May our unchanging concentration on our Savior at a time that makes many anxious be a testimony pointing to his sovereign grace. //

There’s a lot of panicked chatter about World War III lately. Twitter is awash in propaganda from both sides of the Russia-Ukraine border. Instagram is flooded with pro-Ukraine posts and profiles are painted with the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.

NPR wants to make sure you know, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, how to self-care. Not to be outdone, Fox also has a primer on how to cope with the stress of news of war.

Many of those reactions aren’t bad. It’s good to celebrate stories of courage and to vocally support peace. It’s also good at times to walk away from the news cycle and be present in your own daily responsibilities.

But there is a real danger to thinking that you, as an American Christian who is not on the ground in Ukraine, can do the most good by getting sucked into the online informational meatgrinder. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with using a post or a hashtag to show support for suffering people, it would be a mistake to use such a contribution to pat ourselves on the back for “helping” — as many well-meaning Christians posted black squares on Instagram in 2020 that did little but alleviate their own sense of wanting to be able to say they did something.

An entirely African operating room in Liberia is the fruit of decades of a Christian surgical training program and African surgeons’ sacrifices

Thousand Barrels per Day
U.S. Net Imports from Russia of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products

The mechanism for managing and starting processes on boot has been changed. Until RHEL/CentOS  6.x, you would have created a script in /etc/init.d/ and enabled with the help of chkconfig but things are different on RHEL 7.

It’s replaced by systemd and since it is more or less the default process manager on major Linux versions, System Admin versed in other flavors will feel right at home. In this article, we will explore what systemd is, what the reasons to the switch were, and how to use systemd to set up, run and manage background processes with it.

Systemd is a system and service manager and like most major Linux distributions the init deamon was replaced by systemd in CentOS 7. One of the main functions of systemd is to manage the services, devices, mount points, sockets and other entities in a Linux system. Each of these entity that are managed by systemd is called a unit. Each unit is defined by a unit file (configuration file) which is located in one of the following directories.

Xi doesn’t see Russia as an equal partner but as a valuable pawn to realize his vision for China — to replace the United States as the sole superpower in a Sino-centered and autocracy-friendly new world order. An economically weak but militarily aggressive Russia suits Xi’s vision.

Xi deploys China’s economic power to support Putin, counting on the Russian military to keep the West, primarily the United States, occupied and to draw attention away from Beijing’s geopolitical expansion. Meanwhile, the more Russia is economically isolated from the western world due to sanctions and becomes more economically dependent on China, the less likely Putin’s Russia will present a threat to challenge China’s dominance.

Shockingly, the Biden administration has failed to recognize China’s strategic calculations so far. The New York Times reports that Biden administration officials shared intelligence on Russia’s troop buildup with China, hoping Beijing would help avert Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Chinese officials rebuffed the United States and apparently shared the information with Moscow.

The Biden administration’s weakness and incompetence were on full display in a New York Times article last week recounting the White House’s repeated—and failed— attempts to urge China to help avert war in Ukraine. The purpose of the article was to allow senior administration officials to take their duplicitous Chinese counterparts to task, but the account reveals above all that White House officials are out of their depth in dealing with China.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-china-russia-ukraine.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

It is nearly impossible to read the Biden administration’s side of the story without perceiving the weakness, gullibility, and ineffectiveness that the Biden White House unwittingly presents. Administration officials describe how they were “repeatedly rebuffed” by Chinese officials even as the Americans scrambled for “half a dozen urgent meetings over three months” to try to avert the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The article repeats how “Each time, the Chinese officials… rebuffed the Americans,” as if to drive home the humiliating point. //

Biden officials disclosed to The New York Times that they shared intelligence with their Chinese counterparts only to be double-crossed when the Chinese quickly leaked that intel to the Russians.

To add insult to injury, the Chinese also told the Russians that the Americans were “trying to sow discord,” and promised Moscow that Beijing would not interfere with Russia’s war plans. The Biden officials who leaked these details must not be aware of how embarrassing they are. //
When China was weaker and threatened by what was then the Soviet Union, it turned toward America. After decades of aid, investment, technology transfer, education, and lucrative trade with the United States, China is now much stronger than Russia. Its population is much larger, its gross domestic product is ten times bigger, and its technologies (many stolen from the United States) are better. China has much less to fear from Russia, and thus can leverage Russia against America—the only remaining superpower stronger than China.

One way to pit Russia against America is to give tacit support for a Russian war in eastern Europe that will consume America and her allies, while letting China see how the West responds to an invasion analogous to what China has planned for Taiwan. And that’s exactly what China did. //

Russia might even be reduced to a client state to supply commodities to China. That wouldn’t be a bad turn of events by the Chinese against a country that used to threaten them.

Internal volume vs. volumetric shelf space:

*Assumes 1.5-foot shelf depth with shelving along both long walls. While you can technically make a perfect shelving system that creates more space, these conservative calculations are based on designs that we have found to be cost-effective and practical for accommodating features like doors and climate control units.

The numbers above are calculated using the interior dimensions of shipping containers. When using these numbers to determine what you can store in your container, we recommend using a packing efficiency modifier because it’s nearly impossible to use every square inch of space. For example, if you need to gauge the volume of dry goods you can fit in a container with shelves, multiply the volumetric shelf space by a packing efficiency modifier of .8 or .7 to create a realistic estimate.

In 2017, congressional investigators found that a money trail linked Russia to millions of dollars funding U.S. nonprofits to work against U.S. shale gas in order to influence the U.S. energy market. Specifically, investigators found that NRDC, Sierra Club, and Climate Action Network were all found to have received millions of dollars of funding in grants from a shady San Francisco-based company called “Sea Change” that a money trail linked back to the Russians. Indeed, it is an open secret that Russians have funded anti-fracking and anti-natural gas propaganda in America for decades, as environmental groups funded the campaigns of Democrats and pressured them to ban fossil fuels.

These same environmental groups relentlessly attacked President Trump and his appointees (I was one) as “anti-science,” “enemies of the EPA,” and “climate change deniers,” pulling out all the stops to frame President Trump’s pro-American energy agenda as harmful to the environment. President Trump knew then what we are all seeing now: Energy independence is crucial to our security, and we don’t have to shut down industry with duplicative and costly regulations to protect our environment.

After spending millions to elect Biden, the environmental left got its wish: Biden canceled America’s Keystone XL pipeline, blocking the safe transport of oil from one of our closest allies and killing thousands of jobs. At the same time, Biden removed President Trump’s sanctions on the Russian NordStream2 pipeline, giving Putin the green light to move forward.

Biden canceled oil and gas leasing on 2.46 billion acres of federal on and off-shore lands, effectively crushing American energy supplies. He unleashed his federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and more to hamper energy exploration, production, and transportation with new regulations. Finally, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Biden’s regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took one more step to embolden Russian oil by clamping down on pipeline permits and LNG-export terminals, which could have helped supply American gas to the rest of the world.

https://legacy-assets.eenews.net/open_files/assets/2017/07/07/document_pm_02.pdf //

very few of Biden’s punitive moves against American energy would actually help the environment. Numerous studies have shown that pipelines have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude oil would still be extracted, and shipping it by rail or tanker instead of pipeline results in up to 42 percent higher emissions and more leaks.

Furthermore, American natural gas is far cleaner than Russian gas. A major 2019 study by the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory found that Russian gas piped to Europe has up to 22 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than European coal. U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) delivered to the EU, in contrast, has up to 56 percent fewer total emissions than EU coal, the report shows.

Means of Transport CO2 equivalent emissions per passenger km
Short Flight ✈️ 255g
Medium Car (Gasoline) 🚗 192g
Medium Car (Diesel) 🚗 171g
Medium Flight ✈️ 156g
Long Flight ✈️ 150g
Bus 🚌 105g
Medium Motorcycle 🏍 103g
Gasoline Car (Two Passenger) 🚘 96g
Medium Electric Vehicle 🚙 53g
National Rail 🚂 41g
Ferry ⛴ 19g
Eurostar (International Rail) 🚞 6g

Flying on a short flight or driving alone are the most carbon-intensive travel methods. However, adding one more passenger to your car ends up cutting the emissions in half, making driving more efficient.

, it’s worth breaking down categories of flights more, as their emissions depend greatly on their route length:

• Short Flights: For example, domestic flights within a European country, or flights within a U.S. state have the highest individual carbon footprint.
• Medium Flights: For example, international travel within Europe, or between U.S. states, have a significantly lower carbon footprint per person.
• Long Flights: Flights over 3,700 km (2,300 mi), about the distance from Los Angeles to New York, have the lowest carbon footprint per person.
  Why are longer flights far more eco-friendly than short-range flights? It’s because take-off uses much more energy than the ‘cruise’ phase of a flight. For short flights, the efficient cruise phase is relatively short-lived.

The most-watched aircraft on the flight tracking App Flightradar 24 are a Global Hawk unmanned spy plane and USAF KC135 and KC10 tankers.

The unmanned Global Hawk has been flying over the Black Sea just south of Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol while the KC135 (Boeing 707s) and KC10 (DC-10) tankers have been stationed over Romania and Poland.

Over 58,000 people are watching the activities of the Global Hawk which has a call sign of “Forte12” or “Forte11”.

The $170 million aircraft is piloted remotely and operates from Italy.

It has an endurance of about 32 hours and can fly over 22,000km at an altitude of 18,000m.

People have gotten much savvier about computer security in the last decade or so. Most people know that sending a document with sensitive information in it is a no-no, so many people try to redact documents with varying levels of success. A common strategy is to replace text with a black box, but you sometimes see sophisticated users pixelate part of an image or document they want to keep private. If you do this for text, be careful. It is possible to unredact pixelated images through software.

None of these are anti-malware tools. They don’t tweak the Windows interface. They aren’t general applications (such as image editors, office tools, or web browsers). Nope. These are all niche tools with the sole purpose of making Windows better and more convenient to use. All are free-to-use or offer a free version.

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Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine this week will have devastating consequences for the people on the ground. Although the terrestrial implications of this war are far greater than those for spaceflight, there will nonetheless be ripple effects felt by space programs around the world. //

The most prominent space issue concerns the fate of the International Space Station, which is operated by 15 nations but led by the United States and Russia. The countries rely on one another: Russia provides fuel and thruster capability to periodically re-boost the space station to a higher altitude, and NASA gyroscopes provide stability, and its solar panels generate the vast majority of electricity. At present, the station cannot operate without the consent of both partners.

After Biden's comments on Thursday, the head of Russia's main space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, lashed out in a series of tweets in which he characterized Biden's actions as "Alzheimer's Sanctions." //

All of this translates into fewer resources pouring into the Russian space program and a further diminution of its activities. Without investment, the country is unlikely to be able to afford any semblance of deep-space activities or the creation of its own space station as a follow-on to the International Space Station.

This very likely will push Russia to cooperate further with China, where it has already initiated discussions about joining the Chinese lunar exploration program. But this Chinese lifeline will almost certainly come with costs. China will be interested in partnering with Russia to promote the idea that it is leading an international exploration program—but Russia should have no illusions about who will be driving the bus and who will be along for the ride.

According to some captured 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade, they were not told they would be attacking Ukraine. They believed that they were on a training mission in Crimea but were dropped in Ukraine. Now, that seems hard to believe, and maybe that’s a cover story. But, if that were true, that you had Putin hoodwinking his military to get them there, that’s not exactly the best cover story either. That makes it sound like they may not have everyone on board with what’s going on — versus the Ukrainians, who are very willing to defend their country.

In this post we will compile all information on impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on civil aviation around the world. Check back for continuing updates as developments occur.

Which countries are the central nodes of the global trade network? While China is currently the world’s largest trading partner, this hasn’t always been the case.

This series of graphics by Anders Sundell outlines the history of the world’s biggest trade hubs, showing how the landscape has evolved since 1960. Using netgraphs, each visual connects countries to their primary trading partner, using data that includes both imports and exports.

Many attempts at solar desalination systems rely on some kind of wick to draw the saline water through the device, but these wicks are vulnerable to salt accumulation and relatively difficult to clean. The team focused on developing a wick-free system instead.

The result is a layered system, with dark material at the top to absorb the sun’s heat, then a thin layer of water above a perforated layer of material, sitting atop a deep reservoir of the salty water such as a tank or a pond. After careful calculations and experiments, the researchers determined the optimal size for the holes drilled through the perforated material, which in their tests was made of polyurethane. At 2.5 millimeters across, these holes can be easily made using commonly available waterjets.

The holes are large enough to allow for a natural convective circulation between the warmer upper layer of water and the colder reservoir below. That circulation naturally draws the salt from the thin layer above down into the much larger body of water below, where it becomes well-diluted and no longer a problem. “It allows us to achieve high performance and yet also prevent this salt accumulation,” says Wang, who is the Ford Professor of Engineering and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Li says that the advantages of this system are “both the high performance and the reliable operation, especially under extreme conditions, where we can actually work with near-saturation saline water. And that means it’s also very useful for wastewater treatment.”

With the attention of the world focused on events in Ukraine, one of the questions people are asking is about the country’s nuclear power industry. Here is a brief overview. //

Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear energy, with 15 reactors generating about half of its electricity. All its current reactors are Russian-designed VVER types. //

As of mid-2021, six of Ukraine’s 15 reactors were operating using fuel manufactured by Westinghouse, fabricated at its plant in Västerås in Sweden. //

"In the event of loss of the external power supply at the nuclear power plant, the autonomous power supply system starts working by means of powerful diesel generators. Ukrainian nuclear power plants are ready for such a mode of operation: the stock of diesel fuel located at nuclear power plants significantly exceeds the established standards. //

He added that two years' worth of nuclear fuel had been stockpiled in case of interruption of supply.