Tootfinder

Trump tries to get around his gag order, praising "surrogates" who "beautifully" attack witnesses | Salon.com
https://www.salon.com/2024/05/14/tries-to-get-around-his-gag-order-praising-surrogates-be…

Trump tries to get around his gag order, praising "surrogates" who "beautifully" attack witnesses
GOP lawmakers extend their support of Trump by attacking the jury, the witnesses, and Judge Merchan in his stead

"Loggers have ‘grabbed’ around 1m hectares of Indigenous land in DRC"
#Trees #Wood #Logging

Loggers have 'grabbed' around 1m hectares of Indigenous land in DRC - Carbon Brief
Large swathes of land in the global south are managed by local communities and Indigenous people, but their land rights are under threat

Prosecutors: Russia has launched around 50 North Korean missiles at Ukraine: https://benborges.xyz/2024/03/14/prosecutors-russia-has.html

Lawmakers begin efforts to move around Johnson, force vote on Ukraine aid
Pressure is mounting for Speaker Mike #Johnson (R-La.) to address aiding foreign allies as House Democrats and Republicans tee up opposing measures that would supersede House GOP leadership and trigger votes on bills funding #Ukraine,

Lawmakers begin efforts to move around Johnson, force vote on Ukraine aid
Over a month after the Senate approved a $95.3 billion national security package, the House remains indecisive about how — and whether — to aid allies at war.

Lawmakers begin efforts to move around Johnson, force vote on Ukraine aid - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/13/lawmakers-begin-efforts-move-around-johnson-force-vote-ukraine-…

Lawmakers begin efforts to move around Johnson, force vote on Ukraine aid
Over a month after the Senate approved a $95.3 billion national security package, the House remains indecisive about how — and whether — to aid allies at war.

A few days ago I went to see “Hades Town”. My first foray into Broadway shows. Spectacular set, lighting, production, singing, etc. I struggled to understand it all (I am terrible picking out lyrics), but didn’t matter most of the time. Was surprised #Buffalo’s Ani Difranco was in it, that’s how disconnected I am.

Good morning and happy Friday to all of you around the #Fediverse today!
How is everyone feeling today? Hopefully we're all doing well and geared up to have a great day along with a great weekend that's just around the corner.
Today is just work stuff but with no meetings, thankfully. Then it's Fortnite with friends later tonight as is the case on Friday evenings.<…

I've sent this email to art directors I've worked with at Wizards of the Coast. I hope other Magic or D&D artists will do the same or similar.
#mtgart #dndart #MagicTheGathering

📣 We have a new Special Interest Group for the Time and Frequency Network (SIG-TFN) which provides a forum for the community working around #Time and #Frequency distribution across #NRENs.
The SIG aims to ga…

SIG-TFN: Time & Frequency Network | GÉANT CONNECT Online
The new Special Interest Group for the Time and Frequency Network (SIG-TFN) provides a forum for the community working around Time and Frequency distribution across NRENs. SIG-TFN (Time and Frequency Network) aims to gather and exchange experiences, ideas and knowledge on the development, deployment, testing and standardisation of Time and Frequency solutions, leading to the

"First report on data collected by record-breaking rowers shows Great Britain's warming seas
Sea surface temperature data collected by an all-female crew of rowers as they raced around Great Britain last summer has found that U.K. coastal seas were on average 0.39°C warmer in 2023, compared to 2022, according to a new report."
#globaleÜberhitzung

First report on data collected by record-breaking rowers shows Great Britain's warming seas
Sea surface temperature data collected by an all-female crew of rowers as they raced around Great Britain last summer has found that U.K. coastal seas were on average 0.39°C warmer in 2023, compared to 2022, according to a new report.

Got a death literacy question? I'm here to help. #AskAnnetta

The Golden Palm 🌴✍️👯‍♀️
Dramatized rom-com series | Two best friends and writing partners go on a Writers Retreat at the luxury Golden Palm. Kate wants to write, but Naomi wants to celebrate how well her latest “solo” book is doing. Romance is always around the corner at The Golden Palm, but so is deception, as old jeal...
https://www.<…

The Golden Palm 🌴✍️👯‍♀️
Dramatized rom-com series | Two best friends and writing partners go on a Writers Retreat at the luxury Golden Palm. Kate wants to write, but Naomi wants to celebrate how well her latest “solo” book is doing. Romance is always around the corner at The Golden Palm, but so is deception, as old jealousies bubble to the surface. 1 seasons, 6 episodes as of Jul 21, 2023.

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio2's #RobBeckett
Lisa Stansfield:
🎵 All Around The World
#LisaStansfield
https://open.spotify.com/track/0piPn2zyL4Yi60ml53qNXE
https://liquidexperience.bandcamp.com/track/lisa-stansfield-all-around-the-world-liquid-edit

Fast giant flares in discs around supermassive black holes
G. V. Lipunova, A. S. Tavleev, K. L. Malanchev
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08441 https://<…

Fast giant flares in discs around supermassive black holes
We study the thermal stability of non-self-gravitating turbulent $α$ discs around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) to test a new type of high-amplitude active galactic nuclei (AGN) flares. On calculating discs structures, we compute the critical points of stability curves for discs around SMBH, which cover a wide range of accretion rates and resemble the shape of a $ξ$ curve. We find that there are values of the disc parameters that favour the transition of a disc ring from a recombined cool …

David Sacks reveals Glue, an employee chat app designed around topic-based threads and embedded GenAI models, and opens a waitlist for companies to sign up (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/14/david-sacks-glue-ai-sla…

David Sacks reveals Glue, the AI company he’s been teasing on his All In podcast | TechCrunch
VC and podcaster David Sacks has revealed a new AI chat app called Glue that fixes "Slack channel fatigue," he says.

By the way, for anyone around at 20:00 (NZST) today (about 2 hrs from now), we'll be having a FOSS/Libre Meetup up here: https://bbb2.nzoss.nz/rooms/dav-rqm-3fq/join If you're interested, feel free to come along! I might show the FormsBrick system I just set up, and mayb…

DOJ Spends Around $40 Million Every Year To Help Agencies Hide Records https://thedissenter.org/doj-spends-around-40-million-on-foia-litigation-every-year/

The kerosene fumes are heavy around the #dotnet ecosystem. Be careful, it will give you headaches.

I was supposed to be attending the #ChangingArctic meeting again today but alas I've come down with the cold that has been hanging around the family at home for the last week or so.
I'm soon to depart on fieldwork so *really* want this bout of illness to be over and done quickly.
Unfortunately, there's no online option as it was an excellent meeting yesterday.

We need to see more videos like these spread around. Sure, die-hard MAGA types will dismiss it all as fake, but I do think normalizing the (frankly common-sense) rejection of Trump and Trumpism is a good thing to do. https://mstdn.social/@DemocracyMattersALot/1121016258845…

sa_companies: South African companies (1919)
A bipartite network of the affiliations between a small group of individuals and five important companies in South African finance, around 1919.
This network has 11 nodes and 13 edges.
Tags: Social, Affiliation, Unweighted
https://networks.skewed.de/net/…

I am in Surrey for a conference so yesterday morning I wandered a bit around the Surrey Central transit hub and downtown. Ended up at City Hall. I couldn't help myself but take a picture of the entrance to their Chambers. (Can take the councillor out of the council but not council out of the councillor?)
I was disappointed not to see the Mayor and Public Safety Minister duking it out in the main foyer.

The long predicted disappearance of the characteristic tidal flats of our Wadden Sea, essential for many species of birds, is about to start: first sand banks - appearing at low tide - will start 'drowning' around 2030: six years from now!
#sealevelrise

Waddenzee door klimaatverandering steeds zouter, wadplaten 'verdrinken'
Het water in de Waddenzee wordt steeds zouter. Dat komt omdat er veel minder zoet water op de Waddenzee wordt 'gespuid'. Dat blijkt uit nieuw, nog niet gepubliceerd onderzoek, dat door RTL Nieuws is ingezien. De gevolgen zijn groot: deze kustzee verandert langzaam in een geheel zoute zee, met grote impact op schelpdieren, vissen en vogels.

We finally know why bugs fly around lights.
https://youtu.be/MzLe0Zk31_U

'By looking at that graph, can you tell which year the library started to grow by around one hundred terabytes of data per year? With the expectation that billions of items would be findable and made available while operating under a complex set of legally-defined technical constraints entirely specific to this singular context?
It was 2013. There in the middle of that downward curve.
Today, the library manages petabytes of data and has the responsibility of providing nation-…

Systems thinking from @…:
The coverup is the thing that turns one incident into an epidemic.
Boy Scouts and child abuse, corporation and financial crimes, police and racist violence: the pattern is all around. If you’re an org leader, fight that urge to cover up the small scandal — unless you’d rather have a flood of them.

I had enough coffee
Roof is wet
I‘m a bit horny
I think i go to the gym and fuck around with some kettle bells to keep my testosterone in check.

Remember how many thousands of times Hillary was asked why she didn’t leave Bill after he was caught screwing around? I haven’t heard one person ask Malaria Trump the same question.
Interesting, don’t you think? https://mastodonapp.uk/@bbcnewsfeed/112436202856097597<…

Digging through some old analogue photos, found this one I took in Santorini in Greece around 1992. This is a view down to the caldera (rim of an old volcano).

Brewers’ Devin Williams expected to miss around 3 months with back injury: Source
#MLB #Baseball #KenRosenthal

Nothing like a nice afternoon at the park with your kid...
... While the neighbor watches her play and you spend the next half hour picking up shards of broken beer bottles up from around the picnic tables and patio area.
Jerks.

American Library Association report says book challenges reached a record high on 4,240 in 2023, up from 2,571 in 2022 (Alexandra Alter/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/books/book-bans.html

Attempts to Ban Books Accelerated in 2023
Book challenges around the country reached the highest levels ever recorded by a library organization.

My mate zooms around the coast looking for sea birds.
She’s a petrel head.

Pictures from last night's evening/sunset hike to a 400m tall waterfall at the end of the valley, celebrating several family events/milestones/anniversaries... Felt like we had the whole valley to ourselves (...and the birdies, and hares and bambies on the way)
#WildWednesday #LandscapePhotography

#BikeStreak, Day 43: This time it was Just a short round around the block (0.6km) with the acoustic Mr. Winterbrompton (on his shiny new summer tires 🤪) to post a letter.

The EU’s new digital police force has around 80 people to check whether some of the world’s richest tech firms (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok’s Bytedance, Meta and Microsoft) are complying with rules of the Digital Markets Act #DMA designed to make them cede some ground to their smaller competitors.
"The credibility of the EU as a regulator hinges on it being able to actually entrench th…

The EU’s uphill battle against Big Tech power
The bloc finds itself outmatched against corporate resources when it comes to enforcing the Digital Markets Act.

It's so windy that it almost snapped my MacBook screen off blowing it back and all the trash is blowing around the train station very reminiscent of Candlestick Park.

Har du sett noen veltepettere sykle rundt i Oslo (som ikke er gul)? Hvis du har, gi meg beskjed. Jeg tror det kan være så mange som fire av oss som sykler på dem. 🤯
---
🇬🇧 Have you seen any Penny Farthings cycling around in Oslo (that are not yellow). If you have, let me know. I think there might be as many as four of us that cycle on them. 🤯
#Veltepetter

Holy shit it is AMAZING what you can find by just adding "filetype:pdf" to a google search and seeing what's been left in web-accessible folders around the internet.

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio1:
#Radio1Newsbeat
- 15/05/2024
The latest news from around the UK and around the world.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yvx2

Construction of fortifications around Vovchansk was 'difficult,' official says: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/13/construction-of-fortifications.html

Only 11 years since the 400ppm level was passed.
Now it's around 427.
That #COP thing is going well.
Sources.
https://education.nationalgeographic.o<…

Climate Milestone: Earth's CO2 Level Passes 400 ppm
Today, greenhouse gasses in Earth's atmosphere are at their highest since the Pliocene Era, when sea levels were higher and Earth was warmer.

The day after the night before, #Luca #Nardi was a man in demand.
An interview beckoned with an Italian TV station, while some fans later wandering around the grounds at the #BNP

"Dreams Can Be True": Luca Nardi Talks Historic Djokovic Upset
The day after the night before, Luca Nardi was a man in demand. An interview beckoned with an Italian TV station, while some fans later wandering around the gro

Another #LongCovidAwarenessDay - I wish all my fellow sufferers a relatively good day with some rays of sunlight.
If you're healthy, do me a favour and look around in your group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Anyone missing? Anyone you haven't seen in ages? Anyone that seems to be much quieter and introverted than usual? Reach out and ask them how their day …

Since when does macOS have edge-snap? I just found it by chance…
I’ve tried it with QuickLook and Finder windows, even without zooming, and works the same…
#TIL #TodayILearned #macOS

1st brimstone butterfly I've seen this year, flying around in my garden just now. A harbinger of spring but a bit early?
@… #ClimareDiary #butterflies

The Bodleian Libraries BODcasts: "We Rise (Together): Taking and Making Space for BIPOC Book Arts Creatives, Cultures, and Histories" https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/we-rise-together-taking-and-making-space-bipoc-bo…

I waited in line for nearly an hour at an airport security checkpoint yesterday and missed my flight. The line was several hundred people long. There were many screening stations sitting unused and staff just waiting around doing nothing. I think TSA Precheck, Global Entry, and CLEAR are ultimately bribes the TSA collects to not force people to wait for no reason. I approve of security measures, but government officials do not have just cause to detain innocent people for so long. Maybe if t…

Good morning friends!
One more #photo from last week's hike with friends.
We were just leaving the summit when I looked back and wanted to a say 'good bye 👋' when I saw this perspective. The cross on the left and the #tree winding itself around.
I just thought this is a stron…

My wife: "I put the concert tickets in a safe place, but I'm not telling you where, so you can't accidentally misplace them."
I agreed.
I guess people eventually
find ways to work around your disorders. :drgn__w_:
#ADD #ADHD

I really like the Fediverse and Mastodon, but the discourse around BridgyFed is annoying me to no end. I love the idea of this bridge, and based on what I know about it, I think that the approach taken by the bridge is a good one. I'd love to have that bridge, to be honest. People who don't want this seem to fundamentally misunderstand that whatever they post to Mastodon is open by default, and that it doesn't require a bridge to extract their data.
I think there are reasonable questions to ask about this, like how cross-network interactions work, how to deal with abuse, etc., but "this federates with a privately-owned social network to steal all my data, thus it is evil" is just... bad.
Context: https://mozilla.social/@deadsuperhero/111928802710263573 (I agree with the points made in the linked article).

"While there were a total of 3,194 billionaires worldwide in 2022, a high number of the world's population owns less than 10,000 U.S. dollars. As a result, nearly half of the world's wealth is owned by the richest [one] percent."
Billionaires drag us down. Tax em to extinction.
:mastodon:

Topic: Billionaires around the world
Find the most up-to-date statistics and facts on billionaires around the world.

Is nano texture better than #iPad

Paperlike | Official Online Store
Paperlike is the first screen protector that makes writing and drawing on the iPad feel like on paper. Finally the plastic on glass slipping around has an easy fix: Your iPad, the Apple Pencil and the Paperlike - made for each other. Free shipping, 1000s of happy customers and a 4.5 star rating. Get yours today!

That final sentence is some high-quality trolling 👏 https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/112274530493478698

Check out this show by Grateful Dead from Fri, May 13, 1983 at Greek Theatre - University of California on Live Music Archive!
#GratefulDead #TIGDH #LiveMusic

Grateful Dead Live at Greek Theatre - University of California on 1983-05-13
Set 1 Cold Rain And Snow -> Greatest Story Ever Told West L.A. Fadeaway Hell In A Bucket Loser Little Red Rooster Bird Song Let It Grow Set 2 China Cat Sunflower -> I Know You Rider Estimated Prophet -> Eyes Of The World -> Drums -> Space -> Throwing Stones -> The Other One -> Wharf Rat -> Around And Around -> Good Lovin

Cap’n Joe’s Turning That Ship Around – Digby's Hullabaloo
https://digbysblog.net/2024/04/13/capn-joes-turning-that-ship-around/

Cap’n Joe’s Turning That Ship Around - Digby's Hullabaloo
We finally got the latest all-important NY Times poll which shows that Biden has gained 4 points in the last 6 weeks or so and is now virtually tied with Trump. This follows most of the other polling over the past few weeks showing that Biden's numbers have moved up. The article accompanying is predictably dour, suggesting that everyone

The Golden Palm - complete series 🌴✍️👯‍♀️
Dramatized rom-com series | Total listening time: 1h 30m
Two best friends and writing partners go on a Writers Retreat at the luxury Golden Palm. Kate wants to write, but Naomi wants to celebrate how well her latest “solo” book is doing. Romance is always around the corner at The Golden Palm, bu...

The Golden Palm - complete series 🌴✍️👯‍♀️
Dramatized rom-com series | Total listening time: 1h 30m Two best friends and writing partners go on a Writers Retreat at the luxury Golden Palm. Kate wants to write, but Naomi wants to celebrate how well her latest “solo” book is doing. Romance is always around the corner at The Golden Palm, but so is deception, as old jealousies bubble to the surface. 1 seasons, 6 episodes as of Jul 21, 2023.

Fast giant flares in discs around supermassive black holes
G. V. Lipunova, A. S. Tavleev, K. L. Malanchev
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08441 https://<…

Fast giant flares in discs around supermassive black holes
We study the thermal stability of non-self-gravitating turbulent $α$ discs around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) to test a new type of high-amplitude active galactic nuclei (AGN) flares. On calculating discs structures, we compute the critical points of stability curves for discs around SMBH, which cover a wide range of accretion rates and resemble the shape of a $ξ$ curve. We find that there are values of the disc parameters that favour the transition of a disc ring from a recombined cool …

Airchat, Naval Ravikant's social media app built around audio recordings, which the app transcribes, relaunches on iOS and Android; it is currently invite-only (Anthony Ha/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/13/airchat-launch/

Naval Ravikant's Airchat is a social app built around talk, not text | TechCrunch
Airchat is a new social media app that encourages users to “just talk.” A previous version of Airchat was released last year, but the team — led by

“Socks, lies, and accessibility”
https://janmaarten.com/gaad-2023/
Where @… shows that just a couple days after

Socks, lies, and accessibility
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is around the corner. Looking back at last year, I found some troubling things people in this field should be aware of. Because they're likely to be repeated.

In my opinion, the design of the #Cadillac #Celestiq rear hatch is breathtaking. Instead of the usual body-painted panel with a rubberized seal, the bottom piece is a single piece of formed and laser-etched aluminum. If the designers could only move the latch opening to the corners instead of the middle, …

Christmasuzannukkah Starring Amy Sedaris & Noah Galvin 🏳️‍🌈🎄🕎
Dramatized rom-com | Noah is with his family for the holidays, and he knows what to expect. Arguments over the menorah. Insults instead of Christmas cheer. Then he meets sexy Eric, who is in an open relationship. Noah better let go of his hang ups around polyamory–especially when his own mother i...

Christmasuzannukkah Starring Amy Sedaris & Noah Galvin 🏳️‍🌈🎄🕎
Dramatized rom-com | Noah is with his family for the holidays, and he knows what to expect. Arguments over the menorah. Insults instead of Christmas cheer. Then he meets sexy Eric, who is in an open relationship. Noah better let go of his hang ups around polyamory–especially when his own mother is making eyes at Eric. 1 seasons, 6 episodes as of Dec 23, 2022.

My mate zooms around the coast looking for sea birds.
She’s a petrel head.

Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles take minority stakes in The Daily Beast; Sherwood will be CEO and publisher, and Coles will be chief creative and content officer (Benjamin Mullin/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/busines

Barry Diller Bets on Media Veterans to Turn Around The Daily Beast
The former Disney executive Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles, the former Hearst content chief, are being given a minority stake in the digital tabloid.

#30DaysOfBiking, Day 15: Weather was rainy and dim most of the day, but around 17:00, the sun came out. So I decided to run a pending errand by bicycle before dinner. I once again oversaw some stairs on the Garmin GPS and so the ride took a bit longer than expected and included a few hundred meters of a main street with a lot of car traffic. In the end I rode 12.5km in 44 minutes.

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio1:
#Radio1Newsbeat
- 15/05/2024
The latest news from around the UK and around the world.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yvx2

Good morning and happy Sunday #Fediverse
It's the last day of the weekend, so let's all talk about what we have on the agenda for the day today.
I'll be mowing at least 3 out of the 4 lawns we normally mow, and very possibly all 4 of them depending on my one neighbor.
After that, it'll just be resting and relaxing as it's also going to be about 82F …

Another #LongCovidAwarenessDay - I wish all my fellow sufferers a relatively good day with some rays of sunlight.
If you're healthy, do me a favour and look around in your group of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Anyone missing? Anyone you haven't seen in ages? Anyone that seems to be much quieter and introverted than usual? Reach out and ask them how their day …

"Brazil takes pioneering action — and a vaccine — to rewild howler monkeys"
#Brazil #Animals #HowlerMonkeys

Brazil takes pioneering action — and a vaccine — to rewild howler monkeys
It was Hope who first dared to approach Juvenal. They had been on the opposing sides of a quarrel ever since Hope’s family wrapped their tails around the branches of that 10,000-acre urban forest in the heart of Rio de Janeiro. The arrival of her clan contested the eight-year rule of Juvenal’s group in Tijuca […]

I really like the Fediverse and Mastodon, but the discourse around BridgyFed is annoying me to no end. I love the idea of this bridge, and based on what I know about it, I think that the approach taken by the bridge is a good one. I'd love to have that bridge, to be honest. People who don't want this seem to fundamentally misunderstand that whatever they post to Mastodon is open by default, and that it doesn't require a bridge to extract their data.
I think there are reasonable questions to ask about this, like how cross-network interactions work, how to deal with abuse, etc., but "this federates with a privately-owned social network to steal all my data, thus it is evil" is just... bad.
Context: https://mozilla.social/@deadsuperhero/111928802710263573 (I agree with the points made in the linked article).

Save Kharkiv: Appeal to the mayors of big cities around the World: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/13/save-kharkiv-appeal.html

Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-cuts-…

Meta Cuts Fact-Checking Efforts on WhatsApp as Elections Loom
Meta Platforms is reducing payments to news organizations that fact-check potential misinformation on WhatsApp, including around elections, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. The cuts mean fewer fact-checkers will monitor election-related discussions on the global ...

Watching #GoogleIO with deep, deep skepticism. Everything shown today seem centered around #AI, and I find it very hard to trust that these products will work *in any way* like they claim they would. The long tail for all of these problem domains feel very fat and very long.

Celebrate Mathematics on Pi Day
https://www.piday.org/

Pi Day | Celebrate Mathematics on March 14th
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter…

Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles take minority stakes in The Daily Beast; Sherwood will be CEO and publisher, and Coles will be chief creative and content officer (Benjamin Mullin/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/busines

Barry Diller Bets on Media Veterans to Turn Around The Daily Beast
The former Disney executive Ben Sherwood and Joanna Coles, the former Hearst content chief, are being given a minority stake in the digital tabloid.

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio1:
#Radio1Newsbeat
- 14/03/2024
The latest news from around the UK and around the world.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001wvvs

Sources: Meta is reducing payments to news orgs that fact-check potential WhatsApp misinformation, including on elections, and has cut funding for CrowdTangle (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-cuts-…

Meta Cuts Fact-Checking Efforts on WhatsApp as Elections Loom
Meta Platforms is reducing payments to news organizations that fact-check potential misinformation on WhatsApp, including around elections, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. The cuts mean fewer fact-checkers will monitor election-related discussions on the global ...

EU allocates $544 million to ramp up ammunition production: https://benborges.xyz/2024/03/15/eu-allocates-million.html

#30DaysOfBiking, Day 14: Met with @… at the #Schluchsee concrete dam. After having a drink there, he walked and I cycled slowly (5km/h) beside him half around …

"April's eclipse will mean interruptions in solar power generation, which could strain electrical grids"
#Solar #SolarPower #Energy

April's eclipse will mean interruptions in solar power generation, which could strain electrical grids
During the most recent total solar eclipse visible in the U.S., on Aug. 21, 2017, the skies darkened as the moon crossed in front of the sun. It blocked out all sunlight—except for that from a golden ring visible around the moon's shape, called the corona. Not surprisingly, solar power generation across North America plummeted for several hours, from the first moment the moon began to obscure the sun to when the sun's disk was clear again.

New publication, led by my brilliant co-author Michal Gath-Morad on the role of strategic visibility for wayfinding behaviour in multi-level buildings, published in Nature Scientific Reports
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-53420-6

The role of strategic visibility in shaping wayfinding behavior in multilevel buildings - Scientific Reports
In this paper, we explore the mutual effect of prior background expectations and visibility afforded by the 3D configuration of the physical environment on wayfinding efficiency and strategy in multilevel buildings. We perform new analyses on data from 149 participants who performed six unaided and directed wayfinding tasks in virtual buildings with varying degrees of visibility. Our findings reveal that the interaction between visibility and prior background expectations significantly affects …

I continue to be amused by US drivers’ inability to negotiate roundabouts, even with plentiful signage and *concrete dividers* between lanes, which they apparently think should be *driven over*.
I think this three-lane roundabout’s design is pretty solid (not least of which is because it prevents people doing continuous donuts around it). I think locals need time to figure it out (yes it’s been a year, yes people are slow learners), then crashes will go down. If not, maybe they can ins…

First data on South Bay’s new turbo roundabout are in — with surprising results. Is it really safer?
A new turbo roundabout is seeing triple the rate of accidents then the year before it was constructed, but experts say decreasing rates of injury prove that the new intersection is safer.

Dell appears to have suffered another data breach where ~30K customer service records were scraped, following its recent breach that affected 49M customers (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/14/thre

Threat actor scraped Dell support tickets, including customer phone numbers | TechCrunch
A threat actor told TechCrunch that a new flaw in a Dell portal allowed him to download the data of around 30,000 customers.

Russian governor claims Belgorod hit by three strikes during day: https://benborges.xyz/2024/03/14/russian-governor-claims.html

The rapid emergence of low-priced EVs from China could shake up the global auto industry in ways not seen since Japanese makers exploded on the scene during the oil crises of the 1970s.
BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” could be a nightmare for the U.S. auto industry.
“Any car company that’s not paying attention to them as a competitor is going to be lost when they hit their market,” said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions near Philadelphia.
“…

Small, well-built Chinese EV poses big threat to US auto industry
A tiny, low-priced electric vehicle called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling. The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China. But it drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S.-made electric vehicles that cost three times as much. Tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles probably will keep the Seagull away from America’s shores for now. But the rapid emergence of low-priced EVs from China could shake up t…

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio1:
#Radio1Newsbeat
- 14/03/2024
The latest news from around the UK and around the world.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001wvvs

"April's eclipse will mean interruptions in solar power generation, which could strain electrical grids"
#Solar #SolarPower #Energy

April's eclipse will mean interruptions in solar power generation, which could strain electrical grids
During the most recent total solar eclipse visible in the U.S., on Aug. 21, 2017, the skies darkened as the moon crossed in front of the sun. It blocked out all sunlight—except for that from a golden ring visible around the moon's shape, called the corona. Not surprisingly, solar power generation across North America plummeted for several hours, from the first moment the moon began to obscure the sun to when the sun's disk was clear again.

How Trump’s campaign meets the 4 'primary characteristics' of fascism: author - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fascism-2668258223/

How Trump’s campaign meets the 4 'primary characteristics' of fascism: author
In his new book, "The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy," historian/author Federico Finchelstein examines authoritarian movements around the world — and cites Donald Trump's MAGA movement as an example.Casey Michel of The Human Rights Foundation applauds the...

Russian attack on Mykolaiv injures 3: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/15/russian-attack-on.html

🔊 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio1:
#Radio1Newsbeat
- 15/03/2024
The latest news from around the UK and around the world.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001wvwf

Avid Telecom allegedly sent or attempted to transmit
more than 24 billion scam calls
in a four-year period
about Social Security Administration scams, Medicare scams, auto warranty scams, Amazon scams, DIRECTV scams, credit card interest rate reduction scams, and employment scams.
They continued transmitting these calls even after being notified at least 329 times that these illegal robocalls were being sent across their networks. 
The U.S. District Court in Ariz…

Attorney General Bonta Secures Court Decision Denying Avid Telecom’s Attempts to Dismiss Robocalls Case
OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the U.S. District Court in Arizona denied Avid Telecom’s (Avid) attempts to dismiss and delay a bipartisan, 49-state lawsuit against the company and its owner, Michael D. Lansky, for allegedly initiating and facilitating billions of unlawful robocalls in California and around the country. Those robocalls included Social Security Administration scams, Medicare scams, and employment scams; two robocall examples can be found here a…

Russian attacks on Sumy Oblast town injure 4: https://benborges.xyz/2024/03/14/205215.html

Avid Telecom allegedly sent or attempted to transmit
more than 24 billion scam calls
in a four-year period
about Social Security Administration scams, Medicare scams, auto warranty scams, Amazon scams, DIRECTV scams, credit card interest rate reduction scams, and employment scams.
They continued transmitting these calls even after being notified at least 329 times that these illegal robocalls were being sent across their networks. 
The U.S. District Court in Ariz…

Attorney General Bonta Secures Court Decision Denying Avid Telecom’s Attempts to Dismiss Robocalls Case
OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the U.S. District Court in Arizona denied Avid Telecom’s (Avid) attempts to dismiss and delay a bipartisan, 49-state lawsuit against the company and its owner, Michael D. Lansky, for allegedly initiating and facilitating billions of unlawful robocalls in California and around the country. Those robocalls included Social Security Administration scams, Medicare scams, and employment scams; two robocall examples can be found here a…

WSJ: Ukrainian air interception rates decline amidst heightened Russian attacks: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/14/wsj-ukrainian-air.html

WSJ: Ukrainian air interception rates decline amidst heightened Russian attacks: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/14/wsj-ukrainian-air.html

Belbek airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea comes under Ukrainian missile attack: https://benborges.xyz/2024/05/15/belbek-airfield-in.html