Surprisingly, a number of filmmakers are on the same page as movie collectors when it comes to DRM: they, too, believe that ripping should be legalized. The current law is stifling their creativity and prevents them from making the movies they want to make, as only documentary films are allowed to feature snippets of footage from other productions.
According to the filmmakers, the documentary genre is vaguely defined. This leads to a lot of confusion whether or not the exemptions apply. They, therefore, suggest applying it to all filmmakers, instead of criminalizing those who don’t identify themselves as documentarians.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Filmmakers Want the Right to Break DRM and Rip Blu-rays
Monthly Archives: December 2017
Your Selfie Obsession May Be Real, But 'Selfitis' Is a Fake Disease
From the annals of bad science reporting comes this latest confusion: Media outlets completely misconstrued the results of a study about a supposed selfie mental disorder—a study that itself was inspired by a hoax that also fooled media outlets three years earlier.
Source: Gizmodo – Your Selfie Obsession May Be Real, But ‘Selfitis’ Is a Fake Disease
Xbox's lack of compelling games won't be fixed next year
Microsoft’s 2017 started six months early. At E3 2016, Xbox chief Phil Spencer closed out the company’s keynote by teasing the “most powerful console ever.” At this year’s show, he finally revealed the Xbox One X, and in November, the hardware was at…
Source: Engadget – Xbox’s lack of compelling games won’t be fixed next year
Best Featured Bags of 2017
If your holiday season involved getting a new backpack, purse, or suitcase as a gift, you’re no doubt thinking of what you’ll stuff inside the thing, along with what to keep out of it (you don’t need four of the same day planner). We scoured the web and found some pretty tricked out bags this year, so take a look at…
Source: LifeHacker – Best Featured Bags of 2017
Bacteria under pressure run reaction in reverse to sequester carbon
Life performs many astonishing feats of chemistry, building complex molecules that can take us years to figure out how to synthesize. And the thermodynamics of these reactions are often fascinating—in many cases, life lives on the edge, at risk of seeing critical reactions bog down and run in reverse.
Now, some researchers have figured out a way to force bacteria to run a chemical reaction in reverse. Rather than breaking down a simple molecule into carbon dioxide, the bacteria will ingest carbon dioxide and spit out formic acid, a chemical that already has lots of uses—and could be used as fuel or to sequester carbon. The secret? Force-feed the bacteria the raw ingredients for the chemical reaction.
Enzymes and catalysis
The proteins that act as enzymes are nothing more than catalysts. The complex three-dimensional shapes of these proteins stabilize intermediate states of chemical reactions, lowering the energy required to reach them. This essentially lowers the energetic hill that has to be climbed to get between a set of reactants and a set of products. But if the overall energy of the reactants and products isn’t very different, then that smaller hill will also let things run in the opposite direction: the enzyme will happily form a reaction intermediate from the product and spit out the original reactants.
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Bacteria under pressure run reaction in reverse to sequester carbon
1.76 or 4.05 ?
hello
should one update to 4.05 if you have an 1.76 or not?
does 4.05 allow to play more(all) games ?
Source: PS4 News – 1.76 or 4.05 ?
Renewable energy outstripped coal use in the UK for most of 2017
The UK has been working to significantly reduce its carbon emissions and with that effort, it hit some major green milestones this year. In April, the country went a full day without coal-generated power for the first time in 135 years. And in June,…
Source: Engadget – Renewable energy outstripped coal use in the UK for most of 2017
Russia Lost a $45 Million Satellite Because ‘They Didn’t Get the Coordinates Right’
In November, Russia lost contact with a 6,062-pound, $45 million satellite. Turns out, that happened because the Meteor-M weather satellite was programmed with the wrong coordinates.
Source: Gizmodo – Russia Lost a Million Satellite Because ‘They Didn’t Get the Coordinates Right’
Awesome Pegboard Rube Goldberg Machine Starring A Red Ball
This is a Rube Goldberg style machine starring a red ball using a bunch of different devices to make its way across a variety of obstacles. I particularly liked all the pulley and launch systems. I do feel it’s a little cheating though that each board was set up individually and edited together like it’s one giant machine. “You do better then.” I don’t wanna do better, I just want to complain on the internet like a normal person with nothing meaningful going on in their own life.
Keep going for all the fun, it really is impressive.
Source: Geekologie – Awesome Pegboard Rube Goldberg Machine Starring A Red Ball
How'd You Do During December's Money Challenge?
That’s a wrap for this year’s Ultimate Money Challenge. In 2017, we asked you to negotiate, kick your spending weakness, and clean out your closets for cash, just to name a few. Some of you paid off your credit card debt and even started saving for retirement. Nice work! It’s time to recap our final challenge of the…
Source: LifeHacker – How’d You Do During December’s Money Challenge?
China will cap QR-code payments to tackle fraud
Source: Engadget – China will cap QR-code payments to tackle fraud
MoviePass Adds a Million Subscribers, Even if Theaters Aren't Sold on It
From a report: As streaming services like Netflix and Hulu surge in popularity, movie theaters have been trying to compete by rethinking the concession counter and installing seats that resemble beds. Yet attendance was flat at North American cinemas in 2016, and analysts are predicting a 4 percent decline in 2017, bringing ticket sales to a 22-year low. Perhaps something more radical is necessary. Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder, certainly thought so when he took over a ticketing firm called MoviePass in June 2016. By August of this year, when MoviePass introduced a cut-rate, subscription-based plan — go to the movies 365 times a year for $9.95 a month — Mr. Lowe had been declared an enemy of the state. “Not welcome here,” AMC Entertainment, the largest multiplex operator in North America, said in an indignant August news release that threatened legal action. It may be time to get on board: MoviePass said this month that it had signed up more than one million subscribers in just four months (Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). It took Netflix more than three years to reach that level when it started selling low-priced subscriptions for DVD rentals in 1999. Spotify was relatively quick, at five months in 2011. It took Hulu 10 months to reach one million later that year. “We’re actually shocked,” Mr. Lowe said. “We seem to have hit a nerve in America.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – MoviePass Adds a Million Subscribers, Even if Theaters Aren’t Sold on It
Why the Eastern US Will Be Bone Chillingly Cold Through New Year's
It brings me no pleasure to report this, but it’s cold, folks. Really cold. If you’d like to prove it to yourself, make ice bubbles (trust me, it has to be really cold to do this):
Source: Gizmodo – Why the Eastern US Will Be Bone Chillingly Cold Through New Year’s
Could development funding help fight ocean plastic pollution?
Plastic pollution doesn’t just kill fish. It kills people too.
Source: TreeHugger – Could development funding help fight ocean plastic pollution?
Russia Says Satellite Launch Failure Due to Programming Error
Russia has lost a $45 million satellite, the Meteor-M, because someone put in the wrong coordinates. In what is being called an “embarrassing programming error,” the rocket carrying the satellite thought it was launching from Baikonur instead of Vostochny cosmodrome.
Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month it had lost contact with the newly-launched weather satellite – the Meteor-M – after it blasted off from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East. Speaking to Rossiya 24 state TV channel, Rogozin said the failure had been caused by human error.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Russia Says Satellite Launch Failure Due to Programming Error
New PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Patch Improves Server Performance
PUBG players will definitely want to grab the game’s latest patch, as the team has made tweaks to diminish some major issues that include intermittent lag and character position readjustment. It sounds like the developers have a lot of work ahead of them in terms of eliminating the problems entirely, however.
In this patch, we have removed some inefficiencies in server infrastructure and optimized in-game servers to alleviate the problem. More specifically, we made adjustments to reduce the bottleneck during the game server launch phase and also resolved some server hitch issues. Resolving the intermittent lag and character position readjustment issues are still one of our top priorities, and we are continuing to work on analyzing and fixing any remaining issues every day.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – New PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Patch Improves Server Performance
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Shows Why We Need Appropriations Reform
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is getting a lot of hype, but some say that Elon Musk’s rocket isn’t deserving of the contracts it is expected to receive. The Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) process is all about value, but Musk is already focusing his energy on what is supposedly a superior alternative (the BFR) — and the Falcon 9’s rocky journey isn’t helping skeptics. Thanks Montu.
SpaceX may low-ball a bid for Falcon Heavy launches — per its website, potentially even at a one-third discount — but appropriators should have every right to look at the “fine print” as well. The government should want to avoid another horrid situation like the Battle of Wanat in Afghanistan, where nine American soldiers died and dozens of others were wounded due to jammed-up, inefficient weapons. Low prices mean nothing without reliability.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – SpaceX Falcon Heavy Shows Why We Need Appropriations Reform
Shave $3 Off These Gillette and Venus Razors
If you use a Gillette or Venus razor, you can save $3 off razor refills, courtesy of Amazon. Some of these are eligible for Subscribe & Save, which will save you another 5%. Remember, you can cancel your order at any time if you don’t want multiple shipments.
Source: Gizmodo – Shave Off These Gillette and Venus Razors
LG Announces the 5K UltraWide 34WK95U: A 'Nano IPS' Monitor with a HDR600 Badge
LG has announced the 34WK95U, a new “dream monitor” for prosumers, gamers, multimedia enthusiasts and everyone who needs a large ultra-wide screen along with a high resolution that is beyond 4K. The new 34” display is expected to be available sometimes in 2018, but LG does not say when.
The LG UltraWide 34WK95U uses an IPS panel with a 5120×2160 resolution (which the manufacturer calls 21:9 5K ultra-wide) and the recently announced Nano IPS technology. The initial benefit of a ‘wider than 4K’ resolution (5120-wide vs 3840-wide) is for 4K content creators to see a whole video with UI elements down either side. The Nano IPS technology enables the panel to deliver “a broad range of accurate colors”, as LG puts it. Given the fact that another Nano IPS-enhanced display from LG features a professional-grade DCI-P3 color space coverage, it is reasonable to assume that the 34WK95U can also cover a comparable percentage of the DCI-P3 color space, which would be something we have not seen on consumer monitors with a 21:9 aspect ratio so far. However, LG does not outright say that its 5K ultra-wide LCD supports the DCI-P3. The display does carry VESA’s DisplayHDR-600 badge, so it supports HDR10 processing and up to 600 nits brightness (but we know nothing about possible local dimming support needed to hit low black levels).
Moving on to connectivity. A particularly good thing about the UltraWide 34WK95U is the Thunderbolt 3 input that enables to connect the display to an appropriate PC using just one cable and even feed up to 60 W of power back to the host. It is reasonable to expect the display to support other inputs like DisplayPort and HDMI as well as feature a USB 3.0 hub, but LG is not disclosing exact specs of the product right now.
Over the past few years LG has done a great job popularizing the ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio by introducing multiple 21:9 displays itself and selling the panels to other makers of monitors. Without any doubts, ultra-wide displays are very handy for gamers and users who multitask a lot (designers, engineers, traders, photographers, video editors, developers, etc.), but the maximum resolution offered by such monitors up to this point has been 3840×1600. This resolution is enough to playback UltraHD content filmed in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 (movies), but if a user needed to watch/edit 3840×2160/4096×2160 content, or just require more vertical pixels (e.g., for large images or long texts), such displays were not an option. The LG UltraWide 34WK95U solves this problem by going 5120×2160 pixels and granting people who work on 4K content some additional screen real estate for various UI panels when they work on a project fullscreen. Speaking of content creators, it must be noted that the LG34WK95U is a consumer monitor. Even if it supports the DCI-P3, it is most likely tailored for the consumer version of the DCI-P3 color space, not the digital projection version with its different white point and gamma (this is an educated guess rather than official information though).
LG is set to showcase the UltraWide 34WK95U at CES next month and this is where we going to learn more about this monitor. The company is tight-lipped about ETA and MSRP of the display, but since this is a unique product and some of its predecessors still retail for $1250 – $1600 more than a year after the launch, expect the price of the 34WK95U to be higher than average for a premium consumer LCD.
| Preliminary Specifications of the UltraWide 34WK95U | ||
| Panel | 34″ IPS with Nano IPS technology | |
| Resolution | 5120 × 2160 | |
| Maximum Brightness | 600 cd/m² | |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz (?) | |
| Viewing Angles | 178°/178° horizontal/vertical | |
| Color Saturation | “broad range of accurate colors” “eye-popping colors” “fantastic color reproduction” DCI-P3 not confirmed |
|
| Display Colors | 1.07 billion | |
| HDR | DisplayHDR-600 HDR10 |
|
| 3D-LUT | Supported | |
| Inputs | 1 × TB3 DisplayPort (tbc) HDMI (tbc) |
|
| Audio | Integrated speakers (tbc) | |
In addition to the high-end UltraWide 34WK95U, LG also announced the UltraWide 34GK950G display for gamers. The 34GK950C monitor boasts with a QHD resolution (2560×1440 pixels), NVIDIA’s G-Sync dynamic refresh rate support as well as the Nano IPS treatment for improved colors. The company did not disclose any additional details about the 34WK95U, but since it will be demonstrated at CES next month, more information will be available there.
Related Reading
- LG Develops ‘Nano IPS’ LCD, Unveils 32UK950 4K Display with DCI-P3, HDR600, TB3
- LG 38UC99 Announced: 37.5-Inch Curved 21:9 Display with 3840×1600 Resolution
- LG’s 34UC89G 21:9 Curved Display with G-Sync, 144 to 166 Hz, Available for $999
- LG Announces the 34UC79G: 34-Inch Curved 21:9 Display with 2560 × 1080 Resolution, 144 Hz Refresh Rate for $700
- Pre-Orders for LG’s 32UD99 Display Available: 4K, DCI-P3, HDR10, FreeSync for $999 LG 43UD79-B Launched: 42.5-inch 4K IPS with FreeSync
Source: AnandTech – LG Announces the 5K UltraWide 34WK95U: A ‘Nano IPS’ Monitor with a HDR600 Badge
What to Do With Brussels Sprouts When You're Tired of Roasting Them
A perfectly roasted, slightly charred Brussels sprout is a very pleasing thing to eat, but one can become fatigued with a single prep method. Good thing there’s more than one way to eat these cruciferous delights. Here are a few of our favorites.
Source: LifeHacker – What to Do With Brussels Sprouts When You’re Tired of Roasting Them