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DECbot writes:

As first seen in @Day of the Dalek's journal, and suggested to be posted as a Meta story on the Main page by @quietus, here is a call for volunteers:

You've probably seen janrinok's resignation from the staff by now. As he was responsible for large portions of the site's day to day operation, this obviously leaves a big hole to fill. It's unlikely that any one person can step up to take on janrinok's duties. It will certainly require a community effort, probably from many people.

The future of SN isn't really determined by the board or the staff. For better or for worse, the community is really in control. Despite my obvious frustration with some things, I absolutely prefer the "for better" half of that choice.

I emailed admin@soylentnews.org Friday night to discuss the possibility of becoming a staff member, and what my role might be given my time constraints. The three roles suggested to me were: 1) editing an average of 1-2 stories a week, 2) facilitating policy discussions and drafting policy documents, and 3) writing occasional original content for SN such as editorials. These all seem reasonable to me. I've specifically requested that I not be given admin privileges, not now or in the future, only the minimum level of access needed to carry out my specific duties.

Like I said, I don't think any one person is likely to be able to assume janrinok's responsibilities. I cannot. This will work best if many members of the community volunteer a small amount of their time to help. I believe the site will be better off in the long term if responsibilities are distributed among many people instead of having a single person responsible for a large portion of SN's operations.

A user in one of my previous journals asked me to lead by example. I'm doing that, and discussions are already underway with the staff. But this will work best if others join me in volunteering to help a bit.

Who's in?

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.atariarchive.org/blog/adventure-march-1980/

Of all the original games Atari put out for the VCS, Adventure may be the one that most people are familiar with today. Warren Robinett's third and final VCS game – though seemingly the second to actually be released – serves as a counterweight to the arcade action of its March 1980 brethren Space Invaders by providing a nearly unique experience on a home console in its day.

[...] Since the VCS isn't designed for full text adventure gameplay, Robinett worked on translating Colossal Cave Adventure's core idea to a graphical interface using the limited capabilities of the system. The VCS's "ball" sprite became the player character.The two high resolution sprites typically used for player objects became the objects located throughout the world, and the system's low-resolution background graphics would be used for screen room designs.

[...] The duck-like dragons themselves deserve a special mention as being one of the first examples of computer opponents exhibiting unique personality traits and goals. Yorgle, the yellow dragon, primarily guards the chalice, but will wander the game world hunting you or assisting his dragon pals provided the golden key is not nearby, as he's terrified of it. Grundle, the green dragon, guards three vital objects: the magnet, the bridge and the black key, and as such will generally stick around wherever one of those is currently located.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Kosmos 482, weighing 500kg, was meant to land on Venus in the 1970s but it never made it out of orbit because of a rocket malfunction:

A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the 1970s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.

It's too early to know where the half-ton mass of metal might come down or how much of it will survive re-entry, according to space debris-tracking experts.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts the failed spacecraft will re-enter about 10 May. He estimates it will come crashing in at 150mph (242km/h), if it remains intact.

"While not without risk, we should not be too worried," Langbroek said in an email.

[...] Most of it came tumbling down within a decade. But Langbroek and others believe the landing capsule itself — a spherical object about 3ft (1 metre) in diameter — has been circling the world in a highly elliptical orbit for the past 53 years, gradually dropping in altitude.

It's quite possible that the 1,000lb-plus (nearly 500kg) spacecraft will survive re-entry. It was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus, said Langbroek of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Experts doubt the parachute system would work after so many years. The heat shield may also be compromised after so long in orbit.

It would be better if the heat shield fails, which would cause the spacecraft to burn up during its dive through the atmosphere, Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in an email. But if the heat shield holds, "it'll re-enter intact and you have a half-ton metal object falling from the sky".

The spacecraft could re-enter anywhere between 51.7 degrees north and south latitude, or as far north as London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, almost all the way down to South America's Cape Horn. But since most of the planet is water, "chances are good it will indeed end up in some ocean", Langbroek said.

In 2022, a Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth and in 2018 the Tiangong-1 space station re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over the south Pacific after an uncontrolled re-entry.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Backstage access: Spotify's dev tools side-hustle is growing legs:

Spotify generates the vast bulk of its income from ads and subscriptions, but for the past few years the music-streaming giant has also been quietly building out a developer tooling business. Backstage, a project it open-sourced in 2020, has been adopted by more than 2 million developers across 3,400 organizations, including Airbnb, LinkedIn, Twilio, and American Airlines.

Backstage helps companies build customized "internal developer portals" (IDPs), bringing order to their infrastructure chaos by combining all their tooling, apps, data, services, APIs, and documents in a single interface.

Want to monitor Kubernetes, view cloud costs, or check your CI/CD status? Enter Backstage.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which accepted Backstage as an incubating project in 2022, reports that Backstage was one of its top 5 projects last year in terms of velocity and activity. And it's this momentum that is leading Spotify to double down, with various premium tools and services on the horizon.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Microsoft Finally Launches Its Controversial Recall Feature:

After a long delay over security concerns, Microsoft is ready to bring its controversial Recall feature out of beta. It arrives exclusively on Copilot+ Windows 11 PCs as part of a feature update rolling out today.

Recall is designed to help users conveniently pull up old folders, emails, or browser tabs that they've closed or misplaced. However, after its introduction last year, Recall drew comparisons to spyware since it takes and archives screenshots of your PC activity. In the wrong hands, this could be used to surveil users, making it a potent target for malware and even governments.

These privacy and security worries caused Microsoft to delay Recall and develop various safeguards to prevent such abuse. It offered Recall as a beta feature to Windows 11 Insiders, and gathered feedback from actual users before today's mainstream release.

[...] Another concern facing Recall is its potential to save any passwords or sensitive personal information that pops up on your computer. In response, Weston says Microsoft has been introducing "application filters" that promise to detect data, such as Social Security numbers, and stop capturing them from within the screenshots. "We have an initial set of filters that we're committed to continuing to update all the time to get better," he says.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Diallo says he made a 1MB file that decompresses into 1GB to disable bots trying to break into his system. He also has a 10MB-to-10GB compressed file for bots with more resources, ensuring that their memory is overwhelmed by this massive archive.

This is how this defensive bombing system works: when Diallo detects an offending bot, his server returns a 200 OK response and then serves up the zip bomb. The file’s metadata tells the bot that it’s a compressed file, so it will then open it in an attempt to scrape as much information as possible. However, since the file is at least 1GB when unpacked, it will overwhelm the memory of most simple — and even some advanced — bots. If he faces a more advanced scraper with a few gigabytes of memory, he’ll feed it the 10GB zip bomb, which will most likely crash it.

If you want to try this system for yourself, Diallo outlines how you can create your own bot-targeting zip bomb on his blog. He notes that you should be careful when doing that, though, as you can potentially self-detonate (i.e., accidentally open the zip bomb), and crash your own server. They’re also not 100% effective, as there are ways to detect zip and disregard zip bombs. But for most simple bots, this should be more than enough to cause its server to freeze and take it out — at least until its system is restarted.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Plastic-eating mealworms native to Africa discovered:

Scientists may have discovered an unlikely ally in the fight against plastic waste: the lesser mealworm. Native to Africa but now widespread across the planet, a beetle larvae from the Alphitobius genus can consume and degrade plastic, the researchers found.

The finding could be particularly useful in combating plastic pollution in Africa, the researchers noted. The continent is the second-most plastic-polluted continent in the world, despite producing only 5% of the world's plastic pollution, according to the World Health Organization.

In the study, published Sept. 12 in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers found that the lesser mealworms can digest polystyrene, a type of plastic commonly found in Styrofoam food containers and packaging. The team isn't sure of the species yet, and think it may be a new subspecies that needs to be identified.

This finding follows similar results with other mealworm species worldwide. "However, this is the first time that the lesser mealworms, which are native to Africa, have been documented to have this capacity," study author Fathiya Khamis, a scientist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya, said in a statement.

Journal Reference:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b06501

See also:

• Mitogenomic profiling and gut microbial analysis of the newly identified polystyrene-consuming lesser mealworm in Kenya

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The final farewell for LG's phone business:

Time is running out for people who are still using LG phones to download any remaining Android updates before their devices are fully retired. After closing its Android phone business back in 2021, Android Authority has spotted that LG is now preparing to shut down its update servers for good on June 30th, 2025, advising customers that software updates will be completely inaccessible after this date.

The end-of-service announcement was expected — when LG exited the smartphone industry, it promised existing customers that Velvet, Wing, and G- and V- series phones from 2019 or later would receive three years of Android updates from their year of release.

That means only security patches and upgrades to Android 12 or Android 13 are available, depending on the devices, but LG has left its update servers active for longer than the deadline it promised. Functioning LG phones should still work after the servers are shut down, but this serves as a final death knell, as they'll be unable to receive any future improvements or security fixes.

The LG Bridge PC software is also shutting down at the end of June, which is used to transfer files and contacts from LG phones, alongside support for updates, backups, and device restoration.

Perhaps if one is lucky, one can try an alternative OS for their LG phones.

Grab your official updates: Software, Firmware & Driver Downloads

Original Submission

upstart writes:

China may have achieved a "Sputnik moment" in the clean energy technology race by successfully reloading a nuclear reactor that runs on thorium:

According to Chinese state media, a group of scientists recently managed to refuel a working thorium molten salt reactor without causing a shutdown — a feat never achieved before. The success was announced by the project's chief scientist Xu Hongjie during a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 8, Chinese news outlet Guangming Daily reported last week.

Such a breakthrough could be transformative to the global energy landscape, as thorium has long been hailed as a far safer and cheaper alternative to uranium in nuclear reactors. While also a radioactive element, thorium produces less waste, and the silver-colored metal, mostly found in monazite, is much more common in the Earth's crust.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thorium is three times more abundant in nature than uranium, but historically has found little use in power generation due to the significant economic and technical hurdles.

[...] Compared to uranium, thorium can generate a significantly higher amount of energy via nuclear fission. A Stanford University research estimates that thorium's power generation could be 35 times higher. Thorium molten-salt reactors (TMSRs) are also compact, do not require water cooling, cannot experience a meltdown and produce very little long-lived radioactive waste, according to the IAEA.

When announcing the breakthrough, Xu acknowledged that its project was based on previous research by US researchers who pioneered molten salt reactor technology in the 1950s, but abandoned shortly after to pursue uranium-fueled ones.

Xu — who was tasked with the thorium reactor project in 2009 — told Chinese media that his team spent years dissecting declassified American documents, replicating experiments and innovating beyond them.

owl writes:

https://www.righto.com/2025/05/intel-386-register-circuitry.html

The groundbreaking Intel 386 processor (1985) was the first 32-bit processor in the x86 architecture. Like most processors, the 386 contains numerous registers; registers are a key part of a processor because they provide storage that is much faster than main memory. The register set of the 386 includes general-purpose registers, index registers, and segment selectors, as well as registers with special functions for memory management and operating system implementation. In this blog post, I look at the silicon die of the 386 and explain how the processor implements its main registers.

It turns out that the circuitry that implements the 386's registers is much more complicated than one would expect. For the 30 registers that I examine, instead of using a standard circuit, the 386 uses six different circuits, each one optimized for the particular characteristics of the register. For some registers, Intel squeezes register cells together to double the storage capacity. Other registers support accesses of 8, 16, or 32 bits at a time. Much of the register file is "triple-ported", allowing two registers to be read simultaneously while a value is written to a third register. Finally, I was surprised to find that registers don't store bits in order: the lower 16 bits of each register are interleaved, while the upper 16 bits are stored linearly.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The past few years have seen the emergence of a great many AI companies. This is extremely exciting/alarming (delete according to whether you bought shares early), but it has also had a secondary consequence. Along with the proliferation of AI companies has come a proliferation of AI company logos.

The fascinating thing, highlighted by several publications, is that many of these logos look near-identical. According to sociologist James I. Bowie, writing for Fast Company in 2023, the trend is for a “stylized hexagon” with an implied rotation. This, he notes, is equally suggestive of “portals opening to wondrous new worlds”, “widening Yeatsian gyres” and “toilets flushing”.

Or we could look at it the way Radek Sienkiewicz, a developer who blogs as VelvetShark, does. Sienkiewicz noted that most of these logos have the following elements: a circular shape, a central opening or focal point, radiating elements from the centre and soft organic curves. This, he says, is an “apt description” of “a butthole“.

Feedback examined the logos of OpenAI, Apple Intelligence, Claude and others, and we can confirm that, yes, they do bear more than a passing resemblance to a sphincter, and once you see it you can’t unsee it. DeepSeek and Midjourney are about the only exceptions: their logos look like a whale and a sailboat on the sea. But maybe they will soon get sucked into the circular logo maelstrom.

Why so many stylised hexagons? Perhaps the whirling patterns are meant to symbolise the recursive nature of thought, the ability of AIs to iteratively improve their understanding of the world.

Not according to OpenAI, though. Its brand guidelines offer a detailed explanation for the company’s logo, which it calls “blossom” to make you think it isn’t a butthole. “At its heart, the logo captures the dynamic intersection between humanity and technology – two forces that shape our world and inspire our work. The design embodies the fluidity and warmth of human-centered thinking through the use of circles, while right angles introduce the precision and structure that technology demands.” Readers are free to make of that what they will.

Personally, Feedback has a working hypothesis about these logos. It involves the psychological phenomenon known as “groupthink”.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Largest Imaging Spectro-Polarimeter Achieves First Light at the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope - NSO - National Solar Observatory:

Maui, HI – The U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world's most powerful solar telescope, operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) near the summit of Maui's Haleakalā, reached a major milestone: achieving first light with its most advanced instrument, the new Visible Tunable Filter (VTF). The solar image it produced shows early promise to the instrument's scientific capabilities. Designed and built by the Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) in Freiburg, Germany, the VTF is the world's largest imaging spectro-polarimeter, emerging as a centerpiece to the Inouye's instrument suite.

After arriving last year, the KIS team, in collaboration with NSF NSO scientists and engineers, rebuilt and integrated the VTF into the Inouye's Coudé Lab, marking the completion of the telescope's originally designed suite of five first-generation instruments. Following extensive optic calibration and alignment, the team successfully carried out the instrument's first on-Sun observations.

The newly released image reveals a cluster of sunspots on the Sun's surface with a spatial sampling of 10 km (or 6.2 miles) per pixel. Sunspots, areas of intense magnetic activity, often lead to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. This image, taken during technical testing as part of first light, shows early promise for the VTF's full capabilities. While it is not yet fully operational, science verification and commissioning are expected to begin in 2026. The Inouye was built for instruments like the VTF – of such magnitude that it took over a decade to develop. These successful first light observations underscore the unique quality and functionality of the instrument, setting the stage for exciting findings in solar physics in the coming decades.

[...] The VTF is an imaging spectro-polarimeter that captures two-dimensional snapshots of the Sun at specific wavelengths. Different wavelengths of light appear to our eyes as different colors – and light increases in wavelength as it moves from violet to red in the optical range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike traditional spectrographs that spread light into a full spectrum like a rainbow, the VTF uses an etalon – a pair of precisely spaced glass plates separated by tens of microns – that allows it to tune through colors. By adjusting this spacing at the nanometer scale (i.e., as tiny as a billionth of a meter), the VTF sequentially scans different wavelengths, similar to taking a series of photographs using different color filters. It takes several hundred images in just a few seconds with three high-accuracy synchronized cameras, at different colors, and combines these images to build a three-dimensional view of solar structures and analyzes their plasma properties.

The VTF features the largest Fabry-Pérot etalons ever built for solar research, with a second etalon expected to arrive from KIS by year's end.

I am resigning with immediate effect from SoylentNews. I no longer have the trust of all of the community and my position is untenable.

I wish the site and the community all the very best for the future. I have enjoyed being a part of the last 11 years and I will be leaving behind many friends.

Some might say "Break out the flags and let the party commence!"

Jan

Addendum

I have been asked by the Chairman of the Board to publicise an email that I sent to him in response to him asking me what way my departure will affect the site's operation in the immediate future.

[OregonJohn]

Of course. I will remain contactable on this email in the future.

There will only be one active editor (hubie [...]) for much of the time. This is only manageable for a matter of days. There are several editors who still contribute from time to time and they may be able to assist depending on the level of their other commitments.

I have switched off the sock puppet detection and management software, which was being run locally on my own server. Previously, this was a task that was manually done by an administrator, but means that sock puppets cannot be easily detected until they abuse the site. This is, of course, too late.

I have switched off the Spam detection and management software. That is partially the cause of the loss of confidence in me which now exists in some of our community, so it is perhaps less important. It was being run locally on my own server.

Somebody will have to answer the emails addressed to 'admin@soylentnews.org', and action them if necessary.

I regret having to resign, but when valuable community members are leaving the site and I am the reason for them leaving then it is better that I go now and give the community time to stabilise. I got it wrong and I should pay the price.

[Edited after initial Release: 02-05-2025 08:47--JR]

A Response

First I have got to say that I am both surprised and grateful for the many comments to my announcement. Thank you for each and every one of them.

I have read them all and i have taken note of the advice offered. It was all good advice, always well intentioned, but in some cases you are only aware of some of the circumstances behind my actions. I have considered everything you have said and I have made some personal decisions for the future.

For some time now I have been having medical problems. Currently they are being managed by medication but one of the side effects is that I am suffering from extreme fatigue and disrupted sleep patterns. (The regular home visits by pretty nurses are a bonus, but I digress...). Although the doctors are optimistic that they can bring the problem under control with medication alone, there is still a chance of surgery being necessary - probably not life threatening but certainly potentially life changing if it has to be employed. For the moment I am unable to commit to the level of support that I have been giving to the site over the last few years and the doctors would like to resolve the issues in the coming months. I too want it to be resolved. The problems related to the loss of trust of a small portion of our community just forced my hand and I decided to do what the doctors have been asking me to do for many months. They, at least, will be happy that I have decided to follow their advice for a change.

I have spent the weekend considering the advice that you have given me and I cannot fault any of it. But for the moment my move back to the community is essential. I am not leaving the site, but I am unable to say when or how I will be able to contribute, and remaining in this uncertain situation would be unfair on the other members of staff and the community too. If I had not resigned then most people would have thought that things were carrying on as usual but that will not be the case. Hubie, as the main editor, would have a unmanageable workload and would have to be active on the site almost every day. That is unfair, unreasonable and, frankly, I think it is unacceptable. We desperately need a couple of volunteers to help out as editors. There are around 250+ active community members and if just 2 of them can step forward then they would only have to edit on average 1 or 2 stories a day. Personally, I prefer to edit at least a full day's worth (5 stories) and then Hubie or perhaps another editor can cover the next day. Weekends we often preload most stories so that we too can enjoy the weekend. That way spreads the workload and gives me time to do other things, both on the site and of it. I have offered to train anyone who wishes to give the job a try and, if everything works out for me, then I should be able to rejoin the staff and pick up where I am leaving off.

Being an editor does NOT mean that you have any of the other tasks that I have been doing. They are completely unrelated to the editing role. Despite some ACs' claims to the contrary there is no requirement for Administrators to be Editors or vice versa.

As for the site management, the site survived much longer without firm direction and leadership in the past and it can do so again. But there are other competent staff who can pick up the essential tasks, and leave the less important ones until we have a full complement of staff again. What is important is that the site remains active. Some were discussing rewriting the software - Why? The site works and doesn't need much at the moment. There is the odd hiccup but kolie is able to restart the system without so far losing any data. Others have mentioned looking for an alternative site - Why? The community here is doing what the community should and there is no need to look elsewhere, is there?

I really want there to be a site for me to return to once my problems are sorted out. All that I ask you to do is keep making submissions, giving insightful, witty and knowledgeable comments, and pushing out journals. This is exactly what you have been doing throughout the disruption of the last few years. I would appreciate that remaining the case for the future too.

I will not disappear (or at least I am not planning to...) and if I feel that I can do something then I will do it. What I do not want for the moment is the responsibility of having to be available all the time and a long list of outstanding jobs that never seems to get any shorter.

Seriously guys, I have been stunned by your response and you need to know that I appreciate it. It was a great morale boost and it came at just the right time.

We have tried to design a site which does not rely on a single person. The board do a brilliant job (often unseen and unrecognised) and they are 100% doing it for the community. My (hopefully temporary) departure should not be allowed to have any significant effect on the site.

[Edited after initial release: 2025-05-04 16:00--JR]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Microsoft has announced it will require paid subscriptions for Windows Server 2025 hotpatching, a service that enables admins to install security updates without restarting.

The company urged admins to try hotpatching free of charge before it becomes generally available in July, when they'll have to pay for a subscription to test it.

However, Redmond also warned those currently testing Windows Server 2025 hotpatching in preview to disenroll on or before June 30 so that they're not automatically subscribed in July.

"Hotpatching for Windows Server 2025, made available in preview in 2024, will become generally available as a subscription service on July 1st, 2025. With hotpatching, we are taking what was previously an Azure-only capability and now making it available to Windows Server machines outside of Azure through Azure Arc," Microsoft said.

"Hotpatching is available at no charge to preview now, but starting in July with the subscription launch, hotpatching for Windows Server 2025 will be offered at a subscription of $1.50 USD per CPU core per month."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

For the past week, the car-sized lab on wheels seemed to remain in its location on the rim of Jezero crater. Meanwhile, a team of scientists and engineers on Earth focused on how to free the tool from the rock. 

Anyone who has used a power drill around the house knows the frustration of getting one stuck in a board or wall, without being able to yank it back out. Well, sometimes the U.S. space agency has to retrieve a stuck drill, too — but from roughly 132 million miles away. 

Fortunately, Perseverance didn't have to sacrifice the coring bit. A NASA spokesperson provided an update on the status of the rover on Wednesday.

"The team was working to extract a drill bit from the most recent sample collection attempt, which was successfully accomplished as of late Tuesday night," NASA told Mashable. "This type of situation was planned for in the rover's design, and there are other drill bits onboard if needed."

Original Submission