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Future Soldier

Egypt's Pyramids of Giza

An ultra-powerful scan of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza could help identify two mysterious spaces that potentially house the legendary tomb of the pharaoh. The watershed study was published last month in arXiv by University of Cornell archaeologists.

“We plan to field a telescope system that has upwards of 100 times the sensitivity of the equipment that has recently been used at the Great Pyramid,” wrote the researchers of the proposed scan, which is titled “The Exploring the Great Pyramid Mission.” They use advanced cosmic ray technology to map the internal structure of the Great Pyramid, which is Egypt’s largest pyramid and the last surviving wonder from antiquity.

The team’s research is based on a study by Scan Pyramid group, which conducted a series of scans between 2015 and 2017 that analyzed muons — cosmic particles that regularly fall on Earth — to detect any voids, Live Science reported. Muons react differently to air and stone and are therefore ideal for mapping air pockets in stone structures such as pyramids.

The scientists found two spaces, the larger of which measures 98 feet long and 20 feet high and sits above the grand gallery. Meanwhile, the smaller void is located near the citadel’s north face.

And while neither void’s function is clear, scientists speculate that the large one could lead to the secret burial chamber of the pharaoh Khufu (reign circa 2551 B.C. to 2528 B.C.), for whom the Great Pyramid was originally constructed in the 26th century B.C.

In order to peer inside the void, researchers plan to scan the area with supercharged cosmic ray muons, which are 100 times more powerful than the ones used in the prior scan.

Utilizing them will allow researchers to “image muons from nearly all angles and will, for the first time, produce a true tomographic image [three-dimensional internal images created by analyzing waves of energy] of such a large structure,” per the study.  READ MORE...

Ball Finder

 

Grilling Burgers

Two things you can never go wrong with: burgers hot off the grill and plenty of icy cold drinks. And with the warmer months approaching, there’s no time like the present for a grill and chill.

Regardless of how you like your burger toppings—piled high with crispy bacon, stacked with thick slices of tomato and chilled pieces of lettuce, loaded up with pickles, fried onions, avocado and cheese—one thing’s for sure, there’s nothing like a grilled burger. Unless of course your burger isn’t grilled enough, or grilled too well. Then you’re going to have some seriously unhappy and hungry guests on your hands.

Even rare burger fans still want a little sear on their meat. After all, no one likes a totally raw burger, which is why we’re breaking down exactly how long to cook burgers on the grill with this helpful guide.

Best Burger Buns
Planning a DIY burger buffet? Get a variety of buns at the market to serve with your grilled burgers. Pick up some classic potato rolls along with brioche buns, ciabatta and onion rolls, Kaiser rolls, a good loaf of sliced bread and English muffins that can be lightly toasted on the grill, while the burgers are cooking. Let your guests make their own burger just the way they like it and dinner is done!

Best Burger Condiments
Now that you have your burger toppings and buns out of the way, all that’s left is condiments, like tangy ketchup, creamy mustard or chopped dill pickles as a relish. You can customize anyone’s burger to their liking just by setting out a few sauces and condiments.  READ MORE...

Deer Music

 

How Fast are we Moving?

No matter what perspective you choose to look at it from, planet Earth is always in motion. Our planet rotates on its axis continuously, spinning and completing a full 360° rotation approximately once a day. As we spin, we also revolve around the Sun, completing a nearly 1 billion kilometer journey every single year. Moreover, the entire Solar System — Sun, planets, moons, and all — moves through the Milky Way galaxy, orbiting around the galactic center on timescales far greater than humanity has existed for. And finally, the Milky Way galaxy moves within the Local Group, which itself moves through intergalactic space.

Depending on what we’re measuring our motion relative to, we can quantify just how quickly planet Earth moves through the Universe. Even though our motion is barely detectable through the experiments we can perform here on Earth, a look out at the Universe enables us to understand precisely how we’re in motion on each and every scale. Here’s how we know what our cosmic motion is, from each individual component to the entire cumulative effects of everything combined.

This view of the Earth comes to us courtesy of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which had to perform flybys of Earth and Venus in order to lose enough energy to reach its ultimate destination: Mercury. The round, rotating Earth and its features are undeniable, as this rotation explains why Earth bulges at the center, is compressed at the poles, and has different equatorial and polar diameters.(Credit: NASA/MESSENGER)

How fast does the Earth spin?
This question, although it might seem simple, has a different answer dependent on where, precisely, you are on the planet’s surface. Planet Earth is a rigid body, meaning that the land masses remain relatively constant with respect to one another over time. As the Earth rotates about its axis, practically every point on the surface completes a full rotation in just under 24 hours: 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds, to be precise.  READ MORE...

Fingernails

 

Now Just Wait a Damn Minute

What do I care about them Ukrainians anyway... if the Ruskies want that country, I say let them have it...  what good is going to do them now anyway...  since it is all bombed out?

But...  nothing would have happened to them in the first place is this here president Biden had not of pussy-footed around like he did.  I'm surprised that we let him get away with that crap in the first place...  don't the sonnofabitch work for usins?

And what the hell do I care about nuclear war for anyway?  I ain't gonna live much longer noways...  so what's a few months either way mean?  It's them kids who get screwed the most...  hell, they ain't even begun to live their lives and now these assholes up north want to take that away from them too.

In my day, if someone had of acted like that, we'd of kicked the shit out of them and left 'em for the dogs to piss on.  I just don't know what this ole world is coming to.  We don't know how good we got it until it gone...  and hell, with these pussies around today, if that happened, we'd never get her back.

From the Back Porch

The Valley is cool this morning but will reach up into the 60s...  and into the 70s as the week unfolds...  

It is nice to know that Spring is arriving in the Valley...  it is nice to see the green grass, the blooming of flowers, and eventually the blooming of trees...

HOWEVER, with this blooming of spring comes the inevitable mowing of grass...  and, with that comes the fact that we will be paying over $4/gallon of gasoline for our mowers.  I usually fill up 3 gas cans at one time or 7 gallons.  I was paying $14 for each fill-up and this summer I will be paying close to $30 for each fill-up.

Why is that happening here?

• Some say it is Trump's fault...
• Some say it is the war in Ukraine...
• Some say it is due to COVID-19...
• Some say it is because of Putin...
• Some say it is the gas companies...

BUT, I say it is all BULLSHIT...

When President Biden took office the first Executive Orders that he signed were to stop the USA from being energy independent to becoming energy-dependent and instead of producing our own energy, we started buying it from other countries.

The DEMOCRATS want to do away with fossil fuels once and for all and GO GREEN and save the planet...  but, saving the planet ain't gonna to work unless all the countries in the world GO GREEN and that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Are all DEMOCRATS really that unaware that the USA cannot save the world by itself?

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY - if we do away with fossil fuels, how are we going to fly our airplanes to Europe and go on vacation and spend our money?

What about our cruise ship?

Can they be powered by solar, wind, hydro, or electricity?

What about NUCLEAR ENERGY...  NUCLEAR FUSION?

Motels will have to have electric charging stations at each of their parking slots...  and guess what...  that will increase the price of our vacations.

What about grocery stores?  

Will they install charging stations at all their parking slots?

Or, shopping malls?

Maybe we should just do away with private transportation and create a massive public transportation system network and then we can carry our shopping bags on the bus with everyone else as we make our way back home...

That makes me feel that our society is going backward instead of forward...

For my wife and I, we would stop going on vacation and just travel locally so that we could always recharge our vehicle at home...

How many Americans would be like us?

How would this change our country?  our economy?  our future?

What makes me feel better about this is the fact that 50% of Americans are AGAINST IT...  This means that HALF OUR COUNTRY IS NOT IN FAVOR of what the Democrats want to do...  

HOW DOES THIS DIVIDE HELP the US???  our children???  our future???

House of Wax

 

Limits of Artificial Intelligence

Humans are usually pretty good at recognizing when they get things wrong, but artificial intelligence systems are not. According to a new study, AI generally suffers from inherent limitations due to a century-old mathematical paradox.

Like some people, AI systems often have a degree of confidence that far exceeds their actual abilities. And like an overconfident person, many AI systems don't know when they're making mistakes. Sometimes it's even more difficult for an AI system to realize when it's making a mistake than to produce a correct result.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Oslo say that instability is the Achilles' heel of modern AI and that a mathematical paradox shows AI's limitations. Neural networks, the state of the art tool in AI, roughly mimic the links between neurons in the brain. The researchers show that there are problems where stable and accurate neural networks exist, yet no algorithm can produce such a network. Only in specific cases can algorithms compute stable and accurate neural networks.

The researchers propose a classification theory describing when neural networks can be trained to provide a trustworthy AI system under certain specific conditions. Their results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Deep learning, the leading AI technology for pattern recognition, has been the subject of numerous breathless headlines. Examples include diagnosing disease more accurately than physicians or preventing road accidents through autonomous driving. However, many deep learning systems are untrustworthy and easy to fool.

"Many AI systems are unstable, and it's becoming a major liability, especially as they are increasingly used in high-risk areas such as disease diagnosis or autonomous vehicles," said co-author Professor Anders Hansen from Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. "If AI systems are used in areas where they can do real harm if they go wrong, trust in those systems has got to be the top priority."  READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Interior of Protons Entangled

If a photon carries too little energy, it does not fit inside a proton (left). A photon with sufficiently high energy is so small that it flies into the interior of a proton, where it 'sees' part of the proton (right). Maximum entanglement then becomes visible between the 'seen' and 'unseen' areas. Credit: IFJ PAN



Fragments of the interior of a proton have been shown by scientists from Mexico and Poland to exhibit maximum quantum entanglement. The discovery, already confronted with experimental data, allows us to suppose that in some respects the physics of the inside of a proton may have much in common not only with well-known thermodynamic phenomena, but even with the physics of... black holes.

Various fragments of the inside of a proton must be maximally entangled with each other, otherwise theoretical predictions would not agree with the data collected in experiments, it was shown in European Physical Journal C. 

The theoretical model (which extends the original proposal by physicists Dimitri Kharzeev and Eugene Levin) makes it possible to suppose that, contrary to current belief, the physics operating inside protons may be related to such concepts as entropy or temperature, which in turn may relate it to such exotic objects as black holes. 

The authors of the discovery are Dr. Martin Hentschinski from the Universidad de las Americas Puebla in Mexico and Dr. Krzysztof Kutak from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow, Poland.

The Mexican-Polish theorists analyzed the situation in which electrons are fired at protons. When an incoming electron carrying a negative electric charge approaches a positively charged proton, it interacts with it electromagnetically and deflects its path. 

Electromagnetic interaction means that a photon has been exchanged between the electron and the proton. The stronger the interaction, the greater the change in momentum of the photon and therefore the shorter the associated electromagnetic wave.  READ MORE...

Dancer

 

Ruining Your Devices

How many smartphones have you dropped and shattered? It’s an awful feeling – seeing it falling to the ground and knowing there’s nothing you can do.

Years ago, I put a tempered glass screen protector on my phone. The best part is when you drop your phone, and the glass gets nicked, you simply remove the protector, and it's good as new. Here’s a link to the brand I have used for years, ESR.

Our devices are big investments. You need to treat your tech well to get your money's worth. Regular maintenance is one way to stay ahead of the game. Tap or click for six checkups to do now to avoid a hefty repair bill later.

Based on calls to my show, emails, and questions posted on my website’s tech support forum, here are five common mistakes that could cost you:

1. You’re charging too much
Do you keep your phone plugged in all the time? Apple says that when your iPhone “remain(s) at full charge for prolonged periods of time, battery health can be affected.”

Android phone manufacturers, including Samsung, say the same. “Do not leave your phone connected to the charger for long periods of time or overnight.” Huawei says, “Keeping your battery level as close to the middle (30% to 70%) as possible can effectively prolong the battery life.”

The official word is to keep your phone charged – but not fully charged. Get in the habit of unplugging your tech after it is fully charged.

2. You wait too long to charge your laptop
Laptop batteries have a finite number of charge-discharge cycles. If you frequently let your battery entirely run out of juice, it affects the charge-discharge cycle and diminishes its intended lifespan.

Your laptop battery can also lose efficiency another way. Let’s say you regularly charge your laptop from 30% to 50%, or about 20% each time you charge it. Well, do that five times and you’ll have completed one battery cycle because you’ve charged your laptop 100% in total.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your battery charged to at least 40% most of the time. Tap or click here to check your laptop’s battery health.

3. You go with the cheapest option
If you lose your charger or a USB cable gets frayed, resist the temptation to buy the cheapest replacement. The few dollars you save on a low-cost substitute may very likely negatively affect your device’s performance.

One-size-fits-all charger and cable makers don’t want you to know that often their products do not have the proper voltage needed to work with your specific device. Why does that matter? Your battery may end up not getting the juice it needs to charge fully. Worse, it may erode the battery’s life.  READ MORE...

Carina Thompson

 

Off the Cuff

 Today, while I was minding my own business at my own home, the doorbell rang, and a middle-aged gentleman and his son were standing on the porch smiling...  I did not know them but I just knew that they were selling something that I immediately thought had something to do with the local high school.  But, when I opened the door, the first comment out of the mouth of the child was targeted as he asked me directly if I wanted to attend his church.

His father tried to open the storm door, but I held it close to the door frame and said that we already had a church...  thanked them...  then shut the door.  My wife who was standing in the kitchen asked me not to be so rude.  While I did not think I was being rude and acted no differently than I would have to any other door-to-door salesperson, my wife thought I should have been nicer to religious people.

For me...  a door-to-door salesperson is a door-to-door salesperson...  there ain't no difference just because they are selling a local church.

Why is a local church trying to build up its attendance?  Is their church not completely full on Sundays or are they trying to increase revenues?  Either way, it benefits them more than it does me.

Am I saying that I am not religious?  NO!  My beliefs are my own, but I will tell you this, I am against institutionalized religion, not religion as a belief.  I have a strong religious belief and will never lessen, in fact, it gets stronger as I get older...

But again, my beliefs are not in question here...  what is a concern, is why other churches and their congregations try to push their beliefs and their churches on you.  If I want to attend a church I will because I made that decision not because one of their members came to my door and invited me...  I probably will not attend because they came to my door as I would not want to share my beliefs with someone who had that kind of personality.

Putin

Caucasian Born

 

Skateboard

Psychedelics Maps Conscious Awareness

Graph showing relation between type of drug, descriptive words and neurotransmitter. 

Credit: Danilo Bzdok

Psychedelics are now a rapidly growing area of neuroscience and clinical research, one that may produce much-needed new therapies for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. Yet there is still a lot to know about how these drug agents alter states of consciousness.

In the world’s largest study on psychedelics and the brain, a team of researchers from The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) and Department of Biomedical Engineering of McGill University, the Broad Institute at Harvard/MIT, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, and Mila—Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute have shown how drug-induced changes in subjective awareness are anatomically rooted in specific neurotransmitter receptor systems.

The researchers gathered 6,850 testimonials from people who took a range of 27 different psychedelic drugs. In a first-of-its-kind approach, they designed a machine learning strategy to extract commonly used words from the testimonials and link them with the neurotransmitter receptors that likely induced them.

The interdisciplinary team could then associate the subjective experiences with brain regions where the receptor combinations are most commonly found—these turned out to be the lowest and some of the deepest layers of the brain’s information processing layers.

Using thousands of gene transcription probes, the team created a 3D map of the brain receptors and the subjective experiences linked to them, across the whole brain. While psychedelic experience is known to vary widely from person to person, the large testimonial dataset allowed the team to characterize coherent states of conscious experiences with receptors and brain regions across individuals. This supports the theory that new hallucinogenic drug compounds can be designed to reliably create desired mental states.  READ MORE...

Curious Dog

 

A Stoneage Woman

Oscar Nilsson, a forensic artist based in Sweden, spent 350 hours reconstructing the Stone Age woman's likeness. (Image credit: Oscar Nilsson )



A Stone Age woman who lived 4,000 years ago is leaning on her walking stick and looking ahead as a spirited young boy bursts into a run, in a stunning life-size reconstruction now on display in Sweden.


Although her likeness is new — it debuted last month in an exhibit about ancient people at Västernorrlands Museum — researchers have known about this woman's existence for nearly a century. During the construction of a road in the hamlet of Lagmansören in 1923, workers found her skeletal remains buried next to the remains of a child, likely a 7-year-old boy.


"With our eyes and perhaps in all times, you tend to think that this is a mother and son," said Oscar Nilsson, the Sweden-based forensic artist who spent 350 hours creating the lifelike model. "They could be. Or they could be siblings: sister and brother. They could be relatives, or they could just be tribe friends. We don't know, because the DNA was not that well preserved to establish this relationship."


But as Nilsson molded the woman's posture and sculpted her face, he pretended that she was near her son who was scampering ahead of her. "She's looking with the mother's eyes — both with love and a bit of discipline," Nilsson told Live Science. This stern but tender gaze looks as if she's on the cusp of calling out to the boy, telling him to be careful.  READ MORE...

Garbage Trucks