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Journal + - Journal: Adventures in USB-C Charging

Journal by Thelasko
The charger for my wife's Microsoft Surface failed. Microsoft's knockoff of Apple's Magsafe is apparently pretty unreliable. I had the idea to charge the machine with a USB-C cable. However, it gave me an error message that it was unable to charge.

Submission + - The Next Decade of Planetary Exploration: Report Lays Out Priorities (nationalacademies.org)

Submitted by necro81
necro81 writes: The U.S. National Academies of Science has released its once-per-decade report on what it thinks should be the priorities in planetary science looking ahead. In the latest Decadal Survey, the top science priority is a Mars sample return mission, already being planned.

But the headline grabbing items are the proposed flagship missions: an orbiter to Uranus and an orbiter/lander to Enceladus. Uranus has not been visited since Voyager 2 flew by in 1986, but recent exoplanet science indicates Uranus-like worlds may be common. Enceladus, like Europa, shows tantalizing evidence of liquid water and the potential for life.

Medium-sized mission priorities include the Neo Surveyor telescope to find potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, a multi-flyby to Enceladus, a Venus in-situ explorer, samples returns from Ceres or a comet, and an expansive network of instruments on the Moon.

While not binding on NASA or Congress, the Decadal Survey still carries influence when considering which missions to fund. Previous surveys helped push the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars, the JWST, and the upcoming Europa Clipper mission.

Submission + - Clean energy is buried at the bottom of abandoned oil/gas wells (vox.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Geothermal energy works on a simple premise: The Earth’s core is hot, and by drilling even just a few miles underground, we can tap into that practically unlimited heat source to generate energy for our homes and businesses without creating nearly as many of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. However, drilling doesn’t come cheap — it accounts for half the cost of most geothermal energy projects — and requires specialized labor to map the subsurface, drill into the ground, and install the infrastructure needed to bring energy to the surface.

But the US, in the wake of an oil and gas boom, just so happens to have millions of oil and gas wells sitting abandoned across the country. And oil and gas wells, it turns out, happen to share many of the same characteristics as geothermal wells — namely that they are deep holes in the ground, with pipes that can bring fluids up to the surface. So, the DOE asks, why not repurpose them?

That’s exactly what the agency’s pilot program, called Wells of Opportunity: ReAmplify, aims to do, awarding a total of $8.4 million to four projects across the country that will each try to tap into some of those old wells to extract geothermal energy rather than gas or oil. If they work, they could be the key to not only reducing the country’s use of planet-damaging fossil fuels, but also helping answer the question of how to transition many of the more than 125,000 people who work in oil and gas extraction across the country into clean-energy jobs.

Submission + - US science advisors desperately want to probe Uranus Again (msn.com) 1

Submitted by alaskana98
alaskana98 writes: Is it time we gave Uranus a closer look again?:

"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have released their newest decadal survey. Apparently, at the top of the list of priorities is a goal to probe Uranus. The report, which was published this year, calls for a spacecraft to orbit Uranus. That spacecraft would then map its gravitational and magnetic fields. It would circle the planet for multiple years. During that time, it could deliver an atmospheric probe to the planet to study it."

Scientists would also like to learn more about the various moons and the ring system surrounding the planet. Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab wrote a white paper outlining their goals. Another target would include Enceladus, Saturn's icy moon that could be a candidate for being the host of microbial life.

Time is of the essence for inserting the Probe into Uranus's orbit, however, as a mission would need to be launched by 2031 to take advantage of a gravity assist from Jupiter.

Submission + - Pupil response to imagined subjects reveals aphantasia (unsw.edu.au)

Submitted by drinkypoo
drinkypoo writes: Researchers at UNSW Sydney have discovered that aphantasia, or lack of visual imagination, can be detected by lack of pupillary response. Pupillary response to both real and imagined objects was measured and compared, and the response to imagined objects was larger in those reporting greater vividness of imagery.

Submission + - CDC removes all remaining destinations from highest COVID travel risk category (upi.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The CDC re-named the category "Level 4: Special Circumstances/Do Not Travel," indicating that Americans should not travel to these destinations and should ensure they are up to date with COVID-19 vaccines if they must make a trip to a country listed in the category.

The move came after the agency announced last week it would reserve the "Level 4" travel health notices for "special circumstances, such as rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts, emergence of a new variant of concern or healthcare infrastructure collapse."

Submission + - UK court approves extradition of Julian Assange to US (theguardian.com)

Submitted by jaminhas
jaminhas writes: A court has formally approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the US on espionage charges, in what will ultimately be a decision for the UK home secretary, Priti Patel.

The Wikileaks co-founder, who has the right of appeal, appeared by videolink during the Westminster magistrates court hearing, which one of his barristers described as a “brief but significant moment in the case”.

Mark Summers QC, for Assange, told the chief magistrate that he had no option but to send the case to the home secretary. It was not open, at this point, for Assange’s team to raise fresh evidence but there had been “fresh developments”, he added.

Summers said “serious submissions” would be made to the home secretary regarding US sentencing and conditions.

Submission + - NASA's next decade: second release of decadal survey (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymouse Cowtard
Anonymouse Cowtard writes: Ars Technica has a report on the astronomy community's second release of its decadal survey.

"Late in 2021, the astronomy community released its decadal survey, a road map of scientific priorities for the next 10 years, which describes the hardware we need to build in order to achieve them. That survey was focused on distant objects and recommended projects like large, broad-spectrum space telescopes.

This week sees the release of a second decadal survey, this one focused on the needs of astronomers and planetary scientists who focus on the objects in our Solar System."

As with the original survey, this one looked at the needs of astronomers and scientists. The authors noting that "the astronomy community isn't very diverse and has had issues with minorities and women advancing in the field. Ensuring that the field benefits from the highest talent, regardless of ethnicity or gender, is in everyone's interests, and it calls on the astronomy community to do better in this regard."

Submission + - Netflix Rocked By Subscriber Loss, May Offer Cheaper Ad-Supported Plans (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Netflix said inflation, the war in Ukraine and fierce competition contributed to a loss of subscribers for the first time in more than a decade and predicted more contraction ahead, marking an abrupt shift in fortune for a streaming company that thrived during the pandemic. Netflix's 26% tumble after the bell on Tuesday erased about $40 billion of its stock market value. Since it warned in January of weak subscriber growth, the company has lost nearly half of its value. The lagging subscriber growth prompted Netflix for the first time to say it might offer lower-priced version of the service with advertising. [...] In addition to advertising-supported plans, the company is also looking to generate additional revenue from customers who share their account with friends or family outside their home.

Submission + - Patching is security industry's 'thoughts and prayers': ex-NSA man Aitel (itwire.com)

Submitted by samuel_the_fool
samuel_the_fool writes: Patching of vulnerabilities is the security industry's equivalent of thoughts and prayers, a prominent American security expert has said during a debate on the topic "Patching is useless" at a recent online conference named Hack At The Harbor. Dave Aitel, 46, a former NSA computer scientist who ran his own security shop, Immunity, for many years, said the remedies proposed by security vendors and big technology companies had served to lull people into a false sense of security all these years and ensure that all the old problems still remained.

Submission + - Target goes hybrid for good. Many will never have to return to the office. (startribune.com)

Submitted by Laoping
Laoping writes: Target Corp., the biggest employer in downtown Minneapolis with 8,500 staff members, won't require them to come back to its headquarters full-time.

Instead of implementing a company wide policy on when or if workers will return to the office, it is left up to teams when to work at home and when to be in the office.

Submission + - French court revokes Starlink's internet license (space.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: The highest administrative court in France revoked SpaceX's license to provide internet services in the country via its Starlink megaconstellation, citing monopolization concerns due to the size and scale of the company's operations.

France's telecom regulator, Arcep, awarded SpaceX the license in February 2021 without first conducting a public consultation, the court determined.

The court appeal was led by two environmental organizations that cited possible impacts of the megaconstellation on the environment, including light pollution, space debris and also human health.

The court, however, based its decision to revoke the license mostly on the argument that the nature of SpaceX's business — which includes rocket and satellite manufacturing, launch services, satellite operations and telecommunication services — could distort the market and squeeze out competition, which, in the end, would negatively affect French consumers.

Submission + - Federal judge strikes down CDC mask mandate for travel (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of Covid-19. In pursuit of that end, the CDC issued the mask mandate. But the mandate exceeded the CDC statutory authority, improperly invoked the good clause exemption to notice and comment rulemaking and failed to adequately explain its decisions. Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in the pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate.”

Given the limited-to-nonexistent evidence for mask effectiveness on airplanes, I think it would be arbitrary and capricious even if the procedures had been properly followed.

Plus: “Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said Monday, minutes before the ruling was announced, that he wants to see mask mandates ended immediately.”

Submission + - A Helicopter Will Try To Catch a Rocket Booster In Midair (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The longest journey begins with a single step, and that step gets expensive when you’re in the space business. Take, for example, the Electron booster made by Rocket Lab, a company with two launch pads on the New Zealand coast and another awaiting use in Virginia. [...] If all goes well, its next flight, currently targeted for 22 April, will carry 34 commercial satellites—and instead of being dropped in the Pacific, the spent first stage will be snared in midair by a helicopter as it descends by parachute. The helicopter will then fly it back to base, seared by the heat of reentry but inwardly intact, for possible refurbishment and reuse.

“It’s a very complex thing to do,” says Morgan Bailey of Rocket Lab. “You have to position the helicopter in exactly the right spot, you have to know exactly where the stage is going to be coming down, you have to be able to slow it enough,” she says. “We’ve practiced and practiced all of the individual puzzle pieces, and now it’s putting them together. It’s not a foregone conclusion that the first capture attempt will be a success.” Still, people in the space business will be watching, since Rocket Lab has established a niche for itself as a viable space company. This will be its 26th Electron launch. The company says it has launched 112 satellites so far, many of them so-called smallsats that are relatively inexpensive to fly. “Right now, there are two companies taking payloads to orbit: SpaceX and Rocket Lab,” says Chad Anderson, CEO of Space Capital, a firm that funds space startups.

Submission + - Crazy alternatives to batteries for grid energy storage (newyorker.com)

Submitted by silverjacket
silverjacket writes: A feature in this week's issue of The New Yorker highlights current efforts to use gravity, heat, momentum, air pressure, and other methods to store large amounts of energy for the electricity grid. It's essential for solar and wind power, which are intermittent.

Submission + - Gizmodo publishes massive new leaked trove of internal Facebook papers (gizmodo.com) 1

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: Big scoop from Gizmodo today: for the first time, "We are publishing the Facebook papers"

As part of an ongoing project to make these once-confidential records accessible to the general public, Gizmodo is today—for the first time—publishing 28 of the documents previously exclusively shared with Congress and the media.

We have undertaken this project to help better inform the public about Facebook’s role in a wide range of controversies, as well as to provide researchers with access to materials that we hope will advance general knowledge of social media’s role in modern history’s most troubling crises...

Today’s release is the first of a series of posts from Gizmodo to be published in tandem with legal and academic partners. Our goal is to minimize any costs to individuals’ privacy and any furtherance of other harms while ensuring the responsible disclosure of the greatest amount of information in the public interest possible...

Future releases will be added to this page, a directory, that will eventually offer our readers links all of the leaked internal documents we have published.... Click here to read all the Facebook papers we've published so far.

Submission + - Corruption in the Russian Military (occrp.org)

Submitted by Z00L00K
Z00L00K writes: At the start of its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army was considered one of the strongest in the world. In 2022, the force consisted of 900,000 military personnel — the world’s fifth largest, surpassed only by the United States, China, India, and possibly North Korea, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

In terms of materiel, Russia possessed more than 12,000 tanks, 6,000 self-propelled artillery vehicles, 3,000 multiple-launch rocket systems, and about 7,000 towed artillery pieces. Its stockpile of nuclear warheads is larger than those of all NATO countries combined.

By these indicators, drawn from a 2022 IISS study, Russia surpassed every other military on the planet.

How did this formidable military machine end up almost literally bogged down in what was supposed to be a “short, victorious war” (to borrow a phrase attributed to Tsar Nicholas II)?

Submission + - Amazon Opposes Diversity Proposals In SEC Filing, Explains It's Teaching Kids CS

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Among the vote "no" arguments advanced by Amazon in opposition to Shareholder Proposals for a Diversity and Equity Audit and Additional Reporting on Gender/Racial Pay is that the company is providing schools with Amazon-chosen curriculum to teach millions of kids from underserved communities to code. From Amazon's Schedule 14A SEC filing:

"In addition to our hiring efforts, we are investing in building the next generation of diverse technical leaders from various backgrounds by providing broader access to STEM education. Our Amazon Future Engineer program is a childhood-to-career computer science education program offering programming that starts with primary school and continues through secondary into career. Each year, the program inspires and educates millions of students globally from underserved communities to pursue careers of the future by leveraging computer science and coding skills. Students explore computer science by meeting Amazonians in virtual live career talks or explorations of our real-world innovations. We support educators with school curriculum and project-based learning, using code to make music, program robots, and solve problems."

While Amazon insists it "already provides extensive statistical reporting on our workforce diversity" in its SEC filing, Amazon breaks ranks from other companies with its bar chart-based Workforce Data Report, omitting the separate race, ethnicity, and gender breakouts for tech workers that have drawn criticism for other tech giants. However, a look at Amazon's separately-located federally-required 2020 EEO-1 filing for the Professional category — which typically includes tech workers — reveals percentages that paint a different hiring picture than the all-category U.S. workforce percentages Amazon chooses to disclose. For example, while Amazon reports that Black employees make up 26.5% of its U.S. workforce, according to its EEO-1 filing, Black employees make up less than 4% of Amazon's 101,965 Professionals vs. 32.4% of Amazon's 622,077 Laborers & Helpers.

Amazon's suggestion in the SEC filing that "providing broader access to STEM education" to kids through its K-12 CS efforts would help close tech job participation gaps coincidentally came just days after a new Brookings Institution report — Exploring the State of Computer Science Education Amid Rapid Policy Expansion — found little evidence thus far of a relationship between policy changes in CS education over the past decade and narrowing participation gaps in CS. "Our further investigations," Brookings writes, "made it clear that overall participation rates on AP CS exams appear to be associated with CS policy adoptions, though none of these policies show any clear relationship with increasing the share of historically underrepresented groups among test-takers. We recognize that some of these findings cut against a dominant narrative in CS education circles, which states that increased access to CS education will lead to narrowing participation gaps."

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