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realDonaldTrump writes:

Germany Sets 2038 Deadline to End Coal Use:

In a pioneering move, a German government-appointed panel has recommended that Germany stop burning coal to generate electricity by 2038 at the latest, as part of efforts to curb climate change.

The Coal Commission reached a deal early Saturday following months of wrangling that were closely watched by other coal-dependent countries.

"We made it," Ronald Pofalla, the head of the commission, told reporters in Berlin. "This is a historic effort."

Germany gets more than a third of its electricity from burning coal, generating large amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

The 28-member panel, representing mining regions, utility companies, scientists and environmentalists, suggests a review in 2032 could bring forward the coal deadline to 2035.

The plan foresees billions in federal funding to help affected regions cope with the economic impact, and to shield industry and consumers from higher electricity prices. The energy transition will also need a huge overhaul and modernization of the country's power grid, the commission's members said.

The decision still needs government approval.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

English is currently one of the dominant languages on the planet due to the spread of the US and UK empires in the last century. With the rise of technology English may be made redundant with the advent of automatic language translation.

Just waiting for made up languages to become the norm (e.g. Esperanto), or hyper language learning.

Now ponder, as Douglas Hofstadter did, translating Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky from English into French, German, and Russian (Cyrillic .GIF) or (ASCII transliteration).

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Innovation abounds in our modern society with brave souls venturing forth to squeeze every last use of existing hardware. A recent innovation is using a dishwasher to cook food:

The dishwasher is every home cook's best friend after dinner is served. But did you know you can use it to prepare that dinner as well?

[...] There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to imparting the wisdom of dishwasher cooking, there was even a Mythbusters episode dedicated to it.

[...] An experiment, conducted this month by Australian consumer advocacy group Choice, looked into this bizarre phenomenon to determine whether or not it was safe to cook stuff in your dishwasher.

The company's white goods tester whipped up a meal of honey soy salmon, coconut rice, an Asian style spinach and mushrooms, and a darling little custard and fruit compote.

The verdict? "Delicious!"

The article provides practical considerations of how to prepare food for cooking in the dishwasher as well as what foods are or are not good candidates.

Original Submission

Apparition writes:

Google has hired 14-year Apple engineer Bill Stevenson to help bring the Fuchsia OS to market.

We learned in 2016 that Google was working on an entirely new operating system called Fuchsia. Development continues with new features and testing on a variety of form factors spotted regularly. Google has since hired 14-year Apple engineer Bill Stevenson to work on its upcoming OS, and help bring it to market.

[...] Remaining in the OS X organization, he became a Senior Engineering Program Manager four years later. New responsibilities included serving as PM and Technical Lead for AirPlay, Find My Mac, iCloud for Mac, and AirDrop from 10.6 Snow Leopard to 10.9 Mavericks. Most of these features are notably backed by cloud services.

[...] It’s not surprising why Google would want someone with that background and experience to bring up Fuchsia. In a LinkedIn post shared yesterday, Stevenson specifically notes “joining Google to help bring a new operating system called Fuchsia to market.”

Google seems to be all aboard the Fuchsia train.

Previously: Google Hopes to Replace Android with Fuchsia in Five Years
Google's Fuchsia OS Adds Emulator for Debian Linux Applications
Google to Add Swift Language Support to Fuchsia OS

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Some lawmakers are already raising concerns about Facebook's plans to merge its messaging apps

Facebook plans to partially combine its most popular messaging apps — and some lawmakers don't sound happy about it.

On Friday, The New York Times broke the news that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing his company to merge the back-end of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The change would mean that users of one app would be able to message users of another, and it would tie the currently disparate Facebook-owned products far more closely together.

[...] California Democratic congressman Ro Khanna was one of the first to comment, suggesting on Twitter that the move raised anti-trust concerns about Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

"This is why there should have been far more scrutiny during Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp which now clearly seem like horizontal mergers that should have triggered antitrust scrutiny," he tweeted.

"Imagine how different the world would be if Facebook had to compete with Instagram and WhatsApp. That would have encouraged real competition that would have promoted privacy and benefited consumers."

In an emailed statement, Democratic senator Ron Wyden, an outspoken voice on tech policy issues, told Business Insider he had concerns about privacy and data protection issues.

"I have a lot of questions about how Facebook intends to combine these services. If it does anything to weaken the security and encryption of WhatsApp, that would represent a major blow to the security of millions of people around the world," he wrote.

"If Facebook is doing this so it can harvest even more our personal information for profit, it's yet another reason to be concerned about how corporations are using our data. This is yet another reason to pass a strong privacy bill, like the one I've proposed."

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

canopic jug writes:

Darius Kazemi has written an update on scans of early Requests for Comments (RFC) at the Computer History Museum. Specifically scans of RFCs 1 through 9 are available. RFC1 being printed in April of 1969. In all, the first nine RFCs are 98 pages. Transcriptions are available at the IETF in their index of RFCs. These documents are occasionally informational or experimental, but by and large define the specifications which define what is now the Internet, ranging from (mostly) defunct Telnet and FTP to the modern TLS and SSH and everything in between such as DNS and from layer 3 on up.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/news/view/370/20190120-coronal-hole-faces-earth

Our automated coronal hole detection system did its job and detected the coronal hole
[...]
Compared to the previous rotation we can conclude that this coronal hole has ever so slightly increased in size. When the coronal hole solar wind stream passed STEREO Ahead a couple of days ago (a satellite in orbit around the Sun now located on the east side of the Sun as seen from Earth) we saw an increase in the solar wind speed to about 600km/s but only a modest increase in the parameters that make up the interplanetary magnetic field.
[...]
The solar wind stream is likely to arrive at our planet either late on the 22nd (Tuesday) or early on the 23rd of January which would be Wednesday.

At best, any aurora from this activity might dip below Canada and into far-northern US.

Have you ever seen an aurora? What online resources have you found helpful in getting aurora predictions for your area?

Original Submission

quietus writes:

More than 640,000 users left Facebook last year, in the Netherlands: the first time a clear drop in Facebook's userbase has been registered.

While previously it were mainly youngsters who were quitting Facebook, the drop is now common across all age cohorts. The main reason seems to be the Cambridge Analytica scandal and all the hubbub following it: loss of confidence is most often cited as the main reason to leave.

Facebook haters should not rejoice too early though: the Netherlands still has a userbase of 10.1 million; most of those who left Facebook simply migrated to WhatsApp and/or Instagram, which are owned by Facebook.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

Obtained with the wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of New Horizons' Ralph instrument, this image was taken when the KBO was 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) from the spacecraft, at 05:26 UT (12:26 a.m. EST) on Jan. 1 – just seven minutes before closest approach. With an original resolution of 440 feet (135 meters) per pixel, the image was stored in the spacecraft's data memory and transmitted to Earth on Jan. 18-19. Scientists then sharpened the image to enhance fine detail. (This process – known as deconvolution – also amplifies the graininess of the image when viewed at high contrast.)

The oblique lighting of this image reveals new topographic details along the day/night boundary, or terminator, near the top. These details include numerous small pits up to about 0.4 miles (0.7 kilometers) in diameter. The large circular feature, about 4 miles (7 kilometers) across, on the smaller of the two lobes, also appears to be a deep depression. Not clear is whether these pits are impact craters or features resulting from other processes, such as "collapse pits" or the ancient venting of volatile materials.

MVIC (Ralph) has a lower resolution than LORRI, which should have taken its best images at around 30-35 meters per pixel.

(486958) 2014 MU₆₉.

Also at Spaceflight Now, BBC, and TechCrunch.

Previously: Final Planning for the New Horizons Flyby of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule) Underway
New Horizons Survives Flyby, Begins Sending Back Data
New Images Reveal Structure, Color, and Features of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule)
Animation Shows Rotation of 2014 MU69 (Ultima Thule)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Rocking like a baby promotes better sleep in adults

We know babies benefit from being rocked to sleep - now a study suggests it helps adults sleep better too.

Researchers from the University of Geneva built a special bed that rocked gently throughout the night. They tested it on 18 young adults and found they woke up fewer times and slept more deeply than on a normal bed. Scientists said the rocking motion resulted in a longer period of slow brainwaves which caused deep sleep, and improved their memory.

The volunteers spent three nights at a sleep laboratory in Geneva: one to get them used to sleeping there, one on a rocking bed and the other on the same bed, but in a still position. Electrodes recorded their brainwaves, and found that the period of deep sleep was extended by rocking.

Also at Science News.

Whole-Night Continuous Rocking Entrains Spontaneous Neural Oscillations with Benefits for Sleep and Memory (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.028) (DX)

Rocking Promotes Sleep in Mice through Rhythmic Stimulation of the Vestibular System (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.007) (DX)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/24/twitter-original-tweeter-test/

Twitter is testing a way to make it easier to spot the person who started a thread. A small percentage of iOS and Android users are seeing an "original tweeter" label. The company said earlier this month that it would publicly test some context and organization features.

It's a useful feature, and it could reduce some types of abuse, particularly if the original tweeter is, say, Bill Gates and the replies include those from scammy imitation accounts. The label, along with the blue verified checkmark, could make it more immediately obvious when Gates himself is replying, and not, for instance, @Bi11Gates.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00176-z

A conservation group is using drones to eradicate invasive rats by dropping poison on two small islands in Ecuador’s Galápagos archipelago — the first time such an approach has been used on vertebrates in the wild. The operation, which began on 12 January on North Seymour island in the Galápagos National Park, aims to protect native animals and plants from the destructive rodents.

Rats and other non-native species have caused extensive damage to the Galápagos, whose unique flora and fauna evolved in isolation for millions of years. In the process, native species lost many defence mechanisms against predators. Rats, which reproduce quickly and eat a wide variety of plants and animals, have been a target of eradication campaigns across the Galápagos.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Advertisers seek assurances from Instagram after brand safety issue, but won’t pull ads - Digiday

The prospect of ads appearing next to posts about suicide content has made some advertisers wary of buying ads on Instagram. Facebook’s brand safety problems, are now Instagram’s problems.

Marks & Spencer, The Post Office, Dune and the British Heart Foundation were named in a report by the BBC yesterday evening (Jan. 23) that found their ads had appeared against graphic content about suicide on the social network. The investigation came after it emerged a teenager who had viewed posts on suicide on Instagram had taken her own life.

But rather than pull ads like they did in 2017 when the brand safety issue spilled over into the mainstream, advertisers are taking a different approach now. None of the advertisers mentioned in the report have pulled spend, according to separate statements from the businesses. The idea that online platforms monetize inappropriate content has become such a recurrence over the last two years, that the panic that previously engulfed these issues has been replaced with pragmatism.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Nepal earthquake: Waiting for the complete rupture

[...] "In the 2015 quake, there was only a partial rupture of the major Himalayan fault separating the two continental plates. The frontal, near-surface section of the rupture zone, where the Indian Plate subducts beneath the Eurasian Plate, did not slip and remains under stress," explains Dal Zilio, lead author of the study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Normally, a major earthquake releases almost all the stress that has built up in the vicinity of the focus as a result of displacement of the plates. "Our model shows that, although the Gorkha earthquake reduced the stress level in part of the rupture zone, tension actually increased in the frontal section close to the foot of the Himalayas. The apparent paradox is that 'medium-sized' earthquakes such as Gorkha can create the conditions for an even larger earthquake," says Dal Zilio.

Tremors of the magnitude of the Gorkha earthquake release stress only in the deeper subsections of the fault system over lengths of 100 kilometres. In turn, new and even greater stress builds up in the near-surface sections of the rupture zone.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Rogue Mascot Causes Headaches for a Japanese City

Last year, the southern Japanese city of Susaki created a position — honorary tourism ambassador — for a real-life otter with a large social media following. So far, so cute. Then Chiitan, an unsanctioned mascot based on the otter, began staging dangerous and non-child-friendly stunts around town, like swinging a weed whacker and tipping over a car. And some residents began confusing Chiitan with the city's official mascot, Shinjokun, who is also modeled on an otter but is considerably more risk-averse.

Chiitan's darkest moment may be a video titled "Chiitan going to visit your house," in which the mascot silently removes a baseball bat from a locker, slips it into its costume and walks off camera.

After receiving more than 100 calls from around Japan about Chiitan's behavior, the city declined last week to renew the real otter's honorary tourism ambassador contract. But posts about Chiitan being "fired" (the mascot and the real otter have the same name) have since gone viral on social media, incorrectly implying that the city had officially sanctioned the rogue mascot's cheeky antics.

Susaki's public relations dilemma highlights a trend that may be unique to Japan: As more municipalities sponsor official mascots, unsanctioned spinoffs are proliferating — with mixed results. "I suppose it illustrates how the world of mascots is constantly evolving in fun and unpredictable ways," said Chris Carlier, a British writer in Tokyo who runs the website and Twitter feed Mondo Mascots.

Original Submission