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Snotnose writes:

Eureka moments shared by Chemists.

Interviews were conducted with 18 chemists from several subdisciplines of chemistry and include a diversity of demographics on the topic of creativity as seen through the eyes of Eureka moments. The experiences fell within three categories, i.e., (1) analytical problem-solving which can be reconstructed into a series of logical steps that can be identified; (2) memory retrieval processes of previously acquired knowledge; and (3) insights characterized by a sudden and unexpected understanding. There were variations of detail within each category. Suggestions for enhancing the probability of experiencing Eureka moments are provided.

Derek Lowe shares his thoughts, always worth a read.

I've had 2 in my life. 11 y/o me was struggling with fractions when suddenly all became clear. Then a few years later while teaching myself Z-80 assembly I watched my debugger single step into a text string and suddenly how computers execute code crystallized. What Eureka moments have you had?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The UK's ambitious efforts to mimic the wild success of US research and security outfit DARPA has just a few months to prove its worth, a parliamentary committee heard yesterday.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, was announced in 2021, but was not formally established until January 2023. A product of the Conservative Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit government, the agency is designed to fund transformational research, with a so-called high risk, high reward approach.

However, Lord Drayson, aka Paul Drayson, electric world land speed record holder and member of the Lords Science and Technology Committee pointed out this week that while Aria's initial £800 million ($1 billion) funding would see it through to the end of the 2025/26 financial year, the Labour government is set decide on any future spending next spring, when it announces the multi-year spending review, setting out plans for 2026–27 to at least 2028–29.

Drayson said the Committee was supportive of Aria and wanted it to succeed, but questioned how it would secure its further when the government is set to decide its future well before its Parliamentary review, due in 2033.

[...] But last month, UK finance minister Rachel Reeves was forced to raise taxes and consider spending cuts in her budget as she struggled to balance the government books, boost the economy, and minimize public debt.

In such a climate, political leaders must weigh up the public's appetite for funding high-risk research with no immediate returns.

Before the Lords' committee, Clifford said: "We recognize that Aria, over the long run, has to provide great value for money, just as any use of public funds needs to, but that that value for money will obviously be measured in a different way, with a different risk appetite, and over a different time frame from the way that many other uses of public funds would. That's why we're so keen to establish core ideas about what failure and success mean for ARIA, what proportion of our programs we expect to succeed, because what we don't want to do is end up in a situation a couple of years where people say, 'When [the] ARIA program failed, does this mean Aria is failing?'"

[...] Aria is often seen as the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Conservative "Vote Leave Brexit" campaign and, later, chief advisor to former prime minister Boris Johnson. Reports suggested his WhatsApp handle once said: "Get Brexit Done, then Arpa (Darpa's predecessor)."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba revealed the $65 billion plan this week. Reuters saw an early draft of the proposal, which is scheduled to be submitted during the country's next parliament session, and notes its support of domestic chipmaker Rapidus among others.

The homegrown semiconductor manufacturer was founded in 2022 with support from several major Japanese tech companies including Sony and Kioxia, and entered into a strategic partnership with IBM in December 2022. The outfit expects to start mass production of advanced chips built on a 2nm process by 2027. It is an ambitious goal, but one that could be helped along with a significant infusion of cash.

[...] As Tom's Hardware highlights, it took many years for established players like TSMC to get to where they are today. The publication questions whether or not Japan has enough workers with the skills necessary to achieve their goals. As we have seen both domestically and abroad, finding workers with the smarts to get the job done can be a real challenge. Even China, with its heavy investments and accusations of IP theft, hasn't been able to compete toe to toe with leading chipmakers.

It remains to be seen whether or not Japan's investment will pay off, but it is hard not to think that increased competition will benefit the masses via lower prices and a more robust supply chain.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In a step toward new types of particle physics experiments, scientists cooled and then accelerated a beam of muons. The subatomic particles, heavy cousins of electrons, could be accelerated and slammed together at future particle colliders in hopes of unlocking physics secrets. But first, scientists have to figure out how to give muons a speed boost.

Counterintuitively, that means first slowing muons down. Muons in particle beams initially go every which way. To make a beam suitable for experiments, the particles need to be first slowed and then reaccelerated, all in the same direction. This slowing, or cooling, was first demonstrated in 2020 (SN: 2/5/20). 

[...] The scientists first sent the muons into an aerogel, a lightweight material that slowed the muons and created muonium, an atomlike combination of a positively charged muon and a negatively charged electron. Next, a laser stripped away the electrons, leaving behind cooled muons that electromagnetic fields then accelerated.

Muon colliders could generate higher energy collisions than machines that smash protons, which are themselves made up of smaller particles called quarks. Each proton’s energy is divvied up among its quarks, meaning only part of the energy goes into the collision. Muons have no smaller bits inside. And they’re preferable to electrons, which lose energy as they circle an accelerator. Muons aren’t as affected by that issue thanks to their larger mass.

S. Aritome et al. Acceleration of positive muons by a radio-frequency cavity. arXiv:2410.11367. Submitted October 15, 2024.

Original Submission

Our Anonymous, Anonymous Coward has submitted the following story:

Motor Trend reports on shenanigans after Hertz employees at the Syracuse, NY airport left early one afternoon... https://www.motortrend.com/news/hertz-car-rental-new-york-empty-desk/

When travelers arrived after those employees left in order to pick up their reserved rentals, and no one was around to help them, some decided to help themselves. Approximately 20 customers simply grabbed keys for whatever car was available (or seeing which cars had the keys left in them) and went on their way. Note that this Hertz location isn't quite dealing in autonomous rentals yet, so pulling a grab 'n go with the keys was in no way an official option.

[...] When the airport realized what was going on, officials tried to contact Hertz but couldn't reach anyone that was on-duty.

[...] It's not clear if everyone who took a vehicle had to later swap it out or faced some sort of penalty.

Original Submission

China's Volt Typhoon Breached Singtel, Reports Say

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The digital break-in was discovered in June, according to Bloomberg, citing "two people familiar with the matter" who told the news outlet that the Singtel breach was "a test run by China for further hacks against US telecommunications companies."

In February, the feds and other nations' governments warned that the Beijing-backed crew had compromised "multiple" critical infrastructure orgs' IT networks in America and globally, and were "disruptive or destructive cyberattacks" against those targets.

Volt Typhoon's targets include communications, energy, transportation systems, and water and wastewater systems. 

"Volt Typhoon's choice of targets and pattern of behavior is not consistent with traditional cyber espionage or intelligence gathering operations, and the US authoring agencies assess with high confidence that Volt Typhoon actors are pre-positioning themselves on IT networks to enable lateral movement to OT assets to disrupt functions," the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand said at the time.

More recently, another Chinese-government-backed group Salt Typhoon was accused of breaking into US telecom companies' infrastructure. These intrusions came to light in October with the spies reportedly breaching Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies, although all three have thus far declined to comment to The Register about the hacks.

Salt Typhoon also reportedly targeted phones belonging to people affiliated with US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, along with Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.

Volt Typhoon And Its Botnet Surge Back With A Vengeance

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

China's Volt Typhoon crew and its botnet are back, compromising old Cisco routers once again to break into critical infrastructure networks and kick off cyberattacks, according to security researchers.

The alert comes nearly ten months after the Feds claimed a victory against the Chinese government-linked miscreants, when the FBI infiltrated the operation and then remotely wiped the botnet.

At the time, the US Justice Department warned that Volt Typhoon had infected "hundreds" of outdated Cisco and Netgear boxes with malware so that the devices could be used to break into US energy, water, and other vital facilities. Plus, the crew had been targeting American critical organizations as far back as 2021.

Just The Tip writes:

https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/manjaro-is-experimenting-with-opt-out-telemetry/22305

Manjaro (a Linux distro) has requested feedback regarding their proposal to collect what they claim is 'anonymized' data.

We're currently testing a new open-source tool for Manjaro, that will help us with the development of Manjaro. It's called MDD 26 and it collects some anonymous and impersonal statistics about Manjaro systems.

One user has commented:

"This is a bit problematic, as they include a lot of info in those reports : all your machine hardware, timezeone, country, etc."

Another has also made his views clear:

... you have to get a individual permission and have to ask every single user independent, which is ending in a "license-agreement" similar to ms-windows. otherwise this application is a dead-horse that is violating all and especially the european-data-security-laws. this is something that you have to figure out with @philm and all the other responsible persons at manjaro.

Manjaro dismisses this claim without actually considering EU laws which do cover this very topic. Opt-Out is not permitted.

MDD - Opt-in vs Opt-out

- Testers needed: Manjaro Data Donor
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/testers-needed-manjaro-data-donor/170163/48

So, Soylentils, what is your view on this subject? Do you think system metrics are required for anyone producing a distro, even it the information is as anonymized as they claim it is? Or is this overstepping the mark?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Apple accused of trapping and ripping off 40m iCloud customers:

Apple accused of trapping and ripping off 40m iCloud customers

Consumer group Which? says the legal action - which it has launched - could result in a £3bn payout if it is successful, with the average customer getting around £70.

Apple has rejected the suggestion its practices are anti-competitive, saying users are not required to use iCloud. It said many customers rely on third-party alternatives, and insists it "works hard to make data transfer as easy as possible".

It is another example of the "growing tide of large class actions against big tech" which has "operated without sufficient constraint", Toby Starr from legal firm Humphries Kerstetter told the BBC.

Facebook, Google, gaming giant Steam and the UK's leading mobile providers are among the others facing legal claims at the same court, the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

"Although most of these claims are in their infancy and take a long time to resolve, there will be more decisions coming out over the next couple of years and there will be settlements - these will start to affect the tech giants' businesses," said Mr Starr.

Users of Apple products get a small amount of digital storage for free – and after that are encouraged to pay to use its iCloud service to back up photos, videos, messages, contacts and all the other content which lives on their device.

Prices for this storage range from £0.99 a month for 50GB of space to £54.99 a month for 12TB.

Apple does not allow rival storage services full access to its products.

It says that is for security reasons - but it also contributes to the company's enormous revenues.

Which? says over a period of nine years dating back to 2015 Apple has been effectively locking people into its services - and then overcharging them.

"By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions," the body's chief executive Anabel Hoult said.

"Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market."

Apple has strongly denied Which's accusations.

"We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise," it said in a statement.

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

From the horse's own mouth:

The Guardian has announced it will no longer post content on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, from its official accounts.

In an announcement to readers, the news organisation said it considered the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter were now outweighed by the negatives, citing the "often disturbing content" found on it.

"We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X," the Guardian said.
...
Responding to the announcement, Musk posted on X that the Guardian was "irrelevant" and a "laboriously vile propaganda machine".

Last year National Public Radio (NPR), the non-profit US media organisation, stopped posting on X after the social media platform labelled it as "state-affiliated media". PBS, a US public TV broadcaster, suspended its posts for the same reason.

This month the Berlin film festival said it was quitting X, without citing an official reason, and last month the North Wales police force said it had stopped using X because it was "no longer consistent with our values".

In August the Royal National orthopaedic hospital said it was leaving X, citing an "increased volume of hate speech and abusive commentary" on the platform.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

New Elliptic Curve Breaks 18-Year-Old Record:

In August, a pair of mathematicians discovered an exotic, record-breaking curve. In doing so, they tapped into a major open question about one of the oldest and most fundamental kinds of equations in mathematics.

Elliptic curves, which date back to at least ancient Greece, are central to many areas of study. They have a rich underlying structure that mathematicians have used to develop powerful techniques and theories. They were instrumental in Andrew Wiles' famous proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994, at the time one of the most important unsolved problems in number theory. And they play a key role in modern cryptography.

Yet mathematicians still can't answer some of the most basic questions about them. For example, they often try to characterize elliptic curves by studying the special "rational points" that live on them. On a given curve, these points form clear and meaningful patterns. But it's not yet known whether there's a limit to how varied and complicated these patterns can get.

Answering this question would allow mathematicians to make sense of the vast and diverse world of elliptic curves, much of which remains uncharted. So they've set out to explore the outer fringes of that world, hunting down outlier curves with stranger and stranger patterns. It's a painstaking process, requiring both creativity and sophisticated computer programs.

Now, two mathematicians — Noam Elkies of Harvard University and Zev Klagsbrun of the Center for Communications Research in La Jolla, California — have found an elliptic curve with the most complicated pattern of rational points to date, breaking an 18-year-old record. "It was a big question whether this barrier could be broken," said Andrej Dujella of the University of Zagreb in Croatia. "It's a very exciting result for all of us working and interested in elliptic curves."

The discovery lays bare an ongoing debate over what mathematicians think they know about elliptic curves.

Elliptic curves don't appear particularly exotic. They're just equations of the form y² = x³ + Ax + B, where A and B are rational numbers (any number that can be written as a fraction). When you graph the solutions to these equations, they look like this:

Mathematicians are particularly interested in a given elliptic curve's rational solutions — points on the curve whose x– and y-values are both rational numbers. "It's literally one of the oldest math problems in the history of humanity," said Jennifer Park of Ohio State University.

While it's relatively straightforward to find rational solutions to simpler types of equations, elliptic curves are "the first class of equations where there are really a lot of open questions," said Joseph Silverman of Brown University. "It's just two variables in a cubic equation, and that's already complicated enough."

To get a handle on the rational solutions of an elliptic curve, mathematicians often turn to the curve's rank, a number that measures how closely packed the rational points are along the curve. A rank 0 elliptic curve has only a finite number of rational points. A rank 1 elliptic curve has infinitely many rational points, but all of them line up in a simple pattern, so that if you know one, you can follow a well-known procedure to find the rest.

Higher-rank elliptic curves also have infinitely many rational points, but these points have more complicated relationships to each other. For example, if you know one rational solution of a rank 2 elliptic curve, you can use the same procedure you used in the rank 1 case to find a whole family of rational points. But the curve also has a second family of rational points.

The rank of an elliptic curve tells mathematicians how many "independent" points — points from different families — they need in order to define its set of rational solutions. The higher the rank, the richer in rational points the curve will be. A rank 2 and a rank 3 curve both have infinitely many rational solutions, but the rank 3 curve packs in rational points from an additional family, meaning that on average, a given stretch of it will contain more of them.

Almost all elliptic curves are known to be either rank 0 or rank 1. But there are still infinitely many oddballs with higher rank — and they're exceedingly difficult to find.

As a result, mathematicians aren't sure if there's a limit to how high the rank can get. For a while, most experts thought it was theoretically possible to construct a curve of any rank. Recent evidence suggests otherwise. Without a proof either way, mathematicians are left to debate the true nature of elliptic curves, illustrating just how much they have yet to understand about these equations.

cereal_burpist writes:

I know many Soylentils are sick of AI, but I found this to be clever and actually doing something useful:

The Best Use of AI Ever: A 'Grandma' Built To Waste Telescammers' Time
https://decrypt.co/291711/the-best-use-of-ai-ever-a-grandma-built-to-waste-telescammers-time

British telecom giant O2 announced what could be the first deployment of conversational AI specifically designed to counter telephone fraud in the UK telecommunications sector.

The hero: a clueless grandma who endlessly and frustratingly digresses while idiot scammers attempt to hoodwink her out of money.

The system, dubbed "Daisy," uses AI models to snare fraudsters in meandering conversations lasting up to 40 minutes, potentially preventing millions in losses across the network's 24 million mobile customers. The tool operates autonomously around the clock, requiring no human intervention to maintain conversations with suspected scammers.

"Stop calling me dear, you stupid [expletive deleted]!" one exasperated tele-scammer shouted in a video O2 aired to show off its new tool.
"Got it, dear!" the kindly AI grandma replied.

Here's how it works. When a user receives a scam call, they forward the call to the number 7726, which had been used as a hotline to report fraud. From there, Daisy employs a custom large language model with a "personality layer" that generates real-time responses to the scammers.

The system transcribes incoming voice to text, processes it through the AI model so responses are context-relevant, and converts the text output back to speech, creating natural-sounding conversations that can include fictional personal details and bank information.

It's designed to exploit fraudsters' targeting of elderly victims by presenting as a chatty grandmother, complete with meandering stories about family and knitting.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Digital software locks have just become flimsier in Canada with the passage of a pair of laws allowing for their bypass for repair and interoperability purposes.

Royal assent was granted to two right to repair bills last week that amend Canada's Copyright Act to allow the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) if this is done for the purposes of "maintaining or repairing a product, including any related diagnosing," and "to make the program or a device in which it is embedded interoperable with any other computer program, device or component."

The pair of bills allow device owners to not only repair their own stuff regardless of how a program is written to prevent such non-OEM measures, but said owners can also make their devices work with third-party components without needing to go through the manufacturer to do so. 

[...] TPMs can take a number of forms, from simple administrative passwords to encryption, registration keys, or even the need for a physical object like a USB dongle to unlock access to copyrighted components of a device's software. Most commercially manufactured devices with proprietary embedded software include some form of TPM, and neither C-244 nor C-294 place any restrictions on the use of such measures by manufacturers.

As iFixit points out, neither Copyright Act amendments do anything to expand access to the tools needed to circumvent TPMs. That puts Canadians in a similar position to US repair advocates, who in 2021 saw the US Copyright Office loosen DMCA restrictions to allow limited repairs of some devices despite TPMs, but without allowing access to the tools needed to do so.

[...] "While it's now legal to circumvent the digital locks on these machines, the ruling does not allow us to share or distribute the tools necessary to do so," iFixit director of sustainability Elizabeth Chamberlain said last month. "The ruling doesn't change the underlying statute making it illegal to share or sell tools that bypass software locks. This leaves most of the repair work inaccessible to the average person, since the technical barriers remain high."

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/playstation/pizza-huts-new-pizza-warmer-uses-the-playstation-5s-heat-to-keep-your-pizza-hot-you-can-3d-print-the-new-pizzawarmr-for-free

Pizza Hut has melded the disparate worlds of bready, cheesy foodstuffs and console gaming with the new PIZZAWRMR. This innovation is designed to sit atop your Sony PlayStation 5 console and keep your takeaway of choice piping hot while you enjoy your heated gaming session. This isn't a new retail product or a giveaway, though. Pizza Hut Canada has made the 3D printing source files free for anyone who signs up to download, modify, and print.

The PIZZAWRMR design is inspired by the pizza-centric restaurant's red roof. The lid opens laptop-style for convenient pizza slice access. According to Pizza Hut, several slices of pizza can fit into the top box. Diagrams show that the hot exhaust from the console is channeled under and into the pizza area, which is the appliance of "science and engineering for the greater good," says the Pizza Hut marketing team.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

It's that time of the year again. A compilation of the most common passwords. Nothing has changed. No lessons have been learned. Either people don't care or they, still, just doesn't know any better.

There is the common list but it can also be shown on a per country level. It doesn't really make it better. Idiocy is evenly spread across the lands.

It's our sixth year—this time, in collaboration with NordStellar—analyzing people's password habits, and guess what? They're still really bad.

And we're not just talking about personal passwords here. This time, we also put together a list of the most common corporate passwords to see how they compare to those used in everyday life.

So, check out all the dishonorable winners on both lists and learn what the latest trends are.

https://nordpass.com/most-common-passwords-list/

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/trump-says-elon-musk-will-lead-doge-a-new-department-of-government-efficiency/

President-elect Donald Trump today announced that a new Department of Government Efficiency—or "DOGE"—will be led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

[...] DOGE apparently will not be an official federal agency, as Trump said it will provide advice "from outside" of government. But Musk, who has frequently criticized government subsidies despite seeking public money and obtaining various subsidies for his own companies, will apparently have significant influence over spending in the Trump administration.

[...] Trump's statement said the department, whose name is a reference to the Doge meme, "will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending." Trump said DOGE will "liberate our Economy" and that its "work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026" because "a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence."

[...] The Wall Street Journal wrote today that "Musk isn't expected to become an official government employee, meaning he likely wouldn't be required to divest from his business empire."

Obligatory SolyentNews Articles:
Elon Musk Reveals Real Reason He Supports Dogecoin, Says Many People at Tesla and Spacex Own DOGE - 20211030
Dogecoin: Inside the Joke Cryptocurrency That Somehow Became Real - 20210222
Hacker Exploits Synology NAS Box Vulnerabity, Mines $620k in Dogecoin - 20140620

Original Submission