Riyadh seeks more modest agreement with Washington in absence of Gaza ceasefire and Netanyahu resistance to Palestinian state read more
Russia has replaced Wikipedia with a state-sponsored encyclopedia that is a clone of the original Russian Wikipedia but which conveniently has been edited to omit things that could cast the Russian government in poor light. read more
Finnair suspended flights to the Estonian city of Tartu after GPS signal interference prevented two planes from landing. Estonia and Lithuania have blamed Russia for jamming GPS signals in the region. read more
In this part of Vancouver [Canada], innovative technology is harnessing heat from wastewater and using it as a renewable energy source to heat homes.
A bee swarm delayed the start of the Major League Baseball match between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers for almost two hours. read more
Pink Floyd, back in their soundtrack days...
Pink Floyd - Cymbaline (1969)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt...
...
The path you tread is narrow, and the drop is sheer and very high
The ravens all are watching from a vantage point nearby
Apprehension creeping like a tube-train up your spine
...
Related...
Party line editing
novayagazeta.eu
... Russia's state-sponsored Wikipedia alternative seeks to prove that ignorance is strength
While Russian attempts to create a viable national alternative to Wikipedia have generally failed to gain traction, the closest thing to a success story is Ruwiki, a censored online encyclopedia that proudly complies with Russian law and is regularly cleansed of references to so-called "foreign agents", criticism of the government, and reports of torture in prisons.
"Ruwiki is a Russian organisation, and Russia has its own laws," Ruwiki director Vladimir Medeyko told Novaya Gazeta Europe in July. Medeyko was the head of Wikimedia RU, the nonprofit Wikimedia chapter formed to maintain and monitor Russian-language Wikipedia pages, until it shut down amid political pressure in late 2023.
Ruwiki's launch had been announced six months earlier, with beta testing starting a month after that. Ruwiki draws directly on the existing 1.9 million Wikipedia articles in Russian, but then automatically alters them to comply with Russian law.
Medeyko said that Ruwiki's process of adaptation begins with "deleting everything that raises even the slightest doubt" and later involves "consultation with lawyers", adding that he believed Wikipedia to have "reliability and neutrality" issues, and that these problems had only intensified since the start of the war in Ukraine. ...
For comparison...
Interstellar Science
voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
... cience Data Acquisition Strategy
Science data are returned to earth in real time at 160 bps. Real time data capture uses 34 meter Deep Space Network (DSN) resources with the project goal to acquire at least 16 hours per day of real time data per spacecraft. This goal is not always achieved due to the competition for DSN resources with prime mission projects and other extended mission projects.
Three times per week, Voyager 1 has 48 seconds of high rate (2.8 kbps) PWS data recorded onto the Digital Tape Recorder (DTR) for later playback. Voyager 1 has six playbacks per year. The playbacks require 70 meter and 34 meter DSN support for data capture. After transmission of the data (either real time or recorded) to JPL, it is processed and made available in electronic files to the science teams located around the country for their processing and analysis. ...
Reminds me of the 300bps modem I had back in the 70's when I used to work from home....
@#1 ... At 140 million miles, the project's goal was to reach a lofty 1 Mbps. Instead, engineers managed to get 25 Mbps out of the demonstration. ...
OK, the snark of that article seems odd. i does not make sense.
Here's another view...
Data From the Void: NASA Receives Laser Communications From 140+ Million Miles Away
scitechdaily.com
... NASA's optical communications demonstration has shown that it can transmit test data at a maximum rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps) from the flight laser transceiver's near-infrared downlink laser " a bit rate comparable to broadband internet download speeds.
That was achieved on December 11, 2023, when the experiment beamed a 15-second ultra-high-definition video to Earth from 19 million miles away (31 million kilometers, or about 80 times the Earth-Moon distance). The video, along with other test data, including digital versions of Arizona State University's Psyche Inspired artwork, had been loaded onto the flight laser transceiver (see image below) before Psyche launched last year. ...
Now that the spacecraft is more than seven times farther away, the rate at which it can send and receive data is reduced, as expected. During the April 8 test, the spacecraft transmitted test data at a maximum rate of 25 Mbps, which far surpasses the project's goal of proving at least 1 Mbps was possible at that distance. ...
@#6 ... But I'll take a stab. ItG's probably because ...
I'll take a stab also...
It may be because those Governors attracted tho corporations to their states because they told the corporations of the anti-union stance of their states.
Now that the people of those states have figured out that the GOP governors have sold them out to the corporations, those GOP governors are starting to become more than a bit concerned.
A favorite song of mine...
Blind Faith - Presence Of The Lord (1969)
www.youtube.com
Keith Relf's band.
Formerly of the Yardbirds and Renaissance.
Armageddon - Silver Tightrope (1975)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt...
...
I close my eyes to worldly skies
I leave behind the day
And deep within me, Ishallbegin
To chase mythoughts away
As loved ones hold meto their sides
Their strength flows into me
To cast me outofsorrow'sblindness
Into eternity
I thoughtI heard themsoftly calling
The voices of the spheres
As light years flash forever falling
Away from waking fears
I reach out, try to touch the passing
Of beings bathed in light
But they just smile, their eyes not asking
To see beyond their sight
...
So, what does the apparent leader of the Republican Party have to say about abortion?
Trump abortion timeline: Tracking his shifting views on the procedure (April 4, 2024)
www.axios.com
... Former President Donald Trump on Monday formally announced his position on abortion rights, saying the issue should be left up to states to decide.
Why it matters: The announcement contrasts Trump's earlier hints that he would support a national abortion ban and risks angering anti-abortion rights groups who favor restrictions on the national level. ...
Trump's views before getting elected to office
In the years before he entered politics and throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump voiced an array of often contradicting positions on abortion.
- - - Back in 1999, Trump told NBC News that he was "very pro-choice" though he caveated, "I hate the concept of abortion. I hate it ... I just believe in choice." ...
This is interesting...
An abortion rights initiative in South Dakota receives enough signatures to make the ballot
abcnews.go.com
... Supporters of a South Dakota abortion rights initiative submitted far more signatures than required Wednesday to make the ballot this fall. But its outcome is unclear in the conservative state, where Republican lawmakers strongly oppose the measure and a major abortion rights advocate doesn't support it. ...
@#19 ... Customers who fly a lot might prefer their refund to be in frequent flier points as opposed to a standard refund. ...
Got a link?