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upstart writes:

In rare interview, Monkey Island designers tell Ars about long-awaited Return:

Nine years ago, The Secret of Monkey Island creator and designer Ron Gilbert wrote a blog post laying out what he would do if he made another Monkey Island game. But now that Gilbert is actually working on Return to Monkey Island—his first work on the franchise in over three decades—he told Ars that the 2013 blog post seems like it was written by a completely different person.

[...] Today, Gilbert describes the process that finally led him back to Monkey Island as "a star alignment thing." While Gilbert said he had considered a return to the series many times over the years, it wasn't until a pitch from publisher Devolver Digital a few years ago that "the ball started moving forward on stuff."

Before diving back into Monkey Island, though, Gilbert said he wanted to make sure any new game could live up to expectations that have risen sky-high after three decades of the first two Monkey Island games being hailed as the pinnacle of classic adventure game design. "That was my No. 1 concern when Devolver first approached me about this—just the weight of [expectations]," he said. "Was that something I really wanted to take on?"

To get past those fears, Gilbert consulted with fellow Monkey Island programmer and writer Dave Grossman to discuss whether revisiting the setting would actually be valuable. The pair asked themselves a series of questions before committing: "Do we have a good idea? Can we move this forward? Do we have... a story that fits the legacy?"

"For me, [the prospect of] working with Ron definitely was a big draw," Grossman told Ars. "[But] just to sort of check ourselves, we got together before we definitely said yes to make sure that we had something to say with [a new game], that we were going to be able to take it in some interesting directions. So we met for a weekend and decided that, yeah, that was the case, and we should make a game."

So fellow Soylentils, are you fans of Monkey Island?

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Google marked Earth Day 2022 with a Doodle consisting of animated GIFs showing time-lapse images of four scenes: glacial retreat at the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania between December 1986 and 2020 and in Sermersooq, Greenland between December 2000 and 2020, a coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef between March 2016 and October 2017, and deforestation of the Harz forests in Elend, Germany, between December 1995 and 2020.

Climate counsellor Lesley Hughes, a professor of biology at Macquarie University in Sydney, said the images of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef are "a very high-impact visual image" that would resonate.

[...] "Our physical and biological world is transforming before our eyes and that's what these images are emphasising and so there's absolutely no time to waste."

Hughes said the confronting images published in 2022 may be a response to the IPCC26 report and were important for raising awareness.

"I think when you're sitting in a middle-class environment and it's a nice day and the sun's come up or has gone down, it's easy to become complacent about the larger forces at work in our climate system and the impacts those forces have," Hughes said.

"So reminding people that just because it's a nice day, climate change hasn't gone away is really important."

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Anomaly 6 claims to be able to track billions of mobile phones, including those belonging to some of America's top spy agencies.

There exists an underworld data broker market devoted to auctioning off your information to the highest bidder. It's an industry populated by professional creeps who buy and sell mobile data collected via invasive if legal means, often from nosy apps. A new report shows that one such company demonstrated just how creepy it could be by spying on some of America's three letter agencies to show off its product.

The Intercept and Tech Inquiry report that a little-known Virginia data firm called Anomaly Six, or A6, displayed its surveillance capabilities by tracking mobile phones used by employees of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. The company reportedly uses highly accurate GPS data purchased from mobile apps to triangulate when and where a specific phone user is at any given time. This, along with other collected data points, allows the company to track 3 billion devices in "real time," marketing materials viewed by the outlets suggests.

The alleged snooping on America's spies was revealed during a demo unveiled at a meeting between A6 and another surveillance startup, Zignal Labs, which is known for sucking up reams of social media data from Twitter. The two companies were in the midst of talks regarding a potential partnership and, to impress Zignal, A6's rep, Brendon Clark, allegedly used the firm's tech to track a mobile phone from the parking lot of the NSA to a military training base in the Middle East.

[Source]: Gizmodo

So, who else is left to be tracked ??

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html

Ever wonder what's lurking within the dark corners, nooks and crannies of your computer? Is some gremlin responsible for all those crashes---you know, the ones that happen when you are trying to save that critical document you've been working on so diligently for the past three hours? We wondered too, so we took a look to see what we could find. And guess what? When we put the computer chips under the microscope we found some very interesting creatures hiding there.

Our search has led to a new collection of photomicrographs (photographs taken through a microscope) featuring many of the interesting silicon creatures and other doodling scribbled onto integrated circuits by engineers when they were designing computer chip masks. The tiny creatures are far too small to be seen with the naked eye, so we have provided high-magnification photomicrographs to share these mysterious wonders with our visitors. Engineers designing modern computer chips have a very rich sense of humor as you will discover when you visit our Silicon Creatures Gallery that we keep corralled in the Silicon Zoo. We hope you enjoy your adventure!

Original Submission

upstart writes:

How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town:

When specialized ASICs optimized for crypto mining went on the market, a processor arms race began. Plattsburgh, in upstate New York, had some of the cheapest electricity rates in the country and crypto miners beat a path to their town to set up shop. In 2018 the town was receiving a major crypto mining application every week.

In January 2018, there was a cold snap. People turned up their heat and plugged in space heaters. The city quickly exceeded its quota of hydropower, forcing it to buy power elsewhere at much higher rates. McMahon says his Plattsburgh home's energy bill jumped by $30 to $40 a month. "People felt there was a problem but didn't know what to attribute it to," he says.

Once the town realized the energy burden of this new industry and the fact that it brought in very little in the way of jobs or tax revenue, they started regulating the industry by requiring funds up front, and they updated their building codes and noise ordinances. Mining farms now have little interest in their town and new applications have moved on to other locations.

upstart found an interesting article written by former Commodore engineer Bil Herd over at Hackaday:

Commodore C64: The Most Popular Home Computer Ever Turns 40:

This year marks the anniversary of the most popular selling home computer ever, the Commodore 64, which made its debut in 1982. Note that I am saying "home computer" and not personal computer (PC) because back then the term PC was not yet in use for home computer users.

Some of you have probably not heard of Commodore, which is kind of sad, though there is a simple reason why — Commodore is no longer around to maintain its legacy. If one were to watch a documentary about the 1980s they may see a picture of an Apple computer or its founders but most likely would not see a picture of a Commodore computer in spite of selling tens of millions of units.

It is a nice history lesson on the most popular home computer ever sold. For those less inclined to reading and scrolling, his presentation is also a YouTube video.

How many of you started with the 6502 CPU or even the Commodore 64 itself?

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/cdc-warns-of-puzzling-hepatitis-cases-in-kids-cases-in-2-states-10-countries/

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a health alert Thursday notifying clinicians of a US-based cluster of unexplained cases of liver inflammation in young children, which appear to be part of a puzzling international outbreak that now spans at least 10 countries and two US states.

According to the CDC, Alabama has seen nine cases of unexplained liver inflammation—aka hepatitis—in children between the ages of one and six since October of last year.
[...]
North Carolina is also investigating two cases in school-aged children, neither of which required transplants.

The unexplained cases join dozens of others from around the world, mostly in children younger than 10 and many less than five. The United Kingdom has tallied 108 cases this year

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://crystalverse.com/copper-acetate-crystals/

When you wash copper pennies with vinegar, the pennies react with the vinegar to form a blue compound called copper (II) acetate. Now, if you let that vinegar dry, small, black crystals will be left behind in the dish. Those are copper acetate crystals.

It turns out you can grow much bigger copper acetate crystals. They are sleek, shiny, and look like pieces of polished obsidian.

[...] . In this guide, I'll share what I've learnt, and show you how you can grow your own perfect, black copper acetate crystal at home with scrap copper and vinegar.

upstart writes:

New data prompts reconsideration of decades-old theory about brain injury due to stroke:

Neuroscientists believed that, in the aftermath of a stroke, calming overexcited neurons might prevent them from releasing a toxic molecule that can kill neurons already damaged by lack of oxygen. This idea was supported by studies in cells and animals, but it lost favor in the early 2000s after numerous clinical trials failed to improve outcomes for stroke patients.

But a fresh approach has yielded evidence that the idea may have been discarded too hastily. The new findings are available online in the journal Brain.

By scanning the whole genomes of nearly 6,000 people who had experienced strokes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identified two genes associated with recovery within the pivotal first 24 hours after stroke. Events -- good or bad -- that occur in the first day set stroke patients on their courses toward long-term recovery. Both genes turned out to be involved in regulating neuronal excitability, providing evidence that overstimulated neurons influence stroke outcomes.

[...] "We started with no hypotheses about the mechanism of neuronal injury," Cruchaga said. "We started with the assumption that some genetic variants are associated with stroke recovery, but which ones they are, we did not guess. We tested every single gene and genetic region. So the fact that an unbiased analysis yielded two genes involved in excitotoxicity tells us that it must be important."

[...] "We know that that first 24-hour period has the greatest impact on outcomes," Lee said. "Beyond 24 hours, there's diminishing returns in terms of influence on long-term recovery. Right now, we don't have any neuroprotective agents for that first 24 hours. Many of the original studies with anti-excitotoxic agents were performed at a time when we weren't sure about the best trial design. We've learned a lot about stroke in the last few decades. I think it's time for a re-examination."

Journal Reference:
Ibanez, Laura, Heitsch, Laura, Carrera, Caty, et al. Multi-ancestry GWAS reveals excitotoxicity associated with outcome after ischaemic stroke, Brain (accepted manuscript)
DOI: 10.1093/brain/awac080

Original Submission

hubie writes:

As described over at ScienceDaily, a paper in Science out of the University of Minnesota found that those signs put up by various highway departments informing the drivers of how many people have died on that section of the road apparently are distracting enough to cause more accidents than if they weren't put up in the first place.

Displaying the highway death toll on message boards is a common awareness campaign, but new research shows this tactic actually leads to more crashes. This new study evaluated the effect of displaying crash death totals on highway message boards (e.g., '1669 deaths this year on Texas roads'). Versions of highway fatality messages have been displayed in at least 27 US states.

The study looked at highway statistics in Texas, where these kind of signs are put out one week each month. They found there were more crashes during the week when the signs were out, estimated to add 2600 crashes and 16 deaths per year. They suggest that this "in-your-face" messaging adds to the driver "cognitive loading." There was also a correlation between the number of deaths posted on the sign and the number of accidents.

"Distracted driving is dangerous driving," said Madsen. "Perhaps these campaigns can be reimagined to reach drivers in a safer way, such as when they are stopped at an intersection, so that their attention while driving remains focused on the roads."

Source Article:
Highway death toll messages cause more crashes

Journal Reference:
Jonathan D. Hall, Joshua M. Madsen. Can behavioral interventions be too salient? Evidence from traffic safety messages. Science, 2022; 376 (6591)
DOI: 10.1126/science.abm3427

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Build your own quantum computer with Google's latest 'simulator':

World Quantum Day was apparently yesterday [Ed: 14 April], and Google feted the occasion with the launch of The Qubit Game, as spotted by 9to5Google. Created in partnership with Doublespeak games, it's a "playful journey to building a quantum computer, one qubit at a time," Google said. It also hopes the game, and World Quantum Day, will help generate some interest in the field.

"We need more students pursuing careers building or using quantum computers, and understanding what it would be like to be a quantum scientist or engineer," wrote Asfaw. "For me, that's what World Quantum Day is all about: showing everyone what quantum computing really is and how they can get involved."

The game is somewhat addicting, but you need to play it on a larger screen because the further you advance, the more desktop screen space it takes up, as you can see near the end of their promo video on YouTube.

hubie writes:

Researchers used radiative cooling to generate enough to power LEDs or charge a cellphone

By taking advantage of the temperature difference between a solar panel and ambient air, engineers have made solar cells that can produce electricity at night.

Compared to the 100 to 200 watts per square meter that solar cells produce when the sun is shining, the nighttime production is a trickle at 50 mW/m². "But it is already financially interesting for low-power-density applications like LED lights, charging a cellphone, or trying to power small sensors," says Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University who published the work along with coauthors in Applied Physics Letters.

Fan and his colleagues harnessed the concept of radiative cooling, the phenomenon by which materials radiate heat into the sky at night after absorbing solar energy all day and that others have tapped before to make cooling paint and energy-efficient air-conditioning. Because of this effect, the temperature of a standard solar cell pointing at the sky at night falls below ambient air temperature. This generates a heat flow from the ambient air to the solar cell. "That heat flow can be harvested to generate power," Fan says.

[...] The team tested their prototype TEG-integrated solar cell for three days in October 2021 on a rooftop in Stanford, Calif. The demonstration showed a nighttime power production of 50 mW/m2. The team estimates that in a hotter, drier climate, the same setup could generate up to 100 mW/m2.

[...] "In principle, it could be possible to engineer the thermal-emission property of the solar cell to optimize its radiative cooling performance without affecting solar performance," Fan says. "Our theoretical calculations point to the possibility of a few hundred milliwatts or maybe even 1 watt."

Journal Reference:
Sid Assawaworrarit, Zunaid Omair, and Shanhui Fan, Nighttime electric power generation at a density of 50 mW/m2 via radiative cooling of a photovoltaic cell [open], Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 143901 (2022)
DOI: 10.1063/5.0085205

Original Submission

upstart writes:

New Atomically Thin Material That Improves the Efficiency of Light-Based Tech: Solar Panels, Cameras, Biosensors:

Cameras, solar panels, biosensors, and fiber optics are technologies that rely on photodetectors, or sensors that convert light into electricity. With the shrinking size of their component semiconductor chips, photodetectors are becoming more efficient and affordable. However, current materials and manufacturing methods are constraining miniaturization, forcing trade-offs between size and performance.

[...] Manufacturing uniform, extremely thin, high quality photonic semiconductor films of material other than silicon would make semiconductor chips more efficient, applicable, and scalable.

One-atom-thick materials generally take the form of a lattice, or a layer of geometrically aligned atoms that form a pattern specific to each material. A superlattice is made up of lattices of different materials stacked upon one another. Superlattices have completely new optical, chemical and physical properties which make them adaptable for specific applications such as photo optics and other sensors.

The team at Penn Engineering made a superlattice, five atoms thick, of tungsten and sulfur (WS2).

[...] Their superlattice design is not only extremely thin, making it lightweight and cost effective, it can also emit light, not just detect it.

owl writes:

From the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/business/media/netflix-amazon-disney-ads.html

The two titans of the video streaming wars — Netflix and Disney+ — have long resisted commercials, showing a reluctance to have premium series like "Stranger Things" or "The Mandalorian" run alongside commercials hawking dish soap, soda and medications.

"No advertising coming onto Netflix — period," Reed Hastings, one of Netflix's co-chief executives, said several years ago, a point of view he repeated for some time. "We don't believe that the consumer experience would be a particularly good one if we had advertising on Disney+," Christine McCarthy, Disney's chief financial officer, said in late 2020.

But now, the streamers are starting to come around on Madison Avenue.

After announcing financial results for a difficult quarter, in which Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in a decade, Mr. Hastings told investors on Tuesday that the company planned to look into a lower-priced tier supported by ads "over the next year or two."

[Ed: If you have problems loading the page, you can try this link]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Everyday plastic products release trillions of microscopic particles into water:

Plastics surround us, whether it's the grocery bags we use at the supermarket or household items such as shampoo and detergent bottles. Plastics don't exist only as large objects, but also as microscopic particles that are released from these larger products. These microscopic plastics can end up in the environment, and they can be ingested into our bodies.

Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have analyzed a couple of widely used consumer products to better understand these microscopic plastics. They found that when the plastic products are exposed to hot water, they release trillions of nanoparticles per liter into the water.

The NIST researchers published their findings in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology.

"The main takeaway here is that there are plastic particles wherever we look. There are a lot of them. Trillions per liter. We don't know if those have bad health effects on people or animals. We just have a high confidence that they're there," said NIST chemist Christopher Zangmeister.