The world is set to have been hotter in 2023 than in any other year on record, scientists have declared, before a landmark climate summit this month. From a report: "We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43C above the pre-industrial average," said Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. "The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into Cop28 has never been higher." The Copernicus scientists found last month was the hottest October on record globally, with temperatures 1.7C above what they were thought to have been during the average October in the late 1800s.

By burning fossil fuels and destroying nature, humans have pumped heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere that have raised the temperature of planet by 1.2C since the Industrial Revolution. The global temperature anomaly for October 2023 was the second highest across all months in its dataset, the scientists found, behind only the month before. "The fact that we're seeing this record hot year means record human suffering," said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. "Within this year, extreme heatwaves and droughts made much worse by these extreme temperatures have caused thousands of deaths, people losing their livelihoods, being displaced etc. These are the records that matter. That is why the Paris agreement is a human rights treaty, and not keeping to the goals in it, is violating human rights on a vast scale."

An anonymous reader shares a report: As dawn breaks over Silicon Valley, the world is getting its first look at Pathfinder 1, a prototype electric airship that its maker LTA Research hopes will kickstart a new era in climate-friendly air travel, and accelerate the humanitarian work of its funder, Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The airship -- its snow-white steampunk profile visible from the busy 101 highway -- has taken drone technology such as fly-by-wire controls, electric motors and lidar sensing, and supersized them to something longer than three Boeing 737s, potentially able to carry tons of cargo over many hundreds of miles.

"It's been 10 years of blood, sweat and tears," LTA CEO Alan Weston told TechCrunch on the eve of the unveiling. "Now we must show that this can reliably fly in real-world conditions. And we're going to do that." A series of increasingly ambitious flight tests lie ahead, before Pathfinder 1 is moved to Akron, Ohio, where LTA Research is planning an even larger airship, the Pathfinder 3. The company eventually hopes to produce a family of airships to provide disaster relief where roads and airports are damaged, as well as zero-carbon passenger transportation.

For the next year however, the gigantic airship looks set to become a Silicon Valley landmark as its novel materials and systems are methodically put through their paces within shouting distance of companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon. "I'm excited about the potential of not building just one airship, but laying the foundation for many airships to be built," said Weston. "The innovations and the technologies that we're about to demonstrate have the potential to lay the foundation for a new industry."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Scientists have long thought that the glaciers in North Greenland have been stable -- a vital condition, as they contain enough ice to raise the sea level by nearly 7 feet. But a new study published on Tuesday found that ice shelves in the region have lost more than a third of their volume in the last half-century because of rising temperatures -- and if it continues, scientists say there could be "dramatic consequences" for glaciers, and the planet. Using thousands of satellite images and climate modeling, the study, published in Nature Communications, found that North Greenland's ice shelves "have lost more than 35% of their total volume" since 1978.

Ice shelves are the part of ice sheets -- a form of glacier -- that float over water. Three of those shelves in North Greenland have "completely" collapsed, researchers said, and of the five main shelves that remain, they said they have seen a "widespread increase" in how much mass they have lost, mostly due to the warming of the ocean. One of the shelves, called Steenbsy, shrank to just 34% of its previous area between 2000 and 2013. Along with the loss of overall ice shelf volume, scientists said the area of floating ice decreased by more than a third of its original extent since 1978. This observation could pose a major problem, as the Greenland ice sheet is the second-largest contributor to sea level rise. From 2006 to 2018, scientists noted that the single sheet was responsible for more than 17% of sea level rise in that period.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Intel may receive billions in U.S. government funding to build secret facilities that produce microchips for the military. SiliconANGLE reports: The facilities, which have not yet been disclosed, would be designated as a "secure enclave" to reduce the military's dependence on chips imported from East Asia, particularly Taiwan, which is at risk of a future invasion from China. The funding for the new facilities would come from the $52.7 billion allocated under the Chips Act, signed into law by President Biden in August 2022. The Chips Act, which had bipartisan support, promotes chipmaking and scientific research through funding and tax credits. The law is aimed at encouraging domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and helping U.S. companies compete with China in developing cutting-edge technologies.

The new Intel facilities, presuming they go ahead, could reside partly at Intel's Arizona factory complex, according to sources referenced in the Journal report. The exact amount of funding that will be made available is not yet known, but "people familiar with the situation" tell the Journal that they could cost about $3 billion to $4 billion, which would come from the $39 billion set aside in the Chips Act for manufacturing grants. Officials from the Commerce Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Defense Department are said to be negotiating the project with Intel but have not yet made a final decision.

The first manufacturing grants under the Chip Act are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. The program was reported to have had more than 500 entities express interest and more than 130 have submitted applications or pre-applications for funding.

In an attempt to boost broadband competition, Canada's telecom regulator is forcing large phone companies to open their fiber networks to competitors. Smaller companies will be allowed to buy network capacity and use it to offer competing broadband plans to consumers. From a report: Evidence received during a comment period "shows that competition in the Internet services market is declining," the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said in its announcement. The CRTC said the "decrease is most significant in Ontario and Quebec, where independent competitors now serve 47 percent fewer customers than they did just two years ago. At the same time, several competitors have been bought out by larger Internet providers. This has left many Canadians with fewer options for high-speed Internet services."

The CRTC hasn't made a final decision on fiber resale. But in the meantime, until a more permanent ruling is made, large telcos in Ontario and Quebec will be "required to provide competitors with access to their fibre-to-the-home networks within six months," the CRTC said. The six-month period is intended to give companies time to prepare their networks and develop information technology and billing systems, the agency said. "On a temporary and expedited basis, the CRTC is providing competitors with a workable way to sell Internet services using the fibre-to-the-home networks of large telephone companies in Ontario and Quebec, where competition has declined most significantly," the agency said. "The CRTC is also setting the interim rates that competitors will pay when selling services over these fibre-to-the-home networks. These rates were chosen to allow Canada's large Internet companies to continue investing in their networks to deliver high-quality services to Canadians."

Tech groups have called on ministers to clarify the extent of proposed powers that they fear would allow the UK government to intervene and block the rollout of new privacy features for messaging apps. FT: The Investigatory Powers Amendment Bill, which was set out in the King's Speech on Tuesday, would oblige companies to inform the Home Office in advance about any security or privacy features they want to add to their platforms, including encryption. At present, the government has the power to force telecoms companies and messaging platforms to supply data on national security grounds and to help with criminal investigations.

The new legislation was designed to "recalibrate" those powers to respond to risks posed to public safety by multinational tech companies rolling out new services that "preclude lawful access to data," the government said. But Meredith Whittaker, president of private messaging group Signal, urged ministers to provide more clarity on what she described as a "bellicose" proposal amid fears that, if enacted, the new legislation would allow ministers and officials to veto the introduction of new safety features. "We will need to see the details, but what is being described suggests an astonishing level of technically confused government over-reach that will make it nearly impossible for any service, homegrown or foreign, to operate with integrity in the UK," she told the Financial Times.

Jacob Knutson reports via Axios: Sensitive, highly detailed personal data for thousands of active-duty and veteran U.S. military members can be purchased for as little as one cent per name through data broker websites, according to a new study (PDF) published on Monday by Duke University researchers. [...] The data about military personnel purchased as part of the study included full names, physical and email addresses, health and financial information and details about their ethnicity, religious practices and political affiliation. In some cases, the information also included whether the person owned or rented a home, was married or had children. The children's ages and sexes were accessible, too.

The researchers bought data on up to around 45,000 military personnel for between $0.12 to $0.32 per record. They also bought data belonging to 5,000 friends and family members of military personnel. Larger data purchases of over 1.5 million service members were available for as little as $0.01 per record from at least one broker the researchers contacted. The researchers called on Congress to pass a comprehensive privacy law and for regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to develop rules to govern military personnel data purchases.

William Gallagher reports via Appleinsider: In a move similar in principle to how the EU retrospectively sought to fine Apple over its tax agreement with Ireland, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) is changing the company's arrangement with Cupertino. Since 1998, Apple has declared all of its online sales made in California as having taken place in Cupertino. As first spotted by the San Jose Spotlight, this means that of Apple's 7.25% sales tax, the local 1% portion goes to the city. Then under the same deal, Cupertino actually returns approximately one third of this revenue to Apple. Consequently the benefit to Apple is clear, but also Cupertino profits because it sees significantly greater sales tax revenue than it otherwise might.

"The CDTFA has done an audit of one of our big taxpayers and has identified that there are dollars being allocated improperly," Cupertino Assistant City Manager Matt Morley told the publication, "and through that audit they are asking for that process to be corrected." "The city obviously isn't happy with this and we don't believe the CDTFA is on base," continued Morley. Reportedly, the CDTFA's state tax officials have concluded that the city of Cupertino owes it $56.5 million. This is for the period from April 2021 to June 2023, though it's not clear how those dates were determined. At the same time, the tax officials are said to have decided that Apple must reimburse the state $20 million. This figure would then be reallocated to other areas of the state.

The impact on Cupertino could be significant, but the city is appealing the ruling -- and the appeal could take anywhere from seven to ten years. Even so, the Cupertino City Council has agreed to set aside the $56.5 million to prepare for the potential future loss. Should the CDTFA prevail, Cupertino's Morley said non-essential city services could be reduced or even cut. Annually, Cupertino would see a 73% drop in sales tax revenues, and would face having to cut almost a quarter of its operational costs.

The city of Washington D.C. is planning to give residents Apple AirTags to help officers track down stolen vehicles. PCMag reports: "Last week, we introduced legislation to address recent crime trends; this week, we are equipping residents with technology that will allow MPD to address these crimes, recover vehicles, and hold people accountable," D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement. "We have had success with similar programs where we make it easier for the community and MPD to work together -- from our Private Security Camera Incentive Program to the wheel lock distribution program -- and we will continue to use all the tools we have, and add new tools, to keep our city safe."

At launch, the AirTags will be available to residents in specific areas of the city that have recently seen the largest increase in vehicle thefts. To obtain the tags, residents will have to attend one of three scheduled distribution events next week where officers will install the device on the resident's cars and help them set up the tracking tag on their mobile devices. The program is currently available for residents who live in Police Service Areas 106, 501, 502, 603, 605, and 606. Check where you live on the MPD's website.

Emma Roth reports via The Verge: YouTube appears to be testing a new "play something" button on its mobile app that directs you to a random video when you don't know what to watch. As first spotted by Android Police, the prompt shows up between content as you scroll through the feed on your homepage -- but only some users are seeing it. While Android Police mentions that the button only directs users to YouTube Shorts, one of my colleagues here at The Verge found that the feature also shows them random full-length videos. It's still not clear if YouTube takes your watch history into account when picking the random videos it plays or how widely Google is rolling out this feature.

The Biden administration is proposing a ban on TCE, a highly toxic chemical commonly used in stain removers, adhesives and degreasers, and which had been found to be contaminating drinking water on a wide scale across the US. From a report: The move comes after years of mounting scientific evidence showing TCE is "extremely toxic" at low levels of exposure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrote in a statement. "The science is loud and clear on TCE. It is a dangerous toxic chemical and proposing to ban it will protect families, workers and communities," said the EPA deputy administrator, Janet McCabe.

TCE, or trichloroethylene, is a volatile organic compound that humans are frequently exposed to in a variety of settings, though those who use products with the chemical in an occupational setting are most at risk. It's also commonly used in carpet cleaning treatments, hoof polishes, brake cleaners, pepper spray and lubricants. Among other health issues, the chemical is thought to be a carcinogen and a liver toxin, harm male reproduction, cause neurological damage, damage kidneys and cause Parkinson's disease.

In Raleigh, North Carolina — the home of Red Hat — local newspaper the News & Observer takes an in-depth look at the "announcement that split the open source software community." (Alternate URL here.) [M]any saw Red Hat's decision to essentially paywall Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or RHEL, as sacrilegious... Red Hat employees were also conflicted about the new policy, [Red Hat Vice President Mike] McGrath acknowledged. "I think a lot of even internal associates didn't fully understand what we had announced and why," he said...

At issue, he wrote, were emerging competitors who copied Red Hat Enterprise Linux, down to even the code's mistakes, and then offered these Red Hat-replicas to customers for free. These weren't community members adding value, he contended, but undercutting rivals. And in a year when Red Hat laid off 4% of its total workforce, McGrath said, the company could not justify allowing this to continue. "I feel that while this was a difficult decision between community and business, we're still on the right side of it," he told the News & Observer. Not everyone agrees...

McGrath offered little consolation to customers who were relying on one-for-one versions of RHEL. They could stay with the downstream distributions, find another provider, or pay for Red Hat. "I think (people) were just so used to the way things work," he said. "There's a vocal group of people that probably need Red Hat's level of support, but simply don't want to pay for it. And I don't really have... there's not much we can tell them."

Since its RHEL decision, Red Hat has secured several prominent partnerships. In September, the cloud-based software company Salesforce moved 200,000 of its systems from the free CentOS Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The same month, Red Hat announced RHEL would begin to support Oracle's cloud infrastructure. Oracle was one of the few major companies this summer to publicly criticize Red Hat for essentially paywalling its most popular code. On Oct. 24, Red Hat notched another win when the data security firm Cohesity said it would also ditch CentOS Linux for RHEL.
The article delves into the history of Red Hat — and of Linux — before culminating with this quote from McGrath. "I think long gone are the times of that sort of romantic view of hobbyists working in their spare time to build open source. I think there's still room for that — we still have that — but quite a lot of open source is now built from people that are paid full time."

Red Hat likes to point out that 90% of Fortune 500 companies use its services, according to the article. But it also quotes Jonathan Wright, infrastructure team lead at the nonprofit AlmaLinux, as saying that Red Hat played "fast and loose" with the GPL. The newspaper then adds that "For many open source believers, such a threat to its hallowed text isn't forgivable."

The state of Maine is "poised to vote on an unprecedented plan to rid themselves of the state's two largest electric utilities and start with a clean slate," reports the Associated Press: The proposed takeover of two investor-owned utilities that distribute 97% of electricity in the state would mark the first time a U.S. state's utilities were forcibly removed at the same time. The referendum calls for dismantling Central Maine Power and Versant Power and replacing them with a nonprofit utility called Pine Tree Power to operate 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers) of transmission lines...

The referendum calls for creation of a nonprofit utility with a board made up of mostly elected members and a few appointed ones. A primary selling point is that the new utility would be beholden only to ratepayers, not corporate shareholders, allowing lower costs, greater investments in the grid and improved performance, supporters said. Interest rates for long-term borrowing for capital improvements also would be less costly for Pine Tree Power. Supporters say there's little to lose: Both investor-owned utilities rank near the bottom in customer satisfaction, with longer-than-average response to power outages and higher-than-average electricity rates.

But critics, including Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, worry about the power grid becoming politicized. They also question savings projections because of the billions of dollars needed to buy out the utilities, and worry about the prospect of lengthy litigation. Maine Public Advocate William Harwood contends legal disputes could postpone the new utility's implementation by five to 10 years.
The American Public Power Association estimates that investor-owned utilities serve 66% of America's electricity consumers, according to the article. So the Associated Press notes that "Across the country, ratepayers who are unhappy with their utilities are watching what happens," citing this quote from energy-related research firm Clear View Energy Partners.

"What we say about state policy and trends is that it could become contagious."

Thanks to Slashdot reader jenningsthecat for sharing the article.

Smartphones and electric cars are both powered by lithium-ion batteries, notes the Economist. These "Li-ion" batteries "form the guts of a growing number of grid-storage systems that smooth the flow of electricity from wind and solar power stations. Without them, the electrification needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming would be unimaginable." But unfortunately, building them requires scarce metals.

"A clutch of companies, though, think they have an alternative: making batteries with sodium instead..." And the idea of building "Na-ion" batteries at scale is "gaining traction." Engineers are tweaking designs. Factories, particularly in China, are springing up. For the first time since the Li-ion revolution began, lithium's place on the electrochemical pedestal is being challenged... [A]ccording to Rory McNulty, a research analyst at Benchmark, Chinese firms have 34 Na-ion-battery factories built, being built or announced inside the country, and one planned in Malaysia. Established battery-makers in other places, by contrast, are not yet showing much interest. Even without a five-year plan to guide them, though, some non-Chinese startups are seeking to steal a march by developing alternatives to layered oxides, in the hope of improving the technology, reducing its cost, or both.

One of the most intriguing of these neophytes is Natron Energy, of Santa Clara, California... Natron claims that its cells can endure 50,000 cycles of charging and discharging — between ten and 100 times more than commercial Li-ion batteries can manage. The firm has built a factory in Michigan, which it says will begin production later this year. Other non-Chinese firms are less far advanced, but full of hope. Altris, in Sweden, which is also building a factory, employs a material called Prussian white that substitutes some of the iron in Prussian blue with sodium. Tiamat, in France, uses a polyanionic design involving vanadium. And Faradion, in Britain (now owned by Reliance, an Indian firm), intends to stick with a layered-metal-oxide system.
Thanks to Slashdot reader echo123 for sharing the article.

Bill Gates, noted billionaire philanthropist, discussed the need for "impatient optimism" about both climate change and global development last month during an interview at an international affairs think tank: Q: If you go back a decade, are you more or less optimistic about where we are on climate change now, or then?

Bill Gates: I'm certainly more optimistic because in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed, there were so many areas of emission where there wasn't any activity...

Q: if you go back a decade, solar and wind were the most expensive energy sources we had. Since then, the price of solar has dropped 90%, and the price of wind has dropped 70%, and electric vehicles are now economically viable... I know you get excited about innovation. What are some of the areas that you're most excited about for innovation?

Bill Gates: Across this portfolio of 100 companies it's hard to pick my favorite. Some are kind of straightforward, like a company that makes windows where the temperature doesn't cross over, but instead, it blocks getting cold in the winter or hot in the summer, which is very cheap. Or there is a company where you leave your home, and you pump this air through, but it's got a chemical in it. When it sees cracks, it actually seals those cracks. You don't have to find the cracks; you just pump the air in. You can reduce the amount of heat loss between the windows and getting rid of those cracks. You can reduce the energy bill by a factor of two, which then means less load on the overall energy system...

The cement and steel ones are the ones, in a way, I'm most impressed by, because I wasn't sure we'd find anything in those spaces...

Q: The problem, I guess, with cement is that you are taking basically limestone, and then you are converting it to calcium oxide. But the byproduct you get in that conversion process is CO2. Basically, you need a way to capture that CO2....

Bill Gates: As you heat the limestone, that releases CO2. It's exactly as you say, it's an equal number amount of emissions. One of our companies doesn't use limestone. They actually go and find another source of calcium, which fortunately turns out to be quite abundant and cheap. They make exactly the same cement that we make today, but not using limestone as the input. I was stunned that you could do that.
Gates also hopes to see nuclear power in an economically viable form. "The nuclear industry basically failed, because their product was too expensive. It wasn't because of the waste or safety-type issues, which we can get into those, but it was economics." Bill Gates: First and foremost, you must have a much different economic proposition. The nuclear reactor I'm involved in, TerraPower, we only generate electricity when the renewable sources that have very little marginal costs aren't generating. We just make heat all day, and then only when the bid price of electricity is high enough, do we actually generate electricity, because otherwise, you have all this capital cost that half the time, the solar bid into that market is going to be very low.

I think fission, we shouldn't give up on it. I'm involved in that company only because it may be able to make a significant contribution to [fighting] climate change... I can't overstate how much easier it is to solve the problem if you can mix in some degree of fission or fusion that are there to fill in the periods where renewables are not generating. Cold snaps or where you have these cold fronts just sitting there, that's when houses need the most heating. That's when neither wind nor solar are generating.

Friday the U.K.'s competition regulator made an announcement. Amazon and Meta agreed they wouldn't use data collected their marketplaces for an unfair advantage against competitors.

The Register explains: In Amazon's case, the e-commerce giant used vendors' sales figures to decide which items it should sell, and how much to price products to get an edge over everyone else. The internet behemoth also promoted its own products with its Buy Box feature and it further cut into retailers' margins by charging extra costs if they wanted to use Amazon's Prime delivery services, the CMA said. Now Amazon has committed to doing less of that.

The Competition and Markets Authority said [Amazon] will be prevented from using third-party seller data that gives it an unfair commercial advantage, and will allow rivals to negotiate rates with independent delivery contractors working on behalf of Amazon. Merchants' items will also be better supported by the Buy Box too, according to the CMA, instead of Amazon-led products or those from sellers that have bought into the company's packing and delivery services...

[Facebook] was accused of exploiting advertisers hawking wares on Facebook Marketplace, and using competitors' data to improve its own products or services. "Going forward, competitors of Facebook Marketplace that advertise on Meta platforms can 'opt out' of their data being used to improve Facebook Marketplace," the CMA said.
The CMA also has specific plans for enforcement, reports TechCrunch. for Meta the UK agency "has said it will set up a monitoring trustee to oversee its adherence, including its new technical system rollout and employee training," while Amazon will also get an "independent trustee" overseeing their compliance.

Scientists recently noticed that the chemical fingerprint of meteor particles was starting to change.

And last month Purdue University announced that "The Space Age is leaving fingerprints on one of the most remote parts of the planet — the stratosphere — which has potential implications for climate, the ozone layer and the continued habitability of Earth." Using tools hitched to the nose cone of their research planes and sampling more than 11 miles above the planet's surface, researchers have discovered significant amounts of metals in aerosols in the atmosphere, likely from increasingly frequent launches and returns of spacecraft and satellites. That mass of metal is changing atmospheric chemistry in ways that may impact Earth's atmosphere and ozone layer...

Led by Dan Murphy, an adjunct professor in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the team detected more than 20 elements in ratios that mirror those used in spacecraft alloys. They found that the mass of lithium, aluminum, copper and lead from spacecraft reentry far exceeded those metals found in natural cosmic dust. Nearly 10% of large sulfuric acid particles — the particles that help protect and buffer the ozone layer — contained aluminum and other spacecraft metals.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.

"Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America's fastest-growing form of education," according to a new analysis by the Washington Post. (Alternate URL here): The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions...

In states with comparable enrollment figures, the number of home-schooled students increased 51% over the past six school years, far outpacing the 7% growth in private school enrollment. Public school enrollment dropped 4% in those states over the same period, a decline partly attributable to home schooling...

In 390 districts included in The Post's analysis, there was at least one home-schooled child for every 10 in public schools during the 2021-2022 academic year, the most recent for which district-level federal enrollment data are available. That's roughly quadruple the number of districts that had rates that high in 2017-2018, signifying a sea change in how many communities educate their children and an urgent challenge for a public education system that faced dwindling enrollment even before the pandemic... The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2019 — before home schooling's dramatic expansion — there were 1.5 million kids being home-schooled in the United States, the last official federal estimate. Based on that figure and the growth since then in states that track home schooling, The Post estimates that there are now between 1.9 million and 2.7 million home-schooled children in the United States, depending on the rate of increase in areas without reliable data...

It is a remarkable expansion for a form of instruction that 40 years ago was still considered illegal in much of the country.
Other interesting facts from their analysis:

• "Home schooling's surging popularity crosses every measurable line of politics, geography and demographics."

• "Despite claims that the home-schooling boom is a result of failing public schools, The Post found no correlation between school district quality, as measured by standardized test scores, and home-schooling growth. In fact, high-scoring districts had some of the biggest spikes in home schooling early in the pandemic, though by the fall of 2022 increases were similar regardless of school performance."

• "Many of America's new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught."

It happened a quarter of a century ago. The New York Times wrote that "An internal memorandum reflecting the views of some of Microsoft's top executives and software development managers reveals deep concern about the threat of free software and proposes a number of strategies for competing against free programs that have recently been gaining in popularity." The memo warns that the quality of free software can meet or exceed that of commercial programs and describes it as a potentially serious threat to Microsoft. The document was sent anonymously last week to Eric Raymond, a key figure in a loosely knit group of software developers who collaboratively create and distribute free programs ranging from operating systems to Web browsers. Microsoft executives acknowledged that the document was authentic...

In addition to acknowledging that free programs can compete with commercial software in terms of quality, the memorandum calls the free software movement a "long-term credible" threat and warns that employing a traditional Microsoft marketing strategy known as "FUD," an acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt," will not succeed against the developers of free software. The memorandum also voices concern that Linux is rapidly becoming the dominant version of Unix for computers powered by Intel microprocessors.

The competitive issues, the note warns, go beyond the fact that the software is free. It is also part of the open-source software, or O.S.S., movement, which encourages widespread, rapid development efforts by making the source code — that is, the original lines of code written by programmers — readily available to anyone. This enables programmers the world over to continually write or suggest improvements or to warn of bugs that need to be fixed. The memorandum notes that open software presents a threat because of its ability to mobilize thousands of programmers. "The ability of the O.S.S. process to collect and harness the collective I.Q. of thousands of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing," the memo states. "More importantly, O.S.S. evangelization scales with the size of the Internet much faster than our own evangelization efforts appear to scale."
Back in 1998, Slashdot's CmdrTaco covered the whole brouhaha — including this CNN article: A second internal Microsoft memo on the threat Linux poses to Windows NT calls the operating system "a best-of-breed Unix" and wonders aloud if the open-source operating system's momentum could be slowed in the courts.

As with the first "Halloween Document," the memo — written by product manager Vinod Valloppillil and another Microsoft employee, Josh Cohen — was obtained by Linux developer Eric Raymond and posted on the Internet. In it, Cohen and Valloppillil, who also authored the first "Halloween Document," appear to suggest that Microsoft could slow the open-source development of Linux with legal battles. "The effect of patents and copyright in combating Linux remains to be investigated," the duo wrote.
Microsoft's slogain in 1998 was "Where do you want to go today?" So Eric Raymond published the documents on his web site under the headline "Where will Microsoft try to drag you today? Do you really want to go there?"

25 years later, and it's all still up there and preserved for posterity on Raymond's web page — a collection of leaked Microsoft documents and related materials known collectively as "the Halloween documents." And Raymond made a point of thanking the writers of the documents, "for authoring such remarkable and effective testimonials to the excellence of Linux and open-source software in general."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mtaht for remembering the documents' 25th anniversary...

Long-time Slashdot reader thepacketmaster writes: Documented in a recent article in the journal Nature, researchers have found an abundance of both helium-4 and helium-3 trapped in the volcanic rocks on Canada's Baffin Island.

As the Earth formed, it is thought that helium-4 and helium-3 flowing on the solar wind became trapped in the minerals of the cooling planet. With heavier elements and minerals sinking to the bottom, this trapped helium was transported to the core, where it would have remained locked in its original forms.

Earth isn't massive enough to hold on to helium in any significant quantities, though. Any that did not get trapped, or that was subsequently released when the minerals melted in the mantle or due to massive impacts, would have eventually seeped up to the surface and floated off into space. So, helium is relatively rare on Earth, and helium-3 is even more so.