Short Takes – 9-6-23

Here’s what we know about a mysterious launch from Florida this week. ArsTechnica.com article. Pull quote: “The test flight this week could pave the way for the Army to field its first hypersonic missile battery by the end of this year, according to Breaking Defense, a defense industry trade publication. Additional land-based hypersonic missile batteries will come online in the next few years, and the Navy plans to deploy the missiles on surface ships in the mid-2020s.”

Microsoft calls time on ancient TLS in Windows, breaking own stuff in the process. TheRegister.com article. Pull quote: “The company thundered: "Re-enabling TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 on machines should only be done as a last resort and as a temporary solution until incompatible applications can be updated or replaced. Support for these legacy TLS versions may be removed completely in the future."”

Arctic sea ice may melt faster in coming years due to shifting winds. ScienceNews.org article. Pull quote: “The Arctic Dipole is a smaller-scale, regional pattern of winds that is having a global impact, Polyakov and colleagues suggest. To assess its influence, the researchers compared atmospheric wind patterns since 1979 with trends in summer ice extent and thickness gathered from satellite, airplane and shipboard surveys over that time frame. A clear relationship emerged, they say.”

Scientists Discover Strange Link Between Internet Use and Dementia. Futurism.com article. Pull quote: “Of those participants who were active users, the new study's authors found that there was a 1.54 percent risk of developing dementia, whereas non-users seemed to have a whopping 10.45 percent risk. Measuring the amount of time it took for the survey's participants to develop dementia, the AGS study found that regular internet users were just half as likely to develop the cognitive disorder than their non-using counterparts.” But, details matter and correlation is not causation.

Proposed Collection, Comment Request; FEMA Preparedness Grants: Port Security Grant Program (PSGP). Federal Register FEMA 60-day ICR Notice. Summary: “The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public to take this opportunity to comment on an extension, with change, of a currently approved information collection. In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice seeks comments concerning the information collection activities required to administer the Port Security Grant Program (PSGP) and an additional new form to facilitate extension requests.” Comments due November 6^th, 2023.

Request to Operate during a Temporary Outage of Its Positive Train Control System:

Norfolk Southern Railway; Withdrawal. Federal Register FRA Notice. Summary: “On September 1, 2023, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of the Norfolk Southern Railway's (NS) request for amendment (RFA), dated August 28, 2023, to its FRA-certified positive train control (PTC) system. This document withdraws that notice, FR Doc. 2023–18996. On August 30, 2023, NS withdrew its RFA.” Problem apparently fixed before FRA could approve operation without PTC working.

Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; CHIPS Full-Application Information Collection. Federal Register NIST 30-day ICR notice. Summary: “The Department of Commerce will submit the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the Federal Register on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, during a 60-day comment period. This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.”