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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:104

posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @10:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-more-manssieres dept.

Cosmetic procedures are of increasing interest to millennial men, a new industry report found.

Thirty one percent of men said they were extremely likely to consider a cosmetic procedure, either surgical or noninvasive, according to a survey conducted by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Among that 31 percent, 58 percent were from 25 to 34 years old and 34 percent were aged 18 to 24 years. Both age ranges are members of the millennial generation.

The top reason cited by respondents pursuing cosmetic procedures to appear younger was wanting to feel better about themselves, followed by the desire to appear less tired or stressed, and then to please their partners. In the 25- to 34-year-old range, 42 percent cited wanting to remain competitive in their career as a reason to go under the knife.

The most common procedures for men are rhinoplasty (nose jobs), otoplasty (pinning back the ears), and treatment for gynecomastia (a surgery that reduces male breast size), according to Clyde H. Ishii, a surgeon and president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Part of the reason young men are increasingly interested in cosmetic procedures derives from social media, said Dr. Fred G. Fedok, president of the academy that conducted the survey. "People are more aware of their looks from different angles," he said. A growing interest in health and self-care also plays a part. "It's sort of like exercise," Fedok said about cosmetic procedures.

Apparently man boobs have gone out of fashion.


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @09:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the about-time dept.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533970545/man-accused-of-making-millions-of-robocalls-faces-biggest-ever-fcc-fine

Federal regulators on Thursday said they've identified "the perpetrator of one of the largest ... illegal robocalling campaigns" they have ever investigated.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $120 million fine for a Miami resident said to be single-handedly responsible for almost 97 million robocalls over just the last three months of 2016. Officials say Adrian Abramovich auto-dialed hundreds of millions of phone calls to landlines and cellphones in the U.S. and Canada and at one point even overwhelmed an emergency medical paging service.

Making prerecorded telemarketing phone calls to people without their prior consent is prohibited. So is making telemarketing calls to emergency phone lines and deliberately falsifying caller ID to disguise identity with the intent to harm or defraud consumers.


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @07:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the myopic-view dept.
Both takyon and Phoenix666 wrote in with news about the first Google Glass update in three years.

Dust off your Google Glasses, those who still have them — the $1,500 face computer is back in the spotlight today with a few updates.

Today, in its first update since September 2014, Google Glass got a "MyGlass" companion app update, some bug fixes and now supports Bluetooth. That means the new "XE23" version can now hook up mice, keyboards and other Bluetooth-enabled objects to their Glass device.

The app update rolled out yesterday and, in an even bigger surprise, the firmware update for Glass came out today.

So, Glass is alive? Well, yes, but it never really died. Despite seeming to go the way of the Dodo (you can't buy it anymore and Google shut down the website in 2015), it never really left us, it just "graduated" from Google X after failing to capture consumer attention. Google then quietly moved it into the enterprise. But, apparently, someone at Google is still working on the dork-inducing consumer version.

I'm still waiting for an update to my CueCat.


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @06:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the bitcoins-are-like-cash dept.

U.S. Congress wants to pass a bill that would put serious fines ($10K for bitcoins as opposed to $5K for cash, IIRC) and jail time (ten years, as opposed to five IIRC) if you cross the border without reporting your bitcoins (in addition to confiscating your bitcoins of course).

http://www.coindesk.com/forfeit-bitcoin-congressional-bill-draws-fire-border-check-rules/

A group of US lawmakers wants to see cryptocurrency holdings declared at the nation's border – and advocates of the tech are pushing back.

Introduced last month, the Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Counterfeiting Act of 2017 – which is actually the third iteration of a bill that debuted in 2011 – would bring a range of digital currency services under federal scrutiny, including those that provide transaction mixing services.

Yet, the provision that has attracted the particular ire of cryptocurrency advocates – especially those who prefer a regulation-light environment – is one that would make such holdings subject to disclosure requirements at US customs checkpoints. This means if a person trying to enter the country has more than $10,000 worth of bitcoin in their possession, under the proposed legal change, they would need to inform the relevant authorities.

Such requirements are already in place for payment methods like cash. But given the rising public profile of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, coupled with the perception among policymakers that they could be used to fund terrorist activities, is driving legislative efforts like the bill currently under consideration.

[...] Thus far, the bill hasn't advanced significantly since being introduced last month, public records show. On 25th May, the measure was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for further consideration.

At press time, representatives for Senators Chuck Grassley and Diane Feinstein hadn't responded to CoinDesk requests for comment. The bill is also being sponsored by Senators John Cornyn and Sheldon Whitehouse, constituting a group of two Republicans and two Democrats.


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @04:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the nighty-night dept.

Is human hibernation possible? Can we do it long enough to survive a long-duration spaceflight journey and wake up again on the other side?

[...] medicine is already playing around with human hibernation to improve people's chances to survive heart attacks and strokes. The current state of this technology is really promising.

They use a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which lowers the temperature of a person by a few degrees. They can use ice packs or coolers, and doctors have even tried pumping a cooled saline solution through the circulatory system. With the lowered temperature, a human's metabolism decreases and they fall unconscious into a torpor.

But the trick is to not make them so unconscious that they die. It's a fine line.

The results have been pretty amazing. People have been kept in this torpor state for up to 14 days, going through multiple cycles.

[...] Current plans for sending colonists to Mars would require 40 ton habitats to support 6 people on the trip. But according to SpaceWorks, you could reduce the weight down to 15 tons if you just let them sleep their way through the journey. And the savings get even better with more astronauts.

The crew probably wouldn't all sleep for the entire journey. Instead, they'd sleep in shifts for a few weeks. Taking turns to wake up, check on the status of the spacecraft and crew before returning to their cryosleep caskets.

What's the status of this now? NASA funded stage 1 of the SpaceWorks proposal, and in July, 2016 NASA moved forward with Phase 2 of the project, which will further investigate this technique for Mars missions, and how it could be used even farther out in the solar system.

[...] When humans freeze, ice crystals form in our cells, rupturing them permanently. There is one line of research that offers some hope: cryogenics. This process replaces the fluids of the human body with an antifreeze agent which doesn't form the same destructive crystals.

Scientists have successfully frozen and then unfrozen 50-milliliters (almost a quarter cup) of tissue without any damage.

Why limit therapeutic hypothermia to space travel? Use it to get through a visit with your in-laws.


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @03:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the ontology-rules dept.

Google is launching VR180, a format which ignores the world behind the camera:

Google is launching a new, more limited cinematic VR format that it hopes will be almost as accessible as regular YouTube videos. It's called VR180, a collaboration between YouTube and Google's Daydream VR division. And it'll be produced with a new line of cameras from Yi, Lenovo, and LG, as well as other partners who meet VR180 certification standards.

As the name suggests, VR180 videos don't stretch all the way around a viewer in VR. They're supposed to be immersive if you're facing forward, but you can't turn and glance behind you. Outside VR, they'll appear as traditional flat videos, but you can watch them in 3D virtual reality through the YouTube app with a Google Cardboard, Daydream, or PlayStation VR headset.

Creators can shoot the videos using any camera with a VR180 certification. Google's Daydream team is working with the three companies above, and the first of their VR180 products are supposed to launch this winter, at roughly the same price as a point-and-shoot camera. So far, the only image we've seen is the one above, a line drawing of Lenovo's design. It appears to have two wide-angle lenses that can shoot stereoscopic video, and it's a far cry from the expensive alien orbs that we often see in VR film shoots.

Highly Related: Virtual Reality Audiences Stare Straight Ahead 75% of the Time


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 23 2017, @01:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-fold dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

In a 1999 paper, Erik Demaine — now an MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science, but then an 18-year-old PhD student at the University of Waterloo, in Canada — described an algorithm that could determine how to fold a piece of paper into any conceivable 3-D shape.

It was a milestone paper in the field of computational origami, but the algorithm didn't yield very practical folding patterns. Essentially, it took a very long strip of paper and wound it into the desired shape. The resulting structures tended to have lots of seams where the strip doubled back on itself, so they weren't very sturdy.

At the Symposium on Computational Geometry in July, Demaine and Tomohiro Tachi of the University of Tokyo will announce the completion of a quest that began with that 1999 paper: a universal algorithm for folding origami shapes that guarantees a minimum number of seams.

"In 1999, we proved that you could fold any polyhedron, but the way that we showed how to do it was very inefficient," Demaine says. "It's efficient if your initial piece of paper is super-long and skinny. But if you were going to start with a square piece of paper, then that old method would basically fold the square paper down to a thin strip, wasting almost all the material. The new result promises to be much more efficient. It's a totally different strategy for thinking about how to make a polyhedron."

Demaine and Tachi are also working to implement the algorithm in a new version of Origamizer, the free software for generating origami crease patterns whose first version Tachi released in 2008.

Source: http://news.mit.edu/2017/algorithm-origami-patterns-any-3-D-structure-0622


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posted by martyb on Friday June 23 2017, @11:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the concrete-plans dept.

Today the Built Environment department's concrete printer starts printing the world's first 3-D printed reinforced, pre-stressed concrete bridge. The cycle bridge will be part of a new section of ring road around Gemert [Netherlands] in which the BAM Infra construction company is using innovative techniques.

[O]ne of the advantages of printing a bridge is that much less concrete is needed than in the conventional technique in which a mold is filled. By contrast, a printer deposits only the concrete where it is needed. This has benefits since in the production of cement a lot of CO2 is released and much less of this is needed for printed concrete. Another benefit lies in freedom of form: the printer can make any desired shape, and no wooden molding frames are needed.

They have managed to not only 3-D print concrete, they have also developed a technique to lay down a cable within the concrete so that it can be 'pre-stressed' — avoiding tensil stress.

The researchers successfully tested a 1:2 scale model under a 2000kg load.


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posted by n1 on Friday June 23 2017, @10:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the remember-imagination dept.

Imagination Technologies, a company known for its PowerVR GPUs and MIPS processors, saw its shares drop massively when it announced that Apple would make its own GPUs for the next iPhone. Now it is up for sale:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, "Imagination", "the Group") announces that over the last few weeks it has received interest from a number of parties for a potential acquisition of the whole Group. The Board of Imagination has therefore decided to initiate a formal sale process for the Group and is engaged in preliminary discussions with potential bidders.

The sale process for the MIPS and Ensigma operations, which commenced on 4 May 2017, is progressing well and indicative proposals have been received for both businesses. [...] There can be no certainty that any offer will be made for Imagination, nor that any transaction will be executed, nor as to terms of any such offer or transaction.

Also at PCMag, AppleInsider (Imagination is an AppleOutsider), and Reuters.


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posted by n1 on Friday June 23 2017, @08:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-like-my-metal dept.

If you like your coffee black, you may be someone who prefers strong flavours, takes good care of their health, or just wants to drink their coffee the way it’s supposed to be drunk. 

Or, you may be a psychopath.

At least, that’s according to a new study published in the journal Appetite, which found a correlation between a love of black coffee and sadist or psychopathic tendencies.

The research surveyed more than 1,000 adults, asking them to give their food and flavour preferences. The participants then took a series of personality tests assessing antisocial personality traits, such as sadism, narcissism and psychopathy. 

The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Innsbruck, found that a preference for bitter flavours was linked to psychopathic behaviour.

The study missed a key, deciding factor: the coffee that psychopaths drink black is instant.


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posted by mrpg on Friday June 23 2017, @07:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-in-two-months,-relax dept.

For the first time in almost a century the United States is preparing for a coast-to-coast solar eclipse, a rare celestial event millions of Americans, with caution, will be able to observe.

During the eclipse on August 21—the first of its kind since 1918—the moon will pass between the sun and Earth, casting a dark shadow and making visible the sun's normally obscured atmosphere, or solar corona, as well as bright stars and planets.

Observers will be able to see the moon's 70-mile (113-kilometer) wide shadow from Oregon in the west to South Carolina in the east over the course of more than two daylight hours, with two minutes of darkness engulfing 14 states.

Almost 12 million Americans live within this strip of the country, while some two-thirds of the nation's population reside within a day's car ride, said Martin Knopp of the Department of Transportation.

The US will be the only country to experience the total eclipse, and international visitors are expected to descend for the event.

Spacecraft, NASA aircraft, more than 50 high-altitude balloons and astronauts aboard the International Space Station will capture images.


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posted by n1 on Friday June 23 2017, @05:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the dummies dept.

Bleeping Computer reports South Korean Web Hosting Provider Pays $1 Million in Ransomware Demand

Nayana, a web hosting provider based in South Korea, announced it is in the process of paying a three-tier ransom demand of nearly $1 million worth of Bitcoin, following a ransomware infection that encrypted data on customer' servers.

The ransomware infection appears has taken place on June 10, but Nayana admitted to the incident two days later, in a statement[1] on its website.

A Trend Micro analysis of the Nayana systems reveals endemic problems. It is no surprise that the hosting provider fell victim to this infection.

NAYANA's website runs on Linux kernel 2.6.24.2, which was compiled back in 2008. [...] Additionally, NAYANA's website uses Apache version 1.3.36 and PHP version 5.1.4, both of which were released back in 2006. Apache vulnerabilities and PHP exploits are well-known;[...]. The version of Apache NAYANA used is run as a user of nobody(uid=99), which indicates that a local exploit may have also been used in the attack.

The Register reports:

South Korean hosting co. pays $1M ransom to end eight-day outage

More than 150 servers were hit, hosting the sites of more than 3,400 mostly small business customers.

After a lengthy negotiation with the hackers, a demand for Bitcoin worth 5 billion won (nearly $4.4 million) was trimmed to around $1 million (397.6 Bitcoin), and the company paid up. The ransom was demanded in three [installments]; so far, two have been made.


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posted by mrpg on Friday June 23 2017, @04:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the next-evolutionary-step:-biosuits-for-fungi dept.

Have you ever heard of biofilms? They are slimy, glue-like membranes that are produced by microbes, like bacteria and fungi, in order to colonize surfaces. They can grow on animal and plant tissues, and even inside the human body on medical devices such as catheters, heart valves, or artificial hips. Biofilms protect microbes from the body's immune system and increase their resistance to antibiotics. They represent one of the biggest threats to patients in hospital settings. But there is good news - a research team led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has developed a novel enzyme technology that prevents the formation of biofilms and can also break them down.

This finding, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), creates a promising avenue for the development of innovative strategies to treat a wide variety of diseases and hospital-acquired infections like pneumonia, bloodstream and urinary tract infection. Biofilm-associated infections are responsible for thousands of deaths across North America every year. They are hard to eradicate because they secrete a matrix made of sugar molecules which form a kind of armour that acts as a physical and chemical barrier, preventing antibiotics from reaching their target sites within microbes.

"We were able to use the microbe's own tools against them to attack and destroy the sugar molecules that hold the biofilm together," says the study's co-principal investigator, Dr. Don Sheppard, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the MUHC and scientist from the Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health Program at the RI-MUHC. "Rather than trying to develop new individual 'bullets' that target single microbes we are attacking the biofilm that protects those microbes by literally tearing down the walls to expose the microbes living behind them. It's a completely new and novel strategy to tackle this issue."

No, this is not about movies on asexual reproduction shown in biology class, but removing an important impediment to anti-biotics.


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posted by n1 on Friday June 23 2017, @02:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the shooting-range dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

A sniper with Canada’s elite special forces in Iraq has shattered the world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in military history at a staggering distance of 3,540 metres.

The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed Thursday that a member of Joint Task Force 2 made the record-breaking shot, killing an Islamic State insurgent during an operation in Iraq within the last month.

[...] The elite sniper was using a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle while firing from a high-rise during an operation that took place within the last month in Iraq. It took under 10 seconds to hit the target.

[...] The military source said the JTF2 operation fell within the strictures of the government’s advise and assist mission.

[...] The kill was independently verified by video camera and other data, The Globe and Mail has learned.

[...] The skill of the JTF2 sniper in taking down an insurgent at 3,540 metres required math skills, great eyesight, precision of ammunition and firearms, and superb training.

Not our typical fare but the physics involved in making that shot are crazy.

Source: The Globe and Mail


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posted by mrpg on Friday June 23 2017, @01:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-mean-the-whole-continent?!?! dept.

America leads the world when it comes to access to higher education. But when it comes to health, environmental protection, and fighting discrimination, it trails many other developed countries, according to the Social Progress Imperative, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

The results of the group's annual survey, which ranks nations based on 50 metrics, call to mind other reviews of national well-being, such as the World Happiness Report released in March, which was led by Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, or September's Lancet study on sustainable development. In that one, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. took spots 1, 2, 3, and 28—respectively. 

The Social Progress Index released this week is compiled from social and environmental data that come as close as possible to revealing how people live. "We want to measure a country's health and wellness achieved, not how much effort is expended, nor how much the country spends on healthcare," the report states. Scandinavia walked away with the top four of 128 slots. Denmark scored the highest. America came in at 18. 

The Social Progress Index gives the US poor marks. America may, however, still lead the world in funny cat videos.


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