A couple weeks ago the https://apnews.com/ site started deleting all the content on their home page after I scrolled past their "Top stories" div and showing me a message that says "The AP News site encountered an error, please click the AP logo above to reload the site." when using the Firefox web browser.
I reported the issue but it's still not been fixed. It was still working fine in the Brave web browser though so I just switched to using it, but now it's not working on that either.
This morning I loaded their site in Brave and after scrolling down the page a bit the entire page refreshes after just a minute or so and I'm back at the top of the page. I can't even skim the headlines on their page before it does that. I've not changed any of the default settings in Brave so it's not me that's mucking that up.
I'm Paul, one of the co-founders of Remora (https://remoracarbon.com). Remora is building a device that captures the carbon emissions from a semi truck. Our device mounts between the truck and its trailer, attaches to its tailpipes, and captures at least 80% of its carbon emissions. We will sell the captured carbon dioxide to concrete producers and other end users, helping companies earn new revenue while meeting their climate commitments.
We decided to start Remora because we believe electrification won't work for long-haul trucking. Bill Gates agrees: “Even with big breakthroughs in battery technology,” he wrote, “electric vehicles will probably never be a practical solution for things like 18-wheelers" [1].
Before Remora, my co-founder, Eric, built hydrogen and electric semi trucks. He saw first hand that these trucks have far less payload capacity and range, plus the batteries lose > 40% of their range in cold weather [2]. We also knew that electrification means building a new network of stations with enough charging capacity for semi trucks, replacing every truck on the road, and overhauling the grid, which is still 63% fossil fuels in the US [3]. So we thought:
Why can't we just capture the carbon emissions from the trucks' tailpipes?
Turns out, my co-founder, Christina, spent her entire PhD answering this question [3]. Mobile carbon capture was first proposed about a decade ago, but academics dismissed it in favor of stationary carbon capture for power plants. The problem with stationary capture, though, is that it takes tens of millions of dollars upfront to design those systems, and they have to be tailored to a specific plant—it’s impossible to make a cheap, modular unit that can be manufactured at scale.
So Christina became the first person to test adsorbents (the materials that selectively capture carbon dioxide) in the specific conditions of diesel exhaust. Surprisingly, the adsorbent that worked best was a naturally-occurring mineral that is cheaply available in mass quantities. Christina built a proof of concept to test in the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Lab, and it worked.
While I was finishing my senior year at Yale, I read Christina’s dissertation online. I called her up to ask a bunch of questions and we hit it off. After more conversations, I wrote her a business plan and convinced her to quit her new job at the EPA to start Remora. Then, we sent a blurb to every professor at the top 15 engineering schools, interviewed ~ 50 engineers, and found Eric.
Now, we’ve completed our first working prototype and we’re currently testing it on our truck. Here’s how it works: First, we condition the truck’s exhaust to lower its temperature and humidity, then we run it through a bed of pellets that selectively captures carbon dioxide, letting the other gases escape. When the bed is saturated, we heat the pellets to release the carbon dioxide, which we compress into a tank inside the device. To ensure continuous operation, the device includes two beds: while the first is heated, the truck’s exhaust flows through the second; when the second is saturated, they switch, and so on. This process is very energy efficient because we’re able to use the waste heat from the truck’s exhaust to heat the pellets.
Our first units will be capturing carbon dioxide on customers’ trucks by August. By the end of the year, we’ll have 40 units on the road capturing ~ 100 metric tons of carbon dioxide per week—the equivalent of planting 248,000 trees [5]. We will start by selling this carbon dioxide to concrete producers and other end users, but as we grow, we will earn tax credits for permanently sequestering the carbon dioxide deep underground.
Long term, if we pair our technology with biofuels, we can make a truck carbon negative. We also hope to apply it to other hard-to-electrify forms of long-haul transportation, like cargo ships.
We’re excited to hear your questions, concerns, and feedback! I’ll be responding to comments all day, or please feel free to shoot me an email at hello@remoracarbon.com.
I just found a news article regarding a law that passed in France allowing police to remotely activate GPS, camera, microphone on a user's device [0]. This was posted before on HN [1], but without traction, but I am not all that much interested in the civil aspects of it, I am more interested in the technical aspects of it. I'm curious if there is someone with know how about how such a thing would be achieved.
Would they base it on exploits? Would they have to require manufacturers to add police APIs on the devices? Would a remotely activated camera / microphone / location get the active camera / microphone / location indicator?
55 minute edit: It seems like for simple stuff, like coarse location they can get it through the carrier; I assumed as much and it's relatively easy to get it done. For other stuff, rootkits and exploits are developed by some intelligence agencies which require manufacturing consent or physical interception. Then there's also groups that sell OS levels exploits such as the NSO group.
I'm guessing in the case of software exploits, the indicators would appear for camera / mic / gps. But maybe for hardware exploits they could bypass the circuitry? Seems like a lot of work for non-high-profile targets.
Later edit: Keyword "baseband" seems to be the most likely attack vector
Context is here, talking about using an iPad to zoom in on video. [0] My initial thought is no, it just makes existing pixels bigger and blurrier. But then I saw this expert’s testimony[1] and I’m wondering if I’m missing something: “Wisconsin crime lab employee James Armstrong testified, under questioning from defense attorney Corey Chirafisi, that the software program adds pixels to the image and he cannot say with certainty what color the added pixels are.”
After reading this news story of a Yale student and his friend delivering groceries to elderly folks[0], I wonder if we can repurpose Tinder to scale this up.
From what I remember, Tinder allows you to set a preferred age range. If young folks set their preferred age to 65-80 and older folks set their preferred age range to 20-40, we can match people in need of groceries with volunteers.
Recipients and volunteers will just need to put a blurb in their bio about what they need or what they can deliver/provide.
Many of us have been watching the horrifying developments in Ukraine over the past month and are wondering if and how we can help. Many are donating money to humanitarian causes but some are also wondering: can we help in a more scalable way through our tech skills?
There is a major problem with getting accurate information about what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. In the world of the internet and smartphones, there is an abundance of video, image and text accounts coming out but they are overwhelming, unstructured and contain a significant number of fakes. This leads to proliferation of misinformation, confusion and the ability of malicious actors to spread their own fake narratives, prolonging the conflict and causing additional damage.
Here is a prominent example (as of March 25). The city of Mariupol is surrounded by Russian forces with hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside. The city is heavily bombed and people live in basements for weeks. There are reports of hundreds or even thousands of civilian deaths and of a major humanitarian crisis with the lack of clean water, food and medicine. There is an account of the situation from two journalists, who have recently escaped the city: [1], [2]. They report Russian soldiers being responsible for the situation and provide videos and photos. There are also accounts from pro-government Russian media about Mariupol, for example: [3], [4]. They report Ukrainian soldiers not letting civilians leave the city and providing videos, photos and possibly witness accounts.
Can we apply skills in big data, analytics and machine learning to help?
We believe we can use the power of: - thousands of people to collect, label and connect pieces of evidence - dozens of ML groups to run their ML algorithms to establish truthfulness - data experts to systematize and make evidence widely available and searchable
This can help: - more people around the world to be better informed instead of only following sources from one information bubble they happen to be in - governments to better understand casualties and damage - volunteers on the ground to coordinate their efforts more effectively - people who lost touch with relatives and friends in the conflict zone to find more about them through image search - the world to document and preserve information about the big historic event … and in many more ways, which we can’t think of ourselves right now.
Here is the link with more details about the project: https://bit.ly/ukraine-evidence.
We are looking for the project leader and 1st ring team members (see the last section of the document for details). Reach out to ukraine.evidence@gmail.com if you are interested and share the document with others who might be.
And it seems like the CEO jumping in is probably more of an attention shift than anything else.
Am I the only person seeing all of this Boeing news and thinking that it's unrealistic for a company this big, with this many highly trained people who's been making planes for this long...to suddenly turn into a stumbling buffoon of a company?
I’m finding chatgpt really useful to get summaries of articles behind paywalls!
E.g. asking chatgpt to summarize this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/us/oregon-psychedelic-mushrooms.html
Oregon has taken steps towards the regulated use of psilocybin, a compound found in certain types of mushrooms, often referred to as magic mushrooms. Here's a brief on the scenario:
1. *Psilocybin Experiment*: - In Eugene, Oregon, an initiative known as the psilocybin experiment is underway, where adults over 21 are allowed to experience the effects of psilocybin in a controlled setting. The setup includes psilocybin tea, wind chimes, and a tie-dye mattress, with the trip lasting for approximately six hours [oai_citation:1,Magic mushrooms: Thousands sign up for Oregon's psilocybin experiment ...](https://apnews.com/article/psilocybin-oregon-magic-mushrooms-psychedelics-therapy-legal-6e5389b090b0c50d5c90d9574b63eca5).
2. *Legislative Framework*: - In 2020, Oregon established a legislative framework for the regulation and licensing of psilocybin [oai_citation:2,Washington Psilocybin Services Act: a magical legislative solution for ...](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/washington-psilocybin-services-act-magical-legislative-solution-promoting-2023-08-11/#:~:text=At%20the%20state%20level%2C%20in,2022%2C%20Colorado%20passed%20a).
3. *Decriminalization*: - Oregon voters approved the decriminalization of small amounts of psychedelics in 2020. This move was later mirrored in Colorado, which also passed measures to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and create state-regulated centers for supervised use [oai_citation:3,California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoes bill that would have decriminalized ...](https://apnews.com/article/psychedelics-magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-gavin-newsom-california-df0acc070df06de668ef69aafc1f13e1#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20Oregon%20voters%20approved,Oakland%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20Santa).
4. *National Recognition*: - The move towards recognizing the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin, is also noted at the national level, with significant results being reported which might be groundbreaking [oai_citation:4,The Biden administration and Congress see psychedelic drugs as ...](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/12/medical-psychedelic-drugs-congress-00110851#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20results%20that%20are%20coming,psychedelics%2C%20ibogaine%20and%205).
The unfolding scenario in Oregon is a part of a larger dialogue on the reevaluation of psychedelic substances both for recreational and therapeutic uses. It places Oregon at the forefront of this evolving discourse. How might the outcomes of Oregon's psilocybin experiment influence national policy on psychedelic substances?
What are the most cost efficient methods for removing PFAS from water?
There is now $1.5b/yr in federal funding for PFAS removal from water supplies [2].
There is a $10-12b 3M PFAS settlement approved 2024-04-01 with hundreds of municipal water supply plaintiffs. There is a $1.2b DuPont/Dow PFAS settlement also with hundreds of drinking water provider plaintiffs. [1]
PFAS and microplastics and Nitrogen and Oxygen are in rainwater, which plants prefer. Crops don't need tap water levels of e.g. chlorine or fluoride, which damage the soil microbiome.
Municipal, commercial, residential, and farm to table customers need solutions for SDG6: Clean Water;
What are the low-cost and gold-standard sensors for water quality? And,
What are the most cost efficient methods for removing PFAS and microplastics from water supplies, ground water, well water, tap water, sea water, and hobbyist rainwater collection systems?
[2] "Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes First-Ever National Drinking Water Standard to Protect 100M People from PFAS Pollution" https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-first-ever-national-drinking-water-standard
Most stories on vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization/death look like this:
Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated - https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187
Unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die of covid-19, CDC report finds - https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/10/moderna-most-effective-covid-vaccine-studies/
CDC study shows unvaccinated people are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/cdc-study-shows-unvaccinated-people-are-29-times-more-likely-to-be-hospitalized-with-covid.html
All of them refer to heavily confounded data (e.g. no medical history) and I'm having difficulties finding more thorough studies.
Are better analyses available/underway? Thank you!
Hi HN! For my senior thesis in CS, I built an SMS-based application to make journalism more accessible. It works like this:
1) You text the topics you're interested in to my phone number. Every day, you'll receive a text with 5 headlines from The Associated Press (https://apnews.com/) related to those topics.
2) If you have questions about any of the current events the headlines describe, you just text them back. A response is generated from the contents of the articles using the RAPTOR retrieval framework (https://github.com/parthsarthi03/raptor) and texted right back to you.
Recently major Californian insurers withdrew because of climate change: https://apnews.com/article/california-wildfire-insurance-e31bef0ed7eeddcde096a5b8f2c1768f
Do you have any other examples of companies whose business models involve anticipating the future (specifically bank, insurers etc.) withdrawing from business or reacting peculiar because of climate risks?
I reported the issue but it's still not been fixed. It was still working fine in the Brave web browser though so I just switched to using it, but now it's not working on that either.
This morning I loaded their site in Brave and after scrolling down the page a bit the entire page refreshes after just a minute or so and I'm back at the top of the page. I can't even skim the headlines on their page before it does that. I've not changed any of the default settings in Brave so it's not me that's mucking that up.
Is anyone else having issues with that site?