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canopic jug writes:

Multiple publishers are reporting that Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of the made-for-tv band, The Monkees, is suing the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. He aims to get as much of the FBI's file on The Monkees as possible with the goal of uncovering what they may have on higher priority surveillance targets of the era, such as John Lennon or the MC5. According to a limited file release from 2011, The Monkees are only mentioned in two FBI documents, one of which remains fully redacted.

The Monkees may not be seem like the kind of band that would attract the FBI's attention, especially during a time when groups like Country Joe and the Fish and the MC5 were leading the movement against the Vietnam War. But the Monkees were one of the most popular bands in America in 1966 and 1967, and they sprinkled anti-war sentiments into songs like "Ditty Diego-War Chant" and even "Last Train to Clarksville," a song about a man headed off to war that fears he'll never see his love again.

"The Monkees reflected, especially in their later years with projects like [their 1968 art house movie] Head, a counterculture from what institutional authority was at the time," Zaid tells Rolling Stone. "And [J. Edgar] Hoover's FBI, in the Sixties in particular, was infamous for monitoring the counterculture, whether they committed unlawful actions or not."

-- https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-monkees-micky-dolenz-fbi-1234584299/

In the intervening decades, making and distributing music has become highly centralized and corporate.

Covered at:
BBC: Micky Dolenz: Last living Monkees member sues FBI for secret files on band
Bloomberg: Last of the Monkees Wants Their FBI Records Turned Over
The Los Angeles Times: The FBI had a file on the Monkees, and now Micky Dolenz is suing to find out why
TMZ: Micky Dolenz Demanding FBI File on The Monkees!!! (Yes, There Actually Is One)
Rolling Stone: The Monkees' Micky Dolenz Would Like a Word With the FBI
NBC: Surviving Monkees member Micky Dolenz sues the FBI, asks for files on him and his bandmates

Previously:
(2019) The FBI "Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny" That It Monitors Your Social Media Posts
(2019) U.S. Government Using Secretive FISA Rules to Spy on Journalists
(2017) EFF Sues FBI to Obtain Records About Geek Squad/Best Buy Surveillance
(2016) Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal
(2014) Already a Winner in EFF's "Most Outrageous Response to a FOIA Request" Contest?

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/01/california_ev_heatwave/

One week after announcing plans to phase out autos powered by gasoline, California energy authorities are facing a heat wave so severe residents are being asked not to charge their electric vehicles during "flex alerts" designed to reduce stress on the grid.

According to a heat bulletin [PDF; 134kB] issued by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), temperatures across the state are expected to be 10 to 20 degrees warmer than typical between August 30 and September 6. Load on the electrical grid peaks between 4-9 pm, during which time CAISO said it may issue flex alerts urging Californians to reduce their electricity consumption.

"The top three conservation actions are to set thermostats to 78 degrees [25˚C] or higher, avoid using large appliances and charging electric vehicles, and turn off unnecessary lights," CAISO said, noting that voluntary reduction in energy consumption could "prevent more drastic measures, including rotating power outages."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

NASA fixed the glitch that caused Voyager 1 to send back jumbled data:

Back in May, NASA reported that the Voyager 1 space probe was sending back jumbled or inaccurate telemetry data. The probe itself seemed to be in good shape, with a signal that's still strong enough to beam back information, and nothing was triggering its fault protection systems that would put it in "safe mode." According to NASA, the Voyager team has not only figured the problem out since then — it has also solved the issue.

Turns out we're getting jumbled data here on Earth, because the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) has been sending back information through an onboard computer that had stopped working years ago. The computer was corrupting the data before it even went out. Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd said that when her team suspected that this was the issue, they implemented a low-risk fix: They commanded the AACS to send its data through the probe's working computer again.

Previously:
Engineers Investigating NASA's Voyager 1 Telemetry Data

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://singularityhub.com/2022/08/31/robots-chop-a-few-bucks-off-the-price-of-lunch-at-this-fully-automated-restaurant/

Even before labor shortages and supply chain issues began plaguing the economy, the food service industry was bringing in robots. From flipping burgers to making pizzas, automation has been taking over a variety of food preparation tasks. A San Francisco restaurant has now taken it to the next level, opening what it claims is the world's first fully autonomous restaurant this past weekend (though the "world's first" title is likely not accurate; Pazzi Pizzeria in Paris, for one, has been serving up robot-made pies for just over a year).

The restaurant is located in an outdoor food court in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood, alongside similar businesses. The similar businesses are namely food trucks, which is probably a more accurate label for Mezli than "restaurant," except for the important detail that it's not a truck. It is a lot like a shipping container in shape and size, though.

[...] To be fair, Mezli can only be called "fully automated" because the food served there is prepared by humans in a commercial kitchen then transferred to the robo-restaurant; machines aren't cooking food so much as selecting and mixing it.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A recent study has found an association between the legalization of marijuana and an increased occurrence of car accidents.

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, states that legalized recreational marijuana had an increase in traffic crashes and deaths.

“The legalization of marijuana doesn’t come without a cost,” says lead researcher Charles M. Farmer, Ph.D., of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Ruckersville, Va.

After legalization and the launch of retail sales, there was a 5.8% rise in the incidence of traffic collision injuries and a 4.1% increase in the rate of fatal crashes, according to Farmer and colleagues’ analysis of five states that permit people age 21 and older to consume marijuana recreationally. In a comparative group of states without marijuana legalization, the researchers did not see any rise during the same period.

Overall, the first increase in the injury crash rate occurred after legalization but before retail sales began. Injury rates from car accidents increased 6.5% following legalization, however, they marginally declined (-0.7%) after retail sales started. However, fatal accident rates climbed both after legalization (+2.3%) and after retail sales were legalized (+1.8%).

“Legalization removes the stigma of marijuana use, while the onset of retail sales merely increases access,” says Farmer. “But access to marijuana isn’t difficult, even in places without retail sales. Users who previously avoided driving high may feel that it’s okay after legalization.”

hubie writes:

The combination of green and "gray" spaces in cities, along with the variability of growing modes, means some city crops — like cucumbers, potatoes and lettuces — yield at least twice as much as their rural counterparts:

As urban populations boom, urban agriculture is increasingly looked to as a local food source and a way to help combat inequitable food access. But little is known about how productive urban agriculture is compared to conventional, rural farming. A new study digs in, finding urban gardeners and hydroponics can meet and sometimes exceed the yields of rural farms.

"Despite its growing popularity, there's still quite a lot we don't know about urban agriculture, like whether the yields are similar to conventional agriculture, or even what crops are commonly grown," says Florian Payen, an environmental scientist at Lancaster University and lead author of the study, published today in AGU's journal Earth's Future.

The new study compiles studies on urban agriculture from 53 countries to find out which crops grow well in cities, what growing methods are most effective, and what spaces can be utilized for growing. [...]

"Surprisingly, there were few differences between overall yields in indoor spaces and outdoor green spaces, but there were clear differences in the suitability of crop types to different gray spaces," Payen says. Certain crops like lettuces, kale and broccoli are more naturally suited to be grown vertically in indoor spaces than others. "You can't exactly stack up apple trees in a five- or ten-layer high growth chamber," he says, "though we did find one study that managed to grow wheat stacked up like that."

Other crops, like watery vegetables (e.g., tomatoes) and leafy greens, performed well in hydroponic environments. And crops grown in fully controlled environments can be grown throughout the year, allowing harvests to happen more times per year than in open-air environments, which leads to higher annual yields. But scientists will need to keep studying these systems to plan cost-effective agriculture solutions.

[...] It remains to be seen whether growing food in cities has a smaller or larger overall carbon footprint than conventional agriculture; the answer likely varies. Researchers are also studying how foods grown in cities might be impacted by pollution. And some crops included in the study's literature review lacked the numbers to be included in statistical analyses, pointing to a need for more research on urban crops like fruits and cereals.

Journal Reference:
Florian Thomas Payen, Daniel L. Evans, Natalia Falagán, et al., How Much Food Can We Grow in Urban Areas? Food Production and Crop Yields of Urban Agriculture: A Meta-Analysis [open], Earth's Future, 2022. DOI: 10.1029/2022EF002748

Original Submission

DeathMonkey writes:

Chinese molten-salt reactor cleared for start up

In January 2011, CAS launched a CNY3 billion (USD444 million) R&D programme on liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs), known there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology. This is also known as the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (FHR). The TMSR Centre at SINAP at Jiading, Shanghai, is responsible.

Construction of the 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 reactor began in September 2018 and was reportedly completed in August 2021. The prototype was scheduled to be completed in 2024, but work was accelerated.

"According to the relevant provisions of the Nuclear Safety Law of the People's Republic of China and the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Safety Supervision and Administration of Civilian Nuclear Facilities, our bureau has conducted a technical review of the application documents you submitted, and believes that your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor commissioning plan (Version V1.3) is acceptable and is hereby approved," the Ministry of Ecology and Environment told SINAP on 2 August.

It added: "During the commissioning process of your 2 MWt liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor, you should strictly implement this plan to ensure the effectiveness of the implementation of the plan and ensure the safety and quality of debugging. If any major abnormality occurs during the commissioning process, it should be reported to our bureau and the Northwest Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision Station in time."

Original Submission

US Chip Makers Hit by New China Export Rule

upstart writes:

US chip makers hit by new China export rule:

Nvidia says the US government requires a new licence, effective immediately, to address the risk of chips being "used in, or diverted to a 'military end use'... in China and Russia".

There are fears the rule could lead to millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Shares of both chipmakers slipped in after-hours trading in New York.

Nvidia's shares were down by 6.6% while AMD slipped 3.7%.

[...] In a statement, Beijing said "The US side should immediately stop its wrongdoing, treat companies from all over the world including Chinese companies fairly, and do more things that are conducive to the stability of the world economy."

No GPUs for You: US Blocks Sales of AI Chips to China and Russia

upstart writes:

No GPUs for you: US blocks sales of AI chips to China and Russia:

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Friday, Nvidia reported that US government officials have ordered restrictions on sales of its top AI chips to China and Russia. The new restrictions (in the form of licensing requirements, subject to approval by the US government) include the powerful A100 Tensor Core GPU, the upcoming H100, and any chips of equivalent power or systems that incorporate them. The goal is to "address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a 'military end use' or 'military end user' in China and Russia," according to Nvidia, which notes that the firm already does not sell products to customers in Russia.

Reuters reports that the Department of Commerce intends for the new policy to "keep advanced technologies out of the wrong hands." China isn't happy about the restrictions, calling the move part of a "tech blockade." The US has also restricted sales of AMD's MI250 Accelerator AI chip to China. Whether this effort will have any effect on China's AI capability in the long term remains to be seen, as Chinese firms have begun developing their own GPUs for graphics and AI use.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

NASA Will Re-Attempt a Launch of the Artemis 1 Mission on Saturday:

The two-hour launch window starts at 2:17 p.m. ET (6:17 p.m. UTC) on September 3. The rocket's Monday launch was scrubbed due to temperature sensor problems.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The recent release of 2021 Census data revealed a shocking "1 million homes were unoccupied."

This statistic sent housing commentators, government agencies and policymakers into a spin. At a time of significant housing shortages, this extra million homes would surely make a big difference. They could provide housing for some homeless, ease the rental affordability crisis, and get first-home owners into their first home.

There has been a great deal of speculation about how this has happened. Has it been caused by overseas millionaires buying up housing and leaving it as an empty investment? Is it Airbnb taking up homes that could be used for families? Or are cashed-up Gen-Xers double-consuming by living in one house while renovating another?

In fact, we've got a pretty good idea of what's going on. First, it's not a new phenomenon. When we compare 2021 with previous censuses, a slightly smaller percentage of our private dwelling stock was classified as unoccupied—just under 10%, compared with nearly 11% at the previous census in 2016.

Since the release of the data, many journalists have pointed to this startling number of empty homes, portraying them as abandoned or left empty. There is almost certainly a much more ordinary and less startling story to tell. [...]

A big part of the story is how the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) determines whether a dwelling is occupied or not. In short, it does its best by using a variety of methods, but, for the majority of dwellings, occupancy "is determined by the returned census form." If a form was not returned, and the ABS had no further information, the dwelling was often deemed to be unoccupied.

upstart writes:

Webb telescope captures new detail of Phantom Galaxy:

The James Webb space telescope has revealed dazzling new detail of a previously known slice of the cosmos 32 million light-years away, in a new picture released by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The infrared technology of the telescope, launched in December 2021, has allowed for an even clearer view of the so-called Phantom Galaxy than astronomers had ever seen before.

[...] The whirling celestial form, officially called M74, is located in the Pisces constellation 32 million light-years away from Earth.

The Webb image shows the galaxy's brilliant white, red, pink and light blue appendages of dust and stars swirling around a bright blue center, all set against the dark backdrop of deep space.

M74 was previously photographed by the Hubble telescope, which captured the galaxy's spiraling blue and pink arms, but instead showed its glowing center as a soft yellow.

The Phantom Galaxy is a "favorite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals," NASA and the ESA said. The picture taken by Webb will help them "learn more about the earliest phases of star formation in the local Universe," and record more information about 19 star-forming galaxies close to our own Milky Way.

The JWST and Hubble pictures are quite beautiful and very wallpaper-worthy and show the benefits a larger aperture and being able to see through interstellar gas makes. More information about M74. [hubie]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Hackers Hide Malware in Stunning Images Taken by James Webb Space Telescope:

A persistent Golang-based malware campaign dubbed GO#WEBBFUSCATOR has leveraged the deep field image taken from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as a lure to deploy malicious payloads on infected systems.

The development, revealed by Securonix, points to the growing adoption of Go among threat actors, given the programming language's cross-platform support, effectively allowing the operators to leverage a common codebase to target different operating systems.

[...] Phishing emails containing a Microsoft Office attachment act as the entry point for the attack chain that, when opened, retrieves an obfuscated VBA macro, which, in turn, is auto-executed should the recipient enable macros.

The execution of the macro results in the download of an image file "OxB36F8GEEC634.jpg" that seemingly is an image of the First Deep Field captured by JWST but, when inspected using a text editor, is actually a Base64-encoded payload.

[...] The binary, a Windows 64-bit executable with a size of 1.7MB, is not only equipped to fly under the radar of antimalware engines, but is also obscured by means of a technique called gobfuscation, which makes use of a Golang obfuscation tool publicly available on GitHub.

upstart writes:

This jellyfish can repeatedly reverse its age and scientists hope it can give insight on human aging:

Scientists in Spain have revealed the genetic code of the "immortal jellyfish," a sea creature with the ability to revert to its juvenile larval form over and over.

To understand why the Turritopsis dohrnii has this special ability, Maria Pascual-Torner, Victor Quesada and colleagues at the University of Oviedo compared the genetic sequence of T. dohrnii to Turritopsis rubra, a close cousin that doesn't have rejuvenation abilities.

[...] Scientists compared a set of almost 1,000 genes linked to aging and DNA repair between T. dohrni and other cnidarians. They were then able to present the full range of mRNA expressed by the jellyfish at different stages of the life cycle reversal process.

T. dohrnii isn't the only cnidarian species to self-rejuvenate, but this ability is usually lost once the animals reach sexual maturity, the scientists said.

The study found that variations in T. dohrnii's genome might make it better at copying and repairing DNA. They also appeared to be better at maintaining the ends of chromosomes called telomeres — in humans and other species, telomere length has been found to shorten with age.

[...] "We can't look at it as, hey, we're going to harvest these jellyfish and turn it into a skin cream," said Graham. "It's one of those papers that I do think will open up a door to a new line of study that's worth pursuing."

Journal Reference:
Maria Pascual-Torner, Dido Carrero, José G. Pérez-Silva, et al., Comparative genomics of mortal and immortal cnidarians unveils novel keys behind rejuvenation, PNAS, 119, 2022. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2118763119

Original Submission

A nameless submitter writes:

Motor Trend is reporting that a Tesla FSD owner/beta tester wondered why his car was stopping well before the end of the off ramp...where there is a stop sign before the surface street. It was so far ahead of the sign that he had to quickly switch to manual before getting rear ended by the next car down the off ramp.

His theory is that these stop signs are larger than the normal ones--and a tape measure confirms it. So the Tesla (by whatever mechanism) seems to be using the apparent size of the stop sign to determine where to stop.

This is why (imo) any sort of self driving needs ranging information. There are options, stereo cameras (which may be hard to keep aligned?), radar for certain types of objects (but stop signs might not be a good target??) or the original choice, lidar.

Also reported here with the following quote:

As they suspected, the stop sign on the exit ramp is, in fact, significantly larger. Many of these signs measure just over 48 inches tall, which is around 60 percent larger than the 30-inch signs in their neighborhood.

"60 percent larger to the camera gets interpreted as 60 percent closer?" asks the Tesla owner on Twitter. "I still have the slow creep problem here [...] and it'll come to a complete stop while sitting in the near lanes even if no cars are around!"

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Exposing what's in tattoo ink:

From life-like faces to elaborate nature scenes, tattoos are a true art form. Although people have decorated their bodies for millennia for ceremonial and religious reasons, many people today adorn themselves with these images as a form of self-expression. But the inks used for tattoos are unregulated in the U.S., resulting in products whose components are largely a mystery. Now, researchers have analyzed almost 100 inks and report that even when these products include an ingredient label, the lists often aren't accurate. The team also detected small particles that could be harmful to cells.

[...] Swierk and undergraduates in his laboratory interviewed tattoo artists to see what they knew about the inks they use on their customers. The artists could quickly identify a brand they preferred, but they didn't know much about its contents. "Surprisingly, no dye shop makes pigment specific for tattoo ink," Swierk explains. "Big companies manufacture pigments for everything, such as paint and textiles. These same pigments are used in tattoo inks." He also notes that tattoo artists must be licensed in the locales where they operate for safety reasons, yet no federal or local agency regulates the contents of the inks themselves.

[...] "Every time we looked at one of the inks, we found something that gave me pause," Swierk says. "For example, 23 of 56 different inks analyzed to date suggest an azo-containing dye is present." Although many azo pigments do not cause health concerns when they are chemically intact, bacteria or ultraviolet light can degrade them into another nitrogen-based compound that is a potential carcinogen, according to the Joint Research Centre, which provides independent scientific advice to the European Union.

In addition, the team has analyzed 16 inks using electron microscopy, and about half contained particles smaller than 100 nm. "That's a concerning size range," says Swierk. "Particles of this size can get through the cell membrane and potentially cause harm."

After the researchers run a few more tests and have the data peer reviewed, they will add the information to their website "What's in My Ink?" "With these data, we want consumers and artists to make informed decisions and understand how accurate the provided information is," says Swierk.

Associated video interview

Original Submission