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Submission + - What Shape Is the Universe? A New Study Suggests We've Got It All Wrong (quantamagazine.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A provocative paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy argues that the universe may curve around and close in on itself like a sphere, rather than lying flat like a sheet of paper as the standard theory of cosmology predicts. The authors reanalyzed a major cosmological data set and concluded that the data favors a closed universe with 99% certainty — even as other evidence suggests the universe is flat.

Submission + - Digital Authoritarianism Is On the Rise Around the World, Report Warns (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Internet freedom declined for a ninth consecutive year as governments around the world used social media to monitor citizens and manipulate elections, according to a new study that warned of creeping "digital authoritarianism." Thirty-three of the 65 countries surveyed were found to have experienced worsening internet freedom since June 2018, compared with 16 that were found to have improving conditions. The study, conducted by Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights advocacy, said domestic disinformation had grown as a threat to democracy with populist leaders and their online supporters using the internet to distort political discussions. The organization found domestic interference in 26 of the 30 countries that held elections over the past year.

The report said internet freedom in the US had declined, in large part because law enforcement and immigration agencies used social media to monitor people, though the country was still deemed "free." China was dubbed the "worst abuser of internet freedom" for a fourth consecutive year as the government tightened information controls because of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and protests in Hong Kong. Noting that the biggest platforms were American, Freedom House called on the U.S. to lead in the effort to fix social media transparency and accountability. "This is the only way to stop the internet from becoming a Trojan horse for tyranny and oppression," wrote Adrian Shahbaz, one of the authors of the report.

Submission + - Interstellar space even weirder than expected, NASA probe reveals (nationalgeographic.com)

Submitted by paralumina01
paralumina01 writes: IN THE BLACKNESS of space billions of miles from home, NASA’s Voyager 2 marked a milestone of exploration, becoming just the second spacecraft ever to enter interstellar space in November 2018. Now, a day before the anniversary of that celestial exit, scientists have revealed what Voyager 2 saw as it crossed the threshold—and it’s giving humans new insight into some of the big mysteries of our solar system.

The findings, spread across five studies published today in Nature Astronomy, mark the first time that a spacecraft has directly sampled the electrically charged hazes, or plasmas, that fill both interstellar space and the solar system’s farthest outskirts. It’s another first for the spacecraft, which was launched in 1977 and performed the first—and only—flybys of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune. (Find out more about the Voyager probes’ “grand tour”—and why it almost didn’t happen.)

Comment Re:Why fight them? (Score 2) 384

by emaname (#58135554) Attached to: Why Some US Cities are Fighting 'Dollar Stores'

Well said, Mr D.

There's are three more components in this issue; social connections, revenue, and jobs.

Re social connections... Locally owned businesses can have a more positive impact on a local community. There is a stronger sense of community or of a social connection. I experienced this myself while working at a small grocery store when I was in high school.

Re revenue... There have been studies that support the idea that locally owned businesses keep more of the money earned by that business within the community. Corporate owned businesses (like Dollar Store) remove from the local community a large portion of the money earned by that operation.

Re jobs... Here again, the impact is more localized. Since the owner of the store is most likely from within the community, the positions are more likely to be filled from within the same community. The owner has a vested interest in the community in order for the business to be a success.

You can see the trend in the country today. More and more communities are sourcing their produce locally instead of from some remote mega-corp. Some communities have garden plots set up right within their neighborhoods by using empty lots. Others are seeing more farmers' markets appearing. Still others are seeing cooperatives developing.

In our town we have several big-box stores standing empty; some for over 10 years. We've lost Sears, K-Mart, Penny's, Boston Store, and soon we'll lose Shopko. These all represent lost tax revenues and job opportunities. When communities depend on corporate operations they leave themselves vulnerable to the market performance of those corporations. Just this one detail alone is justification for that Tulsa community to respond the way they are responding. But they need to include with it a strategy to encourage and develop locally-owned businesses to fill the void. It's certainly not an easy challenge, but they will find they are better off when they do.

Comment Re:Now that we know about it... (Score 1) 87

As long as there are no exploitable resources it should be fine. But if someone discovers something useful or that can be sold, it won't take long before we humans manage to lay waste to most of it. Sadly that seems to be the way we operate as a species. We've just gotten very efficient at it as we advance.

Agreed. +1

Comment Cost Control (Score 1) 94

Another possibility is Amazon's recent starting pay increase. Very simply that means each employee costs more. And the budget for this year might provide only a certain amount of money for the work force. IOW, they don't want to exceed their budget.

lgw's comment is correct:

All these robots do is move shelves full of bins around. That's it. They don't sort. They don't pack. They don't ship. They help with picking (and stowing) by bringing the shelves to the human who does everything except walk to the shelves.

We know people who work in a distro center near us. People handle the products in all phases. I think some automation is used to pull the inventory (off the high shelving), but then the robotic pallets simply move the bins around the warehouse.

FWIW, here's one video of ops inside a "fulfillment center."

Behind the scenes of an Amazon warehouse

Submission + - VLT Telescope now delivers images sharper than Hubble's (eso.org)

Submitted by ffkom
ffkom writes: ESO writes:

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has achieved first light with a new adaptive optics mode called laser tomography — and has captured remarkably sharp test images of the planet Neptune, star clusters and other objects. The pioneering MUSE instrument in Narrow-Field Mode, working with the GALACSI adaptive optics module, can now use this new technique to correct for turbulence at different altitudes in the atmosphere. It is now possible to capture images from the ground at visible wavelengths that are sharper than those from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The combination of exquisite image sharpness and the spectroscopic capabilities of MUSE will enable astronomers to study the properties of astronomical objects in much greater detail than was possible before.

Submission + - Russian Shipwreck Allegedly Carrying $130 Billion In Gold Has Been Rediscovered (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A salvage company has located the remains of a Russian warship lost during the the Russo-Japanese War. The battle-damaged cruiser Dmitrii Donskoi was scuttled off the coast of Korea in 1905, reportedly carrying a cargo of gold worth an estimated $130 billion in today’s dollars. An international consortium of companies plans to salvage the gold.

According to the Telegraph, the Donskoi was found less than a mile off the coast of Ulleung island, at a depth of 1,423 feet in the Sea of Japan. A submersible descended to the wreck and captured an image of the ship’s name on the stern in the Cyrillic alphabet. The South Korean Shinil Group, which discovered the wreck, plans to recover the gold sometime later this year with help from companies in China, Canada, and the U.K. At the time of her sinking Donskoi was reportedly carrying 5,500 boxes of gold bars and 200 tons of gold coins with a street value today of $130 billion. That’s more than twice Russia’s 2017 defense budget, which was $61 billion. If the treasure does materialize, the Russian government will receive half of the recovered amount.

Submission + - Should I ditch PHP? 2

Submitted by Qbertino
Qbertino writes: I do PHP for a living. The problem I have is the classic catch-22: PHP is used at every streetcorner which accounts for an abundance of jobs and work to do. However, I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the ignorant and clueless in the vincinity of PHP. Crappy code and baaaaad application setups is one thing, but people refusing to fix them or simply not even understanding the broader implications of bad applications or attempting SEO with gadgets while refusing to fix 3.5 MB per pagecall are just minor tidbits in a history of increasingly unnerving run-ins with knuckledragers in the "web agency" camp. My strong suspicion is, that this also correlates directly with the prominence of server-side done with PHP in these teams. Will I leave the larger part of this backwards stuff behind if I move to another server-side PL such as Java or Kotlin for professional work in the broader web area? Do I have a chance to do quality work on quality projects using PHP or are those slim compare to other PLs? In short, should I ditch PHP?

Comment Pre-crime is next (Score 1) 133

I expect they're going to follow this up with a "pre-crime" (ala "Minority Report") initiative. They'll monitor people's actions, manners, and postures in the store and learn to anticipate when somebody intends to steal. Then they'll arrest them before the crime is committed and build a case based on "the intention to steal."

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Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation!

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