SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Enceladus' plumes might not come from an underground ocean:

Saturn's icy moon Enceladus sprays water vapor into space. Scientists have thought that the plumes come from a deep subsurface ocean — but that might not be the case, new simulations suggest.

Instead, the water could come from pockets of watery mush in the moon's icy shell, scientists report December 15 at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting.

"Maybe we didn't get the straw all the way through the ice shell to the ocean. Maybe we're just getting this weird pocket," says planetary scientist Jacob Buffo of Dartmouth College.

The finding is "a cautionary tale," Buffo says. The hidden ocean makes Enceladus one of the best places to search for life in the solar system (SN: 4/8/20). Concepts for future missions to Enceladus rely on the idea that taking samples of the plumes would directly test the contents of the ocean, without needing to drill or melt through the ice. "That could be true," Buffo says. But the simulations suggest "you could be sampling this slushy region in the middle of the shell, and that might not be the same chemistry as is down in the ocean."

[...] "If those plumes aren't tapping into the ocean, it will really shift our perspective on what that plume is telling us about the interior of Enceladus,"[planetary scientist Emily] Martin [of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C] says. "And that's a big deal."

Journal Reference:
Colin Meyer, Jacob Buffo, Tara Tomlinson, et al. A mushy source for the geysers of Enceladus, (DOI: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/888686)

---

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Mobileye Announces EyeQ Ultra: A Level 4 Self-Driving System In A Single SoC

Aimed for a 2025 release, the EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's most ambitious SoC yet, and not just for performance. In fact, as a site that admittedly rarely covers automotive-related announcements, it's the relative lack of performance that makes today's announcement so interesting to us. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here; so let's start with the basics.

The EyeQ Ultra is Mobileye's seventh generation automotive SoC, and is designed to enable Level 4 autonomous driving – otherwise known as "high automation" level driving. Though not quite the holy grail that is Level 5 (full automation), L4 is the more immediate goal for automotive companies working on self-driving cars, as it a degree of automation that allows for cars to start, and if necessary, safely stop themselves. In practice, level 4 systems are likely to be the basis of robo-taxis and other fixed-location vehicles, where such self-driving cars will only need to operate across a known and well-defined area under limited weather conditions.

Mobileye already has the hardware to do L4 automation today, however that hardware is comprised of six to eight EyeQ chips working together. For the research and development phase that's more than sufficient – just making it all work is quite a big deal, after all – but as L4 is now within Mobileye's grasp, the company is working on the next step of productization of the technology: making it cheap enough and compact enough for mass market vehicles. And that's where the EyeQ Ultra comes in.

At a high level, the EyeQ Ultra is intended to be Mobileye's first mass market autonomous driving SoC, To accomplish this, Mobileye is designing a single-chip L4 driving system – that is, all of the necessary processing hardware is contained within a single high-end SoC. So when attached to the appropriate cameras and sensors, the EyeQ Ultra – and the Ultra alone – would be able to driving a car as per L4 standards.

The EyeQ Ultra includes 12 RISC-V cores and various accelerators. Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 and is planning an IPO.

---

Original Submission

[UPDATE: 2022-01-05 20:48:08 UTC]
We are aware there are some issues (dead links) where indicated by links to "here" in the story. It seems to be a long-dormant bug in the code. Will address this issue when addressing any other issues raised here. In the meantime, try using the links that appear in the liked-to article, directly, at: ( https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=moderation#spam . Yes, we are aware that those are not the best examples and we are aware that those examples may need to be updated to point to better ones. --martyb

---

I've been made aware of some discussions about the permitted use of the "Spam" moderation. This has spawned a great deal of discussion among Soylent staff.

What's The Point?
The whole purpose of comment moderation is for an (early) reader of a comment is to provide guidance to later readers. Like "breaking trail" for others when hiking through deep snow. The "Trail breaker" makes it eaier to navigate the path for those who follow. Before we dive into the Spam, it is important to note that it is encouraged to "upmod" more than one "downmods". I receive an e-mail each day that includes the number of each that were performed on the preceding day. I am happy to report that I generally see 2x to 4x more upmods than downmods! YAY!

Where to start?
Start at the at the top of the Left-Hand side of the Main page. There one can find a link to the FAQ. Click that link and scroll down to the link about our Moderation System. Click that link. Located there is a list of items including one on the Spam Mod.

There it states:

Spam Mod

The spam moderation (spam mod) is to be used only on comments that genuinely qualify as spam. Spam is unsolicited advertisement, undesired and offtopic filth, or possibly illegal in general. Spam can come in many forms, but it differs from a troll comment in that it will have absolutely no substance, is completely undesired, is detrimental to the site, or worse.

The spam mod is special in that is removes 10 Karma points from the user that posted the comment. This mod is meant to combat spam and not to be used to punish commenters (when in doubt, don't use this mod). Our goal is to put a spammer in Karma Hell and for them to not be able to get out of it easily. As we do not want this used against non-spamers, we monitor all spam mods to make sure moderators are not abusing the spam mod. If we find a moderator that unfairly applied the spam mod, we remove the mod giving the poster back the Karma points, and the modder is banned from modding for one month. Further bans to the same modder add increasing amounts of ban time. If you inadvertently applied a spam mod, mail the admin and we will remove the spam mod without banning you. Even though we have updated the interface to physically separate the spam mod from the other mods, unintentional modding may still be an unfortunate occurrence.

Examples

If you are unsure of whether a comment is spam or not, don't use the spam mod. Here are some examples of spam:

• Proper spam. Anything whose primary purpose is advertisement (unless somehow relevant to the discussion/article).
• HOSTS/GNAA/etc... type posts. Recurring, useless annoyances we're all familiar with.
• Posts so offtopic and lacking value to even be a troll that they can't be called anything else. See here, here or here for example.
• Repeating the same thing over and over. This includes blockquoting entire comments without adding anything substantial to them.

These examples cannot cover every type of Spam that you might encounter. Please exercise common sense. We expect all comments to be on-topic or following a clearly defined thread that has developed as part of the discussion. Raising personal complaints or starting completely new discussions unrelated to the main story are certainly off-topic and also possibly trolling. Remember: if in doubt do not use the Spam moderation.

"Sock Mods" and "Mod Bombs":
You may ask: "What's that?". Simply stated, when a logged-in-user, uses one (or more) account(s) to "updmod" other account(s) in unison. This is similar to using other account(s) to "Downmod" one (or more) account(s) in unison. Both practices are Forbidden. As always, when such activity is discovered, Admins notice and discuss it to confirm the observation with other admins. Actions taken can range from a ban on moderations (for increasing durations for repeat offenders) to an outright ban on use of the accounts(s). We have observed such activity happening recently and are preparing to take action. Similarly, when several accounts can be shown to have repeatedly cooperated to prevent someone from expressing their opinion or have given other accounts an unfair advantage then that can also be a form of 'bombing'. My advice is: stop right now. We do not like taking such actions, but it would be unfair to those who DO follow the rules for us to ignore such activities.

Summary:
(1) simply follow Wheaton's Law:

Don't Be a Dick

(2) "Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean."

takyon writes:

AMD Rembrandt Mobile

AMD announced Rembrandt 6000-series mobile processors with Zen 3+ CPU cores and RDNA2 integrated graphics.

The 8-core processors (e.g. 45W Ryzen 7 6800H and 15W Ryzen 7 6800U) all have 12 RDNA2 graphics cores (CUs), up from the previous generation Cezanne's 8 Vega graphics cores. This could mean a doubling of graphics performance. On the other hand, the 6-core processors (e.g. 15W Ryzen 7 6600U) slash this in half to only 6 RDNA2 CUs.

Rembrandt uses DDR5 or LPDDR5 memory and adds support for 40 Gbps USB4 ports, PCIe Gen 4.0 GPUs and storage, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2, and AV1 hardware decode.

There are also three "Barcelo" models which are refreshes of Cezanne chips (8-core Ryzen 7 5825U, 6-core Ryzen 5 5625U, and 4-core Ryzen 3 5425U).

Rembrandt will be one of the first products to integrate Microsoft's "Pluton" security chip.

Intel Alder Lake Mobile

Intel announced Alder Lake-H (high performance) and Alder Lake-U (low power) mobile processors, with a heterogeneous microarchitecture featuring performance (P) and efficiency (E) cores.

Alder Lake-H has a "base power" of 45 Watts and a "max turbo power" of 115 Watts. The top i9/i7 chips have 14 cores (6P + 8E). In the middle there is an i7-12650H with 10 cores (6P + 4E) and an i5-12600H and i5-12500H with 12 cores (4P + 8E), so that may lead to some confusion. Finally, there is an i5-12450H with 8 cores (4P + 4E).

Alder Lake-U has a "base power" of 15 Watts and a "max turbo power" of 55 Watts. At the top there are a few chips with 10 cores (2P + 8E) and 80 or 96 graphics execution units (EUs). The i3-1215U has 6 cores (2P + 4E) and 64 EUs. Finally there are a Pentium 8505 and Celeron 7305 with 5 cores (1P + 4E) and 48 EUs.

More

* Intel announced cheaper and lower power Alder Lake desktop CPUs, including CPUs made from a smaller die with no efficiency cores, and the world's fastest dual-core CPU (the Pentium G7400).
* AMD announced the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for a Spring 2022 launch. No other Zen 3 CPUs with stacked cache are planned.
* Zen 4 and the AM5 socket will launch sometime during the second half of 2022.
* AMD announced the RX 6500 XT ($200) and various mobile GPUs.
* Nvidia announced its RTX 3050 ($250) and RTX 3090 Ti desktop GPUs

See also: Intel Teases Core i9-12900KS Alder Lake CPU With Up To 5.5 GHz Boost Clock, 5.2 GHz All P-Core Boost

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Intel's high-end 12th-generation Core processors use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, but Asus' ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard takes things to the next level. A "potential reversed memory capacitor" in some boards can cause them to catch on fire.

The problem was initially hunted down by the Actually Hardware Overclocking YouTube channel, which diagnosed the issue using images from Reddit users and posters on Asus' support forums whose boards had failed. The reversed capacitor causes increased current leakage, which generates heat that subsequently burns out the neighboring MOSFET transistors. Users with the flipped capacitors noted that they noticed a burning smell or even fire before their systems shut down. Once the MOSFETs have burned out, the motherboard's built-in status display will show error code 53, indicating that the motherboard doesn't detect any installed RAM.

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

This HPE software update accidentally wiped 77TB of data:

We covered this story here University Loses Valuable Supercomputer Research After Backup Error Wipes 77 Terabytes of Data. I, like some others, suspected finger trouble on the part of those doing the backup, but the company writing the sofware have put their hands up and taken responsibility.

A flawed update sent out by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) resulted in the loss of 77TB of critical research data at Kyoto University, the company has admitted.

HPE recently issued a software update that broke a program deleting old log files, and instead of just deleting those (which would still have a backup copy stored in a high-capacity storage system), it deleted pretty much everything, including files in the backup system, Tom's Hardware reported.

As a result, some 34 million files, generated by 14 different research groups, from December 14 to December 16, were permanently lost.

In a press release, issued in Japanese, HPE took full responsibility for the disastrous mishap.

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Microsoft fixes harebrained Y2K22 Exchange bug that disrupted email worldwide:

Microsoft has released a fix for a harebrained Exchange Server bug that shut down on-premises mail delivery around the world just as clocks were chiming in the new year.

The mass disruption stemmed from a date check failure in Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 that made it impossible for servers to accommodate the year 2022, prompting some to call it the Y2K22 bug. The mail programs stored dates and times as signed integers, which max out at 2147483647, or 2³¹ - 1. Microsoft uses the first two numbers of an update version to denote the year it was released. As long as the year was 2021 or earlier, everything worked fine.

When Microsoft released version 2201010001 on New Year's Eve, however, on-premises servers crashed because they were unable to interpret the date. Consequently, messages got stuck in transport queues. Admins around the world were left frantically trying to troubleshoot instead of ringing in the New Year with friends and family. All they had to go on were two cryptic log messages [...]

"What in the absolute hell Microsoft!?" one admin wrote in this Reddit thread, which was one of the first forums to report the mass failure. "On New Year's Eve!? First place I check is Reddit and you guys save my life before we even get an engineer on the phone."

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Milton Keynes to hold large-scale driverless car trial:

A major trial of driverless cars on the public roads will begin in Milton Keynes later this month.

The Fetch car system, backed by the government and Milton Keynes Council, will allow people to order a car through an app. The car, which is remotely controlled by an operator, will then be delivered to them. The company behind the trials says a "safety driver" will also initially be in every vehicle.

"It's driverless but not autonomous," said Koosha Kaveh, the chief executive of Imperium Drive, the company behind the trials. "There's still a human involved, but they'll be sitting in a control centre controlling the vehicle in the same way you would control a drone."

[...] "The biggest thing at the moment is Covid, because we can't start putting players together in cars, particularly with the omicron variant being very contagious.

---

Original Submission

Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty on 4 of 11 Charges

upstart writes:

Elizabeth Holmes found guilty on 4 of 11 charges:

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted today of three counts of criminal wire fraud and one count of criminal conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The jury delivered its verdict after six days of deliberation.

The government's victory in the case is a rare rebuke for tech startups, which often pitch investors on their technological prowess and business acumen using wildly optimistic assumptions.

Theranos was, perhaps, an extreme example, raising over $900 million on the back of claims that its proprietary tests were better, cheaper, and less invasive than the competition. None of those claims was true, and unlike many other Silicon Valley startups, the health and safety of patients was on the line.

Holmes was found guilty of defrauding Lakeshore Capital Management (the family office of the DeVoses) of $100 million, PFM Healthcare (a hedge fund) of $38 million, and an LLC connected to Daniel Mosley (Henry Kissinger's former estate attorney) of $6 million. She was also convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Theranos investors more generally. On three charges, all alleging wire fraud against investors, the jury returned no verdict. Holmes was acquitted of all other charges, including those that involved defrauding patients. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

With the guilty verdict, Holmes, the founder of the company, is the first Theranos executive to be held criminally responsible for her actions, though she may not be the last.

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

JAPAN AIMS TO PUT A PERSON ON THE MOON BY LATE 2020S:

Japan on Tuesday revised the timetable for its space exploration plans to land a Japanese on the moon by the second half of the 2020s.

[...] According to the preliminary schedule of the plan, Japan intends to participate in the Artemis program, one of U.S. led initiative aimed at bringing astronauts back to the moon, bringing the first non-American to the moon.

The plan also outlines Japan's ambitions to launch a probe to explore Mars in 2024 and find ways to generate solar power in space.The plan also outlines Japan's ambitions to launch a probe to explore Mars in 2024 and find ways to generate solar power in space.

[...] After the landing of the first spaceship on the other side of the moon, [...] space exploration goals were announced a week after Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth after 12 days on board the International Space Station and became the first space tourist to travel to [the] ISS in more than a decade.

---

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/future-interoperability-not-big-tech-2021-review

2021 was not a good year for Big Tech: a flaming cocktail of moderation failings, privacy breaches, leaked nefarious plans, illegal collusion and tone-deaf, arrogant pronouncements stoked public anger and fired up the political will to do something about the unaccountable power and reckless self-interest of the tech giants.

We've been here before. EFF's been fighting tech abuses for 30 years, and we're used to real tech problems giving rise to nonsensical legal "solutions," that don't address the problem - or make it worse. There's been some of that (okay, there's been a lot of that).

But this year, something new happened: lawmakers, technologists, public interest groups, and regulators around the world converged on an idea we're very fond of around here: interoperability.

There's a burgeoning, global understanding that the internet doesn't have to be five giant websites, each filled with text from the other four. Sure, tech platforms have "network effects" on their side - meaning that the more they grow, the more useful they are. Every iPhone app is a reason to buy an iPhone; every person who buys an iPhone is a reason to create a new iPhone app. Likewise, every Facebook user is a reason to join Facebook (in order to socialize with them) and every time someone joins Facebook, they become a reason for more people to join.

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Analysis: A pandemic-scarred year [2021]ends in darkness -- but with hope on the horizon:

The year [2021] dawned in a blaze of hope that new, effective Covid-19 vaccines -- free and available to all -- would deliver the country from the worst public health emergency in 100 years, in which 350,000 Americans had already died. The promise of a new President, Joe Biden, to shut down the virus rang in the nation's ears after his predecessor had lied about Covid-19's severity, botched the government response and prized his political goals over its health.

But the year ends in a dark place. Hospitals are flooded with Covid-19 patients, the transportation network is seizing up, and a new coronavirus variant -- Omicron -- is finding even the most careful citizens.

[...] "I think that right now we're in the public health crisis of our lifetimes," Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, told CNN on Thursday.

It won't be a pandemic forever. Here's what could be next:

upstart writes:

Research Shows Intermittent Fasting Works for Weight Loss:

Intermittent fasting can produce clinically significant weight loss as well as improve metabolic health in individuals with obesity, according to a new study review led by University of Illinois Chicago researchers.

"We noted that intermittent fasting is not better than regular dieting; both produce the same amount of weight loss and similar changes in blood pressure, cholesterol, and inflammation," said Krista Varady, professor of nutrition at the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences and author of "Cardiometabolic Benefits of Intermittent Fasting."

According to the analysis published in the Annual Review of Nutrition, all forms of fasting reviewed produced mild to moderate weight loss, 1%-8% from baseline weight, which represents results that are similar to that of more traditional, calorie-restrictive diets. Intermittent fasting regimens may also benefit health by decreasing blood pressure and insulin resistance, and in some cases, cholesterol and triglyceride levels are also lowered. Other health benefits, such as improved appetite regulation and positive changes in the gut microbiome, have also been demonstrated.

The review looked at over 25 research studies involving three types of intermittent fasting:

upstart writes:

Massive ~2.3k Patch Series Would Improve Linux Build Times 50~80% & Fix "Dependency Hell":

Longtime Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar posted a massive set of patches today: 2,297 patches that have been in the works since late 2020 and completely rework the Linux kernel's header file hierarchy. The goal of this "fast kernel headers" effort is to speed up kernel build times and also clean=up[sic] a lot of things in the proces[sic] to address the "dependency hell".

This massive set of patches touches most of the Linux kernel code-base as it reworks the header file handling for the kernel builds. But the end result is faster Linux kernel compilations both for clean builds and incremental builds.

Molnar wrote in the patch cover letter, "As most kernel developers know, there's around ~10,000 main .h headers in the Linux kernel, in the include/ and arch/*/include/ hierarchies. Over the last 30+ years they have grown into a complicated & painful set of cross-dependencies we are affectionately calling 'Dependency Hell'."

According to Ingo's figures, there could be as many as 78% more kernel builds per hour with the "Fast Kernel Headers" enabled kernel than the current stock kernel. A 50~80% improvement in the absolute kernel build performance on supported architectures is possible.

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

U.S. officials ask AT&T, Verizon to delay 5G wireless over aviation safety concerns:

WASHINGTON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday asked AT&T (T.N) and Verizon Communications (VZ.N) to delay the planned Jan. 5 introduction of new 5G wireless service over aviation safety concerns.

In a letter Friday seen by Reuters, Buttigieg and FAA Administrator Steve Dickson asked AT&T Chief Executive John Stankey and Verizon Chief Executive Hans Vestberg for a delay of no more than two weeks as part of a "proposal as a near-term solution for advancing the co-existence of 5G deployment in the C-Band and safe flight operations."

The aviation industry and FAA have raised concerns about potential interference of 5G with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters that could disrupt flights.

"We ask that your companies continue to pause introducing commercial C-Band service for an additional short period of no more than two weeks beyond the currently scheduled deployment date of January 5," the letter says.