US President Donald Trump sailed into the White House on a tide of cash from his fossil energy donors. However, he and they have been caught napping. The global renewable energy transition is still gathering steam and expanding into new areas...

...The next step is to introduce farming activities between the rows of solar panels. That’s a win-win for solar development on marginal lands, where the beneficial impact of partial shade can introduce, or re-introduce, farming to areas that were previously unproductive...

...Trump made a lot of promises to farmers on his way to the White House, but instead they got market-killing tariffs, crippling inflation, and worker shortages alongside a fresh wave of climate impacts. The income from solar leases can be a lifeline for struggling farmers, crops or no crops...

...“At the 310 MW Zhundong project, this platform improved alfalfa yields beneath panels by 20% while cutting irrigation demand by 15%,” the company states.

“In Anhui’s Jinzhai pilot upgrade, motorized adjustable mounts boosted camellia oilseed yields by 30% and raised solar efficiency by 8%, achieving genuine ‘dual harvests’ of agriculture and energy,” they add...

With Agrivoltaics, China Is Crushing Trump's Fossil Fuel Dreams

Bifacial solar panels are among the new technologies at work to maximize the land use efficiency of agrivoltaic systems.

^{Tina Casey (CleanTechnica)}

Some excerpts:

Since February, Google researchers have observed two groups turning to a newer technique to infect targets with credential stealers and other forms of malware. The method, known as EtherHiding, embeds the malware in smart contracts, which are essentially apps that reside on blockchains for Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. Two or more parties then enter into an agreement spelled out in the contract. When certain conditions are met, the apps enforce the contract terms in a way that, at least theoretically, is immutable and independent of any central authority.

• The decentralization prevents takedowns of the malicious smart contracts because the mechanisms in the blockchains bar the removal of all such contracts.
• Similarly, the immutability of the contracts prevents the removal or tampering with the malware by anyone.
• Transactions on Ethereum and several other blockchains are effectively anonymous, protecting the hackers’ identities.
• Retrieval of malware from the contracts leaves no trace of the access in event logs, providing stealth
• The attackers can update malicious payloads at anytime

Creating or modifying smart contracts typically cost less than $2 per transaction, a huge savings in terms of funds and labor over more traditional methods for delivering malware.

Layered on top of the EtherHiding Google observed was a social-engineering campaign that used recruiting for fake jobs to lure targets, many of whom were developers of cryptocurrency apps or other online services. During the screening process, candidates must perform a test demonstrating their coding or code-review skills. The files required to complete the tests are embedded with malicious code.

Nation-state hackers deliver malware from “bulletproof” blockchains

Malicious payloads stored on Ethereum and BNB blockchains are immune to takedowns.

^{Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)}

The government has said it is "doing everything in our power" to overturn a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending a football match in Birmingham and is exploring what additional resources could be required.

On Thursday, Aston Villa said the city's Safety Advisory Group (SAG) decided that fans of the Israeli club should not be permitted to attend the Europa League fixture on 6 November over safety concerns.

Facing mounting pressure to resolve the situation, the government said it was working with police and exploring what additional resources are required.

Government 'doing everything' to overturn Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban at Aston Villa match

It is working with police and exploring what additional resources are required to allow all fans to attend.

^{Euan O Byrne Mulligan (BBC News)}

The government has said it is "doing everything in our power" to overturn a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending a football match in Birmingham and is exploring what additional resources could be required.

On Thursday, Aston Villa said the city's Safety Advisory Group (SAG) decided that fans of the Israeli club should not be permitted to attend the Europa League fixture on 6 November over safety concerns.

Facing mounting pressure to resolve the situation, the government said it was working with police and exploring what additional resources are required.

Government 'doing everything' to overturn Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban at Aston Villa match

It is working with police and exploring what additional resources are required to allow all fans to attend.

^{Euan O Byrne Mulligan (BBC News)}

The court also rebuffed the administration’s argument that judges have no power to review the president’s decisions to federalize the National Guard.

A federal appeals court has extended an order blocking Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Chicago, saying the administration is unable to show that there is an organized rebellion nor that officials are otherwise unable to uphold law and order in the city.

The ruling on Thursday from a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals extends a previous order that allowed Trump to federalize certain National Guard troops but blocked him from deploying troops in the city.

The panel — which consisted of a Trump appointee, an Obama appointee and a George H. W. Bush appointee — also rejected the administration’s argument that federal courts have no power to review a president’s underlying determinations in deciding to federalize troops. That question of judicial authority has cropped up in several similar lawsuits challenging deployments in Democrat-run cities.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/16/trump-national-guard-chicago-ruling-00612918

Ah, dolce… orrori oltre ogni umana comprensione!!! Questa è la mia onestissima reazione a quando poco fa, a caso, ho sentito la ventola del PC fisso (e non mi è chiaro se quella del case, o quella della CPU) diventare inspiegabilmente un elicottero dopo aver risvegliato la tale maledetta macchina dallo sleep… e la cosa […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-10-17 21:54:05

orrori del picci che fa rumore di volo in corso dalla ventola non identificata

Ah, dolce… orrori oltre ogni umana comprensione!!! Questa è la mia onestissima reazione a quando poco fa, a caso, ho sentito la ventola del PC fisso (e non mi è chiaro se quella del case, o quella della CPU) diventare inspiegabilmente un elicottero dopo aver risvegliato la tale maledetta macchina dallo sleep… e la cosa assurda è che questa non è la prima volta che capita, ma solo la prima che riesco a registrare (un grande classico con me). (…Credo sia accaduto appena 2 volte con inclusa questa, eh, non pensate chissà cosa.) 💀

Sarebbe fin troppo facile, a questo punto, fare una battuta su come questi sono semplicemente gli hacker cinorussi che stanno minando criptovalute col mio PC, che ha ancora Windows 10 dopo la data di fine vita (!!!), e quindi è matematicamente stracolmo di malware, perché le persone che non hanno idea di come funzionano i malware dicono hanno deciso che è così… ma no, la volta scorsa è stata quasi 2 mesi fa, quindi non c’entra. E, in generale, dubito c’entri in qualsiasi misura il software, visto che stavolta lo ha fatto dopo qualche ora di riposo in sleep mode, ma l’altra lo ha fatto dopo una notte di riposo da spento… 😷

Per fortuna, se lo fa una volta ogni tanto a piacere, e poi puntualmente si sistema da solo — almeno, la prima volta ha smesso di colpo nel giro di un paio di minuti, mentre stavolta ha rallentato un pochino (dopo aver fermato il video), ma non si fermava, quindi ho rimesso il PC in sleep, e dopo averlo subito risvegliato non si è lamentato più — allora non è affatto un problema… però boh, è certamente un mistero. Credo che gli spiriti delle mie pareti si siano lievemente insinuati dentro il PC, e questo è il risultato… e lo dico non a caso come invece è mio solito, ma perché, proprio qualche giorno prima che capitasse la prima volta, abbiamo riverniciato in casa, e quindi gli spiriti possono essere stati destabilizzati… e ok, ma stasera a cosa sarà mai dovuto? Nessuna teoria immaginabile regge. 🙀

#computer #PC #rumore #ventola

It could be a consequential act of quiet regulation. Cloudflare, a web infrastructure company, has updated millions of websites’ robots.txt files in an effort to force Google to change how it crawls them to fuel its AI products and initiatives.

We spoke with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince about what exactly is going on here, why it matters, and what the web might soon look like. But to get into that, we need to cover a little background first.

The new change, which Cloudflare calls its Content Signals Policy, happened after publishers and other companies that depend on web traffic have cried foul over Google’s AI Overviews and similar AI answer engines, saying they are sharply cutting those companies’ path to revenue because they don’t send traffic back to the source of the information.

There have been lawsuits, efforts to kick-start new marketplaces to ensure compensation, and more—but few companies have the kind of leverage Cloudflare does. Its products and services back something close to 20 percent of the web, and thus a significant slice of the websites that show up on search results pages or that fuel large language models.

“Almost every reasonable AI company that’s out there is saying, listen, if it’s a fair playing field, then we’re happy to pay for content,” Prince said. “The problem is that all of them are terrified of Google because if Google gets content for free but they all have to pay for it, they are always going to be at an inherent disadvantage.”

This is happening because Google is using its dominant position in search to ensure that web publishers allow their content to be used in ways that they might not otherwise want it to.

Inside the web infrastructure revolt over Google’s AI Overviews

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is making sweeping changes to force Google’s hand.

^{Samuel Axon (Ars Technica)}

Per cercare di evitare il peggio, questa volta i tre soggettoni dell'avventura si sono effettivamente preparati decentemente...

stuff.octt.eu.org/2025/10/frie…

Dopo la visita di Draht a Frieren, le cose si mettono male un po' per tutti in un lampo... e per colpa di chi, se non dei demoni? Ebbene...

stuff.octt.eu.org/2025/10/frie…

Ciò che in questo nuovo capitolo immediatamente si scopre è che, mentre i demoni servi di Alba hanno ovviamente le loro intenzioni nascoste...

stuff.octt.eu.org/2025/10/frie…

Non possiamo scrivere in una pagina web usando direttamente la tastiera come facciamo in un documento qualsiasi, ma dobbiamo prima creare un documento HTML e poi salvare con estensione .htm o.html. Se si tratta di un testo dove non compaiono accenti, apici, pedici, apriamo l’editor e poi digitiamo il testo con la tastiera, se nel testo compaiono accenti o apici e pedici allora abbiamo bisogno degli accenti e quindi delle entity che sono costrutti SGML; nel caso di apici e pedici abbiamo bisogno di tag che sevono proprio a questo e che sono _testo oppure^testo.

Facciamo degli esempi

Voglio creare una pagina contenente il seguente testo:

L’energia cinetica di un corpo è l’energia di movimento del corpo.

In questa riga di testo compare una e con l’accento. Come faccio a scriverla nella pagina web? Uso la entity è

Come scrivere in una pagina web - Solo

^{raffaella papaccioli (Solo)}

Archive: archive.is/lP0lT

404 Media

2025-10-17 01:00:35

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors

The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia, says that it’s seeing a significant decline in human traffic to the online encyclopedia because more people are getting the information that’s on Wikipedia via generative AI chatbots that were trained on its articles and search engines that summarize them without actually clicking through to the site.

The Wikimedia Foundation said that this poses a risk to the long term sustainability of Wikipedia.

“We welcome new ways for people to gain knowledge. However, AI chatbots, search engines, and social platforms that use Wikipedia content must encourage more visitors to Wikipedia, so that the free knowledge that so many people and platforms depend on can continue to flow

Sustainably,” the Foundation’s Senior Director of Product Marshall Miller said in a blog post. “With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”

Ironically, while generative AI and search engines are causing a decline in direct traffic to Wikipedia, its data is more valuable to them than ever. Wikipedia articles are some of the most common training data for AI models, and Google and other platforms have for years mined Wikipedia articles to power its Snippets and Knowledge Panels, which siphon traffic away from Wikipedia itself.

“Almost all large language models train on Wikipedia datasets, and search engines and social media platforms prioritize its information to respond to questions from their users,” Miller said. That means that people are reading the knowledge created by Wikimedia volunteers all over the internet, even if they don’t visit wikipedia.org— this human-created knowledge has become even more important to the spread of reliable information online.”

Miller said that in May 2025 Wikipedia noticed unusually high amounts of apparently human traffic originating mostly from Brazil. He didn’t go into details, but explained this caused the Foundation to update its bot detections systems.

“After making this revision, we are seeing declines in human pageviews on Wikipedia over the past few months, amounting to a decrease of roughly 8% as compared to the same months in 2024,” he said. “We believe that these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content.”

Miller told me in an email that Wikipedia has policies for third-party bots that crawl its content, such as specifying identifying information and following its robots.txt, and limits on request rate and concurrent requests.

“For obvious reasons, we can’t share details publicly about how exactly we block and detect bots,” he said. “In the case of the adjustment we made to data over the past few months, we observed a substantial increase over the level of traffic we expected, centering on a particular region, and there wasn’t a clear reason for it. When our engineers and analysts investigated the data, they discovered a new pattern of bot behavior, designed to appear human. We then adjusted our detection systems and re-applied them to the past several months of data. Because our bot detection has evolved over time, we can’t make exact comparisons – but this adjustment is showing the decline in human pageviews.”

The Foundation’s findings align with other research we’ve seen recently. In July, the Pew Research Center found that only 1 percent of Google searches resulted in the users clicking on the link in the AI summary, which takes them to the page Google is summarizing. In April, the Foundation previously reported that it was getting hammered by AI scrapers, a problem that has also plagued libraries, archives, and museums. Wikipedia editors are also acutely aware of the risk generative AI poses to the reliability of Wikipedia articles if its use is not moderated effectively.
Human pageviews to all language versions of Wikipedia since September 2021, with revised pageviews since April 2025 Image: Wikimedia Foundation.
“These declines are not unexpected. Search engines are increasingly using generative AI to provide answers directly to searchers rather than linking to sites like ours,” Miller said. “And younger generations are seeking information on social video platforms rather than the open web. This gradual shift is not unique to Wikipedia. Many other publishers and content platforms are reporting similar shifts as users spend more time on search engines, AI chatbots, and social media to find information. They are also experiencing the strain that these companies are putting on their infrastructure.”

Miller said that the Foundation is “enforcing policies, developing a framework for attribution, and developing new technical capabilities” in order to ensure third-parties responsibly access and reuse Wikipedia content, and continues to "strengthen" its partnerships with search engines and other large “re-users.” The Foundation, he said, is also working on bringing Wikipedia content to younger audiences via YouTube, TikTok, Roblox, and Instagram.

However, Miller also called on users to “choose online behaviors that support content integrity and content creation.”

“When you search for information online, look for citations and click through to the original source material,” he said. “Talk with the people you know about the importance of trusted, human curated knowledge, and help them understand that the content underlying generative AI was created by real people who deserve their support.”

AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums

"This is a moment where that community feels collectively under threat and isn't sure what the process is for solving the problem.”

^{Emanuel Maiberg (404 Media)}

https://www.newsweek.com/nyc-wikipedia-conference-gun-threat-arrest-10897284

I always love Backblaze's analysis. It's how I learned I wasn't special for having those notorious 4TB Seagate drives (I want to say DM003) shit the bed in short order.

Increased longevity is undoubtedly a plus; however, whether doing a RAID rebuild or just being out a 24TB drive (hopefully, you've got a backup), that's a lot of time and effort to get back to square one.

If you’ve hung around Backblaze for a while (and especially if you’re a Drive Stats fan), you may have heard us talking about the bathtub curve. In Drive Failure Over Time: The Bathtub Curve Is Leaking, we challenged one of reliability engineering’s oldest ideas—the notion that drive failures trace a predictable U-shaped curve over time.

But, the data didn’t agree. Our fleet showed dips, spikes, and plateaus that refused to behave. Now, after 13 years of continuous data, the picture is clearer—and stranger.

The bathtub curve isn’t just leaking, and the shape of reliability might look more like an ankle-high wall at the entrance to a walk-in shower. The neat story of early failures, calm middle age, and gentle decline no longer fits the world our drives inhabit. Drives are getting better—or, more precisely, the Drive Stats dataset says that our drives are performing better in data center environments.

So, let’s talk about what our current “bathtub curve” looks like, and how it compares to earlier generations of the analysis.

The TL;DR: Hard drives are getting better, and lasting longer.

Are Hard Drives Getting Better? Let’s Revisit the Bathtub Curve

After 13 years, the data is clear—the bathtub curve does not apply to hard drives. And, more importantly, hard drives are failing less and lasting longer.

^{Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup}

When teachers rely on commonly used artificial intelligence chatbots to devise lesson plans, it does not result in more engaging, immersive, or effective learning experiences compared with existing techniques, we found in our recent study. The AI-generated civics lesson plans we analyzed also left out opportunities for students to explore the stories and experiences of traditionally marginalized people.

The allure of generative AI as a teaching aid has caught the attention of educators. A Gallup survey from September 2025 found that 60 percent of K-12 teachers are already using AI in their work, with the most common reported use being teaching preparation and lesson planning.

Without the assistance of AI, teachers might spend hours every week crafting lessons for their students. With AI, time-stretched teachers can generate detailed lesson plans featuring learning objectives, materials, activities, assessments, extension activities, and homework tasks in a matter of seconds.

Read full article

Comments

Teachers get an F on AI-generated lesson plans

AI-generated lesson plans fall short on inspiring students and promoting critical thinking.

^{The Conversation (Ars Technica)}

Recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff warned investors to avoid the "false prophets" of AI. Now, the Pope has brought real theological weight to the bot debate, hosting a Vatican seminar that called for global AI regulation and fair distribution of the technology's benefits.

The seminar [PDF] – dubbed Digital Rerum Novarum: Artificial Intelligence for Peace, Social Justice, and Integral Human Development – was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences together with the University of Notre Dame.

The newly installed, American-born Pope Leo XIV, said, in a message to the attendees, that while it has great potential, AI poses deep questions, not least how to create a "more authentically just and human global society."

More bluntly, he quoted his predecessor to remind his flock, that "While undoubtedly an exceptional product of human genius, AI is 'above all else a tool.'"

Thou shalt not let AI run amok: Vatican wants global rules

: 'AI is a tool', Pope tells attendees

^{Joe Fay (The Register)}

Invidious: inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=VOORiyi…

YouTube: youtu.be/VOORiyip4_c

The video talks about a new paper in a techniqe to eliminate clipping of vectors. The only problem is, it is extremely computational expensive. I compare this to RayTracing, which will be viable in the future only if all the tools implement it. I assume the hardware chips that support RayTracing could be used for this new technology too, but that is just my personal assumption here.

I left the original title of the video, as it would be editorial otherwise.

Video description (only relevant parts):

📝Paper: drive.google.com/file/d/1OrOKJH_im1L4j1cJB18sfvNHEbZVSqjL/view
Code and examples are available here: github.com/st-tech/ppf-contact-solver
Guide on how to try it: drive.google.com/file/d/1n068Ai_hlfgapf2xkAutOHo3PkLpJXA4/view

Sources:
youtube.com/watch?v=5GDIoshj9Rw
youtube.com/watch?v=X53VuYLP0VY
youtube.com/shorts/x0WjJgotCXU
youtube.com/watch?v=Qu4Of18Kf2M

📝 My paper on simulations that look almost like reality is available for free here:
rdcu.be/cWPfD

Or this is the orig. Nature Physics link with clickable citations:
nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01788-5

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/some-federal-law-enforcement-receive-pay-during-government-shutdown-2025-10-16/

I'm not trying to start another Zohran struggle session, time will tell if he sells out. The article itself isn't even particularly bad, what I want to discuss is the liberal framing it uses.

Taking the democrats seriously. Taking Cuomo seriously. But the part that really bothers me is the idea that Zohran pushed the liberal consensus on Palestine. Little-known fact: the world outside of NYC actually does exist and the people in it have been hating "Israel" more and more as well. Zohran is popular partly because he reflected a changing opinion many had on "Israel", not the other way around. Journalists understand cause and effect challenge.

Zohran Mamdani Has Pushed the Liberal Consensus on Palestine. The Left Isn’t Satisfied.

The debate over Mamdani’s candidacy highlights the ongoing identity crisis within the Democratic Party as he seeks to toe the line on Israel.

^{Akela Lacy (The Intercept)}

As the first and only state contracting for its own affordable insulin, Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that CalRx® biosimilar insulin glargine pens will be available to consumers in California beginning January 1, 2026. This launch marks a significant step in the state’s ongoing effort to lower prescription drug prices and improve medication access statewide.

Through an agreement secured by Civica Rx — a nonprofit generic drug manufacturer — with Biocon Biologics, Californians will have access to an interchangeable biosimilar insulin glargine pen offered under the CalRx brand and pricing.

Governor Newsom announces affordable CalRx® insulin, $11 a pen, will soon be available for purchase | Governor of California

State of California

^{marissasaldivar (Governor of California)}

I've been hearing some good things about WinBoat, so I am wondering if anyone has tried to use it with game mod loaders. Like the windows version of Satisfactory Mod Manager (I know there is a linux one that works perfectly and exactly like the windows version but as this is a very popular game maybe someone did it this route) or, the one I am really interested in right now, Raft Mod Loader. Raft Mod Loader page suggests 1. Bottles and less recommended 2. straight wine. I would like to use a single solution for most of my windows carry overs, ie; steam is one stop for ~90% of my games flat and VR, lutris is one stop for 2 non steam games atm, but I am uncovering more as I go.

I also have 2 windows only apps for VR - FPSVR and Desktop+(this is free), obviously they will not want to port their apps to linux for such a small user base. Has anyone tried these in WinBoat?

The history of Zionism is fundamentally one of deception. This assertion is critically relevant today, as it contextualizes the so-called ‘Trump Gaza proposal,’ which appears to be little more than a veiled strategy to defeat the Palestinians and facilitate the ethnic cleansing of a significant portion of Gaza’s population.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-sabra-and-shatila-to-gaza-the-vicious-cycle-of-us-israeli-peace-ploys/