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upstart writes:

Elon Musk warns to use Starlink 'with caution' in Ukraine:

Days after sending SpaceX Starlink internet terminals to Ukraine, Elon Musk is warning people there to "please use with caution." As a non-Russian communications system, the Starlink satellite internet service has a "high" probability of being targeted during the ongoing Russian invasion, Musk said.

The SpaceX founder and CEO advised users to only turn on Starlink when needed and to place the antenna as far away from people as possible. He also suggested visibly camouflaging antennas.

[...] Additionally, the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Director Christopher Scolese recently warned that Russia's military can target satellites to disrupt satellite-based internet traffic, communications, and GPS services. Scolese said that if Russia feels it needs to, they will extend their war into space.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Study finds agreeableness a helpful trait for general success in life:

Michael Wilmot, assistant professor of management at the University of Arkansas, and Deniz Ones, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, examined a wide range of variables, from psychological and physical health to interpersonal relationships, and from leadership effectiveness to performance in academic and organizational settings.

To better understand the impact of agreeableness, the researchers summarized results from 142 meta-analyses reporting effects for 275 variables. In all, the results comprised more than 1.9 million participants from roughly 3,900 studies. Meta-analysis is a process used to systematically merge multiple independent findings using statistical methods to calculate an overall effect.

Wilmot and Ones found that agreeableness had a desirable effect on 93% of variables and outcomes.

"We wanted to do a quantitative summary and synthesis of what we have learned about relations between agreeableness, one of the so-called Big 5 personality traits, and its consequences," Wilmot said. "We know this is important—perhaps now more than ever—because agreeableness is the personality trait primarily concerned with helping people and building positive relationships, which is not lost on organizational leaders."

upstart writes:

People say they're using Ukrainian Airbnbs to send money to locals:

The internet's found a new use for Airbnb.

Scores of people on Twitter and Facebook say they're employing a unique method to financially support Ukrainians in need: booking, but not staying in, local Airbnbs. The idea began picking up steam early Thursday, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continued, with numerous people sharing what they say are screenshots of their communication with Ukrainian Airbnb hosts online.

SEE ALSO: How to help refugees fleeing Ukraine

"HOW TO HELP - just booked a Kiev AirBnb for 1 week, simply as a means of getting money directly into the hands of Kiev residents," read one such tweet. "It's really cheap and can make a small difference right now." Kiev is the Russian spelling of Ukraine's capitol, Kyiv.

[...] We reached out to Airbnb in an effort to determine if it's seeing an uptick in this type of activity, and if it has waived guest and host fees within Ukraine.

The company confirmed via email that it is indeed waiving guest and host fees on Ukrainian bookings "at this time," but did not directly respond to our other questions. A spokesperson did point us to a Feb. 28 blog post, where Airbnb said it would offer free housing for "up to" 100,000 refugees fleeing the country.

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

Looks like solar cycle 24 has finally ended.

The Termination Event has Arrived:

The "Termination Event" is a new idea in solar physics, outlined by McIntosh and Leamon in a December 2020 paper in the journal Solar Physics. Not everyone accepts it–yet. If Solar Cycle 25 unfolds as McIntosh and Leamon predict, the Termination Event will have to be taken seriously.

The basic idea is this: Solar Cycle 25 (SC25) started in Dec. 2019. However, old Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) refused to go away. It hung on for two more years, producing occasional old-cycle sunspots and clogging the sun's upper layers with its decaying magnetic field. During this time, the two cycles coexisted, SC25 struggling to break free while old SC24 held it back.

[...] Researchers have long known that solar cycles can overlap. The twist added by McIntosh and Leamon is the realization that overlapping cycles interact. [...] In the early 20th century, George Ellery Hale discovered that the magnetic polarity of sunspot pairs reverses itself from one cycle to the next; indeed, the sun's entire global magnetic field flips every ~11 years.

[...] Termination Events mark the end of interference, when a new cycle can break free of the old.

The timing of the Termination Event can predict the intensity of the new cycle. In their Solar Physics paper, McIntosh and Leamon looked back over 270 years of sunspot data and found that Termination Events happen every 10 to 15 years.

"We found that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle would be," explains Leamon. "Conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle would be."

Journal Reference:
Scott W. McIntosh, Sandra Chapman, Robert J. Leamon, et al. Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number: Forecasting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude [open], Solar Physics (DOI: 10.1007/s11207-020-01723-y)

Original Submission

owl writes:

New York's Poop Train Threatens Small Alabama Town Once Again:

Back in 2017, the towns of Parrish and West Jefferson in northern Alabama had crappy ends to their years when a train carrying 10 million pounds of human waste from New York and New Jersey rolled into the area. Its contents were being dumped into a nearby landfill, which spread a smell locals likened to rotting corpses, attracted an infestation of flies, and generally made life as unpleasant as you'd expect. The waste-management company responsible was eventually forced to stop, bringing the towns' nightmares to an end in Spring 2018.

Or so they thought. Every good horror story gets a sequel, and Parrish and West Jefferson's has been four years in the making. According to WVTM 13, an Alabama Department of Environmental Management inspector paid a visit to the Big Sky Environmental landfill on February 1, where they found a newly constructed rail spur on the property connected to a nearby freight track. On the line were eight empty rail cars used to transport human waste, which the company reportedly confirmed had been brought down and unloaded within the last two weeks.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

US KleptoCapture force to tackle cryptocurrency use in Russian sanction avoidance:

The US government has launched a new initiative to tackle the use of cryptocurrency and assets to circumvent new sanctions imposed on Russia.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland, through the US Department of Justice's (DoJ) Office of Public Affairs, announced the creation of "Task Force KleptoCapture."

The team is described as "an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed, along with allies and partners."

[...] KleptoCapture will include "targeting" those who try to use cryptocurrency to avoid US sanctions and those who are trying to launder the "proceeds of foreign corruption" or to "evade US responses to Russian military aggression."

"The Task Force will be fully empowered to use the most cutting-edge investigative techniques -- including data analytics, cryptocurrency tracing, foreign intelligence sources, and information from financial regulators and private sector partners -- to identify sanctions evasion and related criminal misconduct," Garland says.

In addition, KleptoCapture will be tasked with preventing the "undermining" of sanctions by seizing assets "belonging to sanctioned individuals or assets identified as the proceeds of unlawful conduct" and by investigating alleged attempts to avoid Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and anti-laundering rules in the country.

Hat tip to Runaway1956 for his submission.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Russia places extraordinary demands on OneWeb prior to satellite launch:

Russia has taken the extraordinary step of placing multiple demands on OneWeb and its government ownership prior to a planned launch of satellites Friday aboard a Soyuz rocket.

The mission, to loft 34 broadband communications satellites into orbit, was to be the 14th launch of OneWeb satellites. The company presently has 428 satellites in orbit, out of a planned total of 648 for its initial constellation. OneWeb had hoped to begin commercial service around the world later this year.

The vast majority of those satellites have launched on Russian Soyuz rockets, one of the few boosters in the world with spare lift capacity for a megaconstellation at this time. Another six Soyuz launches were scheduled for later this year to complete the OneWeb constellation.

But those plans were thrown into question by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last week. OneWeb, which is jointly owned by the United Kingdom government and an Indian multinational company, has not offered any public comments since the invasion.

Russia is demanding guarantees that OneWeb not be used for military purposes and that the UK sell its share in the company. If you have some spare trampolines and your name doesn't rhyme with Melon Usk, please contact OneWeb ASAP.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Buildings — Capturing furnace emissions - Technology Org:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel solution to reduce the environmental impact of natural gas-condensing furnaces commonly used in U.S. homes. The team built a prototype furnace that incorporates monolithic acidic gas reduction, or AGR, as the catalyst to minimize acidic gases and condensate acidity, and oxidize carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and methane.

In a demonstration, researchers conducted a 400-hour reliability and durability test and proved that AGR, made of titanium dioxide, copper oxide and minor platinum, removed more than 99.9% of the acidic gas products produced during combustion. It trapped and removed sulfur oxides and reduced additional emissions.

[...] ORNL's Zhiming Gao said [...] "This technology could be applied to commercial rooftop units, thermally driven heat pumps, gas-fired water heaters and boilers."

Journal Reference:
Zhiming Gao, Kyle Gluesenkamp, Anthony Gehl. et al. Ultra-clean condensing gas furnace enabled with acidic gas reduction, Energy Volume 243, 15 March 2022, 123068 (DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.123068)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

To Find the First Galaxies, Webb Space Telescope Pays Attention to Detail and Theory:

As the Webb team continues to make progress in aligning the telescope, other successful activities include the calibration of the NIRISS filter wheel and pupil wheel tuning for NIRCam. There are hundreds of activities like these planned during the commissioning process, and each is as important as the next to ensure that Webb can achieve its ambitious science goals. One such goal – detecting the earliest galaxies – also requires a lot of planning and theory to prepare for the observations. L.Y. Aaron Yung, a postdoc at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, tells us more about the important theoretical work that helps plan for and then analyze galaxy surveys:

"This summer, Webb will start searching for galaxies in the distant universe. These highly anticipated observations are the key to unlocking the secrets in galaxy evolution and our universe's history. Depending on the specific science goal of an observing program, the best-suited survey configurations can vary a lot.

"For instance, galaxy surveys going after the faintest and most distant galaxies require long exposure times (e.g., NGDEEP, PRIMER), but surveys for large-scale cosmological structure would require large survey areas (e.g., COSMOS-Web). Inputs from physically motivated simulations are essential to developing optimal observing strategies to achieve the specific scientific goals.

"To create a simulated universe, we first lay the foundation with dark matter concentrations, or halos, extracted from cosmological simulations. Dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter in the universe and has a dominant effect on the spatial distributions of galaxies across the universe. We then simulate the galaxies forming inside these dark matter halos based on astrophysical processes we learned from past observations.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Radeon RX 6500 XT GPUs Are Selling Below MSRP In Europe:

Did you expect consumer gaming-grade graphics cards to sell under MSRP in February 2022? It has happened. Mindfactory, one of Germany's most prominent online tech retailers, has published a page full of special offers this weekend. It contains AMD partner graphics cards that are selling below MSRP. This news might be exciting, but before you start dreaming about GPU upgrades, playing the latest PC games with real-time raytracing in 4K, and rushing off to find your credit card - both these sub-MSRP treats are AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT designs.

[...] Mindfactory listings show two AMD Radeon RX 6500 XTs models available for purchase. The ASRock Radeon RX 6500XT Challenger ITX and the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6500 XT Eagle were available at €199 when we first checked, but now the Gigabyte model has gone up in price to €229. The other discounted RX 6500 XT on the Mindfactory specials page is an ASRock Radeon RX 6500 XT Phantom Gaming D OC at €229. This dual-fan model used to sell for €249.

Putting the prices into context, the German MSRP for the base model AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics cards is €209. In addition, Germany applies a VAT of 19%, which makes the ASRock ITX model about €160 before sales tax. If we convert this sum to USD, we get $182 before sales tax.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Raspberry Pi 64-bit Armbian Gets New Release:

Armbian, a community-run Linux distro that supports over 100 Arm- and X86-based SBCs, has announced a new version, 22.02, and there's an optimized image ready to be installed on your Raspberry Pi.

Armbian takes a 'mainline first' approach to Linux, attempting to unify the experience across many different boards, each of them optimized for at a kernel or userspace level to maintain performance. Images are based on either Debian or Ubuntu, and use mostly vanilla upstream package repos, as most of the work has gone into kernel optimization.

The new release is the first to support UEFI on both Arm and X86 using GRUB, so it can boot on Intel Macs, and along with the hundreds of bug fixes you'd expect from a new version, there's a new Extensions build framework that allows users to extend the build system independently from the core code base, with over 20 hooks available.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Stonehenge served as an ancient solar calendar: New analysis:

New finds about the stone circle's history, along with analysis of other ancient calendar systems, prompted professor Timothy Darvill to take a fresh look at Stonehenge. His analysis, published in the journal Antiquity, concluded that the site was designed as a solar calendar.

[...] Crucially, recent research had shown that Stonehenge's sarsens were added during the same phase of construction around 2500 BC. They were sourced from the same area and subsequently remained in the same formation. This indicates they worked as a single unit.

As such, Darvill analyzed these stones, examining their numerology and comparing them to other known calendars from this period. He identified a solar calendar in their layout, suggesting they served as a physical representation of the year that helped the ancient inhabitants of Wiltshire keep track of the days, weeks, and months.

"The proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way. Each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represents a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days," said Darvill, noting that distinctive stones in the circle mark the start of each week.

Additionally, an intercalary month of five days and a leap day every four years were needed to match the solar year. "The intercalary month, probably dedicated to the deities of the site, is represented by the five trilithons in the center of the site," said Darvill. "The four Station Stones outside the Sarsen Circle provide markers to notch-up until a leap day."

As such, the winter and summer solstices would be framed by the same pairs of stones every year. One of the trilithons also frames the winter solstice, indicating it may have been the new year. This solstitial alignment also helps calibrate the calendar—any errors in counting the days would be easily detectable as the sun would be in the wrong place on the solstices.

Journal Reference:
Timothy Darvill. Keeping time at Stonehenge | Antiquity | Cambridge Core [open], Antiquity (DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2022.5)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A Dead Chinese Rocket Is Crashing Into the Moon on Friday, and Scientists Can't Wait:

The strange story of a big hunk of space junk that's on a collision course with the moon comes to an explosive end Friday, and astronomers are eager to view the fallout.

An old rocket booster once thought to be the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9, but now believed to be from the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 mission (although China denies this), will slam into the moon's far side at over 5,000 miles per hour.

Bill Gray, an amateur astronomer and software developer in Maine, first noticed the terminal trajectory. His software picked up the impact in an orbital model and Gray worked with observatories around the world to gather additional data and increase his confidence in the prediction.

[...] "I am astounded that we can tell the difference between the two rocket body options -- SpaceX versus Chinese -- and confirm which one will impact the moon with the data we have," Adam Battle, a planetary science graduate student at the University of Arizona said in a statement in February. "The differences we see are primarily due to type of paint used by SpaceX and the Chinese."

In a blog post, Gray wrote that "with all the data, we've got a certain impact at March 4 12:25:58 Universal Time (4:25 a.m. PT)." Jonathan McDowell, a leading watcher of orbit and everything near Earth in space, confirmed the prediction.

upstart writes:

AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs Get Major Price Cuts, Up to 25 Percent:

AMD's Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors are two years old, but the Zen 3 chips are still among some of the best CPUs on the market. If you're looking for your next upgrade, U.S. retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Micro Center, and Newegg, are currently selling the Ryzen 5000 lineup at reduced prices.

The Ryzen 5000 price cuts are probably an answer to the recently released Intel 12th Generation Alder Lake product stack that has helped Intel recover market share in the Japanese and German markets. While Ryzen 5000 still dominates the list of best-selling processors on Amazon and Newegg, Alder Lake has been creeping up to the Zen 3 parts. For example, the Core i7-12700KF is the seventh best-selling chip on Amazon, whereas the Core i7-12700K is in the third spot on Newegg's charts. Moreover, it's that time of the year when retailers start making space for the next wave of processors.

AMD has already confirmed that Ryzen 7000 (Raphael), Ryzen 5000's successor, will hit the market in the second half of the year, so retailers have likely started to offload Ryzen 5000 parts. Ryzen 7000 lives on the completely new AM5 platform with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support. The transition to the AM5 socket means consumers will have to invest in a new motherboard, although the topic of the memory remains in the air. Intel's Alder Lake supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory modules, but AMD hasn't confirmed if Ryzen 7000 will also have hybrid memory support.

The story continues with a chart of prices for various models and has links to vendors, too.

Random question: Is your primary computer a desktop or a laptop? I've been laptop-only for the last 15-20 years -- my computing needs have been relatively modest.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Raspberry Pi Competitor Ranks Swell With Orange Pi 4 LTS:

A new version of the Orange Pi, one of the Raspberry Pi competitor boards built around the hexa-core Arm-based Rockchip RK3399 SoC and with a distinctive Wi-Fi antenna, is now available for pre-order, with prices starting from $55, as spotted by CNX-Software.

The Orange Pi 4 LTS (not Long-Term Support, but LTS versions of Orange Pi boards tend to be more compact versions of previous releases) features a six-core processor that sees two Arm Cortex A72 cores matched with four A53 cores and a Mali T860 GPU. There's a choice of either three or four gigabytes of LPDDR4 RAM, and a 16GB eMMC chip can be specified.

The main difference between the Orange Pi 4 LTS and the 4 and 4B boards that preceded it is the GPIO. While previous boards contained 40 pins on their headers, the LTS houses just 26, just like the original Raspberry Pi. And while we can use some Raspberry Pi HATs designed for 40-pin GPIO with the original Pi. Don't expect true GPIO compatibility with the Orange Pi 4 LTS, a quick glance of the GPIO layout shows that I2C is mapped to different pins, effectively breaking compatibility with cards which use this protocol. The audio chip also seems to have been changed, from a Realtek ALC5651 to an ESS ES8316.

Original Submission