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Medicine

98.6 Degrees Fahrenheit Isn't the Average Anymore (smithsonianmag.com) 148

schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Nearly 150 years ago, [German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich] analyzed a million temperatures from 25,000 patients and concluded that normal human-body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. In a new study, researchers from Stanford University argue that Wunderlich's number was correct at the time but is no longer accurate because the human body has changed. Today, they say, the average normal human-body temperature is closer to 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source).

To test their hypothesis that today's normal body temperature is lower than in the past, Dr. Parsonnet and her research partners analyzed 677,423 temperatures collected from 189,338 individuals over a span of 157 years. The readings were recorded in the pension records of Civil War veterans from the start of the war through 1940; in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1971 through 1974; and in the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment from 2007 through 2017. Overall, temperatures of the Civil War veterans were higher than measurements taken in the 1970s, and, in turn, those measurements were higher than those collected in the 2000s.
The study has been published in the journal eLife.
Operating Systems

Systemd-homed: Systemd Now Working To Improve Home Directory Handling (phoronix.com) 238

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from Phoronix, detailing a new set of systemd capabilities shown off by lead developer Lennart Poettering at the annual All Systems Go conference: Improving the Linux handling of user home directories is the next ambition for systemd. Among the goals are allowing more easily migratable home directories, ensuring all data for users is self-contained to the home directories, UID assignments being handled to the local system, unified user password and encryption key handling, better data encryption handling in general, and other modernization efforts. Among the items being explored by systemd-homed are JSON-based user records, encrypted LUKS home directories in loop-back files, and other next-gen features to offering secure yet portable home directories. Systemd-homed is currently being developed in Lennart's Git tree but hopes to see it merged for either systemd 244 (the current cycle) or systemd 245.

Comment Re:bad summary for the example (Score 1) 177

The question provided to the student was:

"Complete method numberOfLeapYears below. You must use isLeapYear appropriately to receive full credit."

If this were the AP Calc exam the question said:
"Calculate integral below. You must use integration by tables (see tables provided) appropriately to receive full credit." and the student use purely integration by parts or inverse trigonometric forms (without get near any of the formulas on the provided table). Student getting the correct result of course. No one would argue the student should get full credit.

Comment Article is mixing Question with Example, ugh (Score 2) 177

The AP exam is a certification style examination. It is entirely different from a test a student normally in school or college.

In school, test are (in theory) part of a learning experience. The testis NOT about learning, it solely about evaluation.

A major function of the AP exam is to determine if the student has the knowledge and understanding they would receive from taking the corresponding college course. Reading and understanding how to answer question is part of this.

For this example the each text of the question "Complete method numberOfLeapYears below. You must use isLeapYear appropriately to receive full credit."

It should be noted that how a leap year is defined or determined is absolutely absent from this question. What a leap year is for the purpose of this question is what the isLeapYear methods returns true for.

Understanding the abstraction and how to use it specifically what the question is intended to test for. Also the test is not taken in a vacuum. It is taken after having a school-year long course designed whose curriculum is specifically designed for the test and how it should be taken.

The understanding that using a formula without touching the provided and required helper function is not the 'right answer' is part of what is being tested.

Security

Critical Magento SQL Injection Flaw Could Soon Be Targeted By Hackers (csoonline.com) 14

itwbennett writes: The popular e-commerce platform Magento has released 37 security issues affecting both the commercial and open-source versions, four of which are critical. "Of those, one SQL injection flaw is of particular concern for researchers because it can be exploited without authentication," writes Lucian Constantine for CSO. Researchers from Web security firm Sucuri "have already reverse-engineered the patch [for that flaw] and created a working proof-of-concept exploit for internal testing," says Constantin. "The SQL vulnerability is very easy to exploit, and we encourage every Magento site owner to update to these recently patched versions to protect their ecommerce websites," the researchers warn in a blog post. "Unauthenticated attacks, like the one seen in this particular SQL Injection vulnerability, are very serious because they can be automated -- making it easy for hackers to mount successful, widespread attacks against vulnerable websites," the Sucuri researchers warned. "The number of active installs, the ease of exploitation, and the effects of a successful attack are what makes this vulnerability particularly dangerous." Since the researchers were able to create a working proof-of-concept exploit, it's only a matter of time until hackers discover a way to use the exploit to plant payment card skimmers on sites that have yet to install the new patch.

UPDATE: Onilab, an official Magento development partner, has a blog post explaining how you can update your store to the latest version of Magento.

Comment Re:I doubt it (Score 1) 60

The legislation will only happen in countries where the industry (as a big players or as a group) don't have enough influence over the legislature to keep such a thing from happens.

I don't know what countries could might this goal, but it's small enough to not matter, especially when companies will just make sure they don't legally exist in those countries.

It's cynical thinking yes, but pragmatic I'm afraid.

That's ignoring the decades of legal challenges if it actually did happen, or any fallout on open source projects when companies realize the most cost effective way to mitigate this risk is to push it onto software companies.

Comment everyone wearing headphones (Score 1) 420

I was lucky to only spend a small amount of my career dealing with the cube farm, in do computer research work.

Everyone used closed-ear headphones. In theory, people were listening to music, but many people including myself, used them regardless to both block sound and visually indicate to others "I can't hear you".
 

Comment Re:Legal requirements (Score 1) 265

First, yes, It's all just theoretical discussion until there's case law. Something like this, that's pretty unlikely to happen. This is a discussion on a Internet forum, one would think discussions are just that. I don't see the need to get belligerent about it.

As I said, beyond the explicit perjury penalty, there would certainly be (in theory) penalties for falsifying information in the notification.

Personally, don't think they'd actually be criminal beyond (vi)'s explicit perjury penalty (if it applied in anyway), but was just relating the opinions of my law professors I've had the discussion with.

The main argument (ignoring any that address the grammar of the law, which very fit and miss when talking American English) is that (vi) mentions the accuracy of the information in the notification. In addition to (v) that address the good faith belief (and (v)'s mention of agency). The overlap suggests that the first clause in (vi) has to be operative in some manner for it to be included.

If you want to talk plain text (which really means little given the looseness of grammar in the law, even major SCOTUS decisions have ignored sentence clauses of the Constitution for seemingly arbitrary reasons), In (vi), neither the second or third clauses can be individually excluded with the sentence making sense. The perjury clause is subordinate to the accuracy clause, but is adjunct to the agency clause.

There's no way to parse that sentence's grammar that really makes sense, Whether you want the perjury to apply to just the agency, just the accuracy, or both. So I don't think an appeal to the 'plain text' of it clears anything up.

I doubt there's much of anything useful in terms notes on legislative intent for something that minute, but can't access that easily from off-campus anyway, and given the politeness of the discussion, I doubt it would matter.

Again, just opinion and the results of my reading and discussion with my law professors. Take it for what you want. There's no need to get rude about it.

Comment Re:Legal requirements (Score 1) 265

The wording of U.S. Code 17 Â 512(c)(vi) has been interpreted that way, and to cover the entirety of the notification. Not sure what the case law is.

My professors that I've spoken with on the matter are of the opinion that either it applies to both or that if it doesn't apply to the entirety of the notification, that it be on par with statements in a federal criminal complaint (in though it's a civil matter, because of the criminal implications of copyright infringement), which if knowingly false would basically amount to perjury.

Comment Re:Legal requirements (Score 2) 265

You realize how many things have to be attested to under penalty of perjury? You realize how many times people have gone to jail for the most straight-forwardly blatant fail statements in such cases? Next to none if any.

Any doubt? DMCA takedown requests have to be attested to under penalty of perjury. Ever hear of a false/improper DMCA request? How about someone going to jail for making a false one? (Keep in mind a statement made under penalty of perjury by an automated system does not make the person whose authority the system is being used under in any immune).
 

Comment my experiences (in the long, long ago) (Score 1) 293

When I took AP CS in highschool, they were just switching to C++. We actually hard two years of courses and AP was the second year. I pushed to skip the first class (which was basic at the time) and after taking the final was able to.

The school didn't even normally give the exam. After some parental rage, they finely setup so I could take the exam (just me). 45 minutes of test taking earned me a 5/5. Though since all the changes in the exam at the time my college just gave credit for an elective instead of saving from taking a course.

Comment Re:Depends if they cap VPN (encrypted) traffic or (Score 2) 353

Unfortunately, broadband choices are very limited in most of the U.S. (elsewhere too I'm sure, but only know the states).

Where I currently live despite it being a moderate sized city, with an extreme tech community. Your only options are cable through Comcast or DSL through Centurylink. When you factor in what speed you can get where in the city. Voting with your wallet isn't much of an option.

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