News gathered 2024-09-20
(date: 2024-09-20 08:07:45)
Kentucky sheriff charged in killing of judge at courthouse
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A judge in a rural Kentucky county was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing, police said.
The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police. Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.
The fatal shooting in Whitesburg sent shock waves through a tight-knit Appalachian town and county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 235 kilometers southeast of Lexington.
Lead county prosecutor Matt Butler described an outpouring of sympathy as he recused himself and his office from investigations in the shooting, citing social and family ties to Mullins.
“We all know each other here. … Anyone from Letcher County would tell you that Judge Mullins and I married sisters and that we have children who are first cousins but act like siblings,” Butler said in statement from his office. “For that reason, among others, I have already taken steps to recuse myself and my entire office.”
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a commonwealth’s attorney in the region as special prosecutors in the criminal case.
“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.
Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”
Letcher County’s judge-executive signed an order closing on Friday the county courthouse where the shooting took place.
Mullins, 54, was hit multiple times in the shooting, Kentucky State Police said. Stines, 43, was charged with one count of first-degree murder. The investigation is continuing, police said.
It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney. Kentucky State Police referred inquiries about Stines’ legal representation Thursday to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.
Responding to the shooting, Governor Andy Beshear said in a social media post: “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow.”
Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.
Mullins was known for promoting substance abuse treatment for people involved in the justice system and helped hundreds of residents enter inpatient residential treatment, according to a program for a drug summit he spoke at in 2022. He also helped develop a program called Addiction Recovery Care to offer peer support services in the courthouse. The program was adopted in at least 50 counties in Kentucky.
Mullins also served as a founding member of the Responsive Effort to Support Treatment in Opioid Recovery Efforts Leadership Team.
After the shooting, several area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.
https://www.voanews.com/a/kentucky-sheriff-charged-in-killing-of-judge-at-courthouse-/7791922.html
Microsoft on a roll for terrible rebranding with Windows App
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If you hadn’t guessed, that’s the artist formerly known as Remote Desktop
Microsoft’s breathtaking ability to rename things badly carries on with the Windows App, a hub to stream Windows from a variety of sources.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/microsoft_windows_app/
Behind the Blog: Good Dogs and Joyous Games
date: 2024-09-20, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss good dogs, good games, getting documents and netsex.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-good-dogs-and-joyous-games/
See an Ancient Egyptian Temple’s Brilliant Colors, Newly Revealed Beneath Layers of Dust and Soot
date: 2024-09-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Experts are carefully uncovering traces of the original paint and fragments of gold leaf that once adorned the 2,000-year-old Temple of Edfu
Sipeed NanoKVM: A RISC-V stick-on
date: 2024-09-20, from: Jeff Geerling blog
Sipeed NanoKVM: A RISC-V stick-on
<div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><img width="700" height="auto" class="insert-image" src="https://www.jeffgeerling.com/sites/default/files/images/sipeed-nanokvm-box-contents.jpeg" alt="Sipeed NanoKVM"></p>This is the Sipeed NanoKVM. You stick it on your computer, plug in HDMI, USB, and the power button, and you get full remote control over the network—even if your computer locks up.
How did Sipeed make it so small, and so cheap? The ‘full’ kit above is about $50, while the cheapest competitors running PiKVM are closer to $200 and up!
This blog post is a lightly-edited transcript of the following video on my YouTube channel:
<span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>Jeff Geerling</span></span>
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/sipeed-nanokvm-risc-v-stick-on
Governor nominee vows to keep running after report on racial, sexual comments
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson vowed on Thursday to remain in the race despite a CNN report that he posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, saying he won’t be forced out by “salacious tabloid lies.”
Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor who decisively won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general.
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in a video posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “And we know that with your help, we will.”
Robinson referenced in the video a story that he said CNN was running, but he didn’t give details.
“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said. “You know my words. You know my character.”
The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago.
CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”
CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” at women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
Media outlets already have reported about a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.
Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina, a state on the U.S. Atlantic coast. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson would hurt former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes, and potential other GOP down-ballot candidates.
Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.
Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”
State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.
Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party, well-known for his fiery speeches and evocative rhetoric. Ahead of the March primary, Trump at a rally in Greensboro called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking ability.
Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.”
Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington or had been invited to do so.
A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, said on social media platform X that “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem” and reposted a photo of the two together.
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.
Scott Lassiter, a Republican state Senate candidate in a Raleigh-area swing district, did call on Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race.”
Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.
“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.” Robinson, he said, has some reassuring to do in the state.
Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy. His four-minute speech to the Greensboro City Council defending gun rights and lamenting the “demonizing” of police officers went viral — and led him to a National Rifle Association board position and popularity among conservative voters.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
A Meticulous Accounting of How The Beatles Recorded Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
https://laughingsquid.com/recording-the-beatles-sgt-peppers/
Seattle center for ‘friends all of Ukraine’ holds broad range of projects
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
The Ukrainian Cultural Center Toloka near Seattle, Washington, is home for ‘friends of Ukraine’ say its founders. Just over a year ago, it began offering a wide range of activities, including aid for refugees, language workshops, art classes, cultural events and more. Khrystyna Shevchenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Dmytro Savchuk
Datacenters bleed watts and cash – all because they’re afraid to flip a switch
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Flip on OS-level governors and power profiles, cut energy use by ‘25 – 50 percent’
Datacenter power consumption has become a major concern in recent years, as utilities struggle to keep up with growing demand and operators are forced to seek alternative means to keep the lights on.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/datacenters_waste_watts_server_power/
A Supermarket Superstar
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/20/a-supermarket-superstar/
Europe’s largest city council: Oracle ERP allocated £2B in transactions to wrong year
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Workers forced to manually correct setup that struggles to produce auditable accounts after customizations
The Oracle finance system implemented by stricken Birmingham City Council allocated £2 billion ($2.65 billion) in cash to the wrong financial year, leaving public sector workers to unpick the errors manually.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/birmingham_oracle_finance_woes/
When companies take a political stand
date: 2024-09-20, from: Marketplace Morning Report
We’re digging into Office Politics, our series in which we talk to companies that use their brands to push policies and candidates, as well as organizations that try to dial down the political temperature. Today: When a business shows support or opposition to a particular side of a partisan issue, what does it mean for the consumers who don’t agree? But first: unpacking a credit card interest rate cap proposed by Donald Trump.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/when-companies-take-a-political-stand
Three Mile Island Is Coming Back Online to Power Microsoft Data Centers
date: 2024-09-20, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Cleanup efforts have begun in Italy’s washed out Emilia-Romagna region • Endangered freshwater dolphins are washing ashore at Brazil’s Lake Tefe as water levels recede due to drought • The Colorado Rockies could see some snow this weekend.
THE TOP FIVE
- Three Mile Island nuclear plant to come back online to power
Microsoft data centers
We’ll start with some breaking news today: Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of an infamous 1979 partial reactor meltdown, will be revived by 2028 as part of a plan to provide power for Microsoft’s data centers. Constellation Energy, the plant’s owner and the largest nuclear operator in the country, announced the news today. Microsoft agreed to buy all of the plant’s power for 20 years – enough energy to power 800,000 homes.
If approved, this decision “would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence,” The Washington Post reported. “The symbolism is enormous,” Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation, told The New York Times. “This was the site of the industry’s greatest failure, and now it can be a place of rebirth.”
“Now, THIS is additional clean supply,” said Heatmap Shift Key co-host Jesse Jenkins. “Bravo. It is remarkable to see a handful of nuclear reactors shuttered in the last decade due to poor revenues contemplating restart now. Palisades, now TMI. Who is next? Maybe it was unwise to let these plants close in the fist place eh?”
- World Bank climate financing reaches record high
The World Bank Group yesterday announced it delivered a record $42.6 billion in climate finance in fiscal year 2024 (which ran from July to June), a 10% increase year-over-year. Climate financing made up 44% of the group’s total lending, which is awfully close to its goal, set at COP28, of 45% for fiscal year 2025. However this remains “well short of the trillions of dollars in additional resources needed annually to finance the clean energy transition in emerging markets and developing countries,” noted Reuters.
- Equatic starts producing its breakthrough anode
Carbon removal startup Equatic announced it has started manufacturing its “oxygen-selective anode,” which has the potential to pave the way for a two-for-one climate solution: commercial hydrogen production and carbon removal. Equatic wants to use seawater electrolysis – sending an electrical current through seawater – to sequester carbon dioxide from the air in the ocean while also producing hydrogen. But as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, electrolysis tends to turn the salt in the water into the toxic and corrosive gas chlorine, which makes commercializing such a process challenging. So Equatic set out 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. Using ARPA-E funding, they 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.
The company’s San Francisco facility will be able to produce 4,000 of these 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.
- Outlook for Doomsday Glacier looking ‘grim’
Scientists who spent six years examining the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica warned this week that the outlook for the glacier is “grim.” Thwaites, often referred to as the “Doomsday Glacier,” is massive, spanning an area equal to the state of Florida. It has been retreating for nearly a century, but this melting has accelerated significantly over the last 30 years and the new research suggests it is set to worsen. Within 200 years, the glacier could collapse, raising sea levels worldwide. CNN succinctly summarized why this matters:
“Thwaites holds enough water to increase sea levels by more than 2 feet. But because it also acts like a cork, holding back the vast Antarctic ice sheet, its collapse could ultimately lead to around 10 feet of sea level rise, devastating coastal communities from Miami and London to Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands.”
Dr. Ted Scambos, U.S. science coordinator of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration and glaciologist at the University of Colorado, said “immediate and sustained climate intervention will have a positive effect, but a delayed one.”
ITGC
- WRI considers city life at 3 degrees Celsius of warming
A sweeping new report from the World Resources Institute paints a bleak picture of what 996 of the world’s biggest cities will feel like in a world that is 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial records, and compares that to a scenario in which temperatures warm by 3 degrees Celsius. Here are some stats:
- 6.4 – heat waves, on average, cities will experience each year with 3 degrees C of warming, compared to 4.9 heat waves annually at 1.5 degrees C of warming.
- 24.5 – average length, in days, of the year’s longest heat wave at 3 degrees C of warming, compared to 16.3 days for 1.5 degrees C of warming.
- 16 – percentage of big cities that would experience a heat wave that lasts for a month or longer annually at 3 degrees C of warming.
- Two-thirds – the share of the global population that will live in cities by 2050.
The report also looks at what warmer temperatures mean for mosquito-borne diseases. Some, like dengue, Zika, and West Nile, will become more common. But malaria could actually decline “as temperatures in many places become warmer than what is optimal for malaria-transmitting mosquitos.”
THE KICKER
Canada’s carbon emissions dropped last year for the first time since the pandemic, falling 0.8% between 2022 and 2023.
https://heatmap.news/technology/microsoft-three-mile-island-nuclear
California moving to block schools from telling parents about transgender students
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
In California, a new law will block public schools from notifying parents if their children decide to change their gender. That has led some school districts to challenge the state’s authority over issues of gender identity. Genia Dulot has our story from Southern California.
Killing shakes Japanese community in China
date: 2024-09-20, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in the Chinese city of Shenzhen has sparked anxiety among Japanese expats living in China, with top firms warning their workers to be vigilant. Plus, mass tourism in parts of Europe has sparked protests this summer, but one small Mediterranean country is enthusiastically embracing those on vacation. And heavy rock band Iron Maiden announce a 50th anniversary world tour.
Disney kicks Slack to the curb, looks to Microsoft Teams for a happily ever after
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Definitely not punishment for someone leaking internal data
There’s no fairy tale ending for Slack at entertainment behemoth Disney following reports that the Salesforce-owned messaging service will be ditched in favor of Microsoft Teams.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/disney_slack_microsoft_teams/
Hubble Lights the Way with New Multiwavelength Galaxy View
date: 2024-09-20, from: NASA breaking news
The magnificent galaxy featured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 1559. It is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Reticulum, approximately 35 million light-years from Earth. The brilliant light captured in the current image offers a wealth of information. This picture is composed of a whopping ten different Hubble images, […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-lights-the-way-with-new-multiwavelength-galaxy-view/
The Big Problem With Big Electric Pickups
date: 2024-09-20, from: Heatmap News
It’s tough out there for an electric truck.
Rivian’s R1T was the showpiece that launched the company; I was blown away the moment I saw its concept version at a car show in the 2010s. But the truck’s sales are down 38% over last year as the R1S SUV becomes the brand’s signature vehicle. Ford has found some footing with the F-150 Lightning, but is lowering expectations for the vehicle as Detroit faces fierce headwinds trying to convince its legion of truck drivers to go electric — and backtracks toward plug-in hybrids. The category leader in sales, the Tesla Cybertruck, exists primarily to inspire TikTok derision, which would be easier to swallow if its sales, while rising, didn’t pale in comparison to the Model Y and 3.
There are practical reasons for sluggish truck sales — the SUV shape is more useful than a pickup truck for the kinds of people currently buying EVs. There are political reasons, of course. Even with Donald Trump’s softening his EV hatred thanks to support from Elon Musk, lots of pickup drivers remain electric-averse. There are financial reasons, since many of the electric truck offerings to date are staggeringly expensive. Above these concerns floats a broader, more all-consuming problem: Maybe it’s just not the right time to make an all-electric truck, at least not the monstrous kind America buys.
Lucid’s CEO recently remarked on this idea in response to drawings of a theoretical Lucid pickup circulating on the internet. Despite America’s insatiable appetite for pickups, the company is absolutely not making a truck right now, he said.
His rationale boils down to the conundrum for today’s EVs: Vehicles of all stripes have been getting bigger as American drivers choose crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. Since those are the shapes Americans want, and want to pay extra for, those are the kinds of EVs carmakers want to sell. But a larger EV is a less efficient one. It takes lots of energy to move a heavy vehicle, which means they need huge batteries just to achieve a normal driving range.
As I noted earlier this month, Lucid has been counterculturally hyper-focused on making efficient vehicles that can maximize range. Its Air sedans achieve an industry-leading 4 miles per kilowatt-hour of electricity, which lets the cars claim more than 400 miles per charge despite having a battery of average size. The excellent but heavyweight R1T is only about half as efficient. You can buy one with 420 miles of range, but doing so requires an enormous and expensive battery pack.
Weight alone is not the only issue. Pickup owners — even those who never stray from the smooth pavement of the suburbs — want their vehicles to be able to tow a boat or tackle the Rubicon trail. Towing with an EV dings the driving range that’s already low because of the vehicle’s heft. Knowing that, Lucid CTO and CEO Peter Rawlinson estimated the minimum battery size threshold for a workable electric pickup at 150 kilowatt-hours — nearly double the size of the 84-kilowatt hour battery that powers the simplest Lucid Air, and well past the 118-kilowatt hour pack in the long range Grand Touring edition. Given the cost of today’s batteries and their physical limitations, it’s simply difficult to make the math work for the kind of megavehicle that full-size pickups have become.
Downsizing the truck would help, of course. It’d be much easier, and cheaper, to fully electrify something the size and weight of the Chevy S-10. However, the chorus of car enthusiasts and compact truck fans calling for the pickup to return to its reasonably sized roots has been drowned out by all the money Detroit is making on monster trucks. Don’t pin your hopes there.
But just because the full-size EV pickup is in a tough spot now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. The battery calculus will change as technologies improve and economies of scale emerge. At some point, it might be possible to squeeze 150 or 200 kilowatt-hours of juice into a not-gargantuan battery pack, and to build it for less than a small fortune, at which point the fully electric F-150 or Silverado becomes a far more attractive proposition.
The more immediate solution, though, is the ongoing rise of the hybrid. Trucks make terrific hybrids. The hybrid version of the current Ford F-150 has plenty of power and driving range for serious work or play, and also gets 25 miles per gallon in the city compared to 18-20 mpg for combustion-only trucks. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, remember that when it comes to cutting fossil fuels consumption and emissions, improving gas-guzzlers by a little can be more powerful than improving already-efficient cars by a lot. (With mpg, it’s better to go from bad to decent than from good to great. It’s a bad statistic.)
Crucially for the potential to cut the carbon emissions of America’s truck fleet, conventional hybrids are less weighed down by a feeling of foreignness and political baggage. There was a time when vehicles like the Prius were the peak of conspicuous car consumption for lefty greens. Now a slew of vehicles, including trucks, come in hybrid configurations (and some cars, like the Toyota Camry, have ditched combustion-only models altogether). A hybrid is just a car, one you can pump gas into and drive without thinking too much about the partisan implications of its powertrain.
The idea of plug-in hybrid full-size trucks is alluring, too. Owners could live out the fantasy of driving a weekend warrior 4x4 — and enjoy the in-group signaling that comes with pickup ownership — all while using electricity for the local driving that makes up most of their actual transportation needs. Perhaps someday we could even get Heatmap’s dream vehicle, a plug-in hybrid version of the reasonably sized Ford Maverick.
Trucks are good candidates for unusual hybrid configurations, too. This week, some American reviewers tested, and loved, the BYD Shark, a Chinese-made pickup on sale in Mexico but not here. The Shark’s hybrid setup is a range extender, meaning that although the gas engine can drive the front wheels in some situations, it exists primarily to charge a generator that powers electric motors, and those motors push the vehicle. Its battery pack can hold enough energy for an estimated 60 miles of electric driving.
The Shark won’t swim to America, given the ongoing tariffs battle. But it doesn’t have to. For 2025, Ram has promised us the Ramcharger extended-range pickup that puts this tech into a truck Americans can buy. Heatmap’s Jesse Jenkins called it an “ideal near-term product to satisfy some of the trickiest American market segments to electrify: namely the uniquely American demand for full-size pickups and massive SUVs.”
Indeed, if truck shoppers give this new kind of electrified vehicle a chance, they’re going to like what they find.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/electric-truck-lucid-rivian-cybertruck-tesla
While HashiCorp plays license roulette, Virter rolls out to rescue FOSS VM testing
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
BSL shenanigans continue to make waves
Open Source Summit Europe 2024 Virter is a useful little tool if you often create – and then remove – VMs to try stuff. It’s arguably carried on the ripples from HashiCorp dropping the BSL into the FOSS pond.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/virter_simpler_test_vms/
The Secret Plot To Buy American Democracy
date: 2024-09-20, from: The Lever News
Fifty years ago, two memos laid the groundwork for a right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court.
https://www.levernews.com/the-secret-plot-to-buy-american-democracy/
Cybercrooks strut away with haute couture Harvey Nichols data
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Nothing high-end about the sparsely detailed, poorly publicized breach
High-end British department store Harvey Nichols is writing to customers to confirm some of their data was exposed in a recent cyberattack.…
US General: Chad agrees to bring back US forces
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
Pentagon — The U.S. is returning Special Forces troops to Chad after leaving at the country’s request nearly five months ago.
“We have reached an agreement on the return of a limited number of Special Forces personnel,” Maj. General Kenneth Ekman, who oversaw the recent U.S. withdrawal from Niger at the request of U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Michael Langley, told VOA in an exclusive interview Thursday.
“It was a presidential decision by [Chadian] President [Mahamat] Deby, but the decision is made, and now we’re working through the specifics on how we return,” he added.
In April, the U.S. pulled out some 70 Special Forces personnel from Chad ahead of the nation’s presidential election. Deby won that election and ultimately decided to allow U.S. forces to return, a decision that was only recently relayed to U.S. Africa Command.
Ekman told VOA the U.S. military plans a smaller operation than the headquarters that forces previously maintained in Chad, whose 11,000-member counterterror force is fighting a growing number of Boko Haram and Islamic State militants around Lake Chad.
“The direction of approach from Chad is immensely important,” Ekman said, especially following the U.S. military withdrawal from Niger that officially ended on Sunday with his departure from Niamey. “If our presence in Niger allowed us to go inside out, relative to the Sahelian-based VEO [violent extremist organization] threat, we now have to revert to going outside in.”
The head of U.S. Africa Command, General Michael Langley, has said his forces are starting to “reset and recalibrate” in the region.
Before coups in Niger, the U.S. had hundreds of forces in two bases that served as major counterterrorism hubs. Burkina Faso and Mali also hosted U.S. Special Forces teams prior to coups in their countries that strained their relationship with the United States and ultimately cut off U.S. military access to prime locations from which to monitor terror groups and train local partners.
Under U.S. law the coups prevent AFRICOM from direct military-to-military cooperation.
Now, countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and Chad will determine the U.S. counterterror strategy and force strength in West Africa.
“Each partner has their own unique security concerns. They also have their own respective tolerance and willingness to abide the presence of U.S. forces,” Ekman said.
Ghana and Nigeria have made it clear to the U.S. that they are not interested in hosting U.S. forces, according to Ekman.
But as the violent militant threat spreads primarily southwest from the Sahel, some West African nations along the coast are asking for more U.S. capabilities. Even before the coup in Niger, the U.S. started refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate U.S. military aircraft.
After the coup in Niger, the U.S. moved Special Forces into Ivory Coast as well, Ekman told VOA. Any decision to establish a larger military presence like the one the U.S. built up in Niger will ultimately be a policy decision.
“I don’t think you’re going to see another Air Base 201,” said a senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, referring to the $100 million drone base that the U.S. built in the Nigerien desert.
Instead, the U.S. will likely try to work from within partner force garrisons through strengthening base fortifications and capabilities, but the U.S. has not made this type of agreement with any West African partners since the withdrawal from Niger.
“We’re not there yet,” Ekman said.
Diminished access
Since U.S. counterterror operations were halted in Niger, Ekman cautions that the region has become “more opaque” as U.S. partnerships and access have “diminished.” It is more difficult to monitor the terror threat in West Africa, which hurts the U.S. ability to counter it.
Officials admit the U.S. is now “soul searching,” its confidence shaken from broken partnerships and regional approaches that have failed to tamp down the terrorists.
The U.S military has been tasked with “treating the symptom: terrorism,” the senior military official said, acknowledging that diplomatic and economic approaches are what is needed to counter terrorism’s root causes on the continent.
The U.S. military’s withdrawal appears to be a net loss for Niger, the United States and other regional partners who had benefited from U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities available through its bases in Niger.
Since the July 2023 coup, extremist attacks have become more lethal as Niger has lost resources and partners.
“They’re absolutely feeling [those losses],” the senior military official said.
Ekman said he believes that the U.S. and Niger’s shared security objectives will continue to link the two nations even without American forces on the ground.
“How we will pursue [those objectives], either together or apart, as a consequence of the withdrawal remains to be seen, but we wanted to make sure we kept all options on the table,” he said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-general-chad-agrees-to-bring-back-us-forces-/7791656.html
Linguistic Bias in ChatGPT: Language Models Reinforce Dialect Discrimination
date: 2024-09-20, from: Berkley Artificial Intellegence Research Blog
Sample language model responses to
different varieties of English and native speaker reactions.
ChatGPT does amazingly well at communicating with people in English. But whose English?
Only 15% of ChatGPT users are from the US, where Standard American English is the default. But the model is also commonly used in countries and communities where people speak other varieties of English. Over 1 billion people around the world speak varieties such as Indian English, Nigerian English, Irish English, and African-American English.
Speakers of these non-“standard” varieties often face discrimination in the real world. They’ve been told that the way they speak is unprofessional or incorrect, discredited as witnesses, and denied housing–despite extensive research indicating that all language varieties are equally complex and legitimate. Discriminating against the way someone speaks is often a proxy for discriminating against their race, ethnicity, or nationality. What if ChatGPT exacerbates this discrimination?
To answer this question, our recent paper examines how ChatGPT’s behavior changes in response to text in different varieties of English. We found that ChatGPT responses exhibit consistent and pervasive biases against non-“standard” varieties, including increased stereotyping and demeaning content, poorer comprehension, and condescending responses.
Our Study
We prompted both GPT-3.5 Turbo and GPT-4 with text in ten varieties of English: two “standard” varieties, Standard American English (SAE) and Standard British English (SBE); and eight non-“standard” varieties, African-American, Indian, Irish, Jamaican, Kenyan, Nigerian, Scottish, and Singaporean English. Then, we compared the language model responses to the “standard” varieties and the non-“standard” varieties.
First, we wanted to know whether linguistic features of a variety that are present in the prompt would be retained in GPT-3.5 Turbo responses to that prompt. We annotated the prompts and model responses for linguistic features of each variety and whether they used American or British spelling (e.g., “colour” or “practise”). This helps us understand when ChatGPT imitates or doesn’t imitate a variety, and what factors might influence the degree of imitation.
Then, we had native speakers of each of the varieties rate model responses for different qualities, both positive (like warmth, comprehension, and naturalness) and negative (like stereotyping, demeaning content, or condescension). Here, we included the original GPT-3.5 responses, plus responses from GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 where the models were told to imitate the style of the input.
Results
We expected ChatGPT to produce Standard American English by default: the model was developed in the US, and Standard American English is likely the best-represented variety in its training data. We indeed found that model responses retain features of SAE far more than any non-“standard” dialect (by a margin of over 60%). But surprisingly, the model does imitate other varieties of English, though not consistently. In fact, it imitates varieties with more speakers (such as Nigerian and Indian English) more often than varieties with fewer speakers (such as Jamaican English). That suggests that the training data composition influences responses to non-“standard” dialects.
ChatGPT also defaults to American conventions in ways that could frustrate non-American users. For example, model responses to inputs with British spelling (the default in most non-US countries) almost universally revert to American spelling. That’s a substantial fraction of ChatGPT’s userbase likely hindered by ChatGPT’s refusal to accommodate local writing conventions.
Model responses are consistently biased against non-“standard” varieties. Default GPT-3.5 responses to non-“standard” varieties consistently exhibit a range of issues: stereotyping (19% worse than for “standard” varieties), demeaning content (25% worse), lack of comprehension (9% worse), and condescending responses (15% worse).
Native speaker ratings of model responses. Responses to
non-”standard” varieties (blue) were rated as worse than responses to
“standard” varieties (orange) in terms of stereotyping (19% worse),
demeaning content (25% worse), comprehension (9% worse), naturalness (8%
worse), and condescension (15% worse).
When GPT-3.5 is prompted to imitate the input dialect, the responses exacerbate stereotyping content (9% worse) and lack of comprehension (6% worse). GPT-4 is a newer, more powerful model than GPT-3.5, so we’d hope that it would improve over GPT-3.5. But although GPT-4 responses imitating the input improve on GPT-3.5 in terms of warmth, comprehension, and friendliness, they exacerbate stereotyping (14% worse than GPT-3.5 for minoritized varieties). That suggests that larger, newer models don’t automatically solve dialect discrimination: in fact, they might make it worse.
Implications
ChatGPT can perpetuate linguistic discrimination toward speakers of non-“standard” varieties. If these users have trouble getting ChatGPT to understand them, it’s harder for them to use these tools. That can reinforce barriers against speakers of non-“standard” varieties as AI models become increasingly used in daily life.
Moreover, stereotyping and demeaning responses perpetuate ideas that speakers of non-“standard” varieties speak less correctly and are less deserving of respect. As language model usage increases globally, these tools risk reinforcing power dynamics and amplifying inequalities that harm minoritized language communities.
Learn more here: [ paper ]
http://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2024/09/20/linguistic-bias/
Green recycling goals? Pending EU directive could hammer used mobile market
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Bloc’s USB-C rules forecast to disrupt supply, barring 8 million imported phones from reaching Europe’s ports
The impending Radio Equipment Directive in the EU is forecast to render eight million used smartphones, or two in five units, no longer available for supply and – at least in the trading bloc – effectively obsolete.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/secondhand_smartphone_demand/
Crack coder wasn’t allowed to meet clients due to his other talent: blisteringly inappropriate insults
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Then he stopped being a coding whiz, which is when the trouble started
On Call Welcome once again to On Call, the weekly column in which readers tell their tales of tech support troubles and triumphs.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/on_call/
VOA EXCLUSIVE: US general explains US movements, partnerships in West Africa
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
PENTAGON — On Sunday, U.S. Africa Command’s Major General Kenneth Ekman was one of the last two U.S. service members to leave Niger as part of America’s military withdrawal, following the country’s July 2023 coup. Per an agreement reached by the U.S. and Niger in May, the only American service members that remain in the country are those securing the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Niamey.
The general, who served as AFRICOM’s director of strategy, plans and programs before focusing solely on West Africa, spent the last few months methodically overseeing the withdrawal of about 1,100 American service members, along with U.S. weapons, drones and equipment that had been staged for years in two U.S. military bases in Niger. The task was completed on time and within the parameters set by the host nation, but the withdrawal has created a massive hole in the United States’ ability to monitor the growing violent extremist threat.
In an exclusive interview at the Pentagon on Thursday, Ekman explained how the new U.S. footprint in West Africa is beginning to take shape to continue fighting a shared threat.
Below are highlights from his discussion with VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, edited for brevity and clarity:
VOA: On what Nigeriens should expect in terms of a partnership with the US military:
Major General Kenneth Ekman: I think that remains to be seen. … I think the starting impetus will be reflecting on the 15 years of very mutually beneficial partnership that we had up to this point. We have shed blood together, right? We have pursued their most acute security threats together, and so you can’t erase that history … It would be really helpful if the Nigerians took the first step – they asked us to leave after all – their first step on what that government and the military that serves them would like next in a U.S. security partnership. And then it will be bounded. What I mean by that is, it’s going to take a while for it ever to be what it was on July 25, 2023, which was the day prior to the coup.
There are some obstacles–everything from the request that we withdraw, to our turnover of bases and facilities and equipment, to the fact that coup sanctions, Section 7008 sanctions, have been imposed against the junta. And so all of that combines to limit the “what next.”
We still have shared security objectives. How we will pursue them, either together or apart, as a consequence of the withdrawal remains to be seen, but we wanted to make sure we kept all options on the table.
VOA: On repercussions concerning military partnerships and training exercises with countries who’ve undergone a coup:
Ekman: There are absolutely repercussions. Because when they’re omitted, they lose everything from the chance to interact in a region that’s becoming increasingly dis-integrated, right, to the chance to practice and practice at a high level within the context or the scenario of the exercise. So it is a net loss, right? It’s a net loss for the region, and it’s a loss for each of those individual countries as they are excluded.
VOA: On increased U.S. military presence in other West African nations:
Ekman: What you’re talking about is that layer of forces, most of which came from Niger, that we reposition around the Sahel. If our presence in Niger allowed us to go inside out, relative to the Sahelian based VEO (violent extremist organization) threat, we now have to revert to going outside in … Countries like Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Benin, Chad, our access to them and the degree to which they want to partner with us will influence how we go outside in.
We’re at a different phase with each of those countries. What I mean is, each partner has their own unique security concerns. They also have their own respective tolerance and willingness to abide the presence of U.S. forces. So in some cases, we moved some forces well prior to the Niger coup, because that’s where the threat was going. We were invited early on, and whether it was a small SOF (special operations forces) team or an ISR (intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance) platform, we moved them months ago. The larger question is, and it’s a policy question, where, and if we establish significant presence of forces, probably on a partner base, serving alongside them, doing everything from command and control to projecting things like ISR and personnel recovery, to sustaining them and to medically treating them. That is something where we’re not there yet, and no agreements have been made.
There are some cases where, for now, we’re definitely not (establishing a significant force presence). So that’s true in Nigeria. We have a very clear message from them … Likewise in Ghana.
The ones where things are still kind of under consideration, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, those were, what we want to do is, within the partners’ needs, support their partner-led, U.S.-enabled counter VEO ops.
VOA: On U.S. military movements, specifically, refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate U.S. aircraft, sending special forces to Ivory Coast and bringing U.S. forces back to Chad:
Ekman: The most lethal violent extremist organization threat in the world resides in West Africa, and it resides in the Sahel. It’s also spreading. The primary direction of travel is to the southwest, so well-prior to the Niger coup we were already working with partners on what they needed with regards to U.S. presence and capabilities. In the Benin case, we started that a while ago. In the Cote d’Ivoire case, it’s been really post-coup (in Niger). So each of them is on their own timeline as we work with them… We did have some forces in Mali and Burkina Faso. We had special forces teams there as well. And given our current relationship, that’s just not something that we can do, and so we had some forces available who needed to move and there were requirements in other countries. The specifics beyond that kind of remain to be seen.
VOA: But the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) case, the (U.S.) special forces were moved from Niger to there?
Ekman: That’s correct.
VOA: OK, and then the airfield (refurbishment) in Benin (to accommodate U.S. aircraft) was started a little prior, but then also worked on during.
Ekman: That’s it.
A consistent request that we receive from all partners is intel sharing, right? And so that’s something that we can offer uniquely… It is a common currency from which everyone benefits.
VOA: That has diminished.
Ekman: The region has become more opaque. Absolutely.
We did remove about 70 U.S. Special Forces personnel (from Chad) at the end of April. That was at their request. They asked us to leave. An election was coming and we obliged. That’s what partners do. Since then, they had a successful election on May 6. And so in the aftermath of that, they’ve started asking us, well, what can we do together?
Our goal is to do something less than we had there before. We had a headquarters there before, but we have reached an agreement on the return of a limited number of special forces personnel. It is a presidential decision. So these are big policy decisions. It was a presidential decision by President Deby, but the decision is made, and now we’re working through the specifics on how we return… His decision was conveyed to us in just recent weeks. Chad is really important because… it’s an outside-in strategy. And the direction of approach from Chad is immensely important. They’ve also been a significant contributor to Sahelian security.
VOA: On the effect that losing Niger has on region counterterrorism efforts:
Ekman: If there was one country that was most important on our ability to address Sahelian VEO problems or the Sahelian VEO challenge, it was Niger. So, for one, of Niger, I talked about it as a strategic setback, (but) the degree to which that setback endures ties to how we reposition and then what our partners want to do with us… That is a snapshot in time. All is not lost.
VOA: On concerns that Niger could fall to violent extremist organizations:
Ekman: Their risks have definitely gone up. Their ability to confront extremist organizations, intel sharing, partnership with our and other allied forces, it’s gotten worse. So they are a capable force… the degree to which they can handle the problem themselves remains to be seen. It is a fact that in Niger, violent extremist attacks have become more lethal. That’s a fact. Since the coup on July 26, 2023. They’ve got fewer resources and fewer partners.
VOA: Have you seen any evidence, or heard anything from your engagements about JNIM starting to collaborate with some of the ISIS elements (in West Africa)?
Ekman: I think that one varies. For what I can talk about in here, some cases they collaborate, some cases they compete, and that often manifest down to the local level.
VOA: On Russia’s military presence in Niger:
Ekman: In the Nigerian case, that presence is actually quite small. The Nigerians signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia related to security cooperation two governments ago. And so they fly Russian equipment. They drive Russian equipment. There’s nothing new there. The Russian trainers who showed up? Didn’t see much of them while we were there. And so, to date, Russian presence in Niger has been quite limited… We caution them of the malign impacts of partnering, particularly with Russian PMCs who have yet to help anybody from a security perspective. And then their methods are abhorrent to us, OK? And so that’s where we, we encourage them to draw the line.
VOA: On whether terrorists in the Sahel now have the capacity to try external operations:
Ekman: Given the lack of access that we have, given the lack of ISR, our ability to gage… the trend in their development of capability and will, it’s become more difficult.
Our access and our partnerships have diminished. It’s a tough operational problem.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
“Superhuman” is not a great word to describe the capabilities of ChatGPT, because it’s not human. But it has some important capabilities that humans also have, and it is far more capable than humans, so it’s not wrong, and not overhyped.
A huge week for satnav as both China and Europe make generational launches
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Upgrades on the way for both, with deep-ocean services and programmable sats on the way
Two of the world’s satellite positioning service constellations reached important milestones this week, after the European Space Agency and China’s Satellite Navigation Office each launched its own pair of satellites.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/galileo_beido_satellite_launches/
Citrix adds remote Mac support, but some customers are grumpy
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
License changes and product bundles aren’t going down well, says Gartner’s DaaS magical quadrant
Citrix has added the ability to control remote macOS machines through its desktop-as-a-service suite, but customers of the product are said to be upset with changed licensing practices.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/20/gartner_daas_magic_quadrant/
Alibaba Cloud claims its modular datacenter architecture shrinks build times by 50 percent
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Also reveals boosted utilization rates, upgraded IaaS and more – all in the name of AI apps
Alibaba Cloud has revealed a modular datacenter architecture it claims will help it to satisfy demand for AI infrastructure by improving performance and build times for new facilities.…
Submersible’s scientific director says vessel malfunctioned days before fatal dive
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
Gaza, Ukraine to vie for world’s attention at UN gathering
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
World leaders gather for their annual meetings at the United Nations starting Sunday, and the wars in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine will be center stage. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/gaza-ukraine-to-vie-for-world-s-attention-at-un-gathering/7791511.html
Board approves more non-lethal weapons for UCLA police after Israel-Hamas war protests
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
LOS ANGELES — The University of California board of regents approved Thursday additional non-lethal weapons requested by UCLA police, which handled some of the nation’s largest student protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
Clashes between protestors and counter-protestors earlier this year on the campus led to more than a dozen injuries, and more than 200 people were arrested at a demonstration the next day.
The equipment UCLA police requested and the board approved included pepper balls and sponge rounds, projectile launchers and new drones. The board also signed off on equipment purchase requests for the nine other police departments on UC campuses.
Student protesters at the regents meeting were cleared from the room after yelling broke out when the agenda item was presented.
Faculty and students have criticized UCLA police for their use of non-lethal weapons in campus demonstrations, during which some protesters suffered injuries.
During public comment, UCLA student association representative Tommy Contreras said the equipment was used against peaceful protestors and demonstrators.
“I am outraged that the University of California is prioritizing funding for military equipment while slashing resources for education,” Contreras said. “Students, staff and faculty have been hurt by this very equipment used not for safety but to suppress voices.”
California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to submit an annual report on the acquisition and use of weapons characterized as “military equipment.” A UC spokesperson called it a “routine” agenda item not related to any particular incidents.
“The University’s use of this equipment provides UC police officers with non-lethal alternatives to standard-issue firearms, enabling them to de-escalate situations and respond without the use of deadly force,” spokesperson Stett Holbrook said.
Many of the requests are replacements for training equipment, and the drones are for assisting with search and rescue missions, according to Holbrook. The equipment is “not military surplus, nor is it military-grade or designed for military use,” Holbrook said.
UCLA police are requesting 3,000 more pepper balls to add to their inventory of 1,600; 400 more sponge and foam rounds to their inventory of 200; eight more “less lethal” projectile launchers; and three new drones.
The report to the regents said there were no complaints or violations of policy found related to the use of the military equipment in 2023.
History professor Robin D.G. Kelley said he spent an evening with a student in the emergency room after the student was shot in the chest during a June 11 demonstration.
“The trauma center was so concerned about the condition of his heart that they kept him overnight to the next afternoon after running two echocardiograms,” Kelley said the day after the student was injured. “The student was very traumatized.”
UC’s systemwide director of community safety Jody Stiger told the board the weapons were not to be used for crowd control or peaceful protests but “life-threatening circumstances” or violent protests where “campus leadership have deemed the need for law enforcement to utilize force to defend themselves or others.”
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-20, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Update: the UC regents held a meeting, and called the riot police to kick out those that disagreed.
Thread:
https://x.com/hungryghosts161/status/1836868866124959972?s=46
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113167101136390470
White House reports drop in border encounters, credits executive actions
date: 2024-09-20, from: VOA News USA
washington — The White House this week reported a significant decrease in migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at bolstering immigration enforcement.
Migrant encounters in August were significantly lower than last year, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández wrote in a statement Monday. Since Biden’s June 4 executive order there has been a 50% drop in encounters at the border.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in August there were about 58,000 migrant encounters between ports of entry along the southern border, nearly a 68% decline from the 181,000 in August 2023.
The total number of southern border encounters was about 63,000. That figure includes about 5,000 migrants who came to ports of entry without a CBP One registration.
CBP One is a mobile app that allows migrants to schedule appointments at ports of entry rather than cross illegally. U.S. border officials said the app has played a crucial role in streamlining border processes. In August, about 44,700 individuals were processed using CBP One. Since its introduction in January 2023, more than 813,000 people have scheduled appointments.
U.S. border officials also said the June executive actions led to an increase in migrant removals, with more than 131,000 people deported to over 140 countries since June. About 400 international repatriation flights have taken place during this time.
But even with the latest numbers, some Republican lawmakers criticized the Biden administration during a hearing Thursday to discuss potential terrorist threats and homeland security issues related to illegal immigration.
The lawmakers argued that the perception of border officers as welcoming, rather than focused on law enforcement, is contributing to the number of migrants coming to the U.S.
“Our border patrol, law enforcement agents were transitioned from their national security role, their law enforcement role [of] repelling illegal entry and capturing those that crossed illegally as much as possible to transition to sort of reception roles and caring for and transporting, feeding, etc.,” Congressman Clay Higgins, a Republican from Alabama, said as he expressed concern about migrants who crossed illegally and evaded Border Patrol.
There is no indication the Biden administration officially changed border patrol officers’ law enforcement role.
Alex Nowrasteh, the vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, testified during the hearing that the primary reason migrants come the U.S. — legally or illegally — is to work.
“It’s still the economy. That’s what’s pulling people in, and the rapid economic recovery after COVID can explain more than any other factor,” he said.
CISA boss: Makers of insecure software are the real cyber villains
date: 2024-09-20, updated: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Write better code, urges Jen Easterly. And while you’re at it, give crime gangs horrible names like ‘Evil Ferret’
Software developers who ship buggy, insecure code are the true baddies in the cyber crime story, Jen Easterly, boss of the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has argued.…
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-20, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump fan featured in Biden ad admits assaulting officers with bear spray on Jan 6.
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/
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 […]
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: 2024-09-20, 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: 2024-09-20, 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: 2024-09-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Better check your widgets, people
Updated 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: 2024-09-20, 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: 2024-09-20, 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/