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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:46 | Votes:110

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @11:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the metals-from-heaven dept.

Bronze Age artifacts used meteoric iron

The Iron Age began in Anatolia and the Caucasus around 1200 BCE. But nearly 2,000 years earlier, various cultures were already fashioning objects out of iron. These items were extremely rare and always greatly treasured. Iron ore abounds on the Earth's surface. So what made these artifacts so valuable? Initial research had shown that some were made with iron from meteorites, which led scientists to wonder how many others were. Albert Jambon gathered the available data and conducted his own nondestructive chemical analyses of samples using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. His collection of iron artifacts includes beads from Gerzeh (Egypt, −3200 BCE); a dagger from Alaca Höyük (Turkey, −2500 BCE); a pendant from Umm el-Marra (Syria, −2300 BCE); an axe from Ugarit (Syria, −1400 BCE) and several others from the Shang dynasty civilization (China, −1400 BCE); and the dagger, bracelet, and headrest of Tutankhamen (Egypt, −1350 BCE).

Also at New Atlas and BGR.

Bronze Age iron: Meteoritic or not? A chemical strategy. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2017.09.008) (DX)


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the ontology-in-VR dept.

Google Is Building A New Foveation Pipeline For Future XR Hardware

Google's R&D arm, Google Research, recently dedicated some time and resources to discovering ways to improve the performance of foveated rendering. Foveated rendering already promises vast performance improvements compared to full-resolution rendering. However, Google believes that it can do even better. The company identified three elements that could be improved, and it proposed three solutions that could potentially solve the problems, including two new foveation techniques and a reworked rendering pipeline.

Foveated rendering is a virtual reality technique that uses eye tracking to reduce the amount of image quality necessary in areas covered by the peripheral vision.

The new techniques mentioned are Phase-Aligned Rendering and Conformal Rendering.

Also at Google's Research Blog.

Related: Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey on the Need for "Unlimited Graphics Horsepower"
Google Implements Equi-Angular Cubemaps Technique for Better VR Quality
Oculus Research Presents Focal Surface Display. Will Eliminate Nausea in VR
Virtual Reality Audiences Stare Straight Ahead 75% of the Time


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the risk-vs-reward dept.

Birth Control Pills Still Linked to Breast Cancer, Study Finds

Women who rely on birth control pills or contraceptive devices that release hormones face a small but significant increase in the risk for breast cancer, according to a large study published on Wednesday.

The study [DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1700732] [DX], which followed 1.8 million Danish women for more than a decade, upends widely held assumptions about modern contraceptives for younger generations of women. Many women have believed that newer hormonal contraceptives are much safer than those taken by their mothers or grandmothers, which had higher doses of estrogen.

The new paper estimated that for every 100,000 women, hormone contraceptive use causes an additional 13 breast cancer cases a year. That is, for every 100,000 women using hormonal birth control, there are 68 cases of breast cancer annually, compared with 55 cases a year among nonusers.

While a link had been established between birth control pills and breast cancer years ago, this study is the first to examine the risks associated with current formulations of birth control pills and devices in a large population.

The study found few differences in risk between the formulations; women cannot protect themselves by turning to implants or intrauterine devices that release a hormone directly into the uterus.

The research also suggests that the hormone progestin — widely used in today's birth control methods — may be raising breast cancer risk.

Also at NPR.

Previously: Study Links Hormonal Birth Control to Depression
Review Finds That Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pills Would be Safe for Teens


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Sunday December 10 2017, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the be-careful-how-you-license dept.

https://torrentfreak.com/movie-company-has-no-right-to-sue-accused-pirate-argues-171208/

"ZHANG denies downloading the movie but Defendant's current motion for summary judgment challenges a different portion of F&D's case: Defendant argues that F&D has alienated all of the relevant rights necessary to sue for infringement under the Copyright Act," Madden writes.

The filmmakers opposed the request and pointed out that they still had some rights. However, this is irrelevant according to the defense, since the distribution rights are not owned by them, but by a company that's not part of the lawsuit.

"Plaintiff claims, for example, that it still owns the right to exploit the movie on airlines and oceangoing vessels. That may or may not be true – Plaintiff has not submitted any evidence on the question – but ZHANG is not accused of showing the movie on an airplane or a cruise ship.

"He is accused of downloading it over the Internet, which is an infringement that affects only an exclusive right owned by non-party DISTRIBUTOR 2," Madden adds.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the fork-early-for-often dept.

Much like the Altcoin fad of a few years ago, Forking Bitcoin is the new hotness. While some offer potentially interesting features, others appear to be so much me-too. If you do hold bitcoin, you may be in for a quick bump, as most if not all forks leave you with an equivalent amount on each blockchain. Take a look and enjoy your favorite tulip color. From news.bitcoin.com:

Super Bitcoin (SBTC) is planned to fork at block 498888, and we’re already seeing SBTC futures reach over 0.13 BTC
...
Bitcoin Platinum (BTP) plans to fork at block 498533 on December 12. It is said that BTP is GPU-mining-friendly with no pre-mine, and that it will adhere to the Segwit2x solution.
...
Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC) will fork at block 499999. It will be the first Bitcoin-forked coin to adopt the delegated Proof-of-Stake mechanism.
...
Bitcoin God (GOD). Blockchain angel investor Chandler Guo announced his forking of Bitcoin on the upcoming Christmas Day.
...
Bitcoin Cash Plus (BCP). BCP will fork at block 501407 on or around January 2, 2018. It will adopt the Equihash mining algorithm.
...
Bitcoin Uranium(BUM). BUM will occur in December. It allows GPU and CPU mining and does not sport a pre-mine.
...
Bitcoin Silver(BTSI). BTSI will fork some time in December, but block is still not decided. It changes Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm from SHA256 to Equihash.
...
Bitcoin X (block to be decided). It has 210 billion in total and will be distributed to bitcoin holders on the rate of 1BTC=10000 Bitcoin X.

The article briefly discusses exchange and wallet support, and some tools to split your coins.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Sunday December 10 2017, @01:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the explain-yourself dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666_

Google will take 30 days to gather feedback on 'responsible' uses of accessibility code before cracking down.

Almost a month ago, Google cracked down on developers that used Android's accessibility features for apps that weren't expressly created for people with disabilities. The company told developers that they had to show how their code actually helped those with a disability or face removal from the Play Store within 30 days. Now, however, Google is pausing that final solution for another month to consider "responsible and innovative uses of accessibility services."

[...] In the current email, Google asked recipients to send feedback around their appropriate use of the accessibility features in Android: "If you believe your app uses the Accessibility API for a responsible, innovative purpose that isn't related to accessibility, please respond to this email and tell us more about how your app benefits users. This kind of feedback may be helpful to us as we complete our evaluation of accessibility services."

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/08/google-pauses-crackdown-apps-accessibility-features/

Also reported at https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/google-pauses-android-accessibility-app-crackdown-after-public-outcry/


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @11:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-the-irony dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Microsoft has posted an out-of-band security update to address a remote code execution flaw in its Malware Protection Engine.

Redmond says the flaw, dubbed CVE-2017-11937, has not yet been exploited in the wild. Because it is an out-of-band critical fix, however, it should be installed as soon as possible. For most users, this will happen automatically.

The security hole is present in Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials, as well as Endpoint Protection, Forefront Endpoint Protection, and Exchange Server 2013 and 2016.

[...] According to Microsoft, the vulnerability can be triggered when the Malware Protection Engine scans a downloaded file to check for threats. In many systems this is set to happen automatically for all new files.

By exploiting a memory corruption error in the malware scanning tool, the attack file would be able to execute code on the target machine with LocalSystem privileges.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/07/microsoft_emergency_update_malware_protection_engine_needs_erm_malware_protection/


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-were-we-talking-about? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Canola oil is one of the most widely consumed vegetable oils in the world, yet surprisingly little is known about its effects on health. Now, a new study published online December 7 in the journal Scientific Reports by researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) associates the consumption of canola oil in the diet with worsened memory, worsened learning ability and weight gain in mice which model Alzheimer's disease. The study is the first to suggest that canola oil is more harmful than healthful for the brain.

"Canola oil is appealing because it is less expensive than other vegetable oils, and it is advertised as being healthy," explained Domenico Praticò, MD, Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Microbiology and Director of the Alzheimer's Center at LKSOM, as well as senior investigator on the study. "Very few studies, however, have examined that claim, especially in terms of the brain."

Curious about how canola oil affects brain function, Dr. Praticò and Elisabetta Lauretti, a graduate student in Dr. Pratico's laboratory at LKSOM and co-author on the new study, focused their work on memory impairment and the formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model. Amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau, which is responsible for the formation of tau neurofibrillary tangles, contribute to neuronal dysfunction and degeneration and memory loss in Alzheimer's disease. The animal model was designed to recapitulate Alzheimer's in humans, progressing from an asymptomatic phase in early life to full-blown disease in aged animals.

Dr. Praticò and Lauretti had previously used the same mouse model in an investigation of olive oil, the results of which were published earlier in 2017. In that study, they found that Alzheimer mice fed a diet enriched with extra-virgin olive oil had reduced levels of amyloid plaques and phosphorylated tau and experienced memory improvement. For their latest work, they wanted to determine whether canola oil is similarly beneficial for the brain.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the lucky-number-13 dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

In a first for the company, SpaceX is planning to launch a supply mission to the International Space Station using both a pre-flown first stage rocket and a Dragon capsule that has already been in orbit.

The mission, which will carry 4,800 lbs of food, water, and science experiments to the astronauts in low-Earth orbit, was due to take off from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday. But NASA said the launch had been kicked back to Tuesday due to "account pad readiness, requirements for science payloads, space station crew availability, and orbital mechanics."

There will be some nervous Musketeers watching the launch – the company has launched three pre-flown rockets without a hitch this year but those were commercial satellite launches, not a supply mission for SpaceX's biggest customer. For the superstitious there's an extra worry, this is SpaceX's 13th mission to the ISS.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/08/spacex_to_try_reusing_both_rocket_and_spacecraft_for_historic_iss_mission/


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @04:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the quite-the-monkey-wrench dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

After a three-year battle in which he spent up to $1000 an hour on lawyers, Swildens ended up selling Speedera at a discount to Akamai for $130 million.

The experience left Swildens with a working knowledge of intellectual property battles in the tech world, and a lingering soft spot for others facing hefty patent claims. So when he heard in February that the world's second-most valuable company, Alphabet, was launching a legal broadside at Uber's self-driving car technology, he put himself in then-CEO Travis Kalanick's shoes: "I saw a larger competitor attacking a smaller competitor...and became curious about the patents involved."

In its most dramatic allegations, Waymo is accusing engineer Anthony Levandowski of taking over 14,000 technical confidential files to Uber. But the company also claimed that Uber's laser-ranging lidar devices infringed four of Waymo's patents.

"Waymo developed its patented inventions...at great expense, and through years of painstaking research, experimentation, and trial and error," the complaint read. "If [Uber is] not enjoined from their infringement and misappropriation, they will cause severe and irreparable harm to Waymo."

But Swildens had a suspicion. He dug into the history of Waymo's lidars, and came to the conclusion that Waymo's key patent should never have been granted at all. He asked the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to look into its validity, and in early September, the USPTO granted that request. Days later, Waymo abruptly dismissed its patent claim without explanation. The USPTO examiners may still invalidate that patent, and if that happens, Waymo could find itself embroiled in another multi-billion-dollar self-driving car lawsuit—this time as a defendant.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 10 2017, @02:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the 9-of-9 dept.

IBM Announces 'Game-Changing' Power9 Servers For AI

IBM has announced its Power Systems Servers, which will be the first to sport the new Power9 processor, a chip that has been in development for four years.

The computing giant built the processor for compute-intensive AI workloads, and it claims the Power9 systems will have the ability to improve the training times of deep learning frameworks by nearly 4x. As a result, companies will be able to make more accurate AI applications in a faster manner.

The Power9-based AC922 Power Systems will be the world's first to embed PCI-Express 4.0, next-generation Nvidia NVLink, and OpenCAPI--which IBM says that, when combined, can accelerate data movement, calculated at a rate that's 9.5x faster than PCI-E 3.0 based x86 systems.

Also at HPCwire:

A lot is riding on the success of Power9 after Power8 failed to generate the kind of profits that IBM had hoped for. There was growth in Power8's first year, said King, but after that sales tailed off. He added that capabilities like Nutanix and building PowerAI and other software based solutions on top of it have led to a bit of a rebound. "It's still negative but it's low negative," he said, "but it's sequentially grown quarter to quarter in the last three quarters, since Bob Picciano [SVP of IBM Cognitive Systems] came on."

Several IBM reps we spoke with acknowledged that pricing – or at least pricing perception – was a problem for Power8. "For our traditional market I think pricing was competitive; for some of the new markets that we're trying to get into, like the hyperscaler datacenters, I think we've got some work to do," said King. "It's really a TCO and a price-performance competitiveness versus price only. And we think we're going to have a much better price performance competitiveness with Power9 in the hyperscalers and some of the low-end Linux spaces that are really the new markets."

POWER9 at Wikipedia.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the sign-of-things-to-come? dept.

America Magazine reports:

"LA Weekly is being sold to Semanal Media, a mysterious new company," reported the L.A. Times; other news outlets offered much the same, noting that none of the newly-created Semanal's investment partners would make their names known.

As LA Weekly's more than three million online readers—the largest of any alternative weekly in the country—read about renters being summarily evicted simply for asking about increased rents, Semanal's new operations manager, Brian Calle, fired nine of the magazine's 13 staff, including all of its editors and its publisher.

"We were expecting there to be some pain with the sale of @LAWeekly," wrote editor-in-chief Mara Shalhoup online. "But we weren't expecting the Red Wedding."

[...] Two days later, in his first official message to readers, Mr. Calle spun the move as indicative of the news media's broader struggles in the digital age. LA Weekly, he said, had been on a "declining trajectory" and the new owners wanted to help make the publication "relevant" again.


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the learning-more-each-day dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Although too much cholesterol is bad for your health, some cholesterol is essential. Most of the cholesterol that the human body needs is manufactured in its own cells in a synthesis process consisting of more than 20 steps. New research from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, to be published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Dec. 8, explains how an enzyme responsible for one of these steps acts as a kind of thermostat that responds to and adjusts levels of cholesterol in the cell. This insight could lead to new strategies for combating high cholesterol.

Towards the middle of the assembly line of cholesterol production, an enzyme called squalene monooxygenase (SM) carries out a slow chemical reaction that sets the pace of cholesterol production. In 2011, Andrew Brown's laboratory at UNSW discovered that when cholesterol in the cell was high, SM was destroyed and less cholesterol was produced. The new research explains how this sensing and destruction happens.

SM is embedded in the membrane of the cell's endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which is composed of fatty molecules including cholesterol. As cholesterol in the cell increases, more and more of it is incorporated into the ER membrane.

Like all proteins, SM is composed of amino acids, and different sequences of amino acids have different properties. A particular series of twelve amino acids is a "destruction code" that tells the cell's garbage disposal machinery to degrade the SM protein.

Brown's team showed that under typical conditions, the destruction code is hidden by being tucked away inside the endoplasmic reticulum membrane as part of a spring-shaped structure. Using experiments in cell cultures and with isolated proteins and membranes, they also showed that this spring structure could only embed in membranes that contained a low percentage of cholesterol. When the amount of cholesterol making up the membrane increased, the spring popped out, exposing the destruction code.

"When cholesterol levels are low, this destruction code is hidden in the membrane like a spring-loaded trap," said Ngee Kiat Chua, the graduate student who led the new study. "However, too much cholesterol [in the membrane] springs the trap, unmasking the destruction code." When this occurs, the cell proceeds to destroy the SM.

Ngee Kiat Chua, Vicky Howe, Nidhi Jatana, Lipi Thukral, Andrew J. Brown. A Conserved Degron Containing an Amphipathic Helix Regulates the Cholesterol-Mediated Turnover of Human Squalene Monooxygenase, a Rate-Limiting Enzyme in Cholesterol Synthesis. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2017; jbc.M117.794230 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M117.794230


Original Submission

posted by janrinok on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the price-of-democracy dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In the heat of a late September day in Mozambique, southern Africa, we started filming a meeting of young charity volunteers. They had poured heart and soul into an ambitious project aimed at combating HIV and spreading a message about contraception in the province of Gaza.

Then, out of the blue, and as our cameras rolled, came an unexpected announcement: the volunteers' work was to end because of a new policy from the United States.

Under US President Donald Trump's "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy, any foreign aid organisation that wants US funds cannot "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries".

Sebastiao Muthisse from AMODEFA, the Mozambican Association for Family Development, outlined the dilemma the aid organisation faced. They were not prepared to sign Trump's so-called 'global gag rule 'forbidding mention of abortion, and, as a result, projects had to close. For the youngsters it appeared to make no sense. Surely lack of advice on family planning would lead to unwanted pregnancies? Why should they be censored when it came to speaking about abortion?

AMODEFA, a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has worked in Mozambique since 1989. Now, the stance both organisations have taken on the Trump rule means they face losing millions of dollars in US aid, and for AMODEFA in Mozambique two-thirds of their total budget, a sum of $2m.

It's led to hard decisions, particularly when it comes to critical work on HIV prevention.

In a suburb of the capital Maputo, we met Palmira Tembe. Members of Palmira's family have died; five grandchildren are now dependent on her, along with her 13 year-old-son Nelson.

AMODEFA has received funds to help people like Palmira disclose to their families that they have HIV, and to support their care. Palmira told us that prior to the charity's involvement she couldn't tell her son Nelson why he was sick. Now both take HIV medicine together.

We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have – they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status. In a country where it's estimated that up to 13 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 live with HIV, the support of organisations like AMODEFA can be a lifeline. But the work AMODEFA does with families like Palmira's is under threat, due to their refusal to sign up to the Trump policy.

Project leader Dr Marcelo Kantu is concerned about the future. "We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have - they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status," he told us.

Visiting those supported by charity work in Mozambique, there was a recurring question: With the heavy price organisations could pay for defying the new US policy, why not forget about the abortion issue, sign up to the Trump rule, and keep American aid money?

Activists and charity workers told us it was not only about upholding a principle of choice, it was about free speech and a law introduced in Mozambique to save lives.

Mozambique liberalised its law on abortion in 2014, not least due to the high numbers of maternal deaths from illegal terminations. Since then, abortion is a legal option up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in cases of rape or incest during the first 16 weeks.

But there is Mozambique's new law on the one hand, and the Trump policy on the other.

janrinok writes:

It has long been understood that aid donations are sometimes an integral part of foreign policy; aid can be given in the hope that the recipient will favour the donor further along the line, perhaps with trade agreements or regional political support.

But is this a case of the donor wanting to influence a law that has been passed by a democratically elected government? Should aid be used as a way of dictating 'democracy' to follow the donor's views rather than allowing each democratic nation to evolve into the nation that its own citizens want?


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the "cut"-it-out! dept.

Patreon, a platform that allows "patrons" to give money to directly to artists and other content creators, is adding a processing fee to what patrons pledge, which could drive users away:

Patreon is defending a new payment structure that critics say hurts smaller artists. The change, which goes into effect on December 18th, adds a processing fee to each individual patron pledge, instead of taking the cut out of creators' total earnings. Because this fee includes a flat 35-cent charge on top of a percentage, it disproportionately affects people making small pledges, or pledging to multiple artists. Artists have complained that they're losing patrons after the announcement — but Patreon says it's an inevitable consequence of some other changes to the platform.

Patreon initially said that this fee made artists' earnings more predictable, because they'd only have to worry about a single 5 percent cut taken by Patreon. In an update, however, the company said that's not all that's going on. It's apparently linked to a minor-seeming change in when Patreon processes pledges.

Previously, Patreon charged for most pledges at the start of the month, but also let artists charge first-time backers as soon as they pledged. People seemed to be "double-charged" if they signed up toward the end of a month, so Patreon switched to charging them at the monthly anniversary of their initial pledge. Patreon says that means that more individual transactions are being processed, which jacks up credit card fees. (To make things even more complicated, some people pledge per-video or per-post, adding more rounds of payments.) So rather than dramatically cutting how much money creators get, it's passing that fee to backers.

[...] Some critics have characterized this as a deliberately exploitative or bad-faith move from Patreon; a widely cited thread by author Chris Buecheler suggests that the platform is under pressure from investors. But Patreon has also simply spent a long time struggling with its payment system. It introduced upfront payments — the source of the "double-charging" issue — because artists complained that patrons would sign up for perks and cancel before their first payment. Now, it's apparently trying to solve a problem with that system, and creating another issue in the process.

One of the common solutions for someone getting demonetized on YouTube? Start a Patreon.

Also at Engadget and Polygon.


Original Submission