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Submission + - The Surprising Power of Documentation

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "My advice to all the young tech enthusiasts, future engineering managers, and CTOs is simple," writes Vadim Kravcenko in The Surprising Power of Documentation. "Cultivate a love for documentation. You may view it as a chore, an afterthought, or a nuisance. But trust me when I say this: Documentation isn't just a task on your to-do list; it's a pillar for success and a bridge that connects ideas, people, and vision. Treat it not as a burden but as an opportunity to learn, share, and create an impact."

So, what would Goldilocks make of your organization's documentation — Too much? Too little? Just right? Got any recommended tools and management tips for creating useful and sustainable documentation?

Submission + - Mark Hamill Interviewed by CBS News, Remembers 1977 'Star Wars' Audition (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: CBS News interviewed 71-year-old Mark Hamill, who remembers that in his first audition for Star Wars, they didn't give him the whole script. So "I couldn't figure out, is this like a send-up of Flash Gordon or whatever? You couldn't tell. Because nobody talks like this!"

Hamill also does impressions of the other actors he worked with. "I was asking Harrison, because he had been in American Graffiti. I said, 'You know George. Is this like a joke, or — should we send it up, make fun of it?'" And then he mimics Harrison Ford as saying "Yeah, Whatever. Get it done." ("So he was no help.") Later Hamill also describes meeting Alec Guinness, who eventually had to remind Hamill to stop calling him "Sir Alec." ("I want to be known by my name, not my accolade...")

And after playing Mozart in the Broadway production of Amadeus, Hamill remembers the reaction when he'd suggested appearing in the movie adaptation. Director Milos Forman says, "Oh ho ho ho. No, no, no. The Luke Skywalker is not to be being the Mozart." (Hamill's reaction? "At least he's honest.")

Submission + - Rats with human brains (statnews.com) 1

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: This paper really pushes the envelope,â said neuroscientist Tomasz Nowakowski, of the University of California, San Francisco, who uses brain organoids in his research on neurodevelopmental disorders but was not involved in the new work. âoeThe field is desperate for more experimental models. And whatâ(TM)s really important about this study is it demonstrates that brain organoids can complete their maturation trajectory when transplanted.

Within weeks, cells from the rats began to move into the organoids, building blood vessels that supported their growth alongside the animalsâ(TM) own. From these organoids, millions of new neurons sprouted, sending out axons and wiring into circuits throughout the ratsâ(TM) brains, including deep into the thalamus, a region responsible for relaying sensory signals such as touch and temperature. Six months later, about one-third of the brain hemisphere that received the transplant was made up of human cells.

Submission + - WSJ Investigation Reveals Runaway Corruption In The US Federal Government (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes:

Some Americans still believe the federal government is working in the public’s best interest. If anything can disabuse these naive holdouts of this notion, it will be the bombshell Wall Street Journal investigation that just dropped—revealing runaway corruption among the federal bureaucracy.

The Journal reviewed more than 31,000 financial disclosure forms and analyzed more than 850,000 financial assets and 315,000 trades to shed light on any conflicts of interest among more than 12,000 senior career bureaucrats and political appointees. Its investigation found that “thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.”

“Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations,” the Journal reports. “When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules.”

The federal employees weren’t even subtle about it. Per the Journal, “More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.”

Submission + - A Single Gene in One Species Can Cause Other Species to Go Extinct (scientificamerican.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Some species play an outsize role in the environment they inhabit. Beavers build dams that create ponds where fish thrive. Otters in kelp forests eat enough sea urchins so that the kelp can grow without being gobbled up first. These so-called keystone species hold their ecosystem together. But what if ecosystems not only hinge on a single species but can be made or broken by a single gene? In a study published on Thursday in Science, researchers have demonstrated the existence of what theycall a “keystone gene.” The discovery may have implications for how scientists think about the ways ecosystems, and the species in them, persist over time.

In the lab, the researchers built several miniature ecosystems that consisted of just four species each. At the bottom of the food chain was Arabidopsis thaliana, a small annual plant that is a favorite study organism among biologists (its genome was sequenced more than 20 years ago). In each ecosystem, the plant served as food for two species of aphids, which in turn fed a parasitoid wasp. Each bread-box-sized ecosystem contained multiple Arabidopsis plants. In some systems, the plants were genetically identical—a monoculture. In others, genetic variations were introduced by turning on and off three genes—MAM1, AOP2 and GSOH—in various combinations.The researchers focused on these genes because they maintain the production of compounds called aliphatic glucosinolates, which protect the plant by deterring hungry aphids. Some of the experimental ecosystems had more variation in the number of genetic combinations than others; the researchers watched to see how well plants, aphids and wasps would coexist in each scenario.

As the team expected, the ecosystems with more genetically diverse plants turned out to be more stable. For each plant with a different genetic makeup that the researchers added to the mix, the insects’ extinction rate fell by nearly 20 percent, compared with monocultures. But what stunned the researchers was that this result seemed to hinge on a single gene. Regardless of diversity, if systems contained plants with a certain variant, or allele, of the AOP2 gene, the extinction rate of the insects decreased by 29 percent, compared with systems without it. Essentially, if you change that AOP2 allele, you lose the insects. Increasing genetic diversity helped the insects because it increased the likelihood of the aphids encountering plants with this one critical gene variant. [...] Also surprising was the mechanism by which the AOP2 allele impacted the aphids. Although the variant changed the way a plant produced its aphid-deterring compound, it also allowed the plant to grow faster. This in turn allowed the aphids, as well as the wasps that relied on them for food, to become larger faster.

Submission + - Writing Google Reviews About Patients is Actually A HIPAA Violation (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by August Oleman
August Oleman writes: According to The Verge, health providers writing Google reviews about patients with identifiable information is a HIPAA violation:

In the past few years, the phrase 'HIPAA violation' has been thrown around a lot, often incorrectly. People have cited the law, which protects patient health information, as a reason they can’t be asked if they’re vaccinated or get a doctor’s note for an employer.

But asking someone if they’re vaccinated isn’t actually a HIPAA violation. That’s a fine and not-illegal thing for one non-doctor to ask another non-doctor. What is a HIPAA violation is what U. Phillip Igbinadolor, a dentist in North Carolina, did in September 2015, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. After a patient left an anonymous, negative Google review, he logged on and responded with his own post on the Google page, saying that the patient missed scheduled appointments. [...]

In the post, he used the patient’s full name and described, in detail, the specific dental problem he was in for: “excruciating pain” from the lower left quadrant, which resulted in a referral for a root canal.

That’s what a HIPAA violation actually looks like.

Submission + - SPAM: Nike Wants to 'Destroy' Unauthorized NFTs—How Will That Work?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When a company like Nike finds someone using its brand without permission, it can ask the courts to order the unauthorized goods to be destroyed. Nike has done this in the past, but its latest trademark lawsuit comes with a twist—the products it wants to "destroy" are NFTs, which are inscribed permanently on the Ethereum blockchain. The case in question involves Detroit-based StockX, a site that lets people buy and sell used brands, including Nike sneakers. [...] In a complaint filed last month in New York federal court, Nike accused StockX of ripping off its brand in order to cash in on a "gold rush market" for NFTs. As a remedy for StockX's alleged infringement of its trademarks, Nike wants the company to turn over its profits and stop the NFT sneaker sales. It also wants a judge to "order that StockX be required to deliver to Nike for destruction any and all Vault NFTs."

According to Alexandra Roberts, a trademark law professor at the University of New Hampshire, it's fairly common for companies to ask to destroy goods that infringe their IP—there's even a law that entitles them to do that. But whether a court will grant the order is likely to be informed by what the brand owner is looking to destroy. Where do NFTs fit into this? It's an open question since the courts have never had to address it before. And even if the New York court agrees to order the destruction of the StockX NFTs, there's the question of how exactly Nike would go about doing that.

Records on the blockchain show that StockX has indeed inscribed the NFTs on Ethereum, which means they are indestructible except in the extremely unlikely event that developers agree to fork the blockchain to get rid of them. According to some, the most practical thing for Nike to do would be to send the NFTs to a so-called burner wallet. This wouldn't destroy them but still achieve the same purpose: "This means that the best outcome for a brand that is seeking to have NFTs destroyed may be to have them sent to a burn address, which still does not actually destroy them but renders them incapable of being transferred anymore," writes the Fashion Law Blog.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Chrome's "Topics" advertising system is here, whether you want it or not (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by slack_justyb
slack_justyb writes: After the failure of the Chrome user-tracking system that was called FLoC, Google's latest try at topic tracking to replace the 3rd party cookie (that Chrome is the only browser to still support) is FLEDGE and the most recent drop of Canary has this on full display for users and privacy advocates to dive deeper into. This recent release shows Google's hand that it views user tracking as a mandatory part of Internet usage, especially given this system's eye rolling name of "Privacy Sandbox" and the tightness in the coupling of this new API to the browser directly.

The new API will allow the browser itself to build what it believes to be things that you are interested in, based on broad topics that Google creates. New topics and methods for how you are placed into those topics will be added to the browser's database and indexing software via updates from Google. The main point to take away here though is that the topic database is built using your CPU's time. At this time, opting out of the browser building this interest database is possible thus saving you a few cycles from being used for that purpose. In the future there may be not way to stop the browser from using cycles to build the database, the only means may be to just constantly remove all interest from your personal database. At this time there does not seem to be anyway to completely turn off the underlying API. A website that expects this API, will always succeed in "some sort of response" so long as you are using Chrome. The response may be that you are interested in nothing, but a response none-the-less. Of course, sending a response of "interested in nothing" would more than likely require someone constantly and timely clearing out the interest database, especially if at some later time the option to turn off the building of the database is removed.

With 82% of Google's empire based on ad revenue this latest development in Chrome shows that Google is not keen on any moves to threaten their main money maker. Google continues to argue that it is mandatory that it builds a user tracking and advertising system into Chrome, and the company says it won't block third-party cookies until it accomplishes that, no matter what the final solution may ultimately be. The upshot, if it can be called that, of the FLEDGE API over FLoC, is that abuse of FLEDGE looks to yield less valuable results. And attempting to use the API alone to pick out an individual user via fingerprinting or other methods employed elsewhere seems to be rather difficult to do, but only time will tell if that remains true or just Google idealizing this new API.

Submission + - Wyze Cam Security Flaw Gave Hackers Access To Video (9to5mac.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A major Wyze Cam security flaw easily allowed hackers to access stored video, and it went unfixed for almost three years after the company was alerted to it, says a new report today. Additionally, it appears that Wyze Cam v1 – which went on sale back in 2017 – will never be patched, so it will remain vulnerable for as long as it is used.

Bleeping Computer reports: "A Wyze Cam internet camera vulnerability allows unauthenticated, remote access to videos and images stored on local memory cards and has remained unfixed for almost three years. The bug, which has not been assigned a CVE ID, allowed remote users to access the contents of the SD card in the camera via a webserver listening on port 80 without requiring authentication. Upon inserting an SD card on the Wyze Cam IoT, a symlink to it is automatically created in the www directory, which is served by the webserver but without any access restrictions."

And as if that weren’t bad enough, it gets worse. Many people re-use existing SD cards they have laying around, some of which still have private data on them, especially photos. The flaw gave access to all data on the card, not just files created by the camera. Finally, the AES encryption key is also stored on the card, potentially giving an attacker live access to the camera feed. Altogether, Bitdefender security researchers advised the company of three vulnerabilities. It took Wyze six months to fix one, 21 months to fix another, and just under two years to patch the SD card flaw. The v1 camera still hasn’t been patched, and as the company announced last year that it has reached end-of-life status, so it appears it never will.

Submission + - A new proposal for interstellar communication with alien intelligences (arxiv.org) 1

Submitted by OneHundredAndTen
OneHundredAndTen writes: A recent paper proposes a new way to put together a message for alien intelligent beings. It comes up with an elaborate mechanism to convey information in notably constrained bitmaps, but one can't help but wonder whether it is too elaborate — for example, for 1 + 1 = 2 the article proposes something far more visually complex than 1 + 1 = 2, which could also be, with small adjustments, easily coerced to have a representation as a bitmap with the limitations in the article. It is not clear why the representation that the authors are proposing would be easier for aliens to decode and understand than something much closer to 1 + 1 = 2: either representation would be — well, alien to them.

Submission + - Chess Broadcast To Include Players' Heart Rate Determined By AI (chessbase.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The official broadcast of the final rounds of the FIDE Grand Prix Series, an important part of the World Chess Championship cycle, will feature players’ heart rate indicator, according to World Chess, the Series organizer. This is the first time when the players’ heart rate is measured and displayed in the broadcast of the World Chess Championship cycle event. It will allow spectators to better understand players’ emotions and true feelings (as far as they are reflected in the heart rate) — a rare insight into the psychology of the elite chess players who are trained and especially good at keeping a poker face. By adding a heart rate indicator, World Chess brings a new dimension into chess broadcasting and opens a new page of the way fans follow chess.

To accurately measure the heart rate without disturbing the players, World Chess is deploying a bespoke AI technology similar to that used by hospitals to track patients’ vitals over video. It’s the first time such technology is used in sports broadcasting. AI has been trained to read almost invisible changes in reflections of the skin color that change based on a person’s heart rate. The official broadcast of the FIDE Grand Prix is available for free on http://www.worldchess.com worldchess.com and on World Chess Youtube and Twitch channels. [...] World Chess will continue developing and using the video heart rate reading technology in future events and broadcasting.

Submission + - Russian Game Dev Tells Players To 'Raise the Pirate Flag' To Get Around Sanction (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With Russian gamers effectively cut off from purchases on most major gaming platforms due to corporate sanctions against the country, the Russian game developer behind indie darling Loop Hero is encouraging Russian customers to pirate the game. In a Sunday post on Russian social network VK (Google translated version), Loop Hero developer Four Quarters said, "In such difficult times, we can only help everyone to raise the pirate flag (together with vpn)" to get the game. The developer then included a link to a copy of Loop Hero on a popular Russian torrent tracker to aid in that process directly.

In a follow-up post the next day (Google translated version), Four Quarters insisted that "we didn't do anything special, there's nothing wrong with torrents." The company also notes that players wanting to offer the developer donations in lieu of buying the game should refrain. "The truth is that everything is fine with us, send this support to your family and friends at this difficult time," they wrote.

While players outside of Russia should still be able to purchase Loop Hero on Steam, Valve said earlier this month that banking issues prevented it from sending payments to developers in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine (ironically enough). Valve recently told PC Gamer that developers in these countries will have to provide "intermediary banking information" in a foreign country to receive the payments they're due. "It's a very frustrating situation, and we hope to find the resolution soon," Valve wrote in a note to affected developers.

Comment It's like the fluoride debate all over again (Score 1) 302

...with no scientific inquiry as to which adjust is better for the populations health? Standard time is by far, the better solution for everyone. Those that stayed on year-round DST quickly reverted dropped them after a year when a number of parents started complaining about their kids getting hit on crosswalks walking to school because it's fucking pitch-black until 9am. Health science also says staying on DST year round is really bad for our health - we need that light in the morning for our circadian cycle. Look up the dozens and dozens of news and science articles on it.

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