Environmentalism offers emotional relief and spiritual satisfaction, giving its adherents a sense of purpose and transcendence.

There is a recurring puzzle in the history of the environmental movement: Why do green activists keep promoting policies that are harmful not only to humans but also to the environment? Michael Shellenberger is determined to solve this problem, and he is singularly well qualified.

Alex Wilkes
@AlexandraWilkes
Sen.-Elect Ed Durr on @SaveJersey live when asked about @TheAtlantic’s contention that he doesn’t know how to govern in the New Jersey legislature:

“How much worse could I make it?”
8:33 PM · Nov 9, 2021

In Syncthing Android, go to Settings --> Backup --> Export Configuration & export the configuration. Then after installing Syncthing from F-Droid, import the same configuration.

Exported configuration is stored at /storage/emulated/0/backups/syncthing

The retired Eli and Peyton Manning make for great viewing, but horrible career decisions. //

NFL history also took place, when for the first time ever, a player got a sack tackling his own name, as the Jags saw linebacker Josh Allen take down the star QB. Josh Allen also intercepted a Josh Allen pass, and when Josh Allen fumbled it was recovered by — Josh Allen.

StatMuse
@statmuse
The Manning Curse: Players are 0-6 after appearing on the ManningCast this season.

— Kelce on Week 1, lost Week 2
— Russ on Week 1, lost Week 2
— Gronk on Week 2, lost Week 3
— Stafford on Week 3, lost Week 4
— Brady on Week 7, lost Week 8
— Josh Allen on Week 8, lost Week 9
4:12 PM · Nov 7, 2021

The phrase "a jury of peers" dates back to the signing of the Magna Carta in England. At that point, the provision ensured that members of the nobility were tried by a jury comprised of fellow nobles, rather than being judged by the king. Now, however, this phrase more accurately means "a jury of fellow citizens."

While courts don't have to ensure that a defendant's race, gender, or age group is represented in the jury pool, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that courts may not remove a potential juror based solely on their race or gender. In practice, however, potential jurors often are removed for what appears to be their gender or race, even though the removal is for other stated reasons (or for no particular reason at all).

The Science-Fiction series STAR TREK uses an alternate Date/Time format: STARDATE.

Marginal note: Astronomers also use the word "StarTime" (or "Sidereal Time"), but this differs totally from StarTrek startime. 1 Astronomer staryear (= sidereal year) equals 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.54 seconds.

So far there are several definitions of calculations between STARDATES and our Gregorian Dates

A secure disk wipe tool based on VeraCrypt encryption engine.

Release archives are signed using PGP key with fingerprint 607E5A7AD030D38E5E5C2CA502C30AE90FAE4A6F belonging to Mounir IDRASSI and which can be found on major key servers
Features

• Securely wipe disks and partition of all types (HD, SSD, Flash, SD Card)
• Disk content is overwritten using random data generated using well-established VeraCrypt encryption engine
• Wiping full disk erases all its partitions making the disk raw

On December 10th 2020, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) published the English report of a security evaluation of VeraCrypt that they ordered from the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT).
The report can be found at the following URL: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Publikationen/Studien/VeraCrypt/veracrypt.html
I have also attached the PDF of the report to this post in case URL changes in the future.

Before the publication of this report, the SIT team responsible of the security evaluation reached out to us and we had exchanges about their findings. I shared my feedback and I also implemented changes in 1.24-Update7 based on their findings.

In my opinion, this evaluation is the most comprehensive one that have been published so far about VeraCrypt, spanning over a year and analyzing all aspects of the project and the source code. Their findings are helpful and VeraCrypt development will benefit from them.

CertEncryptor is a Windows application that enables encrypting and decrypting files using existing digital certificates.
The encryption uses AES 256-bit and the data is encrypted following the Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) standard. It allows encrypting files for an unlimited numbers of recipients, each recipient being identified by a standard X509 digital certificate (either RSA or Elliptic Curve). File decryption requires the presence of the private key associated with one of the certificates used for the encryption.
The maximum file size allowed by this tool is 100 MB per file.

IDRIX is proud to share with the Cryptography and Security community some of its internal tools. These tools proved to be very useful in our internal development process and we are sure that they will do the same with others. Of course, they can be used freely without any license but they come with no warranty attached.

This post is just a reminder of the necessary steps in order to backup Windows 7 activation status before doing a clean re-install and then restoring it back.
They are taken from post on the following link : http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-backup-and-restore-windows-7-and-server-2008-r2-activation-status-activate-offline-on-reinstall/

1. Copy and save or backup the following activation-related files to external storage medium such as USB flash drive or portable hard disk drive: C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetWorkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Tokens.dat and,C:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\pkeyconfig.xrm-ms
   Note: For 64-bit (x64) OS, C:\Windows\SysWOW64\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\pkeyconfig.xrm-ms have to be backed up too.
2. Retrieve and record the product key used to install and activate the current Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
3. Reinstall Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When installation wizard prompts for a product key for activation, leave it blank (do not enter anything).
4. In the newly installed Windows operating system, stop the Software Protection Service in Services.msc or with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): net stop sppsvc
5. Navigate to the following folder: C:\Windows\System32\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\
   Note: In 64-bit (x64) operating system, also perform the action in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\spp\tokens\pkeyconfig\ folder.
6. Take ownership and give user full control permissions (alternatively add grant full control right click menu item) to pkeyconfig.xrm-ms file.
7. Delete the original default pkeyconfig.xrm-ms file, and replace with the backup copy.
8. Navigate to the following folder: C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetWorkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\
9. Take ownership and give user full control permissions (alternatively add grant full control right click menu item) to tokens.dat file.
10. Delete the original default tokens.dat file, and replace with the backup copy.
11. Restart the Software Protection Service in Services.msc or with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): net start sppsvc
12. Register the product key for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with the following command (run in elevated command prompt): slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
    Replace xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx with the actual product key.
13. Windows will activated instantly, off-line. To check activation status, uses of of the following commands:
    slmgr.vbs -dlv
    slmgr.vbs -dli
    slmgr.vbs -ato

Enigma2Illusion - 2021-05-19

I think people tend to forget that Mounir as a fulltime job, family obligations and the data center fire that impacted his livelihood and the VeraCrypt project.

I think people should consider how much time it takes to work on VeraCrypt for three OS's including the various Linux variants.

Mounir Idrassi handling the many features of VeraCrypt across three OS platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) by performing development, testing, bug fixes and releasing software during his free personal time after working a fulltime job and family commitments for little to no monetary compensation. Just to compile and perform a release takes two days for a release of the three OSs.

Beta software is released to the VeraCrypt community with the hope that users are willing to test new upcoming versions to find issues before the next version is released since it is impossible for the developer to have test machines from the various PC makers, various Windows, Linux, Mac OS versions and various disk partitioning configurations for testing.

Hence, the developer relies on the VeraCrypt user community to help test the beta releases.

As with many Open Source projects, the developers rely on the user community to help each other with issues due to the overwhelming requests for assistance.

TL:DR
Each VeraCrypt user should consider how much work effort is involved on an Open Source project supporting three OSs and their various versions for little financial gain by performing development, testing, bug fixes and releasing software during their free time after meeting their obligations of fulltime job and family obligations. Not to mention some VeraCrypt users feeling entitled to have their support issues and/or features worked on immediately. :)

EDS (Encrypted Data Store) is a virtual disk encryption software for Android which allows you to store your files in an encrypted container. VeraCrypt(R), TrueCrypt(R), LUKS, EncFs, CyberSafe(R) container types are supported. The program can operate in two modes: non-mounted and mounted.

Many of us have multiple areas of responsibility that we need to attend to. When multiple tracks of things happen at the same time, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and even miss deadlines. Since day one, Pagico has been designed to help you keep things together, so your data is organized in a similar way as your brain does.

Pagico turns tasks and lists into clear and meaningful timelines, so you can easily plan ahead and stay on track. You can also visualize the health status of your projects in a simplified and intuitive way. Use Pagico as a daily planner and file organizer. Pagico also gives you the freedom to work offline as you wish or collaborate with your teammates online via the Pagico Personal Cloud service.

“So if you’re talking about how we want to have immediate and enduring difference for the workers and families, creating jobs, securing middle-class tax cuts, lowering costs for families, and making the wealthiest pay their fair share, all the while contributing to reducing the national debt.” //

“Did I hear a laugh over there?

“Did I hear a laugh from those who added $2 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in America, 83% of it going to the top 1%?

“This is paid for and more than paid for.” //

a new study from the prestigious Wharton School of Business destroyed Biden’s nonsensical claim that Build Back Better would not only cost “zero dollars” to America’s taxpayers but also that “zero dollars” would be added to the national debt as a result of BBB. Pelosi’s claims, then — that BBB will “contribute to reducing the national debt,” and second claim that BBB “is paid for and more than paid for” — constitute a demonstrable bald-faced lie.

Here’s a snippet from my article:

The bottom line: The study estimates the net cost of the Build Back Better bill would saddle taxpayers with an extra $2.42 trillion in debt.

The BBB plan is not paid for (as Biden and the Democrats claim); it would increase spending by $1.87 trillion, while increasing revenue by less than $1.56 trillion in the 10-year budget window.

And if all of the programs besides the clean energy credit become permanent, that would increase new spending by $3.98 trillion while revenue would only increase by $1.56 trillion.

At the very beginning of the war, many thinkers, myself included, expressed reservations about entering Afghanistan, also known as “The Graveyard of Empires,” because many of us did not believe that a young culture like America had the wisdom to take on a task that would take at least a century to do properly. But we went anyway. Twenty years on, we have played out our initial hand of cards in the first round of a global poker game. We lost. The question is, “What did we learn from it?”

There are eighty years left in the timeline of what we began. We could repeat the mistake of the past. We could start the cycle of death over again, as has been done many times before; not just by us, but by everyone else that’s tried. Or we could find a better way. War didn’t work. It almost never does. Enduring legacies require finding that long path to peace and tranquility. Not an easy thing to do. But not something we haven’t done. //

Today, the conflict isn’t colonial, it’s cultural. Both inside our nation and beyond our borders, the battle between tolerance and fanaticism rages. We’ve learned a hard lesson that money and might don’t work to solve it.

That’s the lesson for America from Afghanistan.

How effective is immunity after Covid recovery relative to vaccination? An Israeli study by Gazit et al. found that the vaccinated have a 27 times higher risk of symptomatic infection than the Covid recovered. At the same time, the vaccinated were nine times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid. In contrast, a CDC study by Bozio et al. claims that the Covid recovered are five times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid than the vaccinated. Both studies cannot be right.

I have worked on vaccine epidemiology since I joined the Harvard faculty almost two decades ago as a biostatistician. I have never before seen such a large discrepancy between studies that are supposed to answer the same question. In this article, I carefully dissect both studies, describe how the analyses differ, and explain why the Israeli study is more reliable. //

The CDC study did not create a cohort of people to follow over time. Instead, they identified people hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms, and then they evaluated how many of them tested positive versus negative for Covid. Among the vaccinated, 5% tested positive, while it was 9% among the Covid recovered. What does this mean?

Though the authors do not mention it, they adopt a de facto case-control design. While not as strong as a cohort study, this is a well-established epidemiological design. //

In the CDC study on Covid immunity, the cases are those patients hospitalized for Covid disease, having both Covid-like symptoms and a positive test. That is appropriate. The controls should constitute a representative sample from the population from which the Covid patients came. Unfortunately, that is not the case since Covid-negative people with Covid-like symptoms, such as pneumonia, tend to be older and frailer with comorbidities. They are also more likely to be vaccinated. //

The problem is that the CDC study answers neither the direct question of whether vaccination or Covid recovery is better at decreasing the risk of subsequent Covid disease, nor whether the vaccine rollout successfully reached the frail. Instead, it asks which of these two has the greater effect size. It answers whether vaccination or Covid recovery is more related to Covid hospitalization or if it is more related to other respiratory type hospitalizations. //

Covariate adjustments will typically change the point estimates somewhat, but it is unusual to see a change as large as the one from 1.77 to 5.49 that was observed in the CDC study. How can this be explained? It must be because some covariates are very different between the cases and controls. There are at least two of them. While 78% of the vaccinated are older than 65, 55% of the Covid recovered are younger than 65. Even more concerning is the fact that 96% of the vaccinated were hospitalized during the summer months of June to August, while 69% of the Covid recovered were hospitalized in the winter and spring months from January to May. Such unbalanced covariates are usually best adjusted for using matching as in the Israeli study. //

Concerning the Covid recovered, there are two key public health issues. 1. Would the Covid recovered benefit from also being vaccinated? 2. Should there be vaccine passports and mandates that require them to be vaccinated in order to work and participate in society?

The CDC study did not address the first question, while the Israeli study showed a small but not statistically significant benefit in reducing symptomatic Covid disease. Future studies will hopefully shed more light on this issue.

Based on the solid evidence from the Israeli study, the Covid recovered have stronger and longer-lasting immunity against Covid disease than the vaccinated. Hence, there is no reason to prevent them from activities that are permitted to the vaccinated. In fact, it is discriminatory.

Many of the Covid recovered were exposed to the virus as essential workers during the height of the pandemic before vaccines were available. They kept the rest of society afloat, processing food, delivering goods, unloading ships, picking up garbage, policing the streets, maintaining the electricity network, putting out fires, and caring for the old and sick, to name a few.

They are now being fired and excluded despite having stronger immunity than the vaccinated work-from-home administrators that are firing them.

Beijing's intentions are increasingly concerning to the U.S. as tensions rise over the South China Sea, Taiwan and military supremacy in the region.

The images captured by Colorado-based satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies show the outlines of a U.S. aircraft carrier and at least one destroyer sitting on a railway track. //

The images captured by Colorado-based satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies dated Sunday show the outlines of a U.S. aircraft carrier and at least one destroyer sitting on a railway track.

Maxar identified the location as Ruoqiang, a Taklamakan Desert county in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

The independent U.S. Naval Institute said on its website that the mock-ups of U.S. ships were part of a new target range developed by the People's Liberation Army.

Nuclear is still one of the most controversial sources of energy on the planet, but it does have some key upsides, especially in the global push to tackle emissions.
The European Union stands completely divided on the issue of nuclear power as Scotland hosts the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow.
China is betting big on a nuclear future, aiming to bring over 150 new reactors online over the next 15 years. //

Other studies show that nuclear energy may not be the answer to climate change mitigation at all. A paper published in the journal Energy Policy August of this year argues that installed nuclear power capacity is simply too small now -- and still shrinking -- and will be too hard to scale up to have any kind of viable post-energy transition future, thanks to “technical obstacles and limited resources.” //

Beijing plans to bring 150 new nuclear reactors online over the next 15 years, which amounts to more nuclear capacity that the entire world has constructed in the last 35 years. “The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest generator of nuclear power,” writes Bloomberg.

This is an especially important development for China, given the size of the nation’s carbon footprint -- the biggest in the world. It’s also a development that only China could accomplish. “It would be the kind of wholesale energy transformation that Western democracies — with budget constraints, political will and public opinion to consider — can only dream of,” Bloomberg characterizes the plan. In fact, China may just be the only country in the world that can come up with the significant resources necessary to scale up nuclear so much so fast that it will put an end to the opinion that a nuclear renaissance will be “too little, too late.”

The Chosen' is pioneering an innovative delivery method with potentially groundbreaking implications for content creators, particularly faith-based ones.

“The Chosen” is both an app and a television series. It is both the largest ever crowdfunded entertainment project, and a Christian program about the life of Jesus. It’s also flying under Hollywood’s radar. That’s quite alright by creator Dallas Jenkins, who says his team’s outsider status allows the show “to be really nimble.” //

The one-app-one-show structure is critical part of “The Chosen’s” innovation, alleviating the option paralysis so often induced by browsing big streamers. “If you want to watch this show, you don’t have to sort through a bunch of other shows on another streaming service, you can literally just get our show. And that’s what I think could be the future,” Jenkins said.

“Some people have said, ‘Oh, I can’t wait till you get picked up by a big studio, and we said, ‘We wouldn’t have developed a brand new technology and gone this whole route if we wanted to get picked up by a big studio,” Jenkins insists. “We’re not doing this to be sold, we’re doing this to create a whole new alternative for people.”