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takyon writes:

YouTube wants to debunk conspiracy theory videos using other resources, such as Wikipedia:

In Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told the audience at the South by Southwest Interactive conference that the social video site plans to defuse conspiracy theory content by pairing it with corrective information culled from Wikipedia – a site editable by more or less anyone. However, she neglected to inform Wikipedia, which on Wednesday reacted with bemusement.

In a statement, the crowdsourced encyclopedia's parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, said, "We are always happy to see people, companies and organizations recognize Wikipedia's value as a repository of free knowledge. In this case, neither Wikipedia nor the Wikimedia Foundation are part of a formal partnership with YouTube. We were not given advance notice of this announcement." The foundation urged companies that use Wikipedia's content – that would be YouTube – "to give back in the spirit of sustainability."

Wikipedia contributor Phoebe Ayers framed the issue more bluntly, commenting via Twitter, "It's not polite to treat Wikipedia like an endlessly renewable resource with infinite free labor."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A study has found evidence that "treaty brides" were brought from Romania and Bulgaria to Bavaria around 500 C.E. Their elongated skulls could be the result of artificial cranial deformation practiced back home:

In a handful of medieval Bavarian farming hamlets populated mostly by blue-eyed blondes, more than a dozen women with dark hair, dark eyes, and unusual elongated skulls would have stood out. A new DNA study suggests that these women, whose striking skulls have been unearthed from nearby grave sites, were high-ranking "treaty brides" from Romania and Bulgaria, married off to cement political alliances. Yet others are skeptical. "This is one of the strangest things I've ever read," says Israel Hershkovitz, an anthropologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, who specializes in ancient human anatomy. "I don't buy it."

The remains, which date to about 500 C.E., are part of a pattern of elongated skulls found in gravesites across early and medieval Europe and Asia. The Bavarian skulls were unearthed alongside regularly shaped ones near six modern southern German towns along the Danube River starting in the late 1960s. Few clues exist as to their identities, or how and why the skulls were stretched. Curious about the "tower-shaped" skulls, anthropologist and population geneticist Joachim Burger, from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, set out to sequence their DNA.

Burger and colleagues compared the DNA from tiny bone fragments in the graves with each other and those of modern populations throughout Europe and Asia. The DNA of 10 men—and 13 women with normal skulls—most closely matched modern populations in central and northern Europe. Most had genes for blond hair and blue eyes. But DNA from the 13 women with elongated skulls told a different tale. The genetics of these women matched modern populations in southeastern Europe, specifically Bulgaria and Romania [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1719880115] [DX], and they had genes for darker hair and eyes, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Movable Silicon 'Lenses' Enable Neutrons to See New Range of Details Inside Objects

An innovative new way to focus beams of neutrons might allow scientists to probe the interiors of opaque objects at a size range they were blind to previously, allowing them to explore the innards of objects from meteorites to cutting-edge manufactured materials without damaging them.

The method, published today in Physical Review Letters, could convert what historically has been a support tool for neutron science into a full-fledged scanning technique that could reveal details ranging in size from 1 nanometer up to 10 micrometers within larger objects. The approach provides this tool, known as neutron interferometry, with what are essentially its first movable "lenses" capable of zooming in and out on details in this size range — a range that has been difficult to probe, even with other neutron scanning methods.

More precisely, these "lenses" are silicon wafers acting as diffraction gratings, which take advantage of neutrons' wavelike properties. The gratings split and redirect a neutron beam so that the waves bounce off an object's edges and then collide with one another, creating a visible moiré interference pattern representative of the object that is easy for experts to interpret.

Three Phase-Grating Moiré Neutron Interferometer for Large Interferometer Area Applications (open, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.113201) (DX)

We demonstrate a three phase-grating moiré neutron interferometer in a highly intense neutron beam as a robust candidate for large area interferometry applications and for the characterization of materials. This novel far-field moiré technique allows for broad wavelength acceptance and relaxed requirements related to fabrication and alignment, thus circumventing the main obstacles associated with perfect crystal neutron interferometry.

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takyon writes:

In some U.S. states, a drug offense can land you on a registry alongside convicted sex offenders:

But under Kansas law, having a drug conviction means that her photograph and other identifying details are displayed in the same public registry that includes more than 10,000 convicted sex offenders. Many registrants also appear on third-party websites like "Offender Radar" and "Sex Offender Spy," and it's easy for a visitor to miss the single word—"drug"—that differentiates Byers's crime from those the public judges much more harshly. "People who don't know me are going to look at me like I'm a horrible person for being on that list," she said.

Lawmakers have long justified sex offender registries as a way to notify people about potentially dangerous neighbors or acquaintances, while critics say they fail to prevent crime and create a class of social outcasts. Over the years, several states have expanded their registries to add perpetrators of other crimes, including kidnapping, assault, and murder. Tennessee added animal abuse. Utah added white-collar crimes. A few states considered but abandoned plans for hate crime and domestic abuse registries. At least five states publicly display methamphetamine producers.

But Kansas went furthest, adding an array of lesser drug crimes; roughly 4,600 people in the state are now registered as drug offenders. As deaths from opioids rise, some public officials have focused on addiction as a public health issue. Kansas offers a different approach, as law enforcement officials argue that the registry helps keep track of people who may commit new offenses and cautions the public to avoid potentially dangerous areas and individuals. At the same time, many registrants say it can be hard to move on when their pasts are just a click away for anyone to see.

Anonymous Cow Herd writes:

"The blockchain method primarily used by those engaging in cryptocurrency transactions is a decentralized mechanism where all the information is stored in blocks, can be viewed and altered by registered users. In the case of Sierra Leone elections, allows the votes to be seen by voters who are registered within the system, in the public ledgers, but only allowed authorized persons to make any changes, this, in turn, prevents the chances of fraud since the voting information is available to all the blockchain users."

URL: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sierra-Leone-Announces-Run-Off-Elections-Becomes-First-Country-With-Blockchain-Powered-Elections-20180314-0013.html

I would personally like it if they would explain the mechanics of their so-called "blockchain" to us mortals.

As I understand a blockchain, it is an extensible data structure that (when used in a bitcoin context) incorporates sequentially applied, recursively structured self-referential checksum mechanisms to counter efforts at tampering with the contents of the blocks; usually, via recursive encryption.

~childo

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for boru

A research team of multiple institutes, including the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and University of Tokyo, released an unprecedentedly wide and sharp dark matter map based on the newly obtained imaging data by Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. The dark matter distribution is estimated by the weak gravitational lensing technique (Figure 1, Movie). The team located the positions and lensing signals of the dark matter halos and found indications that the number of halos could be inconsistent with what the simplest cosmological model suggests. This could be a new clue to understanding why the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

[...] The team is leading a large scale imaging survey using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) to probe the mystery of the accelerating Universe. The key here is to examine the expansion history of the Universe very carefully.

In the early Universe, matter was distributed almost but not quite uniformly. There were slight fluctuations in the density which can now be observed through the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. These slight matter fluctuations evolved over cosmic time because of the mutual gravitational attraction of matter, and eventually the large scale structure of the present day Universe become visible. It is known that the growth rate of the structure strongly depends on how the Universe expands. For example, if the expansion rate is high, it is hard for matter to contract and the growth rate is suppressed. This means that the expansion history can be probed inversely through the observation of the growth rate.

It is important to note that growth rate cannot be probed well if we only observe visible matter (stars and galaxies). This is because we now know that nearly 80 % of the matter is an invisible substance called dark matter. The team adopted the 'weak gravitation lensing technique.' The images of distant galaxies are slightly distorted by the gravitational field generated by the foreground dark matter distribution. Analysis of the systematic distortion enables us to reconstruct the foreground dark matter distribution.

Source: https://www.subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2018/02/26/index.html

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The textbook symptoms of ADD — inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity — fail to reflect several of its most powerful characteristics; the ones that shape your perceptions, emotions, and motivation. Here, Dr. William Dodson explains how to recognize and manage ADHD's true defining features.

The DSM-V – the bible of psychiatric diagnosis – lists 18 diagnostic criteria for attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD). Clinicians use this to identify symptoms, insurance companies use it to determine coverage, and researchers use it to determine areas of worthwhile study.

The problem: These criteria only describe how ADHD affects children ages 6-12, and that has led to misdiagnosis, misunderstanding, and failed treatment for teens, adults, and the elderly.

Most people, clinicians included, have only a vague understanding of what ADHD means. They assume it equates to hyperactivity and poor focus, mostly in children. They are wrong.

When we step back and ask, "What does everyone with ADHD have in common, that people without ADHD don't experience?" a different set of symptoms take shape.

From this perspective, three defining features of ADHD emerge that explain every aspect of the condition:
1. an interest-based nervous system
2. emotional hyperarousal
3. rejection sensitivity

Not precisely news but damned if it's not an interesting read if it has any relevance in your life.

Source: https://www.additudemag.com/symptoms-of-add-hyperarousal-rejection-sensitivity/

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Motor Trend magazine has passed 15K miles with their long term Chevrolet Bolt test car. The latest report http://www.motortrend.com/cars/chevrolet/bolt-ev/2017/2017-chevrolet-bolt-ev-review-long-term-update-6/ discusses charging away from home and work -- availability and use of Level 2/3 chargers in and around Los Angeles.

I've used public chargers from several companies, including ChargePoint, EVgo, Blink, and EV Connect, but a cursory internet search turns up at least 15 providers operating in the U.S. Every single one of them would prefer you sign up for a membership and download their app, but every one I've tried also allows for guest use. There are perks for membership, including better rates, quicker payment, and quicker activation at the charger, but the real benefit is not having to deal with guest access. At minimum, it requires entering a credit card number either online or through their app, which you'll have to download. At worst, it requires calling the customer service line, waiting on hold, then reading them the charger's ID number and your credit card number over the phone. Some EVgo stations I've used have credit card readers, but every one I've found hasn't worked. Prices vary wildly as the charging networks generally let the owner of the station set the rates. Some charge a flat fee, some charge by total time or electricity used, and others do both.

(discussion of the author's experiences over the 15K miles including trips that required charging at the destination and also airport runs with the Bolt full of people and luggage)

I've waited to address public charging until my time with the Bolt is nearly up so I could provide as complete a picture as possible. Here in Southern California, where EVs are popular and public chargers are fairly common, public charging is workable if mildly inconvenient. So far, the number of chargers seems to have mostly kept pace with the popularity of EVs, but we're already seeing lines forming at Tesla Superchargers. As EVs become more common, the public charging network is going to need to grow at the same or better pace to keep up, and whether that happens is anyone's guess. If electric cars are ever going to be ubiquitous like some people predict, we're going to need a lot more chargers, and we're going to need them everywhere, at nearly every parking space, so people who can't charge at home or are running low can top up. That's going to take a lot of investment from a lot of people, and it remains to be seen if supply keeps up with demand.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Cannabis website to California: Section 230 protects us from your demands

A popular cannabis community website, Weedmaps, which features ads and other listings related to marijuana businesses across the Golden State, has invoked a federal law as a way to stave off the ire of California's cannabis authorities.

Last month, the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the state entity that oversees California's newly legal recreational marijuana market, sent a letter to Weedmaps last month, saying that because the website allows ads for companies that are not officially licensed by the state, it is in violation of state law. (The spat was first reported by The Sacramento Bee.)

On Monday, Weedmaps executives responded with their own letter, saying that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that removes liability of a website for the actions of its users, acts as its shield. Digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have argued that Section 230 is what protects the Web as a whole—publishers don't have to worry about being sued if one of their users is accused of violating the law.

A revision of the law is currently being proposed with the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, which, according to the EFF, would "punch a hole" in Section 230. The new bill is aimed squarely at Backpage, a notorious website that continues to allow prostitution advertisements.

Related: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - 20 Years of Protecting Intermediaries

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requerdanos writes:

A gentleman in the southeast orange-growing state was caught and accused of mining cryptocurrency at work, according to the Tampa Bay Times:

TAMPA — A Department of Citrus employee was arrested after he used state computers to produce virtual currency for himself, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Matthew McDermott, 51, of Davenport was the information technology manager for the Florida Department of Citrus, the agency that oversees the state's citrus industry... [H]e used several computers in the Department of Citrus to mine for virtual currency, which include bitcoin and litecoin.

He wasn't just mining--he was allegedly really, really into it, to the tune of tens of thousands of Department of Citrus dollars:

Utility bills for the department jumped by more than 40 percent between October 2017 and January 2017, at a cost of about $825... McDermott also spent more than $22,000 using a state purchasing card between July and December, [buying] 24 graphic processing units, the FDLE said.

"Grand Theft" and "Official Misconduct" were his charges upon arrest. With bail set at just $5,000 (less than 1 BTC), he probably made bail pretty quickly.

It seems that mining cryptocurrency is the new en vogue temptation scandal.

Also at The Week, whose story mentions the previous incident at Russian nuclear facilities.

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AnonTechie writes:

In a study published March 9 [PDF] in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers announced the discovery that all disk galaxies rotate about once every billion years, no matter their size or mass.

“It’s not Swiss watch precision,” said Gerhardt Meurer, an astronomer from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), in a press release. “But regardless of whether a galaxy is very big or very small, if you could sit on the extreme edge of its disk as it spins, it would take you about a billion years to go all the way round.”

To carry out the study, the researchers measured the radial velocities of neutral hydrogen in the outer disks of a plethora of galaxies — ranging from small dwarf irregulars to massive spirals. These galaxies differed in both size and rotational velocity by up to a factor of 30. With these radial velocity measurements, the researchers were able to calculate the rotational period of their sample galaxies, which led them to conclude that the outer rims of all disk galaxies take roughly a billion years to complete one rotation. However, the researchers note that further research is required to confirm the clock-like spin rate is a universal trait of disk galaxies and not just a result of selection bias.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/03/14/galaxies-rotate-billion-years/

[Source]: Astronomy.Com

[Also Covered By]: ZME Science

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The black turtleneck-wearing founder of Theranos has been accused of swindling investors out of $700 million for blood-testing technology that amounted to smoke and mirrors. However, Elizabeth Holmes will only have to pay a $500,000 fine and surrender millions of worthless shares:

The Blood Unicorn Theranos Was Just a Fairy Tale

[...] Securities and Exchange Commission today brought fraud charges against Holmes, Theranos and its former president, Sunny Balwani, and its complaint alleges pretty strongly that the investors were just as bamboozled as everybody else. In fact, Theranos made direct use of its positive press to raise money: It "sent investors a binder of background materials," which included "articles and profiles about Theranos, including the 2013 and 2014 articles from The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Fortune that were written after Holmes provided them with interviews" and that included her misleading claims about the state of Theranos's technology. She also repeated those claims to investors directly: "For instance, Holmes and Balwani told one investor that Theranos' proprietary analyzer could process over 1,000 Current Procedural Terminology ('CPT') codes and that Theranos had developed a technological solution for an additional 300 CPT codes," even though "Theranos' analyzers never performed comprehensive testing or processed 1,000 CPT codes in its clinical lab," and in fact never processed more than 12 tests on its TSPU. And Theranos would even do a little pantomime blood-draw demonstration directly on the investors:

This initial meeting was often followed by a purported demonstration of Theranos' proprietary analyzers, the TSPU, and the miniLab. In several instances, potential investors would be taken by Holmes and Balwani to a different room to view Theranos' desktop computer-like analyzers. A phlebotomist would arrive to draw their blood through fingerstick, using a nanotainer, a Theranos-developed collection device. Then the sample was either inserted into the TSPU or taken away for processing. Based on what they saw, potential investors believed that Theranos had tested their blood on either an earlier-generation TSPU or the miniLab. As Holmes knew, or was reckless in not knowing, however, Theranos often actually tested their blood on third-party analyzers, because Theranos could not conduct all of the tests it offered prospective investors on its proprietary analyzers.

Also at The New York Times, TechCrunch, and Time.

Previously: Theranos Introduces New Product to Distract from Scandal
Theranos Lays Off 340, Closes Labs and "Wellness Centers"
Theranos Given Indirect Lifeline From Softbank

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

TechDirt reports

For game developers and publishers, there are lots of ways to react to the modding community that so often creates new and interesting aspects to their games. Some companies look to shut these modding communities down completely, some threaten them over supposed copyright violations, and some developers choose to embrace the modding community and let mods extend the life of their games to ridiculous lengths.

But few studios have gone as far to embrace modders as developer 1C, makers of IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover. The flight-sim game, released way back in 2011, burst onto the gaming market with decidedly luke-warm reviews. Most of the critiques and public commentary surrounding the game could be best summarized as: "meh". But a modding community sprung up around the game, calling itself Team Fusion, and developed a litany of mods for IL-2. Rather than looking at these mods as some sort of threat, 1C instead worked with Team Fusion and developed an official re-release of the game incorporating their work.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover BLITZ Edition is the result. Officially sanctioned and released under the banner of original developers 1C, it combines the original game with all the work that the fans at Team Fusion Simulations--now given access to the game's source code--were able to cook up.

This work includes new planes, new graphics options, new damage and weapon [modeling] updated visual effects.

You can buy BLITZ if you're coming into the game fresh, but if you already owned Cliffs of Dover, BLITZ was added to your Steam library for free late last year.

1C has also gone out of its way to highlight that BLITZ is in part the work of the Team Fusion modders and even announced the new release with comments on how much work the mods do to clean up the serious flaws in the original game. Other studios ought to be paying attention, because this is how it's done.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

How can we understand the process by which an attack type popularized in the West Bank became the tactic of choice for a white supremacist in the United States? The best way to do so—and to predict the spread of new tactics—may come from an unconventional source: epidemiology, the science of the spread of disease.

[...] Just as in epidemiology, where an outbreak in one area triggers concern in neighboring regions, so too should an outbreak in one operational area serve as a warning to other, geographically related areas. Thus, at this point the outbreak in Israel should have indicated the likelihood that the tactic would spread, at least elsewhere in the region. Here an understanding of vectors is key. A fairly broad definition of a vector is that it is a carrier that transmits a given infectious agent between organisms.

[...] Employing an epidemiological perspective will give security forces and operational planners more time to prepare for the arrival of the tactic and may ultimately save lives. Understanding when the prevalence of a tactic has reached outbreak levels can provide a warning to other operational environments. Monitoring vectors can provide warning of how and where a tactic may spread and whether it is likely that the tactic will reach pandemic or hyperendemic proportions. Even if epidemiological language is not employed, there is still value in an epidemiological approach to describing the prevalence and media coverage of tactics in operating environments.

VEHICLE RAMMING, FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO CHARLOTTESVILLE: HOW DO TACTICS SPREAD?

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

The Raspberry Pi Blog announces:

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is now on sale now for $35, featuring:

• 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU
• Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2
• Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0)
• Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT)
• Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting
• Improved thermal management

Alongside a 200MHz increase in peak CPU clock frequency we have roughly three times the wired and wireless network throughput, and the ability to sustain high performance for much longer periods.

Video announcement here.

FAQs:

• Not discontinuing earlier Raspberry Pi models
• Raspberry Pi 1A+ continues to be the $20 entry-level "big" Raspberry Pi
• Considering possibility of introducing a Raspberry Pi 3A+
• CM!, CM3 and CM#L compute modules continue to be available.
• Still using VideoCore

Now I am left to wonder how many amps the power supply wall wart needs to be.

Original Submission