Non-IT News Thread
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Machine learning can offer new tools, fresh insights for the humanities
From the French Revolution to the history of the novel, Big Data makes its mark
Specifically, rhetorical innovations by key influential figures (like Robespierre) played a critical role in persuading others to accept what were, at the time, audacious principles of governance, according to co-author Simon DeDeo, a former physicist who now applies mathematical techniques to the study of historical and current cultural phenomena. And the cutting-edge machine learning methods he developed to reach that conclusion are now being employed by other scholars of history and literature.
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Bandersnatch: The spoiler-filled, choose-your-own-opinion review
This review's structure was inspired by Netflix's solid rewind-and-try-again film.
After catching up on post-holiday news and emails, Ars staffers got together in our staff chat room to talk about Netflix's weirdest one-off film yet: Bandersnatch, the Black Mirror "event" that launched on December 28. We'd all seen it, some alone and others in groups, and we all felt a mix of delight, confusion, and annoyance by the fact that it required us to grab our remotes and make choices throughout its 90-minute runtime. (Each choice leads to varying outcomes that range from minor to severe.)
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Fixing photosynthesis by engineering it to recycle a toxic mistake
The worst, most important enzyme often uses the wrong chemical. We fixed that.
The vast majority of life on Earth depends, either directly or indirectly, on photosynthesis for its energy. And photosynthesis depends on an enzyme called RuBisCO, which uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to build sugars. So, by extension, RuBisCO may be the most important catalyst on the planet.
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@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Fixing photosynthesis by engineering it to recycle a toxic mistake
The worst, most important enzyme often uses the wrong chemical. We fixed that.
The vast majority of life on Earth depends, either directly or indirectly, on photosynthesis for its energy. And photosynthesis depends on an enzyme called RuBisCO, which uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to build sugars. So, by extension, RuBisCO may be the most important catalyst on the planet.
I read that article and while I can see their point. I also wish they italicized the word "fixed" since they aren't 100% certain what this change will/would affect.
Just that it's more efficient.
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Milky Way to face a one-two punch of galaxy collisions
The Large Magellanic Cloud will hit us before Andromeda can get here.
If our knowledge of galaxy structures was limited to the Milky Way, we'd get a lot of things wrong. The Milky Way, it turns out, is unusual. It's got a smaller central black hole than other galaxies its size; its halo is also smaller and contains less of the heavier elements. Fortunately, we've now looked at enough other galaxies to know that ours is a bit of an oddball. What's been less clear is why.
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The next Alien project will be a mixed-media experience in 2019
A single tweet suggests something interactive about this year's return to Nostromo.
20th Century Fox announced the next project, or possible projects, in the Alien universe on Saturday by way of a vague and tantalizing social-media post. This next Alien universe release, slated for a "2019" launch, includes a "read, watch, play" promise, suggesting a mixed-media launch whose various parts could commingle.
Its interactive aspects will be paid off, at the very least, by the protagonist already named in the above teaser: Amanda Ripley. This character, the daughter of Sigourney Weaver's character Ellen Ripley, featured prominently in the 2014 video game Alien Isolation. In that game, the younger Ripley was tasked with uncovering mysteries on a Weyland-Yutani craft called the Sevastopol.
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There’s suspense but little magic in new teasers for Amazon’s Hanna
Esme Creed-Miles of Dark River fame takes on the titular role.
Not everyone was a fan of Director Joe Wright's 2011 film Hanna, with its strange mix of revenge thriller and dark coming-of-age fairytale. But it's one of my recent favorites for precisely those elements, driven by an exquisitely unsettling performance by Saoirse Ronan in the titular role. Now Amazon Prime is adapting the film into a series, written by David Farr, who co-wrote the original screenplay. Two teasers have arrived over the last few days, giving us our first look at the adaptation. There's plenty of suspense, as befits the thriller genre, but little of the original's magic.
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Mads Mikkelsen goes full-on John Wick in new trailer for Netflix’s Polar
He rocks a stylin' eyepatch and nifty laser gloves that control his machine guns.
The film is based on a webcomic by Victor Santos featuring an international hitman named Kaiser Black. Santos considered his work a mix of classic Marvel comics (especially Jim Steranko's S.H.I.E.L.D. comics), Jason Bourne movies, and manga. The webcomic, which debuted in 2012, didn't even have dialogue, mostly because Santos wasn't keen on translating the comic from Spanish to English. Dark Horse Comics produced a hardcover graphic novel entitled Polar: Came From the Cold in 2013, adding dialogue in speech balloons. Two more Polar volumes appeared in 2015 (Eye for an Eye) and 2016 (No Mercy for Sister Maria). A fourth and final volume, The Kaiser Falls, is slated to be released this April.
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Archaeologists discover first known temple to “flayed god” Xipe Totec
It’s as macabre and as fascinating as you’d expect.
Xipe Totec is a god of agricultural renewal. Worshipped with human sacrifice, his priests wore the victims’ skins as ceremonial attire. Statues and carvings of Xipe Totec have turned up at archaeological sites scattered all over Mexico and Central America, but archaeologists with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) say they’ve found the first known temple dedicated to the god. Preliminary dating suggests the temple saw use from 1000 to 1260 CE, which suggests that it was built before the rise of Aztec culture.
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@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Archaeologists discover first known temple to “flayed god” Xipe Totec
It’s as macabre and as fascinating as you’d expect.
Xipe Totec is a god of agricultural renewal. Worshipped with human sacrifice, his priests wore the victims’ skins as ceremonial attire. Statues and carvings of Xipe Totec have turned up at archaeological sites scattered all over Mexico and Central America, but archaeologists with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) say they’ve found the first known temple dedicated to the god. Preliminary dating suggests the temple saw use from 1000 to 1260 CE, which suggests that it was built before the rise of Aztec culture.
Everything wrong with Mexico according to Donald J Trump, look at these people, they wear the skin of others to appease some god . . . .
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@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
Archaeologists discover first known temple to “flayed god” Xipe Totec
It’s as macabre and as fascinating as you’d expect.
Xipe Totec is a god of agricultural renewal. Worshipped with human sacrifice, his priests wore the victims’ skins as ceremonial attire. Statues and carvings of Xipe Totec have turned up at archaeological sites scattered all over Mexico and Central America, but archaeologists with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) say they’ve found the first known temple dedicated to the god. Preliminary dating suggests the temple saw use from 1000 to 1260 CE, which suggests that it was built before the rise of Aztec culture.
Everything wrong with Mexico according to Donald J Trump, look at these people, they wear the skin of others to appease some god . . . .
Unlike Trump who just wears the hair of the dead.
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Video: Dead Space’s scariest moment almost dragged down the entire project
Creator Glen Schofield opens up his personal Dead Space archive for us.
I need to get this out of the way right up front: the War Stories video crew here at Ars loves Dead Space. The game turned 10 years old this past October, and it's a near-perfect execution of the survival horror genre—the world, the sound design, and the mechanics are all spot-on, even after a decade. It's also one of the games we've had on our War Stories to-do list since the very beginning, and we're excited to finally have this video to share with you all.
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Heathrow airport: Drone sighting halts departures
Departures at Heathrow have been stopped after a drone was sighted, the airport says.
A Heathrow spokeswoman said the airport was working with police to "prevent any threat to operational safety".
She said: "As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause."
It comes after last month's disruption at Gatwick Airport after drones were reported.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Heathrow airport: Drone sighting halts departures
Departures at Heathrow have been stopped after a drone was sighted, the airport says.
A Heathrow spokeswoman said the airport was working with police to "prevent any threat to operational safety".
She said: "As a precautionary measure, we have stopped departures while we investigate. We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience this may cause."
It comes after last month's disruption at Gatwick Airport after drones were reported.
That had to know this was going to happen.
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Sony just acquired the gaming industry’s biggest audio toolset
Creators of "Wwise" will remain "independent" after acquisition closes, SIE insists.
Anybody who has played a video game in the past five years has a hint of how big of an acquisition this is, as those gamers have likely seen the "Wwise" logo in at least one game's opening or closing credits. That logo indicates that Audiokinetic's proprietary tools have been used to help developers more easily arrange sound effects, dialogue, and music in their games.
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Natural gas is now getting in the way; US carbon emissions increase by 3.4%
Power sector emissions increased, jet fuel use more than offset gas reduction.
"The US was already off track in meeting its Paris Agreement targets. The gap is even wider headed into 2019."
That's the dire news from Rhodium Group, a research firm that released preliminary estimates of US carbon emissions in 2018. Though the Trump administration said it would exit the Paris Agreement in 2017, the US is still bound by the agreement to submit progress reports until 2020. But the administration has justified regulatory rollbacks since then, claiming that regulation from the US government is unnecessary because emissions were trending downward anyway.
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@mlnews I saw a preview of that. It just doesn't look interesting to me.
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@jmoore "The PS-LX310BT is priced at £200 and will be available from April 2019"
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@jmoore At $almost $300 US I'm not sure if it will take off - There are a lot of people with vinyl though so....
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@pchiodo said in Non-IT News Thread:
@jmoore At $almost $300 US I'm not sure if it will take off - There are a lot of people with vinyl though so....
Think about the target market... Those people have the cash to spare or they wouldn't be there anyway.
