Oct 122023
 

57 flights past expected lifetime and still improving

NASA has scheduled the 62nd flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and given it the job of achieving a new speed record for rotorcraft on Mars.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/10/12/mars_helicopter_speed_record_attempt/

 2023-10-12  Comments Off on The Register – Mars helicopter to try for new speed record on Thursday
Oct 052023
 

Learn about pg_stat_io‘s debugging power: PostgreSQL 16 blesses users around the world with many features which ensure an even better user experience. One of those features is a system view called pg_stat_io. It offers deep insights into the I/O behavior of your PostgreSQL database server. From PostgreSQL 16 onward, it will make it far easier to debug and assess performance-related problems.
So, let us waste no time and dive into this wonderful feature.
pg_stat_io: Debugging I/O in PostgreSQL
The following listing shows us what the pg_stat_io view looks like:

blog=# \d pg_stat_io View “pg_catalog.pg_stat_io” Column | Type | Collation | Nullable | Default —————-+————————–+———–+———-+——— backend_type | text | | | object | text | | | context | text…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6af

 2023-10-05  Comments Off on Planet PostgreSQL – Hans-Juergen Schoenig: pg_stat_io and PostgreSQL 16 performance
Oct 042023
 

It’s a cloudy Wednesday evening in Durham and around three dozen activists, community organizers, and concerned citizens are packed into a meeting room of the Main Library. A dry erase board is covered with assorted community announcements (National Lawyers Guild week of action, a labor protest in Charlotte, free markets in Durham and Carrboro). All eyes are on a screen’s black background and white capital letters, which reads “Block Cop City: November Weekend of Action”. Cop City refers to the years-long struggle in Atlanta over the planned construction of a $95 million police training facility on 85 acres of forest in the southeastern part of the city. The City of Atlanta first approved plans for the facility…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/durham/durham-residents-prepare-for-stop-cop-city-weekend-of-action/

 2023-10-04  Comments Off on INDY Week – Durham Residents Prepare for “Stop Cop City” Weekend of Action
Oct 042023
 

Project Nessie named in the antitrust suit, alleging Bezos’s bunch pulled in an extra billion-plus

A redacted portion of the US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon last week has come to light, and with it more details of a secret pricing algorithm known as “Project Nessie” – which the FTC argued has “no valid and cognizable justification” other than an attempt to stifle competition. …

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/10/04/amazon_project_nessie_algorithm/

 2023-10-04  Comments Off on The Register – Amazon had secret algorithm to hike prices, claims FTC
Oct 042023
 

Washington, D.C. – A group of 50 activists and Vermont constituents staged a sit-in inside Senator Bernie Sanders’ office on Wednesday, demanding the senator to call for peace and diplomacy in Ukraine instead of more weapons and war. The sit-in resulted in the arrest of 11 activists, including an 89-year-old CODEPINK peace activist.
The group was joined by Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Cornel West in the Senate lobby for a prayer vigil before the sit-in. The prayer vigil and sit-in were part of a week of action that included an antiwar rally on Tuesday night featuring Dr. West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary; Claudia de la Cruz, Co-Executive Director of The People’s Forum; Lee Camp, American comedian,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/10/anti-war-activists-arrested-at-sit-in-for-peace-inside-sen-bernie-sanders-office/

 2023-10-04  Comments Off on Dissident Voice – Anti-War Activists Arrested at Sit-In for Peace inside Sen. Bernie Sanders Office
Oct 032023
 

ShotSpotter has long presented itself as a reliable detector of gunshots. Mileage, however, has varied. Law enforcement customers that have gotten disgruntled with this limited service have pointed out — en route to terminated contracts — that (a) detected gunshots are not always gunshots, (b) detected gunshots are rarely useful intel, and (c) detecting gunshots rarely results in less gun-related crime.
The law enforcement agencies that still buy into ShotSpotter like it for other reasons. They like the fact that minimally-trained “analysts” will alter reports to provide cops with post facto justification for their actions. They like the “reasonable suspicion” ShotSpotter’s shot detection supposedly provides — justification for stopping and searching anyone in the area of a…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/02/shotspotter-looking-to-compound-bad-cop-tech-ideas-by-acquiring-predictive-policing-software-company/

 2023-10-03  Comments Off on Techdirt. – ShotSpotter Looking To Compound Bad Cop Tech Ideas By Acquiring Predictive Policing Software Company
Sep 292023
 

Scientists have witnessed brain patterns in dying patients that may correlate to commonly reported “near-death” experiences (NDEs) such as lucid visions, out-of-body sensations, a review of one’s own life, and other “dimensions of reality,” reports a new study. The results offer the first comprehensive evidence that patient recollections and brain waves point to universal elements of NDEs.   During an expansive multi-year study led by Sam Parnia, an intensive care doctor and an associate professor in the department of medicine at NYU Langone Health, researchers observed 567 patients in 25 hospitals around the world as they underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after suffering heart attacks, most of which were fatal. Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain signals captured from dozens of…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkamgm/people-experience-new-dimensions-of-reality-when-dying-groundbreaking-study-reports

 2023-09-29  Comments Off on Motherboard – People Experience ‘New Dimensions of Reality’ When Dying, Groundbreaking Study Reports
Sep 282023
 

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
A critical zero-day vulnerability Google reported on Wednesday in its Chrome browser is opening the Internet to a new chapter of Groundhog Day.
Like a critical zero-day Google disclosed on September 11, the new exploited vulnerability doesn’t affect just Chrome. Already, Mozilla has said that its Firefox browser is vulnerable to the same bug, which is tracked as CVE-2023-5217. And just like CVE-2023-4863 from 17 days ago, the new one resides in a widely used code library for processing media files, specifically those in the VP8 format.
Pages here and here list hundreds of packages for Ubuntu and Debian alone that rely on the library known as libvpx. Most browsers use…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1972043

 2023-09-28  Comments Off on Ars Technica – A new Chrome 0-day is sending the Internet into a new chapter of Groundhog Day
Sep 282023
 

As businesses and governments in the U.S. and across the globe implement facial recognition surveillance in public spaces, privacy advocates are pushing back.
32 civil rights groups call on New York City Council to ban public FRT
Thirty-two civil rights groups, led by the New York City-based privacy and civil rights group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) submitted a memo of support to city council members advocating to pass two pending bills banning the use of biometric surveillance in residential buildings and public spaces like stores and arenas. While the memo, which references 2019 NIST FRVT results, claims that facial recognition discriminates against Black, Latinx, and non-binary or transgender New Yorkers, more current assessments by NIST show…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202309/the-multi-national-push-to-ban-facial-recognition-in-public-spaces

 2023-09-28  Comments Off on Biometric Update – The multi-national push to ban facial recognition in public spaces
Sep 272023
 

Canadian officials are apologizing to Jewish communities after honoring a Ukrainian-Canadian veteran who belonged to a Nazi division in WWII with a standing ovation during Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit. What do you think?

Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.theonion.com/standing-ovation-for-nazi-veteran-sparks-anger-in-canad-1850879833

 2023-09-27  Comments Off on The Onion – Standing Ovation For Nazi Veteran Sparks Anger In Canada
Sep 272023
 

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Wednesday, September 27, 2023 —
Today, the GNU Project turned forty years old. To celebrate this,
the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is hosting a hack day for
families, students, and anyone interested in hacking.

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-celebrates-forty-years-of-gnu-with-a-hackday-for-families-hackers-and-hackers-to-be

 2023-09-27  Comments Off on What’s New at GNU – FSF celebrates forty years of GNU with a hackday for families, hackers, and hackers-to-be
Sep 272023
 

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Wednesday, September 27, 2023 —
Today, the GNU Project turned forty years old. To celebrate this,
the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is hosting a hack day for
families, students, and anyone interested in hacking.

External feed Read More at the Source: http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-celebrates-forty-years-of-gnu-with-a-hackday-for-families-hackers-and-hackers-to-be

 2023-09-27  Comments Off on What’s New at GNU – FSF News: FSF celebrates forty years of GNU with a hackday for families, hackers, and hackers-to-be
Sep 252023
 

SF Planters: We install planters so you don’t have to look at homeless people. Our company deploys tanks full of over 1200 lbs of rocks, as they are nearly impossible to move. We’re happy to help displace visual signs of homelessness to other blocks. Whether you are a business owner or homeowner, you shouldn’t have to endure the sights of poverty near commercial spaces, vacant areas, parking lots, and freeways. We let customers anonymously request planter placements, help you conduct the involuntary sweeps through DPW, and then rapidly install our planter barricades overnight. To prevent advocacy groups and city officials from blocking our work, there is no community feedback processes or transparency around…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/today-in-hostile-architecture/

 2023-09-25  Comments Off on jwz – Today in Hostile Architecture
Sep 252023
 

This blog post is about how the Logical Replication has evolved over the years in PostgreSQL, what’s in the latest release-16, and what’s being worked upon for future releases. Logical replication is a method of replicating data objects and their changes, based upon their replication identity (usually a primary key). We use the term logical in contrast to physical replication, which uses exact block addresses and byte-by-byte replication. To know more about Logical Replication in PostgreSQL, read pgsql-docs.The foundation of Logical Replication has been laid in PostgreSQL-9.4 where we introduced Logical Decoding (that allows database changes to be streamed out in a customizable format), Replication Slots (that allow preservation of resources like WAL files on the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/69U

 2023-09-25  Comments Off on Planet PostgreSQL – Amit Kapila: Evolution of Logical Replication
Sep 252023
 

On Sunday, NBC News Poll released a 2024 presidential general election poll on the NBC television program Meet the Press.  The results:  Trump 39%, Biden 36%, unnamed Libertarian 5%, unnamed No Labels nominee 5%, unnamed Green Party nominee 4%, other or undecided 11%.

See the discussion of this poll.  The figures are presented shortly past the two-minute mark.  Thanks to Ken Bush for the link.

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2023/09/24/nbc-news-poll-shows-large-support-for-three-minor-parties-in-2024-presidential-race/

 2023-09-25  Comments Off on Ballot Access News – NBC News Poll Shows Large Support for Three Minor Parties in 2024 Presidential Race
Sep 212023
 

This September 20, 2023 press release from New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s office touting her signature on several bills regarding the people’s voting rights certainly is rich.
In 2020, the New York legislature and Governor passed legislation that tripled the number of signatures (15,000 to 45,000) for minor party statewide candidates to qualify for the General Election ballot without increasing the six week period allowed for gathering the signatures. Additionally, if candidates can actually now make the ballot, the legislation more than doubled the number of votes necessary to remain on the ballot and changed that vote test so that it applied to Governor and President every two years, instead of only Governor every four years.
If the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2023/09/21/new-york-governor-press-release-somehow-fails-to-mention-states-horrible-ballot-access-laws/

 2023-09-21  Comments Off on Ballot Access News – New York Governor Press Release Somehow Fails to Mention State’s Horrible Ballot Access Laws
Sep 202023
 

10 years ago, the Internet Archive made an announcement: It was possible for anyone with a reasonably powerful computer running a modern browser to have software emulated, running as it did back when it was fresh and new, with a single click. Now, a decade later, we have surpassed 250,000 pieces of software running at the Archive and it might be a great time to reflect on how different the landscape has become since then. Anyone can come up with an idea, and the idea of taking the then-quite-mature Javascript language, universally inside all major browsers and having it run complicated programs was not new. With the rise of a cross-compiler named Emscripten, the idea…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2023/09/20/a-quarter-in-a-quarter-million-out-10-years-of-emulation-at-internet-archive/

 2023-09-20  Comments Off on Internet Archive Blogs – A Quarter In, A Quarter-Million Out: 10 Years of Emulation at Internet Archive
Sep 202023
 

The gaming world experienced a bit of a resurgence in 2020 that is still seen in the present day. Even putting aside the effects from the pandemic, the affordability and accessibility has arguably never been better. Building a gaming PC can have its downsides, though, and a challenging issue to troubleshoot is input lag or input latency. This is something that’s best measured with standalone hardware, and if this is an issue on your setup you may want to take a look at this latency meter.
Unlike other measurement devices that use the time between a mouse button input and the monitor’s display of a bullet or shooting event, this one looks at mouse movement and the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2023/09/19/latency-meter-for-accurate-gaming/

 2023-09-20  Comments Off on Hackaday – Latency Meter For Accurate Gaming
Sep 202023
 
Online child safety law blocked after Calif. argued face scans not that invasive Enlarge (credit: Click&Boo | Moment)

A California law requiring a wide range of platforms to estimate ages of users and protect minors from accessing harmful content appears to be just as unconstitutional as a recently blocked law in Texas requiring age verification to access adult content.

Yesterday, US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered a preliminary injunction stopping California Attorney General Rob Bonta from enforcing the state’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), finding that the law likely violates the First Amendment.

“The Court finds that although the stated purpose of the Act—protecting children when they are online—clearly is important,” Freeman wrote, “the CAADCA likely violates the First Amendment.”

Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1969388

 2023-09-20  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Online child safety law blocked after Calif. argued face scans not that invasive