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Snow writes:

I came across this piece on Scott Adam's blog and found it quite interesting. Thought others here might find it interesting too:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/133406477506/global-gender-war#_=_

Original Submission

Freebirth Toad writes:

From the press release:

A Florida State University high-performance computing researcher has predicted a physical effect that would help physicists and astronomers provide fresh evidence of the correctness of Einstein's general theory of relativity. … The gravitational Faraday effect, first predicted in the 1950s, theorizes that when linearly polarized light travels close to a spinning black hole, the orientation of its polarization rotates according to Einstein's theory of general relativity. Currently, there is no practical way to detect gravitational Faraday rotation. …

"Astronomers have recently found strong evidence showing that quasar X-ray emissions originate from regions very close to supermassive black holes, which are believed to reside at the center of many galaxies," Chen said. "Gravitational Faraday rotation should leave its fingerprints on such compact regions close to a black hole. Specifically, the observed X-ray polarization of a gravitationally microlensed quasar should vary rapidly with time if the gravitational Faraday effect indeed exists," he said. …

If detected, Chen's effect—a derivative of the gravitational Faraday effect—would provide strong evidence of the correctness of Einstein's general relativity theory in the "strong-field regime," or an environment in close proximity to a black hole.

The paper does not appear to be paywalled.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Following Western Digital's purchase of SanDisk, now is a good time to look to the future of the disk and NAND flash storage industries:

Stifel [Managing Director] Aaron Rakers has taken a deep dive look at the SanDisk technology Western Digital is aiming to buy, and his report brings out cost-savings derived from HGST escaping payment of an Intel tax, 3D NAND timescales, and possibilities for future planar NAND node shrinks.

[...] Rakers points out that "the write attributes of shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technologies requires the usage of non-volatile persistent memory (NAND) in order to optimise write performance (e.g., transition tables)." HGST's 10TB HelioSeal disk drives use SMR and, if Rakers is right, will need to be hybrid flash/disk drives with flash being used for SMR block rewrite operations. SanDisk can supply the flash chips for this.

Unexpectedly, there could be another 2D planar NAND node shrink to below 15nm. Rakers writes: "We believe that SanDisk continues to prepare for the possibility of another planar node shrink (i.e. to 10/12nm); whether the company actually commences a subsequent planar node shrink depends on the cost effectiveness ramp of SanDisk's 3D NAND ... demand for various types of NAND in different use cases, and the difference in investment required to continue to produce 15nm TLC, convert to 3D NAND, build greenfield 3D NAND or further shrink planar."

[...] Raker's financial modelling of WD's post-SanDisk acquisition SSD costs indicates that building products using vertically-integrated SanDisk technology for enterprise SAS SSDs could save WD substantial amounts of money. He thinks that 80-85 per cent of the enterprise SSD bill-of-material (BOM) cost is for NAND flash. Modelling with an average 900GB SSD he reckons WD could be paying Intel as much as $0.60/GB for flash chips. It would save as much as 52 per cent of this by using SanDisk chips.

[More after the break.]

tonyPick let us know about:

There's a fascinating article on Atlas Obscura which looks at the work of weather modification companies:

The article looks at the work of the pilots involved, the methods they use, and the evidence for the effectiveness of the approach.

The strange tropical ocean-colored clouds indicate light reflecting off bits of ice in the storm's core. This means hail, a potential death sentence for farmers like Mrnak, whose 6,000 acres of wheat, barley, corn and sunflower lie striped across picturesque rolling plains in the state's southwestern corner, near a region of rugged hills called the Badlands. "We've had hailstorms here where there is nothing left," says Mrnak. "It will take the crop completely down—down to the ground." In mere minutes, millions of dollars of plant material, including the delicate kernels, which aid in reproduction, can be smashed to bits. It's a crop's version of death by stoning.

The job of pilots like Royal is to fly directly at monstrous thunderstorms—something most pilots diligently avoid, given that the turbulent airflow in these storms occasionally brings down commercial jetliners—and discharge chemicals into a particular part of the cloud, a technique called "cloud seeding" intended to suppress the storm's ability to produce hail.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Fast Coexist reports on the Edible Insect Desktop Hive, a kitchen gadget designed to raise mealworms (beetle larva), a food that has the protein content of beef without the environmental footprint. The hive can grow between 200 and 500 grams of mealworms a week, enough to replace traditional meat in four or five dishes.

The hive comes with a starter kit of "microlivestock," and controls the climate inside so the bugs have the right amount of fresh air and the right temperature to thrive. If you push a button, the mealworms pop out in a harvest drawer that chills them. You're supposed to pop them in the freezer, then fry them up or mix them into soup, smoothies, or bug-filled burgers. "Insects give us the opportunity to grow on small spaces, with few resources," says designer Katharina Unger, founder of Livin Farms, the company making the new home farming gadget. "A pig cannot easily be raised on your balcony, insects can. With their benefits, insects are one part of the solution to make currently inefficient industrial-scale production of meat obsolete."

Of course, that assumes people will be willing to eat them. Unger thinks bugs just need a little rebranding to succeed, and points out that other foods have overcome bad reputations in the past. "Even the potato, that is now a staple food, was once considered ugly and was given to pigs," says Unger adding that sushi, raw fish, and tofu were once considered obscure products. "Food is about perception and cultural associations. Within only a short time and the right measures, it can be rebranded. . . . Growing insects in our hive at home is our first measure to make insects a healthy and sustainable food for everyone."

Original Submission

dw861 writes:

The Washington Post shares a newly published article from the academic journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The article suggests that the pattern of global wildfires varies based on the day of the week — with considerably fewer fires globally on Sunday than on other days. It partly attributes this pattern not to anything natural about ecosystems, but rather to human behavioral patterns — including weekly rituals that are ultimately rooted in culture and faith.

The researchers used NASA satellite imagery to look at all global fires from 2001 to 2013, with images taken four times each day. The images were then scanned by an algorithm to detect large fires, which can occur both for natural reasons — i.e., lightning — but also due to human causes.

This appears to have been the first time that researchers tried to detect a weekly cycle in the occurrence of global fires — which, if fires were a purely natural phenomenon, shouldn't exist. "There's nothing in nature that's on a weekly cycle," the authors say.

The paper makes the attribution to religion directly:

The research also hinted that, while fires on a global scale go down on Sunday, there might be regional variations, also tied to faith — including different practices in non-Christian countries. For instance, the authors point to predominantly Muslim Kazakhstan, where the fire minimum was actually on Thursday and Friday.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/20/456758931/radisson-hotel-in-mali-attacked-gunmen-take-170-hostages

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34877069

Malian special forces have entered the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, to end a siege by gunmen who had been holding 170 people hostage. The gunmen stormed the US-owned hotel, which is popular with foreign businesses and airline crews, shooting and shouting "God is great!" in Arabic. Malian state TV is reporting that 80 people have now been freed. At least three people are reported to have been killed in the siege that started around 07:00 GMT. Six staff from Turkish Airlines were at the hotel when it was attacked, and a Chinese guest told China's state news agency Xinhua he was among about seven Chinese tourists trapped there. A French presidential source said French citizens were also at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Reuters news agency reports.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali
Official languages: French

Original Submission

kadal writes:

Approximately two weeks ago, Open Whisper Systems announced the merger of two of its Android apps, Redphone (secure calling) and TextSecure (encrypted messaging) into one: Signal for Android. This is a counterpart to Signal for iOS, created by the same team. A Chrome extension is forthcoming.

Signal has been getting a lot of love from the security community (Snowden, Schneier, etc) specifically for it's user-friendliness --- something that has prevented the adoption of other crypto software.

The encrypted messaging algorithm seems to be a version of OTR modified for asynchronous mobile environments. Some version of this has been implemented in CyanogenMod as WhisperPush and WhatsApp.

Their blog has a lot of nerdy crypto detail for those interested. For example: deniability, forward secrecy, calling network.

All of their code is open source and funded by donations. Donations are also possible using bitcoin. Accepted pull requests get a payout using another of their projects, Bithub (code).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Food and Drug Administration has given its first approval for human consumption of a genetically modified animal. AquAdvantage salmon grow twice as fast and year-round compared to salmon that have already been honed by selective breeding.

A kind of salmon that's been genetically modified so that it grows faster may be on the way to a supermarket near you. The Food and Drug Administration approved the fish on Thursday — a decision that environmental and food-safety groups are vowing to fight.

This new kind of fast-growing salmon was actually created 25 years ago by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies. A new gene was inserted into fertilized salmon eggs — it boosted production of a fish growth hormone. The result: a fish that grows twice as fast as its conventional, farm-raised counterpart.

AquaBounty has been trying to get government approval to sell its fish ever since. Five years ago, the FDA's scientific advisers concluded that the genetically modified fish, known as AquaAdvantage salmon, is safe to eat and won't harm the environment.

[More after the break.]

hubie writes:

The primary mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will consist of 18 separate mirror segments. The optics for the primary is now finally coming together with the mounting of the first mirror segment . Assembly of the full primary will occur over the next year and the curious can watch it come together minute-by-minute on the JWST Webbcams. Those wanting to see faster progress can break out their Benny Hill music[*] and watch JWST Time-Lapse movies.

[*] The tune is actually Yakety Sax.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Robert Platt Bell writes at his blog "Living Stingy" about Lenny, a library of videos which play recordings to telemarketers trying to sell services (or scams). Lenny picks up calls and answers them with pre-recorded audio clips from a doddering Australian man, sometimes keeping telemarketers on the phone for over 20 minutes. "Lenny confounds and confuses, but sounds totally real," writes Bell. "Some telemarketers talk to him for nearly a half-hour, before they figure out that he's either a recording - or senile."

According to developer Mango, Lenny is a program that uses voice recognition techniques to detect when a telemarketer is through speaking. When Lenny doesn't hear anything, he says his next prompt. If the telemarketer doesn't speak, or speaks too quietly, Lenny will ask them to speak up. This makes him sound more "real". After the 16th prompt, Lenny starts over. The current "record" of sorts is a pair of telemarketers who were kept occupied by Lenny for over 38 minutes. Want to talk to Lenny, or transfer a telemarketer to him? Here's how.

But who is the real Lenny? According to Internet chatter he's an actor in Brisbane, Australia — though clearly of English origin — who made his recordings for a company that wanted to respond in kind to time-wasting callers. About 2013, however, the original Lenny stopped working, so Mango and other tech-types decided to recreate him based on the published recordings. "The dishonest telemarketers are the ones that Lenny is really intended for," explains Mango.

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

I think we should all toss in a few dollars to fund this Kickstarter campaign. Only in the age of the Internet can we actually turn the tables on the people who censor us!

"Make the Censors Watch 'Paint Drying'" aims to fund a film that will be submitted to the British Board of Film Classification. The more money is raised, the longer the film that some poor censor will have to endure.

As film maker Charlie Lyne describes the project:

The British Board of Film Certification (previously known as the British Board of Film Censors) was established in 1912 to ensure films remained free of 'indecorous dancing', 'references to controversial politics' and 'men and women in bed together', amongst other perceived indiscretions.

Today, it continues to censor and in some cases ban films, while UK law ensures that, in effect, a film cannot be released in British cinemas without a BBFC certificate.

Each certificate costs around £1000 for a feature film of average length. ... Luckily, there's a flipside to all of this: while filmmakers are required to pay the BBFC to certify their work, the BBFC are also required to sit through whatever we pay them to watch.

That's why I'm Kickstarting a BBFC certificate for my new film Paint Drying — a single, unbroken shot of white paint drying on a brick wall.

As of the time of submission [2015-11-19 03:05:43], the total is up to £1,799 ($2747 US). The handy web site here tells us that that will finance 3 hours, 59 minutes and 25 seconds of paint drying action!

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From Google's blog:

We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns. With approval of the video creators, we'll keep the videos live on YouTube in the U.S., feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them.

This might help set precedents as to what is clearly fair use. It might make others think twice before filing bogus DMCA takedowns. It might help those who post videos which contain clips that are clearly fair use to feel less intimidated. Hopefully it will help everyone better understand what fair use is, and is not.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

MIT researchers have found that much of the data transferred to and from the 500 most popular free applications for Google Android cellphones make little or no difference to the user's experience.

Of those "covert" communications, roughly half appear to be initiated by standard Android analytics packages, which report statistics on usage patterns and program performance and are intended to help developers improve applications.

"The interesting part is that the other 50 percent cannot be attributed to analytics," says Julia Rubin, a postdoc in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), who led the new study. "There might be a very good reason for this covert communication. We are not trying to say that it has to be eliminated. We're just saying the user needs to be informed."

The original paper [PDF] came via MIT.

Original Submission

isostatic writes:

The BBC reports that the world is on the cusp of a 'post-antibiotic era'. A new mutation of bacteria in China has something "dubbed the MCR-1 gene", that prevented colistin - the antibiotic of last resort - from killing bacteria.

Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria.

The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients.

[...] Resistance to colistin has emerged before. However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria.

There's plenty to blame - pumping livestock full of them for "preventative measures", doctors prescribing them for colds and flus, and people not finishing a course when they are prescribed them - but the future currently looks bleak.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Despite being the butt of social media jokes for a while now, Google+ isn't going anywhere - it has just been given a revamp.

The "new" site will now focus on "collections" and "communities" - making it more an interest-network than a personal one.

In a blog post, Google said: "Today, we're starting to introduce a fully redesigned Google+ that puts Communities and Collections front and centre. Now focused around interests, the new Google+ is much simpler.

"And it's more mobile-friendly - we've rebuilt it across web, Android and iOS so that you'll have a fast and consistent experience whether you are on a big screen or small one."

Another post, on Google+, said the company had been visiting users in their homes to get feedback.

"the company had been visiting users in their homes to get feedback."?

Original Submission