North America has lost 3 billion birds in 50 years

Slowly, steadily and almost imperceptibly, North America’s bird population is dwindling.

The sparrows and finches that visit backyard feeders number fewer each year. The flutelike song of the western meadowlark — the official bird of six U.S. states — is growing more rare. The continent has lost nearly 3 billion birds representing hundreds of species over the past five decades, in an enormous loss that signals an “overlooked biodiversity crisis,” according to a study from top ornithologists and government agencies.

This is not an extinction crisis — yet. It is a more insidious decline in abundance as humans dramatically alter the landscape: There are 29 percent fewer birds in the United States and Canada today than in 1970, the study concludes. Grassland species have been hardest hit, probably because of agricultural intensification that has engulfed habitats and spread pesticides that kill the insects many birds eat. But the victims include warblers, thrushes, swallows and other familiar birds…

Two Major Saudi Oil Installations Hit by Drone Strike, and U.S. Blames Iran

Drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck two key oil installations inside Saudi Arabia on Saturday, damaging facilities that process the vast majority of the country’s crude output and raising the risk of a disruption in world oil supplies.

The attacks immediately escalated tensions in the Persian Gulf amid a standoff between the United States and Iran, even as key questions remained unanswered — where the drones were launched from, and how the Houthis managed to hit facilities deep in Saudi territory, some 500 miles from Yemeni soil.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of being behind what he called “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply” and asserted that there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” He did not, however, specify an alternative launch site, and the Saudis themselves refrained from pointing the finger directly at Iran…

Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein, resigns from MIT CSAIL and the Free Software Foundation

Computer scientist and open software advocate Richard Stallman said he has resigned from his position as a visiting scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) after describing a victim of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein as “entirely willing” in emails sent to a department list. Stallman has also stepped down from his roles as president and board director at the Free Software Foundation, the nonprofit he founded in 1985.

Last week, the Daily Beast reported that Stallman had also called for the legalization of child pornography and abolishment of age of consent laws on his personal blog in multiple posts published over the course of 15 years.

In his MIT CSAIL resignation, also posted to his personal blog, Stallman wrote: “To the MIT Community, I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings.”

MIT has been under scrutiny for its ties to Epstein, whom a New Yorker investigation found had secured $7.5 million in donations for the MIT Media Lab, far more than what was previously disclosed. As a result, its director, Joi Ito, resigned last week and MIT ordered an investigation into the Media Lab’s ties to Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell last month while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges…

オーストリア政観、9月26日に都内でワークショップ開催 : Travel Journal Online

　オーストリア政府観光局は9月26日、都内で旅行業界向けのスーパーワークショップを開催する。19年は日本オーストリア友好150周年にあたり、日本各地で特別展覧会やイベントが多数開催されている。オーストリアへの日本人客数（1～7月）も宿泊数12.9％増、到着数16.0％増と好調に推移している。ワークショップにはオーストリアの観光業界を代表する12社が来日し、来場者にはプレゼントなども用意されているという。

ツバメの巣を見つけた夫婦　数年後、独りになった妻に起きた『優しい出来事』

ツバメ

梅雨晴に玄関を開け放して、外に出ていった。久しぶりに青空を見上げていると突然、鳥が吸い込まれるようにわが家へ入ってきました。余りの速さに何が起きたのかと思う瞬間、ツバメの声に気付き、家の中をそっと覗いてみると二羽のツバメが部屋の中を飛び廻っていました。そして、三、四回グルグルと廻ってそのまま外へ飛び立っていきました。

近年、ツバメの姿を見ることは全くなかったのに、このようなことは、後にも先にも一度きりで、それ以来、姿はもちろん声さえも聞いたことはありません。

十年近く前に、わが家の軒先にツバメが巣を作り子育てをしたのが最後だったと、記憶しています。というのも当時、ヘビがツバメの子を食べに来て、気付いた私が今は亡き夫と二人で、怖さを忘れて今まで見たこともない背中の模様のヘビと戦い、追い払ったことが思い出されます。あのときは、私たちが子供を守る親になっていたのでしょう。

今は田舎も、ほとんど家の建て替えが進んでツバメが巣を作る場所がなくなったのかもしれません。

でもわが家は、改装を繰り返しながら、築百三十七年になり、今私一人で住んでいるので、ツバメもよく知ってか、もう来なくなってしまいました。寂しい限りではありますが、独り善がりで、ツバメの子孫が二羽で、独り暮しの私に会いに来てくれたのではないかと思いながら、気を良くしている六月半ばです。

滋賀県　７７歳

Mozilla launches paid premium support for enterprise customers #Mozilla #Firefox

Mozilla has quietly launched a new product for enterprise customers to buy paid premium support for Firefox. The premium enterprise support for Firefox costs $10 per supported installation and offers customers the ability to submit bugs privately, get critical security bug fixes, get access to a private customer portal, get access to the enterprise critical issues distribution list, and have the ability to contribute to Firefox and its roadmap.

According to Mozilla, it will support Firefox installations as long as they are running on machines that meet the system requirements. Windows, Mac, and Linux based operating systems are listed in the systems requirements so all platforms should be covered by the premium support.

The fact that Mozilla has launched this premium tier product is quite interesting, it comes just a couple of days since the company said it was re-launching Test Pilot for Firefox and that the first test program would be Firefox Private Network, a planned paid-for VPN service. It looks as though the company is trying to diversify its revenue streams…

統計からみた我が国の高齢者－「敬老の日」にちなんで－

総務省統計局では、「敬老の日」（9月16日）を迎えるに当たって、統計からみた我が国の65歳以上の高齢者の人口と就業の状況について取りまとめました。

  1. 高齢者の人口　（人口推計、World Population Prospects）
    • 総人口が減少する中で、高齢者人口は3588万人と過去最多
      総人口に占める割合は28.4％と過去最高
    • 日本の高齢者人口の割合は、世界で最高（201の国・地域中）
  2. 高齢者の就業　（労働力調査、OECD.Stat）
    • 高齢就業者数は、15年連続で増加し、862万人と過去最多
    • 就業者総数に占める高齢就業者の割合は、12.9％と過去最高
    • 高齢就業者は、「卸売業，小売業」や「農業，林業」などで多い
    • 高齢雇用者の４人に３人は非正規の職員・従業員
      高齢者の非正規の職員・従業員は、10年間で200万人以上増加
    • 非正規の職員・従業員についた主な理由は、
      男女とも「自分の都合のよい時間に働きたいから」が最多
    • 日本の高齢者の就業率は、主要国の中でも高い水準

（見出しをクリックすると本文を見ることができます。）

※  【高齢者】
この統計トピックスにおいては、65歳以上の方を「高齢者」としています …

Captain’s coffee calamity causes transatlantic flight diversion

Electronics and hot drinks don’t mix

A Condor flight to Mexico was forced to turn back over the Atlantic after a spilled coffee caused one of its radios to start melting.

CFG116, an 11-hour flight between Frankfurt and Cancún, was cut short after the captain knocked his cuppa over himself and the radio panel on his Airbus A330’s centre console. The spillage caused an “electrical burning smell” followed by smoke.

Despite warnings in the Airbus flight manual telling pilots to put drinks in dedicated cup holders, which are nowhere near the centre console, the captain put his drink on his foldout tray table while filling in paperwork. Predictably, he knocked it over.

After an uneventful takeoff from Germany and cruise through British and Irish airspace towards the Atlantic Ocean, the cabin crew served the pilots hot drinks, something the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said was “normal for this operator and route”. When the bad thing happened, “most of the liquid fell onto the commander’s lap”, with a “small amount” spilling onto the radio panel…

IBM brings Cloud Foundry and Red Hat OpenShift together

At the Cloud Foundry Summit in The Hague, IBM today showcased its Cloud Foundry Enterprise Environmenton Red Hat’s OpenShift container platform.

For the longest time, the open-source Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Serviceecosystem and Red Hat’s Kubernetes-centric OpenShift were mostly seen as competitors, with both tools vying for enterprise customers who want to modernize their application development and delivery platforms. But a lot of things have changed in recent times. On the technical side, Cloud Foundry started adopting Kubernetes as an option for application deployments and as a way of containerizing and running Cloud Foundry itself.

On the business side, IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat has brought along some change, too. IBM long backed Cloud Foundry as a top-level foundation member, while Red Hat bet on its own platform instead. Now that the acquisition has closed, it’s maybe no surprise that IBM is working on bringing Cloud Foundry to Red Hat’s platform…

We regret to inform you that you can now date Colonel Sanders in KFC’s new dating sim

Do you ever wish KFC was just a little bit sexier? Can’t get enough of the thirst trap “Virtual Influencer Colonel?” Well if that salt-and-pepper hair and 11 herbs and spices just does something for you, we have (good?) news. He’s all yours, baby. Yes, you can now romance the Colonel himself.

KFC, who had decided to stay relatively quiet during the great Chicken Sandwich War of 2K19, was instead frying up something else on the side. In collaboration with game developer Psyop, the fast-food chain dropped a listing on Steam this morning for an upcoming dating game, I Love You Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator.

“Do you have what it takes to be the business partner of and win the heart of the most famous chicken salesman of all time?” the game description reads. “Officially created by KFC. No, really.” …