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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

NTP server that traveled back in time caused massive Aussie mobile outage

Australian telco Telstra has revealed the cause of the recent incident that caused widespread connectivity problems across its mobile networks, inculding outages to Australia's 000 emergency services line, plus outages to electronic payments services and transport networks.

[...] The outage did happen because once the NTP server came online it reset its clocks to the year 2006.

The server then did what NTP servers do: publish that time to myriad other machines across the network.

Once those machines received the incorrect time, other kit on the Telstra network compared digital certificates and decided something dodgy was going on – so denied connections.

[...] That wasn't the end of the matter, because as valid time information rippled across the network, some equipment didn't close IP sessions. Customer devices therefore couldn't reconnect to the network unless rebooted.

[..] The carrier has done the usual thing by promising to conduct deep and lengthy self-reflection, submit itself to further flagellation at more inquiries, co-operate with a probe by the relevant regulator, and to do what it takes to prevent similar incidents.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.slashgear.com/2213160/ev-battery-lifespan-longer-than-expert-estimations/

For all the technological advancements they promise, EVs haven't entirely convinced people about their batteries. Many people may assume they wear down as fast as the units in phones do, which seems like a valid fear at first considering how pricey batteries are to replace. However, they have turned out to be well capable of lasting as long as the cars themselves. Recent research has proven that the industry has been setting its battery lifespan numbers way too low — by a huge margin, too.

A Wall Street Journal report from July has laid out how far off the early predictions were. It cited figures by Recurrent, which found that an electric car — even after five years of use — still retained 95% of its driving range. That's impressive, and it gets even more so when the actual claims by EV makers are taken into account. One example is Tesla, which for most of its cars, promises the battery will stay above 70% of its original capacity for eight years. However, if the Recurrent report is anything to go by, the degradation is a lot slower, so the promise looks rather humble.

Take one particular 2016 Tesla Model S 90D that has spent nearly a decade serving as a UK airport taxi as an example. As reported by InsideEVs, the car had racked up around 430,000 miles on its original battery and motors. Yet through it all, it only lost about 65 miles of range. Some back of the napkin math later, you'd arrive at a battery capacity of roughly 78% at the time.

A big reason estimates have been so off is apparently because lab tests have been roughing up batteries a little too much. Research coming out of Stanford in 2024 put 92 lithium-ion batteries through their paces for over two years. They found that real-world driving is actually a lot easier on the batteries. All that stopping, starting, and staying parked for hours actually helps the cells recover.

Taking all this into account, they concluded that most batteries could last up to a whopping 40% longer than previously thought. The lead researcher went as far as saying that the industry had been testing those poor batteries wrong. One of the lead authors even noted that something like hard acceleration – a huge power drainer and therefore also long assumed to be rough on a pack — seemed to actually slow the wear a bit rather than speed it up.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

You can't tighten the timings either, apparently:

Homegrown DDR5 memory from China, manufactured by ChangXing Memory Technologies, has been making the rounds lately as more and more vendors start legitimizing it. However, new testing from overclocker Safedisk, shared by Uniko's Hardware, purportedly shows that it actually carries inferior performance compared to similar options from SK Hynix, alongside significant variance in the silicon between different batches.

CXMT began producing DDR5 in late 2025 despite lacking any cutting-edge EUV lithography tools. Fast forward to today, and reports of the company matching Micron's memory capacity by this year are now floating around. If true, China would become the second-largest memory maker in the world. At such scale, it's no wonder that many companies in China have already started sourcing CXMT-made RAM to fill the gap in the consumer market.

Throughout 2026, we've seen motherboard manufacturers verify CXMT's DDR5 with official BIOS optimizations that allow it to run beyond 8,000 MT/s at this point. OEMs such as Dell and HP are using CXMT RAM in their region-bound systems, and even proper PC hardware companies like Corsair are using CXMT modules. Lexar, Kingbank, Netac, Asgard, Gloaway and more are also producing retail DDR5 kits with CXMT chips.

As such, the testing features a Kingbank 48GB (2x24) DDR5-6000 kit running at CL36 and found several weaknesses despite successfully achieving an 8,600 MT/s overclock at CL44. The first revelation is that CXMT modules don't scale with voltage, meaning you can't just increase voltage in hopes of achieving higher clocks. CXMT's DDR5 apparently doesn't respond well to tuning sub-timings either, forcing you to remain stuck with baseline CAS latency (or higher, like in this case).

Overall, if Asus' testing is to be believed, it serves as counterprogramming against the popular narrative forming around China as the savior of consumer interests. CXMT's strength lies in the fact that it doesn't have to cater to opulent AI clients as much as the Big Three, which reduces opportunity cost, allowing CXMT to produce more DDR5 memory. That doesn't mean it would be cheaper, though, or at least no evidence has suggested that so far.

mrpg writes:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260713084918.htm

Archaeologists working at the ancient Egyptian site of Oxyrhynchus have made a remarkable discovery: a papyrus containing a passage from Homer's Iliad was found inside a Roman-era mummy dating back about 1,600 years. Researchers say it is the first known case in archaeological history in which a Greek literary text was intentionally incorporated into the mummification process.

The find was made by the Oxyrhynchus Archaeological Mission, directed by Maite Mascort and Esther Pons through the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies (IPOA) at the University of Barcelona. It comes from Al Bahnasa, the modern town located at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.

During excavations conducted between November and December 2025, a team led by Núria Castellano uncovered a Roman-era mummy in Tomb 65 of Sector 22. Resting on the mummy's abdomen was a papyrus that had been deliberately placed there as part of the embalming ritual.

The mission had previously discovered Greek papyri positioned in similar ways during earlier excavations. However, those texts were consistently magical or ritual in nature. This is the first time a literary work, specifically Homer's Iliad, has been identified in that role.

The papyrus underwent detailed study during a second research campaign held in January and February 2026. Conservator Margalida Munar, papyrologist Leah Mascia, and Ignasi-Xavier Adiego, professor in the Department of Classical, Romance and Semitic Languages, classical philologist, and director of the Oxyrhynchus project, examined the fragile document.

Using Leah Mascia's reading of the text, Professor Adiego determined that the fragment comes from the "Catalogue of Ships" in Book II of Homer's Iliad. This well-known section lists the Greek forces preparing for the Trojan War and is considered one of the best-known passages in Western literature.

Professor Adiego explains: "This is not the first time we have found Greek papyri, bundled, sealed, and incorporated into the mummification process, but until now, their content was mainly magical. Furthermore, it is worth noting that, since the late 19th century, a huge number of papyri have been discovered at Oxyrhynchus, including Greek literary texts of great importance, but the real novelty is finding a literary papyrus in a funerary context."

Linus Torvalds Puts His Foot Down, Tells Anti-AI Programmers To 'Fork It'

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-puts-his-foot-down-tells-anti-ai-programmers-to-fork-it/

Many people hate AI. They don't trust it a bit. Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, isn't one of them. Torvalds thinks AI can be quite useful for programming and maintenance. Indeed, AI is explicitly approved for use in the Linux kernel. 

However, that didn't stop some people from wondering if AI should be used in Linux development. For example, the Zig language project has adopted strict policies against AI-generated code. 

To those who'd like to see Linux take a similar stance, Torvalds recently replied on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), that if you can't support using AI in the Linux kernel, you "can do the open-source thing and fork it."

He's not joking. Torvalds also wrote, "I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area where I'm willing to absolutely put my foot down as the top-level maintainer."

Why? Because "AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it's clearly a useful one. It may not have been that 'clearly' even just a year ago, but it's no longer in question today."

As Greg Kroah-Hartman, maintainer of the Linux stable kernel, told me earlier this year, "Months ago, we were getting what we called 'AI slop,' AI-generated security reports that were obviously wrong or low quality." But then, he continued, "the world switched. Now we have real reports. All open-source projects have real reports that are made with AI, but they're good, and they're real."

Other open-source developers and maintainers agree. Starting with the 2026 frontier models, such as Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8, AI programming is vastly improved. As Torvalds continued, "There are other questions around AI (like what the economy of it will actually look like in the end), but 'is it useful?' is no longer one of those questions."

That said, Torvalds knows full well that AI is far from perfect. "Yes, it can also be a somewhat painful tool …  But the solution is not to put your head in the sand and sing "La La La, I can't hear you" at the top of your voice like some people seem to do."

No, concluded Torvalds, "The solution is to make sure those LLM tools help maintainers instead of just causing them pain. There's no question on that side." Therefore, while Torvalds won't force anyone to use AI, "I will very loudly ignore people who try to argue against other people from using it."

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/07/hundreds-rally-at-bethesda-hq-to-protest-xbox-layoffs-and-ars-was-there/

Hundreds of Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax Online Studios employees and their supporters braved nearly 100° F temperatures to protest sweeping layoffs across Xbox during a lunchtime rally in front of parent company Zenimax's headquarters today. The rally was one of five today organized by Zenimax Workers United and its parent union, the Communication Workers of America, at offices across Texas, California, and Montreal.

Attendees held up signs with messages like "Layoffs... layoffs never change"
[...]
Chief among the union's demands is that Microsoft return to the bargaining table and resume contract negotiations with the remaining uncontracted members of Bethesda Game Studios (after reaching a separate agreement with QA testers last year that included guaranteed severance for laid-off employees). "We had... a reduction in force proposal on the table for months, and they ignored it," Hahn said.
[...]
In response to a request for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "We respect our employees' right to make their voices heard, and we recognize that this is a difficult time for many. We reached out to the union on July 6 to begin effects bargaining and are committed to that process. We remain focused on supporting impacted employees through this transition while positioning the organization for long-term strength."
[...]
In announcing the layoffs last week, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the move was necessary to restructure a business that is "not healthy" and is operating at margins well below the competition. "These changes are about a bigger future for Xbox, not a smaller one, Sharma said.
[...]
Following a round of layoffs last year, Bethesda employees said they were still shocked at the depth and breadth of the job losses in this latest round, which affected hundreds of Maryland employees. Juniper Dowell, whose five-year tenure as a quality assurance tester ended with last week's layoffs, told Ars that the reduced workforce continuing work on franchises like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls would be akin to "trying to sing with half a choir or a band with a drummer missing."
[...]
System Designer Mandy Parker, whose position was not affected by the latest round of layoffs, told Ars, "It's hard to be creative, it's hard to be able to tell stories when we're worried about people next to us and ourselves." Parker also pushed back against the Microsoft narrative that these latest layoffs were focused heavily on reducing redundant layers of middle management, saying she wasn't aware of any middle managers let go in her office. "These folks [being laid off in quality assurance], they don't make a lot of money," Parker said. "They're taking home pizzas from our cafeteria, for their kids to eat, to help them. We don't get the big Microsoft money."
[...]
Union organizers said fans should go to the Xbox Player Voice forums to express their support for the developers of the games they love.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://goughlui.com/2026/07/09/teardown-a-generic-7-port-usb-3-0-hub-that-wasnt/

The recent end-of-financial-year sales were rather interesting – I found myself spending a lot more time browsing AliExpress than I did Amazon or eBay this year which is something I wouldn't have envisioned in the past. I suppose the deals offered by the others just weren't that good. While AliExpress was dangling cashbacks and coupons, I decided to make the most of it and buy some things that I needed.

I felt like a USB 3.0 hub with a nice number of ports would be a good thing to aim for. After all, who doesn't need more USB 3.0 ports nowadays? But alas, while I thought the world of hubs have long advanced far enough to mean that even your average product would be decent – I didn't expect to receive what I received ...

Original Submission

darkfeline writes:

"Mathematicians are challenging the idea that dark energy is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, mathematicians from the University of California, Davis, provide mathematical proof that instabilities inherent in the Einstein-Euler equations imply that the current model of the expanding universe is not viable. The Einstein-Euler equations are a union of general relativity and fluid dynamics equations used to model astronomical phenomena such as galaxies, black holes and cosmic expansion."

https://www.ucdavis.edu/blog/taking-dark-energy-out-equation

Basically, mathematicians provide an explanation for accelerated universe expansion that doesn't require fudging our equations with magical energy so that it fits our data.

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

The human body isn't a masterpiece of design – it's a patchwork of evolutionary compromise:

The human body is often described as a marvel of "perfect design": elegant, efficient and finely tuned for its purpose. Yet, when we look closer, a rather different picture emerges.

Far from being a flawless machine, the body reads more like a patchwork of compromises shaped by millions of years of evolutionary tinkering. Evolution does not design structures from scratch. Rather, it modifies what already exists.

As a result, many aspects of human anatomy are just "good enough" solutions – functional, but far from perfect. Some of the most familiar medical problems and ailments arise directly from these inherited constraints.

The spine

The human spine tells this story best.

Our vertebral column has evolved little from our four-legged, quadrupedal tree-dwelling ancestors, where it functioned primarily as a flexible beam for smooth movement from branch to branch, while also protecting the spinal cord.

When humans adopted an upright bipedal gait, the spine retained these functions. But it was also repurposed for the additional need of supporting our body weight vertically and maintaining our centre of gravity, while still allowing the flexibility for us to move. These opposing demands creates strain.

[...]

The neck

Another clear argument against divine design is the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which takes a course that simply makes no sense to invent.

This nerve, which is a branch of the vagus nerve, predominantly controls our organs' "rest and digest" functions (such as slowing heart rate and breath). The laryngeal nerve also connects the brain and larynx, helping control speech and swallowing.

Logically, one might expect it to use the most direct route to connect brain and larynx. Instead, it descends from the brain into the chest, loops around a major artery, then travels back up to the voice box.

This detour is not a clever design, but a historical leftover from our fish-like ancestors when the nerve took a straightforward path around the gill arches. As necks lengthened over evolutionary time, the nerve was stretched rather than rerouted.

[...]

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/07/microsoft-secure-boot-has-been-broken-for-most-of-its-existence/

An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux, devices from firmware infections has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years of existence.
[...]
shims, which were invented to extend Secure Boot to Linux devices and utility software. Using a technique simple enough to be performed by novice hackers, these old, forgotten shims can be used to completely circumvent the protection, which is embedded into the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) of the device's motherboard. The gaffe is the result of the failure by Microsoft, which oversees the signing of shims, to revoke the publicly available images once vulnerabilities were found in them.
[...]
"What makes these old shims dangerous is not a novel vulnerability," ESET researcher Martin Smolár wrote Tuesday. "It's that no new vulnerability is needed to bypass UEFI Secure Boot. An attacker needs no complicated exploitation primitives—only a copy of an old, still-trusted, but unrevoked shim binary and a basic understanding of how UEFI shims work. That is enough to bypass such an essential security feature as UEFI Secure Boot."
[...]
Without Secure Boot, attackers with brief physical access to a device—even when it's turned off—can install bootkits similar to LoJax used by Russia state hackers in 2018, MosaicRegressor found in 2020, CosmicStrand in 2022, and BlackLotus in 2023. A handful of other in-the-wild bootkits are tracked under names including ESpecter, FinSpy, and MoonBounce.
[...]
A list of all 11 shims compiled by CERT shows that some were used by Linux distributors such as Redhat, OpenSuse, and Oracle.
[...]
Many of them were built before certain protections, including SBAT and MOK deny lists, existed.
[...]
Microsoft's digitally signed UEFI bootloader for Windows is the sole anchor of trust on Windows machines. For a component to load during the boot process, the certificate must explicitly sign all other code executed during bootup.

Shims work differently. They're a secondary trust anchor, and they're signed by Microsoft using one of its other UEFI certificates.
[...]
When vulnerabilities are found in shims, Microsoft revokes them. In the case of the 11 shims, the company failed to do so, in some cases for more than a decade.
[...]
these vulnerable shims can be used against Windows and Linux machines alike, although likely not Windows 11 Secured-core PCs in their default state. Any Windows user who has installed Microsoft's June update batch is no longer vulnerable. Linux users should check the Linux Vendor Firmware Service or consult their distributor. Revocation statuses are available using the uefi-dbx-audit script.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Consumption rose another 10% while restrictions on most new grid connections remained around Dublin:

Electricity used by datacenters in Ireland increased by 10 percent during 2025, despite an effective moratorium on most new datacenter grid connections in the Dublin area.

The latest figures from Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that giant server farms now account for nearly a quarter of the country's metered electricity consumption.

Their share rose to 23 percent in 2025 after passing 20 percent in 2023 and 14 percent in 2021 – up from just 5 percent way back in 2015.

According to the CSO, the energy sucked up by massive bit barns increased by 10 percent last year, expanding from 6,973 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2024 to 7,663 GWh in 2025. All other customers consumed just 2 percent more electricity over the same period.

In fact, datacenters used more electricity than urban households, which accounted for 18 percent of metered use, and more than twice the rural-household share of 9 percent.

"Datacenter consumption has grown every single year without exception, more than doubling between 2015 and 2019 from 1,240 GWh to 2,490 GWh, and tripling again between 2019 and 2025, reaching 7,663 GWh," commented Grzegorz Głaczyński, statistician in the CSO's Climate and Energy Division.

Things got so bad in Ireland that at one point there were fears that the ever-expanding data dormitories might eat up as much as a third of the Emerald Isle's electricity by now.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

"The BOHR mission serves as a pathfinder for future nuclear-powered spacecraft."

The proliferation of nuclear power in space got a little more real Tuesday with the launch of a small satellite developed by a Florida-based company specializing in nuclear micro-power technology.

It's a long way from launching a bona fide nuclear reactor, a breakthrough that could help power a permanent Moon base and efficiently drive rockets throughout the Solar System. But you have to start somewhere.

The satellite from Miami-based City Labs is named BOHR, short for Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability, and it launched on a SpaceX rideshare mission Tuesday alongside 80 other payloads. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket released the BOHR satellite into an orbit between 350 and 400 miles (nearly 600 km) in altitude.

City Labs bills the BOHR mission as "the world's first commercial nuclear-powered satellite and first nuclear CubeSat." CubeSats are modest in scale, and images released by City Labs suggest BOHR is built on a "1U" CubeSat platform, a cubical design measuring about the same size as a softball. BOHR's power source is a nuclear betavoltaic battery that generates electricity from the decay of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.

"This is a historic step for commercial nuclear power in space," said Peter Cabauy, CEO of City Labs, in a statement. "BOHR demonstrates that safe, compact, and regulatory-approved nuclear power systems are ready for routine commercial deployment. This capability enables persistent, always-on payload operations that are not constrained by sunlight or battery life."

City Labs will use its experimental NanoTritium power generator in demonstration mode to supply electricity to a payload onboard the BOHR CubeSat. The spacecraft itself uses conventional solar power for regular operations, the company said. Betavoltaic batteries are best suited for low-power applications that require a reliable, long-duration source of electricity. These use cases include remote terrestrial sensors—such as in undersea or polar locations—and instrumentation for secure communications. City Labs is also studying the use of its NanoTritium technology to power implantable medical devices.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.engadget.com/2211151/new-york-first-us-state-ban-smart-glasses-all-courthouses/

New York wants to make sure nobody can surreptitiously record court proceedings using their smart glasses. Starting on July 20, all courts in the New York state will officially ban smart glasses within their premises. It applies to New York's 1,240 state, county, city, town and village courts. According to the local publication Syracuse, signs announcing the ban were posted last week on the doors of the Honorable James C. Torney III Criminal Courthouse.

The ban prohibits all types of eyewear and headwear equipped with cameras and microphones inside all Unified Court System facilities. Even smart glasses with prescription lenses are included, and the signs being posted on courthouses are asking people to bring a regular pair of glasses to use while they're inside. While some courts in other states, such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, already do not allow smart glasses on their premises, New York is the first state to issue a blanket ban.

Recording generally isn't permitted in courts, and the New York State Unified Court System's rules explicitly state that "taking photographs, films or videotapes, or audiotaping, broadcasting or telecasting, in a courthouse including any courtroom, office or hallway thereof, at any time or on any occasion, whether or not the court is in session, is forbidden."

Smart glasses could make it easier to record in a sneaky way, seeing as there's no need to raise a camera or a phone to start taking a video. They typically do have lights that switch on and blink to indicate that the user is currently taking photos or recording videos, but users could disable them or get them removed by a modder for a price.

One high profile instance that brought attention to the use of smart glasses in court happened in February, when Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg testified in a jury trial over social media addiction. Members of his team were wearing Meta Ray-Ban glasses when they escorted him inside, prompting the judge to issue a warning not to record courtroom proceedings with the devices. While it wasn't clear if any of them had used their glasses in court prior to the warning, the judge was reportedly concerned about the jurors being recorded and identified.

hubie writes:

FreeBSD 16 Retires The Last Of Its GPL Code From Its Base System:

As of this past week in the FreeBSD source tree for FreeBSD 16, the last of the GNU GPL licensed code from the base system has been retired.

The dialog implementation was the last piece of GNU GPL licensed software in FreeBSD's base system. The FreeBSD installer previously transitioned to using bsddialog in place of dialog and then dpv was the last user of dialog but itself since turned off and now retired.

This ticket to retire dialog was opened back in February while is now merged to the FreeBSD source tree for what will become FreeBSD 16.0.

With dialog removed, the latest FreeBSD code now retires the GNU sub-tree of the FreeBSD base system now that no more GNU code remains.

FreeBSD 16.0 is working its way toward release that is expected to happen in December 2027.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/cheyenne-suspends-data-center-fill-and-flush-and-closed-loop-discharges-after-meta-contractor-contaminated-its-reuse-water-system

System Offline For Months For Cleaning, Closed-Loop Cooling

Fill-and-flush is a commissioning step in which crews fill a cooling loop's piping with water, flush it to clear debris before the system is run, and then send the used water to drain. Goat Systems routed that flush water, which contained Cupriavidus gilardii, into Cheyenne's sanitary sewer, Frank Strong, the Board's engineering and water resource division manager, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Strong said the fill water had been purchased from the Board itself and that the origin of the bacterium remains unknown, but said that lab staff caught it in February during routine fecal-bacteria sampling. "This isn't something we normally test for," Strong told the paper.

Strong went on to add that the Board's concern extends past the finding of the bacterium, because closed-loop systems can carry glycol and other chemicals that municipal treatment plants aren't built to process. Cheyenne sprays its reclaimed water on parks, golf courses, and other green spaces, and the Board worried the bacterium could become an aerosol hazard during irrigation. Cupriavidus gilardii isn't a regulated contaminant, yet the discharge disrupted treatment sufficiently to trigger pass-through and interference findings under the Cheyenne City Code and federal pretreatment rules.

Meta said that it's supporting its general contractor, Fortis, which stopped discharging and began hauling wastewater offsite, and that independent testing found no trace of the substance. Testing at the Dry Creek and Crow Creek facilities cleared in late June, and the reuse system is back online. Cheyenne City Councilman Pete Laybourn called the disclosure "a very, very unpleasant surprise." The Board hasn't said how the suspension affects other Cheyenne data centers still under construction.

Original Submission