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DannyB writes:

Unexpected News that nobody could have foreseen.

Since the beginning of last year, 2000 Finns are getting money from the government each month – and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, aged 25–58, are all unemployed, and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution.

Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560, or $690, per month, tax free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.

While the project is praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision makers are quietly pulling the brakes, making a U-turn that is taking the project in a whole new direction.

and . . .

Entrepreneurs who have expressed support for UBI include Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, and Google's futurist and engineering director Ray Kurzweil.

These tech moguls recognize that UBI, as well as [combating] poverty, could also help solve the problem of increased robotization in the workforce, a problem they are very much part of creating.

and . . .

The existing unemployment benefits were so high, the Finnish government argued, and the system so rigid, an unemployed person might choose not to take a job as they would risk losing money by doing so – the higher your earnings, the lower your social benefits. The basic income was meant as an incentive for people to start working.

This article gives me serious doubts about whether a program like this can work and whether other countries will try it.

Previously: Finland: Universal Basic Income Planned for Later in 2016
Finland Launches Basic Income Experiment With Jan. 1 Cheques for Those in Pilot Project

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Four of AMD's second-generation Ryzen CPUs have been released. These are "12nm Zen+" chips with minor changes, rather than the more significant third-generation "7nm Zen 2" chips coming later.

The CPUs are the 8-core Ryzen 7 2700X ($329) and Ryzen 7 2700 ($299), and the 6-core Ryzen 5 2600X ($229) and Ryzen 5 2600 ($199). All four come with a bundled cooler, 2 threads per core, and support DDR4-2933 memory, up from DDR4-2666.

The Ryzen 7 2700X takes over the top spot from the Ryzen 7 1800X, and for an extra 10 W in TDP will provide a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a turbo frequency of 4.3 GHz on its eight cores, with simultaneous multi-threading. This is an extra +100 MHz and +300 MHz respectively, going above the average limits of the 1800X when overclocked.

The 2700X also reduces the top cost for the best AM4 Ryzen processor: when launched, the 1800X was set at $499, without a bundled cooler, and was recently dropped to $349 as a price-competitor to Intel's most powerful mainstream processor. The 2700X undercuts both, by being listed at a suggested e-tail price of $329, and is bundled with the best stock cooler in the business: AMD's Wraith Prism RGB. AMD is attempting to hit all the targets: aggressive pricing, top performance, and best value, all in one go.

IPC is improved about 3% due to cache latency improvements, clock speeds are up about 6% (die sizes and transistor counts are similar to the previous generation, but more unused silicon is used as a thermal buffer), and Precision Boost 2 / XFR 2 is used, for a total of about 10% better performance.

Also at Tom's Hardware and PC World.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317

A Florida man accused of flooding consumers with 97 million phone calls touting fake travel deals appeared Wednesday before lawmakers to explain how robocalls work and to say, "I am not the kingpin of robocalling that is alleged."

Adrian Abramovich, of Miami, who is fighting a proposed $120 million fine, told senators that open-source software lets operators make thousands of phone calls with the click of a button, in combination with cloud-based computing and "the right long distance company."

[...] Calls appeared to come from local numbers, but those who answered were prompted to "Press 1" to hear about vacation deals, according to the FCC. If they did, consumers were connected to call centers not affiliated with companies mentioned in messages, such as Expedia Inc., TripAdvisor Inc., Marriott International Inc. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., according to the agency. In actuality, the call centers were associated with Mexican timeshare facilities, the FCC said in a notice.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/florida-man-accused-of-97-million-robocalls-says-he-s-no-kingpin

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Can We Be Sure We're the First Industrial Civilization on Earth?

In a new paper, Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adam Frank from the University of Rochester ask a provocative question [open, DOI: 10.1017/S1473550418000095] [DX]: Could there have been an industrial civilization on Earth millions of years ago? And if so, what evidence of it would we be able to find today?

The authors first considered what signs of industrial civilization would be expected to survive in the geological record. In our own time, these include plastics, synthetic pollutants, increased metal concentrations, and evidence of large-scale energy use, such as carbon-based fossil fuels. Taken together, they mark what some scientists call the Anthropocene era, in which humans are having a significant and measurable impact on our planet.

The authors conclude, however, that it would be very difficult after tens of millions of years to distinguish these industrial byproducts from the natural background. Even plastic, which was previously thought to be quite resistant, can be degraded by enzymes relatively quickly. Only radiation from nuclear power plants—or from a nuclear war—would be discernible in the geological rock record after such a long time.

Anonymous Coward says "I told you so!" and starts babbling about megaliths.

Related: Homo Sapiens Began Advanced Toolmaking, Pigment Use, and Trade Earlier Than Previously Thought

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel will shut down its New Devices Group, spelling an end to the company's Vaunt smartglasses project:

When Intel showed off its Vaunt smart glasses (aka "Superlight" internally) back in February, we had high hopes for a new wave of wearable tech that wouldn't turn us into Borgs. Alas, according to The Information's source, word has it that the chip maker is closing the group responsible for wearable devices which, sadly, included the Vaunt. This was later confirmed by Intel in a statement, which hinted at a lack of investment due to "market dynamics." Indeed, Bloomberg had earlier reported that Intel was looking to sell a majority stake in this division, which had about 200 employees and was valued at $350 million.

To avoid the awkwardness that doomed the Google Glass, Intel took the subtle approach by cramming a retinal laser projector -- along with all the other electronic bits, somehow -- into the Vaunt's ordinary-looking spectacle frame; plus there was no camera on it. The low-power projector would beam a red, monochrome 400 x 150 pixel image into the lower right corner of one's visual field, thus eliminating the need of a protruding display medium.

Vaunt is what you get when your committee is too scared of the "Glasshole" fiasco to make a useful product. People on camera could easily identify Google Glass because of its protruding head-mounted display and hardware, as well as the camera indicator light. Build the SoC and any flat buttons directly into a black frame, put small camera lenses at the hinges and/or center, use retinal laser projection or make the lenses into full field of view displays, and remove the indicator light. Then the wearer doesn't have a "Glasshole" problem (but those being viewed might still end up with a "Glasshole.")

Also at The Verge, ZDNet, and AppleInsider.

Previously: Intel Unveils "Vaunt" Smartglasses

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

There is a browser add-on which summarizes terms of service warnings for web sites requiring an all-or-nothing click-through to use their services. The add-on tosdr uses crowd-sourcing to digest scores of pages into short, concise sentences or paragraphs warning what is hidden behind excessively verbose legalese. The database has been around for years but has recently been converted into a wiki.

What if, before you consented, you could at least read the SparkNotes? That's the goal of ToSDR—short for Terms of Service; Didn't Read—a website that turns lengthy terms of service agreements into bulleted summaries, and then rates those terms from Class A (very good) to Class F (very bad). It functions as a sort of Wikipedia for terms of service agreements. Anyone can submit a bullet point and share their analysis of a service's terms, which get turned into a rating of a site's overall policy. The site, which has existed since 2012 but is relaunching next month on a new platform, hopes to create a broad network of shared knowledge.

Unlike written contracts where it is easy to cross out offending paragraphs and clauses before both parties sign, these online forms are all-or-nothing. In some of the sites with larger network effects, such as Facebook, it might be that such a forced agreement could be construed as extortion.

Sources:
Wired: Welcome to the Wikipedia for Terms of Service Agreements
Boing Boing: Terms of Service; Didn't Read: a browser add-on that warns you about the terrible fine-print you're about to "agree" to

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Gene Therapy For Inherited Blood Disorder Reduced Transfusions

Gene therapy is showing promise for treating one of the most common genetic disorders. Results of a study published Wednesday show that 15 of 22 patients with beta-thalassemia who got gene therapy were able to stop or sharply reduce the regular blood transfusions they had needed to alleviate their life-threatening anemia. There were no serious side effects.

[...] The researchers stress, however, that more research is needed to fully evaluate how well the treatment works and how safe it is. Still, the company that's developing the treatment, Bluebird Bio of Cambridge, Mass., plans to seek approval of the treatment in Europe by the end of the year, a spokeswoman said in an email.

An estimated 288,000 people have beta-thalassemia worldwide, which makes the disease one of the most common genetic disorders. It's found most often in Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, Asia, India, and parts of Africa and South America. In the United States, about 10,000 to 15,000 patients have beta-thalassemia.

Also at BBC.

Gene Therapy in Patients with Transfusion-Dependent β-Thalassemia (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1705342) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Facebook job posting indicates the company is looking to design its own system-on-a-chip or Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC):

Facebook Inc. is building a team to design its own semiconductors, adding to a trend among technology companies to supply themselves and lower their dependence on chipmakers such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., according to job listings and people familiar with the matter.

The social media company is seeking to hire a manager to build an "end-to-end SoC/ASIC, firmware and driver development organization," according to a job listing on its corporate website, indicating the effort is still in its early stages.

The Menlo Park, California-based company would join other technology giants tackling the massive effort to develop chips. In 2010, Apple Inc. started shipping its own chips and now uses them across many of its major product lines. Alphabet Inc.'s Google has developed its own artificial intelligence chip as well.

Also at TechCrunch and The Verge.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Common Dreams reports

[April 17] the Food and Drug Administration issued a report[PDF] based on inspections of Rose Acre Farms from March 26-April 11, and a review of facility records from September 2017. On [April 13], Rose Acre Farms announced a recall of 206 million shell eggs after federal investigators found that illnesses in multiple states were linked to a strain of Salmonella that was found at the company's facility in North Carolina. The FDA report shows an "ongoing rodent infestation" at the facility and "insanitary conditions and poor employee practices" that allow for the spread of pathogens. The FDA had also previously found "alarmingly high rodent populations" and salmonella contamination at another facility owned by the company in 2011.

In response, Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter issued [a statement which included}:

"This most recent Salmonella outbreak resulting in a massive recall is another example of how the ultra-consolidated factory farm system can have major consequences for food safety. That one facility can so quickly supply so many stores with tainted food shows that we need more regulation, not less, of our food supply. And repeated violations over the years show that the company continues to act recklessly where food safety protocols are concerned."

Note that the recall is for "shell eggs".
It appears that processed foods in which eggs from this source have been used are not covered.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Common Dreams reports

Election reform advocates on [April 18] praised a decision by Maine's Supreme Court, upholding the use of ranked-choice voting for the state's upcoming primary elections, saying the ruling demonstrated that the court heeded the demands of Maine voters.

[...]Unlike in traditional voting, in which the candidate with the largest share of votes wins--even if he or she is far from capturing a majority of the support--in ranked choice voting, voters rank each candidate in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority after the first count, the least-popular contender is eliminated, voters' ballots are added to the totals of their second-ranked candidates, and the ballots are recounted. The eliminations and recounts continue until one candidate has a majority.

Supporters of the system say it increases voter turnout and proportional representation.

Maine's June 12 multi-party primary elections, in which voters will choose candidates for governor and congressional districts, will now make history as the first state election to use ranked-choice voting.

Fifty-two percent of Maine voters supported the system in a November 2016 ballot initiative, but lawmakers passed a bill last year delaying its implementation until December 2021 and argued that the state could not use a new voting system without direction from the legislature. The state Senate also threatened to repeal ranked-choice voting altogether if it could not pass a constitutional amendment by then.

More than 77,000 Maine residents signed a petition saying any repeal of the system by the legislature should be voided.

"The Maine legislature has changed or repealed all four of the initiatives passed by Maine voters in 2016", said Kyle Bailey of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in a statement on Tuesday. "Today's decision by the Maine Supreme Court confirms that the Maine people are sovereign and have the final say."

The Portland Press Herald, Maine's largest circulation daily newspaper, has extensive background details in their April 17th story: Ranked-choice voting will be used for June primaries, Maine supreme court rules.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

In an excellent article, jam-packed with details, The Seattle Times reports: (Javascript required)

One passenger died and several others were injured [April 18] when a Boeing 737 operated by Southwest en route from New York to Dallas suffered a serious engine blowout. Shrapnel broke a passenger window and penetrated the fuselage, forcing an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

[...] Southwest Flight 1380 [...] suffered a serious engine blowout 20 minutes into the flight at 32,500 feet

[...] The left engine exploded with such force that shrapnel penetrated the aircraft's fuselage and broke a window in the passenger cabin, causing depressurization and the deployment of oxygen masks.

The pilots--Capt. Tammie Jo Shults and an unidentified co-pilot--guided the plane carrying 144 passengers and five crew to a smooth landing. According to flight-tracking service FlightAware, the jet landed 20 minutes after the explosion.

Emergency vehicles drenched the damaged left engine in foam to prevent a fire as passengers exited the plane via stairs on the right side.

The woman who died was identified by Albuquerque TV news station KOAT as Jennifer Riordan, 43, a mother of two children and vice president of community relations at Wells Fargo in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In preliminary briefings, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Robert Sumwalt said that inspection of the damaged engine revealed that one of the titanium blades on the big fan had broken off at the root, and that there was evidence of metal fatigue at the site where it broke.

He said metal fatigue is a major problem.

[...] Southwest CEO [Gary Kelly] said the airplane had undergone a routine maintenance inspection two days earlier, on April 15.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Vox reports

Another blackout hit Puerto Rico Wednesday morning [April 18], the Associated Press reported, cutting off electricity across the whole island and once again undermining the fragile progress made in restoring power in the [seven] months since Hurricane Maria struck.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority said that it could be 24 to 36 hours before power is restored to the areas that had it. Its priorities are to get electricity back to hospitals, the San Juan Airport, water systems, and financial centers

The outage was caused by a bulldozer hitting a power line while trying to remove a collapsed transmission tower, according to El Nuevo Dia.[1] The company responsible was D. Grimm, a subcontractor for Cobra Energy, which received a $200 million contract to repair Puerto Rico's devastated power grid.

Cobra was selected alongside Whitefish Energy Services in the aftermath of the hurricane, but the deals drew scrutiny from Congress because the companies had limited experience in grid repair on such a large scale.

[...] more than 61,000 utility customers[PDF] haven't had electricity since last September, the US Department of Energy reported earlier this month. Since "customer" typically refers to a household, which can encompass several people, estimates indicate that more than 100,000 people haven't had power since the storm.

[...] The blackout is the largest[2] in US history and is now the second-largest in the world. Only Typhoon Haiyan, one of the largest tropical storms ever to make landfall and the deadliest storm ever to hit the Philippines, had a bigger impact on electricity service.

[1] En Español
[2] As measured in millions of customer hours of lost electricity service.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

A flip-flop is one of the most basic digital electronic circuits. It can most easily be built from just two transistors, although they can and have been built out of vacuum tubes, NAND and NOR gates, and Minecraft redstone. Conventional wisdom says you can't build a flip-flop with just one transistor, but here we are. [roelh] has built a flip-flop circuit using only one transistor and some bizarre logic that's been slowly developing over on hackaday.io.

[...] The single-transistor flip-flop works just like any other flip-flop — there are set and reset pulses, and a feedback loop to keep the whatever state the output is in alive. The key difference here is the addition of a clock signal. This clock, along with a few capacitors and a pair of diodes, give this single transistor the ability to store a single bit of information, just like any other flip-flop.

That's damned nifty.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/04/18/the-one-transistor-flip-flop/

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The World Socialist Web Site reports:

In spite of a continuous chorus in the media of a booming economy creating robust job numbers, General Motors is unleashing a new round of attacks on autoworkers in North America as part of a global cost-cutting offensive against the working class.

The corporation announced on [April 13] it will cut one of two operating shifts at its massive Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs effective June 15. As recently as 2016, the plant was operating three shifts around the clock with nearly 4,000 workers. By the end of June only 1,500 will remain.

As sales for the compact Chevy Cruze, the only vehicle produced at the facility, began to slip, GM shuttered the third shift in January 2017, axing 800 jobs. Over the course of 2017, the plant was idled for weeks at a time and rumors began to circulate about the impending layoffs.

As an indication of the severity of the cuts, this is the first time since the recession of the 1980s that the plant will operate with only one shift.

[...] The company sold 450,000 fewer vehicles to dealers last year than they did in 2016, but because of aggressive cost-cutting attacks on the workers, imposed by the union, which include everything from an expansion of Temporary Part Time employees at less than half pay, widespread layoffs and shutdowns[,] GM pretax profits for 2017 topped $12.8 billion.

US passenger car sales are on track to decline for the fifth straight year while sales of light trucks are setting records. US sales of compact cars dropped 10 percent in the first quarter and 5.8 percent through 2017.

Lordstown is not the only plant affected by this shift. GM's Detroit-Hamtramck factory, for example, relies heavily on production of small and midsize sedans, including the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Chevrolet Impala, and the Chevrolet Volt. In October, the automaker announced plans to cut about 200 jobs there and halt production beginning November 20 through the Christmas break, affecting 1,500 jobs over the holidays. The second shift was eliminated in March 2017, eliminating 1,300 jobs.

[...] The same conditions are developing in [GM] factories everywhere as GM pursues its cost-cutting strategy with a vengeance.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Four baboons briefly escaped an enclosure at a biomedical research center by repositioning a barrel:

The barrels were in the enclosure because they are used as an enrichment tool for the animals, but after Saturday's escape, the barrels have been removed from the enclosure. Three of the baboons were recaptured within 20-30 minutes of escaping. The fourth baboon returned to the enclosure on his own.

KSAT viewers sent pictures and video of a baboon running along the road.

The Texas Biomedical Research Institute has congratulated itself on its response to the incident:

takyon writes:

French president challenges 'inward-looking nationalist selfishness' in Europe:

Emmanuel Macron has outlined his vision for the future of the European Union in Strasbourg. The 40-year-old, who secured the French Presidency in May on a pro-EU platform amid a populist surge in the bloc, delivered his highly anticipated speech to over 700 MEPs in the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Macron challenged "inward-looking nationalist selfishness" amid populist sentiment in the bloc and pushed for a more united and reinvigorated Europe. "Nationalism will lead Europe into the abyss. We see authoritarianism rising all around us," he said. "The response should not be authoritarian democracy but the authority of democracy."

Macron also sought to tackle the "poisoned debate" on migration, proposing the creation of a European programme that could subsidise local authorities which host and integrate refugees.

In a speech which touched on a range of issues, Macron recommended that copyright law be tightened to protect artists' "genius" and reiterated his support for tougher environmental legislation.

Meanwhile, Macron wants to "reform" Islam:

Speaking alongside the flag-draped coffin of a police officer killed in a terrorist attack in southern France, President Emmanuel Macron last month lay blame on "underground Islamism" and those who "indoctrinate on our soil and corrupt daily." The attack added further urgency to a project already in the works: Macron has embarked on a controversial quest to change Islam in France — with the goal of integration but also preventing radicalization.

He has said that in the coming months he will announce "a blueprint for the whole organization" of Islam. And those trying to anticipate what that will look like are turning their attention to Hakim El Karoui, a leading voice on how Islamic traditions fit within French culture.

It's hard to miss that the man who appears to have Macron's ear on this most sensitive of subjects cuts a similar figure. Like the president, El Karoui is an ex-Rothschild investment banker with an elite social pedigree who favors well-tailored suits, crisp white shirts and the lofty province of big ideas. The latest of those ideas is this: that the best way to integrate Islam within French society is to promote a version of the religion "practiced in peace by believers who will not have the need to loudly proclaim their faith."

Also at BBC.

Original Submission