Week 29

US industry needs to be encouraged to move away from MS OS to Linux based OS as soon as possible. You are better off running LOS while running existing Windows programs through an emulation layer. If there are programs that have problems on emulation, MS can be forced to open-source their code. This migration needs to be actively encouraged by the government, especially for its own computing needs.

"@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer

'Linux would have prevented this!' literally true because my former colleague KP Singh wrote a kernel security module that lets EDR implementations load ebpf into the kernel to monitor and act on security hooks and Crowdstrike now uses that rather than requiring its own kernel module that would otherwise absolutely have allowed this to happen, so everyone please say thank you to him"

Soya beans? This trade relationship looks like a rel between an advanced nation and a third-world country.

top_product('USA','China')

$ 17,924,895,224.0
Soya beans: other than seed, whether or not broken

What is the top export from China to US?

top_product('China','USA')

$ 48,530,501,546.0
Automatic data processing machines: portable, weighing not more than
10kg, consisting of at least a central processing unit, a keyboard and
a display

Basically a computer "not more than 10kg", that covers a lot of ground. 48 billions worth!

Little more code..

import pandas as pd, json, textwrap

cc = pd.read_csv(u.baci_dir + '/country_codes_V202401b.csv',index_col='country_name')
pc = pd.read_csv(u.baci_dir + '/product_codes_HS22_V202401b.csv',index_col='code')
p = json.loads(open(u.baci_dir + "/out-p.json").read())
v = json.loads(open(u.baci_dir + "/out-v.json").read())

def top_product(frc, toc):
    key = "%d-%d" % (cc.loc[frc].country_code, cc.loc[toc].country_code)
    print('$', f"{v[key]*1000:,}")
    s = pc.loc[int(p[key])].description
    for x in textwrap.wrap(s, width=70):
        print (x)

u.baci_top_products()

elapsed time 0:01:43.950638

I had shared a trade network report using this dataset. How about top products between any two country pairs?

"BACI provides data on bilateral trade flows for 200 countries at the product level (5000 products). Products correspond to the "Harmonized System" nomenclature (6 digit code)"

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"@simon@fosstodon.org

Nobody got fired for buying #Microsoft and #Crowdstrike ...

that's because the HR systems are down"

"@danderson@hachyderm.io

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Windows is in fact Crowdstrike/Windows, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, Crowdstrike plus Windows. Windows is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully non-functioning Crowdstrike system, made useless by the .SYS files, automated updates and blue screens comprising a full outage as defined by the news"

"@anguinea@mstdn.social

Here’s a crazy thought:

Since there actually is no plan B, let’s stick with plan A.

#PollsAreBS"

Arab News: "Germany will halve military aid for Ukraine next year"

EurekAlert: "A research team.. at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).. has developed an oxidatively stable molybdenum-based MXene as electrocatalyst support in anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers. As it is stable against oxidative high voltage conditions, if it is applied as a carrier for electrolysis catalysts, it can be used as an oxygen evolution reaction electrode material for green hydrogen production to reduce the cost of green hydrogen production"

"@jaztrophysicist@sciences.re

A single software update bug caused by a capitalistic monopoly can singlehandedly paralyse the whole international economy and provoke financial panic, but sure the main risk for economic stability is moderate left-leaning parties who want to impose a 20% tax on the rich to fund social, health, ecological care and education"

"@danderson@hachyderm.io

Happy Friday, hugops to Crowdstrike, Azure, Microsoft, and uh every fortune 1000 it would seem.

Big skynet vibes tbh, I'm kinda surprised that more stuff isn't on fire. Not yet, at least"

via @fuck_cars_bot@botsin.space

"@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social

My laptop is currently idle. MDE process (MsSense.exe) is using 2316mb of RAM"

H2 Central: "New hydrogen storage facility in Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Storengy Deutschland announced Tuesday (June 11, 2024) plans to build new underground caverns to store up to 15,000 tonnes of hydrogen in Hersfeld"

I would not be surprised.. there is a lot money involved in that racket, people have killed others for less.

WION: "Ukraine could try to kill Trump.. [wrote] an exiled Ukrainian politician who currently lives in Russia.. [Medvedchuk] was handed over to Russia as part of a prisoner swap. He was the leader of Platform For Life party, which is now banned in Ukraine"

CNBC: "A growing number of parents are refusing to give their children smartphones — and the movement is going global"

CNBC: "Labour's gains in London have private equity looking to exit — the country.. With the British parliament back from recess, the UK’s Labour Party will start working to push through aggressive changes, including controversial proposals that would force the rich to pay more in taxes"

"@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social

There’s finally some reviews of a Copilot+ laptop on Amazon"

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Noah Smith, Bloomberg: "[2017/12] It's pretty well known that U.S. workers have lost a lot of bargaining power over the past few decades. Wage gains, for example, haven’t kept pace with rising productivity:

Clearly, workers have been unable to take home a fair share of the new value they were creating. Why? One big potential culprit is the decline of labor unions"

Politico: "Scared to Death’: GOP Security Hawks Slam Vance Selection.. By choosing the Ukraine-skeptic Ohio senator, Trump accelerates his party’s rejection of its Reaganite roots.

#Frontline #RU #UA 07/10 - 07/18

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NYT: "Israel in Talks Over Withdrawing From Egypt-Gaza Border, Officials Say"

Al Monitor: "Flies and mosquitoes feast on Gaza's waste crisis"

"@OhOkKay@beige.party

Finding out that most tea bags are about 20% plastic, last night I cut open my tea bags and brewing it loose. Wow! What a difference in flavour. So much better. Will being doing this more often!"

"Why Americans Are Nuts About Peanut Butter... First of all, the United States grows a ton of peanuts. .. Growing peanuts became a big thing in the early 1900s when the cotton crop was suffering in the South, and we still grow a lot of peanuts today. Peanut butter’s birth year explains our obsession even more. In World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, America was in search of inexpensive, filling, and nutritious ways to feed its people. So people turned to peanut butter, and it stuck. Peanut butter sandwiches were given out in food lines during the Great Depression and were part of Army rations in both World Wars"

"Americans consume [on average] about twenty-two tablespoons [of peanut butter] per person per year... Europeans on average consume less than one tablespoon.. per person annually"

Do they have to eat peanut based products? America is so coo coo about peanuts some ppl not being able to eat it sounds scandalous.

NBC News: "Early treatment could help ease peanut allergies in young kids"

Link

Because both he and Kurt Russell played in two different movies about Wyatt Earp and his movie sucked, Russell's movie Tombstone did great. Costner might be jealous, he keeps making Westerns until he makes a movie at the same level of Tombstone.

"Why does Kevin Costner keep making westerns?"

Battles around Bakhmut were an example of AW. The fact that the frontlines "did not move" for a long time was on purpose, not due to RU shortcomings. At one point the Wagner chief -while still alive-, was commenting "well we could dash ahead and take Kramatorsk". But rushing ahead taking shit is not the point.. Clearly the guy did not get the memo. RU battle plan was about degrading UA's ability to make war. Wag chief as a bidnessman was probably looking at the theather like a market to incrase his share in, "I can open a corner sandwich shop over there, I can expand..". But the RU top brass had a different plan. He was asked to execute on a portion of that plan. He failed (then he was died).

Vershinin: "[2024/03] The Attritional Art of War: If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre. Attritional wars require their own ‘Art of War’ and are fought with a ‘force-centric’ approach, unlike wars of manoeuvre which are ‘terrain-focused’. They are rooted in massive industrial capacity to enable the replacement of losses, geographical depth to absorb a series of defeats, and technological conditions that prevent rapid ground movement. In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational manoeuvres. The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win...

Only after meeting these criteria should offensive operations commence. They should be launched across a broad front, seeking to overwhelm the enemy at multiple points with shallow attacks. The intent is to remain inside a layered bubble of friendly protective systems, while stretching depleted enemy reserves until the front collapses. Only then should the offensive extend towards objectives deeper in the enemy rear. Concentration of forces on one main effort should be avoided as this gives an indication of the offensive’s location and an opportunity for the enemy to concentrate their reserves against this key point. The Brusilov Offensive of 1916, which resulted in the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army, is a good example of a successful attritional offensive at the tactical and operational level" via Col. Daniel Davis, Jacques Baud

Politico: "King Charles III unveiled the new U.K. Labour government’s packed policy agenda Wednesday. It’s not going to make everyone happy... Starmer’s agenda features big ticket items including a shakeup of planning laws to trigger.. infrastructure investment, the establishment of a publicly-owned energy company and a plan to bring failing privatized railway networks back into public ownership"

"@ashleygjovik@mastodon.social

Let’s warm up with some of Apple’s very basic failures. Apple's facility [in Santa Clara which they fired Gjovik complaining to gov about] has extremely toxic gases that'd create a Bhopal-like disaster. Apple says its env friendly & thoughtful, so Apple must have constant monitoring? Except if the power goes out. Then all the alarms shut off"

[-]

Knox Goes Away good movie.

Gary Clark Jr. - Don't Owe You a Thang #music

[-]

"[The company] Savor makes delightfully rich foods without animals, farmland, fertilizers, hormones, or antibiotics... Fat has a recipe. We start with a source of carbon, like carbon dioxide [from air], and use a little bit of heat and hydrogen to form chains which are then blended with oxygen from air to make the fats & oils we know, love and drool over. That’s how we get rich, delightful ingredients without animal suffering, palm plantations, or dangerous chemicals. All in the most efficient, most resilient, least polluting way known to science"

Power is transmitted over dinky electrical lines.. Energy could be transmitted via sturdy, strong (clean gas, H2) pipelines that can provide energy ten times faster at eighth the cost. We need to defund the grid.

AP: "The storm slammed into Texas on Monday, knocking out power to nearly 2.7 million homes and businesses and leaving huge swaths of the region in the dark and without air conditioning in the searing summer heat"

USSR was aiding the rebels while the west was supporting apartheid.. they later changed their minds but for a while the west was on the wrong side.

The Conversation: "The [South African] ANC and the former Soviet Union have a long history together. The first visit by an ANC leader to the Soviet Union was by Josiah Tshangana Gumede, one of the founding members of the ANC, in 1927...

After the apartheid regime was banned the ANC in 1960 it received aid from the Soviet Union for its exiled mission in the fight to liberate South Africa from minority white rule. This aid exceeded that from the pan-African Organisation of African Unity- now the African Union - or anyone else.

It was only from the end of the 1970s that [other] donations became higher than Soviet funding.. [but o]nly the Soviet Union provided weapons and other military aid to the ANC’s armed wing"

CleanTechnica: "Hydrogen Fuel Cell eVOTL And Jets Are Coming For Your Fossil Fuels"

Hydrogen-Powered Air Taxi.. In a significant milestone for sustainable aviation, a hydrogen-powered air cab has completed an 842-kilometer flight.. Joby is one of several companies at the forefront of creating air cab services using vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles. Initially, the company focused on developing all-electric aircraft with a range of approximately 160 kilometers, intended for urban and intercity transport. Joby recently adapted a prototype of its electric aircraft to operate on hydrogen. Equipped with a liquid hydrogen tank and a fuel system, the modified VTOL successfully completed a flight of 842 kilometers over Marina, California, using only 90% of its hydrogen fuel load.

Techcrunch: "Tesla reportedly delays ‘robotaxi’ event to October.. Tesla is apparently not ready to reveal its “robotaxi” design next month, and is instead pushing the event to October, according to Bloomberg News.. The company reportedly needs more time to build the prototypes. It had been aiming for an August 8 event. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tesla shares fell more than 6% following the report"

"@RadicalGraffiti@todon.eu

Poster seen in Pullman, Washington"

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#NATO #Lottaz #Freeman

[-]

CNBC: "Treasury, IRS announce 'major milestone' of $1 billion in past-due taxes collected from millionaires"

Anatolian Agency: "Putin says BRICS may establish its own parliament in future"

The National: "Jeremy Corbyn 'in talks' with SNP over 'left-wing alliance'"

"@ben@werd.social

The news cycle has moved on, but just as a reminder, they’re still bombing the shit out of Gaza and killing civilians in enormous numbers"

Al-Monitor: "Hamas says pulling out of Gaza truce talks, as Israel keeps up strikes"

Nutella said, back in 2015, "Microsoft's new computerized goggles, HoloLens are the new desktop". You can find this reference on Business Insider.

It's not just him, Bill Gates wrote a book with the title THE ROAD AHEAD (1995) and it completely missed the Internet boom that would follow in a few years. Let alone the road ahead, the book could not see in front of its nose.

Gates did a little better after his CEO stint, maybe there's something blinding about being a tech CEO. You are too mired in the market, your market share, sales, every thought has to be shaped in service to that, and they miss the general trend. They are easily gripped by FOMO, blinded by hype.

Tadella Nutella said in 2021 "cannot overstate what a breakthrough metaverse is" (via Zitron w/ Connover).

That's not exactly a yardstick to judge any tech by, neither this CEO or previous ones were really good about predicting tech future.

"If [so-called] AI was not a big deal why is Microsoft CEO so excited about it?"

AP News: "Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case"

TASS: "Biden apologizes for his call to put Trump 'in the bullseye'"

Good pick.. JD is good on Ukraine, economy, immigration, he is young can carry Trump legacy forward.

AP News: "JD Vance is Trump's vice president pick"

Truthout: "[Passenger] describes how Delta Airlines threatened to kick him off a plane over his 'Jews Say Ceasefire Now' T-shirt...

'My T-shirt displayed the text "Not in Our Name" on the front side and "Jews Say Ceasefire Now" on the back... Before the flight had even taken off, I was approached while I was seated on the plane by a flight attendant who requested that I either change or cover up my shirt because some passengers found the message offensive.. I requested that the people who had complained about the nature of my shirt come talk to me directly..

About 5 to 10 minutes later, a purser (also known as a chief flight attendant or cabin manager) came to my seat and explained that I had to cover up the shirt, because Delta had a policy against showcasing political messages of any kind. I once again refused to cover up the shirt. The purser then threatened to kick me off the flight unless I obliged her wishes. Because I wanted to get to my destination, I covered up the "Jews Say Ceasefire Now" shirt for the time being with a nondescript white shirt. The flight took off'"

The Conversation: "Israel has reportedly approved its largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, according to a report released on July 3 by Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, Peace Now. The seizure involves more than 12 sq km of land in a key corridor bordering Jordan.

Land that is privately owned by Palestinians in the West Bank can be declared as 'state land' by Israel and subsequently seized. One of the primary outcomes is the establishment or expansion of Israeli settlements on the land, which are widely considered illegal under international law"

"@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@kolektiva.social

Whoooooaaaa. Israel is attacking like crazy right now while everyone’s distracted"

F24: "Israeli strike on Gaza 'safe zone' kills more than 70, officials say"

The American Conservative: "'In Trump’s first term [his] realist impulses were muted and sometimes stopped by hawkish national security staffers who did not share his vision. But having learned that personnel is policy, Trump will not make this mistake again'

So write Andrew Byers and Randall Schweller in Foreign Affairs. Schweller, an academic at Ohio State, is a card-carrying foreign policy realist, and is willing to put his name to a claim that we have argued in these pages all along: Donald Trump, despite his mercurial nature and despite the opposition from entrenched interests in Washington, DC, is fundamentally displaying a realist instinct in his foreign policy... [he writes] 'an "America first" agenda is an intellectually defensible, fundamentally realist program that seeks to ascertain and act on the United States’ national interests rather than the interests of others'"

An anti M&A mindset! We can't have that!

FT: "Vance.. has been among the loudest Republican voices opposing more US aid to Ukraine... But it is Vance’s [economy views] that has divided the business community...

'He represents something in the country that the coastal elites and big business have taken too long to recognise,' [a bank] lobbyist added, in an apparent reference to Vance’s ability to channel the anger and disenfranchisement of the working classes...

Vance has espoused a protectionist trade policy, stricter immigration laws, higher minimum wages and a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement. He made headlines earlier this year when he described Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan as one of the Biden administration officials 'doing a pretty good job'...

Those kind of comments have concerned investors in particular. One top New York dealmaker said picking Vance as vice-president 'would not be reassuring to the business community, and could signal an anti-M&A mindset for the second Trump administration'"

Spicy

"Ohio Sen. JD Vance, a top VP contender, blames Trump rally shooting on Biden 'rhetoric'"

Shooter is registered Rep?. Sounds like an extreme non-MAGA type. After recent Biden mishaps he could have lost hope and took matters in his own hands.. to the extent a dill weed 20 yo could of course.

NBC News: "Frenzied Democratic effort to replace Biden comes to a standstill after Trump rally shooting"

I'm glad. The event will help Biden a little taking focus off him. But it will help DJT more, now there is an iconic image associated with the event, he looked like a warrior, bloodied, while fighting against forces arrayed against him.

Reuters: "Trump survives assassination attempt at campaign rally"