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Shock and terror in Gaza as bombardment of shattered enclave resumes

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The sound of shells exploding shortly after 7am Gaza time was clearly audible at Nasser hospital in the south, where terrified and traumatised youngsters immediately reacted by clinging to their mothers in fright, said James Elder from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“The bombs started just a few seconds after the ceasefire (ended),” Mr. Elder told journalists at UN Geneva via video link from Khan Younis, before decrying the “ongoing war on children”.

Wounds of war

“As we approached Nasser hospital there had been a hit, a missile, a rocket, something…Children with the wounds of war are everywhere, children with the wounds of war are still in corridors. Hundreds of women and children take refuge in here. You walk out of ICU (intensive care unit) and there are families of five on a mattress for two.”

The return to violence follows the end of a week-long pause in hostilities between Hamas militants and Israeli forces that allowed the delivery of desperately needed fuel, food and water, which people have been drinking as soon as it is given to them, humanitarians report. 

The pause also enabled the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s 7 October surprise attack on southern Israel and ensuing massacre of some 1,200 people, and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Gaza’s health authorities have reported more than 15,000 fatalities since the Israeli strikes began, with thousands of children believed buried under the rubble. The conflict has also created around 1,000 child amputees in recent weeks, Mr. Elder noted.

In an interview later in the day with UN News, Mr. Elder demonstrated the reality that nowhere is safe in Gaza, describing scenes of bombardment close by from his base in the southern city of Rafah.

He called on leaders involved in the conflict and with influence over the situation to understand that “enabling these attacks to begin again is to allow the killing of more and more children.”

UN chief leads new ceasefire appeal 

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, UN Chief Guterres led calls for the warring sides to return to the negotiating table to agree on a long-lasting ceasefire to allow desperately needed aid into Gaza.

“I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza,” he said. “I still hope that it will be possible to renew the pause that was established. The return to hostilities only shows how important it is to have a true humanitarian ceasefire.”

Let aid in, urges rights chief

Echoing that call for peace, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, expressed deep concern at declarations by Israeli political and military leaders “planning to expand and intensify the military offensive”.

“The resumption of hostilities in Gaza is catastrophic,” the UN rights chief said, before urging all parties and States with influence over the warring sides “to redouble efforts, immediately, to ensure a ceasefire – on humanitarian and human rights grounds”.

The “full respect and protection of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis” remain critically important, Mr. Türk stressed, before calling for an immediate end to the violence and the prompt and unconditional release of all remaining hostages.

He said civilians must be protected in line with international humanitarian law, appealing to Israel “as the occupying power…to ensure that the basic needs of the population in Gaza, such as food, water, and medical care, are met. I remind all parties of their obligation to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, throughout Gaza.”

A Red Crescent worker at the Al Quds hospital in Gaza flees bombing. (file)

A Red Crescent worker at the Al Quds hospital in Gaza flees bombing. (file)

Hospital ‘like a horror movie’

Medical needs continue to far outstrip available care, the UN health agency has warned, with some 5,000 beds required but only around 1,500 to hand and only 51 out of 72 primary healthcare facilities now functional, said Dr Richard Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speaking from Gaza.

“The Gaza health system has been crippled by the ongoing hostilities and I want to stress that we cannot afford to lose any more hospitals or hospital beds,” he said.

Dr. Peeperkorn also highlighted a study in the medical journal The Lancet that confirmed mortality statistics reported by the enclave’s health authorities in October. To date, more than 6,200 children have died, over 4,000 women and roughly 4,850 men, with over 36,000 injured, he said.

Men walk through the destroyed streets of Gaza.

Men walk through the destroyed streets of Gaza.

Floors ‘awash with blood’

At one small hospital in Gaza City that is one of three barely functioning trauma centres for the north of the enclave, staff are overwhelmed and “bodies are lined up in the car park outside (and) the floor is just awash with blood,” said WHO Rob Holden, WHO Senior Emergency Officer. 

“The only way to describe it, it’s like a horror movie. When you walk in there there are patients on the floor with the most traumatic injuries that you can imagine, potentially battlefield trauma. You know, the patients are given the best possible care, but the number of staff available is relatively small, any of this stuff, have fled with their families or have been killed.”

“The supplies are just not enough. There have been major problems of getting supplies to the north of Gaza as well…as you drive into the hospital, you are met with bodies deceased who’ve died either on arrival at the hospital or during their stay at the hospital, lined up outside, waiting for family members to come and identify them.”

Speaking from Gaza, the WHO official explained that doctors, nurses, lab technicians and engineers “who keep the machinery running, the generators are running” were working 22-hour days “just to give the most basic level of service”.

Echoing the call for peace, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that children, women and men in Gaza and Israel “woke up to war” once again on Friday. “Parties to this conflict must protect civilians and provide access to humanitarian actors to deliver across Gaza and according to needs as per international humanitarian law,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.   

“Humanitarian aid must continue unconditionally, hostages must be released unconditionally. The UN will continue to stay and deliver food, water, medical and other critical supplies to save lives.”



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Do we live in a giant void? That could solve the puzzle of the universe’s expansion, research suggests

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Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi/wikipedia, CC BY-SA

One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology is the rate at which the universe is expanding. This can be predicted using the standard model of cosmology, also known as Lambda-cold dark matter (ΛCDM). This model is based on detailed observations of the light left over from the Big Bang—the so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB).

The universe’s expansion makes move away from each other. The further away they are from us, the more quickly they move. The relationship between a galaxy’s speed and distance is governed by Hubble’s constant, which is about 43 miles (70 km) per second per megaparsec (a unit of length in astronomy). This means that a galaxy gains about 50,000 miles per hour for every million light years it is away from us.

But unfortunately for the standard model, this value has recently been disputed, leading to what scientists call the Hubble tension. When we measure the expansion rate using nearby galaxies and supernovas (exploding stars), it is 10% larger than when we predict it based on the CMB.

In our new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, we present one possible explanation: that we live in a giant void in space (an area with below average density). We show that this could inflate local measurements through outflows of matter from the void. Outflows would arise when denser regions surrounding a void pull it apart—they’d exert a bigger gravitational pull than the lower density matter inside the void.

In this scenario, we would need to be near the center of a void about a billion light years in radius and with density about 20% below the average for the universe as a whole—so not completely empty.

Such a large and deep void is unexpected in the standard model—and therefore controversial. The CMB gives a snapshot of structure in the infant universe, suggesting that matter today should be rather uniformly spread out. However, directly counting the number of galaxies in different regions does indeed suggest we are in a local void.

Tweaking the laws of gravity

We wanted to test this idea further by matching many different cosmological observations by assuming that we live in a large void that grew from a small density fluctuation at early times.

To do this, our model didn’t incorporate ΛCDM but an alternative theory called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).

MOND was originally proposed to explain anomalies in the rotation speeds of galaxies, which is what led to the suggestion of an invisible substance called “dark matter.” MOND instead suggests that the anomalies can be explained by Newton’s law of gravity breaking down when the gravitational pull is very weak—as is the case in the outer regions of galaxies.

The overall cosmic expansion history in MOND would be similar to the standard model, but structure (such as ) would grow faster in MOND. Our model captures what the local universe might look like in a MOND universe. And we found it would allow local measurements of the expansion rate today to fluctuate depending on our location.

Recent galaxy observations have allowed a crucial new test of our model based on the velocity it predicts at different locations. This can be done by measuring something called the bulk flow, which is the average velocity of matter in a given sphere, dense or not. This varies with the radius of the sphere, with recent observations showing it continues out to a billion light years.

Interestingly, the bulk flow of galaxies on this scale has quadruple the speed expected in the standard model. It also seems to increase with the size of the region considered—opposite to what the standard model predicts. The likelihood of this being consistent with the standard model is below one in a million.

Do we live in a giant void? It could solve the puzzle of the universe's expansion
CMB temperature fluctuations (color differences). Credit: NASA

This prompted us to see what our study predicted for the bulk flow. We found it yields a quite good match to the observations. That requires that we are fairly close to the void center, and the void being most empty at its center.

Case closed?

Our results come at a time when popular solutions to the Hubble tension are in trouble. Some believe we just need more precise measurements. Others think it can be solved by assuming the high expansion rate we measure locally is actually the correct one. But that requires a slight tweak to the expansion history in the early universe so the CMB still looks right.

Unfortunately, an influential review highlights seven problems with this approach. If the universe expanded 10% faster over the vast majority of cosmic history, it would also be about 10% younger—contradicting the ages of the oldest stars.

The existence of a deep and extended local void in the galaxy number counts and the fast observed bulk flows strongly suggest that structure grows faster than expected in ΛCDM on scales of tens to hundreds of millions of light years.

Interestingly, we know that the massive galaxy cluster El Gordo formed too early in cosmic history and has too high a mass and collision speed to be compatible with the . This is yet more evidence that structure forms too slowly in this model.

Since gravity is the dominant force on such large scales, we most likely need to extend Einstein’s theory of gravity, general relativity—but only on scales larger than a million light years.

However, we have no good way to measure how gravity behaves on much larger scales—there are no gravitationally bound objects that huge. We can assume General Relativity remains valid and compare with observations, but it is precisely this approach that leads to the very severe tensions currently faced by our best model of cosmology.

Einstein is thought to have said that we cannot solve problems with the same thinking that led to the problems in the first place. Even if the required changes are not drastic, we could well be witnessing the first reliable evidence for more than a century that we need to change our theory of gravity.

More information:
Sergij Mazurenko et al, A simultaneous solution to the Hubble tension and observed bulk flow within 250 h−1 Mpc, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad3357

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The 25 best Cyber Monday Newegg deals still available

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In the United States, the popular shopping day known as Black Friday takes place the day after Thanksgiving. This year, Black Friday will be November 24. And if you aren’t able to keep an eye on digital sales events or make it to a store in person: many retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart extend sales and deals events through the weekend and into the Monday or even Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This is typically known as the Cyber 5 event, with each day having a loose theme for sales purposes: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday (for shopping at local stores), Cyber Sunday/Monday (focusing on internet retailers like Amazon), and Giving Tuesday (focusing on charitable donations). 

Newegg is running their Black Friday sales event through November 25th, backed by their Black Friday price guarantee to automatically refund you the difference if the price drops on what you bought before the 25th.





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Russia: UN rights chief denounces outlawing of ‘the international LGBT movement’

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Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a claim by the Ministry of Justice that the so-called “international LGBT movement” was committing acts of “an extremist nature” and “inciting social and religious discord”, in violation of the country’s law on countering extremism. 

Any organisation designated as extremist faces immediate dissolution, and its leaders could receive up to 10 years in prison. 

‘Serious’ ramifications 

The decision exposes human rights defenders and anyone standing up for the rights of LGBT people to being labelled as ‘extremist’, which “serious social and criminal ramifications in Russia,” said Mr. Türk. 

“No one should be jailed for doing human rights work or denied their human rights based on their sexual orientation or gender identity,” he added.

He urged Moscow to immediately repeal laws that place improper restrictions on the work of human rights defenders or that discriminate against LGBT people. 

Equality and non-discrimination 

“The law must uphold and defend the principles of equality and non-discrimination. The law must never be used to perpetuate inequality and discrimination,” he said.

The UN rights chief also called for reforming laws that prohibit “gender-affirming medical and administrative procedures” and those that ban so-called “LGBT propaganda”, which made it illegal to discuss LGBT issues in Russia. 

He also expressed ongoing concern over the wide use of the “extremist” label more generally to prosecute all those perceived as opponents, including politicians, journalists, and human rights defenders. 



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Linux Foundation Newsletter: November 2023

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This month, our communities met in Chicago for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America, where AI topics were front and center. Two new LF Research reports have been published: the World of Open Source Global Spotlight and the 2023 State of Open Source in Financial Services. We also launched two new projects, the App Defense Alliance and DAOS Foundation, and announced an intent to form the High Performance Software Foundation. And as the LF delegation heads to COP28 in Dubai, we’re excited to share a preview of Linux Foundation and OS-Climate events. Lastly, don’t miss our biggest Training & Certification deals of the year! Click here for more.






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We’re experiencing the hottest year in human history. World leaders must act now to fight the climate crisis. | Stories

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This year is set to be the hottest year ever recorded, according to an announcement by the World Meteorological Organization at critical international climate talks underway in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

World leaders must make a dramatic course correction in ambition and action to fight the human-caused climate crisis.

“The world is heating up and now we must turn the heat on world leaders to act,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF global climate and energy lead and COP20 president. “Around the world, people are demanding change. If leaders do not act quickly to cut emissions, we’ll see damage to our planet that simply can’t be reversed.”

In 2023, virtually no part of the world escaped the consequences of rising temperatures. Record-breaking heatwaves, raging wildfires, and catastrophic storms and floods devastated lives, economies, and ecosystems. We’ve reached a critical moment for climate action and world leaders at this year’s global climate summit—COP28—must commit to rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. Doing so would be a game-changer that the planet sorely needs if we want to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels within reach.

“We have no time to delay. The sooner and more decisively we act, the sooner people and nature can reap the benefits of a cleaner, safer, and more stable future,” Pulgar-Vidal said. “If we don’t act to end the age of fossil fuels, years like this will only become more common and more catastrophic.”

The message is simple and clear: we must act now to curb the worst impacts of a warming planet.

Send your message to world leaders and negotiators at COP28 that they must commit to building the bridge to a livable climate future and bringing an end to the fossil fuel era.



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Meta will enforce ban on AI-powered political ads in every nation, no exceptions

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global-businessgettyimages-1171503192

cokada/Getty Images

Meta says its generative artificial intelligence (AI) advertising tools cannot be used to power political campaigns anywhere globally, with access blocked for ads targeting specific services and issues.

The social media giant said earlier this month that advertisers will be barred from using generative AI tools in its Ads Manager tool to produce ads for politics, elections, housing, employment, credit, or social issues. Ads related to health, pharmaceuticals, and financial services also are not allowed access to the generative AI features. 

Also: Meta rolls out new ways for Facebook creators to increase their engagement

This policy will apply globally, as Meta continues to test its generative AI ads creation tools, confirmed Dan Neary, Meta’s Asia-Pacific vice president. 

“This approach will allow us to better understand potential risks and build the right safeguards for the use of generative AI in ads that relate to potentially sensitive topics in regulated industries,” Neary told ZDNET in an email. 

Several nations are expected to hold elections next year, including general elections in Indonesia and India, and presidential elections in the US, Finland, Pakistan, and Taiwan.

Meta — whose social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — has flagged AI as a top priority and plans to add generative AI capabilities across all these platforms. 

Its Ads Manager tool is touted as a launchpad for running ads on the platforms, offering an “all-in-one tool” for creating, managing, and tracking ads. A sandbox was introduced in May to provide a testbed for Meta’s new generative AI tools for advertisers, including background generation, text variation, and image outcropping. With text variation, for instance, advertisers can generate multiple versions of text to engage with different audiences. 

Also: Done with Twitter? Here are the best alternatives

The company also unveiled an AI chatbot, called Meta AI, that includes an AI image generator tool called Emu. These images can be rendered and used across Meta’s chat platforms including WhatsApp and Instagram. 

Asked about the adoption rate of its AI products, Neary said more than half of advertisers are using the company’s Advantage+ tools to optimize images and text in their ad creatives. Its ad tools have helped advertisers clock a $10 billion run rate from Advantage+ shopping campaigns, he added, citing figures shared by Meta’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s recent earnings. There also has been a three-fold increase in advertisers using Advantage+ shopping campaigns weekly, compared to six months ago. 

Further emphasizing the role of AI, Neary noted that 20% of content on Facebook and Instagram Feeds now are recommended by AI. 

Concerted efforts were made more than a year ago to show more relevant content powered by recommendation engines, rather than content organized around people followed by Meta users. AI also powers better outcomes for marketers, with tools such as Advantage+ suite automating their tasks, Neary said.

Also: AI safety and bias: Untangling the complex chain of AI training

“We believe every connection is an opportunity for business [and] we see this across our platforms,” he said. Some 3.96 billion use at least one of Meta’s services each month, with 3.14 billion tapping at least one service on a daily basis. About 40% of its users reside in Asia-Pacific, where mobile consumption is high, especially with messaging services, he noted. 

Asked how data across its products and services are integrated and used to train its generative AI tools, Neary said a variety of sources are tapped. 

“Generative AI models take a large amount of data to effectively train, so a combination of sources are used for training, including information that’s publicly available online, licensed data, and information from Meta’s products and services,” he said. 

With publicly available online information, the datasets are filtered to exclude “certain websites that commonly share personal information,” he said. Publicly shared posts from Instagram and Facebook, including photos and text, are part of the data used to train the generative AI models that power the features it announced earlier this year. 

“We didn’t train these models using people’s private posts. We also do not use the content of your private messages with friends and family to train our AI [tools],” he said. “We may use the data from your use of AI stickers, such as your searches for a sticker to use in a chat, to improve our AI sticker models.”

Also: Watch out: Generative AI will level up cyber attacks 

On how Meta is addressing the growing concern about AI safety and personal data use, Neary pointed to a dedicated cross-disciplinary team that is tasked to ensure its technology is designed and used responsibly. The team also gathers feedback from external experts and regulators, he added. 

With generative AI still in its early stages of development, he noted that Meta is making efforts now to collaborate with key stakeholders in the industry to “get this right”. 





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How to Run Any Linux Distribution from a Hard Disk

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Most Linux distributions provide ISO files that are designed and built to run in Live Mode directly from a bootable media such as CD /DVD, Flash/USB cards, or even directly from a Hard Drive using the Linux Grub menu without the need to burn it to a CD/DVD or create a bootable USB using USB creator tools.

This tutorial will concentrate on presenting a way you can run some Linux ISO distributions directly from your hard disk by editing Ubuntu 22.04 GRUB2 (works on Ubuntu 20.04 or earlier) menu which is the default boot loader in most modern Linux distributions.

Running an operating system from a hard disk provides a faster way of using Linux, and also has a great impact on privacy because all your settings and live sessions are not preserved by default.

The distributions presented in this topic are Rocky Linux, Fedora, Kali Linux, Arch Linux and Gentoo Live DVD.

Requirements

A newly installed Ubuntu 22.04 (or any other Linux distribution with the GRUB2 bootloader) is on your system’s hard drive.

Step 1: Download Linux Live ISO Files

1. To able boot and run any Linux distribution without installing them to your hard drive, make sure to download the “Live CD/DVD” release of each Linux ISO image.

Step 2: Add ISO Images to the Directory

2. After you have downloaded your favorite Linux ISO Live DVD Images, open Ubuntu Nautilus with root privileges using the ‘sudo nautilus‘ command from the terminal and create a directory called live in your system root path and move the ISO file to this folder.

$ sudo nautilus
Create Directory in Root Location
Create Directory in Root Location
Copy ISO Images to 'live' Directory
Copy ISO Images to the ‘live’ Directory

Step 3: Find Disk Partition UUID

3. To continue further will need to provide Grub2 with our disk partition UUIDUniversally Unique Identifier (the partition where ISO files are located).

To get partition UUID run the following blkid command.

$ sudo blkid

For automatically mounted partitions or hard disks on the system boot run the following cat command.

$ sudo cat /etc/fstab   
Find Linux Partition UUID
Find Linux Partition UUID

4. Another method to get your partition UUID is, to open and visualize grub.cfg file content located in /boot/grub/ path and search for --fs-uuid a string (in case you don’t have a separated partition for /boot).

Check Partition UUID in Grub File
Check Partition UUID in the Grub File

Step 4: Add ISO Images to the GRUB2 Menu

5. After you obtain your root partition UUID code move to /etc/grub.d/ directory, open the 40_custom file for editing and add the following lines at the bottom of this file.

menuentry 'Rocky Linux Live' --class os --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_main {
                set isofile="/live/Rocky-9.3-x86_64-minimal.iso"

         insmod ext2
         insmod loopback
         insmod iso9660      
                set root=(hd0,3)
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 51567f31-1236-49b4-8c4a-bf8cb84856e0
                linux /live/Rocky-9.3-x86_64-minimal/isolinux/vmlinuz noconfig=sudo username=root hostname=tecmint
                initrd /live/Rocky-9.3-x86_64-minimal/isolinux/initrd.img
}
Add Rocky Linux to Grub Menu
Add Rocky Linux to the Grub Menu

Here the following directives represent:

  • set isofile = A variable that holds ISO system path location.
  • (hd0,msdos1) = First partition from first hard disk (In Linux disks are numbered starting with 0) – the same as /dev/sda3.
  • –fs-uuid –set=root 51567f31-1236-49b4-8c4a-bf8cb84856e0 = First partition from first hard disk UUID code.
  • linux and initrd = Custom kernel booting parameters – they are different depending on every Linux distribution.

6. After you finish editing the file, update-grub to add the new ISO (in this case Rocky Linux) to your Grub2 menu.

$ sudo update-grub
Update Grub to Add ISO Image
Update Grub to Add ISO Image

To verify it open /boot/grub/grub.cfg and search at the bottom for your ISO entry.

Verify Grub Menu Entry
Verify Grub Menu Entry

Step 5: Run Rocky Linux ISO from Hard Disk

7. To run Rocky Linux Live ISO, reboot your computer, select Rocky Linux entry from the GRUB menu then press the Enter key.

Boot Rocky Linux from Hard Disk
Boot Rocky Linux from Hard Disk
CentOS 8 Booting
CentOS 8 Booting

In the same way, you can add the other Linux Live ISO distribution images to the GRUB2 menu as shown. Again open and edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom grub file and add the following entries.

For Fedora Live DVD

menuentry 'Fedora Live' --class os --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_main {
                set isofile="/live/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-39-1.5.iso"

         insmod ext2
         insmod loopback
         insmod iso9660      
                loopback loop (hd0,msdos1)$isofile      
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3b87d941-8ee7-4312-98fc-1f26828d62ab                            
                linux (loop)/isolinux/vmlinuz boot=live fromiso=/dev/sda1/$isofile noconfig=sudo username=root hostname=fedora
                initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
}

For Kali Linux Live DVD

menuentry 'Kali Linux Live' --class os --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_main {
                set isofile="/live/kali-linux-2023.3-installer-amd64.iso"

         insmod ext2
         insmod loopback
         insmod iso9660      
                loopback loop (hd0,msdos1)$isofile      
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3b87d941-8ee7-4312-98fc-1f26828d62ab                            
                linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live fromiso=/dev/sda1/$isofile noconfig=sudo username=root hostname=kalilinux
                initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}

For Gentoo Live DVD

menuentry 'Gentoo Linux Live' --class os --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_main {
                set isofile="/live/archlinux-2023.11.01-x86_64.iso"

         insmod ext2
         insmod loopback
         insmod iso9660      
                loopback loop (hd0,msdos1)$isofile      
                search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3b87d941-8ee7-4312-98fc-1f26828d62ab                            
                linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live fromiso=/dev/sda1/$isofile noconfig=sudo username=root hostname=gentoo
                initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}

8. Then update your GRUB menu again, reboot your computer, and choose your preferred Linux distribution ISO from the GRUB menu.

$ sudo update-grub

9. If you don’t have enough free space on your root partition, to host other Linux ISO files you can add another hard disk and move all your Linux distribution ISO files there. After you create a partition and add a file system mount it on the /mnt path to make it available.

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

10. Then move all ISO on the new hard disk and grab its UUID using the blkid command.

$ sudo blkid
Move ISO Images and Verify UUID
Move ISO Images and Verify UUID
Verify All ISO Images
Verify All ISO Images

11. Again open and edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom grub file and add other Linux Live ISO distribution images to the GRUB2 menu using the same procedure but pay attention to every distribution Live Kernel booting parameters which can be inspected by mounting the ISO image using mount -o loop option or consult distribution Wiki pages.



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One of the largest magnetic storms in history quantified: Aurorae from the tropics to the polar regions

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A Japanese auroral drawing showing an observation at Okazaki on 4 February 1872, as reproduced with courtesy of Shounji Temple (contrast enhanced). Credit: ©︎ Shounji Temple

In early November of this year, aurora borealis were observed at surprisingly low latitudes, as far south as Italy and Texas. Such phenomena indicate the impacts of a solar coronal mass ejection on the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere. Far more dramatic than this recent light show was, it was nothing compared to a huge solar storm in February 872.

The resulting auroral display from that event ringed the globe and produced auroras observed in sites as close to the equator as Bombay and Khartoum. An international team consisting of scientists from nine countries has now published a detailed study of this historically important event, tracing its solar origin and widespread terrestrial impacts.

Telegraph communications were widely disrupted by this storm, but in today’s technologically dependent society, such a storm would disrupt power grids and . Their findings confirm that such extreme storms are more common than previously thought.

In the , we are increasingly dependent on technological infrastructure such as , communication systems, and satellites. However, this dependency makes us increasingly vulnerable to the effects of large geomagnetic storms.

“The longer the could be cut off, the more society, especially those living in , will struggle to cope,” explains Assistant Professor Hayakawa, the lead author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Such storms could be big enough to knock out the power grid, communication systems, airplanes, and satellites in the worst case. “Could we maintain our life without such infrastructure?” Hayakawa says. “Well, let us just say that it would be extremely challenging.”

Such extreme storms are rare. In recent studies, two such storms stand out: the Carrington storm in September 1859 and the New York Railroad storm in May 1921. The new study suggests that another storm, the Chapman-Silverman storm in February 1872, should also be considered as one of these extreme events.

At the time, the storm was big enough to affect the technological infrastructure even in the tropics. Telegraph communications on the submarine cable in the Indian Ocean between Bombay (Mumbai) and Aden were disrupted for hours. Similar disturbances were reported on the landline between Cairo and Khartoum.

One of the largest magnetic storms in history quantified: Aurorae covered much of the night sky from the Tropics to the Polar Regions
A geographical summary of the auroral visibility on 4 February 1872. Credit: Hayakawa et al. (2023)

The multidisciplinary team, consisting of 22 scientists, was led by Nagoya University in Japan (Hisashi Hayakawa), the US National Solar Observatory (Edward Cliver), and the Royal Observatory of Belgium (Frédéric Clette). The 22 researchers used historical records and modern techniques to assess the Chapman-Silverman storm from its solar origin to its terrestrial impacts.

For the solar origin, the group turned to largely forgotten sunspot records from historical archives, especially Belgian and Italian records. For terrestrial impacts, they used geomagnetic field measurements recorded in places as diverse as Bombay (Mumbai), Tiflis (Tbilisi), and Greenwich to assess temporal evolution and storm intensity. They also examined hundreds of accounts of visual aurora in different languages caused by the storm.

One of the more interesting aspects of the 1872 storm was that it likely originated in a medium-sized but complex sunspot group near the solar disk center, as confirmed by analyses of solar records from Belgium and Italy. These findings suggest that even a medium-sized sunspot group triggered one of the most extreme magnetic storms in history.

Hayakawa and his colleagues extended their investigations of the historical aurorae by combing through records in libraries, archives, and observatories around the world. They identified more than 700 auroral records that indicated that the night sky was illuminated by magnificent auroral displays from the polar regions to the tropics (down to ≈ 20° in latitude in both hemispheres).

One of the largest magnetic storms in history quantified: Aurorae covered much of the night sky from the Tropics to the Polar Regions
A Belgian sunspot drawing showing solar surface on 3 February 1872 (RAS MS Bernaerts, v. 3, f. 26; courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society). Credit: ©︎ Royal Astronomical Society (RAS MS Bernaerts, v. 3, f. 26)

“Our findings confirm the Chapman-Silverman storm in February 1872 as one of the most extreme geomagnetic storms in recent history. Its size rivaled those of the Carrington storm in September 1859 and the NY Railroad in May 1921,” Hayakawa said. “This means that we now know that the world has seen at least three geomagnetic superstorms in the last two centuries. Space weather events that could cause such a major impact represent a risk that cannot be discounted.”

Hayakawa said, “Such extreme events are rare. On the one hand, we are fortunate to have missed such superstorms in the modern time. On the other hand, the occurrence of three such superstorms in 6 decades shows that the threat to modern society is real. Therefore, the preservation and analysis of is important to assess, understand, and mitigate the impact of such events.”

Recent auroral displays have been observed from northern Greece and the northern US. Currently, the sun is approaching the maximum of Solar Cycle 25, predicted to occur in 2025, and we may expect enhanced auroral activity in the coming years.

This research involved a collaboration of researchers from nine countries.

More information:
The Extreme Space Weather Event of February 1872: Sunspots, Magnetic Disturbance, and Auroral Displays, The Astrophysical Journal (2023).

Provided by
Nagoya University


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One of the largest magnetic storms in history quantified: Aurorae from the tropics to the polar regions (2023, November 30)
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Science points to ‘climate collapse’ as UN chief calls COP28 to action

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While 2023 is not yet over, a provisional report from the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that it is set to be the warmest on record, with global temperatures rising 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Mr. Guterres said that the race is on to keep alive the 1.5-degree limit agreed by world leaders in Paris in 2015.

“We are living through climate collapse in real time – and the impact is devastating,” he warned in a video statement accompanying the launch of the report on the first day of this year’s annual UN climate talks. 

Glaciers are breaking off from the Patagonian ice field in the far reaches of South America.

UN News/Nargiz Shekinskaya

Melting glaciers, rising seas

The UN Secretary-General recently visited two global warming hotspots, Antarctica and Nepal, where he bore witness to record low sea ice and was “shocked at the speed of receding glaciers”.

According to WMO’s report, the maximum Antarctic Sea ice extent for the year was a staggering one million square kilometres less than the previous record low, at the end of southern hemisphere winter.  

Glaciers in western North America and the European Alps also experienced an “extreme melt season”.

Because of continued ocean warming and melting of glaciers and ice sheets, record sea level rise was also observed, WMO said.  

Greenhouse gas levels keep climbing

Meanwhile, concentrations in the atmosphere of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide reached a record high last year and continued to increase in 2023.  

WMO stressed that carbon dioxide levels are 50 per cent above the pre-industrial era and that the gas’s long lifetime “means that temperatures will continue to rise for many years to come”.

“These are more than just statistics,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas, calling for action to “limit the risks of an increasingly inhospitable climate in this and the coming centuries”.

Dire consequences

From deadly Cyclone Daniel in Libya in September to devastating floods in the Horn of Africa following five consecutive seasons of drought and severe smoke pollution from Canada’s forest blazes, WMO’s report highlights the grim effects of climate upheaval on lives, health and livelihoods.  

Throughout the year, communities suffering from extreme weather around the world faced food insecurity and displacement.  

“Record global heat should send shivers down the spines of world leaders,” Mr. Guterres said. “And it should trigger them to act”.

Follow the roadmap

The UN chief reiterated his call on countries to “triple renewables, double energy efficiency… and phase out fossil fuels”.

According to WMO, last year renewable energy capacity grew by some 10 per cent worldwide, led by solar and wind power.

Mr. Guterres pointed to the existing roadmap to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Eight years on, he urged governments to set “clear expectations” for the next round of climate action plans and invest in their implementation.

Protect people

The COP 28 conference will see the first-ever “global stocktake” to assess collective progress on cutting emissions and ramping up adaptation efforts and support to developing countries hard hit by a warming climate.

The UN Secretary-General said that countries must “go further and faster in protecting people from climate chaos”.

This includes ensuring that every person on Earth is covered by early warnings against extreme weather by 2027 and operationalizing a “loss and damage fund” to assist vulnerable hit hard by floods, droughts and other climate disasters with “generous, early contributions” from richer nations, he said. 

Developed countries must honour the promise to deliver $100 billion per year in climate finance, which was first made at COP15 in 2009, and double the amount of funding going towards adaptation efforts, he insisted.

Delegates arrive at Expo City in Dubai for COP28.

COP28

The UN climate conference taking place from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai is the 28th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in 1994.  

Over 60,000 delegates are expected to attend, including the member states of the UNFCCC, industry leaders, youth activists and representatives of indigenous communities.  

All eyes will be on the conclusions of the first global stocktake – referred to as a ‘temperature check’ on where the world stands in meeting commitments under the Paris Agreement – and countries’ willingness to use them as a springboard towards more ambitious, accelerated climate action. 



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