SoylentNews

The success of Andy Rubin's Essential Phone may depend on carriers

Android Co-Founder Introduces Essential Phone: S835, Slim Bezels, Dual Camera

The hardware inside the Essential PH-1 is what you would expect for a premium phone: Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. It comes with the latest connectivity options too, including 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, NFC, and a Snapdragon X16 LTE modem that makes the phone compatible with all US networks. However, a few items some people find essential are missing; there’s no microSD card support for storage expansion, no support for dual SIMs, and no 3.5mm headphone jack (it will come with an adapter). The 3040 mAh battery, essentially the same capacity as the Galaxy S8’s 3000 mAh pack, should be adequate for most people, but power users will likely find themselves using the Essential’s 27W quick charge feature.

No thanks.

UPDATE: Intel Announces 4 to 18-Core Skylake-X CPUs

Previously, rumor had it that Intel would pit 12-core Skylake enthusiast processors against AMD Ryzen chips with up to 16 cores. Now, a new rumor/leak adds 14, 16, and 18 core chips to the Intel lineup. They don't appear to be Xeons either.

This isn't substantial enough for me to make a submission for it, but it's interesting. Of course, while this may be a bit of a slap in the face to AMD, it's not like Intel hasn't made 18-core (Xeon) chips before, and pricing for the 18 core, 36 thread chip could be outrageous (do I hear $2,500?).

$2,500 is just a guess, but I checked and the Intel Xeon E5-2697V4 Broadwell with 18 cores has an RCP of $2,702 and is $2,799.99 on Newegg.

I'll predict $1,250 for an AMD Ryzen 16-core.

(oblig)

Fight club: Russian spies seek EU recruits

Russian intelligence services are using martial arts clubs to recruit potential troublemakers in Germany and other EU countries, security experts have warned.

The number of clubs is higher than previously reported and the “sleeper cells” could stage violent provocations ahead of the upcoming German elections, they said.

[...] The martial arts clubs, which teach an offensive style called “systema”, all have “direct or indirect” links to the GRU military intelligence or FSB domestic intelligence services in Russia, according to Dmitrij Chmelnizki, a scholar of Russian espionage who lives in Berlin.

It's Polyamorous Polysaturation — Unconventional Relationships Abound On TV

Listened to a bit of it on the radio, found the text version.

Statement on coverage of Seth Rich murder investigation

Published May 23, 2017 Fox News
On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.

Huawei Matebook 2017 Launch Live Blog: Starts 2pm CEST (8am ET)

Huawei Launching Two New Clamshell Laptops: The MateBook X and the MateBook D

Huawei Launches the MateBook E 2-in-1: The Next Generation (compare to Surface Pro 5)

Or at the extreme end, would you only buy Purism? Or this thing?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39993739

The Church of England's investment success has pushed it into the top ranks of the world's best performing funds of its type last year.

The fund made a 17.1% on its 2016 investments, more than double the 8.2% it made in 2016, according to the Church Commissioners annual report.

[...] "While this is only around 15% of the Church's overall income - most funding comes from the extraordinary generosity of parishioners - we are delighted to be able to play our part."

The Church's ethical investment policy dictates that all investments should be compatible with Christian values and "recommends against investment" in companies which make more than 3% of their income from pornography, 10% from military products and services, or 25% from other industries such as gambling, alcohol and high interest rate lenders.

However, in 2013 it emerged that the Church had invested indirectly in payday loan firm Wonga. It was a particular embarrassment for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, who had pledged to try to put Wonga out of business by helping credit unions compete with it.

Every Sunday I do my ironing. I have to wear reasonably "smart" clothes to work four days a week and on Friday we're allowed to dress down. Every Sunday night, depending on how tired I am, I try to iron four shirts and a pair of trousers.

It has always occurred to me that ironing clothes is a waste of time and energy. It serves no purpose other than to adhere to a social convention. If I were putting Lean Six Sigma onto my life, I think it would probably come under the category of "necessary waste" since it is there to comply with the law (an unwritten social law enforced by the Central Scrutinizer) which adds no value to the value stream.

I just found a calculation I did about three years ago to work out the impact to atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions that ironing clothes causes.

I used official UK government statistics on the proportion of electricity generated by fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide gas produced.

I have no idea if these links are still valid.

Carbon Dioxide (Equivalent) Emissions from Electricity Generation (2013)

Historical elctricity data: 1920 to 2013

For my calculations. my electrical iron is rated at 2kW and I estimated the heater to be operational 50% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to iron a single item, and I do 5 at a time.

To cut a long story short, I calculated that in the UK, given 2013 electricity generation data, 1 million of me doing my ironing would produce about 244.5 Te of carbon dioxide gas.

Here's my data:

Constants
Seconds per Minute    60
kcal/joule 0.000239005736
1 billion 1000000000
Seconds per Hour 3600
1 million 1000000

Iron Power (W)    2000
Time to Iron (mins)    5
Time Heating (%) 50
Energy per Item (J) 300000
Energy per Item (kcal) 71.7017208

MtCO2e 178.5
Energy Supplied (Gwh) 304155

CO2(kg) 178500000000
Energy Supplied (J) 1.094958E+018
Mass of CO2/unit energy (kg/J)    1.63019951450193E-07

CO2e(kg) per item ironed     0.048905985435058

CO2e(kg) per million items ironed 48905.9854350578
CO2(Te) per million items ironed 48.9059854350578

Items/person/week 5
1 Million People (Te)    244.529927175289

Thousands of 'Second Life' Bunnies Are Going to Starve to Death This Saturday

Any bunny who is Everlasting will continue to function, as he or she does now: without cost.
Any bunny who is not Everlasting will be unable to eat and will hibernate within 72 hours.

"Hibernate" is a very kind word for it, considering that these bunnies are unlikely to ever be revived. In essence, every mortal rabbit in Second Life is going to starve to death on Saturday morning.

Cloud Computing wins Preakness Stakes, dashing Always Dreaming's chances for Triple Crown