News gathered 2024-09-19
(date: 2024-09-19 17:08:51)
NASA, NAACP Partner to Advance Diversity, Inclusion in STEM Fields
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
During an event Thursday, NASA and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) signed a Space Act Agreement to increase engagement and equity for underrepresented students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and to improve access to agency activities and opportunities. “NASA and the NAACP share a longstanding commitment to […]
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-naacp-partner-to-advance-diversity-inclusion-in-stem-fields/
Valencia Ransomware explodes on the scene, claims California city, fashion giant, more as victims
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Boasts ‘appear to be credible’ experts tell El Reg
A California city, a Spanish fashion giant, an Indian paper manufacturer, and two pharmaceutical companies are the alleged victims of what looks like a new ransomware gang that started leaking stolen info this week.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/valencia_ransomware_california_city/
Wall Street soars to record highs in rally that sweeps world
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
new york — Wall Street romped to records Thursday as jubilation swept markets worldwide one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates.
The S&P 500 jumped 1.7% for one of its best days of the year and topped its last all-time high set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 522 points, or 1.3%, to beat its own record set on Monday, and the Nasdaq composite led the market with a 2.5% spurt.
The rally was widespread, and Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and Ruth’s Chris, led the way in the S&P 500 with a jump of 8.3%. It said sales trends have been improving since a sharp step down in July, and it announced a delivery partnership with Uber.
Nvidia, meanwhile, barreled 4% higher and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Lower interest rates weaken criticism by a bit that its shares and those of other influential Big Tech companies look too expensive following the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
Wall Street’s gains followed rallies for markets across Europe and Asia after the Federal Reserve delivered the first cut to interest rates in more than four years late on Wednesday.
It was a momentous move, closing the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has come down from its peak two summers ago, Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession.
Wall Street’s initial reaction to Wednesday’s cut was a yawn, after markets had run up for months on expectations for coming reductions to rates. Stocks ended up edging lower after swinging a few times.
“Yet we come in today and have a reversal of the reversal,” said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG. He said he did not anticipate such a big jump for stocks on Thursday.
Some analysts said the market could be relieved that the Fed’s Powell was able to thread the needle in his press conference and suggest the deeper-than-usual cut was just a recalibration of policy and not an urgent move it had to take to prevent a recession.
That bolstered hopes the Federal Reserve can successfully walk its tightrope and get inflation down to its 2% target without a recession. So too did a couple reports on the economy released Thursday. One showed fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, another signal that layoffs across the country remain low.
Lower interest rates help financial markets in two big ways. They ease the brakes off the economy by making it easier for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money. They also give a boost to prices of all kinds of investments, from gold to bonds to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose above $63,000 Thursday, up from about $27,000 a year ago.
An adage suggests investors should not “fight the Fed” and should instead ride the rising tide when the central bank is cutting interest rates. Wall Street was certainly doing that Thursday. But this economic cycle has thrown out conventional wisdom repeatedly after the COVID-19 pandemic created an instant recession that gave way to the worst inflation in generations.
Wall Street is worried that inflation could remain tougher to fully subdue than in the past. And while lower rates can help goose the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel.
The upcoming U.S. presidential election could also keep uncertainty reigning in the market. A fear is that both the Democrats and Republicans could push for policies that add to the U.S. government’s debt, which could keep upward pressure on interest rates regardless of the Fed’s moves.
Indexes climbed even more across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They rose 2.3% in France, 2.1% in Japan and 2% in Hong Kong.
The FTSE 100 added 0.9% in London after the Bank of England kept interest rates there on hold. The next big move for a central bank arrives Friday, when the Bank of Japan will announce its latest decision on interest rates.
https://www.voanews.com/a/wall-street-soars-to-record-highs-in-rally-that-sweeps-world-/7791147.html
NASA Sets Coverage for Astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Crewmates Return
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko, will depart from the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, and return to Earth. Dyson, Chub, and Kononenko will undock from the orbiting laboratory’s Prichal module at 4:37 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, heading for a parachute-assisted landing at […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-astronaut-tracy-c-dyson-crewmates-return/
No way? Big Tech’s ‘lucrative surveillance’ of everyone is terrible for privacy, freedom
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Says Lina Khan in latest push to rein in Meta, Google, Amazon and pals
Buried beneath the endless feeds and attention-grabbing videos of the modern internet is a network of data harvesting and sale that’s perhaps far more vast than most people realize, and it desperately needs regulation. …
55 Years Ago: Celebrations for Apollo 11 Continue as Apollo 12 Prepares to Revisit the Moon
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
In September 1969, celebrations continued to mark the successful first human Moon landing two months earlier, and NASA prepared for the next visit to the Moon. The hometowns of the Apollo 11 astronauts held parades in their honor, the postal service recognized their accomplishment with a stamp, and the Smithsonian put a Moon rock on […]
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-19, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Etain in town of Ulster begins selling recreational cannabis, becoming third licensed dispensary in Ulster County.
NASA’s Hidden Figures Honored with Congressional Gold Medals
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
A simple turn of phrase was all it took for U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of Katherine Johnson’s home state of West Virginia to capture the feeling in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. “It’s been said that Katherine Johnson counted everything,” she said. “But today we’re here to celebrate the one thing […]
Van Gogh Painted Some of His Most Breathtaking Works During His Two Years in the South of France
date: 2024-09-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A blockbuster exhibition in London examines the Dutch Post-Impressionist’s creative output between 1888 and 1890, which was one of the most productive periods of his career
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company file patent lawsuit against maker of hit game Palworld
date: 2024-09-19, from: OS News
Nintendo, together with The Pokémon Company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Pocketpair, Inc. on September 18, 2024. This lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights. ↫ Nintendo press release Since the release of Palworld, which bears a striking resemblance to the Pokémon franchise, everybody’s been kind of expecting a reaction from both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, and here it is. What’s odd is that it’s not a trademark, trade dress, or copyright lawsuit, but a patent one, which is not what you’d expect when looking at how similar the Palworld creatures look to Pokémon, to the point where some people even suggest the 3D models were simply lifted wholesale from the latest Nintendo Switch Pokémon games. There’s no mention of which patents Pocketpair supposedly infringes upon, and in a statement, the company claims it, too, has no idea which patents are supposedly in play. I have to admit I never even stopped to think game patents were a thing at all, but now that I spent more than 2 seconds pondering this concept, of course they exist. This lawsuit will be quite interesting to follow, because the games industry is one of the few technology sectors out there where copying each others ideas, concepts, mechanics, and styles is not only normal, it’s entirely expected and encouraged. New ideas spread through the games industry like wildfires, and if some new mechanic is a hit with players, it’ll be integrated into other games within a few months, and games coming out a year later are expected to have the hit new mechanics from last year. It’s a great example of how beneficial it is to have ideas freely spread, and how awesome it is to see great games take existing mechanics and apply interesting twists, or use them in entirely different genres than where they originated from. Demon’s Souls and the Dark Souls series are a great example of a series of games that not only established a whole new genre other games quickly capitalised on, but also introduced the gaming world to a whole slew of new and unique mechanics that are now being applied in all kinds of new and interesting ways. Lawsuits like this one definitely pose a threat to this, so I hope that either this fails spectacularly in court, or that the patents in question are so weirdly specific as to be utterly without merit in going after any other game.
Topton L20 360° Yoga is a cheap 11 inch convertible notebook with Intel N100
date: 2024-09-19, from: Liliputing
Chinese PC maker Topton has started selling a convertible notebook called the Topton L20 360° Yoga that features an 11 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS LCD touchscreen display, a 360 degree hinge that lets you position the screen for use in laptop or tablet modes, and support for an optional stylus. Powered by a […]
The post Topton L20 360° Yoga is a cheap 11 inch convertible notebook with Intel N100 appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/topton-l20-360-yoga-is-a-cheap-11-inch-convertible-notebook-with-intel-n100/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-19, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Sarah Huckabee Sanders forced us to think of her as a mom. I don't think that works out very well in her favor, probably best not to go there.
Iran’s cyber-goons emailed stolen Trump info to Team Biden – which ignored them
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
To be fair, Joe was probably taking a nap
The Iranian cyber snoops who stole files from the Trump campaign, with the intention of leaking those documents, tried to slip the data to the Biden camp — but were apparently ignored, according to Uncle Sam.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/iran_trump_hack_info_biden/
The Breakthrough That Could Unlock Ocean Carbon Removal
date: 2024-09-19, from: Heatmap News
Since at least the 1970s, electrochemists have cast their gazes upon the world’s vast, briny seas and wondered how they could harness the endless supply of hydrogen locked within. Though it was technically possible to grab the hydrogen by running an electrical current through the water, the reaction turned the salt in the water into the toxic and corrosive gas chlorine, which made commercializing such a process challenging.
But last year, a startup called Equatic made a breakthrough that not only solves the chlorine problem, but has the potential to deliver a two-for-one solution: commercial hydrogen production and carbon removal. With funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, the company moved swiftly to scale its innovation, called an “oxygen-selective anode,” from the lab to the factory. On Thursday, it announced it had started manufacturing the anodes at a facility in San Diego.
“I want to emphasize how fast this has moved,” Doug Wicks, a program director at ARPA-E, told me. “They made some pretty large claims about what they could do, so we took it as a high risk project, and really within the first year, they were able to clearly demonstrate that they could make great progress.”
In 2021, Equatic’s co-founders Xin Chen and Gaurav Sant, who are researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, applied for an ARPA-E grant to work on their idea for a hybrid system that would use seawater electrolysis — sending an electrical current through seawater — to sequester carbon dioxide from the air in the ocean while also producing hydrogen.
Setting aside the chlorine issue for a moment, the process of getting hydrogen out of water is pretty established science. The carbon removal part was new. To achieve it, they would exploit another aspect of the electrolytic reaction: It could separate the seawater into two streams — one very acidic, the other very alkaline and able to easily absorb CO2. If they exposed the alkaline stream to air, it would suck up CO2 like a sponge and convert it into a more stable molecule that couldn’t easily return to the atmosphere. Then they could feed the water back into the sea, enhancing the ocean’s natural carbon pump.
This approach to carbon removal has two big things going for it. First, by driving this reaction through a closed system on land, Equatic can measure the carbon sequestered much more precisely than related methods that are deployed in the open ocean. “You can count what comes in, you can count what goes out, you just have greater control,” David Koweek, the chief scientist at Ocean Visions, a nonprofit that advocates for ocean-based climate solutions, told me. But with that control comes a trade-off, Koweek said. It requires more infrastructure, energy, and operational complexity than something like adding antacids directly to the water. That’s where Equatic’s second advantage could help. Its process produces clean hydrogen, a valuable commodity, which can help defray the cost of the carbon removal.
“We’re not just a one way street, only energy in — you actually get some energy out,” Edward Sanders, the company’s chief operating officer, told me. He provided some numbers: For every 2.5 megawatt-hours of electricity Equatic’s system consumes, it can remove 1 metric ton of carbon from the air and produce 1 megawatt-hour worth of energy in the form of hydrogen. The company can either use the hydrogen to help power its operations or sell it. Therefore, the net energy use is more like 1.5 megawatts, he said, which is lower than what a direct air capture plant, for example, requires. (A direct air capture plant using a solid sorbent needs about 2.6 megawatts per ton of CO2 removed, according to the International Energy Agency.) Energy accounts for about 70% of costs, Sanders said.
Equatic was able to prove its concept out in two small pilot projects deployed in the Los Angeles harbor and in Singapore that each removed about 100 kilograms of carbon from the air, and produced just a few kilograms of hydrogen, per day. But because of the chlorine issue, the two plants were expensive, using bespoke, corrosion-resistant materials. Sanders told me it would cost on the order of millions of dollars to manage the chlorine gas at scale. The company would need to find a more economic solution.
The formation of chlorine in seawater electrolysis is a problem that has stumped scientists for so long that it has split the electrochemists into two camps — those who still believe it’s solvable, and those who think it makes more sense to just purify the water first.
When I asked Chen what the day-to-day work of trying to overcome this looked like, he said it was materials science research. He needed to find the right combination of catalysts to make an anode — a sheet of conductive, positively-charged metal — that, when used in electrolysis, would screen out the salt and not allow it to react. “It’s like Gandalf holding the way to tell chlorine, ‘you shall not pass.’” he said. “That’s essentially how it works. Only water molecules can pass through.”
Chen and Sant were awarded $1 million from ARPA-E for the research in 2022. About a year later, they felt they were on to something. As with most scientific “breakthroughs,” there was no single moment of discovery — Chen was not even the first to do what he did, which was to use manganese oxide. “There’s a lot of literature that indicates it’s doable,” he told me. “There’s pioneering work by other scientists from almost 30 years ago, but they didn’t pursue it far enough because I don’t think the opportunity was right at that time.”
What Chen did was push to find an iteration that was more effective, durable, and affordable. He ultimately landed on a design that produced less than one part per million of chlorine — lower than the amount in drinking water — and performed reliably for more than 20,000 hours of testing. When he showed his progress to Wicks at ARPA-E, the agency was impressed enough to grant the scientists an additional $2 million. That funding helped them get their first production line up and running.
The facility in San Diego will be able to produce 4,000 anodes per year to start, and is expected to operate at full capacity by the end of 2024. It will produce the anodes for Equatic’s first demonstration-scale project, a new plant in Singapore designed to remove 10 metric tons of CO2 and produce 300 kilograms of hydrogen per day — 100 times larger than the pilot version. Equatic also has plans to build an even bigger plant in Quebec that can remove 300 tons per day. That’s about three times the capacity of Climeworks’ Mammoth plant, the world’s largest direct air capture plant operating today.
The manufacturing line will also be able to refurbish the anodes after about three years of use, simply by applying a new layer of catalysts. Wicks of ARPA-E told me this was a “breakthrough coating technique” that will allow the company to really decrease costs.
When I asked Wicks what he sees as the next milestones for Equatic, what will determine whether it will be successful, he said a lot was riding on the scale up in Singapore and Canada. The company has already signed an agreement to deliver 2,100 metric tons of hydrogen to Boeing and remove 62,000 metric tons of CO2 from the air on the aerospace giant’s behalf. The companies have not made the price of the deal public.
One challenge ahead will also be navigating the permitting environment in the different countries. Koweek of Ocean Visions told me that this kind of seawater chemistry modification was “relatively benign,” but he said there were still risks that had to be characterized.
In the meantime, Chen isn’t done trying to optimize his anode in the lab. I asked him how he felt after his initial discovery — were you excited? Did you celebrate?
“Not really,” he replied. “So I’m very excited inside. But I was generally thinking about it, can we push it further?”
https://heatmap.news/economy/equatic-carbon-removal-hydrogen
Europe to force Apple to help rivals connect to iOS, iPadOS
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Fail to comply may cost up to 10% of annual revenue
The European Commission intends to force Apple to open its walled garden.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/apple_ios_ipad_os_eu/
NASA Grants to Strengthen Diversity in Engineering, STEM Fields
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is awarding $7.2 million to six minority-serving institutions to grow initiatives in engineering-related disciplines and fields for learners who have historically been underrepresented and underserved in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. “NASA is excited to award funding to six minority-serving institutions, paving the way for greater diversity in engineering and STEM,” said Shahra […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-grants-to-strengthen-diversity-in-engineering-stem-fields/
DirectX adopting SPIR-V as the interchange format of the future
date: 2024-09-19, from: OS News
As we look to the future, maintaining a proprietary IR format (even one based on an open-source project) is counter to our commitments to open technologies, so Shader Model 7.0 will adopt SPIR-V as its interchange format. Over the next few years, we will be working to define a SPIR-V environment for Direct3D, and a set of SPIR-V extensions to support all of Direct3D’s current and future shader programming features through SPIR-V. This will allow developers to take better advantage of existing tools and unify the ecosystem around investing in one IR. ↫ Chris Bieneman and Cassie Hoef at the DirectX Developer Blog SPIR-V is developed by the Khronos Group and is an “intermediate language for parallel computing and graphics by Khronos Group”. I don’t know what any of this means, but any adoption of Khronos technologies is a good thing, especially by a heavyweight like Microsoft.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140773/directx-adopting-spir-v-as-the-interchange-format-of-the-future/
Trump, Harris focus on economy as election draws near
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
With fewer than 50 days left in this year’s U.S. presidential race, candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning in key swing states, each declaring to be the nominee with policies that can boost the economy. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-and-harris-focus-on-economy-as-election-draws-near/7790859.html
Daily Deals (9-19-2024)
date: 2024-09-19, from: Liliputing
The Epic Games Store is giving away two PC games for free this month. But if you have an Amazon Prime membership (even a free trial), you can score more than 50 games from Amazon Gaming that are yours to keep once their claimed. Keep in mind that you’ll need Epic Games Store and GOG […]
The post Daily Deals (9-19-2024) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/daily-deals-9-19-2024/
A Runaway Capybara Is Evading Capture and ‘Living Her Best Life’ in England
date: 2024-09-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The “beloved” rodent named Cinnamon was spotted this week with help from drones. She has been wandering and eating grass after escaping her zoo enclosure last Friday
iPhone 16 Pro Camera
date: 2024-09-19, from: Michael Tsai
Nilay Patel: The reason Apple calls it “Camera Control” and not just “shutter button” is the capacitive controls on the top, which should ideally let you adjust various settings with a quick swipe. I was really hoping I’d find myself using the capacitive controls to adjust things like exposure and focal length, but it’s all […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/19/iphone-16-pro-camera/
Swift 6
date: 2024-09-19, from: Michael Tsai
Holly Borla (Hacker News, Lobsters): Swift 6 marks the start of the journey to make data-race safety dramatically easier. The usability of data-race safety remains an area of active development, and your feedback will help shape future improvements.Swift 6 also comes with a new Synchronization library for low-level concurrency APIs, including atomic operations and a […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/19/swift-6/
Google Search Adds Links to Internet Archive
date: 2024-09-19, from: Michael Tsai
Chris Freeland: In a significant step forward for digital preservation, Google Search is now making it easier than ever to access the past. Starting today, users everywhere can view archived versions of webpages directly through Google Search, with a simple link to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.[…]To access this new feature, conduct a search on […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/19/google-search-adds-links-to-internet-archive/
Lost Internet Archive Accounts
date: 2024-09-19, from: Michael Tsai
Matt Sephton: Recently at Internet Archive a “glitch” (their choice of word) deleted a great many accounts, including my account that had been at archive.org/details/@gingerbeardman since 2015. Somewhat surprisingly, they are not reaching out to affected users but rather waiting for them to create new accounts and silently relinking their old uploads only if the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/19/lost-internet-archive-accounts/
ProHance Technologies’ Power Mouse
date: 2024-09-19, from: Computer ads from the Past
Even A Totally Souped up PC Is A Dog Without PowerMouse
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/prohance-technologies-power-mouse
Biden says Fed made ‘declaration of progress’ with interest rate cut
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Thursday the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates was “an important signal” that inflation has eased as he characterized Donald Trump’s economic policies as a failure in the past and sure to “fail again” if revived.
“Lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington. “It’s a declaration of progress, to signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”
The Democratic president emphasized that there was more work left to do, but he used his speech to burnish his economic legacy even as he criticized Trump, his Republican predecessor who is running for another term.
“Trickle down, down economics failed,” Biden said. “He’s promising again trickle down economics. It will fail again.”
Biden said Trump wants to extend tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, costing an estimated $5 trillion, and implement tariffs that could raise prices by nearly $4,000 per family, something that Biden described as a “new sales tax.”
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Trump has routinely hammered Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate this year, over higher costs.
“People can’t go out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs or anything else,” Trump said during last week’s debate. “The people of our country are absolutely dying with what they’ve done. They’ve destroyed the economy.”
Biden dismissed Trump’s claims that he supports workers, saying “give me a break.” Biden’s administration created more manufacturing jobs and spurred more factory construction, and it reduced the trade deficit with China.
Trump’s economic record was undermined by the coronavirus outbreak, and Biden blamed him for botching the country’s response.
“His failure in handling the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of Americans dying,” he said.
Biden struggled to demonstrate economic progress because of inflation that spread around the globe as the pandemic receded and supply chain problems multiplied.
He expressed hope that the rate cut will make it more affordable for Americans to buy houses and cars.
“I believe it’s important for the country to recognize this progress,” he said. “Because if we don’t, the progress we made will remain locked in the fear of a negative mindset that dominated our economic outlook since the pandemic began.”
He said businesses should see “the immense opportunities in front of us right now” by investing and expanding.
Biden defended the independence of the Federal Reserve, which could be threatened by Trump if he is elected to another term. Trump publicly pressured the central bank to lower rates during his presidency, a break with past customs.
“It would do enormous damage to our economy if that independence is ever lost,” Biden said.
During his speech, Biden inaccurately said he had never met with Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, while he’s been president.
Jared Bernstein, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said at a subsequent briefing that Biden intended to say that he had never discussed interest rates with Powell.
“That’s what he meant,” Bernstein said.
NASA’s Chandra Finds Galaxy Cluster That Crosses the Streams
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure. Researchers have discovered an enormous, comet-like tail of hot gas — spanning over 1.6 million light-years long — trailing behind […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-chandra-finds-galaxy-cluster-that-crosses-the-streams/
Why Latinos Are the Solution for What Ails American Politics, and What Harris Needs to Win Their Votes
date: 2024-09-19, from: Capital and Main
An insider in both political parties, Mike Madrid says housing affordability and jobs are the deciding issues.
The post Why Latinos Are the Solution for What Ails American Politics, and What Harris Needs to Win Their Votes appeared first on .
El Voto Latino Podría Solucionar los Males de la Política Estadounidense
date: 2024-09-19, from: Capital and Main
Mike Madrid, quien ha asesorado a demócratas y republicanos, afirma que la asequibilidad de la vivienda y el empleo son temas decisivos y lo que Harris necesita para ganar sus votos.
The post El Voto Latino Podría Solucionar los Males de la Política Estadounidense appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/el-voto-latino-podria-solucionar-los-males-de-la-politica-estadounidense
Lessons for Breaking the Poverty Cycle
date: 2024-09-19, from: Capital and Main
A national nonprofit uses financial and life coaching to teach low-income parents how to move up to living wages and beyond.
The post Lessons for Breaking the Poverty Cycle appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/lessons-for-breaking-the-poverty-cycle
Did Earth Once Have a Ring Like Saturn? Geologists Find Evidence for a Halo of Orbiting Space Rocks 466 Million Years Ago
date: 2024-09-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A ring could explain a mysterious arrangement of impact craters near the equator and might even have caused an ice age, according to a new study
Turning Everyday Gadgets into Bombs is a Bad Idea
date: 2024-09-19, from: Bunnie’s Studio Blog
I think turning everyday gadgets into bombs is a bad idea. However, recent news coverage has been framing the weaponization of pagers and radios in the Middle East as something we do not need to concern ourselves with because “we” are safe. I respectfully disagree. Our militaries wear uniforms, and our weapons of war are […]
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gadgets-into-bombs-is-a-bad-idea/
I am Artemis: Chris Pereira
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
Chris Pereira can personally attest to the immense gravitational attraction of black holes. He’s been in love with space ever since he saw a video on the topic in a high school science class. But it wasn’t just any science class. It was one specially designed for English learners. “I was born and raised in […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/i-am-artemis-chris-pereira/
US sanctions facilitators of payments between Russia, N. Korea
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-facilitators-of-payments-between-russia-n-korea/7790782.html
Sols 4309–4310: Leaning Back, Driving Back
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024 The lengthy drive planned on Monday executed as expected, and we came in today to find our rover parked at a jaunty angle on a sloped ridge. There were some worries that the slope might limit our ability to use the arm for contact science in this plan […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4309-4310-leaning-back-driving-back/
COSMIC Alpha Released! Here’s what people are saying.
date: 2024-09-19, from: System76 Blog
How to install, first impressions, and what makes it ready.
https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-alpha-released-heres-what-people-are-saying
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-19, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Robinson under pressure to withdraw from gubernatorial race. They don't say what the "damning news story" is.
https://www.carolinajournal.com/robinson-under-pressure-to-withdraw-from-gubernatorial-race/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-19, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I think as developers, we have a duty to not only write code in safe languages, but also round every rectangle we come across.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113165363144695592
Starlink’s new satellites emit 30x more radio interference than before, drowning cosmic signals
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
V2 sats beam 10M times brighter noise, hampering telescopes
The second generation of Starlink satellites being lobbed into orbit by SpaceX might not reflect as much sunlight as the old ones, yet astronomers say they’re leaking up to 32 times the unintended radio waves instead.…
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-19, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Embedding Godot's EditorInspectorPlugins into SwiftUI, so I can bring all existing 30 from Godot, and allow for third party plugins to render - without having to rewrite each one:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113165326814304399
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-19, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Jeff Jarvis nails what journalism isn't doing. They should be making clear at every step that Trump is trying to initiate a race war, and is coming close to it, and if they don't get it together soon, it'll happen without any accurate reporting in advance. That is the story.
https://medium.com/whither-news/how-they-have-failed-aab41bce7ec1
Biden to meet Zelenskyy at White House Sept 26
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
White House — President Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House next week (Sept 26) for talks on the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, the White House announced Thursday.
A statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Zelenskyy will also meet separately with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The leaders will discuss the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine, including Ukraine’s strategic planning and U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. The President and Vice President will emphasize their unshakeable commitment to stand with Ukraine until it prevails in this war, she said
Zelenskyy has said that he has a plan for victory in Russia’s war against his country, and that he intends to present the proposal to Biden.
In a speech at the opening of the 20th Annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting in Kyiv last Friday, Zelenskyy said wars of aggression, such as the one being waged by Russia against Ukraine, can end positively by either the occupying army being pushed out on the battlefield or through diplomacy, in which the invaded country is freed from occupation and its independence is preserved.
“In both cases, Ukraine needs a strong position,” he said. “The United States can help with this. If we, along with our key partner, equally strive for victory.”
In recent weeks, Zelenskyy has expressed his frustration at not yet receiving permission from allies — specifically the United States and Britain — to use their long-range weapons against targets inside Russia.
Both nations have expressed concern about being drawn into a direct confrontation with Russia.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-meet-zelenskyy-at-white-house-sept-26/7790751.html
GPD Duo dual-screen OLED laptop to sell for $1270 and up during crowdfunding
date: 2024-09-19, from: Liliputing
The GPD Duo is a dual-screen laptop with an unusual design. While some dual-screen notebooks have a display in the spot where you’d normally find a keyboard, and others have screens that flip out from behind the primary display for a side-by-side setup, the GPD Duo has a set of screens that fold vertically. This allows you […]
The post GPD Duo dual-screen OLED laptop to sell for $1270 and up during crowdfunding appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/gpd-duo-dual-screen-oled-laptop-to-sell-for-1270-and-up-during-crowdfunding/
US newsrooms combat fake news directed at Hispanic community
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
Hispanic audiences in the United States rely on social media for news, but disinformation on those platforms is rife. Newsrooms and media initiatives are finding new ways to combat false news and help audiences prepare for U.S. elections. Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story. Videographer: Tina Trinh
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-newsrooms-combat-fake-news-directed-at-hispanic-community/7790687.html
‘Cold-Blooded Business’: Nintendo Is Patent Trolling Palworld Because It Got Too Big
date: 2024-09-19, from: 404 Media Group
Japan games industry analyst explains why Nintendo is going after Palworld, and why it’s probably going to win.
1 in 10 orgs dumping their security vendors after CrowdStrike outage
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Many left reeling from July’s IT meltdown, but not to worry, it was all unavoidable
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) says one in ten organizations in the country affected by CrowdStrike’s outage in July are dropping their current vendor’s products.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/german_crowdstrike_reaction/
When Will That Star Dim? Amateur Planet-Chasers Got You!
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
A planet swings in front of its star, dimming the starlight we see. Events like these, called transits, provide us with bounties of information about exoplanets–planets around stars other than the Sun. But predicting when these special events occur can be challenging…unless you have help from volunteers. Luckily, a collaboration of multiple teams of amateur […]
Low Water Levels Reveal Sunken Nazi Ships Full of Unexploded Munitions in the Danube River
date: 2024-09-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Due to a drought in Eastern Europe, the scuttled German vessels are reemerging 80 years after they disappeared beneath the river’s surface
Scientists Play Matchmaker for Beloved Sea Snails in the Florida Keys
date: 2024-09-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine
To boost the iconic queen conch’s population, researchers are relocating the heat-stressed creatures to cooler, deeper waters to help them find mates
Torvalds weighs in on ‘nasty’ Rust vs C for Linux debate
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
This is like vi vs Emacs with ‘religious overtones,’ project chief laughs
Linux is 33 years old. Its creator, Linus Torvalds, still enjoys an argument or two but is baffled why the debate over Rust has attracted so much heat.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/torvalds_talks_rust_in_linux/
Can shame deter the ultra wealthy from using offshore accounts?
date: 2024-09-19, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Earlier this week we explored the offshore financial system, where foreign companies and wealthy individuals can stash their wealth under especially favorable financial conditions. Today, we’re hearing about ways to discourage the ultra wealthy from hiding their cash offshore. Turns out good ol’ shame may hold some answers. But first, we examine how rate cuts might affect the housing market. Plus, who’s going to foot the bill for the Francis Scott Key Bridge?
NASA Develops Process to Create Very Accurate Eclipse Maps
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
New NASA research reveals a process to generate extremely accurate eclipse maps, which plot the predicted path of the Moon’s shadow as it crosses the face of Earth. Traditionally, eclipse calculations assume that all observers are at sea level on Earth and that the Moon is a smooth sphere that is perfectly symmetrical around its […]
Debate churns over mining Pacific seabed for green-energy minerals
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
People from across the globe are convening on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City for Climate Week. On the agenda: the environmental impact of seabed mining. The discussion comes as tech companies seek ways to fuel the green revolution while minimizing environmental impacts. VOA’s Jessica Stone has more.]
Thousands of orgs at risk of knowledge base data leaks via ServiceNow misconfigurations
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Better check your widgets, people
Security researchers say that thousands of companies are potentially leaking secrets from their internal knowledge base (KB) articles via ServiceNow misconfigurations.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/servicenow_knowledge_base_leaks/
Project Analyzing Human Language Usage Shuts Down Because ‘Generative AI Has Polluted the Data’
date: 2024-09-19, from: 404 Media Group
Wordfreq shuts down because “I don’t think anyone has reliable information about post-2021 language usage by humans.”
Beelzebub Has Your Back
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/19/beelzebub-has-your-back/
Delivery Robot Knocked Over Pedestrian, Company Offered ‘Promo Codes’ to Apologize
date: 2024-09-19, from: 404 Media Group
When a Starship employee talked to the police, the report says, he asked for the employee’s information “so he could contact her and offer their insurance information for her injuries and ‘promo codes.’”
ERP modernization? Admins have heard of it
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Back-end systems fail to get the love given to SaaSy customer-facing counterparts
Over the last 20 years, ERP is the category of enterprise software deemed slowest to modernize because of priority given to sexier front office applications and senior decision-makers’ aversion to risk.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/erp_slow_to_modernize/
Code the Classics Volume II from Raspberry Pi Press
date: 2024-09-19, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
The new volume of Code the Classics will get you started writing your own 1980s-inspired games!
The post Code the Classics Volume II from Raspberry Pi Press appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/code-the-classics-volume-ii-from-raspberry-pi-press/
Criminals Keep Hacking Themselves, Letting Researchers Unmask Them
date: 2024-09-19, from: 404 Media Group
Infostealer malware is often hidden in pirated or cracked software, and hackers then post the harvested credentials and other data online. Criminals have been infected too.
https://www.404media.co/criminals-keep-hacking-themselves-letting-researchers-unmask-them/
Dutch watchdog wants more powers after EU drops Microsoft Inflection probe
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Concerns over the elimination of a future competitor through acquihiring
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has declared it needs fresh powers after the European Commission elected not to investigate Microsoft’s acquihire of AI startup Inflection.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/netherlands_acm_microsoft_inflection/
Congressional hearing: US should name more Americans as ‘unjustly detained’ in China
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
Washington — A hearing to seek the release of imprisoned Americans in Beijing highlighted reasons for the U.S. to expand its list of U.S. citizens wrongly detained in China to prioritize their return.
Members of Congress and witnesses argued at a congressional hearing this week that the U.S. government should expand the list of Americans that it designates as being “unjustly detained” in China.
“More Americans should be considered to be unjustly detained by the State Department,” Representative Chris Smith, the chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said Wednesday in opening remarks at the CECC hearing.
China is known for a justice system lacking transparency and arbitrarily detaining foreigners as well as its own citizens.
The State Department officially had three Americans listed as unjustly detained in China including American Pastor David Lin, who has now been released by Beijing, the State Department announced on Sunday.
The other two are Kai Li and Mark Swidan. Li, a businessman from Long Island, was detained by China in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for espionage, which his family denies. Swiden, a Texas businessman, was detained in 2012 and convicted on drug-related charges in 2019. His supporters say there is evidence he was not in China at the time of the alleged offense.
Although estimates vary, human rights organizations assess that more U.S. citizens are wrongly detained in China.
Dui Hua, a human rights group that advocates for clemency and better treatment of detainees in China, doubts about 200 Americans who are held under coercive measures in China and more than 30 who are barred from leaving the country.
The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a group that seeks to free Americans held captive abroad, estimates that 11 U.S. nationals are wrongfully detained in China, including those subject to exit bans.
In the opening statement of his testimony, Nelson Wells, the father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells, Jr., lamented that “Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held unjust” by the State Department.
Later, he added, “We tried to get Nelson’s name included” in the list and expressed his hope that the hearing will pave the way.
Nelson Wells, Jr., from New Orleans, was arrested in 2014 in China and sentenced to life on drug-related charges, which his family denies. His term was reduced to 22 years in 2019, and he will remain in prison until 2041.
The U.S. determines whether its citizens are detained “unlawfully or wrongfully” by either “a foreign government or a non-governmental actor” based on criteria set by the Levinson Act signed into law in 2020.
Such criteria “can include, but is not limited to, a review of whether the individual is being detained to influence U.S. policy, whether there is a lack of due process or disparate sentencing for the individuals, and whether the person is being detained due to their U.S. connections, among other criteria,” said a spokesperson for the State Department in a statement to VOA Korean on Tuesday.
“The Secretary of State has ultimate authority to determine whether a case is a wrongful detention. This determination is discretionary, based on the totality of the circumstances, and grounded in the facts of the case. We do not discuss the wrongful detention determination process in public,” the spokesperson continued.
A spokesperson for the Foley Foundation told VOA that it believes 11 Americans currently detained in China meet “the criteria for wrongful detention, as specified in Levinson Act.”
Its report, published in July, says China “remains the leading country in wrongfully detaining U.S. nationals,” based on the data collected by the Foley Foundation in the period from 2022 to 2024.
Sophie Richardson, a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, told VOA China’s practice of arbitrary detention is harmful to its culture and economy.
“It’s a big part of what is deterring people from going to the country,” including students who are interested in studying Chinese as well as business executives who are “concerned they might run afoul of certain kinds of data regulations and [be] arbitrarily detained,” said Richardson, a former China director at Human Rights Watch.
A record number of approximately 15,200 high-net worth individuals are expected to leave China in 2024, according to New World Wealth, a wealth intelligence firm, cited by the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report.
Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, said, “The Chinese government clearly wants more Americans to travel to China, but as long as our loved ones are being held, as long as there are so many people at risk, then that travel warning must be escalated.”
The State Department currently advises Americans to “reconsider” traveling to the country “due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” including exit bans and wrongful detention. The next level of advisory would say “do not travel.”
Bob Fu, the founder and president of China Aid, a human rights group that advocates for religious freedom, told VOA that “increasing international isolation” felt by the Chinese Communist Party could have led it to the release of David Lin.
He said the prospect for the release of other Americans would depend on “how much persistent pressure from the highest level of the U.S. government” is exerted on Beijing.
The State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean that the U.S. has raised the case of “other wrongfully detained Americans” in addition to David Lin and will “continue to push for the release of other Americans.”
Students Soar at NASA Glenn’s Aviation Day
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
For students considering careers in STEM, the field of aviation offers diverse and abundant opportunities they may never have realized. During Aviation Day on Aug. 27, NASA Glenn Research Center’s Office of STEM Engagement welcomed middle and high school students to the research center in Cleveland. The one-day event enabled students to learn more about […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/students-soar-at-nasa-glenns-aviation-day/
Ohio State Fairgoers Learn About NASA Technologies
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Glenn Research Center’s Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) and Office of Communications staff traveled to the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, Ohio, this summer. OSTEM participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the fair with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Both teams hosted tables to share information about the key roles NASA Glenn plays […]
Dr. Kenyon Makes Calls, On and Off the Field
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
As the director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Dr. Jimmy Kenyon is used to making important decisions at work. He also likes to call the shots on the baseball field as a volunteer umpire. In July, Kenyon packed up his gear and traveled to Ankeny, Iowa, as part of a four-man umpire crew […]
https://www.nasa.gov/newsletters/aerospace-frontiers/dr-kenyon-makes-calls-on-and-off-the-field/
NASA Glenn Attends Air Shows in Cleveland and Michigan
date: 2024-09-19, from: NASA breaking news
The first “A” in NASA stands for aeronautics, and NASA’s Glenn Research Center helped bring that message to thousands of people at major airshows in Wisconsin and Ohio this summer. In July, NASA Glenn subject matter experts and outreach professionals landed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to participate in EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2024. Thousands of aircraft arrived […]
UK activists targeted with Pegasus spyware ask police to charge NSO Group
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
4 file complaint with London’s Met, alleging malware maker helped autocratic states violate their privacy
Four UK-based proponents of human rights and critics of Middle Eastern states today filed a report with London’s Metropolitan Police they hope will lead to charges against Pegasus peddler NSO Group.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/pegasus_spyware_met_police_complaint/
2024 Is Looking Like a Stellar Year for Solar Power
date: 2024-09-19, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Shanghai, still recovering from the strongest storm to hit the city in 75 years, is bracing for Typhoon Pulasan • Extreme flooding in the north of Italy has forced some 1,000 people to evacuate • It’s looking unlikely that this month will break last year’s record for warmest September ever.
THE TOP FIVE
- Ember: 2024 will be another record year for solar
The explosive growth in solar power shows no signs of stopping this year. New analysis from energy think tank Ember forecasts the world is on track to add 593 gigawatts of solar power in 2024, nearly 30% more than last year’s installations and nearly 200 GW more than the International Energy Agency predicted at the start of the year. The report underscores how a handful of countries are responsible for most of the world’s new solar capacity. China leads, followed by the U.S., India, Germany, and Brazil. These five countries are on track to account for 75% of new global installations in 2024. And they are sustaining their growth year after year.
Ember
Here’s the most important takeaway from the Ember report: “This now puts ambitious climate pledges within reach.” It’s very possible – and indeed likely – that the world will triple solar capacity by 2030. In this scenario, solar power would generate a quarter of the world’s electricity. “Countries need to plan ahead to make the most of the high levels of solar capacity being built today and ensure the continued build-out of capacity in the coming years,” the report says.
- Fed interest rate cut could boost investment in renewable projects
The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it would reduce the benchmark federal funds rate by half a percentage point, from just over 5% to just below. What does this mean for renewable energy? Well, it just became a much more enticing investment, wrote Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin. High interest rates have an outsize effect on renewable energy projects, because the cost of building and operating a renewable energy generator like a wind farm is highly concentrated in its construction. Wood Mackenzie estimates that a 2% increase in interest rates pushes up the cost of energy produced by a renewables project by around 20%, compared to just over 10% for conventional power plants. “As rates fall, projects become increasingly financially viable,” said Advait Arun, senior associate of energy finance at the Center for Public Enterprise and Heatmap contributor.
- EU official warns ‘climate breakdown’ is becoming the norm
The European Union’s head office has warned that the extreme weather devastating parts of the continent are proof that “climate breakdown” is “fast becoming the norm,” The Associated Press reported. Parts of Europe are experiencing some of the worst flooding in at least two decades, while Portugal has declared a “state of calamity” as enormous wildfires rage out of control and threaten the homes of more than 200,000 people. “We face a Europe that is simultaneously flooding and burning. These extreme weather events … are now an almost annual occurrence,” said EU Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic. “The global reality of the climate breakdown has moved into the everyday lives of Europeans.” Europe is the fastest warming continent on Earth.
- AI weather startup Brightband emerges from stealth
Today the startup Brightband emerged from stealth with $10 million in Series A funding and a unique plan to commercialize generative AI weather modeling. Instead of trying to go up against Weather.com, Brightband is tailoring models to specific industries such as insurance, finance, agriculture, energy, and transportation. The round was led by Prelude Ventures. AI models like Brightband’s are trained on decades worth of past weather data, and when fed a snapshot of current conditions, can predict what will come next, much like ChatGPT does with text. Brightband’s CEO Julian Green told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham that customizing forecasts for particular industries will also be as simple as querying a large language model. A wind farm operator could, for example, “just take an attached file of historical wind energy production, and throw it in there and say, hey, tell me what the wind energy is going to be like next week.” Brightband says it hopes to publish a paper by year’s end with an open-source version of its forecast model, alongside evaluation tools to assess its performance.
- Truck drivers seem to approve of Tesla Semi
Truck drivers seem to really like Tesla’s Semi electric truck. PepsiCo is Tesla’s first customer for the trucks, and has 89 of them deployed across various fleets. Speaking at the IAA Transportation event, PepsiCo’s electrification program manager Dejan Antunović said some veteran drivers are reporting that they never want to go back to driving diesel after having handled the Tesla Semi. “Based on its history of delivering efficient electric vehicles in volume profitably, I think Tesla is the one to make commercial electric trucks happen at scale,” wrote Electrek’s Fred Lambert.
THE KICKER
Researchers were pleasantly surprised to discover that 90% of young corals that were bred using in vitro fertilization and deposited in reefs across the Caribbean survived last year’s marine heatwave.
https://heatmap.news/economy/solar-power-installations-2024-ember
The Startup Making the Weather a Hot Investment
date: 2024-09-19, from: Heatmap News
The weather has never been hotter.
The past few years have seen a boom in the weather prediction industry, with AI-based weather models from the likes of Google DeepMind, Huawei, and Nvidia consistently outperforming traditional models. Most of that work has been research-oriented, but today the startup Brightband emerged from stealth with $10 million in Series A funding and a unique plan to commercialize generative AI weather modeling. Instead of trying to go up against Weather.com, Brightband is tailoring models to specific industries such as insurance, finance, agriculture, energy, and transportation. The round was led by Prelude Ventures.
Weather forecasting has traditionally been the domain of the public sector, with the most widely used models coming from the U.S. National Weather Service and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Brightband’s CEO Julian Green told me that private companies haven’t been able to break in “because it has cost so much to have billion dollar supercomputers,” which are required to run today’s so-called “numerical” weather models.
These models rely on complex atmospheric equations based on the laws of physics to predict future weather patterns, and because of their computational intensity, are usually only updated four times daily. It’s possible then that AI-based weather prediction could thus actually reduce energy demand — because while it takes a lot of energy to train an AI model, after that’s done, generating forecasts is simple. “So instead of six hours to have a forecast, it takes under a second. Instead of using a billion dollar supercomputer, you’re using a laptop,” Green told me.
AI models like Brightband’s are trained on decades worth of past weather data, and when fed a snapshot of current conditions, can predict what will come next, much like ChatGPT does with text. “Think about the weather AI prediction problem as predicting the next frame in a radar sequence,” Green told me.
He said that customizing forecasts for particular industries will also be as simple as querying a large language model. A wind farm operator could, for example, “just take an attached file of historical wind energy production, and throw it in there and say, hey, tell me what the wind energy is going to be like next week.” Likewise folks in the aviation industry could have the model tell them if their plane’s wings are likely to ice up, utilities could get detailed insight into expected energy demand and generation, and finance companies could get up-to-the-minute information about weather-sensitive commodities. Previously, companies would’ve had to build their own forecasting teams or hire third-party advisors to get such specific predictions.
Brightband wants to further differentiate itself from the types of models that tech companies have already built by using only raw data inputs to generate its forecasts, from sources such as satellites, weather balloons, and radar systems. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not the way that most models currently work. Because there are data gaps, such as over oceans and in the developing world, the datasets used to train today’s AI weather models, Green explained, “smear the available data over a three-dimensional grid of the globe,” diluting the accuracy of both the real-time weather and presumably the resulting forecasts.
It’s hard to say how much more accurate using only raw data inputs will be, because “that’s what nobody has done yet,” Green told me. Data gaps are still an issue of course, but Green told me that Brightband’s approach will also allow the company to better analyze when and where filling these gaps would add the most value.
Brightband says it hopes to publish a paper by year’s end with an open-source version of its forecast model, alongside evaluation tools to assess its performance.
https://heatmap.news/economy/brightband-ai-weather-forecasts
Rates are on their way down. What’s that mean for you?
date: 2024-09-19, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Now that the Federal Reserve has started to cut interest rates, are we headed back to a world of cheap money? This morning, we’ll unpack what yesterday’s rate cut means for car loans, personal loans, credit cards, mortgages and more. Plus, there’s a huge difference that just half a penny can make. We’ll examine a change coming to stock trades. Also on the show: How do you define a supermarket?
Companies deny making devices that detonated in Lebanon
date: 2024-09-19, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: As questions are being asked about how walkie talkies and pagers were detonated in Lebanon, an action which killed at least 30 people and injured thousands, two manufacturers — Japan’s Icom and Taiwan’s Gold Apollo — have denied any link to the deadly blasts. We’ll dig in. Also: Why has a Chinese milk tea company been forced to apologize over a social media video?
European Commission to order Apple to take interoperability measures after company refuses to comply with DMA
date: 2024-09-19, from: OS News
The European Commission has taken the next step in forcing Apple to comply with the Digital Markets Act. The EC has started two so-called specification proceedings, in which they can more or less order Apple exactly what it needs to do to comply with the DMA – in this case covering the interoperability obligation set out in Article 6(7) of the DMA. The two proceedings entail the following: The first proceeding focuses on several iOS connectivity features and functionalities, predominantly used for and by connected devices. Connected devices are a varied, large and commercially important group of products, including smartwatches, headphones and virtual reality headsets. Companies offering these products depend on effective interoperability with smartphones and their operating systems, such as iOS. The Commission intends to specify how Apple will provide effective interoperability with functionalities such as notifications, device pairing and connectivity. The second proceeding focuses on the process Apple has set up to address interoperability requests submitted by developers and third parties for iOS and IPadOS. It is crucial that the request process is transparent, timely, and fair so that all developers have an effective and predictable path to interoperability and are enabled to innovate. ↫ European Commission press release It seems the European Commission is running out of patience, and in lieu of waiting on Apple to comply with the DMA on its own, is going to tell Apple exactly what it must do to comply with the interoperability obligation. This means that, once again, Apple’s childish, whiny approach to DMA compliance is backfiring spectacularly, with the company no longer having the opportunity to influence and control its own interoperability measures – the EC is simply going to tell them what they must do. The EC will complete these proceedings within six months, and will provide Apple with its preliminary findings which will explain what is expected of Apple. These findings will also be made public to invite comments from third parties. The proceedings are unrelated to any fines for non-compliance, which are separate.
Kelsey Hightower: If governments rely on FOSS, they should fund it
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Kubernetes doyen talks to The Reg about keeping coders coding
Interview Acclaimed engineer Kelsey Hightower, who stopped coding for money in 2023, remains an influential figure in the world of software, and he’s proposing something that might stir up the open source community.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/kelsey_hightower_civo/
With billions in UK govt IT contracts about to expire, get the next vendors to act right
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Poor performers get renewals, new small outfits discouraged from bidding, say researchers
UK government IT contracts worth £23.4 billion are due to end during the current five-year Parliament, according to researchers who warn that poor performing suppliers are hardly ever excluded from bidding again.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/government_it_contracts_expiring/
@Tomosino’s Mastodon feed (date: 2024-09-19, from: Tomosino’s Mastodon feed)
Woke up to too much negativity and need to vent some off.
I think I stopped feeling trust and faith in Mozilla when they closed their IRC network and moved to Matrix. Let me be clear: Matrix is shit, but it wasn’t really about that. It felt like hype chasing, and that philosophical problem isn’t about the specific hype you chase. So here we are again, and I’m not surprised. AI caught their eye? Not surprised. It’ll be something else next because you can’t succeed at hype chasing. There will always be the next thing.
https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/113163528308264166
Deno 2.0 Release Candidate
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: Deno blog
This release candidate, a near-final look at Deno 2, includes the addition of Node’s process global, better dependency management, and various API stabilizations, and more.
https://deno.com/blog/v2.0-release-candidate
SiFive expands from RISC-V cores for AI chips to designing its own full-fat accelerator
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Seems someone’s looking for an Arm wrestle
SiFive, having designed RISC-V CPU cores for various AI chips, is now offering to license the blueprints for its own homegrown full-blown machine-learning accelerator.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/sifive_ai_accelerator/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-19, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
$25 Harris yard sign.
Broadcom CEO predicts hyperscalers poised to build million-accelerator clusters
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Hock Tan reckons the silicon sales cycle is about to swing up, sharply, too
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has predicted his hyperscale semiconductor customers will continue building AI clusters for another three to five years, with each generation of machines to double in size.…
Tor insists its network is safe after German cops convict CSAM dark-web admin
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Outdated software blamed for cracks in the armor
The Tor project has insisted its privacy-preserving powers remain potent, countering German reports that user anonymity on its network can be and has been compromised by police.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/tor_police_germany/
trurl 0.16
date: 2024-09-19, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
(Download trurl here) Release presentation At 08:00 UTC I will do a live-streamed release presentation of trurl 0.16 on Twitch. Bump I decided to bump the minor version number again because there is a new option: –qtrim. This is the old –trim option made simpler and specialized for query components only. When we added originally … Continue reading trurl 0.16
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/09/19/trurl-0-16/
NTT Data, IBM team on mainframe cloud for banks
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
SimpliZCloud is only for India right now, based on big Blue’s LinuxONE
The mainframe has found another role, thanks to Japan’s IT services giant NTT Data which has decided to build a hybrid cloud service based on the IBM LinuxONE platform.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/ntt_data_ibm_mainframe/
Haitian American news site faces harassment over post-debate Ohio coverage
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
NEW YORK — Journalists at a news site that covers the Haitian community in the United States say they’ve been harassed and intimidated with racist messages for covering a fake story about immigrants eating the pets of people in an Ohio town.
One editor at the Haitian Times, a 25-year-old online publication, was “swatted” this week with police turning up at her home to investigate a false report of a gruesome crime. The news site canceled a community forum it had planned for Springfield, Ohio, and has shut down public comments on its stories about the issue because of threats and vile posts.
The Times, which had the Committee to Protect Journalists conduct safety training for its journalists in Haiti, has now asked for advice on how to protect staff in the United States, said Garry Pierre-Pierre, founder and publisher.
“We’ve never faced anything like this,” Pierre-Pierre said Wednesday.
Site says it isn’t backing down
The Times has debunked and aggressively covered the aftermath of the story about immigrants supposedly eating the dogs and cats of other Springfield residents, as it was spread by Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s Republican running mate in the presidential election, and Trump himself in his debate with Democrat Kamala Harris.
Despite receiving hundreds of these messages, the site isn’t backing down, said Pierre-Pierre, a former reporter at The New York Times who echoed a mission statement from his old employer in making that promise.
“We do not want to hibernate,” he said. “We’re taking the precautions that are necessary. But our first duty is to tell the truth without fear or favor, and we have no fear.”
Pierre-Pierre, who emigrated to the United States in 1975, started the Haitian Times to cover issues involving first- and second-generation Haitians in the United States, along with reporting on what is happening in their ancestral home. It started as a print publication that went online only in 2012 and now averages 10,000 to 15,000 visitors a day, although its readership has expanded in recent weeks.
Macollvie Neel, the New York-based special projects editor, was the staff member who had police officers show up at her doorstep on Monday.
It was triggered when a Haitian advocacy group received an email about a crime at Neel’s address. They, in turn, notified police who showed up to investigate. Not only did the instigators know where Neel lived, they covered their tracks by funneling the report through another organization, she said.
Neel said she had a feeling something like this might happen, based on hateful messages she received. But it’s still intimidating, made more so because the police who responded were not aware of the concept of doxxing, or tracing people online for the purpose of harassment. She said police searched her home and left.
She was always aware that journalism, by its nature, can make people unhappy with you. This takes the threat to an entirely new level. Racist hate groups who are ready to seize on any issue are sophisticated and well-funded, she said.
“This is a new form of domestic terrorism,” she said, “and we have to treat it as such.”
‘It’s outrageous’
Katherine Jacobsen, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ U.S., Canada and Caribbean program coordinator, said it’s a particularly acute case of journalists being harassed in retaliation for their coverage of a story. “It’s outrageous,” she said. “We should not be having this conversation. Yet we are.”
Even before Springfield received national attention in recent weeks, the Haitian Times had been covering the influx of immigrants to the Midwest in search of jobs and a lower cost of living, Pierre-Pierre said. A story currently on its site about Springfield details how the furor “reflects America’s age-old battle with newcomers it desperately needs to survive.”
Another article on the site talks about the NAACP, Haitian American groups and other activists from across the country coming to the aid of Springfield residents caught in the middle of the story.
Similarly, the Times has heard from several other journalists — including from Pierre-Pierre’s old employer — who have offered support. “I’m deeply touched,” he said.
How much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”?
date: 2024-09-19, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
A deep-dive on desalinisation.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/how-much-energy-does-desalinisation
Lenovo turns to India as source of AI servers
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Another win for the Make In India policy, but a small one in terms of product volume
Lenovo revealed on Tuesday that it will manufacture AI servers at its plant in Puducherry, India, and has opened a new infrastructure research and development lab in Bengalaru.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/lenovo_india_ai_server_manufacturing/
Biden to host Quad leaders at Delaware home
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden on Saturday hosts the leaders of Australia, India and Japan for his final convening of the so-called Quad, a strategic security grouping focused on the Indo-Pacific area – a populous and economically vital region also of strategic interest to China. VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-host-quad-leaders-at-delaware-home-/7790147.html
From street football in Ethiopia to the US Super League
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/from-street-football-in-ethiopia-to-the-us-super-league/7790138.html
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-19, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
The iPhone air flotilla is coming!
https://www.flightaware.com/live/iphone
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113161865848870943
LinkedIn started harvesting people’s posts for training AI without asking for opt-in
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
You’ll have to opt out if you don’t like it – EU and a few others excepted
LinkedIn started harvesting user-generated content to train its AI without asking for permission, angering netizens.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/linkedin_ai_data_access/
Biden to host Quad leaders at Delaware home
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
washington — President Joe Biden has made it a priority to elevate the relationship of the Quad, four countries touched by the Indo-Pacific region, the White House said, as he prepares to host the leaders of Japan, India and Australia on Saturday at his Delaware home.
The region stretches from the U.S. West Coast to the shores of India to the northeast waters of Japan to the waters around Australia, and includes the many tiny, diffuse islands of the Pacific. That swath of the globe, the U.S. Commerce Department says, holds more than half the world’s people and two-thirds of its economy.
And, administration officials said, this summit is personally important to Biden, as demonstrated by his decision to host the visitors in his private home in Wilmington, about 160 kilometers from the White House.
“The Biden-Harris administration has made elevating and institutionalizing the Quad a top priority,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “And this leaders’ summit will focus on bolstering the strategic convergence among our countries, advancing our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and delivering concrete benefits for our partners in the Indo-Pacific in key areas.”
Officials say the leaders will act on the region’s concerns and will announce moves on illegal fishing in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
“We’ve moved forward substantially on efforts that basically allow for the Pacific and Southeast Asia to track — largely untracked to this point — illegal fishing fleets that are the scourge of these extraordinarily important fishing areas,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told reporters Wednesday. “Vast majority of those fishing fleets are Chinese. We think these capacities will be indeed very helpful in helping local governments repel illegal fishing in their home waters.”
Biden often likes to say that the U.S. is at an inflection point — a fact he has stressed recently as American voters face a tense November election with two very different presidential candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump disagree on how to maintain the crucial U.S.-China relationship.
Trump is campaigning hard on harsh tariffs on China, saying, in a recent rally, “I’m putting a 200% tariff on them,” while making false claims that Chinese automakers are putting up large factories in Mexico.
And Harris is expected to continue Biden’s more cautious policy of keeping lines of communication open even while competing forcefully in many areas.
Beijing recently showed its sensitivity to hearing its name in U.S. election rhetoric, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning saying last week: “The election is an internal affair of the U.S. I won’t comment on election remarks. But we oppose the U.S. using the election to criticize China.”
Analysts say pulling the leaders of four powerful democracies into one room gives them space to talk freely.
“So really, I think the real agenda is not spoken about. It’s China,” said Rafiq Dossani, a senior economist at the RAND research corporation and a professor of policy analysis. “It’s how to manage the rivalry with China.”
“Each has their concerns about China,” he told VOA. “That becomes, then, the text of the subtext or the background story.”
But this group’s interests extend far beyond China, analysts say.
“This is certainly not a Contain China club,” said Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The primary objectives of the Quad have focused on health, on delivering infrastructure needs, on enhancing countries’ ability to monitor their maritime domains and their maritime resources, and on people-to-people ties between these countries.”
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-to-host-quad-leaders-at-delaware-home/7790088.html
US House Republicans fail to pass funding bill as shutdown approaches
date: 2024-09-19, from: VOA News USA
washington — Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives failed on Wednesday to pass a funding bill that included a controversial voting measure backed by Donald Trump, complicating efforts to avert a possible government shutdown at the end of the month.
Despite urging from Trump, the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 presidential election, House Republicans were unable to muster enough votes to pass the package and send it on the Democratic-controlled Senate. With Democrats mostly united in opposition, the bill failed by a vote of 202-220, with 14 Republicans voting against and three Democrats in favor.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said afterward that he would craft a new temporary spending bill that would keep the government running beyond Oct. 1, when current funding is set to expire. He did not provide details.
“Now we go back to the playbook, draw up another play and we’ll come up with another solution,” Johnson said. “I’m already talking to colleagues.”
Democrats in the House and the Senate say they are eager to pass a stopgap spending bill to avert a disruptive shutdown that would furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
However, they opposed the version that Johnson brought to a vote on Wednesday, because it was paired with an unrelated voting bill that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and require states to purge non-citizens from their registration lists.
Johnson also has to contend with a contingent of Republicans who typically vote against stopgap funding bills.
Trump has made illegal immigration a central issue in his re-election bid and has falsely claimed that Democrats are registering illegal immigrants to vote, the latest in a long line of lies about election fraud.
House Republicans say their bill is needed to ensure that only American citizens vote. It is already illegal for a noncitizen to vote in federal elections and in state elections in every state, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“It’s already illegal for a minor to purchase alcohol, yet we still card them. We still enforce the law,” said Republican Representative Aaron Bean.
Senate Democrats have refused to consider the Republican voting bill, saying it would risk disenfranchising legitimate voters while doing nothing to bolster election security. A 2017 study found 30 instances of suspected illegal immigrant votes out of more than 25 million cast.
Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer predicted that Johnson would ultimately bring up a straightforward spending bill that could attract Democratic support — a dynamic that has played out repeatedly over the past year as Republicans have been paralyzed by infighting.
“We’ve seen this film before. Let’s just skip to the ending today,” he said.
Congress faces an even more critical deadline on Jan. 1, by which time lawmakers will have to raise the nation’s debt ceiling or risk defaulting on more than $35 trillion in federal government debt.
NGI Assure Programme Successfully Concluded
date: 2024-09-19, updated: 2024-09-19, from: nlnet feed
https://nlnet.nl/news/2024/20240919-NGI-Assure-Concluded.html
pg_stat_kcache 2.3.0 is out!
date: 2024-09-19, from: PostgreSQL News
Taipei, Taiwan - September 17th, 2024
pg_stat_kcache 2.3.0
The PoWA team is pleased to announce the release of the version 2.3.0 ofpg_stat_kcache, an extension that gathers statistics about real reads and writes done by the filesystem layer and CPU usage.
Changelog
New features:
- Track entry creation timestamp (Julien Rouhaud, thanks to Andrei Zubkov for the feature request)
Bugfix:
- Fix some issues with tracking nesting level (Julien Rouhaud)
- Fix the pgsk_counters_hook declaration (Julien Rouhaud)
Miscellaneous:
- Add postgres 17 compatibility (Georgy Shelkovy)
Links & Credits
Thank to the users who reported bugs or submitted patches, they are all cited in the CHANGELOG.md file and the CONTRIBUTORS.md file.
pg_stat_kcache is an open project. Any contribution to build a better tool is welcome. You just have to send your ideas, features requests or patches using the github repository at github.com/powa-team/pg_stat_kcache.
Links :
- Documentation: github.com/powa-team/pg_stat_kcache/blob/master/README.rst
- Download: github.com/powa-team/pg_stat_kcache/releases
- Bug tracker: github.com/powa-team/pg_stat_kcache/issues
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pg_stat_kcache-230-is-out-2933/
California laws target deepfake political ads, disinformation
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/california-laws-target-deepfake-political-ads-disinformation/7789746.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bluesky addresses trust and safety concerns around abuse, spam, and more, but when is the second instance coming? How can they claim to be distributed?
What the Jumbo Fed Cut Means for Renewables
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
Renewable energy just became a much more enticing investment.
That’s thanks to the Federal Reserve, which announced today that it would reduce the benchmark federal funds rate by half a percentage point, from just over 5% to just below. It’s the beginning of an unwinding of years of high interest rates that have weighed on the global economy and especially renewable energy.
The Federal Reserve’s economic projections also indicated that the federal funds rate could fall another half point by the end of the year and a full point in 2025. The Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates from their near-zero levels in March 2022 in response to high inflation.
High interest rates, which drive up the cost of borrowing money, have an outsize effect on renewable energy projects. That’s because the cost of building and operating a renewable energy generator like a wind farm is highly concentrated in its construction, as opposed to operations, thanks to the fact that it doesn’t have to pay for fuel in the same way that a natural gas or coal-fired power plant does. This leaves developers highly exposed to the cost of borrowing money, which is directly tied to interest rates. “Our fuel is free, we say, but our fuel is really the cost of capital because we put so much capital out upfront,” Orsted Americas chief executive David Hardy said in June.
So what does that mean in practice? Let’s look at some numbers.
Wood Mackenzie estimates that a 2% increase in interest rates pushes up the cost of energy produced by a renewables project by around 20%, compared to just over 10% for conventional power plants.
Meanwhile
the
investment bank Lazard estimates that reducing the cost of capital
(the combined cost of borrowing money and selling equity in a project,
both of which can be affected by interest rates) from 7.7% — the bank’s
rough assumption over the summer — to 5.4% would lower the levelized
cost of energy for an offshore wind system from $118 to $97 — around 17%
— and for a utility solar project from $76 to $54 — roughly 28%. While
there’s not a one-to-one relationship between interest rates and the
cost of capital, they move in the same direction.
Reductions in cost of capital also make more renewables projects viable to finance. According to a model developed by the Center for Public Enterprise, a typical renewable energy project with a weighted average cost of capital of 7.75% will have a debt service coverage ratio (a project’s cash flow compared to its loan payments) of 1.16. Investors consider projects to be roughly viable at 1.25.
So at the cost of capital assumed by Lazard, many projects will not get funded because investors don’t see them as viable. If the weighted average cost of capital were to fall one percentage point to 6.75%, a project’s debt service coverage ratio would rise to 1.28, just above the viability threshold. If it fell by another percentage point, the debt ratio would hit a likely compelling 1.43.
“As rates fall, projects become increasingly financially viable,” Advait Arun, senior associate of energy finance at the Center for Public Enterprise and Heatmap contributor, told me matter-of-factly.
https://heatmap.news/economy/federal-reserve-interest-rates-energy
The Marshall Star for September 18, 2024
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
Marshall Welcomes NASA Chief Scientist for Climate, Science Town Hall NASA Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor Kate Calvin, center left, joins team members at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center for a Climate and Science Town Hall on Sept. 17 in Activities Building 4316. Calvin took part in a question-and-answer session during her visit […]
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-september-18-2024/
Google dodges €1.5B EU ads antitrust fine after appeal win
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Qualcomm, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky
Google has some thank-you cards to send, as the European Union’s General Court (GC) has nullified a €1.49 billion ($1.66 billion) fine levied against the tech giant for anti-competitive advertising behavior. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/google_escapes_15b_eu_antitrust_fine/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-18, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
I don't think Israel realizes how this supply-chain attack means that every Israeli software developer and hardware developer will now be treated as a potential attacker on the company payroll.
Every commit should be treated as being developed by Mossad.
And to think it was only a few months ago that we learned about the helpful contributor that injected trojans on open source libraries.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113160750902637668
Harris’ Turn To The Dark (Money) Side
date: 2024-09-18, from: The Lever News
Despite a history of decrying dark money, Harris is now reaping the rewards of big, secret political donations.
https://www.levernews.com/harris-turn-to-the-dark-money-side/
FBI boss says China ‘burned down’ 260,000-device botnet when confronted by Feds
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: Wray tells how bureau helps certain victims negotiate with ransomware crooks
China-backed spies are said to have tore down their own 260,000-device botnet after the FBI and its international pals went after them.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/fbi_flax_typhoon_ransomware/
NASA Deputy Administrator Talks Future of Agency in Silicon Valley
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy spent time at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, on Sept. 16, 2024, engaging with center leaders and employees to discuss strategies that could drive meaningful changes to ensure NASA remains the preeminent institution for research, technology, and engineering, and to lead science, aeronautics, and space exploration for […]
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML.
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/
Scientists Find Microplastics in Human Brain Tissue Above the Nose
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
A new study identified the tiny pollutants in the olfactory bulbs of eight cadavers, suggesting microplastics can travel through the nose to the brain
Lilbits: Intel Foundry to operate as a subsidiary, HTC Vive Focus Vision XR is a premium headset, and Bose unveils “Personal Surround Sound”
date: 2024-09-18, from: Liliputing
Setting up a surround-sound system at home usually involves arranging at least five speakers plus a subwoofer around the house. But Bose has introduced a new “Personal Surround Sound” system that lets you do it by pairing a soundbar placed by your TV with a pair of open-ear earbuds. Since the earbuds don’t cover your […]
The post Lilbits: Intel Foundry to operate as a subsidiary, HTC Vive Focus Vision XR is a premium headset, and Bose unveils “Personal Surround Sound” appeared first on Liliputing.
Deja blues… LockBit boasts once again of ransoming IRS-authorized eFile.com
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Add ‘ransomware’ to the list of certainties in life?
In an intriguing move, notorious ransomware gang LockBit claims once again to have compromised eFile.com, which offers online services for electronically filing tax returns with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/lockbit_tax_site_claim/
LockBit boasts of ransoming IRS-authorized eFile.com
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Add ‘ransomware’ to the list of certainties in life?
Notorious ransomware gang LockBit claims to have compromised eFile.com, which offers online services for electronically filing tax returns with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).…
Man who sold fentanyl-laced pill liable for $5.8 million in death of young female customer
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — In 2019, Brandon McDowell was contacted by a sophomore in college who asked to buy Percocet, a prescription painkiller.
What the 20-year-old sold her instead were counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that can be lethal in a dose as small as 2 milligrams. Hours later, Alexandra Capelouto, also 20, was dead in her Temecula, California, home.
It is an increasingly common scenario as fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years, with more than 74,000 people dying in the U.S. from a synthetic opioid in 2023, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
McDowell has been behind bars since 2022 with a fentanyl possession conviction. But the Capeloutos have now won an additional $5.8 million judgment against him for the death of their daughter.
“We’ve won the battle but not the war,” said Matt Capelouto, Alexandra’s father. “We still have a long ways to go in terms of holding drug dealers accountable for deaths.”
Baruch Cohen, the Capeloutos’ lawyer, said this was the first time a drug dealer has been held liable civilly for someone’s death, to his knowledge.
“Here’s the hope that this judgment will be the shot that’s heard around the world, so to speak,” Cohen said. “Because if it inhibits another drug deal from going down, where the drug dealer … realizes that, besides the jail sentence, he is liable for millions of dollars of damages, maybe he’ll think twice.”
McDowell, now 25, first pleaded guilty in California federal court in 2022 for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, a charge that carries a 20-year minimum sentence if linked to death or serious injury and convicted by a jury. McDowell was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Alexandra’s father felt that wasn’t enough. He and his wife, who was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer that year and has been battling it since, decided to sue McDowell for wrongful death.
“For taking somebody’s life, that was not a fair sentence,” he said. “I was going to pursue every means possible to make sure justice was served.”
While McDowell filed for bankruptcy, the Capeloutos won a judgment of about $5 million against him. The Superior Court of Riverside County found he sold harmful narcotics with “willful and malicious” intent that led to Alexandra Capelouto’s death. A few months later, the Capeloutos filed another case in federal bankruptcy court to ensure that McDowell could not escape his debt under bankruptcy.
“Bankruptcy is designed for honest debtors, not crooked criminal debtors,” Cohen said. “This judgment will haunt him the rest of his life, and when he does make money, we’ll garnish it. When he does buy property, we’ll put a lien on it.”
Judge Mark Houle ruled in the Capeloutos’ favor, ordering a $5.8 million judgment against Brandon McDowell that includes a year and half of interest in addition to the initial $5 million.
Since his daughter’s death, Matt Capelouto founded the non-profit Stop Drug Homicide to advocate for families and push for more legislation to hold drug dealers accountable. One is Alexandra’s Law, which would require a formal warning be given to anyone with a drug-related conviction to inform them of the dangers of dealing drugs and that they could be charged with murder if they distribute drugs that lead to someone’s death.
In California, it can be difficult for prosecutors to charge drug dealers with someone’s death because they must prove the dealer had knowledge that the drugs could cause death, Capelouto said. Having an admonishment on the record for dealers who have been convicted of a drug-related crime could be used as evidence in future cases if someone dies from the drugs they sold. Alexandra’s Law is included in Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime ballot measure that Californians will vote on in November.
Capelouto is also part of a group of 60 families suing Snapchat for its role in the distribution of deadly narcotics. Alexandra Capelouto and Brandon McDowell had communicated over Snapchat when she bought pills from him.
Justin McDowell, Brandon’s father, said it is unfair for his son to take all the blame. He said his son was struggling with drug abuse and had been in rehab, and he didn’t live with him at the time because the McDowells had younger children.
“My son is no drug dealer at all. They were both users. They both had an addiction,” he said. “He was a stupid 20-year-old kid.”
Justin McDowell said he felt like the Capeloutos were seeking revenge through their lawsuits, and he did not have the money and resources to fight on his son’s behalf in court. Brandon McDowell was being held at the federal prison in San Pedro during the lawsuit and did not have lawyers to defend himself in civil or bankruptcy court.
“I think that’s sad, that shouldn’t be allowed,” Justin McDowell said. “We’ll wait for him to get out of prison, give him a hug, and figure out how to deal with the situation … the kid’s never going to make $5.8 million in his life.”
Matt Capelouto said there was no evidence of his daughter having a drug addiction, and Brandon McDowell’s addiction does not absolve him of responsibility in her death.
“When you go from drug user to drug dealer, you cross a line from needing help to needing to be held accountable,” he said.
Archaeologists Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of a Lead Coffin Discovered Beneath Notre-Dame
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
New research suggests the sarcophagus’ occupant, previously known only as “the horseman,” is Joachim du Bellay, a French Renaissance poet who died in 1560
Teamsters union declines to endorse Trump or Harris
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.
“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before big business,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”
Harris met Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump also met with a panel of Teamsters and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.
The Teamsters said Wednesday that internal polling of its members showed Trump with an advantage over Harris.
The Teamsters’ choice to not endorse came just weeks ahead of the November 5 election, far later than other large unions such as the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, which have chosen to back Harris.
https://www.voanews.com/a/teamsters-union-declines-to-endorse-trump-or-harris/7789592.html
GNOME 47 released with accent colours and completely new open/save file dialogs
date: 2024-09-18, from: OS News
The GNOME project has released their newest major version, GNOME 47, and while it’s not the most groundbreaking release, there’s still a ton of good stuff in here. Two features really stand our, with the first one being the addition of accent colours. Instead of being locked into the default GNOME blue accent colour, you can now choose between a variety of colours, which is a very welcome addition. I use the accent colour feature on all my computers, and since I run KDE, I also have this nifty KDE feature where it’ll select an accent colour automatically based on your wallpaper. No, this isn’t a groundbreaking feature, but considering GNOME’s tendency towards not allowing any customisation, this is simply very welcome. A much more substantial feature comes in the form of brand new open/save file dialogs, and I’m sure even the GNOME developers themselves are collectively sighing in relief about this one. GNOME’s open/save dialogs were so bad they became a meme, and now they’re finally well and truly fixed, thanks to effectively removing the old ones and adding new ones based on the GNOME Files file manager. GNOME 47 comes with brand new file open and save file dialogs. The new dialogs are a major upgrade compared with the previous versions, and are based on the existing Files app rather than being a separate codebase. This results in the new dialogs having a much more complete set of features compared with the old open and save dialogs. With the new dialogs you can zoom the view, change the sort order in the icon view, rename files and folders, preview files, and more. ↫ GNOME 47 release notes And yes, this includes thumbnails. There’s tons more in GNOME 47, like a new design for dialog windows that look and feel more like they belong on a mobile UI, tons of improvements to Files, the Settings application, GNOME Online Accounts, Web, and more. GNOME 47 will make its way to your distribution of choice soon enough, but of course, you can always build and install it yourself if you’re so inclined.
NASA Shares Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Remarks
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson released his remarks as prepared for Wednesday’s Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington. The awards recognized the women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program. “Good afternoon. “The remarkable things that NASA […]
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-shares-hidden-figures-congressional-gold-medal-remarks/
Smartphones Leaking Data
date: 2024-09-18, from: Purism News and Events
When you use smartphones from big tech companies, you’re often trading your privacy for convenience. These devices are designed to collect vast amounts of data about you, from your location to your browsing habits, and even your conversations. This data is then used to build detailed profiles that are sold to advertisers, used to exploit you, and even handed over to government agencies without your knowledge nor consent.
The post Smartphones Leaking Data appeared first on Purism.
https://puri.sm/posts/smartphones-leaking-data/
Longshoremen at key US ports threatening to strike over automation, pay
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Giant Leaps Start at Johnson for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
As the hub of human spaceflight, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston holds a variety of unique responsibilities and privileges. Those include being the home of NASA’s astronaut corps. One of those astronauts – Nick Hague – is now preparing to launch to the International Space Station along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on the […]
Hubble Examines a Busy Galactic Center
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium. Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight. It holds an active galactic […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-examines-a-busy-galactic-center/
Putin really wants Trump back in the White House
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
US govt, Microsoft report on Kremlin trolls’ latest antics to Make America Grate Again
Russia really wants Donald Trump to be the next US President, judging by reports from American government agencies and now Microsoft’s threat intelligence team.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/russia_putin_trump_white_house/
MSI Cubi NUC 13MQ mini PC supports up to an Intel Core i7-1365U vPro processor
date: 2024-09-18, from: Liliputing
While some mini PC makers are starting to introduce compact computers featuring the latest Intel Lunar Lake or AMD Strix Point processors, MSI is taking a slow and steady approach by launching several new models powered by Intel Raptor Lake processors… which are two generations behind the chip maker’s latest architecture. Earlier this year MSI […]
The post MSI Cubi NUC 13MQ mini PC supports up to an Intel Core i7-1365U vPro processor appeared first on Liliputing.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-18, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
SpectreKit for Swift is making steady progress!
https://github.com/patriksvensson/spectre-kit
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113160206747291996
Climate week talks to include critical minerals and seabed mining debate
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Washington — When activists, policymakers and representatives from across the globe gather next week in New York to participate in climate week, one pressing issue on the agenda that is less frequently discussed and known will be the environmental impact of seabed mining.
As countries look for ways to lower emissions, critical minerals are playing a key role in that transition. Critical minerals are used in all kinds of green technologies, from solar panels and wind turbines to batteries in electric vehicles. And one place where those mineral resources are abundant is deep under the sea.
The debate over accessing seabed resources is heated. Supporters say the technology exists to safely access these critical minerals undersea, but environmentalists and activists say the potential of undiscovered biodiversity on the seafloor is too important to endanger.
During climate week, which will take place on the sidelines of U.N. General Assembly meetings, organizers are expected to host a roundtable on the environmental impact of seabed mining and other discussions about critical minerals.
The World Economic Forum says that if the globe wants to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, two-thirds of vehicles must be powered by electric batteries. And the International Energy Agency says that to reach that goal, the world needs six times more mineral resources by 2040 than it has today.
Some of the largest mineral deposits are found on the ocean floor in the form of polymetallic nodules, or rocks.
Ocean of resources
According to the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, there are 21 billion tons of polymetallic nodules strewn across the seabed of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ. Each nodule contains a combination of electric vehicle battery components such as nickel, manganese, copper and cobalt. The ISA plans to release regulations for mining in the international waters of the CCZ by 2025.
The ISA has already awarded 17 exploration contracts for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone – a large swath of the Pacific Ocean the size of the continental United States which sits between Hawaii and Mexico. Three of those exploration contracts went to The Metals Company, a Canadian deep-sea mining company.
The Pacific Island Nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga have sponsored The Metals Company’s efforts to develop a portion of the seabed. In an interview with VOA, CEO Gerard Barron said the company is ready to begin as soon as the ISA allows mining.
“Our collector methodology is to put a robot on the seafloor which crawls around the ocean floor and fires a jet of water at the nodule and it creates an inverse pressure and lifts the nodule up, and so we don’t go down and scour the seafloor,” said Barron via Zoom, adding that TMC has spent the past decade focused on testing this equipment and collecting data on its environmental impact as part of its permit application to the ISA.
Moratorium needed
Critics worry scooping up these mineral-rich rocks will disrupt important biodiversity – much of it still unnamed and some of it undiscovered. Researchers have found that 90% of the more than 5,000 species in the zone are new to science. Eddie Palu, president of the Tonga Fishery Association, wants a pause for more research.
“We demand a moratorium on the seabed mining until the environmental, economic and social risk are comprehensively understood,” he said during a panel discussion at the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.
Shiva Gounden from Greenpeace Australia Pacific, who also sat on the panel, agreed.
“We know only very little of the deep sea, and the race for the final frontier could cause irreversible damages to the people and to the communities of our Pacific,” Gounden said.
But scientists say no light and very little oxygen reaches the deep sea – limiting the life there to mostly bacteria and small invertebrates.
The Metals Company’s Barron said combating climate change is a bigger threat to the planet than undersea mining, adding that the company’s environmental impact studies show that “we can safely collect these nodules” and turn them into battery metals without having “a negative impact on the ocean.”
“The notion that we can do any extraction with zero impact is a dream,” added Barron. “The oceans are impacted by every single thing we do today, especially global warming. So, we need to address the main driver for climate change and reduce emissions.”
Fueling innovation
Still, the quest to do just that – access minerals on the seabed with minimal impact to the environment – has created competition between technology companies.
U.S. tech startup Impossible Metals is testing a robot which can avoid nodules where it detects life and harvests those where it does not.
“The vehicle hovers above the seabed, uses the camera and it actually picks up the nodules one by one. So this really minimizes all of the negative concerns around big sediment plumes,” CEO Oliver Gunasekra told VOA in an interview.
Gunaskera’s company spun off Viridian Biometals. Its technology bypasses energy-intensive processes such as smelting with bacteria which can separate metal ore from the rock around it. The process creates no emissions or waste.
“The bacteria need oxygen just like we do to breathe. And when there’s not enough oxygen in the water around them, the bacteria have learned that there’s oxygen in the rocks, and they have adapted to breathe that oxygen,” said Viridian CEO Eric Macris.
Impossible Metals and Viridian Biometals say they are two to three years out from commercializing their technology, depending on funding. TMC says it could be ready to begin its collection operations as soon as international regulations are released next year.
IBM quietly axing thousands of jobs, source says
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
We did warn you, Big Blue tells The Reg, as Cisco also cuts staff as promised
IBM has been laying off a substantial number of employees this week and is trying to keep it quiet, our sources have said.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/ibm_job_cuts/
Mississippi town moves Confederate monument that became an eyesore
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
grenada, mississippi — A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.
Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land, a concrete slab behind a fire station about 5.6 kilometers from the square.
But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.
The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis. The vote seemed timely: Mississippi legislators had just retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.
The tarps went up soon after the vote, shrouding the Confederate soldier and the pedestal he stood on. But even as people complained about the eyesore, the move was delayed by tight budgets, state bureaucracy or political foot-dragging.
A new mayor and city council took office in May, prepared to take action. On Sept. 11, with little advance notice, police blocked traffic and a work crew disassembled and removed the 6.1-meter stone structure.
“I’m glad to see it move to a different location,” said Robin Whitfield, an artist with a studio just off Grenada’s historic square. “This represents that something has changed.”
Still, Whitfield, who is white, said she wishes Grenada leaders had invited the community to engage in a discussion about the symbol, to bridge the gap between those who think moving it is erasing history and those who see it as a daily reminder of white supremacy. She was among the few people watching as a crane lifted parts of the monument onto a flatbed truck.
“No one ever talked about it, other than yelling on Facebook,” Whitfield said.
Mayor Charles Latham said the monument has been “quite a divisive figure” in the town of 12,300, where about 57% of residents are Black and 40% are white.
“I understand people had family … fight and die in that war, and they should be proud of their family,” Latham said. “But you’ve got to understand that there were those who were oppressed by this, by the Confederate flag on there. There’s been a lot of hate and violence perpetrated against people of color, under the color of that flag.”
The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Representative Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.
“We are prepared to pursue such avenues that may be necessary to ensure that the statue is relocated to a more suitable and appropriate location,” she wrote, suggesting a Confederate cemetery closer to the courthouse square as an alternative. She said the Ladies Cemetery Association is willing to deed a parcel to the city to make it happen.
The Confederate monument in Grenada is one of hundreds in the South, most of which were dedicated during the early 20th century when groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy sought to shape the historical narrative by valorizing the Lost Cause mythology of the Civil War.
The monuments, many of them outside courthouses, came under fresh scrutiny after an avowed white supremacist who had posed with Confederate flags in photos posted online killed nine Black people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
Renewable Energy’s Farmland Free-for-All
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
Farms are fast becoming one of the most powerful opponents to renewable energy in the United States, second perhaps only to the fossil fuel industry. And it’s frighteningly unclear how developers will resolve this problem – or if they even can.
As solar and wind has grown rapidly across the country, so too have protests against solar and wind power on “prime farmland,” a loose term used by industry and government officials to describe property best suited for growing lots of crops. Towns and counties are banning the construction of solar and wind farms on prime farmland. State regulators – including those run by Democrats – are restricting renewable development on prime farmland, and members of Congress are looking at cutting off or restricting federal funds to projects on prime farmland.
In theory, meeting our country’s climate goals and industry needs should require very little farmland. But those same wide expanses flush with sunlight and gusts of wind sought after by developers happen to often be used by farmers: A USDA study released this year found more than 90% of wind turbines and 70% of solar farms in rural areas were sited on agricultural land.
It would be easy for an activist or energy nerd to presume this farmland free-for-all is being driven by outside actors or adverse incentives (and there’s a little bit of that going on, as we’ll get to).
However, weeks of reporting – and internal Heatmap News datasets – have revealed to me that farmland opposition actually has a devilishly simple explanation: many large farm owners are just plain hostile to land use changes that could potentially, or even just hypothetically, impact their capacity to grow more crops.
This means there is no easy solution and as I’ll explain, it is unclear whether the renewables sector’s efforts to appear more accommodating to agricultural businesses – most notably agri-voltaics – will stem the tide of local complaints from rural farmers.
“This is a new land use that is very quickly accelerating across the country and one of the major reactions is just to that fact,” Ethan Winter of American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit promoting solar education in farm communities, told me. “These are people who’ve been farming this land for generations in some instances. The idea of doing anything to take it out of agricultural production is just hard for them, for their community, and it’s about the culture of their community, and if solar is something that can be considered compatible with agriculture.”
Tracking the conflict
Over 40% of all restrictive ordinances and moratoriums in Heatmap Pro’s database are occurring in counties with large agricultural workforces.
In fact, our internal data via Heatmap Pro has found that agricultural employment can be a useful predictor of whether a community will oppose the deployment of renewables. It’s particularly salient where there’s large-scale, capital-intensive farming, likely because the kind of agriculture requiring expensive machinery, costly chemicals, and physical and financial infrastructure — think insurance and loans — indicates that farming is the economic cornerstone of that entire community.
Resentment against renewables is pronounced in the Corn Belt, but it’s also happening even in the bluest of states like Connecticut, where state environmental regulators have recommended against developing on prime farmland and require additional permits to build on preferred fertile soils. Or New York, where under pressure from farming groups including the state Farm Bureau, the state legislature last year included language in a new permitting authority law limiting the New York Power Authority from approving solar and wind on “land used in agricultural production” unless the project was agrivoltaics, which means it allows simultaneous farming of the property. The state legislature is now looking at additional curbs on siting projects in farmland as it considers new permitting legislation.
Deanna Fox, head of the New York Farm Bureau, explained to me that her organization’s bottom-up structure essentially means its positions are a consensus of its grassroots farm worker membership. And those members really don’t trust renewables to be safe for farmland.
“What happens when those solar arrays no longer work, or they become antiquated? Or farmland loses its agricultural designation and becomes zoned commercial? How does that impact ag districting in general? Does that land just become commercial? Can it go back to being agricultural land?” Fox asked. “If you were to talk to a group of farmers about solar, I would guarantee none of them would say anything about the emotional aspect of it. I don’t think that’s what it really is for them. [And] if it’s emotional, it’s wrapped around the economics of it.”
Surveys of farmers have hinted that fears could be assuaged if developers took steps to make their projects more harmonious with agricultural work. As we reported last week, a survey by the independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association found up to 70% of farmers they spoke with said they were “open to large-scale solar” but many sought stipulations for dual usage of the land for farming – a practice known as agrivoltaics.
Clearly, agrivoltaics and other simultaneous use strategies are what the industry wants to promote. As we hit send on last week’s newsletter, I was strolling around RE+, renewable energy’s largest U.S. industry conference. Everywhere I turned, I found publicity around solar and farming.
The Department of Energy even got in on the action. At the same time as the conference, the department chose to announce a new wave of financial prizes for companies piloting simultaneous solar energy and farming techniques.
“In areas where there has been a lot of loss of farmland to development, solar is one more factor that I think has worried folks in some communities,” Becca Jones-Albertus, director of DOE’s solar energy technologies office, told me during an interview at the conference. However agri-voltaics offer “a really exciting strategy because it doesn’t make this an either or. It’s a yes and.”
It remains to be seen whether these attempts at harmony will resolve any of the discord.
Grazing: Helpful or irrelevant?
One industry practice being marketed to farm communities that folks hope will soften opposition is sheep grazing at solar farms. At RE+, The American Solar Grazing Association, an advocacy group, debuted a documentary about the practice at the conference and had an outdoor site outside the showroom with sheep chilling underneath solar panel frames. The sheep display had a sign thanking sponsors including AES, Arevon, BP, EDF Renewables, and Pivot Energy.
Some developers like Avangrid have found grazing to be a useful way to mitigate physical project risks at solar farms in the Pacific Northwest. Out in rural Oregon and Washington, unkempt grasslands can present a serious fire risk. So after trying other methods, Avangrid partnered with an Oregon rancher, Cameron Krebs, who told me he understands why some farmers are skeptical about developers coming into their neck of the woods.
“Culturally speaking, this is agricultural land. These are communities that grow wheat and raise cattle. So my peers, when they put in the solar farms and they see it going out of production, that really bothers the community in general,” he said.
But Krebs doesn’t see solar farms with grazing the same way.
“It’s a retooling. It may not be corn production anymore. But we’re still going to need a lot of resources. We’re still going to need tire shops. I think there is a big fear that the solar companies will take the land out of production and then the meat shops and the food production would suffer because we don’t have that available on the landscape, but I think we can have utility scale solar that is healthy for our communities. And that really in my mind means honoring that soil with good vegetation.”
It’s important to note, however, that grazing can’t really solve renewables’ farmland problem. Often grazing is most helpful in dry Western desert. Not to mention sheep aren’t representative of all livestock – they’re a small percentage. And Heatmap Pro’s database has found an important distinction between farms focused on crops versus livestock — the latter isn’t as predisposed to oppose renewable energy.
The uproar around Oak Run
Ground zero for the future of renewables on farmland is Savion’s proposed Oak Run project in Ohio, which at up to 800 megawatts of generation capacity would be the state’s largest solar farm. The developer also plans to let farmers plant and harvest crops in between the solar arrays, making it the nation’s largest agri-voltaics site if completed.
But Oak Run is still being opposed by nearby landowners and local officials citing impacts to farmland. At Oak Run’s proposed site, neighboring township governments have passed resolutions opposing construction, as has the county board of commissioners, and town and county officials sued to undo Oak Run’s approval at the Ohio Power Siting Board. Although that lawsuit was unsuccessful, its backers want to take the matter to the state Supreme Court.
Some of this might be tied to the pure fact Ohio is super hostile to renewables right now. Over a third of counties in the state have restricted or outright banned solar and wind projects, according to Heatmap Pro’s database.
But there’s more at play here. The attorney representing town and county officials is Jack Van Kley, a lawyer and former state government official who remains based in Ohio and who has represented many farms in court for myriad reasons. I talked to Van Kley last week for an hour about why he opposes renewables projects (“they’re anything but clean in my opinion”), his views on global warming (“I don’t get involved in the dispute over climate change”) and a crucial fact that might sting: He says at least roughly two thirds of his clientele are farmers or communities reliant on agricultural businesses.
“It’s neighbor against neighbor in these communities,” he told me. “You’ve got a relatively low number of farmers who want to lease their land so that the solar companies can put solar panels on them for thirty or forty years, and it’s just a few landowners that are profiting from these projects.”
Van Kley spoke to a concern voiced by his clients I haven’t really heard addressed by solar developers much: overall impacts to irrigation. Specifically, he said an outsized concern among farmers is simply how putting a solar or wind farm adjacent or close to their property will impact how groundwater and surface water moves in the area, which can impact somebody’s existing agricultural drainage infrastructure.
“If you do that next to another property that is being farmed, you’ll kill the crop because you’ll flood the crop,” he claimed. “This is turning out to be a big issue for farmers who are opposing these facilities.”
Some have tried to paint Van Kley as funded or assisted by the fossil fuel lobby or shadowy actors. Van Kley has denied any involvement in those kinds of backroom dealings. While there’s glimpses of evidence gas and coal money plays at least a minor role with other characters fomenting opposition in the state, I really have no evidence of him being one of these people right now. It’s much easier and simpler to reason that he’s being paid by another influential sect – large landowners, many of whom work in agriculture.
That’s the same conclusion John Boeckl reached. Boeckl, an Army engineer, is one of the property owners leasing land for construction of the Oak Run project. He supports Oak Run being built and has submitted testimony in the legal challenge over its approvals. Though Boeckl certainly wants to know more about who is funding the opposition and has his gripes with neighbors who keep putting signs on his property that say “no solar on prime farmland,” he hasn’t witnessed any corporate skullduggery from shadowy outside entities.
“I think it’s just farmers being farmers,” he said. “They don’t want to be told what to do with their land.”
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/spotlight/renewable-energys-farmland-free-for-all
Trouble for Renewables in Rhode Island, Oregon, Iowa, and More
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
1. Newport County, Rhode Island – I’ve learned that climate activists in Rhode Island are now using local protests to oppose NIMBYs who are challenging renewables projects.
- On Sept. 19, members of Climate Action Rhode Island – a local offshoot of 350.org – will be on the ground disrupting the entrance to a lavish dinner hosted by the Preservation Society of Newport County, a wealthy architectural conservation group that sued federal regulators over their approval of Eversource’s Revolution offshore wind project.
- As that lawsuit works its way through the courts, activists are using local opposition to draw public attention to the Preservation Society and portray it as an obstacle to progress on decarbonization with op-eds, meetings, and now more protests.
- Nick Horton of Climate Action Rhode Island told me that this public awareness campaign may also target the TV network HBO, as its show “The Gilded Age” has been filmed at the Preservation Society’s historic mansions.
- “I think broadly speaking the environmental movement really needs to start organizing around the threat of NIMBYism, and needs to start identifying these NIMBY organizations as prime bad actors in the pushback against the renewable energy transition,” Horton said.
2. Coos County, Oregon – The Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians have sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management requesting it delay an offshore wind lease sale scheduled on Oct. 15.
- The tribes are opposing offshore wind for many of the same reasons tribes in California and Washington state have fought against development – impacting the viewshed could hinder tribal cultural practices. This litigation also cites potential environmental impacts and requests additional government analysis.
- This lawsuit arrives as two coastal counties – Coos and Curry – will vote this November on a non-binding ballot measure expressing opposition to offshore wind.
3. Polk County, Iowa – Landowners have sued the Iowa Utilities Commission over permitting the Summit Carbon Solutions CO2 pipeline and providing eminent domain authority, the latest in a string of setbacks that has galvanized local opposition from the midwest to the Dakotas.
- Fresh off news of the lawsuit, Gevo – a sustainable aviation fuel startup that plans to use the pipeline to transport its products – today announced it acquired a new biofuels plant in North Dakota that it said can “mitigate risk” tied to the South Dakota plant it plans to link to Summit.
- I spoke with Gevo CEO Patrick Gruber last month about Summit and his answer presaged this move: “When do we need a pipeline? Do I need it tomorrow? Nope. I don’t need it until 2027, 2028, I have a lot of time here. I don’t need it until then. I’ve got options, really. We have a lot of game to play still.”
- I’ll be watching for future developments in the Summit saga as well as whether CO2 pipeline opposition is fueling local moratoria against solar and wind as well.
4. Houston County, Georgia – One of Georgia’s largest proposed solar projects has been rejected by a potential host county over its potential impacts to bear habitat and property values.
- The roughly 4,600-acre Silicon Ranch solar project would be built next to a wilderness management area in an area home to black bears.
- After reviewing county planning meeting minutes and local press reports, it appears these nature concerns galvanized residents, as well as recent legal challenges against other solar projects and home value concerns.
- I’m watching this project because I’m seeing this fight pop up in opposition Facebook group discussions likely due to wildlife impacts. As Heatmap’s internal polling shows, bipartisan opposition to renewables is strongest when it involves concerns about animals.
Here’s what else I’m watching…
- In southern Georgia, Brooks County is facing an outcry against a NextEra solar project so loud it’s spurring momentum for a moratorium. Bizarrely, news coverage of the backlash and ensuing public hearing has rippled across airwaves in other parts of the country too, from Michigan to New York.
- In Kansas, Orsted’s efforts to expand the Sunflower wind farm have triggered a local moratorium – effective now.
- In Maryland, a 70-mile power line proposed by Public Service Enterprise Group is beginning to face local opposition, including from local leaders in Baltimore County.
- In New York, a family seeking to let BlueWave Solar build on their farm is facing the wrath of its neighbors.
In Washington state, Scout Clean Energy’s embattled Horse Heaven wind farm project has gotten the blessing of the state’s energy siting authority. The final approval now goes to Gov. Jay Inslee.
US Federal Reserve cuts key rate by sizable half-point, signaling end to its inflation fight
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates helped tame inflation but that also made borrowing painfully expensive for American consumers.
The rate cut, the Fed’s first in more than four years, reflects its new focus on bolstering the job market, which has shown clear signs of slowing. Coming just weeks before the presidential election, the Fed’s move also has the potential to scramble the economic landscape just as Americans prepare to vote.
The central bank’s action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%, where it had stood for 14 months as it struggled to curb the worst inflation streak in four decades. Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in mid-2022 to a three-year low of 2.5% in August, not far above the Fed’s 2% target.
The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they expect to cut their key rate by an additional half-point in their final two meetings this year, in November and December. And they envision four more rate cuts in 2025 and two in 2026.
In a statement, the Fed came closer than it has before to declaring victory over inflation: It said it “has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%.”
Though the central bank now believes inflation is largely defeated, many Americans remain upset with still-high prices for groceries, gas, rent and other necessities. Former President Donald Trump blames the Biden-Harris administration for sparking an inflationary surge. Vice President Kamala Harris, in turn, has charged that Trump’s promise to slap tariffs on all imports would raise prices for consumers even further.
Rate cuts by the Fed should, over time, lower borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, boosting Americans’ finances and supporting more spending and growth. Homeowners will be able to refinance mortgages at lower rates, saving on monthly payments, and even shift credit card debt to lower-cost personal loans or home equity lines. Businesses may also borrow and invest more.
Average mortgage rates have already dropped to an 18-month low of 6.2%, according to Freddie Mac, spurring a jump in demand for refinancings.
The Fed’s next policy meeting is Nov. 6-7 — immediately after the presidential election. By cutting rates this week, soon before the election, the Fed is risking attacks from Trump, who has argued that lowering rates now amounts to political interference. Yet Politico has reported that even some key Senate Republicans who were interviewed have expressed support for a Fed rate cut this week.
The central bank’s officials fought against high inflation by raising their key rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Wage growth has since slowed, removing a potential source of inflationary pressure. And oil and gas prices are falling, a sign that inflation should continue to cool in the months ahead. Consumers are also pushing back against high prices, forcing such companies as Target and McDonald’s to dangle deals and discounts.
Yet after several years of strong job growth, employers have slowed hiring, and the unemployment rate has risen nearly a full percentage point from its half-century low in April 2023 to a still-low 4.2%. Once unemployment rises that much, it tends to keep climbing. Fed officials and many economists note, though, that the rise in unemployment this time largely reflects an influx of people seeking jobs — notably new immigrants and recent college graduates — rather than layoffs.
At issue in the Fed’s deliberations is how fast it wants to lower its benchmark rate to a point where it’s no longer acting as a brake on the economy — nor as an accelerant. Where that so-called “neutral” level falls isn’t clear, though many analysts peg it at 3% to 3.5%.
Time for Tariffs and Permitting Reform?
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
Tariffs time, baby – All eyes are on the U.S. Trade Representative after the Biden administration locked in 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports effective in a week and a half, and determined up next are a 50% tariff on solar cells and 25% tariff on steel, aluminum, EV batteries and transition metals.
- Before the duty news came down, walking around RE+ last week, I was honestly surprised at the sheer number of Chinese manufacturers with convention showroom booths, from EV company BYD to companies like Gotion that have riled up lawmakers in D.C. It was a charm offensive.
- If Ford executives are to be believed, China could still play a role in the future of the U.S. automotive industry. But that being said, I have my doubts U.S. trade policy will change on EV and solar supply chains given the big lobbying spend from domestic manufacturers and mining companies in Washington.
Permit time, time permitting – Lots of hay is being made of permitting reform back in D.C., where congressional Republicans have revived legislative efforts to overhaul the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act.
- Action lately has largely taken place in the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees land use issues. The committee held a hearing on legislation to modify NEPA implementation last week. Its chair Bruce Westerman also introduced legislation that would change federal species preservation.
- These bills go much further than the bipartisan permitting compromise reached in the Senate, which focuses on judicial review, fossil fuel leasing, and renewable energy timelines.
- I’ll say this with all the painful confidence of someone who covered Congress for far too long: some centrists have applauded the bills but they’re DOA – especially if Kamala Harris wins the November presidential election. That’s simply because the math for radically changing NEPA just isn’t there, and doubly so for wildlife protection law.
Maine’s offshore wind – The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced it’ll officially hold the first offshore wind lease sale on Maine waters on Oct. 29.
- It is widely expected that for offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine to succeed it must consist of floating turbines to accommodate concerns from the state’s politically powerful fishermen.
- BOEM issued a research lease for a floating offshore wind pilot project last month to the University of Maine for studying the technology.
Transformers, too – A White House-led infrastructure policy committee recommended the federal government should create a “virtual reserve” of transformers for energy security.
- The recommendations note a growing wait time for procuring transformers for the grid and note physical products wouldn’t be necessary. Instead, it says the government needs ample data on what’s in stock domestically and the capacity to offer pricing support to businesses for purchasing transformers and products in the supply chain.
Here’s what else I’m watching…
- The Treasury Department this morning proposed wide eligibility parameters for the IRA electric vehicle charging station credit.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson said congressional Republicans may preserve some IRA credits if the GOP maintains control of Congress next year. He didn’t say which credits, though I took a stab at predicting which would stay over the summer.
- Fresh off his op-ed for Heatmap, former White House National Economic Council head Brian Deese authored a new report on building out advanced transmission.
Climate activists are urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reverse its approval of the Southeast Energy Exchange Market, a regional energy trading platform.
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/policy-watch/tariffs-evs-solar-steel-batteries
Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of ESS, Makes the Case for Iron-Flow Batteries
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
While in Anaheim for RE+ last week, I met with Eric Dresselhuys, CEO of
long duration iron-flow battery storage manufacturer ESS Inc. We chatted
about battery fires, community buy-in, and the future of China policy. I
came in expecting optimism and left feeling we need a lot more
conversations like this one.
The following is an abridged version of our conversation that has been edited for clarity.
How does your product address the opinion that battery storage has a buy-in problem?
It’s not so much an opinion as just reporting the obvious, which is that lithium-ion batteries on the grid have a buy-in problem. Maybe if you’re in rural western Australia nobody cares because there are no human beings around, but if you look at the need for energy storage to facilitate the energy transition, it’s pretty clear we have to put batteries all over the place and specifically close to where human beings live. And that’s a problem.
Can iron-flow help solve that problem? I think unequivocally we can. It’s a very different architecture. It’s a battery that’s really designed from the beginning to operate as a grid backup battery. If you go back to look at lithium, it was never designed to go onto the grid. It was designed to go into camcorders, phones. This is not the technology I think anybody would’ve picked for the grid if they had started from scratch.
Are you seeing any change in demand for your product from protests over lithium battery projects?
I think it’s the old gag of all politics are local. The politics of siting is a local problem. What’s simultaneously true is adoption of storage on the grid is growing at a phenomenally high rate. And yet there are stories [about opposition] all over the place. There was just one up in Marin County, California, where the community said it’s in an area adjacent to wetlands. And they said you know what? We’re just not going to put a–
But are these communities opposed to lithium storage actually choosing iron-flow over these projects, or are they just saying no to any development?
Right now, they’re just saying no. The communities are not going to solve the problem. They’re going to tell you what is unacceptable and it’s going to be somebody else’s job to solve the problem.
I’ll use Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam [as an example]. They said, we have thousands of gallons of jet fuel laying around. And people. And airplanes. We can’t put a lithium battery out here. So they’re using an iron-flow and sought out a non-lithium battery to solve their energy storage problems because it was safer.
China policy looms large over the future of U.S. battery supplies. What do you think the final endgame will be of our approach to China’s dominance in this business segment?
It’s a great question that I don’t think I know the answer to. I think the next step is to try and get the playing field somewhat level. The amount of subsidy that goes into renewables in general and batteries in particular in China is daunting. People talk about the IRA and all these things as if it’s a lot of money, but it’s a pittance compared to what China is putting in.
Getting the playing field a little more level in the short term through a combination of incentives here and tariffs coming on will be a next step. Until we get carbon accounting — cradle-to-grave carbon accounting — it’ll be hard to get things totally level because in the U.S. we enforce environmental laws and we don’t employ prison labor to build [these] things. Until we get that full ESG accounting, I think there’s going to be some limitation.
Okay one fun question – what was the last song you listened to? Keeping ’em honest here at Heatmap News.
“Impossible Germany” by Wilco.
https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/qa/eric-dresselhuys-ess-ceo-iron-flow-batteries
The Hotel Chelsea’s Iconic Neon Sign Will Be Divided Into Pieces and Sold One Letter at a Time
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The vertical sign stretched across three stories of the Manhattan hotel, which once welcomed the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin
Construction Project Unearths Millions of Fossils Beneath a Los Angeles High School
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The discoveries include sharks, shorebirds, mammals and saber-toothed salmon, with the oldest remains dating to almost nine million years ago
Lebanon now hit with deadly walkie-talkie blasts as Israel declares ‘new phase’ of war
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Second wave of exploding gear kills at least 14 today
First it was pagers, now Lebanon is being rocked by Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies detonating across the country, leaving more than a dozen dead.…
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-18, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Update: I am typing the shit out of all these exceptions.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113159827609099896
Feedback Feedback
date: 2024-09-18, from: Michael Tsai
Cesare Forelli: I want to file a constructive Feedback to Apple about the developer experience with the Feedback process itself (very meta, I know), and I need yours! 5 quick & unbiased questions, please 🙏 answer them now. Previously: Mail Extension Postmortem Feedback Through an Intermediary WWDC Lab More Useful Than Feedback Getting Feedback to […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/18/feedback-feedback/
macOS Firewall Regressions in Sequoia
date: 2024-09-18, from: Michael Tsai
Will Dormann: [Running] nslookup clearly causes a DNS request and a response to go over the wire, but nslookup eventually gives up thinking that no servers could be reached.[…]So if I turn off the macOS firewall, this all works fine. 🤔[…]Problem #1: “Block incoming connections” includes DNS responses is new as of macOS Sequoia. Prior […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/18/macos-firewall-regressions-in-sequoia/
Apple Drops Lawsuit Against NSO Group
date: 2024-09-18, from: Michael Tsai
Ryan Naraine (via Hacker News): Apple has abruptly withdrawn its lawsuit against NSO Group, citing increased risk that the legal battle might unintentionally reveal sensitive vulnerability data and difficulties in acquiring essential information from the spyware vendor. In a court filing Friday, Apple said continuing the lawsuit now poses “too significant a risk” of exposing […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/18/apple-drops-lawsuit-against-nso-group/
Canva Hikes Prices
date: 2024-09-18, from: Michael Tsai
Denham Sadler (via Hacker News, Slashdot): Canva has announced a tripling of their prices for some of its users as the Australian tech company prepares for a public listing in the US.In the US, some users have had their subscription increase from $119.99 per year to $300 per year for the first 12 months, then […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/18/canva-hikes-prices/
LincPlus LincStation N1 Review: An affordable 6-bay NAS with support for up to 48TB of solid state storage
date: 2024-09-18, from: Liliputing
The LincStation N1 is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device from a company called LincPlus. But it is different from most recent consumer-oriented NAS systems, in that it’s not just a plain-looking box designed to hold a few hard drives and run a proprietary operating system. Instead, it’s a small and sleek looking NAS with […]
The post LincPlus LincStation N1 Review: An affordable 6-bay NAS with support for up to 48TB of solid state storage appeared first on Liliputing.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-18, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
The mind contortions the US has to pull to say something this stupid is truly staggering:
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113159813600506477
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Podcast: Let's use feeds to hook together pieces of the twittersphere.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Let's go on a ride on Hudson River bike path. (A number of years ago when I lived in NYC.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPeChYMV04
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs makes fresh bid for bail in sex trafficking, conspiracy case
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
New York — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a judge Wednesday to let him await his sex trafficking trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, rather than a grim federal jail in Brooklyn.
Combs’ lawyers offered a $50 million bail package — using his mansion as collateral — in exchange for releasing him to home detention with GPS monitoring. A hearing on the request was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate judge in Manhattan ordered Combs held without bail.
The hip-hop mogul whose career blossomed in the 1990s was arrested on Monday on charges contained in an indictment that accuses Combs of using his “power and prestige” for “sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.”
It describes the inducement of female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, elaborately produced sexual performances dubbed “Freak Offs” that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during and often recorded. The events would sometimes last days and require IVs to recover from, the indictment said.
It alleges he coerced and abused women for years while using blackmail, including the videos he shot, and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in line, coordinated and facilitated from the top down by a network of associates and employees.
Combs’ attorney Marc Agnifilo submitted a letter to Judge Andrew L. Carter on Wednesday seeking the release of Combs, 54, on conditions including home detention with GPS monitoring, along with a restriction on all visitors to his residences except for family, property caretakers and friends who are not considered co-conspirators.
Combs’ house is on Star Island, a man-made dollop of land in Biscayne Bay, reachable only by a causeway or boat. It is among the most expensive places to live in the United States. Combs’ request echoes that of a long line of wealthy defendants who have offered to pay multimillion-dollar bails in exchange for home detention in luxurious surroundings.
“Sean Combs has never evaded, avoided, eluded or run from a challenge in his life,” the defense said in a court filing. “He will not start now.”
Combs was expected to reenter his not guilty plea in his initial appearance before Carter.
So far, prosecutors have successfully argued that he is a danger to the community and a flight risk and should remain incarcerated until trial.
For all the revelations that came with the unsealing of the indictment Tuesday, most of what it outlines had been described in a November lawsuit filed by his former longtime girlfriend and protege, the R&B singer Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura. The suit was settled the following day, but its allegations have followed Combs since.
Its descriptions of beatings, sexual assaults, silencing tactics and “Freak Offs” were echoed throughout the criminal indictment, though it did not use her name or the names of any other women.
Agnifilo, also without naming Ventura but clearly referring to her, argued at Tuesday’s arraignment that the entire criminal case is an outgrowth of one long-term, troubled-but-consensual relationship that faltered amid infidelity.
The “Freak Offs,” Agnifilo contended, were an expansion of that relationship, and not coercive.
“Is it sex trafficking?” Agnifilo asked. “Not if everybody wants to be there.”
Prosecutors, however, portrayed the scope as far larger. They said in court papers that they had interviewed more than 50 victims and witnesses and expect the number to grow.
Like many aging hip-hop figures — including many of those he beefed with in the bicoastal rap feuds of the 1990s alongside the Notorious B.I.G. — the Bad Boy Records founder Combs had established a gentler, more worldly public image. The doting father of seven children was a respected international businessman, whose annual “White Party” in the Hamptons was once a must-have invitation for the jet-setting elite.
But prosecutors said he used the same companies, people and methods he used to build his business and cultural power to facilitate his crimes. They said they would prove it with financial, travel and billing records, electronic data and communications and videos of the “Freak Offs” to prove their case.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Combs was arrested late Monday in a Manhattan hotel, roughly six months after federal authorities raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami and revealed they were conducting a sex trafficking investigation.
During the searches, law enforcement seized narcotics, videos of the “Freak Offs” and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to prosecutors. They said agents also seized firearms and ammunition, including three AR-15s with defaced serial numbers.
The indictment portrays Combs as so violent that he caused injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. His employees and associates sometimes witnessed his violence and kept victims from leaving or tracked down those who tried, the indictment said.
A conviction on every charge in the indictment would require a mandatory 15 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.
Combs and his attorneys denied similar allegations made by others in a string of lawsuits filed after Ventura’s.
TerraMaster F8 SSD is an 8-bay NAS that supports up to 64TB of solid state storage and 10 GbE networking
date: 2024-09-18, from: Liliputing
TerraMaster has added 9 new systems to its line of NAS (Network Attached Storage) products, including two new SSD-only models with support for up to 8 PCIe NVMe drives, Intel Alder Lake-N processors, and a 10 GbE LAN port. The new TerraMaster F8 SSD features an Intel N95 quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and 8 M.2 […]
The post TerraMaster F8 SSD is an 8-bay NAS that supports up to 64TB of solid state storage and 10 GbE networking appeared first on Liliputing.
NASA, US Department of Education to Launch STEM Project in Washington
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
Media are invited to the kickoff event of a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Department of Education at 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, at the Wheatley Education Campus in Washington. The interagency project, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, aims to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education during after-school hours. […]
False reports of explosives found in car near Trump rally spread online
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
New York — Law enforcement officials on Long Island worked quickly on Wednesday to publicly knock down social media posts falsely reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s planned rally in New York.
The false reports of an explosive began circulating hours before the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign event at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just days after he was apparently the target of a second possible assassination attempt.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police questioned and detained a person who “may have been training a bomb detection dog,” near the site of the rally and “falsely reported explosives being found.”
Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesperson for the county police, said in follow-up messages that the person, who police have not yet identified, was a civilian and not a member of a law enforcement agency.
He also said the person was not working at or affiliated with the event, which is expected to draw thousands of Trump supporters to the arena that was formerly the home of the NHL’s New York Islanders.
The rally is Trump’s first on Long Island, a suburban area just east of New York City, since 2017.
In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by a roughly 4% margin on Long Island, besting him in Nassau County by about 60,000 votes, though Trump carried neighboring Suffolk County by more than 200 votes.
Earlier Wednesday, Skrynecki and other county officials responded swiftly to knock down the online line claims, which appear to have started with a post from a reporter citing unnamed sources in the local police department.
The claims were then shared widely on X, formerly Twitter, by a number of prominent accounts, including that of the company’s owner, Elon Musk, which has nearly 200 million followers. Spokespersons for X didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
“False,” Skrynecki texted the AP as the claims spread.
“No. Ridiculous. Zero validity,” said Christopher Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
Chinese spies spent months inside aerospace engineering firm’s network via legacy IT
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Getting sloppy, Xi
Exclusive Chinese state-sponsored spies have been spotted inside a global engineering firm’s network, having gained initial entry using an admin portal’s default credentials on an IBM AIX server.…
Take a Fresh Look at How Leaders Approach Narratives
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: RAND blog
Why do many leaders today fail to access the full potential of storytelling and narrative production to garner stakeholder support, secure buy-in, and achieve effective performance outcomes? The answer sits in a concept called “narrative pluralism.”
Boeing to start temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
New York — Boeing said Wednesday it would start temporary furloughs of professional and white-collar staff as it seeks to conserve cash amid a labor strike that has shuttered Seattle manufacturing plants.
The furloughs, which pertain to executives, managers and workers, will be initiated in the coming days and affect tens of thousands of Boeing employees, company officials said.
Boeing plans for “selected employees to take one week of furlough every four weeks on a rolling basis for the duration of the strike,” said a message to employees from CEO Kelly Ortberg.
The new Boeing boss added that he and the rest of the leadership team “will take a commensurate pay reduction for the duration of the strike.”
Boeing had said that furloughs were on the table earlier in the week when it announced a hiring freeze, travel budget austerity measures and a reduction of supplier expenditures.
About 33,000 Seattle-area Boeing workers with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 walked off the job Friday after overwhelmingly rejecting a contract renewal.
The two sides resumed talks Tuesday with the assistance of mediators from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
The IAM blasted Boeing in a bargaining update posted late Tuesday.
“We are frustrated,” the IAM said. “The company was not prepared and was unwilling to address the issues you’ve made clear are essential for ending this strike: Wages and Pension. The company doesn’t seem to be taking mediation seriously.”
Ortberg’s message to employees reiterated his commitment to “resetting our relationship with our represented employees and continuing discussions with the union to reach a new agreement that is good for all of our teammates and our company as soon as possible.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/boeing-to-start-temporary-furloughs-amid-seattle-strike/7789296.html
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Breathtaking New York City Paintings Are Finally Get the Attention They Deserve
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The artist’s cityscapes, once dismissed as too masculine, would later influence the floral artworks that became central to her iconic style
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Breathtaking New York City Paintings Are Finally Getting the Attention They Deserve
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The artist’s cityscapes, once dismissed as too masculine, would later influence the floral artworks that became central to her iconic style
DRC Roundup September 2024
date: 2024-09-18, from: Digital Humanities Quarterly News
What’s New at the Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative? We hope that you are having a great start to the academic year! We’re excited to share some updates on what has been happening and what’s coming up at the Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative (DRC)! Announcements We’ve welcomed four new DRC Advisory Board members this summer: Janine […]@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Shouting fire in a crowded theater.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
System76 Press Release: Software Freedom Day
date: 2024-09-18, from: System76 Blog
System76 Partners with Digital Freedom Foundation to Promote Software Freedom Day
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Bipartisan Legislators Join Calls for Clemency for Robert Roberson.
https://www.texasobserver.org/robert-roberson-clemency/
Two years after Mahsa Amini’s death, Western allies sanction dozen Iranian officials
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S., Canada and Australia hit a group of Iranian officials with sanctions Wednesday for their participation in suppressing protests and detaining people in relation to the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police two years ago for improperly wearing a mandatory headscarf.
Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16, 2022, in a hospital after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of the authorities. Her death sparked nationwide protests against the country’s hijab laws and its ruling theocracy.
Included in Wednesday’s sanctions are a dozen officials accused of killing and detaining protesters, suppressing protests in 2019 and 2022 and arresting journalists.
The country’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on a promise to halt the harassment of women by morality police. Still, since Amini’s death, videos have emerged of women and girls being roughed up by officers.
In 2023, a teenage Iranian girl was injured in a mysterious incident on Tehran’s Metro while not wearing a headscarf and later died in the hospital. In July, activists say police opened fire on a woman fleeing a checkpoint in an attempt to avoid her car being impounded for her not wearing the hijab.
U.S. Treasury official Bradley T. Smith said, “Despite the Iranian people’s peaceful calls for reform, Iran’s leaders have doubled down on the regime’s well-worn tactics of violence and coercion.” The U.S. and its allies “will continue to take action to expose and hold accountable those responsible for carrying out the Iranian regime’s cruel agenda,” Smith said.
The sanctions, which block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with the U.S. are largely symbolic since many of the individuals do not interact with the U.S.
In March, a United Nations fact-finding mission determined that Iran is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of Amini. It also found that the Islamic Republic employed “unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force” to put down the demonstrations that erupted following Amini’s death and that Iranian security forces sexually assaulted detainees.
Increasingly, on the streets of Iranian cities, it’s becoming more common to see a woman passing by without a mandatory headscarf.
Ten Ways Project 2025 Could Undermine Workers’ Rights
date: 2024-09-18, from: Capital and Main
The blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term revives familiar Republican plans to weaken unions and undermine employee protections.
The post Ten Ways Project 2025 Could Undermine Workers’ Rights appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/ten-ways-project-2025-could-undermine-workers-rights
Gyasi Mitchell Was Unhoused and Depressed, But Didn’t Trust Therapists. That Began to Change With a Basketball Game.
date: 2024-09-18, from: Capital and Main
For many young people, peer support can be the first step to accessing effective mental health care.
The post Gyasi Mitchell Was Unhoused and Depressed, But Didn’t Trust Therapists. That Began to Change With a Basketball Game. appeared first on .
Europeans Were Using Cocaine in the 17th Century—Hundreds of Years Earlier Than Historians Thought
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Scientists identified traces of the drug in the brain tissue of two individuals buried in the crypt of a hospital in Milan
US targets second major Chinese hacking group
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The United States has identified and taken down a botnet campaign by China-directed hackers to further infiltrate American infrastructure as well as a variety of internet-connected devices.
FBI Director Christopher Wray announced the disruption of what he called Flax Typhoon during a cyber summit Wednesday in Washington, describing it as part of a much larger campaign by Beijing.
“Flax Typhoon hijacked Internet-of-Things devices like cameras, video recorders and storage devices — things typically found across both big and small organizations,” Wray said. “And about half of those hijacked devices were located here in the U.S.”
Wray said the hackers, working under the guise of an information security company called the Integrity Technology Group, collected information from corporations, media organizations, universities and government agencies.
“They used internet-connected devices — this time, hundreds of thousands of them — to create a botnet that helped them compromise systems and exfiltrate confidential data,” he said.
But Flax Typhoon’s operations were disrupted last week when the FBI, working with allies and under court orders, took control of the botnet and pursued the hackers when they tried to switch to a backup system.
“We think the bad guys finally realized that it was the FBI and our partners that they were up against,” Wray said. “And with that realization, they essentially burned down their new infrastructure and abandoned their botnet.”
Wray said Flax Typhoon appeared to build on the exploits and tactics of another China-linked hacking group, known as Volt Typhoon, which was identified by Microsoft in May of last year.
Volt Typhoon used office network equipment, including routers, firewalls and VPN hardware, to infiltrate and disrupt communications infrastructure in Guam, home to key U.S. military facilities.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington Wednesday rejected the U.S accusations.
“Without valid evidence, the U.S. jumped to an unwarranted conclusion and made groundless accusations” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email, responding to the allegations about Flax Typhoon.
“The U.S. itself is the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks,” Liu added. “We urge the U.S. to stop its worldwide cyber espionage and cyberattacks, and stop smearing other countries under the excuse of cyber security.”
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have previously warned that Chinese-government directed hackers, like Volt Typhoon, have been positioning themselves to launch destructive cyberattacks that could jeopardize the physical safety of Americans.
Following Wednesday’s announcement by the FBI, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) issued an advisory encouraging anyone with a device that was compromised by Flax Typhoon to apply needed patches.
It said that as of this past June, the Flax Typhoon botnet was making use of more than 260,000 devices in North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast East.
The NSA said almost half of the compromised devices were in the U.S. Another 18 countries, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Albania, China, South Africa and India, were also impacted.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-targets-second-major-chinese-hacking-group-/7789181.html
Asus Tinker System 3N is a fanless mini PC with a RK3566 chip and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports
date: 2024-09-18, from: Liliputing
The Asus Tinker System 3N is a small, fanless computer with a rugged design and a set of ports and expansion options that position it as a system that can be used in industrial settings, among other places. While I don’t normally give a lot of thought to industrial PCs, this model stands out in that it’s […]
The post Asus Tinker System 3N is a fanless mini PC with a RK3566 chip and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports appeared first on Liliputing.
‘Pirate Seabirds’ Could Become a Pathway for Deadly Avian Flu to Spread to Australia, Study Finds
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Kleptoparasitism, in which a bird harasses another to steal its food, might introduce avian flu to the continent, currently the only one without the severe H5N1 strain
California governor goes on AI law signing spree, but demurs on the big one
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Newsom still worried about SB 1047’s ‘chilling effect’ on AI industry
tax dollar revenue innovation in the state
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed five AI-related bills into law this week, but a pivotal one remains unsigned, and the Democrat politico isn’t sure about its future.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/california_newsom_ai_bills/
US Justice Department sues over Baltimore bridge collapse and seeks $100 million in cleanup costs
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
BALTIMORE — The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday sued the owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse, seeking to recover more than $100 million that the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.
The lawsuit filed in Maryland alleges that the electrical and mechanical systems on the ship, the Dali, were improperly maintained, causing it to lose power and veer off course before striking a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
“This tragedy was entirely avoidable,” according to the lawsuit.
The collapse snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore for months before the channel was fully opened in June.
“With this civil claim, the Justice Department is working to ensure that the costs of clearing the channel and reopening the Port of Baltimore are borne by the companies that caused the crash, not by the American taxpayer,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in written statement.
The case was filed against Dali owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine Group, both of Singapore. The companies filed a court petition days after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history.
The ship was leaving Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss. Six members of a road work crew on the bridge were killed in the collapse. The men were working an overnight shift filling potholes on the bridge deck when it suddenly crumbled beneath them, sending them tumbling into the water.
“This accident happened because of the careless and grossly negligent decisions made by Grace Ocean and Synergy, who recklessly chose to send an unseaworthy vessel to navigate a critical waterway and ignored the risks to American lives and the nation’s infrastructure,” said Chetan Patil, the acting deputy assistant attorney general.
On Tuesday, the victims’ families declared their intent to file a claim seeking to hold the ship’s owner and manager fully liable for the disaster. Several other interested parties, including city officials and local businesses, have filed opposing claims accusing the companies of negligence.
The families are also calling for more robust workplace protections, especially for immigrant workers. All the victims were Latino immigrants who came to the United States in search of better-paying jobs and opportunities.
How online shopping is saving the economy
date: 2024-09-18, from: Marketplace Morning Report
We learned this week that retail sales rose in August. A big part of that was thanks to online shopping, which was up almost 8% from last year. And retailers think e-commerce has even more room to grow. Plus, it’s a big day for the direction of the economy. And later, we’ll hear about corporate executives’ thoughts on the economy, artificial intelligence and the return-to-the-office push.
Homemade Porn Site Promises Not to Train AI on Performers
date: 2024-09-18, from: 404 Media Group
Lustery, a site for consent-based homemade porn, has added a new clause to its contract promising not to replace human performers with AI without consent.
https://www.404media.co/homemade-porn-site-promises-not-to-train-ai-on-performers/
Microsoft unveils Office LTSC 2024 for users that remain stubbornly offline
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
What do you mean you don’t want Copilot and Microsoft 365 services?
Microsoft has released what could be the penultimate perpetual licensed version of Office.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/microsoft_office_ltsc_2024/
See why 2024 will be like ”1984”
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/18/see-why-2024-will-be-like-1984/
Rob Gutro: Clear Science in the Forecast
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
Rob Gutro has never been one to stay idle. From his start working at a paper factory as a teenager, Rob navigated his way to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where he serves as the deputy news chief in the Office of Communications until he retires in October 2024. In this role, Rob manages all […]
https://www.nasa.gov/people-of-nasa/rob-gutro-clear-science-in-the-forecast/
NASA’s Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005, however […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-provides-another-look-into-galactic-collisions/
LinkedIn Is Training AI on User Data Before Updating Its Terms of Service
date: 2024-09-18, from: 404 Media Group
Multiple LinkedIn users on Wednesday noticed a setting that showed LinkedIn was using user data to improve its generative AI. LinkedIn told 404 Media it will update its terms of service “shortly.”
https://www.404media.co/linkedin-is-training-ai-on-user-data-before-updating-its-terms-of-service/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Tupperware: Embattled food container firm files for bankruptcy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gdprv2ddxo
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Powerful Harris ad about women's freedom.
https://www.threads.net/@kamalahq/post/DAD3IZXvuYZ
Intuitive Machines shoots for the Moon with NASA’s $4.82B lunar relay jackpot
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Surely at least one crew will get there in the next ten years?
Intuitive Machines has bagged a contract worth up to $4.82 billion to support NASA’s lunar relay systems.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/intuitive_machines_lunar_relay/
US now allows passport renewals online
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Americans can now renew their passports online, bypassing a cumbersome mail-in paper application process that often caused delays.
The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that its online passport renewal system is now fully operational.
“By offering this online alternative to the traditional paper application process, the Department is embracing digital transformation to offer the most efficient and convenient passport renewal experience possible,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
After staffing shortages caused mainly by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lengthy passport processing delays, the department ramped up hiring and introduced other technological improvements that have reduced wait times by about one-third over last year. It says most applications are now completed in far less than the advertised six to eight weeks. The online renewal system is expected to further reduce that.
The system will allow renewal applicants to skip the current process, which requires them to print out and send paper applications and a check by mail and submit their documents and payment through a secure website, www.Travel.State.Gov/renewonline.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-now-allows-passport-renewals-online/7788978.html
Anus-Breathing Animals and Pigeon-Guided Missiles: Ig Nobel Prizes Reward Unusual but Valuable Science
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The annual award ceremony featured costumes, songs and paper airplanes as scientists recognized comedic research across ten disciplines
Microsoft, BlackRock form fund to sink up to $100B into AI infrastructure
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tech is going to need datacenters and power sources, and a lot of ’em
Microsoft is joining with BlackRock and other private equity investors in a new AI fund that aims to eventually raise $100 billion for datacenters and their supporting power infrastructure.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/microsoft_and_blackrock_form_fund/
Podcast: Hezbollah’s Exploding Pagers
date: 2024-09-18, from: 404 Media Group
Some expertise on batteries and how that relates to the exploding pagers in Lebanon; an AI-powered surveillance dystopia that is already here; and how Snapchat reserves the right to serve you ads with your own AI likeness.
https://www.404media.co/podcast-hezbollahs-exploding-pagers/
NASA Astronaut Tracy C. Dyson’s Scientific Mission aboard Space Station
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson is returning home after a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. While on orbit, Dyson conducted an array of experiments and technology demonstrations that contribute to advancements for humanity on Earth and the agency’s trajectory to the Moon and Mars. Here is a look at some of the science […]
Frontier Inks New Carbon Removal Deals
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Ecuador’s government-enforced blackouts will begin tomorrow night as drought threatens hydroelectric plants • Storm Boris is causing flooding in parts of Italy • Montana could see very heavy rainfall and flash flooding today.
THE TOP FIVE
- Frontier announces new carbon removal prepurchase agreements
Frontier, a coalition of carbon removal buyers, announced this morning a fourth round of prepurchase agreements, worth $4.5 million. The coalition facilitated agreements with nine suppliers to remove carbon from the atmosphere on behalf of five of Frontier’s buyers: Stripe, Shopify, Alphabet, H&M Group, and Match. The removal projects are located across six countries and utilize a range of techniques, including rock weathering, direct air capture, and ocean alkalinity enhancement. In a press release, Frontier said “a significant number of companies in this purchase cycle are integrating carbon removal into existing large-scale industries. This strategy can reduce costs and accelerate scale-up relative to standalone carbon removal projects.”
Frontier
- Rivers dry up in Amazon as extreme drought worsens
Brazil’s worst drought on record, now in its second year, has caused water levels in the rivers that run through the Amazon to fall to historic lows, and some have even dried up entirely. One key tributary that supplies the mighty Amazon River, the Solimoes, has water levels that are 14 feet below average for the first half of September. The drought is fueling numerous large fires, many of which were started by humans but have plenty of dry vegetation to keep them going.
Plumes
of wildfire smoke hang over South
America.
NASA
According to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, almost half of the Amazon fires are burning pristine forest. This is unusual, The New York Times reported, and “means fighting deforestation in the Amazon is no longer enough to stop fires.” The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s most important carbon sinks. If it collapses, it could release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating the climate crisis. Researchers with World Weather Attribution say climate change is the main driver of the Amazon’s ongoing drought. “Climate change is no longer something to worry about in the future, 10 or 20 years from now,” Greenpeace spokesperson Romulo Batista told Reuters. “It’s here and it’s here with much more force than we expected.”
- New coalition will test charging corridor for long-haul heavy-duty
electric trucks
A coalition of some of the world’s most prominent shipping and carrier companies is piloting the “first-ever U.S. over-the-road electrified corridor.” Participants include AIT Worldwide Logistics, DB Schenker, Maersk, Microsoft, and PepsiCo, who will drive their long-haul heavy-duty electric trucks along the I-10 corridor between L.A. and El Paso to identify pain points and share learnings in an effort to hasten the decarbonization of land freight. Terawatt Infrastructure will provide the charging infrastructure for the corridor with six of its own charging hubs. Terawatt’s website says it has 14 sites under development, four of which are expected to come online this year. Heavy-duty vehicles account for a quarter of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The new coalition is supported by the global nonprofit Smart Freight Centre.
- Gore’s asset management firm calls for speedy grid upgrades
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s green asset management business, Generation Investment Management, put out its eighth annual Sustainability Trends Report this week. The paper is packed full of interesting insights (both uplifting and depressing), but one stands out. It says upgrading the power grid is “the critical issue to get the energy transition moving faster in the big, developed economies.” It includes this graphic showing the cumulative backlog of renewable-energy projects wanting to connect to the grid in the U.S.:
Generation
Investment Management
Gore has been doing the media rounds this week. He told the Financial Times that a Trump victory in November “would be very bad.” “Most climate activists that I know in the United States believe that the single most important near-term decision America can make with regard to climate is who is the next president. It’s a bit of a Manichaean choice.” But, he added that the energy transition was, at this point, “unstoppable.”
- EVs overtake gas-powered cars in Norway
In case you missed it: Norway has become the first country in the world to have more electric vehicles on the road than gas-powered cars. Diesel still reigns supreme in terms of registered vehicles, but the share of fully electric cars registered is now larger than the share of cars that run on gasoline. The director of the Norwegian road federation said he expects EVs will overtake diesel cars, too, by 2026. EVs already make up the vast majority (94%!) of new vehicle sales in Norway, and could very well approach 100% sometime next year.
THE KICKER
A recent study finds that most people have a tendency to grossly underestimate the average carbon footprint of the richest individuals in society, while overestimating the carbon footprint of the poorest individuals.
https://heatmap.news/technology/frontier-carbon-removal-agreements-stripe
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
WordCamp US & Ecosystem Thinking.
https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The Worst Magazine In America. I subscribed to the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, because I found myself reading a lot of their stories for free and decided to use the money I was spending on the Washington Post to broaden my horizons.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-worst-magazine-in-america
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
John Grisham on death row prisoner: ‘Texas is about to execute innocent man.’
Cops across the world arrest 51 in orchestrated takedown of Ghost crime platform
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Italian mafia mobsters and Irish crime families scuppered by international cops
Hours after confirming they had pwned the supposedly uncrackable encrypted messaging platform used for all manner of organized crime, Ghost, cops have now named the suspect they cuffed last night, who is charged with being the alleged mastermind.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/51_arrests_ghost_platform/
Reinventing the Clock: NASA’s New Tech for Space Timekeeping
date: 2024-09-18, from: NASA breaking news
Here on Earth, it might not matter if your wristwatch runs a few seconds slow. But crucial spacecraft functions need accuracy down to one billionth of a second or less. Navigating with GPS, for example, relies on precise timing signals from satellites to pinpoint locations. Three teams at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are at work to push timekeeping for space exploration to new levels of precision.
What Fed rate decisions look like during election years
date: 2024-09-18, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Today, the Federal Reserve will announce what it will do with the interest rates that steer the economy. It’ll cut them — that’s almost certain, but the question is how aggressively. The Fed is independent. Fed Chairs generally refuse to get dragged into politics, though their decisions can be politicized. We’ll look at the politics of rate decisions. Then, we’ll examine why Patagonia encourages its employees to get political.
Open source maintainers underpaid, swamped by security, going gray
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
AI-coded contributions? Most would rather skip the bot’s work
The majority of open source project maintainers are not being paid for their work, spend three times as much time on security than they did three years ago, and have become less trusting of contributors following the xz backdoor, according to open source package security firm Tidelift.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/open_source_maintainers_underpaid/
In Norway, EVs overtake gas-powered cars
date: 2024-09-18, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Norway’s electric vehicle policies appear to be paying off. There, nine out of 10 new cars sold is electric. The Nordic nation wants to be the first country to stop selling gas and diesel-engine vehicles. Also on the show: Sri Lankans head to the polls this weekend, two years on from the economic crisis that left the country in turmoil.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/in-norway-evs-overtake-gas-powered-cars
UK pensions department’s project to unite government ERP systems comes to £1.9B
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Four branches attempt to streamline HR and business processes
The UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is leading a £958.7 million ($1.2 billion) search for a supplier to develop business processes for new ERP and HR systems to bring together four central government departments.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/dwp_business_processes_procurement/
Count Your Lucky Starch: It’s National Potato Month!
date: 2024-09-18, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
Boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew; grow them in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon too! September is National Potato Month, and that amazing spud is so ingrained in our national subconscious that we could scarcely imagine a world without them. Everything from cleansers, home remedies, agriculture, to making them crinkle cut and julienne … Continue reading Count Your Lucky Starch: It’s National Potato Month!
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/09/18/count-your-lucky-starch-its-national-potato-month/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-18, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What Happens in Springfield Won’t Stay in Springfield.
Cloud giants point the finger at each other during regulator hearings
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Those are some mighty powerful underdogs you’ve got there
Google thinks Microsoft’s software licensing is impeding customer choice; Microsoft says AWS has “first mover” advantage; AWS also picks on Microsoft’s licensing – but all are against remedies being applied to the cloud market that might impact themselves.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/cma_cloud_hearings/
Boeing, striking union set to resume contract talks Wednesday
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/boeing-striking-union-set-to-resume-contract-talks-wednesday-/7788783.html
Boost Your Pico Projects with the new Pico VS Code Extension
date: 2024-09-18, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Introducing the public beta of the Raspberry Pi Pico Visual Studio Code Extension.
The post Boost Your Pico Projects with the new Pico VS Code Extension appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/pico-vscode-extension/
Police Hack Into ‘Ghost’, An Encrypted Platform for Criminals
date: 2024-09-18, from: 404 Media Group
Operation Kraken is a sign that organized criminals are moving away from larger encrypted phone companies to a decentralized collection of smaller players and consumer access apps that the rest of us use.
https://www.404media.co/police-hack-into-ghost-an-encrypted-platform-for-criminals/
Intel to spin off its chipmaking business
date: 2024-09-18, from: OS News
Intel’s woes are far from over. Pat Gelsinger, the company’s CEO, has announced that Intel’s chipmaking business will be spun off and turned into a separate company. A subsidiary structure will unlock important benefits. It provides our external foundry customers and suppliers with clearer separation and independence from the rest of Intel. Importantly, it also gives us future flexibility to evaluate independent sources of funding and optimize the capital structure of each business to maximize growth and shareholder value creation. There is no change to our Intel Foundry leadership team, which continues to report to me. We will also establish an operating board that includes independent directors to govern the subsidiary. This supports our continued focus on driving greater transparency, optimization and accountability across the business. ↫ Pat Gelsinger This is a big move, and illustrated the difficulties Intel is facing. Its foundry business lost $7 billion last year, and it’s cutting 15% of its workforce – 15000 people – indicating it needs to do something to turn the ship around. Intel is also pausing construction on two additional plants in Europe, but will continue its expansion efforts in the United States. Bitter note is that Intel received a massive cash injection from the US Biden administration, yet then proceeds to fire 15000 people. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140767/intel-to-spin-off-its-chipmaking-business/
Google wins challenge against $1.66B EU antitrust fine
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
BRUSSELS — Alphabet unit Google won its challenge on Wednesday against a $1.66 billion antitrust fine imposed five years ago for hindering rivals in online search advertising, a week after it lost a much bigger case.
The European Commission, in its 2019 decision, said Google had abused its dominance to prevent websites from using brokers other than its AdSense platform that provided search adverts. The practices it said were illegal took place from 2006 to 2016.
The Luxembourg-based General Court mostly agreed with the European Union competition enforcer’s assessments of the case, but annulled the fine.
“The court […] upheld most of the commission’s assessments, but annulled the decision imposing a fine of almost 1.5 billion euros [$1.66 billion] on Google, on the grounds in particular that it had failed to take into account all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contractual clauses that it had found to be unfair,” the judges said.
The AdSense fine, one of a trio of fines that have cost Google a total of some $9 billion, was triggered by a complaint from Microsoft in 2010.
Google has said it changed the targeted contracts in 2016 before the Commission’s decision.
The company last week lost its final fight against a $2.6 billion fine levied for using its price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.
https://www.voanews.com/a/google-wins-challenge-against-1-66b-eu-antitrust-fine/7788759.html
Despite Russia warnings, Western critical infrastructure remains unprepared
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Lives will be lost’ as Moscow ramps up offensive cyber military units
Feature As Russian special forces push more overtly into online operations, network defenders should be on the hunt for digital intruders looking to carry out cyberattacks that end in physical destruction and harm.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/russia_west_critical_infrastructure/
Why Geothermal Is So Hot Right Now
date: 2024-09-18, from: Heatmap News
Geothermal is getting closer to the big time. Last week, Fervo Energy — arguably the country’s leading enhanced geothermal company — announced that its Utah demonstration project had achieved record production capacity. The new approach termed “enhanced geothermal,” which borrows drilling techniques and expertise from the oil and gas industry, seems poised to become a big player on America’s clean, 24/7 power grid of the future.
Why is geothermal so hot? How soon could it appear on the grid — and why does it have advantages that other zero-carbon technologies don’t? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse speak with a practitioner and an expert in the world of enhanced geothermal. Sarah Jewett is the vice president of strategy at Fervo Energy, which she joined after several years in the oil and gas industry. Wilson Ricks is a doctoral student of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, where he studies macro-energy systems modeling. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Robinson Meyer: I just wanted to hit a different note here, which is, Sarah, you’ve alluded a few times to your past in the oil and gas industry. I think this is true across Fervo, is that of course, the technologies we’re discussing here are fracking derived. What has your background in the oil and gas industry and hydrocarbons taught you that you think about at Fervo now, and developing geothermal as a resource?
Sarah Jewett: There are so many things. I mean, I’m thinking about my time in the oil and gas industry daily. And you’re exactly right, I think today about 60% of Fervo’s employees come from the oil and gas industry. And because we are only just about to start construction on our first power facility, the percentage of contractors and field workers from the oil and gas industry is much higher than 60%.
Jesse Jenkins: Right, you can’t go and hire a bunch of people with geothermal experience when there is no large-scale geothermal industry to pull from.
Jewett: That’s right. That’s right. And so the oil and gas industry, I think, has taught us, so many different types of things. I mean, we can’t really exist without thinking about the history of the oil and gas industry — even, you know, Wilson and I are sort of comparing our learning rates to learning rates observed in various different oil and gas basins by different operators, so you can see a lot of prior technological pathways.
I mean, first off, we’re just using off the shelf technology that has been proven and tested in the oil and gas industry over the last 25 years, which has been, really, the reason why geothermal is able to have this big new unlock, because we’re using all of this off the shelf technology that now exists. It’s not like the early 2000s, where there was a single bit we could have tried. Now there are a ton of different bits that are available to us that we can try and say, how is this working? How is this working? How’s this working?
So I think, from a technological perspective, it’s helpful. And then from just an industry that has set a solid example it’s been really helpful, and that can be leveraged in a number of different ways. Learning rates, for example; how to set up supply chains in remote areas, for example; how to engage with and interact with communities. I think we’ve seen examples of oil and gas doing that well and doing it poorly. And I’ve gotten to observe firsthand the oil and gas industry doing it well and doing it poorly.
And so I’ve gotten to learn a lot about how we need to treat those around us, explain to them what it is that we’re doing, how open we need to be. And I think that has been immensely helpful as we’ve crafted the role that we’re going to play in these communities at large.
Wilson Ricks: I think it’s also interesting to talk about the connection to the oil and gas industry from the perspective of the political economy of the energy transition, specifically because you hear policymakers talk all the time about retraining workers from these legacy industries that, if we’re serious about decarbonizing, will unavoidably have to contract — and, you know, getting those people involved in clean energy, in these new industries.
And often that’s taking drillers and retraining some kind of very different job — or coal miners — into battery manufacturers. This is almost exactly one to one. Like Sarah said, there’s additional expertise and experience that you need to get really good at doing this in the geothermal context. But for the most part, you are taking the exact same skills and just reapplying them, and so it allows for both a potentially very smooth transition of workforces, and also it allows for scale-up of enhanced geothermal to proceed much more smoothly than it potentially would if you had to kind of train an entire workforce from scratch to just do this.
This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …
Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.
As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.
Antenna Group helps you connect with customers, policymakers, investors, and strategic partners to influence markets and accelerate adoption. Visit antennagroup.com to learn more.
Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.
https://heatmap.news/podcast/shift-key-s2-e6-fervo-geothermal
To Strike Fear Into Napoleon’s Occupying Army, These Retreating Soldiers Burned Down Their Own City
date: 2024-09-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine
When the blaze in Moscow subsided on September 18, 1812, the French—who had traveled hundreds of miles into Russia—were left without vital resources as a brutal winter approached
Iconic US container firm Tupperware files for bankruptcy
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Tupperware Brands and some of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, the food container firm said in a statement.
The company, known for its trademark food storage containers, has been hit by dwindling sales in recent years.
Last year the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm warned of “substantial doubt” about its ability to keep operating in light of its poor financial position.
“Over the last several years, the company’s financial position has been severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment,” president and CEO Laurie Ann Goldman said in a statement announcing the bankruptcy filing.
“As a result, we explored numerous strategic options and determined this is the best path forward,” added Goldman.
The company said it would seek court approval for a sale process for the business to protect its brand and “further advance Tupperware’s transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company.”
The Orlando, Florida-based firm said it would also seek approval to continue operating during bankruptcy proceedings and would continue to pay its employees and suppliers.
“We plan to continue serving our valued customers with the high-quality products they love and trust throughout this process,” Goldman said.
The firm’s shares were trading at $0.5099 Monday, well down from $2.55 in December last year.
Tupperware said it had implemented a strategic plan to modernize its operations and drive efficiencies to ignite growth following the appointment of a new management team last year.
“The company has made significant progress and intends to continue this important transformation work.”
In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Tupperware listed assets of between $500 million and $1 billion and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion.
The filing also said it had between 50,000 and 100,000 creditors.
Tupperware, whose name became synonymous with its airtight plastic containers, in recent years lost popularity with consumers and an initiative to gain distribution through big-box chain store Target failed to reverse its fortunes.
The company’s roots date to 1946, when chemist Earl Tupper “had a spark of inspiration while creating molds at a plastics factory shortly after the Great Depression,” according to Tupperware’s website.
“If he could design an airtight seal for plastic storage containers, like those on a paint can, he could help war-weary families save money on costly food waste.”
Over time, Tupper’s hermetically sealed plastic containers also became associated with “Tupperware Parties,” where friends would gather with food and drink as a company representative demonstrated the items.
https://www.voanews.com/a/iconic-us-container-firm-tupperware-files-for-bankruptcy-/7788733.html
The case for handcrafted software in a mass-produced world
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
As AI automates programming, it could be worth exploring the value of bespoke code
Part 2 A thought experiment: If the computer business responds to commoditization and globalization like other manufacturing industries do, where does that leave programmers – and users?…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/the_future_of_software_part_2/
US decision on Nippon bid for US Steel pushed to after election, sources say
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON/TOKYO — The U.S. national security panel reviewing Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel let the companies refile their application for approval of the deal, a person familiar with the matter said, delaying a decision on the politically sensitive merger until after the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The move offers a ray of hope for the companies, whose proposed tie-up appeared set to be blocked when the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) alleged on Aug. 31 the transaction posed a risk to national security by threatening the steel supply chain for critical U.S. industries.
CFIUS needs more time to understand the deal’s impact on national security and engage with the parties, the person said on Tuesday. Refiling sets a new 90-day clock to review the proposed tie-up and make a decision.
The review was expected to take close to the full 90 days, another person familiar with the matter said.
Nippon Steel declined to comment. CFIUS and U.S. Steel did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
“Extending the timeline takes pressure off the parties and, importantly, pushes the decision past the election in November,” said Nick Klein, a CFIUS lawyer with DLA Piper.
The deal has become a political hot potato. This month, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said at a rally in Pennsylvania, the swing state where U.S. Steel is headquartered, that she wants U.S. Steel to remain “American owned and operated,” echoing a view held by President Joe Biden.
The White House reiterated that position on Tuesday.
Harris’ Republican rival Donald Trump has pledged to block the deal if elected. Both candidates have sought to woo union votes.
Postponing the decision to after the U.S. elections will “dial down” the political temperature but does not guarantee approval, said David Boling, a former U.S. trade official who is now an analyst at Eurasia Group.
“Regardless of the CFIUS review, Nippon Steel still must reach an agreement with the United Steelworkers,” Boling said. “Without that, it’s very hard to see this deal happening.”
The United Steelworkers Union, which vehemently opposes the deal, said on Tuesday “nothing has changed regarding the risks that Nippon’s acquisition would pose to national security or the critical supply chain concerns that have already been identified.”
The deal is being closely watched in Japan, a close U.S. ally and its biggest foreign investor.
“Further strengthening economic relations, including expanding mutual investment between Japan and the U.S., are essential for both countries,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya told reporters on Wednesday.
Nippon Steel shares were up 1.1% in afternoon trading in Tokyo. U.S. Steel shares closed down 0.4% on Tuesday.
CFIUS is concerned Nippon Steel’s merger could hurt the supply of steel needed for critical transportation, construction and agriculture projects, it said in its August letter to the companies, exclusively obtained by Reuters.
It also cited a global glut of cheap Chinese steel, and said that under Nippon, a Japanese company, U.S. Steel would be less likely to seek tariffs on foreign steel importers. It added that decisions by Nippon could “lead to a reduction in domestic steel production capacity.”
In a 100-page response letter to CFIUS, also exclusively obtained by Reuters, Nippon Steel said it will invest billions of dollars in U.S. Steel facilities that otherwise would have been idled, “indisputably” allowing it to “maintain and potentially increase domestic steelmaking capacity in the United States.”
The company also reaffirmed a promise not to transfer any U.S. Steel production capacity or jobs outside the U.S. and would not interfere in any of U.S. Steel’s decisions on trade matters, including decisions to pursue trade measures under U.S. law against unfair trade practices.
The deal, Nippon added, would “create a stronger global competitor to China grounded in the close relationship between the United States and Japan.”
Robust CFIUS reviews take 90 days but it is common for companies to withdraw their filings and resubmit them to give them more time to address the panel’s concerns.
According to CFIUS’s 2023 annual report, 18% of companies seeking deal approval refiled their applications last year. Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel filed for the review in March, and CFIUS allowed them to refile in June, starting a second 90-day clock that runs out on Sept. 23, Reuters reported on Friday.
In December, CFIUS could approve the deal, possibly with measures to address national security concerns, recommend that the president block it, or extend the timetable again.
Python in Excel goes live – but only for certain Windows users
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Mac and Android loyals: you can look, but no calculation for now
Office power users, rejoice: Python in Excel is now generally available - provided you have the right license and machine. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/python_in_excel_general_release/
New RFC explains how protocol developers can avoid building human rights abuses into the internet
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Something tells us Vlad and Xi probably won’t bother reading it
The Internet Research Task Force has published a Request For Comments document its authors hope will mean developers of comms protocols and architectures consider the human rights implications of their efforts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/rfc_9620/
curl 8.10.1
date: 2024-09-18, from: Daniel Stenberg Blog
Welcome to this follow-up patch release, just a week after we shipped 8.10.0. A bunch of bugfixes. Numbers the 261th release0 changes7 days (total: 9,679)24 bugfixes (total: 10,828)50 commits (total: 33,259)0 new public libcurl function (total: 94)0 new curl_easy_setopt() option (total: 306)0 new curl command line option (total: 265)19 contributors, 7 new (total: 3,246)9 authors, … Continue reading curl 8.10.1
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/09/18/curl-8-10-1/
China’s tech giants buy into Indonesia - just like US tech giants did in India
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
GoTo commits to the Alibaba Cloud, and Alibaba promises not to sell its stake
Chinese tech giant Alibaba showed it’s not just Meta, Google and Amazon that can use their financial heft to buy a foothold in the developing world by striking a deal with Indonesian superapp firm GoTo Group.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/alibaba_goto_mou/
Trump resumes campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
Australian Police conducted supply chain attack on criminal collaborationware
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Sting led to cuffing of alleged operator behind Ghost – an app for drug trafficking, money laundering, and violence-as-a-service
Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) yesterday arrested and charged a man with creating and administering an app named Ghost that was allegedly “a dedicated encrypted communication platform … built solely for the criminal underworld” and which enabled crims to arrange acts of violence, launder money, and traffic illicit drugs.…
Gates Foundation: Funding needed to save children from climate-induced hunger
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
US Air Force general: Russia military larger, better than before Ukraine invasion
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
PENTAGON — Russia’s military is bigger and stronger than it was prior to invading Ukraine in February 2022, the commander of United States Air Forces in Europe and Africa cautioned Tuesday.
“Russia is getting larger, and they’re getting better than they were before. … They are actually larger than they were when [the invasion] kicked off,” Air Force General James Hecker told reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
The improvements come despite heavy casualties inflicted by Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has estimated that since 2022, more than 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded.
“The rates of casualties that they’re experiencing are staggering,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters Tuesday in response to a question from VOA.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered that the Russian army grow by 180,000 active-duty troops for a total of 1.5 million soldiers, making Russia’s military the second largest in the world, behind China’s.
“Russia is going to be something that we’re going to have to deal with for a long time, no matter how this thing ends,” Hecker said.
However, William Pomeranz, a senior scholar at the Kennan Institute, told VOA that “this move suggests that Vladimir Putin is losing the war.”
“This is an open signal from Vladimir Putin that his army and his military is in trouble and doesn’t have the resources to maintain troops in the field,” Pomeranz said.
Despite Russian improvements on the battlefield, Ukraine has continued to put chinks in Russia’s armor, shooting down more than 100 Russian aircraft since Moscow began its full-scale invasion, which amounts to dozens more aircraft than Russia has been able to down on the Ukrainian side, according to General Hecker.
“So what we see is the aircraft are kind of staying on their own side of the line, if you will, and when that happens, you have a war like we’re seeing today, with massive attrition, cities just being demolished, a lot of civilian casualties,” he said.
To gain even the slightest advantages in a war where no clear side dominates the skies, Ukraine has turned to low-cost solutions that also appeal to the U.S. military.
“We have to get on the right side of the cost curve with this. Taking down $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 one-way UAVs [drones] with $1 million missiles, we just can’t afford to do that in the long-term,” the general told reporters.
General Chance Saltzman, the chief of the U.S. Space Force, announced Tuesday that a Space Force pilot program that uses commercial satellite imagery and related analytics to create more situational awareness for military leaders has proven very cost-effective when compared with traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection via U.S. MQ-9 drones, which are expensive and limited in number.
AFRICOM was able to use the $40 million Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking Program to maintain situational awareness during the full withdrawal of U.S. forces from two air bases in Niger in July and August. The drawback, however, was that instead of real-time situational awareness, the data took one to four hours to get to the security team.
“Not as good as real time, right? With MQ-9 that you would have, but it’s better than nothing, right?” Hecker said.
Hecker also said the U.S. was looking into more cost-effective ways to sense incoming threats around bases, including methods like Ukraine’s Sky Fortress system that uses thousands of inexpensive sensors to identify aerial threats. He says the technology has been demonstrated in Romania and other countries.
China’s influence campaign intensifies as US election nears
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
washington — At first glance, Noah R. Smith might seem like your typical social media user. His bio says he’s a father, a former “Track and Field representative,” and a current member of the PanAm Sports organization.
On July 14, a day after the first assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Smith shared three posts from an account named “TRUMP WON.”
One post declared, “AMERICA was attacked today … we must get it together. It’s literally a matter of life and death,” accompanied by an image depicting a divine hand halting a bullet aimed at Trump.
Another post urged “all MAGA GOD Fearing Patriots” to connect, stating, “Grow These Accounts, UNITED We Are Strong.”
While it might seem that Smith is a devoted Trump supporter, closer inspection suggests otherwise. His cover photo features Chinese watermarks, his profile picture is sourced from a company that provides photos, videos and music, and his bio is lifted from an authentic account named Laurel R. Smith.
In reality, Noah R. Smith is impersonating a U.S. voter who supports Trump. A joint investigation by VOA Mandarin and Doublethink Lab (DTL), a Taiwanese social media analytics firm, uncovered 10 such accounts on X.
These accounts are linked to China’s Spamouflage network — a state-sponsored operation aimed at supporting the Chinese government and undermining its critics. This network was first identified by social media analytics company Graphika in 2019 and was used to target Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters at that time.
Following the assassination attempt on July 14, the accounts began promoting pro-Trump content. Previously, they shared material consistent with Spamouflage’s broader interests: defending China, criticizing U.S. foreign policy, and exploiting divisive domestic issues such as gun violence and racial tensions.
DTL labeled this network of accounts posing as Americans “MAGAflage 1,” because they all seem to be promoting Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again [MAGA].”
“The MAGAflage accounts are different because they are not just criticizing stuff. They are amplifying positive content about Trump,” Jasper Hewitt, a digital intelligence analyst at Doublethink Lab, told VOA Mandarin.
He added that it’s too early to draw conclusions about whom China is supporting, as researchers are still tracking accounts that criticize both Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
“Engaging with the MAGA movement, or any part of the political spectrum, might merely be a new attempt to generate authentic traffic,” Hewitt told VOA.
The first MAGAflage network was discovered by Elise Thomas, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in April 2024. This network focuses on promoting positive content of Trump. She told VOA earlier that by wrapping a topic in a U.S. partisan political frame, these accounts got “a reasonable amount of engagement from real American users.”
Limited influence
The VOA Mandarin investigation revealed that the accounts operate in coordination. Six out of the 10 accounts were created in 2015 but had their first visible posts on May 18 or May 19, 2022.
The batch accounts — the 10 new accounts — are not very active. Each account has roughly 100 posts or reposts over the last two years. The batch accounts were inactive for one year but were awoken after the first Trump assassination attempt.
Additionally, these accounts occasionally post or repost Chinese content.
For example, an account named Super-Rabbit shared praise for China’s political and economic model from state-linked influencers like Shanghai Panda and Xinhua News Agency’s reporter Li Zexin. One post from September 3 contrasted U.S. President Joe Biden’s inactivity with China’s President Xi Jinping’s engagement in Africa.
“When Joe Biden is sitting on the beach wasted away, China’s President Xi is shaking hands with various African leaders and making a better impact in Africa,” the post said.
VOA contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment but did not receive a response as of publication time.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in a statement that “China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election.”
So far, the newly discovered MAGAflage 1 accounts have had limited influence, with only a handful of followers and minimal interactions.
U.S. intelligence agencies issued their latest assessment earlier this month, warning that Russia, Iran, and China are intensifying efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election.
While Russia remains the primary concern, officials noted that Chinese online influence actors have “continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-influence-campaign-intensifies-as-us-election-nears/7788292.html
Senate Republicans again block legislation to guarantee rights to IVF
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Republicans have blocked for a second time this year legislation to establish a nationwide right to in vitro fertilization, arguing that the vote is an election-year stunt after Democrats forced a vote on the issue.
The Senate vote was Democrats’ latest attempt to force Republicans into a defensive stance on women’s health issues and highlight policy differences between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the presidential race, especially as Trump has called himself a “leader on IVF.”
The 51-44 vote was short of the 60 votes needed to move forward on the bill, with only two Republicans voting in favor. Democrats say Republicans who insist they support IVF are being hypocritical because they won’t support legislation guaranteeing a right to it.
“They say they support IVF — here you go, vote on this,” said Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s lead sponsor and a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children.
The Democratic push started earlier this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the GOP-led legislature rushed to enact a law to provide legal protections for the clinics.
Democrats quickly capitalized, holding a vote in June on Duckworth’s bill and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court could go after the procedure after it overturned the right to an abortion in 2022.
The bill would establish a nationwide right for patients to access IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies and a right for doctors and insurance companies to provide it, an effort to pre-empt state efforts to limit the services. It would also require more health insurers to cover it and expand coverage for military service members and veterans.
In a statement after the vote, Harris said Republicans in Congress “have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.”
Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who missed the vote because he was campaigning, said during a stop in Wisconsin that the measure was not a serious IVF bill, but a measure designed to make Republicans look bad.
“The Senate blocked a ridiculous showboat bill that had no chance of passing,” Vance said.
Republicans argued that the federal government shouldn’t tell states what to do and that the bill was an unserious effort. Only Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted with Democrats to move forward on the bill both times.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said that Democrats are trying to create a political issue “where there isn’t one.”
“Let me remind everybody that Republicans support IVF, full stop,” Thune said just before the vote.
Open source orgs strengthen alliance against patent trolls
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The more successful FOSS gets, the more it becomes a target
Patent trolls are increasingly targeting cloud native open source projects, leading the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation to make efforts to extend their legal shields over such efforts.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/open_source_orgs_strengthen_alliance/
US lawmakers welcome Russian activist freed in August prisoner swap
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers welcomed Vladimir Kara-Murza to Capitol Hill Tuesday, celebrating the release of the Russian activist from a Kremlin prison last month.
Kara-Murza was part of the biggest prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin said Tuesday that Kara-Murza “was at the forefront of the human rights struggle and an inspiration for so many people around the world.”
In a letter written upon Kara-Murza’s release, Cardin said, “Your return home is both a personal victory and a testament to the unwavering strength of the human spirit.”
Democratic Representative Bill Keating described Kara-Murza as one of the people Russian President Vladimir Putin most despises because of his ability to speak directly to the Russian people. Kara-Murza has twice survived suspected poisoning attempts.
Kara-Murza, a deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party, was arrested in Russia in April 2022 and later faced charges of treason and spreading disinformation about the Russian military. Russian prosecutors suggested he face the maximum 25-year sentence in a prison colony.
Kara-Murza was awarded the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in October 2022 and the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2024.
“Surreal doesn’t come close to describing what I feel — just a few weeks ago sitting in a maximum-security prison in Siberia and now seeing so many friends in the halls of the U.S. Congress,” Kara-Murza told a gathering of lawmakers, journalists and activists on Capitol Hill.
Kara-Murza thanked the public for keeping their attention focused on his situation.
“The only way we will be able to achieve long-term peace, stability, security and democracy on the European continent will be with a peaceful, free and democratic Russia,” he said.
The Biden administration secured the release of 16 detainees in return for the release of eight detainees and two minors on Aug. 1.
James O’Brien, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, thanked Kara-Murza for his work on the Global Magnitsky Act, bipartisan legislation that authorizes the U.S. government to sanction government officials throughout the world who are human rights offenders.
“Vladimir, you gave us one of the main tools that we use to focus our advocacy for your freedom in the Global Magnitsky Act, and your work on that, I’m sure you didn’t do it as a tool for yourself, but your work on that has helped us enormously as we work to free prisoners in the Western Hemisphere, in other countries across the world,” O’Brien said.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons said Putin is still holding untold numbers of political prisoners in Russia.
“We must realize [Putin] does that, like all authoritarians, because he’s afraid, afraid of his own people, afraid of accountability, afraid of the Ukrainians who just on the border of Russia are fighting with determination,” Coons said.
WhatsApp still working on making View Once chats actually disappear for all
date: 2024-09-18, updated: 2024-09-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
So far it’s more like View Forever
Updated Meta’s efforts to stop people repeatedly viewing WhatsApp’s so-called View Once messages – photos, videos, and voice recordings that disappear from chats after a recipient sees them – so far remain incomplete.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/18/whatsapp_view_once_flaw_unfixed/
Experts say voters should feel confident in US elections this year
date: 2024-09-18, from: VOA News USA
washington — American voters face a challenging duality as they count down the days until November’s presidential election: a security landscape that officials say has become ever more dangerous even as the infrastructure to hold elections has become ever-more secure.
The run-up to the 2024 election has seen the “most complex threat landscape yet,” according to Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the government body responsible for overseeing election security.
“We do see a growing and diverse array of foreign adversaries, foreign actors, trying to disrupt our elections,” Conley said Tuesday, speaking at Politico’s AI and Tech Summit in Washington.
But U.S. voters should feel confident, she added.
“We have been surging resources,” Conley said. “We have seen tremendous investment and progress in ensuring the full spectrum of security and resilience of our election infrastructure.”
Nevertheless, Conley and other U.S. officials acknowledge the dangers are widespread, often extending beyond the voting booth.
Physical threats
The FBI and U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday they are investigating suspicious packages sent to election workers in at least 12 states.
CISA officials have reported a growing number of swatting incidents — false reports to emergency services about violence or an emergency at a home or other location — targeting election workers.
And the number of direct threats is rising rapidly.
“We are seeing an unprecedented and extremely disturbing level of threats of violence, and violence, against public officials,” said U.S. Deputy General Lisa Monaco, also speaking at the summit in Washington.
“For sure weekly and, sometimes, daily,” Monaco said of the frequency of the threats.
Many of the threats target officials responsible for conducting elections.
“These are people who are simply volunteering their time to help all of us undertake the most fundamental right,” she said. “These are people who are being threatened simply for doing their job.”
Officials also warn that other public servants are getting a growing number of threats, including law enforcement officers, prosecutors and elected officials and candidates.
“It’s serious,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump as he played golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He also pointed to the rash of threats in Springfield, Ohio, following the spread of unsubstantiated rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
“We are in a heightened threat environment … a threat environment that is of deep concern,” Mayorkas said. “It requires vigilance at every level of government and frankly on every block of each community across this country.”
Concerns about the heightened threat environment are not new.
Homeland Security officials have been warning of the dangers since at least January 2021, saying lone offenders or small groups could be motivated to carry out attacks motivated by a range of political and personal grievances.
Only now, high emotions over the election combined with efforts by U.S. adversaries are fueling discontent and anger that could lead to more attacks.
Cyber operations
“When it comes to malign influence campaigns, we are seeing a very aggressive set of actors,” Monaco said.
Many of the efforts to sow discord have originated in Russia and Iran, and to a lesser extent China. But they are far from alone.
“We’re seeing more actors in this space acting more aggressively in a more polarized environment and doing more with technologies, in particular AI,” Monaco said.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department took action against what it said were two Russian plots to spread disinformation, taking down 32 fake news websites while bringing charges against two employees of Russia-backed media outlet RT, accusing them of funneling nearly $10 million to a U.S. company to promote material favorable to the Russian government.
And last week, the U.S. State Department accused a number of Russian media companies, including RT, of working directly for Russia’s intelligence agencies – charges Russia and RT denied.
US preparations
The best defense, Monaco said, is for U.S. voters to be careful about where they get their information.
“We have to be very vigilant on what we are consuming,” she said.
Experts like Margaret Talev, who directs the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship in Washington, agree.
Voters should “take a pause. Take a minute,” Talev told VOA. “It involves all of us teaching ourselves, taking our time and trying to verify information from multiple sources rather than just believing the first thing that we see.”
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), whose members play key roles in running elections, has also sought to make getting verified information easier, pushing a social media campaign it calls #TrustedInfo2024.
NASS says its goal is “to promote election officials as the trusted sources of election information during the 2024 election cycle and beyond.”
And CISA, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, has been working with election officials across the country to make sure they are ready for almost any contingency.
CISA officials have also tried to rein in the hype about the dangers of AI, or artificial intelligence, blamed for helping U.S. adversaries to spread disinformation more effectively.
“Generative AI is not going to fundamentally introduce new threats to this election cycle,” the agency’s Conley told VOA earlier this month.
While AI is exacerbating existing threats, so far it has not produced anything elections officials have not already seen.
“This threat vector is not new to them,” Conley said. “And they have taken the measures to ensure they’re prepared to respond effectively.”
Bluesky’s Current Efforts on Trust and Safety
date: 2024-09-18, from: Bluesky web news
This is a big quarter for Trust and Safety at Bluesky, as we work on a large number of improvements. Here’s a preview of everything that is in progress.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/09-18-2024-trust-safety-update