Ever since the early 1990s, when China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, declared the metals to be his country’s equivalent to Saudi oil, they’ve been a kind of buzzword for trans-Pacific geopolitical anxieties. Never mind that rare earths are nothing like oil—the total market is worth about the same as the US egg market, and the elements can theoretically be mined, processed, and turned into magnets all over the world. But China is the only place that does all of it.
China’s near-monopoly is partly due to economics—in the 1990s, cheap Chinese rare earths flooded the market, hastening the shutdown of mines and processing in places like the US—and partly due to environmental concerns. Mining and refining rare earths is a notoriously toxic business, in part because the most valuable elements, like that magnet-boosting neodymium, come tightly bound with other rare earths, as well as radioactive elements like uranium and thorium. Today, China produces nearly two-thirds of rare earths mined worldwide and processes more than 90 percent of the world’s magnets.
“You have a $10 billion industry, which enables products that are worth between $2 trillion and 3 trillion a year. It’s enormous leverage,” says Thomas Kruemmer, a minerals analyst and author of the popular Rare Earth Observer blog. //
Currently, 12 percent of rare earths go into EVs, according to Adamas Intelligence, a market that’s just now taking off. At the same time, rare earth prices have recently whiplashed due to internal Chinese markets and political interventions that outside companies cannot always predict.
All in all, if you’re in a business where you can make an alternative work, it probably makes sense to do so, says Jim Chelikowsky, a physicist who studies magnetic materials at the University of Texas, Austin. But there are all kinds of reasons, he says, to look for better alternatives to rare earth magnets than ferrite. The challenge is finding materials with three essential qualities: They need to be magnetic, to hold that magnetism in the presence of other magnetic fields, and to tolerate high temperatures. Hot magnets cease to be magnets.
Many people mistakenly believe that all stainless steel is the same. This is not true. The type and grade of stainless steel fasteners that you invest in will determine just how corrosion resistant they are and, of course, how durable and long-lasting you can expect them to be. Whether you are buying nuts, bolts, nails and screws, rivets and pins or anchoring systems, you must take the environment into consideration.
Professionals must know what the difference is between 18-8 vs. 304 vs. 316-grade stainless steel. We’re going to help simplify it for you. Here’s what you need to know about each of these three different grades: ///
18-8 and type 304 are the same alloy
Guess you really can’t beat the real thing.
Coca-Cola gets its iconic taste thanks in part to a chemical processing factory in a sleepy New Jersey neighborhood that has the country’s only license to import the plant used to make cocaine. //
The Maywood-based facility, now managed by the Stepan Company, has been processing coca leaves for the soft-drink giant for more than a century and had its license to import them renewed by the Drug Enforcement Agency earlier this year.
The coca leaves are used to create a “decocainized” ingredient for the soda and the leftover byproduct is sold to the opioid manufacturing company Mallinckrodt, which uses the powder to make a numbing agent for dentists, DailyMail reported. //
Importing coca leaves was banned in 1921, but the legislation left an exemption for Maywood Chemical Works, which ran the factory before Stepan Company bought the site in 1959.
New York’s pandemic-induced exodus is killing the state’s bottom line.
The Empire State’s pool of adjusted gross income shrank by nearly $16 billion in 2021 compared to just two years ago — representing a major loss in potential tax revenue compared to pre-COVID levels, according to newly released data from the Internal Revenue Service cited by the Wall Street Journal. //
Much of that has wound up in Florida, which has seen a $10 billion windfall in 2021 stemming from newly arrived New York transplants, according to the data.
Those scary warnings of juice jacking in airports and hotels? They’re mostly nonsense | Ars Technica
An FBI spokesperson told me this month’s tweet was “a standard PSA-type post—nothing new” and that it stemmed from the FCC warning. “This was a general reminder for the American public to stay safe and diligent, especially while traveling.” They added: “I am sorry I can’t give you an answer that is more newsy.” When I asked an FCC spokesperson what the basis was for the agency to update its warning five days later, they said it was prompted by the Denver FBI tweet.
What this means is that state and federal authorities and hundreds of news outlets—none of them with any expertise in cybersecurity—have generated a continuous feedback loop. This vicious cycle has done little more than scare the public into eschewing charging stations when there’s wide consensus among security professionals that there’s no reason for anyone other than high-asset targets of nation-states to do so. //
Finally, besides there being no universal script that will work on hundreds or even dozens of different devices, the customized scripts are non-trivial to write. They require a high skill level and a huge amount of trial-and-error troubleshooting.
None of this is to say that people shouldn’t bring their own charging cord and wall plug when they’re out of the home or office. That is a best practice, but it's wrong to characterize it as a required practice. //
The problem with the warnings coming out of the FCC and FBI is that they divert attention away from bigger security threats, such as weak passwords and the failure to install security updates. They create unneeded anxiety and inconvenience that run the risk of people simply giving up trying to be secure.
As security researcher Kenn White recently wrote of the warnings on Mastodon: “What's the end goal here? Convince people who are down to 2 percent battery while traveling to never use modern public infrastructure? Come on. There are 20 things that threaten muggle endpoint security, and this isn't among them.”
Circe Invidiosa 1892
Date: 1892
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 180.7 x 87.4 cm
Location: Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
The painting Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse is an intriguing work that explores the character’s ancestry, her reflection and the relationship between her ancestor. It is a classic example of a work of art that transcends time. Waterhouse’s interpretation of Circe reveals the depth of the story’s emotional themes. This work shows how the dark side of human nature is brought to light and how women find their identity and purpose in the universe.
iptables-save > /root/firewall_rules.backupFor older Linux kernels you have an option of stopping service iptables with service iptables stop but if you are on the new kernel, you just need to wipe out all the policies and allow all traffic through the firewall. This is as good as you are stopping the firewall.
Use below list of commands to do that.
iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
Where –
-F: Flush all policy chains
-X: Delete user-defined chains
-P INPUT/OUTPUT/FORWARD: Accept specified trafficOnce done, check current firewall policies. It should look like below which means everything is accepted (as good as your firewall is disabled/stopped)
iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Jonathan Turley
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Today the Supreme Court granted review in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which involves a challenge to the Chevron doctrine and its heavy agency deference. Notably, the Court granted only on one of the questions concerning Chevron...
Jonathan Turley
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...Here is the question: “whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.” Show more
10:27 AM · May 1, 2023 //
The federal government has been completely out of control for decades, and the Chevron Doctrine has been at the heart of many of the abuses.
Now, the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the doctrine at some major level. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is already recused from the case, meaning that the conservative wing would only need to muster four votes. On that front, most of the conservatives on the court have already signaled a willingness to curb the power of the bureaucratic state by rolling back the Chevron Doctrine.
Photos
On Sunday 1/15/23 at 5:56 pm local time, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched a mission for the Space Force, USSF-67. I was able to track one of the boosters from launch at LC-39A to landing at LZ-1. This was filmed with an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS using a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K camera at an effective equivalent focal length of 5.6 meters.
This used a new, experimental version of my RocketTraker software, adaptively looking through the trajectory prediction published by FlightClub.io and seeking the closest point in the trajectory file based on the rocket's observed position and time. This allowed for greater tolerance of deviations from the expected timing of the booster landing and allowed me to follow it all the way down. This new version of RocketTraker will be published soon on my community page exclusively for channel members!
On Sunday 1/15/23 at 5:56 pm local time, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched a mission for the Space Force, USSF-67. I was able to track one of the boosters from launch at LC-39A to landing at LZ-1. This was filmed with an 11" Celestron NexStar GPS using a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K camera at an effective equivalent focal length of 5.6 meters.
This used a new, experimental version of my RocketTraker software, adaptively looking through the trajectory prediction published by FlightClub.io and seeking the closest point in the trajectory file based on the rocket's observed position and time. This allowed for greater tolerance of deviations from the expected timing of the booster landing and allowed me to follow it all the way down. This new version of RocketTraker will be published soon on my community page exclusively for channel members!
Thanks to Reds Rhetoric for the static camera footage, be sure to check out his channel and footage of this launch:
/ @redsrhetoric
Music: Artemis by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
The Falcon Heavy rocket made its fifth launch in five years on Sunday evening from Florida. However, this was the first launch of the triple-core booster in twilight, and this rare evening light provided some spectacular new insights into the liftoff and return of the rocket. //
Here's a highly compressed 1080p preview of my footage. This is easily the best launch footage I have ever captured, stay tuned for the full launch to landing in 4K!
How to create your own tensegrity table.
The concept of tensegrity was invented by Kenneth Snelson and made famous by the architect Buckminster Fuller in 1949
[read more: https://buff.ly/41Tgqhp]
[ Engineer Ye: https://buff.ly/3Nr9tjc]
Drone show flight testing. Perfectly timed
One year ago today, the beautiful but tragic Andover, KS EF3 #tornado happened. Here are the Dominator drone and ground perspectives captured on this solo chase. My FB live stream is what caused the tornado sirens to be activated just prior to the tornado warning being issued.…
Fascia Stretcher
Anyone WHO SITS A LOT should read this:
Most lower back pain comes from shortened leg extensors (legs permanently bent). This shortening causes the lower back to have to compensate to bring the body back to an upright position.
This overloads the lower back and leads to adhesions of the fasciae, for example. Here, the anterior thigh and groin in particular must be stretched.
✅ Our fascia stretcher stretches your thigh and groin in a natural way without overloading the body.
Earth Day is Saturday! Hooray?
“Saving humanity from the climate crisis,” says EarthDay.org, requires us to “push away from the dirty fossil fuel economy.” //
“Three billion people in the world still use less electricity than a typical refrigerator,” explains Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” If they’re going to have “their first well-paying jobs,” “their first consistent supply of clean water,” “a modern life,” “that’s going to depend on fossil fuels.”
But the greens say we have a better replacement: wind and solar power. //
So I push back at Epstein: “Solar is getting cheaper all the time. It’s already cheaper than fossil fuels.”
“When we look at solar and wind around the world,” he answers, “it always correlates to rising prices and declining reliability. Why? Because solar and wind are intermittent. At any time, they can go near zero.” //
That means wind turbines and solar farms don’t replace fossil-fuel plants. You have to build them in addition to fossil-fuel plants.
Backing up all solar and wind with batteries would cost “multiples of global” gross domestic product, responds Epstein. “This is a total fantasy.”
“You say unaffordable,” I push back, “but who’s to determine what that is?”
“The general narrative is we’re destroying the planet with fossil fuels, so who cares how much energy costs?” Epstein says. “The truth is, the planet is only livable because of low-cost, reliable energy from fossil fuels.”
Before fossil fuels, “Life expectancy was below 30. Income was basically nonexistent. The population was stagnant because people had such a high death rate. The basic reason is that nature is not a very livable place for human beings.”
By contrast, thanks to cheap fossil fuels, “We make it unnaturally safe by producing all forms of climate protection. We produce drought relief . . . sturdy buildings. We produce heat when it’s cold, we produce cold when it’s hot. We have this amazing, productive ability. That’s the only reason we experience the planet as livable.” //
If we want more of the poorest people to have decent lives, we need to invest in both fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The Supreme Court is looking at a case that could have tremendous ramifications for property rights. Its ruling will determine whether the government is able to continue stealing from Americans using tax laws. When it comes to property rights, this one could be a game-changer.
This case will decide if it is constitutional for the government to seize and sell a person’s home to pay off overdue property taxes, without returning any excess proceeds to the homeowner. The practice, known as home equity theft, is legal in several states, including Minnesota, Michigan, and New York.
In each state, the process is different, but homeowners are usually bought out by private investors without their knowledge and receive letters after three years of overdue taxes, informing them that they have 90 days to pay their debts. If they fail to pay within that timeframe, the county treasurer gives the deed to an investor who takes the home, sells it, and keeps the profit.
Open system, private data.
It's not that other energy monitors are bad, but they are different in that they are mostly closed systems that provide limited data and require that you use their cloud and phone app platforms. IoTaWatt collects many more metrics and stores that usage history locally. With it's integrated web-server you can manage setup, view real-time status or create detailed graphs using the browser on your computer, tablet or phone. It's your data, in your own home, and subject only to your own privacy and retention policy. You don't need the cloud to get a handle on your hot-tub, EV, solar or heat-pump.
IoTaWatt can, however, easily upload usage data to any of several third party databases with associated apps and analytic tools. For instance PVoutput is a free service that connects easily with IoTaWatt and provides world-class solar energy analytics. There is full support for uploading to influxDB. There is also an API interface for those who want to query data for their own applications or to use in spreadsheets, and there are integrations available for home automation software like Home Assistant.
A universal solution.
IoTaWatt is probably the only monitor in it's class that can literally be used to monitor any power system. It is in use in over 60 countries worldwide. USA split-phase 120V/240V is easy, but also 230V single-phase as in Europe, 230V three-phase as in homes in Australia, Germany and norway to name a few. Most folks only care if it will work in their situation. The answer is an unqualified yes.
There are also many commercial/industrial users monitoring high voltage three-phase systems including 277V/480V industrial with 600Amp service using several megaWatt-hours per day - more than most households use in a year.