activescott's Notes

Public notes from activescott

Monday, December 29, 2025

The ceasefire agreement was announced on Oct. 10, two years after Hamas militants killed 1,200 and took 251 hostage in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, most of whom were returned in previous negotiations. Since then, Israeli troops have killed more than 70,700 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them women and children, and have displaced most of the enclave’s population. Health authorities in Palestine say Israel has violated the ceasefire multiple times, even daily, and at least 386 people have been killed in strikes by its military since Oct. 10. Israel, meanwhile, says three of its soldiers have died since the ceasefire began, and that it is responding to ceasefire violations by Hamas.

The year 2025 has been marked by three very different wars. There is Ukraine of course, where the UN says 14,000 civilians have died. In Gaza, where Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu promised "mighty vengeance" after about 1,200 people were killed when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 and 251 people were taken hostage. Since then, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action, including more than 30,000 women and children according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry – figures the UN considers reliable. Meanwhile there has been a ferocious civil war between two military factions in Sudan. More than 150,000 people have been killed there over the past couple of years; around 12 million have been forced out of their homes. Maybe, if this had been the only war in 2025, the outside world would have done more to stop it; but it wasn't. "I'm good at solving wars," said US President Donald Trump, as his aircraft flew him to Israel after he had negotiated a ceasefire in the Gaza fighting. It's true that fewer people are dying in Gaza now. Despite the ceasefire, the Gaza war certainly doesn't feel as though it's been solved. Given the appalling suffering in the Middle East it may sound strange to say the war in Ukraine is on a completely different level to this. But it is.

Sunday, December 28, 2025

Saturday, December 27, 2025

A 1876 article from the Washington Standard introducing the Skagit River to the rest of the state noted that, “The peculiar nature of the river is the Jam, about two miles above Skagit City.”  This snippet understates the obstructions and impact they had on life in town.  There were actually two immense log jams that meant, Jo says, “life and death” to the community.  The older of the two, just below present-day Mount Vernon, was roughly a half mile long, and so dense it had trees 10- to 12-inches in diameter growing out of it.  Reliable estimates pegged its age at around 100 years old.  The second jam, about a half mile upriver from the first, was even larger.  Both jams consisted of several layers of driftwood and debris 30-40 feet deep.

Directions

Set the Egg for indirect cooking with a convEGGtor at 250°F/121°C Bring the ribeyes to room temperature and season all sides liberally with Big Green Egg Classic Steakhouse Seasoning or salt and pepper. Cook indirectly until internal temperature is 120°F/49°C. Set the Egg for direct cooking without a convEGGtor at 550°F/288°C. Sear each side of the steak for 1 minute. Remove the steak from the Egg when the internal temperature reaches 135°F. Smear the steak with herb butter (we used Roasted Garlic, Basil & Parsley Banner Butter) and let rest for 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy.

The consequences of getting caught in this expanding digital cage can be dire. In rural China, a family’s home is ringed by security cameras that alert authorities whenever they try to go to Beijing to complain about local officials. Near San Antonio, a driver is stopped as part of a secretive U.S. Border Patrol program that uses license plate readers to monitor millions of drivers and detain those whose travel patterns are deemed suspicious. In Gaza, AI-powered technology helps the Israeli military decide who to kill.

Friday, December 26, 2025

Trump’s higher tariffs are certainly raising money. They’ve raked in more than $236 billion this year through November — much more than in years past. But they still account for just a fraction of the federal government’s total revenue. And they haven’t raised nearly enough to justify the president’s claim that tariff revenue could replace federal income taxes — or allow for windfall dividend checks for Americans.

The U.S. trade deficit, meanwhile, has fallen significantly since the start of the year. The trade gap peaked to a monthly record of $136.4 billion in March, as consumers and businesses hurried to import foreign products before Trump could impose his tariffs on them. The trade gap narrowed to $52.8 billion in September, the latest month for which data is available.

Karpenter observes the aggregate resource requests of unscheduled pods and makes decisions to launch and terminate nodes to minimize scheduling latencies and infrastructure cost.

Thursday, December 25, 2025

While Amazon pays more commission for PC components like motherboards, graphics cards, and CPUs (2.5% compared to Newegg’s 1% or 0.5% for ‘returning customers’) Newegg also offers their publishers better rates based on publisher type, such as Editorial or Content Creator. Additionally, Newegg offers a 7 day attribution window, which is much more flexible than Amazon’s 24hr window.

The Grafana Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart deploys a complete monitoring solution for your Cluster and applications running within it. The chart installs systems, such as Node Exporter and Grafana Alloy Operator, along with their configuration to make these systems run. These elements are kept up to date in the Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart with a dependency updating system to ensure that the latest versions are used.

Tech companies have moved more than $120bn of data centre spending off their balance sheets using special purpose vehicles funded by Wall Street investors, adding to concerns about the financial risks of their huge bet on artificial intelligence.

Meta in October completed the largest private credit data centre deal, a $30bn agreement for its proposed Hyperion facility in Louisiana that created an SPV called Beignet Investor with New York financing firm Blue Owl Capital.

The SPV raised $30bn, including about $27bn of loans from Pimco, BlackRock, Apollo and others, as well as $3bn in equity from Blue Owl.