An Anonymous Coward writes:NASA just opened "Astromaterials 3D" to let anyone see and study lunar rock samples and Antarctic meteorites. From a release:
canopic jug writes:OpenBSD user Lari Huttunen has a blog post in which he dives into using OpenBSD's rdomain(4) feature to sort work VPNs into separate kernel-level routing tables. This segregates the network traffic in such a way as to prevent traffic in separate routing tables from interacting. With many working from home, insecure work networks have begun to intrude into the home LANs via work-related VPNs. By adding the home network to a work VPN, the LAN becomes merged with work's internal network, usually quite insecure at that. His goal is to keep his personal home devices, especially the IoT items, separate from the now mandatory work-related VPNs on his small-office / home-office network. That way, the work networks can no longer access his appliances.
canopic jug writes:Atlas Obscura has a deep dive into the history and socio-economic factors behind the world's second most expensive spice, vanilla. Vanilla originates from and is still produced in Mexico. The plant, Vanilla Planiflora, is an orchid which grows in the wild in southeastern Mexico. The vines are easily grown, but only very rarely produce fruit outside their native range. Cultivating vanilla worldwide was only possible once it was known how to manually pollinate the flowers. The flowers last only for a matter of hours and although self-fertile, cannot self-pollinate without mechanical intervention. In regions like Madagascar, the pollination is done by hand. Madagascar has been the world's largest vanilla producer for a very long time for a wide range of reasons which the article explains.
martyb writes:Though the popular vote for the next President of the United States of America was held in early November, today is the day the next President is actually selected.The popular vote of the people is actually to select electors whose votes are what actually select the next President.From the live update page Electoral College votes to affirm Biden's win:
SomeGuy writes:The international news agency AFP reports on a violent rampage at a Taiwanese-run iPhone factory in southern India" leading to over 100 arrests. About 2,000 workers were involved in the protest, reports the Verge, citing the Indian Express newspaper.The workers are protesting over allegations of unpaid wages and exploitation, according to AFP. "Local media reported workers saying they had not been paid for up to four months and were being forced to do extra shifts..."
An Anonymous Coward writes:Google services crashed today taking YouTube and other Google services offline with a cascading effect across the internet. Services hit include Discord and other third party online systems which depend on Google services to operate. This event has proven that having single entities such as Google and AWS as the backbone of the internet makes for a linchpin that can be pulled at any time.I for one did not miss our Search Overlord.[Ed. addition follows]See also: CNET.Things are slowly returning, but if you've been smashing your head against the wall in frustration, it helps to know it might not be entirely on your end.From the CNET article:
An Anonymous Coward writes:What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? We may find out soon!Photos Capture World's Largest Iceberg As It Heads Toward South Atlantic Island:
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RunawayXXXX:The only total solar eclipse of 2020 is happening this week. Here's how to watch it from anywhere.:
cosurgi writes:More precision measurements are planned at LHC (Large Hadron Collider) [1]. Short extract below:When ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) discovered the Higgs boson [2] and confirmed the validity of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, physicists were hungry for more. But the Higgs was a giant tree hiding a meadow full of well-known flowers. No exotic plants were to be found in these high-energy plains. Month after month, the Standard Model has revealed itself to be more solid than ever. Previously when higher energy at LHC was possible scientists were looking for spectacular phenomena that have now mostly been ruled out. The approach now is to carry out precision measurements.In reality, the Standard Model is built on two quantum theories: the electroweak theory [3], which describes the electromagnetic and the weak forces, and quantum chromodynamics, which describes the strong force. So, here we have the basics. One advantage of the Standard Model is that it is predictive: it predicts all possible interactions between particles with a precise probability (which physicists call the "cross section"). However, it doesn't predict the masses of the fundamental particles: these are among the parameters measured by the experiments. These masses vary greatly e.g. the heaviest top quark, is almost 90 000 times heavier than the up quark, the lightest. In total, there are 19 free parameters which determine the inner workings of the standard model (aside from the parameters relating to neutrinos). Measuring them precisely is crucial to be able to calculate the interaction cross sections and test the consistency of the Standard Model. Although the Standard Model doesn't predict their values, it ties some parameters together. "By [more precisely] measuring all of these parameters independently, we test the relationships predicted by the Standard Model and impose constraints on physics beyond the Standard Model." explains Andrew Pilkington, a physicist with the ATLAS experiment.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
Zodiac killer's "340 cipher" cracked after 51 yearsMadTinfoilHatter writes:In November 1969 a 340 character long encrypted message was sent in a letter to the San Fransisco Chronicle. It appeared to have been sent by an already-infamous serial killer, popularly going by the name Zodiac killer. The cipher proved to be a very hard nut to crack, and the solution eluded cryptanalysts for over 50 years. On December 3rd three code breakers finally solved the mystery and here they tell us how.Cryptographers Solve Zodiac Killer's "340 Cipher"takyon writes:Zodiac '340 Cipher' cracked by code experts 51 years after it was sent to the S.F. Chronicle