“Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee” is about half a year behind with his accusation. So either it’s just for show or he’s not well informed about this topic.

Already October 2023, this was in the news for everyone to read, that France and the UK are providing the geodata for their cruise missile targets and that the UK has personnel in Ukraine.

One example article I just picked via web search: German Tagesspiegel, dated 05.10.2023

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/keine-taurus-lieferung-fur-die-ukraine-erwarte-vom-kanzler-dass-er-endlich-den-weg-freimacht-10572931.html

Quote & DeepL translation:

The British and French can do something “we can’t”

The UK and France have nevertheless supplied cruise missiles of the virtually identical types “Storm Shadow” and “Scalp”. According to Bild, Scholz said in a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee last week that these two countries “can do something that we are not allowed to do”, adding: “So the question does not arise.”

What he meant was that the UK and France supplied the geodata for missile targets themselves, with the UK also having its own personnel on the ground in Ukraine. This is out of the question for the German government.

The point is that Hamas doesn’t stop firing rockets. I’m not there, so I don’t know if they fire on southern Israel every single day, but twice a week everyone can read about rockets fired at Israel and sirens going off. It seems just Tel Aviv wasn’t targeted for a few weeks (this article). In the link below Ashkelon is mentioned as well with a short break of 2 weeks. But as I said before, the further north, the longer the range they need to build and with the claims they are running short on weapon supplies, this makes sense that further targets get hit less often.

e.g. just a few days ago:

“Hamas welcomes UN court ruling as it fires rockets on Israel (January 26, 2024; The Telepgraph)”

“Hamas appears to have targeted the south of Israel, where attacks have become increasingly rare amid claims the group is running out of missiles. Rockets were sighted over the city of Ashkelon for the first time in two weeks.”

https://news.yahoo.com/hamas-welcomes-un-court-ruling-181014383.html

This article is only about the location Tel Aviv.

It’s further away, so more effort to build rockets and harder to hit. Hamas never stopped firing rockets on Israel. On the 7 October 2023 terror attack alone, reports range from 3000 to 5000 projectiles or rockets within 24 hours and in the following conflict, they kept firing missiles on Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel#Rocket_fire

As you didn’t read the article:

“This move seems driven by the government’s interest in collecting and centralizing biometric data for identification, tracking, and surveillance purposes,” he said. Omar agreed: “Probably to keep track of the refugees.”

They hand out SIM cards to track those SIM cards. Using a certain messaging app on the phone or not doesn’t change SIM card tracking within the network.

Especially living in a city, this looks interesting to me. ‘Fast’ charging I’ve seen was in the range 30-60 min but then it’s like the phone, from about 20% up to 80%. So living in a city, I’d have to wait for half an hour for half the battery.

With a swap-station, it could be nearly as fast as a fossil fuel stop. About 2 minutes for a 0% to 100% stop.

This also allows for smaller batteries, for smaller cars, for lighter cars. You don’t need to carry a lot of overall range if you can swap/refill to 100% in 2 minutes.

Is the canal already open again?

The El-Mansy bridge can be found on Google Earth/Maps and it’s a floating bridge, with a fixed section on each bank:

But looking on https://www.vesselfinder.com/ over the last minutes, I saw two ships (Serengeti & Omiros L) passing that piece with the bridge from north to south through the canal.

edit: As others already posted: What a shit article, nothing is or was blocked. Reuters has the proper info.

More and more business in Sweden are refusing to work with Tesla. Suing will surely solve this problem. Big brain move there.

In a way kinda. It’s problematic though that China is using Uyghur forced labour to produce cheap solar panels.

This of course allows them to undercut any other manufacturer, driving them out of the market. So the delivery chain is getting kinda small and the products have forced labour attached to them.

“China uses Uyghur forced labour to make solar panels, says report” Published 14 May 2021 (Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636)

A coal plant takes weeks to start up, so I assume those reactivated plants from the emergency reserve will have to run the whole winter duration at least at low power. So in case of a very cold winter and gas shortage, the emergency plants can be turned up.

There is no one to blame but Putin.

This is an emergency procedure due to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. Without the invasion, the backup coal plants would just stay backup. As coal plants need weeks to start up, they cannot just be turned on when needed. They need to be turned on early and likely run with low power through the winter, just in case they might be needed. This is bad too. This is due to Putin’s war.

It’s silly to make connections to the 1986 & 2011 nuclear exit, when the cause for this short-term measure is a recent event. Without Russia invading Ukraine, the coal plants would stay off.

Katalin Karikó, born in 1955 in Szolnok, Hungary, senior vice president at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals until 2022, now external consultant.

Drew Weissman, born in 1959 in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, RNA researcher and patent holder, that were used in the BioNTech & Moderna Covid-19 vaccines.

The article is quite harmless compared to the silly title.

But the main argument is that Android has too many settings and options where users don’t even know what they are good for. And with further development it’s getting more features and more options.

That seems to be a very minor and rather luxury problem to have more and more features and options.

On the PC, there are lots of programs that already use a short list of options available and then a checkbox with ‘I’m an expert’ or ‘Advanced settings’ to show them all. More settings means more freedom for the user to chose from. Hiding them would be a simple task. But just because they exist and are shown, this doesn’t mean that anyone has to click on anything without even knowing what it does. So it’s not really a problem besides reading 3 more words in the list of settings but not doing anything with it.

For options I don’t know, I just use a web search in case I’m interested. Or I just ignore them as long as I don’t have a problem related to the topic.

In the 1st step, maybe a year ago or so, they updated the Kasa app (v 3?) to only function with account and while being logged in at TP-Link servers to use your devices. And in now the 2nd step, they integrate Kasa into Tapo, which was always account-bound. The 3rd step is then probably the discontinuation of the Kasa app.

Kasa was their more premium product line, that was usable without internet connection and without manufacturer account - which is why I paid more to get those instead of the cheap Tapo products. But now my ‘smart’ power outlets are in a box in the basement collecting dust and I cannot recommend anyone to spend money on TP-Link smart products, as they remove features after sale.

I understand ‘worst sales’ but ‘worst performance’ doesn’t really fit. It’s in my opinion this is a fantastic performance on the market. With right to repair, longer software support, some models with replaceable batteries, we can use the phones longer and make the industry more sustainable and consumer friendly. For the last years already, the model feature upgrades were marginal and it’s fine that way.

In the future, I’d hope for further technical and regulatory development in that direction, resulting in further reduced annual sales numbers.

“Recycling brackets”, 1000 pcs bag.

This bag contains already used zip ties in various lengths and colours. You can reuse the items and be creative. Build modern art for your living room, a fan holding bracket for your server or a cool handle for your hot coffee cup.

The old Hue app still works and I’m also using Hue Essentials, both without any account.

I have a Hue bridge of the 1st generation and a few years ago, the original app was showing pop-ups, that I need to get a new bridge because of the new app that will no longer support my old bridge. So I just kept the old app and the old bridge. Works like a charm all offline.

When I added a motion detector two years ago, the old app didn’t find it for setup. That’s when I tested the alternative app Hue Essentials and it works just fine offline.

And first ramping up gas to then switch to renewables after is what got Germany in this mess.

It’s the other way around, first it was going after renewables and now due to the coal exit ahead, gas capacities will be ramped up by a targeted 25GW over the next years.

Data centres, business, hospitals etc. run batteries to bridge the gap until the diesel starts running. It can take a minute or a few until the diesel generator takes over, but it can run for hours and days with refuelling.

Getting batteries for 8h is expensive and risky - what if the power cut suddenly lasts 9h? With batteries you have a fixed storage, with petrol or diesel you can just refuel.

Having that unreliable electricity, my home server would be the least of my problems. I would already have a generator to keep the fridge running so the food doesn’t go bad every other day.

Great post and nice to see those 4th gen plants mentioned including the current project development state. Those plants were always a top comment as ‘the solution’ in discussions on Reddit. Just build 4th gen or molten salt or fusion - energy problems solved with just a few keystrokes.

Posts explaining the problems or the current state of those projects often ended up in flames.

This article is only about the branch “T-Mobile US” but not mentioning it. And yes according to Wikipedia there are about 70,000 employees. The parent company is listed with about 210,000 employees.