Globe: Deciphering the rules of sports is one way to make sense of everything else in life

In a recent interview with the BBC, tennis great Billie Jean King recycled the old objection.

“I think [the scoring] should be one, two, three, four. Not 15-love, 30-love,” King said. “I mean, if you’re a kid? I didn’t come from tennis. I’m like, ‘What the heck’s that mean?’”

King would also like to put the players’ names on the back of their shirts and harmonize the number of sets played by men and women. King’s mission statement: “I want to make it easy for fans.”

Billie Jean King: some great ideas… And some duds.

ScienceAlert: Mysterious Signal Preceded The Most Powerful Eruption of Modern Times

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, an underwater volcano in the Tongan archipelago, erupted violently on January 15, 2022. According to a new study though, two faraway monitoring stations recorded a seismic wave some 15 minutes earlier.

The authors of the study describe the wave as a “seismic precursor” for the subsequent eruption, both of which were triggered by a collapse in a weak section of oceanic crust below the volcano’s caldera wall.

TechCrunch: Yuka, the app that rates food and makeup, now lets users complain to companies directly

Launched today, the new “Call-out the Brand” button allows users to challenge companies directly. When a user scans a product that turns out to be marked with Yuka’s red label – which indicates health concerns – they will see an option to email the product’s manufacturer, pushing them to rethink the use of harmful additives. Yuka provides a default message but allows users to personalize it if they wish.

Additionally, users have the option to publish a post on X to advocate for change publicly. The company is working on adding support for other social media platforms, such as Instagram and others.

How to Geek: Microsoft’s New Mini PC Can’t Run Apps

Windows 365 is a subscription-based cloud PC service that provides remote access to high-end Windows 11 virtual machines. Customers can log into their cloud-based Windows machine from any device, be it a crappy laptop, a Chromebook, or an iPad. The Windows 365 platform is expensive, and it’s also limited to business and enterprise customers.

In the short-term, Microsoft hopes that IT departments will purchase Windows 365 licenses instead of desktop or laptop computers. These licenses may have little or no cost benefit, but they ensures that employees can securely access their “work desktop” from anywhere. Windows 365 also reduces the challenge of running a secure, efficient network, as vulnerable compute tasks are relegated to Microsoft’s secure cloud.

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Priced at $350, the Windows 365 Link boasts dual 4K monitor support, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, Gigabit Ethernet, plus three video output options–USB-C 3.2 (DP Alt Mode), HDMI, and DisplayPort. It can boot up in a matter of seconds, according to Microsoft, and it packs a trio of USB-A 3.2 ports for keyboards, mice, and other peripherals.

These capabilities are pretty impressive, especially when you consider the Windows 365 Link’s small size. It measures just 4.72 inches wide and 1.18 inches tall. But the fun stops when you realize that Windows 365 Link can’t run local apps. It’s just a portal to the Windows 365 cloud desktop interface.

NetPC or Network Computer reborn?

Britannica Money: Larry Ellison | Biography, Oracle, & Facts

In the mid-1990s Ellison saw an opportunity to compete with Microsoft Corporation by developing a cheap alternative to the desktop personal computer (PC) called the Network Computer (NC). The NC was not as fully equipped as a standard PC and relied on computer servers for its data and software in an early version of what later became known as cloud computing. However, both the continued fall in PC prices and delays in the NC’s development meant that PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system continued to dominate business users' desktops. Ellison later admitted that the NC was technologically premature.

York University Computer Museum: Corel NetWinder 275

The NetWinder was a compact, high-performance, low power computing designed by Corel of Ottawa and released in 1988. It was a RISC-based machine equipped with networking and multimedia capabilities, operated under Linux.  Sold with  keyboard, mouse, and stand.

USA Today: Trump selects Dr. Mehmet Oz to manage Medicaid and Medicaid services

“America is facing a healthcare crisis, and there may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement.

Ha ha! I wonder which Trump appointment will be booted off the island first?!

Sportsnet: PWHL announces rule innovations for second season

The Professional Women’s Hockey League will introduce on-ice tweaks and harsher punishment for some penalties in its second season.

NYT: House Republicans Target McBride With Capitol Bathroom Bill

G.O.P. lawmakers whose leaders have pressed to roll back transgender rights around the country moved to bar Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, from women’s rooms on Capitol Hill.

They’re such small people.

“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” [McBride] wrote. “This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.”

Last Updated: 19.Nov.2024 20:38 EST

Monday’s articles

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Globe: Complaints about Taylor Swift concert ticket scams under investigation by Toronto-area police forces

Five of them spoke to The Globe and Mail, saying they individually lost between $2,000 and $16,000, and that they wanted to warn ticket buyers for the remaining three Swift concerts this week in Toronto.

NYT: Trump Signals a ‘Seismic Shift,’ Shocking the Washington Establishment

In fact, it is not much of a mandate. While Mr. Trump won the popular vote for the first time in three tries, he garnered just 50.1 percent nationally, according to the latest tabulation by The Times, just 1.8 percentage points ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris. When the slow-counting blue giant of California finally finishes tallying its votes, that margin is likely to shrink a bit more. The Cook Report already calculates that his percentage has fallen below 50 percent, meaning he did not win a majority.

Wherever it eventually falls, Mr. Trump’s margin of victory in the national popular vote will be one of the smallest in history. Since 1888, only two other presidents who won both the Electoral College and the popular vote had smaller margins of victory: John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Richard M. Nixon in 1968. (Both Mr. Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000 won the Electoral College, and therefore the presidency, without winning the popular vote.)

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CBC: Newfoundland’s west coast could be getting a new town — the province’s first in 6 years

The communities are in an area that has been economically depressed for years but has recently gained attention as a region for a wind development project. World Energy GH2 plans to build more than 300 wind turbines on the Port au Port Peninsula and Codroy Valley, as well as a hydrogen-ammonia plant in Stephenville.

Sportsnet: Alex Ovechkin ties Jaromir Jagr for most goalies scored on in NHL history

Ovechkin now has 14 goals this season, taking the NHL lead and moving just 28 markers shy of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.

Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart and Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl entered Monday tied with Ovechkin atop the NHL in goal scoring this season.

Ovechkin is 39; Gretzky was 38 when he retired.

Last Updated: 18.Nov.2024 13:16 EST

Sunday’s articles

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UPI: Lawyer: Giuliani turns over Mercedes, watches to defamed election workers

S. District Judge Lewis Liman last month ordered Giuliani to turn over his property, including the1980 Mercedes-Benz formerly owned by actress Lauren Bacall, watches and other high-value luxury items, to a receivership established by the two women. He owes them $148 million after losing a defamation case over false accusations they stuffed ballot boxes during the 2020 general election.

The judge has also Giuliani to turn over a luxury apartment on Madison Avenue in New York City and $2 million in legal fees owed to him by Trump and the Republican National Committee.

CBC: Only hands, feet and guts: Man free-climbs El Capitan in record 8 days

Gripping tiny slices of sheer rock and hoisting himself up 3,000 feet with only his strength, Adam Ondra quietly inched his way up one of the world’s most challenging rock walls and into the record books, a spokesman for the climber said Tuesday.

Ondra, a 23-year-old from the Czech Republic, took eight days to finish the free-climb up the Dawn Wall of the famed El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park.

He completed the second-ever free assent up the wall Monday, said John Dicuollo, a spokesman for Black Diamond Equipment, which sponsors Ondra.

CBC: Connor McDavid scores to become the 4th-fastest NHL player to reach 1,000 points

Only Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy and Mario Lemieux reached the milestone in fewer games.

Thinking about… (Timothy Snyder): Decapitation Strike

Imagine that you are a foreign leader who wishes to destroy the United States.  How could you do so?  The easiest way would be to get Americans to do the work themselves, to somehow induce Americans to undo their own health, law, administration, defense, and intelligence.  From this perspective, Trump’s proposed appointments — Kennedy, Jr.; Gaetz; Musk; Ramaswamy; Hegseth; Gabbard — are perfect instruments.  They combine narcissism, incompetence, corruption, sexual incontinence, personal vulnerability, dangerous convictions, and foreign influence as no group before them has done.  These proposed appointments look like a decapitation strike: destroying the American government from the top, leaving the body politic to rot, and the rest of us to suffer.

NYT: Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles

With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.

NYT: Are Shellfish Good for You?

Shellfish — specifically, bivalves like clams, oysters, mussels and scallops — are nutrition-packed and an environmental success story. Sustainable farming of these mollusks has boomed, making them one of the best options for a seafood-hungry world.

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Aquaculture of oysters, clams and other bivalves has doubled over the last two decades, pushing out more destructive fishing methods. Around 90 percent of bivalves are now farmed.

This is cause for celebration, Dr. Golden said. “If you look at a global scale,” he said, “shellfish are the most sustainably produced type of seafood.”

UPI: Ben & Jerry’s claims parent company censorship over Gaza

Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont-based maker of popular ice creams, has sued its parent company, Unilever, for what it says is censorship over its views supporting Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Last Updated: 17.Nov.2024 23:59 EST

Saturday’s articles

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WashPo: Ruth Marcus: Trump is stocking his Cabinet with clowns, amateurs and pranksters

It took Donald Trump scarcely a week to demonstrate his utter contempt for the government he is about to lead, culminating in his choice of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. The Senate cannot allow this dangerous man to become the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

WashPo: Why you shouldn’t put small plastics into your recycling bin

Most small plastics don’t get recycled, and putting them in your bins could end up doing more harm than good, said Susan Collins, president of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit group. These tiny items, such as condiment pouches, pill packaging or contact lenses and cases, can fall through the equipment at sorting facilities or end up mixed in with other recyclables, further complicating the recycling process.

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In the case of residential recycling, only things made of No. 1 and 2 plastic, which include bottles and detergent containers, are commonly and dependably recycled in the United States, experts said.

For other types of disposable plastic, including small things, it’s critical to do what you can to not use those items, Collins said.

WashPo: How sodium could replace lithium in the batteries of the future

In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States. Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a “gigafactory” in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles.

MacRumors: Apple Acknowledges iCloud Notes Disappearing and Explains How to Fix

Earlier this month, we reported about some iPhone users temporarily losing all of their notes in the Notes app after accepting Apple’s updated iCloud terms and conditions. Apple has now indirectly acknowledged this issue in a new support document that outlines steps to follow if your iCloud notes are not appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro.

The Desk: PBS to offer local TV streams through Amazon’s Prime Video

The public broadcaster is also launching two new FAST [Free Advertising-Supported TV]channels exclusively through Prime Video, and will debut pop-up streams over time.

Guardian: Russian spy ship escorted away from area with critical cables in Irish Sea

When the Yantar broke away from the Golovko and headed north into the Irish sea, it was shadowed by HMS Cattistock, with the operation becoming public when the ship activated its automatic identification for about four minutes on Thursday when it was south of the Isle of Man.

According to reports, it switched off its transponders transmitting its position after entering the Irish EEZ but the Irish vessel continued to shadow it.

They tried to make contact with the ship but Russian personnel did not respond and at about 3am on Friday it left the waters and headed south.

Last Updated: 16.Nov.2024 23:40 EST

Friday’s articles

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Globe: PWHL announces Canadian broadcast plans, Prime Video as new partner

TSN, RDS and CBC/Radio-Canada return as PWHL broadcast partners, while Prime Video comes aboard, collectively delivering all 90 games of the regular season.

CBC will have a weekly game on Saturday afternoons — 17 of them. New this year, Prime will have exclusive Canadian coverage of all 16 Tuesday night contests. TSN will broadcast 57 games across its linear channels and digital platforms.

Crossing the Threshold (David Johnson): We watched My Neighbor Totoro…

We watched My Neighbor Totoro a couple of nights ago with one of our grandsons. It was the third or fourth time that I have seen the film. I love this Ghibli movie. I find it beautiful to watch. There are pauses throughout the film, sometimes with some sounds playing, sometimes just silence. The audience is left waiting for what will happen next. It is not suspense, but a pause and unless you know what is going to happen next, one is left not knowing when the pause will end. In this day and age pauses can often be filled with noise. In My Neighbor Totoro we simply have to wait in silence. What will happen next will happen in its own time.

Raspberry Pi: Introducing picamzero: Simplifying Raspberry Pi Camera projects for beginners

17.Oct.2024

Thousands of learners worldwide take their first steps into text-based programming using the Python programming language. Python is not only beginner-friendly, but is also used extensively in industry.

In 2015, Python developer Daniel Pope, who has a keen interest in education, noticed that beginners often have great ideas for creating projects but struggle because the software libraries they need to use are aimed at more confident programmers. To address this, he created Pygame Zero – a simplified version of the popular PyGame software. Since then, various developers have expanded the range of ‘zero’ libraries for Python.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has a long history of supporting Python zero libraries. GPIO Zero was launched back in 2015, followed by guizero and then picozero. The goal of all ‘zero’ libraries is the same: to help beginner programmers create amazing projects using simple, understandable code, supported by useful documentation.

Raspberry Pi: A new release of Raspberry Pi OS

28.Oct.2024

Wayland has many advantages over X, particularly performance. Under X, two separate applications help draw a window:

• the display server creates windows on the screen and gives applications a place to draw their content
• the window manager positions windows relative to each other and decorates windows with title bars and frames.

Wayland combines these two functions into a single application called the compositor. Applications running on a Wayland system only need to talk to one thing, instead of two, to display a window. As you might imagine, this is a much more efficient way to draw application windows.

Wayland also provides a security advantage. Under X, all applications communicated back and forth with the display server; consequently, any application could observe any other application. Wayland isolates applications at the compositor level, so applications cannot observe each other.

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While labwc is the biggest change to the OS in this release, it’s not the only one. We have also significantly improved support for using the Desktop with a touch screen. Specifically, Raspberry Pi Desktop now automatically shows and hides the virtual keyboard, and supports right-click and double-click equivalents for touch displays.

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We’ve had a lot of very positive feedback about Raspberry Pi Connect, our remote access software that allows you to control your Raspberry Pi from any computer anywhere in the world. This release integrates Connect into the Desktop.

ScienceAlert: Stunningly Preserved Saber-Toothed Kitten Studied in World First

In 2020, the juvenile’s body was recovered from its grave in the Russian republic of Yakutia and examined by a team of researchers whose excitement is palpable in their recently published report.

“Findings of frozen mummified remains of the Late Pleistocene mammals are very rare,” the researchers explain.

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This study was published in Scientific Reports.

NYT: A Surprise at the Federalist Society Gala: Justice Breyer, a Retired Liberal

The conservative legal group’s annual dinner featured a conversation between Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Neil M. Gorsuch, a conservative. Both stressed the importance of an independent judiciary.

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Their collective message was that the court is a collegial body whose independence must be protected. The court’s approval ratings dropped sharply after its 2022 decision overruling Roe v. Wade and following reporting on some justices’ failures to disclose luxury travel and gifts. Critics called for ethics rules with an enforcement mechanism, term limits and increasing the court’s membership.

The two justices addressed none of those issues directly on Thursday, but the subtext of their remarks was that some such proposals were misguided.

Guardian: Mazyouna’s face was ‘ripped off’ when a rocket hit her home. Israel has refused to allow her evacuation

Since June, the family and FAJR Scientific, a US non-profit organisation providing free medical care to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, have tried to evacuate Mazyouna for treatment to the US, where they have surgeons waiting to treat her.

Five times their requests have been denied without explanation by the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in Gaza, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat).

Now, five months on, her situation is getting desperate. There is still shrapnel in her neck and she is in agony every time she moves. She cannot eat or speak. The platinum used by surgeons to rebuild her face is coming apart, with little more than a bandage holding her jaw together.

DIY Solar Power (Will Prowse, YouTube): LiFePO4 Longevity Discussion! Why Charge to 100%?! For Solar??

LiFePO4 chemistry is not like other lithium ion battery chemistries, so you treat it differently. Charge to 100%, discharge to 0%, and if you need to store it, maintain it at 50%.

Globe: Canada Post and workers at odds over wages, weekend delivery

On Friday, more than 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked off the job, shutting down mail service across the country in the lead-up to the busy holiday shopping period that starts with Black Friday on Nov. 29. The two sides have been negotiating a new collective agreement for more than a year.

The most contentious issue in the negotiations appears to be seven-day parcel delivery: Canada Post wants to immediately pivot its business to deliver parcels on both weekdays and weekends. To do that, the Crown corporation wants to hire more part-time workers because it would be less expensive than to rely on existing full-time Canada Post employees.

On The Bridge today, Chantal, Bruce, and Peter remarked on what a big news story this would’ve been 30 years ago, but how it’s greeted with a shrug today.

TorStar: Ford government promises to support universities

But overall, Ontario’s universities receive the lowest per-student funding in the country. A report by the Ford government’s own blue-ribbon expert panel, released a year ago, recommended an immediate 10 per cent increase in base funding, as well as allowing schools to raise tuition by five per cent.

The government cut tuition by 10 per cent in 2019, and has frozen it since.

Colleges and universities had expected some $2.5 billion over three years based on the panel recommendations; the province added about $1.3 billion.

InsideEVs: Tesla Tops Fatal Accident Rates In New Study

Engineering breakthroughs and improved chassis designs have made cars structurally safer than ever. Cars nowadays come loaded with standard safety features like multiple airbags, advanced cameras and sensors that can monitor surroundings and step in during emergencies.

However, a new report highlights a troubling trend: rising levels of distracted driving undermine these safety gains and Tesla appears to be the most affected.

Globe: Cathal Kelly: Sports’ eternity movement is coming up against the reality of age

Three years ago, quarterback Tom Brady was a young 44 coming off his seventh Super Bowl. He could see no end in sight.

“I could literally play until I’m 50 or 55 if I wanted to,” Brady said. “I don’t think I will obviously … my physical body won’t be the problem. I think it’ll just be, I’m just missing too much of life with my family.”

Brady’s body turned out to be a problem. While he was coming to terms with that, the family become one, too. Now 47, he lives and works alone.

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Last Updated: 15.Nov.2024 23:08 EST

Thursday’s articles

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NYT: A Big Climate Goal Is Getting Farther Out of Reach

Countries have made scant progress in curbing their greenhouse gas emissions over the past year, keeping the planet on track for dangerous levels of warming this century, according to a new report published Thursday.

NYT: Gavin Schmidt, Zeke Hausfather: Climate Science Can’t Keep Up With the Warming Planet

The earth has been exceptionally warm of late, with every month from June 2023 until this past September breaking records. It has been considerably hotter even than climate scientists expected. Average temperatures during the past 12 months have also been above the goal set by the Paris climate agreement: to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels.

We know human activities are largely responsible for the long-term temperature increases, as well as sea level rise, increases in extreme rainfall and other consequences of a rapidly changing climate. Yet the unusual jump in global temperatures starting in mid-2023 appears to be higher than our models predicted (even as they generally remain within the expected range).

Daring Fireball: Bill Atkinson Has Pancreatic Cancer

A seminal figure in the history of Apple, and the Macintosh in particular. I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, but I’ve heard stories about Atkinson from several of his former colleagues. In addition to being a genius programmer, he’s by all accounts a kind and generous person. Everyone was (and remains to this day) in awe of his skills, but they remember him best for being a friend.

This makes me quite sad.

Autopian: Volkswagen Has A Ticking Time Bomb That Could Hurt It More Than Dieselgate

In the wake of Dieselgate, Volkswagen made a bunch of investments to try to modernize the company. Most of these deals were made under then-CEO Herbert Diess and, with the benefit of hindsight, most of these were bad bets.

Fundamentally, the company viewed its mistakes as mistakes, and not as a deeper, almost pathological inability to reform the more existential and fundamental rot at the heart of the company. Volkswagen is an organization run by engineers, and those engineers are great, but when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Last Updated: 14.Nov.2024 22:13 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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UPI: Lunchables pulled from school lunch programs due to low demand

The federally assisted National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost lunches to nearly 30 million children, showed reduced demand for Lunchables after Consumer Reports found high levels of sodium, lead and cadmium in the kits earlier this year.

“We’re pleased that Heinz Kraft has pulled Lunchables from the school lunch program,” Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said in a statement.

Engineering with Rosie (YouTube): How Does Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Work?

There’s a Paradox in the way that people talk about battery minerals. On the one hand, we’re convinced there’s not going to be enough critical minerals so there will be shortages and prices will rise sky high. And on the other hand, they also think we won’t be bothered to recycle.

People always say that we are a “throw it in the rubbish” kind of society but that is such… rubbish. I’ve never seen someone just drive their old car into landfill and walk away, have you? When people think of batteries getting thrown away willy nilly, they’re thinking of small stuff like phones and walkmans. So that’s certainly wasteful, and we shouldn’t do that either, but even if we throw all of that away the amount of battery waste from small products like that is very small compared to the total amount of car and stationary energy batteries that we’re going to have to deal with from say 2030 onwards.

I personally don’t think we need to be so pessimistic about this. In this video I’m going to run through the technologies we have available to recycle batteries, and the main obstacles to scaling this industry up even faster.

NYT: Senate Republicans Alarmed by Trump Nominating Matt Gaetz for Attorney General

Senate Republicans reacted with alarm and dismay to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s decision to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, for attorney general, and several said they were skeptical that he would be able to secure enough votes for confirmation.

“He’s got his work really cut out for him,” Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, said, chuckling as she spoke.

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But Mr. Gaetz, who was just re-elected to a fifth term, remains under ethics investigation for his conduct, which includes allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor; misusing state identification records; converting campaign funds to personal use; and accepting impermissible gifts under House rules. Mr. Gaetz has denied the allegations as political payback and said they are built on lies.

NYT: What Are Seed Oils and Are They Actually Bad For You?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others claim they’re harming our health, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

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Decades of research have shown that consuming seed oils is associated with better health, said Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford University.

Gear Patrol: 6 Simple Tricks to Extend Your Apple Watch’s Battery Life

In recent years, Apple has given its smartwatches several features to combat this issue, such as faster charging and introducing a low-power mode. However, when compared to other smartwatches, an Apple Watch’s battery life still leaves something to be desired.

That said, there are a few settings you can change, as well as some best practices, that could help extend the battery life of your Apple Watch. Most aren’t game-changers and some, admittedly, limit what the smartwatch can do.

But if extending your Apple Watch’s battery life is your ultimate goal, these will definitely help.

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Low Power mode is different from Power Reserve mode because, instead of disabling most features (which turns your Apple Watch into a simple digital timepiece), it simply turns off battery-killing features like always-on display and heart rate detections – so still keeps track of fitness metrics and workouts.

SMH: Western Green Energy Hub submits plans for world’s biggest renewable project

Plans for a $100 billion wind and solar project – the biggest of its kind – in the Australian desert have raised hopes that US President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-green agenda could shift major investment from the United States to the rest of the world.

The Western Green Energy Hub would build 3000 wind turbines and 6 million solar panels in Western Australia, starting at the South Australian border and stretching west for hundreds of kilometres.

The project would take decades to build and, if completed, would deliver 70 gigawatts of renewable energy generation – about the same capacity as the entire eastern seaboard’s electricity grid.

It would also produce 3.5 million tonnes a year of green hydrogen via an emissions-free process that uses renewable energy to release hydrogen from water. The fuel could replace fossil fuels in industries such as transport and electricity generation.

Edmonton Journal: Alberta considering adding citizenship to driver’s licences

The office for Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally said the move is under consideration and no final decisions have been made.

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“One of the things that we’re looking at is how we can put citizenship on the driver’s licence. So that when people come to vote we can make sure they are a Canadian citizen,” Nally said.

That comment was teed up by remarks by Smith who cited potential Chinese interference in elections as justification for “us to have more integrity in our elections, more trust in our elections.”

“We’ll just run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.”

Last Updated: 13.Nov.2024 23:38 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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MacRumors: Testing the Vision Pro With New Ultrawide Display Option in visionOS 2.2

The first developer beta of visionOS 2.2 came out yesterday, and it includes a much anticipated new feature for Vision Pro users. When using the Vision Pro as a display for a Mac, there are now options to use wide and ultrawide layouts in addition to the standard virtual display.

We thought we’d check out the new display settings for those who might be interested in seeing how this changes the Vision Pro Mac workflow.

ScienceAlert: Sleep Can Actually Help You Make Better Decisions, Research Shows

The author John Steinbeck said: “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

Many others have claimed they formulated breakthroughs and innovations in dreams. Recent studies on the science of sleep suggest these claims are supported by modern science.

A 2024 study suggests that sleep can help us make more rational, informed decisions, and not be swayed by a misleading first impression. To show this, researchers at Duke University in the US had participants take part in a garage-sale game.

The Hill: Judge blocks Louisiana law on Ten Commandments in schools

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) had said he expected the new law to cause a legal battle after he signed it in June.

“Look, when the Supreme Court meets, the doors of the Supreme Court on the backside have the Ten Commandments. Moses faces the U.S. Speaker of the House in the House chamber. He is the original giver of law,” Landry said. “Most of our laws in this country are founded on the Ten Commandments, what’s the big problem? And that’s the part I don’t understand.”

Going from the separation of church & state to a theocracy?

“I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT – HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???” Trump said in a social media post after the law was passed.

“THIS MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY,” he added.

Ironic much?

ScienceAlert: Ghostly Creature Deep in The Ocean Is Like Nothing We’ve Seen Before

It’s a nudibranch, recently discovered swimming freely in the water column lit by a bioluminescent glow, adorned with a billowing hood, by researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in the US.

This is Bathydevius caudactylus, the first known nudibranch of its kind: living not in shallow waters, or on the seafloor, but more than 2,200 meters (around 7,220 feet) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean in the bathypelagic zone, out in open water.

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The research has been published in Deep-Sea Research Part I.

CBC: Is it a tenant’s right to charge an EV at their rental?

One Ottawa man says yes, because electricity is included in rent.

It sounds like neither the landlord nor the tenant is fully in the right on this.

NYT: Archbishop of Canterbury Resigns Over U.K. Church Abuse Scandal

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, resigned on Tuesday after a damning report concluded that he had failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men decades ago at Christian summer camps.

Pressure had mounted relentlessly on Mr. Welby, who serves as the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, after the report was published. Helen-Ann Hartley, a senior figure in the church and the bishop of Newcastle, called on him publicly to step aside, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer pointedly declined to back him.

Stuff: How a simple search for an airline phone number cost a passenger $4k

“The phone number we called was NOT a Delta number, but was listed as Delta and the people answering the phones represented themselves as Delta Airlines.

“The scammer called Delta pretending to be us and changed the name AT. NO. CHARGE. Then turned around and charged us $2389.32 for doing so (and remember, tried to get $18K to do so!)”

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They had some simple advice: “NEVER trust a phone number from Google.”

The hidden danger of using a general search to get a company’s phone number.

PBS: Top U.S. climate negotiator vows ‘we won’t revert back’ after Trump reelection

No matter what kind of U-turn President-Elect Donald Trump will make on climate change, America’s clean energy economy won’t reverse into the dirty past, a combative but “bitterly disappointed” top American climate negotiator said Monday.

During the first day of the U.N. climate talks, COP29, Climate Adviser John Podesta struck a defiant but realistic tone in a press conference. He said Trump will likely pull the United States out of the landmark Paris Agreement and try to roll back many of the Biden Administration’s signature climate moves, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that included $375 billion in climate spending.

He’s more optimistic than I am.

CBC: As It Happens: This elephant gives herself nice showers with a hose. But another elephant keeps ruining them

Scientists aren’t sure if the younger elephant’s hose-kinking behaviour is pettiness or play.

Last Updated: 12.Nov.2024 23:56 EST

Monday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

The Atlantic: Why America Still Doesn’t Have a Female President

The events of the past eight years might prompt some to wonder: If Clinton wasn’t good enough, and neither was Harris, will a woman ever be good enough to be president? What kind of a woman would it take? According to interviews I conducted with six researchers who study gender and politics, sexism was a small but significant factor that worked against Harris. And it’s going to be a problem for any woman who runs for president. “American voters tend to believe in the abstract that they support the idea of a woman candidate, but when they get the real women in front of them, they find some other reason not to like the candidate,” Karrin Vasby Anderson, a communications professor at Colorado State University, told me. In 2017, she wrote an article about the long odds faced by women running for president. The title? “Every Woman Is the Wrong Woman.”

It’s important not to overstate the role that sexism played in Harris’s loss. She’s the vice president of an unpopular incumbent. Although the U.S. economy writ large is objectively strong, many voters feel pinched by high inflation and interest rates. And after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July, Harris had less than four months to make her case to the American public. A very small number of people have ever run for president, and, well, someone has to lose.

The Atlantic: *David Brooks: Why Americans Are So Awful to One Another

In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.

IFL Science: Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto Mount St Helens For 1 Day. 40 Years Later, The Effect Is Astonishing

Two years after the eruption of Mount St Helens, local gophers were sent to the area in what must have been quite a confusing day trip, even if the animals were not aware of the news. The gophers were placed in enclosed areas for the experiment and spent their day digging around in the pumice.

Despite only spending one day in the area, the impact they had was remarkable. Six years after their trip, there were over 40,000 plants thriving where the gophers had gotten to work, while the surrounding land remained, for the most part, barren. Studying the area over 40 years later, the team found they had left one hell of a legacy.

The Atlantic: The Exhibit That Will Change How You See Impressionism

The National Gallery’s “Paris 1874” explores the movement’s dark origins.

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Its 150th anniversary this year has been celebrated with numerous exhibitions, most notably “Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment,” organized by the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, and the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. (where it is on view until January 19, 2025). Given the masterpieces that these museums could choose from, this might have been an easygoing lovefest, but the curators — Sylvie Patry and Anne Robbins in Paris, and Mary Morton and Kimberly A. Jones in Washington — have delivered something far more intriguing and valuable: a chance to see what these artists were being intransigent about, and to survey the unexpected turns that art and politics may take in a polarized, traumatized time and place.

Last Updated: 11.Nov.2024 23:41 EST

Sunday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

CleanTechnica: Renewables Gallop Ahead Down Under — A Queensland Sample

Back to my sunny morning discourse: at present, according to the NEM Watch widget, solar and wind are supplying upwards of 70% of Queensland’s electricity. Remember, this is a live feed. The rest of the power is coming from black coal and a little gas. Queensland’s main export is coal!

Bernie Goldbach: Taking a Google Selfie

I need to share these observations with the youngest students in my classrooms because they’re new to the concept of surveillance capitalism.

Via Jeremy Cherfas

How to Geek: How I Use Reddit to Stay on Top of The News

Now we have r/news and r/worldnews that many people know about, but there are tons more:

r/UpliftingNews: With a lot of news focused on negative and sensationalist headlines, I’d like to take a moment and point out that positive news sources do exist, and r/UpliftingNews describes itself as a place to read and share positive and uplifting, feel-good news stories.

r/GeoPolitics: Interested in other countries and how geography affects politics and international relations? This sub analyzes local events in terms of the bigger global picture; it’s a mix of discussions on geopolitics, news, and opinions.

… and more.

ABC (U.S.): Search underway for suspects in deadly Tuskegee University homecoming shooting

One person was killed and several others, including students, were injured when a barrage of gunfire erupted early Sunday on the campus of Tuskegee University in Alabama, marring the school’s centennial homecoming festivities, authorities said.

“Marring”?! That hardly seems sufficient.

The Atlantic: Bob Woodward’s War Is — I’ll Say It — Good

At its core, Woodward’s book is about diplomacy. Just past the sundry tidbits about Trump — most horrifying, the former president’s ongoing chumminess with Vladimir Putin, a charge that Trump’s campaign denies — there lies a serious history of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. I have reported on these stories myself, and I can’t say that I found any faults in his account. If anything, I’m unashamedly jealous of how he managed to get a few big stories that eluded me. One of the most stunning sections of the book captures Putin mulling the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine — and all the quiet diplomacy that pushed him back from the brink. Newspapers hinted at this threat at the time, but Woodward reveals the backstory in robust and chilling detail. (Jon Finer, the deputy head of the National Security Council, says that Putin’s decision on whether to deploy the nuke seemed like a “coin flip.”) When Biden frets about the possibilities of nuclear escalation, he’s not just recalling his youth in the earliest days of the Cold War. He’s confronting a very real risk in the present.

Last Updated: 10.Nov.2024 18:13 EST

Saturday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

CNN: 2024 will be the first year on record to smash a warming limit scientists warned about

New data confirms 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to exceed the Paris Agreement threshold – devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home and abroad.

Nearly all the world’s countries pledged to strive to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius in the Paris Agreement, which scientists said would prevent cascading and worsening impacts such as droughts, heat waves and catastrophic sea level rise. They warn at that level, the human-caused climate crisis – fueled by heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution – begins to exceed the ability of humans and the natural world to adapt.

CBC: Federal government faces potential loss if Trans Mountain pipeline sold: budget watchdog

The pipeline could be worth between $29.6 billion and $33.4 billion, depending on what happens after the initial 20-year contracts expire, the budget watchdog said in an updated financial assessment of the controversial project.

Meanwhile, the cost to build the pipeline, which went into service in May, came in at $34.2 billion, dramatically higher than the $7.4 billion estimate in 2017.

The PBO’s valuation estimate doesn’t factor in sunk costs, such as the $4.5 billion the federal government paid to buy the project in 2018, or capital spending before 2024.

Manton Reece: Spinning off Strata

This is an opportunity to both simplify and expand our subscription plans. As an early heads-up, Strata is going to get its own set of pricing tiers.

OSnews: QNX becomes free for non-commercial use, releases Raspberry Pi 4 image

Well, it seems the company is trying to reverse course, and has started courting the enthusiast community once again. This time, it’s called QNX Everywhere, and it involves making QNX available for non-commercial use for anyone who wants it. No, it’s not open source, and yes, it requires some hoops to jump through still, but it’s better than nothing. In addition, QNX also put a bunch of open source demos, applications, frameworks, and libraries on GitLab.

One of the most welcome new efforts is a bootable QNX image for the Raspberry Pi 4 (and only the 4, sadly, which I don’t own). It comes with a basic set of demo application you can run from the command line, including a graphical web browser, but sadly, it does not seem to come with Photon microGUI or any modern equivalent. I’m guessing Photon hasn’t seen a ton of work since its golden days two decades ago, which might explain why it’s not here. There’s also a list of current open source ports, which includes chunks of toolkits like GTK and Qt, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

WashPo: Are standing desks actually healthy? Here’s what a new study says.

A large new study of more than 83,000 adults found that standing for more than two hours a day – as many people with standing desks do – didn’t protect against the cardiovascular risks of too much sitting.

Those hours of standing also turned out to have their own downsides, increasing people’s likelihood of developing serious circulatory problems, including varicose veins, abnormally low blood pressure and blood clots, compared with people who rarely stood.

Politico: An Overlooked — and Increasingly Important — Clue to How People Vote

The exit polls did not ask about media consumption, so we need to look for indirect clues. NBC asked the question in April when President Joe Biden was still in the race, and the results were dramatic. Among people who got their news from “newspapers,” Biden was winning 70-21. Among people who got their news from “YouTube/Google,” Trump led 55-39.

CNN: Trump still hasn’t signed ethics agreement required for presidential transition

President-elect Donald Trump has not yet submitted a series of transition agreements with the Biden administration, in part because of concerns over the mandatory ethics pledge vowing to avoid conflicts of interest once sworn in to office, CNN has learned.

As president, Trump repeatedly came under fire from ethics groups for potential conflicts of interest relating to his businesses and brands. Both Trump’s and his family’s foreign business ties have also come under intense scrutiny throughout his time in office and on the campaign trail.

I don’t know why he’s hesitating to sign it; he doesn’t appear to have ever worried about being bound by contracts before.

How to Geek: Your Smart TV Might Have a Camera—Here’s What You Can Do With It

There is no evidence that smart TV cameras track users, but the built-in microphones and cameras are still a big privacy concern for many. Sure, both could be used maliciously to collect data, and there’s always the threat of any camera getting hacked if it’s online, so take that as you will.

However, the bigger [sic] concern is ACR. Most smart TVs have a technology built-in called “Automatic Content Recognition,” which works in the background. Smart TV ACR can listen to the audio, capture what’s on the screen, and track your watching habits to deliver targeted ads better. Thankfully, you can turn off these features, and some users may go as far as disconnecting their TV from the internet to improve privacy.

Mashable: An object struck a satellite in Earth’s orbit, leaving a hole

The satellite company NanoAvionics released images online showing the damage to its MP42 satellite, launched in 2022 and designed to host several instruments for different customers. The source of the hole from a chickpea-sized object is uncertain, but the event underscores the growing risk to spacecraft in orbit around our planet.

Via SmartNews

Last Updated: 09.Nov.2024 18:57 EST

Friday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

Scottish Poetry Library: Going without Saying by Bernard O’Donoghue

It is a great pity we don’t know
When the dead are going to die
So that, over a last companionable
Drink, we could tell them
How much we liked them. …

via @johnjohnston

Ars Technica: Secondhand EVs will flood the market in 2026, JD Power says

Used EV supply is set to grow by 230% as 215,000 cars come off lease.

iPhone in Canada: Bell Stunned by Huge $1.2 Billion Q3 Loss, Slashes Forecast

BCE, the parent company of Bell, announced a huge third-quarter loss of $1.2 billion, heavily impacted by $2.11 billion in writedowns, mostly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio divisions.

This result marks a major shift from the over $700 million profit recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) dropped to $0.75, down from $0.81 in the previous year. Despite some growth in adjusted EBITDA, overall operating revenues for BCE declined, totaling $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in Q3 of 2023. The company now expects its 2024 revenue to fall about 1.5 percent, a change from its earlier guidance projecting up to four percent growth.

Timetable (Manton Reese): Episode 133: Freedom

Two days after the election. Walking to the coffee shop and thinking about politics and the future of Micro.blog.

Transcript

I’m glad to see Manton’s short form Timetable podcast back.

BBC: Earthshot 2024: Prince William announces winners in Cape Town

It supports sustainable, eco-friendly projects from around the world, with each of the five winners receiving £1m to scale-up their innovative ideas to “repair” the planet.

There are five ‘Earthshots’ - or goals: Protect and Restore Nature; Clean Our Air; Revive Our Oceans; Build a Waste-free World; and Fix Our Climate.

Fifteen finalists, from countries including France, Kenya, Indonesia, the UK and Nepal, were competing for their category’s prize pot after being whittled down from 2,500 applicants.

The article includes a list of the winners.

NYT: With DNA, Pompeii Narratives Take a Twist

Now, genomic testing on skeletal remains embedded in the casts has challenged both interpretations. As reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology, the DNA evidence shows that the identities and relationships of the deceased do not match the longstanding assumptions, which had largely been based on physical appearance, the positioning of the casts and romantic notions promoted by literature and Hollywood films.

The study team, which included David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University, and David Caramelli, an anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy, proposed that the adult and the younger child, traditionally viewed as mother and offspring, are genetically an adult male and a boy who were biologically unrelated. Contrary to the established account, the researchers concluded that none of the four people in the grouping were kinfolk.

Gift link

Last Updated: 07.Nov.2024 22:40 EST

Wednesday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

☹️😕😞😟☹️ 😖😣

NYT: Hate Noisy Restaurants? Stick This in Your Ear.

Apple earbuds and others can help you hear dining companions. Here’s how to use them.

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Then came the real experiment. Still in Transparency Mode, I burrowed down into the Accessibility settings until I had toggled the Conversation Boost and Ambient Noise Reduction switches to their lime-green On positions. Conversation Boost uses directional microphones to isolate and amplify voices that are directly in front of the listener. Ambient Noise Reduction dampens sound coming from other angles.

WashPo: Scientists may have solved the mystery of sky-high methane emissions

Almost two decades ago, the atmosphere’s levels of methane – a dangerous greenhouse gas that is over 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide in the short term – started to climb. And climb.

Methane concentrations, which had been stable for years, soared by 5 or 6 parts per billion every year from 2007 onward. Then, in 2020, the growth rate nearly doubled.

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It’s difficult for scientists to identify all the sources of methane in the world. It comes from leaking oil and gas operations, from cows belching, from landfills and marshes, and from thawing permafrost in the Arctic. When methane emissions increase, finding the cause is like solving a complicated algebra problem with too many unknowns.

DPReview: Apple is acquiring a popular Photoshop alternative

Apple may soon own Pixelmator Pro and Photomator, a pair of popular photo editing apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. The Lithuania-based company behind the apps, Pixelmator Team, has “signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple,” according to a blog post on its website.

DPReview: Over 20 years later, I’m Back realizes one of photography’s greatest ‘What ifs’

Perhaps the most famous was Silicon Film, whose e-Film EFS-1 digital cartridge got to an advanced state of development before the company collapsed under the weight of development costs, continued engineering challenges, existing patents and insufficient orders. All of which was revealed in the subsequent lawsuit.

Now, around a quarter of a century later, a Swiss team, funded via Kickstarter, looks like it’s about to deliver on that dream, despite all the challenges.

I’m Back has partnered with the current owners of the Yashica name to announce that its three crowdfunded projects are now available to order as fully-fledged retail products. The one that really catches our eye is the I’m Back Film, which promises to let you add digital capabilities to a wide range of original SLRs or film rangefinders, by mimicking the Silicon Film concept. Its website lists the unit at 645 Swiss Franks (∼$750).

Fierce Network: What a Trump win means for the FCC and telecom policy

Project 2025 aside, Carr has also opposednet neutrality rules adopted by the FCC, as well as rules designed to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in political ads.

Additionally, he argued against the FCC’s decision to revoke Starlink’s $885 millionRural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) subsidy award, calling it “regulatory harassment” of Starlink owner Elon Musk.

via Mitch Wagner (@mitchw@mastodon.social)

NYT: World Reacts to Donald Trump’s Win in U.S. Presidential Election

With Donald J. Trump’s sweeping election victory on Tuesday, the world is now preparing for another four years of unpredictability and “America first” protectionism that could reset the ground rules of the global economy, empower autocrats and erase the assurance of American protection for democratic partners.

Despite a lack of substantive foreign policy debate in the campaign, Mr. Trump has made several statements that – if turned into policy – would transform America’s relationship with both allies and adversaries. He has pledged to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, a promise many assume amounts to the withdrawal of American aid for Ukraine, which would benefit Russia.

More broadly, he has made clear that he intends to make the world’s most powerful country more isolationist, more combative with tariffs, more openly hostile to immigrants, more demanding of its security partners, and less engaged on global challenges such as climate change.

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“He’s crazy, but at least he’s strong,” said Anthony Samrani, the editor in chief of the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour, summing up what he called the prevailing mind-set toward Mr. Trump in the Middle East.

*“He’s strong but unfortunately he’s crazy,” is how I might have put it.

Raspberry Pi: Meet Kari Lawler: Classic computer and retro gaming enthusiast

Kari Lawler has a passion for retro tech – and despite being 21, her idea of retro fits with just about everyone’s definition, as she collects and restores old Commodore 64s, Amiga A500s, and Atari 2600s. Stuff from before even Features Editor Rob was born, and he’s rapidly approaching 40. Kari has been involved in the tech scene for ten years though, doing much more than make videos on ’80s computers.

BBC: King Arthur site five times older than thought

The monument was previously listed as dating back to the medieval period but it is now believed to date back 4,000 years earlier to the Neolithic period by a group of specialists from UK universities.

Last Updated: 06.Nov.2024 20:33 EST

Tuesday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

Slashdot: Prime Video Will Let You Summon AI To Recap What You’re Watching

Amazon’s Prime Video has introduced “X-Ray Recaps,” a generative AI feature that will recap what you’re watching. The new tool can create text summaries of “full seasons of TV shows, single episodes, and even pieces of episodes,” the company says in a blog post. The Verge reports: …

Defector: The Argonaut Octopus Has Mastered The Free Ride

Although most octopuses live near the ocean floor and its ample hiding places, argonauts spend their entire lives sailing in the open ocean, just below the surface. This lifestyle has rendered the small cephalopods rather elusive to the scientists who wish to study them. “Most observations on argonauts are opportunistic,” Roger Villanueva, a marine biologist at Spain’s Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC), wrote in an email.

via Kottke

MacRumors: GM Again Attempts to Explain Its Decision to Drop CarPlay in New EVs

American automaker General Motors (GM) last year announced it would be phasing out support for CarPlay and Android Auto in its new electric vehicles, in favor of its own software platform called Ultifi. The decision has been very controversial, as many drivers consider CarPlay to be a must-have feature in a new vehicle. In 2022, for example, Apple said 79% of U.S. buyers would only consider a vehicle that works with CarPlay.

To make matters worse, GM’s rollout of Ultifi went rather poorly, with some early reviewers of the Chevrolet Blazer EV last year experiencing technical issues with the platform. Some of those problems have since been resolved, but it is clear that the automaker might not be as effective at developing software as a tech company like Apple.

Do 79% of US car buyers own an iPhone? I doubt it…

UPI: Diver off the coast of Barbados finds ring lost in 1977

Alex Davis said he was diving with his metal detector near Miami Beach in Barbados in mid-October when he found a ring buried underwater.

The McMaster University ring bore the year 1965 and the initials “FMP,” so Davis contacted the Hamilton school for help finding its owner.

Karen McQuigge, McMaster’s director of alumni engagement, searched through the database with her team and identified the ring’s likely owner as Morgan Perigo, who had graduated with a math degree in 1965.

UPI: Amazon starts air drone deliveries in the West Valley of Phoenix

The air drone delivery service is available to consumers who are located near Amazon Prime’s same-day site Tolleson, Ariz., and who order eligible items weighing no more than 5 pounds.

An Amazon air drone will deliver the items using MK30 drones that deploy for facilities located next to Amazon’s same-day delivery site in Tolleson.

The smaller sites combine order-fulfillment and delivery services for Amazon customers to make it faster for Amazon to deliver potentially millions of eligible items by air drone.

Amazon started its air-drone delivery service in 2022 and last year added pharmacy delivers at its air-delivery facility in College Station, Texas.

I wonder if the post office is showing any interest in this?

CleanTechnica: HomeBoost Turns Your Smartphone Into A Home Energy Audit Device

Consumer research by HomeBoost found that many people viewed home energy auditors like they view car mechanics — professionals trying to upsell them. To counter that impression, the HomeBoost team wanted to create a cheaper, easier way to evaluate a home. The BoostBox’s thermal camera attachment snaps onto a smartphone. Users download an app which guides them through a 30 minute step by step process that takes photos and scans their house. The process includes taking pictures of appliances, water heaters, and thermostats so the app can gauge how much of a difference it would make to swap them out for more environmentally friendly devices.

The Marginalian: The Pleasure of Being Left Alone

But despite her surface sociality, Macaulay embodied the true test of an introvert — not whether one engages in social activity, but whether one is charged or drained by it.

Last Updated: 05.Nov.2024 19:50 EST

Monday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

RadioLab (podcast): The Unpopular Vote

As the US Presidential election nears, Radiolab covers the closest we ever came to abolishing the Electoral College.

In the 1960s, then-President Lyndon Johnson approached an ambitious young senator known as the Kennedy of the Midwest to tweak the way Americans elect their president. The more Senator Birch Bayh looked into the electoral college, the more he believed it was a ticking time bomb hidden in the Constitution that someone needed to defuse. With overwhelming support in Congress, the endorsement of multiple presidents, and polling showing that over 80 percentof the American public supported abolishing it, it looked like he might just pull it off. So why do we still have the electoral college? And will we actually ever get rid of it?

via Patrick Rhone

Will Prowse (YouTube): $192 Siekon Mini 12V! But are Mini LiFePO4 Worth the Extra $$$? Hmm…

Battery technology continues to advance.

Wired: What Are Hall Effect Sensors and How Do They Work?

More and more keyboards and video game controllers employ Hall effect sensors, but what exactly is this technology? We break it down.

All you need to know!

iPhone in Canada: Bell Hits Customers with $5 Price Hike on Popular Plans

Bell has increased the price of select 5G plans on November 1, 2024.

According to changes on its website today, entry 5G plans have increased in price by $5 per month. This comes ahead of Black Friday, where most carriers bring on cellphone deals.

Bell’s wireless pricing as of today, can be seen below. It’s never been more confusing to navigate Bell’s plans and prices on its website (after a $10/month autopay credit): …

iPhone in Canada: Apple Confirms iPhone 14 Plus Camera Flaw: Check if You Qualify

Apple is offering free repairs for a small number of iPhone 14 Plus devices that may have a faulty rear camera, and it applies to Canadians as well.

Some users have reported that the camera preview doesn’t work on these devices, which were made between April 10, 2023, and April 28, 2024.

If you have an iPhone 14 Plus with this problem, you can use Apple’s serial number checker to see if your device qualifies for the repair program. Only the iPhone 14 Plus is covered, not other iPhone models.

MacRumors: Find My Gains Option to Share Lost Item Location With an ‘Airline or Trusted Person’ in iOS 18.2

Apple in iOS 18.2 beta 2 added a new feature to the Find My app, which is designed to allow you to share a lost item’s location with a trusted person. Apple says that the feature is meant to help you locate an item through a third-party, like an airline employee.

NYT: The Powerful Density of Hypertextual Writing

The NY Times has had a difficult time covering the 2024 election in a clear, responsible manner. But I wanted to highlight this short opinion piecefrom the paper’s editorial board, which I’m reproducing here in its entirety:

You already know Donald Trump. He is unfit to lead. Watch him. Listen to those who know him best. He tried to subvert an election and remains a threat to democracy. He helped overturn Roe, with terrible consequences. Mr. Trump’s corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections: It’s his whole ethos. He lieswithout limit. If he’s re-elected, the G.O.P. won’t restrain him. Mr. Trump will use the government to go after opponents. He will pursue a cruel policy of mass deportations. He will wreak havoc on the poor, the middle class and employers. Another Trump term will damage the climate, shatter alliances and strengthen autocrats. Americans should demand better. Vote.

NYT: A Record Number of States Are Experiencing Drought

Almost the entire United States faced drought conditions during the last week of October.

Only Alaska and Kentucky did not have at least moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor system.

NYT: Murray McCory, 80, Dies; JanSport Founder Created the School Backpack

He brought lightweight packs to millions of students and transformed the way they carried their textbooks to school.

CleanTechnica: Con Ed And First Student Bring Solar Microgrid To New York

Recently, Con Ed and First Student started a trial program that will use solar panels to supply some of the electricity needed for those electric school buses. Assuming each bus has at least a 100 kWh battery, that translates to 1 GW of storage for the fleet. That’s a lot of storage capacity that can be used to support a dedicated microgrid for those electric school buses. The economic advantages are self-evident. Con Ed would not have to build new generating capacity and transmission infrastructure to support the bus fleet, and the buses could provide grid stabilization services to Con Ed. The result? Everybody wins, especially the students who do not have to breathe in a miasma of diesel fumes every day as they travel back and forth to school.

LA Times: Trump campaign gets equal time from NBC after Harris' ‘SNL’ appearance

According to people familiar with the discussions, campaign officials for Trump contacted the network and asked for time. The request was honored and Trump was given two free 60-second messages that appeared near the end of its telecast of a NASCAR playoff race and during post-game coverage of a “Sunday Night Football” contest in which the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Indianapolis Colts 21-13.

Last Updated: 04.Nov.2024 22:22 EST

Sunday’s articles

Follow along as new links are added to today’s list

Writing Exchange (Cheri Baker): Hate responders

So there’s a hate preacher harassing people nearby with a megaphone. Someone made a Reddit post asking for help, and before long a guy dressed like Jesus showed up holding a sign that reads “I don’t know him.”

Someone else arrived and started blowing a loud whistle every time he tries to spout his garbage. This asshat is being drummed off the streets by what is essentially a Monty Python theater troupe.

Nov 02, 2024 at 08:50 PM

Daily Beast: Bill Maher Reluctantly Makes His Last Minute Case for Kamala Harris

But ultimately, Maher begged undecided voters to go for the Democrats next week to avoid “the rule of a mad king.”

“Do I love everything about Kamala? No, who told you you get to love everything? Do I wish she came up with a better reason to be president than ‘I’m not Trump’? Yeah, it would have been very helpful. But let’s not forget: I’m not Trump is still a really great reason,” he said at the end of his monologue.

SMH: Renewable energy is roaring back, crushing coal to historic lows

Stronger winds and heavier rainfall have boosted renewables and pummelled coal to its lowest share of the east-coast grid on record for the past two months.

Globe: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith receives 91% support in UCP leadership vote

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith raked in support from 91 per cent of United Conservative Party members who voted in her leadership review Saturday, crushing internal pockets of dissent and solidifying her place as the head of the province’s right-wing.

The UCP said 6,085 people registered at its annual meeting in Red Deer, and 4,633, or 76 per cent, cast ballots in the leadership review.

ExplainingComputers (YouTube): Top 5 New SBCs 2024 — plus 12 more contenders!

The best new single board computers for makers and enthusiasts of the past 12 months. Read this description later if you do not want to know the boards before you watch the video!

The ExplainingComputers Top 5 New SBCs of 2024, together with the videos in which I first reviewed them, are as follows:

1. Radxa X4: Radxa X4: An N100 Pi  
2. Radxa Rock 5 ITX: Arm PC Build (Rock 5 ITX)  
3. Odroid M1S: Odroid M1S: Great Valu…  
4. Banana Pi BPI-F3: Banana Pi BPI-F3: Octa…  
5. Lichee Pi 3A: Lichee Pi 3A: RISC-V S…  

You can also quickly locate any of my SBC video reviews — Arm, x86 and RISC-V from this page: www.explainingcomputers.com/sbc.html

Women’s Health: 10,000 Steps Is A Myth. Here’s What Science Says You Should Do Instead.

A 2019 study for which Dr. Lee was the lead author found that the risk of death dropped by about 40 percent for women in their 70s with as few as 4,400 steps per day, or less than half the recommended number. The risk continued to drop with more steps, but then plateaued at about 7,500 steps. The optimal step count for people younger than 60, though, was about 8,000 to 10,000 a day, per a separate study.

Other studies have examined how many steps are enough, and suggest that if you’re looking for a good number, 7,500 will do for adults, says Cayla McAvoy, PhD, a senior evaluator for the Florida Department of Health and a research consultant at Tudor-Locke’s walking lab.

UPI: FCC commissioner blasts Kamala Harris' appearance on ‘SNL’

Brendan Carr, the senior Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, has criticized Kamala Harris' appearance on the final Saturday Night Live episode ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Carr, writing on social media, called Harris' appearance on the sketch comedy show a “clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”

“The purpose of the rule is to avoid exactly this type of biased and partisan conduct — a licensed broadcaster using the public airwaves to exert its influence for one candidate on the eve of an election,” Carr wrote.

“Unless the broadcaster offered Equal Time to other qualifying campaigns.”

MacRumors: Vision Pro With M5 Chip Rumored for 2025, Apple Also ‘Considering’ iPhone-Connected Glasses

Apple plans to release an updated Vision Pro headset with its as-yet-unannounced M5 chip in 2025, according to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The current Vision Pro is equipped with the M2 chip, which debuted in 2022.

MacRumors: Canon Now Accepting Orders for Spatial Video Lens Previewed at WWDC

Canon’s new stereoscopic RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL camera lens for spatial video recording recentlybecame available for pre-order. In the U.S., pricing is set at $449.99, and orders are estimated to be delivered in mid-November.

Apple and Canon announced the lens at WWDC in June. The lens attaches to Canon’s EOS R7, enabling the mirrorless camera to record 3D videos for playback on AR/VR headsets like Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest 3. More details about the lens are available on Canon’s website, and in our coverage of the WWDC announcement.

Last Updated: 03.Nov.2024 23:59 EST

Saturday’s articles

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“Democracy: the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” H.L. Mencken

NYT: Canadian Police Say They Dismantled Country’s Largest Drug Lab

Canadian authorities have dismantled what they described as the country’s largest drug laboratory, hidden in a rural part of British Columbia, seizing enough chemicals and other material to produce roughly 96 million doses of fentanyl, the country’s leading cause of overdose deaths.

For the first time in Canada, the police also found evidence of a drug production method used primarily by Mexican cartels to make opioids. The process requires a particular precursor chemical, and is often used to mass produce a potent synthetic drug know as “super meth.”

The discovery, experts say, suggests that Canadian drug dealers might be taking lessons from the cartels or that Mexican criminal groups might be operating in the country. Canadian authorities would not elaborate on potential links and said that the investigation that uncovered the drug lab was continuing.

TorStar: Doug Ford wanted cities to ask him to use the notwithstanding clause to end encampments. Twelve mayors just said do it

The premier said he wanted Ontario’s big city mayors, a group of 29 municipal leaders, to show “backbone” and support using the notwithstanding clause.

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Last year in Waterloo, a judge ruled that it’s a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a municipality to evict those in encampments if there are no shelter spaces available for them. A similar ruling was also handed down in Kingston.

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Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, chair of the mayors' group, wants to see “one point person, a specific minister or ministry, in charge of solving this” and a province-wide plan including more supports.

She said the “issue becomes, if you are using the notwithstanding clause to close down encampments, but people have nowhere to go, we’re no farther ahead.”

Korea Times: How Korean novels are helping a generation find calm amid competition

If you’ve spent time on Seoul’s subway recently, or indeed public transport in Korea in general, you may have noticed that paper books are back in fashion. Many of these books have a recognizable style of cover — warm, inviting colors and a Jimmy Corrigan-like traditional hanok or otherwise cosy-looking freestanding building on the cover. This is a result of the Korean healing fiction trend, which is slowly taking the nation by storm.

Apart from those instantly recognizable covers, Korean healing fiction has several distinct traits. The novels are short and written in a highly readable style, which makes them ideal for commuters. Korean healing novels tell of people, burned out by the stresses of hypercompetitive life in the big city, who find new energy and personal growth through joining a community or learning a skill — running a bookshop, learning to cook or some other endeavor that allows for creative expression.

The Economist reports that Korean healing fiction is being translated and issued by major western publishing companies, and is selling well.

WashPo: Kamala Harris has slight lead over Donald Trump in Iowa poll

The poll results, conducted by a well-regarded polling firm, show Kamala Harris’s strength among women, particularly those who are older or politically independent.

RNZ News: Lower cruise numbers could make tourism industry sweat over summer

A tourism operator says a drop in cruise passengers could have a significant impact on his bottom line this summer.

The New Zealand Cruise Association predicts a 20 percent decrease in visitor numbers over the incoming cruise season, driven by increases to port costs and the international visitors levy.

BBC: DNA-testing site 23andMe fights for survival

Firstly, it didn’t really have a continuing business model – once you’d paid for your DNA report, there was very little for you to return for.

Secondly, plans to use an anonymised version of the gathered DNA database for drug research took too long to become profitable, because the drug development process takes so many years.

That leads him to a blunt conclusion: “If I had a crystal ball, I’d say they will maybe last for a bit longer,” he told the BBC.

“But as it currently is, in my view, 23andMe is highly unlikely to survive.”

Last Updated: 02.Nov.2024 22:54 EDT

Friday’s articles

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NYT: Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action

These estimates, based on a New York Times analysis of detailed public voter registration records of more than 3.5 million Americans who moved since the last presidential election, offer a new and extraordinarily detailed glimpse into one of the ways that we segregate from each other – down to the street level.

Across all movers, Republicans chose neighborhoods Donald J. Trump won by an average of 19 percentage points in 2020, while Democrats chose neighborhoods President Biden won by the opposite margin (also 19 points). In total, movers started in neighborhoods 31 percentage points apart; they ended in neighborhoods 38 points apart. Across the country, the result is a widening gap between blue neighborhoods and red ones.

Gift link

NYT: Pennsylvania Voters Worry About the Toxicity of Politics

In a tight presidential race, Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, will very likely decide the winner. And the state, which Donald J. Trump won in 2016 and President Biden won in 2020 by narrow margins, is up for grabs.

That’s clear in Berks County, which lies about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia where flourishing Democratic suburbs melt into conservative, rural Pennsylvania.

The mountains and low hills that make up most of the county are sprinkled with small towns and farms, while the county seat, Reading, is Pennsylvania’s fourth-largest city, with a substantial Latino majority. In 2020, Mr. Trump won the county by around 8 percentage points, the narrowest margin of the 54 counties that he won across the state.

Berks is “a big bag of marbles,” said Matthew Orifice, a longtime resident of Boyertown, Pa., “half of which are blue, half of which are red.”

Interviews with interesting people with divergent views.

TorStar: Donald Trump tells Joe Rogan he wants Canadian freshwater

“You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps and Canada, all pouring down,” Trump said at a press conference in California on Sept 13.

“And they have a very large faucet,” Trump continued. It’s unclear who “they” are or where the “faucet” is. Requests for clarification from Trump’s team were not answered before publication.

Trump is likely talking about diverting fresh water from the Columbia River, which forms in the Rocky Mountains and flows through B.C. and into Washington and Oregon — and though ideas proposing as much have been floated in the past, experts told the Star that we’re unlikely to ever see it happen.

New Scientist: Fresh insights into how we doze off may help tackle sleep conditions

WHEN he was in need of inspiration, the inventor Thomas Edison used to take a nap in a chair while holding a metal ball in each hand. The moment he dropped off, the balls would drop too and crash to the floor, jolting him awake. Edison claimed that this allowed him to capture creative ideas that had fleetingly bubbled up into his semi-consciousness as he fell asleep.

The state Edison was chasing is known as the sleep-onset period (SOP), a little-studied phase of the sleep-wake cycle. Once seen as merely a brief interlude between wakefulness and slumber, it is now being recognised as a distinct and important stage in its own right. Not only is it involved in orchestrating the shutdown of consciousness, but it may also play a vital role in many of the functions of sleep, including memory-processing and, of course, creativity.

via Apple News+

New Scientist: The science behind lower carbon pigs

As origin stories go, this is a strange one. Who would have thought that six farmers meeting up in an English pub in the 1950s would have helped to improve the carbon footprint of 21st century pigs?

It might not have been part of those farmers’ original goal – they simply wanted to use science to improve pig breeding. But it turns out that the application of science is playing a pivotal role in creating credible, measurable carbon reductions in the pork industry. “If we can select more robust, healthy, efficient animals, ultimately we can translate that to improvements in sustainability” says Matt Culbertson, the current chief operating officer of the Pig Improvement Company (PIC), which officially came into being in the White Hart pub in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire in 1962.

PIC’s business and research have led to the breeding of pigs that not only lower the carbon emissions in the meat supply chain, but carry the first externally-verified measure of the role of genetics in sustainability. Advances in technology, improved computing power, statistical methodology and genetics enable breeders to select animals with the ideal characteristics to be parents of the next generation, and the benefits are accruing for the planet, as well as the consumer.

Kottke: Letter of Recommendation: DRM-free Audiobooks From Libro.fm

For the last three years, I’ve been been getting my audiobooks through Libro.fm. You can listen through their app or download DRM-free mp3 or m4b files to listen in the app of your choice. They are a social purpose corporation, 100% employee owned, and partner with local bookstores to offer audiobooks & share profits. They don’t have every title because of Audible’s strategy of locking up exclusives (like Emily Wilson’s translations of The Iliad and the Odyssey), but they have most of what you’d want to read. They also make it easy to gift audiobooks to friends and family (and I suppose, enemies and strangers if you want?)

Last Updated: 01.Nov.2024 19:59 EDT

Thursday’s articles

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CBC: Alberta woman’s medically assisted death delayed last minute by B.C. judge

An Alberta woman was denied a medically assisted death in Vancouver this past Sunday after an interim injunction was granted in B.C. Supreme Court barely 24 hours before she was scheduled to die.

According to court documents, the woman was approved for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in July by Vancouver MAiD provider Dr. Ellen Wiebe after her own doctors in southern Alberta wouldn’t approve it.

CleanTechnica: CleanTechnica Tested: Oupes Mega 1 Power Station

The first thing I noticed was that it has both a good number and a good variety of outputs:

• Two USB-PD 100W ports
• Four USB-A quick-charge ports
• A cigarette lighter plug and two other 12v outputs
• Four 20-amp 120v outlets

It also has a decent display (it looks better in person) that shows not only the percentage, but also time remaining at current power usage.

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Speaking of solar power and charging, there are several good inputs to charge it up. For solar, it has standard Anderson Powerpole connectors that are compatible with all sorts of power inputs. As you can see in the featured image at the top of the article, it comes with a cigarette lighter plug and a solar adapter to feed power into this port. But you can put any power source that meets the specifications (12–80 volts, up to 12 amps) to charge it up! There’s also a standard 120V plug to charge it at home or from a generator, as well as a breaker reset.

How to Geek: How to “Undo” on iPhone: 5 Different Ways

Three-Finger Tap to Undo (Two Methods)

There are two tapping gestures you can use to undo text entry mistakes on your iPhone. While typing, double-tap the screen with three fingers. You’ll see an “Undo” notification at the top of the screen, and your last action will be undone.

Also, in many Apple apps and some third-party apps, you can bring up a formatting bar by single-tapping the screen with three fingers. This opens a widget at the top of the screen that allows you to undo, cut, copy, paste, and redo.

No longer just the “shake to undo” gesture.

LA Times: Wendell Pierce slams ‘obnoxious fans’ who spoiled World Series

In a series of tweets Wednesday, the “Jack Ryan” and “The Wire” actor condemned the unruly behavior and “obnoxious fans” that spoiled his night at Yankee Stadium, where the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched a late-inning victory against the Bronx Bombers. Pierce tweeted that he left Wednesday’s game early, alleging “people were throwing things at me” for speaking to a Dodgers fan. He tweeted about his experience two hours after posting a video of himself sharing his excitement for Game 5, rooting for the Yankees and wearing a hat with the team’s logo.

Sign of the times?

MacRumors: PSA: Apple’s New USB-C Accessories Require macOS Sequoia, Don’t Work Properly With macOS 15.2 Beta

With the launch of new M4 Macs this week, Apple introduced USB-C versions of the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard to continue on with phasing out the Lightning port. Apple users who plan to buy these new accessories should be aware that there are some software limitations currently. …

Last Updated: 31.Oct.2024 23:58 EDT

Wednesday’s articles

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Wired: The Eternal Truth of Markdown

Markdown is not just a piece of software. It’s also a markup language–it’s used to format plaintext, which then appears the way you want it to on, say, the internet. Markdown the markup language was designed to be “as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible,” according to creator John Gruber’s syntax guide. “A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.”

This, I believe, is the cornerstone of Markdown’s success (and why related projects from that era, like reStructuredText and Setext, remain largely unknown): It looked at the world as it actually was and built on the informal conventions people were using. Markdown took common quirks of writing plaintext emails or message-board posts–like wrapping a word in asterisks to emphasize it–and extended those formatting customs. It did not come in and declare an entirely new syntax and ask people to adopt it.

via John Philpin

UPI: ‘Weekend warrior’ exercise can cut risk of cognitive decline, study indicates

Being a “weekend warrior” – engaging in exercise once or twice per week – may be as beneficial as regular sessions in decreasing the risk of cognitive decline that often leads to dementia, a new study concludes.

The study was published Tuesday online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

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A total of 7,945 respondents said they didn’t exercise at all; 726 met the weekend warrior definition; 1,362 reported exercising several times per week; and 2,088 made up a combined group.

During an average 16-year monitoring period, researchers identified 2,400 cases of mild dementia. The prevalence was 26% among the no exercisers, 14% among the weekend warriors and 18.5% among the regularly active.

Hmmm…

Malcolm Gladwell | TED (YouTube): The Tipping Point I Got Wrong

In his 2000 bestseller “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell told the story of why crime fell in New York City in the 1990s. Now, 25 years later, he’s back with a confession and a mea culpa: “I was wrong,” he says. He shares how his analysis contributed to the rise of the infamous “stop and frisk” policing policy in New York City — and shows why journalists should avoid the trap of imagining a story is ever really over. (Followed by a Q&A with TED’s Monique Ruff-Bell) (Recorded at TEDNext 2024 on October 22, 2024)

NYT: How Trump and Harris Compare on Climate Change

If he returns to the White House, former President Donald J. Trump, who last month called climate change “one of the greatest scams of all time,” plans to build on his first-term attacks on the environment when he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations.

In a second term, he has promised to end federal support for a clean energy transition and hamstring wind and solar development while expanding oil and gas production — including drilling in the fragile Arctic wilderness. He has said he would again withdraw the country from the Paris accord and potentially go further, blocking the United States from negotiating future global climate agreements.

MacRumors: Apple Announces MacBook Pro Models With M4 Pro and M4 Max Chips, Thunderbolt 5 Support, and More

Apple today announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, alongside a new entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M4 chip.

The new M4 Pro and M4 Max machines come with a minimum of 24GB of Unified Memory as standard, up from 18GB in the previous models. Both models feature three Thunderbolt 5 ports, the newest specification of Thunderbolt that offers speeds of up to 120 Gb/s with Bandwidth Boost, which is triple the maximum bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4.

The Conversation: Making a Snickers bar is a complex science − a candy engineer explains how to build the airy nougat and chewy caramel of this Halloween favorite

As a food engineer studying candy and ice cream at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I now look at candy in a whole different way than I did as a kid. Back then, it was all about shoveling it in as fast as I could.

Now, as a scientist who has made a career studying and writing books about confections, I have a very different take on candy. I have no trouble sacrificing a piece for the microscope or the texture analyzer to better understand how all the components add up. I don’t work for, own stock in, or receive funding from Mars Wrigley, the company that makes Snickers bars. But in my work, I do study the different components that make up lots of popular candy bars. Snickers has many of the most common elements you’ll find in your Halloween candy.

via John Brady

Dodgers won the World Series.

Last Updated: 30.Oct.2024 16:11 EDT

Tuesday’s articles

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Small Good Things (Hollie): Just now… Me: <points to newly …

Greg: Okay, you have to understand, the containers are a mirage, you have too much stuff, you can’t just get new container. The problem is <waves hands at my desk> too much stuff.

CBC: Saskatchewan Party wins 5th consecutive majority government

Some tight races in Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert too close to call.

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There were seven ridings in the province still too close for CBC’s decision desk to call as the night drew to a close. CBC will continue populating this page with live results as they come in from Elections Saskatchewan.

Last Updated: 29.Oct.2024 10:09 EDT

Monday’s articles

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Guardian: ‘Magicians get emotional about it’: should secrets of magic ever be revealed?

Study examining highly contested topic of ‘exposure’ looks at when it is acceptable to share tricks of the trade.

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The paper, Towards a Theory of Exposure, is available in the Journal of Performance Magic.

Verge: Secret service members, maybe don’t set your Strava to public.

Or you could end up like French President Emannuel Macron’s bodyguards: leaking the location of the one person you’re supposed to protect.

Le Monde found the names and addresses of roughly a dozen of Macron’s bodyguards… and then found their running routes on Strava. Including routes they ran during recon trips to scout hotels for the president to stay at.

Semafor.com: Bodyguards inadvertently expose French President Macron’s location on Strava

CBC: Porter breaks its own rules by kicking deaf woman and her service dog off a flight

Porter says ‘miscommunication’ between pilot and flight attendant led to incident.

Every airline has some number of employees who make mistakes or are ill-suited to their jobs. My experience with Porter has been uniformly good, so I don’t think this incident, sad though it is, should be taken as a general indicator of the airline’s services.

CBC: Porch pirates are getting smarter. Here’s how to protect your parcels [video]

Montreal police say they’ve noticed more package thefts in certain neighbourhoods. One cybersecurity expert says thieves are getting smarter and planning out their tactics ahead of time.

NYT: Jeff Bezos Defends Decision to End Washington Post Endorsements

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, whose decision to end presidential endorsements at the paper set off a firestorm inside and outside the paper last week, said on Monday in his first comments about the change that it had been done to improve the newsroom’s credibility, not to protect his own personal interests.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Mr. Bezos wrote in an essay published on The Post’s website. He added: “What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

Last Updated: 28.Oct.2024 22:20 EDT

Sunday’s articles

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