Don't forget the huge energy savings (heating/cooling, transportation, infrastructure) by having denser housing. It isn't just a measurement of "I can see trees," but all the daily human activities that have a reduced environmental impact in denser development. It's counter-intuitive, but rural areas that are "nearer to nature" are often worse for the environment.
There is probably a break-even point, I don't think everyone living in skyscrapers is ecologically ideal and I wouldn't want to live there anyway. But medium-density development with multi-unit (shared wall) buildings allows huge energy costs, while also making public transit more viable and providing a tax base that actually pays for its own infrastructure.
Cannon, whose oversight of the Donald Trump classified documents case has garnered widespread criticism, has repeatedly violated a rule requiring that federal judges disclose their attendance at private seminars.
Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the controversial jurist who tossed out the classified documents criminal case against Donald Trump in July, failed to disclose her attendance at a May 2023 banquet funded by a conservative law school.
Cannon went to an event in Arlington, Va. honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, according to documents obtained from the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University. At a lecture and private dinner, she sat among members of Scalia’s family, fellow Federalist Society members and more than 30 conservative federal judges. Organizers billed the event as “an excellent opportunity to connect with judicial colleagues.”
A 2006 rule, intended to shine a light on judges’ attendance at paid seminars that could pose conflicts or influence decisions, requires them to file disclosure forms for such trips within 30 days and make them public on the court’s website.
It’s not the first time she has failed to fully comply with the rule.
In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.
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Thanks for the rec! I also love that you presume that there will be a next time, cuz, uh, that's accurate. These little boxes are powerhouses, I probably want one for a TV set-top box now that all the TV boxes (Roku, Amazon Fire, even Android TV and soon Apple TV) are riddled with ads.
At this point, my only hope is that the failed business model will kill most of these before they get even worse, regulators don't seem to have any appetite to monitor or restrict/tax the runaway energy usage.
Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official figures
Big tech has made some big claims about greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. But as the rise of artificial intelligence creates ever bigger energy demands, it’s getting hard for the industry to hide the true costs of the data centers powering the tech revolution.
According to a Guardian analysis, from 2020 to 2022 the real emissions from the “in-house” or company-owned data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple are likely about 662% – or 7.62 times – higher than officially reported.
Amazon is the largest emitter of the big five tech companies by a mile – the emissions of the second-largest emitter, Apple, were less than half of Amazon’s in 2022. However, Amazon has been kept out of the calculation above because its differing business model makes it difficult to isolate data center-specific emissions figures for the company.
As energy demands for these data centers grow, many are worried that carbon emissions will, too. The International Energy Agency stated that data centers already accounted for 1% to 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2022 – and that was before the AI boom began with ChatGPT’s launch at the end of that year.
AI is far more energy-intensive on data centers than typical cloud-based applications. According to Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, and data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030. Goldman competitor Morgan Stanley’s research has made similar findings, projecting data center emissions globally to accumulate to 2.5bn metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030.
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Hardly. The arguments against race-conscious admissions or affirmative action are generally based (unironically) in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Beelink and Minisforum are legit
I wish I knew a lot of this when I first started shopping for a mini PC. I ended up with a Beelink model that I'm quite happy with, but it seems almost luck that I didn't pick another one, and I would have liked a "reputable brand" search function.
Pigs are the only animal I struggle with eating, morally.
Yeah, they're pretty intelligent and emotionally aware, at least as much as your average dog.
Aldi employees do a lot (stocking, cleaning, cashiering, etc.) but are paid relatively well and get solid hours. The stores I have visited seem to retain their workers for long periods, too.
Awesome, it looked like so much fun!
Taxing carbon at its source is the only feasible way of doing a carbon tax, we have to get serious about this if we even pretend to care about the safety and national security threats that come with global warming, rising sea levels, severe/changing weather, etc.
The dealership eventually gave in, but it put up a big fight over a fraction of a second delay.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19704884
> A Purdue University student thought he kicked his way to a two-year car lease for making three field goals in a contest held during the Boilermakers’ season opener in West Lafayette. However, the dealership sponsoring the giveaway later reneged on the deal because of a technical. The final kick – a 40-yarder – left his foot just a split second too late on August 31. Car dealerships really cannot help but be bastards, can they? > > ...
The dealership eventually gave in, but it put up a big fight over a fraction of a second delay.
A Purdue University student thought he kicked his way to a two-year car lease for making three field goals in a contest held during the Boilermakers’ season opener in West Lafayette. However, the dealership sponsoring the giveaway later reneged on the deal because of a technical. The final kick – a 40-yarder – left his foot just a split second too late on August 31. Car dealerships really cannot help but be bastards, can they?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MO9CUyuwf4
". . . and you can put so much stuff in there, you wouldn't even know!"
A lot of donuts and cookies, I think.
The social media pictures and video from the trip are pretty cool, if you want to see where she went and what parts of the trip were like.
Good news (no thanks to de Joy). Those are adorkable.
Also, in an unfortunate coincidence, a mail truck broke down in front of my place yesterday, so the need is real.
"I had so much fun — felt like I could’ve just kept riding forever," says the tireless and always smiling Alaskan
In the evening twilight hours of September 11, 2024, Lael Wilcox became the unofficial new world record holder for the Fastest Circumnavigation of the World by Bicycle (female).
Wilcox left Chicago's Grant Park at 7:06 a.m. on May 26, 2024, and returned to the Buckingham Fountain 108 days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes later, having completed 18,125 miles (29,169 km) across four continents and 22 countries.
With her time, the 38-year-old Alaskan has unseated Scot Jenny Graham who held the record since 2018 after completing her unsupported journey in 124 days, 10 hours and 50 minutes.
"I had so much fun — felt like I could’ve just kept riding forever," Wilcox commented at the finish, where she was welcomed by family, friends and the Chicago cycling community.
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That's basically the wave in the water planet scene from Interstellar. That's terrifying.
The predecessor company had several significant innovative periods. Heck, I'd say that when Lee Iacocca took over and developed the minivan platform with the Dodge Caravan it was innovative. Maybe minivans aren't sexy, but they were an untapped market and sold a lot of units for Chrysler and basically defined the vehicle category for many years.
And I have been very critical of Nashville DA Glenn Funk, including for his malfeasance in using person connections to get fake work to boost his own pension, but the formation of the Conviction Review Unit—once it was actually used, after an initially inactive period—deserves recognition and praise.
The Post has collected more than 40 examples of Facebook removing emergency-related posts during at least 20 wildfires since June.
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During a scorching, relentless wildfire season, Facebook has been flagging and removing dozens of posts containing links and screenshots from Watch Duty, a widely relied-upon wildfire alert app, as well as from federal and state agencies, according to interviews and Facebook conversations with nearly 20 residents, Facebook users and moderators, as well as employees from disaster response organizations. And it’s not happening just to people in Hutchinson’s rural and extremely fire-prone community 135 miles north of San Francisco but to volunteer responders, fire and sheriff departments, news stations and disaster nonprofit workers across California and in other states, according to screenshots.
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A plane clipped a second plane on a taxiway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Tuesday morning, tearing the tail off the smaller plane.
A Delta jet clipped a smaller plane on a taxiway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Tuesday morning, tearing the tail off the smaller plane, officials said.
Delta Air Lines Flight 295, which was en route to Tokyo, was taxiing for takeoff when its wingtip hit the tail of Endeavor Air Flight 5526, which was headed to Louisiana, knocking the Endeavor plane's tail off, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and Delta.
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That's a good insight, car dealers are a huge part of the market, and they exert a lot of pressure against change. They also fund and support a lot of local Republican candidates, historically, a fact not entirely unrelated.
Love love Hark! A Vagrant. And a lot of the other comics are way funnier, especially the historical ones. The comics about "marauding women on bicycles" (like this one) crack me up. I still think the "strong female characters" series is one of the funniest things ever.
I wish Beaton would keep doing Hark! A Vagrant, but given what her family went through and her sister's misdiagnosis and death from cancer, I understand why she finished it up. Her graphic novel/memoir, Ducks, was one of the best books I read last year.
In case you're wondering, the answer is "Definitely not."
Have automakers gotten so used to fat profit margins from SUV sales, particularly during the post-pandemic boom, that they consider anything that requires investment to be "insufficiently profitable"? Or has the high-return mindset of Silicon Valley infected Detroit as well?
Over a 15-year period, 6,253 cars crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the U.S. – an average of 1.14 per day.
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Over a 15-year period, 6,253 cars crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the U.S. – an average of 1.14 per day.
7-Eleven apparently fought in court to withhold that data from the public.
"They have not been producing that information for many, many years," Rogers said, "and that's what's important about this case - getting this information out about how frequently this happens."
Rob Reiter is co-founder of the Storefront Safety Council. He was retained as an expert by Carl's attorneys in this case.
"If you install bollards, you pretty much solve that problem," he said of the danger.
Reiter advocates for safety bollards or protective barriers being placed in front of storefronts – especially those with parking lots that face the front door.
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‘Sustainable’ logging operations are clear-cutting Canada’s climate-fighting forests
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19517395
> With its vast expanses of forest, Canada has the most “certified” sustainable timber operations of any nation, according to the nonprofit organizations that attest to the environmental soundness of logging practices. > > Such forestry-standards groups were born in the 1990s out of rage over tropical rainforest destruction. Today, they put their leafy seals of approval on toilet paper, two-by-fours and other wood and paper goods to assure eco-conscious consumers and investors they were responsibly produced. > > Yet research shows Canadian forests have seen some of the world’s largest declines in ecologically critical primary and old-growth woodlands over the last two decades, even as sustainability-certification programs grew to include nearly all of Canada’s logging. > > To track destruction of older woodlands in these certified zones, Reuters analyzed forestry data in Ontario, a major logging province. The analysis found that about 30% of the certified boreal forests harvested from 2016 to 2020 were at least 100 years old. That resulted in the loss of 377 square miles of these older forests, an area the size of New York City and Washington D.C. combined, the analysis found. > > ...
With its vast expanses of forest, Canada has the most “certified” sustainable timber operations of any nation, according to the nonprofit organizations that attest to the environmental soundness of logging practices.
Such forestry-standards groups were born in the 1990s out of rage over tropical rainforest destruction. Today, they put their leafy seals of approval on toilet paper, two-by-fours and other wood and paper goods to assure eco-conscious consumers and investors they were responsibly produced.
Yet research shows Canadian forests have seen some of the world’s largest declines in ecologically critical primary and old-growth woodlands over the last two decades, even as sustainability-certification programs grew to include nearly all of Canada’s logging.
To track destruction of older woodlands in these certified zones, Reuters analyzed forestry data in Ontario, a major logging province. The analysis found that about 30% of the certified boreal forests harvested from 2016 to 2020 were at least 100 years old. That resulted in the loss of 377 square miles of these older forests, an area the size of New York City and Washington D.C. combined, the analysis found.
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A big blow to the Internet Archive.
The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in a fight to lend out scanned ebooks without the approval of publishers. In a decision on Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that permitting the Internet Archive’s digital library would “allow for widescale copying that deprives creators of compensation and diminishes the incentive to produce new works.”
The decision is another blow to the nonprofit in the Hachette v. Internet Archive case. In 2020, four major publishers — Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, and HarperCollins — sued the Internet Archive over claims its digital library constitutes “willful digital piracy on an industrial scale.”
The Internet Archive has long offered a system called the Open Library, where users can “check out” digital scans of physical books. The library was based on a principle called controlled digital lending, where each loan corresponds to a physically purchased book held in a library — avoiding, in theory, a piracy claim. It’s a fundamentally different system from programs like OverDrive, where publishers sell limited-time licenses to ebooks on their own terms.
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Hottest large city in US broke previous heat record from 1993 as temperatures are expected to reach 110 tomorrow
Phoenix, Arizona, saw its 100th straight day of 100F (37.7C) heat this week.
The hottest large city in the United States broke its previous record of 76 consecutive 100F days set in 1993. The relentless streak, which started on 27 May and hit its 100th day on Tuesday, is forecast to persist into next week. An excessive heat warning is in effect through Friday, with temperatures expected to reach 110F (43C) tomorrow.
This summer was the hottest one in Phoenix since 1896, when records first began. Latest county data shows that at least 177 people died from heat-related causes so far this year, with 436 under investigation. Last year, Maricopa county saw 645 confirmed heat-related fatalities, enduring 55 days in a row with above 110F temperatures.
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James Gaddis tanked Florida governor’s secretive scheme to build hotels and golf courses over acres of preserved land
Florida’s department of environmental protection has fired a whistleblower who exposed and sank governor Ron DeSantis’s secretive plan to pave over environmentally sensitive state parks and build lucrative hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
James Gaddis, who worked for the agency for two years as a cartographer, was terminated for “conduct unbecoming a public employee”, according to a letter he received on Saturday.
His leaking of the proposals sparked a furious backlash that united Republicans with Democrats and environmental advocates, and forced DeSantis into a humiliating climbdown last week in which he admitted the plans were “half-baked” and were “going back to the drawing board”.
Speaking with the Tampa Bay Times on Monday, Gaddis said preservation of the state parks was more important to him than his position.
“It was the absolute flagrant disregard for the critical, globally imperiled habitat in these parks,” he said. “This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat. The secrecy was totally confusing and very frustrating. No state agency should be behaving like this.”
News of his firing came as two Democratic state representatives pressed the agency about who was involved in drawing up plans that appeared to include no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.
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The new zero-emission train, known as Zemu, will run through an area that has long suffered from poor air quality. Will it be the start of a clean energy rail movement in the US?
There’s a new train pulling into the station in San Bernardino, a southern California city about 60 miles from Los Angeles. From the outside, it looks like any other commuter train, with three passenger carriages, blocky windows and a colourful blue exterior.
But inside, it’s unlike anything the region – or the country – has seen before. The $20m Zero-Emission Multiple Unit, known as Zemu, uses a hybrid hydrogen fuel cell and battery system to propel the train and run other onboard electrical systems. The only byproduct of the fuel cell is water vapour, a welcome change in an area known as the Inland Empire that suffers from some of the worst air quality rates in the country.
The new technology will make Zemu the first hydrogen-powered, zero-emissions passenger train in North America to meet Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requirements when it goes into service early next year.
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NHL player Johnny Gaudreau of the Columbus Blue Jackets was killed Thursday night when he was hit by a car while riding a bicycle.
NHL player Johnny Gaudreau and his younger brother were killed Thursday night when they were hit by a suspected drunken driver while riding bicycles in their home state of New Jersey, police said.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother, Matthew, 29, are Carneys Point, New Jersey, natives and were in the area for their sister Katie’s wedding scheduled for Friday in Philadelphia, at which they were to be groomsmen.
New Jersey State police said Friday the Gaudreau brothers were cycling on a road when a man driving in the same direction attempted to pass two other vehicles and struck them from behind, causing fatal injuries.
Police said the driver, Sean M. Higgins, was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and charged with two counts of death by auto and jailed at the Salem County Correctional Facility.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 11 professional seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He played his first nine with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
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Yes. The answer is Yes. And Hank Green brings receipts.
Democratic elites continue to ignore the multiple allegations against Clinton – and the reality of the Lewinsky affair
People who like Bill Clinton, or who find him convenient for their own goals, have a long history of underplaying the multiple allegations of sexual harassment and violence that he faces from at least four women. They say that Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment after the then governor brought her to his hotel room, propositioned her and exposed himself, is lying – even though Jones has multiple corroborating witnesses, and even though her story has not changed in more than 30 years.
They say that Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says that Clinton raped her in a hotel room in 1978, when he was Arkansas attorney general, is lying, too – even though Broaddrick, like Jones, told multiple people of Clinton’s attack at the time.
They say that Monica Lewinsky, the 22-year-old unpaid intern whom Clinton carried on an affair with in the White House when he was 49 and the most powerful person in the world, technically consented to the sex acts that Clinton asked her to do – an insistence that betrays a startlingly simple-minded and willfully obtuse understanding of sexual ethics.
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Crypto companies have already funneled some $119 million into federal elections, according to data from Public Citizen.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19059055
> The crypto industry is making its mark on this year's elections to the tune of some $119 million. > > The funding has largely come from two companies — Coinbase and Ripple — which are funneling money into super PACs like Fairshake PAC, which is dedicated to "elevating pro-crypto candidates and attacking crypto skeptics," according to Public Citizen. > > At the 2024 bitcoin conference in Nashville in February, Trump — who called bitcoin "highly volatile and based on thin air" in 2019 — said he'd lay out a plan "to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world." Trump has already won the backing of several crypto enthusiasts, including his running mate JD Vance, who owns at least $250,000 in bitcoin.
For the most part, drivers find the technology in their cars to be pretty useless.
It turns out that more technology in cars isn’t necessarily something customers want, and it’s not really improving their driving experience. We know my thoughts on the matter, but I’ll do my best to stay impartial on this latest survey from JD Power that shows most customers don’t appreciate technology in cars unless they can see a clear benefit to them.
JD Power’s 2024 U.S. Tech Experience Index Study evaluated over 81,000 drivers’ experience with “advanced vehicle technologies” in 2024 model year vehicles after 90 days of ownership, It turned out to be a pretty mixed bag when it came to what people liked using. There are a number of tech features that customers like using because they feels that it answers their needs, but at the same time there is a whole lot that don’t get used very often or are continually annoying, according to the survey.
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Critics warn new medicines could be lost by reducing out-of-pocket costs. But there are good reasons to be optimistic about future medical research.
It is a harrowing proposition: that in trying to control drug prices for 67 million Medicare patients now, we might inadvertently prevent the development of future drugs that could save lives. Implied, if not stated outright, is that we’re putting a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s or some other intractable disease in jeopardy.
But we have good reasons to believe that the current policy won’t have such a trade-off any time soon. For one, pharma is hugely profitable, and these negotiated prices, while potentially chipping away at profit margins, should hardly entirely dampen the incentive to innovate, according to a couple of key studies of the industry. Two, if we are worried about future innovation, we should be focused on making it cheaper to develop drugs – and this is actually one area where AI is showing promise. By identifying the best candidates for possible treatments early in the research process, we could speed up development and continue to reduce costs — without losing out on tomorrow’s breakthroughs. ...