News gathered 2024-09-30
(date: 2024-09-30 07:46:54)
Brazilian court sprays Musk’s X with more fines for returning after ban
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A very expensive 2 days in September for the blocked social media platform
X’s accidental reappearance in Brazil will cost the company 10 million Brazilian reais, or about $1.83 million, in the latest ruling handed down by the country’s Federal Supreme Court.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/x_slapped_with_more_fines/
US hospital helps wounded Ukrainian soldiers regain eyesight
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
Since 2015, one of America’s oldest eye clinics, Wills Eye Hospital,
has been helping
wounded Ukrainian soldiers with severe head or face injuries get their
vision back. For one surgeon with Ukrainian roots, the work is personal.
Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo
Terekhov.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-hospital-helps-wounded-ukrainian-soldiers-regain-eyesight/7804588.html
Winamp source code is now available (under a pretty restrictive license)
date: 2024-09-30, from: Liliputing
Earlier this year the company that’s now in charge of Winamp announced plans to release the source code for Windows music player that was hugely popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s at the dawn of the Napster-inspired file sharing age, but which has had a rocky history since then. Now Llama Group has […]
The post Winamp source code is now available (under a pretty restrictive license) appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/winamp-source-code-is-now-available-under-a-pretty-restrictive-license/
California’s new law forces digital stores to admit you’re just licensing content, not buying it
date: 2024-09-30, from: OS News
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law (AB 2426) to combat “disappearing” purchases of digital games, movies, music, and ebooks. The legislation will force digital storefronts to tell customers they’re just getting a license to use the digital media, rather than suggesting they actually own it. When the law comes into effect next year, it will ban digital storefronts from using terms like “buy” or “purchase,” unless they inform customers that they’re not getting unrestricted access to whatever they’re buying. Storefronts will have to tell customers they’re getting a license that can be revoked as well as provide a list of all the restrictions that come along with it. Companies that break the rule could be fined for false advertising. ↫ Emma Roth at The Verge A step in the right direction, but a lot more is definitely needed. This law in particular seems to leave a lot of wiggle room for companies to keep using the “purchase” term while hiding the disclosure somewhere in the very, very small fine print. I would much rather a law like this just straight up ban the use of the term “purchase” and similar terms when all you’re getting is a license. Why allow them to keep lying about the nature of the transaction in exchange for some fine print somewhere? The software industry in particular has been enjoying a free ride when it comes to consumer protection laws, and the kind of malpractice, lack of accountability, and laughable quality control would have any other industry shut down in weeks for severe negligence. We’re taking baby steps, but it seems we’re finally arriving at a point where basic consumer protection laws and rights are being applied to software, too. Several decades too late, but at least it’s something.
Massive E-Learning Platform Udemy Gave Teachers a Gen AI ‘Opt-Out Window’. It’s Already Over.
date: 2024-09-30, from: 404 Media Group
Teachers are surprised they have been opted into having their classes scraped for AI training.
If you’re holding important data, Iran is probably trying spearphish it
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s election year for more than 50 countries and the Islamic Republic threatens a bunch of them
US and UK national security agencies are jointly warning about Iranian spearphishing campaigns, which remain an ongoing threat to various industries and governments.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/iran_spearphishing/
Trump’s Hydrogen Cars Bit Is Funny and Inaccurate
date: 2024-09-30, from: Heatmap News
Ever since Elon Musk “persuaded” Donald Trump to take it easy on his electric vehicle-bashing, the former president’s EV riffs have gotten pretty boring. Thank goodness, then, that there’s a new boogeyman in town: hydrogen cars.
Never mind that there are only about 18,000 hydrogen cars on the roads in the U.S. and so few refueling stations that one of the two manufacturers of them, Toyota, is getting sued. According to Trump, hydrogen cars are “the new thing,” as he warned his supporters last week during a stop in Savannah, Georgia (roughly 1,900 miles from the nearest hydrogen refueling station):
“They say the new thing is hydrogen cars, but they’re having a problem. If it explodes, you end up about seven blocks away. And you’re dead. So personally, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna take a pass. But maybe they’ll figure it out. But right now, I wouldn’t recommend it.” [via RawStory]
This is, admittedly, a pretty funny bit — even if it’s totally inaccurate, according to Bill Elrick, the executive director of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, a nonprofit group of auto manufacturers, energy providers, and government agencies that promote hydrogen vehicles in California. “I get where it comes from, and it is one of our biggest challenges in the industry — helping people understand what hydrogen is without diving into the depths of how a vehicle operates,” he told me.
As Elrick pointed out, when most people hear “hydrogen,” they think either of water (“which is fine”), the Hindenburg disaster (“we don’t do anything 100 years later the same way that we used to”), or, most problematically, the hydrogen bomb. “That’s something that is a completely different chemical reaction and, I think, where some of the safety scare comes from,” Elrick told me.
But hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (or HFCVs) are no more a bomb than gas-powered vehicles — perhaps less so, because they must meet the same rigorous safety codes and standards as any other car or truck on the road in addition to extra precautions to ensure the fuel cells won’t be punctured in a bad accident or potentially leak.
In a HFCV, hydrogen stored in a high-pressure tank is mixed in a fuel cell with oxygen from the air to induce a chemical reaction that produces electricity, which powers an electric motor that drives the car, just as it would in an EV. While batteries and electricity are familiar concepts, however, and therefore less scary as automotive power sources, current popular uses of hydrogen, such as refining oil and producing fertilizers, are not as visible to most people going about their daily lives as, say, their cell phones.
That’s not to say hydrogen is 100% safe. “Anything that moves a vehicle that weighs two tons or more — if it’s electricity, gasoline, or hydrogen — clearly has dangers and risks associated with it,” Elrick said. “If we could power our cars with peanut butter, it would have that energy potential.” But car manufacturers (just like electric boat manufacturers) have considered the possibility of their vehicles being involved in crashes and designed them accordingly.
The Center for Hydrogen Safety maintains a database of hydrogen-related accidents to serve as “lessons learned” as the technology continues to develop. Though there are still relatively few HFCVs on the roads, as of this spring there had been no recorded automotive fatalities credited specifically to hydrogen fuel cells. (In other words, no one has ended up “about seven blocks away” dead from an explosion.) One researcher even found that “in a collision in open spaces,” an HFCV should actually have “less potential hazard” than a gas car due to the extensive precautions taken when building their tanks (“their hardware would likely survive even if the rest of the car were destroyed in a crash,” per Car and Driver).
But Trump’s HFCV-phobia probably isn’t the biggest takeaway here. Some sectors of the hydrogen industry are potentially on the chopping block if Trump returns to the White House — since, as my colleague Katie Brigham writes, “green hydrogen made from renewable-powered electrolyzers is expensive and the proposed strict rules that would allow it to qualify for the most generous tax credit [would likely be] goners” under a Republican administration. Trump’s suspicion of new uses for hydrogen certainly doesn’t bode well.
As for any lingering fears about exploding hydrogen cars that Trump might have planted — hey, at least it’d be a quicker end than death-by-shark.
https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-exploding-hydrogen-cars
California governor vetoes AI safety bill
date: 2024-09-30, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark artificial intelligence safety bill yesterday, siding with skeptical tech giants who that it would stifle innovation. The bill would have established a state-wide entity to oversee AI breakthroughs. We’ll hear more. Then, economists’ biggest economic concern right now is not the upcoming presidential election but the moves of the Fed. Plus, how can humans be more human at work? AI may be able to help.
Windows 11 Patch Tuesday preview is a glitchy disaster
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Blue is the color of some screens after optional KB5043145 update
Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday preview, KB5043145, arrived last week and is already causing some headaches thanks to serious stability issues.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/windows_11_kb5043145/
Remote ID verification tech is often biased, bungling, and no good on its own
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Only 2 out of 5 tested products were equitable across demographics
A study by the US General Services Administration (GSA) has revealed that five remote identity verification (RiDV) technologies are unreliable, inconsistent, and marred by bias across different demographic groups.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/remote_identity_verification_biased/
The Stunning Destruction of Hurricane Helene
date: 2024-09-30, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Flooding and landslides in Nepal over the weekend killed almost 200 people • Storm John dumped more than three feet of rain on southern Mexico • An autumn heat wave is settling over the California coast.
THE TOP FIVE
- Appalachian states reel from catastrophic Helene damage
The remnants of Hurricane Helene swept northeast over the weekend, bringing intense rainfall and catastrophic flooding to Central Appalachian states. Western North Carolina has been particularly hard hit. Asheville recorded about 18 inches of rain over three days, which is far more than the city typically sees in an entire month, and the resulting flooding is nothing short of devastating. At least 91 deaths have been recorded as a result of the storm but the death toll is expected to rise as the water recedes and the search for missing people continues.
Flooding
in
AshevilleMelissa
Sue Gerrits/Getty Images
Storm
damage in
AshevilleSean
Rayford/Getty Images
While the worst of Helene has passed, more rain is still on the way for the region. More than 2 million customers are without power across the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Florida. Hundreds of roads are closed and some towns are completely isolated. “This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in western portions of our area,” reported a weather service in western North Carolina. Vice President Kamala Harris has paused her 2024 presidential campaign to return to Washington and be briefed on the federal response to the storm. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will visit Georgia to survey the damage.
- Storm’s destruction underscores the growing costs of climate change
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said global warming made the damage from Helene worse. E&E News noted that Asheville had previously been described as a “climate haven,” and said the storm serves as a reminder that “no regions are immune to the dangers of climate-fueled disasters.” AccuWeather estimated that the total damage and economic loss from Helene will be between $145 billion and $160 billion. Many of the homes that have been inundated lack flood insurance, Bloomberg reported.
- Government approves loan to re-open Palisades nuclear plant
The Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture announced Monday that they are together putting forward billions of dollars to support the re-opening of the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan — the first in U.S. history.
The plant was shuttered in 2022, and since 2023, state and federal officials have been working to reopen the plant — as have the plant’s owner, Holtec, and Wolverine Power, a power company that purchases power on behalf of its member utilities. Those efforts received a boost Monday morning with the closing of a $1.52 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office, announced provisionally in March, and more than $1.3 billion in funds from the Department of Agriculture, split up between Wolverine Power and Hoosier Energy, a cooperative serving rural utilities in Indiana and Illinois. The USDA funds will defray a quarter of the cost of the power purchase agreement between the cooperatives and Palisades, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Xochitl Torres Small told reporters.
The restarted plant would have some 800 megawatts of capacity, and the project will employ some 600 people, said Deputy Secretary of Energy Dave Turk on a call with reporters. The plant could be up and running in “a couple of years,” an administration official said. “The funds from this closed loan from the DOE announced today will be utilized in the necessary inspections, testing, restoration, rebuilding, and replacement of existing equipment,” the official said. Holtec is currently working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on reauthorizing its license to operate the plant.
- Charm partners with U.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service is now working with the well-funded carbon removal startup Charm Industrial in a two-for-one endeavor to reduce wildfire risk and permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham reported. The federal agency and its official nonprofit partner, the National Forest Foundation, have partnered with the San Francisco-based company on a pilot program to turn leftover trees and other debris from forest-thinning operations into bio-oil, a liquid made from organic matter, to be injected underground. The project is a part of a larger Cal Fire grant, to implement forest health measures as well as seek out innovative biomass utilization solutions. If the pilot scales up, Charm can generate carbon removal credits by permanently locking away the CO2 from biomass, while the Forest Service will finally find a use for the piles of leftover trees that are too small for the sawmill’s taste. The pilot is taking place in Inyo National Forest in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, and comprises 538 acres of forest. Charm is processing just 60 tons of biomass over six weeks of operation in Inyo. The pilot is already more than halfway over.
- U.K. closes its last coal-fired power plant
The United Kingdom was home to the world’s first coal-fired power plant, which opened in 1882. Today, it became the first G7 country to phase out coal as a source of electricity with the closure of its last coal-fired plant. As recently as 2012, nearly 40% of the country’s electricity came from coal. But since then, coal has seen a rapid decline. Fifteen coal power plants have shut down or switched fuels, and wind and solar power generation have soared. As a result, carbon emissions from the U.K.’s power sector have fallen by 74%, according to a report from energy think tank Ember. “U.K. policies have incentivised the rapid deployment of renewable energy over the last decade, while simultaneously tightening restrictions on high polluting coal power plants,” the report said. Wind power in particular grew by 315% from 2012 to 2023. What’s more, the move away from coal has happened even without a big shift to natural gas:
Ember
THE KICKER
A gardener in Washington state has discovered a new flower that looks like a mashup between a daffodil and a dahlia. They’re calling it the Daffodahlia:
https://heatmap.news/climate/north-carolina-helene-flooding
UK Ministry of Defence gets into chipmaking game, buys gallium arsenide fab
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
State-owned semiconductor production: What is it planning to make there? It’s classified
UK government has stepped in to buy a fabrication plant to secure supplies of gallium arsenide semiconductors used by the armed forces, saving the jobs of up to 100 skilled workers at the same time.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/uk_mod_gets_into_chipmaking/
The Ideology of Childlessness
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/09/30/the-ideology-of-childlessness/
Vanishing Culture: Preserving Cookbooks
date: 2024-09-30, from: Internet Archive Blog
The following guest post from humanities scholar Katie Livingston is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age. My Grann’s edition of The […]
https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/30/vanishing-culture-preserving-cookbooks/
At 100, former President Jimmy Carter’s legacy reevaluated
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
Atlanta, Georgia — When he returned to Plains, Georgia, in 1981, President Jimmy Carter was defeated — rejected by voters in a landslide election to Republican Ronald Reagan. The pouring rain at Carter’s welcome home reception reflected his gloomy mood and that of the country.
“In office, he was a political failure. He lost overwhelming[ly] to Ronald Reagan. But he was a substantive and visionary success,” says author and historian Jonathan Alter, who recognizes what many know Carter for today — humanitarian work with his Carter Center, “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope” around the world that led to Jimmy Carter receiving the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.
“He’s done terrific work supervising elections in more than 100 countries. But former presidents don’t have as much power as presidents, not nearly as much, and the list of his accomplishments as president that were ignored, minimized, or forgotten entirely was very long,” said Alter.
The Iran hostage crisis, rising inflation and oil embargoes of the 1970s doomed Carter’s White House tenure, casting a long shadow over his legacy. However, the onetime peanut farmer, Georgia governor, president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s 100th birthday milestone comes as authors and historians reevaluate his failures and accomplishments as a one-term U.S. president.
Alter’s biography, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life,” is among several that conclude his four years in the White House were anything but a failure.
“Not just famously [the] Camp David accords and opening relations with China,” Alter told VOA in an interview in August at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, “but a long string of legislative accomplishments on the environment and many other issues that actually exceed the legislative accomplishments of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.”
Carter signed the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act protecting more than 100 million acres — including land, national parks, refuges, monuments, forests and conservation areas — which Alter says is now considered one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed.
“The story I tell in my book is a surprising one,” says Alter. “It’s of somebody who worked hard in ways that actually bore fruit.”
“I think we’ll remember President Carter as a president who served in very enormously difficult times who had to deal with circumstances that were far beyond his control,” says Emory University’s first “Jimmy Carter Professor of History” Joseph Crespino. Carter routinely visited with Crespino and his students in Atlanta to discuss the good and bad decisions he made while president.
“Putting human rights front and center in American foreign policy — no president had done that in the way that Jimmy Carter had,” Crespino told VOA during a recent interview at his office on campus at Emory University. “It was important in shifting the balance of power in the Cold War, but it was also an important moment in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to reassert once again America’s moral responsibilities in the world.”
Crespino says some of Carter’s overlooked domestic accomplishments include reorganizing the federal government and deregulation of the airline, trucking and beer industries. “We oftentimes associate a kind of freeing up of the free enterprise economy with the conservative turn that came in with Ronald Reagan, when in fact Jimmy Carter before Reagan was already doing a lot of deregulatory work in his presidency in recognizing the kind of limits of government oversight of these private industries.”
Members of Carter’s Cabinet, including former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, are grateful his long life has allowed him to witness the longer lens of history reflect more positively on his legacy.
“There’s no place in the world I know where people don’t have some good things to say about him,” Young told VOA as he spoke with reporters September 17 at Carter’s 100th birthday concert at the Fox theater in Atlanta. “Whether he succeeded or not … he gave it as good a try and came as far as the world would let him go.”
A world that continues to benefit from the Carter Center’s work, including fighting diseases including Guinea worm, which is down to a few cases in Africa and could become only the second disease ever eradicated.
https://www.voanews.com/a/at-100-former-president-jimmy-carter-s-legacy-reevaluated-/7804367.html
When companies view employees as a political base
date: 2024-09-30, from: Marketplace Morning Report
As part of our ongoing Office Politics series, we’re taking a look at businesses what happens when businesses lean on their employees to vote for the candidates and polices that are in the company’s best interest. It’s a practice that’s legal, and companies point out labor unions do it too. Yet it’s not without risk for the companies. Also, inflation cooled in August, yet housing inflation remains sticky. Why is that?
Deadly Harvest: The Hidden Costs Of Your Filet-O-Fish
date: 2024-09-30, from: The Lever News
In one of the world’s most valuable fisheries, regulators with conflicts of interest are letting corporations off the hook.
https://www.levernews.com/deadly-harvest-the-hidden-costs/
Cloud threats have execs the most freaked out because they’re not prepared
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ransomware? More like ‘we don’t care’ for everyone but CISOs
Efficiency and scalability are key benefits of enterprise cloud computing, but they come at a cost. Security threats specific to cloud environments are the leading cause of concern among top executives and they’re also the ones organizations are least prepared to address.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/pwc_security_survey/
Thailand hands out free money
date: 2024-09-30, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Thailand has launched the first phase of its flagship $14 billion stimulus handout plan, which will eventually see an estimated 45 million people receive about $300 each to encourage spending. Plus, devastating floods have hit central Europe. What are the economic impacts? We’ll also hear from the chairman of coffee chain Lavazza on global expansion and record-high coffee prices.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/thailand-hands-out-free-money
Former President Jimmy Carter Reaches Historic 100th Birthday
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
Atlanta, Georgia — In a celebration fit for a centenarian, the historic Fox theater in Atlanta recently hosted dozens of musical acts and thousands of guests for a concert celebrating the 100th birthday of Georgia’s one-time governor, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
“It’s a way to be together and I think that’s who he is fundamentally,” said Jason Carter, who said he believes the concert, featuring some performers that also campaigned for his grandfather in the 1970s, is a unifying – and bipartisan – way to celebrate what one documentary film director calls the “Rock ’n Roll President.”
“It’s one of those fundamental human connections that brings people together across geographies, across culture, across any sort of racial dividing lines,” Jason Carter told VOA during a press event ahead of the performances. “You’ll have both Democrats and Republicans here tonight.”
Despite the many speakers, actors, musicians and former presidents who sent video tributes, the one person noticeably absent from the celebration was Jimmy Carter himself. He remains in hospice care at his home 240 kilometers south of Atlanta.
“It’s a 600-person village in the middle of nowhere, and all of his other work at the end of the road in Africa, Mali, South Sudan, has been in those same kinds of 600-person villages,” Jason Carter said.
“He feels a kinship there and he feels a connection and the way that he marks this moment is by being at home.”
Jason Carter said his grandfather will watch the concert broadcast on Georgia Public Television, as he celebrates his historic milestone birthday in Plains, Georgia, not far from where his story began, at the Wise Sanitarium, where on October 1, 1924, Lillian Carter, then a nurse at the facility, gave birth to the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital. The facility is now called the Lillian G. Carter Nursing Center.
“But the only reason he was born in a hospital was because his mother was working that day,” Jill Stuckey, a Carter family friend, told VOA.
Stuckey serves as superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains which includes Carter’s preserved Depression-era boyhood farm, the old Plains High School where Carter studied and the railroad depot Carter converted into his campaign headquarters in his successful 1976 White House bid.
“After the hospice announcement nearly a year ago, I didn’t think we’d be at this point,” Stuckey said during an interview with VOA, standing next to a replica of the famous Resolute Desk from the White House Oval Office, now a big draw for tourists who visit Plains High School.
Stuckey said Plains celebrates its famous neighbor every day, but this historic birthday is marked by serving others.
“We’re naturalizing 100 new citizens in his honor. Thanks to the secretary of the Navy, we’re having four F-18 jets flyover.”
She said another, smaller birthday concert in the Plains High School auditorium is also meant to help the community celebrate the man who rose from being a local peanut farmer to president of the United States.
“He definitely deserves a lot of fanfare, because he’s definitely the greatest person I’ve ever met in my life,” she told VOA.
Carter’s milestone is a bittersweet occasion in Plains, though, it’s the first Carter has spent since his wife, Rosalynn, died last November.
“Seventy-seven-and-a-half years of marriage, to be without your partner, your soul mate you know it’s very, very tough times,” said Stuckey, “It’s tough times on him, but on all of us that knew her, that loved her, the family members.”
Carter’s birthday celebration, which began at the Fox theater in September and ends in Plains October 1, brought his large extended family together, including his great-grandson, Charlie Carter, who hinted it may not be the last time such a gathering occurs.
“No… maybe his 101th?”
Jimmy Carter also holds the record for the longest post-presidential career. After departing the White House in 1981, he and Rosalynn founded the Atlanta-based global nonprofit Carter Center, which fights neglected tropical diseases, promotes peaceful conflict resolution, and monitors elections around the world, causes which led to Carter winning the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.
https://www.voanews.com/a/former-president-jimmy-carter-reaches-historic-100th-birthday/7804359.html
International Coffee Day, October 1
date: 2024-09-30, from: National Archives, Pieces of History blog
October 1 is International Coffee Day. Today’s post comes from Thomas Richardson, an expert archives technician at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a beverage that millions of people consume to kick-start their day. You can serve it hot, cold, with or without sugar or milk, and it has a … Continue reading International Coffee Day, October 1
https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/09/30/international-coffee-day-october-1/
Anthropic’s UK revenue not enough to stop $4B Amazon union, says watchdog
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tie-up between AI toolmaker and Bezos biz doesn’t qualify for merger partnership probe
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has decided to drop its investigation into Amazon’s alliance with Anthropic, saying the significant deciding factor was a lack of local turnover for the AI toolmaker.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/cma_clears_amazon_anthropic/
Charm Is Working With the U.S. Forest Service on a Carbon Removal Pilot
date: 2024-09-30, from: Heatmap News
Deep in Inyo National Forest in the Eastern Sierra Nevada are a couple of bright white domed tents protecting an assemblage of technical equipment and machinery that, admittedly, looks a bit out of place amidst the natural splendor. Surrounding shipping containers boast a large “Charm Industrial” logo, an indication that, yes, the U.S. Forest Service is now working with the well-funded carbon removal startup in a two-for-one endeavor to reduce wildfire risk and permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere.
The federal agency and its official nonprofit partner, the National Forest Foundation, have partnered with San Francisco-based Charm on a pilot program to turn leftover trees and other debris from forest-thinning operations into bio-oil, a liquid made from organic matter, to be injected underground. The project is a part of a larger Cal Fire grant, to implement forest health measures as well as seek out innovative biomass utilization solutions. If the pilot scales up, Charm can generate carbon removal credits by permanently locking away the CO2 from biomass, while the Forest Service will finally find a use for the piles of leftover trees that are too small for the sawmill’s taste.
“It’s actually pretty shocking how big the backlog of wildfire fuel reduction projects is in the United States,” Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO at Charm, told me. “The pattern of putting out fires as much as possible, as quickly as possible, has created just an enormous amount of fuel in our forests that has to be treated one way or another.” Controlled burns and forest thinning are the primary ways of dealing with this fuel buildup, but as Reinhardt explained to me, California has few pellet mills, and thus few offtakers for leftover wood. What’s left often ends up being burned in a big pile.
That’s common at Inyo, which is considered a “biomass utilization desert,” according to Katlyn Lonergan, a program coordinator with the National Forest Foundation. NFF is paying Charm a nominal fee to take the waste biomass off their hands, though not nearly enough to constitute a primary source of revenue for the company.
At this point, funding isn’t a problem at Charm. Last year, the company announced a $100 million Series B round and received a $53 million commitment from Frontier, the Big Tech-led carbon removal initiative, to permanently remove 112,000 tons of CO2 between 2024 and 2030, the coalition’s first offtake agreement. At the time, Charm had delivered over 6,000 tons of removal, “more than any other permanent CDR supplier to date,” the group wrote. Since then, the company has received an additional $50,000 from the Department of Energy and is currently in the running for a DOE carbon removal purchase prize of up to $3 million.
Charm’s process begins with woody biomass and an industrial chipper, after which the biomass is screened and dried. The chips are then rapidly heated in a low oxygen environment, a process called fast pyrolysis, which vaporizes the cellulose in the biomass. The remaining plant matter is then condensed into a liquid and injected thousands of feet underground.
Until now, the company has gotten more attention for its efforts to use agricultural biomass like corn stalks. But Reinhardt told me that lately, 100% of the company’s feedstock comes from “fuel load reduction projects,” — unhealthy trees that have been cut down — though in the future, it plans to source from both agricultural and forest waste. The change in feedstock prioritization, Reinhardt said, is due to wildfires becoming “a more and more urgent issue,” plus the advantages that come from working with denser materials. “Almost all the cost of biomass is in the logistics, and the cost of logistics is driven by density,” he said. Transporting puffy bales of corn stalks, leaves, and husks to Charm’s pyrolyzer is just not as energy efficient as trucking a log.
And because there are already plenty of piles of logs and residue sitting around in forests like Inyo, if Charm can bring its pyrolizers directly to the forest, it can increase efficiency still further. Bringing Charm’s operations onsite could eventually help the Forest Service save money, too. “The Eastern Sierra, it’s pretty isolated for this industry,” Lonergan told me. “And so we are actually hauling that [biomass] to Carson City, which is three and a half hours away.”
Fixing the agency’s transportation woes is a ways away though — Charm is starting small, processing just 60 tons of biomass over six weeks of operation in Inyo. The pilot is already more than halfway over.
Charm won’t be claiming carbon removal credits for this project, as Reinhardt told me it’s more a “demonstration of the production” to make sure the logistics work out. Scaling up will mean deploying larger pyrolyzers that can process significantly more biomass. “Our next iteration of pyrolyzers will be probably 10x the throughput,” Reinhardt told me. “So instead of 1 or one-and-a-half tons a day, about 10 to 15 tons a day.” Those numbers start to sound pretty darn small, though, when you consider the amount of forestry biomass and agricultural residue generated per year, which Reinhardt said is around 50 million tons and 300 million tons, respectively.
And while this particular project comprises 538 acres of forest, California alone has set a goal of thinning 1 million acres per year to reduce wildfire risk. Basically, Charm’s not going to run out of feedstock anytime soon, and the Forest Service isn’t going to find a quick fix for its piles and piles of unwanted wood. “I don’t envision it being the one solution that fits all,” Lonergan said of Charm’s technology. But, she told me, “it can absolutely contribute to these biomass materials that we don’t have an answer for yet.”
https://heatmap.news/technology/charm-forest-service-carbon-removal
GNOME 47 brings back some customization options, but let’s not go crazy
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Release codenamed ‘Denver’ will hit Fedora and Ubuntu next month
The latest release of the de facto default desktop of most Linux distros brings some new features – but the GNOME 4x transition isn’t done yet.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/gnome_47/
Extracting vendor promises won’t fix cybersecurity. Extracting teeth might
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
One branch of tech has learned to work together to solve the near-impossible. Now it’s our turn
Opinion To say cybersecurity is mostly very good is like saying Boeing’s Starliner parts mostly work – true, but you’re still going to be sleeping in the office. Moreover, it’s questionable whether either are getting any better.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/security_opinion/
Raspberry Pi AI Camera takes inferencing load off the CPU
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Autofocus would have been nice, though
HANDS ON Raspberry Pi has launched a camera module with AI smarts on board. But all that inferencing goodness comes at a price.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/raspberry_pi_offloads_ai_inferencing/
Name that Ware, September 2024
date: 2024-09-30, from: Bunnie’s Studio Blog
The Ware for September 2024 is shown below: This ware was a gift, but I won’t credit the donor until the solution is revealed, because the credit itself might give a clue about the ware. My first reaction to seeing this board is: “this thing has a high BOM cost”. My second thought is the […]
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/name-that-ware-september-2024/
Winner, Name that Ware August 2024
date: 2024-09-30, from: Bunnie’s Studio Blog
Last month’s Ware was a peak programming meter driver board made by JC Broadcast, taken from an Audix broadcast console. Thanks again to Howie M for contributing the ware! Howie hypothesized that the four mounting holes would be a dead give-away, in his words: The meters, typical in the broadcast world, have two needles against […]
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/winner-name-that-ware-august-2024/
Personalized pop-up was funny for about a second, until it felt like stalking
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
The call was coming from inside the house
Who, Me? Well, gentle reader, we have some bad news: the weekend is over, and another five days of labor have commenced. The good news is Monday means it’s time for a dose of Who, Me? in which Reg readers send in their tales of … let’s say … hard-earned experience.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/who_me/
Raspberry Pi AI Camera on sale now at $70
date: 2024-09-30, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Create sophisticated vision AI applications with the Raspberry Pi AI Camera, available now at $70. Compatible with all Raspberry Pis.
The post Raspberry Pi AI Camera on sale now at $70 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-ai-camera-on-sale-now/
Kamala Harris campaign motorcade halted by confused robotaxis
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Is this AI showing the would-be leader of the free world who’s really the boss?
Artificial intelligence may have shown the would-be-leader of the free world who’s really in charge, after rogue robo-taxis halted the motorcade of US vice-president – and Democratic Party presidential candidate – Kamala Harris.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/kamala_harris_motorcade_waymo_delay/
China calls for realtime censorship of satellite broadband
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Great Firewall reaches all the way into space
Beijing has published its proposed regulations for satellite broadband, including a requirement that operators conduct censorship in real time.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/china_satellite_censorship/
COSMIC alpha 2 released
date: 2024-09-30, from: OS News
System76, the premiere Linux computer manufacturer and creator of the COSMIC desktop environment, has updated COSMIC’s Alpha release to Alpha 2. The latest release includes more Settings pages, the bulk of functionality for COSMIC Files, highly requested window management features, and considerable infrastructure work for screen reader support, as well as some notable bug fixes. ↫ system76’s blog The pace of development for COSMIC remains solid, even after the first alpha release. This second alpha keeps adding a lot of things considered basic for any desktop environment, such as settings panels for power and battery, sounds, displays, and many more. It also brings window management support for focus follows cursor and cursor follows focus, which will surely please the very specific, small slice of people who swear by those. Also, you can now disable the super key. A major new feature that I’m personally very happy about is the “adjust density” feature. COSMIC will allow you to adjust the spacing between the various user interface elements so you can choose to squeeze more information on your screen, which is one of the major complaints I have about modern UI design in macOS, Windows, and GNOME. Being able to adjust this to your liking is incredibly welcome, especially combined with COSMIC’s ability to change from ’rounded’ UI elements to ‘square’ UI elements. The file manager has also been vastly, vastly improved, tons of bugs were fixed, and much, much more. It seems COSMIC is on the right path, and I can’t wait to try out the first final result once it lands.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140824/cosmic-alpha-2-released/
Tcl/Tk 9.0 released
date: 2024-09-30, from: OS News
Tcl 9.0 and Tk 9.0 – usually lumped together as Tcl/Tk – have been released. Tcl 9.0 brings 64bit compatibility so it can address data values larger than 2 GB, better Unicode support, support for mounting ZIP files as file systems, and much, much more. Tk 9.0 gets support for scalable vector graphics, much better platform integration with things like system trays, gestures, and so on, and much more.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140822/tcl-tk-9-0-released/
India scores its first fab, and it looks like it was at Japan’s expense
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
PSMC does a deal with Tata in what really might be – all hype aside – an actual ‘key milestone’
It looks like India has scored a deal to host its first semiconductor fab, possibly at the expense of a project in Japan.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/psmc_tata_bsi_india_fab/
Coal has now died in its birthplace: the UK closes its last coal power station
date: 2024-09-30, from: Hannah Richie at Substack
It was a relatively quick energy transition by historical standards.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/coal-death-uk
AI code helpers just can’t stop inventing package names
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
LLMs are helpful, but don’t use them for anything important
AI models just can’t seem to stop making things up. As two recent studies point out, that proclivity underscores prior warnings not to rely on AI advice for anything that really matters.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/ai_code_helpers_invent_packages/
Understanding political polls: From history to interpretation
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
During any campaign, it is crucial that voters and candidates have a way to measure the state of public opinion. Polling — surveying representative samples of the electorate — allows everyone to understand and adapt to prevailing sentiments. But it has its flaws.
https://www.voanews.com/a/understanding-political-polls-from-history-to-interpretation/7804204.html
Forget the Kia Boyz: Hackers could hijack your car with just a smartphone
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
PLUS: UK man charged with hacking US firms for stock secrets; ransomware actor foils self; and more
Infosec In Brief Put away that screwdriver and USB charging cable – the latest way to steal a Kia just requires a cellphone and the victim’s license plate number.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/infosec_in_brief/
Sols 4318-4320: One Last Weekend in the Channel
date: 2024-09-30, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 We’re wrapping up our time in the channel with the highly anticipated examination of the “Sheep Creek” white stones. Last plan’s reposition was a success, so we are able to go ahead with contact science on them this weekend. MAHLI and APXS picked three targets to investigate: “Cloud […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4318-4320-one-last-weekend-in-the-channel/
Former President Jimmy Carter reaches historic 100th birthday
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. president to reach the age of 100. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Georgia on the historic milestone.
Binance claims it helped to bust Chinese crypto scam app in India
date: 2024-09-30, updated: 2024-09-30, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Plus: SpaceX plans Vietnam investment; Yahoo! Japan content moderation secrets; LG offloads Chinese display factory; and more
ASIA IN BRIEF It’s not often The Register writes about a cryptocurrency outfit being on the right side of a scam or crime, but last week crypto exchange Binance claimed it helped Indian authorities to investigate a scam gaming app.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/30/asia_tech_news_in_brief/
Trump rails against immigrants at rally in swing state Pennsylvania
date: 2024-09-30, from: VOA News USA
Phrase Matching in Marginalia Search
date: 2024-09-30, from: Marginallia log
Marginalia Search now properly supports phrase matching. This not only permits a more robust implementation of quoted search queries, but also helps promote results where the search terms occur in the document exactly in the same order as they do in the query. This is a write-up about implementing this change. This is going to be a relatively long post, as it represents about 4 months of work. I’m also happy and grateful to announce that the nlnet people reached out after the run of the grant was over and asked me if I had more work in the pipe, and agreed to fund this change as well!
https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_111_phrase_matching/
Kris Kristofferson, singer-songwriter and actor, dies at 88
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died.
Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii on Saturday, family spokesperson Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.
McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given. He was 88.
Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.
“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson held by BMI. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”
As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out Westerns and cowboy dramas.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Johnny Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former U.S. Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the ‘man in black’ wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut, and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.
In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.
“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”
One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, Performing Songwriter, that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”
Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.
Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
https://www.voanews.com/a/kris-kristofferson-singer-songwriter-and-actor-dies-at-88/7803884.html
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Kris Kristofferson, Revered Songwriter Transcended Genre, Dead at 88.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/kris-kristofferson-dead-1107074/
Harris to campaign again in swing-state Nevada
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Los Angeles — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to rally in Las Vegas on Sunday night as both she and Republican Donald Trump continue to make frequent trips to Nevada, looking to gain momentum in the swing state as Election Day nears.
The rally is part of Harris’ latest West Coast swing, which included making her first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking over for President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket. On Friday, the vice president walked alongside a towering, rust-colored border wall fitted with barbed wire in Douglas, Arizona, and met with federal authorities.
She attended a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday and had plans for a Sunday event in Los Angeles before heading to Nevada, with a return to Washington set for Monday night.
“This race is as close as it could possibly be,” she said Saturday to a raucous crowd of donors. “This is a margin-of-error race.”
Harris said even if there is enthusiasm, she’s running like an underdog. And she invited people to “join our team in battleground states” to help get voters to the polls — even if it’s Californians making calls from home.
On Sunday, former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake became the latest prominent Republican to endorse Harris and Walz. He credited them with a “fine character and love of country” and said he wants a president who does not treat political adversaries as enemies or try to subvert the will of voters.
Flake, a longtime critic of the former president, joins a list of anti-Trump Republicans who have said they will vote for the Democratic ticket, not just refrain from voting for Trump. Among them is Dick Cheney, the deeply conservative former vice president, and his daughter, Liz.
On Sunday, Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor and a sharp critic of Trump, said Harris has yet to earn his vote, though Trump won’t get it.
In Nevada, all voters automatically receive ballots by mail unless they opt out — a pandemic-era change that was set in state law. That means most ballots could start going out in a matter of weeks, well before Election Day on Nov. 5.
Harris plans to be back in Las Vegas on Oct. 10 for a town hall with Hispanic voters. Both she and Republican rival Donald Trump have campaigned frequently in the city, highlighting the critical role that Nevada, and its mere six votes in the Electoral College, could play in deciding an election expected to be exceedingly close.
Trump held his own Las Vegas rally on Sept. 13 at the Expo World Market Center, where Harris is speaking Sunday. Her campaign has frequently scheduled events in the same venue where her opponent previously spoke, including in Milwaukee, Atlanta and suburban Phoenix. During his Las Vegas event, the former president singled out people crossing into the U.S. illegally, saying Harris “would be the president of invasion.”
During a campaign stop in the city in June, Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips received by waiters, hotel workers and thousands of other service industry employees. Harris used her own Las Vegas rally in August to make the same promise.
Fully doing away with federal taxes on tips would probably require an act from Congress. Still, Nevada’s Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, has endorsed Harris.
Ted Pappageorge, the culinary union’s secretary-treasurer, said the difference between the dueling no-taxes-on-tips proposals is that Harris has also pledged to tackle what his union calls “sub-minimum wage,” where employers pay service industry workers small salaries and meet minimum wage thresholds by expecting employees to supplement those with tips.
Harris has no public schedule for Tuesday, when her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, squares off against Republican Ohio Sen. JD Vance for the first and only vice presidential debate of the campaign. But Harris and Walz will campaign jointly on Wednesday, making a bus tour with various stops through central Pennsylvania.
The campaign says that during that swing, both will emphasize plans to energize U.S. manufacturing, including by using tax credits to encourage steel production and overhaul federal permitting systems to increase American construction.
https://www.voanews.com/a/harris-to-campaign-again-in-swing-state-nevada/7803883.html
Episode 140 - Assembling Code
date: 2024-09-29, from: Advent of Computing
Programming, as a practice and study, has been steadily evolving for the past 70 or so years. Over the languages have become more sophisticated and user friendly. New tools have been developed that make programming easier and better. But what was that first step? When exactly did programmers start trying to improve their lot in life? It probably all started with assembly language. Well, probably…
Selected Sources:
https://albert.ias.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d47626a1-c739-4445-b0d7-cc3ef692d381/content - Coding for ARC
https://sci-hub.se/10.1088/0950-7671/26/12/301 -
The EDSAC
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf//ibm/periodicals/Applied_Sci_Tech_Newsletter/Appl_Sci_Tech_Newsletter_10_Oct55.pdf
- IBM Applied Sci Tech Newsletter
https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/episode-140-assembling-code
Stuck NASA astronauts welcome SpaceX capsule to bring them home next year
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Cape Canaveral, Florida — The two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station since June welcomed their new ride home with Sunday’s arrival of a SpaceX capsule.
SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in darkness high over Botswana as the two craft soared 420 kilometers above Earth.
NASA switched Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX following concerns over the safety of their Boeing Starliner capsule. It was the first Starliner test flight with a crew, and NASA decided the thruster failures and helium leaks that cropped up after liftoff were too serious and poorly understood to risk the test pilots’ return. So Starliner returned to Earth empty earlier this month.
The Dragon carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov will remain at the space station until February, turning what should have been a weeklong trip for Wilmore and Williams into a mission lasting more than eight months.
Two NASA astronauts were pulled from the mission to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.
NASA likes to replace its station crews every six months or so. SpaceX has provided the taxi service since the company’s first astronaut flight in 2020. NASA also hired Boeing for ferry flights after the space shuttles were retired, but flawed software and other Starliner issues led to years of delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.
Starliner inspections are underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with post-flight reviews of data set to begin this week.
“We’re a long way from saying, ‘Hey, we’re writing off Boeing,’” NASA’s associate administrator Jim Free said at a pre-launch briefing.
The arrival of two fresh astronauts means the four who have been up there since March can now return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule in just over a week. Their stay was extended a month because of the Starliner turmoil.
Although Saturday’s liftoff went well, SpaceX said the rocket’s spent upper stage ended up outside its targeted impact zone in the Pacific because of a bad engine firing. The company has halted all Falcon launches until it figures out what went wrong.
California governor vetoes bill to create first-in-nation AI safety measures
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Sacramento, California — California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday.
The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said.
Earlier in September, the Democratic governor told an audience at Dreamforce, an annual conference hosted by software giant Salesforce, that California must lead in regulating AI in the face of federal inaction but that the proposal “can have a chilling effect on the industry.”
The proposal, which drew fierce opposition from startups, tech giants and several Democratic House members, could have hurt the homegrown industry by establishing rigid requirements, Newsom said.
“While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data,” Newsom said in a statement. “Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”
Newsom on Sunday instead announced that the state will partner with several industry experts, including AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, to develop guardrails around powerful AI models. Li opposed the AI safety proposal.
The measure, aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI, would have required companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons. Experts say those scenarios could be possible in the future as the industry continues to rapidly advance. It also would have provided whistleblower protections to workers.
The legislation is among a host of bills passed by the legislature this year to regulate AI, fight deepfakes and protect workers. State lawmakers said California must take action this year, citing hard lessons they learned from failing to rein in social media companies when they might have had a chance.
Proponents of the measure, including Elon Musk and Anthropic, said the proposal could have injected some levels of transparency and accountability around large-scale AI models, as developers and experts say they still don’t have a full understanding of how AI models behave and why.
The bill targeted systems that require more than $100 million to build. No current AI models have hit that threshold, but some experts said that could change within the next year.
“This is because of the massive investment scale-up within the industry,” said Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who resigned in April over what he saw as the company’s disregard for AI risks. “This is a crazy amount of power to have any private company control unaccountably, and it’s also incredibly risky.”
The United States is already behind Europe in regulating AI to limit risks. The California proposal wasn’t as comprehensive as regulations in Europe, but it would have been a good first step to set guardrails around the rapidly growing technology that is raising concerns about job loss, misinformation, invasions of privacy and automation bias, supporters said.
A number of leading AI companies last year voluntarily agreed to follow safeguards set by the White House, such as testing and sharing information about their models. The California bill would have mandated that AI developers follow requirements similar to those commitments, said the measure’s supporters.
But critics, including former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that the bill would “kill California tech” and stifle innovation. It would have discouraged AI developers from investing in large models or sharing open-source software, they said.
Newsom’s decision to veto the bill marks another win in California for big tech companies and AI developers, many of whom spent the past year lobbying alongside the California Chamber of Commerce to sway the governor and lawmakers from advancing AI regulations.
Two other sweeping AI proposals, which also faced mounting opposition from the tech industry and others, died ahead of a legislative deadline in August. The bills would have required AI developers to label AI-generated content and ban discrimination from AI tools used to make employment decisions.
The governor said earlier this summer he wanted to protect California’s status as a global leader in AI, noting that 32 of the world’s top 50 AI companies are located in the state.
He has promoted California as an early adopter as the state could soon deploy generative AI tools to address highway congestion, provide tax guidance and streamline homelessness programs. The state also announced last month a voluntary partnership with AI giant Nvidia to help train students, college faculty, developers and data scientists. California is also considering new rules against AI discrimination in hiring practices.
Earlier in September, Newsom signed some of the toughest laws in the country to crack down on election deepfakes and measures to protect Hollywood workers from unauthorized AI use.
But even with Newsom’s veto, the California safety proposal is inspiring lawmakers in other states to take up similar measures, said Tatiana Rice, deputy director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that works with lawmakers on technology and privacy proposals.
“They are going to potentially either copy it or do something similar next legislative session,” Rice said. “So it’s not going away.”
US retailers brace for potential pain from longshoremen’s strike
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Radxa X4 is now available: A Raspberry Pi-sized computer with an Intel N100 chip, M.2 slot, and 2.5 GbE LAN
date: 2024-09-29, from: Liliputing
The Radxa X4 is a credit card-sized single-board computer with a Intel N100 quad-core processor, support for up to 16GB of RAM, and an M.2 connector with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs or other expansion cards. First introduced in July, the Radxa X4 is now available for purchase with prices starting at around […]
The post Radxa X4 is now available: A Raspberry Pi-sized computer with an Intel N100 chip, M.2 slot, and 2.5 GbE LAN appeared first on Liliputing.
Radxa ROCK 2A and ROCK 2F single-board PCs with RK3528A chips now available for $10 and up
date: 2024-09-29, from: Liliputing
Radxa has launched two low-cost single-board computers powered by Rockchip RK3528A processors with four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores, Mali-450 graphics. The Radxa ROCK 2A is a credit card-sized computer with a Raspberry Pi-like 40-pin GPIO header, while the Radxa ROCK 2F is a smaller board with fewer ports. But both support 4K video playback, WiFi […]
The post Radxa ROCK 2A and ROCK 2F single-board PCs with RK3528A chips now available for $10 and up appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/radxa-introduced-rock-2a-and-rock-2f-single-board-pcs-with-rk3528a-chips/
Supplies are rushed to North Carolina communities left isolated after Helene
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
PERRY, Fla. — North Carolina officials pledged to get more water and other supplies to flood-stricken areas by Monday after Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across the U.S. Southeast and the death toll from the storm rose to nearly 100.
At least 91 people across several states were killed. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed.
Gov. Roy Cooper predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city of Asheville. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged that she would have food and water to the city by Monday.
“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said on a Sunday call with reporters. “My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper predicted the toll would rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
Officials warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy and difficult. The storm upended life throughout the Southeast. Deaths also were reported in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia.
Cooper implored residents in western North Carolina to avoid travel, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.
One rescue effort involved saving 41 people north of Asheville. Another mission focused on saving a single infant. The teams found people through both 911 calls and social media messages, North Carolina National Guard Adjutant General Todd Hunt said.
President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as “stunning” and said he would visit the area this week as long as it does not disrupt rescues or recovery work.
In a brief exchange with reporters, he said that the administration is giving states “everything we have” to help with their response to the storm.
Hurricane Helene roared ashore late Thursday in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane with 225 kph winds. A weakened Helene quickly moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded creeks and rivers and strained dams.
There have been hundreds of water rescues, including in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday.
More than 2 million homeowners and other utility customers were still without power Sunday night. South Carolina had the most outages and Gov. Henry McMaster asked for patience as crews dealt with widespread snapped power poles.
“We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way, it is just going to take time,” McMaster told reporters outside the airport in Aiken County.
The storm unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 61 centimeters of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.
Jessica Drye Turner in Texas had begged for someone to rescue her family members stranded on their rooftop in Asheville amid rising floodwaters. “They are watching 18-wheelers and cars floating by,” Turner wrote in an urgent Facebook post on Friday.
But in a follow-up message Saturday, Turner said help had not arrived in time to save her parents, both in their 70s, and her 6-year-old nephew. The roof collapsed and the three drowned.
“I cannot convey in words the sorrow, heartbreak and devastation my sisters and I are going through,” she wrote.
The state was sending water supplies and other items toward Buncombe County and Asheville, but mudslides blocking Interstate 40 and other highways prevented supplies from making it. The county’s own water supplies were on the other side of the Swannanoa River, away from where most of the 270,000 people in Buncombe County live, officials said.
Law enforcement was making plans to send officers to places that still had water, food or gas because of reports of arguments and threats of violence, the county sheriff said.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell toured south Georgia on Sunday and planned to be in North Carolina Monday.
“It’s still very much an active search and rescue mission” in western North Carolina, Criswell said. “And we know that there’s many communities that are cut off just because of the geography” of the mountains, where damage to roads and bridges have cut off certain areas.
Biden on Saturday pledged federal government help for Helene’s “overwhelming” devastation. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.
In Florida’s Big Bend, some lost nearly everything they own. With sanctuaries still darkened as of Sunday morning, some churches canceled regular services while others like Faith Baptist Church in Perry opted to worship outside.
Standing water and tree debris still covers the grounds of Faith Baptist Church. The church called on parishioners to come “pray for our community” in a message posted to the congregation’s Facebook page.
“We have power. We don’t have electricity,” Immaculate Conception Catholic Church parishioner Marie Ruttinger said. “Our God has power. That’s for sure.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it looked “like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.
In eastern Georgia near the border with South Carolina, officials notified Augusta residents Sunday morning that water service would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours in the city and surrounding Richmond County.
A news release said trash and debris from the storm “blocked our ability to pump water.” Officials were distributing bottled water.
With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.
Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.
Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes within hours.
A new tropical depression in the eastern Atlantic Ocean could become a “formidable hurricane” later this week, the National Hurricane Center said Sunday. The depression had sustained 55 kph winds and was located about 1,015 kilometers west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, the center said. It could become a hurricane by Wednesday.
Entering The Fray
date: 2024-09-29, from: Tedium site
Becoming a commentator-turned-creator? Hope you’re getting hazard pay. Some thoughts on the art of creation when you’re usually a critic.
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16825215/mkbhd-critics-turned-creators-history
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
This is probably the first piece Doc Searls wrote about podcasting, exactly twenty years ago yesterday.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050115050245/http://garage.docsearls.com/node/view/462
Lenovo Legion Y700 (2024) gaming tablet launches in China (Flagship-class hardware at a mid-range price)
date: 2024-09-29, from: Liliputing
Lenovo’s latest Android tablet built for gaming looks a lot like the models that the company released in 2022 and 2023, which is probably why the new Lenovo Legion Y700 gaming tablet has the same name as its predecessors. But the Legion Y700 (2024) model does bring a few significant upgrades. For one thing it now […]
The post Lenovo Legion Y700 (2024) gaming tablet launches in China (Flagship-class hardware at a mid-range price) appeared first on Liliputing.
Red team hacker on how she ‘breaks into buildings and pretends to be the bad guy’
date: 2024-09-29, updated: 2024-09-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Alethe Denis exposes tricks that made you fall for that return-to-office survey
Interview A hacker walked into a “very big city” building on a Wednesday morning with no keys to any doors or elevators, determined to steal sensitive data by breaking into both the physical space and the corporate Wi-Fi network.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/29/interview_with_a_social_engineering/
The welcome application of good sense to AI hype
date: 2024-09-29, from: Enlightenment Economics
Summer over in a flash, autumn wind and rain outside – perhaps cosy evenings will speed up both my reading and review-posting. I just finished AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, having long been a fan of … Continue reading
US boosts air support and hikes troops’ readiness to deploy for Middle East
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The U.S. military said on Sunday it was increasing its air support capabilities in the Middle East and putting troops on a heightened readiness to deploy to the region as it warned Iran against expanding the ongoing conflict.
The announcement came two days after President Joe Biden directed the Pentagon to adjust U.S. force posture in the Middle East amid intensifying concern that Israel’s killing of the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah could prompt Tehran to retaliate.
“The United States is determined to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed partners and proxies from exploiting the situation or expanding the conflict,” Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.
He also cautioned that if Iran or groups Tehran backs “use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people.”
The Pentagon statement offered few clues as to the size or scope of the new air deployment, saying only that “we will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities in the coming days.”
Israel struck more targets in Lebanon on Sunday, pressing Hezbollah with new attacks after killing the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and a string of its other top commanders in an escalating military campaign.
The strikes have dealt a stunning succession of blows to Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fire, killing much of its leadership and revealing gaping security holes. But it has also raised questions about Washington’s publicly declared goals of containing the conflict and safeguarding U.S. personnel throughout the Middle East.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Sunday that the United States is watching to see what Hezbollah does to try to fill its leadership vacuum, “and is continuing to talk to the Israelis about what the right next steps are.”
The U.S. State Department has yet to order an evacuation from Lebanon. But last week, U.S. officials told Reuters the Pentagon was sending a few dozen additional troops to Cyprus to help the military prepare for scenarios including an evacuation of Americans from Lebanon.
The Pentagon said U.S. forces were being made ready to deploy, if needed.
“[Austin] increased the readiness of additional U.S. forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies,” Ryder said in a statement.
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-29, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
One of the rushed fixes was to slap a “DispatchQueue.main.async” to invoke a @MainActor method from the URLSession.didFinishDownloadingTo - but this method deletes the file upon return, so my file was gone by the time the method was called. But took a week to catch the regression.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113221343787241164
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-29, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Some observations on swift concurrency:
- it has caught a bunch of mistakes I made
- I made a couple of mistakes trying to speed run fixes
- some of the solutions to the problems are harder to grasp than I hoped. I still google a lot.
- wish there was a “sure you are correct, but I can guarantee this ain’t ever going to happen, let me do it”That said, I forgot how many times I used “foo!.bar” because I knew “this is never going to happen” and found it a few months later on the crash logs.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113221250820232066
Sundial Systems’ Relish
date: 2024-09-29, from: Computer ads from the Past
The Premier Workplace Shell Calendar, Phone Book, To Do List, and Program Runner, too
https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/sundial-systems-relish
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-09-29, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Much easier than struggling with ActivityPub, would be a set of functionally equivalent APIs and a common understanding of what a “post” is among various social web systems. This how we created solid interop in the blogging world, and it would work here too.
http://scripting.com/2024/09/28/132152.html?title=interopInSocialWeb
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-09-29, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Good morning pineapple.
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/113221032826610098
US airstrikes on Syria kill 37 militants affiliated with extremist groups
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
BEIRUT — In Syria, 37 militants affiliated to the extremist Islamic State group and an al-Qaida-linked group were killed in two strikes, the United States military said Sunday.
Two of the dead were senior militants, it said.
U.S. Central Command said it struck northwestern Syria on Tuesday, targeting a senior militant from the al-Qaida-linked Hurras al-Deen group and eight others. They say he was responsible for overseeing military operations.
They also announced a strike from earlier this month on Sept. 16, where they conducted a “large-scale airstrike” on an IS training camp in a remote undisclosed location in central Syria. That attack killed 28 militants, including “at least four Syrian leaders.”
“The airstrike will disrupt ISIS’ capability to conduct operations against U.S. interests, as well as our allies and partners,” the statement read.
There are some 900 U.S. forces in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors, mostly trying to prevent any comeback by the extremist IS group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory.
U.S. forces advise and assist their key allies in northeastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, located not far from strategic areas where Iran-backed militant groups are present, including a key border crossing with Iraq.
A “hello world” program in machine code on DOS
date: 2024-09-29, updated: 2024-09-29, from: Uninformative blog
https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2024-09-29/0/POSTING-en.html
LEVER WEEKLY: We're Looking For An Inside Man In Finance
date: 2024-09-29, from: The Lever News
Wall Street wants to regulate itself, and more from The Lever this week.
https://www.levernews.com/lever-weekly-were-looking-for-an-inside-man-in-finance/
Bending the rules with flexible non-silicon 32-bit RISC-V chip
date: 2024-09-29, updated: 2024-09-29, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It won’t smash any benchmarks, but it will go where most others can’t
Brit chipmaker Pragmatic Semiconductor has created a 32-bit microprocessor in a “flexible technology that is fully functional while flexed.”…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/09/29/pragmatic_semiconductor_flexrv_chip/
US suicides in 2023 still at highest level in nation’s history, says data
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
new york — U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation’s history, preliminary data suggests.
A little more than 49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number that could grow a little as some death investigations are wrapped up and reported.
Just under 49,500 were reported in 2022, according to final data released Thursday. The numbers are close enough that the suicide rate for the two years are the same, CDC officials said.
U.S. suicide rates have been rising for nearly 20 years, aside from a two-year drop around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. So “a leveling off of any increase in suicide is cautiously promising news,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University public health professor who studies suicide.
Indeed, there’s reason for optimism. A 2-year-old national crisis line allows anyone in the U.S. to dial 988 to reach mental health specialists. That and other efforts may be starting to pay off, Keyes said, but it “really remains to be seen.”
Experts caution that suicide — the nation’s 11th-leading cause of death in 2022 — is complicated and that attempts can be driven by a range of factors. Contributors include higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services, and the availability of guns. About 55% of all suicide deaths in 2022 involved firearms, according to CDC data.
The CDC’s Thursday report said:
—Suicide was the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10–14 and 20–34, and the third-leading cause for people ages 15–19.
—Deaths continue to be more common among boys and men than girls and women. The highest suicide rate for any group — by far — was in men ages 75 and older, at about 44 suicides per 100,000 men that age.
—Among women, the highest rate was in those who were middle-aged, about 9 per 100,000. But more dramatic increases have been seen in teens and young women, with the rate for that group doubling in the last two decades.
—The overall suicide rate in 2022 and 2023 was 14.2 per 100,000. It also was that high in 2018. Before then, it hadn’t been that high since 1941.
In US, it’s time to roll up sleeves for new COVID, flu shots
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Fall means it’s time for just about everybody to get up to date on their flu and COVID-19 vaccines – and a lot of older adults also need protection against another risky winter virus, RSV.
Yes, you can get your flu and COVID-19 shots at the same time. Don’t call them boosters — they’re not just another dose of last year’s protection. The coronavirus and influenza are escape artists that constantly mutate to evade your body’s immune defenses, so both vaccines are reformulated annually to target newer strains.
“Right now is the best time” to get all the recommended fall vaccinations, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as she got her flu shot Wednesday. She has an appointment for her COVID-19 shot, too. It’s “the single most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your family, your community.”
While they’re not perfect, vaccinations offer strong protection against a bad case of flu or COVID-19 — or dying from it.
“It may not prevent every infection but those infections are going to be less severe,” said CDC’s Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. “I would rather have my grandmother or my great-grandmother have a sniffle than have to go to the emergency room on Thanksgiving.”
The challenge: Getting more Americans to roll up their sleeves. Last year, just 45% of adults got a flu vaccination and even fewer, 23%, got a COVID-19 shot. A survey released Wednesday by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases shows an equally low number intend to this fall.
And the coronavirus still killed more Americans than flu last year.
“Maybe we believe that it’s not going to be me but let’s not take a chance,” said Dr. Michael Knight of George Washington University. “Why not get a vaccine that’s going to help you reduce that risk?”
Who needs a fall COVID-19 or flu vaccination?
The CDC urges both an updated COVID-19 shot and yearly flu vaccine for everyone ages 6 months and older. If you recently had COVID-19, you can wait two or three months but still should get an updated vaccination because of the expected winter surge.
Both viruses can be especially dangerous to certain groups including older people and those with weak immune systems and lung or heart disease. Young children also are more vulnerable. The CDC counted 199 child deaths from flu last year.
Pregnancy also increases the chances of serious COVID-19 or flu – and vaccination guards mom plus ensures the newborn has some protection, too.
What’s new about the COVID-19 shots?
Last fall’s shots targeted a coronavirus strain that’s no longer spreading while this year’s are tailored to a new section of the coronavirus family tree. The Pfizer and Moderna shots are formulated against a virus subtype called KP.2 while the Novavax vaccine targets its parent strain, JN.1. Daskalakis said all should offer good cross protection to other subtypes now spreading.
The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines can be used by adults and children as young as 6 months. The Novavax shot is a more traditional protein vaccine combined with an immune booster, and open to anyone 12 and older.
Which flu vaccine to choose?
High-dose shots and one with a special immune booster are designed for people 65 and older, but if they can’t find one easily they can choose a regular all-ages flu shot.
For the shot-averse, the nasal spray FluMist is available for ages 2 to 49 at pharmacies and clinics — although next year it’s set to be available for use at home.
All flu vaccinations this year will guard against two Type A flu strains and one Type B strain. Another once-common form of Type B flu quit spreading a few years ago and was removed from the vaccine.
What about that other virus, RSV?
RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a coldlike nuisance for most people but it, too, packs hospitals every winter and can be deadly for children under 5, the elderly and people with certain high-risk health problems.
The CDC recommends an RSV vaccination for everyone 75 and older, and for people 60 to 74 who are at increased risk. This is a one-time shot, not a yearly vaccination – but only 24% of seniors got it last year. It’s also recommended late in pregnancy to protect babies born during the fall and winter.
And while “your arm may hurt and you may feel crummy for a day,” it’s also fine to get the RSV, flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time, Daskalakis said.
What will it cost?
The vaccines are supposed to be free under Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance plans if people use an in-network provider.
About 1.5 million uninsured adults got free COVID-19 vaccinations through a federal program last year but that has ended. Instead, the CDC is providing $62 million to health departments to help improve access – and states and large cities are starting to roll out their plans.
Call your local health department to ask about options because in many areas, “availability of vaccine at lower or no cost is expected to trickle in over the next couple of weeks,” advised Dr. Raynard Washington, who heads the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, health department.
Check the government website, vaccines.gov, for availability at local pharmacies.
https://www.voanews.com/a/in-us-it-s-time-to-roll-up-sleeves-for-new-covid-flu-shots-/7801310.html
Trump lists his grievances in a Wisconsin speech intended to link Harris to illegal immigration
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wisconsin — Former President Donald Trump meandered Saturday through a list of grievances against Vice President Kamala Harris and other issues during an event intended to link his Democratic opponent to illegal border crossings.
A day after Harris discussed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump spoke to a crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, about immigration. He blamed Harris for migrants committing crimes after entering the U.S. illegally, alleging she was responsible for “erasing our border.”
“I will liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion,” he said. “We’re going to liberate the country.”
Trump hopes frustration over illegal immigration will translate to votes in Wisconsin and other crucial swing states. The Republican nominee has denounced people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border as “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to stage the largest deportation operation in American history if elected. And polls show Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration.
Trump shifted from topic to topic so quickly that it was hard to keep track of what he meant at times. He talked about the two assassination attempts against him and blamed the U.S. Secret Service for not being able to hold a large outdoor rally instead of an event in a smaller indoor space. But he also offered asides about climate change, Harris’ father, how his beach body was better than President Joe Biden’s, and a fly that was buzzing near him.
“I wonder where the fly came from,” he said. “Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer. We can’t take it any longer.”
Trump repeatedly brought up Harris’ Friday event in Douglas, Arizona, where she announced a push to further restrict asylum claims beyond Biden’s executive order announced earlier this year. Harris denounced Trump’s handling of the border while president and his opposing a bipartisan border package earlier this year, saying Trump “prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”
“I had to sit there and listen” to Harris last night Trump said, eliciting cheers. “And who puts it on? Fox News. They should not be allowed to put it on. It’s all lies. Everything she says is lies.”
The Republican nominee also intensified his personal attacks against Harris, insulting her as “mentally impaired” and a “disaster.”
Trump professed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents. Under his administration, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself ended under pressure from his own party.
Harris, at a rally in San Francisco, told supporters there were “two very different visions for our nation” and voters see it “every day on the campaign trail.”
“Donald Trump is the same old tired show,” she said. “The same tired playbook we have heard for years.”
She said Trump was “a very unserious man.” “However, the consequences of putting him back in the White House are extremely serious.”
At Trump’s event, on either side of the stage were poster-sized mug shots of men in the U.S. illegally accused of a crime, including Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a case Trump cited in his speech.
Wisconsin Republicans in recent days have cited the story of Coronel Zarate’s arrest in Prairie du Chien as more evidence that people in the country illegally are committing crimes across the United States, not just in southern border states. Prosecutors charged Coronel Zarate on September 18 with sexual assault, child abuse, strangulation and domestic abuse. His lawyers declined to comment.
SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts stranded in space
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.
The capsule rocketed into orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Because NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.
By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.
NASA ultimately decided that Boeing’s Starliner was too risky after a cascade of thruster troubles and helium leaks marred its trip to the orbiting complex. The space agency cut two astronauts from this SpaceX launch to make room on the Dragon capsule’s return leg for Wilmore and Williams.
Wilmore and Williams watched the liftoff via a live link sent to the space station, prompting a cheer of “Go Dragon!” from Williams, NASA deputy program manager Dina Contella said.
Williams has been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive Sunday, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner’s turmoil.
Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.
“There’s always something that is changing. Maybe this time it’s been a little more visible to the public,” he said.
Hague was thrust into the commander’s job for the rescue mission based on his experience and handling of a launch emergency six years ago. The Russian rocket failed shortly after liftoff, and the capsule carrying him and a cosmonaut catapulted off the top to safety.
Rookie NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and veteran space flier Stephanie Wilson were pulled from this flight after NASA opted to go with SpaceX to bring the stuck astronauts home. Promised a future space mission, both were at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, taking part in the launch livestream. Gorbunov remained on the flight under an exchange agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency.
“Every crewed launch that I have ever watched has really brought me a lot of emotion. This one today was especially unique,” a teary-eyed Cardman said following the early afternoon liftoff. “It was hard not to watch that rocket lift off without thinking, ‘That’s my rocket and that’s my crew.’”
Moments before liftoff, Hague paid tribute to his two colleagues left behind: “Unbreakable. We did it together.” Once in orbit, he called it a “sweet ride” and thanked everyone who made it possible.
Earlier, Hague acknowledged the challenges of launching with half a crew and returning with two astronauts trained on another spacecraft.
“We’ve got a dynamic challenge ahead of us,” Hague said after arriving from Houston last weekend. “We know each other and we’re professionals and we step up and do what’s asked of us.”
SpaceX has long been the leader in NASA’s commercial crew program, established as the space shuttles were retiring more than a decade ago. SpaceX beat Boeing in delivering astronauts to the space station in 2020, and it is now up to 10 crew flights for NASA.
Boeing has struggled with a variety of issues over the years, repeating a Starliner test flight with no one on board after the first one veered off course. The Starliner that left Wilmore and Williams in space landed without any issues in the New Mexico desert on September 6, and has since returned to Kennedy Space Center. A week ago, Boeing’s defense and space chief was replaced.
Delayed by Hurricane Helene pounding Florida, the latest SpaceX liftoff marked the first for astronauts from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX took over the old Titan rocket pad nearly two decades ago and used it for satellite and station cargo launches, while flying crews from Kennedy’s former Apollo and shuttle pad next door. The company wanted more flexibility as more Falcon rockets soared.
Rare condor hatched, raised by foster parents in captivity, freed to live wild
date: 2024-09-29, from: VOA News USA
I Taught My 8yo Subduction Zones With NotebookLM
date: 2024-09-29, updated: 2024-09-29, from: Tom Kellog blog
I’m blown away by NotebookLM. It seems there’s nothing too hard to learn when you can get a podcast-style overview and then ask any question in an interactive learning session. So let’s think big; why can’t my 8 year old child learn about cutting edge PhD research? How far can we get?