
only one iteration is executed. Then %a once again
evaluates to 0, and all other registers also evaluate to
the same. Thanks to the optimistic assumption, we were able to discover
that %a is loop-invariant and, moreover, that it is equal
to 0.
define i32 @optimistic(i32 %x, i32 %y){entry: br label %looploop: %a = phi i32 [0, %entry], [%a.i, %loop] ... %c = xor i32 %x, %a %a.i = sub i32 %x, %c br i1 ..., label %loop,label %exitexit: ret i32 %a}
On the other hand, GVN fails to detect this equivalence because it would
pessimistically evaluate %a to itself, and the previously
described evaluation steps would never take place.
Another advantage of NewGVN is the value numbering of memory operations using MemorySSA. It provides a functional view of memory where instructions that can modify memory produce a new memory version, which is then used by other memory operations. This greatly simplifies the detection of redundancies among memory operations. For example, two loads of the same type from equivalent pointers and memory versions are trivially equivalent.
define i32 @foo(i32 %v, ptr %p) {entry:; 1 = MemoryDef(liveOnEntry) store i32 %v, ptr %p, align 4; MemoryUse(1) %a = load i32, ptr %p, align 4; MemoryUse(1) %b = load i32, ptr %p, align 4; 2 = MemoryDef(1) call void @f(i32 %a); MemoryUse(2) %c = load i32, ptr %p, align 4 %d = sub i32 %b, %c ret i32 %d}
In the example above (annotated with MemorySSA), %a and
%b are equivalent, while %c is not. All three
loads are of the same type from the same pointer, but they don’t all
load from the same memory state. Loads %a and
%b load from the memory defined by the store (Memory
1), while %c loads from the memory defined by
the function call (Memory 2). GVN can also detect these
redundancies, but it relies on the more expensive and less general
MemoryDependenceAnalysis.
Despite these and other improvements NewGVN is still not widely used, mainly because it lacks partial redundancy elimination (PRE) and because it is bug-ridden.
Implementing PRE
Our main contribution was the development of a PRE stage for NewGVN (found here). Our solution relied on generalizing Phi-of-Ops. It performs a special case of PRE where the instruction depends on a phi instruction, and an equivalent value is available on every reaching path. This is achieved in two steps: phi-translation and phi-insertion.
Phi-translation consists of evaluating the original instruction in the context of each of its block’s predecessors. Phi operands are replaced by the value incoming from the predecessor. The value is available in the predecessor if the translated instruction is equivalent to a constant, function argument, or another instruction that dominates the predecessor.
Phi-insertion occurs after phi-translation if the value is available in every predecessor. At that point, a phi of the equivalent values is constructed and used to replace the original instruction. The full process is illustrated in the following example.
Our generalization eliminated the need for a dependent phi and introduced the ability to insert the missing values in cases where the instruction is partially redundant. To prevent increases in code size (ignoring the inserted phi instructions), the insertion is only made if it’s the only one required. The full process is illustrated in the following example.
Integrating PRE into the existing framework also allowed us to gain loop-invariant code motion (LICM) for free. The optimistic assumption, combined with PRE, allows NewGVN to speculatively hoist instructions out of loops. On the other hand, LICM in GVN relies on using LoopInfo and can only handle very specific cases.
Missing Features
The two main features our PRE implementation lacks are critical edge
splitting and load coercion. Critical edge splitting is required to
ensure that we do not insert instructions into paths where they won’t be
used. Currently, our implementation simply bails in such cases. Load
coercion allows us to detect equivalences of loaded values with
different types, such as loads of i32 and
float, and then coerce the loaded type using conversion
operations.
The difficulty in implementing these features is that NewGVN is designed to perform analysis and transformation in separate steps, while these features involve modifying the function during the analysis phase.
Results
We evaluated our implementation using the automated benchmarking tool Phoronix Test Suite from which we selected a set of 20 C/C++ applications (listed below).
| aircrack-ng | encode-flac | luajit | scimark2 |
| botan | espeak | mafft | simdjson |
| zstd | fftw | ngspice | sqlite-speedtest |
| crafty | john-the-ripper | quantlib | tjbench |
| draco | jpegxl | rnnoise | graphics-magick |
The default -O2 pipeline was used. The only change betweeen
compilations was the value numbering pass used.
Despite the missing features, we observed that our implementation, on average, performs 0.4% better than GVN. However, it is important to mention that our solution hasn’t been fine-tuned to consider the rest of the optimization pipeline, which resulted in some cases where our implementation regressed compared to both GVN and the existing NewGVN. The most severe case was with jpegxl, where our implementation, on average, performed 10% worse than GVN. It’s important to note that this was an outlier; excluding jpegxl, most regressions were at most 2%. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were unable to study these cases in more detail.
Future Work
In the future, we plan to implement the aforementioned missing features and fine-tune the heuristics for when to perform PRE to prevent the regressions discussed in the results section. Once these issues are addressed, we’ll upstream our implementation, bringing us a step closer to reviving NewGVN.