NYT: Amazon Gains Creative Control Over the James Bond Franchise

The British family that has steered the James Bond franchise for more than 60 years, zealously protecting the superspy from the indignities of Hollywood strip mining, has agreed to relinquish control to Amazon.

The deal, which was announced Thursday morning, comes after a behind-the-scenes standoff between Barbara Broccoli, who inherited control of Bond from her father, and Amazon, which gained a significant ownership stake in the franchise in 2021 as part of its $8.5 billion purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ms. Broccoli and her brother, Michael G. Wilson, another Bond producer, had chafed at some of the ways in which Amazon hoped to capitalize on the property, The Wall Street Journal reported in December.

In a statement released by Amazon, the siblings and the tech giant said they had agreed to form a new joint venture to house Bond; the parties will remain co-owners. But Amazon MGM Studios “will gain creative control” after the transaction closes later this year. Ms. Broccoli and Mr. Wilson previously had ironclad creative control, deciding when to make a new Bond film, who should play the title role and whether remakes and television spinoffs got made.

They also had final say over every line of dialogue, every casting decision, every stunt sequence, every marketing tie-in, and every TV ad, poster and billboard.

Globe: Canada defeats U.S. 3-2 in 4 Nations final overtime thriller

Connor McDavid scored the overtime winner to propel Canada to a 3-2 victory over the United States in the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off in Boston on Thursday.

McDavid, who was named the game’s most valuable player, lifted a wrist shot past the glove hand of USA goaltender Connor Hellebuyck at 8:18 of the extra period to give Canada the win in a rematch of Saturday’s fight-filled affair when the two sides last met, during the tournament’s round robin.

CoinDesk: Bybit Loses $1.5B in Hack but Can Cover Loss, CEO Confirms

• Blockchain data shows that around $1.4 billion has been withdrawn so far, and $200 million of that has been liquidated on decentralized exchanges.
• Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has confirmed that the exchange’s Ethereum cold wallet was hacked.
• Ether is down by 4% following the transfers.

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$1.46 billion would equate to the largest cryptocurrency hack of all time in dollar terms, with $470 million being lost in the Mt Gox Hack, $530 million in the 2018 hack of CoinCheck, and $650 million in the Ronin Bridge exploit.

CNET: Apple Pulls iCloud Encryption Feature Following UK Government Demands

Apple is withdrawing its Advanced Data Protection tool from the UK, leaving iCloud users without the highest level of encryption the company currently offers. The move comes just weeks after reports emerged that the British government was pressuring Apple to create a backdoor into its encrypted services for law enforcement and spying purposes.

ADP is an opt-in security tool, which provides end-to-end encryption for iCloud services to those who want it. The UK’s Home Office had refused to confirm or deny whether it made a request to Apple to turn it off, but the company has made it clear that’s not a decision that it wanted to take. 

Terrible decision by the UK Home Office. Apple did the right thing. Unfortunately.

Wired: The Ozempic Shortage Is Over

The semaglutide shortage has officially ended in the US—which means the GLP-1 drug industry is about to undergo massive changes.

9to5Mac: Apple to add proximity pairing setup to the Mac with macOS 15.4

iPhone and iPad users are already very familiar with something called “proximity pairing.” First introduced with iOS 11, this feature lets users transfer backup and other data from one device to a new one just by placing them close together. Now it seems that Apple is finally working on adding proximity pairing setup to the Mac.

This is good news.

Last Updated: 21.Feb.2025 20:11 EST

Thursday’s articles

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Guardian: Commercial flights diverted as Chinese warships undertake apparent live-fire drill in sea between Australia and New Zealand

Chinese warships have undertaken an apparent live-fire drill in the seas between Australia and New Zealand, diverting commercial flights in the skies above.

The Chinese navy notified the Australian defence department shortly before the drill on Friday.

Three People’s Liberation Army-Navy vessels – the Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai-class cruiser Zunyi and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu – are now about 340 nautical miles off Eden, on the New South Wales south coast, in international waters. The drill was conducted in international waters and in accordance with international law.

I wonder what they are practising for?

CBC: Hunter Schafer says passport lists sex as ‘M’ after Trump executive order

American actress Hunter Schafer said she was “shocked” to find the gender marker on her passport listed as male, a forced change that comes after the Trump administration declared it would only recognize two genders.

Schafer, one of the most visible transgender actresses in Hollywood, said she picked up her new passport on Thursday to find the gender marker written as “M”, despite her having listed female on her application.

Last Updated: 21.Feb.2025 21:53 EST

Thursday’s political articles

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UPI: Trump directs DOT Secretary to review $4 billion commitment to California high-speed rail

The Department of Transportation said in a statement that the entire San Francisco to Los Angeles high-speed rail project was initially supposed to cost $33 billion and be finished in 2020.

But the DOT claimed just the Merced to Bakersfield segment would cost more than the original total and the latest total project cost estimate is $106 billion.

After Justin Trudeau’s announcement this week, I imagine that this will show up in Poilievre’s stump speeches this summer.

Last Updated: 20.Feb.2025 15:19 EST

Wednesday’s political articles

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Wikipedia: iPhone 16e

Announced as an affordable model on February 19, 2025, it was released with a starting price of US$599, which is $170 more than its predecessor, third generation of iPhone SE.

It is the first entry-level iPhone model to feature the edge-to-edge display, Face ID and USB-C port instead of Lightning port.

Starship

The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!

Uses Rust.

via Rick Cogley

ScienceAlert: Study Reveals How This Artificial Sweetener May Cause Heart Damage

Researchers from Sweden, China, and the US gave mice doses of aspartame for 12 weeks, up to the equivalent level per day that a human would consume in about three cans of diet soda.

A number of the mice had been engineered to be missing a gene critical in metabolism, giving insulin unmitigated access to key receptors throughout their bodies.

Compared with mice who hadn’t been fed the sweetener, the aspartame group had higher levels of insulin, greater blood vessel inflammation, and more fatty plaques in their arteries – all of which make a heart attack or stroke more likely.

“It is important to note that these findings have not yet been seen in humans,” explains cardiovascular physiologist James Leiper from the British Heart Foundation, who was not involved in the study.

Last Updated: 20.Feb.2025 15:25 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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Charlie Angus: Speak Now or Forever Lose Your Peace

But we can resist the Trump/Putin plan. My hope is that in the coming months, nations like Europe, Australia, Japan, Latin America, and Canada can work together to oppose the Trump gang.

Trump is being reckless on so many fronts, and he will trip and fall. And this will be the opportunity in the United States to begin pushing back.

Last Updated: 19.Feb.2025 19:31 EST

Tuesday’s political articles

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Everything Electric (YouTube): The World’s First Fully Electric Farm!

In this week’s episode Robert and the team went to speak to the team at Forest Lodge Orchard in Otago, who have transformed their cherry farm into a 100% fully electric operation.

In the lower part of New Zealand’s South Island

Electrek: GAF Energy’s nailable solar shingle is now 23% more powerful

GAF Energy has launched an upgraded version of its Timberline Solar nailable shingle, the ES 2, which delivers 23% more power per shingle.

GAF Energy says key improvements to the Timberline Solar nailable shingle, which was first launched in 2022, include:

• 57 watts of power per shingle, a 23% increase in energy generation
• More area than a traditional asphalt shingle, enabling superior installation speed
• Enhanced StrikeZone for improved installation efficiency
• Compatibility with the complete GAF Timberline shingle collection
• Refined aesthetics with smaller transition boxes and simplified wiring

Last Updated: 19.Feb.2025 22:16 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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Daring Fireball: Golfo del Gringo Loco

But let’s first stipulate up front that there are multiple far more important and urgent issues facing the United States and the world, just four short weeks into the Trump 2.0 administration. Off the top of my head: Ukraine, Gaza, tariffs, DOGE, the rule of law. Whether you approve or disapprove of Trump’s actions on any or all of those issues, there should be no question that all of them are important and consequential. The name we see on maps for a body of water, not as much. But it’s the smallness, the relative unimportance, the spiteful pettiness of the renaming in the first place – down to the fact that until Trump’s executive action, there was no controversy, zero, none, nada, anywhere in the world, amongst any group of people, regarding the name of the Gulf of Mexico – that makes it interesting to examine in detail how Google and Apple have chosen to deal with it. It’s only because this particular issue is so spectacularly piddling that we can consider it in full.

Interesting, but longish, article about Trump’s ridiculous attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico (which had the name long before the thirteen colonies were called “The United States of America”).

Last Updated: 18.Feb.2025 23:39 EST

Monday’s political articles

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9to5Mac: Ted Lasso season 4 is coming: Here’s everything we know so far

Apple TV+ is currently airing Severance season 2, one of its biggest mainstream hits ever. Meanwhile, the one TV+ show that outdid it in cultural influence—Ted Lasso—is currently preparing a new season. Here’s everything we know about Ted Lasso season 4.

A lot of nervous Ted Lasso fans out there…

9to5Mac: Here are 10 Apple Watch features I use everyday & you could too

Before we get started, I did want to mention that all the features I talked about will be available on all current Apple Watch models and all models that run WatchOS 11. If you are looking to upgrade Amazon always has discounted Apple Watches for sale.

1. Unlocking Mac with Apple Watch…
2. Apple Watch as Camera remote…
3. Ping my iPhone…
4. AppleTV Remote app…
5. Good morning & alarm features…
6. Tesla key…
7. Screenshot Apple Watch…
8. Unlocking iPhone with Apple Watch…
9. Palm mute…
10. Sleep and fitness tracking…

Last Updated: 18.Feb.2025 23:56 EST

Monday’s articles

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ScienceAlert: CDC Report Suggests Bird Flu Is Spreading Undetected to Humans

Amidst surging respiratory illnesses and previously controlled diseases like tuberculosismaking alarming comebacks, a new CDC report provides further evidence bird flu is spreading undetected to humans.

The latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, whose publication was delayed, details three cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in US veterinarians who work with cattle, with two of the cases lacking a clear source of exposure.

None of the vets experienced any flu-like symptoms, and human-to-human spread is still undetected, but researchers are concerned this ability may only be a few genetic mutations away.

Possibly transmitted through milk; not communicating properly with WHO.

Guardian: The Notebook by Roland Allen review – notes on living

Roland Allen loves notebooks. Why wouldn’t he? He is, after all, a writer. In his new study, delightfully subtitled A History of Thinking on Paper, he declares: “If your business is words, a notebook can be at once your medium – and your mirror.” Paul Valéry was at least as devoted to his notebooks as the symbolist poetry for which he is best known. He awoke early each morning for half a century to write in them, amassing 261 books in total. “Having dedicated those hours to the life of the mind, I earn the right to be stupid for the rest of the day.”

Found after a post by NumericCitizen tweaked my interest.

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper on Amazon.ca

Brent Simmons: Codeberg — Git hosting & services

Just today I learned about Codeberg, “a non-profit, community-led effort that provides Git hosting and other services for free and open source projects.”

I have open source projects, and plan to have more, and getting away from big-corporation-owned services is an extremely attractive idea. I also like, for obvious reasons these days, the “Hosted in Europe, we welcome the world” part.

Last Updated: 17.Feb.2025 22:49 EST

Sunday’s articles

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Guardian: Trump policies make US ‘scary place to invest’ and risk stagflation, says Stiglitz

Uncertainty created by tariffs and contempt for rule of law will deter investment, says top economist.

via John Philpin

AP News: Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash

The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

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The employees were fired “without cause nor based on performance or conduct,” Spero said, and the emails were “from an ‘exec order’ Microsoft email address” — not a government email address. A copy of the termination email that was provided to the AP shows the sending address “ASK_AHR_EXEC_Orders@usfaa.mail.outlook.com”.

“But the emails…”

via Kottke

Last Updated: 17.Feb.2025 23:09 EST

Sunday’s political articles

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NYT: Eleanor Maguire, Memory Expert Who Studied London Cabbies, Dies at 54

Dr. Maguire kept digging. Using M.R.I. machines, she measured different regions in the brains of 16 drivers, comparing their dimensions with those in the brains of people who weren’t taxi drivers.

“The posterior hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects,” she wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And the size, she found, correlated with the length of a cabby’s career: The longer the cabby had driven, the bigger the hippocampus.

Dr. Maguire’s study, published in March 2000, generated headlines around the world and turned London taxi drivers into unlikely scientific stars.

“I never noticed part of my brain growing,” David Cohen, a member of the London Cab Drivers Club, told the BBC. “It makes you wonder what happened to the rest of it.”

NYT: The Best Way to Cook Rice and Grains

Of course, there are a few exceptions: If you want your grains to stick together (as with sushi rice), to cook the grains in fat first (as with pilaf) or to have a soupy consistency (as with congee and risotto), you might want to use the absorption method, in which grains soak up a measured amount of water in a covered pot. But in all other cases, the boiling method is less finicky and more forgiving.

So how do I boil grains?

Add grains to a saucepan or pot of lightly salted boiling water, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until they’re tender and chewy. They should be the texture of al dente pasta — not soft or mushy — and may also be split at the ends. Use the cook times that follow as a guide for some common grains, and start tasting five minutes before because grains vary greatly based on producer. …

TechCrunch: Can sim drivers make the shift to F1? Max Verstappen thinks so

Motorsports have long been a pay-to-play arena, with young drivers spending thousands of dollars just to get started in karting. Four-time Formula One champion Max Verstappen knows this all too well, but he also sees a way to change it through sim racing, a virtual form of car racing that closely replicates real-world racing.

It’s maybe less crazy than it sounds. The sport has evolved into a serious proving ground for talent, with detailed setups and tire management — minus the crushing financial barrier. In fact, Verstappen, a passionate sim racer himself, believes the best virtual drivers deserve a shot in real cars.

TechCrunch: Broadcom, TSMC reportedly exploring deals that would split up Intel

Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are separately exploring deals to take over parts of Intel, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Broadcom is reportedly considering an acquisition of Intel’s chip-design and marketing business, and would want a partner for the company’s manufacturing business, while TSMC is reportedly looking at controlling some or all of Intel’s chip plants, potentially as part of an investor consortium.

Last Updated: 16.Feb.2025 21:56 EST

Saturday’s articles

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BBC: Trump makes first Supreme Court appeal in test of his power to fire officials

Mr Dellinger, who was nominated by Joe Biden, the former president, argues that his removal broke a law that protects leaders of independent agencies from being fired by the president, “except in cases of neglect of duty, malfeasance or inefficiency”.

Hampton Dellinger, head of the US Office of Special Counsel, sued the Trump administration after he was fired by email this month.

Trump has also sacked more than a dozen inspectors general at various federal agencies along with the jobs of thousands of employees across the US government.

BBC: US goverment seeks to rehire recently fired nuclear workers

The US government is trying to rehire nuclear safety employees it had fired on Thursday, after concerns grew that their dismissal could jeopardise national security, US media reported.

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The Trump administration has since tried to reverse their terminations, according to media outlets, but has reportedly struggled to reach the people that were fired after they were locked out of their federal email accounts. A memo sent to NNSA employees on Friday and obtained by NBC News read: “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.”

Last Updated: 16.Feb.2025 23:42 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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Ars Technica: AI used to design a multi-step enzyme that can digest some plastics

The reaction the research team worked on (involving some of the same people who designed snake venom inhibitors) is the breakdown of what’s called an ester bond. Ester bonds are formed by linking two chains of carbon atoms by an oxygen atom, with one of the flanking carbons being linked to a second oxygen. These can be broken apart by adding a water molecule, which leaves one carbon chain linked to an alcohol (COH) group and the other an organic acid (COOH).

David Johnson (@CrossingTheThreshold): re Amazon discontinuing Kindle backups

Following Amazon’s announcement that it will no longer be possible to download and backup Kindle books from February 26th, I have now been through my list of Kindle books, downloaded those not yet downloaded and saved them in Calibre.

I have also brought my Kobo Libra H2O out of retirement. I’ll be returning to the Kobo store. I bough the Libra a few years back wanting to move away from Amazon. However, I returned to Amazon as I preferred the reading experience on Kindle. …

Bleacher Report: USA vs. Canada Starts with 3 Fights at 4 Nations Face-Off, Leaves NHL Fans Energized

There were three fights in the first nine seconds of Saturday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off game between the United States and Canada.

Trump sets the tone: Continuing the descent into elementary school behavior.

Last Updated: 15.Feb.2025 22:50 EST

Friday’s articles

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NYT: Judges Generally Let Prosecutors Drop Charges. Maybe Not for Adams.

Federal judges have almost no ability under the law to refuse a government request to drop criminal charges. The corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York may be the exception.

On Thursday, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than obey an order to seek dismissal of the charges against the mayor. The directive was issued by Emil Bove III, the acting No. 2 official in President Trump’s Justice Department and his former criminal lawyer.

Mr. Bove wrote that the demand had nothing to do with the strength of the evidence against the mayor or legal theories in the case. Rather, he said the charges would interfere with Mr. Adams’s ability “to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies” of the Biden administration.

An egregious case of political tampering by Mr. Bove.

Last Updated: 15.Feb.2025 00:54 EST

Friday’s political articles

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CNN: Trump-Putin call: US relations with Europe will never be the same

Two geopolitical thunderclaps on Wednesday will transform transatlantic relations.

• Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin brought the Russian leader in from the cold as they hatched plans to end the war in Ukraine and agreed to swap presidential visits.
• US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, went to Brussels and told European allies to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent.”

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Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt is worried by the cozy call between Trump and Putin. “The disturbing thing is of course that we have the two big guys, the two big egos … believing that they can maneuver all of the issues on their own,” he told Richard Quest on CNN International. Bildt evoked the most damning historical analogy possible — the appeasement of Adolf Hitler by Britain that allowed the Nazis to annex the Sudetenland. “For European ears, this sounds like Munich. It sounds like two big leaders wanting to have peace in our time, (over) a faraway country of which they know little. They are preparing to make a deal over the heads of that particular country. A lot of Europeans know how that particular movie ended.”

Last Updated: 14.Feb.2025 12:36 EST

Wed/Thursday’s political articles

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AP: A humpback whale briefly swallows kayaker in Chile — and it’s all captured on camera

A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed. It happened in Bahía El Águila last Saturday near the San Isidro Lighthouse in the Strait of Magellan.

I generally avoid these “last item on the news” items but this one is pretty amazing!

Globe: Beast Games, which broke records with its $10-million prize, was an anti-human reality competition for our fascist-adjacent times

First and foremost, Beast Games, Prime Video’s reality competition shepherded by popular YouTuber MrBeast that concluded Thursday with a record US$10-million prize, was a demonstration of how money alone can’t buy truly entertaining television.

In its final minutes, Jeffrey Randall Allen — better known, if really known at all, as Player 831 in the super-sized game show that started with 1,000 contestants — picked the right briefcase out of 10 on the first try to take all that money home to wherever he lives. (Who knows!)

Ten episodes of recycled games of skill and random games of chance had all led up to this: a very expensive and extremely short round of Deal or No Deal.

CBC: Toronto orders creator of tiny mobile homes for unhoused people to stop

The City of Toronto has sent a cease and desist letter to a man who’s built several tiny mobile homes giving temporary shelter to those experiencing homelessness, ordering him to remove them from city property. 

Ryan Donais started building the small modular homes last summer, later registering his own non-profit organization, Tiny Tiny Homes, to help create more. 

Not wanting his initiative to get shut down by the city, Donais says he designed the homes with several safety features, such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and a fire extinguisher. They can be attached to the back of a bicycle and transported to other locations.

Last Updated: 14.Feb.2025 18:21 EST

Thursday’s articles

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NYT: David Edward Byrd, Whose Posters Captured Rock’s Energy, Dies at 83

David Edward Byrd, who captured the swirl and energy of the 1960s and early ’70s by conjuring pinwheels of color with indelible posters for concerts by Jimi Hendrix, the Who and the Rolling Stones as well as for hit stage musicals like “Follies” and “Godspell,” died on Feb. 3 in Albuquerque. He was 83.

His husband and only immediate survivor, Jolino Beserra, said the cause of death, in a hospital, was pneumonia brought on by lung damage from Covid.

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Mr. Byrd was impressed by – and to a degree, aligned with – the work of the so-called Big Five psychedelic poster artists of San Francisco: Alton Kelley, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse and Wes Wilson, who were known for using kaleidoscopic patterns, explosions of color and fonts that seemed to bend and ooze like Salvador Dalí clocks.

NYT: How Healthy Are Chickpeas?

Chickpeas aren’t peas; they’re beans. And more broadly, they’re pulses – a category of legumes celebrated for their copious health benefits.

Here’s what nutrition experts have to say about chickpeas, along with some delicious ways to prepare them from New York Times Cooking.

TLDR: very.

Jin san Kim (YouTube): Crow (2022)

Fingerstyle guitar prodigy.

CBC: Want to ‘watch Canadian’ in the trade war? Here’s why that’s so hard

While other countries crafted homegrown film industries, Canada ‘gave that up willingly,’ says film historian.

This crosses the line between political and business. However, Trump’s world trade war is going to cross into many areas including marketing, research, defence manufacturing, etc.

Last Updated: 13.Feb.2025 15:15 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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Dave Winer: Scripting News

If only political reporters had the same knowledge of their subject as sports reporters do. #

CBC: Can Canada just build its own cars? Experts say no — here’s why, and what we could do instead

On Monday, Trump told a Fox News reporter that he would levy a tariff of up to 100 per cent on Canadian-made automobiles, “if [the U.S. doesn’t] make a deal with Canada.”

That same day, he announced a 25 per cent tariff on imported steel and aluminum to take effect March 12.

But the auto industry has become so integrated over the past 60 years as a result of successive free trade agreements that car components travel across the Canada-U.S. border multiple times before a final vehicle rolls off the assembly line, said Dimitry Anastakis, a professor in the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

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Frise said Americans will also find themselves struggling as a result of the tariffs and tariff threats.

About 90 per cent of the aluminum used in the auto industry comes from Quebec, he said.

“They can’t realistically replace it,” Frise said.

“The key ingredient is really enormous amounts of electrical energy. And it has to be electrical, and the U.S. doesn’t have the generating capacity to do it.  …They’d have to build, I don’t know, half a dozen nuclear power plants.”

CBC: Trump complains about Canada — but new data shows spike in U.S. drugs and guns coming north

President Donald Trump claims he’s targeting Canada with punishing tariffs on all our goods because he’s concerned about the country’s supposedly lax approach to fentanyl and migrants.

But new data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) shows Canada has a reason to worry about what’s pouring in from the U.S.

There’s been an influx of illegal American drugs and guns, which experts and law enforcement say are fuelling crime, death and addiction on this side of the border, too.

Globe: Carney says he may call early election if he becomes prime minister

Former central banker Mark Carney opened the door to an early election call if he is elected by Liberal members to replace Justin Trudeau as party leader and prime minister in a March 9 leadership vote.

Mr. Carney, the perceived front-runner for the Liberal leadership, has been crisscrossing the country to introduce himself to rank-and-file party members and announcing some policy initiatives.

At a news conference in Vancouver Thursday, Mr. Carney said the country is preoccupied with U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of hefty tariffs against all Canadian goods, including aluminum and steel. Canada must respond to the economic challenges posed by Mr. Trump’s America-first agenda, he said.

I don’t think a quick election call after a change of leader has ever worked for a party, but “There’s a first time for everything.”

Globe: Trump outlines plan for customized reciprocal tariffs on foreign imports, ramping up global trade war

U.S. president Donald Trump threatened to unleash a major escalation of his trade war by hitting economic partners with reciprocal tariffs.

On Thursday afternoon, Washington time, he ordered his economic and trade advisers to consider imposing the new tariffs on trading partners on a country-by-country basis. Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, told reporters the studies should be complete by the start of April and that Mr. Trump could act immediately afterward.

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If Mr. Trump goes forward with the 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the total direct cost of the import taxes on Chinese, Mexican and Canadian goods would be the equivalent to a US$1,200 yearly tax hike for the typical American household, a report published early this month by the Peterson Institute of Washington said.

The first rule is: when you’re in a deep hole, stop digging!

Globe: Many Canadians willing to ditch U.S. travel and alcohol but not streaming services: poll

A Leger survey that polled 1,590 Canadians between Feb. 7 and Feb. 10, 2025 suggests an overwhelming majority of Canadians – 81 per cent – have significantly increased how many Canadian-made products they buy, or will do so soon.

But only 28 per cent of Canadians told the pollster they have or will be cancelling their subscriptions to U.S. streaming services, compared with 34 per cent who say they will not be cancelling them.

Making them a great target for retaliatory tariffs.

About one in three people polled also said they are unwilling to stop making online purchases from U.S.-based companies.

Last Updated: 13.Feb.2025 16:26 EST

Tuesday’s political articles

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Jason Snell (Macworld): Apple Intelligence’s biggest problem isn’t the Intelligence–it’s Apple

The famous saying is that when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. It’s clear that when Apple began its crash program to add Apple Intelligence to its operating systems, the goal was not to solve user problems but to insert AI features anywhere it could. This is the antithesis of Apple’s usual philosophy of solving problems rather than adopting the latest technology, and it has burned the company in some high-profile ways.

via Manton

Niléane: “If you ever send me a screensh…"

If you ever send me a screenshot or a photo where your computer screen is visible…

I greatly enjoyed this short conversation!

MacRumors: Testing the New ASUS ProArt 5K Display

There aren’t too many 5K displays on the market that can compete with Apple’s Studio Display, but ASUS recently came out with the ASUS ProArt Display 5K, which is a solid competitor. The ProArt Display 5K features a 27-inch 5K screen with 218 pixels per inch, aka retina quality.

ASUS sells the ProArt Display 5K for $799, so it’s actually half the price of the Studio Display, and much, much cheaper than the Pro Display XDR. The ProArt Display is more generic looking than Apple’s monitors, so you’re not getting Apple style, but if you’re used to looking at a 5K Retina display and you need a second monitor, you can get that same general screen quality at a cheaper price.

pv magazine: Study shows sensitivity of heterojunction solar cells to soldering flux

An international research team has assessed the impact of soldering flux on heterojunction solar cells and has found that the composition of this component is key to prevent major cracks and significant peeling.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Chinese-Canadian PV module maker Canadian Solar have investigated the effect of soldering flux on both TOPCon and heterojunction (HJT) solar cells and have ascertained that the choice of this component is key to avoiding potential module failures.

ScienceAlert: Anorexia Patients Reveal a Distinct Pattern in Their Brain Activity

Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental health condition, characterized by restricted eating, fear of weight gain, and insidious body-image disturbances. Patients face increased risk of severe anxiety, depression, and malnutrition.

According to a new study, anorexia may arise at least partly due to changes in neurotransmitter function within a patient’s brain.

SMH: Sydney fake sex abuse scam sparks seven arrests

Detectives have arrested seven people over an alleged billion-dollar scam in which a crime syndicate coached former young offenders, inmates and school students to file false sex abuse claims with the NSW government.

A third of the population of one NSW prison has submitted claims, and multiple law firms are now under investigation for their roles in thousands of “strikingly similar” complaints.

CBC: Fatal parking lot crash involving modified truck leads to RCMP warning

Police say the modifications made to the truck, including a raised suspension, oversized tires and tinted windows contributed to the fatal crash.

They say the modifications made driving in the crowded parking lot unsafe, and weren’t part of the original truck design.

It seems like such trucks may be fairly common.

CBC: B.C. judge allows eagle sculpture insurance case despite ‘inexcusable’ delays

“The thieves cut the strap of the backpack in which the eagles were concealed, and ran away,” his company’s lawsuit says. 

Shore says he gave chase and caught up to the thief’s getaway vehicle, grabbing hold of them through a window, but the lawsuit says the assailant rolled up the window and trapped Shore by the arm and took off. 

He was dragged for about 180 metres before being pushed from the truck and run over after falling to the road, he says. 

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But even with the delays, Justice Lisa Warren found it was in the “interests of justice to allow the claim to proceed.”

The judge found some of the delays were due to Shore doing some of his own legal work as a “lay litigant,” and evidence he gave about his health and financial situation “is vague and limited to his own bald assertions without any objective corroboration.”

Last Updated: 12.Feb.2025 23:42 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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

CNBC: Trump signs order pausing enforcement of foreign bribery ban

President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice to pause enforcing a nearly half-century-old law that prohibits American companies and foreign firms from bribing officials of foreign governments to obtain or retain business.

CBC: Trump signs order to buy plastic straws, eliminate paper straws

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at encouraging the U.S. government and consumers to buy plastic drinking straws, pushing back efforts by his predecessor to phase out single-use plastics and tackle waste.

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the order, saying that paper straws “don’t work.”

“I don’t think plastic is going to affect a shark very much, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,” Trump said.

🤡

The Associated Press: AP statement on Oval Office access

The Associated Press issued this statement on Tuesday from Executive Editor Julie Pace:

As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.

Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.

It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.

Last Updated: 11.Feb.2025 23:57 EST

Monday’s political articles

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

Daring Fireball: Fox’s New Scorebug Graphic Design, and Our Innate Resistance to Change

A scorebug is industry jargon for the sub-genre of chyron (itself jargon) that shows ever-present information about a televised sporting event while you’re watching. These graphics display the teams, the score, the time remaining, and other metadata pertaining to the current situation. The current ball/strike count in baseball. The down and yards-to-go in football. The shot clock in basketball. That sort of thing.

Fox was the broadcast network for Super Bowl 59 yesterday, in which the Philadelphia Eagles utterly embarrassed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 (but which felt like a score of 114-0). The NFL rotates the Super Bowl annually between the networks that broadcast games. Fox has a tradition of unveiling updated on-screen graphics packages when it has the Super Bowl. This year, they didn’t just tweak the design, they completely re-thought it and redesigned it.

CBC: Former Olympian decries ‘fire hose’ of gambling ads during Super Bowl [video]

University of Toronto professor Bruce Kidd, a former track and field athlete and chair of a campaign to ban gambling advertisements, told CBC’s On The Coast Monday that the advertisements poison the idea of sport and are addicting a growing number of people into very serious forms of psychological harm.

Daring Fireball: Nike’s ‘So Win’ Won the Super Bowl

Well, the Philadelphia Eagles, of course, won the actual Super Bowl, winning in a romp so one-sided that they would have embarrassed the Chiefs less if they had pantsed Patrick Mahomes at the 50-yard line. But the second contest is for best commercial. And my vote goes to Nike.

The problem with modern Super Bowl commercials is they’re bland. Offensively bland. It really makes no sense to me. The commercial time is famously expensive — Fox was supposedly selling 30-second spots for last night’s game for $8 million — but the sponsors who buy that time tend to squander it with absolute mindless pap.

Gruber liked some of them though.

Tom’s Guide: Synthesia just launched the most realistic Selfie Avatars I’ve ever seen — here’s how to try it

To try Selfie Avatars, visit the official landing page at Synthesia.io. From there you’ll be asked to set up an account and upload several selfies. I recommend uploading at least ten images of yourself using a variety of angles and include full body shots. The better the lighting and clarity of your selfies, the better the outcome of your Selfie Avatars.

While the innovation is exciting, the company has been upfront about technical limitations. Some users may notice that avatars don’t always perfectly capture their likeness, and minor discrepancies in facial expressions or proportions may occur.

Tom’s Guide: Asus Zenbook A14 hands-on: MacBook Air’s WORST nightmare [video]

The Asus Zenbook A14 is likely going to be my favorite laptop of 2025 — packing Snapdragon power and 32 hours of battery life into a shell that is smaller, slimmer and lighter than the MacBook Air.

Totally over-the-top headline, but an interesting machine which I hope will host Linux well.

Last Updated: 11.Feb.2025 17:28 EST

Monday’s articles

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

MacRumors: Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor

The British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to the cloud, reports The Washington Post.

The undisclosed order is said to have been issued last month, and requires that Apple creates a back door that allows UK security officials unencumbered access to encrypted user data worldwide — an unprecedented demand not before seen in any other democratic country.

Electrek: FREYR kills plans to build a $2.6 billion battery factory in Georgia

FREYR told officials in the Atlanta suburb of Newnan on Thursday that it wouldn’t build the “Giga America” battery factory in Georgia that was expected to employ more than 700 people. The company, incentivized by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and robust renewables growth, moved its headquarters from Norway to Georgia and announced the battery factory in 2023.

The Newnan Times-Herald, which broke the story, said FREYR cited climbing interest rates, falling battery prices, and change in leadership at the company — or, as stated in a letter to the county authority, a “realignment of near-term strategic goals.”

So what might this say about Canada’s billions of dollars of investments in battery plants in Ontario?

Last Updated: 10.Feb.2025 19:44 EST

Sunday’s articles

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

NYT: Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.

“This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the reports’ authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”

Now key experts who worked on the report, called the National Nature Assessment, are figuring out how to finish and publish it outside the government, according to interviews with nine of the leading authors.

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That left the project more vulnerable. It became one of a slew of Biden-era environmental orders that Mr. Trump revoked on his first day in office. Mr. Trump has also frozen climate spending, begun withdrawing the United States from the main global pact to tackle climate change and launched an assault on wind energy while seeking to expand fossil fuels.

What kind of idiot is against the environment?!

NYT: Trump Muses About a Third Term, Over and Over Again

The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.

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Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Mr. Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments. And he has made clear that he is happy to be past a grueling campaign in which he faced two assassination attempts and followed an aggressive schedule in the final weeks.

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Three days after Mr. Trump was sworn in for the second time, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a relative newcomer in the House, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would allow the president to serve a third term. His proposal: that presidents who serve two nonconsecutive terms, like Mr. Trump, would be able to run again.

TorStar: Two Trudeau cabinet ministers won’t seek re-election

International Trade Minister Mary Ng and Justice Minister Arif Virani told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday that they will not be running in the next federal election campaign.

Two more ministers from the GTA jumping ship!

TorStar: Poilievre promises a military base in Iqaluit, would cut foreign aid to pay for it

Poilievre made the announcement in a video on social media, ahead of a press conference scheduled in Iqaluit this morning.

A Conservative government would build a permanent military base in Nunavut and pay for it by “dramatically cutting” Canada’s foreign aid budget, party leader Pierre Poilievre said Monday in Iqaluit.

Following Trump’s lead on foreign aid isn’t going to play well here. There’s no housing for support staff in Iqaluit either, and it’s not well positioned to surveil the Northwest Passage. Not much thought seems to have gone into this one.

New Republic: Trump’s Supreme Court Immunity Ruling Just Came Back to Bite Him

A federal judge ruled Monday that Trump’s FBI must disclose records from its Mar-a-Lago case file, complying with a FOIA request by Business Insider’s Jason Leopold. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell decided that the Supreme Court’s decision–combined with his return to the White House and its executive privileges–has insulated Trump enough from further criminal prosecution to allow the release of documents.

Last Updated: 10.Feb.2025 19:55 EST

Sunday’s political articles

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

CBC: Gardiner lifts Canada over U.S. to clinch third straight Rivalry Series title

The Canadian women’s hockey team defeats the United States 3-1 in the deciding game of the Rivalry Series. Jennifer Gardiner’s goal in the third period was the game-winning goal to clinch the series 3-2.

One of the great hockey rivalries!

NYT: Trump Orders Treasury to Halt Minting New Pennies to Cut Waste

President Trump said on Sunday night that he had ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.

Last Updated: 09.Feb.2025 02:13 EST

Saturday’s articles

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TPM (Talking Points Memo): More on Trump’s Effort to End Basic Medical Research in the United States

Last night I noted news which has spread like wildfire through the American scientific and medical research communities. The NIH released a seemingly down-in-the-weeds new directive which has the effect of drastically reducing the federal funds that go to institutions doing basic medical research. Put as briefly as possible, NIH medical research grants are divided into funds for this specific study (“direct”) and funds that go to the institution which houses the lab conducting the study and the infrastructure that makes it possible (“indirect”). That latter category is a major funding source for research universities and academic medical centers. Last night’s directive reduces that stream of funding somewhere between 50% and 75%. The precise breakdown ranges from institution to institution. But that’s a good measure of the level of funding cuts we’re talking about.

via Dave Winer

Last Updated: 09.Feb.2025 01:05 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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

InsideEVs: Tesla Sales Are Tanking Across The World

In recent days, full-year and January sales results from various markets around the world indicate a bleak picture for the Elon Musk-led electric vehicle company. Even as it added the Cybertruck to its lineup in large volumes last year—which should have unlocked more buyers in America’s expansive pickup truck field—Tesla is seeing serious declines in places where it once had a near-lock on electric sales. Let’s take a look at some of the areas taking the hardest hits.

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The story gets worse in other parts of the world. In Germany, where Tesla was the longtime EV sales leader even as new entries from Volkswagen, BMW, Audi and various Chinese brands started showing up, sales declined a whole 60% in January–just 1,277 registrations in Europe’s biggest car market, according to Fortune. Tesla’s sales were also down 63% in France in January, another large car market, from a year earlier. They also dropped 8% in the UK year-over-year in January even as all-electric vehicle sales rose to 21% of the British new car market, a seven-point increase from 2024. “No Tesla cracked the UK’s top 10 best-seller list last month, something that has regularly happened in the past,” Ars Technica reported this week.

Last Updated: 08.Feb.2025 23:23 EST

Friday’s articles

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CBS: Trump fires archivist of the United States, official who oversees government records

President Trump has fired Archivist of the United States Colleen J. Shogan, the government official responsible for preserving and providing access to government records. 

Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office, announced Shogan’s dismissal Friday night. Shogan has held the job since 2023. 

“At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight,” Gor wrote on X. “We thank Colleen Shogan for her service.”

The move isn’t unexpected. Mr. Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt earlier this month that “we will have a new archivist.”

Last Updated: 08.Feb.2025 15:33 EST

Friday’s political articles

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

NYT: How to Boil an Egg? Scientists Claim to Have Cracked the Recipe.

The scientists’ new method calls for alternating between boiling and lukewarm water: The egg gets two minutes in 212-degree water, followed by two minutes at 86 degrees, with the cycle repeated eight times.

Stephen Hacket (512 Pixels): The Field Notes Thing

At the end of every year, I publish a photo on Instagram cataloging the Field Notes notebooks I used over the previous 12 months. Here is the most recent picture: …

via Manton

Vanity Fair: The Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire. …

Amazon: The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life (Anu Partanen)

A Finnish journalist, now a naturalized American citizen, asks Americans to draw on elements of the Nordic way of life to nurture a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society for themselves and their children.

Sounds like a good book for these times…

ScienceAlert: Children of Divorce Face Greater Risk of Future Stroke, Study Reveals

Children of divorced parents are substantially more likely to have a stroke later in life, according to a new study of more than 13,000 older adults in the US.

The findings suggest that emotional turmoil during a person’s formative years may have lifelong health effects that we could be missing.

NYT: Tony Roberts, a Nonchalant Pal in Woody Allen’s Films, Dies at 85

Tony Roberts, the affable actor who was best known as the hero’s best friend in Woody Allen movies like “Annie Hall,” and who distinguished himself on the New York stage with two Tony Award nominations and what one critic called his “careful nonchalance,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.

His daughter and only immediate survivor, Nicole Burley, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.

Last Updated: 07.Feb.2025 23:24 EST

Thursday’s articles

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NYT: Dozens of Clinical Trials Have Been Frozen in Response to Trump’s USAID Order

Ms. Zondi’s trial is one of dozens that have been abruptly frozen, leaving people around the world with experimental drugs and medical products in their bodies, cut off from the researchers who were monitoring them, and generating waves of suspicion and fear.

The State Department, which now oversees U.S.A.I.D., replied to a request for comment by directing a reporter to USAID.gov, which no longer contains any information except that all permanent employees have been placed on administrative leave. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the agency is wasteful and advances a liberal agenda that is counter to President Trump’s foreign policy.

In interviews, scientists — who are forbidden by the terms of the stop-work order to speak with the news media — described agonizing choices: violate the stop-work orders and continue to care for trial volunteers, or leave them alone to face potential side effects and harm.

Ottawa Citizen: Will tariffs overshadow health care as an Ontario election issue?

“Health care is in the shadow of the tariffs at the moment,” Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, said outside Queensway Carleton Hospital. “But, for all the families that are waiting for long-term care, for all the people waiting for surgeries and all the people who love them, for people who are experiencing all the waits, or for many people who have no access at all to primary care, this remains a burning issue and it certainly is for all the people who work in institutions like this.”

A day before the election call, the hospital in Ottawa’s west end had issued a wait-time alert due to the high number of patients being admitted and waiting in the emergency department. At the time, hospital occupancy was over 100 per cent, 21 additional patients were admitted without beds, and more than 100 people were waiting to be seen in emergency.

Queensway Carleton is far from alone. … And, despite a 2018 promise from the Progressive Conservative government to end hallway health care, it is becoming more common. Those are among the signs of a health system under chronic and growing strain.

Globe: Andrew Coyne: Reduce our dependence on the U.S.? Sure, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds

But what everyone seems to have concluded is that our world has changed, irrevocably. The country we thought was our friend and ally has turned, inexplicably, into our enemy. Our great national advantage, the foundation of our economic, defence and foreign policy for decades – proximity to the world’s biggest superpower and largest consumer market – has turned into our biggest liability. Never have we been more vulnerable, or alone.

The sense of shock has been palpable: shock, followed by fear, followed by resolve. In the short term, there is a debate over what mix of emollience and retaliation can stave off disaster, buy us time. But in the longer term, everyone now recognizes that things must change.

Last Updated: 07.Feb.2025 23:29 EST

There were no interesting political articles for me Thursday, just more of the same.

Wednesday’s political articles

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

Wikipedia: Jack Kilby

Kilby was also the co-inventor of the handheld calculator and the thermal printer, for which he had the patents. He also had patents for seven other inventions.

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U.S. Patent 3,138,743 for “Miniaturized Electronic Circuits”, the first integrated circuit, was filed on February 6, 1959. It was notable for having different components (transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.) on one single substrate.: 22  Along with Robert Noyce (who independently made a similar circuit a few months later), Kilby is generally credited as co-inventor of the integrated circuit.

BNN: Bell CEO slams CRTC, announces slowdown of fibre network

The chief executive of BCE Inc. blasted the national telecom regular as he announced the company would further scale back the build of its fibre internet network.

The parent company of Bell Canada no longer plans to meet its previous target of reaching 8.3 million homes through its fibre footprint by the end of 2025, CEO Mirko Bibic said on Thursday, adding the company would make further capital spending cuts this year.

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“To put it bluntly, we’re not in the business of building fibre for Telus’s benefit, and that’s what the CRTC policy that’s in place right now forces us to do,” Bibic told analysts on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call.

Looking for an outside excuse to cut back expenditures, it sounds like to me.

MacRumors: iOS 18.3.1 Update Coming Soon for iPhones

Apple is internally testing iOS 18.3.1 for iPhones, according to our website’s analytics logs, which have been a consistently reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. The software update should be released within the next few weeks.

NYT: A Judge Tried to Get Out of Jury Duty. What He Said Cost Him His Job.

When Richard Snyder was running to be a town justice in tiny Petersburgh, N.Y., in 2013, he told a local news site that he would be fair and honest on the bench. Because he was not a lawyer, he also said he was “looking forward to learning about the law.”

He just learned something about it the hard way.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, was unopposed in that 2013 race and won it with 329 votes. But in December he resigned after a disciplinary panel found that he had tried to get out of grand jury duty by introducing himself as a town justice and saying he could not be impartial based on his opinion of those who appeared in his court.

“I know they are guilty,” Mr. Snyder said in arguing to be excused, according to a court transcript. Otherwise, he explained, “they would not be in front of me.” (The judge dismissed him and notified the disciplinary panel.)

No politics for me today.

Last Updated: 06.Feb.2025 23:59 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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Globe: Nearly one-third of seized fentanyl attributed to the U.S.-Canada border had no connection with Canada

The data the White House has cited to say Canada is responsible for a “massive” increase in fentanyl flowing across the northern border include a large drug bust that, according to the U.S. border agency, has no known connection to Canada.

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Although the seizure of 14.8 pounds of fentanyl is listed in U.S. Customs and Border Protection data as associated with the “northern border,” and therefore included in last year’s 43-pound total, a spokesperson for the agency said the seizure has no known nexus to Canada. It was included in the total because of its proximity to the border and the involvement of northern border patrol staff in the investigation, which was conducted by a task force from multiple U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

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Investigators amassed evidence that a car used by the alleged drug traffickers, which had California licence plates, travelled from Phoenix to Spokane in the weeks prior to the seizure, court records show. There is no mention of Canada in the criminal indictment against the three men, or the affidavit sworn by the border agent.

“The evidence developed in this case is consistent with membership in a cartel-based drug trafficking network,” prosecutors state in one of the court filings. Osvaldo Guadalupe Soto-Orduno, Jose Roman Lizarraga Gerardo and Jose Efrain Gonzalez Rodriguez were charged in connection with the investigation. The allegations have not been tested in court.

Last Updated: 05.Feb.2025 19:37 EST

Tuesday’s political articles

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

MacRumors: An Apple TV Refresh is Coming in 2025 - Here’s What You Should Know

The current ‌Apple TV‌ 4K uses the A15 Bionic chip that was in the iPhone 13 lineup, and it’s time for an update. Apple doesn’t design chips specifically for the ‌Apple TV‌, and it instead uses chips from the ‌iPhone‌.

If Apple wants to bring Apple Intelligence features to the ‌Apple TV‌, the next-generation model will have the A17 Pro or better along with at least 8GB RAM.

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The A17 Pro would also allow for higher-quality console-style games because it supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The ‌iPhone‌ and iPad can support console games like Resident Evil 4 and Death Stranding, and those games are also likely to be playable on the next ‌Apple TV‌.

MacRumors: Apple Releases New Version of iOS 18.3 for iPhone 11

Apple first released iOS 18.3 last Monday, and it is likely that this new version has a fix for a bug that was impacting ‌iPhone‌ 11 models.

The main features in iOS 18.3 were Apple Intelligence related and included Visual Intelligence and changes to Notification summaries. As the ‌iPhone‌ 11 line does not support ‌Apple Intelligence‌, there are few features in iOS 18.3 for the devices.

Good thing I waited!

Last Updated: 05.Feb.2025 22:10 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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

NYT: Why Banks May Be Hoping You’re Not Paying Attention

The median American household has a combined balance of $10,000 in its checking and savings accounts, according to a census estimate. For the last few years, anyone keeping this amount in a high-yield savings account has earned close to 4 percent annual interest, or about $400 a year.

But the average savings account interest rate is closer to 0.4 percent. And the nation’s three largest banks — Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo — offer 0.01 percent on their standard savings accounts. That works out to $1 in interest a year for a $10,000 deposit.

Banks make up for those dismal rates with perks like numerous branches and A.T.M.s, but they also know many of their customers won’t hunt for better deals out of inertia.

BBC: Hardest Geezer: Russ Cook to run the full length of New Zealand

A man who ran the entire length of Africa has announced his next challenge – running the full length of New Zealand.

Russ Cook, nicknamed Hardest Geezer, completed his previous endurance challenge in April last year after 352 days.

The 27-year-old, from Worthing, West Sussex, is to run the 1,864 mile (3,000km) Te Araroa Trail in March, which will see him take on 60 ultramarathons while navigating mountains, forests, coastlines and cities.

Wikipedia says he’s 27 too. Since when does that make someone a “geezer”?

TechCrunch: Apple launches Invites, a new app for creating custom invitations

Apple on Tuesday launched a new app called “Invites” that allows users to create custom invitations for any occasion. With Invites, users can create and share invitations on their iPhone, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and curate event soundtracks.

To create an invitation, you need an iCloud+ subscription. However, anyone can RSVP, regardless of whether they have an Apple Account or Apple device.

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In this case, Invites is pretty similar to Partiful, a popular invitation app that was crowned Google Play’s Best App of 2024. Beyond Partiful, Invites will compete with startups like Posh, and other popular services like evite, Paperless Post, and Sendo Invitations.

GB News: Jack the Ripper’s identity ‘confirmed’ claims researcher…

Russell Edwards says he has obtained a “100 per cent DNA match” linking the killer to Aaron Kosminski, a Polish barber who emigrated to London.

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The breakthrough came from DNA extracted from a bloodstained shawl found on victim Catherine Eddowes' body in 1888.

Edwards purchased the historic shawl at auction in 2007.

Working with genealogists, Edwards tracked down a living relative of Kosminski who agreed to provide DNA for comparison testing.

The analysis revealed DNA matches for both the victim and Kosminski on the shawl.

I don’t know GBNews at all, so caveat emptor.

MacStories: The Many Purposes of Timeline Apps for the Open Web

I think both Tapestry and the new Reeder are exquisitely designed apps, for different reasons. I know that Tapestry’s colorful and opinionated design doesn’t work for everyone; personally, I dig the different colors for each connected service, am a big fan the ‘Mini’ layout, and appreciate the multiple font options available. Most of all, however, I love that Tapestry can be extended with custom connectors built with standard web technologies — JavaScript and JSON — so that anyone who produces anything on the web can be connected to Tapestry. (The fact that MacStories' own JSON feed is a default recommended source in Tapestry is just icing on the cake.) And did you know that The Iconfactory also created a developer tool to make your own Tapestry connectors?

I like the new Reeder for different reasons. The app’s animations are classic Silvio Rizzi work — fluid and smooth like nothing else on iOS and iPadOS. In my experience, the app has maintained impeccable timeline sync, and just this week, it was updated with powerful new filtering capabilities, enabling the creation of saved searches for any source within the app (more on this below).

Last Updated: 04.Feb.2025 22:11 EST

Monday’s articles

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

FAIR: As Constitutional Crises Mount, US Press Sleepwalks Into Autocracy

Instead of appropriately pushing the increasing lawlessness and opacity to the forefront of their reporting, the New York Times and Washington Post largely buried these stories, downplaying their earth-shattering break from democratic norms.

via the Tapestry app.

Heather Cox Richardson: February 3, 2025

I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. They also control the White House and the Supreme Court. If they wanted to get rid of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for example, they could introduce a bill, debate it, pass it, and send it on to President Trump for his signature. And there would be very little the Democrats could do to stop that change.

But they are not doing that.

Instead, they are permitting unelected billionaire Elon Musk, whose investment of $290 million in Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election apparently has bought him freedom to run the government, to override Congress and enact whatever his own policies are by rooting around in government agencies and cancelling those programs that he, personally, dislikes.

The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical.

Guardian: Trump says US will ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and ‘level’ it

Trump once again says Gaza is a “demolition site” that is “very dangerous and very precarious”.

He says the Palestinians in Gaza should be moved to a “beautiful area with homes and safety …. so that they can live out their lives in peace and harmony”.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump says.

We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.

• 30 -

What?!

CBC: PCs, Liberals both vow to ‘upload’ responsibility of Ottawa’s LRT

The Ontario government would transfer responsibility for Ottawa’s light rail system to provincial agency Metrolinx, according to campaign promises made by Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford and Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie on Tuesday.

Last Updated: 04.Feb.2025 23:55 EST

Monday’s political articles

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

UPI: Marco Rubio warns Panama president that current status of canal ‘unacceptable’

A recent report from the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations think tank states there is no evidence the Chinese government controls the canal, but a Hong Kong-based conglomerate does control two ports in the region and Beijing has been involved in infrastructure projects in the country, raising concerns about the communist nation’s influence on the important trade route.

CBC: Doug Ford promised to ‘Get It Done’ last election. How did he do?

With Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives seeking re-election on a slogan of “Protect Ontario,” it’s worth examining whether they made good on their last campaign slogan: “Get It Done.”

The Ontario PC campaign promises in 2022 focused largely on building, in particular housing, hospitals, highways, transit and long-term care homes.

A promise-tracking project run by a group of Canadian universities assesses that Ford’s government kept or was “in progress” of keeping the bulk of the party’s 2022 promises when he called a snap election with more than 15 months left in his mandate.

Really?! What counts as “in progress”? The examples cited in the article certainly don’t support this conclusion.

LBJ Library: The LBJ the Nation Seldom Saw

He talked about the difference between Republicans and Democrats: “We’re for something, and they are against everything. Mr. Rayburn was asked one time, ‘What do you think — after 50 years — is the primary difference between the Republican and Democratic parties? Is it the tariff?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘Well, what is the difference?’

“Mr. Rayburn replied, ‘I’ll tell you the easiest and best explanation—one that I have observed, and I came here during Woodrow Wilson’s administration. They hate all of our Presidents.’

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He talked about the difference between constructive action and obstructive action: “Any jackass can kick a barn down. But it takes a carpenter to build one.”

via Daring Fireball

Last Updated: 03.Feb.2025 23:36 EST

Sunday’s political articles

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

Ness Labs: Interstitial journaling: combining notes, to-do & time tracking

Interstitial journaling is a productivity technique created by Tony Stubblebine. To my knowledge, it’s the simplest way to combine note-taking, tasks, and time tracking in one unique workflow. You don’t need any special software, but Roam Research makes it even easier to do thanks to the flexibility of daily notes. Interstitial journaling has had an amazing impact on my productivity and creativity, and I think many people would enjoy it.

The basic idea of interstitial journaling is to write a few lines every time you take a break, and to track the exact time you are taking these notes. For instance: …

via Annie Mueller

ScienceAlert: The Arctic’s ‘Last Ice Area’ May Vanish Even Faster Than Predicted

The ‘Last Ice Area’ is expected to be the final place in the Arctic where ice persists all year round even as our planet warms up – but a new study suggests the region, and the ecosystem that relies on it, are going to disappear sooner than previously estimated.

Researchers led by a team from McGill University in Canada took a closer look at the Last Ice Area (LIA) using the Community Earth System Model, which goes into more detail than simulations used in the past.

In particular, the new model is more comprehensive in accounting for sea currents and ice flow, which in turn accelerates how quickly the last ice area becomes seasonally ice-free after the central Arctic Ocean does.

Umpire Pat Hoberg fired for sharing betting accounts with friend who bet on baseball

Umpire Pat Hoberg was fired by Major League Baseball on Monday for sharing his legal sports gambling accounts with a friend who bet on baseball games and for intentionally deleting electronic messages pertinent to the league’s investigation.

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“Although the baseball bets were profitable, the data did not support a finding that baseball bets from Individual A’s accounts were connected to game-fixing or other efforts to manipulate any part of any baseball game or event,” MLB said in its findings. “The baseball betting activity did not focus on any particular club, pitcher or umpire, and there was no apparent correlation between bet success and bet size. The eight bets on games Hoberg worked similarly did not reveal any obvious pattern.”

Wild’s Ryan Hartman suspended 10 Games

Ryan Hartman of the Minnesota Wild has been suspended 10 games for slamming an opponent’s head to the ice with his right arm on a faceoff.

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced the ban Monday night after holding a Zoom hearing with him hours earlier. Holding the hearing by Zoom instead of a phone call allowed the league to suspend for six or more games.

This is the longest suspension for on-ice conduct since Washington’s Tom Wilson got 20 games in 2018 for an illegal check to the head. That was reduced to 14 games on appeal by a neutral arbitrator, though Wilson had already served 16.

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This is Hartman’s fifth suspension and fourth since 2023.

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Hartman is forfeiting $487,805 in salary as part of his 11th instance of supplemental discipline in 663 regular-season and playoff games since debuting in 2105 [sic].

NYT: Top Doctors Raise Grave Doubts Over Conviction of ‘Killer Nurse’ Lucy Letby

After assessing the cases of 17 babies cited at her original trial, a panel of world-renowned specialists said that they had found no evidence that Ms. Letby had murdered anyone.

Last Updated: 04.Feb.2025 10:14 EST

Sunday’s articles

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TorStar: EV rebates scrapped: Did I wait too long to buy an EV?

Automakers such as GM, Ford, Nissan, Kia and Volkwagen stepped in with temporary $5,000-EV-discounts of their own for the second half of January to ease the pain for EV buyers, with some even stacking those rebates on top of other financing or cash offers.

EV market powerhouse Tesla took the opposite approach. It confirmed in mid-January that its prices would increase on all its vehicles in Canada outside the newly arrived Cybertruck, from $4,000 to $9,000, depending on the model, making for a particularly tough increase looming for most Tesla buyers, given that the Model 3 and Y crossover received the highest number of now-cancelled Canadian Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV) rebate discounts as well.

The Onion: Nation Vies For   Approval Of Cool Dog

Hopelessly captivated by the animal’s cheerful energy and striking appearance, the U.S. populace reportedly converged upon a D.C.-area park Tuesday where sources confirmed that all 340 million Americans were vying for the approval of a cool dog.

Several reports indicated the charismatic, carefree border collie, named Scout, was first spotted dashing across Georgetown Waterfront Park, leaping high into the air, catching a Frisbee in his mouth, and then running back to drop the disc at his owner’s feet. Americans across the country were said to have gasped and stopped in their tracks before eagerly making their way to the cool dog, patting their thighs, and complimenting him in a higher-than-normal register. …

Last Updated: 02.Feb.2025 18:12 EST

Saturday’s articles

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Heather Cox Richardson: February 1, 2025

Throughout now-president Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, it was clear that his support was coming from three very different factions whose only shared ideology was a determination to destroy the federal government. Now we are watching them do it.

The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality. …

NYT: ‘We Have No Coherent Message’: Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump

In private meetings and at public events, elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. They disagree over how often and how stridently to oppose Mr. Trump. They have no shared understanding of why they lost the election, never mind how they can win in the future.

And in a first step toward elevating new leaders, an election this weekend for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the party chose a candidate, Ken Martin of Minnesota, who said he planned to conduct a post-election review largely focused on tactics and messaging. Mr. Martin said he had not determined the parameters of the review, other than that he was not interested in discussing whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have sought re-election.

More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party that is struggling to define what it stands for, what issues to prioritize and how to confront a Trump administration that is carrying out a right-wing agenda with head-spinning speed.

BBC: Trump tariffs booed in Canada as Trudeau calls for national unity

A few hours after President Donald Trump announced that he would impose steep tariffs on Canada, hockey fans in the capital Ottawa booed the Star-Spangled Banner during a National Hockey League game against a visiting US team.

On Sunday, during a National Basketball Association game between the Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Clippers, it happened again, continuing throughout the song and almost drowning out the 15-year-old’s singer’s arena performance.

Last Updated: 02.Feb.2025 19:53 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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Guardian: Full-fat milk, semi-skimmed or skimmed: which is healthiest?

Sanders says full-fat milk makes better frothy coffee than skimmed milk – which is why it is used in many coffee shops.

“Full-fat milk also makes a better curd when making homemade yoghurt” he says.

Globe: Why banks are closing accounts without explanation, leaving Canadians scrambling

A letter in the mail succinctly announces that all of your financial accounts will be shuttered. Usually, you have up to three months to make alternate arrangements. The official explanation, if there is one, is as ominous as it is vague: “Our decision is a result of the unacceptable risk that we have identified with regard to the operation of your accounts.”

The consequences can be dire. You may have to rely on high-interest loans while you scramble to transfer your mortgage or lines of credit. If you have a business, you may have to explain to clients and creditors why you no longer have access to your bank account. Worse, once one financial institution has given you the boot, others may follow suit, making it hard to have a bank account at all.

TorStar: Jann Arden talks about new album Mixtape and concert tour

Having just announced a 12-date cross-Canada tour that includes June 9 and 10 concerts at Massey Hall, Jann Arden is back with a surprising new album.

This time around, the eight-time Juno Award winner, known for such originals as Could I Be Your Girl, Insensitive, and The Sound of, is covering mostly songs from the ’90s. On the 11-song Mixtape, she offers renditions of such hits as Joan Osborne’s One of Us, Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game and Des’ree’s You Gotta Be, as well as two earlier songs: Don Henley’s Boys of Summer and Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer.

Publishers Weekly: Why Simon & Schuster’s Flagship Imprint Won’t Require Blurbs Anymore

Most surprising of all, though, has been discovering how many of the biggest-selling, prize-winning and most artistically revered titles in the flagship’s history did not use blurbs for their first printings: Psycho, Catch-22, All the President’s Men, Looking for Mr. Goodbar (also published in 1975…the flagship certainly embraced the sexual revolution!), Where Are the Children?, Norwood, The White Album, Lonesome Dove, No Ordinary Time, Parting the Waters, John Adams, and Steve Jobs, to name just a few.

This got me thinking about the practice of blurbs. While there has never been a formal mandatory policy in the eight years I’ve been with the Simon & Schuster imprint, it has been tacitly expected that authors — with the help of their agents and editors — do everything in their power to obtain blurbs to use on their book cover and in promotional material. I have always found this so weird.

Last Updated: 01.Feb.2025 22:51 EST

Friday’s articles

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Guardian: The Maga backlash against Trump’s crypto grab: ‘This is bad, and looks bad’

When Donald Trump announced – three days before assuming the presidency of the United States, and followed shortly by Melania Trump – that he was launching a self-named “meme coin” cryptocurrency, many in the crypto industry were quick to express frustration. Ethics experts were also alarmed.

Among Trump’s base, however, a similar backlash – smaller, more muted, but similarly anguished – has been taking hold.

Guardian: Trump’s revenge agenda has shocked officials who ‘didn’t think it was going to be this bad’, insiders say

Federal government workers have been left “shell-shocked” by the upheaval wreaked by Donald Trump’s return to the presidency amid signs that he is bent on exacting revenge on a bureaucracy he considers to be a “deep state” that previously thwarted and persecuted him.

Since being restored to the White House on 20 January, the president has gone on a revenge spree against high-profile figures who previously served him but earned his enmity by slighting or criticising him in public.

He has cancelled Secret Service protection for three senior national security officials in his first presidency — John Bolton, the former national security adviser; Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director and secretary of state; and Brian Hook, a former assistant secretary of state — even though all are assassination targets on an Iranian government hit list.

The same treatment has been meted out to Anthony Fauci, the infectious diseases expert who angered Trump after joining the White House taskforce tackling Covid-19 and who has also faced death threats.

Globe: Danielle Smith axes entire Alberta Health Services board for the second time

The government said the moves were necessary to make it more responsive to Albertans’ health care needs. But critics pointed out that the province had emptied the board two years before and hospitals are still burdened by staffing shortages and long waiting times.

Globe: Carney promised to scrap carbon fuel charge if he becomes prime minister

Mark Carney says that a federal government led by him would implement incentives that reward Canadians for purchasing energy-efficient appliances, electric vehicles or improved home insulation.

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He also framed the Trump presidency as an opportunity, telling reporters that the world is shifting and one of the biggest determinants of competitiveness in industry will be the size of its carbon footprint.

“This is our moment. This is our time. We’re going to leapfrog the United States where they’ve turned inwards and trying to turn back the clock. They’ll come around eventually, and when they come around, we’re going to be ahead of them.”

Guardian: Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say

Donald Trump’s rapid-fire and controversial moves that have ranged from banning birthright citizenship to firing 18 inspectors general means the US president has shown a greater willingness than his predecessors to violate the constitution and federal law, some historians and legal scholars say.

These scholars pointed to other Trump actions they say blatantly broke the law, such as freezing trillions of dollar in federal spending and dismissing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even though they were confirmed by the Senate and had several years left in their terms.

“Without any doubt Donald Trump is the most lawless and scofflaw president we have ever seen in the history of the United States,” said Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars and a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.

via SmartNews

Last Updated: 01.Feb.2025 14:15 EST

Friday’s political articles

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Honest Broker: “The Infrastructure of the Recording Industry Is About to Fail”

The entire Hollywood ecosystem is tottering on the brink.

via JohnPhilpin

CBC: B.C. College of Family Physicians calls for an end to sick notes

As part of Red Tape Awareness Week, the B.C. College of Family Physicians is calling for an end to all mandated sick notes for short-term illnesses.

While the province has made sick days available for all workers in B.C. — allowing them to stay home without losing pay — some employers require a doctor’s note for those who call in sick.

Reuters: U.N. climate chief says two years to save the planet

10.Apr.2024

Yet last year, the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions increased to a record high. Current commitments to fight climate change would barely cut global emissions at all by 2030.

Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said the next two years are “essential in saving our planet”.

“We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now,” he said.

Almost one year in: has anything changed?

You Can’t Unhear This (YouTube): The Amazing Recording History of Here Comes the Sun

Here Comes The Sun has become one of the most popular and treasured Beatles songs, a gateway into their music for many new fans. This 3-minute gem of unforgettable songwriting is also packed with intriguing anomalies, production quirks and even a mystery. Unlike the vast majority of Beatles songs, Here Comes the Sun was not written by the main songwriting duo of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but rather by George Harrison, the youngest member of the quartet, who contributed two memorable pieces to the Abbey Road album - an endearing love song called Something, and the effervescent Here Comes the Sun.

I’m going to take you on a journey through the song’s creation and point out some of these surprises.

Last Updated: 31.Jan.2025 23:39 EST

Thursday’s articles

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Reuters: US military deportation flight likely cost more than first class

U.S. President Donald Trump’s military deportation flight to Guatemala on Monday likely cost at least $4,675 per migrant, according to data provided by U.S. and Guatemalan officials.

That is more than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket on American Airlines from El Paso, Texas, the departure point for the flight, according to a review of publicly available airfares.

It is also significantly higher than the cost of a commercial charter flight by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

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Trump said… “We’re respected again, after years of laughing at us like we’re stupid people.”

He may not be as successful at that as he thinks.

Daring Fireball: OpenStreetMap Community Discussion on How to Handle the U.S. Federal Government’s Imminent Designation of the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America’

Fascinating thread — and an almost entirely civil discussion of what has become, for obvious reasons, an inflammatory topic. These are mapping and metadata nerds approaching the dilemma in the very nerdiest of ways. I found it rather soothing, and also quite informative — particularly the posts from Minh Nguyễn, who seems to be an OpenStreetMap super user.

LA Times: Acting on Trump’s order, federal officials opened up two California dams

“I don’t know where this water is going, but this is the wrong time of year to be releasing water from these reservoirs. It’s vitally important that we fill our reservoirs in the rainy season so water is available for farms and cities later in the summer,” Gleick said. “I think it’s very strange and it’s disturbing that, after decades of careful local, state and federal coordination, some federal agencies are starting to unilaterally manipulate California’s water supply.”

Vink agreed, saying that given how dry it has been in the region this winter, there was no need to make such a release. In fact, he said, farmers were counting on that water to be available for summer irrigation.

“This is going to hurt farmers,” Vink said. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”

via SmartNews

Last Updated: 31.Jan.2025 21:47 EST

Thursday’s political articles

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Guardian: People in England with severe dust mite allergy to be offered daily pill on NHS

Thousands of people in England who live with severe dust mite allergy are to be offered a first-of-its-kind daily pill to treat the condition on the NHS.

In final draft guidance published on Thursday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has given the green light to a drug shown to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life.

The tablet — 12 SQ-HDM SLIT, also known as Acarizax and made by ALK-Abelló — works by increasing the body’s resistance to house dust mites and is of particular benefit to people whose symptoms do not respond enough to treatment such as steroid nasal sprays and antihistamines.

Guardian: Taranaki Mounga, New Zealand’s second-highest mountain, granted same legal rights as a person

New Zealand’s second-highest mountain and its surrounding peaks have been granted legal personhood, becoming the country’s third natural feature to gain the same rights, duties and protections as individuals.

Taranaki Mounga* (mountain) is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world, and looms impressively over the flat Taranaki plains on the North Island’s west coast. It is believed to be the country’s most climbed mountain and has become a popular tourist destination.

TorStar: Facebook marketplace scams surge: How to stay safe online

Toronto police received more than 1,700 reports of peer-to-peer market fraud, like the one on Facebook, in 2024, totalling damages of $2.6 million, according to David Coffey, a detective with Toronto police’s financial crime unit.

But this represents only a fraction of the actual amount, which could be 10 to 20 times larger, considering the unreported incidents.

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Toronto police received more than 1,700 reports of peer-to-peer market fraud, like the one on Facebook, in 2024, totalling damages of $2.6 million, according to David Coffey, a detective with Toronto police’s financial crime unit.

But this represents only a fraction of the actual amount, which could be 10 to 20 times larger, considering the unreported incidents.

Upworthy: How often should you shower? Doctors share their thoughts.

According to a YouGov poll of over 5,700 Americans, just over half of respondents said they shower daily and 11% said they shower twice or more per day. That means two out of three of us are showering at least once a day.

But according to doctors and dermatologists, that’s probably overkill for most people. Unless you’re doing heavy labor, exercising vigorously, working outdoors or around toxins or otherwise getting excessively dirty or sweaty, a few showers per week is enough for healthy hygiene.

TorStar: Simple secrets revealed for living a longer, healthy life

Research suggests just 20 to 30 per cent of our life expectancy is heritable. The rest, more than 70 per cent, is dictated by our environment and how we live life. And it starts with nutrition.

TorStar: What you need to know about Ticketmaster’s $6M settlement

Canadians who bought a ticket on Ticketmaster in the first six months of 2018 are eligible to make a claim for a $45 gift card.

Last Updated: 30.Jan.2025 23:45 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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NYT: President Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under Trump’s Watch

President Trump’s remarks, suggesting without evidence that diversity in hiring and other Biden administration policies somehow caused the disaster, reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens.

NYT: Trump Kicks Congress to the Curb, With Little Protest From Republicans

The administration is showing it doesn’t view the House and Senate as equal partners. So far, Republicans, who hold both majorities, are accepting their new status.

Globe: Lawrence Martin: A message from the Americans: Quite frankly Canada, we don’t give a damn

There’s long been an assumption, for about a century anyway, that as a nice neighbour, ally and friend, Canada has had a special relationship with the United States.

You can go through the speeches of almost every American president and find testimony to that. We’ve had lots of quarrels but we’ve remained America’s closest companion. The two countries, as Pierre Trudeau once put it, set the standard for enlightened international relations.

Not now.

Trump is burning bridges.

Guardian: FBI pick Kash Patel refuses to answer if he would target Trump opponents at hearing

Kash Patel sought to allay concerns about his fitness to serve as the FBI director at his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, but declined to engage with questioning that explicitly asked whether he would use his position to investigate some of Donald Trump’s top political opponents.

The hearing revolved around Patel’s provocative public remarks attacking the FBI and his ability to resist political pressure from the White House, a topic that has come to the fore with the justice department rocked by the ouster of prosecutors who worked on cases against Trump.

Globe: Andrew Coyne: No traitors in the House, but foreign interference, and the Liberals’ non-response to it, is still a serious concern

Which brings us to the final report of the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s democracy, led by commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue. The report is already being portrayed in some quarters as having suggested the whole issue was overblown, wildly exaggerated, misreported – as if to suggest that, if it were, foreign interference is not an issue, or not a serious enough one that it should have troubled the Liberal government unduly.

Thus, because the judge did not find that MPs were selling top secret defence plans to the Russians, there is no need to be concerned that some of our elected representatives have been playing footsie with agents of foreign governments. Because the Prime Minister was not found to be an actual Chinese asset, his government’s remarkable and sustained inactivity in the face of repeated warnings of the efforts of hostile foreign powers to interfere in our elections can be ignored. And because these powers did not succeed in determining the outcome of an election, it doesn’t matter that they tried.

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That does not mean, however, there were no such individuals. With the help of the intelligence agencies, the judge was able to reverse-engineer the names, working backward from the allegations in the report to the intelligence on file. And far from exonerating them, she finds evidence of conduct that is “troubling” and “questionable.”

“Some elected officials,” the judge writes, “have maintained relationships, or had interactions, with foreign officials that may have crossed the line beyond normal diplomacy. The intelligence also indicates that some elected officials may have knowingly received support from foreign officials or proxies.”

Globe: Editorial Board: The sobering cost of Doug Ford’s bar tab

Ontario’s push to speed up making it easier to buy beer and wine comes with a tab that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Allowing residents to buy these products in more locations is sound policy. But having the public purse take a $600-million hit to accelerate this change by only 17 months is, well, spending money like a drunken sailor.

Last Updated: 30.Jan.2025 23:48 EST

Tuesday’s political articles [no political links on Wednesday]

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

ScienceAlert: The Most Active Volcano in The Northeast Pacific Is Preparing to Erupt

Earth bubbles and broils beneath an underwater peak called Axial Seamount, located 480 kilometers (300 miles) off Oregon’s coast, causing it to swell in changing patterns that hint at impending strife.

This has prompted scientists to predict the submerged volcano will erupt before the end of 2025.

“Axial is the most active volcano in the Northeast Pacific which maybe some people don’t know, because it’s hidden under the ocean,” volcanologist Bill Chadwick told Jenn Chávezin in the Oregon Public Broadcasting podcast.

NYT: American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows

With little post-pandemic recovery, experts wonder if screen time and school absence are among the causes.

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The percentage of eighth graders who have “below basic” reading skills according to NAEP was the largest it has been in the exam’s three-decade history — 33 percent. The percentage of fourth graders at “below basic” was the largest in 20 years, at 40 percent.

There was progress in math, but not enough to offset the losses of the pandemic.

NYT: 6 Things We Get Wrong About Sleep

There’s no question that sleep is important for your health. Without enough of it, your risk of developing diseases such as dementia, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes can increase, and you’re more likely to feel irritable and anxious.

9to5Mac: iOS 18.3 includes Starlink satellite connectivity for select iPhone users

Apple first introduced satellite connectivity features to the iPhone with the release of the iPhone 14 in 2022. The capability allows users to communicate with emergency services when out of range of traditional cellular connectivity. iOS 18 further upgraded the functionality to let users send messages to friends and family using satellite connectivity.

Apple initially partnered with Globalstar to power these satellite connectivity features for iPhone users. Now, Bloomberg reports that Apple has also been “secretly working with SpaceX and T-Mobile” to add Starlink satellite connectivity to the iPhone.

Last Updated: 29.Jan.2025 03:06 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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Guardian: David Motadel: Are we at a turning point in world history?

In 1919, at the height of a global crisis that resulted from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the devastation of the first world war, and the collapse of Europe’s great continental empires, Irish writer William Butler Yeats penned his famed warning to humanity, mourning the end of the old world: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

His words were recently invoked by Joe Biden, addressing the United Nations general assembly. Today, just as then, he warned, the world is facing a critical historical juncture: “I truly believe we are at another inflection point in world history where the choices we make today will determine our future for decades to come.”

Manton Reece: Core Intuition Final Show

Today we have the final episode of Core Intuition. 16 years. 626 episodes. Thanks for listening and thanks @danielpunkass for recording the show with me!

Last Updated: 28.Jan.2025 11:35 EST

Monday’s articles

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NYT: Trump Moves Toward Pushing Openly Transgender People Out of Military

The president also ordered the Pentagon to end diversity programs, reinstate many service members dismissed for refusing the coronavirus vaccine and create a new missile defense system.

NYT: Thomss L Friedman: Why China Loves Trump’s Right-Wing Wokeism

I understand that Donald Trump was elected to better manage our borders and curb left-wing wokeism. But have no illusions: Trump’s right-wing wokeism – impugning electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don’t conform to MAGA ideology and aren’t manly enough – is as devoid of common sense and not remotely in the national interest as any left-wing cultural wokeism.

It’s not even in the interest of his own base: The five states with the largest share of wind power in America are red states. They generated at least a third of their power from wind. This is geography, not politics: Rural districts across the middle of America have the most solar and wind energy potential. They know it and are taking advantage of it — even if they vote Republican.

Most important: If Trump’s all-in-on-fossil-fuels, “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry — at the dawn of this era of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, batteries and autonomous cars — really becomes our strategy, it will not make America great again. But it will definitely help make China great again.

Last Updated: 28.Jan.2025 02:58 EST

Monday’s political articles

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Guardian: Pet fur found in songbird nests contains high levels of pesticides, study finds

Chemical in treatment for pet fleas and ticks is found in nests of blue and great tits, killing chicks.

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It was already widely known that the chemicals in the treatments were affecting life in rivers and streams after pets swam in them, but the discovery of songbird nest contamination will add to the pressure.

Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu, the lead author of the research paper, said: “No nest was free from insecticides in our study, and this significant presence of harmful chemicals could be having devastating consequences on the UK’s bird populations.

Guardian: Two Van Gogh paintings to be shown in London for first time

Two Vincent van Gogh paintings created in the months after the Dutch artist mutilated his ear will be exhibited in London for the first time.

The works, The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles and The Ward in the Hospital at Arles, would appear at the Courtauld Gallery from next month, the Art Newspaper reported.

The paintings are the only works created by the post-impressionist of the hospital in Arles in southern France in which he stayed.

SlashDot: Biometrics, Windmills, and VHS tapes: The Winners of ‘Rest of World’ International Tech Photo Contest

Biometric data collection was a recurring theme. A photo from Jordan shows a Syrian boy paying for groceries with an iris scanner at a supermarket “run jointly by the World Food Programme and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.” Eye-scanning technology is being used there “to ensure people use only their own credit and not borrowed or stolen cards. After having their iris scanned, Syrian refugees living in the camp can make use of services such as health care and shopping, using just their eyes.”

Another recurring theme was energy. There’s a lovely “honorable mention” photo from the Philippines showing two young people on a beach playing basketball “under the towering blades of the windmills in Bangu… Renewable energy has transformed this community, cutting household expenses and powering opportunities once thought to be out of reach.” The third-place photo shows six children in a distant tent in “a mountainous, subarctic forest” in Mongolia” — all gathered around a laptop “to watch a documentary about a Norwegian reindeer herder” who had visited their region. (“Modern technology such as solar panels, car batteries, and the occasional Wi-Fi connection allows these families to stay connected with the world.") One photo shows a young boy carrying a solar panel down from the roof in a remote village in Jharkhand, India.

PopSci: Human vs: humanoid: Half-marathon pits robots against 12,000 joggers

Runners completing a half marathon in Beijing later this year will do so with some unusual, metal competition at their sides. According to a press release from China’s Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, more than 12,000 human runners will square off against dozens of bipedal, humanoid robots from more than 20 companies in a 13-mile course. The top three finishers, be they human or humanoid, will receive prizes. But the robots will have their work cut out for them. As of now, no bipedal robot has successfully completed that long of a race, let alone against a seasoned human runner. The announcement was first spotted by the South China Morning Post. …

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Outside of events like these, humanoid robots are mostly being designed with two primary use cases in mind: manufacturing and caretaking. Chinese humanoid robots have already reportedly been deployed at BYD car factories, though it’s unclear exactly how much work they … actually complete.

MacRumors: Apple Breaks watchOS Updates On Older Apple Watch Models

With today’s watchOS 11.3 update, Apple accidentally broke watchOS updates for some older Apple Watch models, according to information circulating on social networks.

Apple Support: About firmware updates for AirPods

Firmware updates are delivered automatically while your AirPods are charging and in Bluetooth range of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac that’s connected to Wi-Fi.

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[How To] Update your AirPods or AirPods Pro firmware…

Also: Apple Support: Identify your AirPods

NYT: How My Trip to Quit Sugar Quickly Became a Journey Into Hell

Apes, I was informed by Dr. Paul Breslin, a member of Monell and a professor of nutritional sciences at Rutgers University, are “basically sugar eaters.” Chimpanzees, with whom humans share about 98.7 percent of their genome, derive about 80 percent of their calories from sugary fruit. Breslin told me that all apes, including humans, evolved to live the way wild apes still do: surviving cycles of feast and famine by gorging on calorie-dense fruits whenever they are available and scraping by on less caloric vegetation when they aren’t. But advances in the science of food preservation, and the establishment of a global supply chain, and Amazon’s subscribe-and-save option for Strawberry Sensation Fruit Roll-Ups with Tongue Tattoos on Every Roll, have created a consequence unprecedented in the natural world. For many modern humans, Breslin says, “the tree simply never stops fruiting.”

Last Updated: 27.Jan.2025 23:07 EST

Sunday’s articles

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

SlashDot: Another Undersea Cable Damaged in Baltic Sea. Criminal Sabotage Investigation Launched

“An underwater data cable between Sweden and Latvia was damaged early on Sunday,” reports the Financial Times, “in at least the fourth episode of potential sabotage in the Baltic Sea that has caused concern in Nato about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure…”

Criminal investigations have started in Latvia and Sweden, and a ship has been seized as part of the probes, according to Swedish prosecutors, who did not identify the vessel. Previous incidents have been linked to Russian and Chinese ships…

…

Repair of data cables has tended to take much less time than that for gas or electricity connections, and the Latvian state radio and television centre said it had found alternative routes for its communications.

Wikipedia: $Trump

$Trump (stylized in all uppercase) is a meme coin associated with U.S. President Donald Trump, hosted on the Solana blockchain platform. One billion coins were originally created; 800 million remain owned by two Trump-owned companies, after 200 million were publicly released in an initial coin offering (ICO) on January 17, 2025. Less than a day later, the aggregate market value of all coins was more than $27 billion, valuing Trump’s holdings at more than $20 billion.

Don’t miss the exciting section on the ethics of this.

NYT: How Google Maps Plans to Handle the ‘Gulf of America’

The Trump administration declared on Friday that the Gulf of Mexico had been renamed the Gulf of America, but popular mapping services from Google and Apple have continued showing the old name.

On Monday, Google said it would update its maps to display Gulf of America as soon as the U.S. government updated its official maps.

“We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” the company said in a post on X.

GoogleMaps had better not show that propaganda here!

NYT: Trump Administration Halts H.I.V. Drug Distribution in Poor Countries

The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop disbursing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics.

The directive is part of a broader freeze on foreign aid initiated last week. It includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the global health program started by George W. Bush that is credited with saving more than 25 million lives worldwide.

The administration had already moved to stop PEPFAR funding from moving to clinics, hospitals and other organizations in low-income countries.

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One study estimated that if PEPFAR were to end, as many as 600,000 lives would be lost over the next decade in South Africa alone. And that nation relies on PEPFAR for only 20 percent of its H.I.V. budget. Some poorer countries are almost entirely dependent on the program.

Last Updated: 27.Jan.2025 22:56 EST

Sunday’s political articles

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

NYT: As Trump and Putin Circle Each Other, an Agenda Beyond Ukraine Emerges

They have been circling each other carefully for seven days now — sending out invitations to talk, mixing a few jabs with ego-stroking, suggesting that the only way to end the Ukraine war is for the two of them to meet, presumably without the Ukrainians.

President Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, whose relationship was always the subject of mystery and psychodrama in the first Trump term, are at it again. But it is not a simple re-run. Mr. Trump was unusually harsh in his rhetoric last week, saying Mr. Putin was “destroying Russia”, and threatening sanctions and tariffs on the country if it doesn’t come to the negotiating table — a fairly empty threat given the tiny amount of trade between the U.S. and Russia these days.

Calculating and understated as ever, Mr. Putin has responded with flattery, agreeing with Mr. Trump that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he been president three years ago. He repeated that he was ready to sit down and negotiate over the fate of Europe, superpower to superpower, leader to leader.

Last Updated: 26.Jan.2025 23:59 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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YouTube: Kitchen on the Cliff with Giovanna

My name is Giovanna Bellia LaMarca and I am here to keep Sicilian recipes alive. I wrote three Italian cookbooks: Sicilian Feasts, The Cooking of Emilia-Romagna: Culinary Treasures of Northern Italy, and the Language and Travel Guide to Sicily. Instead of writing a fourth book, I decided to join the youth on the YouTube platform and make instructional cooking videos instead. Enjoy!

Guardian: Rediscovered Munch painting with ‘intriguing mystery’ to go on display in UK for first time

Striking image will be unveiled at National Portrait Gallery in March, as part of a major exhibition of the Norwegian master’s portraits.

At first glance, it is a striking portrait by Edvard Munch, painted in 1892, a year before the Norwegian master was to create his most famous masterpiece, _The Scream_.

But peer closely at the man’s sleeve along the bottom edge and two embracing, ethereal figures in a mysterious moonlit landscape are revealed.

Mattea Roach (Bookends): Chris Ware

The latest volume of Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Date Book series is made up of pages from his personal sketchbooks, providing a window into his ideas, obsessions and insecurities. Chris tells Mattea Roach about his career as a cartoonist, staying in touch with childhood and why his daughter is the star of the comics in this book.

The Magic Puzzle Company

We’re growing fast, and sometimes our puzzles run out of stock. If you’d like to be notified when Magic Puzzles come back in stock or when we release new stuff, sign up here. We’ll NEVER send you spam or share your email address with anyone else.

My friend Bill sent me this link with a note that there was a surprise Mac connection at the end.

NYT: These Roadies Help Stars Rock ’n’ Roll All Night. They’re in Their 70s.

Some of the live music industry’s most respected and consistently working roadies, instrument techs and sound people have been on the job for half a century.

gift link

CBC Sports: Mahomes' 3 TDs too much for Buffalo as Kansas City books Super Bowl LVII rematch with Philadelphia

KC outlasts Buffalo 32-29; Hurts, Barkley help Eagles steamroll Commanders 55-23.

For the record.

Last Updated: 26.Jan.2025 22:59 EST

Saturday’s articles

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TechCrunch: Retro Biosciences, backed by Sam Altman, is raising $1 billion to extend human lifespan

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is doubling down on Retro Biosciences, a biotech startup based in San Francisco that wants humans to live 10 years longer than what it calls a healthy human lifespan.

Altman previously provided Retro Biosciences’ entire seed round of $180 million. Now, the startup is raising a $1 billion Series A that Altman is joining, the Financial Times reports.

NYT: Spirit Airlines Will Prohibit ‘Offensive’ Tattoos and Revealing Clothing

The airline recently updated its policies to explicitly outline unacceptable passenger attire and appearance, going beyond the vague policies held by most other airlines. In its contract of carriage, which is a legal document outlining airline and passenger responsibilities, Spirit says “a guest shall not be permitted to board the aircraft or may be required to leave an aircraft” if the passenger is “inadequately clothed” or “whose clothing or article, including body art, is lewd, obscene or offensive in nature.”

Inadequately clothed is now defined — having breasts, buttocks or other private parts exposed, or wearing sheer apparel. But what exactly is an offensive tattoo is unclear.

Slashdot: Ultra-Fast Cancer Treatments Could Replace Conventional Radiotherapy

CERN’s particle accelerator is being used in a pioneering cancer treatment called Flash radiotherapy. This method delivers ultra-high radiation doses in less than a second, minimizes side effects while targeting tumors more effectively than conventional radiotherapy. The BBC reports:

In a series of vast underground caverns on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland, experiments are taking place which may one day lead to new generation of radiotherapy machines. The hope is that these devices could make it possible to cure complex brain tumors (PDF), eliminate cancers that have metastasized to distant organs, and generally limit the toll which cancer treatment exerts on the human body. The home of these experiments is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (Cern), best known to the world as the particle physics hub that developed the Large Hadron Collider, a 27 kilometer (16.7 mile)-long ring of superconducting magnets capable of accelerating particles to near the speed of light.

CBC: Avalanche deal Mikko Rantanen to Hurricanes in 3-team trade

Hurricanes also acquire Taylor Hall from Chicago, send Jack Drury and Martin Necas to Avs.

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Hall, 33, was the No. 1 overall pick by the Edmonton Oilers in 2010 and won the Hart Trophy (league MVP) after posting a career-high 93 points (39 goals, 54 assists) with the New Jersey Devils in 2017-18. In 46 games with Chicago this season, the 15-year veteran has 24 points (nine goals, 15 assists).

Over 878 games with the Oilers (2010-11 to 2015-16), Devils (2016-17 to 2019-2020), Arizona Coyotes (2019-20), Buffalo Sabres (2020-21), Boston Bruins (2020-21 to 2022-23) and Chicago (2023-24 to present), Hall has 721 points (275 goals, 446 assists).

I wonder why he has been moved around so much?

Kickstarter: Pixelfed & Loops: Authentic Sharing, Reimagined

We currently have four projects to showcase for 2025:

• Pixelfed is our flagship & challenger for Instagram, and other photo based platforms.
• Loops is a challenger for Tiktok, and other video based platforms.
• Sup is a challenger for WhatsApp/Snapchat, and other instant message platforms. 
• Pubkit is the essential ActivityPub toolset for developers building new online experiences in the fediverse.

via Manton

BBC: WH Smith in talks to sell high street stores

WH Smith is in talks to sell its high street stores, the British retailer has said.

The firm said that it was “exploring potential strategic options for this profitable and cash-generative part of the group, including a possible sale” in a statement on Saturday.

It went on to say that over the past decade, the business had become “a focused global travel retailer”, with its travel arm having more than 1,200 stores across 32 countries.

The announcement comes amid a difficult economic outlook for high street retailers and following years of unfavourable consumer sentiment towards the chain.

Sounds like Amazon isn’t the problem.

Stuff: I’ve travelled the world: This is the best flight I’ve ever taken

Auckland to New York, John F. Kennedy International Airport. It’s one of the top 10 longest commercial flights in the world by distance at a whopping 14,207 kilometres. Qantas flies five to six direct services a week on the route, the most of any carrier.

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Qantas flies five to six times a week direct from Auckland to New York. Prices start from around $7250 one way. See: qantas.com

Carbon footprint: Flying generates carbon emissions. To reduce your impact, consider other ways of travelling, amalgamate your trips, and when you need to fly, consider offsetting emissions.

The writer’s trip was supported by Qantas.

Geeky Gadgets: iPhone Battery Health Plummeting in iOS 18: Here’s Why!

The release of iOS 18 has brought about significant changes in how iPhone battery health is monitored and reported, causing concern among users, particularly those with the iPhone 15 series. Many have noticed rapid drops in their battery health percentages following the update, leading to speculation about potential issues with the new software. However, these changes are primarily due to improvements in the accuracy of battery health recalibration rather than a sudden increase in battery degradation. The video below from Daniel About Tech gives us more details about battery health on the iPhone in iOS 18.

NYT: Why Are Buffalo Bills Fans Giving to the Charity of a Ravens Player?

A charitable drive for diabetes research in the name of the Ravens receiver Mark Andrews, who missed a pivotal play in a game against the Buffalo Bills, has raised more than $120,000.

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Andrews pricks his finger 30 times a game to check his blood sugar and uses an insulin pump. “Type 1 diabetes is incredibly difficult, but I refuse to let it affect my job or my life in any way,” he said in an article on the website of the UMass Chan Medical School.

Last Updated: 25.Jan.2025 23:57 EST

Friday’s articles

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WashPo: Dana Milbank: Trump returns, and it’s going to be a long four years

“I think we’re going to do things that people would be shocked at,” President Donald Trump declared on his second day in office. It was one of the few true things he said all week.

The crush of vindictive, cruel, unconstitutional and just plain bonkers orders and actions coming from the restored Trump administration in its first week makes even the worst-case predictions look conservative. But if you’re feeling knocked off-kilter by the fire hose of bad policies, well, you’re in good company. Trump himself seems downright bewildered.

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NewsNation: White House fires some independent inspectors general

A White House official has confirmed to NewsNation that “some” of the independent inspectors general of major federal agencies “have been asked to leave.”

NewsNation partner The Hill reported that Trump has ousted around 17 federal watchdogs within various departments including the Department of Veteran Affairs, Defense Department, State Department, Energy Department and Housing and Urban Development.

A HUD spokesperson told The Hill that Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis received notice on Friday.

The Washington Post reported late Friday night that “the White House fired the independent inspectors general of at least 14 major federal agencies in a purge that could clear the way for President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.”

I guess they were afraid that they were a little too “independent”.

NYT: They Were Waiting for Flights. Then Trump Closed a Door for Afghan Allies.

Nasir, a legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force during the war, helped approve airstrikes against Taliban fighters. He is still in Afghanistan, where he has lived in hiding since the Taliban takeover in 2021 while awaiting approval to resettle in the United States.

He had passed background checks and needed only a medical exam to finish the process, he said. But this past week, he and tens of thousands of other Afghans found their paths to the United States blocked by an executive action signed by President Trump.

The order suspended a resettlement program that brings thousands of legal refugees to the country each year. Among the many now in limbo are Afghans who assisted the American war effort and are seeking a new start and a sense of security in the United States.

UPI: Interior Department officially renames Mount McKinley, Gulf of America

The Trump administration has officially implemented name changes for Alaska’s Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico, as requested by the new president.

The Interior Department announced Friday that the Gulf of Mexico will now officially be known as the Gulf of America and North America’s highest peak will once again bear the name Mount McKinley to “honor the legacy of American greatness.”

Republican Americans: lowest self-esteem in the modern world?

Last Updated: 25.Jan.2025 22:29 EST

Friday’s political articles

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NYT: People With A.D.H.D. Are Likely to Die Significantly Earlier Than Their Peers, Study Finds

A large study found that men lost seven years of life expectancy and women lost nine years, compared with counterparts without the disorder.

ScienceAlert: FDA-Approved Nasal Spray For Depression Is First Of Its Kind

A ketamine-based nasal spray is officially the first and only standalone therapy available for treatment-resistant depression in the US.

The FDA first approved the Johnson & Johnson drug, called Spravato (esketamine), for some cases of depression in 2019, but it was only allowed to be prescribed alongside an oral antidepressant.

After reviewing no less than 31 clinical trials from the past six years, including a recent phase 4 trial, the agency has now decided the Spravato spray can be used on its own.

Kottke: How Daft Punk Made The Drums For “Starboy” By The Weeknd

They used a pocket-sized synthesizer from Teenage Engineering. (YouTube video)

So much more goes into that catchy rhythm than you might realize.

CBC: Ford says he’ll trigger an election and wants ‘largest mandate in Ontario’s history’

• Ford confirms he’ll trigger 28-day election campaign next Wednesday
• Premier says vote needed in face of U.S. tariff threat
• “Right now we don’t have a stable federal government,” Ford says

So we want a matching unstable provincial government, I guess.

HowToGeek: T-Mobile Prepares to Open Starlink Satellite-to-Cellular Service

SpaceX is getting ready to start testing its new Direct-to-Cell (DTC) Starlink satellite service. The DTC service is supposed to provide cell phone connectivity to remote areas not covered by conventional cell networks.

DTC beta testing will kick off on January 27, 2025, and continue until July 26, 2025. This new service builds on SpaceX’s existing Starlink network, which consists of nearly 7,000 low-Earth orbit satellites already giving internet access to over 4.6 million users in 118 countries.

The satellites will include devices called eNodeB modems, which act like cell towers but are in space. These modems will help send data to ground networks and partner carriers and are designed to work with current cell phones, so no new hardware is needed.

T-Mobile’s beta test will focus on text messaging, with plans to add data and voice features later.

HowToGeek: PayPal Fined $2 Million for Security Failures

PayPal has been hit with a $2 million fine by New York’s financial regulator, the Department of Financial Services (DFS). This is due to cybersecurity issues that led to a data breach in December 2022.

This breach put the personal information of many customers at risk, including their social security numbers, email addresses, and names. The DFS investigation found major problems with PayPal’s cybersecurity methods. The company didn’t hire qualified people for important cybersecurity roles and didn’t give enough training to help reduce cybersecurity risks. These issues were directly tied to the security breach.

TechCrunch: Sam Altman’s World now wants to link AI agents to your digital identity

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the technology world by surprise on Thursday with the release of Operator, his company’s first AI agent that can act autonomously on the web.

But OpenAI is not Altman’s only venture that’s trying to capitalize on the popularity of AI agents.

Last Updated: 24.Jan.2025 22:24 EST

Thursday’s articles

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UPI: Defense secretary nominee Hegseth clears last hurdle before confirmation vote

Hegseth’s opponents have called him unqualified and unfit for the top defense job, citing his lack of management experience and various and wide-ranging allegations of misconduct including sexual misconduct and excessive drinking. Hegseth has denied all of them.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and the Democratic leader called Hegseth one of Trump’s “very worst nominees,” and said he is “utterly unqualified” for the job. Hegseth retired from the Army as a major and is a former Fox News host.

CBC: Ford says he’ll trigger an election and wants ‘largest mandate in Ontario’s history’

• Ford confirms he’ll trigger 28-day election campaign next Wednesday
• Premier says vote needed in face of U.S. tariff threat
• “Right now we don’t have a stable federal government,” Ford says

So we want a matching unstable provincial government, I guess?

Ford hasn’t delivered on his mandate to end hallway medicine or build affordable homes. No wonder he’s trying to switch the channel.

Guardian: Proud Boys leader thanks Trump for January 6 pardon and vows revenge

In his first interview after his release from prison, Enrique Tarrio thanked Donald Trump for pardoning him for his role in planning the January 6 riot, saying he “literally gave me my life back”.

Now that he is out, the Proud Boys leader wants revenge, he told Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Info Wars.

“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted,” Tarrio said.

“Success is going to be retribution,” he added. “We gotta do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next 100 years.”

Daring Fireball: ICE Raids Are an Escalation of Our Long-Simmering De Facto Cold Civil War

The raids are taking place in deep blue cities in blue states. These are places that voted heavily against Trump. People in Newark didn’t vote for this. People in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston didn’t vote for this. If this was really about following through on the popular demand of the voters who elected Trump, who see undocumented immigrants as a scourge on their communities, wouldn’t these raids focus on the states that voted for Trump — like, say, Texas and Arizona, which actually border on Mexico?

Last Updated: 24.Jan.2025 17:57 EST

Thursday’s political articles

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NYT: Amazon Closes Operations in Quebec, Laying off 1,700 Workers

Amazon on Wednesday said it was closing all of its warehouse and logistics operations in Quebec, the Canadian province where unions gained a foothold in one of its facilities, and would lay off 1,700 employees.

The closures represent a U-turn from Amazon’s recent investments in the province. The company opened three delivery stations in 2021, and one last year. It also had a small fulfillment center in Quebec and two warehouses that sorted packages.

Time to watch F.I.S.T. or Norma Rae again?

NYT: OpenAI Unveils New Agent Tool ‘Operator’

The new tool, called Operator, can shop for groceries or book a restaurant reservation. But it still needs help from humans.

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OpenAI said that, beginning on Thursday, Operator will be available to anyone who has subscribed to ChatGPT Pro, a $200-a-month service that provides access to all of the company’s latest tools. It plans to offer the tool via other paid services and eventually roll it into the free version of ChatGPT. Users in the United States will be the first to receive the new tool.

Daring Fireball: Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber

New Siri — powered by Apple Intelligence™ with ChatGPT integration enabled — gets the answer completely but plausibly wrong, which is the worst way to get it wrong. It’s also inconsistently wrong — I tried the same question four times, and got a different answer, all of them wrong, each time. It’s a complete failure.

Last Updated: 23.Jan.2025 16:41 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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NYT: Denali or Mt. McKinley? Alaska Lawmakers Weigh In on Trump’s Renaming Plan.

President Donald J. Trump’s plan to return Denali, the Alaska Native name for North America’s tallest peak, to its earlier name, Mount McKinley, has run into opposition from Alaska lawmakers.

Shortly after taking the oath of office on Monday, Mr. Trump surprised many in the state when he announced “we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs.”

“President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent,” he said. “He was a natural businessman, and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama.”

NYT: Trump Administration Temporarily Mutes Federal Health Officials

The Trump administration, moving quickly to clamp down on health and science agencies, has canceled a string of scientific meetings and instructed federal health officials to refrain from all public communications, including upcoming reports focused on the nation’s escalating bird flu crisis.

Experts who serve on outside advisory panels on a range of topics, from antibiotic resistance to deafness, received emails on Wednesday telling them their meetings had been canceled.

The cancellations followed a directive issued on Tuesday by the acting director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who prohibited the public release of any public communication until it had been reviewed by a presidential appointee or designee, according to federal officials and an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.

Gift link.

CBC: Freeland would scrap capital gains tax changes if elected Liberal leader: source

Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland would scrap changes to the capital gains tax that she introduced as finance minister, CBC News has confirmed. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

Last Updated: 23.Jan.2025 01:26 EST

Wednesday’s political articles

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Electrek: China installed a record capacity of solar and wind in 2024 – in numbers

China saw monumental solar and wind growth in 2024, according to data released today by its National Energy Administration (NEA).

China’s installed capacity shot up by 14.6% last year, now surpassing 3,348 gigawatts (GW).

Solar saw the biggest leap, with a record-breaking 45.2% increase (+277 GW), achieving 887 GW overall. Wind power also saw solid growth, climbing 18% (+80 GW) to almost 521 GW.

In 2020, President Xi Jinping set a goal of at least 1,200 GW of solar and wind capacity by 2030. China met that target last year – nearly six years ahead of schedule – according to NEA data from August.

The country has also built nearly twice as much wind and solar as every other country combined.

Meanwhile in Canada, Doug Ford wants to install more gas plants and the federal government appears totally stalled on fighting carbon emissions.

Guardian: Fitness and muscle strength could halve cancer patient deaths, study suggests

Muscular strength and good physical fitness could almost halve the risk of cancer patients dying from their disease, according to a study that suggests tailored exercise plans may increase survival.

ScienceDaily: New study uncovers key mechanism behind learning and memory

A breakthrough study published today in the Journal of Neuroscience sheds new light on how brain cells relay critical information from their extremities to their nucleus, leading to the activation of genes essential for learning and memory.

Researchers have identified a key pathway that links how neurons send signals to each other, or synaptic activity, to the expression of genes necessary for long-term changes in the brain, providing crucial insights into the molecular processes underlying memory formation.

NewsNation: Trump announces $500B AI investment, Stargate

• Trump marked first full day in office with investment announcement
• OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank creating joint venture, Stargate
• AI infrastructure would include plants and data centers across nation

UPI: Dutch government ordered to cut nitrogen emissions by 2030 or face $10M penalty

Excessive nitrogen emissions, meanwhile, are largely caused by livestock farming mixed with transportation and industrial pollution.

This follows similar efforts in nations such as France, Germany and Ireland.

A 2021 ruling by the European Union’s Court of Justice determined that Germany had for years “systematically and persistently” violated pollution limits and allowed excessive nitrogen dioxide to be emitted across German cities such as Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Cologne.

Last Updated: 22.Jan.2025 18:43 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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WashPo: Jan. 6 leaders call for retribution, judges warn against revisionism

Two newly freed leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups called for investigations into the prosecution of people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, assailing judges, jurors and prosecutors as they sought “retribution” after being granted clemency from President Donald Trump.

Headed for civil war?

Last Updated: 22.Jan.2025 22:12 EST

Tuesday’s political articles

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Fully Charged (YouTube): Can This Car Breathe New Life Into Polestar?

Jack delivers his thoughts on the Polestar 4, having lived with it for a week. After a tumultuous 2024, can this car help the Swedish car maker kick on and secure its future?

• 00:00 Introduction
• 1:49 Bad first impressions
• 4:34 Long distance monster
• 6:16 The electric nannying
• 7:37 Exquisite interior
• 10:44 Serious sustainability
• 12:05 Are EVs REALLY greener than ICE?
• 14:30 Is it good enough?
• 16:07 Duracell promo

Last Updated: 21.Jan.2025 15:48 EST

Monday’s articles

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UPI: Trump’s executive orders aim for big shifts, but their power is limited

Obama signed fewer orders than his predecessors — averaging 35 per year. Trump issued an average of 55 per year.

Last Updated: 21.Jan.2025 12:55 EST

Monday’s political articles

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NYT: A Georgia Prosecutor Has Long Regretted Sending a Man Away for Life. Can He Fix It?

Weakened by cancer and nagged by his conscience, a former Georgia prosecutor wants the courts to reverse the sentence he demanded for a man who didn’t physically harm anyone in his crimes.

Gift article link

Guardian: Weight-loss jabs linked to reduced risk of 42 conditions including dementia

The most comprehensive study of its kind showed that psychotic disorders, infections and dementia were among conditions found to be less likely to occur when using GLP-1RAs, which are found in the medications Saxenda, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

The researchers compared health outcomes for people with diabetes who received usual care with those also given drugs such as liraglutide, semaglutide and tirzepatide. While the team revealed the risk of many conditions was lower for the latter group, the risk of other conditions, including arthritic disorders, was increased.

And the scientists say that the benefits are not just restricted to people with diabetes, suggesting they could also be found in other people using the jabs, such as those who take them to fight obesity.

Last Updated: 20.Jan.2025 13:46 EST

Sunday’s articles

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NYT: Fox News Prepares to Cover a Government Filled With Fox News Alumni

Nineteen … and counting.

That’s the number of former Fox News hosts, commentators, on-air medical experts, producers and other personnel who are poised to occupy roles in the second administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Never before has a single media organization exported so many alumni to a president’s day-one cabinet and staff. And while Mr. Trump also recruited TV types for roles in his first term, he is now seeking to put pundits like Pete Hegseth, his nominee for defense secretary, in charge of entire government agencies.

NYT: Can Trump End Birthright Citizenship? Not Easily.

Mr. Trump has long said that conferring American citizenship on the children of undocumented immigrants was unacceptable to him. But because birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, such an order would face major legal challenges. Any change to the Constitution requires supermajority votes in Congress, and then ratification by three-quarters of the states.

USA Today: Trump’s hand wasn’t on his Bible during swearing-in. Does it matter?

President-elect Donald Trump had his left hand down at his side — and not on one of the two Bibles his wife Melania held up for him — during his swearing-in ceremony.

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… Presidents — and other public officials — do not have to use a Bible when taking their oath of office for it to be official. Many oath ceremonies don’t require any document at all for swearing the oath, just that the person being sworn in recite the words of the oath.

Last Updated: 20.Jan.2025 22:07 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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Atlantic: Trump Triggers a Crisis in Denmark—And Europe

What did Donald Trump say over the phone to Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, on Wednesday? I don’t know which precise words he used, but I witnessed their impact. I arrived in Copenhagen the day after the call—the subject, of course, was the future of Greenland, which Denmark owns and which Trump wants—and discovered that appointments I had with Danish politicians were suddenly in danger of being canceled. Amid Frederiksen’s emergency meeting with business leaders, her foreign minister’s emergency meeting with party leaders, and an additional emergency meeting of the foreign-affairs committee in Parliament, everything, all of a sudden, was in complete flux.

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In truth, Trump’s demands are illogical. Anything that the U.S. theoretically might want to do in Greenland is already possible, right now. Denmark has never stopped the U.S. military from building bases, searching for minerals, or stationing troops in Greenland, or from patrolling sea lanes nearby. In the past, the Danes have even let Americans defy Danish policy in Greenland.

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy flight.”

Last Updated: 19.Jan.2025 19:59 EST

Saturday’s political articles

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

Atlantic: How the Ski Business Got Too Big for Its Boots

This consolidation is perhaps the main reason the sticker price of skiing, never cheap, has become exorbitant. With fewer competitors, Vail and Alterra have been free to jack up prices. In 2000, when Mount Snow (where I learned to ski) was owned by a smaller company, the cost of a day pass was about $93 in today’s dollars. Today, the Vail-owned resort charges approximately $150. The pricing at Park City is even steeper. Twenty-five years ago, you could get a three-day ticket for $308 in today’s dollars. Now you’re paying $850.

Sportsnet: Oilers’ Connor McDavid to have hearing for cross-check on Canucks’ Garland

Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid will have a hearing with the NHL’s department of player safety.

Atlantic: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.

Last Updated: 19.Jan.2025 22:57 EST

Saturday’s articles

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

Guardian: An American tragedy: how Biden paved the way for Trump’s White House return

When Biden departs Washington on Monday at the culmination of a career spanning more than half a century as senator, vice-president and president, the old maxim that all political lives end in failure will hover over him. He will be 82, the oldest president in US history and the first great-grandfather to hold the office. Democrats will long agonise over why his age and fitness for office did not become a political emergency until it was too late.

It is easy to forget now the malaise that Biden inherited. In that inaugural address in January 2021, he spoke of four crises: the coronavirus pandemic, climate, economy and racial justice. Standing on the spot where just two weeks earlier a pro-Trump mob had sought to overturn his election win, Biden also promised to restore the soul of America.

Guardian: ‘A small act of patriotism’: Canada’s anti-Maga hats go viral

Even the Manitoba premier, Wab Kinew – a progressive often at odds with Ford – quipped that he loved it: “Great hat, I hope they make that in an orange.”

(Mooney, keen to capitalize on the moment, said he had spent hours trying to ensure Kinew receives a hat that matches the colours of his leftwing New Democratic party.)

Guardian: Suicides, new tactics and propaganda iPads: details from captured North Koreans expose new foe in Ukraine

Last week’s capture of two North Korean servicemen was an extraordinary moment in Russia’s bloody war against Ukraine. The Kremlin has taken elaborate steps to conceal the presence of 12,000 elite troops sent in autumn by Pyongyang to Russia. At camps in the Far East they were given Russian equipment: uniforms, rifles and fake military documents.

Last Updated: 18.Jan.2025 16.09 EST

Friday’s articles

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The Tyee: Trump Is Wrong. The US Does Not Subsidize Canada

In fact, it’s the other way around. These numbers show a tariff war makes no sense.

Guardian: Suicides, new tactics and propaganda iPads: details from captured North Koreans expose new foe in Ukraine

Last week’s capture of two North Korean servicemen was an extraordinary moment in Russia’s bloody war against Ukraine. The Kremlin has taken elaborate steps to conceal the presence of 12,000 elite troops sent in autumn by Pyongyang to Russia. At camps in the Far East they were given Russian equipment: uniforms, rifles and fake military documents.

9to5Mac: Indie App Spotlight: PostPocket is a universal bookmarking tool for your iPhone

However, some platforms make it easier than others. Instagram, for example, requires you to crawl through a couple of menus to find your saved posts. Additionally, with all of the varying Twitter alternatives on the market, you might come across a post on one platform that you want to save, but can’t. Threads doesn’t offer a bookmarks feature, so it can be hard to find something later, especially if you’re liking a ton of posts.

With all of that being said, there’s obviously a lot of fragmentation when it comes to saving things to view later, especially within apps. PostPocket aims to simplify things a bit.

Last Updated: 18.Jan.2025 22:58 EST

Friday’s articles

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Foreign Policy: Mexico Election: Who Is Claudia Sheinbaum, Likely Next President?

14.May.2024

Most Mexicans began to seriously entertain the idea that Claudia Sheinbaum could be Mexico’s first female president in December 2022, when her trademark slicked-back ponytail began to appear on billboards across the country. Paid for by legislators in Sheinbaum’s party, Morena, the signage was intended to make the former climate scientist and then-Mexico City mayor known nationwide.

At the time, many observers argued that Sheinbaum, now 61, lacked the charisma to replace her political patron, the wildly popular President Andrés Manuel López Obrador; her apparent restraint contrasted with his gabby personality. López Obrador was elected in 2018 and describes his government as carrying out the “Fourth Transformation,” a period of progressive renewal on par with just a few other periods of significant change in Mexican history.

The Fourth Transformation seeks the “eradication of neoliberalism” in Mexico. López Obrador considers privatization and corruption to be outgrowths of deregulation in the 1980s and has called neoliberalism the “main cause of economic and social inequality [in Mexico].” The president cannot run for reelection, and Sheinbaum has become his unlikely heir apparent. Ahead of Mexico’s elections on June 2, Morena has labeled Sheinbaum the “defense coordinator of the Fourth Transformation.” She says that she will build its “second floor.”

Spoiler alert: she won.

CBC: Internet customers in North to receive subsidy, CRTC says

Regulator also says Northwestel must credit customers for internet outages longer than a day.

CBC: As tiny homes arrive in Hamilton, councillors ask why city bought made-in-China units for $35K each

Staff say they were working on a tight timeline to get outdoor shelter site up and running.

CBC: Mark Carney says it’s ‘no time for politics as usual’ as he launches campaign to replace Trudeau

Harvard-educated Carney pitches himself as someone who can lead Canada through economic uncertainty.

NYT: President Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment has met the requirements to be enshrined in the Constitution.

President Biden declared on Friday that he believes that the Equal Rights Amendment has met the requirements of ratification and therefore is now part of the Constitution, but he declined to order the government to finalize the process by officially publishing it.

“In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.

Apparently it’s not so simple…

Roman Zipp: No, you can’t use your $6,299.00 Camera as a Webcam. That will be $5.

So Canon will not allow you to use **your own**camera on your own computer with **your own**cables the way you intent to without paying for another subscription.

Canon, what the…

Roman Zipp: 2025 Edition: Best macOS Apps

frame0 is a pretty new (currently in beta) desktop app for sketching, diagrams and wireframes. Think of it a the small child of Excalidraw and Figma.

The screenshot above is my own Vim cheat sheet, btw.

Price: free

Cross-platform multi-featured drawing app for application prototypes, “Flowchart, UML diagrams (Use Case, Class), Entity-Relationship diagram[s]”, etc.

CBC: Hershey Canada sending Cherry Blossom to the chocolate graveyard

Divisive, Canadian-made chocolate treats came in iconic yellow packaging.

CBC: Chrystia Freeland confirms she is running for Liberal leader

Former finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland is entering the Liberal leadership race.

In a sparsely worded post on the social media platform X on Friday morning, the former cabinet minister said simply that she’s “running to fight for Canada.”

Her official campaign launch will be on Sunday, but the post provided no details of when or where it will take place.

Looks like her campaign got caught flat-footed by Mark Carney’s announcement even though they’ve been telegraphing it for weeks!

Last Updated: 17.Jan.2025 23:58 EST

Thursday’s articles

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Slashdot: Startup Raises $200 Million To ‘De-Extinct’ the Woolly Mammoth, Thylacine and Dodo

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat:

Colossal BioSciences has raised $200 million in a new round of funding to bring back extinct species like the woolly mammoth. Dallas- and Boston-based Colossal is making strides in the scientific breakthroughs toward “de-extinction,” or bringing back extinct species like the woolly mammoth, thylacine and the dodo. […] Since launching in September 2021, Colossal has raised $435 million in total funding. This latest round of capital places the company at a $10.2 billion valuation. Colossal will leverage this latest infusion of capital to continue to advance its genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare.

Bet you can’t de-extinct just one!

CleanTechnica: U.S. EIA Extends 5 Key Energy Forecasts through December 2026

In our January 2024 Short-Term Energy Outlook, which includes data and forecasts through December 2026, we forecast five key energy trends that we expect will help shape markets over the next two years.

• Electricity consumption will start growing, driven by new demand sources …
• Solar power will supply most of the increase in electricity consumption …
• Global oil consumption growth remains below its pre-pandemic average …
• U.S. crude oil production growth begins to level off in 2026 …
• The United States continues to export more liquefied natural gas (LNG) …

With charts.

ScienceAlert: Weight Isn’t The Ultimate Predictor of Early Death – But Something Else Is

In other words, while obesity is connected to many health issues, being fit is more important than being ‘thin’ when it comes to living longer and staying healthy for longer. The findings could be a reason to revamp public health strategies and treatments.

Globe: New CBC documentary, Putin’s Journey, traces the authoritarian’s rise to power

Putin’s Journey, a new two-hour CBC News documentary premiering Friday, revisits this period in which the dream of Russian democracy disappeared while exploring Putin’s path from childhood poverty to KGB agent in the Soviet Union, then from part-time taxi driver to the presidency in post-Soviet Russia.

The Globe and Mail spoke to Terence McKenna, the documentary’s narrator and writer and a CBC veteran of more than 40 years, about the unlearned lessons of Putin’s quarter century in power.

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Putin’s Journey premieres Friday, Jan. 17 on CBC (at 8 p.m. local, 8:30 NT) and CBC Gem; and again on Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.

Discover: All-Optical Computer Unveiled With 100 GHz Clock Speed

The device paves the way for a new era of ultrafast computing, say researchers.

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By 2005, computer chips were running a billion times faster than the Z3 in the region of 5GHz. But then progress stalled. Today, state-of-the-art chips still operate at around 5GHz, a limit bottleneck that has significantly restricted progress in fields requiring ultrafast data processing

Guardian: US astronaut takes first spacewalk after seven months stuck in orbit | International Space Station

One of Nasa’s two stuck astronauts got a much-welcomed change of scenery on Thursday, stepping out on her first spacewalk since arriving at the International Space Station more than seven months ago.

Suni Williams, the station’s commander, had to tackle some overdue outdoor repair work alongside Nasa’s Nick Hague. They emerged as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles (420km) above Turkmenistan.

“I’m coming out,” Williams radioed.

Plans called for Williams to float back out next week with Butch Wilmore. Williams and Wilmore launched onboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule last June on what should have been a weeklong test flight.

But Starliner trouble dragged out their return, and Nasa ordered the capsule to come back empty. Then SpaceX delayed the launch of their replacements, meaning the two will not be home until late March or early April – 10 months after launching.

UPI: Keir Starmer finalizes ‘100-year’ security, economic pact in Kyiv in show of solidarity

The military side of the deal will strengthen maritime security cooperation via a new initiative to bolster defense in the Black and Asov seas, as well as the Baltic Sea, and head off further Russian aggression, alongside science and tech partnerships in public health, agri-tech and aerospace and education exchange programs, No. 10 Downing Street said in a news release.

Spanning nine key pillars, the treaty and a political declaration formalizes Britain as Ukraine’s preferred partner in the energy, critical metals and green steel sectors and will deliver a U.K-conceived track-and-trace scheme to combat grain theft from occupied areas, with London billing the package as a transformative forward leap for Ukraine’s security long-term.

HowToGeek: Everything You Can Do With Your iPhone’s Secret “Interrogation Codes”

Your iPhone has secret codes you can plug into the dialer to access hidden options. These codes “interrogate” the phone to find and change various settings or provide information such as your cellular signal strength. Here’s what you can do with them.

UPI: Uncrewed SpaceX Starship explodes minutes after launch from Texas

The rocket launched at 4:37 p.m. CT from SpaceX’s South Texas facilities.

After about 8 1/2 minutes into the flight and following stage separation, the upper stage of the rocket appeared to explode.

NYT: Wendy Williams Breaks Silence on Guardianship: ‘I Feel Like I am in Prison’

The former daytime host, who has been diagnosed with dementia, said in an interview on The Breakfast Club that she was “not cognitively impaired” and spoke about her life in a care facility.

NYT: General Motors Is Banned From Selling Driving Behavior Data for 5 Years

The F.T.C. opened an investigation and determined that G.M. had collected and sold data from millions of vehicles “without adequately notifying consumers and obtaining their affirmative consent.” Drivers who signed up for OnStar Connected Services and activated a feature called Smart Driver were subject to the data collection. But federal regulators said the enrollment process was so confusing, many consumers did not realize that they had signed up for it.

Mary Barra, is anything that makes money ethically OK?

Last Updated: 16.Jan.2025 23:56 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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

Platformer: Meta just flipped the switch that prevents misinformation from spreading in the United States

The company built effective systems to reduce the reach of fake news. Last week, it shut them down.

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For now, these changes only apply to the United States — though you get the sense that Zuckerberg would happily roll them out anywhere else he’s allowed to.

Electrek: Toyota funded climate deniers and Elon fudged the FSD numbers [video]

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, we look into a new study revealing that Toyota outspends all other automakers when it comes to funding climate change denying politicians and Fred accuses Elon of misrepresenting the data behind Full Self Driving (again).

We’ve also got word that the recently redesigned Tesla Model Y is being built in Giga Berlin, Hyundai’s electrified lineup is leading a record export year for the brand, and a new study says cleantech investments will beat out conventional energy production for the first time in 2025.

I bought Toyotas for years. Right now, it seems unlikely I ever will again.

Globe: At 65, I decided to finally take on the West Coast trail

Ever since I moved to British Columbia in the 1980s, I’ve wanted to hike the West Coast Trail in Pacific Rim National Park. The 75-kilometre route follows the exposed western coastline of Vancouver Island, through old-growth forests, sandy beaches and rocky headlands. But it is extremely remote and challenging: Parks Canada performs 60 to 80 air and marine rescues of hikers each year. It’s no wonder that for many the West Coast Trail is a rite of passage.

After four decades of contemplating hiking it myself, I was suddenly 65 and still hadn’t crossed the adventure off my bucket list. It was time to get started.

Off Track Travel: The West Coast Trail: Complete 2025 Hiking Guide

Since I had so much information to share, I also created some separate, dedicated guides to the most discussed topics:

• Complete West Coast Trail Campground Guide
• West Coast Trail Transportation Logistics
• WCT Hiking Itineraries: 5, 6, 7 + 8 Days
• WCT Packing List: The Best Items to Bring

The Conversation: ‘Solar shepherds’ earn big by grazing sheep on solar farms — and they benefit everyone involved

My recent study, conducted with Ivey Business School alum Adam Gasch and professional shepherd Rafael Lara from The Lara Costa, found that modern solar shepherding businesses in places like Ontario can pull incomes equivalent to doctors, senior engineers or even lawyers.

These solar shepherds are the vanguard of a new type of farming called agrivoltaics – a portmanteau for agriculture and photovoltaics – where agricultural production is intertwined with solar electricity production. Agrivoltaics is gaining traction in Canada, thanks to organizations like Agrivoltaics Canada, of which I am a founding member.

Agrivoltaics has enormous potential to solve our climate and energy problems simultaneously. About one-quarter to one-third of Canada’s total electrical energy needs could be met by converting just one per cent of agricultural land to agrivoltaics. Expanding this to a slightly larger percentage could eliminate Canada’s need for fossil fuels entirely.

MacRumors: Apple CEO Tim Cook Shares Tidbits About His Life

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook recently sat down for an interview with Table Manners podcast hosts Jessie and Lennie Ware when he visited London in December. Cook shared insight into his daily routine, his focus on work, and his retirement plans. He also provided some fun details about Apple and some of his favorite things.

Table Manners direct link: Tim Cook episode

Last Updated: 15.Jan.2025 18:49 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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CBC: Physician assistants approved to work in a B.C. hospital for the 1st time

Physician assistants (PAs) are medical professionals who work under the supervision of physicians. While they do not possess a medical degree, they are educated through a two-year graduate program under the same medical model used to train doctors.

Although PAs aren’t yet considered a “designated health profession” in B.C., two have joined the Saanich Peninsula Hospital as part of a one-year pilot program approved by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C.

Unlike nurse practitioners already working across B.C., physician assistants cannot operate independently from a doctor. The physician’s college says PAs are currently only permitted in emergency departments within the B.C. health system.

This is an interesting pilot program. I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out, but it’s good to keep trying different models to alleviate the pressures on the system.

CBC: Regina now home to Canada’s first ‘sustainable’ Tim Hortons

Low-carbon concrete, rainwater harvesting system among features.

Good on the franchisees, the Di Stasi family!

Bob Mankoff (TED Talk): Anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon

1,436,754 views
TEDSalon NY2013
May 2013

TidBITS: Parallels Desktop 20.2

Parallels has released version 20.2 of its Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software. The update launches an early technology preview for importing and running x86_64 virtual machines initially created on Intel-based Macs on Apple silicon Macs (be aware of the preview’s significant limitations — Parallels says, “It is slow, really slow.").

CBC: P.E.I. homeowner captures sound and video of meteorite strike on camera, and scientists believe it’s a first [video]

Luckier still, his home security camera caught both video and audio of the meteorite’s crash landing. 

Scientists believe it could be the first time that both sound and visuals of a meteorite’s strike have ever been recorded. 

Geoff Greer: Gasoline Car Review

8.Feb.2023

I recently purchased a Mazda Miata. This car is interesting because instead of running on electricity, it is powered by a combustible liquid called gasoline. The vehicle has an engine that mixes the gasoline with oxygen from the air, ignites the mixture, and uses the resulting combustion to push the car forward. I don’t fully understand the details of how it works, but this difference in propulsion technology totally changes the experience of owning and operating a vehicle.

A lot can be forgiven if it’s a Miata.

via Brian Christiansen

Last Updated: 14.Jan.2025 15:08 EST

Monday’s articles

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The New Yorker: Are Ultra-Processed Foods Killing Us?

Until recently, Guillaume Raineri, a forty-two-year-old man with a bald head and a bushy goatee, worked as an hvac technician in Gonesse, a small town about ten miles north of Paris. The area lends its name to pain de Gonesse, a bread historically made from wheat that was grown locally, milled with a special process, and fermented slowly to develop flavor. The French élite once savored its crisp yet chewy crust and its tender, subtly sweet crumb. Raineri would occasionally grab a loaf from a boulangerie after work. He doesn’t consider himself a foodie—“but, you know, I’m French,” he told me.

After Raineri’s wife got a job at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, they moved to the U.S. The transition was something of a shock. “The food here is different,” he said in a heavy French accent. “Bigger portions. Too much salt. Too much sugar.” He decided to enroll in a paid study at his wife’s new workplace. It was exploring why the American diet, compared with almost any other, causes people to gain weight and develop chronic diseases at such staggering rates. “I wanted to know what is good for my body,” he told me.

Our food conglomerates, like most of our politicians, feel beholden to no one but themselves.

Financial Post: EV transition runs into more trouble as Transport Canada abruptly pauses rebate program

The federal program, known as Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV), was scheduled to expire in March 2025 or until funds ran out. A separate incentive program for businesses purchasing trucks will continue until March 2026 or until funds run out.

The issue hardly ends in Canada for automakers. Donald Trump, who becomes president of the United States next week, has also said he plans to scrap tax credits that provide up to US$7,500 on EV purchases.

Last Updated: 13.Jan.2025 21:44 EST

Sunday’s articles

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CleanTechnica: Your Questions About Montana Renewables, (Partly) Answered

The biofuel field is beginning to grow past the food-vs-fuel debate by moving the focus to camelina and other non-food oilseed crops that can grow on marginal, non-food lands. Still, the prospect of mowing down forests, grasslands, and other biodiverse habitats to grow energy crops is not a sustainable solution.

A more promising movement is afoot to replant derelict citrus plantations and other pre-stressed lands with new climate-hardy varietiesthat lend themselves to biofuel production as well as food and animal feed. Algae farming is another potential pathway for avoiding habitat destruction, though significant obstacles remain in that field. Neither of these options is available at scale here and now, though.

Wikipedia: Camelina

Biodiesel made from camelina has a variety of benefits. First, traditional petroleum or diesel fuel is not renewable resources, the production of these resources is finite. Camelina biodiesel, however, is a renewable resource. Camelina based aviation fuel could save 84% of carbon emissions. Camelina biodiesel can be produced in large quantities as feedstocks are enough. Moreover, camelina biodiesel can reduce a country’s dependence on fossil resources, which can ensure a country’s energy security. In addition, camelina biodiesel is an environmentally friendly fuel, and it is biodegradable. The greenhouse gas emission of camelina biodiesel produced by no-till farming is lower than that of traditional methods.

Verge (YouTube): CES 2025 roundtable: AI, robots, and everything else

While we’re used to highlighting the best parts of CES, we wanted to chat through the contenders that didn’t make the shortlist, but definitely made an impact.

• 00:01 Intro
• 00:30 Big CES 2025 trends: smart glasses, AI, chatbots, smart home robots
• 05:40 Antonio’s first CES
• 06:30 Laptops, gaming handhelds
• 08:30 CES attendance records?
• 09:55 Victoria’s “most CES” moment
• 10:30 Karaoke and speakers
• 11:12 Favorite vaporware
• 11:50 The CES b-sides
• 12:00 Intel Innovation showcase
• 13:42 Smart ring — Circular Ring 2
• 15:22 Best Boox Palma alternative — TCL 60 XE
• 18:50 Audio tech — monitor with beamforming audio
• 20:07 Wildlife camera
• 22:02 Portable TV — LG StanByME 2 (and the rest of LG products)
• 23:05 Nilay’s closing remarks

The Verge (YouTube): Best of CES 2025

CES 2025 has wrapped, and after days on the show floor, our Verge reporters have picked the year’s best tech. From next-gen gaming handhelds and bendable screens to new TVs, AI-powered smart home gadgets, smart rings, and futuristic EVs. Here are our top picks from the show. Presented by Siemens

Read more: www.theverge.com/2025/1/10…

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:31 Chris Welch - Best TV
• 02:33 Victoria Song - Best wearable
• 03:26 Victoria Song - Best beauty tech
• 05:13 Antonio Di Benedetto - Best laptop
• 06:22 Andrew J. Hawkins - Best car
• 07:20 Jennifer Pattison Tuohy - Best smart home tech
• 08:44 Allison Johnson - Best toaster imposter
• 10:11 Sean Hollister - Best gaming handheld
• 11:14 Tom Warren - Best gaming overall
• 13:04 Vjeran Pavic - Best sequel

Apple Insider: How to spot and block scam texts on your iPhone

By default, if you receive a text message on an iPhone or other Apple device from an unknown sender, any links therein are disabled. Once you reply to a message, however, the Messages app then allows clickable links, reports Bleeping Computer.

Scammers and other threat actors have developed a way around this restriction that savvy users will spot easily, but novice users might fall for. Often, this “smishing” attack comes in the form of a notice of an unpaid bill for a small amount, or a “failed delivery” notification.

The key to these new scam “warnings” is that they will often ask the recipient to reply “Y” or “N” or some variation in a reply immediately. They will instruct the user to reply, then exit the chat and return to their message in order to click a now-enabled scam link.

This explains those “Y or N” texts.

WashPo: NASA’s next great space telescope, the Roman, takes shape

About two dozen workers clustered around towering pieces of hardware, some twice or three times the height of a typical person. When stacked and integrated, these components will form the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

The assembly of the telescope ramped up this fall, with 600 workers aiming to get everything integrated and tested by late 2026. NASA has committed to launching the telescope no later than May 2027.

The telescope will be roughly the size of the Hubble Space Telescope, but not quite as long (a “stubby Hubble,” some call it).

Globe: Alex Ovechkin is on track to break Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career goals record

Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals is closing in on the NHL career goals record of 894 held by Wayne Gretzky.

Ovechkin has 873 goals and needs 22 to set a new record.

Ovechkin entered the season 42 short of breaking a record by “The Great One” that long seemed unapproachable.

Last Updated: 12.Jan.2025 23:36 EST

Saturday’s articles

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MacRumors: Apple’s Annual Shareholders Meeting Will Take Place on February 25

Apple’s 2025 shareholders meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 25 at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, according to an SEC filing that was released today.

CleanTechnica: $1.67 Billion to Montana Renewables to Significantly Expand US Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production

The decarbonization of the U.S. transportation and industrial sectors depends on a significant increase in the production of biofuels—which are expected to deliver new economic opportunities for agricultural and rural communities across the nation while tackling the climate crisis. This project will utilize vegetable oils, fats, and greases to produce sustainable fuels.

The MRL facility has been in operation since late 2022, currently producing about 140 million gallons per year of biofuels, most of which is renewable diesel. The loan guarantee will fund facility expansion to produce about 315 million gallons per year of biofuels­­, most of which will be SAF.

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SAF is one of the only viable near-term options to decarbonize the airline industry, which is responsible for 11% of U.S. transportation emissions or 3.3% of total U.S. emissions.

CleanTechnica: Sneak Attack: Electric Trailers Turn ICE Trucks Into Hybrids

Unlike previous trips, this time he got to actually tow the trailer, which is important because easy towing is the key benefit to laying down the cash it takes to buy this trailer. So, this time he actually got to test it in a meaningful way. But, instead of seeing how it tows in an EV, he hooked it up to a Porsche Cayenne, a smaller ICE SUV.

To be methodical, he tested it first unpowered, then using different settings for assist level. The Pebble Flow has the ability to act like a brake controller, but in reverse, setting the assist level instead of setting the braking level. But, with regenerative braking, it can help with slowing down, too. It also had the benefit of dynamic control, using the electric axle to minimize sway, porpoising, etc. On the flip side, the trailer also has a “recharge” mode, where it can do mild regenerative braking to use the tow vehicle’s energy for trailer charging, which would reduce MPG, but allow for more power at the campsite for things like air conditioning, heat, cooking, etc.

Interesting idea: turn your internal combustion SUV into a hybrid of sorts.

UPI: Jeju Air black boxes stopped working minutes before deadly crash in South Korea

The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, commonly called black boxes, both stopped functioning around four minutes before Jeju Air flight 2216 crashed at Muan International Airport, South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport confirmed Saturday in a statement.

Officials did not speculate on why the devices may have stopped working on the Boeing 737-800 that was arriving from Bangkok, Thailand.

Daring Fireball: Nvidia, the New King of Keynotes

But one thing that’s very clear to my eyes is that they didn’t rehearse enough. Or more specifically, they didn’t rehearse nearly as much as Apple did when Apple performed live keynotes. Part of Steve Jobs’s on-stage appeal was that he came across as largely winging it, speaking off the cuff from an outline of prepared Keynote slides. But that was an illusion. Jobs rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, and then rehearsed some more. Jobs might have been better than anyone else even if he had just winged it, but he still put in the work of rehearsing long hours to be as good as he could be.

9to5Mac: Turn your M4 Mac Mini into a Mini Mac Pro (Hands-on)

I’ve been seeing people give their Mac Minis a serious style upgrade by housing them in enclosures that make them look like mini Mac Pros–and I had to try it out for myself. Enter the Zeera MacForge Gen2, a CNC aluminum case that turns your Mac Mini M4 into a desktop workstation that looks like a shrunken version of Apple’s iconic Mac Pro. And let me tell you, I love the look.

Guardian: Editorial: With Hollywood ablaze, ditching carbon targets would be an act of recklessness

The devastating wave of wildfires that has reduced thousands of Hollywood homes to ashes could not have afflicted the US at a more telling moment. Figures released last week revealed that for the first time the world overshot the 1.5C limit in global temperature rises that had been set as a desired upper figure by the Paris climate accordof 2015.

It is clear that the floods that engulfed Valencia last year, along with the typhoons that ripped through the Philippines and the drought that afflicted the Amazon were all made more likely by this unwanted temperature rise, say scientists. From this perspective, Hollywood’s misery is just one of many examples of the destruction heaped upon the planet by our burning of fossil fuels and ever-rising emissions of greenhouse gases. Crucially, such disasters are only going to worsen until humanity abandons the widespread combustion of coal, gas and oil.

NYT: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Rocket Launch Could Give SpaceX Some Competition

If New Glenn lifts off on Monday as planned, the Amazon founder’s rocket company will be on track to give Elon Musk’s SpaceX some genuine competition.

Atlantic: Mark Zuckerberg Is at War With Himself

Mark Zuckerberg is sick of the woke politics governing his social feeds. He’s tired of the censorship and social-media referees meddling in free speech. We’re in a “new era” now, he said in a video today, announcing that he plans to replace Facebook and Instagram fact-checkers with a system of community notes similar to the one on X, the rival platform owned by Elon Musk. Meta will also now prioritize “civic content,” a.k.a. political content, not hide from it.

The social-media hall monitors have been so restrictive on “topics of immigration and gender that they’re out of touch with mainstream discourse,” Zuckerberg said with the zeal of an activist. He spoke about “a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech” following “nonstop” concerns about misinformation from the “legacy media” and four years of the United States government “pushing for censorship.” It is clear from Zuckerberg’s announcement that he views establishment powers as having tried and failed to solve political problems by suppressing his users. That message is sure to delight Donald Trump and the incoming administration. But there’s one tiny hitch. Zuckerberg is talking about himself and his own policies. The establishment? That’s him.

The changes to Meta’s properties, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, are being framed by the CEO as a return “to our roots around free expression.” This bit of framing is key, painting him as having been right all along.

Last Updated: 11.Jan.2025 23:21 EST

Friday’s articles

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TLA: I Live My Life a Quarter Century at a Time

In the middle of all that, when I was out in Cupertino, I was asked if I wanted to work on a secret project with the code name “Überbar”. I was shown some prototypes and basically told that six people had seen it, and if it leaked they would know it was me that had talked. I figured if anybody was finally going to kill off DragThing, it might as well be me.

via Daring Fireball

*USA Today *: Trump’s historic sentence: Was he treated too harshly? Or too easily?

Trump was convicted May 30 in Manhattan Criminal Court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge,"which means Trump will get no prison time or probation as he prepares to enter the White House for a second time on Jan. 20.

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Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a former public defender, said Trump got off way too [easily] for the serious crimes of which he was convicted, while a 17-year-old boy she represented “was held on felony probation for taking some candy from his school’s concession stand.”

Editor in Leaf: The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Fire Marc Savard

When you look at the Leafs power-play, it’s boring. They spend way too many seconds passing the puck backwards in their own zone after a face-off win and have standstill forwards at the blue-line during a break-in, which just doesn’t work. It’s so easy for the other team’s defense to stop the Leafs from their break-in, when half the team isn’t moving, so it’s not shocking that they don’t look good.

Verge: Drone takes out Super Scooper fighting Los Angeles wildfires

The water-dropping aircraft is now grounded for repairs as civilian drones hamper firefighting efforts.

Canadian CL-415 from Quebec is a heavy lifter (6000 liters per fill) so the loss will have a significant impact.

Last Updated: 10.Jan.2025 23:22 EST

Thursday’s articles

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CBS: Before the Palisades Fire, many of those homeowners had lost insurance

About 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were dropped by State Farm in July, California Department of Insurance spokesman Michael Soller said in an Thursday email to CBS MoneyWatch. An analysis of insurance data by CBS San Francisco last year found that State Farm also dropped more than 2,000 policies in two other Los Angeles Zip codes, which include the Brentwood, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Monte Nido neighborhoods.

In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, State Farm said, “Our No. 1 priority right now is the safety of our customers, agents and employees impacted by the fires and assisting our customers in the midst of this tragedy.”

“Hope you didn’t have the fire AND theft policy!” — (Allen Klein?)

Last Updated: 09.Jan.2025 17:05 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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MacRumors: Razer Shows Off Gaming Chair With Integrated Heating and Cooling

The chair offers three adjustable fan speeds for personalized cooling, and Razer says that the heat dissipation offered by the airflow can reduce perceived temperatures by up 2°C to 5°C in dry environments.

When it’s cooler, there’s a built-in heating system that uses energy-efficient PTC heatings delivering up to 30°C of warm air. According to Razer, the chair’s noise level is as “soft as a whisper,” with the various functions able to be controlled through a touch panel on the chair’s arm.

I guess I’ve kind of lost track of things…!

CNBC: Microsoft confirms performance-based job cuts across departments

Microsoft confirms performance-based job cuts across departments

• Microsoft is cutting a small percentage of jobs across departments, based on performance.
• “When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email, confirming the job cuts.

He’s essentially smearing everyone who gets laid off. Kind of nasty.

Guardian: Japanese yakuza leader pleads guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar

US authorities charged Takeshi Ebisawa with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials from Myanmar for expected use by Iran in nuclear weapons.

Last Updated: 08.Jan.2025 09:28 EST

Tuesday’s articles

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Daily Beast: Elon Musk Biographer Seth Abramson Details Why He Thinks Billionaire Is ‘Going Mad’

The Harvard Law-educated biographer Seth Abramson speculated Monday that Musk might be “going mad” in a setting for all to see-brought on by his growing stress, history of mental illness, and self-described heavy drug use.

“I legitimately believe Elon Musk may be going mad,” he posted to X. “I’m a Musk biographer who has been tracking his online behavior for the last two years-and given that he’s admitted to all of mental illness, heavy drug use, and crippling stress, it is now reasonable to fear he is deeply unwell.”

CBC: Capital gains tax changes are in limbo. But the CRA is collecting new charges anyway

Some Canadians may be forced to pay higher capital gains tax for a year or two, according to business group.

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Even so, following government practice around tax change proposals, the Canada Revenue Agency has already begun collecting capital gains taxes at the new and higher rate.

“We could be in this weird limbo period for a year or two, driving uncertainty, which is super unfair to my members,” said Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The new Minister of Finance should tell Revenue Canada to immediately cease and desist from this practice.

Globe: Capital gains tax uncertainty leaves taxpayers facing two unappealing options

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he will resign and prorogue Parliament heightens the uncertainty around the fate of the capital gains tax changes, with affected taxpayers potentially left to decide whether they’d rather risk overpaying the tax or facing interest and penalties later on, tax experts warn.

The Trudeau government said in its latest federal budget it would raise the portion of capital gains subject to income tax. Under the current rules, only 50 per cent of a profit on the sale of an asset such as stocks or real estate is taxable, meaning half of the gain is included in income tax calculations. The new proposal would push up that share to 66.67 per cent, though the higher inclusion rate would only apply to individuals for annual capital gains above $250,000.

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Conservative finance critic Jasraj Hallan Singh told The Globe and Mail in an e-mail statement that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would not pursue the capital gains tax changes if he becomes the country’s next prime minister.

Globe: Health Minister urged to ink deals with provinces, territories on coverage for diabetes drugs, contraceptives

Prorogation, unlike the dissolution of Parliament, means politicians, including ministers, retain access to their rights and privileges. For this reason, Mr. Holland is being urged to secure the bilateral deals, which are viewed as a first step in rolling out pharmacare. Negotiations could begin after a law was passed in October.

Proponents of universal drug coverage say there is no time to waste to reach the deals because the situation is dire for individuals who cannot afford medications they need. They say some become very ill and even die because they are not able to access treatment for conditions such as diabetes.

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When asked Tuesday if they would amend or repeal the pharmacare law should the Conservatives form government, the party’s health critic Stephen Ellis, a physician who represents the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland-Colchester, called the Liberal government’s plan “chaotic” and “expensive,” adding it could “jeopardize coverage” plans that are in place for 21 million Canadians.

“We will work with provinces to improve prescription drug access for Canadians,” he said in a statement.

Somewhat vague, hmm?

Globe: Meta to end fact-checking on Instagram, Facebook in bid to align with Trump’s policies

Meta Platforms Inc. is ending its fact-checking program and easing restrictions on content in a bid to reduce censorship as the company becomes more aligned with the incoming Trump administration.

The U.S. tech giant, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, announced Tuesday that its fact-checking program with independent third parties will be replaced with a community notes model similar to the model on X, where users can write and rate notes on posts with potentially misleading content. Meta said it decided to scrap the program because expert fact checkers had their own biases and too much content ended up being censored.

Little reason to remain with Facebook any longer as it turns into another sewer pipe like Twitter.

Simple Flying: China Certifies Its First All-Electric General Aviation Aircraft

China’s first Electric Aircraft has officially been certified by the State regulatory body. The RX4E is a light propeller aircraft that seats four people. It was developed by the Liaoning General Aviation Academy (LGAA) for use in areas with limited road infrastructure.

Last Updated: 07.Jan.2025 23:33 EST

Monday’s articles

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CBC: Trudeau to resign as prime minister after Liberal leadership race

PM asked Governor General to prorogue Parliament until March 24.

Finally. No matter what you think of him, his position had become untenable.

Ars Technica: Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads.

In the proposed class-action settlement — which comes after five years of litigation — Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to “unintentional” Siri activations that occurred after the “Hey, Siri” feature was introduced in 2014, where recordings were apparently prompted without users ever saying the trigger words, “Hey, Siri.”

They unintentionally shared it “with third parties and used [it] for targeted ads”?! Apple’s credibility is now in tatters.

Guardian: Arwa Mahdawi: I tried ‘intermittent sobriety’. Here’s what I learned jumping on and off the wagon

While this is by no means health advice, these are a few things I’ve found helpful in case you’re also feeling sober curious.

PBS: Jimmy Carter was an outlier with other former presidents but formed a friendship for the ages with Gerald Ford

As a member of that elite, informal club, Carter was uniquely positioned to do important work for his successors, whether Democrat or Republican. He achieved significant results at times, thanks to his public stature as a peacemaker, humanitarian and champion of democracy and his deep relationships with foreign leaders, troublemakers included.

UPI: Ancient Byzantine monastery uncovered at Israeli construction site

Colorful mosaic floor bears Greek translation of Deuteronomy 28:6.

BBC: McDonald’s faces new abuse claims despite promises of change

However, one current and two former workers from different parts of the country, claim that the restaurant audits that were promised, were stage-managed by the branches.

More than 700 current and former junior employees are now taking legal action against the firm, accusing it of failing to protect them.

Last Updated: 06.Jan.2025 18:10 EST

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Rolling Stone: Jimmy Carter: America’s Greatest Environmental President

On June 20, 1979, President Jimmy Carter invited reporters up to the White House roof for a ceremony to inaugurate the installation of 32 solar water-heating panels. America was in the midst of an energy freak-out, with long lines at gas stations and not-crazy fear that the U.S. economy was going to be starved by its dependence on foreign oil. And Carter was paying the price: his approval rating was 28 percent, the lowest of his presidency. On that summer day, Carter acknowledged that “some few Americans have reached a state of panic.” But instead of pandering to Americans and promising more oil and gas, he challenged them, insisting that “America was not built on timidity or panic.” Carter announced that he was committed to spending more than $1 billion “to stimulate solar and other renewable forms of energy,” in the expectation that within two decades 20 percent of the nation’s energy would be generated by solar power.

“In the year 2000,” Carter told the crowd on the rooftop that day, “this solar water heater behind me… will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy.” Then he added, prophetically, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Guardian: ‘Ironic’: climate-driven sea level rise will overwhelm major oil ports, study shows

Rising sea levels driven by the climate crisis will overwhelm many of the world’s biggest oil ports, analysis indicates.

Scientists said the threat was ironic as fossil fuel burning causes global heating. They said reducing emissions by moving to renewable energy would halt global heating and deliver more reliable energy.

Thirteen of the ports with the highest supertanker traffic will be seriously damaged by just 1 metre of sea level rise, the analysis found. The researchers said two low-lying ports in Saudi Arabia – Ras Tanura and Yanbu – were particularly vulnerable. Both are operated by Aramco, the Saudi state oil firm, and 98% of the country’s oil exports leave via these ports.

Guardian: Polyphenols: the natural chemicals that could give you a small waist, healthy heart and low blood pressure

They are found in high concentrations in fruits and vegetables with deep or vivid colours such as beetroot, blackberries, black olives, very red tomatoes and dark, leafy greens. As well as protecting the plant, phytonutrients – including polyphenols – also provide it with a strong pigment. The same is true for strong tastes: the more cough-inducing an extra virgin olive oil, the higher the likely concentration of polyphenols. Tea, coffee and dark chocolate are excellent sources.

NPR: Jurassic footprints are discovered on a ‘dinosaur highway’ in southern England

It began last June, when a worker at a limestone quarry in southeast England felt “unusual bumps” as he was digging up clay.

Now a team of over 100 researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford have determined that the mysterious bumps found at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire were in fact dinosaur tracks dating back to the Middle Jurassic period, around 166 million years ago.

Paleontologists say the some 200 footprints discovered along five different trails offer new insights into certain dinosaurs' size and speed.

Electrek: Farmrobo iMog brings autonomous tractor to hobby farms

Developed by Indian company Farmrobo Technologies, the iMog is a fully autonomous, multipurpose electric farm tractor designed to be a cost-effective solution to support small-scale farming operations and hobby farms.

In constant development since 2019, the Farmrobo iMog weights in at “just” 550 lbs., and is just two feet wide and four feet long. That’s small enough to allow it to easily fit between tightly-packed rows of crops without damaging them. The robot’s small size also makes it pretty efficient – its 8 HP electric motor can run for up to 5 hours on its relatively small 90 AH LFP battery (about 4 kWh, assuming a 48V system).

Last Updated: 04.Jan.2025 23:51 EST

Friday’s articles

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ScienceAlert: An Expert Explains Why Some People’s Hair And Nails Grow Faster

If all of our hair follicles grew at the same rate and entered the same phases simultaneously, there would be times when we would all be bald. That doesn’t usually happen: at any given time, only one in ten hairs is in the resting phase.

While we lose about 100–150 hairs daily, the average person has 100,000 hairs on their head, so we barely notice this natural shedding.

Daring Fireball: Simon Willisons’s Approach to Running a Link Blog

Speaking of Simon Willison, I greatly enjoyed this post from last week, with some of the self-imposed principles he follows writing his excellent eponymous blog. Amongst them:

• I always include the names of the people who created the content I am linking to, if I can figure that out. …
• If the original author reads my post, I want them to feel good about it. …
• A slightly self-involved concern I have is that I like to prove that I’ve read it. …

Wikipedia: Inulin

Because of the β(2,1) linkages, inulin is not digested by enzymes in the human alimentary system, contributing to its functional properties: reduced calorie value, dietary fiber, and prebiotic effects. Without color and odor, it has little impact on sensory characteristics of food products. Oligofructose has 35% of the sweetness of sucrose, and its sweetening profile is similar to sugar. Standard inulin is slightly sweet, while high-performance inulin is not. Its solubility is higher than the classical fibers. When thoroughly mixed with liquid, inulin forms a gel and a white creamy structure, which is similar to fat. Its three-dimensional gel network, consisting of insoluble submicron crystalline inulin particles, immobilizes a large amount of water, assuring its physical stability. It can also improve the stability of foams and emulsions.

I was interested in this ingredient in Farm Girl granola.

CBC: Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of eavesdropping

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million US to settle a lawsuit accusing the privacy-minded company of deploying its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.

The proposed settlement filed Tuesday in an Oakland, Calif., federal court would resolve a five-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.

The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn’t seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, “Hey, Siri.” Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.

This hits directly against Apple’s assertion of their total respect for user privacy. It destroys the main reason I have stuck with Apple through lagging technology, bugs, deteriorating UX, and other shortcomings over recent years.

Last Updated: 03.Jan.2025 21:41 EST

Thursday’s articles

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Globe: Shannon Proudfoot: Justin Trudeau’s detractors are growing more courageous

The holidays are often a time of reflection. And even as everyone is still shaking off their cheese-induced torpor, the internal calls for Justin Trudeau to resign as Liberal Leader are accumulating.

It emerged this week that a majority of the Liberal Quebec caucus wants Mr. Trudeau to step down, though no one involved seems willing to sign their name to their convictions. This follows a meeting of the Ontario caucus just before Christmas, at which more than 50 MPs agreed that the Prime Minister needed to resign, though they, too, wanted to remain anonymous.

Cheese?

Guardian: Early phase-out of full hybrid vehicles may be a political risk too far for UK ministers

The main timetable is set: no new petrol and diesel cars will be allowed to be sold in the UK after 2030, and sales of all new hybrids will be forbidden from 2035. But that phasing still leaves open the critical matter — for the automotive industry, and for a couple of manufacturers in particular — of which new hybrids will be allowed to be sold until the last day of 2034.

Just the variety that comes with a socket — plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)? Or should old-style hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, which have smaller batteries charged by a main internal combustion engine, also be permitted?

Cue an almighty lobbying effort now that the government is finally promising an answer to a question that should have been settled years ago given the long lead times in vehicle manufacturing. A formal consultation was launched on Christmas Eve — and a decision is promised within weeks.

UPI: Ford recalls some F-150 electric trucks as NHTSA cites possible ‘loss of directional control’

The front upper control arm ball joint nut may not have been tightened properly on the Lightning BEV, which could allow it to detach from the knuckle assembly, “which can cause the driver to experience a partial loss of directional control, increasing a risk of a crash,” the administration said in its recall notice.

The NHTSA has provided an online search tool for customers to determine if their vehicle is part of the Lightning recall.

So far, the issue has caused only a single known accident, and Ford said it will begin notifying customers in early February.

Reuters: Constellation inks $1 billion deal to supply US government with nuclear power

• Power purchase deal is largest in U.S. GSA history
• Deal allows Constellation to extend life of nuclear plants, grow capacity
• Agreement is part of broader turnaround of US nuclear industry

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The deal includes $840 million for power supplied by Constellation and $172 million for the company to complete energy efficiency work, including weatherizing federal buildings and expanding the use of LED lighting.

Four buildings in the nation’s capital will be converted to electric boilers and heat pumps from current steam power systems.

CleanTechnica: BYD Bus & Commercial Vehicle Sales Explode — Charts

To start with, we’ve got the matter of electric buses. In December, BYD sold 70.8% more electric buses than it sold in December 2023. But bus deliveries are very up and down. How did 2024 as a whole compare to 2023? Year over year, electric bus sales were up by 18.6%. There were 570 more electric bus sales in December and 875 more across the year as a whole. Clearly, looking at those numbers and/or the chart above, December was the big booster to this segment of BYD’s business. Overall, BYD had solid growth of electric bus sales, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

As far as non-bus commercial electric vehicles, BYD had huge growth in 2024. It had 3,934 more sales in December and 9,389 more sales across 2024, which meant 6556.7% growth in December and 138% growth across the full year!

So, as well as BYD did growing its passenger electric car sales, it’s probably not going to get enough attention for how much it grew its sales of large commercial electric vehicles.

NPR: Still on the hunt, FBI shares new details about pipe bombs placed ahead of Jan. 6

FBI officials are still trying to identify the individual who placed the devices – which did not detonate – near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021. Authorities say they have conducted 1,000 interviews, reviewed 39,000 video files and sifted through some 600 tips. But the alleged bomber remains elusive, despite a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture and the conviction of a suspect.

Last Updated: 02.Jan.2025 23:42 EST

Wednesday’s articles

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Happy New Year!

CleanTechnica: Faraday Future Is Still Alive, & Showing Off More Affordable Electric Car At CES 2025

No one would criticize you if you thought Faraday Future was long dead. After a ton of hype before CES 2016, most of us were quite shocked and disappointed by what was revealed. And it turned out that, after various hype cycles, the company’s finances were revealed to be none too great, an SEC investigation ensued, and the company’s plans crashed to the ground. It’s a long story.

But, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Faraday Future bounced back. Lately, it’s been delivering FF 91 2.0 Futurist Alliance EVs one by one to famous people, like fashion designer and YouTube influencer Suede Brooks and entrepreneur Luke Hans. The company has also been rolling out significant software updates for the FF 91 2.0 Futurist Alliance. It has also started in-sourcing its seat production. Also, a week ago, the company secured $30 million, which is helping with the development of Faraday X (FX).

Electric Viking (YouTube): Canadians are buying Electric Cars at Record Pace

23,700 EVs (probably included plug-in hybrids) in November.

Atlantic: James Fallows: Jimmy Carter Was a Lucky Man

In the years I worked for him, Jimmy Carter was always the same: disciplined, funny, enormously intelligent, and deeply spiritual.

via Daring Fireball

NYT: 1 Dead After a Cybertruck Explodes Outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas

Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said in a statement on X that “the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck” and said the vehicle was functioning properly.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The person killed was inside the vehicle, he said, adding that at least seven others were reported to have sustained minor injuries.

NYT: Evidence Against Drinking Has Grown. Will Federal Advice Change?

Officials in other countries are warning about the health hazards of alcohol in any amount. Americans are still told that moderate drinking is safe. What gives?

ScienceAlert: Volcanic Activity Beneath Yellowstone’s Massive Caldera Could Be on The Move

New research shows that the reservoirs of magma that fuel the supervolcano’s wild outbursts seem to be shifting to the northeast of the Yellowstone Caldera. This region could be the new locus of future volcanic activity, according to a team led by seismologist Ninfa Bennington of the US Geological Survey.

CleanTechnica: Taking A Second Look At The Honda/Nissan Merger

Usually, when two companies merge, there are multiple press releases replete with the words “synergy” and “economies of scale” thrown about like confetti at a wedding. When Toshihiro Mibe, the CEO of Honda, was asked recently what the strategic benefits of the new partnership were, Mibe-san replied, “That’s a difficult one.” He is not alone in finding it hard to explain. According to Autoblog, the merger has been met with skepticism from analysts and confusion among industry insiders. While it could create a global automotive giant producing 7.4 million vehicles annually, critics are questioning whether this union is a savvy strategic move or a desperate gamble.

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What METI [Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry] wants, METI gets. Most suspect the fascination in the Japanese car industry for hydrogen fuel cell powered cars like the Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity was prompted by the government for political reasons, not any burning desire to bring hydrogen powered transportation to the world.

Last Updated: 01.Jan.2025 23:03 EST

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Pixel Envy: Meta Envisages Social Media Filled With A.I.-Generated Users

Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy, Financial Times:

Meta is betting that characters generated by artificial intelligence will fill its social media platforms in the next few years as it looks to the fast-developing technology to drive engagement with its 3bn users.

[…]

“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,” he [Meta’s Connor Hayes] added.

Imagine opening any of Meta’s products after this has taken over. Imagine how little you will see from the friends and family members you actually care about. Imagine how much slop you will be greeted with — a feed alternating between slop, suggested posts, and ads, with just enough of what you actually opened the app to see. Now consider how this will affect people who are more committed to Meta’s products, whether for economic reasons or social cohesion.

via Manton

CNN: Stocks just did something they haven’t done in nearly three decades

The S&P 500 gained more than 23% this year after rising 24% in 2023. The back-to-back gains of over 20% is the best performance for the benchmark index since 1997 and 1998, according to data from FactSet.

MacRumors: Apple Vision Pro May Now Be Out of Production

Apple’s first-generation Vision Pro headset may have now ceased production, following reports of reduced demand and production cuts earlier in the year.

In October, The Information’s Wayne Ma reported that Apple had abruptly reduced production of the Vision Pro headset ahead of potential plans to stop making the current version of the device completely by the end of 2024. With the year now coming to an end, this means that the device may no longer be in active production.

Citing multiple people “directly involved” in making components for the headset, the report said that the scaling back of production began in the early summer. This indicated that Apple now has a sufficient number of Vision Pro units in its inventory to meet demand for the device’s remaining lifespan through to 2025. Historically, it is not unusual for Apple to do this with low-demand products, such as the iPhone 12 mini.

ScienceAlert: Scientists Discovered An Amazing Practical Use For Your Leftover Coffee Grounds

We could be producing concrete that’s 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia discovered.

Their clever recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time.

Happy New Year!

Last Updated: 31.Dec.2024 23:59 EST

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