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owl writes:

http://www.righto.com/2024/11/antenna-diodes-in-pentium-processor.html

I was studying the silicon die of the Pentium processor and noticed some puzzling structures where signal lines were connected to the silicon substrate for no apparent reason. Two examples are in the photo below, where the metal wiring (orange) connects to small square regions of doped silicon (gray), isolated from the rest of the circuitry. I did some investigation and learned that these structures are "antenna diodes," special diodes that protect the circuitry from damage during manufacturing. In this blog post, I discuss the construction of the Pentium and explain how these antenna diodes work.

Original Submission

Snotnose writes:

Before reading the article ask yourself "What percentage of Americans do you think are [fill in the blank]?"

• Transgender
• Muslim
• Jewish
• Black
• Live in New York City
• Gay or Lesbian

Now go see how you did.

Yesterday Jemele Hill recirculated a study YouGov did in 2022 about the gaps between people's perceptions and reality.

YouGov asked a series of questions on "What percentage of Americans do you think are [fill in the blank]?" with the [blank] being all sorts of qualities: black, gay, Christian, left-handed, own a passport, etc.

TLDR: there are a lot of stupid people out there.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2024/11/the-capacitor-that-apple-soldered-incorrectly-at-the-factory/

There have been some past rumblings on the internet about a capacitor being installed backwards in Apple's Macintosh LC III. The LC III was a "pizza box" Mac model produced from early 1993 to early 1994, mainly targeted at the education market. It also manifested as various consumer Performa models: the 450, 460, 466, and 467. Clearly, Apple never initiated a huge recall of the LC III, so I think there is some skepticism in the community about this whole issue. Let's look at the situation in more detail and understand the circuit. Did Apple actually make a mistake?

I participated in the discussion thread at the first link over a decade ago, but I never had a machine to look at with my own eyes until now. I recently bought a Performa 450 complete with its original leaky capacitors, and I have several other machines in the same form factor. Let's check everything out!

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

(livescience) Key Atlantic current could collapse soon, 'impacting the entire world for centuries to come,' leading climate scientists warn

Forty-four of the world's leading climate scientists have called on Nordic policymakers to address the potentially imminent and "devastating" collapse of key Atlantic Ocean currents.

In an open letter published online Monday (Oct. 21), University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann and other eminent scientists say the risks of weakening ocean circulation in the Atlantic have been greatly underestimated and warrant urgent action.

The currents in question are those forming the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a giant ocean conveyor belt that includes the Gulf Stream and transports vital heat to the Northern Hemisphere. Research shows the AMOC is slowing down and could soon reach a tipping point due to global warming, throwing Earth's climate into chaos.

(BBC) The Atlantic Ocean's currents are on the verge of collapse. This is what it means for the planet

Icy winds howl across a frozen Thames, ice floes block shipping in the Mersey docks, and crops fail across the UK. Meanwhile, the US east coast has been inundated by rising seas and there's ecological chaos in the Amazon as the wet and dry season have switched around... The world has been upended. What's going on?

While these scenes sound like something from a Hollywood disaster movie, a new scientific study investigating a key element of Earth's climate system – the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – says this could occur for real as soon as 2050.

(arxiv) Probability Estimates of a 21st Century AMOC Collapse

Abstract

There is increasing concern that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) may collapse this century with a disrupting societal impact on large parts of the world. Preliminary estimates of the probability of such an AMOC collapse have so far been based on conceptual models and statistical analyses of proxy data. Here, we provide observationally based estimates of such probabilities from reanalysis data. We first identify optimal observation regions of an AMOC collapse from a recent global climate model simulation. Salinity data near the southern boundary of the Atlantic turn out to be optimal to provide estimates of the time of the AMOC collapse in this model. Based on the reanalysis products, we next determine probability density functions of the AMOC collapse time. The collapse time is estimated between 2037-2064 (10-90% CI) with a mean of 2050 and the probability of an AMOC collapse before the year 2050 is estimated to be 59±17%.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Here's what I'll miss about Chrome OS once it turns into Android

[...] Chrome OS has an expiration date. It's not right around the corner — it'll probably take a couple of years, but one day, all Chromebooks will run Android over Chrome OS so that Google can better compete with Apple.

While I can understand why Google streamlining its operating systems is probably a good thing in the long run, losing Chrome OS will come with some growing, or rather, shrinking pains. It will force Google to choose between Android and Chrome OS for the future of several useful features, and I'm nervous that some of my favorites will disappear.

[....] Right now, regular updates are one of my favorite reasons to recommend Chromebooks. You don't usually have to worry about how many years of support your light, fast laptop is promised because it will get a brand-new version of Chrome OS every four weeks.

[....] The problem with Google shifting from Chrome OS to Android is that, well, Android updates don't work in quite the same way. Rather than pushing one update to every device, each OEM has to take the time to optimize Google's latest product to work with its own Android skin. That optimization delays the update schedule, sometimes to the point where a phone will fall behind by a version or two. And, when that happens, it almost never really catches up.

[....] Right now, organizing files on a Chromebook feels like it should — it's very desktop-coded. Everything lives inside a folder like you'd find on a Windows or Mac laptop, and you can quickly sort by everything from title to file type for easy access. When you find what you need, you can then pin it to your Chromebook's taskbar, keeping it just a tap away. Want to do that on an Android phone? There's no space for more icons at the bottom of your display.

One useful feature of Chrome OS is that you can run a Linux VM within it if you have decent Chomebook hardware.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-11-engraved-trees-smi-culture.html

Archaeologists analyzed trees engraved by the Indigenous Sámi of Arctic Europe, revealing the significance of these rare remnants of Sámi culture and the importance of preserving them from ongoing deforestation.

The Sámi are the Indigenous people of Sápmi, a region in northern Europe that encompasses northern Fennoscandia and north-west Russia.

They followed an animistic religion, but a concentrated effort by the Scandinavian Church in the 17th century AD led to the destruction of religious artifacts and a decline in the Sámi oral tradition, meaning their culture and history is under threat.

However, one important aspect of the Sámi culture managed to survive this repression. Some trees throughout Sápmi were incised with markings holding social and religious significance.

"Unlike most other sacred objects, standing trees are not easy to collect and they have generally eluded the ambitions of the Church to erase the traces of the Indigenous religion," states co-author of the research, Dr. Ingela Bergman from INSARC/Silvermuseet.
...
They identified hundreds of Scots pine trees in the northern boreal forests of Fennoscandia, predominantly in national parks, engraved with X-marks and geometric patterns.

According to the ethnographic research, trees were seen by the Sámi as mediators between people and deities. They also had pragmatic uses, acting as boundary markers and navigational aids in the harsh, seasonal landscape of the northern boreal forests.

Journal Reference: Ingela Bergman et al, X-marked trees: carriers of Indigenous Sámi traditions, Antiquity (2024). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2024.184

Original Submission

upstart writes:

In a first, Russia's APT28 hacking group appears to have remotely breached the Wi-Fi of an espionage target by hijacking a laptop in another building across the street:

For determined hackers, sitting in a car outside a target's building and using radio equipment to breach its Wi-Fi network has long been an effective but risky technique. These risks became all too clear when spies working for Russia's GRU military intelligence agency were caught red-handed on a city street in the Netherlands in 2018 using an antenna hidden in their car's trunk to try to hack into the Wi-Fi of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Since that incident, however, that same unit of Russian military hackers appears to have developed a new and far safer Wi-Fi hacking technique: Instead of venturing into radio range of their target, they found another vulnerable network in a building across the street, remotely hacked into a laptop in that neighboring building, and used that computer's antenna to break into the Wi-Fi network of their intended victim—a radio-hacking trick that never even required leaving Russian soil.

At the Cyberwarcon security conference in Arlington, Virginia, today, cybersecurity researcher Steven Adair will reveal how his firm, Volexity, discovered that unprecedented Wi-Fi hacking technique—what the firm is calling a "nearest neighbor attack"—while investigating a network breach targeting a customer in Washington, DC, in 2022. Volexity, which declined to name its DC customer, has since tied the breach to the Russian hacker group known as Fancy Bear, APT28, or Unit 26165. Part of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, the group has been involved in notorious cases ranging from the breach of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to the botched Wi-Fi hacking operation in which four of its members were arrested in the Netherlands in 2018.

In this newly revealed case from early 2022, Volexity ultimately discovered not only that the Russian hackers had jumped to the target network via Wi-Fi from a different compromised network across the street, but also that this prior breach had also potentially been carried out over Wi-Fi from yet another network in the same building—a kind of "daisy-chaining" of network breaches via Wi-Fi, as Adair describes it.

Technology Review is running this story:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/20/1107002/clear-airport-identity-management-biometrics-facial-recognition/ about Clear, a company that is trying to expand from airport expedited-security, to security and ID for many other transactions. (Alt link at https://archive.ph/2hbgC)

If you've ever been through a large US airport, you're probably at least vaguely aware of Clear. Maybe your interest (or irritation) has been piqued by the pods before the security checkpoints, the attendants in navy blue vests who usher clients to the front of the security line (perhaps just ahead of you), and the sometimes pushy sales pitches to sign up and skip ahead yourself.
[...]
Its position in airports has made Clear Secure, with its roughly $3.75 billion market capitalization, the most visible biometric identity company in the United States. Over the past two decades, Clear has put more than 100 lanes in 58 airports across the US, and in the past decade it has entered 17 sports arenas and stadiums, from San Jose to Denver to Atlanta. Now you can also use its identity verification platform to rent tools at Home Depot, put your profile in front of recruiters on LinkedIn, and, as of this month, verify your identity as a rider on Uber.
[...]
The company that has helped millions of vetted members skip airport security lines is now working to expand its "frictionless," "face-first" line-cutting service from the airport to just about everywhere, online and off, by promising to verify that you are who you say you are and you are where you are supposed to be. In doing so, CEO Caryn Seidman Becker told investors in an earnings call earlier this year, it has designs on being no less than the "identity layer of the internet," as well as the "universal identity platform" of the physical world.

All you have to do is show up—and show your face.

It goes on to explain the origins of Clear, rising out of the bankruptcy of earlier biometrics company VIP. Then it finally gets to the major problems of using biometrics for security, and also having one company handle security for many aspects of life.

Well worth a read if you are interested in the future of proving who you are.

P.S. Dept. line references this: https://skepticalinquirer.org/newsletter/soul-theft-through-photography/

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Odd smell coming from Russian spacecraft docked at space station

A Russian Progress spacecraft delivering nearly three tons of supplies to the International Space Station also brought an unwanted smell when cosmonauts opened the hatch.

[....] "After opening the Progress spacecraft's hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small droplets, prompting the crew to close the Poisk hatch to the rest of the Russian segment," NASA said Sunday.

NASA did not describe the odor. Russian space news outlet Russianspaceweb.com reports that the cosmonaut crew described it as "toxic" and closed the hatch immediately.

The space agency said the space station's air scrubbers and contaminant sensors monitored the ISS atmosphere for about 24 hours before flight controllers reported normal air quality on Sunday.

Hopefully an air freshener was included for hanging in zero gee.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/11/14/which-power-plant-does-my-electricity-come-from

In June of 2000, the power shut off across much of the San Francisco Bay area. There simply wasn't enough electricity to meet demands, so more than a million customers were disconnected in California's largest load shed event since World War II. It was just one of the many rolling blackouts that hit the state in the early 2000s. Known as the Western Energy Crisis, the shortages resulted in blackouts, soaring electricity prices, and ultimately around 40 billion dollars in economic losses. But this time, the major cause of the issues had nothing to do with engineering. There were some outages and a lack of capacity from hydroelectric plants due to drought, but the primary cause of the disaster was economic. Power brokers (mainly Enron) were manipulating the newly de-regulated market for bulk electricity, forcing prices to skyrocket. Utilities were having to buy electricity at crazy prices, but there was a cap on how much they could charge their customers for the power. One utility, PG&E, lost so much money, it had to file for bankruptcy. And Southern California Edison almost met the same fate.

Most of us pay an electric bill every month. It's usually full of cryptic line items that have no meaning to us. The grid is not only mechanically and electrically complicated; it's financially complicated, too. We don't really participate in all that complexity - we just pay our bill at the end of every month. But it does affect us in big ways, so I think it's important at least to understand the basics, especially because, if you're like me, it's really interesting stuff. I'm an engineer, I'm not an economist or finance expert. But, at least in the US, if you really want to understand how the power grid works, you can't just focus on the volts and watts. You have to look at the dollars too. I'm Grady, and this is Practical Engineering.

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

NASA is reporting on research concerning the chirality of amino acids and how they may have impacted the development of life here on Earth, and perhaps, elsewhere.

From the NASA Article:

The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA emerged — can favor making the building blocks of proteins in either the left-hand or the right-hand orientation. Resolving this mystery could provide clues to the origin of life. The findings appear in research recently published in Nature Communications.

Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes (catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions). Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acid building blocks in a huge variety of arrangements to make millions of different proteins. Some amino acid molecules can be built in two ways, such that mirror-image versions exist, like your hands, and life uses the left-handed variety of these amino acids. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, the two mirror images are rarely mixed in biology, a characteristic of life called homochirality. It is a mystery to scientists why life chose the left-handed variety over the right-handed one.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that holds the instructions for building and running a living organism. However, DNA is complex and specialized; it "subcontracts" the work of reading the instructions to RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules and building proteins to ribosome molecules. DNA's specialization and complexity lead scientists to think that something simpler should have preceded it billions of years ago during the early evolution of life. A leading candidate for this is RNA, which can both store genetic information and build proteins. The hypothesis that RNA may have preceded DNA is called the "RNA world" hypothesis.

If the RNA world proposition is correct, then perhaps something about RNA caused it to favor building left-handed proteins over right-handed ones. However, the new work did not support this idea, deepening the mystery of why life went with left-handed proteins.

fliptop writes:

The agricultural world is witnessing a remarkable transformation, driven by groundbreaking technology. Among the most fascinating innovations is a farming robot equipped with lasers that can destroy hundreds of thousands of weeds in mere hours. This high-tech solution is not just a marvel of engineering but a timely response to persistent challenges in farming, from labor shortages to the environmental impact of chemical herbicides:

By combining artificial intelligence with precision laser technology, companies like Carbon Robotics are reshaping the way farmers tackle one of agriculture's most labor-intensive tasks. These futuristic machines offer a glimpse into the potential of sustainable farming, where innovation meets efficiency, paving the way for a healthier and more productive future for agriculture.

[...] In the face of persistent agricultural challenges, technology has emerged as a transformative force, with farming robots leading the way. Carbon Robotics' Autonomous Weeder is a standout example of how innovation can revolutionize agriculture. This remarkable machine is designed to address the dual problems of labor shortages and environmental damage caused by conventional weed management practices. By combining artificial intelligence with advanced laser technology, the Autonomous Weeder delivers an unprecedented level of precision and efficiency.

The robot operates with minimal human intervention, scanning rows of crops using 12 high-resolution cameras that detect weeds in real time. Its onboard AI system processes this information, distinguishing weeds from crops with incredible accuracy. Once a weed is identified, carbon dioxide lasers target and destroy it instantly, leaving the surrounding soil undisturbed. This approach eliminates the need for chemical herbicides, reducing environmental harm while preserving soil health. It also alleviates the physical burden of manual weeding, offering farmers a more efficient alternative.

[...] The LaserWeeder is equipped with three times the lasers of the original model, enabling it to kill up to 200,000 weeds per hour. This incredible efficiency makes it one of the most effective weed management tools available. In just one hour, the LaserWeeder can cover two acres of farmland, a feat that would take human laborers days to achieve. [...] This targeted approach not only boosts productivity but also supports healthier, more sustainable farming practices.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

U.S. prosecutors have filed charges against five individuals allegedly linked to Scattered Spider, a hacking group known for stealing confidential data and cryptocurrency from major companies:

The suspects, all in their twenties, are accused of running phishing schemes, sending fake warnings to employees' phones, tricking them into revealing login credentials, reported the New York Post.

The hackers targeted at least 12 companies across gaming, telecommunications, outsourcing, and cryptocurrency sectors, impacting hundreds of thousands of individuals. Authorities say the group's activities resulted in significant financial losses, including millions in stolen cryptocurrency.

The defendants, identified as Tyler Buchanan, Ahmed Elbadawy, Joel Evans, Evans Osiebo, and Noah Urban, face charges including conspiracy, identity theft, and fraud. Buchanan is additionally accused of wire fraud. Investigators traced the group's activities back to 2021 using domain registration records tied to Buchanan.

Known for their aggressive tactics, Scattered Spider has been blamed for notable attacks, including a 2023 breach of casino giants Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts, where they locked up networks and demanded ransoms. However, whether these five were involved in the casino attacks remains unclear.

Also at Ars Technica, Krebs on Security and Bloomberg.

Previously: A Phone Call to Helpdesk was Likely all it Took to Hack MGM

Original Submission

upstart writes:

US senator Elizabeth Warren and congressman Jerry Nadler have demanded the government investigate whether VeriSign, steward of the .com domain, is ripping off customers and violating antitrust laws:

US senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have called on government bodies to investigate what they allege is the "predatory pricing" of .com web addresses, the internet's prime real estate.

In a letter delivered today to the Department of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the Department of Commerce that advises the president, the two Democrats accuse VeriSign, the company that administers the .com top-level domain, of abusing its market dominance to overcharge customers.

In 2018, under the Donald Trump administration, the NTIA modified the terms on how much VeriSign could charge for .com domains. The company has since hiked prices by 30 percent, the letter claims, though its service remains identical and could allegedly be provided far more cheaply by others.

"VeriSign is exploiting its monopoly power to charge millions of users excessive prices for registering a .com top-level domain," the letter claims. "VeriSign hasn't changed or improved its services; it has simply raised prices because it holds a government-ensured monopoly."

VeriSign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in an August blog post entitled "Setting the Record Straight," the company claimed that discourse around its management of .com had been "distorted by factual inaccuracies, a misunderstanding of core technical concepts, and misinterpretations regarding pricing, competition, and market dynamics in the domain name industry."

In the same blog post, the company argues that it is not operating a monopoly because there are 1,200 generic top-level domains operated by other entities, including .org, .shop, .ai, and .uk.

[...] The letter claims that separate agreements with the NTIA and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit established by the Commerce Department to oversee the web's domain name system, have allowed VeriSign to establish monopoly power. The former sets how much the company can charge its customers for registering .com addresses, while the latter assigns VeriSign as the "sole operator" of the .com domain. The letter also alleges that VeriSign might be in violation of the Sherman Act.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

David Bessis was drawn to mathematics for the same reason that many people are driven away: He didn’t understand how it worked. Unlike other creative processes, like making music, which can be heard, or painting pictures, which can be seen, math is for the most part an internal process, hidden from view. “It sounded a bit magical. I was intrigued,” he said.

His curiosity eventually led him to pursue a doctoral degree in math at Paris Diderot University in the late 1990s. He spent the next decade studying geometric group theory before leaving research mathematics and founding a machine learning startup in 2010.

Through it all, he never stopped questioning what it actually means to do math. Bessis wasn’t content to simply solve problems. He wanted to further interrogate — and help other people understand — how mathematicians think about and practice their craft.

In 2022, he published his answer — a book titled Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity, which he hopes will “explain what’s going on inside the brain of someone who’s doing math,” he said. But more than that, he added, “this is a book about the inner experience of humans.” It was translated from the original French into English earlier this year.

In Mathematica, Bessis makes the provocative claim that whether you realize it or not, you’re constantly doing math — and that you’re capable of expanding your mathematical abilities far beyond what you think possible. Eminent mathematicians like Bill Thurston and Alexander Grothendieck didn’t owe their mathematical prowess to intrinsic genius, Bessis argues. Rather, they became such powerful mathematicians because they were willing to constantly question and refine their intuitions. They developed new ideas and then used logic and language to test and improve them.

According to Bessis, however, the way math is taught in school emphasizes the logic-based part of this process, when the more important element is intuition. Math should be thought of as a dialogue between the two: between reason and instinct, between language and abstraction. It’s also a physical practice of sorts, like yoga or martial arts — something that can be improved through training. It requires tapping into a childlike state and embracing one’s imagination, including the mistakes that come with it.

“The mathematician’s message is for everyone: Look at what you can do if you don’t give up on your intuition,” Bessis said.