Immagino che adesso anche la Corte Suprema israeliana riceverà accuse di antisemitismo.
Comunque:
Per la Corte il licenziamento è illecito sia perché il governo non si era rivolto all’organo competente per la rimozione del capo dello Shin Bet, sia per il conflitto di interessi di Netanyahu, visto che a essere indagati erano suoi collaboratori.
Bar comunque si dimetterà il 15 giugno, come ha annunciato ad aprile citando le proprie responsabilità negli attacchi del 7 ottobre 2023 di Hamas contro Israele.
Although there are some ferries and commercial boats that use a multi-hull design, the most recognizable catamarans by far are those used for sailing. They have a number of advantages over monohull boats including higher stability, shallower draft, more deck space, and often less drag. Of course, these advantages aren’t exclusive to sailboats, and plenty of motorized recreational craft are starting to take advantage of this style as well. It’s also fairly straightforward to remove the sails and add powered locomotion as well, as this electric catamaran demonstrates.
Not only is this catamaran electric, but it’s solar powered as well. With the mast removed, the solar panels can be fitted to a canopy which provides 600 watts of power as well as shade to both passengers. The solar panels charge two 12V 100ah LifePo4 batteries and run a pair of motors. That’s another benefit of using a sailing cat as an electric boat platform: the rudders can be removed and a pair of motors installed without any additional drilling in the hulls, and the boat can be steered with differential thrust, although this boat also makes allowances for pointing the motors in different directions as well.
In addition to a highly polished electric drivetrain, the former sailboat adds some creature comforts as well, replacing the trampoline with a pair of seats and adding an electric hoist to raise and lower the canopy. As energy density goes up and costs come down for solar panels, more and more watercraft are taking advantage of this style of propulsion as well. In the past we’ve seen solar kayaks, solar houseboats, and custom-built catamarans (instead of conversions) as well.
Nelle ultime ore si è assistito a un grande clamore mediatico riguardante il “takedown” dell’infrastruttura del noto malware-as-a-service Lumma Stealer, con un’operazione congiunta guidata dall’FBI, Europol, CISA e partner privati come Microsoft. L’azione ha colpito i sistemi di distribuzione e i canali di affitto del malware, mirando a interrompere una delle minacce cybercriminali più attive degli ultimi anni.
Tuttavia, come emerge anche dall’articolo di BleepingComputer e da verifiche indipendenti, è importante distinguere tra il successo tattico dell’operazione e l’effettiva capacità di neutralizzare l’infrastruttura di Lumma Stealer.
Secondo le dichiarazioni ufficiali, sono stati sequestrati oltre 2.300 domini legati a Lumma e chiuse alcune piattaforme di vendita e affitto del malware. Microsoft ha ottenuto un’ordinanza per disabilitare infrastrutture gestite attraverso registrar fraudolenti. Tuttavia, l’analisi tecnica suggerisce che il malware è ancora operativo in parte della sua rete. Test condotti su campioni attivi mostrano che Lumma è ancora in grado di comunicare con server C2 non colpiti. Alcuni operatori underground hanno confermato disservizi temporanei risolti in tempi brevi. Questo dimostra che, pur rappresentando un’importante azione di disturbo, l’operazione non ha colpito in modo definitivo la catena operativa del malware. Un pannello ancora attivo vs uno sequestrato
La sfida delle infrastrutture flessibili
Lumma, come altri infostealer, è progettato per essere resiliente. Le sue componenti infrastrutturali vengono ruotate frequentemente, i C2 vengono cambiati ogni giorno, e i panel di controllo sono distribuiti e replicabili. Questo rende difficile per le autorità infliggere un danno permanente solo attraverso il sequestro di domini. L’infrastruttura può riorganizzarsi rapidamente, grazie a backup e domini dormienti pronti all’attivazione.
Pressione anche sugli affiliati
Un elemento interessante è il presunto sequestro del canale Telegram ufficiale di Lumma, o quantomeno la sua compromissione da parte delle autorità. Dopo una prima comunicazione in lingua russa, è comparso un secondo messaggio in inglese attribuito direttamente al Federal Bureau of Investigation, rafforzato da un’immagine simbolica che mostra un uccello dietro le sbarre. Il messaggio, rivolto agli abbonati del servizio, ringrazia ironicamente i membri del team Lumma per l'”ospitalità” concessa nel canale, accusando al contempo gli amministratori di non aver protetto i propri clienti.
Viene inoltre offerta la possibilità di contattare direttamente l’FBI tramite Telegram, Signal o email, in un apparente invito alla collaborazione o alla resa volontaria. La comunicazione chiude con una frase dal tono volutamente ambiguo: “se non ci contattate voi, non preoccupatevi: lo faremo noi”.
Questa manovra, se autentica, va oltre il semplice sequestro tecnico: rappresenta una forma di pressione psicologica mirata a erodere la fiducia degli utenti finali nel servizio stesso, scoraggiando future attività e instaurando un clima di panico o diffidenza all’interno dell’ecosistema criminale.
Il ruolo strategico degli attori privati
Uno degli aspetti più significativi di questa operazione è il coinvolgimento diretto di aziende private nella fase di intelligence, sequestro e disabilitazione tecnica dell’infrastruttura di Lumma Stealer. Microsoft ha avuto un ruolo centrale nell’ottenere un’ordinanza per il sequestro di domini gestiti da registrar fraudolenti.
ESET ha partecipato con attività di monitoraggio e analisi proattiva delle componenti malware, fornendo informazioni fondamentali sulle modalità di funzionamento di Lumma e supportando l’attribuzione degli elementi infrastrutturali. CleanDNS ha collaborato al blocco e alla de-registrazione dei domini malevoli, mentre Cloudflare ha contribuito con dati e strumenti di threat intelligence volti a contrastare le tecniche di evasione utilizzate da Lumma per mascherare il proprio traffico C2.
Questa sinergia tra pubblico e privato ha rappresentato una leva fondamentale per portare avanti un’operazione coordinata su scala globale, dimostrando come l’efficacia di una cyber-operazione oggi dipenda sempre più dalla collaborazione trasversale tra attori istituzionali e industria della sicurezza.
Questa operazione, sebbene non definitiva, rappresenta un’importante inversione di tendenza: si comincia a colpire sistematicamente un fenomeno in fortissima espansione. Gli stealer come Lumma stanno diventando il vero motore economico del cybercrime moderno.
La vendita massiva di log, credenziali, cookie e wallet esfiltrati avviene in modo automatico su marketplace underground e Telegram, generando profitti costanti, anche in assenza di estorsione diretta.
Il takedown parziale di Lumma Stealer rappresenta un risultato concreto, ma non ancora risolutivo. L’infrastruttura ha subito un colpo, ma non è stata smantellata del tutto. Il malware continua a circolare, anche se con meno efficienza.
È quindi fondamentale osservare le prossime mosse delle autorità: solo la continuità operativa e un cambio di passo strategico potranno incidere in modo duraturo su una minaccia che si è già evoluta oltre i confini del modello ransomware.
Microsoft ritiene che l’intelligenza artificiale potrebbe accelerare lo sviluppo della fusione nucleare come fonte energetica pratica, il che a sua volta potrebbe aiutare a rispondere alla domanda su come alimentare l’intelligenza artificiale stessa.
La fusione nucleare, nel contesto della generazione di elettricità, è una tecnologia che, come l’informatica quantistica, esiste in teoria e negli esperimenti di laboratorio, ma non ha ancora raggiunto la scala industriale. I reattori sperimentali producono solo momentaneamente più energia di quanta ne consumino.
I sostenitori di questa tecnologia ritengono che la fusione fornirà all’umanità energia pulita praticamente illimitata, il che è particolarmente rilevante per Microsoft, che sta sviluppando prodotti di intelligenza artificiale con un consumo energetico gigantesco .La protezione non è un’opzione. È una necessità.
Presso Microsoft Research e tra i principali fisici è emersa l’idea di utilizzare l’apprendimento automatico, ora denominato IA, per accelerare i progressi nella fusione. “La ricerca della fusione nucleare come fonte di energia illimitata e pulita è da tempo uno degli obiettivi più ambiziosi dell’umanità”, scrivono i ricercatori di Microsoft Research Kenji Takeda, Shruti Rajurkar e Ade Famoti nel loro articolo .
“Sebbene ci vorranno ancora anni per arrivare a un’energia di fusione scalabile, i ricercatori stanno ora esplorando come l’intelligenza artificiale possa accelerarne lo sviluppo e avvicinarla all’adozione nella rete energetica.” Parte di questa ricerca è stata discussa a marzo al primo Fusion Summit di Microsoft Research, un incontro di scienziati che sperano di accelerare lo sviluppo della fusione basata sull’intelligenza artificiale, una tecnologia in cui Microsoft sta investendo miliardi di dollari.
Ashley Llorens, vicepresidente di Microsoft Research, ha aperto l’evento riflettendo su quanto sarebbe fantastico promuovere la sostenibilità attraverso l’informatica e l’intelligenza artificiale.
Tali riflessioni sono necessarie perché l’intelligenza artificiale non può ancora essere definita sostenibile. Come osserva il Programma delle Nazioni Unite per l’Ambiente, “I data center che ospitano server di intelligenza artificiale generano rifiuti elettronici. Consumano enormi quantità di acqua ed elettricità e utilizzano risorse rare che spesso vengono estratte in modo non sostenibile”.
Microsoft sta cercando di ridurre l’impatto ambientale dell’intelligenza artificiale attraverso compensazioni di carbonio, l’acquisto di energia pulita e l’ottimizzazione di software e hardware. Se riuscissimo ad accelerare lo sviluppo della fusione nucleare, potremmo compensare parte dei danni, a meno che, naturalmente, nel frattempo la situazione non sfugga di mano.
Sir Stephen Cowley, direttore del Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory ed ex capo dell’Autorità per l’energia atomica del Regno Unito, ha tenuto un discorso e ha sottolineato che sono necessarie molte più ricerche per capire se l’intelligenza artificiale può davvero aiutare a trovare la configurazione ottimale del reattore in grado di produrre energia a un costo accessibile.
Gli abbonati dell’operatore di telecomunicazioni Cellcom, che serve gli utenti del Wisconsin e dell’Upper Michigan (USA), sono rimasti senza comunicazione per quasi una settimana: non potevano né chiamare né inviare SMS. Solo pochi giorni dopo l’inizio dell’incidente l’azienda ha ammesso ciò che era già stato sospettato: un attacco informatico aveva causato i massicci disagi.
Inizialmente, l’operatore ha definito l’incidente un malfunzionamento tecnico, assicurando che la trasmissione dati, iMessage, i messaggi RCS e le chiamate di emergenza al 911 hanno continuato a funzionare. Tuttavia, gli utenti esprimevano sempre più insoddisfazione per la mancanza di comunicazione e l’impossibilità di trasferire un numero a un altro operatore: i sistemi interni di Cellcom semplicemente non funzionavano.
Ora l’amministratore delegato dell’azienda, Brigid Riordan, ha confermato ufficialmente che si tratta di un “incidente informatico”.
In una lettera agli abbonati, ha sottolineato che l’azienda aveva messo in atto dei protocolli di risposta e che il team aveva seguito tali piani fin dall’inizio. Le misure adottate includono l’intervento di esperti esterni in sicurezza informatica, la notifica all’FBI e alle autorità del Wisconsin e il lavoro 24 ore su 24 per ripristinare i sistemi. L’attacco ha colpito solo un segmento separato dell’infrastruttura, non correlato all’archiviazione dei dati personali. Finora non ci sono state prove di fughe di informazioni, compresi nomi, indirizzi e dati finanziari degli abbonati.
Al momento alcuni servizi vengono gradualmente ripristinati. Il 19 maggio gli utenti hanno potuto scambiarsi SMS ed effettuare chiamate all’interno della rete Cellcom. Tuttavia, i tempi necessari per una completa ripresa restano incerti. Nella sua pagina degli aggiornamenti, la società ha affermato che prevede di ripristinare tutti i servizi entro la fine della settimana, ma non è riuscita a fornire una data esatta.
Per gli abbonati il cui ripristino della connessione è in ritardo, viene offerto un modo semplice per provare a ripristinare il servizio: attivare la modalità aereo per 10 secondi, quindi disattivarla. Se il problema persiste, riavviare il dispositivo.
Nonostante le crescenti critiche per la lenta risposta, Cellcom ha iniziato a essere più aperta sulla situazione: oltre alla lettera, l’amministratore delegato ha anche registrato un videomessaggio in cui spiega la situazione attuale e i progressi della ripresa. L’azienda non ha rilasciato dichiarazioni in merito al possibile attacco ransomware.
La situazione attuale dimostra quanto possa diventare critica la dipendenza dalla stabilità delle infrastrutture digitali, anche a livello regionale. Allo stesso tempo, Cellcom sottolinea di essersi preparata in anticipo a simili incidenti, ma che le conseguenze sono state comunque avvertite da decine di migliaia di utenti.
Regular vs gene-edited spider silk with a fluorescent gene added. (Credit: Santiago-Rivera et al. 2025, Angewandte Chemie) Continuing the scientific theme of adding fluorescent proteins to everything that moves, this time spiders found themselves at the pointy end of the CRISPR-Cas9 injection needle. In a study by researchers at the University of Bayreuth, common house spiders (Parasteatoda tepidariorum) had a gene inserted for a red fluorescent protein in addition to having an existing gene for eye development disabled. This was the first time that spiders have been subjected to this kind of gene-editing study, mostly due to how fiddly they are to handle as well as their genome duplication characteristics.
In the research paper in Angewandte Chemie the methods and results are detailed, with the knock-out approach of the sine oculis (C1) gene being tried first as a proof of concept. The CRISPR solution was injected into the ovaries of female spiders, whose offspring then carried the mutation. With clear deficiencies in eye development observable in this offspring, the researchers moved on to adding the red fluorescent protein gene with another CRISPR solution, which targets the major ampullate gland where the silk is produced.
Ultimately, this research serves to demonstrate that it is possible to not only study spiders in more depth these days using tools like CRISPR-Cas9, but also that it is possible to customize and study spider silk production.
Don’t you hate it when making your DIY X-ray machine you make an uncomfortable amount of ozone gas? No? Well [Hyperspace Pirate] did, which made him come up with an interesting idea. While creating a high voltage supply for his very own X-ray machine, the high voltage corona discharge produced a very large amount of ozone. However, normally ozone is produced using lower voltage, smaller gaps, and large surface areas. Naturally, this led [Hyperspace Pirate] to investigate if a higher voltage method is effective at producing ozone.
Using a custom 150kV converter, [Hyperspace Pirate] was able to test the large gap method compared to the lower voltage method (dielectric barrier discharge). An ammonia reaction with the ozone allowed our space buccaneer to test which method was able to produce more ozone, as well as some variations of the designs.
Experimental Setup with ozone production in the left jar and nitrate in the right. Large 150kV gaps proved slightly effective but with no large gains, at least not compared to the dielectric barrier method. Of which, glass as the dielectric leads straight to holes, and HTPE gets cooked, but in the end, he was able to produce a somewhat sizable amount of ammonium nitrate. The best design included two test tubes filled with baking soda and their respective electrodes. Of course, this comes with the addition of a very effective ozone generator.
While this project is very thorough, [Hyperspace Pirate] himself admits the extreme dangers of high ozone levels, even getting close enough to LD50 levels for worry throughout out his room. This goes for when playing with high voltage in general kids! At the end of the day even with potential asthma risk, this is a pretty neat project that should probably be left to [Hyperspace Pirate]. If you want to check out other projects from a distance you should look over to this 20kW microwave to cook even the most rushed meals!
Rümeysa Öztürk never supported terrorism. That’s not even debatable at this point. A federal judge confirmed the government has no evidence to deport the Tufts University graduate student besides her co-authorship of an op-ed opposing the war in Gaza.
The Washington Post has reported that the State Department warned the government before it nabbed her off the street near her home that there was no basis to deport her.
But lack of evidence isn’t stopping the Trump administration’s efforts to deport her or others. So when Congress contemplates granting the same administration further powers to arbitrarily deem its opponents’ conduct “support of terrorism,” alarm bells should sound.
Well, ring-a-ling. Last year’s “nonprofit killer” bill is making a comeback. That’s the bill that would allow the secretary of the treasury to deem nonprofit organizations terrorist supporters and revoke their tax-exempt status, all with little to no due process.
It was buried at the back of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that passed the House Ways and Means Committee, before being stripped out of the next version of the megabill, likely for procedural reasons. There’s no reason to think it’s gone for good.
Opposing the bill’s next incarnation must be top priority for all defenders of press freedom and the rule of law. The bill was a horrible idea during the Biden administration, when many Democrats pandering to anti-Palestinian donors supported it while knowing full well Trump might be president in a few months. Now it’s downright scary.
We don’t have to speculate about slippery slopes anymore — Trump has already shown what he’ll do if he’s allowed to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to who is a terrorist supporter. Öztürk is still facing deportation proceedings, and Mahmoud Khalil is still in jail in Louisiana despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitting in a court filing that the “terrorism” case against him is solely based on his beliefs — primarily his opposition to the Israel-Gaza war.
He’ll almost certainly demand his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declare any organizations that advocate for or assist Palestinians to be terrorist supporters. That’s practically a given. If Bessent refuses, he’ll find someone who will. But what about protesters? Minor property damage will quickly become a terrorist attack in Trump’s alternative reality — an “invasion!” And the administration has already made clear its intent to target environmental nonprofits.
And then, of course, there are nonprofit media outlets, not to mention press freedom groups like Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF).
Trump’s creativity knows no bounds when it comes to conjuring up frivolous legal theories against news outlets. Just last week, his White House claimed that Business Insider’s parent company engaged in illegal political meddling by reporting on his son’s business entanglements. He has argued that reporting critically about him constitutes “tortious interference” or even election interference — months after the election. The list goes on.
Trump’s creativity knows no bounds when it comes to conjuring up frivolous legal theories against news outlets.
And his own party has already shown him the way. Last year, Sen. Tom Cotton and other Republicans demanded that major news outlets be investigated for terrorism because they bought photographs from freelancers in Gaza (one of whom the Israeli army just assassinated). One letter even threatened charges for merely reporting things officials didn’t like.
Those news outlets were for-profit companies and the threats were under existing laws on material support for terrorism. Cotton and his friends’ antics were mere stunts — those laws require the government to prove its case, and it couldn’t. But the nonprofit killer bill solves that problem when it comes to nonprofit news outlets, by eliminating the government’s burden of proof and the defenses afforded to organizations investigated under current law.
Sure, a nonprofit could challenge the constitutionality of the claims against it — and should win — but that could take years, and the controversy could permanently steer donors away.
Here’s what’s puzzling: This bill could easily backfire on Republicans, but they’re pushing it anyway. It’s one thing for anti-immigrant officials to claim broad powers to deport immigrants like Öztürk and Khalil. But conservatives aren’t anti-nonprofit. They have nonprofits too.
One could easily imagine a future Democratic administration, using powers gifted to it by today’s Republicans, deeming anti-abortion organizations terrorist supporters, or punishing conservative groups because of ties to white supremacists far less tenuous than the alleged ties between Öztürk and Hamas. Pro-Israel groups that associate with illegal West Bank settlers could be targeted in the unlikely event the Democrats nominate a pro-Palestine president.
So why don’t the bill’s proponents care about the obvious “shoe on the other foot” possibility? Is it because they’re just that shortsighted? Maybe. Or perhaps they don’t intend to ever relinquish power, and destroying civil society and the press is one part of that plan.
Israele annuncia nuovo vertice tra Netanyahu e Satana
GERUSALEMME – È sempre più stretto il rapporto di fraterna amicizia tra il premier israeliano Benjamin Netanyahu e il Principe delle tenebre Satana. La loro più che trentennale collaborazione troverà nuovo slancio in un vertice annunciato dal governo di Gerusalemme che si terrà a fine mese nella capitale ebraica. Secondo fonti istituzionali i temi in […]
che ci fosse in collegamento o qualcosa da nascondere per il fatto che non fosse in territori israeliano ma nella zona palestinese occupata? i militari non dovrebbero neppure essere li, sono abusivi. se sono li teoricamente dovrebbero esserci per difendere i palestinesi. ma io dubito.
Some readers may recall building a line-following robot during their school days. Involving some IR LEDs, perhaps a bit of LEGO, and plenty of trial-and-error, it was fun on a tiny scale. Now imagine that—but rideable. That’s exactly what [Austin Blake] did, scaling up a classroom robotics staple into a full-size vehicle you can actually sit on.
The robot uses a whopping 32 IR sensors to follow a black line across a concrete workshop floor, adjusting its path using a steering motor salvaged from a power wheelchair. An Arduino Mega Pro Mini handles the logic, sending PWM signals to a DIY servo. The chassis consists of a modified Crazy Cart, selected for its absurdly tight turning radius. With each prototype iteration, [Blake] improved sensor precision and motor control, turning a bumpy ride into a smooth glide.
The IR sensor array, which on the palm-sized vehicle consisted of just a handful of components, evolved into a PCB-backed bar nearly 0.5 meters wide. Potentiometer tuning was a fiddly affair, but worth it. Crashes? Sure. But the kind that makes you grin like your teenage self. If it looks like fun, you could either build one yourself, or upgrade a similar LEGO project.
L'Unione Europea ha imposto sanzioni severe al fornitore di servizi di web hosting Stark Industries e ai due individui che lo gestiscono, l'amministratore delegato Iurie Neculiti e il proprietario Ivan Neculiti, per aver consentito "attività destabilizzanti" contro l'Unione.
L'azione fa parte dell'impegno del Consiglio europeo per la protezione dalle minacce ibride russe. Riguarda 21 individui e sei entità che hanno sostenuto o promosso gli interessi di politica estera della Russia e diffuso propaganda filo-russa attraverso i media.
Il servizio di web hosting Stark Industries figura tra le società sanzionate nell'elenco aggiornato del Consiglio.
This week, Jonathan Bennett and Jeff Massie chat with Tom Herbert about eBPF, really fast networking, what the future looks like for high performance computing and the Linux Kernel, and more!
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.
The Nordic Model criminalizes buyers of sex in multiple European countries (and Maine). Sweden just voted to expand its reach to the internet.#sexwork #sweden #nordic #onlyfans
L’Europa ha dovuto prendere consapevolezza che gli Stati Uniti sposteranno la propria attenzione sull’Indo-Pacifico e quindi c’è bisogno che il Vecchio continente si prenda in carico la propria difesa e
The ARRL used to have a requirement that any antenna advertised in their publications had to have real-world measurements accompanying it, to back up any claims of extravagant performance. I’m told that nowadays they will accept computer simulations instead, but it remains true that knowing what your antenna does rather than just thinking you know what it does gives you an advantage. I was reminded of this by a recent write-up in which the performance of a mylar sheet as a ground plane was tested at full power with a field strength meter, because about a decade ago I set out to characterise an antenna using real-world measurements and readily available equipment. I was in a sense field testing it, so of course the first step of the process was to find a field. A real one, with cows.
Walking Round And Round A Field In The Name Of Science
A very low-tech way to make field recordings. The process I was intending to follow was simple enough. Set up the antenna in the middle of the field, have it transmit some RF, and measure the signal strength at points along a series of radial lines away from it I’d end up with a spreadsheet, from which I could make a radial plot that would I hoped, give me a diagram showing its performance. It’s a rough and ready methodology, but given a field and a sunny afternoon, not one that should be too difficult.
I was more interested in the process than the antenna, so I picked up my trusty HB9CV two-element 144MHz antenna that I’ve stood and pointed at the ISS many times to catch SSTV transmissions. It’s made from two phased half-wave radiators, but it can be seen as something similar to a two-element Yagi array. I ran a long mains lead oput to a plastic garden table with the HB9CV attached, and set up a Raspberry Pi whose clock would produce the RF.
My receiver would be an Android tablet with an RTL-SDR receiver. That’s pretty sensitive for this purpose, so my transmitter would have to be extremely low powered. Ideally I would want no significant RF to make it beyond the boundary of the field, so I gave the Pi a resistive attenuator network designed to give an output of around 0.03 mW, or 30 μW. A quick bit of code to send my callsign as CW periodically to satisfy my licence conditions, and I was off with the tablet and a pen and paper. Walking round the field in a polar grid wasn’t as easy as it might seem, but I had a very long tape measure to help me.
A Lot Of Work To Tell Me What I Already Knew
And lo! for I have proven an HB9CV to be directional! I ended up with a page of figures, and then a spreadsheet which I’m amused to still find in the depths of my project folder. It contains a table of angles of incidence to the antenna versus metres from the antenna, and the data points are the figure in (uncalibrated) mV that the SDR gave me for the carrier at that point. The resulting polar plot shows the performace of the antenna at each angle, and unsurprisingly I proved to myself that a HB9CV is indeed a directional antenna.
My experiment was in itself not of much use other than to prove to myself I could characterise an antenna with extremely basic equipment. But then again it’s possible that in times past this might have been a much more difficult task, so knowing I can do it at all is an interesting conclusion.
Semplificando, la si potrebbe mettere come segue. La macchina a vapore ha dato vita alla rivoluzione industriale, che ha dato vita alla classe operaia, che ha dato vita all’ideale socialista… con tutto quello che ne è seguito. Il motore a
Un cambio di passo, netto, per andare oltre un passato che da 80 anni a questa parte ha garantito la sicurezza alle nazioni europee tramite il doppio ombrello Nato-Usa. La consapevolezza di una nuova difesa europea sta tutta in questo assunto, che il ministro della difesa Guido Crosetto ha
Arricchimento dei più ricchi e impoverimento dei più poveri. Questa è in sostanza la formula alla base del cosiddetto “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” che Donald Trump sta cercando di fare approvare al Congresso di Washington, da un lato per rendere perm…
Vendo amplificatore da 10 watt con echo e distorsione incluse. Condizioni pari al nuovo, usato nemmeno una decina di volte sempre in casa. Modello LT-ECHO 10.
Price: 35 € :: Questo è un articolo disponibile su FediMercatino.it
Si prega di rispondere con un messaggio diretto/privato al promotore dell'annuncio.
The Macintosh Plus was Apple’s third version on the all-in-one Mac, and for its time it was a veritable powerhouse. If you don’t have one here in 2025 there are a variety of ways to emulate it, but should you wish for something closer to the silicon there’s now [max1zzz]’s all-new Mac Plus motherboard in a mini-ITX form factor to look forward to.
As with other retrocomputing communities, the classic Mac world has seen quite a few projects replacing custom parts with modern equivalents. Thus it has reverse engineered Apple PALs, a replacement for the Sony sound chip, an ATtiny based take on the Mac real-time clock, and a Pi Pico that does VGA conversion. It’s all surface mount save for the connectors and the 68000, purely because a socketed processor allows for one of the gold-and-ceramic packages to be used. The memory is soldered, but with 4 megabytes, this is well-specced for a Mac Plus.
At the moment it’s still in the prototype spin phase, but plenty of work is being done and it shows meaningful progress towards an eventual release to the world. We are impressed, and look forward to the modern takes on a Mac Plus which will inevitably come from it. While you’re waiting, amuse yourself with a lower-spec take on an early Mac.
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) Nel mondo finanziario, gli stress test sono ormai una pratica consolidata, per mettere alla prova banche e istituti con scenari ipotetici di crisi economiche o shock sistemici. Ecco perché Enisa vuole stressare i sistemi digitali strategici
Guardarsi l’ombelico, sui #socialmedia è diventata una delle dinamiche comunicative più evidenti e problematiche del nostro tempo. Si manifesta come una continua conferma del proprio punto di vista all’interno di comunità digitali omogenee, dove gli utenti si confrontano quasi esclusivamente con contenuti che rispecchiano le loro convinzioni. Questo fenomeno crea un effetto di “eco chamber” (camera dell’eco), termine coniato per descrivere gli ambienti chiusi in cui le opinioni vengono amplificate e rafforzate dal continuo rimando tra soggetti che condividono idee simili.
La dinamica ha conseguenze profonde sulla qualità del dibattito pubblico, in particolare su temi complessi e controversi come la politica, l’ambiente, i diritti civili o la scienza. L’autoreferenzialità riduce la possibilità di confronto, impedisce l’incontro con punti di vista differenti e genera una polarizzazione che ostacola l’approfondimento. I social media, in teoria, dovrebbero essere strumenti potenti per la condivisione della conoscenza e la promozione del dialogo, ma nella pratica spesso si trasformano in spazi di conferma identitaria, dove l’obiettivo principale è ottenere consenso e visibilità piuttosto che interrogarsi, dubitare o cambiare opinione.
Secondo Eli Pariser, autore del saggio “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You” (2021), gli algoritmi che regolano le piattaforme digitali personalizzano i contenuti che vediamo in base ai nostri comportamenti precedenti. Questo porta a una selezione automatica delle informazioni che rafforza la nostra visione del mondo e riduce l’esposizione a fonti alternative o critiche. E’ una bolla filtrante, dove ogni contenuto che entra è già stato pre-selezionato per piacere, non per stimolare il pensiero critico.
Il problema, dunque, non è solo sociale o culturale, ma anche strutturale: le stesse piattaforme sono progettate per massimizzare il tempo di permanenza degli utenti, non per favorire il confronto aperto. In questo contesto, l’autoreferenzialità diventa una forma di autodifesa e, al tempo stesso, di auto-promozione. Gli utenti non cercano un dialogo autentico, ma piuttosto la legittimazione della propria identità e delle proprie idee. Questo spiega perché spesso gli argomenti più seri vengano affrontati con superficialità o, peggio, strumentalizzati per ottenere like e approvazione.
Un altro contributo utile alla riflessione è quello di Sherry Turkle, psicologa e sociologa del MIT, nel suo libro “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age” (2015). Turkle sostiene che la comunicazione mediata da schermo impoverisce la qualità del dialogo e porta a evitare i confronti più complessi, quelli che richiedono tempo, empatia e disponibilità all’ascolto.
Essere autoreferenziali rappresenta una piccola sfida per la democrazia e per la crescita culturale collettiva. Per andare oltre, è necessario sviluppare una nuova alfabetizzazione digitale, che insegni non solo a usare le piattaforme, ma anche a riconoscere i propri bias, a cercare attivamente il dissenso e ad apprezzare la complessità. Solo così i social potranno diventare davvero strumenti di apertura e non semplici specchi narcisistici.
E dato che tutti, prima o poi, ce la suoniamo solo per sentirci bene, più benvoluti, più apprezzati forse è il momento per cambiare musica.
Gli scritti sono tutelati da “Creative Commons” (qui)
Tutte le opinioni qui riportate sono da considerarsi personali. Per eventuali problemi riscontrati con i testi, si prega di scrivere a: corubomatt@gmail.com
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo Durante una visita diplomatica organizzata dall’Autorità Palestinese, i soldati israeliani aprono il fuoco per allontanare il gruppo. Tajani convoca l'ambasciatore israeliano in Italia L'articolo Spari contro delegazione con vice
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) Anche il modello di intelligenza artificiale generativa di Elon Musk, integrata direttamente nella piattaforma X (ex Twitter), è coinvolto in un nuovo caso di veicolazione involontaria di contenuti fuorvianti o polarizzanti. Ecco perché desta
Il 19 maggio, il vertice tra Regno Unito e Unione europea ha dato vita al partenariato strategico che segna inequivocabilmente il riavvicinamento di Londra a Bruxelles dettato dall’urgenza, dunque la responsabilità, di affrontare sfide comuni alla propria
If legend is to be believed, three disparate social forces in early 20th-century America – the temperance movement, the rise of car culture, and the Scots-Irish culture of the South – collided with unexpected results. The temperance movement managed to get Prohibition written into the Constitution, which rankled the rebellious spirit of the descendants of the Scots-Irish who settled the South. In response, some of them took to the backwoods with stills and sacks of corn, creating moonshine by the barrel for personal use and profit. And to avoid the consequences of this, they used their mechanical ingenuity to modify their Fords, Chevrolets, and Dodges to provide the speed needed to outrun the law.
Though that story may be somewhat apocryphal, at least one of those threads is still woven into the American story. The moonshiner’s hotrod morphed into NASCAR, one of the nation’s most-watched spectator sports, and informed much of the car culture of the 20th century in general. Unfortunately, that led in part to our current fossil fuel predicament and its attendant environmental consequences, which are now being addressed by replacing at least some of the gasoline we burn with the same “white lightning” those old moonshiners made. The cost-benefit analysis of ethanol as a fuel is open to debate, as is the wisdom of using food for motor fuel, but one thing’s for sure: turning corn into ethanol in industrially useful quantities isn’t easy, and it requires some Big Chemistry to get it done.
Heavy on the Starch
As with fossil fuels, manufacturing ethanol for motor fuel starts with a steady supply of an appropriate feedstock. But unlike the drilling rigs and pump jacks that pull the geochemically modified remains of half-billion-year-old phytoplankton from deep within the Earth, ethanol’s feedstock is almost entirely harvested from the vast swathes of corn that carpet the Midwest US (Other grains and even non-grain plants are used as feedstock in other parts of the world, but we’re going to stick with corn for this discussion. Also, other parts of the world refer to any grain crop as corn, but in this case, corn refers specifically to maize.) Don’t try to eat it — you’ll break your teeth. Yellow dent corn is harvested when full of starch and hard as a rock. Credit: Marjhan Ramboyong. The corn used for ethanol production is not the same as the corn-on-the-cob at a summer barbecue or that comes in plastic bags of frozen Niblets. Those products use sweet corn bred specifically to pack extra simple sugars and less starch into their kernels, which is harvested while the corn plant is still alive and the kernels are still tender. Field corn, on the other hand, is bred to produce as much starch as possible, and is left in the field until the stalks are dead and the kernels have converted almost all of their sugar into starch. This leaves the kernels dry and hard as a rock, and often with a dimple in their top face that gives them their other name, dent corn.
Each kernel of corn is a fruit, at least botanically, with all the genetic information needed to create a new corn plant. That’s carried in the germ of the kernel, a relatively small part of the kernel that contains the embryo, a bit of oil, and some enzymes. The bulk of the kernel is taken up by the endosperm, the energy reserve used by the embryo to germinate, and as a food source until photosynthesis kicks in. That energy reserve is mainly composed of starch, which will power the fermentation process to come.
Starch is mainly composed of two different but related polysaccharides, amylose and amylopectin. Both are polymers of the simple six-carbon sugar glucose, but with slightly different arrangements. Amylose is composed of long, straight chains of glucose molecules bound together in what’s called an α-1,4 glycosidic bond, which just means that the hydroxyl group on the first carbon of the first glucose is bound to the hydroxyl on the fourth carbon of the second glucose through an oxygen atom: Amylose, one of the main polysaccharides in starch. The glucose subunits are connected in long, unbranched chains up to 500 or so residues long. The oxygen atom binding each glucose together comes from a reaction between the OH radicals on the 1 and 4 carbons, with one oxygen and two hydrogens leaving in the form of water. Amylose chains can be up to about 500 or so glucose subunits long. Amylopectin, on the other hand, has shorter straight chains but also branches formed between the number one and number six carbon, an α-1,6 glycosidic bond. The branches appear about every 25 residues or so, making amylopectin much more tangled and complex than amylose. Amylopectin makes up about 75% of the starch in a kernel.
Slurry Time
Ethanol production begins with harvesting corn using combine harvesters. These massive machines cut down dozens of rows of corn at a time, separating the ears from the stalks and feeding them into a threshing drum, where the kernels are freed from the cob. Winnowing fans and sieves separate the chaff and debris from the kernels, which are stored in a tank onboard the combine until they can be transferred to a grain truck for transport to a grain bin for storage and further drying. Corn harvest in progress. You’ve got to burn a lot of diesel to make ethanol. Credit: dvande – stock.adobe.com Once the corn is properly dried, open-top hopper trucks or train cars transport it to the distillery. The first stop is the scale house, where the cargo is weighed and a small sample of grain is taken from deep within the hopper by a remote-controlled vacuum arm. The sample is transported directly to the scale house for a quick quality assessment, mainly based on moisture content but also the physical state of the kernels. Loads that are too wet, too dirty, or have too many fractured kernels are rejected.
Loads that pass QC are dumped through gates at the bottom of the hoppers into a pit that connects to storage silos via a series of augers and conveyors. Most ethanol plants keep a substantial stock of corn, enough to run the plant for several days in case of any supply disruption. Ethanol plants operate mainly in batch mode, with each batch taking several days to complete, so a large stock ensures the efficiency of continuous operation. The Lakota Green Plains ethanol plant in Iowa. Ethanol plants look a lot like small petroleum refineries and share some of the same equipment. Source: MsEuphonic, CC BY-SA 3.0. To start a batch of ethanol, corn kernels need to be milled into a fine flour. Corn is fed to a hammer mill, where large steel weights swinging on a flywheel smash the tough pericarp that protects the endosperm and the germ. The starch granules are also smashed to bits, exposing as much surface area as possible. The milled corn is then mixed with clean water to form a slurry, which can be pumped around the plant easily.
The first stop for the slurry is large cooking vats, which use steam to gently heat the mixture and break the starch into smaller chains. The heat also gelatinizes the starch, in a process that’s similar to what happens when a sauce is thickened with a corn starch slurry in the kitchen. The gelatinized starch undergoes liquefaction under heat and mildly acidic conditions, maintained by injecting sulfuric acid or ammonia as needed. These conditions begin hydrolysis of some of the α-1,4 glycosidic bonds, breaking the amylose and amylopectin chains down into shorter fragments called dextrin. An enzyme, α-amylase, is also added at this point to catalyze the α-1,4 bonds to create free glucose monomers. The α-1,6 bonds are cleaved by another enzyme, α-amyloglucosidase.
The Yeast Get Busy
The result of all this chemical and enzymatic action is a glucose-rich mixture ready for fermentation. The slurry is pumped to large reactor vessels where a combination of yeasts is added. Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer’s yeast, is the most common, but other organisms can be used too. The culture is supplemented with ammonia sulfate or urea to provide the nitrogen the growing yeast requires, along with antibiotics to prevent bacterial overgrowth of the culture.
Fermentation occurs at around 30 degrees C over two to three days, while the yeast gorge themselves on the glucose-rich slurry. The glucose is transported into the yeast, where each glucose molecule is enzymatically split into two three-carbon pyruvate molecules. The pyruvates are then broken down into two molecules of acetaldehyde and two of CO2. The two acetaldehyde molecules then undergo a reduction reaction that creates two ethanol molecules. The yeast benefits from all this work by converting two molecules of ADP into two molecules of ATP, which captures the chemical energy in the glucose molecule into a form that can be used to power its metabolic processes, including making more yeast to take advantage of the bounty of glucose. Anaerobic fermentation of one mole of glucose yields two moles of ethanol and two moles of CO2. After the population of yeast grows to the point where they use up all the glucose, the mix in the reactors, which contains about 12-15% ethanol and is referred to as beer, is pumped into a series of three distillation towers. The beer is carefully heated to the boiling point of ethanol, 78 °C. The ethanol vapors rise through the tower to a condenser, where they change back into the liquid phase and trickle down into collecting trays lining the tower. The liquid distillate is piped to the next two towers, where the same process occurs and the distillate becomes increasingly purer. At the end of the final distillation, the mixture is about 95% pure ethanol, or 190 proof. That’s the limit of purity for fractional distillation, thanks to the tendency of water and ethanol to form an azeotrope, a mixture of two or more liquids that boils at a constant temperature. To drive off the rest of the water, the distillate is pumped into large tanks containing zeolite, a molecular sieve. The zeolite beads have pores large enough to admit water molecules, but too small to admit ethanol. The water partitions into the zeolite, leaving 99% to 100% pure (198 to 200 proof) ethanol behind. The ethanol is mixed with a denaturant, usually 5% gasoline, to make it undrinkable, and pumped into storage tanks to await shipping.
Nothing Goes to Waste
The muck at the bottom of the distillation towers, referred to as whole stillage, still has a lot of valuable material and does not go to waste. The liquid is first pumped into centrifuges to separate the remaining grain solids from the liquid. The solids, called wet distiller’s grain or WDG, go to a rotary dryer, where hot air drives off most of the remaining moisture. The final product is dried distiller’s grain with solubles, or DDGS, a high-protein product used to enrich animal feed. The liquid phase from the centrifuge is called thin stillage, which contains the valuable corn oil from the germ. That’s recovered and sold as an animal feed additive, too. Ethanol fermentation produces mountains of DDGS, or dried distiller’s grain solubles. This valuable byproduct can account for 20% of an ethanol plant’s income. Source: Inside an Ethanol Plant (YouTube). The final valuable product that’s recovered is the carbon dioxide. Fermentation produces a lot of CO2, about 17 pounds per bushel of feedstock. The gas is tapped off the tops of the fermentation vessels by CO2 scrubbers and run through a series of compressors and coolers, which turn it into liquid carbon dioxide. This is sold off by the tanker-full to chemical companies, food and beverage manufacturers, who use it to carbonate soft drinks, and municipal water treatment plants, where it’s used to balance the pH of wastewater.
There are currently 187 fuel ethanol plants in the United States, most of which are located in the Midwest’s corn belt, for obvious reasons. Together, these plants produced more than 16 billion gallons of ethanol in 2024. Since each bushel of corn yields about 3 gallons of ethanol, that translates to an astonishing 5 billion bushels of corn used for fuel production, or about a third of the total US corn production.
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