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When the Trump administration killed net neutrality, telecom industry giants convinced them to push their luck and declared that not only would federal regulators no longer try to meaningfully oversee telecom giants like Comcast and AT&T, but that states couldn’t either. They got greedy.
The courts didn’t like that much, repeatedly ruling that the FCC can’t abdicate its authority over broadband consumer protection, then turn around tell states what they can or can’t do.
The courts took that stance again last week, with a new ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit restoring a New York State law (the Affordable Broadband Act) requiring that ISPs provide low-income state residents $15 broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps. The law was blocked in June of 2021 by a US District Judge who claimed that the state law was pre-empted by the federal net neutrality repeal.
Giant ISPs, and the Trump administration officials who love them, desperately tried to insist that states were magically barred from regulating broadband because the Trump administration said so. But the appeals court ruled, once again, those efforts aren’t supported by logic or the law:
“the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction.”
This ruling is once again good news for future fights over net neutrality and broadband consumer protection, Stanford Law Professor and net neutrality expert Barbara van Schewick notes in a statement:
“Today’s decision means that if a future FCC again decided to abdicate its oversight over broadband like it did in 2017, the states have strong legal precedent, across circuits, to institute their own protections or re-activate dormant ones.”
Telecom lobbyists have spent years lobbying to ensure federal broadband oversight is as captured and feckless as possible. And, with the occasional exception, they’ve largely succeeded. Big telecom had really hoped they could extend that winning streak even further and bar states from standing up to them as well, but so far that really hasn’t gone as planned.
One of the things that absolutely terrifies telecom monopoly lobbyists is the idea of rate regulation, or that government would ever stop them from ripping off captive customers stuck in uncompetitive markets. It’s never been a serious threat on the federal level due to regulatory capture and lobbying, even though it’s thrown around a lot by monopoly apologists as a terrifying bogeyman akin to leprosy.
Researchers suggest cylinder to prevent astronauts losing muscle mass in low gravity environment:
As humans prepare to return to the moon after an absence of more than half a century, researchers have hit on a radical approach to keeping astronauts fit as they potter around the ball of rock.
To prevent lunar explorers from becoming weak and feeble in the low gravity environment, scientists suggest astronauts go for a run. But, this being space, it's not just any kind of run – researchers have advised astronauts run several times a day around a "lunar Wall of Death".
Using a rented Wall of Death – a giant wooden cylinder used by motorcycle stunt performers in their gravity-defying fairground act – a 36m-high telescopic crane, and some bungee cords, researchers showed it was possible for a human to run fast enough in lunar gravity not only to remain on the wall, but to generate sufficient lateral force to combat bone and muscle wasting.
"I'm amazed that nobody had the idea before," said Alberto Minetti, professor of physiology at the University of Milan. "This could be a convenient way to train on the moon." And easier than building a spinning moon base that generates the force, like the giant wheel of Space Station One in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
[...] The hostile lunar environment presents several challenges, from ensuring astronauts have air, food and water to being well protected against space radiation. But without normal gravity to work against, astronauts lose bone and muscle mass, along with the fine nervous system control needed for coordinated movements, making measures to combat "deconditioning" a priority.
[...] To test the idea, two researchers ran around a 10m-wide Wall of Death while attached to a bungee cord suspended from the crane. The set-up emulated lunar gravity by taking five-sixths off their body weight. Combined with treadmill data, the scientists conclude that running for a couple of minutes at the start and end of each day, should generate enough lateral force, or "artificial gravity" to keep bones and muscles strong and maintain good nervous system control.
Rather than transporting an actual Wall of Death to the moon, astronauts could be housed in circular habitats, allowing them to run around the walls of their off-world homes, the team write in Royal Society Open Science.
Journal Reference:
Minetti Alberto E., Luciano Francesco, Natalucci Valentina and Pavei Gaspare 2024 Horizontal running inside circular walls of Moon settlements: a comprehensive countermeasure for low-gravity deconditioning? R. Soc. Open Sci. 11231906 http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.231906
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-baby-bird-cars.html
[...] Bird embryos develop outside the mother's body and can be artificially incubated, so it is possible to manipulate an embryo's experience without manipulating the mother.
The research team, led by Dr. Alizée Meillère and Dr. Mylene Mariette from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at Deakin University (Australia) and Doñana Biological Station (Spain), took advantage of this by playing sounds to the eggs of an Australian native bird, the zebra finch.
They discovered that—under otherwise optimal incubation conditions—eggs are less likely to hatch when exposed to traffic noise for five days before hatching, than when exposed to the species native song.
"Both traffic noise and song were played at the same moderate amplitude—65 decibels, which is similar to a conversation level—but something about the acoustic characteristics of the noise caused embryonic death," said Dr. Mariette.
[...] "Nestlings exposed to noise rather than song were slower to grow and showed more severe signs of cellular damage," said Dr. Mariette. "These negative effects were the result of both previous noise exposure before hatching and current exposure during the nestling stage."
More information: Alizée Meillère et al, Pre- and postnatal noise directly impairs avian development, with fitness consequences, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.ade5868
Mylene M. Mariette, Developmental programming by prenatal sounds: insights into possible mechanisms, Journal of Experimental Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.246696
Hans Slabbekoorn, A sound beginning of life starts before birth, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp1664 , www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp1664
Microsoft ties executive pay to security following multiple failures and breaches:
It's been a bad couple of years for Microsoft's security and privacy efforts. Misconfigured endpoints, rogue security certificates, and weak passwords have all caused or risked the exposure of sensitive data, and Microsoft has been criticized by security researchers, US lawmakers, and regulatory agencies for how it has responded to and disclosed these threats.
[...] All of this culminated in a report (PDF) from the US Cyber Safety Review Board, which castigated Microsoft for its "inadequate" security culture, its "inaccurate public statements," and its response to "preventable" security breaches.
To attempt to turn things around, Microsoft announced something it called the "Secure Future Initiative" in November 2023. As part of that initiative, Microsoft today announced a series of plans and changes to its security practices, including a few changes that have already been made.
[...] As part of these changes, Microsoft will also make its Senior Leadership Team's pay partially dependent on whether the company is "meeting our security plans and milestones," though Bell didn't specify how much executive pay would be dependent on meeting those security goals.
See also:
Physicists overcome two key operating hurdles in fusion reactions:
A team of physicists from several institutions across the U.S. working with a colleague from China, at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, in San Diego, California, has devised a way to overcome two key hurdles standing in the way of using fusion as a general power source.
In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they devised a way to raise the density of the plasma in their reactor while also keeping it stable.
[...] It was just in the past couple of years that researchers were able to show that a fusion reaction could be made to sustain itself, and that more power could be produced than was input into such a system.
The next two hurdles to overcome are increasing the density of the plasma in the reactor and then containing it for extended periods of time—long enough for it to be useful for producing electricity. In this new study, the research team has devised a way to do both in a tokamak chamber.
To contain the plasma as its density was increased, the team used additional magnets and bursts of deuterium where needed. They also allowed for higher densities at the core than near the edges, helping to ensure the plasma could not escape. They held it in that state for 2.2 seconds, long enough to prove that it could be done.
[...] The research team acknowledges that their experiment was done in a very small reactor—one with a diameter of just 1.6 meters. For such an achievement to be considered fully successful, it will have to be done in a much larger reactor, such as the one currently under construction in France, which will have a diameter of 6.2 meters.
Journal Reference:
Ding, S., Garofalo, A. M., Wang, H. Q., et al. A high-density and high-confinement tokamak plasma regime for fusion energy [open], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07313-3)
The Group of Seven (G7) countries, which include Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, announced at a ministerial meeting that they will shut down coal-fired power plants by 2030-2035, or on a timeline consistent with the 1.5 C degree temperature limit. In addition, the G7 countries announced they will rapidly scale-up battery storage sixfold by 2030 to support electricity grids powered by renewable energy sources.
The latest G7 statement is not entirely surprising if you've been following coal consumption in the countries mentioned. In 2003, the G7 still were the proud owners of a 44% share in global coal-fired electricity. By 2013, that share had lowered to 26.5% -- currently it is down to 11%. But still.
This new ban follows close on the heels of a ban for all (new) petrol/diesel cars in the whole of the European Union + United Kingdom, by 2035 -- like already implemented by individual States within the US.
Now this writeup is about the impact these bans will have on the economic prospects of other countries.
For example, Japan imported just over 110 million metric tons of thermal coal last year, compared to around 330 million tons imported by China and 170 million tons by India. Their current suppliers are Australia, Indonesia, Russia and Canada. Some fast-growing economies elsewhere, including India, the Philippines and Vietnam, may snap up some of the reduced volumes bought by G7 nations over the near term. But in the longer run those and other nations plan to sharply increase clean power generation and cut back on fossil fuel use.
What will happen to OPEC and coal exporting countries after 2035?
It is a hard fate ... to be banned ... by the world, only because one has sought to be wiser than the world is.— Edward Bulwer Lytton
Artificial intelligence engineers at top tech companies told CNBC that the pressure to roll out AI tools at breakneck speed has come to define their jobs:
Late last year, an artificial intelligence engineer at Amazon was wrapping up the work week and getting ready to spend time with some friends visiting from out of town. Then, a Slack message popped up. He suddenly had a deadline to deliver a project by 6 a.m. on Monday.
There went the weekend. The AI engineer bailed on his friends, who had traveled from the East Coast to the Seattle area. Instead, he worked day and night to finish the job.
But it was all for nothing. The project was ultimately "deprioritized," the engineer told CNBC. He said it was a familiar result. AI specialists, he said, commonly sprint to build new features that are often suddenly shelved in favor of a hectic pivot to another AI project.
[...] The tech workers spoke to CNBC mostly on the condition that they remain unnamed because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. The experiences they shared illustrate a broader trend across the industry, rather than a single company's approach to AI.
[...] A common feeling they described is burnout from immense pressure, long hours and mandates that are constantly changing. Many said their employers are looking past surveillance concerns, AI's effect on the climate and other potential harms, all in the name of speed. Some said they or their colleagues were looking for other jobs or switching out of AI departments, due to an untenable pace.
Related: UK Workers Support AI But Want Greater Organizational Transparency
Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson:
Ukraine has a new AI spokesperson named Victoria Shi. Ukraine has a new AI spokesperson named Victoria Shi. Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson
Victoria Shi is modelled on Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine's version of the reality show The Bachelor
Ukraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.
The ministry said it would "for the first time in history" use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans.
Dressed in a dark suit, the spokesperson introduced herself as Victoria Shi, a "digital person", in a presentation posted on social media. The figure gesticulates with her hands and moves her head as she speaks.
The foreign ministry's press service said that the statements given by Shi would not be generated by AI but "written and verified by real people".
"It's only the visual part that the AI helps us to generate," Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said, adding that the new spokesperson was a "technological leap that no diplomatic service in the world has yet made".
The main reason for creating her was "saving time and resources" for diplomats, he said. Shi's creators are a team called the Game Changers who have also made virtual-reality content related to the war in Ukraine.
The spokesperson's name is based on the word "victory" and the Ukrainian phrase for artificial intelligence: shtuchniy intelekt.
Shi's appearance and voice are modelled on a real person: Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine's version of the reality show The Bachelor. Nombre was born in the now Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. She has 54,000 followers on her Instagram account, which she uses to discuss stereotypes about mixed-race Ukrainians and those who grew up as Russian speakers.
The ministry said that Nombre took part free of charge. It stressed that Shi and Nombre "are two different people" and that only the AI figure will give official statements.
Nurses Say Hospital Adoption Of Half-Cooked 'AI' Is Reckless:
We've noted repeatedly that while "AI" (language learning models) hold a lot of potential, the rushed implementation of half-assed early variants are causing no shortage of headaches across journalism, media, health care, and other sectors. In part because the kind of terrible brunchlord managers in charge of many institutions primarily see AI as a way to cut corners and attack labor.
It's been a particular problem in healthcare, where broken "AI" is being layered on top of already broken systems. Like in insurance, where error-prone automation, programmed from the ground up to prioritize money over health, is incorrectly denying essential insurance coverage to the elderly.
Last week, hundreds of nurses protested the implementation of sloppy AI into hospital systems in front of Kaiser Permanente. Their primary concern: that systems incapable of empathy are being integrated into an already dysfunctional sector without much thought toward patient care:
"No computer, no AI can replace a human touch," said Amy Grewal, a registered nurse. "It cannot hold your loved one's hand. You cannot teach a computer how to have empathy."
There are certainly roles automation can play in easing strain on a sector full of burnout after COVID, particularly when it comes to administrative tasks. The concern, as with other industries dominated by executives with poor judgement, is that this is being used as a justification by for-profit hospital systems to cut corners further. From a National Nurses United blog post (spotted by 404 Media):
"Nurses are not against scientific or technological advancement, but we will not accept algorithms replacing the expertise, experience, holistic, and hands-on approach we bring to patient care," they added.
A Racist AI Deepfake Framed a High School Principal
A racist AI deepfake framed a high school principal:
Baltimore County Police arrested the former athletic director of Pikesville High School on Thursday, alleging he used an AI voice clone to impersonate the school's principal, leading the public to believe Principal Eric Eiswert had made racist and antisemitic comments, according to The Baltimore Banner.
Dazhon Darien was stopped at a Baltimore airport on Thursday morning attempting to board a flight to Houston with a gun, according to the Banner. Investigators determined Darien faked Eiswert's voice using an AI cloning tool. The AI voice recording, which was circulated widely on social media, made disparaging comments about Black students and the Jewish community.
"Based on an extensive investigation, detectives now have conclusive evidence the recording was not authentic," the Baltimore County Police said in a press release. "As part of their investigation, detectives requested a forensic analyst contracted with the FBI to analyze the recording. The results from that analysis indicated the recording contained traces of AI-generated content." arrested the former athletic director of Pikesville High School on Thursday, alleging he used an AI voice clone to impersonate the school's principal, leading the public to believe Principal Eric Eiswert had made racist and antisemitic comments, according to The Baltimore Banner.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3 Original Submission #4
Ancient DNA Reveals People Caught Leprosy From Adorable Woodland Critters In Medieval England:
Red squirrels – yes, the cute ones with furry ears from children's books – have become the first identified animal host of one of the oldest diseases in recorded history. It seems these unassuming critters were responsible for spreading leprosy to people in medieval England.
The red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is now a rare sight in the UK, having been largely replaced by their gray cousins, but that wasn't the case in the Middle Ages. Back then, humans and squirrels rubbed shoulders fairly often – not the best news for the squirrels, mind you, which were prized for their fur and sometimes captured and kept as pets.
In their own way, though, it seems they fought back, as a new genetic analysis of ancient human and squirrel remains has provided the best proof yet of a theory that squirrels spread leprosy-causing bacteria to medieval humans.
"With our genetic analysis we were able to identify red squirrels as the first ancient animal host of leprosy," said senior study author Verena Schuenemann, a professor at the University of Basel, in a statement.
Leprosy is caused by strains of bacteria from the species Mycobacterium leprae. Accounts of the disease, which primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system, appear in ancient writings across various civilizations, but you may be surprised to learn that the World Health Organization still records over 200,000 new cases every year.
Nowadays, leprosy is treatable with a long course of three antibiotics, but if people are unable to access this treatment the condition can progress to cause permanent disability. And it's not just the physical effects – leprosy patients have always endured stigma and discrimination, and this continues even though we now understand that it's much less contagious than our forebears believed.
In the Middle Ages, it was still thought best to isolate those with leprosy from the rest of the population, and one way of doing that was to build special "hospitals" called leprosariums. One such facility was located in Winchester, a small city in the South of England, which also had strong connections to the fur trade. This is where the team sourced the archaeological samples for their analysis.
They studied 25 human and 12 red squirrel samples, identifying, sequencing, and reconstructing the genomes of four strains of M. leprae – including one from a squirrel. Looking more closely at the genomes, the scientists found they all belonged to the same branch of the M. leprae family tree, and that the medieval squirrel strain showed greater similarity to medieval human strains than to modern squirrel strains.
"The medieval red squirrel strain we recovered is more closely related to medieval human strains from the same city than to strains isolated from infected modern red squirrels. Overall, our results point to an independent circulation of M. leprae strains between humans and red squirrels during the Medieval Period," Schuenemann explained.
Beyond leprosy, spillover events – when diseases jump from animals into humans and become what we call zoonotic – are on people's minds more than ever these days. It's widely accepted that COVID-19 started like this, and people are anxiously watching to see if H5N1 avian flu might be heading the same way.
[...] As co-author Sarah Inskip of the University of Leicester said, "Our research shows that there is a long history of zoonotic diseases, and they have had and continue to have a big impact on us."
The study is published in Current Biology.
Rare Interviews with Enigma Cryptanalyst Marian Rejewski - Schneier on Security:
From the Schneier link:
I just noticed a series of nine rare interviews were posted in June 2023 by the Polish Embassy in London.
Each has only a couple hundred views on YouTube despite significance of the subject. They feature war hero Marian Rejewski, the 1st person to crack the Enigma code, describing major breakthroughs before and during WWII (which the British rarely, if ever, gave proper credit to Poland):
[Links to short video clips follows]
Related: Rebuilding the Polish Engima-Cracker
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/the-basic-programming-language-turns-60/
Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at Dartmouth College. That's when mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz successfully ran the first program written in their newly developed BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) programming language on the college's General Electric GE-225 mainframe.
Little did they know that their creation would go on to democratize computing and inspire generations of programmers over the next six decades.
[...] Prior to BASIC, programming languages like Fortran, Algol, and COBOL proved complex and were primarily used by professionals. Kemeny and Kurtz saw a need for amateurs who were not dedicated computer engineers to be able to use computers as well. Their journey to create a more user-friendly language began in 1956 with Dartmouth Simplified Code (DARIMSCO), followed by the Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment (DOPE). While DOPE proved too simple to be of much use, the lessons learned from these projects informed the development of BASIC, which started in 1963.
[...] The impact of BASIC extended far beyond Dartmouth's campus. As part of the deal to buy the GE computer, the undergraduates built the operating system in BASIC for General Electric's version of time-sharing. This allowed colleges, high schools, and individuals across the country to dial into mainframe computers and write programs using BASIC.
In 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates adapted the language for personal computers like the Altair 8800, expanding its reach to a new audience of small computer owners and founding Microsoft in the process. In 1976, Steve Wozniak developed a BASIC interpreter from scratch for the Apple I using self-taught methods and minimal resources. This became Integer BASIC for the Apple II a year later, and BASIC (as Applesoft BASIC) remained a key part of the Apple II throughout the platform's lifespan.
[...] Today, BASIC remains popular in hobbyist retrocomputing circles, but few use it as a practical language. And yet it never truly died out—instead, it continued to evolve.
April updates for Windows 10 and 11 break some VPN software, Microsoft says:
Microsoft is currently investigating a bug in its most recent batch of Windows 10 and Windows 11 updates that is preventing some VPN software from working properly. The company updated its list of known Windows issues to say that it has recreated the issue on its end and that it's currently working on a fix.
The VPN issue affects all currently supported versions of Windows: Windows 10 21H2 and 22H2; Windows 11 versions 21H2, 22H2, and 23H2; and Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, and 2022.
Microsoft says the problem was caused by update KB5036893, which was initially released on April 9, 2024. The update makes "miscellaneous security improvements to internal OS functionality," among a few other minor changes. The company hasn't provided specific information on what's been broken or what needs fixing, noting only that PCs "might face VPN connection failures" after installing the update.
Routine updates have caused several headaches for VPN-using Windows 10 and 11 users in the last couple of years; updates in early 2022 broke some L2TP and IPSEC VPNs, and another update about a year ago slowed down speeds over VPN connections. Of course, Microsoft isn't always to blame for VPN problems in Windows—earlier this month, we wrote about issues with the Google One VPN software totally resetting DNS settings for all network adapters.
Latest Windows update has borked VPN use on all versions
The April 2024 Windows security patch appears to be the culprit for broken Virtual Private Network functionality. The bug prevents users from connecting to a VPN to conceal their home Wi-Fi network's IP address when browsing the web or accessing content from abroad.
Microsoft has acknowledged the issue, with the KB5036893 that dropped almost a month ago, which it says affects all current versions of Windows 11, Windows 10 and Windows Server. It promises a fix is incoming.
On a support page (via The Verge), the company says: "VPN connections might fail after installing the April 2024 security update.
"Windows devices might face VPN connection failures after installing the April 2024 security update (KB5036893) or the April 2024 non-security preview update. We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release."
While Windows users wait for the resolution, the only known workaround is to roll back the operating system update, and uninstall the update.
Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, literally, something else
RISC OS Open 5.30 arrives – with Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi support
The new version of RISC OS, the original native Arm OS, runs on eight or nine Arm-based platforms, including the Raspberry Pi Zero, 1, 2, 3 and 4 – and on that last two, this release supports wireless networking.
[....] RISC OS 5.30 is the latest release of Acorn's original native operating system for its Arm processors.
[....] Acorn's original, and very comprehensive, documentation has been updated for this release, too:
[....] This is a fairly modernized and refurbished late-1980s single-user GUI-based OS, and that implies some limitations. It was first released the same year as OS/2 1.0, long before Apple System 7 or Windows 3.0. In fact, it'll remind you of Windows 3 on MS-DOS: it's a single-tasking text-mode OS, with networking, on top of which is a graphical desktop that does cooperative multitasking. RISC OS gives applications access to much of the memory map, and so if a program accidentally scribbles over the wrong parts of that address space, the whole computer can freeze up – which in testing our Pi 400 did several times.
But saying that, it's an admirably complete OS, in this vulture's opinion, with quite a rich portfolio of applications. RISC OS 5.30 comes with a selection of productivity apps, plus development tools, including a choice of editors, Python, Lua, and a C compiler – and of course with a 32-bit version of BBC BASIC V, a fully structured interpreter which also supports inline Arm assembly language.
[.... rest omitted ....]
It's fun to remember what could be done long ago on much lower end hardware of the day.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
In looking up at the sky during these early weeks of spring, you may very well see a flock of birds moving in unison as they migrate north. But how do these creatures fly in such a coordinated and seemingly effortless fashion?
Part of the answer lies in precise, and previously unknown, aerodynamic interactions, reports a team of mathematicians in a newly published study. Its breakthrough broadens our understanding of wildlife, including fish, who move in schools, and could have applications in transportation and energy.
"This area of research is important since animals are known to take advantage of the flows, such as of air or water, left by other members of a group to save on the energy needed to move or to reduce drag or resistance," explains Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.
"Our work may also have applications in transportation—like efficient propulsion through air or water—and energy, such as more effectively harvesting power from wind, water currents, or waves."
The team's results show that the impact of aerodynamics depends on the size of the flying group—benefiting small groups and disrupting large ones.
"The aerodynamic interactions in small bird flocks help each member to hold a certain special position relative to their leading neighbor, but larger groups are disrupted by an effect that dislodges members from these positions and may cause collisions," notes Sophie Ramananarivo, an assistant professor at École Polytechnique Paris and one of the paper's authors.
[...] Here, they concluded that flow-mediated interactions between neighbors are, in effect, spring-like forces that hold each member in place—just as if the cars of a train were connected by springs.
However, these "springs" act in only one direction—a lead bird can exert force on its follower, but not vice versa—and this non-reciprocal interaction means that later members tend to resonate or oscillate wildly.
"The oscillations look like waves that jiggle the members forwards and backwards and which travel down the group and increase in intensity, causing later members to crash together," explains Joel Newbolt, who was an NYU graduate student in physics at the time of research.
The team named these new types of waves "flonons," which is based on the similar concept of phonons that refer to vibrational waves in systems of masses linked by springs and which are used to model the motions of atoms or molecules in crystals or other materials.
"Our findings therefore raise some interesting connections to material physics in which birds in an orderly flock are analogous to atoms in a regular crystal," Newbolt adds.
More information: Joel W. Newbolt et al, Flow interactions lead to self-organized flight formations disrupted by self-amplifying waves, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47525-9
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/04/forgotten-poem-by-c-s-lewis-published-for-the-first-time/
Renowned British author C.S. Lewis is best known for his Chronicles of Narnia, but Lewis's prolific oeuvre also included a science-fiction trilogy , an allegorical novel, a marvelous retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, various nonfiction works of Christian apologetics, and literary criticism. Now, a literary scholar has discovered a previously unknown short poem by Lewis among a cache of documents acquired by the University of Leeds 10 years ago. Written in 1935, the poem has been published for the first time, with an accompanying analysis in the Journal of Inkling Studies.
[...] the Inklings "arguably the literary mythmakers" of their generation.
Lewis and Tolkien shared a love of Norse mythology, and Lewis read the first early drafts of what would become Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien later said he owed his friend "an unpayable debt" for convincing him the "stuff" could be more than merely a "private hobby." Tolkien, in turn, was the one who convinced Lewis—an atheist in his youth—to convert to Christianity.
[...] "Since Þrýþ was wicked and her mood was fierce, according to Tolkien's interpretation and translation that Lewis seems to agree with, the negative phrase in the title of the poem can only be read as a compliment to Ida Gordon," Cossio wrote. Taken together with Lewis's adherence to the alliterative meter of Beowulf, Cossio concludes that the newly discovered poem was clearly written "from one medievalist to another."
About a month ago, a developer notified The Register (El Reg, for the conoscenti) that part of the documentation of an AI powered infrastructure-as-code tool was turning up on the Internet. Problem: the documentation itself was written by an LLM and, as one has come to expect, it sometimes hallucinated. In layman terms: it shoveled bullshit.
The developer -- Pete Nykänen -- had opened an issue with the company on Github, but no action was taken.
Lo and behold, El Reg went on a fishing expedition and found that the story was true. What's more, the bogus content ended up number one in Google's search results, and pretty high-up almost everywhere else too. Intrigued, El Reg investigators asked both the Google and the original AI polluter for comment, which led to some interesting quotes.
The original polluter noted that it has "taken steps to remove more than half (almost two thirds) of AI Answers, and we plan to continue to ensure that these AI answers are complementary to our existing documentation." They even planned to refer to existing APIs and documentation in the answers, and testing generated code was on the to-do list too.
How they're going to do that -- given their proven ability in planning ahead and stuff -- is probably merely a question of filling in the blanks when asking the question to their own AI engine, one supposes.
Google was a bit slower in responding -- by about a month or so -- but helpfully noted that "Low value content that's created at scale to manipulate Search rankings is spam, however it is produced", and that recent updates to its tech "reduced low quality, unoriginal content on Search by 45 percent, and aim to tackle unhelpful content that's designed to rank well in Search."
Unfortunately, it looks like them updates missed the mark: at the time of writing this sub, the original content is still number one at Google.