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Submission + - American Science & Surplus is fighting for its life

Submitted by Tyler Too
Tyler Too writes: One of the few major, independent science-surplus/DIY outlets left is American Science & Surplus. They've recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to ensure their survival. From Ars Technica:

Now, nearly 90 years after its launch selling "reject lenses" as American Lens & Photo, American Science & Surplus is facing an existential threat. The COVID-19 pandemic and increased costs hit the business hard, so the store has launched a GoFundMe campaign looking to raise $200,000 from customers and fans alike. What's happening in suburban Chicago is a microcosm of the challenges facing local retail, with big-box retailers and online behemoths overwhelming beloved local institutions. It's a story that has played out countless times in the last two-plus decades, and owner Pat Meyer is hoping this tale has a different ending.

Submission + - Missions to Mars with the Starship could only take three months (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Many researchers consider the technology the only means to reduce transit times to the point that a mission will fall within NASA's career radiation limit of ~600 millisieverts (mSv). Kingdon's study challenges this prevailing assumption and advances the theory that a 90-day transfer can be achieved using conventional propulsion.

Submission + - Ukraine Drones Destroy Dozens of Russian Aircraft (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The brazen Ukrainian blitz of Russian warplanes Sunday was 18 months in the making and the Pentagon was kept in the dark until it was over, sources told Fox News.

"Operation Spider's Web," a series of coordinated drone strikes penetrating deep into Russian territory, is believed to have taken out dozens of Russia's most powerful bomber jets and surveillance planes as they sat idle on five military airfields.

The stunning operation was personally overseen by President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said.

Ukraine used small FPV drones hidden inside wooden cabins mounted on trucks. When the trucks reached their targets, the roofs opened by remote control, and the drones launched.

Submission + - Eleanor from Gone in 60 Seconds Can't Be Copyrighted (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

The ruling states that the Mustang doesn't pass tests that would qualify it as a character.

In the past, studio aggressively went after builders for any Mustang that even remotely approximated Eleanor, making it a hassle to restomod classic Mustangs.

Submission + - Is every memecoin just a scam? (theguardian.com) 5

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: “Another way of defining a memecoin,” Lutz said, “is a cryptocurrency token that has an acknowledged inherent lack of value. The crypto world, outside of memecoins, is full of so many people who are trying to pitch you on tokens that are ‘actually really profound’ or ‘represent a stake’ in some kind of ‘useful network’, but are equally worthless. What makes memecoins different is that there’s none of that noise.”

In other words, all crypto is bullshit, but memecoins are consciously bullshit.

Most memecoins end up making money for the person who makes them as a “rug pull” or a “pump and dump”. The term “rug pull” was actually invented by the crypto community, and it works like this:

First, you mint a memecoin, and make sure that you and your mates own most of the liquidity pool (the total number of coins in circulation). The size of the liquidity pool – the amount of that memecoin that “exists” – is, like everything else in memecoins, a totally made-up number.

A “pump and dump” is pretty much the same thing, but with the slight caveat that you’re doing it with a coin that already exists, rather than creating your own. You buy a cheap coin, “pump” its value by hyping it so others invest, then “dump” all your stock, selling it off at a huge profit and causing everyone else to lose their money.

“It’s provably negative sum,” Gerard told me. “The only way you get money is by other people losing money.”

Right now, the Stable Bill and the Genius Bill, which reference Trump calling himself a “stable genius” in 2018, are trying to make their way through Congress. They pave the way for the US government to use stablecoins to pay everything from housing grants to social security payments. And Trump himself just so happens to have a stablecoin of his own – through the World Liberty Financial company – which would shoot up in value if these bills pass, earning his family trust potential billions.

Submission + - A major Canadian battery recycler just declared bankruptcy (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

But just last month, the Toronto-based company filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada after years of struggling to get a facility off the ground in Rochester, N.Y. The company said the planned hub would have been able to extract lithium and other critical minerals from recycled material

While battery recycling is possible, in practice EV battery recycling continues to be undressed problem.

Submission + - ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows (404media.co) 3

Submitted by ArchieBunker
ArchieBunker writes: Data from a license plate-scanning tool that is primarily marketed as a surveillance solution for small towns to combat crimes like car jackings or finding missing people is being used by ICE, according to data reviewed by 404 Media. Local police around the country are performing lookups in Flock’s AI-powered automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system for “immigration” related searches and as part of other ICE investigations, giving federal law enforcement side-door access to a tool that it currently does not have a formal contract for.

The massive trove of lookup data was obtained by researchers who asked to remain anonymous to avoid potential retaliation and shared with 404 Media. It shows more than 4,000 nation and statewide lookups by local and state police done either at the behest of the federal government or as an “informal” favor to federal law enforcement, or with a potential immigration focus, according to statements from police departments and sheriff offices collected by 404 Media. It shows that, while Flock does not have a contract with ICE, the agency sources data from Flock’s cameras by making requests to local law enforcement. The data reviewed by 404 Media was obtained using a public records request from the Danville, Illinois Police Department, and shows the Flock search logs from police departments around the country.

As part of a Flock search, police have to provide a “reason” they are performing the lookup. In the “reason” field for searches of Danville’s cameras, officers from across the U.S. wrote “immigration,” “ICE,” “ICE+ERO,” which is ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the section that focuses on deportations; “illegal immigration,” “ICE WARRANT,” and other immigration-related reasons. Although lookups mentioning ICE occurred across both the Biden and Trump administrations, all of the lookups that explicitly list “immigration” as their reason were made after Trump was inaugurated, according to the data.

Submission + - Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by FallOutBoyTonto
FallOutBoyTonto writes: The Trump administration has confirmed that it is pulling the nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA.

First reported by Semafor, the decision appears to have been made because Isaacman was not politically loyal enough to the Trump Administration.

Submission + - The workers who lost their jobs to AI (theguardian.com) 1

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: "From a radio host replaced by avatars to a comic artist whose drawings have been copied by Midjourney, how does it feel to be replaced by a bot?" by Charis McGowan in the Guardian.

Submission + - Help wanted to build open source Advanced Data Protection for everyone

Submitted by WaywardGeek
WaywardGeek writes: Recall that Apple was ordered to back-door Advanced Data Protection in the UK. We need to take action now to protect users.

I helped build Google's Advanced Data Protection (Google Cloud Key VaultService) in 2018, and Google is way ahead of Apple in this area. I know exactly how to build it an can have it done in spare time in a few weeks, at least server side. The whole world would be able to use it for free, protecting backups, passwords, message history, and more, if we can get existing applications to talk to the new data protection service.

However, I need help. I've got the algorithms and server-side covered. This would be a distributed trust based system, so I need folks willing to run the protection service. I'll run mine on a Raspberry PI. Areas where I need help include:

* Running protection servers. This is a T-of-N scheme, where users will need say 9 of 15 nodes to be available to recover their backups.
* Android client app, and preferably tight integration with the platform as an alternate backup service.
* Same with iOS
* Authentication. Users should register, and login before they can use any of their limited guesses to their phone unlock secret.

The scheme splits a secret among N protection servers, and when it is time to recover the secret, which is basically an encryption key, they must be able to get key shares from T of the original N servers. This uses a distributed oblivious pseudo random function algorithm, which is very simple.

In plain English, it provides nation-state resistance to secret back doors, and eliminates secret mass surveillance, at least when it comes to data backed up to the cloud. iOS and Android systems don't currently do that. The UK and similarly confused governments will need to negotiate with operators in multiple countries to get access to any given users's keys. There are cases where rational folks would agree to hand over that data, and I hope we can end the encryption wars and develop sane policies that protect user data while offering a compromise where lives can be saved.

So, nothing too serious :-)

Are you up for this challenge? Are you ready to plunge into this with me?

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