Sora

OpenAI has released Sora, its buzzy generative AI tool capable of creating hyper-realist videos.

In a post issued on Monday, OpenAI said that the text-to-video generator is available for public use. An account must be made to use Sora, though sign-ups have been temporarily disabled due to heavy traffic.

The public launch of the tool comes as the entertainment industry grapples with deployment of technology potentially capable of slashing productions costs. Mainstream adoption in Hollywood has been slow but steady, with Lionsgate in September announcing a partnership with Runway in a deal that will see the New York-based AI startup train a new generative AI model on company content, which will be used to assist with behind-the-scenes production processes. This was followed by James Cameron joining the board of directors for Stability AI — creator of Stable Diffusion, an image- and video-focused model that is among those being closely watched by many in Hollywood, particularly in the visual effects industry — in a major coup for the company.

G7 to end coal by 2035

TURIN (Reuters) -Energy ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy countries reached a deal to shut down their coal-fired power plants by 2035 at the latest, in a significant step towards the transition away from fossil fuels.

"We have an agreement to stop using coal in the first half of 2030's... it is an historical agreement," Britain's minister for Energy Security and Net Zero Andrew Bowie told Class CNBC according to a video posted on X.

Italian diplomatic sources said a technical deal had been reached.

The accord will be included in the G7 energy ministers' final communique to be released on Tuesday at the end of a two-day meeting in Turin.

One source told Reuters earlier that diplomats from the G7 nations - Italy, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan - discussed the issue until late on Sunday, before the start of the ministerial gathering.

The agreement marks a significant step in the direction indicated last year by the COP28 United Nations climate summit for a transition away from fossil fuels, of which coal is the most polluting.

"It helps accelerate the shift of investments from coal to clean technology in particular in Japan and more broadly in the whole Asian coal economy, including China and India," Luca Bergamaschi, co-founding member of Italian climate change think-tank ECCO, said on X.

Italy last year produced 4.7% of its total electricity through its six remaining coal-fired stations. Rome currently plans to turn off its plants by 2025, except on the island of Sardinia where the deadline is 2028.

In Germany and Japan coal has a bigger role, with the share of electricity produced by the fuel higher than 25% of total last year.

Last year under Japan's presidency, the G7 had pledged to prioritise concrete steps towards phasing out coal power generation, falling short of indicating a specific deadline.

(Reporting by Francesca Landini; Editing by Gavin Jones, Alvise Armellini, Jan Harvey and Jonathan Oatis)

should you shut down your computer?

Shutting off your computer every night has downsides. If you just put your computer to sleep, everything is right where you left it in the morning. But if you shut down, you need to wait for your computer to boot up and then re-open all of your applications and documents. It’s annoying.

I wanted to get an idea of just how little power so I ran a few simple tests. First, I charged my laptop around 6PM after an afternoon of using it outside. In that time, it was just about fully charged, after which I unplugged it and closed the lid. The charge in my laptop barely went down—only by one percent—and this is on a nearly six year old laptop with a battery that doesn’t hold a charge like it used to. 

I wanted a slightly more precise number, though, so I used a Kill A Watt to measure how much power my laptop uses when asleep. Leaving it plugged in and suspended from 4PM until 7AM the following morning—15 hours—used up 0.02 kWh of energy. That’s not a lot. Here in Portland, Oregon the price per kWh for residential use is 19.45¢, meaning leaving my laptop plugged in overnight cost me a little over one third of a penny. Over the course of an entire year this adds up to $1.42. 

Now, this isn’t to say that you should never shut down. I shut down my laptop if I’m leaving town without it for more than a week. At that point the amount of energy the computer will use, compared to the annoyance of having to start it up again, tips back into being worthwhile for me. Plus, sometimes a sleeping laptop will run out of batteries when left alone that long, which is just plain annoying.

And there’s another reason to shut down, or at least restart, your computer regularly: it can sometimes solve annoying computer problems. The main reason for this is software bugs—over time such issues can fill your device’s memory and generally just cause your computer to become unstable.

-- Justin Pot, Popular Science

The Nintendo NES

Nintendo pretty much single-handedly saved gaming with the NES back in 1985, and pop culture has never the same.

Auto Offload on Fire TV

Got this message when I switched to my Fire TV Stick 4K this afternoon.

What's New on Fire TV

"Auto Offload" feature to optimized device storage comes to Fire TV

Here's how it works.  If your device is low on storage, Auto Offload will partially remove some apps that haven't been used on the device in the last 60 days without deleting your login credentials.  When you want to use an offloaded app later, the app will be reinstalled for you along with restoring your log in credentials for that app, just like it was never removed.

This setting is automatically enabled.  To disable it, go to Settings > My Fire TV > About > Storage > Auto Offload > On/Off.

***

This is kind of how Roku does it.  Except Roku doesn't wait 60 days.  It seems only the most recent apps are loaded into memory and the majority are installed from the cloud when needed.

Let's see.  The last time I checked, I had somewhere between 400 MB and 500 MB free.  Let's see how much I have now...   It's taking a little while to get into Settings.  Go to My Fire TV, About,   I currently have 469 MB of 5.28 GB available.  Let's see if this goes higher over time.

global warming to peak in 2050

The world will likely achieve the Paris Agreement target of limiting average global temperature rise to “well below 2°C”, finds a new forecast of global climate policies published today by the Inevitable Policy Response (IPR), a consortium of climate policy experts.

Thanks to an acceleration of policies to curb global warming, the IPR predicts that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will fall 80% by 2050 and reach net zero by 2080, with warming peaking at 1.7–1.8°C around the year 2050, before declining below 1.7°C by the end of the century.

The report notes that this is a “more optimistic future than many anticipate”, given that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UN reports have suggested we are on track for around 2.4–2.8°C of warming by the end of the century, based on current pledges and policies.

Venmo and your privacy

On Apps Like Venmo, You May Be Oversharing

TECHNOLOGY

BRIAN X. CHEN

There’s an app for snooping on your friends, family and colleagues to find out about their dinners, the people they’re dating and the parties they’re attending.

But it’s not Facebook. It’s Venmo, the app that became popular more than a decade ago by enabling people to send mobile payments to one another and to post those transactions.

Even if you seldom use Venmo today, the app may be leaking sensitive information about you to the general public.

I recently discovered that my contacts list, which includes the names of people in my phone book, was published on Venmo for anyone using the app to see.

That’s because more than a decade ago, Venmo made people’s contact lists visible to its users. It created an option to hide the address book only two years ago.

Venmo is a strong example of how even as social norms shift the ways we use technology, the companies and their apps don’t change much. Venmo was founded in 2009 as a music start-up that let users buy songs from bands through a text message. By the time eBay acquired it in 2013, it had become a mobile wallet service that was trendy among younger people who were gung-ho about sharing information about themselves online.

At the time, social media was novel, and posting your thoughts, movements and achievements for everyone to know about was cutting edge, not sinister. Since then, we have learned that sharing such seemingly innocuous information can be hazardous. Stalkers, employers or data brokers can use the data to study our whereabouts and activities.

But Venmo remains an app with a strong social networking element, one of many in a generation of apps that are now nearly 15 years old.

In the early 2010s, Venmo rode the coattails of Facebook and Twitter, which brought the concept of a public timeline into the mainstream. Venmo allowed people to publicly post to a feed details of payment transactions, including the dollar amount, time, date and a description, such as a pizza or taxicab emoji.

Venmo, now owned by PayPal — which spun off from eBay in 2015 — has made some changes over the years to protect its users’ privacy. In 2021, it disabled its global feed, a stream where users could see Venmo transactions among strangers.

But critics say the app still falls short. Today, you can see transactions among people who are not your friends if you visit their profiles.

Venmo is still set by default to publicly share when you receive or make a payment. There’s an option to make the transaction private, but if you don’t notice the setting, you could unknowingly broadcast payments.

“It’s not just that I went out to pizza with this person,” said Gennie Gebhart, a managing director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digitalrights nonprofit. “It’s a pattern of who you live with, interact with and do business with, and how it changes over time.”

Last month, The Guardian discovered through a Venmo feed that an aide for Justice Clarence Thomas was taking payments from lawyers who have had business with the Supreme Court, a potential conflict of interest. The aide has since hidden his Venmo activity from public view.

Venmo said in a statement that it had worked to change its privacy measures for customers and that privacy settings could be controlled within its app. “The privacyand safety of allVenmo users is always a top priority,” the company said.

To prevent your day-to-day life from being broadcast on Venmo, click the Me tab inside the app, tap the settings icon and select Privacy. Under default privacy settings, select Private. Then, under the “More” section in Privacy, click “Past Transactions” and make sure to set that to “Change All to Private.”

Venmo has made the contacts list, which can be generated from your smartphone’s address book or your Facebook friends list, viewable to other users.

That can make a lot of information public. In 2021, my colleague Ryan Mac, who was then at BuzzFeed News, used Venmo to discover President Biden’s account and personal contacts list. Mr. Biden later deleted his Venmo account.

On a personal level, a public address book can reveal a new romantic partner to an ex. For professionals, it could expose a doctor’s patients, a journalist’s sources or a salesperson’s clients.

To hide your contacts list from public view, visit the privacy settings, click on Friends List and select Private. Also, toggle off the option for “appear in other users’ friends lists.”

All tech companies change their data-sharing features and settings over time. So take a moment to scroll through your phone and review the settings inside apps you haven’t used in a while to see if there’s something you missed.

-- New York Times (Star Advertiser, August 20, 2023, page E6)

streaming tops cable

Streaming represented 37.7 percent of all TV use in June, a high since Nielsen began releasing its Monthly Gauge reports in 2021. Streamers gained 1.3 percentage points compared to May, while cable (30.6 percent of TV usage) fell by half a point and broadcast networks (20.8 percent) slipped by two points vs. the previous month. Other TV use — including video came console play and physical media playback — increased from 9.7 percent in May to 10.9 percent in June.

Paramount+ made it to 1 percent of total TV use in June, becoming the 11th individual streaming platform listed in the Gauge rankings. Six others hit monthly highs in June: YouTube (8.8 percent), Netflix (8.2 percent), Prime Video (3.2 percent), Disney+ (2 percent), Tubi (1.4 percent) and Peacock (1.2 percent).

Platforms

Streaming: 37.7 percent of TV use

Cable: 30.6 percent

Broadcast: 20.8 percent

Other: 10.9 percent

Streaming Services

YouTube: 8.8 percent of total TV use

Netflix: 8.2 percent

Hulu: 3.5 percent

Prime Video: 3.2 percent

Disney+: 2 percent

Max: 1.4 percent

Tubi: 1.4 percent

Peacock: 1.2 percent

Paramount+: 1 percent

Roku Channel: 1 percent

Pluto TV: 0.9 percent

All others: 5.1 percent

AI startup: xAI

(Reuters) - Elon Musk launched his long-teased artificial intelligence startup xAI on Wednesday, unveiling a team made up of engineers from the same big U.S. technology firms that he hopes to challenge in his bid to build an alternative to ChatGPT.

The startup will be led by Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of Twitter, who has said on several occasions that the development of AI should be paused and that the sector needed regulation.

"Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality," Musk said in a tweet on Wednesday.

The website said xAI will hold a Twitter Spaces event on July 14.

The team at xAI includes Igor Babuschkin, a former engineer at DeepMind, Tony Wu, who worked at Google, Christian Szegedy, who was also a research scientist at Google and Greg Yang, who was previously at Microsoft.

Musk in March registered a firm named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing.

The firm lists Musk as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's family office, as a secretary.

The billionaire had said in April that he would launch TruthGPT or a maximum truth-seeking AI to rival Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.

Generative AI caught the limelight with OpenAI's launch of popular chatbot ChatGPT, which came in November last year, ahead of the launch of Bard and Bing AI.

Dan Hendrycks, who will advise the xAI team, currently serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety and his work revolves around the risks of AI.

Musk's new company is separate from X Corp, but will work closely with Twitter, Tesla, and other companies, according to the website.

xAI said it is recruiting experienced engineers and researchers in the Bay Area.

the Apple headset

The Apple headset is coming, and it’s called the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple on Monday entered a new category of interest to Hollywood: The virtual reality/augmented reality space, and the Apple Vision Pro is the company’s first product in that sector, as well as the first entirely new product category in nearly a decade.

The headset was announced Monday by CEO Tim Cook during a keynote address at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference. It will “start at $3,499” and launch in early 2024.

And in a sign of how important entertainment will be to the product, Disney CEO Bob Iger appeared onstage during the presentation, calling the product “real life magic” and announcing that Disney+ would be available on the Vision Pro on the day it launches.

“We’re constantly in search of new ways to entertain, inform and inspire our fans by combining extraordinary creativity was groundbreaking technology to create truly remarkable experiences,” Iger said. “And we believe Apple vision Pro is a revolutionary platform that can make our vision a reality.”

The product will “allow us to bring Disney to our fans in ways that were previously impossible,” Iger added, with a sizzle reel showing a user immersed in an NBA game, placing themselves into an episode of Marvel’s What If …? or bringing a Disney World parade into their home.

The Apple Vision Pro is “a new kind of computer that augments reality by seamlessly blending the real world with the digital world. It’s the first Apple product you look through and not out,” Cook said in introducing the product. A dial lets the user decide how much of the world around them they can see, or can choose to be immersed in an app. People around the user can see their face if they can see around them, giving them a vision cue.

The initial pitch also included Apple TV+ shows Ted Lasso and Foundation in the sizzle reel.

And an Apple engineer, En Kelly, showcased cinematic modes, letting users watch content on screens in their homes, in a cinematic mode that places the user in a theater, or in real-world locations like at the foot of a mountain.

Apple claims Vision Pro could become a “personal movie theater” by creating a “cinematic experience” for viewing movies, series and sports. Announced features include 4K, HDR, spacial audio and stereoscopic 3D — suggesting that viewers could immerse themselves in James Cameron’s Avatar movies.

Rumored for years, Vision Pro runs on a new spacial computing platform — “the start of an entirely new platform,” the company claimed during the presentation — and has a 3D interface controlled by face, hands and voice.

With a glass lens and lightweight frame, Apple announced that it is working with lens maker Zeiss to offer vision correction in the headset.

The mixed-reality headset has been rumored for months and puts Apple in direct competition with Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, which currently dominates the (still very nascent) market with its Meta Quest devices.

calibrate your TV with Netflix

Netflix has a range of hidden test screens which let you calibrate your TV display, but enabling them really isn't obvious.

How to use Netflix to adjust your TV's picture quality 

1. Sign into Netflix
2. Select a chart
3. Add it to your list
4. Launch Netflix on a TV
5. Play the test pattern
6. Hone your display calibration

Visit https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80018499 in a web browser and sign into your Netflix account. When you select your profile, the test patterns developed for Netflix will be available.

Next, select a Season using the dropdown menu and select the Multipurpose Chart which matches your TV's resolution and refresh rate. In this example, we will be using Season 2: Episode 8, which is for a 1080p (Full HD) 60 fps (equivalent to a 60 Hz) television.

Now simply click the + icon to add the test pattern to your list.

Now, launch the Netflix app on your television and go to the My List section. There you will find the test pattern is listed, allowing you to play the pattern on your TV when you open the app there.

You can now begin to alter the settings of your television, adjusting for brightness, contrast, color saturation and sharpness.

nuclear fusion breakthrough

The U.S. is on the cusp of announcing a scientific breakthrough that has eluded researchers worldwide for decades — one that could, decades from now, turn nuclear fusion into a practical source of clean, inexpensive energy that doesn’t create long-lived radioactive waste or worsen global warming.

The findings, which Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is expected to announce Tuesday, still leave many obstacles to be resolved in turning the nuclear process that powers the sun into a source of Earth-bound energy. But scientists are embracing the historic milestone nonetheless, cheering that researchers have finally created a fusion reaction that produces more energy than it takes in.

Turning that discovery into a source of power for everyday life would probably take decades and cost several hundred billion dollars, said Dale Meade, a retired fusion expert who worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey, one of the Energy Department’s national labs. But such a massive effort would be worthwhile, he said.

“Perhaps the greatest challenge of all is whether the U.S. has the foresight and will to move forward,” Meade said.

The Financial Times first reported the research breakthrough Sunday. A person familiar with the findings confirmed to POLITICO that DOE will announce that its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had used lasers to produce a fusion reaction that generated 1.2 times more energy than was needed to create it.

If reports of the experiment’s results prove accurate, “it’s one of the biggest results of science in the past 20-30 years,” said Gianluca Sarri, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast who researches laser and plasma physics. But even then, hope of a fusion-generation power plant is still more than a decade away, he said.

Fusion, which uses extreme heat to combine two atoms and produce massive amounts of energy as a byproduct, is the engine that powers the sun and the stars, as well as advanced thermonuclear weapons. Unlike existing nuclear plants, which harness heat from a chain reaction of splitting atoms in a process called fission, fusion reactors don’t generate a panoply of radioactive waste or pose a risk of meltdowns. Since the 1950s, supporters of the technology have claimed that fusion could someday produce energy that’s cheap and essentially limitless.

But showing that a fusion reactor is even a practical goal has been difficult. A little over a year ago, though, Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility announced that it was finally nearing the step of creating a fusion reaction that produces a net-positive amount of energy.

That still leaves plenty of enormous technological and regulatory challenges, such as finding ways to convert the energy released in the fusion process into electricity.

Former Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a physicist who was assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, said in an interview that he found the news of the breakthrough "technically interesting, but I'm skeptical about its practicality."

floppy disks live

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (Reuters) - It has been two decades since their heyday, but one bulk supplier of the iconic 3.5-inch floppy disk used to store data in 1990s says business is still booming.

Tom Persky runs floppydisk.com, a California-based online disk recycling service that takes in new and used disks before sending them onto a reliable customer base - he reckons he sells about 500 disks a day.

Who buys floppy disks in an age when more sophisticated storage devices like CD-ROMS, DVDs and USB flash drives have been made increasingly obsolete by internet and cloud storage? Those in the embroidery, tools and dye, and airline industry, especially those involved in aircraft maintenance, says Persky.

"If you built a plane 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago, you would use a floppy disk to get information in and out of some of the avionics of that airplane," said 73-year-old Persky.

At his warehouse, shelves are packed with bright green, orange, blue, yellow or black disks sent from around the world. At one end sits a large magnetic machine with a conveyor belt that wipes out information on disks, while another machine slaps labels on them.

The warehouse also holds 8-inch floppy disks - an even older storage medium - including one labeled as containing the 1960 John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon U.S. presidential debate.

Despite being a relic in the modern world, Persky says floppy disks have several redeeming qualities.

"Floppy disks are very reliable, very stable, a very well understood way to get information in and out of a machine," he says. "Plus, they have the additional feature of not being very hackable."

Persky ended up in the floppy disk business after working in software development for a tax company in the 1990s that duplicated its software onto floppy disks. He says he fell in love with the business and took it on after it was spun off.

But he is not expecting it to survive another 20 years.

"When I see the 'save' icon, I see a floppy disk. But most people just see the 'save' icon," Persky said.

"I'll be here for as long as people continue to want to have these disks. But it's not forever."

DART mission

NASA’s Asteroid Redirection Test Alters Its Orbital Period

robotaxi

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - Lyft and Motional are continuing their work towards launching a fully driverless robotaxi service in Las Vegas.

According to a news release, starting Tuesday, as part of a partnership with Motional, the two companies have launched a new all-electric, fully driverless robotaxi in Las Vegas.

The companies say that as part of the launch, Lyft passengers can control their ride without the assistance of a driver, providing a “custom-designed user experience for a fully autonomous journey.”

As part of the experience, riders can now control the following:

Unlocking doors via the Lyft app

Starting the ride from the new in-car Lyft AV App, an intuitive in-ride display tailored to autonomous rideshare

Contacting remote agents if needed

According to the companies, as part of this phase of the program, there are two vehicle operators present in the front seats. The operators are there to monitor the technology and provide additional support to passengers, if needed, the companies said.

In 2023, Motional says it will remove its vehicle operators and the service will become completely driverless.

“Launching Motional’s all-electric IONIQ 5 on Lyft’s network in Las Vegas represents tremendous progress in our vision to make an electric, autonomous, and shared future a reality for people everywhere,” said Logan Green, Lyft’s CEO and co-founder.

The rides, which can be requested through the Lyft app, are offered in an all-electric Hyundai IONIQ 5 autonomous vehicle.

The companies say they have been conducting autonomous rides in Las Vegas since 2018 and this launch is the “next milestone” as they prepare to offer the service in multiple U.S. cities in 2023.

“Motional and Lyft have a clear path to widespread commercialization of Level 4 autonomous vehicles,” says Karl Iagnemma, Motional’s President and CEO. “We’ve led the industry in commercial operations for years, and today’s launch signals we’re on track to deliver a fully driverless service next year. Riders in Las Vegas can now experience Motional’s IONIQ 5 AV that will make that service a reality. Through our strategic partnership with Hyundai, the IONIQ 5 AV is fully customized for driverless ride-hail operation, while maintaining the vehicle’s award-winning comfort and design.”

fusion ignition

On 8 August, 2021, 192 laser beams pumped vastly more power than the entire US electric grid into a small gold capsule and ignited, for a faction of a second, the same thermonuclear fire that powers the Sun.

The experiment in fusion power, conducted by the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, is explored in detail in three new papers — one published in Physical Review Letters and two papers published in Physical Review E — that argue the researchers achieved “ignition,” a crucial step proving that controlled nuclear fusion is achievable. But definitions of what constitutes “ignition” vary, and however defined, the results of 2021 are still very far away from a practical fusion reactor, despite producing a very large amount of energy.

Nuclear fusion involves the fusion of two elements, typically isotopes of hydrogen, into the heavier element helium, releasing tremendous amounts of energy in the process, which is the process that powers stars like the Sun.

A fusion power plant would produce abundant energy using only hydrogen from water as fuel, and producing helium as waste, without the risk of meltdowns or radiation. This is in contrast with nuclear fission, the type of reaction in contemporary nuclear power plants, which splits the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium to produce energy.

But while fusion reactions take place in the Sun, and uncontrolled fusion takes place in thermonuclear weapon explosions, controlling a sustained fusion reaction for generating power has eluded nuclear engineers for decades. Experiments of varied design have managed to produce fusion reactions for very small amounts of time, but never have they reached “ignition,” the point where the energy released from a fusion reaction is greater than the amount of energy required to generate and maintain that reaction.

But the team at the National Ignition Facility and authors of one of the three new papers, the one published in the journal Physical Review Letters, argue that “ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin ‘burn propagation’ into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain.” That is, fusion began in cold hydrogen fuel and the reaction expanded to generate far more power than in previous experiments.

The 8 August 2021 experiment required 1.9 megajoules of energy in the form of ultraviolet lasers to instigate a fusion reaction in a small, frozen pellet of hydrogen isotopes, — an inertial confinement fusion reaction design — and released 1.3 megajoules of energy, or about 70% of the energy put into the experiment. The output, in other words, was more than a quadrillion watts of power, even if released for only a small fraction of a second.

“The record shot was a major scientific advance in fusion research, which establishes that fusion ignition in the lab is possible at NIF,” Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s inertial confinement fusion program, said in a statement. “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”

But subsequent attempts to replicate the experiment have produced far less output energy, most in the 400 to 700 kilojoules range, leading some researchers to suggest that the experimental design of the National Ignition Facility is a technical dead-end, according to reporting by the news department at the journal Nature.

“I think they should call it a success and stop,” physicist and former US Naval Research Laboratory laser fusion researcher Stephen Bodner told Nature.

The National Ignition Facility cost $3.5 billion, more than $2 billion more than expected, and is behind schedule, with researchers initially targeting 2012 as the deadline to prove ignition was possible using the design.

But the new studies suggest that researchers are willing to keep exploring what the National Ignition Facility is capable of, especially because unlike other fusion researchers, the researchers at the facility are not primarily focused on developing fusion power plants, but better understanding thermonuclear weapons.

“We’re operating in a regime that no researchers have accessed since the end of nuclear testing,” Dr Hurricane said. “It’s an incredible opportunity to expand our knowledge as we continue to make progress.”

methane emissions

If carbon dioxide is an oven steadily roasting our planet, methane is a blast from the broiler: a more potent but shorter lived greenhouse gas that’s responsible for roughly one-third of the 1.2°C of warming since preindustrial times. Atmospheric methane levels have risen nearly 7% since 2006, and the past 2 years saw the biggest jumps yet, even though the pandemic slowed oil and gas production, presumably reducing methane leaks. Now, researchers are homing in on the source of the mysterious surge. Two new preprints trace it to microbes in tropical wetlands. Ominously, climate change itself might be fueling the trend by driving increased rain over the regions.

If so, the wetlands emissions could end up being a runaway process beyond human control, although the magnitude of the feedback loop is uncertain. “We will have handed over a bit more control of Earth’s climate to microorganisms,” says Paul Palmer, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of one of the studies, posted late last month for review at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Most climate scientists already agreed that the post-2006 methane spike has largely not come from fossil fuel production.

Most researchers think a mix of cattle ranching and landfills in the tropics are the main driver of the post-2006 increase, because they have expanded dramatically alongside populations in the region.

But the sharp acceleration in the past couple of years seemed to require some other source. Studies are now implicating the Sudd in South Sudan, the continent’s largest swamp and a region researchers have been unable to study on the ground because of the long-term conflict in the region.

how to sign out everybody on your YouTube TV

If you keep hitting the three streams maximum on YouTube TV but don't think you should be, it could be that someone else is using your account without you knowing it.  [Or if you logged on at somebody else's house, but forgot to log out.]

What you can do is do a remote log off of all your devices

On a computer, make sure you're logged into your family manager account.  Then go to

https://myaccount.google.com/permissions

Scroll down to "Google apps".

Click on "YouTube TV", then click on "Remove Access".

After that, your account should be signed out of YouTube TV on all your devices.  Then you can sign back on to your devices one-by-one and see if you still have the problem.

If you're still having the problem, you might also have to sign out similarly for your other family member accounts (assuming you set up a Family Group).

[from my log 7/31/22 and 5/31/22

https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouTubeTVUserGroup/permalink/3000207953617346/?comment_id=3000463113591830

https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouTubeTVUserGroup/posts/3114570678847739/?comment_id=3114622855509188]

Sony RM-VZ320 universal remote

[5/20/22] Took home three TVs from my neighbor Steven.  Now testing it.

The first TV was a 32" Samsung (model UN32EH4003F, September 2012), but the remote didn't work.  So I took out my Sony RM-VZ320, but couldn't find the instructions.  Luckily I have the instructions saved as two pdf's.  One with the instructions and one with the codes.

So here's the instructions.

1.  Find the code.  Samsung is 00154, 00156, 00178, 00650, 00702, 00766, 00812, 00814, 01060, 02051

2.  Press and hold set for more than 3 seconds.  The SET indicator lights up.  While keeping SET held down, press the desired Device select button, then release both buttons.

3.  Enter the manufacturer's code.  The SET indicator flashes three times and turns off.

The code 00702 worked.  At least it worked to turn on the TV.  But not to control the menu.  00812 works better.

[12/29/15]  took home the Sony RM-VZ320 from Donna's house because I wanted to teach the eject button to the Philips universal remote.

First I had to enter the codes into the Sony remote.  Since the TV and DVD buttons were already programmed, I used the CD button for the codes (actually I messed up later and used the TV button for my TV, so I'll have to reprogram that button).

Anyway I found that these codes worked for my Panasonic TV:  00650, 01480 (looking now below, I see that I found that 00650 worked best).

One thing I noticed was that the sleep button works on my TV which was interesting because there's no sleep button on the original Panasonic remote.

I learned the red record button on the Philips to be the sleep button since that button is nowhere to be found on the original remote.

The code for the Sony Blu-ray player is 11516.  And as noted below the eject button works.  Decided to use the (-) on the Philips as the eject button.

What about Apple TV?  The code for that is 52615.

It works.  The menu button is the MENU button.  But apparently the play/pause button is not supported.  But I guess you could have the Apple TV learn the Sony remote (instead of vice-versa).

How about the Roku?  The code is 52371.

It works.  Partially.  Up, down, left, right, OK work.  The Roku home button is Menu on the Sony remote.  But there's no back button (the up button didn't work for me) and no asterisk.  No instant replay either.  [Well, playing around, I see the up button sometimes works like the back button.  For example when you're at the play menu in Netflix.  But it doesn't work in general as the back button.  In general, the up button works as the up button.]

So this remote had its pluses and minuses.  This is the only remote that I found that would work (at least partially) on a Sony home theater system (well I assume a Logitech Harmony would work too).  It supported the sleep function on my Panasonic plasma TV (a function that's not even on the original Panasonic remote).  It supported the eject function on my Sony Blu-ray player, which was not a function on the original Sony remote.

It mostly works on the Apple TV.

However the Roku support wasn't entirely satisfactory, lacking support for the back and * buttons.  So if you have a broken Roku remote, your best bet is to buy a generic remote from ebay.  Then if you want to minimize the number of remotes, get a learning remote to learn the Roku buttons, which is what I did.

So far I'm refusing to pay for a Logitech Harmony which can cost as much or more than the device you're trying to control.

[earlier posts ported from here]

[12/30/15] Donna now has HawaiianTelcom TV which uses a Cisco box.  Tried to program the RM-VZ320 for that box.  Didn't work.  Tried to search for the code.  Didn't work.

*** [7/13/14]

Took the Sony RM-VZ320 remote to Donna's house (to replace her broken Sony RM-ADP015)
Here are the codes I found that seem to work for her system
TV - Toshiba: 01256, 01356, 01524
Satellite Receiver DirectTV: 41377
Sony Home Theater DVD: 31622, 32522

The main reason for this remote was got get her subtitles working.  The B button works for this.  However a major disappointment is that the Menu button doesn't work, so I can't easily get back to the main menu after the movie has started.

[6/4/16 - actually pressing the favorites button sometimes gets back to the DVD menu]

*** [7/5/14] Bought a Sony remote control (Remote Commander RM-VZ320) from Best Buy.  This is intended for Donna because the remote for her Sony DVD player doesn't work.  Well, it's not strictly a DVD player but part of a Sony home entertainment system (with amplifier and speakers.  But hopefully it'll work.

I also want to see if it'll work with the Sony DVD/VCR combo in the dining room at my mom's place.  In particular, I want to see if I can access the setup to see if it's set up for a wide-screen TV.

I see the manual is online along with the code list.

Anyway, I tried it out with my equipment at home.

To set up any device, first press the SET button for 3 seconds until the light goes on.  Then while still holding the SET button down, press the appropriate device button (e.g. TV) then release both buttons.  The light should still be on.  Then enter the 5-digit code that you looked up in the code list.

Here's the codes that seem to work best for my equipment.

Panasonic 42" Plasma TV: 00650

Scientific Atlanta cable box: 50877 (the menu button brings up the settings menu), 51877 (the menu button brings up the DVR menu).  I can't find a setting where both the setting and DVR menu are both accessible.

Toshiba DVD-R: 12277.  Unable to bring up the setting menu (where you can adjust for the aspect ratio of the TV for example)

Apex TV: 00765.

Sony Blu-Ray player: 11516.  The subtitle button (the B button) doesn't work.  However the eject button does work.  That's interesting because the official Sony remote doesn't even have an eject button.

***

OK, testing at CCOH.

The Sharp TV in the dining room: 00818

The Panasonic DVD/VCR combo: 10864.  Unfortunately I can't access the setup menu.

How you can help endangered species

 “At some point climate change will find its way to your backyard. It will affect everybody,” says Nikhil Advani, director of climate, communities and wildlife for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Here are some ways to make a difference today.

Go Native: A garden with native plants (plants that grew in the U.S. before the settlers came and have evolved to survive) conserves water and electricity, says the WWF’s Advani, and it’s likely to attract pollinators. A native oak tree can support the caterpillars of 500 species of moths and butterflies, providing food for songbirds, says Collin O’Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. A non-native honey locust, in contrast, supports just three or four caterpillar species. Encourage your local schools, governments and parks to plant more native species. Plug your zip code in the NWF’s database for a list of native plants in your area.

Eat Local: For example: Most of the oysters harvested in the U.S. are farmed in coastal waters by small businesses; buying those aquacultured oysters “supports small businesses and is a surprisingly direct way to help,” says Sarah Cooley, climate science director for the Ocean Conservancy. Because aquafarms hatch and produce their own oysters, wild oysters and oyster reefs are left intact. “Aquacultured oysters help clean the water and improve the area while not asking a whole lot of the environment in return,” Cooley says. “That, plus the overall strong environmental stewardship philosophy of U.S. shellfish growers, make oyster aquaculture in the U.S. a real win-win for the environment.”

Cut Down on Plastic: Every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic pours into the world’s oceans—that’s a garbage truck of plastic waste every minute, says the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Three kinds of plastic—fishing debris, filmlike plastic (like on your store-bought veggies) and latex (such as balloons)—are responsible for the majority of deaths among 80 “marine megafauna” species, including dolphins, whales, seals, seabirds and sea turtles. Say no to plastic bags, swap out plastic wrap for reusable food storage bags and don’t release balloons. (Instead of party balloons—which can take years to break down—try nontoxic bubbles. Visit Bubble Tree online to find an eco-friendly refillable bubble system.) Check out rePurpose to calculate your own annual plastic footprint.

Eat More Fish: Consuming protein that leaves a small carbon footprint can make a big difference. Swapping beef out for fish even twice a week is “a good move in the right direction,” says Katie Matthews, chief scientist with Oceana. “Fish is one of the most climate-smart and nutrient rich sources of protein on the planet. And it requires no fresh water or grazing space.”

Use Your Buying Power: Contact manufacturers and retailers whenever you buy something with excess plastic packaging to suggest they make changes; social media is a good way to bring attention to the issue too. Ask your area stores to carry more local goods, which cuts down on environment-unfriendly shipping.

Support Monarchs: Adult monarchs need your help: They feed on hundreds of different flowers and need nectar from spring through fall. Make your garden monarch-friendly by planting several kinds of pesticide-free native milkweed that flower at different times, says Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). Avoid tropical milkweed, which is invasive, or milkweed that’s been treated with insecticides to be aphid resistant. Go to Save Our Monarchs to request free seeds.

Vote for the Next Generation: “Talk to your friends and neighbors about climate change. Make climate a key voting issue,” says Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the CBD. “Action right now is critical to what kind of planet we leave to our children.”

Speak Up: Contact your local and federal politicians to express your support for legislation that will help protect species, from clean energy bills to the the Big Cat Public Safety Act to protect tigers. “Biodiversity conservation is a bipartisan issue. Wildlife conservation is a bipartisan issue,” Advani says.

Be Aware: Since the pandemic began, illegal trafficking of items like tiger furs, rhino horns and elephant ivory has moved from brick-and-mortar stores to online, says Colby Loucks, vice president of wildlife conservation for the WWF. The WWF and other organizations are pushing social media companies to remove ads for items like these. You can familiarize yourselves with commonly trafficked endangered species (“A lot of people might not know what a pangolin is or that it’s one of the most trafficked species in the world,” Loucks says), and how to report it if you see endangered species and their parts/products for sale online. Every platform (e.g. Facebook, eBay, Etsy) typically has its own reporting mechanism, but you can go to Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online to file a report.

--- Parade, April 12, 2022, Kathleen McCleary (edited)

global plastics treaty

Feb 18 (Reuters) - United Nations member states are set to meet this month in Nairobi to draft the blueprint for a global plastics treaty, a deal that could see countries agree for the first time to reduce the amount of single-use plastics they produce and use.

It's being touted as the most important environmental pact since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

A global explosion of disposable plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is increasing carbon emissions, despoiling the world's oceans, harming wildlife and contaminating the food chain. More than 50 countries, including all 27 members of the European Union, are calling for the pact to include measures targeting plastic production.

That's a problem for big oil and chemical companies. The industry is projected to double plastic output worldwide within two decades.

Publicly, plastic industry groups representing firms like ExxonMobil Corp (XOM.N), Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Dow Inc (DOW.N), have expressed support for a global agreement to tackle this garbage.

Behind the scenes, however, these trade organizations are devising strategies to persuade conference participants to reject any deal that would limit plastic manufacturing, according to emails and company presentations seen by Reuters, as well as interviews with a dozen officials involved in the negotiations.

Leading that effort is the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a powerful group of U.S.-based oil and chemical firms. The Washington-based ACC is attempting to forge a coalition of big businesses to help steer treaty discussions away from production restrictions, according to an Oct. 21 email sent from the trade group to a blind-copied list of recipients. Reuters received a copy of that email from an employee of a consumer goods company who requested anonymity.

The ACC has dubbed the proposed alliance "Business for Plastic Pollution Action," according to the email, which called on firms to "shift the debate" by focusing governments' attention on the benefits of plastic. The group planned to hold monthly meetings and share policy recommendations with governments, according to the email.

The ACC did not respond to Reuters' questions about the email or the proposed business coalition.

Plastic is embedded in modern life and indispensable to sectors such as automaking. The plastics industry has been quick to cite such applications in defending unfettered production.

But it is throwaway plastics such as food wrappers, grocery bags and delivery packaging that are the main focus of the U.N. conference. Single-use plastic accounts for around 40% of all production, according to a landmark 2017 study in the journal Science Advances.

The ACC has long defended disposable plastics as better for the planet than alternatives such as glass and cardboard, which are heavier and require more fossil fuel to transport. Some climate scientists say that analysis is flawed because it doesn't take into account the massive societal cost to managing plastic garbage, which is hard to recycle, slow to degrade and expensive to collect, bury and burn.

IPTIRLLTDOTI

Pearls Before Swine, 1/30/22

how to adjust your TV settings

Most people's TV settings are way off to my eye.  Usually the color is set too high (like people are radioactive) and often the brightness is too low (to offset the high color intensity).

The way I usually adjust a TV (I must have read this someplace) is to turn the color down to zero and make the picture black and white (or as close to it as possible).  Then adjust the brightness and contrast, so the picture looks about right.  And then turn up the color again just enough so the picture looks realistic.  Then tweak the brightness and contrast again.

Usually the color adjustment is a lot lower than most people are used to.  But I want the picture to look as realistic as possible.  Like I'm viewing the scene in real life.

In general, the picture settings on phones and tablets look about right to me.  Though, even on my Google Pixel 3aXL, I turned the colors to "Natural".  The other settings sere Boosted and Adaptive.  (Adaptive was the default.)

If I don't want to start from scratch, I generally just turn down the color until it stops looking radioactive.  Then turn up the brightness until the pictures doesn't look too dark.  Then I might adjust the contrast so the picture doesn't look too faded.

***

Anyway, this seems to work on most older TVs.  But when I tried it on my friend's Sony 4K TV, changing those settings barely changed how the TV looked.  I think HDR largely locks in the picture.  Also when I try to adjust the 4K HDR picture on my niece's TCL Roku TV, it still looks too dark.

Anyway, here's some other guides on how to adjust a TV.

***

CNET: If you want better TV, you need to change these picture settings.  We'll walk you through how to tweak your TV's color, brightness, picture mode and other settings. It'll make a big difference.

***

HelloTech: The Best TV Picture Settings For Every Major Brand  (the article doesn't mention any brands)

***

Consumer Reports: TV Settings That Deliver the Ultimate Picture Quality.  (This article mentions "With some sets, you’re blocked from making some picture-quality adjustments when the TV is in an HDR mode; other TVs give you total control over all the individual settings.")

Elon Musk, Time's person of the year

What do you get the richest person in the world?

How about a perch as Time’s Person of the Year. The magazine has conferred that honor on Tesla founder Elon Musk, citing his work revolutionizing the electric car industry, as well as the fact that his company SpaceX’s won an exclusive NASA contract to put astronauts on the moon. Musk, as the magazine notes, also had a well-received hosting turn on SNL. It wasn’t all encomiums. The magazine also brought up Musk’s penchant for inspiring controversy on social media and his ability to rumble markets with the power of a single tweet.

Time Editor-in-Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal writes, “In 2021, Musk emerged not just as the world’s richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society. Musk’s rise coincides with broader trends of which he and his fellow technology magnates are part cause and part effect: the continuing decline of traditional institutions in favor of individuals; government dysfunction that has delivered more power and responsibility to business; and chasms of wealth and opportunity. In an earlier era, ambitions on the scale of interplanetary travel were the ultimate collective undertaking, around which Presidents rallied nations….For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year.”

Time named the scientists behind the COVID-19 vaccines as the year’s heroes, it honored “Drivers License” hitmaker Olivia Rodrigo as its artist of the year, and cited Simon Biles, the Olympic gymnast whose decision to go public with her mental health struggles sparked a global debate, as the athlete of the year.

Last year, Time named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the people of the year. Past recipients have included Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg.

15 best science books of all time

OK, just 15 more to go.

Maybe I'll watch the movie to get one out of the way.

*** [1/4/21]

Down to 5 to go

recycling won't solve plastic crisis

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Recycling will not be able to contain a runaway global plastic waste crisis, experts said on Friday as they called on companies to reduce plastic production and shift more products into reusable and refillable packaging.

Moving away from single-use plastics and towards systems that allow for it to be reused are among the solutions that experts believe could ease the problem, but radical changes to the production system are also needed.

"We won't be able to just recycle or reduce our way out of it," said Rob Kaplan, CEO of Circulate Capital, which invests in emerging markets initiatives to solve the plastic waste crisis.

"It's a systems problem and needs to combine upstream and downstream solutions," he said, speaking on a panel at  the  Reuters Next conference.

The world produces around 300 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

But less than 10% of all the plastic  ever made has been recycled, in large part because it is too costly to collect and sort. The rest ends up dumped or buried in landfills or burned.

As recycling schemes falter, big consumer goods companies, including Unilever, Coca-Cola and Nestle, have started investing in projects to burn plastic waste as fuel in cement kilns, Reuters revealed in October.

Meanwhile, plastic production is projected to double by 2040 - something many critics of the industry believe is excessive and the biggest driver of the huge waste problem facing the planet.

"Recycling can't compete with overproduction," said Von Hernandez of the Break Free from Plastic campaign, a global alliance calling for an end to plastic pollution.

"So what we need is limits on virgin plastic production," he said, speaking alongside Kaplan on the panel.

While there is no global regulator or treaty for the plastics industry, the panel speakers said individual consumers can help drive the changes needed in corporate behaviour and hold companies accountable through the life cycle of their plastic products and where they end up.

"Citizens and consumers can compel these companies...to reveal their global plastic and carbon footprint, reduce the amount of plastic they are producing and deploying to the market, and really reinvent their delivery systems," Hernandez said.

PBS Live stream

After checking out Antenna Man's video about PBS live streaming in some areas, I was surprised to see that it was available in my area (Honolulu) on the PBS app on Roku.  (It wasn't available in my area last year.)  I wasn't getting my hopes up, but when I checked, the Live Stream is also available on my Fire TV Stick 4K.  This must be a fairly recent event because this is the first time I have noticed it.  [And it also worked on my Chromecast with Google TV.]

The PBS website shows the schedule, so I could see that it is actually the same as the OTA broadcast.  I would expect/hope that this clears the way for it to arrive on YouTube TV soon, so I would be able to DVR the shows.

U.N. head calls for cut in greenhouse gas emissions

The head of the United Nations called Thursday for “immediate, rapid and large-scale” cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming and avert climate disaster.

Video: The impacts of climate change are here, and the government needs to take action (MSNBC)

Ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting next week, Antonio Guterres warned governments that climate change is proceeding faster than predicted and fossil fuel emissions have already bounced back from a pandemic dip.

Speaking at the launch of a U.N.-backed report summarizing current efforts to tackle climate change, Guterres said recent extreme weather — from Hurricane Ida in the United States to floods in western Europe and the deadly heatwave in the Pacific Northwest — showed no country is safe from climate-related disasters.

“These changes are just the beginning of worse to come,” he said, appealing to governments to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

“Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we will be unable to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit),” said Guterres. “The consequences will be catastrophic.”

In their report, titled United in Science 21, six U.N. bodies and scientific organizations drew on existing research to argue that there is a direct link between human-caused emissions, record high temperatures and disasters that have a tangible impact on individuals and societies, including “billions of work hours (…) lost through heat alone.”

Read: ‘Older generations aren’t protecting us’: Anxious about climate, 4 in 10 young people may not ever have kids, major survey shows

Because of the long-lasting effects of many emissions already released into the atmosphere, further impacts are inevitable, they noted.

“Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will continue to rise and threaten low-lying islands and coastal populations throughout the world,” the authors wrote.

University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the report, said scientists have said this before but it’s important: “The situation is getting bad, we know why and we know how to solve it in ways that leave us, and future generations, with a better, healthier, more sustainable world.”

Guterres urged governments to put forward more ambitious plans for cutting emissions by the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, including a commitment to stop adding more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere by mid-century than can be removed.

Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said he agreed with the report’s message of urgency but questioned some of the starker warnings it contained.

In particular, the 1.5C threshold agreed in Paris didn’t apply to individual years, some of which can be unusually hot due to other factors, he said.

“This misleading framing unnecessarily feeds the fears that the public has that we’ve somehow already crossed that threshold and that it is too late now to prevent,” said Mann. “We have not. And it is not.”

He also noted that the drop in emissions seen during the pandemic could be viewed as a positive sign that significant cuts are possible if entire economies are weaned off fossil fuels.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have already made pledges that — if implemented — would help avert dangerous planetary warming, said Mann.

Read: U.S., EU will push first ever global deal to slash planet-warming methane: report

Kim Cobb, a professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, was equally reassured that the 1.5C target isn’t out of reach.

“However, this new report is a stark reminder of the difference between the emissions pathways required to achieve that target, and the reality on the ground,” she said. “Simply put, we are way off course.”

The Metaverse

In its most recent earnings call on July 29, Facebook Inc. (FB, Financial) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expects the social media platform to transition to a "metaverse" company. He said the company’s future is in the metaverse, a virtual social environment where people can be present in digital spaces. This is an embodied internet platform allowing people to play games, work and socialize using digital avatars and virtual reality technology. Virtual reality workspaces will be the company's first step into making the metaverse a reality. The company has been using Workrooms (VR workspace) for meetings internally for about six months, and on Aug. 19, Facebook introduced Horizon Workrooms to the public to showcase how it works.

Commenting on the launch of Horizon, Zuckerberg recently posted on his Facebook page:

“We just launched Horizon Workrooms – a new collaboration experience in virtual reality. When you use Workrooms, it feels like you’re really there with people. You’ll notice conversations flow more naturally and you’ll pick up social cues that are missing on video – people turning to listen to each other, hand gestures, and spatial audio to give everyone a sense of place in the room. There’s also a whiteboard for brainstorming together, a screen for people to video conference in, and virtual desktop so you can use your computer in VR for presentations or multitasking. In the future, working together will be one of the main ways people use the metaverse. Horizon Workrooms is one more step towards bringing the metaverse to life.”

the old aluminum foil trick

People have been posting on Facebook that they've gotten improved results from their OTA antenna by using aluminum foil.  So I decided to put it to the test.

Plugging in my rabbit ears antenna and orienting it toward the door, I'm getting the following channels

2-1 KHON-HD

2-2 KHON-CW

2-3 KHON-GT

2-4 COURT

4-1 KITV-HD

4-2 MeTV

4-3 KITV-D3

4-4 StartTV

4-5 H&I

4-6 OCTV

14-1 KWHE-D1

14-2 Dabl

32-1 KBFD-D1

32-2 KBFD-D2

That was the old lineup, when I rescanned

2-4 became KHON-LF

14-2 became KWHE-D2

and the following channels were added

26-1 TBN HD

26-2 Hilsong (weak signal)

26-3 SMILE

26-4 Enlace (weak signal)

26-5 POSITIV

Now let me put the large toaster oven pan (black) without aluminum foil and put it behind the antenna and rescan

No new channels, but 2-1 signal looks weak

Now let me try the smaller toaster oven pan (with no foil).

Looks like the 2-1 signal becomes weaker

OK, let's take the last of the foil (about 7" x 11") and stand it a few inches behind the antenna and rescan.

I lost the 26-* channels.

Let me move the sheet of foil right behind, partially touching the antenna and rescan.

No change.

Now move it right in front, between the rabbit ears and the rectangle antenna and rescan

 No change, but the 2-1 signal seems stronger.  Up to about 72%.

Now take away the foil and rescan.

Got the 26-* channels back.

[Then tried wrapping the foil directly around the antenna ears.  No change.  In fact, maybe the 26-* channels got even weaker.]

Still no KGMB or KHNL that I got with the U-Must-Have antenna.  Granted I got those by moving the antenna to the window above the couch.

So YMMV.

the 4-day workweek

Study shows that working less improved well-being.

(That was my excuse.)

cows against plastic

July 2 (UPI) -- Microbes found in a cow's stomach can break down plastics, according to new research.

Researchers found the polymer-munching microbes in the rumen, one of four compartments comprising the bovine stomach.

The bacteria, described Friday in the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, could be used to reduce plastic litter in landfills and polluted ecosystems.

The discovery wasn't entirely unexpected, as the diet of cows and other ruminants features a significant amount of natural plant polyesters.

Scientists figured the bacteria could probably break down synthetic plastics, too, which are similar in their construction and chemical composition.

what happens if cows eat seaweed?

Feeding seaweed to cows is a viable long-term method to reduce the emission of planet-heating gases from their burps and flatulence, scientists have found.

Researchers who put a small amount of seaweed into the feed of cattle over the course of five months found that the new diet caused the bovines to belch out 82% less methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

solar powered car?

While solar-powered vehicles have been a dream for more than a half-century, this could be the year we see one mass-produced off a California assembly line.

8,000 people have already put down deposits on a solar-powered vehicles from Aptera that hopes to be in production by year's end.

The three-wheeler can transport two people, using a solar array that can be supplemented with additional panels on the hood and rear hatch to extend range up to 1,000 miles.

The Batmobile-like profile was designed to reduce wind resistance, which impacts range. Instead of steel, the body is a composite of carbon, Kevlar and hemp. Composites are used in racing cars, such as Formula 1, to provide strength and safety.

Price is another key factor to keep it affordable. Depending on features, the range is expected to be from $26,000 to $46,000.

The Aptera can be plugged in when driving long distances or when it's cloudy. A factory is being built in San Diego. The co-founders believe sales of 2,000 vehicles per year are viable with a goal of 10 times that many, especially as its develops a full fleet of models.

U.N. environmental report calls for change

Humans are making Earth a broken and increasingly unlivable planet through climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. So the world must make dramatic changes to society, economics and daily life, a new United Nations report says.

Unlike past U.N. reports that focused on one issue and avoided telling leaders actions to take, Thursday’s report combines three intertwined environment crises and tells the world what’s got to change. It calls for changing what governments tax, how nations value economic output, how power is generated, the way people get around, fish and farm, as well as what they eat.

“Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature. The result is three interlinked environmental crises.”

Thus the 168-page report title is blunt: “Making Peace With Nature.”

“Our children and their children will inherit a world of extreme weather events, sea level rise, a drastic loss of plants and animals, food and water insecurity and increasing likelihood of future pandemics,” said report lead author Sir Robert Watson, who has chaired past UN science reports on climate change and biodiversity loss.

“The emergency is in fact more profound than we thought only a few years ago,” said Watson, who has been a top level scientist in the U.S. and British governments.

This year “is a make-it or break-it year indeed because the risk of things becoming irreversible is gaining ground every year,” Guterres said. “We are close to the point of no return.”

The report highlighted what report co-author Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia called “a litany of frightening statistics that hasn’t really been brought together:”

• Earth is on the way to an additional 3.5 degrees warming from now (1.9 degrees Celsius), far more than the international agreed upon goals in the Paris accord.

• About 9 million people a year die from pollution.

• About 1 million of Earth’s 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.

• Up to 400 million tons of heavy metals, toxic sludge and other industrial waste are dumped into the world’s waters every year.

• More than 3 billion people are affected by land degradation, and only 15% of Earth’s wetlands remain intact.

• About 60% of fish stocks are fished at the maximum levels. There are more than 400 oxygen-depleted “dead zones” and marine plastics pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.

“In the end it will hit us,” said biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who was a scientific advisor to the report. 

“It’s not what’s happening to elephants. It’s not what’s happening to climate or sea level rise. It’s all going to impact us.”

The planet’s problems are so interconnected that they must be worked on together to be fixed right, Warren said. And many of the solutions, such as eliminating fossil fuel use, combat multiple problems including climate change and pollution, she said.

The report “makes it clear that there is no time for linear thinking or tackling problems one at a time,” said University of Michigan environment professor Rosina Bierbaum, who wasn’t part of the work.

In another break, this report gives specific solutions that it says must be taken.

This report uses the word “must” 56 times and “should” 37 times. There should be 100 more because action is so crucial, said former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who wasn’t part of the report.

“Time has totally ran out. That’s why the word ‘must’ is in there,” Figueres said.

The report calls for an end to fossil fuel use and says governments should not tax labor or production, but rather use of resources that damages nature.

“Governments are still playing more to exploit nature than to protect it,” Guterres said. “Globally, countries spend some 4 to 6 trillion dollars a year on subsidies that damage the environment.”

Scientists should inform leaders about environmental risks “but their endorsement of specific public policies threatens to undermine the credibility of their science,” said former Republican Rep. Bob Inglis, who founded the free market climate think tank RepublicEn.org.

The report also tells nations to value nature in addition to the gross domestic product when calculating how an economy is doing.

Getting there means changes by individuals, governments and business, but it doesn’t have to involve sacrifice, said UN Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen.

“There’s a country that has been on that path for 25 years: Costa Rica,” Andersen said. “Yes, these are difficult times, but more and leaders are stepping in.”

It’s not all bad! 20 things that made the world a better place in 2020

From record-beating scientific discoveries to an elephant baby boom, 2020 was about much more than just the global pandemic

This is not a year we'll look back on fondly. It began with Australia on fire and ends with more than 1.5 million dead in a pandemic.

But there have been bright points in this annus horribilis. While many of us saved lives by hunkering down at home watching Netflix, a communal act of selflessness that shouldn't be soon forgotten, progress was made in science, the environment, and even politics – Biden won! We can buy lab-grown meat! British beavers built a dam for the first time in 400 years!

Here's our rundown of the best news to come out of 2020. 

The world's first mRNA vaccine was made in less than a year

The world's medical and pharma scientists have never made a vaccine as quickly as it did this year – and we got three out of the bargain, with more to come. But the BioNTech and Moderna vaccines will not only let us emerge from lockdown, they're also the first using messenger RNA, proving that vaccine technology works. That not only opens the door for its use against existing diseases but also means we could more quickly make vaccines to fight future pandemics – because we may have to do this all over gain someday. Read more at WIRED.

Lab-grown meat on sale for first time

The era of slaughter for protein could be coming to an end, with the Singapore Food Agency approving for the first time the sale of lab-grown chicken. Made by American company Eat Just, the cells for the "chicken bites" are harvested from live animals and grown in a bioreactor. Though foetal bovine serum is still used in the process, the company plans to switch to a plant-based growing medium for its next production line. Read more at The Guardian

DeepMind solves 50-year-old protein folding problem

DeepMind's AI has accurately predicted protein shapes from their sequences alone, a tough task that normally requires lengthy, expensive lab experiments. While the AI, known as AlphaFold, couldn't unpick all protein structures, it has helped answer questions that have long challenged researchers – and could herald major changes in medical research. Read more at Nature

Nuclear fusion could give us unlimited clean energy

Researchers are building a star on Earth in an attempt to create nuclear power without the radioactive waste. The Joint European Torus (JET) will begin work next year, smashing together hydrogen atoms to generate energy and heat, which could eventually be harvested to generate electricity. Read more at WIRED

Kiwis gift Remarkables land to nation

Dill and Jillian Jardine could have sold their 900 hectares along the shore of Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand's Remarkables mountain range to developers. After all, the region is popular among the remarkably wealthy, including PayPal and Palantir founder Peter Thiel. Instead, the farming couple donated it to a local trust as a park for the enjoyment of everyone, not just billionaires. Read more at The Guardian

Beavers build first dam in four centuries

The National Trust released beavers into the wild in January, after the buck-toothed creatures went extinct in England four-hundred years ago. Efforts to return the animals have found success with beavers in Scotland relocated to the Holnicote Estate in Exmoor, where they've settled in well enough to chew up a few trees and assemble a "modest but… incredibly special" dam, according to the Trust. Read more at the BBC

Spider rediscovered in Surrey

Mike Waite of the Surrey Wildlife Trust spent two years in the dark tramping around a Ministry of Defence site, searching for a specific species of spider not seen in the UK since 1999. But in October, he spotted it: a great fox-spider. "It's a gorgeous spider, if you're into that kind of thing," he said. The two-inch creature doesn't build a web, instead chasing beetles and smaller arachnids in order to immobilise them with venom that liquefies their organs. How very 2020. Read more at The Guardian

First new coral reef found in 120 years

Scientists mapping the seafloor north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef made a massive discovery: a new reef that's taller than the Empire State Building. It's the first such coral structure to be found in the region in 120 years, and aided by an underwater robot, the year-long exploration journey also discovered 30 new species of sea life, including a 150-foot predator string – yes, that's right – known as a siphonophore. Read more at the BBC

Pandas have sex after decade-long wait

When the pandemic hit, Hong Kong's Ocean Park zoo shut to visitors. Several weeks later, perhaps enjoying their new-found privacy, pandas Ying Ying and Le Le did something zookeepers had been trying to inspire for ten long years: they had sex. The mating doesn't appear to have led to a pregnancy for Ling Ling, but getting it on after ten years of ignoring each other is encouraging to those in stale long-term relationships everywhere. Read more at VICE

There's a baby boom – for elephants

The Amboseli National Park in Kenya reported more than 170 calves by the end of summer, versus 113 in all of 2018 – including two sets of twins. The pachyderm pregnancy peak followed heavy rain the previous year, which means better grazing and more successful births. Alongside the elephantine baby boom, Kenya has said that the rate of poaching has fallen to just seven – down from 80 in 2018 – with numbers of the animals rebounding from 16,000 in 1989 to more than 34,000. Read more at NPR

Painting turbine blades slashes bird deaths

The shift to wind power is good news for the planet, but bad news for birds that fly into the blades of turbines at onshore wind farms. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research have found a potential solution: painting one of the three rotor blades black to make them easier to see. And it worked, reducing bird strikes by 70 per cent – not bad for a lick of paint. Read more at the BBC

UK record coal-free run tops 67 days

67 days, 22 hours and 55 minutes – it's the longest the UK has gone without coal-generated power since the industrial revolution. The record run came to an end mid-June only because a north Yorkshire power station fired up a coal unit for maintenance. The rest of the energy mix during the two-plus months was dominated by renewable energy at 36 per cent, followed by gas at 33 per cent and nuclear at 21 per cent. Read more at The Independent

Enzyme eats through plastics

Plastic waste is choking the planet, but researchers at the University of Toulouse: have found a mutant bacterial enzyme that will happily chew through it all, breaking it down for easy recycling into new plastic materials. The enzyme was originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, though it needed some tweaking to optimise its ability to break down plastic. The mutated version managed to degrade a tonne of waste plastic in ten hours. Read more in The Guardian

SpaceX's first launch with humans

Elon Musk's SpaceX started the commercial space flight era by successfully launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule and two Nasa astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, to the International Space Station (ISS). The Falcon 9 rocket has previously ferried cargo to orbit, but the trip marks the first private space launch with humans aboard – and the beginning of private space flight, including tourism. Read more at WIRED

Porn starts to consider ethics

Pornhub removed two-thirds of the videos on its site – some ten million clips – after an investigation by the New York Times revealed some of the user-uploaded clips featured children and other abuse, sparking Visa and Mastercard to halt processing payments. From now on, the site will only permit verified users to upload videos, perhaps finally kickstarting an era of ethics in mainstream porn sites. Read more at Motherboard

UK gets its first tech union

United Tech and Allied Workers set up a branch in the UK amid wider activism in the sector in the US, with walkouts at Facebook, Google and Amazon. The aim is to give workers more power to hold their employers to account without having to quit and find another job – not easy during a pandemic. Read more at WIRED

Art sculpture saves train driver

Public transport met public art in dramatic, life-saving fashion when a Rotterdam metro train crashed through buffers at the end of the elevated line in the Dutch city. The driver's carriage was saved from falling the 10m to the ground by a public art installation by Maarten Struijs, propped up by one of two whales' tails. Struijs called the accident "rather poetic" and he's not wrong: the name of the work is Saved by a Whale's Tale. Read more in The Times

Kamala Harris becomes first female vice president

The US has its female vice-president, and she's a woman of colour known to her step-kids as "Momala". In a year of difficult politics, and amid a backdrop of racial tension, the US managed to make a major step forward by electing Kamala Harris as the first female vice-president. Read more pretty much anywhere, but start with the New York Times

Argentina set to legalise abortion

Abortion remains illegal across most of South America, but Argentina is set to become the first large nation and only the fourth on the continent to allow women the right to choose. It follows the lead of Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana, though UN research suggests more than six million abortions still happen in the region each year, the majority of which are unsafe for women. The bill still needs to be approved by the senate later in December. Read more at The Guardian

Endurance runner carries disabled friend to top of Mount Olympus

Eleftheria Tosiou always wanted to scale Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece. The wheelchair-bound student reached the goal with the help of her friend, long-distance endurance runner Marios Giannakou, who scaled the 2,917-metre mountain with Tosiou strapped to his back. “I have never done something more beautiful,” said Giannakou. “I think it has completed me as a person.” Read more at Reuters

-- by Nicole Kobie, Friday 18 December 2020