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hubie writes:Millions of idle computers the world over are put to good use for a number of scientific endeavors, but the use of Citizen Science (CS) goes back a long way in the field of ecological research. Volunteer data has long been used for monitoring populations or for keeping an eye on invasive species. In the age of tight research budgets and the availability of software to easily record and transmit data from the field has led to more and more projects dependent upon this data.Proper analysis depends upon understanding the data, and one of the challenges in using CS-supplied data is understanding the reliability of the observations. The best consistency in the quality of the data depends upon consistency in setting up the experiment and training the observers, also known as appropriately designing a protocol. There is an active discussion in the ecological research community about how to maximize the reliability and utility of this kind of data. The open-access journal PLOS ONE will host a broad discussion on this topic for the CA community:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Newly discovered 'magic methyl' reaction could turbocharge the potency of some drugs:

canopic jug writes:Software developer Drew DeVault has written a post at his blog about the reckless, infinite scope of today's web browsers. His conclusion is that, given decades of feature creep, it is now impossible to build a new web browser due to the obscene complexity of the web.

martyb writes:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/with-demand-surging-amazon-signals-month-long-deliveries

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow420:Work From Home Hackers Make $130,000 In 48 Hours From Windows 10 Exploits:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Businesses are switching to cashless payment only during the pandemic as people enact social distancing to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This comes after stopping the use of non-disposable cups in cafes and the general reduction of the use of cash across society. This could well be the tipping point to make cashless payments the norm across the world. Some believe it could well be the start of killing off the use of cash for good.It's not paranoia if you know they are out to get you.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow420:AMD and Intel have a formidable new foe but you'll never guess who it is:

Runaway1956 writes:Off-Road Riders Fined while Riding on their Own Property:

takyon writes:The Invisible Man, Emma, and The Hunt Hit Pirate Sites After Rushed VOD Releases

takyon writes:Charter Countersues Music Companies for Sending Inaccurate DMCA Notices

Charter engineer quits over "reckless" rules against work-from-homeArthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyCow8162:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:How to keep your sanity when you feel like the world is going crazy:

captain normal writes:

[2020-03-23 01:32:11UTC Update 1:Ed. Note - updated to clarify location of the skip to comments button.--fnord666][2020-03-23 12:56:40 UTC Update 2: Changed link target from "#acomments" to "#commentwrap" per suggestion in: https://soylentnews.org/meta/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=36704&page=1&cid=974278#commentwrap; added "Note-to-self". --martyb]martyb writes:Thank You! Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on a new UI feature to the site;[Skip to comment(s)]" is now live on SoylentNews!The SoylentNews' Main Page should function and look the same as before. The magic manifests only after a specific story has been opened. Code has been added to a site template so that "[Skip to comment(s)]" should now appear, right-justified, in the first of the two lines in the title bar that appears immediately below the story's title.[Note to self: see in-memory version of template: "dispStory;misc;default" original implementation target fragid of "#acomments" changed to "#commentwrap" as of 2020-03-23 12:56:40 UTC--martyb]Clicking the button will bring you to the comment header block. (That's where you can adjust Breakthrough, Threshold, and Threading preferences (either one-time-only, or save it away, permanently.)Quite frankly, thanks to the community's feedback, it looks and behaves better than what I had originally envisioned!Previously:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Fnord666:Long-distance fiber link poised to create powerful networks of optical clocks:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Fnord666:Git our app, you've pulled: We love open source... but not enough to share code for our own app, says GitHub:

"exec" writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:Skin-mounted electronic displays previously required long-lasting plastic. Researchers have created a bio-degradable film made from fish scales:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An Anonymous Coward writes:[Ed. note: More and more people are staying home as a result of quarantines and social distancing. Car customization was the high-tech platform for many years. Then came computers where nerds had a different target for things to tweak and optimize. Car racing has perhaps even more followers today than ever before. Given the technical background and underpinnings, and realizing people may be looking for something to do this weekend, I thought to give this story a try. Are there any Soylentils who have any racing experience? --martyb]Shortly after the US entry into World War 2, President Roosevelt requested that professional baseball continue to be played during the war because of its importance to maintain the morale of the nation. NBA commissioner Adam Silver expressed similar sentiment after the almost complete shutdown of professional sports due to the coronavirus outbreak. Formula 1 and NASCAR are already taking steps to resume, though with virtual races instead of cars physically on track.Last weekend, iRacing and Podium organized the Replacements 100, which was streamed on multiple platforms including YouTube. The drivers included William Byron, whose success in iRacing helped him find the opportunity to drive real race cars, retired fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., and current cup series drivers Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman. The race was 100 laps at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which was set to host all three of NASCAR's national series last weekend before being postponed.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

hubie writes:Food security and agricultural sustainability are global issues, and how to feed a growing global population is a topic of constant concern. Urban agriculture is an area that people look to help address the issue. Urban farming provides benefits beyond the value of the food produced, but it hasn't been clear as to how much the crop yields could contribute to the needs of the community. In a paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers developed a methodology to estimate the current and potential food production in an urban UK setting.The researchers estimated food production on allotments and residential gardens based on: GIS-derived data for the total area of allotments and gardens across three towns (Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes), survey data for the proportional areas of allotments and private gardens that are cultivated for food growing, and measured yields for commonly grown crops in the UK. They also considered the yields of existing fruit-bearing trees. They considered a range of scenarios from the most conservative that estimated the amount of crops that could be grown on the land presently set aside for food growing, to the maximum potential assumption where all of the available garden plots grew food. The researchers estimated the most conservative scenario resulted in production that could meet about 9% of the region's annual need (about 30 days), whereas about half of the annual need was met under the maximal potential scenario. Their methodologies and assumptions can all be found in the open-access paper.Journal Reference:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

JoeMerchant writes:Some local schoolboards have already rolled out full remote learning curricula, starting Monday (seems to me there have been plans in the works for years to make something like this happen this fast.) Others appear flat-footed and clueless. We did some homeschooling with our kids a couple of years ago, and the one website that really clicked with us was (shameless plug) https://ixl.com .I know we had a Soylent story just over a week ago asking for alternatives to the ubiquitous (and well deserved first place recommendation) Khan. Now that it's a little less abstract, and looking more certain that the kids won't be returning to physical school buildings until the fall... what do you look for in online learning services?Our criteria were: easy for the kids to self-learn the material as presented, easy to track progress and identify areas where extra instruction might help, clear documentation of subjects covered and relative mastery of each, easy for kids to self-select appropriate subject areas to study, reasonable cost.Khan certainly presents material clearly, and the cost can't be beat, but we found IXL to be superior in the other areas, and when you think about the tremendous number of hours invested by you and your kids in the learning system, the cost isn't really significant ($20/month for one, $24 for two).Has anybody else taken a serious plunge into online learning and found something "better than Khan" for your purposes?[Ed. addition follows. --martyb]See our previous story: Student Privacy Laws Still Apply if Coronavirus Just Closed Your School and take a close look at future provider's security and privacy practices. From the article linked to in the previous story https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/watch-out-for-privacy-pitfalls-if-your-school-is-suddenly-online-only/:Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

canopic jug writes:The Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court of Germany (FCC) has delivered a decisive win for software users and developers around Europe. In a recently-published court decision, 2 BvR 739/17 (in German) from February, it has declared that the Act of Approval to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC) is void. The Unified Patent Court has been widely considered to be a shell for bringing software patents into Europe through the side door, in violation of international treaties which prohibit by name patents on programs for computers.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:NIST, DHS Publish Guidance on Securing Virtual Meetings, VPNs:

[2020-03-21 15:06:00 UTC: Update 1:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

DannyB writes:Google has completely canceled Google I/O 2020

DannyB writes:NASA spent a decade and nearly $1 billion for a single launch tower:"NASA exacerbated these issues by accepting unproven and untested designs."

martyb writes:A new tweet from @CGTNOfficial China Global Television Network, or CGTN, is a multi-language, multi-platform media grouping. reports

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:YouTube is following Netflix by reducing streaming quality due to coronavirus:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Moonchild, the lead developer of the Pale Moon browser writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

"exec" writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[20200320_184315 UTC: Update: Made the dept. line longer to better demonstrate space [un]availability.--martyb][20200320_202305 UTC: Added topics: "/dev/random", "Code", "Software", and "Answers" topics to better illustrate their use of space in a story. --martyb]martyb writes:First: Please accept my best wishes to everyone during SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 / Coronavirus pandemic. Please take all necessary precautions to keep yourself and those around you safe!Second: I should not have been surprised, but I must confess my admiration at how the SoylentNews community came together in support of each other in response to SoylentNews Community -- How has SAR-CoV-2 (Coronavirus) / COVID-19 Affected You? As of my writing this, there are over 300 comments! community++ This is what I had hoped for when SoylentNews started over six years (Wow!) ago, and so validates my giving of my time to this site!Third: (and the focus of this story) our virus roundup stories are... long. An AC posted a comment: thanks to eds:

martyb writes:Please note the official web site for folding@home is https://foldingathome.org. As a free service, folding.extremeoverclocking.com (FEO) provides a variety of reports based on data it gathers from the official site. This story is from an announcement made on FEO.Basically, folding@home is a distributed computing system whereby volunteer's machines are issued "work units" to process and, when they have completed their processing, upload their results back tofolding@home. See the excellent write-up at Wikipedia for more details.tl;dr: When F@H announced they were working on SARS-CoV-19 (COVID-19), the outpouring of support has overwhelmed their infrastructure; their servers are having trouble keeping up with the demand for work units and the subsequent upload of results. Don't give up!