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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” This famous quote by Isaac Newton points to an axiom that lies at the heart of The Sciences - knowledge precedes knowledge.

What we know today is entirely based upon what we learned in the past. This general pattern is echoed throughout recorded history by the revelation of one scientific mystery leading to other mysteries... other more compounding questions. In the vast majority of cases these mysteries and other questions are sprung from the source of an experiment with an unexpected outcome sparking the question: "why the hell did it do that?" This leads to more experiments which creates even more questions and next thing you know we go from moving around on horse-drawn carriages to landing drones on Mars in a few generations.

The observant of you will have noticed that I preceded a statement above with "the vast majority of cases." Apart from particle physics, almost all scientific discovery throughout recorded history has been made via experiment and observation. There are a few, however, that have been discovered hidden within the confines of an equation, only later to be confirmed with observation. One such discovery is the Black Hole, and how it was stumbled upon on a dusty chalkboard in the early 1900s will be the focal point of today's article.

Not exactly news but quite interesting just the same.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/02/05/black-holes-and-the-elusive-mystery-that-lies-within-an-equation/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have found experimental evidence for superionic ice that exists only at extremely high temperatures and pressures:

One of the most intriguing properties of water is that it may become superionic when heated to several thousand degrees at high pressure, similar to the conditions inside giant planets like Uranus and Neptune. This exotic state of water is characterized by liquid-like hydrogen ions moving within a solid lattice of oxygen.

Since this was first predicted in 1988, many research groups in the field have confirmed and refined numerical simulations, while others used static compression techniques to explore the phase diagram of water at high pressure. While indirect signatures were observed, no research group has been able to identify experimental evidence for superionic water ice -- until now.

In a paper published today by Nature Physics [DOI: 10.1038/s41567-017-0017-4] [DX], a research team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Rochester provides experimental evidence for superionic conduction in water ice at planetary interior conditions, verifying the 30-year-old prediction.

Using shock compression, the team identified thermodynamic signatures showing that ice melts near 5000 Kelvin (K) at 200 gigapascals (GPa -- 2 million times Earth's atmosphere) -- 4000 K higher than the melting point at 0.5 megabar (Mbar) and almost the surface temperature of the sun.

Also at Laboratory Equipment.

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takyon writes:

Update: Launch seems to have been successful. The two side boosters landed nearly simultaneously. Footage from the drone ship was cut off. The car made it into space; but the third stage will need to coast through the Van Allen radiation belts for around six hours before it makes the final burn for trans-Mars injection.

Update 2: The middle booster of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket failed to land on its drone ship
Falcon Heavy Post-Launch Media Briefing - Megathread

SpaceX's newest rocket, the Falcon Heavy, is set to be launched at around 1:30 PM EST (6:30 PM UTC) today. The launch window extends to 4:00 PM EST (9:00 PM UTC).

SpaceX will attempt to recover all three boosters during the launch. The two previously-flown side boosters will attempt to land nearly simultaneously at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Landing Zones 1 and 2. The center core will attempt to land on a drone barge hundreds of miles off the coast of Florida.

The dummy payload for the Falcon Heavy is Elon Musk's personal 2008 Tesla Roadster. It is carrying a mannequin wearing SpaceX's space suit flight suit that will be used when the company begins to send astronauts to the International Space Station. The car will be launched into a heliocentric orbit that will bring it close to Mars (and back near Earth) periodically, and is equipped with three cameras. Its stereo system will be playing David Bowie's Space Oddity.

If the launch is successful, the Falcon Heavy could be flown within the next 3 to 6 months for a customer such as the U.S. Air Force, Arabsat, Inmarsat, or ViaSat.

Falcon Heavy will be capable of launching 63,800 kg to low-Earth orbit (LEO), 26,700 kg to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), 16,800 kg to Mars, or 3,500 kg to Pluto (New Horizons was 478 kg). It will supplant the Delta IV Heavy, which is capable of launching 28,790 kg to LEO or 14,220 kg to GTO. Space Launch System Block 1 will be capable of launching 70,000 kg to LEO (Block 1B: 105,000 kg to LEO, Block 2: 130,000 kg to LEO).

Musk has suggested that an additional two side boosters could be added to Falcon Heavy (perpendicularly?) to make a "Falcon Super Heavy" with even more thrust. This may not happen if SpaceX decides to focus on the BFR instead, which as planned would be able to launch 150,000 kg to LEO while being fully reusable and potentially cheaper than the Falcon 9 (or capable of launching 250,000 kg to LEO in expendable mode).

The webcast can be seen here or directly on YouTube.

• BBC: Elon Musk's huge Falcon Heavy rocket set for launch
• CNN: SpaceX Falcon Heavy: Everything you need to know
• Bloomberg: Musk Sets a Low Bar for SpaceX Launch
• Space.com: Is the Tesla Roadster Flying on the Falcon Heavy's Maiden Flight Just Space Junk?

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takyon writes:

Astronomers have detected exoplanets in a galaxy 3.8 billion light years away using gravitational microlensing:

In an incredible world first, astrophysicists have detected multiple planets in another galaxy, ranging from masses as small as the Moon to ones as great as Jupiter. Given how difficult it is to find exoplanets even within our Milky Way galaxy, this is no mean feat. Researchers at the University of Oklahoma achieved this thanks to clever use of gravitational microlensing.

[...] Oklahoma University astronomers Xinyu Dai and Eduardo Guerras studied a quasar 6 billion light-years away called RX J1131-1231, one of the best gravitationally lensed quasars in the sky. The gravitational field of a galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away between us and the quasar bends light in such a way that it creates four images of the quasar, which is an active supermassive black hole that's extremely bright in X-ray, thanks to the intense heat of its accretion disc.

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory, the researchers found that there were peculiar line energy shifts in the quasar's light that could only be explained by planets in the galaxy lensing the quasar. It turned out to be around 2,000 unbound planets with masses ranging between the Moon and Jupiter, between the galaxy's stars. "We are very excited about this discovery. This is the first time anyone has discovered planets outside our galaxy," Dai said.

Separately, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected dimethyl ether and methyl formate molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy and satellite of the Milky Way just 160,000 light years away. These molecules had not been previously detected outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The study also found evidence of methanol, which had already been detected in the LMC.

Probing Planets in Extragalactic Galaxies Using Quasar Microlensing (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aaa5fb) (DX)

The Detection of Hot Cores and Complex Organic Molecules in the Large Magellanic Cloud (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aaa079) (DX)

Also at Universe Today, National Geographic, the University of Oklahoma, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Google's Pixel Visual Core, the hidden image-processing chip inside the Pixel 2 family of phones, is getting an update today that lets it work its machine learning magic in third-party apps. Already enabled via Android 8.1 for the Pixel 2's main camera app, the Visual Core is now going to be operational within any other camera app that employs the relevant Google APIs. That means your Instagram photography and Snapchat Stories will get the benefit of the same improvements in processing speed and efficiency.

[...] The Android software update that activates the Pixel Visual Core for third-party apps is rolling out over the next few days, starting immediately.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/5/16973286/google-pixel-visual-core-pixel-2-app

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

86 per cent of teenagers have traces of Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical compound used to make plastics, in their body, an Engaged Research public engagement project in collaboration with the University of Exeter has found.

Measurable levels of BPA, an endocrine-disrupting chemical, were found in the urine of the vast majority of the 94 17-19 year olds tested, according to research at the University of Exeter led by Professor Lorna Harries, Associate Professor in Molecular Genetics, and Professor Tamara Galloway, Professor of Ecotoxicology.

They called for better labelling of packaging to enable consumers to choose BPA-free products.

The citizen-science project was carried out in a real-world setting to provide young people with first-hand experience of all aspects of scientific research.

https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2018-02-exposure-bisphenol-hard-everyday-life.html

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

No one knows exactly when the clones first appeared, but humans only became aware of them in the early 2000s.

It was a German aquarium owner who first brought it to scientists' attention. In 1995, he had acquired a bag of "Texas crayfish" from an American pet trader, only to find his tank inexplicably filling up with the creatures. They were all, it turns out, clones. Sometime, somewhere, the biological rule that making baby crayfish required a mama crayfish and papa crayfish was no longer inviolate. The eggs of the hobbyist's all-female crayfish did not need to be fertilized. They simply grew into copies of their "mother"—in a process known as parthenogenesis.

Crayfish specialists were astonished. No one had seen anything like it. But the proof was before their eyes and in 2003, scientists dubbed the creatures marbled crayfish, or Marmorkreb in German.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/attack-of-the-crayfish-clones/552236/

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow9228

Back in December, we reported on the Trump administration's proposed changes to tip-pooling regulations that would allow employers to pocket servers' tips as long as the employees continue to make minimum wage. That's right: Employers could take servers' tips and just dole out the minimum wage. But wait, it gets worse!

Turns out, the Department Of Labor knew how crappy this would make life for restaurant employees. This Bloomberg Law article, citing sources within the agency, reveals that the Department Of Labor knowingly buried its own data that showed restaurant workers would lose billions of dollars in gratuities under the new proposal.

Source: https://thetakeout.com/proposed-tip-pooling-law-is-so-bad-for-workers-the-gove-1822664111

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The NYT reports that a loosely knit group of crypto-currency multi-million/billionaires have chosen Puerto Rico to set up shop -- several reasons are given including a tax haven for US citizens and low real estate prices since the hurricane Maria destruction last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html

Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.

And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.

For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.

[...] The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.

"They call me up saying they're going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world," said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. "I can't engage in that."
 

I suggest that the SN posters who write, "everything should be organized by contracts, not government" please buy a one-way ticket to PR now! And then see if you can actually make it work. [With limited electricity and thus limited internet, they may not pester the rest of us so often.]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgMw6punQrE

This a somewhat evil version of Neal Stephenson's "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" that follows you around across multiple platforms (including RL) and dynamically adjusts your gaming experiences (and your in-game cash shop prices) to keep you hooked and spending on a specific video game. (That is any specific game for which the publisher pays these people their service fee).

Just to be clear, this is a service being sold to game publishers. The service probably gets their data directly from AT&T or whatever.

SidAlpha on youtube got his mitts on a leak of their sales presentation, and it includes all the usual social media gimmickry, but it also listens to your home life through your phone so it knows the best time to prod you to play again or when to layoff - purportedly if your phone hears your baby crying, the service will reduce the intensity of both your gaming experience and any ads within regardless of platform. Or so they say... a truly evil product would choose that moment to intensify its efforts!

Also, based on the input it collects, the AI moderates your in-game rewards, including not just loot drops but also the quality and length of the missions/quests it gives you.

This kind of intrusiveness makes loot crates look good, which makes me wonder if the whole thing wasn't ginned up in an EA public relations office.....

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The safe shorts are available as running pants or hotpants. "Starting off, we only produced a small series, but it was sold out really quickly", tells us the entrepreneur from Oberhausen. The demand – 80% of it in Germany/from Germany (the article says, mostly German women buy it) – is high.

The shorts feature a padded crotch (to reduce groping), a locked-down waist draw-string, cut- and tear-resistant fabric, and a 130 dB alarm.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/02/german-women-in-fear-new-anti-rape-pants-sell-out-very-quickly/

[Update: Mea culpa! A comment to the original story provided evidence that the source of this story is less than entirely reputable. The above link cites, as its source, Bild. My German is rusty, but it appeared that the Voice Of Europe story is a nearly-literal translation of the story appearing in Bild... So, all is good, right? Umm, nope. Though Bild is extremely popular, Wikipedia notes: "It is the best-selling non-Asian newspaper and has the eighth-largest circulation worldwide." (No wonder I recognized the title of the publication!) Reading further, however, reveals: "...Bild has been described as 'notorious for its mix of gossip, inflammatory language, and sensationalism' and as having a huge influence on German politicians. Its nearest English-language stylistic and journalistic equivalent is often considered to be the British national newspaper The Sun, the second highest selling European tabloid newspaper, with which it shares a degree of rivalry."

Ugh. I apologize for letting a story such as this make it to the front page. There's too much discussion on this story to remove it at this point, so I would just ask that those posting comments please try to avoid inflammatory, bigoted, and/or racist remarks and, instead, focus on the shorts' construction and functionality. --martyb]

[ I still say you should have blamed it on Russian hackers. --TMB ]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/china-surveillance/552203/

Imagine a society in which you are rated by the government on your trustworthiness. Your "citizen score" follows you wherever you go. A high score allows you access to faster internet service or a fast-tracked visa to Europe. If you make political posts online without a permit, or question or contradict the government's official narrative on current events, however, your score decreases. To calculate the score, private companies working with your government constantly trawl through vast amounts of your social media and online shopping data.

When you step outside your door, your actions in the physical world are also swept into the dragnet: The government gathers an enormous collection of information through the video cameras placed on your street and all over your city. If you commit a crime—or simply jaywalk—facial recognition algorithms will match video footage of your face to your photo in a national ID database. It won't be long before the police show up at your door.

This society may seem dystopian, but it isn't farfetched: It may be China in a few years. The country is racing to become the first to implement a pervasive system of algorithmic surveillance. Harnessing advances in artificial intelligence and data mining and storage to construct detailed profiles on all citizens, China's communist party-state is developing a "citizen score" to incentivize "good" behavior. A vast accompanying network of surveillance cameras will constantly monitor citizens' movements, purportedly to reduce crime and terrorism. While the expanding Orwellian eye may improve "public safety," it poses a chilling new threat to civil liberties in a country that already has one of the most oppressive and controlling governments in the world.

China's evolving algorithmic surveillance system will rely on the security organs of the communist party-state to filter, collect, and analyze staggering volumes of data flowing across the internet. Justifying controls in the name of national security and social stability, China originally planned to develop what it called a "Golden Shield" surveillance system allowing easy access to local, national, and regional records on each citizen. This ambitious project has so far been mostly confined to a content-filtering Great Firewall, which prohibits foreign internet sites including Google, Facebook, and The New York Times. According to Freedom House, China's level of internet freedom is already the worst on the planet. Now, the Communist Party of China is finally building the extensive, multilevel data-gathering system it has dreamed of for decades.

God bless China for showing the U.S. the way to protect its people.

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takyon writes:

Silicon Valley technologists, including former Google and Facebook employees, have formed the Center for Humane Technology:

A group of Silicon Valley technologists who were early employees at Facebook and Google, alarmed over the ill effects of social networks and smartphones, are banding together to challenge the companies they helped build.

The cohort is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology. Along with the nonprofit media watchdog group Common Sense Media, it also plans an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States.

The campaign, titled The Truth About Tech, will be funded with $7 million from Common Sense and capital raised by the Center for Humane Technology. Common Sense also has $50 million in donated media and airtime from partners including Comcast and DirecTV. It will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use of social media.

"We were on the inside," said Tristan Harris, a former in-house ethicist at Google who is heading the new group. "We know what the companies measure. We know how they talk, and we know how the engineering works."

Omidyar Network is listed as a key advisor/supporter.

Also at TIME.

Related: How Facebook Can Be Addictive
Facebook Founding President Sounds Alarm, Criticizes Facebook
Another Former Facebook Exec Speaks Out
FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks

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All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us writes:

An article on Ars Technica notes the continuing slide downward of Bitcoin prices (down below $9,000 per coin from a December peak of $19,500). It also notes some recent news about Facebook ads and crypto, SEC Action against a different cryptocurrency project, and rumors about a still different coin's possibility of insolvency.

Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about Tether, a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to the United States dollar. Tethers are supposed to be redeemable for dollars at any time, but in recent months Tether has struggled to gain access to the conventional banking system and has failed to produce a financial audit demonstrating its solvency.

I'm not sure if the article is connecting unconnected stories of problems or if the theme of trouble in crypto-land generally is valid. But this quote got me to thinking how much the state of cryptocurrency may be like the Free Banking Era in the United States in the 1800s and the Wildcat Banking that signaled its demise. We discuss cryptocurrency a lot on Soylent, but are the troubles of various operators all linked or is it unrelated coincidence?

[Ed. Note: The linked story at Ars Technica was updated to report that the price of one BitCoin dropped below $7000. As of this writing, coinbase reports the price dropped to about $6400 (Javascript required). Note this price is still $5500 ahead of where it was this time last year when it had just inched above $1000.]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Broadcom Raises Hostile Bid for Qualcomm to About $121 Billion

Broadcom Ltd. has raised its bid for Qualcomm Inc. to about $121 billion, in an attempt to force what could be the largest-ever technology deal.

The new offer of $82 a Qualcomm share will be Broadcom's final offer, according to a statement Monday. The deal would take the form of $60 in cash and the remainder in Broadcom shares.

Qualcomm's board previously rejected Broadcom's original $105 billion acquisition, and has since dug in against the threat of a takeover, with Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf dismissing the bid as not being worth consideration.

Also at NYT and Reuters:

Broadcom also plans to offer Qualcomm a higher-than-usual breakup fee in the event regulators thwart the deal, according to the sources. Typically, such break-up fees equate to approximately 3 percent to 4 percent of a deal's size.

Previously: Broadcom Offers $105 Billion for Qualcomm; Moves HQ Back to the USA

Original Submission