Over a fifth of Europe’s energy was generated by solar panels and wind turbines in the first half of 2020. Solar and wind energy generation was higher in some European countries. Denmark came out on top, generating 64 per cent of its energy from these renewable sources, closely followed by Ireland (49 per cent) and Germany (42 per cent), according to the report from independent climate think-tank Ember. In a half-year review released in July by the think tank, all renewables - including wind, solar, hydroelectricity and bioenergy - were found to have exceeded fossil fuel generation for the first time ever. They produced 40 per cent of the EU’s power from January to June with fossil fuels contributing 34 per cent.
“The Ministry for the Future is a cli-fi novel by American science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson published in 2020. Set in the near future, the novel follows a subsidiary body, established under the Paris Agreement, whose mission is to advocate for the world’s future generations of citizens as if their rights are as valid as the present generation’s. While they pursue various ambitious projects, the effects of climate change are determined to be the most consequential”
most technical discussions are terrible. Not in a sense that people can’t make good points and progress through it, but rather that there is no structure to a discussion, and it’s too hard to follow. What I see in reality is a lot of focus from a very few dedicated people, and delegation by the other ones to those focused. Many views get misrepresented, and many perspectives never heard, because the flow of comments quickly filters out most potential participants.
As Alexa, Google Home, Siri, and other voice assistants have become fixtures in millions of homes, privacy advocates have grown concerned that their near-constant listening to nearby conversations could pose more risk than benefit to users. New research suggests the privacy threat may be greater than previously thought. The findings demonstrate how common it is for dialog in TV shows and other sources to produce false triggers that cause the devices to turn on, sometimes sending nearby sounds to Amazon, Apple, Google, or other manufacturers. In all, researchers uncovered more than 1,000 word sequences—including those from Game of Thrones, Modern Family, House of Cards, and news broadcasts—that incorrectly trigger the devices. “The devices are intentionally programmed in a somewhat forgiving manner, because they are supposed to be able to understand their humans,” one of the researchers, Dorothea Kolossa, said. “Therefore, they are more likely to start up once too often rather than not at all.” That which must not be said Examples of words or word sequences that provide false triggers include Alexa: “unacceptable,” “election,” and “a letter” Google Home: “OK, cool,” and “Okay, who is reading” Siri: “a city” and “hey jerry” Microsoft Cortana: “Montana”
Our setup was able to identify more than 1,000 sequences that incorrectly trigger smart speakers. For example, we found that depending on the pronunciation, «Alexa» reacts to the words “unacceptable” and “election,” while «Google» often triggers to “OK, cool.” «Siri» can be fooled by “a city,” «Cortana» by “Montana,” «Computer» by “Peter,” «Amazon» by “and the zone,” and «Echo» by “tobacco.” In our paper, we analyze a diverse set of audio sources, explore gender and language biases, and measure the reproducibility of the identified triggers.
Faced with starvation and separation from families, lakhs of workers started walking or cycling hundreds of kilometres back home. Hundreds perished on the way – of exhaustion, run over by vehicles or after they were assaulted by the police. Many who made it home states faced police action and were stigmatised by local authorities and communities. The restrictions on movement were justified on the grounds that this was necessary to limit the spread of the epidemic. We examine this assumption and, using a case study of Rajasthan and a Primary Health Centre area within it, argue that the reverse holds true: holding migrants back in cities was actually responsible for the spread of the coronavirus in rural areas.
Because the corona crisis has allowed us to experience a very different time, it will be interesting to see whether parts of this new normality, such as home offices and reduced mobility, will remain. But even if it is just an involuntary pause from capitalist times, we should reconsider neoliberalism’s temporal regimes of growth, decline and acceleration that have shaped life on Earth. Our experiences of corona time has given us a training in temporal thought and flexibility. Humanity will weather this crisis, but there are others ahead. Perhaps then, it will be comforting to know that we can, and must, trick time and plan for the future – even when we feel stuck in the present.
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
Belgium on Sunday broke its own standing record for the longest political crisis and longest period without an elected government. It has been 592 days since the previous government, led by former Prime Minister Charles Michel, collapsed over inter-party tensions on migration in December 2018. Strained negotiations after last year’s elections in May have routinely collapsed as party leaders and several top government officials resign from their mission to steer the coalition negotiations. The previous record for Belgium’s longest post-election period without a government stands at 541 days and ended with the swearing-in of Former Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo after a similarly convoluted negotiation period followed the June 2010 elections.
“Though Russia is only one foreign actor capable of targeting US political audiences through the QAnon community, its history of operations appear to be the most ideologically aligned with the overarching QAnon theory,” the report said. “Russia also appears to have made the most effort to gain credibility within the community thus far.” QAnon was named by the FBI as a potential instigator of domestic terrorism, and followers have been charged with making a terror threat, murder and other crimes.
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has published RFC8890, The Internet is for End Users, arguing that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) should ground its decisions in what’s good for people who use the Internet, and that it should take positive steps to achieve that. Why does this need to be said? Is it going too far? Who else could they favour, and why should you care? As author of the RFC and a member of the IAB that passed it, here are my thoughts.
Up to 30% of Belgians are anywhere from sceptical to strongly opposed to receiving a potential coronavirus vaccine, a new international survey showed. Among the 27 countries, only Turkey and Peru had equal rates of negative attitudes to a potential vaccine, contrasting sharply with Brazilians and Australians (12%), as well as with respondents in China, where opposition to a vaccine plunged to a mere 3%. The survey also showed that 22% of Belgians polled said they would not get a vaccine because “they are against vaccines in general,” landing Belgium among the six countries with the highest number of respondents to hold this view. Overall, Russia and Italy had the highest degree of anti-vaccine responses (30%), followed by France (24%), South Africa (23%) and the United States (20%).
Eight people in Gresik regency, East Java, were ordered by local authorities to dig graves for those who have died of COVID-19 as punishment for not wearing face masks in public. Cerme district head, Suyono, said that he punished residents who did not wear face masks by making them dig graves at a public cemetery in Ngabetan village.
The office as the default way of working is dead. But the office itself isn’t dead. With working from home, what we gain in work-life balance we might lose in innovation and creativity. There are people who could directly challenge that sentence but I suspect they will come from highly mature companies who have fully mastered the remote working learning curve. Many of us are still at the stage of doing what we did in the office , just remotely. The timorous amongst us may use the lack of productivity net gains as a reason to regress rather than push through the ‘pain barrier’ as Matt Mullenweg describes it. We can do so much better, for ourselves, our customers and society if we stop being so frightened or so certain of the future.
An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes – floating free of the scorching surface, but still needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine molecules, which consist of hydrogen and phosphorus, could point to this extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The new discovery is described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.
I enjoy forecasting, pretty much in the same way other people enjoy video games, or stamp collecting. It’s also an activity broadly in line with my values. I think the world would be a much better place if people approached predicting the future with the same level of rigor they have when explaining the past. Yet incalculably more books have been written about the past than about the future, and the fact that studying the past is more tractable than studying the future only partly explains this asymmetry. I think most people approach forecasting in what some authors call “far mode”: as an exercise whose primary purpose is not to describe reality accurately, but to signal our aspirations, or something along those lines. However, as Robin Hanson likes to say, the future is just another point in time.
“Motherlands are castles made of glass. In order to leave them, you have to break something—a wall, a social convention, a cultural norm, a psychological barrier, a heart. What you have broken will haunt you. To be an emigré, therefore means to forever bear shards of glass in your pockets. It is easy to forget they are there, light and minuscule as they are, and go on with your life, your little ambitions and important plans, but at the slightest contact the shards will remind you of their presence. They will cut you deep.”
This video, that starts with a view of the top of Tower 4, was taken from the vantage point of an Arecibo Observatory drone, utilized for monitoring the condition of Tower 4 support cables. Four cables are seen in the center of this video. The top cable does not support the telescope platform, but instead supports the catwalk described in the narrative for the previous video. The three lower cables are, from left to right, M4-1, M4-2, and M4-3. Note that a number of individual wire strands of the M4-1 and M4-2 cables are noticeably broken at the beginning of this video. The M4-3 cable does not appear to have any broken wires at the beginning of this video. The first indication of the coming failure is the breaking of another M4-2 wire, accompanied by a puff of “smoke” and chips of paint flying away from the surface of the cable. Four seconds later the entire M4-2 cable appears to disintegrate. The failure of M4-2 is followed a fraction of a second later by the demise of M4-1, followed a fraction of a second later by the failure of M4-3. The drone operator then swings the drone around to view the reflector dish and fallen platform, azimuth arm, Gregorian dome and the falling cables and catwalk. The top section of Tower 12, near the Visitor Center, can be seen tumbling down the hill to the left of the operations building. The Tower 12 backstay cables that connect the top of Tower 12 to the ground cause damage behind Tower 12, well away from the edge of the telescope dish.
Courtesy of the Arecibo Observatory, a U.S. National Science Foundation facility.
Cestum jellies are shaped like gliders, with a central cockpit-like mouth flanked by two huge wings. On each wing, countless cell hairs flap back and forth to propel the jelly forward, creating a shimmery prism of rainbow color. When the jellies are feeding, rather than migrating to or from the ocean’s depths, these moving wings create a wake that buffets and frightens would-be prey, such as small shrimp-like copepods
Autechre have created a unique and particular sonic universe, so it’s hard to say what’s best or most representative of their music, and you’ll probably get as many different answers as people you ask. so perhaps a suggested heuristic path…
(note this just covers their albums, so doesn’t include the various EPs. you can think of the EPs from each period as similar, yet distinct. if you find any particular album interesting chances are you’ll like the other material from around the same period)
(i left out the bit where you open a small door and find a Gescom)
What would the Arctic be like if the Earth’s spin was perpendicular to its orbit? Instead of a half-year day and a half-year night it would just be perpetual dusk and dawn. Even the creep of a day stretched out over a year indicates time, imagine if it was perpetually out of time, between day and night?
I enjoy forecasting, pretty much in the same way other people enjoy video games, or stamp collecting. It’s also an activity broadly in line with my values. I think the world would be a much better place if people approached predicting the future with the same level of rigor they have when explaining the past. Yet incalculably more books have been written about the past than about the future, and the fact that studying the past is more tractable than studying the future only partly explains this asymmetry. I think most people approach forecasting in what some authors call “far mode”: as an exercise whose primary purpose is not to describe reality accurately, but to signal our aspirations, or something along those lines. However, as Robin Hanson likes to say, the future is just another point in time.
An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule – phosphine – in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes – floating free of the scorching surface, but still needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine molecules, which consist of hydrogen and phosphorus, could point to this extra-terrestrial ‘aerial’ life. The new discovery is described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.
The office as the default way of working is dead. But the office itself isn’t dead. With working from home, what we gain in work-life balance we might lose in innovation and creativity. There are people who could directly challenge that sentence but I suspect they will come from highly mature companies who have fully mastered the remote working learning curve. Many of us are still at the stage of doing what we did in the office , just remotely. The timorous amongst us may use the lack of productivity net gains as a reason to regress rather than push through the ‘pain barrier’ as Matt Mullenweg describes it. We can do so much better, for ourselves, our customers and society if we stop being so frightened or so certain of the future.
Eight people in Gresik regency, East Java, were ordered by local authorities to dig graves for those who have died of COVID-19 as punishment for not wearing face masks in public. Cerme district head, Suyono, said that he punished residents who did not wear face masks by making them dig graves at a public cemetery in Ngabetan village.
“Though Russia is only one foreign actor capable of targeting US political audiences through the QAnon community, its history of operations appear to be the most ideologically aligned with the overarching QAnon theory,” the report said. “Russia also appears to have made the most effort to gain credibility within the community thus far.” QAnon was named by the FBI as a potential instigator of domestic terrorism, and followers have been charged with making a terror threat, murder and other crimes.
Over a fifth of Europe’s energy was generated by solar panels and wind turbines in the first half of 2020. Solar and wind energy generation was higher in some European countries. Denmark came out on top, generating 64 per cent of its energy from these renewable sources, closely followed by Ireland (49 per cent) and Germany (42 per cent), according to the report from independent climate think-tank Ember. In a half-year review released in July by the think tank, all renewables - including wind, solar, hydroelectricity and bioenergy - were found to have exceeded fossil fuel generation for the first time ever. They produced 40 per cent of the EU’s power from January to June with fossil fuels contributing 34 per cent.
“What the word means is simple enough in German. Antifa is short for antifaschistisch, or anti-fascist. In the most literal sense, one might hope this label could apply to almost all modern German people and politicians.”
“Ethnographers can provide accounts that start from first-person experiences of otherwise-global phenomena, like changing rainfall patterns and frequent, high-intensity wildfires, and demonstrate how these layer into other lived encounters with sociality and infrastructure, like supply-chain ruptures, ventilator shortages, vaccine distribution, and digital contact tracing.”
Coronavirus pandemic, locusts in Africa and the Middle East, melting ice in Antarctica and the Arctic, warmest years and seasons ever, floods in the Midwestern US and many other places on Earth, and so on. When do we get to sing “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead?” I think in November of this year.
The health and safety of our customers and crew is a priority for Singapore Airlines and SilkAir. In view of the Covid–19 outbreak, we would like to share with you the enhanced cleaning and precautionary measures that we have instituted on board our aircraft.
All SIA and SilkAir aircraft already undergo a thorough cleaning process when on the ground. In addition, all flights arriving from Mainland China undergo disinfectant fogging. Common surfaces such as tray tables, handsets, and inflight entertainment screens are cleaned with disinfectant wipes. We also remove all headsets, headrest covers, pillow covers, bedsheets, and blankets after every flight sector.
The air filtration systems in our aircraft are equipped with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters, which have a similar performance to those used in hospital operation rooms. Constant airflow also ensures that the cabin air is refreshed every two to three minutes.
During this period, you may also notice that there have been changes to our in-flight services. These include the replacement of the hot towel service with pre-set wet towelettes, cessation of the after take-off drink service, removal of reading materials from seat-back pockets, and suspension of in-flight sales.
Pre-flight temperature screening for all cabin crew and pilots operating out of Singapore has been in place since 29 January 2020. Our crew also know that they should see a doctor immediately if they feel unwell and should not report for work.
Thank you for your support. We wish you good health and look forward to welcoming you on board soon.
“Brief summary of how it works: When the player takes a photo I duplicate the environment, make it greyscale and slice the meshes to remove anything outside the photo. When they place it into the world I slice the environment’s meshes to make a hole for the photo.“
The new system reflects a cunning paradigm shift. As we’ve noted, instead of trying to enforce stability or conformity with a big stick and a good dose of top-down fear, the government is attempting to make obedience feel like gaming. It is a method of social control dressed up in some points-reward system. It’s gamified obedience.
