Technology, Science and the Environment.

[nnfox]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67646047

 

Well done Meta, a great day for paedophiles 

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, nnfox said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67646047

 

Well done Meta, a great day for paedophiles 

This one's a bastard either way it's sliced IMO.

 

On the one hand this does make it easier for all kinds of nasty sorts to hide what horrific stuff they're doing. On the other, it (in principle) also makes it easier for those under the heel of brutal regimes to communicate and collaborate and work to make their societies freer. I think folks in the UK perhaps take such freedoms for granted sometimes.

 

But either way there's going to be both good and bad.

[WigstonWanderer]

I wonder if these are related. Seems like an almost obvious link (that you assume must have been ruled out for some reason) that primordial black holes and dark matter could be one and the same.

 

https://news.yale.edu/2021/12/16/black-holes-and-dark-matter-are-they-one-and-same#:~:text=Primordial black holes created in,dark matter in the universe.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/10/revealed-the-oldest-black-hole-ever-observed-dating-to-dawn-of-universe

 

Edit: Just to add  that I believe mapping of dark matter suggests that it is more diffuse than presumably could be explained by very large black holes.

Edited 10 December 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[Jon the Hat]

On 09/12/2023 at 01:18, leicsmac said:

This one's a bastard either way it's sliced IMO.

 

On the one hand this does make it easier for all kinds of nasty sorts to hide what horrific stuff they're doing. On the other, it (in principle) also makes it easier for those under the heel of brutal regimes to communicate and collaborate and work to make their societies freer. I think folks in the UK perhaps take such freedoms for granted sometimes.

 

But either way there's going to be both good and bad.

As I understood it there are plenty of encrypted options already, so not sure why this should make it harder for police.  Are dodgy types stupid?  As you say has more upsides I would have thought.

 

[nnfox]

8 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

As I understood it there are plenty of encrypted options already, so not sure why this should make it harder for police.  Are dodgy types stupid?  As you say has more upsides I would have thought.

 

Yes, plenty of other options out there but if you're a paedophile and want to groom children, it's much easier to do so on Facebook than Signal or Telegram or even WhatsApp because of ease of access to your intended target.  Meta have their own processes behind the scenes that can detect some of this activity (which is actually an awful lot) as the traffic goes through their servers, they can then report such matters to the relevant authorities.  End to end encryption ends that overnight.

 

The thing that bugs me is that this is a commercial decision portrayed as an ethical one.  Ultimately the vast majority of people don't really understand what encryption is or how it works.  They just see the word "encrypted" and think it sounds better than "unencrypted" so there is a danger that the public (who think they are consumers but are actually Facebook's product to sell) might leave the platform.

[leicsmac]

11 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I wonder if these are related. Seems like an almost obvious link (that you assume must have been ruled out for some reason) that primordial black holes and dark matter could be one and the same.

 

https://news.yale.edu/2021/12/16/black-holes-and-dark-matter-are-they-one-and-same#:~:text=Primordial black holes created in,dark matter in the universe.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/10/revealed-the-oldest-black-hole-ever-observed-dating-to-dawn-of-universe

 

Edit: Just to add  that I believe mapping of dark matter suggests that it is more diffuse than presumably could be explained by very large black holes.

It's a fascinating theory.

 

As you say, it may not be the full explanation, but it might go some way towards part of it. There's still so much to discover.

[WigstonWanderer]

13 hours ago, leicsmac said:

It's a fascinating theory.

 

As you say, it may not be the full explanation, but it might go some way towards part of it. There's still so much to discover.

Confess that I don’t know anything about the Hawking theory (that Black Holes could account for Dark Matter) other than what is in the article. If I recall Dark Matter behaves more like a cloud of gas around galaxies that doesn’t interact with normal matter except via gravity. Presumably it doesn’t interact with itself either or would tend to aggregate into lumps?

 

Also I thought that really tiny Black Holes evaporate quite quickly due to Hawking Radiation so I wouldn’t have thought that this fits the profile for Dark Matter as lots of tiny black holes personally. However, there don’t seem any objections on such grounds so obviously I’m wrong, and if there’s anyone that ought to know something about Hawking Radiation it’s Stephen Hawking 😂

 

The second article from yesterday’s Guardian about the discovery of a huge black hole apparently in existence relatively shortly after the Big Bang suggests that it was created during the Big Bang itself, giving credence to a link between Black Holes and Dark Matter. Fascinating if the universe was born with holes in it.

Edited 12 December 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[WigstonWanderer]

Interesting review of solar panel recycling. Good to see that there are efforts to develop the tech required.

 

 

Edited 13 December 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[Zear0]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67756413

 

Finally gone pop.

[Sly]

Fascinating pictures of that volcano.

 

Devastating news for the people living within the vicinity. 
 

 

[leicsmac]

Makes me want to read up on the Toba supereruption 70000 years ago and just how devastating that was.

[davieG]

[The Bear]

29 minutes ago, davieG said:

 

[davieG]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67273155

 

Tech Trends 2024: AI and electric vehicle deals

 

 

[bmt]

On 20/12/2023 at 16:53, davieG said:

Solar freaking roadways

[Vacamion]

 

 

So LK99 is back, then?

 

Cool.

 

Really want that fusion-powered flying car before I pop my clogs.

 

[davieG]

BBC

 

BT Group to turn old street cabinets into electric vehicle charging points

By Shiona McCallum
Technology reporter
Old green street cabinets will be converted into electric vehicle (EV) charging points, according to BT Group.

The metal cabinets are traditionally used to store broadband and phone cabling, but many are coming towards the end of their lifespans.

The first converted cabinet will be installed in Scotland within weeks, under a pilot programme.

BT hopes up to 60,000 could be converted, which would help tackle a shortfall in electric car chargers.

The government's ambition is to increase the number of charging points from more than 50,000 today to 300,000 by 2030 but Zapmap figures show nearly a third of all UK charging points are currently in London.

People have complained about the lack of charging ports in some areas and that some do not work or are unreliable.

This pilot project by BT will explore how this solution could be scaled up to address the lack of chargers on UK roads, something that motoring groups have said is holding back Britain's electric car revolution.

'Repurposing'
Both cabinets that are still providing broadband to individual households and those that have been decommissioned are able to be used to support the new EV charging points.

Currently, the boxes contain old technology which will soon be defunct because of the nationwide rollout of full fibre broadband connections.

Engineers will be able to retrofit the cabinets with a device that enables renewable energy to be shared to a charge point alongside the existing broadband service with no need to create a new connection, because they are already connected to a power source.

The green lockers that are set to be decommissioned will have one charge point per cabinet, which provides two charging sockets.

They also have a battery backup so existing broadband services should not be be disrupted during installation.

As the boxes become decommissioned, more charging points can be added.

The first location will be in East Lothian, with further pilots to roll out across the UK in the coming months.

IMAGE SOURCE,BT GROUP
Image caption,
An example of an EV charger from a green cabinet
Tom Guy, CEO of Etc., the start-up and digital incubation arm at BT Group, said that this solution was a "huge step" in addressing the barriers customers face.

"Working closely with local councils in Scotland and more widely across the UK, we are at a critical stage of our journey in tackling a very real customer problem that sits at the heart of our wider purpose to connect for good," he said.

Stuart Masson from automotive website The Car Expert welcomed the initiative.

"Harnessing existing street furniture is a great way to increase the number of public EV charging points without further adding to clutter along our footpaths," he said.

"Making this even more valuable, many of these green street cabinets are located in residential areas across the UK, including smaller villages and towns, where charging infrastructure is most severely lacking."

The Department for Transport told the BBC that they have committed "hundreds of millions of pounds to expand local charging across England."

Their spokesperson said: "The number of public charge points is rising across the country - increasing by 44% since December 2022.

"We expect the private sector to deliver the majority of charge points and welcome initiatives such as this."

BT is making the announcement at an international tech trade show in Las Vegas. The initiative has been awarded an innovation accolade for outstanding design and engineering at the Consumer Electronics Show.

[Zear0]

Can't think of too many practical benefits (make your room look nicer with a see through screen I guess) , but really cool to see. 

 

Edited 9 January by Zear0

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67928687

 

US space agency astronauts won't get to walk on the Moon again until September 2026 at the earliest. 

 

It represents a slip of a year in the previously targeted date for the return of humans to the lunar surface that was last achieved in 1972.

 

 Nasa says the delay to what's known as its Artemis III mission will enable further technology development.

 

More schedule slip, great.

[SpacedX]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67928687

 

US space agency astronauts won't get to walk on the Moon again until September 2026 at the earliest. 

 

It represents a slip of a year in the previously targeted date for the return of humans to the lunar surface that was last achieved in 1972.

 

 Nasa says the delay to what's known as its Artemis III mission will enable further technology development.

 

More schedule slip, great.

I can't see this happening until the end of the decade. Space X have so much yet to do developing and testing the HLS. 

 

It really does impress upon you how incredible the Apollo Programme in terms of the pace of development to fulfil Kennedy's objective of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Saying that, there was a practically limitless budget thrown at it. 

[leicsmac]

16 hours ago, SpacedX said:

I can't see this happening until the end of the decade. Space X have so much yet to do developing and testing the HLS. 

 

It really does impress upon you how incredible the Apollo Programme in terms of the pace of development to fulfil Kennedy's objective of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Saying that, there was a practically limitless budget thrown at it. 

From nothing to man on the moon in less than a decade is unbelievable, yes.

 

I wish we still had the focus and the resources to do similar at a similar pace now.

[leicsmac]

That being said, I would allow myself a smile at SpaceX having gone from practically zilch to routine successful launches almost every day in the space of a few years. Shows that such developments can happen fast when the will and resources are there.

[leicsmac]

Japan join the robotic lunar soft landing club!

[Guest David Oldfields Gate]

 Fascinating that the focus is on electric but for power (torque presumably), i.e. trucks, tanks, construction, forestry, agriculture etc existing biodiesel technology but improved to run on 100pc oilseed rape is by far the best alternative. Yet it's not mentioned anywhere. This was all news to me and I run this gear.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, David Oldfields Gate said:

 Fascinating that the focus is on electric but for power (torque presumably), i.e. trucks, tanks, construction, forestry, agriculture etc existing biodiesel technology but improved to run on 100pc oilseed rape is by far the best alternative. Yet it's not mentioned anywhere. This was all news to me and I run this gear.

Interesting.

 

If these numbers are good then this would work for "heavy" vehicles as an adjutant to the other three sources for lighter passenger vehicles (which likely require less torque).

 

Good to see more solutions being floated - the key issue is still energy generation as that's the biggest slice of the pie by far, though.