New posts from the.micro.blog
🔗 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
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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.
“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.
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.
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.
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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NYT: Trina Robbins, Creator and Historian of Comic Books, Dies at 84
Trina Robbins, who as an artist, writer and editor of comics was a pioneering woman in a male-dominated field, and who as a historian specialized in books about women cartoonists, died on Wednesday in San Francisco. She was 84.
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In 1970, Ms. Robbins was one of the creators of It Ain’t Me Babe Comix, the first comic book made exclusively by women. In 1985, she was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman in her own comic after four decades of male hegemony.
🔗 Articles: Thursday 11.Apr.2024 (“It’s a big one, Daddy.”)
NYT: Trina Robbins, Creator and Historian of Comic Books, Dies at 84
Trina Robbins, who as an artist, writer and editor of comics was a pioneering woman in a male-dominated field, and who as a historian specialized in books about women cartoonists, died on Wednesday in San Francisco. She was 84.
Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her longtime partner, the superhero comics inker Steve Leialoha, who said she had recently suffered a stroke.
In 1970, Ms. Robbins was one of the creators of It Ain’t Me Babe Comix, the first comic book made exclusively by women. In 1985, she was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman in her own comic after four decades of male hegemony. In 1994, she was a founder of Friends of Lulu, an advocacy group for female comic-book creators and readers.
NYT: Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on Her New Home and Book
After Doris Kearns Goodwin’s husband died nearly six years ago, the couple’s home, a 19th-century farmhouse in Concord, Mass., no longer felt right.
“We were there for 20 years,” said Ms. Kearns Goodwin, 81, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian whose new book, “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s,” will be published April 16.
“It was a house we had loved, and a house that in many ways we had built together,” she continued, referring to assorted refinements, including the three-car garage that became a library and the addition of a tower inspired by her husband’s fascination with Galileo.
Love her writing!
ScienceAlert: Organic Material Detected in Eggshell Fossils Could Unlock Dinosaur Secrets
Organisms reinforce these shells with a type of calcium carbonate mineral called calcite. Unlike the calcium phosphate that makes up bone, calcite can act as a closed system by trapping the products of proteins involved in calcification as they break down, including free amino acids separated from protein sequences. This closed system allowed us to observe the amino acids in our analyses.
Bird eggshell is even among the best materials to find preserved protein sequences in fossils, let alone free amino acids. Demarchi’s team has detected short, intact sequences of amino acids still bound in a chain from bird eggshell at least 6.5 million years old.
NYT: Huey Lewis Lost His Hearing. That Didn’t Stop Him From Making a Musical.
After Huey Lewis learned that a syndrome of the inner ear called Ménière’s disease had caused him significant hearing loss and left him unable to play or hear music, he faced the difficult task of having to tell his friends and peers.
Lewis, whose wry lyrics and rumbling vocals powered Reagan-era pop hits like “I Want a New Drug” and “If This Is It,” turned to people like Tico Torres, the longtime Bon Jovi drummer, whom he’d gotten to know on golfing trips. But their conversation proved to be an unexpected source of the pragmatic philosophy that Lewis built his career on.
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As Lewis, 73, explained, “Zen Buddhists say you need three things: Something to love, something to hope for and something to do.”
NYT: Late Night Mocks Arizona’s Abortion Law
Stephen Colbert described the abortion ban as “so old that it was passed before women had the right to vote,” adding, “to which the Arizona Supreme Court said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll work on that one next.’”
CBC: 140 BMO customers say they lost $1.5M in transfer frauds, plan to sue bank
BMO told them they won’t be reimbursed because their passwords were used correctly and, in some cases, one-time codes were sent and entered correctly and the IP addresses matched those of the client, according to emails from the bank.
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Kenrick Bagnall, a former Toronto police cybercrime investigator who worked in the bank security sector, says he believes the customers’ devices were infected by malware, which harvests digital credentials like passwords and IP addresses from a computer, tablet or phone.
Bagnall says cybercriminals often use social media to gain information about an individual, then send them a targeted phishing email based on their interests and recent activity, which if clicked on, can infect a device.
The malware — which can evade even advanced scanning programs — then bundles the stolen information into a package, which is sold on the dark web for between $50 to $200, depending on several variables, according to Bagnall.
There’s something really fishy here.
CBC: Freeland announces housing affordability measures for first-time buyers, current owners
Freeland announced that effective April 16, the amount first-time home buyers can withdraw from their RRSPs to make a down payment on their first home will rise from a maximum of $35,000 to $60,000.
“This, plus the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account, can be combined, which will give younger Canadians more tools to save what is actually needed,” she said.
The Tax-Free First Home Savings Account program allows Canadians to save up to $8,000 per year toward a home, with a maximum lifetime contribution limit of $40,000.
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She said first-time home buyers who withdraw money from their RRSPs between Jan. 1 2022 and Dec. 31, 2025 will now have five years to begin repayments, instead of two.
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She said that beginning Aug. 1, first time home buyers with insured mortgages who purchase a new home will get 30 years to pay that mortgage back so “more younger Canadians can afford to pay that monthly mortgage on a new home.”
Since housing is supply-constrained, increasing the availability of money will only put upward pressure on pricing, not increase availability.
CBC: Submitted for her approval: Danielle Smith’s new jab at Trudeau hits cities, universities too
Earlier this week, the Danielle Smith government performed its latest round of celebrating “red tape reduction.” It pledged to streamline and slash bureaucratic burdens for rural utilities, cannabis vendors and autonomous-vehicle innovators.
Two days later, what happened?
The premier announced legislation declaring that next year any municipality, school or agency that wanted any dollar or any deal with Ottawa would first need provincial civil servants to review, deliberate and give Alberta’s seal of approval.
Seems hypocritical.
MacRumors: DuckDuckGo Launches 3-in-1 ‘Privacy Pro’ Subscription With VPN and Personal Data Removal Tool
Privacy Pro includes a VPN for anonymous browsing and secure connections regardless of location, personal information removal for removing personal data from data broker sites, and identity theft restoration should any DuckDuckGo subscriber suffer from an identity theft situation.
The VPN works on up to five devices simultaneously, so it can be installed and used on a Mac, iPhone, iPad, and other devices at the same time. It is turned on through the DuckDuckGo browser so a second app is not required, and it does filter traffic through all apps and browsers.
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Privacy Pro from DuckDuckGo is priced at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, and it is currently only available in the United States. Users will need to ensure they are using the latest version of the DuckDuckGo browser to take advantage of the features.
Ars Technica: Apple will allow reuse of iPhone parts for repairs, with a notable catch
Apple also announced that iPhones’ Parts and Service history will be expanded to show whether each part that has been replaced is a new or used Genuine Apple part. Apple did not mention aftermarket parts but will presumably continue to label those as an “Unknown Part.”
TechCrunch: Walmart will deploy robotic forklifts in its distribution centers
That Florida distribution center is the first of what the company calls its “high-tech DC.” These are warehouses where it trials automation and various other technologies, before rolling them out to its wider channel of distribution and fulfillment centers. DC 6020 is the place where Walmart began trials with Symbotic’s package sortation and retrieval technologies.
Following that successful trial, Walmart announced plans to roll out the technology to all 42 of its Regional Distribution Centers — that was nearly double the original target of 25. This week’s news is more modest, targeting four high-tech DCs, but if things go well, the retailer will order more.
TechCrunch: Ford’s hands-free BlueCruise system was active before fatal Texas crash
The driver of a Mustang Mach-E who crashed into a stationary car in Texas in February was using Ford’s hands-free driver assistance system, BlueCruise, according to data obtained by the National Transportation Safety Board.
It’s the first known fatality resulting from a crash involving the use of BlueCruise, which Ford first announced in 2021. The system allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel on pre-mapped highways, and uses eye-tracking to determine whether drivers are paying attention to the road.
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The February crash happened just outside San Antonio. A 1999 Honda CR-V was stationary in the center lane of Interstate 10 with no lights on at around 9:50 p.m. CT, when the Mustang Mach-E crashed into the back of it. The Honda flipped over and wound up in the left lane. The safety board said Thursday that the Mustang driver “had been operating the vehicle in BlueCruise mode before the crash.” The 56-year-old driver of the Honda died after being transferred to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, according to the police report, while the driver of the Mustang sustained “minor injuries.” Police found no signs of intoxication in the Mustang driver. The NTSB said another driver missed the Honda moments before the Mustang crashed into it.
Guardian: Varied reactions to OJ Simpson’s death reflect a complicated life
Usually the death of a celebrity prompts a flood of similar-sounding tributes, remembering the highlights of their lives and keeping a respectful distance on any of the lower moments and controversies.
But for Simpson, that was never going to be the case.
The news that Simpson, the former top American football player who was acquitted of the double murders of his ex-wife and her friend in 1994, had died of cancer sparked an immediate and widespread response. Few of them – aside from his immediate family – were conventionally mourning his passing.
Guardian: Banquet room with preserved frescoes unearthed among Pompeii ruins
‘Black room’ with frescoes inspired by Trojan war described as one of most striking discoveries ever made at site in southern Italy.
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The 15-metre-long, six-metre-wide room was found in a former private residence in Via di Nola, which was ancient Pompeii’s longest road, during excavations in the Regio IX area of the site.
The “black room”, so-called because of the colour of its walls that were probably intended to mask the soot from burning oil lamps, was a “refined setting for entertaining during convivial moments”, experts said.
NYT: Frank Bruni: Republicans Are Fleeing the Stench of a Rotten Congress
Now, its fruits. “Four G.O.P. committee chairs are leaving,” Marianna Sotomayor wrote in a roll call of the Republican refugees in The Washington Post last weekend. “Eight lawmakers are retiring from the coveted Energy and Commerce Committee, and eight subcommittee chairs are leaving.”
Sotomayor quoted Buck as saying: “The populist wave has eroded the conservative values that I had when I came to this place. Now, we’re impeaching people like it’s some kind of carnival, and the Constitution is just a thing of the past to the very same people who were tea party patriots 10 to 12 years ago.”
Also includes the not-to-be-missed For the Love of Sentences section.
Last Updated: 11.Apr.2024 23:27 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Friday 12.Apr.2024
pv magazine: California Supreme Court to review rooftop solar net metering
The case involves the state’s NEM 3.0 net metering scheme and the rate structure that went into effect in April 2023. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a request by the state’s largest investor-owned utilities to cut compensation to customers that export excess solar generation to the grid, a process called net energy metering.
Net metering rates were rapidly cut by 80% under NEM 3.0. This change, combined with a high-interest rate environment, has pushed the state’s robust rooftop solar industry off a cliff, damaging the return on investment for homeowners, and leading to more than 17,000 solar jobs lost, demand falling 80% post-implementation, and numerous companies filing for bankruptcy.
“The commission’s new rooftop solar policy enables the utilities’ self-interested attack on rooftop solar,” said Bill Powers, an energy expert with The Protect Our Communities Foundation. “The real problem is heedless pursuit of maximum profit by the utilities at the expense of reasonable rates and commonsense climate action.”
TorStar: Jagmeet Singh backpedals on consumer carbon levy
Referring to a March report that concluded industrial carbon pricing systems were far more effective than the consumer levy on fuel, Singh told reporters that the New Democrats “want more attention on the policies that are the biggest drivers of lowering emissions,” such as the industrial price on pollution and methane regulations. He said the NDP would release its own climate plan.
“It can’t just be that our only approach to fighting the climate crisis is using free-market solutions,” he said. “That is not sufficient to meet the seriousness of what we’re up against.”
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Overall, the Abacus data showed a small increase in the number of respondents who don’t support the federal carbon pricing system, although it also revealed they were skeptical of all political messaging around the issue – regardless of whether it was positive or negative. When it comes to which of the two major federal leaders was providing the most accurate information around the policy, 27 per cent of responders chose Trudeau, 32 per cent chose Poilievre, and 41 per cent said neither.
TorStar: Jon Wells: 14 years. 140 officers. Inside the Lucas Shortreed case
She determined it was OEM: Original equipment manufacturer vehicle paint.
To find a match for her white paint sample, she tapped into an RCMP database that stored more than 15,000 paint samples.
She determined the paint had come from the frame of the hit-and-run car, near where the windshield meets the front door, and found 578 samples in the database that matched.
Globe: Priest accused of sex assaults against children in Nunavut dies
The Oblates of Lacombe Canada and the Oblate Province of France say Johannes Rivoire died Thursday.
Rev. Ken Thorson with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Lacombe Canada said Friday in an email the death may be difficult news for those who advocated for the priest to face justice in Canada.
Globe: Gary Mason: Victoria has a problem it can’t solve: homelessness
Pandora Avenue, in the downtown core, has long been a magnet for displaced persons. A broad stretch of sidewalk extending a long city block is today the site of a number of tents, some quite large, that house dozens and dozens of homeless people, many of whom are drug-addicted and mentally ill. Outreach workers have noted the recent arrival to the camp of people from outside the province and also an increase in the number of youth.
It’s all had a debilitating impact on nearby businesses, such as McDonald’s and Save-On-Foods, which are constantly calling police to deal with issues caused by those who have little to eat and no place to turn when nature calls.
Yahoo Sports: Coyotes players reportedly told team is moving from Arizona to Utah
Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong met with the team before their game against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday to confirm rumors that the NHL has facilitated a sale of the team to Ryan and Ashley Smith, owners of the Utah Jazz, according to ESPN. Players had reportedly been demanding answers, leading Armstrong to fly up to Edmonton to break the news.
Last Updated: 12.Apr.2024 23:50 EDT
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It feels like the Apple Vision Pro’s profile has sunk like a stone. I hope they release it to more countries soon. I wonder if they threw things like internationalization overboard in the final push to ship?
🔗 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
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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
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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
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.
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
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