SoylentNews

Snotnose writes:

It may sound like an insensitive statement, but the cold hard truth is that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, and their stupidity presents a constant danger to others. Some of these people are in positions of power, and some of them have been elected to run our country. A far greater number of them do not have positions of power, but they still have the power to vote, and the power to spread their ideas. We may have heard of "collective intelligence," but there is also "collective stupidity," and it is a force with equal influence on the world. It would not be a stretch to say that at this point in time, stupidity presents an existential threat to America because, in some circles, it is being celebrated.

Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be "smart" while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that "you can't fix stupid," but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.

To demonstrate that stupidity does not mean having a low IQ, consider the case of Richard Branson, the billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, who is one of the world's most successful businessmen. Branson has said that he was seen as the dumbest person in school, and has admitted to having dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one's ability to read and correctly interpret written language. But it wasn't just reading comprehension that was the problem — "Math just didn't make sense to me," Branson has said. "I would certainly have failed an IQ test."

[...] We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect to some degree. An inability to accurately assess our own competency and wisdom is something we see in both liberals and conservatives. While being more educated typically decreases our Dunning-Kruger tendencies, it does not eliminate them entirely. That takes constant cognitive effort in the form of self-awareness, continual curiosity, and a healthy amount of skepticism. By cultivating this type of awareness in ourselves, and making an effort to spread it to others, we can fight back against the stupidity crisis that threatens our nation.

Interesting stuff from cognitive neuroscientist

Original Submission

owl writes:

http://www.righto.com/2023/02/8086-interrupt.html

Interrupts have been an important part of computers since the mid-1950s,1 providing a mechanism to interrupt a program's execution. Interrupts allows the computer to handle time-critical tasks such as I/O device operations. In this blog post, I look at the interrupt features in the Intel 8086 (1978) and how they are implemented in silicon, a combination of interesting circuitry and microcode.

[...] The idea behind an interrupt is to stop the current flow of execution, run an interrupt handler to perform a task, and then continue execution where it left off. An interrupt is like a subroutine call in some ways; it pushes the current segment register and program counter on the stack and continues at a new address. However, there are a few important differences. First, the address of the interrupt handler is obtained indirectly, through an interrupt vector table. Interrupts are numbered 0 through 255, and each interrupt has an entry in the vector table that gives the address of the code to handle the interrupt. Second, an interrupt pushes the processor flags to the stack, so they can be restored after the interrupt. Finally, an interrupt clears the interrupt and trap flags, blocking more interrupts while handling the interrupt.

The 8086 provides several types of interrupts, some generated by hardware and some generated by software. For hardware interrupts, the INTR pin on the chip generates a maskable interrupt when activated, while the NMI pin on the chip generates a higher-priority non-maskable interrupt.2 Typically, most interrupts use the INTR pin, signaling things such as a timer, keyboard request, real-time clock, or a disk needing service. The NMI interrupt is designed for things such as parity error or an impending power failure, which are so critical they can't be delayed. The 8086 also has a RESET pin that resets the CPU. Although not technically an interrupt, the RESET action has many features in common with interrupts, so I'll discuss it here.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Get more exercise. Eat right. Make new friends.

Funded by the American Cancer Society, the first-ever, randomized, controlled trial of community gardening found that those who started gardening ate more fiber and got more physical activity—two known ways to reduce risk of cancer and chronic diseases. They also saw their levels of stress and anxiety significantly decrease.

[...] "These findings provide concrete evidence that community gardening could play an important role in preventing cancer, chronic diseases and mental health disorders," said senior author Jill Litt, a professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at CU Boulder.

[...] "No matter where you go, people say there's just something about gardening that makes them feel better," said Litt, who is also a researcher with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.

But solid science on its benefits is hard to come by. Without evidence, it's hard to get support for new programs, she said.

Intel Reportedly Delays TSMC 3nm Orders for 15th Gen Arrow Lake CPUs

upstart writes:

Intel Reportedly Delays TSMC 3nm Orders for 15th Gen Arrow Lake CPUs:

In late January, we reported that Intel secured a leading "cloud, edge, and data center solutions provider" that will use its Intel 3 node. Intel is bolstering its efforts to sign lucrative contracts for its Intel Foundry Services arm, a lynchpin in CEO Pat Gelsinger's efforts to increase revenue.

But while Intel produces most of its chips (and produces chips for other vendors), it also has contracts with competitors like Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation (TSMC) to produce chips for its Arc discrete GPU family. To that end, DigiTimes reports that Intel's collaboration with TSMC on products using the latter's 3nm node has hit a slight snag.

Previous reports indicated that Intel's 15th generation disaggregated multi-tile/multi-chiplet Arrow Lake processors, which will purportedly use TSMC 3nm for the GPU tile, would launch in Q3 2024. Now, it's reported that Intel is delaying orders with TSMC until Q4 2024. So if this report is accurate, the first Arrow Lake processor will trickle in late Q4 2024 into Q1 2025.

However, Arrow Lake is roughly two years away, so we're quibbling about a couple of months for a product two generations out. Leading up to Arrow Lake, Intel will allegedly launch Raptor Lake-S desktop processors later this year with enhanced performance for enthusiasts and workstation markets. Raptor Lake-S will be followed by the 14th generation Meteor Lake family later this year. "On Intel 4, we are ready today for manufacturing and we look forward to the MTL (Meteor Lake) ramp in the second half of the year," said Gelsinger during Intel's Q4 2022 earnings call.

upstart writes:

Webb uses galactic megacluster as enormous magnifying lens:

Modern space telescopes are tremendously powerful instruments, able to look deep into space without being limited by the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere. But even this is not enough to allow them to see the most distant galaxies, which are so far away that looking at them is like looking back in time to the early stages of the universe.

To look even further out, astronomers take advantage of a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. This happens when an object like a galaxy or a galaxy cluster has so much mass that it bends space-time, acting like a magnifying glass and brightening the extremely distant objects behind it.

This is how the James Webb Space Telescope was recently able to see thousands of extremely distant objects by looking at a region of space called Pandora's Cluster, or Abell 2744.

[...] If you look closely at the image, you'll see that many of the galaxies appear to be stretched out or elongated. That's because of the lensing effect, as the gravity of the megacluster warps the light coming from them. But even with this distortion, astronomers can learn a lot about these galaxies from images like this one.

[...] "Pandora's Cluster, as imaged by Webb, shows us a stronger, wider, deeper, better lens than we have ever seen before," said another of the researchers, Ivo Labbe. "My first reaction to the image was that it was so beautiful, it looked like a galaxy formation simulation. We had to remind ourselves that this was real data, and we are working in a new era of astronomy now."

JWST's Pandora's Cluster image

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The code found in the malicious packages closely resembled legit offerings:

More than 400 malicious packages were recently uploaded to PyPI (Python Package Index), the official code repository for the Python programming language, in the latest indication that the targeting of software developers using this form of attack isn't a passing fad.

All 451 packages found recently by security firm Phylum contained almost identical malicious payloads and were uploaded in bursts that came in quick succession. Once installed, the packages create a malicious JavaScript extension that loads each time a browser is opened on the infected device, a trick that gives the malware persistence over reboots.

The JavaScript monitors the infected developer's clipboard for any cryptocurrency addresses that may be copied to it. When an address is found, the malware replaces it with an address belonging to the attacker. The objective: intercept payments the developer intended to make to a different party.

Besides vastly increasing the number of malicious packages uploaded, the latest campaign also uses a significantly different way to cover its tracks. Whereas the packages disclosed in November used encoding to conceal the behavior of the JavaScript, the new packages write function and variable identifiers in what appear to be random 16-bit combinations of Chinese language ideographs [...]

[...] The names of all 451 malicious packages the Phylum researchers found are included in the blog post. It's not a bad idea for anyone who intended to download one of the legitimate packages targeted to double-check that they didn't inadvertently obtain a malicious doppelganger.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

2,200-Year-Old Flush Toilet Found at Chinese Ruins:

We often consider flushing toilets a modern marvel, rivaled only by other essential comforts such as electricity and on-demand hot water. But while we may have perfected the flushing toilet, it's anything but new technology. Archaeologists in China have uncovered a 2,200-year-old toilet that once flushed, suggesting that the plumbing we often take for granted has existed far longer than originally thought.

A team at the China Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Archaeology uncovered the toilet at palace ruins in Yueyang City. Yueyang is a common tourist destination thanks to its 2,500 years of history, which visitors enjoy through its ancient pavilions and towers. Now Yueyang has one more claim to fame: the oldest-known flush toilet.

[...] The archaeologists reconstructed the toilet. According to ancient tools expert Fan Mingyang, the system was "deceptively advanced," possessing a flush water drainage system not terribly unlike today's toilets. Given the toilet is estimated to be between 2,200 and 2,400 years old, its mechanics challenge commonly held notions about historical plumbing, especially in regard to sewage management. To use the toilet, someone would have sat on or squatted over the seat (the rest of which is still outstanding). After doing their business, someone would have had to pour buckets of water into the toilet to flush away waste.

[...] The team also found four large and intricate tiles in the building where the toilet was found. One tile was found in each corner. So far, no particular meaning has been attached to the tiles' appearance or placement.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Game maker Rovio is so annoyed that it may be missing out on profits to be made with newer games that it will remove Angry Birds from the Android store. Rovio believes that people are downloading the older free version of its game which is detracting from players downloading their newer games with in-app purchases. In a statement Rovio said: "Rovio Classics: Angry Bird will remain playable on devices on which the game has been downloaded, even after it has been unlisted".

Rovio isn't the only developer pulling mobile games from storefronts. Recently, EA cancelled two mobile games, an in-development Battlefield game and the already-released Apex Legends Mobile.

If you ever wondered why you can't get the APK to install programs on Android: This is why

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Clarkesworld wrestles with flood of machine-made submissions—over 500 in Feb. alone:

One side effect of unlimited content-creation machines—generative AI—is unlimited content. On Monday, the editor of the renowned sci-fi publication Clarkesworld Magazine announced that he had temporarily closed story submissions due to a massive increase in machine-generated stories sent to the publication.

In a graph shared on Twitter, Clarkesworld editor Neil Clarke tallied the number of banned writers submitting plagiarized or machine-generated stories. The numbers totaled 500 in February, up from just over 100 in January and a low baseline of around 25 in October 2022. The rise in banned submissions roughly coincides with the release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Smallpox has plagued humans since ancient Egyptian times, new evidence confirms:

Smallpox was once one of humanity's most devastating diseases, but its origin is shrouded in mystery. For years, scientific estimates of when the smallpox virus first emerged have been at odds with historical records. Now, a new study reveals that the virus dates back 2,000 years further than scientists have previously shown, verifying historical sources and confirming for the first time that the disease has plagued human societies since ancient times.

[...] Until relatively recently, the earliest genetic evidence for smallpox was only from the 1600s. Then in 2020, a study that sampled skeletal and dental remains of Viking-age skeletons recovered multiple strains of variola and confirmed the virus' existence at least another 1,000 years earlier.

However, some historians believe that smallpox has been around since long before the Vikings. Suspicious scarring on ancient Egyptian mummies (including the Pharoah Ramses V who died in 1157 BC) leads some to believe that the history of smallpox stretches back at least 3,000 years. So far, the missing piece of scientific evidence to support this theory has remained hidden.

By comparing the genomes of modern and historic strains of variola virus, researchers at the Scientific Institute Eugenio Medea and University of Milan in Italy have traced the evolution of the virus back in time. They found that different strains of smallpox all descended from a single common ancestor and that a small fraction of the genetic components found in Viking-age genomes had persisted until the 18th century.

upstart writes:

While app development is faster and easier, security is still a concern:

In a report last year, silicon design automation outfit Synopsys found that 97 percent of codebases in 2021 contained open source, and that in four of 17 industries studied – computer hardware and chips, cybersecurity, energy and clean tech, and the Internet of Things (IoT) – open source software (OSS) was in 100 percent of audited codebases. The other verticals had open source in at least 93 percent of theirs. It can help drive efficiency, cost savings, and developer productivity.

"Open source really is everywhere," Fred Bals, senior technical writer at Synopsys, wrote in a blog post about the report.

That said, the increasing use of open source packages in application development also creates a path for threat groups that want to use the software supply chain as a backdoor to myriad targets that depend on it.

The broad use of OSS packaging in development means that often enterprises don't know exactly what's in their software. Having a lot of different hands involved increases complexity, and it's hard to know what's going on in the software supply chain. A report last year from VMware found that concerns about OSS included having to rely on a community to patch vulnerabilities, and the security risks that come with that.

Varun Badhwar, co-founder and CEO of Endor Labs – a startup working to secure OSS in app development – called it "the backbone of our critical infrastructure." But he added that developers and executives are often surprised by how much of their applications' code comes from OSS.

Badhwar noted that 95 percent of all vulnerabilities are found in "transitive dependencies" – open source code packages that are indirectly pulled into projects rather than selected by developers.

[...] Developers pull the source components together and add business logic, Fox told The Register. This way, open source becomes the foundation of the software. What's changed in recent years is the general awareness of it – not only among well-meaning developers that are creating the software from these disparate parts.

"The attackers have figured this out as well," he said. "A big notable change over the last five or so years has been the rise of intentional malware attacks on the supply chain."

upstart writes:

NASA Confirms 1,000-Pound Meteorite Landed in Texas:

Those who saw the meteoroid fly across the sky on Wednesday thought they saw a shooting star—until they lost sight of the fireball and felt its impact as it struck Earth. Home security footage from residents west of McAllen, Texas, shows the meteorite's impact shaking the ground, causing wildlife to flee and homes to shiver. Those who felt and heard the collision didn't know what to make of it, and with so-called "spy balloons" and UFO conspiracies in the news cycle at the time, their best guesses were unsettling. Thankfully, NASA's Johnson Space Center has since confirmed that the boom was caused by a meteorite, which struck Earth just north of Texas' border with Mexico.

NASA's Meteor Watch shared the agency's statement on Facebook. The meteorite is believed to have been about two feet wide and 1,000 pounds before it entered Earth's atmosphere at approximately 27,000 miles per hour. Atmospheric entry broke the meteorite into at least a few different fragments. American Meteor Society member and tireless fragment collector Robert Ward found the first of these pieces Saturday on private property in El Sauz, a tiny farm town an hour from McAllen's city center.

Meteorites themselves aren't uncommon, but impacts like this one are. Most rocky space masses burn up upon atmospheric entry, leaving only dusty particles in their wake. NASA says that car-sized asteroids strike Earth's atmosphere about once a year, creating a generous fireball and turning to dust before impacting the ground. Now and then, however, larger masses survive their passage through Earth's atmosphere. The consequences of such survival can be catastrophic.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Navy is embracing autonomous vessels:

Shipbuilder Austal USA has just delivered a ship to the US Navy that can operate for up to 30 days at sea without human intervention. The delivery comes after the Chief of Naval Operations said uncrewed vessels would start to play an increasingly important role within the military branch.

Austral writes that it has delivered Expeditionary Fast Transport USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13) to the United States Navy. Its 337-foot hull makes it the largest surface ship in the fleet with autonomous capabilities. This class of ship can travel at a maximum speed of 40 knots, has a maximum payload capacity of 544 metric tons, and a daft [sic] – the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull – of just 12.5 feet, allowing it to operate in comparatively shallow waters.

The Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport ships, designed by Austal Australia, already feature automated hull and mechanical & electrical systems, but the Austal USA team added automated maintenance, health monitoring, and mission readiness to EPF 13, allowing it to operate autonomously for up to 30 days.

[...] Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, sang the praises of autonomous ships at the West 2023 conference in San Diego. "We're getting to the point, probably within the next four or five years, where we'll begin to deploy unmanned platforms with carrier strike groups," he said. "And the idea is that we need more ships, we need more. We need to distribute ourselves across the Pacific Ocean and across the globe [...] We can do that faster and, we think, more effectively by having a combination of manned and unmanned."

upstart writes:

So-called "quiet quitting" could decrease if companies move to a four-day workweek:

According to an ongoing study in the UK, the four-day workweek may be the key to success for companies and their employees. The world's biggest four-day workweek trial included the participation of 61 British companies, some of whom now say they won't return to the regular Monday through Friday work schedule.

The study was conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge alongside academics from Boston College in the U.S. from June through November last year. During that time, companies ranging from restaurants to banks rated the levels of productivity and performance. At the halfway point of the trial, 46% of companies said productivity remained about the same, 34% said they saw a slight improvement and 15% reported a significant improvement.

While shaving off a day of work seemed to increase overall well-being, there was also a reported increase in the pace of work. 62% of employees said they thought their pace of work increased, 36% thought it was the same, and just 2% felt their pace of work decreased. Although many employees reported having to work faster, the study said a majority of workers didn't believe there was a significant increase in their workloads.

Researchers also found a significant drop in the number of employees who left their positions and of the 2,900 workers observed in the study, more people reported they saw an increase in productivity, mental well-being, an increased work-life balance, and reduced levels of anxiety.

[...] The poll found the main cause for quiet quitting is the worldwide problem of stress and burnout. But not only did the UK report find this is less likely to happen when provided with the four-day workweek but by decreasing the workweek by one day, 70% of employees reported they had reduced levels of burnout and 40% said their sleep difficulty levels had improved.

Nearly half of the employees in the study reported an improvement in their mental health, while 37% noted an improvement in their physical health.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Another Person Cured of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant:

The Düsseldorf patient is the fifth suspected HIV cure, following a stem cell transplant from a donor genetically resistant to the virus.

[...] According to the man's doctors, he has lived essentially free of the virus for about a decade. Though the treatment isn't practical for the general population living with HIV, the knowledge gained from these patients may help scientists figure out a more scalable cure down the road.

The 53-year-old German resident, known only as the Düsseldorf patient (after the city in Germany) underwent the procedure more than nine years ago. He needed the stem cell transplant to help treat a case of acute myeloid leukemia, a form of cancer that affects white blood cells. But his doctors had the opportunity to rebuild his immune system with compatible donor bone marrow from someone with a rare genetic mutation that provides natural resistance to HIV-1, the most common type of the virus.

Though the man did experience some health problems over the years (including a brief recurrence of his cancer a few months after the transplant), his HIV viral loads stayed consistently undetectable while he remained on antiretroviral therapy. At the same time, some tests suggested that his body still contained traces of HIV RNA and DNA, while others indicated that no surviving fragment would be able to replicate and restart the infection. Eventually, in 2018, his doctors made the choice to wean him completely off HIV treatment and monitor him closely. Thankfully, more than four years later, the infection has not returned and they feel confident enough to declare him cured of HIV.

Journal Reference:
Jensen, Björn-Erik Ole, Knops, Elena, Cords, Leon, et al. In-depth virological and immunological characterization of HIV-1 cure after CCR5Δ32/Δ32 allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation [open], Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02213-x)

Original Submission