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First off, for those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday, please accept our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday. For those who are struggling themselves (or who have friends or family who are), please accept our sincere and best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.

For those who are not in the US, please be aware that Thursday is a national holiday. Further, it is traditional for most people, where possible, to also take off Friday, too. This allows for an extended period of time: Thursday through Sunday, inclusive.

Our editorial staff has been happy to provide stories for the community's discussion. There is much that happens behind the scenes. I am taking this opportunity to publicly thank all of them for their hard work and their sacrifices of time and energy.

I am encouraging the editorial staff to take a break during this holiday period. Therefore, we will be on a reduced, weekend schedule from Thursday through Sunday (UTC), inclusive. We will continue to check in during this period... we thank you in advance for continuing to send in your story submissions.

Again, please accept our genuine best wishes for a safe and happy holiday!

KritonK writes:

Vivaldi Technologies released the first technical preview of Vivaldi Mail, an integrated email client, feed reader and calendar, as an experimental feature of the Vivaldi web browser. In an accompanying blog post, Vivaldi Technologies CEO Jon von Tetzchner describes the new client in detail.

This snapshot is the start of the Vivaldi Mail, Calendar and RSS technical previews 🎉🎈🥳. As these are new features of pre-Beta quality, they are not enabled by default. However, for those of you willing try them in their unfinished state, you can now enable them via "vivaldi://experiments" (you will need to restart the browser after doing so). Updates to our preview, will be included in all future snapshots.

[Have you tried it? How did it work for you? -Ed.]

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Starship SN8 successfully completes final testing ahead of flight - NASASpaceFlight.com:

Following a slightly convoluted engine testing campaign, Starship SN8 is working through the final steps to finalize its pre-flight requirements, which included a triple Raptor Static Fire test on Tuesday. Should this test go to plan – via the results of the data review – the path will be cleared for SN8 to conduct a test flight to 15 km (50,000 ft) as soon as November 30.

This three-engine firing was expected to be the final major test ahead of the highly-ambitious flight, controlled "belly flop" return, and potential landing.

The first-ever triple Raptor test was conducted over a month ago, albeit shortly after SN8 had taken up residence on the launch mount. The path towards flight was always going to involve additional first-time milestones.

Firstly, a second triple Raptor firing was added to forward planning due to an engine swap conducted after the initial test.

After that first test with Raptors SN30, SN32, and SN39, engineers then uninstalled SN39, replacing it with SN36. From that moment, an additional three-engine firing was going to be required.

However, that was added to the end of SN8's testing milestones. The decision was taken to progress towards nosecone installation to allow for two tests (single and dual engine) utilizing the liquid oxygen, or LOX, Header Tank located at the tip of the nose.

The first Header Tank Static Fire, involving one Raptor engine, was successfully conducted, although "sparks" were noticeable immediately after ignition. The debris was initially understood to be surface material instead of a problem with the engine – the latter confirmed by the push toward the second Header Tank test without an engine swap.

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for TheMightyBuzzard.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/amazon-patents-technology-to-track-down-streaming-pirates-201121/:

With a newly obtained patent, [Amazon] hopes to make it easier to find people who leak their content. The invention titled "encoding identifiers into customized manifest data" can be used for various purposes but copyright enforcement is high on the list.

In short, Amazon proposes a technology to add unique identifiers to streaming video. While these types of 'watermarks' are not new, Amazon's implementation is.

[...] Without going too deep into the technical details, it is clear that Amazon is trying to find and possibly implement advanced technologies to track pirating users. These technologies already exist, but can be quite resource-intensive.

Instead of encoding the identifier or watermark in the video content, Amazon proposes to add it to the manifest data. As a result, Amazon's solution can be more easily applied at the individual level. This can be useful to protect content on Amazon's own streaming service, but other rightsholders may want to use it as well.

Original Submission

[With the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration in the US on Thursday and its history of over-indulgence, this seemed to be a timely warning.--Ed.]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Do you take your phone to the loo? Spent half an hour a day in the peace and calm of the smallest room in the house safe and secure in the knowledge few will disturb you? Are you at all concerned your habit could be detrimental to your health? According to Sydney gastroenterologist Professor Chris Berney you should be. Doctor Berney has treated 16 people over the past 18 months for haemorrhoid related issues which he believes comes from spending too long on the loo. Regularly spending over 20 minutes with the rear sphincter relaxed can result in a decline in control which leads to blood clots developing. Prof Berney published his findings regarding young people spending too much time on the toilet in the Australia New Zealand Surgery journal.

Where are the futuristic chairs with the built-in toilet?

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Women Scientists Are Calling Bullshit On a Study Claiming That Women Make Bad STEM Mentors:

Last week, the scientific journal Nature Communications, an offshoot of the internationally respected journal Nature, enraged scientists, women, and anyone who has ever been near a graduate program by publishing a study that concluded maybe women mentors are actually hurting the career prospects of their mentees. As the study's authors wrote, the research "suggests that female protégés who remain in academia reap more benefits when mentored by males rather than equally-impactful females."

Thousands of scientists from all over the world identified issues with the methods used in the study, titled, "The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance." Its methods and conclusions were even criticized by scientists who had peer-reviewed the paper, whose concerns were published alongside the study but were not addressed within the text. In response, the journal quickly promised an investigation of those methods and conclusions (the kind of thing that usually happens before publication, during peer review).

Journal Reference:
Bedoor AlShebli, Kinga Makovi, Talal Rahwan. The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8)

Also at Retraction Watch

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Is This Trippy Cave Painting the Result of a Hallucination:

There's a cave in California, roughly an hour's drive from Santa Barbara, whose ceiling features a prominent pinwheel-like drawing. Fascinating new research suggests this painting is not some drug-induced abstraction, but a literal representation of the very thing that makes psychedelic trips possible.

Chewed remnants of the psychedelic plant Datura wrightii offer "unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens" at Pinwheel Cave in California, according to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rock site was frequented by indigenous Californians roughly 500 years ago. Just as importantly, the dazzling red pinwheel painted onto the low ceiling is a representation of the plant itself, not a depiction of a shaman's visual experiences while tripping on the drug, the scientists argue. The new paper is consequently challenging the prevailing altered states of consciousness model (ASC), which contends that "hallucinogens have influenced the prehistoric making of images in caves and rock shelters," as the study authors write.

Journal Reference:
David W. Robinson, Kelly Brown, Moira McMenemy, et al. Datura quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, provide unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014529117)

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Biomimicry is the concept of drawing design inspiration from the natural world, such as for materials design, structural design, process flow, etc. The idea is that Nature has spent millennia optimizing structures and designs for cohabitation within the environment. We see stories all the time here that talk about materials inspired by spider silk, sea sponges, algae, etc. These are all typically focused studies that look at only a specific aspect of the material or design.

In a paper to be published in the journal Earth's Future, researchers look at current resiliant design practices and recommend several pragmatic opportunities for infrastructure managers to make improvements by incorporating biomimicry principles within the design process. These six principles, dubbed Life's Principles are: evolve to survive, adapt to changing conditions, be locally attuned and responsive, integrate development with growth, be resource efficient, and use life-friendly chemistry. They find that current resilient design theory--in theory--addresses all of the biomimicry principles, but in practice they largely ignore and sometimes contradict these principles. They note that a lot of effort has been spent addressing efficiency, but that substantial design advantages would be realized if infrastructure managers tried to align to more biomimicry principles.

Journal Reference:
Alysha M. Helmrich, Mikhail V. Chester, Samantha Hayes, et al. Using Biomimicry to Support Resilient Infrastructure Design [open], Earth's Future (DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001653)

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma pleads guilty in criminal case:

Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty Tuesday to three criminal charges, formally taking responsibility for its part in an opioid epidemic that has contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths but also angering critics who want to see individuals held accountable, in addition to the company.

In a virtual hearing with a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, the OxyContin maker admitted impeding the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's efforts to combat the addiction crisis.

Purdue acknowledged that it had not maintained an effective program to prevent prescription drugs from being diverted to the black market, even though it had told the DEA it did have such a program, and that it provided misleading information to the agency as a way to boost company manufacturing quotas.

It also admitted paying doctors through a speakers program to induce them to write more prescriptions for its painkillers.

And it admitted paying an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged them to prescribe opioids.

The guilty pleas were entered by Purdue board chairperson Steve Miller on behalf of the company. They were part of a criminal and civil settlement announced last month between the Stamford, Connecticut-based company and the Justice Department.

[...] The deal includes $8.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures, but the company is on the hook for a direct payment to the federal government of only a fraction of that, $225 million. It would pay the smaller amount as long as it executes a settlement moving through federal bankruptcy court with state and local governments and other entities suing it over the toll of the opioid epidemic.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

PayPal appears to be vacuuming the bitcoin market. They apparently bought 70% of all mined coins last month. I guess they need a large buffer if they want to allow all their customers to convert transactions from all types of currencies into BTC. Then it's probably just a hop and a skip until EBay (the parent company) does it, too.

“Bitcoin shortage”: PayPal bought 70% of all mined BTC last month:

Crypto hedge fund Pantera Capital revealed global payments processor PayPal purchased over 70% of all Bitcoin mined in the past month, as per an investor letter published last week.

PayPal began its crypto offering to US clients earlier this month to a warm response, with data suggesting purchases of up to $20 million in Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) daily.

[...] Pantera, in its note, said it calculated the amount of Bitcoin on PayPal using metrics from the latter’s exchange provider Paxos-owned ItBit. “Prior to PayPal’s integration of crypto, itBit, the Paxos-run exchange, was doing a fairly constant amount of trading volume — the white line in the chart below,” said Pantera.

It added that after PayPal’s crypto service went live, ItBit’s volume “exploded” and implied that PayPal users were already buying almost 70% of the new supply of mined BTC. As per mining tracker site BTC.com, over 900 BTC are mined and sold in the open market by mining firms daily.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

'The US Piracy Watchlist is a Marketing Campaign for Pirate Sites':

Every year, major copyright industry groups prepare a list of the most notorious pirate sites, which are publicly reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR).

[...] A few days ago we spotted a late submission for the 2021 notorious markets list. This comment was submitted by former criminal defense practitioner Jim Zhou who's based in Las Vegas. He is also critical of the annual list, but for a very different reason.

According to Zhou, the USTR's notorious market list is counterproductive. Instead of effectively stopping piracy, it offers "reliable advertising space and exposure" to pirate services, which runs contrary to its intended goal.

"The purpose of this comment is to highlight the nature of this very organization and this regulation as a facilitator of the traffic it purportedly is attempting to enjoin," he writes in his letter to the USTR.

[...] The challenge for pirate site operators, according to Zhou, is that there are limited means to promote themselves. "That, however, is where the USTR comes in."

[...] Pirate sites can't easily show how trustworthy they are in terms of longevity, payout, and reliability, Zhou notes. However, the annual USTR watch list, which is widely covered in the media, does that for them.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Jeopardy's first host after Alex Trebek's death is former champ Ken Jennings:

The next Jeopardy host is here: Ken Jennings, one of the greatest contestants in the show's history. He'll be the first of a series of guest hosts following the death of beloved host Alex Trebek earlier this month.

"Alex believed in the importance of Jeopardy! and always said that he wanted the show to go on after him," said Jeopardy executive producer Mike Richards (via Variety).

[...] Sony says more hosts will be announced in the weeks to come. The last episodes that Trebek filmed will air in early January 2021, and the episodes hosted by Jennings and other interim hosts will air starting Jan. 11.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero finds possible source of Wow! signal

Amateur astronomer and YouTuber Alberto Caballero, one of the founders of The Exoplanets Channel, has found a small amount of evidence for a source of the notorious Wow! signal.

Back in 1977, astronomers working with the Big Ear Radio Telescope—at the time, situated in Delaware, Ohio—recorded a unique signal from somewhere in space. It was so strong and unusual that one of the workers on the team, Jerry Ehman, famously scrawled the word Wow! on the printout. Despite years of work and many man hours, no one has ever been able to trace the source of the signal or explain the strong, unique signal, which lasted for all of 72 seconds. Since that time, many people have suggested the only explanation for such a strong and unique signal is extraterrestrial intelligent life.

Caballero began searching the publicly available Gaia database for just such a star. The Gaia database has been assembled by a team working at the Gaia observatory run by the European Space Agency. Launched back in 2013, the project has worked steadily on assembling the best map of the night sky ever created. To date, the team has mapped approximately 1.3 billion stars.

In studying his search results, Caballero found what appears to fit the bill—a star (2MASS 19281982-2640123) that is very nearly a mirror image of the sun—and is located in the part of the sky where the Wow! signal originated. He notes that there are other possible candidates in the area but suggests his candidate might provide the best launching point for a new research effort by astronomers who have the tools to look for exoplanets.

[Reference]: An approximation to determine the source of the WOW! Signal

I'm Not Saying It Was Aliens But It Was Aliens

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Starting next year, Chrome extensions will show what data they collect from users:

Google said today it plans to add a new section on the Chrome Web Store where extension developers will be able to disclose what user data they're collecting from users and what they plan to do with the information.

The new section is set to go into effect on January 18, 2021, and will appear as a "Privacy practices" button on each extension's Web Store listing.

To aid the process, Google has added a new section today in the Web Store dashboard where extension developers will be able to disclose what data they collect from their users and for what purposes.

Google's new "data usage" dashboard will ship with a limited set of preset options, which will effectively prohibit Chrome developers from certain data practices, such as:

• The bulk sale of user data by ensuring the use or transfer of user data is for the primary benefit of the user and in accordance with the stated purpose of the extension.
• The use or transfer of user data for personalized advertising.
• The use or transfer of user data for creditworthiness or any form of lending qualification and to data brokers or other information resellers.

(Emphasis retained from original.)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Vulkan 1.2.162 Released With Ray-Tracing Support Promoted

Earlier this year Vulkan ray-tracing arrived in provisional form while with today's Vulkan 1.2.162 specification update this functionality has been promoted to stable and ready for broad industry support.

The Vulkan ray-tracing support is now deemed final and out of the provisional guard. This includes the finalized versions of VK_KHR_acceleration_structure, VK_KHR_ray_tracing_pipeline, VK_KHR_ray_query, VK_KHR_pipeline_library, and VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations.

The Vulkan ray-tracing specification now has the support of AMD, Arm, EA, Epic Games, Facebook, Imagination, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung, Unity, Valve, and other stakeholders.

It's official: Vulkan now offers an alternative to DirectX Raytracing

Today marks the moment the Vulkan API is officially ready for ray tracing. The Khronos Group behind the open API has announced the final Vulkan Ray Tracing extensions, and that means there's finally a firm alternative to Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing API used extensively in ray-traced games today.

Integrated right into the existing Vulkan framework, the new Vulkan Ray Tracing is a set of extensions—Vulkan, SPIR-V, and GLSL—that allow developers to adopt ray tracing in games utilising the Vulkan API.

Vulkan is a hot ticket item amongst game developers due to its generally solid performance with fewer legacy or convoluted systems to weigh it down, but it's also popular simply for the fact it's not tied intrinsically to any single hardware or platform provider—unlike, say, its main competitor in the gaming API space, DirectX 12.

See also: NVIDIA Releases Beta Driver With Khronos Vulkan Ray Tracing Support
Valve Now Funding Blumenkrantz - Zink OpenGL-On-Vulkan To Continue

Original Submission