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Submission + - 'A very Finnish thing': Sand battery starts storing wind energy in soapstone (euronews.com) 1

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: "The world’s largest sand battery has started working in the southern Finnish town of Pornainen" reports Euronews. "Capable of storing 100 MWh of thermal energy from solar and wind sources, it will enable residents to eliminate oil from their district heating network, thereby cutting emissions by nearly 70 per cent." "The sand can store heat at around 500C for several days to even months, providing a valuable store of cheaper energy during the winter. When needed, the battery discharges the hot air — warming water in the district heating network. Homes, offices and even the local swimming pool all benefit in Kankaanpää, for example." later it says that most kinds of sand can be used and "In Pornainen, Polar Night Energy has found a sustainable material in crushed soapstone; a by-product of a Finnish company’s manufacture of heat-retaining fireplaces.". The company has more technical data and an FAQ on their web site.

Submission + - Freenode new management hijacks distro channels - most move to libera (ubuntu.com)

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: Ubuntu has announced that, with immediate effect Ubuntu's IRC channels are moving to libera.chat. The move follows a hijacking of Ubuntu's namespace by Freenode's new management and appears to be happening to many other distributions including Gentoo and CentOS as well as other projects that have used Freenode. For Ubuntu, and many other FOSS projects, Freenode has long been one of the major official forms of communication. Hijacking these long held channels is liable to dispel any remaining doubts about the reason that Freenode's staff recently quit en-masse (discussed recently here on Slashdot). With IRC channels often used for important system advice, and project communication, takeover by a hostile entity becomes not just an inconvenience but even a security problem. For this reason Ubuntu's replacement network, libera.chat has a more clearly open organisational structure than Freenode had before being taken over.

Comment Re: Please uninstall Flash if you haven't already (Score 1) 139

by AleRunner (#60986598) Attached to: When Adobe Stopped Flash Content, It Impacted A Chinese Railroad

There was this excellent browser extension; Umatrix, which let you enable and disable different features for each site. I say was, because unfortunately the author stopped maintaining it since people kept asking about broken sites and it's a bit of a complicated thing to explain. However the idea is excellent, just unfortunately not taken far enough.

If there was a JVM which allowed you to similarly switch on features per site, with similar allow/learn/deny cascading lists and that was integrated with something like umatrix then maybe eventually we could get back to actually owning our own computers?

Submission + - Psychiatric issues in a fifth of COVID-19 patients - scientists investigate why (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: "Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus"
Natalie Grover writes in the Guardian. Although "people with a pre-existing mental health diagnosis" are 65% more likely to get COVID so is may be that this is partly explained by doctors diagnosing illness that would otherwise be missed, the article states that "the rate is double the rate for influenza" and unexpectedly high so other explanations are needed and the cause is now under investigation. The scientists state that it's "not at all implausible that Covid-19 might have some direct effect on your brain and your mental health" especially after studies showing neurological and neuropsychiatric complications of Covid-19. “It’s difficult to judge the importance of these findings" says the article however they will add very much to existing worries about long COVID and potential long term economic and social damage from COVID-19.

Submission + - With the most deaths in 150 years, Swedes are to trace their own contacts. (theguardian.com)

Submitted by AleRunner
AleRunner writes: In the first half of 2020 Sweden has recorded it's highest death total in 150 years. the Guardian writes "In total, 51,405 Swedes died in the six-month period, a higher number than in any year since 1869, when 55,431 people died," in what may be a reaction to this failure, which makes Sweden the worst coronavirus country in Scandinavia, Sweden has announced a change to their new contact tracing policy — thelocal.se explains: "If you test positive for the coronavirus you may now be given instructions to call people with whom you have been in contact and may have infected, instead of healthcare staff doing the job for you, or it not being done at all.". In early June Sweden switched from it's failed "herd immunity" strategy to a contact tracing strategy and has since seen a strong fall in new infections though with a recent slight increase. Whether the new contact tracing strategy will be critical for the return of the Swedish economy with Sweden currently facing travel restrictions from Scandinavian neighbours such as Finland whilst other Scandinavian and Baltic countries are already open for trade and tourism. Swedes will be hoping that the adjustment of their new Coronavirus strategy will be a signpost for other countries rather than the warning of their old strategy.

Not so long ago, in June, we discussed how Sweden's old strategy had made Sweden a Piriah state and in May we had discussed how Sweden's old strategy caused many deaths whilst failing to deliver immunity

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