The Micro Blog

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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 24.Apr.2024

The New Yorker: Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation

How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out.

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I thought I just had bad luck, until a conversation with Resy’s C.E.O., Pablo Rivero, clarified things. Over dinner at Txikito, a buzzy Basque restaurant in Chelsea, he explained that I would likely always be near the bottom of the Notify queue. After American Express acquired Resy, in 2019, anyone with a fancy Amex card — Centurion, Platinum, Reserve, or Aspire — has an advantage. If you have one of these cards (Centurion: ten-thousand-dollar initiation fee, five thousand dollars per year), Rivero said, “You will get a Resy notification before other people do.” (He also said, somewhat puzzlingly, “What we are trying to do is, honestly, democratize dining a bit more.”)

Some restaurants sort their virtual waiting lists themselves, without help from Amex. These managers cherry-pick V.I.P.s and regulars from their Notify queues. SevenRooms, Resy’s newest competitor, has a tool that has largely automated that process: an algorithm picks which diners get priority push notifications about late openings. The criteria include how often a diner visits, how big his or her tabs are, how much wine and dessert are ordered, and tip size.

TorStar: Blame, regret in collapse of York’s ‘biggest mafia takedown’

Defence lawyers argued the charges should be stayed due to police misconduct. For police, the decision to abandon the prosecution caused “heartache.”

TorStar: ‘Uptick’ in cottage listings expected on capital gains rules

A couple who inherited their waterfront property from parents in the early 1980s when the average cost of a cottage was around $75,000, could have a property with a fair market value today of over $1,000,000, according to Royal LePage’s 2024 spring recreational property report. That would represent a $925,000 capital gain upon disposition of the cottage in a sale or even by gifting the cottage to the kids, resulting in a total taxable income of $533,475. Taxed at the higher rate, the change could add an extra $70,000 to an inheritor’s tax bill.

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“We’ll definitely see an uptick of listings,” he said. “Whether that equates to sales is the bigger question. There’s double the amount of inventory in Ontario now compared to a year ago and they’re spending double the amount of time on the market.”

Globe: Ontario to permanently raise speed limit on 10 sections of highways across province

The increased speed limits will cover 860 kilometres, or about 36 per cent, of Ontario’s highways.

Globe: Welsh reversal of lower speed limits marks latest U-turn on U.K. green policies

Last week the Scottish government abandoned its flagship target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, citing budgetary pressures. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also scrapped or delayed several green pledges, including the phasing out of gasoline-powered cars, out of concern the measures would hit taxpayers’ pocketbooks too hard. And London Mayor Sadiq Khan has faced growing discontent over the city’s extension of its ultralow emission zone, which charges drivers £12.50 a day ($21.13) if their car fails to meet emission standards.

The Welsh government announced the lower speed limit last September with great fanfare.

Months of testing and a host of studies showed that a 20 mph limit would reduce the number of accidents by 40 per cent annually and save as many as 10 lives a year. It would also improve air quality because driving dynamics at lower speeds make cars more efficient.

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The turnaround has not been universally welcomed. Cardiff Cycle City, which promotes more bike lanes, said it was alarmed by Mr. Skates’s announcement. “Lowering the speed of motor vehicles in our communities is a fundamentally good thing to do. It makes sense environmentally and from a road safety perspective,” the group said in a statement. “It appears that Mr. Skates has succumbed to pressure from a tiny but vocal political minority.”

Globe: Letters for April 24: New Prescription

New Prescription

The provision of health care in Canada is a provincial responsibility.

In Ontario, for example, it is because of the health care policies of successive governments that there is a major shortage of family physicians and nurses and a low level of care for the elderly; that among regions of countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Ontario has one of the lowest number of hospital beds per capita and one of the lowest financing levels of health care.

Yes, the Canada Health Act should be reviewed and renewed. That, however, will require tough negotiating with pharmaceutical and health insurance corporations, as well as the Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Dental Association, whose priorities, I believe, are in maintaining wealth and power.

The problems are clear to me. Aligning national, provincial and sectoral interests and responsibilities will be difficult and drawn out, but we should make a start.

**Mervyn Russell **Oakville, Ont.

CBC: Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about ‘everything’

In video filmed by the protesters, who have been living at the site for three weeks, Poilievre tells the group to “keep it up” and calls their protest “a good, old-fashioned Canadian tax revolt.”

“Everyone hates the tax because everyone’s been screwed over,” Poilievre is heard saying in the video, which shows protesters with “Axe the tax” and “F–k Trudeau ” signs and flags. A car with ‘Make Canada Great Again’ scrawled on the rear window is seen parked at the site.

“People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.”

Yes, very prime ministerial.

Tom’s Guide: My favorite show of the year is No.1 on Netflix — and it’s 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

It’s been a strong year for new TV shows so far with the likes of Fallout, Shogun and Mr. & Mrs. Smith all earning well-deserved critical acclaim and plenty of audience attention. But Netflix’s “Baby Reindeer” has surpassed them all to become my favorite show of 2024 yet. That’s a testament to the quality of this dark thriller.

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Not only is Baby Reindeer a hit with viewers, but critics are raving about this one too. The Show currently holds a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes with the site’s “critics consensus” stating, “*Baby Reindeer*can be a punishing watch but richly rewards viewers with its emotional complexity and excellent performances.”

NYT: Inside the Crisis at NPR

Listeners are tuning out. Sponsorship revenue has dipped. A diversity push has generated internal turmoil. Can America’s public radio network turn things around?

Amazon: Texfake: An Account of the Theft and Forgery of Early Texas Printed Documents

Texfake is the result of three years of investigation into the scandal surrounding the 1988 discovery of forged copies of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The New York Times, Texas Monthly, and The New Yorker all carried articles on the affair, but this is the definitive account of the history and impact of the Texas forger and his wares.

Austin rare book dealer Taylor lays out the facts concerning the forgeries: who made them; when and how they were made; how they were discovered; and whether or not the dealers involved know what they were selling. He also reveals for the first time the devastating impact of the looting of Texas libraries by thieves in the 1960s.

WheresYourEd.at: The Man Who Killed Google Search

A day later, Gomes emailed Fox and Thakur an email he intended to send to Raghavan. He led by saying he was “annoyed both personally and on behalf of the search team.” in a long email, he explained how one might increase engagement with Google Search, but specifically added that they could “increase queries quite easily in the short term in user negative ways,” like turning off spell correction, turning off ranking improvements, or placing refinements — effectively labels — all over the page, adding that it was “possible that there are trade offs here between different kinds of user negativity caused by engagement hacking,” and that he was “deeply deeply uncomfortable with this.” He also added that this was the reason he didn’t believe that queries were a good metric to measure search and that the best defense about the weakness of queries was to create “compelling user experiences that make users want to come back.”

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Five months later, a little over a year after the Code Yellow debacle, Google would make Prabhakar Raghavan the head of Google Search, with Jerry Dischler taking his place as head of ads. After nearly 20 years of building Google Search, Gomes would be relegated to SVP of Education at Google. Gomes, who was a critical part of the original team that made Google Search work, Google would make Prabhakar Raghavan the head of Google Search, was chased out by a growth-hungry managerial types led by Prabhakar Raghavan, a management consultant wearing an engineer costume.

A quick note: I used “management consultant” there as a pejorative. While he exhibits all the same bean-counting, morally-unguided behaviors of a management consultant, from what I can tell Raghavan has never actually worked in that particular sector of the economy.

Last Updated: 24.Apr.2024 23:59 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Tuesday 23.Apr.2024

WashPo: Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Yale, NYU as campus protests spread

Columbia University canceled in-person classes, police arrested dozens of protesters at Yale and New York universities, and pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up encampments at other colleges Monday as tensions flared again on campuses across the country over the Israel-Gaza war.

Students at many schools are escalating protests over the war, living in tents on campus, disrupting university events, and risking and provoking arrest, leading to a growing sense of chaos and crackdown at colleges in the waning days of the academic year. College leaders are facing intense scrutiny over whether they are doing enough to protect students, faculty and staff against alleged antisemitism and other bias since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and resulting war — even as they confront scathing criticism from those who say they’re denying students’ right to speak out and censoring political protests.

WashPo: Brown University will require SAT scores again

The Ivy League school will continue to offer early decision and legacy preferences in admissions.

WashPo: Brown University will require SAT scores again

Brown University will again require that applicants submit standardized-test scores, university officials announced Tuesday, making it the third Ivy League school to reinstate that pre-pandemic admission norm in recent weeks.

The school will continue to give an advantage to applicants whose parents attended or work at Brown, and will still allow students to apply early, if they choose.

Like officials at Yale University and Dartmouth College, both of which recently announced they would resume requiring standardized tests from applicants, officials at Brown said research indicated that SAT and ACT scores are highly predictive of students’ academic performance in college. Brown Provost Francis J. Doyle III, who co-chaired a committee studying admissions policies, said in an interview Tuesday that removing the testing requirement made it more difficult for admissions officers to assess whether Brown hopefuls were likely to thrive at the school. He said reinstating the requirement will make the admissions office more “effective.”

Australian prime minister labels Elon Musk ‘an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law’

Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.

On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.

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The United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet posted two versions of the video on both X and Facebook on Monday. One video was posted on its own, while the other was embedded within his commentary about the attack.

iPhone in Canada: Apple iPhone Sales in China Slumped 19% During Q1 2024

Apple saw iPhone sales in China drop 19.1% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2024, according to data from market tracker Counterpoint Research.

The Chinese smartphone market as a whole rebounded, growing 1.9% year-over-year and 4.6% quarter-over-quarter. “Q1 2024 was the most competitive quarter ever, with only 3% points separating the top six players in terms of market share,” said Counterpoint Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.

Verge: Amazon makes checking for its AI watermarks available for all Bedrock users.

People using Amazon’s AI library can check if an image was made with Amazon’s Titan Image Generator, which is now publicly available. Right now, the platform will only check Amazon’s own watermarks and not other developers.

9to5Mac: Protect against iPhone password reset attacks: How-to

One of the latest attacks on iPhone sees malicious parties abuse the Apple ID password reset system to inundate users with iOS prompts to take over their accounts. Here’s how you can protect against iPhone password reset attacks (often called “MFA bombing”).

We’ve recently heard about Apple users being targeted with MFA bombing (also called MFA fatigue or push bombing). It’s not a new attack, but it can be a convincing scam as it pushes official iOS password reset prompts to victims.

As detailed by Krebs on Security (via Parth Patel), attackers abusing this vulnerability appear to be doing so through an Apple user’s phone number which can bomb your iPhone and other Apple devices with 100+ MFA (multi-factor authentication) system prompts to reset your Apple ID password.

Ars Technica: Apple’s next product event happens on May 7, and it’s probably iPads

Reports point to a new OLED iPad Pro with M3 and a big-screened iPad Air.

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The new iPads would be Apple’s first in well over a year–the company didn’t announce a single new tablet through the entirety of 2023, the first year without an iPad since the original tablet was announced back in 2010.

Ars Technica: NASA officially greenlights $3.35 billion mission to Saturn’s moon Titan

NASA has formally approved the robotic Dragonfly mission for full development, committing to a revolutionary project to explore Saturn’s largest moon with a quadcopter drone.

Ars Technica: After 48 years, Zilog is killing the classic standalone Z80 microprocessor chip

Last week, chip manufacturer Zilog announced that after 48 years on the market, its line of standalone DIP (dual inline package) Z80 CPUs is coming to an end, ceasing sales on June 14, 2024. The 8-bit Z80 architecture debuted in 1976 and powered a small-business-PC revolution in conjunction with CP/M, also serving as the heart of the Nintendo Game Boy, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Pac-Man arcade game, and the TI-83 graphing calculator in various forms.

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Zilog will continue to manufacture the eZ80 microcontroller family, which was introduced in 2001 as a faster version of the Z80 series and comes in different physical package configurations (pin layouts).

CNN: How Johnson came to embrace Ukraine aid and defy his right flank

On Tuesday, Johnson sat in his office as members streamed in to voice their complaints and level their demands. By nighttime, he was wrestling how to proceed. Feeling the weight of his future and knowing history was watching him, Johnson, a devout Christian, turned to prayer.

“He was torn between trying to save his job and do the right thing,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a top Ukraine advocate who was with Johnson the night before the legislation was released, told CNN. “He prayed over it.”

Well, that and an important briefing…

And more recently, Johnson received a key intelligence briefing from CIA Director Bill Burns, who painted a picture of the dire situation on the battlefield in Ukraine and the global consequences of inaction, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. The briefing left a lasting impression, and Johnson became increasingly convinced the fate of Western democracy was on his shoulders, sources close to him said.

*WashP*o: Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem.

Free link

In sunny California, solar panels are everywhere. They sit in dry, desert landscapes in the Central Valley and are scattered over rooftops in Los Angeles’s urban center. By last count, the state had nearly 47 gigawatts of solar power installed — enough to power 13.9 million homes and provide over a quarter of the Golden State’s electricity.

But now, the state and its grid operator are grappling with a strange reality: There is so much solar on the grid that, on sunny spring days when there’s not as much demand, electricity prices go negative. Gigawatts of solar are “curtailed” — essentially, thrown away.

A better problem to have than climate change!

Kottke: Cool Art: Naja Tepe’s Pottery

In the spirit of recommending things I truly love, I wanted to highlight the pottery of Northern California artist Naja Tepe. I’ve ordered from her twice now, and her work is fabulous. I love her strawberry-themed items, but the crescent moon on the plate in her most recent Instagram post (upper right in the composite above) made me want to have everything it appears on, too. Great for gifts. I don’t think my mom reads this site, so I will therefore reveal that I got her a Naja Tepe item for her birthday this year.

Last Updated: 23.Apr.2024 22:54 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Monday 22.Apr.2024

NYT: Let Them Eat … Everything

She asserts her own right to be “fat,” the preferred adjective in her corner of the internet. In Sole-Smith’s house there are neither “good” or “bad” foods nor “healthy” or “unhealthy” ones; doughnuts and kale hold equivalent moral value and no one polices portion size. By relieving herself and her family of rules about eating, Sole-Smith believes she will have a better chance of raising children who are proud of their bodies, trust themselves to enjoy their food and leave the table when they’re full. She serves dessert and snacks, like Cheez-Its, along with the dinner entree; her kids can eat their meal in any order.

Vox: The NBA’s lifetime ban of Jontay Porter over gambling, explained

And thirdly, Porter altered his own actions in a game in order to help fulfill a wager that a bettor had made. In sports betting, people can bet on everything from who will score the most points to whether a player commits a foul. These are known as proposition bets, or prop bets,which focus more on developments in a game than just the outcome of a game.

In Porter’s case, a bettor had placed a prop bet for $80,000 on the fact that he would underperform in a March 20 game. The payout for that bet would have been $1.1 million. In that game, Porter stopped playing after just three minutes, claiming that he felt sick. This bet, however, was flagged by betting operators and frozen. Following its investigation, the NBA has concluded that Porter claimed illness so that this wager would be successful.

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Sports leagues — including the NBA, NFL, and NHL — actively work with licensed betting platforms to promote sports betting in exchange for a significant cut of the revenue. The NBA, for example, works with FanDuel and DraftKings as its sports betting partners and has integrated live betting during games into its app. The NFL, similarly, has formal sports betting partnerships; the Washington Commanders even host a sports betting hub in their stadium.

Electrek: BYD unveils luxurious Sea Lion 07 interior to rival Tesla Model Y

BYD is coming for Tesla’s sweet spot in the mid-size electric SUV market with its new Sea Lion 07. Ahead of its official launch, BYD unveiled the Sea Lion 07’s luxurious interior. Check out the first images below.

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Designed by Wolfgang Egger, an ex-Lamborghini and Audi designer, the Sea Lion 07 is arguably BYD’s sleekest electric SUV yet. It combines details from both iconic brands into an EV built for the modern era.

NewsNation: George Alan Kelly trial: Judge calls mistrial in second-degree murder case

Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t shoot directly at anyone, explaining that he feared for his safety and that of his wife and property.

“He says he shot 100 yards over their heads. But he never told law enforcement that he was in fear of his life,” Jette said in closing arguments.

Kelly fired nine shots toward the group, according to Jette, who said Cuen-Buitimea suffered three broken ribs and a severed aorta.

NewsNation: Judge approves Google class action settlement

A federal judge has approved a $62 million settlement in a class action suit against Google. If follow an AP investigation that exposed the Silicon Valley titan for tracking down user information without consent, even if they used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.

According to the settlement, Google published a support page on how to manage and delete a user’s location history, which stated, “When you turn off location history for your Google account, it’s off for all devices associated with that Google account.”

Despite its promises against tracking a user’s location, the settlement states, “Google’s representation was false.” As AP revealed, turning off “Location History” only stopped Google from creating a location timeline that the user could view. Google, however, still continued to track the phone owners and kept a record of their locations, the settlement states.

Even when “Location History” is turned off, the settlement states a user’s location is stored every time they use any Google-controlled features on their phone, including the Google Maps app, weather apps, and searches made with the phone’s mobile browser.

Do no evil?.

NewsNation: Florida joins Texas in banning local outdoor worker protection laws

The Sunshine State lives up to its name every summer, making work in the extreme heat dangerous for highway, construction, farm workers and others who are primary outside all day. Miami-Dade County was considering an ordinance that would mandate breaks in the shade and access to water.

But now, the state of Florida says no. It’s joined Texas in banning counties and cities from establishing their own heat protection rules. The Florida law takes effect July 1. It also prevents local governments from raising the minimum wage beyond the state level.

*Unconscionable. Not being allowed to protect people from life-threatening conditions!*

Last Updated: 22.Apr.2024 23:42 EDT

Sunday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Sunday 21.Apr.2024

Electrek: First ever electric semi truck rides into Mexico with SDG&E

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) says the maiden voyage of their Class 8 heavy-duty electric semi marks the first time an electric semi has crossed the border hauling a standard load, marking an important milestone as the two nations move toward a net zero future.

The electric semi truck — one of 11 Peterbilt 579EV Class 8 trucks bought by San Diego-based Bali Express last year — made its first trip to Mexico carrying an unspecified load of goods through the Port of Entry at Otay Mesa, which connects Southern California to the city of Tijuana, Mexico.

Bali Express’ electric trucks will utilize SDG&E’s recently activated HD charging infrastructure to provide “reliable and affordable” electric freight options for medium and heavy-duty EVs crossing the US/Mexico border.

CBC: The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson: World’s Fastest Man*

World’s Fastest Man* The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson
by Mary Ormbsy

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Mary Ormsby, who was the Toronto Star’s Ben Johnson reporter for the entire debacle, vividly hauls it all back into the present, for better or worse, in _World’s Fastest Man* The Incredible Life of Ben Johnson. _Once again, a reader confronts the unsatisfying characters who so completely owned our attention back then.

Vox: Amazon is filled with garbage ebooks. Here’s how they get made.

It’s partly AI, partly a get-rich-quick scheme, and entirely bad for confused consumers.

Just Have a Think (YouTube): 100% wind and solar is coming!

100% electrification from renewables like wind, solar, geothermal and hydro power, backed up with interconnections and energy storage is now just around the corner, and already the cheapest option available. But there are still bumps in the road. Can we overcome them in time?

In the UK specifically.

Slashdot: The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Just Sent Its Last Message Home

Two months ago the team behind NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter released a video reflecting on its historic explorations of Mars, flying 10.5 miles (17.0 kilometers) in 72 different flights over three years. It was the team’s way of saying goodbye, according to NASA’s video.

And this week, LiveScience reports, Ingenuity answered back: > On April 16, Ingenuity beamed back its final signal to Earth, which included the remaining data it had stored in its memory bank and information about its final flight.

Slashdot: Should Automakers Feel Threatened by China’s Exports of Electric Cars?

The Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S.-China rivalry “has a new flashpoint in the battle for technology supremacy: electric cars.”

“So far, the U.S. is losing.”

Dave Winer (YouTube): meta.ai draws a pastoral scene

I asked meta.ai to draw a pastoral scene with sheep and dogs, birds, fish, airplanes, clams and seagoing ships in ancient england.

This really is amazing.

FreeThink: AI can help predict whether a patient will respond to specific TB treatments

Rapidly and holistically analyzing available medical data can help optimize treatments for each patient and reduce drug resistance. In our recently published research, my team and I describe a new AI tool we developed that uses worldwide patient data to guide more personalized and effective treatment of TB.

FreeThink: US will accelerate geothermal power exploration on federal land

Now, the BLM is adopting two categorical exclusions, already used by the Navy and the US Forest Service, that eliminate the need for geothermal power developers to conduct an environmental assessment if an exploration proposal meets certain conditions (e.g., it doesn’t require the creation of new roads longer than one mile).

“Geothermal energy is one of the technologies that can move our country toward a clean energy future,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “It only makes sense to use the same streamlined processes for permitting geothermal exploration that other government agencies have proven can work.”

Last Updated: 21.Apr.2024 23:20 EDT

Saturday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Saturday 20.Apr.2024

NYT: Top Chinese Swimmers Tested Positive for Banned Drug, Then Won Olympic Gold

The case, involving multiple swimmers who seven months later won medals at the 2021 Games, prompted accusations of a cover-up and concerns over why antidoping regulators chose not to intervene.

Electrek: Tesla is ending its referral program on April 30th worldwide

The program was originally launched in 2015, and has evolved many times since then. It started off as a direct $1,000 reward, but later turned into various tier systems, point systems, and so on.

A buyer would use a current owner’s referral link to place an order, and in return the buyer would get some sort of benefit (a discount, some free supercharging, or some free FSD access), and the referrer would get credit towards some sort of prize.

At one point, Tesla even promised free or discounted next-gen Roadsters, and ended up promising giving away around 80 of them – or at least, promising to, whenever that car (or is it even a car?) may or may not finally get made.

UPI: House passes $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan

The most contentious bill, a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine, passed in a 311-112 vote, with Democrats overwhelming GOP opposition to the measure.

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The House-passed bills are similar to another $95 billion aid package the Senate passed in February. A key difference in the House bill is that it designated $10 billion of the Ukraine funding as a repayable loan to appease some Republicans.

CBC: Ukraine strikes 8 Russian regions in long-range drone attacks

Ukraine attacked eight Russian regions with dozens of long-range strike drones, setting ablaze a fuel depot and hitting three power substations in a major attack early on Saturday, an intelligence source in Kyiv told Reuters.

The overnight attack, which was confirmed by the defence ministry in Moscow, comes amid a Russian airstrike campaign that has battered Ukraine’s energy system and pounded its cities in recent weeks.

Facing mounting pressure on the battlefield more than two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has tried to find a pressure point against the Kremlin by targeting oil refineries and energy facilities inside Russia using drones.

CBC: Jason Markusoff: Danielle Smith wants ideology ‘balance’ at universities. Alberta academics wonder what she’s tilting at.

It initially seemed her Bill 18, the Provincial Priorities Act, was intended to make her government play checkstop or gatekeeper whenever the federal government and mayors made deals without provincial involvement.

Then it became apparent that Smith’s government would apply the same scrutiny to the higher-learning sector, and the premier’s remarks made it clearshe had federal research grants and notions of ideological “balance” in her targets.

Wikipedia: Philip Kerr

A writer of both adult fiction and non-fiction, he is known for the Bernhard “Bernie” Gunther series of 14 historical thrillers set in Germany and elsewhere during the 1930s, the Second World War and the Cold War. He also wrote children’s books under the name P. B. Kerr, including the Children of the Lamp series. Kerr wrote for The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, and the New Statesman. He was married to fellow novelist Jane Thynne; they lived in Wimbledon, London, and had three children. Just before he died, he finished a 14th Bernie Gunther novel, Metropolis, which was published posthumously, in 2019.

Last Updated: 20.Apr.2024 23:35 EDT

Friday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Friday 19.Apr.2024

NYT: Michelle Goldberg: Republicans Wanted a Crackdown on Israel’s Critics. Columbia Obliged.

“Has there been any disciplinary action taken against students who have chanted, ‘From the river to the sea’?” the New York Republican Elise Stefanik, who scored a major political victory with the previous hearings, asked, citing a common anti-Zionist slogan. Shafik responded, “We have some disciplinary cases ongoing around that language.”

You don’t have to like anti-Israel language or activism to be worried about congressional demands to suppress it. These hearings are highly unusual; it’s hard to think of a time since the anti-Communist House Un-American Activities Committee when Congress has made such an effort to investigate disfavored ideologies in academe.

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Such pressure is the point: Republicans want to silence Israel’s opponents. In one of the hearing’s most farcical moments, Rick Allen, a Republican from Georgia, asked Shafik whether she knew Genesis 12:3. She didn’t recall the biblical passage offhand, so he explained it to her. “It was the covenant that God made with Abraham, and that covenant was real clear: ‘If you bless Israel I will bless you, if you curse Israel I will curse you,’” he said, explaining how this compact was confirmed in the New Testament.

“Do you consider that a serious issue?” Allen asked heatedly. “Do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God?” Shafik responded, “Definitely not.” Allen continued, “Young people are being indoctrinated by these professors to believe this stuff, and they have no idea that they’re going to be cursed by God, the God of the Bible and the God over our flag.”

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Just before the hearing began, a group of students from Columbia and its sister school, Barnard, organized a “Gaza solidarity encampment” on Columbia’s main lawn. On Thursday, Shafik took the extraordinary step of calling the police in to dismantle it, and over 100 people were arrested. The last time the school’s administration brought in the N.Y.P.D. to disperse demonstrations was in 1996, and many on campus were in shock.

*Time to put on Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young?*

UPI: Wild turkey populations declined in some areas of U.S.

Wild turkeys were abundant across North America when European settlers arrived. But people killed them indiscriminately year-round – sometimes for their meat and feathers, but settlers also took turkey eggs from nests and poisoned adult turkeys to keep them from damaging crops. Thanks to this unregulated killing and habitat loss, by 1900 wild turkeys had disappeared from much of their historical range.

Turkey populations gradually recovered over the 20th century, aided by regulation, conservation funding and state restoration programs. By the early 2000s, they could be found in Mexico, Canada and every U.S. state except Alaska.

Guardian: Western Australia’s eucalypt forests fade to brown as century-old giant jarrahs die in heat and drought

Dead and dying shrubs and trees – some of which are found nowhere else on Earth – line more than 1,000km across the state’s south-west.

Kottke: “my therapist just told me that the NYT word games app is be…

“my therapist just told me that the NYT word games app is becoming a problem for many of her patients, including me … she asked me how long i spent every day doing them and i LIED”

— Tess Owen on Twitter

CBC: Slain tow truck kingpin had a target on his back for years, court documents show

Tow truck wars in Toronto. Quite the story!

CBC: ‘Several’ explosions reported in Happy Valley-Goose Bay as uncontrolled fire burns near explosive material

No reports of injuries as fire affects several buildings at former airport.

CBC: Hundreds of websites are selling fake Ozempic, says company. Doctors say it’s only going to get worse

Cybersecurity firm hired by pharmaceutical companies says it took down more than 250 sites last year.

Last Updated: 19.Apr.2024 23:47 EDT

Thursday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Thursday 18.Apr.2024

NYT: Opinion: Abortion Is Remaking Our Political Landscape. Why Aren’t Guns?

Now, the idea of making abortion a state issue only works if you’re just looking for a make-believe answer that might let you escape from discussing the subject. But we don’t have a visible gun consensus. Even mass school shooting tragedies like Sandy Hook and Uvalde didn’t bring the debate to a head. Many, many politicians are still trying to protect the right of Americans to own weapons while giving at least some verbal deference to the right of everybody else not to be shot.

Shootings qualify as “mass” when a minimum of four people — shooter excluded — are hit. At this writing there have been 119 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. (Really kinda depressing to be living in a country that requires the services of a Gun Violence Archive.) But don’t hold me to that number — it goes up fast. Just the other day one child was killed and 10 people injured at a backyard party in Chicago and 12 people were shot outside a New Orleans nightclub, one fatally.

MacRumors: Should Apple Kill Siri and Start Over?

Enthusiasm for Siri has undeniably waned in the intervening years. Despite regular updates and improvements from Apple, Siri has struggled to keep pace with its advancing rivals, and in an era of generative AI chatbots and large language models, Siri’s failings have only been magnified. Issues ranging from misinterpreted commands to limited contextual understanding have not only hindered Siri’s usability but have also led to an almost universal perception of the virtual assistant as a source of user frustration rather than assistance. This persistent underperformance begs the question: Is it time for Apple to kill Siri and start over?

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Here are just a handful of serial issues some users have recently reported:

Setting timers instead of alarms.

Bungling music requests (even for purchases that Siri has local access to).

Delayed responses over fast data connections.

Nonsense responses to conversion requests.

Creating notes instead of reminders.

Acknowledging requests without acting on them.

Overwrought punctuation when dictating.

Inability to consistently control smart devices.

The list could go on. But has Siri really gotten more stupid?

UPI: Fruits, vegetables contain concerning levels of pesticides, report finds

Nearly 20% of fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables that Americans eat contain concerning levels of pesticides, a new report finds.

Pesticides posed significant risks in popular choices such as strawberries, green beans, bell peppers, blueberries and potatoes, the review from Consumer Reports found.

“One food in particular, green beans, had residues of a pesticide that hasn’t been allowed to be used on the vegetable in the U.S. for over a decade,” the report authors said in a news release. “And imported produce, especially some from Mexico, was particularly likely to carry risky levels of pesticide residues.”

And acceptable levels in the US are much higher than Europe in many cases.

Ars Technica: Big Tech can’t hoard brainwave data for ad targeting, Colorado law says

On Wednesday, Colorado expanded the scope of its privacy law initially designed to protect biometric data like fingerprints or face images to become first in the nation to also shield sensitive neural data.

That could stop companies from hoarding brain activity data without residents realizing the risks. The New York Times reported that neural data is increasingly being collected and sold nationwide. And after a market analysis showed that investments in neurotechnology leapt by 60 percent globally from 2019 to 2020—and were valued at $30 billion in 2021—Big Tech companies have significantly intensified plans to develop their own products to rake in potentially billions.

Waveshare: Pico LCD 1.3

The ST7789VW is a single-chip controller/driver for 262K-color, graphic type TFT-LCD. It consists of 240 source line and 320 gate line driving circuits. The resolution of this LCD is 240 (H) RGB x 240 (V), it supports horizontal mode and vertical mode, and it doesn’t use all the RAM of the controller.

This LCD accepts 8-bits/9-bits/16-bits/18-bits parallel interface, that are RGB444, RGB565, RGB666. The color format used in demo codes is RGB565.

This LCD uses a 4-line SPI interface for reducing GPIO and fast speed.

Yahoo Sports: NHL approves Coyotes’ move to Utah; Arizona expected to explore expansion club

As has been expected for months, the NHL Board of Governors voted to approve the sale of the franchise’s hockey assets to Ryan and Ashley Smith, owners of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, and Smith Entertainment Group (SEG). The group made an official request for an expansion team for Salt Lake City in January but later ceded to the NHL’s desire to relocate the Coyotes from Arizona.

The team will play in the Delta Center, currently the Jazz’s home arena. However, the NHL wants renovations to make the facility more hockey-friendly – especially if the club ends up playing there permanently. A new arena was part of SEG’s expansion team proposal, and it would also be used for a likely Winter Olympics in 2034.

The Independent: Axed Tesla staffers say the chaos will lead to ‘pretty bad’ quality only getting ‘worse’

This week’s layoffs appeared to be the largest in Tesla’s recent history, targeting 10 per cent of its roughly 140,000 employees, ranging from salesfolk in China through factory workers in Texas to engineers in California.

Simultaneously, Tesla lost two prominent executives: Drew Baglino, a long-serving lieutenant to chief executive Elon Musk who had been with the company for 18 years, and Rohan Patel, a former climate adviser to Barack Obama who led Tesla’s dealings with governments and regulators.

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A recent report in The New York Times highlighted how Tesla’s sweetheart deal with Chinese officials to build a factory in Shanghai helped kickstart the country’s EV market, ironically allowing local firms such as BYD to begin undercutting Tesla’s expensive premium vehicles.

Despite this danger, Musk has reportedly sidelined Tesla’s long-awaited low-cost EV project, veering from his original “master plan” for the company and potentially ceding a whole segment of the market to his rivals.

TorStar: Why did Toronto gas prices jump by 14 cents?

As we enter the summer months, gas stations transition to a “summer blend” which contains alkylate, a component added to gas that boosts octane, Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, explained.

Gas stations are, by law in the U.S., required to transition away from the winter blend which contains butane, a compound that easily evaporates but is useful for igniting in cold temperatures.

The cost of alkylates have jumped thanks to a spike in demand, as gas blended with alkylates is cleaner and able to meet better fuel efficiency standards.

TorStar: Trudeau government gets big push back as it promotes budget

Indigenous leaders, disability groups, doctors, real estate investors, business groups, opposition Conservatives and other political rivals of the Trudeau government blasted measures that either didn’t go far enough for some, or for others went too far.

MacRumors: Best Buy Launches Apple Vision Pro App for Previewing Tech Products

Best Buy today announced the launch of a new “Envision” app designed for the Apple Vision Pro headset. Envision is designed to allow Best Buy customers to explore different products and see how those products look in their own living spaces.

According to Best Buy, the Envision app is meant to help consumers plan their “ultimate home technology setup.” 3D models of Best Buy products are included, so users can see them from all angles and get an idea of the space they take up. The app includes big screen TVs, large and small appliances, computers, furniture, fitness equipment, and more.

The ultimate shopping appliance?

CBC: What the jury didn’t hear at the murder trial of Umar Zameer

The judge overseeing the trial of a man accused of fatally running over a Toronto police officer repeatedly raised concerns over the prosecution’s changing theory of what happened that night and at one point indicated she did not see how a jury could reach a guilty verdict on murder based on evidence presented in court.

During legal arguments not heard by the jury, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy on several occasions asked the Crown to lay out its narrative for how Umar Zameer came to hit Det.-Const. Jeffrey Northrup with his car on July 2, 2021.

Prosecutors Michael Cantlon and Karen Simone raised new theories about where and how Northrup was struck after all their evidence had been presented to the jury, including some that were not brought up during their own expert’s testimony.

Guardian: Juliette Pavy: Sony World Photographer of the Year 2024

Between 1966 and 1975, Greenlandic Inuit women were subjected to an involuntary birth control programme known as the Spiralkampagnen (“spiral campaign”). Led by the Danish authorities, nearly 4,500 intrauterine devices, otherwise known as coils or “spirals”, were implanted into Inuit women and girls, some as young as 12. Many of them say that the procedure was performed without their consent. The campaign was first widely publicised by a Danish podcast in spring 2022, and documents now prove that the authorities implemented the policy to reduce Inuit population growth. An official investigation has now been opened, which is set to conclude at the end of 2024.

BlogTO: Flight with 290 passengers reports ‘multiple failures’ on approach to Toronto airport

Emergency vehicles were forced to meet an Air Canada flight that landed at Toronto Pearson Airport earlier this month after “multiple failures” onboard the aircraft.

According to a reconstruction video by the aviation YouTube channel, You can see ATC, the incident involved Air Canada flight AC935 from Punta Cana International Airport to Toronto on April 8 at approximately 6:50 p.m.

During the descent towards Toronto, pilots declared PAN-PAN, a term used in radiotelephone communications to signify that there is an urgency on board a boat, ship, aircraft, or other vehicle.

Last Updated: 18.Apr.2024 23:59 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 17.Apr.2024

Guardian: Mentally stimulating work plays key role in staving off dementia, study finds

People in routine and repetitive jobs found to have 31% greater risk of disease in later life, and 66% higher risk of mild cognitive problems.

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Among the jobs ranked as most stimulating were teachers and university lecturers, according to the study, in Neurology. Some of the least cognitively demanding jobs were those that involved repetitive manual tasks, such as road work, cleaning and delivering the post.

Previous studies have shown that education has a significant protective effect against cognitive decline in old age.

Guardian: Mike Johnson moves ahead with foreign aid bills despite threats to oust him

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is pushing ahead with his plan to hold votes on four separate foreign aid bills this week, despite threats from two fellow Republicans to oust him if he advances a Ukraine funding proposal.

Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the rules committee posted text for three bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The text of a fourth bill, which is expected to include measures to redirect seized Russian assets toward Ukraine and force the sale of TikTok, will be released later on Wednesday, Johnson said in a note to members.

The legislation would provide $26bn in aid for Israel, $61bn for Ukraine and $8bn for US allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Israel bill also appeared to include more than $9bn in humanitarian assistance, which Democrats had demanded to assist civilians in war zones like Gaza.

Last Updated: 17.Apr.2024 18:32 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Tuesday 16.Apr.2024

MacRumors: X May Charge New Users a ‘Small Fee’ to Post, Like and Reply

X Daily News, a feed that posts X updates, today noticed that text strings on the website have been updated to mention a small annual fee that new users will need to pay in order to access the social network.

Musk said in response that the fee for new users is “the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.”

Globe: Hockey gear maker CCM up for sale as private equity owner looks for an exit

On the eve of the NHL playoffs, private equity fund manager Birch Hill Equity Partners has placed CCM Hockey on the auction block. CCM, one of two dominant hockey-gear companies, is expected to fetch a price that is a significant multiple to the $110-million Birch Hill paid for the business seven years ago.

UPI: On This Day, April 16: Wayne Gretzky announces retirement from NHL

On April 16, 1999, hockey legend Wayne Gretzky announced his retirement from the NHL after 21 years.

Globe: Cathal Kelly: Alex Ovechkin is a new kind of sports celebrity, a legacy-maker that nobody wants to talk about

You head over to his official Instagram and, yes, it’s still Ovechkin standing beside Vladimir Putin flashing a V for victory.

This guy either doesn’t get it, doesn’t care or does in both instances and has an agenda. None of those options show well on hockey.

This has turned Ovechkin into a new kind of sports celebrity – the all-timer in the midst of achieving his legacy who cannot be promoted.

Fast Company: Colorado is offering $450 e-bike subsidies. Other states should too

The commencement of the largest ever e-bike subsidy program in the U.S. is as good a time as ever to sing the praises of these kinds of policies. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offers electric car subsidies as large as $7,500, but not a penny for e-bikes. It was a huge missed opportunity—hopefully one that will be corrected in the future. There are few policies that can do so much good for so little money as e-bike subsidies.

There are a million good reasons to get more e-bikes on the streets. E-bikes “provide a Swiss Army knife’s worth of societal benefits,” transportation analyst David Zipper has written. Zipper has been calling for federal e-bike subsidies for years, and various other pundits, like Jay Caspian Kang and Alex Pareene, have made similar arguments.

TorStar: CRA’s debt recovery ‘horror stories’ flood social media

You’ve tried paying back your tax debt but it turns out, none of it went through. Or you have to prove to the government that you are, actually, broken up with your ex and don’t owe thousands of dollars to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Look through your TikTok feed and you’ll come across the same story on repeat: a notice from the CRA, scrutiny on past tax filings and a hefty back payment due with a quick turnaround.

It’s a problem that has been plaguing frustrated tax filers who are taking to social media to vent, many saying they now owe the federal agency thousands of dollars.

UPI: Trump Media value falls additional 14% as new streaming platform launch announced

The stock value of former President Donald Trump’s media company — the owner of app Truth Social — on Tuesday continued to fall more than 14% as the company unveiled its intent to launch a digital live-streaming platform.

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The new streaming content — which will roll out in three phases — will include “live TV, including news networks, religious channels, family-friendly content including films and documentaries” and “other content that has been canceled, is at risk of cancellation or is being suppressed on other platforms and services.”

ScienceAlert: Scientists Unlock The Mystery of How We Taste Bitterness

Led by a team from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, the study focuses on a bitter taste receptor called TAS2R14, and its role in helping identify one of the five different tastes we can sense: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami (or savory).

It builds on what we know about the sense of taste, and could potentially lead to improved treatments for health conditions that the TAS2R14 receptor has been implicated in – including obesity, diabetes, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

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The team revealed that when bitter substances (or tastants) hit TAS2R14, they’re wedged into the allosteric site. This regulatory region allows molecules to bind to a protein and influence its functional activity.

The mechanism hasn’t been discovered before. The tastant’s connection with the allosteric site changes the shape of the receptor, activating its coupled G protein and setting off a chain reaction of signaling further down the line.

9to5Mac: Apple to let users watch their own videos during Vision Pro demo

Internally known as the “VPG Photos Retail Experience,” this system will create an HTTP file transfer service with SPAKE2 encryption to transfer files between an iPhone and Apple Vision Pro. Customers will be able to select their own Spatial Videos and then transfer them to the Vision Pro by scanning an App Clip code.

There will be a limit to how many videos can be transferred so that the process doesn’t take too long. All files will be deleted immediately after the demo session for privacy reasons.

Aaahhh! SPAKE2 encryption!

Apple Vision Pro costs $3,499 in the US, and the company says the headset will reach more countries by the end of the year. As for iOS 17.5, the update is expected to be released to the public next month.

MacRumors: Native Microsoft OneNote App Now Available for Apple Vision Pro

Microsoft today introduced a version of OneNote that is designed to run on the Apple Vision Pro headset. OneNote for Vision Pro was created for visionOS, and it includes many of the features that are available on OneNote for iPad.

The app can be used to write memos, notes, and digital notebooks, and there are options to sync content to OneDrive for access across multiple platforms. There is support for tags like Important and To Do, and notes can be protected with a password.

OneNote on Vision Pro works hands-free or with a connected keyboard and mouse. In the future, Microsoft plans to add support for Copilot, two-factor authentication, and inserting images from the camera or the Photos app.

OneNote can be downloaded from the ‌visionOS‌ App Store as of today. It works with personal and work accounts that are not managed by an organization.

Microsoft has made many of its apps available on the Vision Pro, including Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Carsie Blanton (YouTube): Fishin’ With You

A tribute to the great John Prine. I learned of his passing last night. I cried all day today, then wrote this. Almost made it through the take without crying! Borrowed John’s melody and a bunch of his words, like I often do. They’re embossed on all my guts. I wouldn’t know what songs are without his. John, we’ll never thank you enough. #RIPJohnPrine

Last Updated: 16.Apr.2024 23:54 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Monday 15.Apr.2024

NYT: On Himalayan Hillsides Grows Japan’s Cold, Hard Cash

But life can be tough. Wild animals destroyed the corn and potato crops of Pasang Sherpa, a farmer born near Mount Everest. He gave up on those plants a dozen years ago and resorted to raising one that seemed to have little value: argeli, an evergreen, yellow-flowering shrub found wild in the Himalayas. Farmers grew it for fencing or firewood.

Mr. Sherpa had no idea that bark stripped from his argeli would one day turn into pure money — the outgrowth of an unusual trade in which one of the poorest pockets of Asia supplies a primary ingredient for the economy in one of the richest.

Japan’s currency is printed on special paper that can no longer be sourced at home. The Japanese love their old-fashioned yen notes, and this year they need mountains of fresh ones, so Mr. Sherpa and his neighbors have a lucrative reason to hang on to their hillsides.

Wales Online: New warning to pregnant women over even small amount of alcohol

Even a small amount of alcohol whilst pregnant can cause birth abnormalities, a new paper has suggested. New research shows that no amount of drinking during pregnancy is safe as even low to moderate alcohol use can cause babies to be smaller and premature.

The study, published in the journal Alcohol Clinical & Experimental Research, also discovered that the effects of drinking can differ based on the sex of the developing baby. Boy babies were seen to be more likely to be premature, whereas girl babies were more likely to be smaller.

NYT: Lindsay Ryan: Many Patients Don’t Survive End-Stage Poverty

gift link

Safety-net hospitals and clinics care for a population heavily skewed toward the poor, recent immigrants and people of color. The budgets of these places are forever tight. And anyone who works in them could tell you that illness in our patients isn’t just a biological phenomenon. It’s the manifestation of social inequality in people’s bodies.

OpenSSF: Open Source Security (OpenSSF) and OpenJS Foundations Issue Alert for Social Engineering Takeovers of Open Source Projects

The recent attempted XZ Utils backdoor (CVE-2024-3094) may not be an isolated incident as evidenced by a similar credible takeover attempt intercepted by the OpenJS Foundation, home to JavaScript projects used by billions of websites worldwide. The Open Source Security (OpenSSF) and OpenJS Foundations are calling all open source maintainers to be alert for social engineering takeover attempts, to recognize the early threat patterns emerging, and to take steps to protect their open source projects.

Failed Credible Takeover Attempt

The OpenJS Foundation Cross Project Council received a suspicious series of emails with similar messages, bearing different names and overlapping GitHub-associated emails. These emails implored OpenJS to take action to update one of its popular JavaScript projects to “address any critical vulnerabilities,” yet cited no specifics. The email author(s) wanted OpenJS to designate them as a new maintainer of the project despite having little prior involvement. This approach bears strong resemblance to the manner in which “Jia Tan” positioned themselves in the XZ/liblzma backdoor.

NYT: Lake Mead Ancient Rocks Toppled by Vandals

After a video was widely shared online of two men pushing over a rock formation at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada, the authorities are asking for the public’s help to identify them.

They wanted to show their children how brainless their dads are?

NYT: ‘Eldest Daughter Syndrome’ and Sibling Birth Order: Does it Matter?

On X, a viral post asks: “are u happy or are u the oldest sibling and also a girl”?

Firstborn daughters are having a moment in the spotlight, at least online, with memes and think pieces offering a sense of gratification to responsible, put-upon big sisters everywhere. But even mental health professionals like Ms. Morton — herself the youngest in her family — caution against putting too much stock in the psychology of sibling birth order, and the idea that it shapes personality or long term outcomes.

Of course she says that: she’s the youngest!

Last Updated: 15.Apr.2024 22:14 EDT

Sunday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Sunday 14.Apr.2024

NYT: She Was Kidnapped a Decade Ago With 275 Girls. Finally, She Escaped.

Saratu Dauda had been kidnapped. It was 2014, she was 16, and she was in a truck packed with her classmates heading into the bush in northeastern Nigeria, a member of the terrorist group Boko Haram at the wheel. The girls’ boarding school in Chibok, miles behind them, had been set on fire.

Then she noticed that some girls were jumping off the back of the truck, she said, some alone, others in pairs, holding hands. They ran and hid in the scrub as the truck trundled on.

Guardian: Torsten Bell: We don’t do our best work just before lunch, and it’s not much better afterwards

But new research reassures me that “postprandial somnolence” (the food coma) is real. A study in India investigated how the test scores of 4,600 students were swayed by their satiation. A lot is the answer. Those who’d eaten within an hour of their exam scored 17% lower in some subjects. The more complex the task, the more pronounced the decline in cognitive performance: reading comprehension declined by only 4% for individual words, but a whopping 18% for paragraphs.

This is problematic because, well, we do need to eat. Being “hangry” and needing a break brings its own troubles. Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who died last month, helped popularise a study he’d edited, showing that judges were not neutral decision-making machines of legal theory. The probability of them granting parole dropped towards zero just before lunch, before jumping back up (to about 65%) immediately after.

CBC: Sask. forecasts $250M deficit, $1.3B worse than original budget projection

27.Nov.2024

Saskatchewan’s latest mid-year financial update projects a $250-million deficit, an outcome that would be $1.3-billion worse than the $1-billion surplus predicted in the annual budget.

Finance Minister Donna Harpauer said the swing is due in part to drought that resulted in crop insurance payouts, along with lower potash prices and sales than expected.

“Two large factors outside of the government’s control play into this forecast. The drought was unforeseen, reducing projected crop production by 20 per cent in 2023, when compared to 2022,” Harpauer said.

If you don’t like the cost of carbon reduction, you’re going to hate the costs of climate change.

*via What On Earth on the CBC Radio podcast*

CBC: Sask. premier says change in federal government the only way to solve carbon tax dispute

28.Mar.2024

Moe and six other premiers have called for a halt to the planned increase to Ottawa’s carbon pricing plan — to $80 per tonne from $65 — scheduled for April 1.

Just Have a Think (YouTube): Ocean Electricity Grid. How do they do that?

Pylons are ugly and nobody likes them! Filling up our countryside with thousands more of them to facilitate a massive electricity grid expansion is proving to be a very tricky challenge with lots of local opposition. But what if you could build your electricity grid out at sea and just bring cables to shore where they’re needed?

Interesting discussion of the issues around creating an offshore electrical grid for Britain.

Atlantic: Tupperware Is in Trouble

For the first several decades of my life, most of the meals I ate involved at least one piece of Tupperware. My mom’s pieces were mostly the greens and yellows of a 1970s kitchen, purchased from co-workers or neighbors who circulated catalogs around the office or slipped them into mailboxes in our suburban subdivision. Many of her containers were acquired before my brother and I were born and remained in regular use well after I flew the nest for college in the mid-2000s. To this day, the birthday cake that my mom makes for my visits gets stored on her kitchen counter in a classic Tupperware cake saver–a flat gold base with a tall, milky-white lid made of semi-rigid plastic. Somewhere deep in her cabinets, the matching gold carrying strap is probably still hiding, in case a cake is on the go.

Daring Fireball: The Masters VisionOS App

Link: The Masters VisionOS App on the AppStore

It’s Sunday at Augusta, the leaderboard is tight at the top, and Augusta National has a pretty damn good VisionOS apps. Some cool VR features like tabletop-style VR maps of the holes, with 3D shot-tracking. All free of charge, too, from one of the only major sporting events in the entire world with a restrained approach to advertising and sponsorships.

Health Digest: Eating Sourdough Bread Has An Unexpected Effect On Your Heart

According to a 2021 article in Microorganisms, sourdough bread is healthier than you think with its vitamins and minerals that regulate metabolism and boost your energy. Sourdough can also keep tabs on your blood sugar, and the natural prebiotics are good for your gut health. The antioxidants and other nutrients found in sourdough bread can also protect your heart from disease.

The fermentation process used to make sourdough bread not only makes it more digestible than other breads, but also improves its antioxidant, antihypertensive, and anti-inflammatory properties, according to a 2023 article in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. For example, sourdough bread made from fermented spelt has more phenols and flavonoids compared to non-fermented spelt. These phenols and flavonoids are antioxidants that combat oxidative stress that’s often linked to heart disease and cancer. Beta-glucans in sourdough bind with cholesterol so it doesn’t get absorbed in your bloodstream.

Last Updated: 14.Apr.2024 22:33 EDT

Saturday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Saturday 13.Apr.2024

NewsNation: DeSantis signs bill banning heat protection laws for outdoor workers

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday barring local governments from requiring heat protection for outdoor workers.

Rather than sign the bill at a press conference, as DeSantis usually does, the Florida governor opted to quietly sign the controversial bill and announce it during a Thursday night press release alongside nine other bills.

The bill, passed by the Florida Senate in March 2024, makes it so local governments can not require companies to “meet or provide heat exposure requirements beyond those required by law.” Miami-Dade County commissioners took up an ordinance last year that would require employers to provide access to water and breaks in the shade on especially hot days, but it was deferred to this spring.

The ordinance was the culmination of a years-long campaign from local workers’ rights groups in response to heat-related illnesses and deaths in industries such as construction and agriculture.

Guardian: Naama Lazimi: I believe in another Israel – one not defined by Benjamin Netanyahu and his cronies

But the broader Israeli populace desires something different. They seek the opportunity to rebuild their communities destroyed by Hamas attacks, yearning for the return of their 133 loved ones who were abducted.

Moreover, they don’t want to witness further bloodshed in Gaza; instead they want to see the elimination of the murderous terrorism that declared war on Israel and slaughtered us mercilessly on that terrible day. They want to see their sons return from the battlefield. They want a quiet home in which to raise happy children. Over the past few weeks, there has been a surge in protests demanding the return of the hostages and the replacement of the government. Thousands of Israeli citizens have taken to the streets, advocating for immediate elections, a deal for the hostages, and a more accountable leadership.

We must not allow Netanyahu — who is accused of criminal activity including fraud, bribery and breach of trust (he denies the allegations), who made dangerous alliances with extremists to form his government, and has even attempted to turn Israel into a de facto dictatorship through his government’s controversial attempt to pass “judicial reform” — to dictate our relations and divide us. We need to make a clear distinction between this extremist government and the people. When US vice-president Kamala Harris was asked if Israel is at risk of losing American support in the war, she replied that it is important to distinguish between the Israeli government and its citizens, and she is absolutely right. The Israeli people are entitled to security — as are the Palestinians. Israeli citizens are the ones thwarting Netanyahu’s authoritarianism, we are the ones holding him back in this moment.

AP: How a father of a trans daughter pushes past his prejudice

Before his transgender daughter was suspended after using the girls’ bathroom at her Missouri high school. Before the bullying and the suicide attempts. Before she dropped out.

Before all that, Dusty Farr was — in his own words — “a full-on bigot.” By which he meant that he was eager to steer clear of anyone LGBTQ+.

Now, though, after everything, he says he wouldn’t much care if his 16-year-old daughter — and he proudly calls her that — told him she was an alien. Because she is alive.

“When it was my child, it just flipped a switch,” says Farr, who is suing the Platte County School District on Kansas City’s outskirts. “And it was like a wake-up.”

CP (Yahoo Sports): US and Canada win semifinals to set up 22nd gold-medal showdown at women’s hockey championships

The Americans advanced on Saturday with a 5-0 win over Finland, in an outing Laila Edwards scored a natural hat trick and Aerin Frankel stopped 15 shots to set a single-tournament record with her fourth shutout.

The Canadians followed with 4-0 win over Czechia, more widely known in English as the Czech Republic. Emily Clark and Jocelyne Larocque had a goal and assist each, and Ann-Renee Desbiens stopped nine shots for her second shutout of the tournament.

Last Updated: 13.Apr.2024 23:59 EDT

Friday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 10.Apr.2024

Vox: Why are young people … getting cancer? The search for answers

Adults in the prime of their lives, often otherwise outwardly healthy, are dying of aggressive cancers that appear to develop more quickly and be more deadly than in the past, for reasons that scientists cannot adequately explain.

Clinicians have especially been noticing a rise in cancers in the gastrointestinal (GI) system – including colorectal, kidney, and pancreatic cancers – in adults younger than 50, the cutoff for what is usually considered early-onset cancer.

Scientific authorities around the world see this as one of the most pressing questions for modern medicine and are now funding an ambitious, globe-spanning research project to provide some desperately needed answers.

Benzinga: Elon Musk Reacts To Old Clip Of Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs Saying ‘There’s A Tremendous Amount Of Craftsmanship In Between A Great Idea And A Great Product’

“It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell your… all these other people that here’s this great idea, then of course they can go off and make it happen.”

“There is a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product,” Jobs said, explaining how ideas evolve and that the final product is never as it was first envisioned.

Musk said, “Precisely.”

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Jobs then explained that while it’s possible to come up with several good ideas, not every one of them can be turned into a good product. A part of the problem here is that the technology — be it semiconductors, glass, plastic, factories, and even robots — is just not there yet.

“Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain… and fitting them all together.”

BBC: Scrabble: Mattel launches new version of game which is ‘less competitive’

Mattel is to launch a new version of Scrabble which is designed to be more collaborative and accessible for those who find word games intimidating.

The new double-sided Scrabble board will still feature the original game for those who want to play the traditional version.

But the new game on the flip side will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system and be quicker to play.

The new board, Scrabble Together, will also allow people to compete in teams.

via @Miraz on micro.blog

AP: A new version of Scrabble aims to make the word-building game more accessible

A spokesperson for Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, confirmed to The Associated Press via email Tuesday that the company currently has no plans for a U.S. update — but added that the brand “love(s) the idea of different ways to play Scrabble and continue to attract new players to the game around the world.”

Lex Friedman: Lex’s Games

Daily grouping puzzles, inspired by The New York Times’s daily Connections puzzle. Sort 16 terms into four set of four.

via @odd on micro.blog

Guardian: Farmers warn ‘crisis is building’ as record rainfall drastically reduces UK food production

Reduction in yields means UK will be dependent on imports for wheat in coming year and possibly beyond.

…and people are still behaving as if it isn’t happening.

via @denny on micro.blog

PBS NewsHour: Ukraine will be outgunned by Russia 10 to 1 in weeks without U.S. help, top Europe general says

The top general for U.S. forces in Europe told Congress Wednesday that Ukraine will be outgunned 10 to one by Russia within a matter of weeks if Congress does not find a way to approve sending more ammunition and weapons to Kyiv soon.

The testimony from Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, and Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, comes as Congress enters pivotal weeks for voting for aid for Ukraine, but there’s no guarantee funding will be improved in time.

Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as Congress has delayed passing its $60 billion supplemental bill.

“They are now being outshot by the Russian side five to one. So the Russians fire five times as many artillery shells at the Ukrainians than the Ukrainians are able to fire back. That will immediately go to 10 to one in a matter of weeks,” Cavoli said. “We’re not talking about months. We’re not talking hypothetically.”

Free Pascal wiki: ARM Embedded Tutorial - FPC and the Raspberry Pi Pico

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released the Raspberry Pi Pico, a very cheap Microcontroller board with quite interesting specs.

To best use this tutorial you will need to buy (at least) two Raspberry Pi Pico, we will use one as a target and the second one as a debug probe. Do yourself a favour, invest $4 for a second device, being able to debug is worth so much more.

As the Pico is brand new and support for the board is a work in progress I’d recommend that you set up a dedicated installation of Lazarus and Free Pascal as you will need to use both trunk version of Lazarus and a specially patched version of FPC that includes the necessary adjustments so that FPC knows about the Pico. Also expect changes as we all learn along the way.

Last Updated: 10.Apr.2024 23:40 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Tuesday 09.Apr.2024

Daring Fireball: Google Launches Upgraded Find My Device Network for Android

Erik Kay, writing on Google’s company blog:

Today, the all-new Find My Device is rolling out to Android devices around the world, starting in the U.S. and Canada. With a new, crowdsourced network of over a billion Android devices, Find My Device can help you find your misplaced Android devices and everyday items quickly and securely. Here are five ways you can try it out. […]

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A separate post by Dave Kleidermacher on the Google Security Blog gives a high-level overview of the platform’s privacy and security features.

Guardian: Epidemic fears as 80% of Indigenous Amazon tribe fall ill

“The vulnerability of this community is extremely high; any infection can quickly escalate into an epidemic,” said Manoel Chorimpa, a local leader and adviser at OPI, an organisation dedicated to protecting Indigenous groups in voluntary isolation and those recently exposed to urbanisation.

Healthcare workers operating in the territory say that of the 101 individuals from the Korubo community diagnosed with symptoms, 22 cases had progressed to pneumonia, of whom 15 were under nine years old.

This article is about more than the virus.

NYT: FAA Investigates Claims by Boeing Whistle-Blower About Flaws in 787 Dreamliner

The engineer, Sam Salehpour, who worked on the plane, detailed his allegations in interviews with The New York Times and in documents sent to the F.A.A. A spokesman for the agency confirmed that it was investigating the allegations but declined to comment on them.

Mr. Salehpour, whose résumé says he has worked at Boeing for more than a decade, said the problems stemmed from changes in how the enormous sections were fitted and fastened together in the assembly line. The plane’s fuselage comes in several pieces, all from different manufacturers, and they are not exactly the same shape where they fit together, he said.

Boeing conceded those manufacturing changes were made, but a spokesman for the company, Paul Lewis, said there was “no impact on durability or safe longevity of the airframe.”

CBC: Canadian DNA lab knew its paternity tests identified the wrong dads, but it kept selling them

A Canadian DNA laboratory knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found.

Harvey Tenenbaum, the owner of Viaguard Accu-Metrics, told a CBC producer with a hidden camera during a conversation in his office that prenatal paternity test results that his laboratory produced for about a decade were “never that accurate.”

CBC: Kelowna woman gets 2 successful clones of her dead cat

After two years and four failed attempts, a ragdoll cat that belonged to a Kelowna, B.C., woman has been successfully cloned.

Kris Stewart received not one but two kittens cloned using DNA from her beloved cat Bear.

Stewart said she sent Bear’s DNA to ViaGen, a Texas-based pet cloning company, after he died at the age of five in a traffic accident in January 2022.

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Stewart said four embryo transfers failed before Bear Bear and Honey Bear were born. She said the process cost her about $50,000 in total.

Hmmm, what are the implications…?

Last Updated: 09.Apr.2024 18:40 EDT

Sunday & Monday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Friday 05.Apr.2024

CBC: CSIS report on Liberal nomination race recalled after meeting with PM’s top security adviser

The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issued a burn notice for an intelligence assessment about possible foreign interference in a Toronto Liberal nomination race, according to a document tabled in the public inquiry into foreign interference.

The commission’s lawyers wrote that CSIS director David Vigneault told them that he “has no recollection” why the document was recalled, but was confident the only reason why he would’ve agreed to do so would be “because there was an issue with it; he had never and would never recall a document because it was too sensitive.”

TechCrunch: Startups Weekly: Let’s see what those Y Combinator kids have been up to this time

Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) financial lifting of the veil reveals a $58 million loss on a meager $4 million in revenue. This isn’t your typical Silicon Valley “burn cash now, profit later” saga; it’s more of a “burn cash now, and that’s it” kind of story.

MacRumors: Apple Updates App Store Guidelines to Permit Game Emulators, Website Links in EU Music Apps

Apple today updated its App Store guidelines to comply with an anti-steering mandate levied by the European Commission. Music streaming apps like Spotify are now permitted to include a link or buy button that leads to a website with information about alternative music purchasing options, though this is only permitted in the European Economic Area.

Kingstonist: Shore volunteers needed for water clean-up event

Volunteers are needed later this month at a water clean-up event at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. The City of Kingston, in partnership with CORK and Neptune & Salacia Diving, is inviting non-diving shore volunteers to help out with the event, ‘Dive Against Debris,’ starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Apr. 20, 2024.

“Certified divers, under the direction of Neptune & Salacia Diving, will be removing debris from the marina water,” the City said in a media release. “Volunteers stationed on land will help gather and sort the retrieved debris. Twenty pairs of work gloves will be available for volunteers. This important role ensures responsible and sustainable clean-up efforts and supports the goal of a healthier marine environment.”

MacRumors: Batterygate: iPhone Users in Canada Can Now Submit Claims for Up to $150 Payout From Apple

Apple agreed to pay up to $14.4 million (CAD) to settle a class action lawsuit in Canada that alleged the company secretly throttled the performance of some iPhone models (“batterygate”), and eligible customers can now submit a claim for payment.

Apple’s settlement received court approval on March 4, and the claims period began today, according to law firm Rochon Genova LLP. To submit a claim, visit the settlement website, select “Submit a Claim” in the top menu, and follow the steps. A serial number for an eligible iPhone is required. The deadline to submit a claim is September 2.

Each affected customer will receive a payment of between $17.50 (CAD) and $150 (CAD) from Apple per valid claim submitted, with the exact payout amount to be dependent on the total number of claims submitted.

To be eligible, you must be a current or former resident of Canada (excluding Québec) who owns or owned an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and/or iPhone SE with iOS 10.2.1 or later installed or downloaded, and/or an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus with iOS 11.2 or later installed or downloaded, before December 21, 2017.

NYT: Some Colleges Will Soon Charge $100,000 a Year. How Did This Happen?

Some Vanderbilt students will have $100,000 in total expenses for the 2024-25 school year. The school doesn’t really want to talk about it.

Manton Reece: Indie Microblogging progress

I’m doing another editing pass of Indie Microblogging. Changing the page size and running a test printing soon to see how it feels in hardcover instead of paperback. I know it’s ridiculous that it has taken so long. New goal is to have it shipped by not-yet-announced Micro Camp 2024.

Last Updated: 05.Apr.2024 23:59:40 EDT

Thursday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Thursday 04.Apr.2024

ScienceAlert: Quantum Computing Heats Up: Scientists Achieve Qubit Function Above 1K

Our new research may offer a way forward. We have demonstrated that a particular kind of qubit – one made with a quantum dot printed with metal electrodes on silicon, using technology much like that used in existing microchip production – can operate at temperatures around 1K.

This is only one degree above absolute zero, so it’s still extremely cold. However, it’s significantly warmer than previously thought possible. This breakthrough could condense the sprawling refrigeration infrastructure into a more manageable, single system. It would drastically reduce operational costs and power consumption.

Wikipedia: Striped Toothpaste

Striped toothpaste was invented by Leonard Marraffino in 1955. The patent (US patent 2,789,731, issued 1957) was subsequently sold to Unilever, who marketed the novelty under the Stripe brand-name in the early 1960s. This was followed by the introduction of the Signal brand in Europe in 1965 (UK patent 813,514). Although Stripe was initially very successful, it never again achieved the 8% market share that it cornered during its second year.

Marraffino’s design, which remains in use for single-color stripes, is simple. The main material, usually white, sits at the crimp end of the toothpaste tube and makes up most of its bulk. A thin pipe, through which that carrier material will flow, descends from the nozzle to it. The stripe-material (this was red in Stripe) fills the gap between the carrier material and the top of the tube. The two materials are not in separate compartments, but they are sufficiently viscousthat they will not mix. When pressure is applied to the toothpaste tube, the main material squeezes down the thin pipe to the nozzle. Simultaneously, the pressure applied to the main material causes pressure to be forwarded to the stripe material, which thereby issues out through small holes (in the side of the pipe) onto the main carrier material as it is passing those holes.

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The iconic depiction of a wave-shaped blob of toothpaste sitting on a toothbrush is called a “nurdle”.

LATimes: Trump says he’ll jail his opponents. Members of the House Jan. 6 committee are preparing

Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.

Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past election day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.

In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.

Kottke: The Sound of Knitting

The above comes across as almost a parody of itself – halfway through, I thought This could be an SNL sketch! – but it’s also delightful. It’s a trailer for The Sound of Knitting, “an evening where classical music and knitting merge.” The popular designers and podcasters Arne & Carlosteamed up with the Norwegian string instrument group (heh) Trondheimsolistene to make a concert/tutorial/behind-the-scenes knitting video, available for purchase. In addition to featuring knitting-friendly music, the video includes a tour of the Norwegian municipality of Selbu, famous for its gorgeous mittens, as well as a virtual class on how to knit those mittens. It all seems lovely, although I confess I was slightly disappointed “the sound of knitting” wasn’t an ASMR video of needles clicking, although I’m sure that’s out there, too. I mean I know it is because I’ve seen it.

Last Updated: 04.Apr.2024 18:46 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 03.Apr.2024

Austin American-Statesman: Sources confirm UT laid off staff previously in DEI-related position

A week after state Sen. Brandon Creighton warned Texas university system administrators about the state’s expectations for higher education institutions to comply with Senate Bill 17 — an anti-DEI law that went into effect in January — the University of Texas has laid off at least 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions, according to three people with knowledge of the terminations.

I had no idea that Texas had such a law.

Atlantic: The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust

As an agnostic, I have spent most of my life thinking about the decline of faith in America in mostly positive terms. Organized religion seemed, to me, beset by scandal and entangled in noxious politics. So, I thought, what is there really to mourn? Only in the past few years have I come around to a different view. Maybe religion, for all of its faults, works a bit like a retaining wall to hold back the destabilizing pressure of American hyper-individualism, which threatens to swell and spill over in its absence.

More than one-quarter of Americans now identify as atheists, agnostics, or religiously “unaffiliated,” according to a new survey of 5,600 U.S. adults by the Public Religion Research Institute. This is the highest level of non-religiosity in the poll’s history. Two-thirds of nonbelievers were brought up in at least nominally religious households, like me. (I grew up in a Reform Jewish home that I would describe as haphazardly religious. In kindergarten, my parents encouraged my sister and me to enthusiastically celebrate Hanukkah–and, just as fervently, to believe in Santa Claus.) But more Americans today have “converted” out of religion than have converted to all forms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam combined. No faith’s evangelism has been as successful in this century as religious skepticism.

Atlantic: DNA Tests Are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest

People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think.

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The geneticist Jim Wilson, at the University of Edinburgh, was shocked by the frequency he found in the U.K. Biobank, an anonymized research database: One in 7,000 people, according to his unpublished analysis, was born to parents who were first-degree relatives — a brother and a sister or a parent and a child. “That’s way, way more than I think many people would ever imagine,” he told me. And this number is just a floor: It reflects only the cases that resulted in pregnancy, that did not end in miscarriage or abortion, and that led to the birth of a child who grew into an adult who volunteered for a research study.

WashPo: Nebraska lawmakers face Trump-fueled push to change electoral vote system

Nebraska is one of only two states that divide electoral votes among statewide and congressional district winners, which allowed Joe Biden to pick off an electoral vote in the red state in 2020 by carrying a swing district in the Omaha area. But Gov. Jim Pillen ® and Trump on Tuesday endorsed a proposal to return the state to a winner-take-all system, possibly upending the final days of the state’s legislative session, which ends April 18.

The effort was put to an early test Wednesday night when Republican state Sen. Julie Slama tried to add the winner-take-all proposal to an unrelated bill as an amendment. The chair of the legislature ruled that the amendment was not germane to the underlying bill, prompting an effort to overrule the chair.

WashPo: Ruby Garcia’s family says they never spoke with Trump, despite his claims in Michigan

Donald Trump used his campaign event in Michigan on Tuesday to denounce what he called “Biden’s border bloodbath,” zeroing in on the case of a young woman killed by someone immigration officials say had entered the country illegally.

“She lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people,” Trump said at a news conference in the hometown of the 25-year-old victim, Ruby Garcia. “I spoke to some of her family.”

But Garcia’s sister, acting as a family spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Trump and his campaign have not contacted her or other immediate relatives — and rebuked the GOP presidential nominee’s effort to make the case part of his calls for a border crackdown.

Last Updated: 03.Apr.2024 23:23 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Tuesday 02.Apr.2024

RenewablesNow: Renewables meet 89% of Portugal’s Q1 power demand

National grid operator Redes Energeticas Nacionais (REN) said on Monday that renewable energy plants in Portugal have covered 89% of the country’s electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2024.

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Hydro accounted for 47% of consumption, wind for 31%, solar photovoltaic (PV) for 6%, and biomass for 5%. On March 11, hydropower reached 7,280 MW, a new maximum power delivered to the grid.

NYT: Joe Flaherty, SCTV and Freaks and Geeks Actor, Dies at 82

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Gudrun Flaherty, who said that Mr. Flaherty died after a “brief illness.” She did not specify a cause, or say where he died.

Alongside an ensemble that included John Candy, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, Mr. Flaherty played a variety of characters on “SCTV.” The concept of the series, which aired in the 1970s and ’80s, was that its sketches were “shows” for a low-rent TV station in a fictional town called Melonville.

Goodbye, Guy Caballero.

NYT: Magazine: Peter C. Baker: The Case Against ‘Good’ Coffee

The coffee was fine. Not as good as a cup of freshly roasted, single-origin, shade-grown made at my favorite shop, but it was recognizably coffee. There was no process worth speaking of to enjoy, but there were no grounds on the counter, either, and I soon felt the caffeine caressing my synapses. If I had to pick one word to describe the process, that word would be: “instant.” And if I had to pick one word to describe how this simplified process made me feel, that word would be: “good.”

Coffee articles always perc me up…

Engadget: Amazon just walked out on its self-checkout technology

Amazon is removing Just Walk Out tech from all of its Fresh grocery stores in the US, as reported by The Information. The self-checkout system relies on a host of cameras, sensors and good old-fashioned human eyeballs to track what people leave the store with, charging the customers accordingly.

The technology has been plagued by issues from the onset. Most notably, Just Walk Out merely presents the illusion of automation, with Amazon crowing about generative AI and the like. Here’s where the smoke and mirrors come in. While the stores have no actual cashiers, there are reportedly over 1,000 real people in India scanning the camera feeds to ensure accurate checkouts.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

CleanTechnica: 10 Cleantech Stories Not to Miss — Electric Truck Towing, Chinese EV Takeover, Support Solar & Get An EV

1. Chinese electric cars are quietly taking over the auto market globally, and that’s starting to get interesting. According to one analysis from Transport & Environment (T&E), a full 25% of electric cars sold in Europe in 2024are expected to have been produced in China! In 2023, the figure was 19.5%.

Last Updated: 02.Apr.2024 19:28 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Monday 01.Apr.2024

Teslarati: Tesla lead engineer defends Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system

One of the things that MKBHD praised in his review was the Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system, which Tesla Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill also noted has ruined everything else for him. With steer-by-wire, pretty much every vehicle that still uses a traditional steering system immediately feels outdated. Such a comment caught the eye of some critics, one of whom noted that no one wants steer-by-wire in sports cars and that Tesla engineers are engineers first and car guys second.

In response to the steer-by-wire critic, the Cybertruck Lead Engineer explained the advantages of steer-by-wire, including the system’s capability to behave like a power-assisted steering system if necessary. He also noted that drivers can amplify feedback in a steer-by-wire system.

I’m sure old pilots don’t like fly-by-wire either. But everybody uses it now.

NYT: California Highway 1 Collapse Leaves 2,000 Tourists Stranded

Officials in California on Sunday slowly began guiding drivers past a collapsed section of scenic Highway 1 in the Big Sur area, one day after the damage left about 2,000 motorists stranded overnight.

NYT: Magazine: Why Are American Drivers So Deadly?

After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again.

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To Kuhls, it felt as if all the deadly habits that were on such flagrant display during the early months of the pandemic had become normalized. “We’ve all gotten stuck,” Kohls told me. “That’s true here; it’s true nationally. And it’s a scary thing to comprehend.”

CBS: Alex Murdaugh gets 40 years for stealing from clients, law firm

Murdaugh was punished - this time in federal court - for stealing from clients and his law firm. The 55-year-old disbarred attorney is already serving a life sentence without parole in a state prison for killing his wife and son.

Original plea deal:

Murdaugh agreed to plead guilty to more than a dozen counts, including money laundering, breach of trust and financial fraud, in exchange for a 27-year sentence. The sentence must be approved by Judge Clifton Newman, who set a sentencing hearing for Nov. 28 at which victims or their families will get to speak.

Oops.

TheFocus: 8 incredible must-see movies added to Amazon Prime Video this week

The Focus breaks down a list of eight fantastic movies added to the Amazon Prime Video streaming library this week.

The Aviator (2004)
The Big Short (2015)
Blockers (2018)
Chaplin (1992)
Cloverfield (2008)
Fighting With My Family (2019)
Nebraska (2013)
Richard Jewell (2019)

TheFocus: Changing my morning coffee routine was the best decision for my energy levels

Unfortunately, this led to some less-than-ideal habits. For one, I grew attached to a Starbucks secret menu item called the Liquid Cocaine which is as deadly as it sounds. Secondly, I ignored scientific advice and drank coffee whenever I felt like it. Shock, it was all the time.

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While there isn’t a specific time to start drinking coffee, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman recommended waiting 90 to 120 minutes before partaking.

“The reason I delay caffeine is that one of the factors that induce a sense of sleepiness is the build-up of adenosine in our system,” he said. “The buildup of adenosine accumulates the longer we’re awake, so early morning, your adenosine levels are likely to be very low.”

Worth a try.

TheFocus: 7 April Fool’s Day products that brands need to make a reality

Each year, April Fool’s Day provides companies with the perfect time to trial potential products without the need to actually launch them.

e.g.

Domino’s: The Edibox edible pizza box
KFC: Mighty Mouth Expander
Tinder: bans fish pictures
Pringles: lip balm
McDonald’s: milkshake dipping sauces

Apple Insider: macOS 15 at WWDC 2024: release date, features, rumors

Aside from comments from Tim Cook and Greg Joswiak effectively confirming AI will be a feature of the event, there have been various stories about Apple’s machine learning work that seem primed for launch.

For a start, Apple’s famous digital assistant Siri is expected to receive a massive upgrade for 2024. This includes claims of investing $1 billion into adding AI to Siri, and suggestions that generative AI elements are on the way.

It would be great to have an overhauled version of Siri.

The main claim is that new tools in Xcode will use AI to predict and automatically complete blocks of code. For developers this could save time in writing code elements for apps, as well as potentially reducing the amount of bugs caused by spelling mistakes, missing, or additional elements.

There is also the possibility of using AI to generate code for testing applications, saving developers time in a particularly tedious process.

Apple is working on AI-based image editing models

07.Feb.2024

Apple, in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, has released its own AI-based image editing model that and anybody can try.

The model has been dubbed “MGIE,” which stands for MLLM-Guided Image Editing and allows users to edit images based on natural language instructions. It leverages multimodal large language models (MLLMs), which combine various types of information, such as text, photos, and videos, to understand and generate human-like language.

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MGIE is open-source and available on GitHub for anyone to try. The GitHub page allows users to snag the code, data, and pre-trained models.

The speed of image generation will vary significantly based on hardware performance. Also, models such as this are incredibly RAM hungry.

Engineers Need Art: Virtual Pinhead

Jump to the fall of last year though and I read a post on Hacker News about virtual pinball. While the author did manage to make playing pinball sound more appealing to me (I was not aware that nudging a pinball cabinet was anything other than verboten), I think I was more drawn to the challenge of building a virtual pinball cabinet.

Six months after that blog post and virtual pinball (Visual Pinball specifically) has become a hobby that I have fully immersed myself in. I still think I am unlikely to get a real pinball machine, but I’m afraid that I have not just one, but two virtual pinball cabinets in my basement. I’m also experimenting with a more modest-size “controller” that others with a smaller budget (or with less woodworking skills) might find more approachable.

Reuters: Would-be Tesla buyers snub company as Musk’s reputation dips

The ranks of would-be Tesla buyers in the United States are shrinking, according to a survey by market intelligence firm Caliber, which attributed the drop in part to CEO Elon Musk’s polarizing persona.

While Tesla continued to post strong sales growth last year, helped by aggressive price cuts, the electric-vehicle maker is expected to report weak quarterly sales, as early as Tuesday.

Caliber’s “consideration score” for Tesla, provided exclusively to Reuters, fell to 31% in February, less than half its high of 70% in November 2021 when it started tracking consumer interest in the brand.

Last Updated: 01.Apr.2024 14:55 EDT

Sunday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Sunday 31.Mar.2024

BlockClubChicago: Heinz Is Putting Up Ketchup Dispensers To Tempt Chicagoans With Forbidden Condiment

There are some Chicago restaurants that will show you the door if you ask for ketchup.

But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Heinz is helping out ketchup-loving Chicagoans by putting up small billboards that dispense the condiment outside famous local restaurants that refuse to serve ketchup.

Passersby will be able to smack a ketchup bottle attached to the boards, and packets of Heinz ketchup will fall out, according to a Heinz news release. The dispensers go up Tuesday and will be available through April 9 outside the Wieners Circle, 2622 N. Clark St., and by Navy Pier, among other spots, a Heinz spokesperson said.

via Elliot Shank (clonezone on micro.blog)

Guardian: Martha Gill: Cute, cuddly, and often crippled: look where the love of dogs has taken the British

But then, it is also a strange kind of love, the sort that doesn’t feel quite right. The first clue, I think, that something is off, is in the breeds we feel so strongly about preserving. Our British concern for animal welfare does not stop us from joining the rest of the world in producing dogs with terrible health problems. Dachshunds are just the start of it. Labradors have hip issues. Dalmatians go deaf. And then there’s the pug, whose famous features, according to a study from the Royal Veterinary College of the UK, lead directly to “a lifetime of suffering”. They lack “even core body functions” and can’t sleep properly as they constantly have to wake up to breathe.

Why do we still buy these dogs, when we know they suffer? A University of Copenhagen study discovered a strange phenomenon: the decision to buy a breed which has lots of health issues may in fact be deliberate. These dogs require care, and this in turn produces feelings of love and satisfaction in their carers.

NetNewsWire: Free and Open Source RSS Reader for Mac and iOS

It’s like podcasts — but for reading.

NetNewsWire shows you articles from your favorite blogs and news sites and keeps track of what you’ve read.

via Odd-Egil (odd on micro.blog)

9to5Mac: This GTA6-disguised macOS malware performs heist on Keychain passwords

During an analysis of various splinter samples of a noteworthy macOS stealer, security researchers at Moonlock discovered one with an alarming level of sophistication. Under the disguise of the unreleased video game GTA6, once installed, the malware executes rather clever techniques to extract sensitive information, such as passwords from a user’s local Keychain.

In typical Security Bite fashion, here’s the breakdown: how it works and how to stay safe.

GTA = Grand Theft Auto

Lamborghini PR: Automobili Lamborghini launches its new corporate look

After more than two decades since the last update, Automobili Lamborghini has renewed its historic logo. The restyling is driven by a new strategy that involves adapting the brand’s visual expression to better reflect the “brave”, “unexpected” and “authentic” values of its mission, namely “Driving Humans Beyond”, a concept that translates into the intention to always go beyond the limits, standards and conventions.

This evolution is part of the broad transformation process denoted Direzione Cor Tauri, the strategy that embodies Lamborghini’s new trajectory focused on sustainability and decarbonization. The aim is to create a solid pact with the future generations, serving as an inspiration and model for innovation and sustainable progress. With this in mind, the House of Sant’Agata Bolognese is implementing changes that involve not only the cars, but the corporate identity as a whole, thus impacting the company’s culture and values, which will also see a new expression in terms of all the visual aspects.

Scripting News (Dave Winer): The language of developers

I loved hanging out with fellow math and compsci majors in college and grad school. It’s nice when you get to speak in the language of math and programming, where you can’t be fuzzy about things, you have to be direct, because it’s the only way to communicate.

No one attaches their feelings to the things other people say in this context. But sometimes it hurts anyway. …

UPI: Extinction Rebellion protesters disrupt Easter vigil in NYC

Extinction Rebellion protesters disrupted a vigil celebrating Easter at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the group said on social media.

Activists rose to sing “Dona Nobis Pacem,” which translates to “grant us peace” from Latin, but were allegedly “slammed” to the ground by cathedral security, Extinction Rebellion said in a statement.

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“War, occupation, and industrial pollution are poisoning the soil, air, and water in Gaza and all over the planet, destroying the earth’s capacity to sustain life,” Schwedock said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Catholic leaders in East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank compared Gaza’s suffering to the crucifixion of Jesus in an Easter message as protestant leaders also decried Israel’s continuing war in the Palestinian enclave. Pope Francis has also called for an end to the war.

Last Updated: 31.Mar.2024 15:59 EDT

Saturday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Saturday 30.Mar.2024

AppleInsider: AT&T’s customer passcodes, personal info compromised in breach

AT&T is finally resetting passcodes for current customers after hackers stole a trove of customer data more than two years ago.

The vast majority of the compromised passcodes belong to some 65.4 million current and former AT&T customers. However, the company has reset passcodes for 7.6 million of its current customers, in the typical abundance of caution often cited.

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The stolen data was first reported on hacker forums in 2021. AT&T denied that the hack was real — until now.

AppleInsider: Learn to code in Swift with new Apple tutorial guides

Apple has launched a new tutorial webpage featuring beginner resources for programming using Swift, Swift UI, and Xcode.

Ahead of its annual Worldwide Developer Conference this June, “Develop in Swift Tutorials” has appeared on the the company’s developer website. It offers guides intended to encourage new would-be developers.

The site is aimed at those with little or no prior coding experience. It features step-by-step guides on how to install Xcode, create a new project in Swift, and creating a simple app using SwiftUI.

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In addition to the foundations of SwiftUI and app navigation, there is a section of the tutorials devoted to spatial computing and developing for the Apple Vision Pro. The listed requirements for the tutorials include a Mac running either macOS Sonoma or Ventura, Xcode, and “curiosity and imagination.”

Common Dreams: ‘Obscene’: Biden Quietly OKs More 2,000-Pound Bombs, Warplanes for Israel

”‘Quietly,’” Palestinian American writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer scoffed in response to the report. “This is cowardly from the administration. If you are going to be full backers of genocide, own it. We see you and history sees you as well.”

“It is scary to think of the world U.S. support for Israel is creating. A world with no rules, no limits in war, where norms don’t exist, and where genocide is supportable,” he added. “Good luck getting anyone to listen to you about international law after this.”

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“The U.S. cannot beg Netanyahu to stop bombing civilians one day and the next send him thousands more 2,000-pound bombs that can level entire city blocks,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on social media Friday. “This is obscene. We must end our complicity: No more bombs to Israel.”

Guardian: ‘You wouldn’t put your dog in this river’: Boat Race exposes Thames Water failings

Thanks to the vast amounts of sewage now being dumped in the Thames, prevalence of the bug was 10 times higher than what is considered to be safe. As a result, crews from both boats were warned not to take a dive into the Thames at the end of the race lest they suffer diarrhoea, kidney failure or sepsis.

And the culprit? Thames Water, which has been found to have been releasing effluent directly into the river and its tributaries on a grand scale. One recent study indicated that the utility firm had pumped at least 72 billion litres of filth into the river since 2020, enough to fill 29,000 Olympic swimming pools.

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Last week, the company’s leadership was denounced as a disgrace by the communities secretary, Michael Gove,and accused of taking excess profits while failing to invest in badly needed infrastructure. Now the renationalisation of Thames Water has become a real prospect. The water industry was privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and if Thames Water is renationalised this would confirm in many people’s minds that the whole exercise had been a very costly fiasco.

There may be organizations that are worth privatizing, but many were privatized for the wrong reasons and they have cast a long shadow.

Guardian: Le Crookie: after the cronut and the cruffin, latest croissant hybrid takes Paris by storm

Teenagers queue outside bakeries to buy pastry seen on TikTok that puts American twist on French pâtisserie.

Sounds worth investigating!

Guardian: ‘Feeble, desperate, mentally unfit’: Biden changes tack to mock Trump

“It’s very sad that the other side is now starting to play the same game. This looks like we’ve lost as a society, because everyone plays that game now,” West said.

For now, it is hard to tell whether Biden cracking jokes about Trump will be a winning strategy. There is evidence, however, that Republican and Democratic voters increasingly view members of the opposing party with contempt.

Guardian: Explorers unlock the mystery of ‘pirate king’ who vanished after huge heist at sea

Kingsley and Cowan discovered that the letter links Avery with one of the first great spy rings, believed to have included Daniel Defoe, the Robinson Crusoe author, and Thomas Tenison, the archbishop of Canterbury. Together, they were protecting Protestant England from the threat of “popery”, a Catholic invasion from France and an enemy seizing the throne.

Last Updated: 30.Mar.2024 23:44 EDT

Friday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Friday 29.Mar.2024

9to5Mac: Apple sues former iOS engineer for leaking Journal app, Vision Pro details, and more

Apple has filed a lawsuit against Andrew Aude, a former iOS Software Engineer, accusing him of leaking “information about more than a half-dozen different Apple policies and products.” The leaks included details about Apple’s then-unreleased Journal app, Apple’s “development of products within the spatial computing space,” and more.

“Mr. Aude often took and saved screenshots of his communications on his Apple-issued work iPhone to preserve them for posterity,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit, filed in California this month and embedded below, includes several examples of Aude’s leaks over the years at Apple. He sent thousands of messages to multiple journalists at both The Information and the Wall Street Journal.

Cult of Mac: iMessage getting RCS for better cross-platform texting in fall 2024

Google let slip that Apple will fulfill its promise to add support for Rich Communication Services to the iPhone Messages app “in the fall of 2024.”

That almost certainly means iPhone and Android users will enjoy higher quality cross-platform texting with the release of iOS 18 and not before.

“Let slip.”

Discover Magazine: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Could Restore Vision and Mobility, But Has a Long Way to Go

More recently, in March, Neuralink posted a live stream showing 29-year-old implant recipient Norland Arbaugh using the technology to play a digital version of chess and express how the device has transformed his life after a spinal injury.

MacRumors: Criminals in Montreal Using AirTags to Steal Vehicles

Thieves in Montreal, Canada have been using Apple’s AirTags to facilitate vehicle theft, according to a report from Vermont news sites WCAX and WCAX (via WCAX). Police officers in Burlington, Vermont have issued a warning about AirTags for drivers who recently visited Canada.

Two Burlington residents found Apple AirTags in their vehicles after returning from trips to Montreal, and these are not the first reports that officers have encountered. One man, Ethan Yang, said he was coming from Montreal after visiting family, and he was alerted that there was an AirTag traveling with him. He was able to use his phone to make the ‌AirTag‌ beep, and he was able to locate the device, which had been placed in the front grille of the vehicle.

Not just Montreal.

CBC: Patriarch of Canada’s largest family-owned egg farm dies at 94

It all started as Joe Hudson’s school project in 1943.

Hudson was raising 50 baby chicks for an agricultural class in Brockville, Ont., and that assignment sparked a bright idea: switching the family’s dairy farm to the egg business instead.

More than eight decades later, Burnbrae Farms is considered the largest family-owned egg farm in Canada, with their products on grocery store shelves across the country.

Last Updated: 29.Mar.2024 23:55 EDT

Thursday’s articles

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🔗 Articles: Thursday 28.Mar.2024

Just Have a Think (YouTube): Battery prices just fell off a cliff!

Lithium-ion batteries often get a bad rap in the media these days, blamed for high cost, unwanted fires and poor working conditions in the supply chain. But the fact remains that this chemistry provides the power for billions of devices around the world, from the tiniest pacemakers to the largest utility scale stationary energy storage, and the manufacturers are making great strides to improve their systems. So can they do enough to stay at the top of the pile?

Adafruit: Adafruit ItsyBitsy RP2040 : ID 4888

What’s smaller than a Feather but larger than a Trinket? It’s an Adafruit ItsyBitsy RP2040 featuring the Raspberry Pi RP2040! Small, powerful, with a ultra fast dual Cortex M0+ processor running at 125 MHz - this microcontroller board is perfect when you want something very compact, with lots of horsepower and a bunch of pins. This Itsy has sports car speed, but SUV roominess with 8 MB of FLASH and 264KB of SRAM.

ItsyBitsy RP2040 is only 1.4” long by 0.7” wide, but has 6 power pins, 23 digital GPIO pins (4 of which can be analog in and 16 x PWM out). It’s the same chip as the Feather RP2040 and Raspberry Pi Pico but really really small. So it’s great once you’ve finished up a prototype, and want to make the project much smaller. It even comes with 8 MB of SPI Flash built in, for data logging, file storage, or CircuitPython/MicroPython code

CBC: Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX founder, sentenced to 25 years in prison in crypto fraud case

‘My useful life is probably over,’ Bankman-Fried said in remarks to court.

CBC: Ontario school boards sue Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok

Four major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their products, alleging the way they’re designed has negatively rewired the way children think, behave and learn and disrupted the way schools operate.

The public district school boards of Toronto, Peel and Ottawa-Carleton, along with Toronto’s Catholic counterpart, are looking for about $4.5 billion in total damages from Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd., which operate the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok respectively, according to separate but similar statements of claim filed Wednesday.

NYT: A Simple New Technique Could Make Your Eggs More Humane

Every year in the United States, more than 300 million male chicks are hatched. But because they don’t lay eggs or produce valued meat, they are typically killed within a day, usually shredded alive in industrial grinders. The practice, known as chick culling, is replicated on a huge scale around the globe, with an estimated 6.5 billion male chicks killed each year, or around 200 each second.

NYT: Berkeley Will Repeal Its Landmark Ban on Natural Gas in New Homes

The city of Berkeley, Calif., has agreed to repeal a landmark climate rule that would have banned natural gas hookups in new homes, throwing into question the fate of dozens of similar restrictions on gas in cities across the country.

Berkeley’s gas ban, which was the first of its kind when it passed in 2019, had been challenged in court by the California Restaurant Association and was struck down last year by a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The city settled the lawsuit last week by agreeing to immediately halt enforcement of the rule and eventually repeal it altogether.

NYT: Storing Renewable Energy, One Balloon at a Time

Energy Dome uses carbon dioxide held in a huge balloon, the “dome” in the company’s name, as a kind of battery. During the day, electricity from the local grid, some produced by nearby fields of solar cells, is used to compress the carbon dioxide into liquid. At night, the liquid carbon dioxide is expanded back into gas, which drives a turbine and produces electricity that is sent back to the grid.

In Sardinia.

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But these [other] storage methods have limitations. Pumped hydroelectric requires — and alters — hilly landscapes, and the facilities cost a lot to build. Lithium is a limited resource that is often dirty to mine, and it becomes excessively expensive when designed to store energy for much more than four hours, which may be an important capability if intermittent sources provide the majority of a grid’s power.

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In September, Westinghouse announced that it would build a 100-megawatt storage facility in Alaska, enough to supply about 80,000 average American homes with electricity for up to 12 hours. He added that the facility would cost about half that of one using lithium-ion batteries: “We feel very, very good about the economics.”

A good survey article that covers a number of long-term energy storage technologies for both electricity and heat.

Six Colors: Apple’s immersive MLS highlight reel debuts later today

Apple announced today that the first Apple Immersive Video documentary for Vision Pro, featuring highlights from last year’s MLS playoffs, will debut tonight (March 28) at 6 p.m. Pacific.

The video format has previously only been seen in a handful shorts in the TV app on the Vision Pro. This new film will be similarly short, running about five minutes long, and will be free to all Vision Pro users.

I’m excited to see the finished product—all of Apple’s immersive videos have been pretty amazing—but I have to point out that this five-minute highlight packages is being released 110 days after last year’s MLS Cup Final. That’s not great turnaround time. If immersive video for sports is going to be a thing, turnaround is going to need to be a lot faster.

As pointed out in Daring Fireball, this is the only release from Apple since the Vision Pro product announcement.

DailyHive: Canadians can get free A&W every time the Blue Jays win

Starting March 28, every person who has an account on the A&W app will receive a one-day exclusive offer for a free menu item. These potential offers can be anything on the menu, from a Teen Burger, to Onion Rings, and even root beer.

Coupons will be distributed the day after the Blue Jays win to everyone with an account on the A&W app and a minimum purchase is required to use each offer. You can find these coupons under “Offers” in the app.

Last Updated: 28.Mar.2024 19:54 EDT

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🔗 Articles: Tuesday 26.Mar.2024

WashPo: Baltimore Key Bridge collapse live updates: Search ongoing for 6 missing

A major bridge in Baltimore collapsed after being hit by a freighter at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, sending at least eight people from a construction crew into the water as a large section of the bridge crashed into the Patapsco River. The container ship, traveling at a relatively rapid speed of about eight knots, lost power in the moments before it struck the bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said at a news conference.

Moore said there is no evidence the collapse was linked to terrorist activity.

9to5Mac: Apply for WWDC24 in-person event

Apple has officially announced WWDC24 with the developer week kicking off on June 10. Like it’s done in recent years, the company is holding a special, invite-only in-person event to watch the keynote at Apple headquarters and more. Here’s how to apply for a spot.

Apple is continuing its tradition of offering WWDC online for free to everyone and also hosting the in-person event this year. Apple shared the details on its developer site:

Apply for the opportunity to join us in person for an all-day event at Apple Park on Monday, June 10. Watch the Keynote and exciting new programming, meet with Apple experts, and take part in special activities.

Along with the “all-day event” at Apple Park on June 10, Apple says badge pick-up and a welcome reception at the Infinite Loop Campus will happen on Sunday, June 9.

9to5Mac: Apple teases ‘Absolutely Incredible’ AI-focused WWDC

Apple officially set the dates for WWDC 2024 today, revealing that the event will take place from June 10 through June 14. As if there were any doubts that artificial intelligence will be a key part of WWDC this year, Apple’s marketing boss Greg Joswiak says the event will be “Absolutely Incredible.”

Get it? (A)bsolutely (I)ncredible…

Even beyond Joswiak’s subtle AI tease on social media today, the writing has been on the wall for a while. Apple CEO Tim Cook has teased Apple’s plans to unveil new AI announcements on multiple occasions this year.

Last Updated: 26.Mar.2024 15:02 EDT