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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 15 - 20 APRIL, 2024
Hello and Welcome,
Meetings This Week
2024/04/16 — 10:00-12:00 — April, Tue — Tuesday Group
2024/04/20 — 14:00-16:00 — April, Sat — Web Design
Meetings Next Week
NO MEETINGS
Schedule of Current & Upcoming Meetings
First Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Main Meeting
First Saturday 13:00-14:00 — Penrith Group
Second Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Programming
Third Tuesday 10:00-12:00 — Tuesday Group
Third Saturday 14:00-16:00 — Web Design
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Go to the official Sydney PC Calendar for this month's meeting details.
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Penrith meetings are held every 2nd month on the 1st Saturday from 1-2 pm.
The next scheduled meetings are in May, July and September 2024.
ASCCA News:Tech News:
CSIRO telescope detects 'unprecedented behaviour' from nearby magnetar
See the iTWire article by Gordon Peters | Tuesday, 09 April, 2024, at 1:13 pm.
Researchers using Murriyang, CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope, have detected "unusual radio pulses" from a previously dormant star with a powerful magnetic field.
Magnetar-Blue
Australia's national science agency CSIRO says new results published in Nature Astronomy describe radio signals from magnetar XTE J1810-197 behaving in complex ways.
"Magnetars are a type of neutron star and the strongest magnets in the Universe. At roughly 8,000 light years away, this magnetar is also the closest known to Earth.
Most are known to emit polarised light, though the light this magnetar is emitting is circularly polarised, where the light appears to spiral as it moves through space."
Dr Marcus Lower, a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO, led the latest research and said the results are unexpected and unprecedented.
"Unlike the radio signals we've seen from other magnetars, this one emits enormous amounts of rapidly changing circular polarization. We had never seen anything like this before," Dr Lower said.
Dr Manisha Caleb from the University of Sydney, co-author of the study said studying magnetars offers insights into the physics of intense magnetic fields and the environments these create.
"The signals emitted from this magnetar imply that interactions at the star's surface are more complex than previous theoretical explanations."
Detecting radio pulses from magnetars is already extremely rare: XTE J1810-197 is one of only a handful known to produce them.
"While it's not certain why this magnetar is behaving so differently, the team has an idea," notes CSIRO.
"Our results suggest a superheated plasma above the magnetar's magnetic pole, which acts like a polarising filter," Dr Lower said. "How exactly the plasma is doing this is still to be determined."
CSIRO comments, "XTE J1810-197 was first observed to emit radio signals in 2003. Then, it went silent for well over a decade. The signals were again detected by the University of Manchester's 76-m Lovell telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in 2018 and quickly followed up by Murriyang, which has been crucial to observing the magnetar's radio emissions ever since.
"The 64-m diameter telescope in Wiradjuri Country is equipped with a cutting-edge ultra-wide bandwidth receiver designed by CSIRO engineers who are world leaders in developing technologies for radio astronomy applications.
"The receiver allows for more precise measurements of celestial objects, especially magnetars, as it is susceptical to changes in brightness and polarisation across a broad range of radio frequencies.
"Studies of magnetars such as these provide insights into a range of extreme and unusual phenomena, such as plasma dynamics, bursts of X-rays and gamma-rays, and potentially fast radio bursts."
Lower, M. E. et al., Linear to circular conversion in the polarized radio emission of a magnetar, Nature Astronomy, vol. 8 (2024)
German state to move 30,000 PCs from Windows/Office to Linux/LibreOffice
See the iTWire article by Sam Varghese | Sunday, 07 April 2024, at 15:56.
According to a blog-post from the Document Foundation, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to move 30,000 local government PCs from Windows and Office to Linux and LibreOffice. This organisation oversees the development of LibreOffice.
Schleswig-Holstein
The decision by the northern federal state was taken after a successful pilot, Mike Saunders of the Document Foundation wrote.
This is not the first time a German city or state has moved from proprietary software to free and open-source alternatives. In 2001, the city of Munich began a move from Windows to its own customised Linux distribution known as LiMux.
The move was expected to take 12 years, and by 2013, about 15,000 of the city's 18,000 desktops were running LiMux. However, in February 2017, the city voted to move back to Windows, with the plan to be implemented by 2020 if it was given the go-ahead.
The back-and-forth was reportedly not due to technical reasons but more driven by politics. This backflip began after Munich's new mayor, Dieter Reiter of the Social Democratic Party, took office in 2015. He has said publicly that he is a fan of Microsoft.
Reiter commissioned Accenture, Microsoft's Alliance Partner of the Year in 2016, to report on whether a change should be effected.
Since 2017, little has been heard about this backflip, with the last report being that the city would continue to stay with LiMux following the election of a new administration in power until 2026.
The Document Foundation said the decision by Schleswig-Holstein came in the wake of a finding by the European Data Protection Supervisor that the European Commission's use of Microsoft 365 constituted a breach of the bloc's data protection law.
That decision, reported on 29 March, said the EC had "failed to provide adequate safeguards to ensure that personal data transferred outside the EU/EEA are afforded the same level of protection as that guaranteed within the EU/EEA."
"Furthermore, in its contract with Microsoft, the Commission did not sufficiently specify the types of personal data to be collected and for what explicit and specified purposes when using Microsoft 365. The Commission's breaches as data controller also relate to data processing, including the transfer of personal data, carried out on its behalf."
Saunders cited a post by Daniel Gunther, minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein, in which the latter wrote: "Independent, sustainable, secure: Schleswig-Holstein will be a digital pioneer region and the first German state to introduce a digitally sovereign IT workplace in its state administration.
"With a cabinet decision to introduce the open-source software LibreOffice as the standard office solution across the board, the government has given the go-ahead for the first step towards complete digital sovereignty in the state, with further steps to follow."
Saunders said the Document Foundation was (understandably) pleased with the decision to shift these desktops from proprietary to open-source software.
US offers US$6.6b in funding for TSMC as third fab announced
See the iTWire article by Sam Varghese | Tuesday, 09 April, 2024, at 08:50 am.
The US has announced funding of US$6.6 billion to help Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's biggest manufacturer of semiconductors, build fabs in Arizona.
TSMC, Arizona
On Monday, TSMC announced plans to build a third fab in Arizona.
"The CHIPS and Science Act provides TSMC with the opportunity to make this unprecedented investment and offer our foundry service using the most advanced manufacturing technologies in the United States," said TSMC chairman Dr Mark Liu.
"Our US operations allow us to support our US customers better, which include several of the world's leading technology companies."
"[It] will also expand our capability to trailblaze future advancements in semiconductor technology."
The US needs to catch up in announcing specific funding amounts for the TSMC ventures, with Japan showing much more enthusiasm in allocating money for fabs it plans to have TSMC build.
Monday's announcement said the three planned fabs would create about 6000 high-wage jobs, with analysis by the Greater Phoenix Economic Council claiming the increased investment would generate more than 20,000 accumulated unique construction jobs and tens of thousands of indirect supplier and consumer jobs.
The first fab to come online in Arizona is expected to start producing 4nm chips in the first half of 2025. The second fab is planned to go into production in 2028 and produce 2nm process technology with next-generation nanosheet transistors in addition to the previously announced 3nm technology.
The third fab is expected to produce chips using 2nm or more advanced processes, with production beginning by 2030.
Like all of TSMC's advanced fabs, all three will have a cleanroom area approximately double the size of an industry-standard logic fab.
Regarding the funding announcement, AMD chair and chief executive Lisa Su said: "TSMC has a long track record of providing the leading-edge manufacturing capabilities that have enabled AMD to focus on what we do best, designing high-performance chips that change the world. We are committed to our partnership with TSMC and look forward to building our most advanced chips in the US."
Apple chief executive Tim Cook, another big user of TMSC's chips, said: "TSMC is at the leading edge of advanced semiconductor technology — and when that expertise is paired with the ingenuity of American workers, incredible things are possible."
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, added: "We congratulate TSMC for its historic investment and applaud the Commerce Department for its support. TSMC has been a long-standing partner of Nvidia since we invented the GPU and accelerated computing, and our ongoing innovation in AI would not have been possible without them."
Fun Facts:
How to Be a Reducetarian
See the TreeHugger article by Katherine Martinko | Senior Editor University of Toronto | Updated September 18, 2019.
This term is meant to include all people striving to reduce the consumption of animal products.
Veggieburger and Fries
The first-ever Reducetarian Summit took place in Manhattan last weekend. Speakers and visitors worldwide discussed the importance of reducing societal meat consumption and implementing effective strategies.
The term 'reducetarian' was coined by Brian Kateman, an energetic young New Yorker who spent years advocating for recycling, composting, and other environmentally-friendly practices before realizing that reducing meat consumption was his most effective action to help the climate. Making that shift to veganism, however, was easier said than done. He tried his best but occasionally slipped up, eating a piece of turkey or bacon; at this point, friends and family would criticize: "Aren't you supposed to be vegetarian?"
While Kateman knew he was progressing in his meat-reduction journey, he resented the focus on perfection that made the slightest transgression feel like a failure. That's when he came up with 'reducetarian,' an affirmative, inclusive, and celebratory description for everyone making good progress toward reducing animal products. As Kateman told the summit audience in his opening remarks, there are four basic tenets to reducetarianism:
1) It's not all or nothing.
With the average American eating 275 pounds of meat per year, getting an individual to reduce their meat consumption by only 10 per cent would reduce it by nearly 30 pounds annually. Now imagine if a quarter of the U.S. population did this! It could make a huge difference. Realistically, this goal is far more attainable than converting people to veganism.
2) Incremental change is worthy.
Transitioning takes time, particularly when dietary habits have been deeply ingrained for decades. Encouraging individuals to cut out meat or dairy makes it more feasible for them to cut out more. There are many different campaigns to do this, such as Vegan Before 6 (created by Mark Bittman), Weekday Vegetarian (by TreeHugger's founder Graham Hill), and Meatless Mondays. These shouldn't be rivals but different paths to the same end goal.
3) All motivations matter.
People are inspired to reduce their consumption of animal products for many reasons, from health, environmental, and ethical concerns to a fascination with food tech or a desire to save money. All of these are equally valid and should be celebrated.
4) We're all on the same team.
As reducetarians, we share an ultimate goal — to end the animal agriculture industry as we know it. We should focus on our commonality and not let what Kateman calls "horizontal hostility" prevent us from working together. Freud referred to this unfortunate phenomenon as "the narcissism of small differences," when people with a lot in common find it harder to get along than with people whose opinions are diametrically opposite. We need to avoid falling into that trap.
Reducetarianism is an opportunity to connect with others who approach the same critical issue from different perspectives. It has been a neglected space until recently, which means there is tremendous potential for growth, exploration, and cooperation. With its many vibrant, passionate discussions, the Summit proves that change is in the air.
Meeting Location & Disclaimer
Bob Backstrom
~ Newsletter Editor ~
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