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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The densely populated island state is moving from what it calls Electric Road Pricing (ERP) 1.0 to ERP 2.0. The first version used gantries – or automatic tolls – to charge drivers a fee through an in-car device when they used specific roadways during certain hours.

ERP 2.0 sees the vehicle instead tracked through GPS, which can tell where a vehicle is at all operating times.

"ERP 2.0 will provide more comprehensive aggregated traffic information and will be able to operate without physical gantries. We will be able to introduce new 'virtual gantries,' which allow for more flexible and responsive congestion management," explained the LTA.

But the island's government doesn't just control inflow into urban areas through toll-like charging – it also aggressively controls the total number of cars operating within its borders.

Singapore requires vehicle owners to bid for a set number of Certificates of Entitlement – costly operating permits valid for only ten years. The result is an increase of around SG$100,000 ($75,500) every ten years, depending on that year's COE price, on top of a car's usual price. The high total price disincentivizes mass car ownership, which helps the government manage traffic and emissions.

Between ERP 2.0, a plan to one day charge based on distance instead of per gantry entry, improvements in mass transit links, and “evolving” traffic patterns sparked by an increase in flexible work arrangements, Singapore reckons it can handle the extra traffic from 20,000 cars.

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quietus writes:

"The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all. That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward."

Mozilla Foundation is laying off 30% of its remaining (estimated) 120 employees, due to "a relentless onslaught of change". The firings mean the end for 2 divisions within Mozilla Foundation: global programs (outreach to LGBTQ+ and so on) and advocacy. The 5 person advocacy division handled issues around privacy, security, algorithms and ad policies on the web, shin kicking android, youtube, tiktok, facebook, slack, hulu and assorted others.

According to the February appointed CEO of the Mozilla Foundation,

"Navigating this topsy-turvy, distracting time requires laser focus — and sometimes saying goodbye to the excellent work that has gotten us this far because it won't get us to the next peak. Lofty goals demand hard choices."

See also: submitted by RamiK Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocacy division - TechCrunch

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Some 6,500 light-years from Earth lurks a zombie star cloaked in long tendrils of hot sulfur.

Nobody knows how those tendrils formed. But astronomers now know where they’re going. New observations, reported in the Nov. 1 Astrophysical Journal Letters, capture the 3-D structure and motion of debris left in the wake of a supernova that was seen to detonate almost 900 years ago.

“It’s a piece of the puzzle towards understanding this very bizarre [supernova] remnant,” says astronomer Tim Cunningham of the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

The supernova was first recorded in 1181 as a “guest star” by astronomers in ancient China and Japan (SN: 4/17/02). Astronomers didn’t find the remains of that explosion, now called the Pa 30 nebula, until 2013.

And when they did find the remnant, it looked weird. The supernova appeared to be a kind called type 1a, wherein a white dwarf star detonates, destroying itself in the process (SN: 3/23/16). But in this case, part of the star survived.

Stranger still, the star was surrounded by spiky filaments stretching about three light-years in all directions. “This is really unique,” Cunningham says. “There’s no other supernova nebula that shows filaments like this.”

[...] Researchers still aren’t sure how the filaments formed, or how they’ve maintained their straight-line shapes for centuries. One possibility is that a shock wave from the explosion ricocheted off the diffuse material between stars and bounced back toward the white dwarf. That wave could have sculpted the material into the spikes astronomers see. Future theoretical studies using the new observations might help solve the puzzle.

The study did show that this remnant is almost definitely from the guest star of 1181. Taking the speeds and positions of the filaments and tracing them backward show they all emanated from the same point around the year 1152, give or take 75 years.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Southampton team developed a "nervous system" for drones using optical fibers to continuously monitor strains and stresses, similar to how nerves relay information in the human body. Unlike traditional electrical monitoring, this system uses light signals, which helps avoid the interference issues common in electronic setups.

The monitoring system works through a technique called "optical speckle," where specific images are projected based on detected strains and stresses. AI algorithms then analyze these patterns to assess potential damage, alerting crews when issues arise.

Initial test flights integrating the nervous system on an undergraduate drone project were promising. According to an aerospace student leading the project, the live data showed that fiber optic technology could significantly extend flight duration by reducing the need for manual inspections.

"The drone was first developed to deliver life-saving equipment like defibrillators in emergencies, but it's served as an excellent test platform for the optical fiber nervous system. What really excited us was seeing the live data from the fiber system. It showed that the technology could keep drones operational longer without extensive ground crews," said aerospace engineering graduate Toby King-Cline, who led the student team.

The researchers believe their self-monitoring system holds immense potential across industries. They aim to commercialize the technology as early as 2025.

Drones capable of continuously assessing their own structural integrity could prove invaluable for applications such as cargo transport, emergency response deliveries, and other sectors that would benefit from extended flight times without frequent landing requirements.

Although initial testing was conducted on a small student drone, these smaller drones don't typically need full inspections between flights. The technology would likely be most beneficial for larger cargo drones that endure greater operational stress.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

I’ve written for years about how U.S. broadband is expansive, patchy, and slow thanks to mindless consolidation, regulatory capture, regional monopolization, and limited competition. That’s resulted in a growing number of pissed off towns, cities, cooperatives, and city-owned utilities building their own, locally-owned and operated broadband networks in a bid for better, cheaper, faster broadband.

Regional giants like Comcast, Charter, or AT&T could have responded to this organic trend by offering better, cheaper, faster service. But ultimately they found it far cheaper to undermine these efforts via regulatory capture, congressional lobbying, lawsuits, protectionist state laws, and misleading disinformation.

They’re big fans of creating fake consumer groups that then attack community broadband networks under the pretense of being “locally concerned citizens,” which you might recall is something Charter recently got busted for in Maine.

They also enjoy funding various “think tanks” who don’t “think” about policy issues, so much as they parrot false industry attacks. Usually under the pretense of being objective, concerned locals simply looking out for the public welfare.

Like in Idaho and Massachusetts, where telecom-financed groups like the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) and the Mountain States Policy Center have been peppering local news outlets with misleading local editorials that lie to locals, and portray community broadband as some sort of inherent government boondoggle. Like this editorial by the TPA in the Cape Cod area:

So there are countless different types of community broadband networks, including municipal networks, cooperatives, city-owned utilities, or even public-private partnerships. There’s also a broad variety of ways to fund them, many of which never touch a dime of taxpayer money. A lot of these networks have been helped greatly by the billions in subsidies included in 2021 COVID relief and infrastructure bills.

quietus writes:

Germany's energy regulator, the Bundesnetzargentur, has given the go-ahead to a proposed 9,040 km (5617 miles) long network of hydrogen pipelines connecting planned key hydrogen import, production and consumption centra within Germany. The network, proposed by the country's gas transmission system operators, should be ready by 2032, at a cost estimate of €18.9bn.

The approval process was sped up under the 2022 Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (Energy Industry Act), aiming to enhance competition, security of supply and sustainable energy production, with a focus on offshore wind farms. Appendix 2 of this Act arranges for an 'intertemporal cost allocation' mechanism to finance the network mentioned above.

Under this mechanism, all gas network operators will run the same negotiated ramp-up tariffs on entry and exit points of the network, in exchange for state-backed loans and state guarantees to bridge the time until utilisation rates rise and tariff revenues exceed cost.

Countries bordering the North Sea (like Germany), aim to scale offshore wind capacity from under 30 GW to 120 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050. Hydrogen is seen as an effective storage medium for excess energy production here.

While the concept has always been to run DC cables from the offshore wind farms on land, and produce the hydrogen there, a recent opinion piece suggests that it is more efficient to locate the hydrogen production at sea, too -- and transport the produced hydrogen on land by pipeline.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/11/drugmaker-shut-down-after-black-schmutz-found-in-injectable-weight-loss-drug/

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use any drugs made by a compounding pharmacy in California after regulators realized the pharmacy was making drugs that need to be sterile—particularly injectable drugs—without using sterile ingredients or any sterilization steps.

The products made by the pharmacy, Fullerton Wellness LLC, in Ontario, California, include semaglutide [...] tirzepatide
[...]
The FDA became aware of the problem after a patient submitted a complaint to the regulator that a vial of semaglutide from Fullerton Wellness had an unidentified "black particulate" floating in it. Semaglutide, like tirzepatide, is injected under the skin and is intended to be sterile.

Injecting a "non-sterile drug intended to be sterile may result in serious and potentially life-threatening adverse health consequences including infections and sepsis," the FDA warned.
[...]
This is just the latest warning on weight-loss drugs from the FDA, which has repeatedly cautioned about quality and safety problems related to compounded versions of the drugs. The compounded drugs are intended to be essentially copycat versions of the blockbuster brand-name drugs. Compounding pharmacies can make copycat versions only as long as the drugs are in short supply, acting as a stopgap for patient access. But, with the popularity of the drugs and the high prices of the brand-name versions, compounded formulations have become seen as affordable alternatives for many patients.
[...]
Also in October, Novo Nordisk asked the FDA to stop letting compounders make copycat versions of semaglutide, arguing that the drug is too complex for compounders to make and poses too many safety risks to patients. In response, the trade organization for compounders, the Outsourcing Facilities Association, submitted a letter to the FDA asking it to require Novo Nordisk to provide an economic impact statement to assess the cost and price increases that could occur if semaglutide were no longer available through compounding pharmacies.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

An exquisitely preserved fossilised tadpole is the oldest ever discovered by science, dating back 161 million years, with an anatomy that is strikingly similar to some of today’s species.

Palaeontologists found the fossil in January 2020 while searching for feathered dinosaurs in Santa Cruz province in Argentina.

“They did not achieve their goal,” says Mariana Chuliver at Maimonides University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “However, after many days of digging, one team member found a stone with a particular imprint on it – a fossil tadpole.”

Chuliver and her colleagues have now identified the tadpole as belonging to the extinct frog species Notobatrachus degiustoi, deciphered from the hundreds of adult specimens found in the same fossil deposit since 1957.

Until now, scientists had never unearthed tadpole fossils from before the Cretaceous Period, which began around 145 million years ago. This specimen is also the first ever fossilised tadpole from an earlier frog lineage known as stem anurans, which predates modern species, known as crown anurans.

The fossil was so well preserved that eyes and nerves are visible in its head, as well as a forelimb and part of its tail. The team estimates it would have been around 16 centimetres long, comparable to the biggest tadpoles that exist today.

[...] The tadpole’s size also paints a picture of the kinds of habitat that frogs evolved in more than 160 million years ago – lots of water with few predators or competitors, she says. “Something modern frog species can only dream about.”

Journal reference:

Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08055-y

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hubie writes:

Thousands Turn Out For Nonexistent Halloween Parade Promoted By AI Listing:

Thousands of Dubliners showed up for the city's much-anticipated Halloween parade on Thursday evening. They lined the streets from Parnell Street to Christchurch Cathedral, waiting for the promised three-hour parade that would "[transform] Dublin into a lively tapestry of costumes, artistic performances, and cultural festivities." A likely story. There was no parade, and never was one.

Would-be revelers started getting suspicious about an hour after the parade was supposed to begin, according to one attendee. The Gardaí, Ireland's national police service, tried to disperse the crowds and put out the message on social media that "contrary to information being circulated online, no Halloween parade is scheduled to take place in Dublin city centre this evening or tonight."

Over the remainder of the night, sleuths gradually teased out the culprit: a website based in Pakistan that consists solely of listings for Halloween events, some real and some totally made-up. Possibly the first clue that the Dublin parade was in the latter category was the listing's implication that Cristiano Ronaldo and MrBeast might appear. But in the days before the non-event, hype started trickling down via social media posts from actual people, which makes it harder to claim Dubliners should have known—if you see a friend posting about a Halloween parade, why wouldn't you believe there was going to be a Halloween parade?

The patient zero of this farce, however, appears to be a combination of classic SEO bait tactics and newfangled AI slop content. Every autumn, lots of people search for Halloween events nearby, and a site entirely devoted to cataloguing them will naturally rise in the Google rankings, which incentivize lots of things that are not necessarily "quality" or "accuracy." You click on the site, which looks professional enough, and they get some money for the ads you're served.

[...] That a fake listing for a Halloween parade would even be a thing anyone would want to create and promote is a product of all sorts of fucked-up incentives baked into our various tech platforms to produce authoritative-seeming garbage at scale. This is only a problem if you are a human who would like to attend a Halloween parade. But don't worry, our tech barons have promised that the slop faucets will not stop running until we've all drowned.

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looorg writes:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/nokia-investigates-breach-after-hacker-claims-to-steal-source-code/

(Stolen) Nokia Sourcecode for sale.

Nokia is investigating whether a third-party vendor was breached after a hacker claimed to be selling the company's stolen source code.

"Nokia is aware of reports that an unauthorized actor has alleged to have gained access to certain third-party contractor data and possibly data of Nokia," the company told BleepingComputer.

"Nokia takes this allegation seriously and we are investigating. To date, our investigation has found no evidence that any of our systems or data being impacted. We continue to closely monitor the situation."

This statement comes after a threat actor known as IntelBroker claimed to be selling Nokia source code that was stolen after they breached a third-party vendor's server.

"Today, I am selling a large collection of Nokia source code, which we got from a 3rd party contractor that directly worked with Nokia to help aid their development of some internal tools."

IntelBroker states that the stolen data contains SSH keys, source code, RSA keys, BitBucket logins, SMTP accounts, webhooks, and hardcoded credentials.

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Bees Reportedly Stopped Meta From Building A Nuclear-Powered Ai Data Center

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Meta had plans to build an AI data center in the US that relies on nuclear power — it even already knew where it wanted the facility to be built. According to the Financial Times, though, the company had to scrap its plans, because the a rare bee species was discovered on the land reserved for the project. Company chief Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly ready to close a deal with an existing nuclear power plant operator that would provide emissions-free energy to the plant. The Times said he told staff members at an all-hands last week that pushing through wouldn't have been possible, because the company would encounter numerous regulatory challenges due to the bees' discovery.

Zuckerberg reportedly told his staff that Meta would've had the first nuclear-powered AI if the deal had gone ahead. It still might come true if the company could find a way, but it has to move quickly because its biggest rivals are investing in nuclear energy, as well. In September, Microsoft revealed that it intends to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to provide energy for its AI efforts. Meanwhile, Google teamed up with startup Kairos Power to build seven small nuclear reactors in the US to power its data centers starting in 2030. And then there's Amazon, which announced three agreements with different companies to build small modular reactors in mid-October.

The Times didn't say whether Meta is looking for a new site — one that doesn't have rare bees living in its vicinity. One of its sources only said that Meta is still exploring various deals for emissions-free energy, including nuclear, to power its future AI data centers.

Regulators Reject Power Deal For Nuclear Amazon Datacenters

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Amazon has hit a roadblock in its plans for nuclear-powered US datacenters. Federal regulators rejected a deal that would let it draw more power from a Susquehanna plant to supply new bit barns next to the site, on the grounds this would set a precedent which may affect grid reliability and increase energy costs.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order on November 1 rejecting an amended Interconnection Service Agreement (ISA) that would have increased the amount of co-located load from 300 to 480 MW, and to "make revisions related to the treatment of this co-located load."

Co-located load means the Cumulus datacenter complex that Talen Energy built next to the 2.5 GW Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania which it operates, and which Amazon acquired in March via a deal worth $650 million.

The online megamart announced plans in May to expand the site with more than a dozen new datacenters for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud subsidiary over the next decade.

Soon after that, official objections were filed by two utility companies, American Electric Power (AEP) and Exelon. They argued that the revised agreement between Talen and PJM Interconnection, the regional power grid operator, would give the Cumulus site preferential treatment and may result in less energy going to the grid in some circumstances.

Exelon and AEP also argued that the amended ISA should be subject to an official hearing because "it raises many factual questions," and, in the absence of any such hearing, that FERC should reject the amended ISA. It seems a majority of the commissioners agreed.

Specifically, Exelon and AEP said the amended ISA had not been adequately supported, meaning no good reason was given as to why the amendments were necessary.

The FERC ruling notes that PJM says up to 480 MW of power could be delivered to "the co-located load" without a material impact on the grid, and any additional load beyond that would result in "generation deliverability violations" and require installation of system upgrades.

looorg writes:

https://japantoday.com/category/national/world%27s-first-wooden-satellite-developed-in-japan-heads-to-space1

The world's first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on Tuesday, in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration.

With a 50-year plan of planting trees and building timber houses on the moon and Mars, Doi's team decided to develop a NASA-certified wooden satellite to prove wood is a space-grade material.

Wood is more durable in space than on Earth because there's no water or oxygen that would rot or inflame it, Murata added.

The Forrest of Mars. Red Oak? Wooden Space Stations. Upside it's eco-friendly and it can't rot in space due to the lack of moisture.

"Metal satellites might be banned in the future," Doi said. "If we can prove our first wooden satellite works, we want to pitch it to Elon Musk's SpaceX."

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hubie writes:

"They took a dead man and cast him into the well, and then filled it up with stones"

So declares the 800-year-old Norse Sverris Saga, an accounting of the rise and reign of King Sverre Sigurdsson, who went on to rule Norway from 1184 until his death in 1202 CE.

Now, thanks to the efforts of a team of scientists from Scandinavia, Iceland, and Ireland, we have direct, tangible evidence that the Well Man really existed – in the form of bones, freshly analyzed, discovered at the bottom of the very well described.

The Well Man is barely a throwaway line describing a conflict that took place in 1197 CE – a corpse thrown into a castle well by an invading force, probably to make any water therein undrinkable by decaying in it. But that throwaway line has suddenly become one of the most significant in the saga – by being the first incident in such a document ever to be linked to real, historical remains.

[...] "This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found," Martin says. "There are a lot of these medieval and ancient remains all around Europe, and they're increasingly being studied using genomic methods."

[...] The event was a stealth attack carried out by the Roman Catholic enemies of King Sverre (known as Baglers, or Bagal, for the crosiers carried by bishops). While he wintered elsewhere, the Baglers invaded his castle in his absence.

"Thorstein Kugad accepted service with the Bagals, and went with them," the saga reads. "The Bagals seized all the property in the castle, and then they burnt every building of it. They took a dead man and cast him into the well, and then filled it up with stones. Before they left the castle they called upon the townsmen to break down all the stone walls; and before they marched from the town they burnt all the King's long-ships. After this they returned to the Uplands, well pleased with the booty they had gained in their journey."

According to the saga, the Baglers spared the people within, leaving them nothing but their clothes – but fresh corpses don't fall from the sky, and it's plausible that the event wasn't completely bloodless. The Well Man may even have been a Bagler himself, slain by the castle's defenders.

"The text is not absolutely correct – what we have seen is that the reality is much more complex than the text," explains archaeologist Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research.

The research also demonstrates the power of a comprehensive genomic database, strong historical records, and how the two can be united to unveil the secrets of the past.

Journal Reference: iScience, Ellegaard et al.: "Corroborating written history with ancient DNA: the case of the Well-man described in an Old Norse saga" https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(24)02301-0

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owl writes:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/11/judges-investigation-patent-troll-ip-edge-results-criminal-referrals

In 2022, three companies with strange names and no clear business purpose beyond patent litigation filed dozens of lawsuits in Delaware federal court, accusing businesses of all sizes of patent infringement. Some of these complaints claimed patent rights over basic aspects of modern life; one, for example, involved a patent that pertains to the process of clocking in to work through an app.

These companies–named Mellaconic IP, Backertop Licensing, and Nimitz Technologies–seemed to be typical examples of "patent trolls," companies whose primary business is suing others over patents or demanding licensing fees rather than providing actual products or services.

However, the cases soon took an unusual turn. The Delaware federal judge overseeing the cases, U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly, sought more information about the patents and their ownership. One of the alleged owners was a food-truck operator who had been promised "passive income," but was entitled to only a small portion of any revenue generated from the lawsuits. Another owner was the spouse of an attorney at IP Edge, the patent-assertion company linked to all three LLCs.

Following an extensive investigation, the judge determined that attorneys associated with these shell companies had violated legal ethics rules. He pointed out that the attorneys may have misled Han Bui, the food-truck owner, about his potential liability in the case. Judge Connolly wrote:

[T]he disparity in legal sophistication between Mr. Bui and the IP Edge and Mavexar actors who dealt with him underscore that counsel's failures to comply with the Model Rules of Professional Conduct while representing Mr. Bui and his LLC in the Mellaconic cases are not merely technical or academic.

Judge Connolly also concluded that IP Edge, the patent-assertion company behind hundreds of patent lawsuits and linked to the three LLCs, was the "de facto owner" of the patents asserted in his court, but that it attempted to hide its involvement. He wrote, "IP Edge, however, has gone to great lengths to hide the 'we' from the world," with "we" referring to IP Edge. Connolly further noted, "IP Edge arranged for the patents to be assigned to LLCs it formed under the names of relatively unsophisticated individuals recruited by [IP Edge office manager] Linh Deitz."

The judge referred three IP Edge attorneys to the Supreme Court of Texas' Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee for engaging in "unauthorized practices of law in Texas." Judge Connolly also sent a letter to the Department of Justice, suggesting an investigation into "individuals associated with IP Edge LLC and its affiliate Maxevar LLC."

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turgid writes:

The Register reports that Reaction Engines has gone out of business.

Reaction Engines was the company of Alan Bond, of HOTOL (1980s space plane) fame, which he founded to develop new air-breathing rocket engine technology. Their flagship project was the Skylon Single Stage to Orbit space plane, which would use Synergistic Air-Breathing Ram-jet Engines (SABRE) to capture oxygen from the atmosphere, cool and compress it and burn it with on-board liquid hydrogen up to about Mach 5. Then, at speed and altitude, the spacecraft would switch to on-board oxygen stores. In this way, more mass fraction could be dedicated to payload, making SSTO economically feasible.

Also, based on similar technology was LAPCAT, a hypersonic airliner.

Yet another great British Engineering vision finds its way onto the scrapheap for lack of vision among investors. Still, we export a lot of cheese.

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