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Report of Newly-Discovered Asteroid Turns Out to Be... a Tesla Roadster

3 months 2 weeks ago
Founded in 1947, the Minor Planet Center is the official worldwide authority "for observing and reporting new asteroids, comets and other small bodies in the solar system," reports USA Today. Unfortunately, "What an amateur astronomer recently took to be a newly discovered asteroid turned out to be a Tesla Roadster," The Minor Planet Center didn't initially consider the possibility when the organization announced the discovery on Jan. 2 of the unusual asteroid, complete with an official name: 2018 CN41. But less than 17 hours later, the Minor Planet Center issued an editorial notice that it would be deleting 2018 CN41 from its records... According to the Minor Planet Center's notice regarding the deletion, turns out the object was the Roadster, along with the Falcon Heavy rocket's upper stage.

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EditorDavid

Pixelfed Creator Crowdfunds More Capacity, Plus Open Source Alternatives to TikTok and WhatsApp

3 months 2 weeks ago
An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch: The developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, and Sup, open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, respectively, is now raising funds on Kickstarter to fuel the apps' further development. The trio is part of the growing open social web, also known as the fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by X alternative Mastodon... [and] challenge Meta's social media empire... "Help us put control back into the hands of the people!" [Daniel Supernault, the Canadian-based developer behind the federated apps] said in a post on Mastodon where he announced the Kickstarter's Thursday launch. As of the time of writing, the campaign has raised $58,383 so far. While the goal on the Kickstarter site has been surpassed, Supernault said that he hopes to raise $1 million or more so he can hire a small team... A fourth project, PubKit, is also a part of these efforts, offering a toolset to support developers building in the fediverse... The stretch goal of the Kickstarter campaign is to register the Pixelfed Foundation as a not-for-profit and grow its team beyond volunteers. This could help address the issue with Supernault being a single point of failure for the project... Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko made a similar decision earlier this month to transition to a nonprofit structure. If successful, the campaign would also fund a blogging app as an alternative to Tumblr or LiveJournal at some point in the future. The funds will also help the apps manage the influx of new users. On Pixelfed.social, the main Pixelfed instance, (like Mastodon, anyone can run a Pixelfed server), there are now more than 200,000 users, thanks in part to the mobile app's launch, according to the campaign details shared with TechCrunch. The server is also now the second-largest in the fediverse, behind only Mastodon.social, according to network statistics from FediDB. New funds will help expand the storage, CDNs, and compute power needed for the growing user base and accelerate development. In addition, they'll help Supernault dedicate more of his time to the apps and the fediverse as a whole while also expanding the moderation, security, privacy, and safety programs that social apps need. As a part of its efforts, Supernault also wants to introduce E2E encryption to the fediverse. The Kickstarter campaign promises "authentic sharing reimagined," calling the apps "Beautiful sharing platforms that puts you first. No ads, no algorithms, no tracking — just pure photography and authentic connections... More Privacy, More Safety. More Variety. " Pixelfed/Loops/Sup/Pubkit isn't a ambitious dream or vaporware — they're here today — and we need your support to continue our mission and shoot for the moon to be the best social communication platform in the world.... We're following the both the Digital Platform Charter of Rights & Ethical Web Principles of the W3C for all of our projects as guidelines to building platforms that help people and provide a positive social benefit. The campaign's page says they're building "a future where social networking respects your privacy, values your freedom, and prioritizes your safety."

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EditorDavid

Heat Pumps Are Now Outselling Gas Furnaces In America

3 months 2 weeks ago
CleanTechnicareports that last year Americans "bought 37% more air source heat pumps than the next most popular heating appliance — gas furnaces." And Americans bought 21% more heat pumps than they did in 2023. Canary Media is quick to point out that in many homes, more than one heat pump is required, so that data should be interpreted with that in mind. Typically, a home uses only one furnace. Nevertheless, the trend for heat pumps is up. Russell Unger, the head of decarbonizing buildings at RMI, said, "There's just been this long term, consistent trend." It's easy to understand why heat pumps are gaining in popularity. In addition to providing heated air in the winter and cool air in the summer, they are far more efficient than conventional heat sources — delivering three to four times more heat per dollar spent than oil- or gas-fired heating equipment or old fashioned electric baseboard heat. They also create far less carbon pollution. How much less depends on the source of electricity in the local area, Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

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EditorDavid