The Old Reader

12 Mar 03:16

NASA grapples with budget cuts as it undertakes ambitious programs

by Eric Berger

It's budget-palooza, NASA nerds. For the first time in more than a decade, the US space agency is grappling with budget cuts. Be forewarned, there will be a lot of numbers in this story, but we'll do our best to make sense of them.

First of all, the space agency only just received its budget for the current fiscal year (October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024) last Friday. If it seems weird that a federal agency should find out how much money it has to spend nearly halfway through that budget year, well, it is. But this is the world we live in, with a fractious Congress unable to agree on much of anything, including budgets.

In any case, NASA's budget for fiscal year 2024 came to $24.9 billion. This represents an approximately 2 percent cut in the space agency's funding relative to the final budget for fiscal year 2023. It's worth noting that the last time NASA's budget decreased from year to year came more than a decade ago, from fiscal year 2012 to 2013. This was due, in large part, to the end of the Space Shuttle program.

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03 Mar 10:59

A Better Use For The AGP Slot, Decades Later

by Jenny List

For a while around a quarter century ago PC motherboards came with a special slot, a little shorter than the PCI slots which ruled the roost back then, and offset from them further into the case. This was the Accelerated Graphics Port, or AGP, a standard created to more quickly serve the 3D graphics cards which were then taking the world by storm. It was everywhere for a few years, then in the mid-2000s it was replaced by PCI Express and faded into obscurity. [Peter] has a Socket 7-based NAS with an AGP slot, and was left wondering whether the unused port could be put to a worthwhile purpose.

AGP is a superset of PCI clocked at 66 MHz, and usually benefiting from having its own exclusive bridge to the processor bus. Thus he reasoned that he could make an AGP to PCI adapter and it might work, as the right connections are all there. A hacked-together version was made by butchering two riser cards, and when a network card worked quite happily he knew he was on to something and made a PCB. There’s a caveat that it only works with 66-MHz capable PCI cards so not everything will work, but if you’re one of the very few people who must be in the market for one, he can do you a PCB.

We’d normally end with a link to a related project here, but we must instead congratulate [Peter]. As far as we can find, this is Hackaday’s first AGP hack, two decades later.

View attached file (agp-pci-featured.jpg, image/jpeg)

27 Feb 23:52

Amazon bricks long-standing Fire TV apps with latest update

by Scharon Harding

The Fire OS home screen advertising Ford.

Amazon has issued an update to Fire TV streaming devices and televisions that has broken apps that let users bypass the Fire OS home screen. The tech giant claims that its latest Fire OS update is about security but has refused to detail any potential security concerns.

Users and app developers have reported that numerous apps that used to work with Fire TV devices for years have suddenly stopped working. As first reported by AFTVnews, the update has made apps unable to establish local Android Debug Bridge (ADB) connections and execute ADB commands with Fire TV devices. The update, Fire OS 7.6.6.9, affects several Fire OS-based TVs, including models from TCL, Toshiba, Hisense, and Amazon’s Fire TV Omni QLED Series. Other devices running the update include Amazon’s first Fire TV Stick 4K Max, the third-generation Fire TV Stick, as well as the third and second-generation Fire TV Cubes and the Fire TV Stick Lite.

A code excerpt shared with AFTVnews by what the publication described as an “affected app developer," which you can view here, shows a line of code indicating that Fire TVs would not be allowed to make ADB connections with a local device or app. As pointed out by AFTVnews, such apps have been used by Fire TV modders for abilities like clearing installed apps’ cache and using a different home screen than the Fire OS default. Other uses include advanced tweaks, like console emulators, as How-To Geek noted.

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25 Jan 06:31

Jon Stewart Is Returning to ‘The Daily Show’

by John Gruber

Angela Yang and Diana Dasrath, reporting for NBC News:

Longtime viewers of “The Daily Show” will soon see a familiar face back in the hosting chair. Jon Stewart, who hosted the show from 1996 to 2015, will return to the program, NBC News has confirmed. [...]

Stewart will host Monday nights through the 2024 election, and then will continue on as executive producer for every episode until the end of this year and the next, according to a news release from Comedy Central. On days Stewart is not hosting, “The Daily Show” will continue to rely on a team of rotating correspondents.

The best TV news I’ve heard in a long while. The problem with The Problem With Jon Stewart on Apple TV+ was that the show was boring. The Daily Show with Stewart hosting was never boring.

★

17 Oct 10:58

AI helps decipher first text of “unreadable” ancient Herculaneum scroll

by Jennifer Ouellette

x-ray image of across fragment showing lettering, with some marked in purple

Hundreds of badly charred ancient Roman scrolls found in a Roman villa have long been believed to be unreadable, but a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has successfully read the first text hidden within one of the rolled-up scrolls using a machine learning model. The achievement snagged Luke Farritor a $40,000 First Letters prize from the Vesuvius Challenge, a collaboration between private entrepreneurs and academics offering a series of rewards for milestones in deciphering the scrolls.

A second contestant, Youssef Nader, received a smaller $10,000 First Ink prize for essentially being the second person to decipher letters in a scroll. The main prize of $700,000 will be awarded to the first person to read four or more passages from one of the scrolls by December 31, and the founders are optimistic that this goal is achievable in light of these most recent breakthroughs.

As previously reported, the ancient Roman resort town Pompeii wasn't the only city destroyed in the catastrophic 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Several other cities in the area, including the wealthy enclave of Herculaneum, were fried by clouds of hot gas called pyroclastic pulses and flows. But still, some remnants of Roman wealth survived. One palatial residence in Herculaneum—believed to have once belonged to a man named Piso—contained hundreds of priceless written scrolls made from papyrus, singed into carbon by volcanic gas.

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05 Oct 07:20

Wednesday assorted links

by Tyler Cowen

1. Lydia Davis update.

2. Soumaya Keynes and Janan Ganesh, both FT columnists, have been on a roll lately. Here is one by Janan, here are the recent ones by Soumaya.

3. Translating Latin demonology manuals with GPT-4 and Claude.

4. Why do some people from the past become memes?

5. The gay younger brothers hypothesis.

The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

26 Mar 08:10

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Theory

by tech@thehiveworks.com

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
This is one of those frustrating comics where the votey, made in 4 seconds, is funnier than the whole comic.

Today's News:

Bea Wolf is available now!

25 Mar 08:19

Two more dead as patients report horrifying details of eye drop outbreak

by Beth Mole

Two more people have died and more details of horrifying eye infections are emerging in a nationwide outbreak linked to recalled eye drops from EzriCare and Delsam.

The death toll now stands at three, according to an outbreak update this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A total of 68 people in 16 states have been infected with a rare, extensively drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain linked to the eye drops. In addition to the deaths, eight people have reported vision loss and four have had their eyeballs surgically removed (enucleation).

In a case report published this week in JAMA Ophthalmology, eye doctors at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, part of the University of Miami Health System, reported details of one case linked to the outbreak—a case in a 72-year-old man who has an ongoing infection in his right eye with vision loss, despite weeks of treatment with multiple antibiotics. When the man first sought treatment he reported pain in his right eye, which only had the ability to detect motion at the point, while his left eye had 20/20 vision. Doctors noted that the white of his right eye was entirely red and white blood cells had visibly pooled on his cornea and in the front inner chamber of his eye.

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18 Mar 03:31

GPT-4

by Tyler Cowen

The post GPT-4 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

22 Dec 02:30

Microsoft sued by Call of Duty gamers opposing Activision merger

by Ashley Belanger

About two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, 10 gamers from California, New Jersey, and New Mexico have banded together to file a lawsuit against Microsoft.

Echoing many of the FTC’s concerns, the gamers are hoping to pressure and prevent Microsoft from closing “the largest tech deal ever in the video gaming market” and, thus, swallowing up its biggest competitor in the game industry.

In their complaint, plaintiffs describe Activision Blizzard as a crucial rival that drives industry-wide innovation and price competition. If the acquisition is allowed, the public could suffer loss and damages because Microsoft would supposedly wield more market power than it already has—suddenly granted “the ability to foreclose rivals, limit output, reduce consumer choice, raise prices, and further inhibit competition."

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17 Oct 11:31

Three years after Half-Life Alyx, Valve registers the "Neon Prime" trademark - California18

What is certain is that Valve is indeed working on new solo projects, as CEO Gabe Newell confirmed last year. The latter had been quite evasive ...

14 Aug 12:18

Steam Users Are Making Portraits of Gabe Newell - Game Rant

Some fans create artwork of Gabe Newell, the CEO of one of the biggest gaming companies in the world and an icon in the industry.

05 Feb 20:02

Sea Chase

There are two rules on this ship: Never gaze back into the projection abyss, and never touch the red button labeled DYMAXION.

jeremy.knobel, Martin and 2 others like this

21 Oct 11:05

Half-Life 2 just got its biggest update in 17 years

Thanks to the success of Half-Life: Alyx, the company is currently working on multiple games — Gabe Newell himself said so.

11 Sep 08:59

Sex can relieve nasal congestion, and other work honored by 2021 Ig Nobels

by Jennifer Ouellette

Watch the 2021 Ig Nobel Prizes virtual ceremony, honoring "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."

Scientists are nothing if not endlessly curious, and sometimes that trait can lead them into unusual research directions. Maybe they find themselves exploring whether sex could be a natural alternative to nasal sprays for relieving nasal congestion, or maybe they'll end up taking the vitals of a rhinoceros while the animal is sedated and suspended from its feet for helicopter transport. Perhaps they might find surprising insights into how cats communicate or into the bacteriomes of discarded wads of chewing gum from different parts of the world. These and other unusual research topics were honored tonight in a virtual ceremony to announce the 2021 recipients of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes. You can watch the livestream of the awards ceremony above.

Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes that honors "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." The unapologetically campy award ceremony usually features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds, and the second in just seven words. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds. And as the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn't mean it is devoid of scientific merit.

Viewers can tune in for the usual 24/7 lectures, as well as the premiere of a miniopera, A Bridge Between People, in which children try to mediate between argumentative adults by building actual tiny suspension bridges between them—in keeping with the evening's theme of engineering. Traditionally, the winners also give public talks in Boston the day after the awards ceremony, although the pandemic put a kibosh on that for the second year in a row. Instead, the winners' talks will once again be given as webcasts a few weeks from now.

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01 Sep 11:14

One Wood Ring To Rule Them All

by Danie Conradie

[Olivier Gomis] did not have access to the fires of Mount Doom to forge a large replica of the One Ring, so he had to settle for patience, maple, and a wood lathe. It does have the added convenience of not needing to fire to expose its true nature, just angry pixies from a wall socket.

[Olivier] made the ring in separate inner and outer sections from 72 blocks of maple. The blocks were glued together in 12-sided rings, and stacked in layers to achieve the desired width. The surfaces were cut smooth and thinned out on a wood lathe, and an internal channel was created for LED strips. The Black Speech was cut through the walls of both the inner and outer surfaces using a manual router. Using the ring itself as a former, he made a wooden base for the router to allow it to slide across the surface without wobbling.

The inside wall was cut into sections and glued into a recess in the external portion. The inscriptions were covered with a maple veneer, which still allows it to be visible when the internal LEDs are switched on. The wiring runs from the base of the stand through an S-shaped stem that was made from layers of veneer clamped in a former. A total of 53 hours of painstaking effort went into this work of art, but the end product would make any hardcore Lord of the Rings fan envious.

For more LOTR-themed hacks, check out the secret door to the Mines of Moria secret door, and a sword that glow blue in the presence of unsecured WiFi.

Thanks for the tip [Keith Olson]!

View attached file (vlcsnap-2021-08-30-14h55m20s180.png, image/png)

18 Jul 20:37

Faulty Electrolytic Caps Don’t Always Look Bad

by Donald Papp

Old electrolytic capacitors are notorious for not working like they used to, but what exactly does a bad capacitor look like, and what kinds of problems can it cause? Usually bad caps leak or bulge, but not always. In [Zak Kemble]’s case, a bad cap caused his Samsung HT-C460 Home Cinema System to simply display “PROT” then turn itself off. Luckily, replacing the troublesome cap fixed everything, but finding the problem in the first place wasn’t quite so straightforward. A visual inspection of the device, shown open in the photo above, didn’t reveal any obvious problems. None of the capacitors looked anything out of the ordinary, but one of them turned out to be the problem anyway.

The output cap had developed an internal short, but visually looked fine.

The first identifiable issue was discovering that the -5 V supply was only outputting about -0.5 V, and there was a 6 V drop across two small 0805-sized resistors, evidence that something was sinking far more current than it should.

Testing revealed that the -5 V regulator wasn’t malfunctioning, and by process of elimination [Zak] finally removed the 470 uF output capacitor on the -5 V output, and the problem disappeared! Inspecting the capacitor revealed no outward sign of malfunction, but it had developed an internal short. [Zak] replaced the faulty cap (and replaced the others just to be safe) and is now looking forward to getting years more of use out of his home cinema system.

When a PSU gives up the ghost, bad capacitors are almost always to blame, but we’ve seen before that it’s not always easy to figure out which ones are bad. One thing that helped [Zak] plenty in his troubleshooting is finding a full schematic of the power supply, just by doing a search for the part number he found on it. A good reminder that it’s always worth throwing a part number into a search engine; you might get lucky!

View attached file (Bad-Cap-Looks-Fine-Featured.jpg, image/jpeg)

29 Jun 16:18

SpaceX sends its Transporter-2 mission into orbit [Updated]

by Eric Berger

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket returns to Earth on Wednesday. [credit: SpaceX ]

Update 3:45 pm EDT 6/30/2021: After a short delay due to weather issues, SpaceX successfully launched its Transporter-2 mission on Wednesday. While the rocket's second stage entered a nominal parking orbit, the first stage safely returned to a landing zone along the Florida coast. This was the company's 20th launch of this year, a cadence of one mission every nine days.

Update 12:15 pm EDT 6/30/2021: SpaceX is preparing, again, to launch its Falcon 9 rocket carrying 88 small satellites for a variety of customers. The 58-minute launch window for the Transporter-2 mission opens at 2:56 pm EDT (18:56 UTC) on Wednesday.

Nothing has been made official, but several sources report that Tuesday's scrub just 11 seconds before liftoff was triggered by a charter helicopter carrying sightseers in the "keep out" zone for the launch. The webcast for today's launch, embedded below, should begin about 15 minutes before the window opens.

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02 Jun 08:46

Not All SpaceX Software Goes To Space

by Roger Cheng

SpaceX has always been willing to break from aerospace tradition if they feel there’s a more pragmatic solution. Today this is most visible in their use of standard construction equipment like cranes in their Starship development facility. But the same focus on problem solving can also be found in their software parts we don’t see. Recently we got two different views behind the scenes. First, a four-part series about “software in space” published by StackOverflow blog, followed quickly by an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on SpaceX Reddit.

Some of the StackOverflow series cover ground that has been previously discussed. Mostly in the first part dealing with their workhorse Falcon and Dragon vehicles, and some in the second part discussing Starlink whose beta program is reaching more and more people. Both confirmed that spaceflight software has to meet very stringent requirements and are mostly close to the metal bespoke C++ code. But we receive fascinating new information in part three, which focuses on code verification and testing. Here they leverage a lot of open source infrastructure more common to software startups than aerospace companies. The fourth and final component of this series covers software to support SpaceX hardware manufacturing, which had been rarely discussed before this point. (Unfortunately, there was nothing about how often SpaceX software developers copy and paste code from StackOverflow.)

The recent Reddit AMA likewise had some overlap with the SpaceX software AMA a year ago, but there were new information about SpaceX work within the past year. There was Crew Dragon’s transition from a test to an operational vehicle, and the aforementioned Starship development program. Our comments section had a lot of discussion about the practicality of touchscreen interfaces in real spacecraft, and here we learn SpaceX put a lot of study into building something functional and effective.

It also showed us that essentially every Sci-Fi Movie Interface was unrealistic and would be unreadable under extreme conditions.

In the course of this research, they learned a lot of pitfalls about fictional touch interfaces. Though to be fair, movie and television spacecraft UI are more concerned about looking cool than being useful.

If the standard AMA format is not to your liking, one of the contributors compiled all SpaceX answers alongside their related questions in a much more readable form here. And even though there’s an obvious recruiting side to these events, we’re happy to learn more about how SpaceX have continued to focus on getting the job done instead of rigidly conforming to aerospace tradition. An attitude that goes all the way back to the beginning of this company.

View attached file (SpaceX-Falcon-and-Dragon-Factory-16x9-1.jpg, image/jpeg)

22 Apr 08:04

Sony takes aim at Xbox Game Pass with PlayStation Plus Video Pass

by Sam Machkovech

The name may not be final, but this image's appearance on official PlayStation servers hints loudly at a PlayStation-exclusive video service in the near future. [credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment ]

As the battle of subscription gaming services heats up, Sony appears poised to offer a new perk to PlayStation console owners: Sony movies with your Sony games.

A logo for a new service, dubbed PlayStation Plus Video Pass, is live on Sony's PlayStation.com servers as of this writing, and it was part of a Polish-language PlayStation promotion spotted by Video Games Chronicle before being taken down. The page in question suggested a two-day test run for this new service, available exclusively to subscribers of Sony's paid PlayStation Plus service, on April 21-22.

While the description of the service was vague, merely mentioning PS Plus Video Pass and a date range, an attached image clarified what PlayStation console owners should expect: three recent films released by Sony Pictures Entertainment (Venom, Bloodshot, and Zombieland: Double Tap). PS Plus Video Pass thus might revolve around films from Sony-owned companies like Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures—but whether additional studios might participate, and exactly how films would be doled out to paying customers, remains unclear.

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atarianer likes this

27 Jan 08:34

How To Run Alternative Batteries On The DJI Mavic Mini

by Lewin Day

Rechargeable batteries are ubiquitous these days, freeing us from the expense and hassle of using disposable cells. However, this has come with the caveat that many manufacturers demand their equipment only be used with their own official batteries. [aeropic] wasn’t a fan of this, so built a circuit to allow his DJI Mavic Mini to fly with any batteries he pleased.

The Mavic Mini uses I2C to communicate with official packs, making the hack relatively straightforward. [aeropic] built a board nicknamed B0B, which tells the drone what it wants to hear and lets it boot up with unofficial batteries installed. The circuit uses a PIC12F1840 to speak to the drone, including reporting voltage on the cells installed. Notably, it only monitors the whole pack, before dividing the voltage to represent the value of individual cells, but it shouldn’t be a major problem in typical use. Combined with a few 3D printed components to hold everything together, it allows you to build your own cheap pack for the Mavic Mini with little more than a PCB and a few 18650 cells.

It’s always good to see hackers getting out and doing the bread and butter work to get around restrictive factory DRM measures, whether its on music, printer cartridges, or drone batteries. We’ve even seen the scourge appear on litter boxes, too. Video after the break.

30 Nov 21:11

Monday assorted links

by Tyler Cowen

1. Canada bans mass export of prescription drugs.

2. Andrew Gelman redux. And my earlier Bloomberg column on Heather Boushey.

3. The cheerleaders at least can earn big bucks (NYT). Arbitrage!

4. Update/revision: Wikipedia presents strongly conflicting accounts of the assassination in Iran.

5. Maybe repealing the Corn Laws didn’t really help Britain? Though it did help lower earners, that being offset in the aggregate by terms of trade effects that harmed the wealthy. Here is a related tweet storm.

6. Agnes Callard, impossible to excerpt, definitely recommended (NYT).

7. Deep Mind solves the protein-folding problem (!).

The post Monday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

23 Nov 00:15

In eigener Sache: Golem-PCs mit Ryzen 5000 und Radeon RX 6800

by Golem.de

Mehr Leistung zum gleichen Preis: Der Golem Highend wurde mit dem Ryzen 5 5600X ausgestattet, die Geforce RTX 3070 kann optional durch eine günstigere und schnellere Radeon RX 6800 ersetzt werden. (Golem.de, Prozessor)

26 Sep 15:42

Windows XP Leak: XP hatte eine geheime MacOS-ähnliche Oberfläche

by Werner Pluta

Wollte Microsoft Windows XP wie Apples Oberfläche Aqua aussehen lassen? (Windows XP, Mac OS X)

26 Jan 11:24

Ubuntu Publish ‘Introduction to Snap Apps’ Video

by Joey Sneddon

intro to snap apps video Everything you ever wanted to know about Snap apps in one concise video — sound good? If so, the latest video uploaded to the Ubuntu YouTube channel should appeal. The 8 minute clip whips through the architecture, packaging and management capabilities of Snap applications over traditional software distribution models, and features a healthy dose of […]

This post, Ubuntu Publish ‘Introduction to Snap Apps’ Video, was written by Joey Sneddon and first appeared on OMG! Ubuntu!.

Anbarasan Gangadaran likes this

23 May 19:43

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Why

by tech@thehiveworks.com

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Politics is like marriage - the goal is to win.

New comic!
Today's News:

Mumtaz Mangi, Daniel and one other like this

25 Nov 17:43

No Man’s Sky base-building update this week

by Adam Smith

Hello Games have announced a major update for No Man’s Sky [official site], to be released this week. Called the Foundation Update perhaps for Asimovian reasons, but mainly because it adds “the foundations of base building, and also because this is putting in place a foundation for things to come”, it apparently won’t be the biggest update for the game, but it’ll certainly be the biggest one yet.

… [visit site to read more]

15 Aug 19:06

Conflicks Revolutionary Space Battles Is An RTS About Chickens

by Emily Gera

Olympus Mons, Mars. The year is 1789. It’s a time of musketeers and galactic hens.

Conflicks: Revolutionary Space Battles, which is hitting steam in just a week, is the story of strategy and physics and revolts and chickens. It takes place in a futuristic alternate history of the European Renaissance – a time period that combines the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries with absurdist sci-fi and the blending power of a Cuisinart. There’s more information and a trailer below.

… [visit site to read more]

24 Mar 09:45

Pannen-Video von der “Cinema for Peace”-Gala aufgetaucht

by Mikael in den Fahrt

Die Yes Men und das Peng Collective hatten auf der “Cinema for Peace”-Gala eine Aktion gegen den Klimawandel vom Zaun gebrochen. Im Nachspiel gab es zuletzt Abmahnungen gegen taz und Tagesspiegel wegen deren kritischer Berichterstattung. Im Rahmen des Abmahnverfahrens sind heute ein Entschuldigungsschreiben der Aktivisten an Natalie Portman und ein Video des Abends aufgetaucht, das ganz gut zeigt, dass der Gala-Abend alles andere als geplant verlief: