| An Asteroid Just Passed Within 180,000 Miles of Earth Jul 1st 2024, 03:34, by EditorDavid game of Asteroids An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill: An asteroid the size of a football stadium threaded the needle between Earth and the moon Saturday morning — the second of two astronomical near misses in three days. Near miss, in this case, is a relative term: Saturday's asteroid, 2024 MK, came within 180,000 miles of Earth. On Thursday, meanwhile, asteroid 2011 UL21 flew within 4 million miles. But the Saturday passage of 2024 MK — which scientists discovered only two weeks ago — coincides with a sobering reminder of threats from space. Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town — the sort of danger that, astronomers warn, is always lurking as the Earth hurtles through space... In 2013, for instance, an asteroid about 62 feet across that broke apart nearly 20 miles above Siberia released 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. While most of the impact energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, the detonation triggered a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than a thousand people. The article points out that if Saturday's asteroid had hit earth, the impact would have "the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton," Peter Brown of Canada's Western University told the Canadian Broadcasting Service. (For comparison, most hydrogen bombs are in the 50-megaton range.) Brown said "It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world." Meanwhile, the article adds that last Thursday's asteroid — "while it was comfortably far out in space" — was the size of Mt. Everest. "At 1.5 miles in diameter, that asteroid was about a quarter the size of the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out all dinosaurs that walked, as well as the majority of life on earth." But the risk of a collision like that "is very, very low." NASA has estimated that a civilization-ending event (like the collision of an asteroid the size of Thursday's with the Earth) should only happen every few million years. And such an impact from an asteroid half a mile in diameter or bigger will be almost impossible for a very long time, according to findings published last year in The Astronomical Journal. NASA's catalog of large and dangerous objects like 2011 UL21 is now 95 percent complete, MIT Technology Review reported.   Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' to Become a Series on Apple TV+ Jul 1st 2024, 01:34, by EditorDavid It's been adapted into a graphic novel, a videogame, a radio play, and an opera, according to Wikipedia — which also describes years of trying to adapt Neuromancer into a movie. "The landmark 1984 cyberpunk novel has been on Hollywood's wishlist for decades," writes Gizmodo, "with multiple filmmakers attempting to bring it to the big screen." (Back in 2010, Slashdot's CmdrTaco even posted an update with the headline "Neuromancer Movie In Your Future?" with a 2011 story promising the movie deal was "moving forward....") But now Deadline reports it's becoming a 10-episode series on Apple TV+ (co-produced by Apple Studios) starring Callum Turner and Brianna Middleton: Created for television by Graham Roland and JD Dillard, Neuromancer follows a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case (Turner) who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly (Middleton), a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets. More from Gizmodo: "We're incredibly excited to be bringing this iconic property to Apple TV+," Roland and Dillard said in a statement. "Since we became friends nearly 10 years ago, we've looked for something to team up on, so this collaboration marks a dream come true. Neuromancer has inspired so much of the science fiction that's come after it and we're looking forward to bringing television audiences into Gibson's definitive 'cyberpunk' world." The novel launched Gibson's "Sprawl" trilogy of novels (building on the dystopia in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome"), also resurrecting the "Molly Millions" character from Johnny Mnemonic — an even earlier short story from 1981... Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Caching Is Key, and SIEVE Is Better Than LRU Jun 30th 2024, 23:40, by EditorDavid USENIX, the long-running OS/networking research group, also publishes a magazine called ;login:. Today the magazine's editor — security consultant Rik Farrow — stopped by Slashdot to share some new research. rikfarrow writes: Caching means using faster memory to store frequently requested data, and the most commonly used algorithm for determining which items to discard when the cache is full is Least Recently Used [or "LRU"]. These researchers have come up with a more efficient and scalable method that uses just a few lines of code to convert LRU to SIEVE. Just like a sieve, it sifts through objects (using a pointer called a "hand") to "filter out unpopular objects and retain the popular ones," with popularity based on a single bit that tracks whether a cached object has been visited: As the "hand" moves from the tail (the oldest object) to the head (the newest object), objects that have not been visited are evicted... During the subsequent rounds of sifting, if objects that survived previous rounds remain popular, they will stay in the cache. In such a case, since most old objects are not evicted, the eviction hand quickly moves past the old popular objects to the queue positions close to the head. This allows newly inserted objects to be quickly assessed and evicted, putting greater eviction pressure on unpopular items (such as "one-hit wonders") than LRU-based eviction algorithms. It's an example of "lazy promotion and quick demotion". Popular objects get retained with minimal effort, with quick demotion "critical because most objects are not reused before eviction." After 1559 traces (of 247,017 million requests to 14,852 million objects), they found SIEVE reduces the miss ratio (when needed data isn't in the cache) by more than 42% on 10% of the traces with a mean of 21%, when compared to FIFO. (And it was also faster and more scalable than LRU.) "SIEVE not only achieves better efficiency, higher throughput, and better scalability, but it is also very simple." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Boeing Fraud Violated Fatal MAX Crash Settlement, Says Justice Department, Seeking Guilty Plea on Criminal Charges Jun 30th 2024, 21:28, by EditorDavid America's Justice Department "is pushing for Boeing to plead guilty to a criminal charge," reports Reuters, "after finding the planemaker violated a settlement over fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday." Boeing previously paid $2.5 billion as part of the deal with prosecutors that granted the company immunity from criminal prosecution over a fraud conspiracy charge related to the 737 MAX's flawed design. Boeing had to abide by the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement for a three-year period that ended on Jan. 7. Prosecutors would then have been poised to ask a judge to dismiss the fraud conspiracy charge. But in May, the Justice Department found Boeing breached the agreement, exposing the company to prosecution. A guilty plea could "carry implications for Boeing's ability to enter into government contracts," the article points out, "such as those with the U.S. military that make up a significant portion of its revenue..." The proposal would require Boeing to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in connection with the fatal crashes, the sources said. The proposed agreement also includes a $487.2 million financial penalty, only half of which Boeing would be required to pay, they added. That is because prosecutors are giving the company credit for a payment it made as part of the previous settlement related to the fatal crashes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights. Boeing could also likely be forced to pay restitution under the proposal's terms, the amount of which will be at a judge's discretion, the sources said. The offer also contemplates subjecting Boeing to three years of probation, the people said. The plea deal would also require Boeing's board to meet with victims' relatives and impose an independent monitor to audit the company's safety and compliance practices for three years, they said. "Should Boeing refuse to plead guilty, prosecutors plan to take the company to trial, they said..." the article points out. "Justice Department officials revealed their decision to victims' family members during a call earlier on Sunday." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | A 'Safe' Chemical in Plastic Bottles Could Reduce Insulin Responsiveness, Increase Diabetes Risk Jun 30th 2024, 20:19, by EditorDavid A new study "has found direct evidence linking a key chemical ingredient of plastic bottles to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes," reports the Independent: The study, published in the journal Diabetes, found that the chemical BPA used to make food and drink packages, including plastic water bottles, can reduce sensitivity to the hormone insulin which regulates the body's sugar metabolism. The findings, to be presented at the 2024 Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, call for the US Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the safe limits for exposure to BPA in bottles and food containers. Previous studies have already shown that the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) used to make plastic and epoxy resins could disrupt hormones in humans. While research has linked BPA to diabetes, no previous study has directly assessed if administration of this chemical to humans increases this risk in adults. The researchers administered the dosage considered safe by America's FDA to about 20 individuals — and discovered they became less responsive to insulin after 4 days. The article includes this warning from the researchers: "These results suggest that maybe the U.S. EPA safe dose should be reconsidered and that healthcare providers could suggest these changes to patients." Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the news. Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way to Charge Your Smartphone Battery? Jun 30th 2024, 18:48, by EditorDavid To stop their smartphone battery from swelling, long-time Slashdot reader shanen bought a Samsung Galaxy with a "restrictive charging option." But what setting should they use? The way this battery protection option worked was to stop charging the phone at 85%. That left me enough charge for my normal daily travels, which rarely took the phone below 50%, and the battery remained unswollen after a year, which included a month of quite heavy tethering, too. Unfortunately... After a recent upgrade, now my Galaxy has three options for the battery where it had two. The 85% option is still there, but it has been lowered to 80%. I've been using that for now and it still seems good enough. However my main concern is with the best option to maximize the overall lifespan of the smartphone... The other old option says something about using AI to control the battery charging, but I don't trust it and think it is just the old approach that causes phones to die quickly... The new third option is the one that is interesting me. This seems to be a kind of flutter charge where the phone will charge to 100% and then stop until it has dropped to 95% before charging again, even if it remains plugged in. This sounds attractive and would give me more battery insurance when I'm traveling, but maybe it reduces the overall lifetime of the phone? They tried getting answers from Samsung, but "I think I have been flagged as a low-profit customer." And of course, this raises several other questions? (Are other smartphones better? Have iPhones solved the battery-swelling issue?) And most importantly: is there a way to charge batteries without reducing their lifespan? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments. What's the best way to charge your smartphone battery? Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Chinese Space Company's Static Rocket Test Ends In Premature Launch, Huge Explosion Jun 30th 2024, 17:34, by EditorDavid Commercial space efforts continue around the world, as the Chinese company Space Pioneer fired up a partially-fueled rocket engine Sunday for a short-duration test of its reusable rocket on the ground. But Space News reports that the test "ended in catastrophic failure and a dramatic explosion." "Amateur footage captured by Gongyi citizens and posted on Chinese social media shows the nine-engine test stage igntiing and then, exceptionally, taking off." Hold-down clamps and other structures are typically used to securely keep stages in place. The stage is seen climbing into the sky before halting, apparently with its engines shutting off, and returning to Earth. The stage impacted the ground around 50 seconds after it took off, apparently with much of its kerosene-liquid oxygen propellant remaining, causing a large explosion. The Tianlong-3 first stage would likely fire for a number of minutes on an orbital flight. Space Pioneer was conducting its test as a buildup to an orbital launch of the Tianlong-3, which is benchmarked against the SpaceX Falcon 9, in the coming months. The company announced earlier this month that it has secured $207 million in new funding. Shanghai-based digital newspaper The Paper reported Henan officials as saying there were no casualties reported. Space Pioneer issued its own statement later, stating there was a structural failure at the connection between the rocket body and the test bench. The rocket's onboard computer automatically shut down the engines and the rocket fell 1.5 kilometers southwest. It reiterated earlier reports that no casualties were found. The company said the test produced 820 tons of thrust. The article speculates on whether the event will delay the development of the rocket — or the planned launches for a Chinese megaconstellation of satellites. "Space Pioneer says it will conduct an analysis and restart testing with new hardware as soon as possible." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | | Is AI's Demand for Energy Really 'Insatiable'? Jun 30th 2024, 16:34, by EditorDavid Bloomberg and The Washington Post "claim AI power usage is dire," writes Slashdot reader NoWayNoShapeNoForm. But Ars Technica "begs to disagree with those speculations." From Ars Technica's article: The high-profile pieces lean heavily on recent projections from Goldman Sachs and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to cast AI's "insatiable" demand for energy as an almost apocalyptic threat to our power infrastructure. The Post piece even cites anonymous "some [people]" in reporting that "some worry whether there will be enough electricity to meet [the power demands] from any source." Digging into the best available numbers and projections available, though, it's hard to see AI's current and near-future environmental impact in such a dire light... While the headline focus of both Bloomberg and The Washington Post's recent pieces is on artificial intelligence, the actual numbers and projections cited in both pieces overwhelmingly focus on the energy used by Internet "data centers" as a whole... Bloomberg asks one source directly "why data centers were suddenly sucking up so much power" and gets back a blunt answer: "It's AI... It's 10 to 15 times the amount of electricity." Unfortunately for Bloomberg, that quote is followed almost immediately by a chart that heavily undercuts the AI alarmism. That chart shows worldwide data center energy usage growing at a remarkably steady pace from about 100 TWh in 2012 to around 350 TWh in 2024. The vast majority of that energy usage growth came before 2022, when the launch of tools like Dall-E and ChatGPT largely set off the industry's current mania for generative AI. If you squint at Bloomberg's graph, you can almost see the growth in energy usage slowing down a bit since that momentous year for generative AI. Ars Technica first cites Dutch researcher Alex de Vries's estimate that in a few years the AI sector could use between 85 and 134 TWh of power. But another study estimated in 2018 that PC gaming already accounted for 75 TWh of electricity use per year, while "the IEA estimates crypto mining ate up 110 TWh of electricity in 2022." More to the point, de Vries' AI energy estimates are only a small fraction of the 620 to 1,050 TWh that data centers as a whole are projected to use by 2026, according to the IEA's recent report. The vast majority of all that data center power will still be going to more mundane Internet infrastructure that we all take for granted (and which is not nearly as sexy of a headline bogeyman as "AI"). The future is also hard to predict, the article concludes. "If customers don't respond to the hype by actually spending significant money on generative AI at some point, the tech-marketing machine will largely move on, as it did very recently with the metaverse and NFTs..." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | |
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