Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley are pressing the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use. In a joint letter sent to the EIA on Thursday, the two senators press the agency to publicly collect "comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures" on data centers, saying it's "essential for accurate grid planning and will support policymaking to prevent large companies from increasing electricity costs for American families." Wired reports: In December, EIA administrator Tristan Abbey said at a roundtable that he expects the EIA "is going to be an essential player in providing objective data and analysis to policymakers" with respect to data centers. The agency announced on Wednesday that it would be conducting a voluntary pilot program to collect energy consumption information from nearly 200 companies operating data centers in Texas, Washington, and Virginia, which will cover "energy sources, electricity consumption, site characteristics, server metrics, and cooling systems."

While the senators praise the EIA pilot program, their letter includes several questions about how the agency plans to move forward with more data collection, such as whether or not the energy surveys will be mandatory and whether or not the EIA will collect information on behind-the-meter power. This information will be especially crucial, the senators say, to make sure that big tech companies that signed the agreement at the White House earlier this month pledging that consumers won't bear the costs of data center electricity use will stick to their promises. "Without this data, policymakers, utility companies, and local communities are operating in the dark," the senators write.

The EIA mandates that other industries, including oil and gas and manufacturing, provide regular data to the agency; Hawley and Warren assert that the EIA should be able to collect similar information from data centers under the same provision. The provision is broad enough, Peskoe says, that it could absolutely be interpreted to encompass data centers. Yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced a bill that would "enact a reasonable pause to the development of AI to ensure the safety of humanity." It calls for a federal moratorium on AI data centers until stronger national safeguards are in place around safety, jobs, privacy, energy costs, and environmental impact.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JPMorgan is piloting a system that monitors junior investment bankers to avoid burnout (source paywalled; alternative source). "[T]he bank will seek to match up hours claimed by the bankers with digital activity," reports Bloomberg. "The tool won't be used for evaluation purposes, but is designed to provide a better estimate of employee workloads." From the report: The program will monitor the weekly digital footprint, including video calls, desktop keystrokes, and scheduled meetings, the Financial Times reported earlier, adding JPMorgan plans to roll out the effort more widely across its investment bank. Banks on Wall Street are known for heavy working hours, but can in return offer salaries of as much as $200,000 for entry-level analyst and associate roles. "Much like the weekly screen time summaries on a smartphone, this tool is about awareness -- not enforcement," a representative for JPMorgan said in a statement. "It's designed to support transparency, well-being, and encourage open conversations about workload."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Republic of Ireland were riding a wave of confidence into the World Cup playoff semi-final, according to Séamus Coleman, but it struck a rock on an agonising night in Prague. Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side squandered the initiative twice against the Czech Republic, in normal time and in the penalty shootout, as their hopes of qualifying for a first World Cup in 24 years evaporated.

Ireland led 2-0 after 23 minutes courtesy of a Troy Parrott penalty and a calamitous own goal by Czech goalkeeper Matej Kovar but they gifted the hosts a route back when Ryan Manning conceded a needless spot-kick. An 86th-minute equaliser from Wolves defender Ladislav Krejci took the game into extra time and then on to penalties.

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Two years to the day since penalty shootout heartbreak against Poland, more agony from 12 yards for Wales. Bosnia and Herzegovina prevailed on spot-kicks after a typically absorbing night in the Welsh capital, one that went the distance, more than 133 minutes passed before Brennan Johnson spooned over and Neco Williams saw his penalty saved by Nikola Vasilj, who read Williams’s effort to his left.

For so long it had seemed Daniel James, whose spot-kick was saved by Wojciech Szczesny to kill hopes of reaching Euro 2024, would be the match-winner but Edin Dzeko, who turned 40 this month, glanced in a header to take the game to extra time. For the second successive qualifying campaign, the locals left the Cardiff City Stadium with that horrible feeling in the pits of their stomachs, a numbness.

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Russian court alleges film promotes ‘negative attitudes’ about the Russian government and the war in Ukraine

A Russian court banned the Oscar-winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin from several streaming platforms on Thursday, alleging it promoted “negative attitudes” about the Russian government and the war in Ukraine.

The film documents pro-war propaganda lessons delivered at a school in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, using two years of footage secretly filmed and smuggled out of the country by the school’s videographer, Pavel Talankin.

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Treasurer’s signature to be removed for first time since 1861 in change made to mark US’s 250th anniversary

Donald Trump’s signature will soon appear on US paper currency, the treasury department announced Thursday.

The move marks the first time a sitting US president’s signature will appear on legal tender. To accommodate this change, the treasurer’s signature will be removed for the first time since 1861.

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Petition seeks accountability from Salvadorian authorities over human rights violations at notorious Cecot facility

A group of 18 Venezuelan men whom the US expelled a notorious Salvadorian mega-prison are demanding that Salvadorian authorities be held internationally accountable for violation of human rights – detailing new allegations of torture, sexual assault and medical neglect.

A new petition, filed on Thursday before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleges that El Salvador violated the human rights of these men, who were expelled to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) last year without charge.

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Jono Ridler has battled loneliness and fatigue as he aims to break the record for the longest unassisted staged swim – and raise awareness about fragile marine life

First he hears a faint chatter coming from the ocean depths, then clicks and squeaks as the creatures draw closer. From the murky edges of his goggles they appear, swift and agile, darting within 10cm of his bare outstretched arms and following him for a time, as he swims hundreds of metres off the coast of New Zealand.

Jono Ridler, an ultra-distance swimmer who is 1,254km (779 miles) into his world record attempt for the longest-ever unassisted staged swim, has learned to hear dolphins more than 15 minutes before they reach him and long before his support boats can see them.

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Graham Potter committed to Sweden for the long term this month but the immediate future does not look so bad. He will lead them to the World Cup if they overcome Poland on Tuesday and it would be a fairytale start for a manager whose return to his adopted homeland is beginning to make bundles of sense.

Part of Potter’s motivation to stay beyond this summer was the riches at his disposal. Viktor Gyökeres, awkward at Arsenal but talismanic for his country, is among those jewels and overpowered Ukraine with a resounding hat-trick. Goals six minutes into each half, topped by a late penalty, exhibited the full suite of desirable components in a No9; Sweden were disciplined at the other end and it was a game too far for Ukraine, who had dearly hoped to offer relief for those suffering back home but could only offer a late consolation from Matviy Ponomarenko.

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Game seven of Gennaro Gattuso’s Italy tenure delivered comfort. In number eight, he will look to end the painful wait of a nation by returning his country to the World Cup for the first time since 2014. Northern Ireland’s future, a bright one with this young squad, now means looking towards Euro 2028. This was simply a campaign too soon.

Gattuso has a stated aim of making World Cup impact, not simply qualifying. There were long spells in this playoff when the coach’s aspirations felt ludicrous. Perhaps Italy laboured, especially in the first half, under expectation. Yet it is an undoubted truism that they will require a huge uplift in performance level to feature prominently in the summer. Had Northern Ireland snatched the opening goal here, Italy would have been in serious bother.

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When photographer Frank Relle was nine years old, he remembers sneaking out of the house he grew up in in New Orleans just before daybreak to catch the sunrise—an event he found frustratingly difficult to explain to others, as much as he wished to share the experience. It was only years later that he discovered the camera, and he reflects on this time now through the lens of an excerpt from the essay “Between Yes and No” by Albert Camus: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”

Relle adds, “The swamp was that opening for me. I do not fully understand how. I went in once, and something happened; I changed, and then I kept going back.” The New Orleans-based photographer still returns to the swamps of Louisiana, watched over by bald cypress trees draped in ethereal swathes of Spanish moss. He canoes onto the calm waters, capturing the transition between day and night amid the sounds of birds and other creatures that make their homes there.

“I work in the swamp because it returns me to a way of being that feels older, quieter, and more true,” Relle tells Colossal, continuing:

Out there, surrounded by trees, insects, birds, reflections, and dark water, I stop living inside the noise of my own mind. The swamp pulls me out of the island of myself and places me back inside a larger living world. In that state, I feel wonder, connection, and a kind of freedom. Photography became my way of sharing that feeling—not by explaining it but by inviting others into it.

Relle’s series Until the Water explores Louisiana’s otherworldly bayous through a lens of serene reverence. He places lights beneath boughs and trunks, illuminating trees against darkening horizons to emphasize their billowing shapes amid expansive wetlands distinctive to the Gulf Coast region of North America.

Time is both evident and seemingly suspended in Relle’s photos, as within the context of a single day ending or beginning, we observe mature cypresses that may have weathered hundreds of years. (The oldest known living tree in eastern North America is a bald cypress in North Carolina that’s more than 2,600 years old.) Some of the trees are abundantly leafy and full, while others are bare, struggling, or cracked open.

“The swamp at two in the morning is not quiet; it is one of the loudest places I have ever been,” Relle says. “But a photograph of it is silent. And in that silence, there is an opening. A threshold….That is what I wanted when I was small, watching the sky change. Not to describe it. To bring someone else to the edge of it. To share it without words.”

Find more on Relle’s Instagram, and purchase prints in his online shop. And if you’re in New Orleans, visit his brick-and-mortar gallery on Royal Street.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Frank Relle’s Photos Revel in Louisiana’s Otherworldly Swampland appeared first on Colossal.

ozipital has added a photo to the pool:

Another angle

@stefan
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Prima leus om de verkiezingen mee in te gaan.

AI biz makes some Claude conversations more costly to manage capacity

Anthropic on Wednesday adjusted its opaque usage limits for Claude customers by reducing the power of the services it delivers during times of peak demand, in an effort to balance demand with its capacity to deliver service.…

You actually thing companies are going to pay Americans to take customer service calls in the AI age?

Uncle Sam is trying to make American call centers great again. The question is whether they will be great because they're filled with local workers or whether this will provide yet another excuse for companies to turn customer service jobs over to AI.…

Deze week een jaar geleden opende C3-Studios haar deuren in Rotterdam Charlois. 6000 m2 kunstenaarsateliers plus tentoonstellingsruimtes plus gaarkeuken plus boekhandel plus binnenplaats. Allemaal uit de koker van duizendpoot Kamiel Verschuren in samenwerking met SKAR [Meer...]

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide, April 1972, from a Kodachrome slide box addressed to Morgan Kane, 1st West 57 Street, New York City, handwritten on slide box, "Mod big print dress"

NEW YORK (ANP/AFP/BLOOMBERG) - Zakenbanken en investerings- en beleggingsmaatschappijen op Wall Street hebben vorig jaar in totaal 49,2 miljard dollar, omgerekend 42,7 miljard euro, aan bonussen uitgekeerd. Dat is een recordbedrag aan bonussen voor bijvoorbeeld zakenbankiers voor het begeleiden van beursgangen, het adviseren bij overnames en fusies, vermogensbeheer en handel in aandelen en obligaties.

Het gemiddelde bonusbedrag steeg met 6 procent tot 246.900 dollar, oftewel ruim 214.00 euro, aldus de financiële controleur van de staat New York, Thomas DiNapoli, in zijn jaarlijkse melding. Het is het tweede jaar op rij dat bonusrecords worden gebroken voor de zakenbankiers, beleggingsadviseurs, analisten en beurshandelaren op Wall Street.

De cijfers gaan terug tot 1987. Het gaat bijvoorbeeld om bonussen bij grote namen op Wall Street zoals Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Blackstone, Charles Schwab en BlackRock.

Oorlog Midden-Oosten

"Wall Street zag sterke prestaties voor een groot deel van het jaar, ondanks alle binnenlandse en internationale onrustigheden", aldus DiNapoli in het rapport. Vorig jaar werden records geboekt op de Amerikaanse financiële markten ondanks de onrust rond het handelsbeleid van president Donald Trump. Momenteel zorgt de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten voor onzekerheid op de markt.

De staat New York haalde in het vorige boekjaar ruim 19 procent van zijn belastinginkomsten uit Wall Street. Voor de stad New York was dat meer dan 8 procent.