The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction
https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/08/the-strange-secretive-world-of-north-korean-science-fiction/ [arstechnica.com]
2023-08-25 21:07
tags:
fiction
future
hoipolloi
policy
Stories often touch on topics like space travel, benevolent robots, disease-curing nanobots, and deep-sea exploration. They lack aliens and beings with superpowers. Instead, the real superheroes are the exceptional North Korean scientists and technologists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
These stories are often rich in political tension, featuring “breathtaking confrontations between North Korea and the United States,” said Jang Hyuk, a young math graduate who defected from North Korea a few years ago. As in Change Course, North Koreans in sci-fi are typically portrayed as trying to save somebody, while the Americans are the villains who want “to monopolize and weaponize [technology] to dominate the world,” he added.
To a Western reader, such plots might seem ludicrous, perhaps designed to boost the confidence of a nation with little contact with the rest of the world. However, exploring them deeper might reveal a more nuanced layer of understanding.
source: ars
Animal personalities can trip up science, but there’s a solution
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/animal-personalities-can-trip-up-science-but-theres-a-solution/ [arstechnica.com]
2023-03-13 04:03
tags:
ideas
paper
science
Scientists are increasingly realizing that animals, like people, are individuals. They have distinct tendencies, habits and life experiences that may affect how they perform in an experiment. That means, some researchers argue, that much published research on animal behavior may be biased. Studies claiming to show something about a species as a whole—that green sea turtles migrate a certain distance, say, or how chaffinches respond to the song of a rival—may say more about individual animals that were captured or housed in a certain way, or that share certain genetic features. That’s a problem for researchers who seek to understand how animals sense their environments, gain new knowledge and live their lives.
source: ars
Researchers make their own enzyme pathway to get CO₂ out of the air
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/researchers-make-their-own-enzyme-pathway-to-get-co₂-out-of-the-air/ [arstechnica.com]
2021-01-05 23:56
tags:
biology
chemistry
energy
paper
science
Before this century is over, we’re almost certainly going to need to pull massive amounts of carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. While we already know how to do carbon capture and storage, it takes a fair amount of energy and equipment, and someone has to pay for all that. It would be far more economical to pull CO2 out of the air if we could convert it to a useful product, like jet fuel. But processes like that also take a lot of energy, plus raw materials like hydrogen that take energy to create.
Plants and a huge range of microbes successfully pull carbon dioxide out of the air and use it to produce all sorts of complicated (and valuable!) chemicals. But the pathways they use to incorporate CO2 aren’t very efficient, so they can’t fix enough of the greenhouse gas or incorporate it into enough product to be especially useful. That has led a lot of people to look into re-engineering an enzyme that’s central to photosynthesis. But a team of European researchers has taken a radically different approach: engineering an entirely new biochemical pathway that incorporates the carbon of CO2 into molecules critical for the cell’s basic metabolism.
source: ars
Over 200 offensive slurs could soon be banned from competitive Scrabble
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/scrabble-players-move-toward-banning-200-slurs-from-tournament-play/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-07-08 16:10
tags:
gaming
language
The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) seems poised to remove hundreds of offensive slurs from tournament-level Scrabble play.
Words that are “used to cause offense on scatological, prurient, profane or other grounds” are not under discussion this time around. NASPA publishes an obfuscated, anagrammed list of which offensive words fall into each category.
source: ars
Penguin poop creates a buttload of laughing gas
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/penguin-poop-creates-a-buttload-of-laughing-gas-researchers-find/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-05-25 18:29
tags:
biology
science
Gobs of guano from king penguins in the sub-Antarctic give rise to comical clouds of nitrous oxide—aka laughing gas—according to a recent study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
source: ars
ZFS versus RAID: Eight Ironwolf disks, two filesystems, one winner
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/zfs-versus-raid-eight-ironwolf-disks-two-filesystems-one-winner/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-05-18 19:32
tags:
admin
benchmark
filesystem
hardware
storage
We exhaustively tested ZFS and RAID performance on our Storage Hot Rod server.
source: ars
Researchers find an animal without mitochondria
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/researchers-find-an-animal-without-mitochondria/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-02-26 18:50
tags:
biology
paper
Mitochondria, previously found in all animals, is now in all animals but one.
source: ars
The Fairey Rotodyne, the vertical takeoff and landing airliner time forgot
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/02/the-fairey-rotodyne-the-vertical-take-off-and-landing-airliner-time-forgot/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-02-17 02:46
tags:
flying
history
tech
transport
The phrase “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) seems like it’s been with us for quite a while, but really it’s only been in widespread use for two or three years. NASA officially recognized UAM in 2017, calling for a market study of remotely piloted or unmanned air passenger and cargo transportation around an urban area. Most people would probably call this the “air taxi” idea—a vision of hundreds of small, unmanned electric multi-copters shuttling two or three passengers from nearby suburbs or city spaces to vertiports at about 100 mph (roughly 161 km/h).
But if things had worked out differently in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we might have a very different understanding of UAM—something more like mass-transit. We might have had a city-center to city-center 55-passenger vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) airliner shuttling between urban heliports at 180 mph (289 km/h).
Actually, we did have that, it’s just few people remember. It was called the Fairey Rotodyne.
source: ars
I broke Giant’s handheld scanner system by only buying two things
https://arstechnica.com/staff/2020/01/how-i-broke-my-grocery-stores-app-by-not-buying-enough-stuff/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-01-15 05:01
tags:
business
ioshit
life
tech
The employee interface verified that my cart contained two (2) items. She scanned both. It verified that those two items were ones I had scanned. And then it told her that she needed to scan five more items to complete the audit, because the audit requires seven items to be scanned.
source: ars
How the scourge of cheating is changing speedrunning
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/12/how-the-scourge-of-cheating-is-changing-speedrunning/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-12-23 01:06
tags:
gaming
hoipolloi
investigation
How do you catch fakes when it’s easier than ever to manipulate video?
source: ars
That time a monkey flew to the edge of space
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/that-time-a-monkey-flew-to-the-edge-of-space-and-then-smashed-into-a-destroyer/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-12-02 17:23
tags:
history
space
So when NASA’s young engineers at Langley Research Center in Virginia began testing their new Mercury capsule in flight, they wanted to see whether the accelerations experienced during the abort of a Mercury flight shortly after launch were survivable. Enter Sam, an eight-pound rhesus monkey.
source: ars
How a months-old AMD microcode bug destroyed my weekend
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/how-a-months-old-amd-microcode-bug-destroyed-my-weekend/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-10-29 21:35
tags:
bugfix
cpu
hardware
linux
random
Unfortunately, unpatched Ryzen 3000 says “yes” to the CPUID 01H call, sets the carry bit indicating it has successfully created the most artisanal, organic high-quality random number possible... and gives you a 0xFFFFFFFF for the “random” number, every single time.
Unfortunately, after successfully applying the update and rebooting again, I realized my error—yes, Asus showed a later date for the BIOS, but the actual version was the same as the one I already had—3.2.0. My CPU still thought 0xFFFFFFFF was the randomest number ever, always, no matter what.
At this point, I began to get paranoid—systemd had already quietly worked around the bug. But with most applications just quietly ignoring the problem, how would I know if it ever had been patched? What if two years later, I was still vulnerable to stack-smashing that I shouldn’t have been, due to ASLR that wasn’t actually randomizing?
Another entry for the bad workarounds file.
source: HN
What it was like to fly the baddest airplane the world has ever known
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/what-it-was-like-to-fly-the-baddest-airplane-the-world-has-ever-known/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-09-16 13:06
tags:
flying
history
interview
tech
The X-15 was not the first rocket-powered aircraft, but it is probably the best one ever built and flown. Before the first X-15 took flight in the late 1950s, the fastest speed airplanes had reached was Mach 3. The X-15 doubled that. And, remarkably, it also went on to fly into space more than a dozen times.
source: ars
Wireless nanowire lasers absorb infrared, emit blue light
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/wireless-nanowire-lasers-absorb-infrared-emit-blue-light/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-06-02 02:23
tags:
physics
tech
So, where will these be used? I’ve no idea at this point, and I don’t really care—I just love the physics. More seriously, it takes a very bright light to turn a laser on like this (think ~1TW/cm2), so the applications will certainly be niche.
Nano Letters, 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b00510
source: ars
Quake II gets free real-time raytracing updates on June 6
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/quake-ii-gets-free-real-time-raytracing-updates-june-6/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-05-28 16:48
tags:
gaming
graphics
release
retro
Windows and Linux users will be able to download the first three levels of the graphically updated game as shareware starting at 6am Pacific Time on June 6. You can play the remaining levels and multiplayer if you point the installer to a legit copy of the full game on your hard drive. The source code for the Vulkan-based update will be posted on Github as well, though Quake II expansion packs will not be supported without extra effort from the community.
source: ars
Kelly’s Heroes: Lockheed’s five finest airplanes
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/kellys-heroes-lockheeds-five-finest-airplanes/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-05-27 18:19
tags:
flying
history
tech
Roughly 110 years ago, one of the world’s greatest aircraft designers—Clarence “Kelly” Johnson—was born in Ishpeming, Michigan. And since we’re gigantic aviation nerds here at Ars Technica, the week of his birthday (February 27) is as good a reason as any to celebrate some of his legendary designs. Johnson spent 44 years working at Lockheed, where he was responsible for world-changing aircraft including the high-flying U-2, the “missile with a man in it” F-104 Starfighter, and the almost-otherworldly Blackbird family of jets.
X-ray imaging reveals the secrets of termite mounds
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/natures-skyscrapers-x-ray-imaging-reveals-the-secrets-of-termite-mounds/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-04-04 13:49
tags:
architecture
biology
physics
Turner found that the assumptions of Pearce and others that the mounds’ complex tunnel systems serve to circulate air and remove heat to regulate interior temperatures isn’t accurate. The air mixing isn’t the result of the colony’s internal heat but air pressure from outside the mound. The termites build the mounds so tall to catch the wind, and their porous outer surface is what allows the air to move into and through the colony. Turner likens the effect to the alveoli in human lungs: the mound almost “breathes.”
A brief history of Wi-Fi security protocols from “oh my, that’s bad” to WPA3
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/802-eleventy-who-goes-there-wpa3-wi-fi-security-and-what-came-before-it/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-03-11 21:33
tags:
networking
security
wifi
Enjoy our primer on the ups and downs of Wi-Fi protocols since the mid-1990s.
To make 1997’s Blade Runner, Westwood first had to create the universe
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/video-to-make-1997s-blade-runner-westwood-first-had-to-create-the-universe/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-02-14 00:12
tags:
development
fiction
gaming
graphics
interview
retro
video
Castle’s team faced a considerable number of challenges in bringing the cinematic world of Blade Runner to life using the technologies of the day, most of which stemmed from having to invent, from whole cloth, a way to seamlessly mesh their pre-rendered world with animated voxel characters (it turned out to be vastly more complicated than simply sticking a sprite in front of the background). Tackling this issue introduced an entire interconnected tapestry of difficult problems to solve, very few of which are faced by modern developers who can pick from ready-made game engines to license and use.
10 minutes.
Transcript: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/blade_runner_game.txt
Drift of the North Pole forces early magnetic map update
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/drift-of-the-north-pole-forces-early-magnetic-map-update/ [arstechnica.com]
2019-02-05 23:09
tags:
geology
maps
release
As the magnetic field’s quirks are dynamic, the model has to be updated, which is done on a five-year schedule. The rate of the North Pole’s motion, however, has been fast enough that the agencies who produce the model aren’t comfortable with waiting for the current model expiration at the end of 2019.