News gathered 2024-10-11
(date: 2024-10-11 08:53:28)
Energy companies told to recharge for AI datacenter surge
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Demand for electricity to outstrip supply soon, warns Bain
US energy companies must adapt to the AI-driven datacenter boom with power use forecast to outstrip supply within the next few years.…
Why racial disparities in stock market investments persist
date: 2024-10-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Stocks are increasingly an important source of household wealth. Thanks to the booming stock market, U.S. household wealth surged to a record high last year, per Federal Reserve data. But there are continued racial differences in stock ownership, which has big implications for the racial wealth gap. We’ll learn more. Also on the show: producer prices remain tame, and business travel spending rebounds.
Program Executive Dr. Yaítza Luna-Cruz
date: 2024-10-11, from: NASA breaking news
“My mom had to leave school after 9th grade to support her family, but she always emphasized the importance of education. And with a lot of sacrifices, got us an encyclopedia in Spanish, ‘Enciclopedia de Las Ciencias’. By getting that encyclopedia for us, without knowing it, my mom was my first mentor because she introduced […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/program-executive-dr-yaitza-luna-cruz/
RCRA Permit Modification
date: 2024-10-11, from: NASA breaking news
2023
https://www.nasa.gov/general/rcra-permit-modification/
Taylor Swift, Hulk Hogan. Can celebrities sway US voters?
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
From pop superstar Taylor Swift to former wrestler Hulk Hogan, celebrity endorsements have been a feature of this year’s U.S. presidential race. But whether they will have any kind of impact on the election is difficult to predict. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/taylor-swift-hulk-hogan-can-celebrities-sway-us-voters-/7818935.html
Why send a message when you can get your Zoom digital video clone to read the script?
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
We're sure colleagues will find your lookalike, soundalike avatar's missive very warm and human
Zoom Video Communications intends to offer office workers the ability to communicate with colleagues using an AI lookalike that speaks from a script using a lip-synced, cloned voice.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/zoom_clips_avatar_scripted_message/
Happy Birthday, You’re Dumped
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/10/11/happy-birthday-youre-dumped/
Tesla Finally Debuted the Robotaxi
date: 2024-10-11, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: England just had its one of its worst crop harvests ever due to extreme rainfall last winter • Nevada and Arizona could see record-breaking heat today, while freeze warnings are in effect in four northeastern states • The death toll from Hurricane Milton has climbed to 16.
THE TOP FIVE
- Tesla rolls out Cybercab prototype
Tesla unveiled a prototype of its “Cybercab” self-driving robotaxi last night at an investor event in California. The 2-seater vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals, and will feature wireless induction charging. CEO Elon Musk said the vehicle will cost less than $30,000, with the goal of starting production by 2027, depending on regulatory approvals. At the same event, Musk unveiled the autonomous “Robovan,” which can carry 20 people.
Tesla
- UN approves safeguarding rules for carbon market
A UN expert group agreed this week on some key rules around carbon markets and carbon crediting. This will be a major topic at COP29 next month, where negotiators will be tasked with deciding how countries can use international carbon markets. As the Financial Times explained, a carbon market “would allow governments to claim other countries’ emission cuts towards their own climate targets by trading instruments that represent one tonne of carbon dioxide removed or saved from the atmosphere.” The experts this week said projects seeking carbon credits will have to carry out an extensive risk assessment process aimed at flagging and preventing human rights abuses and environmental harm. The assessment will be reviewed by external auditors.
- Carbon Mapper spots methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas
The first detections from Carbon Mapper’s Tanager-1 satellite are in, just two months after the satellite launched. It spotted a 2.5-mile-long methane plume spewing from a landfill in Pakistan, which Carbon Mapper estimates could be releasing 2,600 pounds of methane per hour. It also identified a methane plume in the oilfields of the Permian Basin in Texas, estimated to be releasing 900 pounds of methane hourly. And it found a carbon dioxide plume over a coal-fired power plant in South Africa releasing roughly 1.3 million pounds of CO2 per hour.
A
Permian Basin methane
plume.Carbon
Mapper
In a press release, the company said the observations were “a preview of what’s to come as Carbon Mapper will leverage Tanager-1 to scale-up emissions observations at unprecedented sensitivity across large areas.”
- Taylor Swift donates $5 million to hurricane relief efforts
As the cleanup efforts continue in the southeast after back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated the region, pop star Taylor Swift announced she is donating $5 million to relief efforts. Specifically she has given money to a national food bank organization called Feeding America. The charity’s CEO said the funds “will help communities rebuild and recover, providing essential food, clean water, and supplies to people affected by these devastating storms.” Last week country music legend Dolly Parton said she personally donated $1 million to the Mountain Ways Foundation, and then another $1 million through her Dollywood foundation.
AccuWeather estimated that Milton caused up to $180 billion in economic losses, and Helene caused up to $250 billion in losses. Two rapid attribution studies out of Imperial College London found that human-caused climate change could be credited for roughly half the economic damages from the storms. “This analysis clearly shows that our failure to stop burning fossil fuels is already resulting in incredible economic losses,” said Dr. Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution.
- Providence, Rhode Island, considers gas station ban
In Rhode Island, the Providence City Council passed an amendment this week that bans the construction of new gas stations “while prioritizing the development and installation of electric vehicle charging stations.” That would make Providence the first city on the East Coast to enact such a ban. Mayor Brett Smiley could veto it, but the city council could override a veto with a two-thirds majority, The Boston Globe reported. Several towns in California have already banned new gas pumps.
THE KICKER
Chiquita has developed a new hybrid banana variety it says is resistant to some fungal diseases that have threatened the future of America’s most popular fruit. The variety is called Yelloway 1.
Chiquita
Brands International
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/robotaxi-tesla-cybercab-musk
Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially UNIX. If anyone cares…
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
But what does that mean?
Explainer Apple's latest OS release is the newest member of the Open Group list of officially verified UNIX variants – by quite some margin.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/macos_15_is_unix/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Vice President Kamala Harris on Her Race to the Finish.
https://www.vogue.com/article/kamala-harris-digital-cover-october-2024-interview
Blinken warns China against provocations toward Taiwan
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
VIENTIANE, LAOS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Friday warned China against military provocations toward Taiwan, following Beijing’s strong reaction to an annual speech by the leader of the self-ruled democracy.
“I can tell you that with regard to the so-called Ten Ten speech, which is a regular exercise, China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters during a press conference in Vientiane, Laos.
He was referring to October 10, known as Double Ten Day, when Taiwan celebrates the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, just months after an uprising that began on October 10, 1911.
The People’s Republic of China celebrates its national day on October 1, marking the founding of the country in 1949.
China has continued to ramp up its military threats against Taiwan, following President Lai Ching-te’s Thursday speech, which rejected China’s claim of sovereignty over the island.
Blinken was in Vientiane for meetings with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and participated in the East Asia Summit.
He said there is a strong desire among all ASEAN countries, along with others present, to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, with neither side taking actions that undermine the status quo.
Earlier on Friday, Taiwan detected 20 Chinese military aircraft and 10 naval vessels around Taiwan. Thirteen of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern and southwestern Air Defense Identification Zone, according to a posting on social media platform X by Taiwan’s defense ministry.
Between Wednesday and Thursday, Taiwan also detected 27 Chinese military aircraft, nine naval vessels, and five official ships.
In Beijing, Chinese officials said Taiwan “has no so-called sovereignty.”
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, slammed Lai, accusing him of having “the ill intention of heightening tensions in the Taiwan Strait for his selfish political interest.”
Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists in a civil war, prompting the nationalists’ relocation to the island.
Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing to counter the then-Soviet Union in 1979.
Since then, relations between the U.S. and Taiwan have been governed by the Taiwan Relations Act that Congress passed in April 1979, under which the U.S. provides defense equipment to Taiwan.
In September, Taiwan President Lai said if China’s claims over Taiwan are truly based on concerns about territorial integrity, it should also seek to reclaim the 600,000 square kilometers of land it ceded to Russia in the 19th century — an area almost the size of Ukraine.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-warns-china-against-provocations-toward-taiwan/7818840.html
Artist Left with Heavy Fees by Copyright Troll Law Firm
date: 2024-10-11, from: Authors Union blogs
The final outcome of the case: the plaintiff was ordered to cover $102,404 in fees and $165.72 in costs for the defendant. This should serve as a cautionary tale for would-be plaintiffs: copyright lawsuits, like any other type of litigation, are primarily meant to address the damages plaintiffs actually suffered, and the final settlement should make plaintiffs whole again—that is, as if no infringement has ever occurred. Copyright lawsuits (or the threat to sue) should not be undertaken as a way to create brand new income streams.
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/10/11/artist-left-with-heavy-fees-by-copyright-troll-law-firm/
Tesla’s big reveal: Steering-wheel-free Robotaxi will charge wirelessly
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
WCGW? Plus: Automous Robovan also makes surprise appearance at Cybercab's coming out party
Complete with Back to The Future style folding doors, Tesla is showing off its Robotaxi at last, along with an autonomous minibus and the Optimus robot.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/tesla_robotaxi_robovan_arrive/
Maybe let’s just not talk about politics at work?
date: 2024-10-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
“We’ve just softened the boundaries a little bit and allowed politics to creep into the workplace,” says Sean Westwood, director of the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth. As part of our Office Politics series in the lead-up to the election, we’re focusing on how companies intensify or ease political divides. Today: the argument for just not talking about politics or other divisive matters at work. But first, Trump and Harris turn their attention to automakers.
RAC duo busted for stealing and selling crash victims’ data
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Roadside assistance biz praised for deploying security monitoring software and reporting workers to cops
Two former workers at roadside assistance provider RAC were this week given suspended sentences after illegally copying and selling tens of thousands of lines of personal data on people involved in accidents.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/rac_worker_convictions/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
“A young woman looking ahead to her future doesn’t have to be brainwashed to decide that she wants the right to decide when and whether to have a child.”
China detains workers at iPhone maker
date: 2024-10-11, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Chinese police have detained four workers of the Taiwanese iPhone maker Foxconn in circumstances Taipei has described as “strange.” The employees were arrested in Zhengzhou on “breach of trust” charges. We’ll unpack. Then, Portugal wants to bring in a new law to give a decade of tax breaks to people up to the age of 35. And “ghost” distilleries are being resurrected as demand for rare whiskey soars,
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/china-detains-workers-at-iphone-maker
Keir Starmer hands ex-Darktrace boss investment minister gig
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
What's harder? Convincing people to invest in a beleaguered security business or a tiny island everybody hates?
Keir Starmer's decision to appoint Poppy Gustafsson as the UK's new investment minister is being resoundingly praised despite the former Darktrace boss spending years failing to fully rebuild investor confidence in the embattled company.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/darktrace_investment_minister/
Hubble Spots a Grand Spiral of Starbursts
date: 2024-10-11, from: NASA breaking news
The sparkling scene depicted in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is of the spiral galaxy NGC 5248, located 42 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Boötes. It is also known as Caldwell 45. The Caldwell catalog holds visually interesting celestial objects that are not as commonly observed by amateur astronomers as the more […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spots-a-grand-spiral-of-starbursts/
The Real Reason Trump Is Demonizing Immigrants
date: 2024-10-11, from: The Lever News
Trump’s misinformation campaign about immigrants living in Aurora, Colorado, has a long and dark history in American politics.
https://www.levernews.com/the-real-reason-trump-is-demonizing-immigrants/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
I would switch to any podcatcher that let me edit my subscription list outside their app, because I use that list in different contexts, also because I’d like to share my list with others, also because there are lots of others, aka influencers who’d like to too. You’d own the market if you did this.
https://mastodon.social/@marcoarment/113286280727138677
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Cynicism isn’t always the right explanation. Sometimes people just want to share something good with you, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stupid, maybe they just like you. 😀
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary)
Is the first European on the Moon in ESA’s astronaut corps?
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Director General on being a good partner and developing rockets
Interview The European Space Agency (ESA) had to use a SpaceX rocket to send its Hera spacecraft to Dimorphos. After the delays of the Ariane 6, what will the Ariane 7 look like? And is the first European on the Moon already in ESA's astronaut corps?…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/esa_moon_interview/
Techie took five minutes to fix problem Adobe and Microsoft couldn’t solve in two weeks
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
This is why every admin loves to hate Windows
On Call As Friday rolls around Reg readers can start to contemplate pressing the Shut Down button for the working week. And to amuse you as the moment at which you can make that magic click draws near, we always offer a fresh instalment of On Call – our reader-contributed column of tech support tasks that went in interesting directions.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/on_call/
US still believes Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon, US officials say
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — The United States still believes that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon despite Tehran’s recent strategic setbacks, including Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leaders and two largely unsuccessful attempts to attack Israel, two U.S. officials told Reuters.
The comments from a senior Biden administration official and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) added to public remarks earlier this week by CIA Director William Burns, who said the United States had not seen any evidence Iran’s leader had reversed his 2003 decision to suspend the weaponization program.
“We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003,” said the ODNI spokesperson, referring to Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The intelligence assessment could help explain U.S. opposition to any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack that Tehran carried out last week.
U.S. President Joe Biden said after that attack he would not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, but did not explain why he had reached that conclusion. His remarks drew fierce criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.
U.S. officials have long acknowledged that an attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program might only delay the country’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb and could even strengthen Tehran’s resolve to do so.
“We’re all watching this space very carefully,” the Biden administration official said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Tehran has repeatedly denied ever having had a nuclear weapons program.
Key Iran ally weakened
In the past weeks, Israel’s military has inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah, the most powerful member of the Iran-backed network known as the Axis of Resistance. The group’s setbacks have included the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.
The weakening of a key Iranian ally has prompted some experts to speculate that Tehran may restart its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb to protect itself.
Beth Sanner, a former U.S deputy director of national intelligence, said the risk of Khamenei reversing his 2003 religious dictum against nuclear weapons is “higher now than it has been” and that if Israel were to strike nuclear facilities Tehran would likely move ahead with building a nuclear weapon.
That would still take time, however.
“They can’t get a weapon in a day. It will take months and months and months,” said Sanner, now a fellow with the German Marshall Fund.
Iran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the 90% of weapons grade, at two sites, and in theory it has enough material enriched to that level, if enriched further, for almost four bombs, according to a yardstick of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. watchdog.
The expansion in Iran’s enrichment program has reduced the so-called breakout time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb to “a week or a little more,” according to Burns, from more than a year under a 2015 accord that Trump pulled out of when president. Actually making a bomb with that material would take longer. How long is less clear and the subject of debate.
Possible Israeli attack
Israel has not yet disclosed what it will target in retaliation for Iran’s attack last week with more than 180 ballistic missiles, which largely failed thanks to interceptions by Israeli air defenses as well as by the U.S. military.
The United States has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to a nuclear attack and concerns about a strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Israel, however, views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.
The conflicts in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen have become campaign issues ahead of the November 5 presidential election, with Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, positioning themselves as pro-Israel.
Speaking at a campaign event last week, Trump mocked Biden for opposing an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, saying: “That’s the thing you wanna hit, right?”
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer and government official, said Iran still had space to compensate for setbacks dealt to its proxies and missile force without having to resort to developing a nuclear warhead.
“The Iranians have to recalculate what’s next. I don’t think at this point they will rush to either develop or boost the (nuclear) program toward military capacity,” he said.
“They will look around to find what maneuvering space they can move around in.”
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot wobbles like Jell-o, according to Hubble snaps
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Scientists undecided about possible flavor
After observing Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) with the Hubble Space Telescope for 90 days, scientists have determined that it behaves like a "bowl of gelatin."…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/jupiter_grs_wobbles/
FBI created a cryptocurrency so it could watch it being abused
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It worked – alleged pump and dump schemers arrested in UK, US and Portugal this week
The FBI created its own cryptocurrency so it could watch suspected fraudsters use it – an idea that worked so well it produced arrests in three countries.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/fbi_nexfundai_crypto_fraud_sting/
Blinken tells ASEAN the US is worried about China’s actions in South China Sea
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
VIENTIANE, Laos — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Southeast Asian leaders Friday that the U.S. is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea during an annual summit meeting and pledged the U.S. will continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the vital sea trade route.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ meeting with Blinken followed a series of violent confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam, which have fueled concerns that China’s increasingly assertive actions in the waterways could spiral into a full-scale conflict.
China, which claims almost the entire sea, has overlapping claims with ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan. About a third of global trade transits through the sea, which is also rich in fishing stocks, gas and oil.
Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling by a U.N.-affiliated court in the Hague that invalidated its expansive claims and has built up and militarized islands it controls.
“We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who is filling in for President Joe Biden, in his opening speech at the U.S.-ASEAN summit. “The United States will continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”
The United States has no claims in the South China Sea but has deployed navy ships and fighter jets to patrol the waters in a challenge to China’s claims.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam said last week that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in the disputed sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as exclusive economic zones.
The United States has warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. complained to summit leaders on Thursday that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China. He said it was “regrettable that the overall situation in the South China Sea remains tense and unchanged” due to China’s actions, which he said violated international law. He has called for more urgency in ASEAN-China negotiations on a code of conduct to govern the South China Sea.
Singaporean leader Lawrence Wong earlier this week warned of “real risks of an accident spiraling into conflict” if the sea dispute isn’t addressed.
Malaysia, who takes over the rotating ASEAN chair next year, is expected to push to accelerate talks on the code of conduct. Officials have agreed to try and complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by sticky issues including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang was defiant during talks on Thursday. He called South China Sea a “shared home” but repeated China’s assertion that it was merely protecting its sovereign rights, officials said. Li also blamed meddling by “external forces” who sought to “introduce bloc confrontation and geopolitical conflicts into Asia.” Li didn’t name the foreign forces, but China has previously warned the U.S. not to meddle in the region’s territorial disputes.
In another firm message to China, Blinken said the United States believed “it is also important to maintain our shared commitment to protect stability across the Taiwan Strait.” China claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its own territory and bristles at other countries’ patrolling the body of water separating it from the island.
Blinken also attended an 18-nation East Asia Summit, along with the Chinese premier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and leaders from Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
ASEAN has treaded carefully on the sea dispute with China, which is the bloc’s largest trading partner and its third largest investor. It hasn’t marred trade relations, with the two sides focusing on expanding a free trade area covering a market of 2 billion people.
Blinken said the annual ASEAN summit talks were a platform to address other shared challenges including the civil war in Myanmar, North Korea’s “destabilizing behavior” and Russia’s war aggression in Ukraine. He said the U.S. remained the top foreign investor in the region and aims to strengthen its partnership with ASEAN.
Tencent builds one NoSQL database to rule all data models
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Tamed DB sprawl and saved cloudy resources with 'X-Stor'
Exclusive Chinese web giant Tencent has revealed it created a NoSQL database that it believes can handle multiple data models more elegantly than other attempts to do so, and has used it to consolidate its database fleet and improve resource utilization.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/tencent_x_store_multi_model_nosql/
Hurricane Milton disrupts Yom Kippur plans for Jews in Florida
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
WINTER PARK, Florida — Many Jews worldwide will mark Yom Kippur in fasting and prayer at their synagogues this weekend.
But for the faithful in Florida, destructive Hurricane Milton has disrupted plans for observing the Day of Atonement — the holiest day of the year in the Jewish faith — that begins Friday evening and caps off the High Holy Days that began with Rosh Hashana on October 2.
Across the storm-threatened areas, rabbis and their congregants spent part of the Days of Awe — the span between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur — protecting their homes and synagogues as Milton churned off the coast, spiraling into a Category 5 storm. Many — though not all — evacuated, heeding the voluntary and mandatory orders, and found safekeeping for their synagogues’ Torah scrolls and themselves.
Milton hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 cyclone, with damaging winds, heavy rains and tornadoes. By Thursday, the storm had moved eastward into the Atlantic Ocean.
Why this rabbi decided against evacuating before storm
Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz evacuated most of his family ahead of the storm, but chose to ride it out with his son, also a rabbi, at Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida near Fort Myers. The center is hosting people displaced by the storm, including doctors, first responders and elderly who cannot evacuate.
It’s important to be “with the people and for the people,” and provide emotional and spiritual support, he said as the storm approached.
Near midnight Thursday, the Chabad center and the rest of the neighborhood lost power, said Minkowicz, making them among the millions without it. The center was spared from the storm surge, but homes and other buildings in the area were not, he said.
“Our pressing need is for Power so that we can help our community & hold Yom Kippur services,” Minkowicz told The Associated Press via email Thursday. “We’re praying for this to be resolved asap.”
The center planned to host Yom Kippur observances regardless of the storm. He said it was similar two years ago, when the holy day followed the major hurricane, Ian.
“Yom Kippur is a day that you open up your soul to God and you totally connect with God,” Minkowicz said. “When you go through a hurricane, anything materialistic is not important. They’re already in that zone where they’re totally focused on God.”
Congregation Beth Am in the Tampa Bay area also lost power and plans to hold Yom Kippur services online, said Rabbi Jason Rosenberg of the Reform synagogue.
“It’s important to keep perspective. Having a service online is not what anybody wants, but it could’ve been a lot worse,” he said. “This feels like a blessing.”
The storm underscored one of Yom Kippur’s annual reflections.
An implicit question, he said before Milton’s landfall, is “If this was going to be your last year on earth, how would you want to act differently? … When you’ve got a historical storm, a potentially life-threatening and life-altering storm bearing down on you, that message is really present.”
Milton disrupts Yom Kippur and October 7 commemoration
Like most of her congregants, Rabbi Nicole Luna had evacuated after helping secure Temple Beth El in Fort Myers, and entrusting several Torah scrolls to congregants should the threatened surge devastate the synagogue.
While the congregation braved Hurricanes Irma in 2017 and Ian in 2022, Milton’s timing hit especially hard, having already forced the postponement of community-wide commemoration of Hamas attacking Israel on October 7, 2023. The war that followed is ongoing.
“It just feels like too much for our hearts to carry right now,” Luna said from Miami ahead of the storm. “It’s all very heavy.”
After the storm passed through, Luna told her congregation that their synagogue had emerged undamaged, though it lost power.
She announced plans for a service via Zoom on Friday evening, and in-person services Saturday.
“We hope by Saturday more traffic lights will be restored but please only come if you can safely navigate the roads,” she said in her message.
Luna said she was grateful for the “big outpouring of support” she received from fellow rabbis across the East Coast of Florida, who were opening their temples for the holidays to evacuees and have emphasized they can come as they are since few grabbed “holiday-appropriate clothing” in the rush to escape Milton’s fury.
The Chabad of Southwest Broward near Fort Lauderdale is hosting several evacuees from areas most affected by the storm, ranging from a mother with her newborn to an elderly couple, said director Rabbi Pinny Andrusier. They are invited to spend Yom Kippur with the Cooper City-based group, including sharing kosher meals before and after the day of fasting.
“We were spared, thank God,” Andrusier said of the storm. “We’ve been able to open up our doors” for those in the hurricane zone.
Synagogue skips holding Yom Kippur services
Hundreds of Jewish families on Longboat Key, a barrier island off Sarasota Bay, won’t be able to observe Yom Kippur in their synagogue for the very first time in their 45-year history, said Shepard Englander, CEO of The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee.
Access to the island, specifically the John Ringling Causeway, was closed ahead of the storm. The congregation decided it wasn’t worth risking Milton’s might for Day of Atonement services. They had celebrated Rosh Hashana in their building despite a number of nearby homes being damaged by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall last month.
Englander said he and his family evacuated from their home on a riverbank outside Sarasota and were hunkered down at a friend’s home inland. From there, he was trying to make sure community members from Longboat Key and other temples that won’t have services can say their prayers and break their daylong Yom Kippur fast at a newly constructed conference center in Sarasota with food items like blintzes, bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon.
Ahead of the storm, people were scattered in the region at emergency shelters or staying with family or friends, Englander said.
“It’s in difficult times that you really understand the power of community,” he said. “And this is a caring, tight-knit, generous Jewish community.”
Biden, Florida governor say disaster officials on scene at Hurricane Milton cleanup
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s coast overnight Wednesday as a weakened Category 3 storm, causing ‘significant’ damage, the state’s governor said Thursday. At the White House, the Biden administration said federal workers were delivering assistance. With Joe Pernalete in Tampa, Florida, VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell has the story.
Healthcare attacks spread beyond US – just ask India’s Star Health
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Acknowledges bulk customer data leak weeks after Telegram channels dangled it online
Leading Indian health insurance provider Star Health has admitted to being the victim of a cyber attack after criminals claimed they had posted records of 30-milion-plus clients online.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/star_health_breach/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Zero to internet: your first website.
https://htmlforpeople.com/zero-to-internet-your-first-website/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-11, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
2022: Markdown is just enough HTML.
http://scripting.com/2022/08/25/210902.html
US calls operations ‘targeted’ as Israel strikes central Beirut
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-calls-operations-targeted-as-israel-strikes-central-beirut/7818583.html
12 rescued from Colorado gold mine where elevator mishap killed 1 person
date: 2024-10-11, from: VOA News USA
denver — Twelve people were rescued Thursday night after being trapped for about six hours at the bottom of a former Colorado gold mine when an elevator malfunctioned at the tourist site, authorities said. One person died in the accident.
The elevator was descending into the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near the town of Cripple Creek when it had a mechanical problem around 150 meters beneath the surface, creating a “severe danger for the participants,” and one person was killed, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said.
The 12 adults who were trapped were about 305 meters below ground, but they had access to water and the atmosphere was considered good. They were safe and in communication with authorities with radios while waiting, Mikesell said.
They were in good spirits after they were rescued, and authorities gave them pizza once they were out and told them everything that had happened, he said. While at the bottom, authorities had told them only that there was an elevator issue.
Mikesell said during a nighttime briefing that authorities do not know yet what caused the malfunction and an investigation is underway. Engineers worked to make sure the elevator was working safely again before bringing the stranded visitors back up on it. They had been prepared to bring them up by rope if necessary, had they not been able to get the elevator fixed.
Mikesell declined to reveal the identification of the victim.
The incident, which was reported to authorities at about noon, happened during the final week of the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine season before it shuts down for the winter, Mikesell said.
Earlier in the afternoon — while the 12 were stuck at the bottom — 11 other people who were riding the elevator were rescued. Four had minor injuries. The sheriff did not elaborate on how they were injured.
The elevator ride typically takes about two minutes, travelling about 152 meters per minute, according to the mine’s website.
Mikesell said the last time there was an incident was in the 1980s when a couple of people were trapped on the elevator. Nobody died in that incident.
Mines that operate as tourist attractions in Colorado must designate someone to inspect the mines and the transportation systems daily, according to the state Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. Mikesell said he didn’t know the date of the last inspection. Records of the inspections weren’t immediately available online.
Gov. Jared Polis sent state resources including a mine rescue team.
Cripple Creek is a town of about 1,100 in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Colorado Springs.
The mine opened in the 1800s and closed in 1961, but still operates tours. Its website describes a one-hour tour in which visitors descend 304 meters. It says they can see veins of gold in the rock and ride an underground tram.
A woman named Mollie Kathleen Gortner discovered the site of the mine in 1891 when she saw quartz laced with gold, according to the company’s website.
Chinese boffins build soft robot finger that can take your pulse
date: 2024-10-11, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It can also type, so the robo-doctor can heal you and write legibly
Robot hands are commonplace, but their sense of touch is crude compared to that of a human. A design proposed by a group of scientists in the Middle Kingdom may change that.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/11/soft_robot_finger/
Afghan charged in Election Day terror plot passed multiple screenings
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
washington — The Afghan national charged in a plot to carry out an Election Day terror attack in the United States passed multiple background checks before being allowed to enter the country, U.S. officials told VOA.
FBI agents arrested Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Monday, alleging he and a juvenile co-conspirator had been in contact with a recruiter for the Islamic State terror group and had been planning to die in a mass shooting.
Court documents also stated that Tawhedi hoped to relocate most of his family, including his wife and 1-year-old daughter, back to Afghanistan to live according to what he described as “pure Islam.”
However, U.S. officials, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of a case still under investigation, said Thursday that there were no indications Tawhedi was sympathetic to the Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or Daesh, either when he worked for the United States in Afghanistan or when he was screened immediately before to coming to the U.S. three years ago.
“Every Afghan being resettled in the United States undergoes a rigorous screening and vetting process, no matter which [U.S.] agency they worked with,” the official said.
“That process includes checking against a full range of relevant U.S. records and holdings,” the official added. “Tawhedi would not have been admitted to the United States had information of concern surfaced.”
Kinds of data
A second U.S. official told VOA that Tawhedi’s vetting included checks that involved both biometric data collected by the U.S. Department of Defense and the FBI, and classified information held by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Subsequent screenings that allowed him to be approved for a Special Immigrant Visa after he entered the U.S. also came up clean.
“Vetting is a point-in-time check that evaluates information available to the U.S. government at that time,” the official said.
The second official also said the government can take additional actions “if individuals who have entered the country are later found to be associated with information indicating a potential national security or public safety concern.”
NBC News, which first reported that Tawhedi’s background checks failed to detect any red flags, quoted sources as saying he had worked as a security guard for the CIA before being resettled in the U.S.
When reached by VOA, the CIA declined comment.
But the arrest has raised concerns among some U.S. lawmakers.
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Republican Representative Mark Green, sent a letter Wednesday to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security demanding more information.
“These recent arrests raise serious concerns about the ongoing threat that ISIS and its fanatical supporters pose to U.S. national security, as well as the shortfall in the Biden-Harris administration’s screening and vetting capabilities,” Green wrote.
“Additionally, news of these potential Afghan terrorists comes when only months ago, it was widely reported that eight Tajikistanis with ties to ISIS were arrested in Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia after they had illegally crossed the border,” Green added.
The FBI confirmed receipt of Green’s letter but declined further comment.
A Homeland Security spokesperson did not comment on the letter but described the vetting process for Afghans fleeing Taliban rule as “multilayered.”
“Afghan evacuees who sought to enter the United States were subject to multilayered screening and vetting against intelligence, law enforcement and counterterrorism information,” the spokesperson told VOA in an email. “If new information emerges after arrival, appropriate action is taken.”
When was he radicalized?
But in the case of Tawhedi, questions remain.
“What’s not clear from the information currently available is exactly when Tawhedi was radicalized to the Islamic State ideology,” said Austin Doctor, the director of counterterrorism research initiatives at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center (NCITE).
“We don’t know yet whether he radicalized after arriving to the United States or if he already held pro-ISIS beliefs prior to leaving Afghanistan,” Doctor told VOA. “This matters.”
According to court documents, a search of Tawhedi’s phone and social media accounts showed he had been doing internet searches to find and consume IS propaganda, though when that started is not clear.
The earliest date for any involvement with IS, according to the criminal complaint filed Monday, is sometime around March of this year, when Tawhedi made two cryptocurrency transfers worth at least $540 to what prosecutors described as a charity that fronts for IS.
About four months later, in July, someone made a video recording – saved to Tawhedi’s phone – of Tawhedi reading to a nephew and his daughter about the rewards waiting for martyrs in the afterlife.
The first indications of a possible terror plot emerged that same month, when the FBI said Tawhedi did online searches about webcams for the White House and the Washington Monument, as well as about procuring guns.
It also remains unclear whether Tawhedi’s Islamic State contact was working for the group’s Afghan affiliate, known as IS-Khorasan or ISIS-K.
“We’ve seen ISIS-K make a concerted effort to recruit from diaspora communities,” NCITE’s Doctor told VOA. “And facilitating external operations and inspiring homegrown violent extremist attacks are both prominent elements of the group’s playbook.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max?
https://doc.searls.com/2024/10/10/iphone-16-pro-or-pro-max/
Cards Against Humanity campaigns to encourage voting, expose personal data abuse
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Up to $100 for planning to vote and a public smear – how is this not illegal?
The troublemakers behind the party game Cards Against Humanity have launched a campaign demonstrating how easy it is to buy sensitive personal data about American voters, while simultaneously encouraging those Americans to plan how to cast a vote in the upcoming presidential election.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/cards_against_humanity_us_election/
MINISFORUM EliteMini AI370 mini PC with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 goes up for pre-order October 28
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
The MINISFORUM EliteMini AI370 is a 5.12″ x 5″ x 1.85″ computer powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 “Strix Point” 12-core processor with Radeon 890M integrated graphics and a Ryzen AI NPU that delivers up to 50 TOPS of AI performance. It’s one of only a handful of mini PCs announced to feature […]
The post MINISFORUM EliteMini AI370 mini PC with Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 goes up for pre-order October 28 appeared first on Liliputing.
Crooks stole personal info of 77k Fidelity Investments customers
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
But hey, no worries, the firm claims no evidence of data misuse
Fidelity Investments has notified 77,099 people that their personal information was stolen in an August data breach. …
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/fidelity_investment_data_breach/
A Rare Monet Painting Has Been Returned to the Family of Its Rightful Owners—Eight Decades After It Was Stolen by the Nazis
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The Gestapo seized the Impressionist painting from storage after its owners fled from their home in Vienna. Now, the piece has been returned to their granddaughters
This $120 fanless mini PC features two 2.5 GbE LAN ports and support for dual displays
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
The SZBOX H9 mini PC is a small fanless computer featuring a 6-watt Intel N100 quad-core processor, support for up to 16GB of DDR5-4800 memory, and a PCIe or SATA SSD. It’s also positioned as a device that can be used as a firewall, server, or for other networking applications thanks to two 2.5 GbE LAN […]
The post This $120 fanless mini PC features two 2.5 GbE LAN ports and support for dual displays appeared first on Liliputing.
Sail Along with NASA’s Solar Sail Tech Demo in Real-Time Simulation
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
NASA invites the public to virtually sail along with the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System‘s space journey using NASA’s “Eyes on the Solar System” visualization tool, a digital model of the solar system. This simulation shows the real-time positions of the planets, moons, and spacecraft – including NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System. Solar sails use the pressure […]
GSA plows ahead with face matching tech despite its own reliability concerns
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
A week after saying remote ID verification tech is unreliable, the GSA is expanding access to other agencies
The US government's General Services Administration's (GSA) facial matching login service is now generally available to the public and other federal agencies, despite its own recent report admitting the tech is far from perfect.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/gsa_plows_ahead_with_face/
Meet Milagra, a Rare Condor Rescued as an Egg and Newly Released Back Into the Wild
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Milagra, Spanish for “miracle,” was hatched and raised in captivity by foster condor parents after her mother died of avian flu in April 2023
Igniting Inspiration: Jennifer Becerra’s STEM Legacy at Johnson
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
Jennifer Becerra has nearly three decades of experience in education, both in the classroom and within the NASA community. Leading a team dedicated to fostering a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), she develops programs that inspire students and educators alike. Whether coordinating internships or organizing engagement events, Becerra creates educational opportunities to […]
NASA Awards Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations Contract
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
NASA has selected Metis Technology Solutions Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide engineering services as well as develop and maintain software and hardware used to conduct simulations for aerospace research and development across the agency. The Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations (ARTS) contract is a hybrid cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity component […]
Apple TV+ in Amazon Prime Video
date: 2024-10-10, from: Michael Tsai
Jess Weatherbed: Amazon is adding Apple TV Plus to Prime Video, a move that could help bolster the iPhone maker’s languishing streaming service. Apple TV Plus will be available on Prime Video in the US later this month as a $9.99 monthly add-on — the same you’d otherwise pay directly to Apple. The difference now […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/10/apple-tv-in-amazon-prime-video/
Internet Archive Hacked
date: 2024-10-10, from: Michael Tsai
Lawrence Abrams (Hacker News): Internet Archive’s “The Wayback Machine” has suffered a data breach after a threat actor compromised the website and stole a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records.[…]Hunt told BleepingComputer that the threat actor shared the Internet Archive’s authentication database nine days ago and it is a 6.4GB SQL file named […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/10/internet-archive-hacked/
Apple Passwords’ Generated Strong Password Format
date: 2024-10-10, from: Michael Tsai
Ricky Mondello (Mastodon): To make these passwords easier to type on suboptimal keyboard layouts like my colleague’s game controller, where the mode switching might be difficult, these new passwords are actually dominated by lowercase characters. And to make it easier to short-term have in your head little chunks of it to bring over to the […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/10/apple-passwords-generated-strong-password-format/
Sequoia Security Scoped Bookmarks Bug
date: 2024-10-10, from: Michael Tsai
Matthias Gansrigler: If you’re using Yoink on macOS Sequoia, you might have encountered an issue where Yoink would not accept any files anymore.[…]Basically any app that handles file URLs and saves them as a security-scoped bookmark for later access can be bitten by this bug, currently occurring on macOS 15.0 and 15.0.1. DTS Engineer: What […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/10/10/sequoia-security-scoped-bookmarks-bug/
Revolutionary War Diplomacy: Lessons for Today
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: RAND blog
In the Revolutionary War, diplomacy was essential for U.S. survival. Adept diplomacy remains no less important to help the United States navigate new risks and opportunities.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/10/revolutionary-war-diplomacy-lessons-for-today.html
The NES game console has an unused expansion port, this NES Hub project could put it to use
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
Nintendo’s first home game console to launch in North America was an 8-bit system with support for up to two removable controllers and a 15-pin expansion port on the bottom. But Nintendo never actually released any accessories for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that use the expansion port. Over the years, some hardware hackers have […]
The post The NES game console has an unused expansion port, this NES Hub project could put it to use appeared first on Liliputing.
Microsoft admits Outlook crashes, says impact ‘mitigated’
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Users just need to 'refresh/restart' their sessions
Microsoft's Outlook app is crashing for European users due to memory problems, Redmond has warned, and evidence suggests the problems are spreading to the US.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/microsoft_outlook_outage/
NASA Highlights Low Earth Orbit, Sustainability at Space Conference
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy will lead the agency’s delegation at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) from Monday, Oct. 14, to Thursday, Oct. 17, in Milan. During the congress, NASA will discuss its Low Earth Orbit Microgravity Strategy, emphasizing the agency’s efforts to advance microgravity science, technology, and exploration. The agency […]
FEMA Forces Storm-Wrecked Homeowners to Choose: Build Up or Move Out?
date: 2024-10-10, from: Heatmap News
After the storm, we rebuild. That’s the mantra repeated by residents, businesses and elected officials after any big storm. Hurricane Milton may have avoided the worst case scenario of a direct hit on the Tampa Bay area, but communities south of Tampa experienced heavy flooding just a couple weeks after being hit by Hurricane Helene.
While the damage is still being assessed in Sarasota County’s barrier islands, homes that require extensive renovations will almost certainly run up against what is known as the 50% rule — or, in Southwest Florida, the “dreaded 50% rule.”
In flood zone-situated communities eligible to receive insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program, any renovations to repair “substantial damage” — defined as repairs whose cost exceeds 50% of the value of the structure (not the land, which can often be quite valuable due to its proximity to the water) — must bring the entire structure “into compliance with current local floodplain management standards.” In practice, this typically means elevating the home above what FEMA defines as the area’s “base flood elevation,” which is the level that a “100-year-flood” would reach, plus some amount determined by the building code.
The rule almost invites conflict. Because just as much as local communities and homeowners want to restore things to the way they were, the federal government doesn’t want to insure structures that are simply going to get destroyed. On Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall, the base flood elevation ranges from 7 feet to 9 feet, meaning that elevating a home to comply with flood codes could be beyond the means — or at least the insurance payouts — of some homeowners.
“You got a 1952 house that’s 1,400 square feet, and you get 4 feet of water,” Jeff Brandes, a former state legislator and president of the Florida Policy Project, told me on Wednesday, explaining how the rule could have played out in Tampa. “That means new kitchens and new bathrooms, all new flooring and baseboards and drywall to 4 or 5 feet.” That kind of claim could easily run to $150,000, which might well surpass the FEMA threshold. “Now all of the sudden you get into the 50% rule that you have the entire house up to current code levels. But then you have to do another half-a-million above what [insurance] paid you.”
Simple probability calculations show that a 100-year flood (which is really a flood elevation that has a 1-in-100 chance of occurring every year) has a more than 25% chance of occurring during the lifetime of a mortgage. If you browse Siesta Key real estate on Zillow, much of it is given a 100% chance of flooding sometime over the course of a 30-year mortgage, according to data analysis by First Street.
Sarasota County as a whole has around 62,000 NFIP policies with some
$16.6 billion in total coverage (although more than 80% percent of
households have
no
flood insurance at all). Considering that flood insurance is
required
in high-risk areas for federally-backed mortgages and for new homeowners
insurance policies
written
by Florida’s state backed property insurer of last resort,
Citizens, FEMA is likely to take a close interest in whether communities
affected by Milton and Helene are complying with its rules.
If 2022’s Hurricane Ian is any indication, squabbles over the 50% rule are almost certain to emerge — and soon.
Earlier this year, FEMA told Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral, that it was rescinding the discount its residents and a handful of towns within it receive on flood insurance because, the agency claimed, more than 600 homeowners had violated the 50% rule after Hurricane Ian. Following an outcry from local officials and congressional representatives, FEMA restored the discount.
In their efforts to avoid triggering the rule, homeowners are hardly rogue actors. Local governments often actively assist them.
FEMA had initiated a similar procedure in Lee County the year before, threatening to drop homeowners from the flood insurance program for using possibly inaccurate appraisals to avoid the 50% rule before eventually relenting. The Fort Myers News Press reported that the appraisals were provided by the county, which was deliberately “lowering the amount that residents could use to calculate their repairs or rebuilds” to avoid triggering the rule.
Less than a month after Ian swept through Southwest Florida, Cape Coral advised residents to delay and slow down repairs for the same reason, as the rule there applied to money spent on repairs over the course of a year. Some highly exposed coastal communities in Pinellas County have been adjusting their “lookback rules” — the period over which repairs are totaled to see if they hit the 50% rule — to make them shorter so homeowners are less likely to have to make the substantive repairs required.
This followed similar actions by local governments in Charlotte County. As the Punta Gordon Sun put it, “City Council members learned the federal regulation impacts its homeowners — and they decided to do something about it.” In the Sarasota County community of North Port, local officials scrapped a rule that added up repair costs over a five-year period to make it possible for homeowners to rebuild without triggering elevation requirements.
When the 50% rule “works,” it can lead to the communities most affected by big storms being fundamentally changed, both in terms of the structures that are built and who occupies them.The end result of the rebuilding following Helene and Milton — or the next big storm to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast — or the one after that, and so on — may be wealthier homeowners in more resilient homes essentially serving as a flood barrier for everyone else, and picking up more of the bill if the waters rise too high again.
Florida’s Gulf Coast has long been seen as a place where the middle class can afford beachfront property. Elected officials’ resistance to the FEMA rule only goes to show just how important keeping a lid on the cost of living — quite literally, the cost of legally inhabiting a structure — is to the voters and residents they represent.
Still, said Brandes, “There’s the right way to come out of this thing. The wrong way is to build exactly back what you built before.”
https://heatmap.news/economy/fema-flood-50-percent-rule
World-First Stem Cell Treatment Reverses Diabetes for a Patient in China, Study Suggests
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Scientists converted the patient’s own cells into blood sugar-regulating cell clusters before injecting them back into her abdomen—and one year later, she still doesn’t need insulin injections
BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
We'd know if it were true, and our reporters are just fine
Those who rely on the BBC's online weather forecasts to plan their day would be forgiven if they woke up this morning and thought the world was ending, but those 13,508 mile-an-hour winds in London and 404℃ lows forecasted for Nottingham tomorrow are an obvious error.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/bbc_weather_error_predicts_lows/
Han Kang Becomes the First South Korean Author to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Best known for “The Vegetarian,” the novelist and poet was praised for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”
First Greenhouse Gas Plumes Detected With NASA-Designed Instrument
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager-1 satellite identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally. Using data from an instrument designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections […]
https://www.nasa.gov/earth/first-greenhouse-gas-plumes-detected-with-nasa-designed-instrument/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Putin Has Convinced Trump He's Keeping Trump's Weakness Secret.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/10/10/donald-trump-bednurse-to-vladimir-putin/
Ring Around the Mountain
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
On June 10, 2023, the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 acquired this image of Mount Taranaki, a snow-capped mountain in New Zealand that is ringed by a dark green forest. Two older and extinct volcanoes, Kaitake and Pouakai, lie to the northwest of its peak. Learn more about Mount Taranaki. Image Credit: NASA/Wanmei Liang, […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/ring-around-the-mountain/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
How the fediverse could work. 1. Copy the URL of a post from one site. 2. Paste it into a post on another site. That's how you open a wormhole into another universe.
https://www.threads.net/@sandibachom/post/DA8wWXlBeS7
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
The FBI conducted a sham investigation into Brett Kavanaugh.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What’s Next for the Phillies After Their 2024 NLDS Game 4 Loss?
AMD pumps Epyc core count to 192, clocks up to 5 GHz with Turin debut
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Just not on the same chip, of course
Intel's 128-core Granite Rapids Xeons are barely two weeks old and AMD has already fired back with a family of fifth-gen Epycs that boast double-digit IPC gains with up to 192 cores or clock speeds as high as 5 GHz.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/amd_epyc_turin/
AMD targets Nvidia H200 with 256GB MI325X AI chips, zippier MI355X due in H2 2025
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Less VRAM than promised, but still gobs more than Hopper
AMD boosted the VRAM on its Instinct accelerators to 256 GB of HBM3e with the launch of its next-gen MI325X AI accelerators during its Advancing AI event in San Francisco on Thursday.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/amd_mi325x_ai_gpu/
AMD launches Ryzen AI PRO 300 series chips for business
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
AMD’s new Ryzen AI PRO 300 series processors are based on the same Strix Point architecture as the Ryzen AI 300 consumer chips that the company launched earlier this year, but the new PRO versions bring enterprise security and management features. The chip maker is also introducing its first 8-core Strix Point processor as part […]
The post AMD launches Ryzen AI PRO 300 series chips for business appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/amd-launches-ryzen-ai-pro-300-series-chips-for-business/
AMD aims latest processors at AI whether you need it or not
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ryzen AI PRO 300 series leans heavily on Microsoft's Copilot+ PC requirements
AMD has introduced its latest processors designed for business applications. The line-up includes the Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375, Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370, and Ryzen AI 7 HX PRO 360. Built on AMD's Zen 5 microarchitecture, the devices aim for high performance and advanced AI capabilities for enterprises.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/amd_ryzen_ai_pro_300_series/
Florida residents take shelter, lean on federal program for assistance
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
When major disasters like hurricanes and floods hit the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, coordinates major rescue efforts that would overwhelm local officials. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports on how the agency works.
What Happens to a Landfill in a Hurricane?
date: 2024-10-10, from: Heatmap News
In the coming days and weeks, as Floridians and others in storm-ravaged communities clean up from Hurricane Milton, trucks will carry all manner of storm-related detritus — chunks of buildings, fences, furniture, even cars — to the same place all their other waste goes: the local landfill. But what about the landfill itself? Does this gigantic trash pile take to the air and scatter Dorito bags and car parts alike around the surrounding region?
No, thankfully. As Richard Meyers, the director of land management services at the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, assured me, all landfill waste is covered with soil on “at least a weekly basis,” and certainly right before a hurricane, preventing the waste from being kicked up. “Aerodynamically, [the storm is] rolling over that covered waste. It’s not able to blow six inches of cover soil from the top of the waste.”
But just because a landfill won’t turn into a mass of airborne dirt and half-decomposed projectiles doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. Because landfills — especially large ones — often contain more advanced infrastructure such as gas collection systems, which prevent methane from being vented into the atmosphere, and drainage systems, which collect contaminated liquid that’s pooled at the bottom of the waste pile and send it off for treatment. Meyers told me that getting these systems back online after a storm if they’ve been damaged is “the most critical part, from our standpoint.”
A flood-inundated gas collection system can mean more methane escaping into the air, and storm-damaged drainage pipes can lead to waste liquids leaking into the ground and potentially polluting water sources. The latter was a major concern in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed a landfill’s waste liquid collection system in the Municipality of Juncos in 2017.
As for methane, calculating exactly how much could be released as a result of a dysfunctional landfill gas collection system requires accounting for myriad factors such as the composition of the waste and the climate that it’s in, but the back of the envelope calculations don’t look promising. The Southeast County Landfill near Tampa, for instance, emitted about 100,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (although a Harvard engineering study from earlier this year suggests that this may be a significant underestimate). The EPA estimates that gas collection systems are about 75% effective, which means that the landfill generates a total of about 400,000 metric tons of CO2-worth of methane. If Southeast County Landfill’s gas collection system were to go down completely for even a day, that would mean extra methane emissions of roughly 822 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. That difference amounts to the daily emissions of more than 65,000 cars.
That’s a lot of math. But the takeaway is: Big landfills in the pathway of a destructive storm could end up spewing a lot of methane into the atmosphere. And keep in mind that these numbers are just for one hypothetical landfill with a gas collection system that goes down for one day. The emissions numbers, you can imagine, start to look much worse if you consider the possibility that floodwaters could impede access to infrastructure for even longer.
So stay strong out there, landfills of Florida. You may not be the star of this show, but you’ve got our attention.
https://heatmap.news/sparks/hurricane-milton-landfills
Hurricane disinformation leads to danger, experts say
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Disinformation and conspiracy theories have spread quickly in response to natural disasters in the southeastern United States, creating distrust in the government response, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday call.
The spread of lies surrounding the natural disasters comes at a time when social media infrastructure will allow “virtually any claim” to amplify and spread, experts say.
Hurricane Helene left more than 200 people dead and many more injured or without power, and Hurricane Milton has left at least four dead after ravaging Florida, according to the Associated Press.
Some frequently spread falsehoods include accusations that FEMA prevented Florida evacuations and claims that funding for storm victims was instead given to undocumented migrants.
Such misinformation is “demoralizing” to first responders, Criswell said in the press call.
Additionally, the fabrications could put first responders and residents of impacted areas in even more danger, according to Matthew Baum, a Harvard University professor who focuses on fake news and misinformation.
“When you’re talking about life-and-death situations, [misinformation] can cause people not to take advantage of help that’s available to them, and it can also be dangerous for first responders who are being accused of all sorts of badness,” Baum told VOA. “And if first responders start to worry about their own safety, that’s going to undermine how they do their jobs.”
Many of the other falsehoods stem from former President Donald Trump’s campaign and allies.
In an October 3 rally, the former president falsely claimed that the Biden-Harris administration was diverting FEMA funding to house illegal migrants.
Last week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, claimed that “they control the weather” in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. She did not specify who “they” are.
To combat popular conspiracies surrounding hurricane relief efforts, FEMA launched a “Hurricane Rumor Response” webpage to “help correct rumors and provide accurate information,” according to a press release.
Baum, however, told VOA that those who believe the false claims may not be swayed by the government-funded website, as they are already “deep down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial thinking.”
“I don’t think the website will have a significant effect, but it’s still worth doing because journalists read it and having that information out there gets it into the news ecosystem,” Baum said. “But fundamentally, it’s not likely to reach many of the people that are at risk of being harmed by this disinformation.”
FEMA put up a similar rumor response webpage during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
On social media platforms such as X, misinformation tends to spread faster than true stories, a 2018 MIT study found. False news stories are 70% more likely to be reposted than true ones are.
Media scholar Matt Jordan told VOA the vast amount of disinformation circulating is part of a “firehose of falsehood” strategy, in which bad actors publish so much “garbage” that people don’t know what to believe.
“It’s a way of eliminating the capacity for the press to help generate democratic consensus by just putting so much garbage into the zone,” the Penn State professor said.
U.S. President Joe Biden said during a Tuesday morning briefing that this misinformation “misleads” the public.
“It’s un-American, it really is,” he said in his remarks. “People are scared to death; people know their lives are at stake.”
https://www.voanews.com/a/hurricane-disinformation-leads-to-danger-experts-say/7817837.html
You Could See Dazzling Auroras Tonight as ‘Strong’ Solar Storm Hits. Here’s What to Know
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Predicted to bring the northern lights as far south as parts of California and Alabama, a large coronal mass ejection from the sun collided with our planet Thursday morning
OS/2 TCPBEUI name resolution
date: 2024-10-10, from: OS News
Sometimes I have the following problem to deal with: An OS/2 system uses NetBIOS over TCP/IP (aka TCPBEUI) and should communicate with a SMB server (likewise using TCPBEUI) on a different subnet. This does not work on OS/2 out of the box without a little bit of help. ↫ Michal Necasek My 40° fever certainly isn’t helping, but goes way over my head. Still, it seems like an invaluable article for a small group of people, and anyone playing with OS/2 and networking from here on out can refer back this excellent and detailed explanation.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140896/os-2-tcpbeui-name-resolution/
38C3: Call for Participation hat begonnen
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-11, from: Chaos Computer Club Updates
Die Vorbereitungen für den 38. Chaos Communication Congress sind im vollen Gange und wir freuen uns, euch dazu einzuladen, mit uns das Konferenzprogramm auf den Bühnen zu gestalten, das von Zehntausenden in den Sälen und an den Streams verfolgt wird.
https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2024/38c3-call-for-participation
Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder: An OTPS-Sponsored Workshop
date: 2024-10-10, from: NASA breaking news
OVERVIEW NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS), is hosting a Lunar Autonomy Mobility Pathfinder (LAMP) workshop on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, to provide a community forum to discuss modeling and simulation testbeds in this domain. NASA’s agency chief technologist is organizing the event in coordination with the Space Technology Mission Directorate. With the Artemis […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/otps/lunar-autonomy-mobility-pathfinder-workshop/
Asahi Linux brings support for AAA gaming to Apple Silicon Macs running Linux
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
When Apple’s laptop and desktop computers were shipping with Intel processors, it was relatively easy to port GNU/Linux distributions to run on Apple hardware. Things got trickier when the company switched to designing its own chips in-house. But the folks behind the Asahi Linux team have been busy reverse engineering Apple’s M series processors for […]
The post Asahi Linux brings support for AAA gaming to Apple Silicon Macs running Linux appeared first on Liliputing.
The .io domain isn’t going anywhere anytime soon amid treaty
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
UK-Mauritius handshake holds but Chagos Islands shift could eventually phase out the ccTLD
The .io country code top-level domain (ccTLD) will not disappear anytime soon, at least not within the next five years. Beyond that, its future is uncertain.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/io_domain_uk_mauritius/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Pyramid Flow open source AI video generator launches.
Blinken builds ties with Thailand, Malaysia after turbulence
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
VIENTIANE, LAOS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope Thursday for cooperation with Thailand and Malaysia after recent turbulence as he met their prime ministers at an Asia summit.
In a shift of focus after exhaustive diplomacy on the Middle East crisis, Blinken is representing the United States in Laos at the annual East Asia Summit, which President Joe Biden is skipping for the second straight year.
Blinken met Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 38-year-old heir of a political dynasty who took over a month ago after her predecessor was ousted and the main opposition party dissolved.
Blinken said the United States hoped to work with Shinawatra to “focus on things that we can do to better the lives of our people,” including on the economy, security and climate change.
“The two countries have such an extraordinary history together, and we simply want to build on it,” Blinken told her.
Shinawatra told Blinken of northern Thailand’s recent deadly floods and voiced support for long-term relations with the United States.
Thailand is the oldest U.S. ally in Asia, but Washington has repeatedly criticized its record on democracy, although usually gently.
The State Department voiced alarm in August after a Thai court dissolved the reformist Move Forward Party and banned from politics the kingdom’s most popular politician, Pita Limjaroenrat.
Blinken, wearing a dark blue, traditional Laotian jacket, later met separately with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who has been a vocal critic of U.S. support for Israel.
Neither mentioned the Middle East in brief remarks in the presence of reporters, with Blinken instead noting that the United States is the top foreign investor in Malaysia.
“I think this is a tremendous sign of both trust and confidence, because the investments don’t happen unless there’s tremendous confidence in the country,” Blinken told Anwar.
U.S. officials privately say that they understand the political pressure in the Muslim-majority country and that they seek a cooperative relationship with Anwar, who enjoyed strong advocacy from Washington when he was controversially imprisoned.
Thailand has taken a lead at the Laos summit in seeking diplomatic progress on the crisis engulfing its neighbor Myanmar, whose military junta sent a representative to a top-level Southeast Asian gathering for the first time in more than three years.
The United States, while backing diplomatic efforts, said it would press for sustained pressure on the junta, seeing no progress on key concerns such as freeing political prisoners and reducing violence.
Blinken, who met two weeks ago with his Chinese counterpart in New York, will also back efforts by Southeast Asia to raise concerns with Beijing about its actions in the South China Sea.
The summit marks a rare occasion in which Blinken is in the same room as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but no talks between the two are expected.
The Biden administration, including presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, has ruled out talks with Russia on its invasion of Ukraine without involving Kyiv.
https://www.voanews.com/a/blinken-builds-ties-with-thailand-malaysia-after-turbulence/7817731.html
Intel Arrow Lake-S desktop chips can match Raptor Lake-R performance using half as much power
date: 2024-10-10, from: Liliputing
Intel’s new Core Ultra 200S series processors, also known by the code-name Arrow Lake-S, are designed to do two things: offer significant gains in CPU, graphics, and AI performance and also reduce power consumption. The chip maker says that the new chips can deliver 15 percent better multithreaded CPU performance than previous-gen Raptor Lake Refresh […]
The post Intel Arrow Lake-S desktop chips can match Raptor Lake-R performance using half as much power appeared first on Liliputing.
Ethel Kennedy, social activist and widow of Robert F. Kennedy, dies at 96
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
Boston, Massachusetts — Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died on Thursday, her family said. She was 96.
Kennedy had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke in her sleep on Oct. 3, her family said.
“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III posted on X. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week.”
“Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-great grandchildren along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the family statement said.
The Kennedy matriarch, whose children were Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a generation that included President John F. Kennedy. Her family said she had recently enjoyed seeing many of her relatives, before falling ill.
A millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950, Ethel Kennedy had endured more death by the age of 40, for the whole world to see, than most would in a lifetime.
She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California. Her brother-in-law, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.
Her parents were killed in a plane crash in 1955, and her brother died in a 1966 crash. Her son David Kennedy later died of a drug overdose, son Michael Kennedy in a skiing accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash. Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was found guilty of murder in 2002, although a judge in 2013 ordered a new trial and the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated his conviction in 2018.
In 2019, she was grieving again after granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent drug overdose.
“One wonders how much this family must be expected to absorb,” family friend Philip Johnson, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation, told the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s death.
Ethel Kennedy sustained herself through her faith and devotion to family.
“She was a devout Catholic and a daily communicant, and we are comforted in knowing she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert. F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saorise and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie. Please keep our mother in your hearts and prayers,” the family statement said.
Ethel’s mother-in-law, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, initially worried about how she would handle so much tragedy.
“I knew how difficult it was going to be for her to raise that big family without the guiding role and influence that Bobby would have provided,” Rose recalled in her memoir, “Times to Remember.” “And, of course, she realized this too, fully and keenly. Yet she did not give way.”
She founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after husband’s death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination. When her filmmaker daughter, Rory, brought it up in the 2012 HBO documentary, “Ethel,” she couldn’t share her grief.
“When we lost Daddy …” she began, then teared up and asked that her youngest daughter “talk about something else.”
Presidential Medal of Freedom
In 2008, she joined brother-in-law Ted Kennedy and niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, likening him to her late husband. She made several trips to the White House during the Obama years, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 and meeting Pope Francis in 2015.
Many of her progeny became well known. Daughter Kathleen became lieutenant governor of Maryland; Joseph represented Massachusetts in Congress; Courtney married Paul Hill, who had been wrongfully convicted of an IRA bombing; Kerry became a human rights activist and president of the RFK center; Christopher ran for governor of Illinois; Max served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and Douglas reported for Fox News Channel.
Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also became a national figure, although not as a liberal in the family tradition. First known as an environmental lawyer, he evolved into a conspiracy theorist who spread false theories about vaccines. He ran for president as an independent after briefly challenging President Joe Biden, and his name remained on ballots in multiple states after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump.
Ethel Kennedy did not comment publicly on her son’s actions, although several other family members denounced him.
Decades earlier, she seemed to thrive on her in-laws’ rising power. She was an enthusiastic backer of JFK’s 1960 run and during the Kennedy administration hosted some of the era’s most well-attended parties at their Hickory Hill estate in McLean, Virginia, including one where historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was pushed fully clothed into the swimming pool. In the Kennedy spirit, she also was known as an avid and highly competitive tennis player and a compulsive planner.
“Petite and peppy Ethel, who doesn’t look one bit the outdoorsy type, considers outdoor activity so important for the children that she has arranged her busy Cabinet-wife schedule so she can personally take them on two daily outings,” The Washington Post reported in 1962.
In February of that year, she accompanied her husband on a round-the-world goodwill tour, stopping in Japan, Hong Kong, Italy and other countries. She said it was important for Americans to meet ordinary people overseas.
“People have a distinct liking for Americans,” she told the Post. “But the Communists have been so vocal, it was a surprise for some Asians to hear America’s point of view. It is good for Americans to travel and get our viewpoint across.”
Kennedy was born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, in Chicago, the sixth of seven children of coal magnate George Skakel and Ann Brannack Skakel, a devout Roman Catholic. She grew up in a 31-room English country manor house in Greenwich, Connecticut, and attended Greenwich Academy before graduating from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in the Bronx in 1945.
She met Robert Kennedy through his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville College in New York. They moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he finished his last year of law school at the University of Virginia, and then in 1957, they bought Hickory Hill from by John and Jacqueline Kennedy, who had bought it in 1953.
Robert Kennedy became chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee in 1957. He later was appointed attorney general by his brother, the newly elected President Kennedy.
She had supported her husband in his successful 1964 campaign for the U.S. Senate in New York and his subsequent presidential bid. Pregnant with their 11th child when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, her look of shock and horror was captured by photographers in images that remained indelible decades later.
The assassination traumatized the family, especially son David Kennedy, who watched the news in a hotel room. He was just days before his 13th birthday and never recovered, struggling with addiction problems for years and overdosing in 1984.
In 2021, she said Sirhan Sirhan should not be released from prison, a view not shared by some others in her family. Two years later, a California panel denied him parole.
Although Ethel Kennedy was linked to several men after her husband’s death, most notably singer Andy Williams, she never remarried.
In April 2008, Ethel Kennedy visited Indianapolis on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. A monument there commemorated King’s death and the speech her husband had given that night in 1968, which was credited with averting rioting in the city.
“Of all the Kennedy women, she was the one I would end up admiring the most,” Harry Belafonte would write of her. “She wasn’t playacting. She looked at you and immediately got what you were about. Often in the coming years, when Bobby was balking at something we wanted him to do for the movement, I’d take my case to Ethel. ‘We have to talk to him,’ she’d say, and she would.”
Ethel Kennedy joined President Obama and former President Bill Clinton — each held one of her hands — as they climbed stairs to lay a wreath at President Kennedy’s gravesite during a November 2013 observance of the 50th anniversary of JFK’s death.
The nonprofit center she founded remains dedicated to advancing human rights through litigation, advocacy, education and inspiration, giving annual awards to journalists, authors and others who have made significant contributions to human rights.
She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps. And she showed up in person, participating in a 2016 demonstration in support of higher pay for farmworkers in Florida and a 2018 hunger strike against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Hickory Hill was sold in 2009 for $8.25 million, and Ethel Kennedy divided her time between homes in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida.
into the wreck
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: Robin Rendle Essays
https://robinrendle.com/notes/into-the-wreck/
Seniors Move and Dance to Build Brain Health
date: 2024-10-10, from: Capital and Main
In the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, classes at a community art center help to prevent and manage Parkinson’s and other age-related illnesses.
The post Seniors Move and Dance to Build Brain Health appeared first on .
https://capitalandmain.com/seniors-move-and-dance-to-build-brain-health
Rome’s Trevi Fountain Will Get a Much-Needed Cleaning—and a Controversial New Entry Fee
date: 2024-10-10, from: Smithsonian Magazine
During the restorations, visitors will be able to see the famous site via a temporary walkway, which officials will use to study the flow of foot traffic
SAP promises developer ‘fusion teams’ in cloud low-code environment
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
But projects must be completed in old desktop IDE
TechEd Enterprise software giant SAP is set to introduce a slew of features for developers on its platform, promising AI agents, knowledge graph, and cloud-based integration features in SAP’s low code-development environment Build.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/sap_promise_developer_fusion_teams/
There’s gold in them there central banks!
date: 2024-10-10, from: Marketplace Morning Report
The value of gold is up 28% since the beginning of the year. And while some see the precious metal as shiny and pretty, central banks around the globe view it differently — as a safe asset during a time of geopolitical tensions. Also on the program: We’ll discuss how markets are responding to this morning’s inflation data, and we’ll hear about a lawsuit against some top universities for alleged financial aid price-fixing.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/theres-gold-in-them-there-central-banks
Ultra-Portable Data Center: Part Two
date: 2024-10-10, from: mrusme blog
After over four years, I am simplifying the UPDC to make it more lightweight, more portable, and less in the way. This is a status update on the Ultra-Portable Data Center.
https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/ultra-portable-data-center-part-two/
Sick Of Fake Meat
date: 2024-10-10, from: Tedium site
On meat analogues and the way that lucrative algorithm waves gradually burn us out on our interests. Call it an “interest analogue.”
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16839342/social-media-algorithms-fake-interests
Arrow Lake splashdown: Intel pins hopes on replacement for Raptors
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-11, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
New silicon, new architecture, and loads of new motherboards rise to support it, but will power be anchored down?
Back in September 2023, Intel unveiled its newly designed Meteor Lake SoC for the mobile market, which was the first disaggregated chip for mobile using multiple tiled packaging. While in consensus opinion indicates Meteor Lake flopped, it did pave the way for Intel to try new things in the consumer space.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/intel_arrow_lake_deep_dive/
In photos: Hurricane Milton slams Florida
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/in-photos-hurricane-milton-bears-down-on-florida/7817525.html
US inflation reaches lowest point since February 2021, though price pressures remain
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States dropped last month to its lowest point since it first began surging more than three years ago, adding to a spate of encouraging economic news in the closing weeks of the presidential race.
Consumer prices rose 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August, and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.
But excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices, a gauge of underlying inflation, remained elevated in September, driven higher by rising costs for medical care, clothing, auto insurance and airline fares. Core prices in September were up 3.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from August. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better hint of future inflation.
Taken as a whole, the September figures show that inflation is steadily easing back to the Fed’s 2% target, even if in a gradual and uneven pattern. Apartment rental costs grew more slowly last month, a sign that housing inflation is finally cooling, a long-awaited development that would provide relief to many consumers.
Overall inflation last month was held down by a big drop in gas prices, which fell 4.1% from August to September. Grocery prices jumped 0.4% last month, after roughly a year of mild increases, though they’re 1.3% higher than a year earlier.
Restaurant food prices increased 0.3% last month and are up 3.9% in the past year. And clothing prices rose 1.1% from August to September and are up 1.8% from a year ago.
The improving inflation picture follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%. The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. Growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter.
Cooling inflation, solid hiring and healthy growth could erode former President Donald Trump’s advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls. In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue.
At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years.
For the Fed, last week’s much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently. The central bank reduced its key rate by an outsized half-point last month, its first rate cut of any size in four years. The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they envisioned two additional quarter-point rate cuts in November and December.
In remarks this week, a slew of Fed officials have said they’re still willing to keep cutting their key rate but at a deliberate pace, a signal that any further half-point cuts are unlikely.
The Fed “should not rush to reduce” its benchmark rate “but rather should proceed gradually,” Lorie Logan, president of the Federal Reserve’s Dallas branch, said in a speech Wednesday.
Inflation in the United States and many countries in Europe and Latin America surged in the economic recovery from the pandemic, as COVID closed factories and clogged supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened energy and food shortages, pushing inflation higher. It peaked at 9.1% in the U.S. in June 2022.
Economists at Goldman Sachs projected earlier this week that core inflation will drop to 3% by December 2024. And few analysts expect inflation to surge again unless conflicts in the Middle East worsen dramatically.
Though higher prices have soured many Americans on the economy, wages and incomes are now rising faster than costs and should make it easier for households to adapt. Last month, the Census Bureau reported that inflation-adjusted median household incomes — the level at which half of households are above and half below — rose 4% in 2023, enough to return incomes back to their pre-pandemic peak.
In response to higher food prices, many consumers have shifted their spending from name brands to private labels or have started shopping more at discount stores. Those changes have put more pressure on packaged foods companies, for example, to slow their price hikes.
This week, PepsiCo reported that its sales volumes fell after it imposed steep price increases on its drinks and snacks.
Book of Making 2025 on sale now: build superb projects from plant monitors to rockets
date: 2024-10-10, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
Learn how to recreate all of the best projects from HackSpace magazine with the Book of Making 2025.
The post Book of Making 2025 on sale now: build superb projects from plant monitors to rockets appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Fore-get about privacy, golf tech biz leaves 32M data records on the fairway
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Researcher spots 110 TB of sensitive info sitting in unprotected database
Nearly 32 million records belonging to users of tech from Trackman were left exposed to the internet, sitting in a non-password protected database, for an undetermined amount of time, according to researcher Jeremiah Fowler.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/trackman_unprotected_database/
Dookie Demastered
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: One Foot Tsunami
https://onefoottsunami.com/2024/10/10/dookie-demastered/
DC’s Hirshhorn Museum bustles with bright Brazilian art
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
The vibrant world of yellow-skinned giants, surreal landscapes and a massive mechanical zoetrope have taken over the Hirshhorn Museum in the largest U.S. showcase of work by Brazilian twin brothers OSGEMEOS. It’s the most comprehensive display of the siblings’ art ever presented in the United States. Maxim Adams has the story. Camera: Sergii Dogotar.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dc-hirshhorn-museum-bustles-with-bright-brazilian-art/7817502.html
CISA adds fresh Ivanti vuln, critical Fortinet bug to hall of shame
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Usual three-week window to address significant risks to federal agencies applies
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says vulnerabilities in Fortinet and Ivanti products are now being exploited, earning them places in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/cisa_ivanti_fortinet_vulns/
oberon@gitlab.inf.ethz.ch pushed to project branch main at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: Oberon A2 repository
oberon@gitlab.inf.ethz.ch (4213ac1a) at 10 Oct 15:15
handle an unaccounted case
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/commit/4213ac1ada7f4a1e080fb4c948cc07e24a20e224
‘I Applied to 2,843 Roles’: The Rise of AI-Powered Job Application Bots
date: 2024-10-10, from: 404 Media Group
Using AI Hawk’s Auto Jobs Applier bot, I applied for 17 jobs in an hour on LinkedIn.
https://www.404media.co/i-applied-to-2-843-roles-the-rise-of-ai-powered-job-application-bots/
What Hurricane Milton Left Behind
date: 2024-10-10, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: Large parts of Pennsylvania are under a frost advisory today and tomorrow • The remnants of Hurricane Kirk killed at least one person in France • A severe solar storm is expected to hit Earth today.
THE TOP FIVE
- Hurricane Milton moves toward Atlantic after slamming into Florida
Hurricane Milton is headed out to the Atlantic after raking across Florida overnight, and as the sun comes up, residents are assessing the damage left in its wake. Milton made landfall near Sarasota as a Category 3 storm, bringing heavy rainfall, dangerous winds, and flooding. St. Petersburg reported 16 inches of rain, which meteorologists say is a 1-in-1,000-year event. The storm also triggered more than 130 tornado warnings, possibly a new record. The Tropicana Field Stadium in Tampa sustained significant damage. While deaths have been reported, it’s not yet clear how many. More than 3 million people are without power.
Before the storm hit, the Florida Department of Financial Services issued a rule that requires insurance claims adjusters to provide an explanation for any changes they make to a claimant’s loss estimate, The Washington Post reported, calling the move “a groundbreaking win for policyholders.”
- WWF report charts steep wildlife population decline
The World Wide Fund for Nature published its 2024 Living Planet Report yesterday, which tracks nearly 5,500 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles all over the world. It found that wildlife populations plummeted by about 73% between 1970 and 2020, as illustrated in this rather bleak but very effective chart:
WWF
Latin America, which is home to some of the most biodiverse regions in the world, saw the worst losses, at 95%. Freshwater species experienced the greatest decline at 85%. There are some success stories, such as a 3% increase in the mountain gorilla population, and the incredible comeback of the European Bison, but generally the report is pretty heartbreaking. It underscores the interconnected nature of the climate crisis and nature destruction. “It really does indicate to us that the fabric of nature is unraveling,” said Rebecca Shaw, WWF’s chief scientist. The report comes days ahead of the start of the UN COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia, where delegates will discuss concrete ways to stop biodiversity loss.
- CEOs publish letter urging more government action on climate
More than 100 CEOs from some of the world’s biggest corporations have published a letter urging governments and the private sector to boost efforts to keep Paris Agreement goals alive. The letter, signed by the heads of companies including Ikea, AstraZeneca, A.P. Moller-Maersk, Bain & Company, Iberdrola, Orsted, and Volvo Cars, calls for governments to:
- put forward aggressive and transparent new emission reduction plans
- scale up climate finance including expanding the use of carbon pricing and phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies
- eliminate permitting barriers for renewable projects
- enact policies to help create a market for and scale breakthrough technologies
- IMO boss says shipping industry must target ‘low hanging fruit’ to
get reduce emissions
The head of the International Maritime Organization this week called on the shipping industry to do more to cut emissions from the sector. Shipping accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The IMO recently set a new industry-wide target of a 20% emissions reduction by 2030, and net-zero by 2050. But the IMO’s Arsenio Dominguez said there is more to be done to hit these goals. That includes “low hanging fruit” like reducing ship speed, charting routes according to the weather, and cleaning the hulls of ships to reduce friction, The Associated Press reported. But in the long-term, he said, the industry will need to switch to cleaner fuels, which have yet to scale.
- Form Energy raises $405 million for iron-air battery tech
Long-duration energy storage startup Form Energy, closed a $405 million Series F funding round this week, bringing its total funding to more than $1.2 billion. Form uses a novel method for storing energy, combining iron and oxygen to make rust, a process that the company claims can be used to store and discharge up to 100 hours of battery power. As renewable energy production ramps up, new ways of storing variable energy from wind and solar is essential, and Form’s latest fundraising underscores this need. Canary Media reported that Form’s technology isn’t proven at utility scale yet but the company is working on commercial deployments and broke ground on a project in August to provide energy to a utility in Minnesota.
THE KICKER
Some dragonfly species have evolved to have darker wing spots as a breeding advantage. A new study finds these dragonflies have also evolved to be able to withstand higher temperatures.
Noah
Leith
https://heatmap.news/climate/hurricane-milton-florida-damage
PC shipments stuck in neutral despite AI buzz
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Analysts can't agree whether market is marginally up or down
The PC market is not showing many signs of a rebound, despite the hype around AI PCs, with market watchers split over whether unit shipments are up or down slightly.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/pc_market_gartner_canalys/
@Chris Coyier blog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Chris Coyier blog)
I’m certainly not above government criticism nor do I think lying for political gain is a new trick. I am bummed that a website needs to exist called Hurricane Rumor Response from FEMA in order to combat a barrage of lies accusing them of everything stealing donations to literally preventing aid. Hey, I’m not on […]
https://chriscoyier.net/2024/10/10/11592/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
You aren't upset enough about the war on hyperlinks.
https://www.hottakes.space/p/you-arent-upset-enough-about-the
What shoppers really want is some disinflation
date: 2024-10-10, from: Marketplace Morning Report
Later this morning, we’ll get the consumer price index for September. While inflation is way down from its peak in June 2022, consumers are frustrated with persistently high prices. We’ll hear more. Plus, how does a Nobel win in literature influence book sales? We’ll hear from the publishers of last year’s Nobel laureate, Norwegian playwright and author Jon Fosse, about how they dealt with a surge in demand.
Mozilla patches critical Firefox vuln that attackers are already exploiting
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Firefixed: It's maintenance time for low-complexity, high-impact security flaw
It's patch time for Firefox fans as Mozilla issues a security advisory for a critical code execution vulnerability in the browser.…
Tributes paid to former Tata Group boss
date: 2024-10-10, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Ratan Tata was one of India’s most internationally recognized industrialists. The tycoon oversaw a 50-fold rise in profits in his two decades as chairman of Tata Group and acquired brands like carmaker Jaguar Land Rover. He died at age 86. Also: How is Swedish furniture giant Ikea going to hit its eco targets? Plus, the drugmaker behind Zantac agrees to a huge payout.
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/tributes-paid-to-former-tata-group-boss
Version 7.6 – the ‘OpenBSD of Theseus’ – released
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Ideal for black-clad ultra-minimalist types. You probably wouldn't like it
OpenBSD is arguably the most secure general-purpose OS for general-purpose computers. This version has better laptop support, includes more Arm64 kit, and brings hardware-accelerated video playback.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/version_76_openbsd_of_theseus/
Category 3 Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
Hurricane Milton left behind widespread destruction as it hit Florida on Wednesday as a dangerous Category 3 storm – the second time in two weeks the southeastern state was hit by a powerful hurricane. VOA’s Richard Green has the latest.
https://www.voanews.com/a/category-3-hurricane-milton-makes-landfall-in-florida/7817255.html
Advania UK gobbles up IT services rival CCS Media
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Acquisition signals consolidation in the market
Exclusive The consolidation of the British tech services market is continuing with Advania UK's acquisition of CCS Media.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/advania_acquires_ccs_media/
Post Office CEO tells inquiry: Leadership was in ‘dream world’ over Horizon scandal
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Hired in 2019, he claims the recruitment failed to mention ongoing litigation
The chief executive of the Post Office has agreed the organization's leadership team was living in a "dream world" in the months leading up to the launch of a statutory inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in UK history.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/post_office_ceo_inquiry/
Hold my Pimms! Wimbledon turns to tech for line-ball calls
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Humans dumped by famously fusty tennis tournament
The All England Lawn Tennis Club, organizer of the famed Wimbledon tennis tournament, will make line-ball calls with machines instead of human in 2025.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/wimbledon_drops_human_line_judges/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Obama in 2009 had a chance: “People around the campaign were BEGGING him to keep the movement infrastructure alive and he scuttled it for a strategy of glazing of the biggest shitstains in the world.” Obama went for the money, not the people, and we lost.
https://bsky.app/profile/sweatpants.bsky.social/post/3l625ek3tt32r
Dutch cops reveal takedown of ‘world’s largest dark web market’
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Two arrested after allegedly trying to make off with their ill-gotten gains
The alleged administrators of the infamous Bohemia and Cannabia dark web marketplaces have been arrested after apparently shuttering the sites and trying to flee with their earnings.…
Florida residents assess Hurricane Milton’s destruction
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/powerful-hurricane-milton-hits-florida/7817200.html
You have issues with ‘Issues’ always being called ‘Issues’ in Jira, so Atlassian now allows them to be called ‘Tasks’
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Developers get auto-coding ideas drawn from bug reports, and more AI besides
Atlassian has debuted a new cut of its project management and bug-tracking tool Jira, which for the first time allows users to deal with things other than “issues”.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/atlassian_jira_issues/
OpenAI says Chinese gang tried to phish its staff
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Claims its models aren't making threat actors more sophisticated - but is helping debug their code
OpenAI has alleged the company disrupted a spear-phishing campaign that saw a China-based group target its employees through both their personal and corporate email addresses.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/china_phish_openai/
What is an October surprise?
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
Expect the unexpected, especially during the month before a U.S. presidential election. It’s called an October surprise.
https://www.voanews.com/a/what-is-an-october-surprise-/7817161.html
Biden leads officials in warning Floridians as Hurricane Milton approaches
date: 2024-10-10, from: VOA News USA
US President Joe Biden warned Wednesday about the ‘storm of the century’ as Hurricane Milton churned toward Florida’s western coast. He and the head of his disaster management agency urged residents to evacuate — as did local officials who spoke to VOA on Wednesday. VOA’s Anita Powell and Jose Pernalete report from Washington and Pinellas County, Florida.
Internet Archive user info stolen in cyberattack, succumbs to DDoS
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
31M folks' usernames, email addresses, salted-encrypted passwords now out there
The Internet Archive had a bad day on the infosec front, after being DDoSed and having had its user account data stolen in a security breach.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/10/10/internet_archive_ddos_data_theft/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-10-10, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Top Trump Media Execs Ousted as CEO Devin Nunes Faces Mismanagement Allegations.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-media-truth-social-executives-ousted-devin-nunes
What is entropix doing?
date: 2024-10-10, updated: 2024-10-10, from: Tom Kellog blog
Entropix has been getting a ton of buzz lately. With all the hype, it’s hard to tell if there’s anything real that’s worth paying attention to.