New posts from the.micro.blog
🔗 Articles: Tuesday 21.May.2024
US FDA: Do Not Use Cue Health’s COVID-19 Tests Due to Risk of False Results: FDA Safety Communication
Date Issued: May 13, 2024
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning home test users, caregivers, and health care providers not to use Cue Health’s COVID-19 Tests for Home and Over-the-Counter (OTC) Use and its COVID-19 Test intended for patient care settings due to increased risk of false results.
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The FDA issued a Warning Letter to Cue Health on May 10, 2024, after an inspection revealed the company made changes to these tests and these changes reduced the reliability of the tests to detect SARS-CoV-2 virus.
via Pratik
InsideEVs: Study Finds Just 2.5% Of EVs Have Had Their Battery Replaced
The new study found that battery replacement rates for EVs built before 2015 are as high as 13%, but for vehicles from 2016 or newer, they drop to 1% or less. The oldest EVs included in the study were from 2011, and about one in three needed a new battery, but this was due to several factors, not just their age.
Electric Car Charger Vandalism Continues To Surge Nationwide
A Tesla Supercharging station in the Bay Area was recently targeted by vandals who severed the charging cord from every stall. A few days prior, 5 separate Supercharger locations were stripped in Houston, TX. In Fresno, CA, over 50 of the city’s 88 EV charging stations have been pillaged – some multiple times.
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Still, sometimes the vandalism is not about the money at all. Property damage is also performed by petty, anti-EV actors all over the world just looking to make life more miserable for others. An individual in British Columbia, Canada dipped the charging plugs of a Tesla Supercharger in a sealant, which when dried rendered the station inoperable.
Once they get more surveillance cameras installed, we’ll find out who these people are. In the meantime, costs rise.
The Atlantic: Scientists Are Very Worried About NASA’s Mars Plan
If, that is, the samples ever make it back to Earth. NASA officials recently announced that the sample-return effort has become too expensive and fallen worryingly behind schedule. The latest estimated cost of as much as $11 billion is nearly double what experts initially predicted, and the way things are going, the samples won’t arrive home until 2040, seven years later than expected. At a press conference last month, NASA chief Bill Nelson repeatedly called the state of the Mars Sample Return mission “unacceptable,” a striking chastisement of his own agency, considering that MSR is an in-house effort. Officials have put out a call—to NASA’s own ranks and to private space companies—for “quicker and cheaper” plans that don’t require “huge technological leaps” to bring the samples home.
Guardian: Donald Trump removes video on Truth Social with ‘unified reich’ reference
Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social account referencing a “unified reich” if Trump wins the presidential election in November – then, after being criticized for it in some quarters for more than half a day, removed it.
The video posted on Monday remained up for 15 hours into Tuesday morning despite the reference being pointed out by media outlets. The former president’s account removed it by about 10am ET on Tuesday.
TorStar: There’s only so one way to fix Canada. Everyone will hate it
Today, some provinces are hitting eject just for kicks. Saskatchewan is using the clause to bully transgender kids at school, Ontario wielded it to pass a political advertising law, and Quebec has used it to tell religious minorities how to dress on the job. Pierre Poilievre even wants to use it to pass cruel, inhumane, ineffective, unconstitutional criminal sentencing laws
Trudeau’s strategy has been to leave it to the courts, hoping against hope that they would find some ingenious way to reinstall the glass box marked “DO NOT PRESS.” This is a legal fantasy. The only way to uninstall this constitutional vestige — or, at least, to make it harder to use — is to amend the constitution.
TorStar: Impact of pot legalization on older Canadians has been stark
A year after legalizing dried cannabis flowers, Canadian older adults were the age group with the largest growth in overall cannabis use. Yet, little is known about the health effects of legalizing edible cannabis on older adults.
Our study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine found that Canada’s legalization of cannabis was associated with increased rates of emergency department visits for cannabis poisoning among older adults in Ontario. The largest increases occurred after edible cannabis became legally available for retail sale in January 2020 (three times greater than pro-legalization, and 1.5 times greater then when only dried cannabis flower was legally available for retail sale).
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A study of Canadian children found that legalization of edible cannabis was associated with marked increases in poisoning hospitalizations. Older adults are similarly prone to unintentional poisonings because edible cannabis products are visually attractive and palatable, and may be taken in error, being easily confused with non-cannabis foods and candies.
Some of the harms we observed were likely related to intentional ingestions, including for recreational purposes. Compared to inhaled cannabis, edibles have delayed drug effects of about three hours. Older adults may be more accustomed to the instantaneous high of inhaled cannabis, and ingest excessive doses of edibles before peak effects have occurred. This is known as ‘dose-stacking’ and is a contributor to cannabis poisoning.
MacRumors: New ‘Parkour’ Immersive Video Coming to Vision Pro on Friday
A description of the Parkour episode invites Vision Pro wearers to join the “world’s leading parkour athletes” as they go on a “gravity-defying trek across the streets and rooftops of Paris.”
MacRumors: Next Emoji Coming to iOS Could Include Face With Eye Bags, Shovel, Fingerprint, Splatter and More
Apple adds new emoji to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and other devices regularly based on updates made to the emoji catalog by the Unicode Consortium, and the there are seven new emoji that we could see sometime in late 2024 or early 2025.
The next emoji characters being considered include face with bags under eyes, fingerprint, leafless tree, root vegetable, harp, shovel, and splatter.
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Apple last introduced new emoji with the iOS 17.4 update that was released in March 2024. Characters added in iOS 17.4 include lime, an edible brown mushroom, a phoenix, a broken chain, shaking head vertically (as in a “yes” nod), and shaking head horizontally (a “no” head shake).
Last Updated: 21.May.2024 22:47 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Wednesday 22.May.2024
CTV: Woman found dead in Lake Ontario in 2017 is missing person in Switzerland
Then, in January 2023, Toronto police began using investigative genetic genealogy, which revealed that the unidentified woman had distant relatives in North America, most of whom had heritage that traced back to a specific region in Switzerland.
In August 2023, Toronto police with the assistance of the RCMP reached out to police in the European nation, and began focusing their investigation on a woman who went missing from there in September 2017.
The Athletic: What do you think of Scott Foster after reading this?
Foster’s “Three Things” are always in the same order:
The 134 phone calls Foster exchanged with referee Tim Donaghy during a seven-month span when Donaghy was betting on NBA games and providing inside information to bookies.
Friction with [Chris] Paul, the All-Star guard, which has included veiled accusations by Paul that Foster made things personal in the wake of a postgame encounter in 2015 with Paul’s young son.
A collection of anonymous player polls, one by The Los Angeles Times in 2016 and one by The Athletic in 2023, in which players voted Foster the worst referee in the NBA. In a 2019 poll by The Athletic, players voted Foster the second-worst ref behind Tony Brothers.
NewsNation: Nearly half of swing-state voters expect violence around election: Survey
The Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll asked voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, “How much do you trust each of the following — That the election and its aftermath will be free from violence.”
Thirty-one percent of respondents said “not much,” while 18 percent said “not at all.” Thirty-five percent said “some,” and those answering “a lot” equaled 16 percent.
The same poll also found that in a hypothetical match-up between former President Trump and President Biden, the swing-state voters went for Trump by 4 points, with Trump at 48 percent in the poll versus Biden’s 44 percent.
Bloomberg: US Justice Department to Seek Breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster
The US Justice Department and a group of states will sue Live Nation Entertainment Inc. for antitrust violations related to Ticketmaster’s unrivaled control of concert ticket sales, according to people familiar with the case.
The suit is expected to be filed in the Southern District of New York Thursday, said the people who asked not to be identified. The dispute will seek remedies including breaking up Live Nation, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential information.
Last Updated: 22.May.2024 21:02 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Thursday 23.May.2024
Don’t leave home without it!
ScienceAlert: Oldest Known Human Viruses Found in 50,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Bones
“To support [this] provocative and interesting hypothesis, it would be necessary to prove that at least the genomes of these viruses can be found in Neanderthal remains,” molecular biologist and senior author of the new study, Marcelo Briones, told New Scientist’s James Woodford. “That is what we did.”
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Briones, along with evolutionary geneticist Renata Ferreira of the Federal University of São Paulo in Brazil and colleagues, sampled DNA from the skeletons of two male Neanderthals.
There, amongst the Neanderthal genome, they found snippets of DNA that resembled three modern viruses: adenovirus, which today causes common colds; herpesvirus, the culprit behind cold sores; and papillomavirus, transmitted during sex and causing genital warts.
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The research has been posted to the bioRxiv preprint server ahead of peer review.
The Atlantic: Nikki Haley Surrendered, But Not Her Voters
Most of her supporters voted for Haley as a way to stop Trump. Haley’s announcement today that she intends to vote for Trump won’t raise their opinion of him, it will only lower their opinion of her. When she says, as she said again today, that she wished Donald Trump would “reach out” to her voters, she’s speaking words that may sound like English, but make no sense. The only way Donald Trump could reach out to Trump-skeptical Republicans is by pleading guilty to the many criminal charges against him and vowing to devote the rest of his life to restitution for the victims of his many civil frauds.
TorStar: Minister tables bill to extend citizenship rights to children born abroad
In 2009, the Conservative government changed the law so that Canadian parents who were born abroad could not pass down their citizenship unless their child was born in Canada.
Stephen Harper, you say?
TorStar: Ontario judge compares police officers to sitcom buffoon
“TELL THE TRUTH,” Justice Fergus O’Donnell wrote, addressing police in capital letters in a May 10 decision that details his frustration that a group of Niagara Regional Police officers seemed bafflingly unable to remember what each other was doing during an impaired driving arrest.
When an officer, or anyone else, takes the stand, their sole job is to be truthful, O’Donnell wrote — “Period. Full stop. End of. Unvarnished. Unselective. The truth, the whole truth (this phrase was underlined) and nothing but the truth. It really is that simple.”
TorStar: Susan Delacourt: Liberals paint Poilievre as scary, but many don’t care
Liberals like to say that the large polling gap with the Conservatives will be narrowed when voters stop and take a hard look at what Pierre Poilievre would do to the country.
But a new poll from Abacus shows that many Canadians have no illusions about how much Poilievre could shake up things — beyond just axing taxes — and the Conservatives are still holding a comfortable, 16-point lead in this latest survey. It should be noted that Abacus removes undecided voters from these horse-race results.
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This reminds me of the aftermath of the 2005-06 election, when a newly elected Conservative government followed through on its promise to end the Liberals’ national child care program. Ken Dryden, the minister responsible for that program, said he kept running into people during that campaign who believed they could have both — a Liberal child care program and the Conservatives’ subsidy to parents.
As former prime minister Jean Chrétien was fond of saying, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. If the next election comes down to a choice between change and stability, this poll would seem to be an indication that people want both.
Slashdot: Amazon Plans To Give Alexa an AI Overhaul, Monthly Subscription Price
According to CNBC, Amazon plans to enhance its Alexa voice assistant with generative AIand introduce it to customers through a monthly subscription service. While the price point has yet to be determined, sources say it will not be included in the company’s $139-per-year Prime offering.
“Revenue enhancement”.
James Thomson: About by PCalc in Apple VisionPro
About by PCalc for visionOS is now available!
Perhaps the most pointless app on Vision Pro, but still quite fun to play with. This is a complete remake of the original PCalc About screen in VR. It’s basically me experimenting with what’s possible today with RealityKit, over-engineering things as usual, and then for some inexplicable reason actually shipping it. I hope you enjoy it!
apps.apple.com/gb/app/about-by…
James Thomson: About by PCalc in Apple VisionPro
Here are some more screenshots showing the actual About by PCalc interface in action on visionOS. The main controls have virtual joysticks, but there’s a list of gestures you can assign to each hand, including a point and teleport option for people who don’t enjoy fast movement in VR. Gamepads are fully supported too.
You can also just choose between some points of interest and take in the sights. The settings let you tailor things a bit if you want the controls in a slightly different place.
AP: NCAA, leagues sign off on $2.8 billion plan, setting stage for dramatic change across college sports
The NCAA and the nation’s five biggest conferences have agreed to pay nearly $2.8 billion to settle a host of antitrust claims,a monumental decision that sets the stage for a groundbreaking revenue-sharing model that could start directing millions of dollars directly to athletes as soon as the 2025 fall semester.
The Pac-12 became the final conference to sign off on the proposal Thursday when its university leaders voted to approve, according to a person with direct knowledge of the results.
Guardian: Gavin Newsom signs bill to help people in Arizona get abortions in California
Under the new law, doctors licensed to perform abortions in Arizona could provide abortion care for their patients in California. The legislation offers medical providers an expedited path to getting their credentials in California.
“With SB 233 California offers a lifeline to Arizona doctors to provide the healthcare their patients need without fear of a prison sentence. Once again, California has made it loud and clear we will remain a safe haven for reproductive care,” the California Legislative Women’s caucus said in a statement after lawmakers approved the bill.
Last Updated: 23.May.2024 23:31 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Friday 24.May.2024
Just do it!
Vox: Besides Ticketmaster and scalpers, why are concert tickets are so expensive?
The fact is, concerts have steadily gotten more expensive even on the primary market — the place where someone can originally buy tickets, like Ticketmaster — before any scalper upcharge is added. According to the live music trade publication Pollstar, the average ticket price of the top 100 music tours last year was $122.84. In 2019 it was $91.86 — a rise that outpaced inflation by a good margin. Back in 2000, it was $40.74. For the top 10 grossing tours in 2023, the average price was even higher: $152.97.
Though there are a number of factors involved in this price creep (including high fees, which a 2018 Government Accountability Office report says make up an average of 27 percent of the ticket’s total cost), the heart of the matter is simple: demand. People all over the world are clamoring to go to just a handful of the most popular artists’ concerts. Live Nation reported that 145 million people attended one of its shows in 2023, compared to 98 million in 2019. The momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing, with ticket sales in the first quarter of 2024 higher than they were this time last year.
CNN: Michael Richards talks 2006 racist rant, but he’s ‘not looking for a comeback’
“I was a good character actor, but I was comfortable being the character, not in being me,” Richards told the publication.
“I said no to the offer of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I didn’t feel deserving,” he also said. “I said no to hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’ twice because I didn’t feel good enough. I was never really satisfied with my Seinfeld performance. Fame magnified my insecurities.”
NYT: Supreme Court Justice Alito’s Beach House Displayed ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Flag
Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.
This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.
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The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court.
As a Supreme Court judge, you think he’d understand the importance of the separation of church and state, wouldn’t you?
Ars Technica: Apple clarifies iOS 17.5 bug that exposed deleted photos
The company claimed that when users reported the photos resurfacing on a device other than the one they were originally deleted on, it was always because they had restored from a backup other than iCloud Photos or performed a direct transfer from one device to another.
Wired: Don’t Believe the Biggest Myth About Heat Pumps
Not only do heat pumps work fine in cold weather, they’re still more efficient than gas furnaces in such conditions.
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If heat pumps don’t actually work in frigid weather, no one told the Nordic nations, which endure Europe’s coldest climates, with average winter temperatures around 0degrees Celsius (32 degrees F). As of 2021, Norway had heat pumps in 60 percent of households. In 2022, Finland installed more of the appliances per capita than any other country in Europe, while Sweden has similarly gone all-in on the technology. In the United States, heat pumps are selling like hotcakes in Alaska, and last year Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 of the devices way ahead of schedule. These places ain’t exactly perpetually sunny California. (US-wide, heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces.)
via John, Apple News+
Electrek: Nissan preps next-gen LEAF EV production, but challenges await
With trials expected to run for six months, Nissan could begin next-gen LEAF production as early as March 2025. We could see Nissan’s electric car debut before the end of the year. However, that’s if everything goes smoothly.
via John
NewsNation: RFK Jr. makes Florida ballot with help of Reform Party
As independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his quest to make it on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and qualify for the upcoming presidential debates, he’s now succeeded in Florida.
The Reform Party of the United States has nominated Kennedy as its presidential candidate, allowing him to appear on the Florida ballot. He is hoping to peel voters away from both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, with a platform that includes a mix of positions appealing to voters on both sides of the aisle.
He asked the Reform Party for help in his effort to qualify in all states. The party defines itself as a moderate, centrist party founded in 1996 by supporters of independent candidate Ross Perot, who ran for the presidency in 1992.
NewsNation: Eastern Oregon residents pass ‘Greater Idaho’ measure
Residents in Crook County, Oregon, approved the “Greater Idaho” measure Tuesday that would require the county to proceed with efforts to secede from the state and join Idaho.
Voters passed the measure with 53%, making it the 13th county in eastern Oregon to approve it.
NewsNation: US taxpayers pushing back on multibillion-dollar stadium plans
Despite opposition, city officials continue to preach the benefits pro franchises provide despite promised economic benefits that Ganis, the stadium expert, says should always be taken with a grain of salt.
“It’s really the haves and the have-nots,” Christina Giunchigliani, former Clark County Board told the New York Times. “If they really wanted to diversify the economy, does sports add a component? Yes. But they didn’t need public tax dollars to do it.”
Daring Fireball: Publishing AI Slop Is a Choice
From a New York Times story by Nico Grant, under the headline “Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online”:
With each mishap, tech industry insiders have criticized the company for dropping the ball. But in interviews, financial analysts said Google needed to move quickly to keep up with its rivals, even if it meant growing pains.
Google “doesn’t have a choice right now,” Thomas Monteiro, a Google analyst at Investing.com, said in an interview. “Companies need to move really fast, even if that includes skipping a few steps along the way. The user experience will just have to catch up.”
That quote is insane. There’s no reason Google had to enable this feature now. None. If their search monopoly has been losing share recently, it’s not because of rivals who are serving up AI-generated slop. It’s because even before this, Google’s search results quality was slipping in obvious ways. This is just making it worse.
BBC: Royal Mail investigated by Ofcom for missing delivery targets
Royal Mail is being investigated by Ofcom after the service failed to deliver less than three quarters of first-class post on time in the last year.
In its yearly financial results on Friday, Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS) said only 74.5% of first-class mail was delivered within one working day.
Regulator Ofcom’s rules state 93% of first-class mail must be delivered within the timeframe, excluding Christmas.
Something similar should be set up for Canada Post.
CBC: Mexico is about to experience its ‘highest temperatures ever recorded’ as death toll climbs
The extreme heat smothering much of Mexico has killed dozens of people across multiple states.
The jury reached their verdict after less than a day of deliberations.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years — the sentence imposed by Superior Court Justice Harrison Arrell. He described their Karafa and Li’s actions as “the most heinous crimes of violence” noting that Pratt and Romano were unarmed, unsuspecting victims.
NYT: Fast Food Forever: How McHaters Lost the Culture War
Super Size Me helped lead a backlash against McDonald’s. Twenty years on, the industry is bigger than ever.
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It would have been easy to call the cultural moment a brand crisis for fast food.
But two decades later, not only is McDonald’s bigger than ever, with nearly 42,000 global locations, but fast food in general has boomed. There are now some 40 chains with more than 500 locations in the United States. Fast food is the second-largest private employment sector in the country, after hospitals, and about 36 percent of Americans — more than 115 million people — eat fast food on any given day. The three major appeals of fast food remain intact: It’s cheap, it’s convenient and people like the way it tastes.
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The stock price of McDonald’s hit an all-time high in January, and has gone up nearly 1,000 percent since Super Size Me came out — nearly twice the return of the S&P 500.
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It would have been easy to call the cultural moment a brand crisis for fast food.
But two decades later, not only is McDonald’s bigger than ever, with nearly 42,000 global locations, but fast food in general has boomed. There are now some 40 chains with more than 500 locations in the United States. Fast food is the second-largest private employment sector in the country, after hospitals, and about 36 percent of Americans — more than 115 million people — eat fast food on any given day. The three major appeals of fast food remain intact: It’s cheap, it’s convenient and people like the way it tastes.
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The stock price of McDonald’s hit an all-time high in January, and has gone up nearly 1,000 percent since Super Size Me came out — nearly twice the return of the S&P 500.
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In 2016, 91 percent of parents reported buying lunch or dinner for their child in the past week from one of the four biggest chains — a significant increase compared with the 79 percent who did in 2010 and the 83 percent in 2013.
Last Updated: 24.May.2024 23:30 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Saturday 25.May.2024
Can you hear me now?!
SMH: Penguin Island, Rockingham: Western Australia’s little penguin population plummets again
The penguin colony on Rockingham’s Penguin Island has seen its numbers drop by 94 per cent in less than 20 years, with the state Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions admitting the situation was concerning.
The new damning population report on the colony at the popular tourist attraction in Perth’s south, conducted by scientists and given to the state government more than three weeks ago, was finally handed to City of Rockingham councillors on Wednesday night.
UPI: Successful satellite launch will let NASA measure polar heat loss
NASA on Saturday successfully launched a satellite it hopes will be able to measure how much heat is lost to space from the Arctic and Antarctica.
The small cube satellite, or CubeSat, lifted off at 3:41 a.m. in New Zealand aboard an Electron rocket manufactured by Rocket Lab.
The launch took place at the California-based rocket maker’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand.
NYT: French Open: 50 Years Ago, Chris Evert and Bjorn Borg Changed Tennis
As for the 50th anniversary of their first French Open titles, Borg and Evert are struck by the speed of time.
Last Updated: 25.May.2024 23:12 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Sunday 26.May.2024
It’s the Real Thing!
NYT: Trump Tells Libertarians to Nominate Him, and Mocks Them When They Boo
Early in his speech at the Libertarian Party’s national convention on Saturday, Donald J. Trump told the party’s delegates bluntly that they should nominate him as its candidate for president. He was vigorously booed.
When the jeers died down, Mr. Trump, visibly frustrated with the rowdy reception he had received ever since taking the stage, dug in and went a step further, seeming to insult the very group that had invited him.
“Only do that if you want to win,” he said of nominating him. “If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your three percent every four years.”
The boos began anew, only louder.
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“He’s going to make himself sound Libertarian,” Ms. Welch said. “But he’s the ultimate authoritarian.”
NYT: Hillary Clinton Has Some Tough Words for Democrats, and for Women
Hillary Clinton criticized her fellow Democrats over what she described as a decades-in-the-making failure to protect abortion rights, saying in her first extended interview about the fall of Roe v. Wade that her party underestimated the growing strength of anti-abortion forces until many Democrats were improbably “taken by surprise” by the landmark Dobbs decision in 2022.
In wide-ranging and unusually frank comments, Mrs. Clinton said Democrats had spent decades in a state of denial that a right enshrined in American life for generations could fall — that faith in the courts and legal precedent had made politicians, voters and officials unable to see clearly how the anti-abortion movement was chipping away at abortion rights, restricting access to the procedure and transforming the Supreme Court, until it was too late.
“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.”
Well, yeah.
CleanTechnica: Publishing On Cement Decarbonization Brings Challenges, Corrections And More Approaches
We make about 4.1 billion tons of cement annually, which turns into perhaps 40 billion tons of concrete. The carbon dioxide is about one for one with cement, so that’s about 4.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or 8% to 10% of all carbon dioxide we emit annually in the world. It’s a big climate problem.
Sublime Systems’ solution — full article with all the nerdy details, some of which I got wrong, here — is electrochemistry, the same class of chemistry that is used in all of our batteries, to make aluminum and to make the chemical that bleaches paper, among a lot of other things. The basics of electrochemistry are that if you have a positively and negatively charged electrode in a medium and you adjust the pH balance, you can do stuff that sometimes seems like alchemy.
Guardian: Charles Leclerc wins Monaco F1 GP for Ferrari to delight of home crowd
This is Leclerc’s sixth attempt to win the race and now that the 26‑year‑old has done so he can consider his Monaco curse truly lifted, becoming the first Monegasque to win here since the Formula One world championship began in 1950 by beating McLaren’s Oscar Piastri into second and his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz into third.
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Yet the race he won was a turgid affair to watch. Dictated by tyre management at a torturously slow pace and with passing impossible, the cars circled round in an endless procession, offering neither interest nor any sense of jeopardy, nor indeed barely a sniff of actual racing.
With the top 10 finishing in exactly their grid order, there was nary even an attempt at an overtake among them — Monaco, the so-called jewel in the Formula One crown, proving once more as patently unfit for purpose in the modern era.
The Verge: Bambu P1P vs. Creality K1C: an ‘easy’ 3D printer showdown
If you asked me to recommend an “easy” consumer 3D printer, I’d warn you first: despite countless innovations, you still can’t quite hit a button to reliably photocopy a 3D model. Buying a 3D printer is buying an entire hobby, one where — if you’re a lazy bum like me — many attempts will turn into worthless gobs of plastic.
But if you persisted, I’d tell you my one clear choice for lazy bums: the Bambu P1P.
What, a printer from the company that recalled its newest model and whose earlier ones once went rogue? Yep — because not only did Bambu handle those incidents with rapid apologies, investigations, transparency, and even refunds, the $599 Bambu P1P is also absolutely the easiest, most reliable 3D printer I’ve used.
Last Updated: 26.May.2024 23:52 EDT
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🔗 Articles: Monday 27.May.2024
Imagination at work
The Verge: Google promised a better search experience — now it’s telling us to put glue on our pizza
Imagine this: you’ve carved out an evening to unwind and decide to make a homemade pizza. You assemble your pie, throw it in the oven, and are excited to start eating. But once you get ready to take a bite of your oily creation, you run into a problem — the cheese falls right off. Frustrated, you turn to Google for a solution.
“Add some glue,” Google answers. “Mix about 1/8 cup of Elmer’s glue in with the sauce. Non-toxic glue will work.”
So, yeah, don’t do that. As of writing this, though, that’s what Google’s new AI Overviews feature will tell you to do. The feature, while not triggered for every query, scans the web and drums up an AI-generated response. The answer received for the pizza glue query appears to be based on a comment from a user named “f–ksmith” in a more than decade-old Reddit thread, and they’re clearly joking.
Egg freckles.
ScienceAlert: Mysterious Viral DNA in Human Genome Linked With Psychiatric Disorders
We found that that the expression of four Hervs was linked with genetic susceptibility to major psychiatric disorders. The expression of two of these Hervs was associated with schizophrenia, one Herv with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and one with depression.
These results suggest that Hervs may be playing a more important role in the brain than initially thought.
CleanTechnica: Kenya To Get 1,000 MW Data Center Powered By Geothermal Energy
Kenya is already in the top 10 countries when it comes to electricity generation plants powered by geothermal. Kenya has the 6th highest installed generation capacity and is inching closer to being one of the few countries in the world that have generation capacity from geothermal that is over 1,000 MW. Kenya’s current installed capacity from geothermal is 985 MW. According to THINK GEOENERGY, only New Zealand (1,042 MW), Turkiye (1,691 MW), Philippines (1,952 MW), Indonesia (2,418 MW), and the US (3,900 MW) have more generating capacity than Kenya.
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Last week, Microsoft Corp. and G42 announced a comprehensive package of digital investments in Kenya, as part of an initiative with the Republic of Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Digital Economy. In collaboration with Microsoft and other stakeholders, G42 will lead the arrangement of an initial investment of $1 billion for the various components outlined in the comprehensive package. One of the Kenyan investment priorities is a state-of-the-art green data center that will be built by G42 and its partners to run Microsoft Azure in a new East Africa Cloud Region.
Cult of Mac: Ikea Sjöss 45W charger review: Why buy anything else?
Plenty of power bricks with dual USB-C ports give you options for charging your Apple devices. But Ikea — yes, the company known for its DIY furniture — has a new offering that trumps them all from a value viewpoint. As you’ll find out in our review of the Ikea Sjöss 45W charger, it packs two USB-C ports and supports all popular fast charging standards.
The effective power adapter stands out for its super-low price, which significantly undercuts the competition. Below is our quick review of the Ikea Sjöss 45W USB-C charger.
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As mentioned, despite a peak 45W output and dual USB-C ports, the Sjöss 45W costs just $14.99. Apple’s 35W power brick with dual USB-C ports cost $59, nearly four times more than Ikea’s offering. Even Apple’s 30W USB-C power adapter, which costs $30, is twice as expensive as Ikea’s more powerful model.
Guardian: Sunak struggles to control Tory party on chaotic fifth day of election campaign
Prime minister campaigns in Buckinghamshire as his military service plan is criticised and MP defects to Reform.
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Sunak found himself under fire early on Monday, as Steve Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, said introducing mandatory national service was a policy dreamed up by advisers and sprung on candidates.
It later emerged that Baker, who is defending the Labour target of Wycombe, had chosen to go on holiday to Greece rather than stay on the campaign trail — after Sunak previously told MPs they should go ahead and book time off.
The prime minister was then hit with the defection of Lucy Allan, the Conservative MP for Telford, who said she would support the local candidate for Reform. The party suspended the whip, but she hit back saying she had quit first and that the Conservatives had no chance in her seat, according to the Shropshire Star.
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The prime minister also struggled to say how his national service policy would work, refusing to clarify what fines or incentives would make it mandatory for 18-year-olds. One minister claimed that it could involve parents being fined if their grownup children did not comply, before another party official appeared to rule that out.
The former defence secretary Ben Wallace defended the policy by appearing to suggest young people had few demands on them. “Heaven forbid young people are made to do something … “ he said.
No stereotyping going on here.
CBC: Federal government plans to increase its use of AI — with some big exceptions
Speaking to a hand-picked roundtable of experts Monday, Anand said the government has set three priorities for a national public service AI strategy: providing services to Canadians, increasing operational efficiency and driving science and research.
“The question is really going to be how can we, with this strategy, add greater efficiencies but also simplify the interactions of the Canadian population and organizations and businesses with federal services,” Anand told the roundtable.
Last Updated: 27.May.2024 17:05 EDT
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