upstart writes:

Powerful Nerf Blaster Aims To Fire 100 Darts Per Second:

Nerf has made plenty of fully-automatic blasters over the years, but their toys typically lack punch, precision, and fire rate. [3DprintedLife] set about building a blaster to rectify that last shortcoming, aiming for design that could fire 100 darts per second.

The design uses half length darts which tend to fly a little nicer from high-powered blasters. It fires them using belts driven by powerful motors, similar to wheel blasters. The darts themselves are loaded into a drum magazine which has sliders to push the darts into the wheels as the drum rotates by.

It all sounds straightforward enough, but getting it all working in harmony is a challenge—particularly at a fire rate of 100 darts per second. The build video explains the trials and tribulations involved in getting near that fire rate, with darts getting shredded and magazines throwing out parts along the way. A good helping of iterative design helps get everything playing nice, with the darts neatly leaving the magazine and flying downrange at great speed. The slow-motion videos of darts flying out of the blaster in rapid succession are a special treat.

I found the embedded YouTube video to be amazing! Just the right match between exposition of the various steps in designing and debugging the gun!

Update:

Upon further reflection: how long does it take to reload? Hmm?

Original Submission

Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee is scheduled for Friday, September 22nd, 2023 at 20:30 UTC (1:30pm PDT, 4:30pm EDT) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when available.

The agenda for the upcoming meeting will also be published when available. Minutes and agenda, and other governance committee information are to be found on the SoylentNews Wiki at: https://wiki.staging.soylentnews.org/wiki/Governance

You, the community, are always welcome to observe and participate, and you're invited to the meeting.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/most-notorious-illegal-shadow-library-sued-by-textbook-publishers/

Yesterday, some of the biggest textbook publishers sued Library Genesis, an illegal shadow library that publishers are accusing of "extensive violations of federal copyright law."

Publishers suing include Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education. They claim that Library Genesis (aka Libgen) is operated by unknown individuals based outside the United States, who know that the shadow library is "one of the largest, most notorious, and far-reaching infringement operations in the world" and intentionally violate copyright laws with "absolutely no legal justification for what they do."

[...] Publishers hope their lawsuit will finally end years of Libgen's alleged mass copyright infringement, but shadow libraries like Libgen have proven resilient through multiple attacks from the highest levels of US law enforcement. Even when the US government arrested operators of another shadow library called Z-Library last year, Z-Library returned a few months later and found a way to continue operating after the US seized its login domain.

Ars could not immediately reach publishers' lawyers or Libgen for comment. [Update: Publishers' lawyer Matthew Oppenheim told Ars that Libgen is a "thieves' den" of illegal books, and "there is no question" that Libgen's conduct is "massively illegal." Oppenheim said that "really, the only question is why it's been allowed to exist this long." He also said that it's possible that US companies may not realize that they are aiding Libgen's infringement, but publishers hope that when they "are confronted" with the fact "that this library is massively illegal, that hopefully they will voluntarily do the right thing" and cut off Libgen.]

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://nicole.express/2023/have-you-read-atari-today.html

From Pitfall II to the Channel F to the NES cartridge port, a spectre has lurked in the background of Nicole Express: the spectre of the Atari 2600. The best-selling console of the second generation, an icon, and yet to date, I have not covered it, or even owned one. That all changes today, and we'll find out what the deal is with this strange artifact from the past. Plus, we'll get some S-Video.

[...] Those three chips are right in the center:

• The MOS Technology 6507 CPU. This is a 6502 die, with some pins not hooked up. The implications of this are important. The fact that this particular 6507 is made by Taiwan-based UMC probably isn't.
• The MOS Technology 6532 RIOT. This does exactly what the name implies: it contains 128 bytes of RAM (twice the Channel F!), provides two 8-bit I/O ports, and a programmable Timer. It's also made by UMC.
• The Atari Television Interface Adapter (TIA). The only real custom chip onboard, the TIA is what made the 2600 the 2600. It generates a video signal using various internal registers, as well as handling paddles, sound, and some other functions. Someone wrote on this one.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The results of a Phase III trial published this week could soon lead to a new era for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The study found that a combination of MDMA and psychotherapy was effective at relieving PTSD symptoms when compared to standard therapy. The nonprofit organization funding this research now plans to seek formal approval of MDMA-assisted therapy from the Food and Drug Administration before the end of the year.

MDMA is short for 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine. It’s a synthetic drug with both stimulant and psychedelic effects. It’s been used historically as a recreational drug, going under the nicknames of Molly or Ecstasy. And it’s been classified as an illegal controlled substance by the U.S. federal government since the 1980s. But for decades, some psychologists and researchers have experimented with using MDMA as a way to boost the potency of talk therapy, particularly for PTSD.

This once-nascent movement has picked up a lot of steam in the past few years, thanks to promising, if small-scale, research and changing societal attitudes around the legalization of many illicit drugs. Much of this research has been funded and organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit advocacy group. More recently, MAPS has successfully petitioned the FDA to consider the approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. FDA approval of a new use for a drug is typically contingent on positive data from at least two larger Phase III studies—data that now appears to be here for MDMA-assisted therapy.

Sometime back I posted about Motor Trend (and prior hot rod magazines) converting their long time '57 Chevy project car to electric power. Now they have a followup article with lessons learned at https://www.motortrend.com/features/ev-conversion-classic-cars/ (had some trouble loading that page, found a copy at, https://archive.ph/l1o6H ).

Their title is,

The Case for Not EV-Converting Your Classic Car - What we learned from EV-swapping Project X, and things to keep in mind if you entertain this questionable idea.

It turned out there were a lot of details that they found out along the way and the result was a lot of work and not all that satisfying. Their summary is below, in case you want to read the story from the top.

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

So, was converting Project X worth it? Yeah, I would say it was, since we learned a ton about EV systems, swaps, and how it all works, or doesn't work, in our classic cars, trucks, and hot rods. Now, it was a fun exercise with someone else's wallet, but the new Chevrolet Performance ZZ632 big-block we installed is more fun, sounds great, and will allow us to roll on next year's HOT ROD Power Tour without towing a diesel generator behind us. Most of all, Project X sounds loud and mean like a hot rod should sound.

And, with the EV box checked, they've already moved on to the next power train for Project X -- https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/zz632-big-block-engine-install-1957-chevy-project-x?slide=27

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Intelligence Community Feels It Might Be Time To Start Stuffing Surveillance Gear Into People's Pants

Who among us has not considered shoving a camera into our underwear... but for the greater good... on the public's dime? No need to raise your hands. We already know where they are.

The only thing better than lots of surveillance is even more surveillance. That's the unofficial tagline of the Intelligence Community, [ . . . . ]

The US intelligence community has invested $22 million in a project called SMART ePants, which aims to produce underwear and other garments that help the wearer conduct surveillance operations. Though fully washable, each garment is expected to contain audio, video, and geolocation recording devices.

Yes, they actually called it "SMART ePANTS." And that's not the only acronym in play here. [ . . . . ]

The Smart Electrically Powered and Networked Textile Systems (SMART ePANTS) program represents the largest single investment to develop Active Smart Textiles (AST) that feel, move, and function like any garment. Resulting innovations stand to provide the Intelligence Community (IC), Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies with durable, ready-to-wear clothing that can record audio, video, and geolocation data. This eTextile technology could also assist personnel and first responders in dangerous, high-stress environments, such as crime scenes and arms control inspections without impeding their ability to swiftly and safely operate.

[...] it may be useful for agencies to track employees during their interactions in "dangerous, high-stress environments," it seems far more useful for these agencies to have always-on surveillance gear that doesn't make it immediately apparent to the surveillance targets that they're being surveilled.

[...] let's stop pretending this is about "first responders, [...] It's not like these people have been crying out for more passive surveillance options, much less wearable tracking devices with cameras attached. The addition of the phrase "first responders" is supposed to soften the harder edges of the proposed $22 million, always-literally-on surveillance gear [...]

On the bright side, this has important secondary applications such as sending you alerts that you should change your underwear in a few days.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Europe's particle accelerator at CERN spews out around a petabyte of data daily, which means monitoring the computing infrastructure that processes the data is crucial.

CERN's main activities are based on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which propels sub-atomic particles around a 27km circuit, 100 meters underground, then smashes them into each other under the guise of eight distinct experiments. Among them is the CMS experiment, which aims to spot the particles responsible for dark matter, among other things.

Like other experiments, CMS shut down for a period of upgrades from 2018 to 2022, and restarted in July last year for the three-year Run 3 period in which scientists will increase the beam energy and sample physics data at a higher rate.

In preparation, four big LHC experiments performed major upgrades to their data readout and selection systems, with new detector systems and computing infrastructure. The changes will allow them to collect significantly larger data samples of higher quality than previous runs.

But Brij Kishor Jashal, a scientist in the CMS collaboration, told The Register that his team were currently aggregating 30 terabytes over a 30-day period to monitor their computing infrastructure performance.

"Entering the new era for our Run 3 operation, we will see more and more scaling of the storage as well as the data. One of our main jobs is to ensure that we are able to meet all this demand and cater to the requirements of users and manage the storage," he said.

upstart writes:

Novel electrical therapy rebuilds muscles lost through natural aging:

Sarcopenia affects up to 16% of the world's aging population and is one of the leading factors in the loss of independence. Marked by a loss of both muscle mass and function or strength, it's behind many age-related falls, poor mobility and functional decline. What's more, to date there's no 'cure' or treatments to halt its progression, let alone reverse it, and most intervention is based on slowing the loss of muscle mass with lifestyle and diet changes.

Now, scientists at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST) in South Korea have developed a novel bioelectric therapy that restored muscle cells in aging mice, and they're confident of its promise to have a similar effect in human models.

"The number of patients with sarcopenia has exploded recently due to restrictions on social activities owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and aging of the world's population," said lead author Minseok Kim, a professor in DGIST's Department of New Biology. "This research is significant because it confirms, for the first time, the potential of applying bioelectric medicine to treat sarcopenia, a disease for which there currently is no cure. We also identified the optimal electrical stimulation conditions for muscle recovery as a function of age, which may lead to a paradigm shift in the development of personalized electrotherapy treatments."

The team developed a biochip-based electrostimulation (ES) screening platform for aging human muscle cells. Using this, they were able to pinpoint the optimal ES conditions that coaxed aging muscle cells to regenerate. While ES has the potential to damage muscles, at the optimal level the researchers found it has a positive interaction with calcium signaling, senescence and metabolism. A restoration of calcium signaling in aged skeletal muscles can induce hypertrophy, or an increase in muscle mass.

upstart writes:

Multispectral Imaging Shows Erased Evidence Of Ancient Star Catalogue:

Ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus worked to accurately catalog and record the coordinates of celestial objects. But while Hipparchus' Star Catalogue is known to have existed, the document itself is lost to history. Even so, new evidence has come to light thanks to patient work and multispectral imaging.

Hipparchus' Star Catalogue is the earliest known attempt to record the positions of celestial bodies (predating Claudius Ptolemy's work in the second century, which scholars believe was probably substantially based on Hipparchus) but direct evidence of the document is slim.

That is somewhat less true after it was discovered that the coordinates of Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown) appeared to be hidden within some ancient documents. This led to further investigations, which yielded a translated passage, some of the strongest evidence yet of Hipparchus' lost work. It describes the Corona Borealis and gives coordinates accurate within one degree; considerably more precise than Ptolemy's calculations. A remarkable achievement for a second-century scholar, considering that the telescope would not be invented for another 1500 years or so.

How was this information uncovered? Multispectral imaging of a palimpsest manuscript (a parchment erased of writing, then re-used) revealed the earlier markings, followed by reconstruction and translation. In 2012 an undergraduate student named Jamie Klair first noticed the astronomical nature of of the undertext present in some pages of the ancient Greek palimpsest known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus. Peter Williams, a biblical scholar at Cambridge University, later noticed it contained the astronomical measurements of the Corona Borealis in 2021, which led to the discoveries.

Hipparchus' Star Catalogue is far from having been rediscovered, but this is the most direct evidence yet of an important piece of science history from the ancient Greeks; much like the marvelous device known as the Antikythera mechanism.

Journal Reference:
Peter J. Williams and Emanuel ZinggVi. New evidence for Hipparchus' Star Catalogue revealed by multispectral imaging Journal for the History of Astronomy (DOI: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00218286221128289)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In preparation of landing humans on the Moon as part of the ongoing Artemis program, SpaceX recently ran a test of one of its lunar lander engines while simulating the cold temperatures of space.

The private space venture demonstrated a vacuum-optimized Raptor, evaluating the engine’s performance “through a test that successfully confirmed the engine can be started in the extreme cold conditions resulting from extended time in space,” NASA announced on Thursday.

NASA signed a $2.89 billion contract with SpaceX to develop a human landing system for Artemis 3, which is tentatively scheduled to land astronauts on the Moon in 2025, in addition to a separate $1.15 billion contract signed last year for Artemis 4, which will follow in 2028. 

[...] The test, which took place last month, was the second one to demonstrate the Starship Raptor engine’s ability to perform on the lunar surface. In November 2021, SpaceX tested the engine’s ability to perform a descent burn to land on the surface of the Moon. During the 2021 test, which lasted for 281 seconds, “Raptor demonstrated the powered descent portion of the mission, when the Starship [Human Landing System] leaves its orbit over the lunar surface and begins its descent to the Moon’s surface to land,” NASA wrote.

I *just* realized that an editor on SoylentNews, janrinok (AKA JR), has very recently attained a huge milestone on our site:

8,000 stories!

I can speak from personal experience that this represents a HUGE sacrifice of time and energy. He showed me the ropes in how to post a story. (There is FAR MORE than meets the eye to be an editor!) There was also the fact that in the early years of SoylentNews, he was simultaneously taking care of his severely ill wife. (She, sadly, passes away a few short years ago.) He endured some exceedingly heart-wrenching periods doing this. I have witnessed him posting stories even though he was beyond the point of exhaustion. So much so that his doctors *demanded* that he stop *everything* and take a break for many months.

So it may not appear to be a huge milestone, please take my word for it. It is!

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

If you're a Linux enthusiast, you've likely come across terms like "immutable distribution", "OS3", or "image-based operating system". These concepts have been gaining traction in the Linux community, sparking curiosity about their significance. In this article, we'll delve into the world of immutable distributions, exploring how they work, their advantages, potential drawbacks, and whether they truly represent the future of the Linux desktop.

An immutable Linux distribution is a unique breed of operating system designed to be read-only and resistant to easy modification once installed. The fundamental idea behind these distributions is to restrict user and superuser access to system files and directories, ensuring that most changes are temporary and erased upon reboot. This approach has earned them the moniker "immutable."

When updates are applied to the system, they don't modify the existing installation. Instead, they create a new system image that becomes the active one upon the next reboot. While this might initially seem limiting, immutable distributions implement workarounds to ensure users can still customize their computing environment.

Immutable distributions offer robust security benefits. Since users and third-party programs can't readily modify the core system, the risk of viruses, Trojans, ransomware, and other malware compromising system files and directories is significantly reduced. Even if an attacker gains access to the system, their ability to write or modify system components is limited.

Immutable distributions are highly reliable. Users are less likely to accidentally break their systems or encounter issues caused by third-party software modifications. Unlike conventional distributions, there's no risk of running into dependency conflicts or unintentionally destructive commands.

Maintenance is streamlined with immutable distributions. Updates are only applied after a reboot, eliminating the risk of breaking the system while it's running. This approach also minimizes the chances of encountering dependency-related problems during updates.

One significant challenge with immutable distributions is installing applications, as traditional package management systems typically require write access to the system. Immutable distributions address this issue using various methods:

Many immutable distributions embrace universal packaging formats like Flatpaks, Snaps, and AppImages. These formats don't need full system access and bring their dependencies, making them ideal for installation on immutable systems.

Some distributions allow users to install packages in a dedicated layer separate from the immutable base system. These layered packages persist across reboots and are included in the updated system image, providing a way to install drivers, libraries, and applications not available as universal packages.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/unity-promises-changes-to-install-fee-plans-as-developer-fallout-continues/

After nearly a week of protracted developer anger over a newly announced runtime fee of up to $0.20 per game install, Unity says it will be "making changes" to that policy and will share a further update "in a couple of days."

In a late Sunday social media post, Unity offered apologies for the "confusion and angst" caused by the sudden announcement of the policy last Tuesday. "We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy," the post reads. "Thank you for your honest and critical feedback."

[...] "Publishers can no longer trust that the deals they make with Unity developers won't worsen over time," Zeboyd Digital Entertainment's Robert Boyd said in a statement that sums up similar feelings being expressed publicly by many developers.

[...] "If they make line 1 of their EULA one that guarantees we can continue to use current and past versions of Unity under those terms, maybe with a provision that they can scale the sub fee within some reasonable bounds—that's better than trust," indie developer Tom Francis wrote in a blog post about the complicated legal terms underlying the whole situation.

[...] Caves of Qud developer Brian Bucklew memorably documented his marathon porting work from Unity to Godot over the weekend, though the situation for the retro-styled 2D roguelike might not be representative of more complex porting efforts.

[...] Earlier this year, about a week after Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast faced widespread criticism for changes to its longstanding Open Gaming License, the company tried to partially walk back those changes with a draft that kept many of the most controversial points. A week later, the company fully backed off and promised the original license would "remain untouched."

Previously:
Developer Dis-Unity - 20230915

chromas writes:

Digital Trends:

A gorgeous new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a dramatic sight created by the outbursts of energy coming from a very young star. Called a Herbig-Haro object, this particular example is named HH 211 and shows the effects of huge jets of gas that are thrown out by the star and which collide with clouds of dust and gas to create stunning shapes.

The image was taken in the infrared wavelength in which Webb operates, which is ideal for observing hot objects like new stars without the view being blocked by dust, which is opaque in the visible light wavelength. The observations were made using Webb's NIRCam instrument.

Original Submission