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Comment Re:Smdh (Score 4, Informative) 66

The straightforward solution is for the UPS manufacturers to jitter the test time and it becomes a total non-issue.

From TFA:

Fortunately, the solution may be relatively straightforward, at least for big batteries and backup systems. Rather than having thousands of devices perform the same task at the same moment, manufacturers could introduce small variations into their software schedules, preventing the minutely pile-up.

Indeed, they have already contacted the manufacturer of one of the systems they identified, and the company issued a software update that relaxed the strict periodicity of its system checks.

Submission + - Power Grids on 5 Continents Pulse Every 60s. Scientists Think They Know Why (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: ScienceAlert is reporting that researchers may have finally determined why, for many years, power grids around the world have been pulsing every 60 seconds: uninterruptible power supplies running routine battery checks.

Every minute, some uninterruptible power supplies perform routine battery checks, creating small but measurable surges in electricity demand. And it's like clockwork.

"Even benign control routines can become systemically relevant when many devices act coherently," writes a team led by physicist Dirk Witthaut of the University of Cologne, Germany, in a paper published in Nature Energy.

"Unintended synchronization can generate recurrent and potentially amplified oscillatory behavior in large-scale cyber-physical energy systems."

To figure it out, Witthaut and his colleagues analyzed high-resolution electricity measurements from buildings at the Forschungszentrum Jülich research campus in Germany. They found the 60-second pattern appeared in four buildings, all of which contained uninterruptible power supplies. None of the buildings they measured without these systems showed the same pattern.

Following the electrical signals more closely, the researchers detected tiny bursts of current from the batteries at precisely one-minute intervals. They were able to trace the resulting fluctuations through one building's electrical system, all the way to the connection with the public high-voltage grid.

The manufacturer subsequently confirmed the culprit's identity – routine battery self-tests, conducted automatically by the systems' management software.

But why would equipment in different buildings, let alone different countries, be doing this at the same time? The answer appears to lie in the clocks. Digital devices can synchronize their internal clocks using external time signals, meaning that independently operating systems can end up performing their scheduled tasks together.

Individually, these small checks are insignificant. But when enough devices act in synchrony, their combined electricity demand can produce a measurable effect across an entire power grid.

Comment They *all* have accounts? (Score 2) 52

by fahrbot-bot (#66419962) Attached to: Logitech Giving All 7,000 Employees the Day Off to Play GTA 6

giving all 7,000 of its employees an extra paid day off to play GTA 6

Made me think if this exchange from South Park, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" (S10E08) between Randy, the president of Blizzard Entertainment and their Board members:

President (Blizzard Entertainment): We're too late. Without the sword the players will fail.

Board Member 1: I-if we could get to a computer, we could sign on to the World of Warcraft and give the boys the sword online.

President: I don't have a World of Warcraft account. Do you?

Member 1: No, I have a life. [other board members fall silent]

Randy: Give me the sword.

Comment Whaaat? (Score 2, Informative) 50

by fahrbot-bot (#66417269) Attached to: Commerce Dept. Chip Inquiry Was Halted After Nvidia Intervention

violating government procedure and potentially tainting the case

In this Administration, run by, "the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created"?

Donald Trump suggests he is ‘perhaps the most honest human being’ ever created

[Trump] continued: "I think I'm the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created." Amid laughter and cheers from his supporters, he added: "Perhaps."

I'll wait for news of an untainted case in this administration to be shocked.

Submission + - Infant Bleeding Surged as Parents Rejected Vitamin K Shots, Studies Find (nytimes.com) 2

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: The New York Times is reporting that a study has found a 347% increase in infant bleeding cases as fewer babies received the vitamin K shot, which helps blood clot, since 2017.

For decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that every newborn receive an injection of vitamin K, which helps blood clot and can protect against sudden and catastrophic bleeding that can occur even in otherwise healthy babies. The injection is not a vaccine, but as mistrust in medicine has grown and as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other prominent health figures have cast doubt on the importance of childhood vaccinations, more parents have started forgoing it.

With fewer babies getting these injections, doctors had already begun to see more infants with serious hemorrhages. The new studies, published Thursday in the journals JAMA and JAMA Pediatrics, provide some of the first concrete data on this pattern. One found an especially sharp increase from 2024 to 2025, with cases of vitamin K deficiency bleeding roughly doubling in that time.

The JAMA study looked at more than five million infants. In 2017, 3.1 percent of these newborns went without a vitamin K shot; by 2025, it was 6.8 percent. The infants who had not received the shot had significantly higher rates of bleeding in their first six months, including more than double the risk of brain bleeds, which are especially deadly: 33 brain bleeds per 10,000 births, compared with 13.2 per 10,000 for babies who received vitamin K.

The JAMA Pediatrics study, on which Dr. Woolf was a co-author, looked at more than 11 million infants and found similarly that the rate of infants going without vitamin K more than doubled from 2017 to 2025. The overall rate of vitamin K deficiency bleeding rose nearly 350 percent, to 107.4 cases per 100,000.

The vitamin K injection is very safe, but more parents started declining it in the 2010s, citing, among other things, a belief that the shot was unnatural or unnecessary.

Dr. Elizabeth Wolf, an author of the JAMA Pediatrics study and an associate professor of pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University, said she hoped the results would break through to parents who may not realize the severity of the risk of going without vitamin K.

Comment More specifically, researchers at ... (Score 3, Interesting) 53

"According to a new study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, ...

According to TFStudy, one researcher is from Harvard and two are from The Wharton School at Penn, the alma mater of the current President, who *loves* data centers. Not necessarily implying anything about their less unfavorable conclusions, just throwing that out there.

Comment Melting permafrost and methane (Score 1) 89

Again, I recommend this episode of NOVA, Arctic Sinkholes (S49:E01)

Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

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... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"

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