Ain't technology grand?

[samhexum]

@RadioRob answers all your phone questions...

[samhexum]

Nothing much has changed in the world in the last 25 years…

My brother-in-law is watching the Yankee game on his phone while in London to watch the Mets play the Phillies after seeing a hologram show by a group that broke up 42 years ago. 
 

 

[+ Charlie]

17 hours ago, samhexum said:

Nothing much has changed in the world in the last 25 years…

My brother-in-law is watching the Yankee game on his phone while in London to watch the Mets play the Phillies after seeing a hologram show by a group that broke up 42 years ago. 
 

 

IMG_3965.3gp

Yesterday I phoned a friend in London to wish him a happy birthday, but he wasn't home, so I left a voicemail on his home phone. Then I sat down at my computer to write him an email, but as I was about to hit SEND, my cell phone rang, and it was my friend, who had accessed his voice mail in London and was face-timing me from somewhere in rural France. We had a nice face-to-face chat. (Then, of course, we both had a problem trying to figure out how to end the face-time function.)

[samhexum]

[samhexum]

[samhexum]

[samhexum]

The truth about @RadioRob:

 

[samhexum]

NASA’s Curiosity rover made a “mind-blowing” discovery on Mars — yellowish-green crystals of pure sulfur, never before seen on Earth’s mysterious red neighbor, according to scientists.

The literal ground-breaking find was made after the one-ton Curiosity drove over a pile of rocks and cracked one open while probing the deep and winding Gediz Vallis channel, believed to have been formed by water 3 billion years ago.

“I think it’s the strangest find of the whole mission and the most unexpected,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL] in Pasadena, California, told CNN. “I have to say, there’s a lot of luck involved here. Not every rock has something interesting inside.”

The rover’s operators spotted white stones in the distance and mission scientists wanted to investigate further. On May 30, Vasavada and his team reviewed images from the rover that showed a crushed rock in the wheel’s tracks.

What they saw when they zoomed in was “mind-blowing,” he said., as they viewed the  “gorgeous texture and color inside” of what had initially appeared to be a typical Martian rock.

They were even more shocked when analysis proved it was completely sulfur.

“No one had pure sulfur on their bingo card,” Vasavada said.

Sulfur rocks are usually “beautiful, translucent and crystalline,” according to Vasadava — but the millions of years of weathering sandblasted the rocks’ exterior, blending them with the rest of the orange Martian landscape.

Curiosity had previously discovered a number of sulfates, or salts that contain sulfur that are formed when water evaporates. Pure sulfur only forms on Earth under extreme conditions, such as volcanic processes or in hot springs, CNN reported.

The Gediz Vallis channel is dug out on the sides of the 3-mile-tall Mount Sharp, which the rover has been steadily climbing for 10 years.

The rock was broken open when Curiosity ran it over

Curiosity snapped a photo of a rock nicknamed ‘Snow Lake’ in June, which is similar to the rock the rover smashed.

 

[samhexum]

ABBA VOYAGE:

My brother in law told me that the only video they produced for the album, in which they had the one minute clip of the ABBAtars, was their test run, and Frida never blinks during it.

However, during the show, not only do they blink, they sweat. And each of them steps forward and talks to the audience at some point and he thinks AI is being used because it seems like they wait for the audience reaction to die down before they continue speaking. 

[SD_Exec]

On 6/10/2024 at 1:08 AM, samhexum said:

Genius

[samhexum]

A study released Monday using data from NASA’s Mars InSight lander shows evidence of liquid water far below the surface of the fourth planet, advancing the search for life there and showing what might have happened to Mars’ ancient oceans.

The lander, which has been on the red planet since 2018, measured seismic data over four years, examining how quakes shook the ground and determining what materials or substances were beneath the surface.

Based on that data, the researchers found liquid water was most likely present deep beneath the lander. Water is considered essential for life, and geological studies show the planet’s surface had lakes, rivers and oceans more than 3 billion years ago.

“On Earth what we know is where it is wet enough and there are enough sources of energy, there is microbial life very deep in Earth’s subsurface,” said one of the authors, Vashan Wright of the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The ingredients for life as we know it exist in the Martian subsurface if these interpretations are correct.”

The study found that large reservoirs of liquid water in fractures 11.5 kilometres (7.15 miles) to 20km (12.43 miles) beneath the surface best explained the InSight measurements.

“On Earth, groundwater infiltrated from the surface” to deep underground, Wright said. “We expect this process to have occurred on Mars as well when the upper crust was warmer than it is today.”

There is no way to directly study water that deep beneath the surface of Mars, but the authors said the results “have implications for understanding Mars’ water cycle, determining the fates of past surface water, searching for past or extant life, and assessing in situ resource utilization for future missions.”

The study, whose other authors are Matthias Morzfeld of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Michael Manga of the University of California Berkeley, was published the week of Aug. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I’m inspired and I hope the public is also inspired,” Wright said. “Humans can work together to put instruments on a planet … and try to understand what’s going on there.”

https://nypost.com/2024/08/13/world-news/ocean-with-life-giving-liquid-water-found-on-martian-subsurface-in-stunning-discovery/

Edited August 13, 2024 by samhexum
because he's bored as hell

[samhexum]

• Waymo robotaxis wake sleeping San Fran residents with honking horns while parking at 4 a.m.

[mike carey]

6 hours ago, samhexum said:

A study released Monday using data from NASA’s Mars InSight lander shows evidence of liquid water far below the surface of the fourth planet, advancing the search for life there and showing what might have happened to Mars’ ancient oceans.

The lander, which has been on the red planet since 2018, measured seismic data over four years, examining how quakes shook the ground and determining what materials or substances were beneath the surface.

Based on that data, the researchers found liquid water was most likely present deep beneath the lander. Water is considered essential for life, and geological studies show the planet’s surface had lakes, rivers and oceans more than 3 billion years ago.

“On Earth what we know is where it is wet enough and there are enough sources of energy, there is microbial life very deep in Earth’s subsurface,” said one of the authors, Vashan Wright of the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The ingredients for life as we know it exist in the Martian subsurface if these interpretations are correct.”

The study found that large reservoirs of liquid water in fractures 11.5 kilometres (7.15 miles) to 20km (12.43 miles) beneath the surface best explained the InSight measurements.

“On Earth, groundwater infiltrated from the surface” to deep underground, Wright said. “We expect this process to have occurred on Mars as well when the upper crust was warmer than it is today.”

There is no way to directly study water that deep beneath the surface of Mars, but the authors said the results “have implications for understanding Mars’ water cycle, determining the fates of past surface water, searching for past or extant life, and assessing in situ resource utilization for future missions.”

The study, whose other authors are Matthias Morzfeld of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Michael Manga of the University of California Berkeley, was published the week of Aug. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I’m inspired and I hope the public is also inspired,” Wright said. “Humans can work together to put instruments on a planet … and try to understand what’s going on there.”

https://nypost.com/2024/08/13/world-news/ocean-with-life-giving-liquid-water-found-on-martian-subsurface-in-stunning-discovery/

This was all over the ABC news yesterday, including an interview with Professor Manga. I don't recall whether it was him or another talking head that said the amount of water could be enough to cover the Martian surface to a depth of up to 2 metres (although that assumes that the surface is flat, which it's not, for example the volcano Olympus Mons is 21.9 km high, 2.5 times the height of Everest). I found it amazing the detail they can deduce about the Martian interior from the returns collected by a seismograph.

[samhexum]

OYSTERS - Nature's Technological Wonders!

New York Harbor is getting a pearl of underwater development off the shores of Brooklyn — one that will rival Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in terms of ecological importance.

The Billion Oyster Project, a local environmental organization, announced the construction of a new oyster reef in Paerdegat Basin, a channel that connects to Jamaica Bay, located just a few yards away from the Canarsie shoreline. The underwater marine project is set to kick off next summer and, by its completion in 2029, will be home to approximately 90 million oysters.

This is not the first oyster reef the organization has made in New York City, but at 6.5 acres in size, it will be one of its larger installations.

“It is a unique site for us because it’s close to shore and in shallow water,” explained Pete Malinowski, executive director of the Billion Oyster Project. “All the reef structures will be under water all the time right below the surface. And the reef will actually help protect some of the restored shoreline in the basin.”

So…why build an oyster reef in NYC?

To start, oysters were once abundant in Big Apple waters until humans ate many of them. But they’re not just a delicacy; the mollusks are also pivotal for healthy aquatic habitats.

“We’re very excited throughout the harbor to rebuild this three-dimensional habitat that used to be here, and through that work, provide homes and food for millions and millions of sea creatures that used to thrive in New York Harbor,” Malinowski said.

Some of those creatures expected to return to the new reef include crabs, shrimp, dozens of fish species, and other marine life.

Scientists consider oysters a keystone species for protecting shorelines in New York City and other areas and the animals who live there. Oyster reefs may not be as colorful as, say, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, but their role in the environment is just as important.

“They’re ecosystem engineers,” Malinowski said. “Oysters, just like coral reefs. Coral is that keystone species that builds that three-dimensional reef. Without oysters, there are no oyster reefs. Without oyster reefs, there is none of that habitat.”

What does it take to build an oyster reef in NYC?

The project, which is supported by a $968,000 grant from House Minority Leader and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, will provide lots of on-water learning opportunities for thousands of Brooklyn students. The Billion Oyster Project’s education and community engagement departments work to engage schools and other groups with their projects.

“Reef installations like this one in Paerdegat Basin are opportunities to make that learning real for students,” Malinowski said.

Constructing the reef will include the placement of 1,015 concrete reef balls that are designed to protect the low-lying shore from storm surge in increasing significant storm events. And, it will reduce erosion throughout the basin.

The Billion Oyster Program incorporates oyster larvae, imported from East Coast hatcheries, into tanks with reef structures. The larvae swim around and attach to the reef balls or other items in the tank. Eventually the concrete balls, covered with oysters, go into the water.

Water quality in the Paerdegat Basin was poor for quite a long time, but has seen an improvement in recent years, Malinowski explained, because of work the NYC Department of Environmental Protection has done to install holding tanks and store and treat wastewater.

Just like the Department of Environmental Protection, these little bivalves will also help keep New York’s waters clean. Adult oysters are filter feeders that keep waters clean by gobbling up pollutants. One adult oyster cleans about 50 gallons of water each day.

[samhexum]

The entire island of Cuba is without power as their aging electrical infrastructure failed today after a problem at a power plant.

[Welshman]

8 hours ago, samhexum said:

The entire island of Cuba is without power as their aging electrical infrastructure failed today after a problem at a power plant.

Indeed it has, because as you point out their infrastructure is at least a century old (not helped by the constant US blockades on trade with the island)

[samhexum]

After a brief period with power this morning, it happened again.

[samhexum]

Typing with long nails can be cumbersome and time-consuming, despite the satisfying sound of a click on the keys.

It was a daily struggle faced by Sara Young Wang, whose manicure dilemma inspired her to create the Tippy Type, a $45 keyboard cover designed with long-nailed girlies in mind.

“Honestly, I know it’s such a small thing and many might say to just cut them and move on, but my long nails bring me a lot of joy and to think about having to live without them just made me sad,” she told The Post. “It felt like I was losing a fun form of self-expression and play.”

The Tippy Type — a silicone keyboard cover with raised keys to allow for easier typing — has become a viral sensation among clawed corporate employees who are refusing to trim their long nails for workplace efficiency.

“This is such an amazing invention for people that like to have their long nails and they have an office job,” Meraki, a content creator, said in a recent video on TikTok.

Another content creator named Karina told her audience that she spends her entire day typing meeting notes or sending emails. She also gushed over the product online after purchasing one earlier this month.

“This is what happens when you let women invent things,” said another TikToker named Aleisa, who, in a recent online clip, demonstrated how to use the keyboard and rejoiced at the prospect of being able to type with nail extensions.

Meanwhile, Wang says she’s seen the product described as a “game changer” and “life hack,” as satisfied customers vow they’re “never going back” to regular keyboards because they “can’t type without it now.”

“Millions of eyes have now seen tippy type, which has helped us build our community of like-minded individuals practically overnight, all linked by a common goal: to be able to experience the joy of nails while working efficiently,” she told The Post.

“We are so grateful for the interest in our products and feel good that we are actively solving a severely overlooked problem that so many are sharing and experiencing.”

 

After launching earlier this spring, Tippy Type hit the jackpot with an Instagram Reel that went viral by chance, which opened the “floodgates” for sales, with more demand than supply.

Now, the company can barely keep product in stock, regularly selling out whenever the item starts circulated on social media.

The rampant success has bolstered the company’s ability to provide a wider range of products and they now offer a preorder option so that eager customers can “reserve their spot in line.”

While the Tippy Type currently accommodates medium-long nails, Wang is looking to expand after receiving an onslaught of requests for new colors, international keyboards, covers made to fit an array of device models and even a version made specifically for gamers.

“I want anyone who loves long nails to be able to have them and be able to type comfortably and well. The idea of sacrificing this joy and style for the utility of typing just didn’t sit well with me,” she said.

“It makes me feel like we are on the right path in terms of enhancing the overall joy and quality of people’s lives.”

[samhexum]

Most of Cuba will be without power until tomorrow night and now they have been hit by a hurricane.

[samhexum]

Sometimes the best technology is NO technology...

 

It would probably pretty alarming to learn that, in the early 1980s, scientists decided to drop off a bunch of gophers at the site of a volcanic eruption. But don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

In fact, according to a new report from the University of California, this particular gopher-volcano encounter proved to be such a net positive that its effects are still being felt 40 years later.

It starts with the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May of 1980. It was the most destructive volcanic event in American history, claiming 57 lives and causing staggering ecological damage. Faced with a devastation that would take the local environment a substantial amount of time to recover from, scientists were open to unorthodox ideas that might speed the process along. So they did what any reasonable person would decide to do and tossed a couple of gophers at the issue. Seriously.

Specifically, as laid out in the University of California’s report, the thinking was “by digging up beneficial bacteria and fungi, gophers might be able to help regenerate lost plant and animal life on the mountain.” So, just two years after the devastating eruption, that’s exactly what scientists did. They gathered up some gophers, brought them to the eruption site, and let them do their gopher thing.

“They’re often considered pests,” notes UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen, “but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur.”

Before the gopher drop-off, only about a dozen plants were reported to have emerged from the pumice slabs that Mount St. Helens eruption had turned the land into. But six years after the gophers were placed on two specific plots of pumice for a single day “there were 40,000 plants thriving.” Meanwhile, the area around those plots, which had not been gopher-ed, was still barren.

To see these changes six years on was impressive, but nobody could have imagined that the benefits of this single day of gopher intervention could still be seen decades later. But that’s precisely what an article published in the journal Frontiers earlier this month indicates. 40 years on, the article noted, the microbial community fostered within those plots, specifically mycorrhizal fungi, are still allowing plant life to thrive in the area.

“These trees have their own mycorrhizal fungi that picked up nutrients from the dropped needles and helped fuel rapid tree regrowth,” the paper’s co-author Emma Aronson said of the fungi’s importance, “The trees came back almost immediately in some places. It didn’t all die like everyone thought.”

Naturally, one takeaway from this paper is, as University of Connecticut mycologist Mia Maltz summarizes, that “we cannot ignore the interdependence of all things in nature, especially the things we cannot see like microbes and fungi.”

But another takeaway is that, when in doubt, and the situation seems grim, just toss a couple of gophers at the problem and see if that does anything. It might just work!

 

[samhexum]

FREE Voice Activated Butt Plug! 

[samhexum]

Robber busted in driverless Waymo taxi — when it pulls over after detecting sirens

[samhexum]

On 7/21/2024 at 10:23 AM, samhexum said:

NASA’s Curiosity rover made a “mind-blowing” discovery on Mars —

A STOUFFER'S FRENCH BREAD PIZZA

[samhexum]

For various reasons, it made sense for me to order groceries this morning from Walmart. They sent a driver who didn't speak English so after the 8th attempt to unlock the front door of the building with the app on my phone and him saying not open, I asked several times if he was at my address. Answer? First silence, then "No English", then he hung up. Two minutes later I got a text showing that my order had been delivered and left in front of a red door.  I guess someone had let him into the building.  Only one teensy-weensy little problem... our doors are tan.

Tore out my hair out dealing with the AI to get to a person to refund the order.  Placed another.  EXACT same thing happened, except I eventually got a text saying we couldn't deliver AND found one from the shopper from 15 minutes earlier in Spanish telling me (I think) that his GPS took him to an an address # totally different than mine so I knew where he was... a building on a cross street across from the other end of my block.  I had a driver last year who actually spoke English tell me that happened to him but he could understand me when he called, so at least I got that order (minus the stuff that was ruined when half of my gallon of milk leaked out).

I guess brand new still-in-development-stage technology like GPS just doesn't work in remote, underdeveloped wildernesses like NYC.  No wonder the fees are so high...  I have to pay for the R&D that makes this form of grocery shopping so efficient and worth having my blood pressure skyrocket all day and being too annoyed and short-tempered to work on another problem I am trying to get resolved this week with another company (which is one of the reasons I thought it would be worth it to pay for that bargain delivery)... which makes winding up with no food at all at the end of a totally wasted day SOOOOOOOOOOOOO worthwhile.

But grocery delivery is such a bargain, right?  Actually, when StopnShop had their own delivery fleet they were very good and cheap enough and their customer service was easy to reach and generous with refunds and credits.  Alas, they gave it up and now use InstaRipOff.

Edited April 24 by samhexum
for absolutely NO @%!*ING reason at all!

[Archangel]

There is a lot of verbal vomit in this thread. I recommend taking some muting mylanta.