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Phoenix666 writes:

From a Science Daily article about an Iowa State University study (DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2015.1095624):

To reduce that [wealth and political power] gap, [assistant professor of education at Iowa State University] Katy Swalwell says it's necessary to look at whether the education system is part of the problem and unintentionally reproduces inequalities. She spent a semester observing social studies classes at an affluent, private school to examine how privileged students learn about and respond to social justice problems. The majority of students at the school - 86 percent - are white, and tuition is more than $30,000 a year. The results of her case study, published in the journal Curriculum Inquiry, emphasize the disconnect that exists between student perception and reality.
...
The goal of many social justice educators is to disrupt the status quo and challenge students' perceptions of why inequalities exist, Swalwell said. Many of the students she observed, however, were "fundamentally undisturbed" by what they were learning, despite the teacher's intentions. Swalwell included excerpts from student interviews in her paper that capture the general response.

One student told Swalwell: "I think [learning about injustice] can only help because we can reference it and sound really cool for saying it if people recognize it. Otherwise, we can help educate people on the things we learned about that maybe they didn't have the opportunity to learn about. Or, we just know it and that's great for us. Either way there's no downside to knowledge."

Throughout the semester, the teacher introduced students to various perspectives - both liberal and conservative - on civic engagement and social justice reform. The school also offered a social activism program, which required students to get involved in causes such as LGBTQ rights, issues facing incarcerated women, religious tolerance and reforming drug policies. Swalwell documented class lectures, discussions and field trips, analyzed course material and assignments, and conducted interviews with the students and teacher.

Most students expressed genuine concern about inequalities, but connected the problems to individual shortcomings rather than systematic disadvantages. Instead of seeing their privilege as part of the problem, several students saw their wealth and status as a solution; a way to make a difference, Swalwell said.

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Phoenix666 writes:

During its final close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, NASA's Cassini spacecraft revisited a landscape, and a mystery, that it had originally glimpsed more than 10 years earlier.

In views of this terrain captured during a 2005 flyby (see PIA06188), imaging scientists noticed small dark spots of an uncertain nature. Observing the same features in this false-color view, at higher resolution than before, provides some new insights. The spots are evidently large, relatively dark protrusions of solid "bedrock" ice and ice blocks scattered on and around the prominent ridge that runs across the scene from north to south (from top center toward lower left). The ice blocks range in size from dozens to hundreds of feet (tens to hundreds of meters).

The false-color view uses an ultraviolet filter centered at 338 nanometers for blue, a green filter centered at 568 nanometers for green and a near-infrared filter centered at 930 nanometers for red—thus covering a wider spectrum region than the human eye.

Looks like Earth.

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takyon writes:

After over a year of delays, AMD has launched its 64-bit ARM server chips, the A1120, A1150, and A1170:

AMD has some stiff competition in the ARM chip arena now that Applied Micro has its X-Gene 1 out and X-Gene 2 chips ramping and Cavium is also shipping its first-generation ThunderX processors, both of which bring much more computing to bear than AMD's Seattle. Few of the ARM server chip makers believe they can take on Intel's hegemony in the datacenter with the Xeon processors head on with their first products, and they are being very careful to target their initial ARM processors at very specific workloads on the periphery of the core compute complexes at most organizations where the Intel Xeon prevails.

This is not a bad strategy, of course. This is precisely how Intel toppled proprietary minicomputers and mainframes and RISC/Unix platforms in the datacenter with the Xeons, starting from the PC and working its way up from file servers to core machines running mission critical applications. As The Next Platform has pointed out time and again, the attack usually comes from below when the processing technology changes in the platform, and in this case, the ARM upstarts are taking the chips preferred by smartphones and tablets and beefing it up to take on server jobs. The idea, according to ARM Holdings, the licensee of the ARM architecture, is to provide an increasingly broad and deep chip lineup across multiple vendors and by 2020 to take at least 25 percent of the server shipments in the world. It is an ambitious plan, and one that has had its bar raised from 20 percent only a year ago.

[...] AMD has been a part of this plan for several years now, and with the delivery of the Opteron A1100, it hopes to get a little revenue return on its development investment and set the stage for the future "K12" ARM server chips expected in 2017. Daniel Bounds, who took over as senior director of datacenter solutions at AMD last October, did not mention the K12 effort as part of the prebriefings concerning the Seattle chip. But with the Opteron A1100 launch, all eyes will turn to the future even as AMD tries to keep its partners and potential customers rooted in the present, which is still early days for the ARM assault on the datacenter.

[Continues...]

Phoenix666 writes:

Video-streaming giant Netflix has said it is going to stop subscribers from using internet proxies to view content not available in their home countries.

Due to licensing agreements, Netflix content varies between countries - many users have a virtual private network (VPN) or other proxy to get round this.

The firm said it would increase efforts in the next few weeks to block the use of such proxies.

Netflix expanded streaming services to more than 130 countries last week.

But some countries have more content than others - for example, the Australian Netflix catalogue has only about 10% of the content available to its US subscribers.

David Fullagar, vice president of content delivery architecture, said in a blog post on Thursday that the US firm was in the process of licensing content around the world.

But he said it had a long way to go before it could offer viewers the same films and shows everywhere.

Oh well, back to BitTorrent.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

This, according to a press release, is the story of two famous tech CEOs rising to prominence. It is, naturally, a funny story set to music.

It will open April 21 at the Longacre Theatre, right in the middle of New York's famed theater district.

The press release gushes informatively about the two main characters. For example: "Before Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were the undisputed titans of technology, they were NERDS."

Who did, indeed, know?

Oddly, this oeuvre isn't exactly new. The Philadelphia Theatre Company first gave it a whirl in 2005. It even picked up some local awards. I cannot confirm that one was Best Musical Comedy Featuring Two Tech Luminaries Who Each Thought They Were Better Than The Other.

This version has, though, been updated.

"Nerds" was written by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner, each of whom has several comedic credits. The music is by Hal Goldberg, a veteran of fine theater.

The production has to include a number called, "Blue Screen of Death."

Original Submission

xpda writes:

The Bernie Sanders Campaign, through attorney Garvey Schubert Barer, has issued a DMCA takedown notice to Wikimedia for hosting Bernie Sanders' Logos. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) applies to copyright violations rather than trademarks. According to Techdirt, even if it did apply to trademarks, Wikimedia's hosting campaign logos is clearly fair use because there's no "use in commerce" on the Wikimedia site and no likelihood of confusion. The matter is clearly "fair-use" if Bernie Sanders is claiming copyright violation.

The logos have been removed from Wikimedia, which seems like a counterproductive move in more ways than one. Is Bernie Sanders really technologically clueless, or is there some political logic here?

Original Submission

SanityCheck writes:

I visited Forbes.com today out of force of habit. Ever since few weeks back, I would be greeted with a loading page advertising that since I was using AdBlock Plus I could no longer proceed. However something was different today, the site loaded. Does this mean that we have won a battle against online media outlets tracking our every move across the internet? Or is Forbes merely pulling back due to recent bad press?

[Ed Note: This story ran in Forbes regarding the test.]

[Update: Corrected the initial Forbes URL and trimmed a presumed tracker from the story URL. -Ed.]

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The powder bed fusion process, also known as selective laser melting (SLM), requires thin layers of a metal powder to be spread across a build area, where they are fused by a laser or electron beam based on a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model. The process is repeated until a part is produced, layer-by-layer from the bottom up.

Even though the method has quickly progressed into a production technology, 3D printing of metal parts (also known as metal additive manufacturing) for industries such as aerospace and health care is hampered, according to LLNL's Wayne King, by a lack of confidence in the finished parts. This hurdle, he said, can be overcome by a combination of physics-based modeling and high-performance computing to determine the optimal parameters for building each part.
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"If we want to put parts into critical applications, they have to meet quality criteria. Our project is focused on developing a science-based understanding of the additive manufacturing process to build confidence in the quality of parts," said King, leader of the Lab's Accelerated Certification of Additively Manufactured Metals Project (ACAMM). "We want to accelerate certification and qualification to take advantage of the flexibility that metal additive manufacturing gives us. Ideally, our plants would like to build a part on Monday that can be qualified and on the same machine on Tuesday build a different part that can also be qualified."

The team's comprehensive powder model addresses the formation, evolution and solidification of the melt pool, and could be used to better understand how laser power, speed, beam size and shape affect different types of metals and develop parameters for new materials, the researchers said. It also could provide insights into the dominant physical processes in the laser-powder interaction and guide improvements to the SLM method in the future, according to Andy Anderson, a co-author on the paper.

The part-scale model simulates the 3D printing of full-scale parts, calculating the effects of stress and heat arising from a given type of metal and laser process parameters. It could improve predictions of deformation and stresses during printing that can lead to part failure, as well as help improve quality, eliminating much of the guesswork involved in creating new parts.

The original paper was published in Applied Physics Reviews (DOI: 10.1063/1.4937809).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Kentucky legislator is sponsoring a bill that would temporarily ban the upload of photos, videos, or other information about injury or accident victims:

Bystanders who post pictures on social media from the scene of a wreck could face fines under a proposal before the Kentucky General Assembly. A bill assigned to the House Judiciary Committee would prohibit anyone who witnesses "an event that could reasonably result in a serious physical injury" from publishing information about that event on the Internet for at least an hour if their posting could identify potential victims.

Violators could be fined $20 to $100 per incident. Exceptions are made for the news media, victims of the event and emergency responders at the event.

The sponsor of House Bill 170, Republican state Rep. John "Bam" Carney of Campbellsville, said Monday that he wouldn't push the bill this session. "It's purely my intent to get a discussion going out there, asking people to be more respectful about what they put on social media," Carney said. "We've had some incidents, including one in my community, and I'd hate for anyone to learn about the loss of a loved one through social media."

One local official who has spoken to Carney about the bill said police are troubled by real-time Internet posts about car crashes and other life-threatening incidents.

Exceptions for the news media? Carney obviously didn't get the fax that anybody with a camera and ability to upload videos and photos online can be considered a member of the "news media". This unconstitutional bill was spotted at The Register.

Kentucky House Bill 170: AN ACT relating to the use of electronic media.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

from the unwelcome-in-its-natural-habitat dept.

Bloomberg reports:

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada voted 3-0 [January 13] to deny a request by the state consumer advocate and solar companies to stay fees put into effect on Jan. 1, Peter Kostes, a spokesman for the commission, said in an e-mailed statement. The decision came after residents, solar workers, and activists including actor Mark Ruffalo spoke out against the fees at a hearing.

The solar industry has turned its attention to Nevada, where regulators last month approved a boost in fixed monthly fees and a cut in credits for excess clean energy for customers with rooftop panels. The rules apply to both existing and new home solar users. Residential installers SolarCity Corp. and Sunrun Inc. have stopped business in Nevada and announced hundreds of job cuts in reaction to the policy change.

State and federal programs that promote wider use of clean energy have helped make rooftop systems the fastest-growing part of the solar market. That's led to friction between companies that install and operate them, and utilities that view them as a threat to revenue.

Some traditional power companies have asked regulators to revise the programs, saying they force non-solar customers to subsidize those who use the green technology. Thirty-one U.S. states are considering changes to rooftop solar policies, according to Moody's Investors Service.

NPR (formerly National Public Radio) reports:

In response to Nevada regulators, both Sunrun and rival SolarCity say they will stop selling and installing new panels in the state. SolarCity says it will lay off 550 employees. Sunrun says it will cut hundreds more.

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AnonTechie writes:

More people in Europe are dying than are being born, according to a new report co-authored by a Texas A&M University demographer. In contrast, births exceed deaths, by significant margins, in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., with few exceptions.

Texas A&M Professor of Sociology Dudley Poston, along with Professor Kenneth Johnson, University of New Hampshire, and Professor Layton Field, Mount St. Mary's University, published their findings in Population and Development Review this month.

The researchers find that 17 European nations have more people dying in them than are being born (natural decrease), including three of Europe's more populous nations: Russia, Germany and Italy. In contrast, in the U.S. and in the state of Texas, births exceed deaths by a substantial margin.

http://phys.org/news/2016-01-people-europe-dying-born.html

[Abstract]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00089.x/abstract (DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00089.x)

[Source]: Is Europe Dying

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Before the Internet linked up every American household, PC users still found ways to make remote contact—and play games—with each other. They did so using ordinary telephone phone lines and dial-up modems, often directing the devices to call Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) in their local area code. BBSes reigned supreme in the non-academic online landscape from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.

Once connected to these mostly hobby-run services, users could bring up a list of games to play. These early online games became known as "door games" because once a user was connected to a BBS, the games were accessed and played through a figurative "doorway" between the BBS software and the separate, independently running game program.

Most of the time, these games were multiplayer only in a turn-based sense, with successive users calling in at different times of day to play their allotted minutes of game time or turns. Games played simultaneously with multiple players did exist, but they were the exception rather than the rule due to the expense of running a multi-line BBS system.

A trip down memory lane.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The low pressure area known as System 90L developed rapidly since Jan. 13 and became Hurricane Alex on Jan. 14. Several satellites and instruments captured data on this out-of-season storm. NASA's RapidScat instrument observed sustained winds shift and intensify in the system and NASA's Aqua satellite saw the storm develop from a low pressure area into a sub-tropical storm. NOAA's GOES-East satellite data was made into an animation that showed the development of the unusual storm.

Twice on Jan. 13 NASA's RapidScat instrument measured the strongest sustained winds in what was then a tropical low pressure area called "System 90L." RapidScat flies aboard the International Space Station. RapidScat's earliest view of System 90L showed strongest sustained winds were near 27 meters per second (mps)/60.4 mph/97.2 kph) and were located northwest of center. Eight hours later at 1200 UTC (7 a.m. EST) strongest sustained winds shifted east of center and increased to near 30 mps (67.1 mph/108 kph), making them tropical-storm force.

Later in the day at 2100 UTC (4 p.m. EST) satellite images indicated that the low pressure system developed into a subtropical storm and was named Alex. At the time, Alex was located near 27.1 degrees north latitude and 30.8 degrees west longitude, about 782 miles (1,260 km) south-southwest of the Azores.

It's the first hurricane to form in the month of January since 1938.

Storm tracking at the National Hurricane Center.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward wrote in to submit news of a drug trial gone bad. Early news reports mistakenly identified the drug involved as "cannabis-based". From The Guardian:

French drug trial leaves one brain dead and three facing permanent damage

One man is brain dead and three others could face irreversible neurological damage after they volunteered to take part in a drugs trial in western France.

Six volunteers remain in hospital in Rennes, Brittany, after taking part in the Phase 1 trial for a new experimental medication designed to treat mood disorders such as anxiety, which was under development by the Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial.

[...] Contrary to earlier reports, the health minister Marisol Touraine stressed that the drug did not contain cannabis or any element derived from cannabis. The minister said the drug was meant to act on the body's endocannabinoid system. It had an impact on receptors which regulate pain, mood or appetite.

The BBC reports that the drug was given to 90 subjects.

French article: Accident «inédit» lors d'un essai clinique: un homme en état de mort cérébrale, cinq hospitalisés. Biotrial's brief announcement.

From Wikipedia:

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a group of endogenous cannabinoid receptors located in the mammalian brain and throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems, consisting of neuromodulatory lipids and their receptors. Known as "the body's own cannabinoid system", the ECS is involved in a variety of physiological processes including appetite, pain-sensation, mood, and memory, and in mediating the psychoactive effects of cannabis.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

China will launch a mission to land on the dark side of the moon in two years' time, state media reported, in what will be a first for humanity.

The moon's far hemisphere is never directly visible from Earth and while it has been photographed, with the first images appearing in 1959, it has never been explored.

China's Chang'e-4 probe—named for the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology—will be sent to it in 2018, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Chang'e-4's lander and rover will make a soft landing on the back side of the moon, and will carry out in-place and patrolling surveys," it cited the country's lunar exploration chief Liu Jizhong as saying on Thursday.

Beijing sees its military-run, multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in transforming the once poverty-stricken nation.

Pfft. The dark side of the moon was done, like, 42 years ago.

The state run news agency, Xinhua, has published a news release.

Original Submission