Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by narf03

US dollar store close down

narf03 — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 17:17:37 +0800

Last month close down ~1000 stores
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/13/investin...ores/index.html

[YOUTUBE]ZMcG5dDll4M[/YOUTUBE]

This month, close down the rest, all of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/ap...-stores-closing
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/99-cent-stor...4b07b7205f17a4a

Here's Why It's A Travesty That Dollar Stores Like The 99 Cents Stores Are Closing

When Daniel Campos heard that the 99 Cents Only stores were shuttering all 371 locations late last week, a surprising wave of emotions hit him.

As the child of immigrants, Campos, a Los Angeles native, said the 99 Cents Store was “an institution” ― a place where you could get a dollar Hot Wheels toy or an ice cream bar while your parents stocked up on groceries, household cleaning items and chintzy decorations for family parties.

“For those of us that grew up in a low-income background, this place meant a lot to us,” Campos, the chief creative director at XXXDCD Clothing, told HuffPost. “As a kid, if your parents drove by it and stopped, you knew you were in for a treat.”

Because the inventory was always shifting in and out, there was a “treasure hunt” quality to visiting the store: One week you’d find off-brand Barbie dolls and Star Wars-branded “space punch,” the next, marked-down Halloween decorations and a hair cap with packaging that inexplicably featured Beyoncé. (Something tells us she didn’t license that one.)

Growing up, Campos usually beelined to the ice cream section before snatching up a bag of Hot Cheetos. As an adult, he valued the store for its healthier options: You could be dead broke but never feel like it because the 99 Cents Store kept you well fed with Yukon Gold potatoes, tortillas, milk, rice, fresh produce (grapes, avocados, lettuce and bell peppers) and canned ones, too.

As columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, “Even though it was a multibillion-dollar company, 99 Cents Only operated under a premise straight from the Great Depression: a fair shake for everyone who entered.”

That’s what Campos loves ― or loved, as it were ― about the store, too.

“They have vegetables, eggs, milk and so many of the name brand products you’d find at a regular grocery store,” he said. “For me, it turned into a nostalgia of remembering where I would get snacks to, wow, this is where I can get essentials at a much lower price.”

The discount chain, which operates in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas, made the closure announcement on Friday, citing COVID setbacks, inflation and product theft.

The stores, which first opened their doors in 1982, began liquidation sales on Friday. Social media, TikTok in particular, is full of videos of penny-pinchers scouring the aisles for one last haul.

The 99 Cents Store news comes on the heels of an announcement that nearly 600 Family Dollar locations are set to close this year, while 400 more stores under the Family Dollar and Dollar Tree banners are expected to close in the next few years as their leases expire.

Dollar stores like the 99 Cents Store are surprisingly polarizing.

According to a 2022 USDA economic research report, more than 1 in 10 households in the U.S. deal with food insecurity, meaning they can’t access the food that they need ― with inflation and the end of pandemic-era aid, those numbers only rose higher.

The presence of dollar stores in lower-income communities affected by food insecurity is a polarizing topic: As The New York Times reported last year, since 2019, at least 75 communities have voted down proposed dollar stores, while roughly 50 have enacted moratoriums or other broad limits on dollar store development. But why?

Critics say national discount chains like Dollar Tree undercut local grocers with their low prices and exacerbate “food deserts” ― communities where shoppers have little or no access to grocers offering healthier foods, but no shortage of liquor stores and snack-filled corner markets.

Sarah Portnoy, a professor of Latinx food studies at the University of Southern California and the creator of the “Abuelitas on the Borderlands” documentary series, thinks the 99 Cents Store was different.

“Dollar stores like the 99 Cents Store sell affordable produce, even organic produce at times, in areas where it can be challenging to get to a large chain supermarket,” she told HuffPost.

In big cities such as Los Angeles, low-income residents often live more than a mile from a grocery store and must rely on public transportation, Portnoy said. Well-stocked dollar stores are often a solid alternative to full-service grocery stores.

“The loss of dollar stores in underserved communities has repercussions that extend far beyond the financial ones to the health of the community,” Portnoy said, noting that in underserved communities, rates of diabetes and obesity are far higher than in more affluent communities, where the number of full-service grocery stores per capita is up to three times higher.

Susana Medina, a resident of Los Angeles, was raised by a single mom and remembers making weekly treks to the local 99 Cents Store, where her mom would stock up on fruits and vegetables.

“With three kids, money was tight so shopping at the 99 Cents Store was a must,” she told HuffPost. “It was basically the only option.”

Now a mom herself, Medina said she appreciates the store’s healthier items she can build meals around for her daughter.

“Whenever I’m looking for anything, I try looking for it at the 99 Cents Store first before shopping at another store,” she said. “I love their canned chunk light tuna in water and pre-cut cabbage that comes in the coleslaw bags. They also have the best saltine crackers that I haven’t found elsewhere yet.”

After hearing news of the closures, Medina spent back-to-back days at different locations, stocking up on hair dye, cutlery, kitty litter and tooth brushes, among other things. Like many, she shared her liquidation haul on TikTok.

Others have more complicated feelings: Writer An Uong said that growing up poor in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley, the 99 Cents Store was her family’s lifeline to affordable foods.

“We had canned tuna on rice, Vienna sausages on rice, sardines in tomato sauce on rice ― a lot of canned things on rice, basically,” said Uong, who now lives on the East coast.

“As much as it kept us well-fed, it also set my family up for a dependency upon foods that were cheap but not the best for our bodies,” she continued. “It’s a complicated relationship. Even so, the 99 Cents Store will always be a place of small joys.”

Due to inflation, prices at the store had gone up in recent years ― some customers were so incensed by price jumps in 2010, they sued ― but Medina thinks it remained a discount shopper’s dream, even up until the end.

“Plus, going to the store always reminds me of my mom, who passed away in 2020,” she said. “I know that if she was still alive, she would be heartbroken about this news, like so many of us bargain shoppers.”

Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian nutritionist and diabetes care specialist, has seen firsthand how dollar stores provide access to nutrient-rich options for many families. She knows clients that sometimes have to choose between food and medications because of financial strain, but the 99 Cents Store provided a lifeline, offering affordable yet nutritious groceries that didn’t break the bank.

“I actually used to lead nutrition workshops for low-income families where I discussed how to shop smart at the 99 Cents Store,” she added. “We’d then cook meals using ingredients from there, proving that healthy eating is possible on a budget.”

Sheth said the local store near her office in Torrance, California, almost always had some variation of leafy greens, herbs, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, apples, mango, melons, avocado and berries.

The canned and frozen food aisles at dollar stores are underrated, too, said Krista Linares, a registered dietitian in Los Angeles.

“People forget that canned and frozen vegetables are more affordable and offer plenty of nutrition,” she said. “Canned vegetables are especially important because they’re shelf stable, in addition to being an affordable way to buy vegetables.”

Experts are looking for longer-term solutions to food insecurity.

Even for those outside of food deserts, grocery prices are rising due to inflation, and Linares considers the 99 Cents Store one of the last truly accessible healthy food purveyors.

So does Kayla de la Haye, a research scientist and the director at the Institute for Food System Equity at the University of Southern California.

“It’s not that dollar stores are the ideal food source ― they’re known to offer less nutritious food compared to grocery stores,” she told HuffPost. “But they are a main source of affordable food for many. How will people manage when a store like this closes?”

In LA, where most of the 99 Cents Stores are located, 1 in 4 (25%) residents live in a food desert that has poor access to a grocery store (vs. 17% nationally), and 30% are food insecure (vs. 12% nationally).

Almost always, “It’s residents who are low income, Latino and Black who face most of the burden of these food inequities,” de la Haye said.

There’s been one promising development since news of the closures broke: On Friday, Mark J. Miller, the CEO of Pic ‘N’ Save Bargains and former president of Big Lots, told Los Angeles Magazine that he hopes to put together a group of investors, including some former 99 Cents Store executives, to try and save some of the stores in Southern California.

“It’s a passion for me to try and do this deal because I think it’s such an iconic brand name and has such a great feel for Southern California,” Miller told the magazine.

But to really get at the root of the problem, de la Haye thinks solutions need to go deeper than that. As she noted, in the U.S., what we eat is the leading cause of illness and death, but there are ways to change that.

“This is really a time to take action, and use this as an opportunity to help communities who rely on dollar stores gain new options to access affordable, healthy and good quality food,” she said. “Because ultimately, we are fortunate to live in a wealthy country that has a food supply that could feed everyone; we even throw out about a third of this food!”

One idea that has taken off in LA is providing small grants to local markets so they can build up their capacity to sell healthy foods.

“We have a lot of work to do to make sure all people have not just food security, but also nutrition security, meaning they can access and afford healthy food,” de la Hay said. “If we can make it easier for all people to access healthy, affordable, good quality and tasty food, there would be so many benefits for our health and well-being.”

when play computer game

narf03 — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 05:01:22 +0800

Want to do a simple poll, software programmer here, trying to make shitty computer game

wasted alot of time into coming out an idea for a not so stupid game, usually spend effort into things thats maybe not important. so i want to to this poll, want to see if im supposed to continue waste time into less important things.

when playing computer game, like super mario, do u care about game logic ? like jump onto cloud, turtle with wings, mushroom double your size, +1up etc ? then story about the game u playing, like save that princess kidnapped by the stupid dragon(should have eaten the princess instead of kidnap), do u care about the story line if it make sense ? or the game no longer fun, but u still continue to play just to know how the story proceed ?

tnx for whatever =P

FBI would like to have a conversation with you

narf03 — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 15:19:49 +0800

[YOUTUBE]LUKceSojmeE[/YOUTUBE]

I always tot FBI handle "big" serious case....

Easier way to pay bill ?

narf03 — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 13:37:05 +0800

I wonder if there is any improved way to pay bill ? like maybank2u allow you to add accounts you want to transfer money to, but it wont tell you how much you owe, how much you need to pay, you always need to refer to something else.

Are there any improved version where u can know those amount ?

as usual human need to improve by getting more lazy. lets improve together !! i mean get lazy

Baltimore Bridge collapse footage

narf03 — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 22:09:02 +0800

[YOUTUBE]JebyNOvJmCM[/YOUTUBE]

they claim its accident, why it looks like the captain purposely steer the ship towards the weak point ?

Yellen warns China’s surplus of solar panels

narf03 — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:45:08 +0800

source : here

Yellen warns China’s surplus of solar panels, EVs could be dumped on global markets

-Janet Yellen warned in a Wednesday speech that China’s surplus of clean energy products is depressing prices in global markets and squeezing U.S. green manufacturing.
-After years of clean energy investment, China has an excess of solar power, EVs and lithium-ion batteries, allowing it to export those products at cheaper prices to markets around the world.
-Yellen plans to confront her Chinese counterparts about these trade practices during her upcoming visit to China.
-The U.S. is trying to grow its own clean energy industry domestically with investments from new legislation, but is still playing catch-up with China’s green energy sector.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned that China is treating the global economy as a dumping ground for its cheaper clean energy products, depressing market prices and squeezing green manufacturing in the U.S.

“I am concerned about global spillovers from the excess capacity that we are seeing in China,” Yellen said during a speech at a Georgia solar company called Suniva. “China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world.”

China has a surplus of solar power, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries that it can ship out to other countries at cheaper prices. That makes it difficult for the more adolescent green manufacturing industries of the U.S. and elsewhere to compete.

Yellen said she intends to put pressure on Chinese officials about these trade practices during her upcoming visit to China.

“I plan to make it a key issue in discussions during my next trip there,” she said. “I will press my Chinese counterparts to take necessary steps to address this issue.”

The secretary’s concerns come as the White House tries to build a burgeoning clean energy industry domestically with investments from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, along with other legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act.

Yellen has regularly touted the gains from these investments, including at another recent speech where she doubled down on the electric vehicle “boom” spurred by the IRA.

But those investments are playing catch-up with China’s government.

“The Biden Administration also recognizes that these investments are new,” Yellen said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, China has been pouring billions into clean energy for years, outpacing the rest of the world in the energy transition.

Yellen added that the more China’s clean energy glut interferes with global market prices, the worse off supply chains for these energy sectors will be.

“President Biden is committed to doing what we can to protect our industries from unfair competition,” Yellen said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yellen’s comments highlight ongoing U.S.-China trade tension even as the two countries try to steady relations.

President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November as an olive-branch effort to break the ice after years of tension, marked in part by a tariff war launched by former President Donald Trump.

Trump has floated reinstating significant tariff levels on Chinese products if he wins a second presidential term.

In the time since the Biden-Xi meeting, strengthening U.S.-China relations has proven a precarious effort due to ongoing cybersecurity and trade concerns.

In February, Biden launched an investigation into Chinese smart cars, which he said pose a national security risk because they connect to U.S. infrastructure when they drive on American roads.

“China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices,” Biden said in a February statement. “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.”

Moscow terror attack

narf03 — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:49:41 +0800

[YOUTUBE]mXN9mcrsdqY[/YOUTUBE]

they claim the "attack" was supposed to be pre-election, to cause chaos during election, create trouble for putin ...

alternative to "lock" ?

narf03 — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 23:40:40 +0800

in c#, "lock" is a method to avoid racing condition, avoid multiple threads read and write to a shared variable between them.

lock usually will cause delay, lets say 1 thread locked and accessing a variable(and process until it unlock), all others thread cant lock, they all have to wait(or stuck) until somebody else lock, unlock, and wait until they able to lock(access the variable)

i wonder if there is alternative, like i want to know if the variable is locked, if its, pass, try it again next time, still lock, pass, basically i dont want certain thread get delay when they cant access a variable.

converting datatype from array to another

narf03 — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 02:18:10 +0800

Lets say i have 2 arrays source and destination.

source array consists of 1000 items of 32bit float, that their value ranged from 1.0f to -1.0f

destination array consists of 2000 bytes

i want to convert each float to 2 byte(16 bit), value ranged 32767 to -32768(00 00 to FF FF), little-endian

i manage to do byte by byte calculation, but its a bit slow, any efficient way to do it ?

terrorist attack in moscow

narf03 — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 23:35:00 +0800

link here

Putin vows to punish those behind concert massacre

MOSCOW, March 23 (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow, and President Vladimir Putin pledged to track down and punish those behind the attack.
Militant Islamist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday's rampage but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it.
Russia's state Investigative Committee said 133 people had been killed. State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143.
In a televised address, Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen. "They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border," he said.
The FSB security service said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border. It said they were being transferred to Moscow.
Neither Putin nor the FSB publicly presented any proof of a link with Ukraine, with which Russia has been waging war for the past 25 months.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told Reuters: "Ukraine was of course not involved in this terror attack. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty from Russian invaders, liberating its own territory and is fighting with the occupiers’ army and military targets, not civilians."
He said the FSB version that the suspects were arrested en route to Ukraine was "of course another lie from the Russian special services".
PUTIN ADDRESS
Putin cast the enemy as "international terrorism" and said that he was ready to work with any state that wanted to defeat it.
"All the perpetrators, organisers and those who ordered this crime will be justly and inevitably punished. Whoever they are, whoever is guiding them," Putin said. "We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists, who prepared this atrocity, this strike against Russia, against our people."
A senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, said that if Ukraine was involved, then Russia must deliver a "worthy, clear and concrete" reply on the battlefield.
Verified footage from Friday's attack showed camouflage-clad gunmen opening fire with automatic weapons at concert-goers in the Crocus City Hall near the capital. Video showed people taking their seats, then rushing for the exits as repeated gunfire echoed above screams.
Investigators said some died from gunshot wounds and others in a huge fire that broke out in the complex. Reports said the gunmen had lit the blaze using petrol from canisters they carried in rucksacks.
People fled in panic. Baza, a news outlet with good contacts in Russian security and law enforcement, said 28 bodies were found in a toilet and 14 on a staircase. "Many mothers were found embracing their children," it said.
Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said the attackers had fled in a Renault vehicle that was spotted by police in Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow on Friday night. He said a car chase ensued after they disobeyed orders to stop.
Khinshtein said a pistol, a magazine for an assault rifle, and passports from Tajikistan were found in the car. Tajikistan is a mainly Muslim Central Asian state that used to be part of the Soviet Union.
SUSPECT INTERROGATED
TV editor Simonyan published a video showing one of the suspects, a young, bearded man, being interrogated aggressively by a roadside, replying in heavily accented Russian to a series of barked questions. He said he had flown from Turkey on March 4 and had received instructions from unknown people via Telegram to carry out the attack in exchange for money.
The man was trembling throughout the questioning. He was initially shown lying on his stomach with his hands bound behind his back, his chin resting on the boot of a figure in camouflage uniform. Later he was hauled up onto his knees.
Another man with cuts and bruises to his face was shown being questioned via an interpreter while sitting on a bench with bound hands and feet.
The Kremlin said Putin had held conversations with the leaders of Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in which all sides affirmed their willingness to work together to fight terrorism.
GUNFIRE AND SCREAMS
Long lines formed in Moscow on Saturday for people to donate blood. Health officials said more than 120 people were wounded.
Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Amaq agency said on Telegram.
Islamic State said its fighters attacked on the outskirts of Moscow, "killing and wounding hundreds and causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely". The statement gave no further detail.
On Saturday it released a photograph of what it said were the four attackers.
The United States has intelligence confirming Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the shooting, a U.S. official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity said Washington had warned Moscow "appropriately" in recent weeks of the possibility of an attack.
Friday's attack, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Kremlin, happened two weeks after the U.S. embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.
Hours before the embassy warning, the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, which seeks a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.
Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and Islamic State.
"ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Putin in its propaganda," said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center, a New York-based research group.
The broader Islamic State group has claimed deadly attacks across the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Europe, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
WORLD REACTION
The United States, European and Arab powers and many former Soviet republics expressed shock and sent their condolences. The United Nations Security Council condemned what it called a "heinous and cowardly terrorist attack".
Russia tightened security at airports, transport hubs and across the capital - a vast urban area of more than 21 million people - and big public events were cancelled across the country.

why ukraine dont want to surrender ?

narf03 — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 19:34:03 +0800

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/0...ilized-men-war/

according to that article, ukraine has almost no more man left.

if russia is in similar situation, then maybe ukraine still have the chance to win, but clearly its not, so if it has 0% chance of winning, why must ukraine still follow US order, fight for US ? now almost all weapon also not going to ukraine, but israel.

do u think ukraine's citizen still want to drag the war or just accept defeat, let russia take those land russia has taken for years ?

When a wild animal killed and eaten a human

narf03 — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 01:11:24 +0800

As per title, i wonder whats the true purpose of the action ?

Lets say the person killed is nobody, no family member, nobody care, but still the gov will send ppl go hunt for that animal, be that a croc, a tiger, a bear.

Is it for revenge ?
or the animal tasted human meat will always come back for more ?
or let the ppl know the gov is protecting them ?
or sending a message so animal know if they kill human, human will go after them ?

understanding wav data/wav file

narf03 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 13:14:57 +0800

Need help to understand how "wav" works/stored

I know i can use some 3rd party library to make my life alot easier, but i need to understand down to the core of how it works.

assuming using setting of 44100 hertz, 2 channels, 16 bit per sample, each second amount of data will be ~ 44100x2x2=176,400 bytes

1) lets say if 1 have a wav that can play 10 seconds, if all the data is the same, either max value, or min value, if you draw it to a graph it will be a straight line, very top or very bottom of the graph, can u hear anything ? (assuming adult human)
2) about the data stored, 2 byte represent 1 sample data, which is the most significant byte ? left or right ?
3) 16 bit = 00->FF, or 256x256=65536 possibilities, in the sound wave graph, whats the value for the highest point, +32767 (FF) ? whats the value for middle ? 0 ? whats the value for the lowest point ? -32768 ?

anybody knows wav well please let me know, thanks.

how to avoid moving data

narf03 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 01:30:55 +0800

Lets say you have a byte array, of 1 million items (1 mega byte)

this array will be used to store incoming data from network, and data keep coming in. when enough data arrived, will get processed, but the data will still maintain in the array, just pointer will be moved(indicating where new data should append to and until where it has been processed)

I wonder if there is a way of keep using this 1 mega byte buffer, without moving and manually truncate them.

ie currently reaching the very end of the buffer, at 999,000 bytes i can use another 1k bytes only before i hit out of bound error, are there anyway to lets say dispose the 900k bytes at the front then move them to the end ? i know u can copy whatever relevant to the front then keep using the same buffer, but the indexing will be a bit confusing and copy and move data during that moment will cause slight delay, beside moving those data, any alternative ?

more frequent than Sleep ?

narf03 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:53:30 +0800

in a thread,

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1);

sleep about ~16ms, not 1ms

and in a second i can only execute 60-62 times

i wonder if there are other alternative compare to sleep, that "sleep" lesser amount of time or allow me to have more frequent execution per second ?

if i dont add sleep, it can run many loop, but it takes up too much cpu power, about 15 to 20% of total cpu even if the thread run at minimum priority.

thanks.

FAA finds multiple quality control issues

narf03 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 12:15:54 +0800

source here

FAA finds multiple quality control issues in 6-week audit of Boeing

A six-week Federal Aviation Administration audit of Boeing and subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems “found multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”

In an update on its ongoing investigation sparked by the January Alaska Airlines flight where a Boeing 737 Max 9 lost a door plug mid-flight, the FAA said areas of non-compliance included Boeing’s manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control.

Citing a presentation it says it reviewed, The New York Times reported, “The plane maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance.”

Citing a document on the findings, the Times added, “the F.A.A. saw Spirit (AeroSystems) mechanics apply liquid Dawn soap to a door seal ‘as lubricant in the fit-up process.’” Spirit AeroSystems makes and installs the door plugs on MAX 9 planes.

The FAA told USA TODAY specific details of the audit can’t be released yet because they’re part of the ongoing investigation, but said the completed audit “went above and beyond FAA’s standard inspection process.”

'A lack of awareness':FAA panel finds 'disconnect' between Boeing management, other employees on safety

Boeing whistleblower found dead,years after speaking out about safety concerns

Late last month, Boeing was given 90 days to present a plan to “fix systemic quality-control issues.

“In the next 30 days, we hope to have the milestones defined, with Boeing,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said at a Department of Transportation press conference Monday. “That’s the first order of business over the next 90 days.”

Boeing has pledged the company’s 100% transparency and cooperation with the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board. Boeing previously told USA TODAY it’s been working to improve safety for years.

"Based on the FAA audit, our quality stand downs and the recent expert panel report, we continue to implement immediate changes and develop a comprehensive action plan to strengthen safety and quality, and build the confidence of our customers and their passengers," Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Stan Deal said Tuesday in an email to employees, shared with USA TODAY. "We are squarely focused on taking significant, demonstrated action with transparency at every turn.”

When asked if he thought planes currently being made by Boeing are safe, Whitaker said with the current level of FAA oversight, they are certified safe. “We’ve dramatically increased our oversight of the actual production of the aircraft.”

For now, the FAA has halted the expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX and is considering bringing in a third party to “conduct independent reviews of quality systems.”

Alaska Airlines plane was scheduled for a maintenance check the day of the accident

Interviews and documents from the Times also revealed that the Boeing 737 Max 9 involved in the January Alaska Airlines incident where a blowout left a gaping hole in the aircraft had been requested to be taken out of service for a rigorous maintenance check the very day of the incident, but that failed to happen.

Alaska Airlines confirmed the maintenance check was scheduled for the night of Jan. 5 in an email to USA TODAY.

"The U.S. aviation system is the safest in the world because it relies on layers: redundant systems, robust processes and procedures, and the willingness to stop and ensure things are right before every takeoff," the carrier said in a statement. "Alaska Airlines is proud to participate in this system – with our foundational value of safety driving every decision we make."

According to the investigation and interviews with the airline, engineers and technicians were aware of a potential problem with the specific aircraft for days, even weeks.

The plane had been taken out of service on Dec. 31 due to an issue with the front passenger entry and exit door. It resumed service on Jan. 2 with some restrictions, such as not flying long-haul flights to Hawaii or anywhere remote in case it would have to make an emergency landing.

Besides the warning lights going off, the door plug had been slowly sliding upwards and possibly creating a small gap in the plane, according to National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. However, the airline insists a visual inspection did not confirm any of this movement.

When the lights went off again on Jan. 3, a "deeper inspection" of the plane was scheduled for Jan. 5, according to the Times, but the carrier said the the aircraft was determined safe enough to fly.

"We remain confident in our maintenance and safety actions leading up to the incident," Alaska Airlines said. "We look forward to continuing our participation in a robust investigation led by the NTSB to ensure something like this never happens again."

The airline has said there is no evidence that the warning lights are related to the door plug ripping off mid-flight, and that it did not notice any gaps between the door plug and plane's fuselage before the Jan. 5 flight.

Tiktok fight back

narf03 — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 14:27:20 +0800

TikTok is rallying its massive user base to prevent Congress from banning the app

Pop-ups on Thursday urged users to ‘tell Congress what TikTok means to you’ as lawmakers meet to discuss a bill that could ban it from U.S. app stores.

When some users scrolled through TikTok today, they were confronted with a rather alarming pop-up: “Stop a TikTok shutdown,” it says, urging users to “tell Congress what TikTok means to you” with a call button.

The pop-up, which users said they could bypass after closing out of the app and reopening it, comes as the House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to discuss a new bipartisan bill on Thursday. If passed, the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” would leave TikTok with two options: part ways with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face removal from app stores in the United States.

“Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok. Speak up now—before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” the pop-up says. “This will damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”

Reached for comment by Fast Company, TikTok said the pop-up reached users over 18 years old, and that the bill violates Constitutional rights. “This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

The bill, first introduced on Tuesday, is Congress’s latest effort to limit China’s influence on social media users. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States,” said Congressman Mike Gallagher, a Republican who introduced the bill alongside Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat. The two are chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House select China committee.

Supporters of the bill say it is necessary to defend national security by limiting the Chinese Communist Party’s access to Americans’ data. In Congress hearings last year, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified that “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore,” not China. Yet an investigation by Forbes found that financial and personal data from TikTok’s creators, who sign up to get paid through the app, is stored on servers in China and accessible by employees there.

Supporters of the bill also say it will minimize the party’s influence on the content that Americans consume. “From proliferating videos on how to cross our border illegally to supporting Osama Bin Laden’s Letter to America, Communist China is using TikTok as a tool to spread dangerous propaganda that undermines American national security,” House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik said.

The bill is the latest anti-TikTok legislation as similar efforts have picked up steam in the past few months. Montana became the first state to ban TikTok last year, and courts are now evaluating the bill after a judge blocked the ban in November. And last March, senators introduced a bipartisan bill to allow the Department of Commerce to ban information and communications technology services that pose a threat to national security, targeting TikTok in particular.

digital mall need maintenance

narf03 — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 19:10:29 +0800

went there ytd, ground floor escalator not working, its ok, walk a bit dont hurt

but other floors, all escalator working, but the problem is they all old and broken a bit here and there, holes on foot steps where u can squeeze slipper in, some stupid kid squeeze their slipper in those holes, they might lose their feet, anywhere can highlight to the management ?

How to convert c to c#

narf03 — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 19:56:28 +0800

hardware with SDK, it comes with complex c code, wonder what options i have to get it converted to c# ?

the code wont run without the hardware, so if i get freelancer(online) to do it, they cant test run the program. any ideas ?

its very complex for me, as i dont know c, this is example of a small portion of the code i have been scratching my head for hours.

anyway to reinforce hole on wall for wall anchor ?

narf03 — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:30:08 +0800

wanted to drill a 2 inch hole, for wall anchor then hang heavy thing. but drill about 1 cm deep then whole drill bit just go all the way into the wall, means there is a hole behind the wall.

usually i will abundant that hole and go for other spot. I wonder if there is a way for fixing and using that hole ? like inject something into the hole, wait for it to get dry and solid then can drill again ?