Microsoft Defender is available (free) for Ubuntu !
# apt show mdatp
Package: mdatp
Version: 101.25042.0003
Priority: optional
Section: devel
Maintainer: Microsoft Defender Group <mdatplinuxpackages@microsoft.com>
Installed-Size: 530 MB
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.23)
Download-Size: 157 MB
APT-Sources: https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/25.04/prod plucky/main amd64 Packages
Description: Microsoft Defender (Production)
Microsoft Defender is a complete endpoint
security solution. It delivers preventative protection, post-breach
detection, automated investigation, and response.

It takes about half a gig of disk (roughly the same as ClamAV IIRC):
Download size: 157 MB
Space needed: 530 MB

From time to time I read about putting solar panels in space, where they will collect more energy, not use up the limited surface area of our planet, and (thanks to orbital geometry) power our lives at night as well as day.
[ If we had a fat enough wire going around the world, we could use terrestrial solar to power the night-time hemisphere too. ]

Sunlight on Earth is safeish.
In the UK six people a day die from skin cancer; as far as I can determine most of these are caused by exposure to sunlight.
If I went to the tropics and exposed my whole body to the sun I would get sunburnt and regret it within a day.

If an energy beam is weaker than sunlight, isn't it going to need as much receiving equipment as terrestrial solar ?
Put another way, if the beam is twice as energy-dense as the sun we are only going to halve the ground area we need to devote to solar panels or radio meshes or whatever.

So we can beam energy down from space without frying everything in its path, but we are working in the safety margin; if something goes wrong, a member of the public could be inconvenienced unless they were already avoiding legitimate activities.

Maybe some other sort of beam is safer than sunlight ?
If so we can have a more concentrated energy beam that people can more safely walk through.
Microwaves cook my tea, so I doubt that a megajoule of microwaves will do an order of magnitude less damage to my body than a megajoule of sunlight.

It seems to me that a focused beam is too big a risk.
While a diffuse beam could be technically safe, a system that was socially acceptable is unlikely to be a financial improvement on solar panels - even if the energy put into the beam cost nothing.

Clouds block sunlight and u/v; what sorts of radiation do they allow through ? Do we have better protection against this and does a constant supply give a greater energy yield ?

What have I missed ?

How would you feel about Musk's Mars colonisers having a dummy run Antarctica ?

There is a common feeling that Antarctica should be "preserved" and saved from being spoiled by man.

On the other hand, if Musk's people can't survive in Antarctica they don't stand a chance on Mars (though it does have areas without half-years of light and dark).

Facebook to drop independent fact checking. And worse: As part of these changes, we will be moving the trust and safety teams that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other US locations.

I still think of Royal Mail as synonymous with the post office, so this sight brought me up short.

Scroll down https://www.postoffice.co.uk/ a page or two and you will see Our online carriers followed by equal-sized logos for Royal Mail, EVRi and DPD.

The £1 minimum charge for non-Royal Mail carriers is no longer a barrier.

I’d advise you to avoid that at all costs. She’s Scottish, not Irish.”

“I’m not sure I understand the difference.”

“Briefly, Irishmen, drink whiskey and sing ballads. Scottish men wear
skirts, and play darts with telephone poles. They aren’t the same.”

Darts is scored for accuracy, the Caber Toss is scored for style, but they are both measured on a clock-like face.

The Conservative government wanted to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud and error. We objected and they were defeated.

Now Starmer wants to bring this back:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts

They already have the power to check suspicious bank accounts for benefit fraud.
They do not need the banks to snoop when there is no suspicion.

I hoped that a change of government would get rid the the authoritarians.*

* Yes, I did think it was unlikely, but I did hope so.

I saw a lady in a burka (or a niqab) yesterday.
She was walking down the street hand-in-hand with a man.

I told my wife I'd never seen a woman in a burka with a man before.
She pointed out that it was unlikely that I'd seen a woman in a burka without a man !

I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen a woman in a burka in real life *and* the first time I'd seen a woman in a burka with a man, even including in pictures or on TV etc.