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Jamaica: Hurricane Melissa by dances_with_sneetches
Tuesday October 28th, 2025 at 12:39 PM

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Hurricane Melissa is currently about two hours from landfall in Jamaica. It has maximum sustained winds of 180 mph and barometer reading of 896. The record for any Atlantic/Caribbean storm at landfall is 892, the infamous Labor Day hurricane that devastated Key West.

The first link above is to Yale Climate News which will have updated articles and intelligent commentary. The winds from a 180 mph hurricane is 1101 times more damaging than a 75 mph hurricane. This is absolute destruction. One of many relief funds. Rains of over 20 inches are expected with isolated spots of 30 plus. This storm strength can tear apart cement structures.
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jepler
1 hour ago
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Yeow, the exponent of wind damage potential vs wind speed is 8! This is not a physical fact but an empirical fit to economic data from this 2006 paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12813/w12813.pdf
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Firefox Plans Smarter, Privacy-First Search Suggestions In Your Address Bar
Tuesday October 28th, 2025 at 8:29 AM

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BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Mozilla is testing a new Firefox feature that delivers direct results inside the address bar instead of forcing users through a search results page. The company says the feature will use a privacy framework called Oblivious HTTP, encrypting queries so that no single party can see both what you type and who you are. Some results could be sponsored, but Mozilla insists neither it nor advertisers will know user identities. The system is starting in the U.S. and may expand later if performance and privacy benchmarks are met. Further reading: Mozilla to Require Data-Collection Disclosure in All New Firefox Extensions
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jepler
5 hours ago
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Mozilla plans inescapable ads in address bar
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theacodes starred aio-libs/janus by theacodes (me@thea.codes)
Saturday October 25th, 2025 at 9:25 AM

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@theacodes theacodes starred aio-libs/janus · October 24, 2025 16:40
aio-libs/janus

Thread-safe asyncio-aware queue for Python

Python 930 Updated Oct 22

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jepler
3 days ago
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is it .. a port of the anus library to java? (what am I, 13?)
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Microsoft Puts Office Online Server On the Chopping Block
Friday October 24th, 2025 at 12:39 PM

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Microsoft is retiring Office Online Server on December 31, 2026, ending support and updates for organizations running browser-based Office apps on-premises. The Register reports: After this, there won't be any more security fixes, updates, or technical support from Microsoft. "This change is part of our ongoing commitment to modernizing productivity experiences and focusing on cloud-first solutions," the company said. Office Online Server provides browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for customers who want to keep things on-prem without having to roll out the full desktop applications. Microsoft's solution is to move to Microsoft 365, its decidedly off-premises version of its applications. The company said it is "focusing its browser-based Office app investments on Office for the Web to deliver secure, collaborative, and feature-rich experiences through Microsoft 365."

Other than migrating to another platform when the vendor pulls the plug, affected customers have few options. The announcement will also hit several customers running SharePoint Server SE or Exchange Server SE. While those products remain supported, Office Online Server integration will go away. The company suggested Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise and Office LTSC 2024 as alternatives for viewing and editing documents hosted on those servers.

Skype for Business customers will also lose some key features related to PowerPoint. Presenter notes and high-fidelity PowerPoint rendering will go away. In-meeting annotations, which allow meeting participants to write directly to slides without altering the original file, will no longer be available, and embedded video playback will run at lower fidelity. Features like whiteboards, polls, and app sharing shouldn't be affected. Microsoft's solution is a move to Teams, which the company says "offers modern meeting experiences."
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jepler
4 days ago
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no on-prem for you. (also: there was still skype for business??)
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Counter-Strike's Player Economy Is In a Multi-Billion Dollar Freefall
Friday October 24th, 2025 at 12:26 PM

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Counter-Strike has long been known for two things: tight tactical FPS gameplay and a thriving player marketplace effectively valued at literal billions of dollars. Now, thanks to a recent update from Valve, the latter is in a downward spiral, having lost 25% of its value -- or $1.75 billion -- overnight. Polygon: First, some context. Counter-Strike is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter. As with most other F2P games, it generates revenue from selling cosmetics. They arrive in lootbox-like Cases, which are opened by Keys purchased with real-world currency. They can also be obtained through trading with other players and purchasing from Steam Community Market. Beyond Steam, unofficial third-party marketplaces for CS cosmetics have also popped up as channels for buying and selling items.

Because items are obtained at random through opening Cases, rarer items fetch the highest value on the open marketplaces. Items of lower-rarity tiers can also be traded in at volume for an item of a higher tier via trade up contracts. Previously, Knives and Gloves could not be obtained through trade up contracts, exponentially increasing their value as highly sought-after items. Prior to the most recent update, some Knives, like a Doppler Ruby Butterfly Knife, could fetch around $20,000 on third-party storefronts like CSFloat.

Following Valve's Oct. 22 update to Counter-Strike, the second-highest-tier, Covert (Red), can now be traded up and turned into Knives and Gloves. Essentially, this means that a previously extremely rare and highly sought-after cosmetic is going to be much more obtainable for those who increasingly want it, reducing the value of Knives and Gloves on the open marketplace. And this is where the market descends into a freefall. Now, that Butterfly Knife mentioned above? It's going for around $12,000, as people are essentially dumping their stock, with 15 sold over the past 16 hours at the time of this writing.
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jepler
4 days ago
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I was today years old when I realized there are people who will spend twenty thousand bucks for a few polygons in a video game.
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fxer
2 days ago
Incel eBay
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Windows 11 Update Breaks Recovery Environment, Making USB Keyboards and Mice Unusable
Monday October 20th, 2025 at 10:48 AM

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"Windows Recovery Environment (RE), as the name suggests, is a built-in set of tools inside Windows that allow you to troubleshoot your computer, including booting into the BIOS, or starting the computer in safe mode," writes Tom's Hardware.

"It's a crucial piece of software that has now, unfortunately, been rendered useless (for many) as part of the latest Windows update." A new bug discovered in Windows 11's October build, KB5066835, makes it so that your USB keyboard and mouse stop working entirely, so you cannot interact with the recovery UI at all.

This problem has already been recognized and highlighted by Microsoft, who clarified that a fix is on its way to address this issue. Any plugged-in peripherals will continue to work just fine inside the actual operating system, but as soon as you go into Windows RE, your USB keyboard and mouse will become unresponsive. It's important to note that if your PC fails to start-up for any reason, it defaults to the recovery environment to, you know, recover and diagnose any issues that might've been preventing it from booting normally.

Note that those hanging onto old PS/2-connector equipped keyboards and mice seem to be unaffected by this latest Windows software gaffe.
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jepler
8 days ago
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Is there any Windows 11 compatible computer with a PS/2 connector? mmmm
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