https://f-droid.org/packages/org.liberty.android.freeotpplus

That strain is now spreading into every corner of the consumer market as prices rise for materials like plastic, rubber and polyester. The impact is so far most evident in Asia, which accounts for more than half of the world’s manufacturing and is heavily reliant on imports for oil and other commodities.

In South Korea, where people have been panic-buying trash bags, the government has encouraged event organizers to minimize use of disposable items. Taiwan has started a hotline for manufacturers that have run out of plastic, while its rice farmers told local media they may hike prices because they can’t get vacuum-sealed bags.

In Japan, the oil crisis has sparked fears that patients with chronic kidney failure won’t be able to get treatment due to a lack of plastic medical tubes used in hemodialysis. Malaysian glove manufacturers say a dearth of a petroleum byproduct needed to make rubber latex is threatening global supplies of medical gloves.

Following the improvements agreed today, these devices will now be limited to two per passenger, and passengers will be prohibited from recharging them during flights.

Says the Cheeto & Chief who used questionable AI images in official government announcements?

It’s really worth reading: https://hntrbrk.com/demining-hormuz/ which TWZ references regarding the demining.

The ending is below as I just had to shake my head and slap my face.

The Washington Institute estimated years ago that clearing the Strait of Hormuz of mines could require “up to 16 MCM vessels.” The Navy has seven. Iran has an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 mines and, according to U.S. intelligence in conversations with CNN, still retains “80% to 90% of its small boats and miners.”

The brief covered a recent MCM Advanced Tactical Training program, the final pre-deployment mine warfare assessment for LCS crews.

Some key findings:

Unreliable unmanned systems. Each Fleet-class USV mission requires over four hours of “pre-mission maintenance” and “1.5 hours of GPS/sonar calibration once launched,” according to the presentation. Multiple hunt missions were conducted where the sonar simply failed to record data — and crews didn’t know until the post-mission analysis. This is especially damaging during reacquire-and-identify missions, exactly the kind of work needed to clear a minefield.

Operators have responded by shortening mission times, which defeats the purpose of using unmanned vehicles in the first place. One pre-deployment exercise with the USS Tulsa off the coast of San Diego resulted in a runaway MCM USV near Mexico’s territorial waters that could not be recovered by the mothership LCS. “Literally, the practice minefield I use is 1 mile north of the US-Mexico maritime border, and there’s a good chance that that UUV drifts or decides to go off on its own. I’m going to get demarched by the Mexican government,” said the leader of the U.S. Navy’s Mine Countermeasures Technical Division. The USVs themselves act as a handicap to minesweeping, with a short bandwidth range forcing the mothership LCS to operate near or inside minefields to maintain visual range to the USV’s antennas.

Visual identification doesn’t work. U.S. MCM doctrine requires a camera to visually confirm mines — the AQS-20 has to drive directly over a bottom mine. But even the relatively clear waters off Southern California have defeated this approach. In the turbid, shallow, current-swept waters of the Persian Gulf, the problem would be far worse. The officer’s conclusion: The Navy needs to adopt high-granularity sonar identification, as other navies already have.

Critical single-point failures. The platform lift between mission bay and hangar, the BIT test laptops for the USV/ALMDS/AMNS, the twin boom extensible crane, and the payload handling systems are all single-point failures with no spares or redundancy aboard. If any one of these breaks, operations stop. When describing the deployment arm, the Navy mine countermeasures lead said, “It is a troubling system. It is highly complex for what it does, and when it breaks, I’m out of a job, I’m out of a mission.”

Multi-mission dilution. The LCS was designed as a multi-mission platform. The addition of Naval Strike Missiles and pressure to support visit, board, search, and seize operations means crews have less time to build and maintain MCM proficiency. “So now my ship with an LCS mission package may not necessarily be practicing MCM.” The LCS platform is also being experimented on as a long-range strike platform. The director’s own conclusion: The LCS will always struggle to match a dedicated MCM vessel.

The Michelangelo system uses sensors and predictive algorithms to detect suspicious activity early and enable the most effective response.

I hope they test their AI.

“Mosaic defence” is an Iranian military concept most closely associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), particularly under former commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, who led the force from 2007 to 2019.

The idea is to organise the state’s defensive structure into multiple regional and semi-independent layers instead of concentrating power in a single command chain that could be paralysed by a decapitation strike.

Under this model, the IRGC, the Basij, regular army units, missile forces, naval assets and local command structures form parts of a distributed system. If one part is hit, others keep functioning. If senior leaders are killed, the chain does not collapse. If communications are severed, local units still retain the authority and capacity to act.

The doctrine has two central aims: to make Iran’s command system difficult to dismantle by force, and to make the battlefield itself harder to resolve quickly by turning Iran into a layered arena of regular defence, irregular warfare, local mobilisation and long-term attrition.

That is why Iranian military thinking does not treat war primarily as a contest of firepower. It treats it as a test of endurance.

The Dow’s not over 50,000 now Kristi. You have to reap what you sow.

I think this graphics lacks context yes, but I don’t think it’s throughput. I think it’s average lifetime debt on credit cards. Although that doesn’t mean much either.

As you say what is this saying… And provide the why either. Cost of living, age group, why do people have more debt than other? Also what is the median period have credit card debt?

This is not a geographic map data point.

8. Too much news to early.

Can we get Spain’s leader to say Iran is Trump’s Epstein tax on the world. Or any leader? Chants even? Hell by now we should have a billboard top ten about this.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do. Two such use cases have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now:

• Mass domestic surveillance. …
• Fully autonomous weapons. …

In the request, Tri-State and Platte River say they’ve built sufficient solar and wind farms, and no longer need Craig 1. By forcing the power plant to stay open, the plant owners say they’ve been forced to buy coal and invest in maintaining the facility, unnecessary expenses that amount to an “uncompensated taking” of their property in violation of the Constitution.

The U.S. Department of Energy declined an interview request for this story. In an emailed statement, Caroline Murzin, an agency spokesperson, said the U.S. needs vast amounts of additional electricity generation to support domestic manufacturing and the ongoing artificial intelligence boom.

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, the Energy Department is unleashing energy dominance to reduce energy costs for American families and strengthen the electric grid,” Murzin said.

So you want to keep a coal power plant that even the operators don’t want online, and violate the constitution again, so you can support your pedo-tech buddies and shove AI down our throats?

https://www.gem.wiki/Craig_Station

I appreciate the shitty Photoshop over AI slop. Keeping it real with the chief.

I thought they like being the lighting rod of dispute, so why would they want to rebut the article?

You might call the Hilo office at (808) 933-0910 to ask specific questions about habitability (bedbugs) and utility access (internet/laundry) under the current Code https://legalnavigatorhawaii.org/resource/state-of-hawaii-office-of-consumer-protection/

Given the physical contact described, you could also consider reporting the incident to local law enforcement if you feel unsafe, as this exceeds typical landlord-tenant disputes.

Otherwise Legal Aid is the correct path for figuring out what is legal.

Really useful article. Rare to read something that actually does a decent job explaining the background from someplace wanting to sell you something.

I wonder how hard it would be to rework this advertisements to be what it’s actually used for:

• Immigrants spotted! Administrative warrant issued, ICE deployed!
• Automatic License Plate Recognition with Flock (now a partner), found a “criminal”. Administrative warrant issued, ICE deployed!
• etc.

I see and partially agree with what you mean, but I don’t agree that those actions don’t so anything. Partially it’s having worked for change in Washington and walked away burnt out, that I know how much DC is a bubble that has cascading impacts to everyone.

In some ways yes shutting the government down means services don’t happen, but you are wrong about not getting paid. While they aren’t paid at the time, they have regularly gotten back pay after the shutdown. Some lower level may quit anyway, but often the government job is just to good at a high GS level to really give up, due to the healthcare and retirement. So it’s not easy, but it’s a paid time off.

The real impact is as you mentioned that services aren’t processed. This has a ripple impact across the world due to trade, and finance markets. This in turns puts pressure on politicians to compromise, as a slowing of the economic makes everyone upset, and that is a lever.

So it’s about finding levers that are more than show, like this current “shutdown” as many agencies have already been funded prior to this and the stopgap is likely to get passed shortly, but without longterm DHS funding. Schumer calling it a win, is just for show. DHS will continue, when they could have put their foot down and stopped everything.

Where I agree with you is that the ideal of the conservative movement is to make government small and privatize it. They can only do so much though, as the US federal government is a behemoth, and even what DOGE did–while stuipid, and short sided–barely impacted the overall long term budget. If they were really after shrinking it, they’d cut the military. DOGE claimed they cut around 55 billion, but the senate just passed a 1200 billion dollar budget. And remember the US GDP is 31 Trillion, and the 1.2 Trillion wasn’t all of the budget, just most of it.

I don’t think we need it all, but changes and improvement, especially in governments, tend to be slow and deliberate. Rash acts cause disruptions which have profound impacts, and we’ll see those.

All of which is to say yes, I agree those actions don’t seem like much, but they have more impact than you think.

How about standing for something and sticking to it. One of our senators could filibuster, much like Strom Thurmond did for 24 hours during the civil rights movement.

Or even if you shut the government down for the ACA, you get what you were asking for rather than giving in when it “looks” like you have won the propaganda battle.

Basically they need to put inspiring acts of policy in front of rational reasoned policy, as no one think rational and reasonable is going to work with the Republican Nazis.