Lifeboat Foundation

‘Only one VPN is working over the airtel. However, it is punishingly slow,’ says a social activist.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) administration has completely blocked the Virtual Private Network (VPNs), which were used by the local civilians to access banned social media sites including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.

According to a Kashmir-based social activist, the administration has banned VPN applications that were widely used in the Valley to access black-listed social media sites. “Only one VPN is working over the airtel. However, it is punishingly slow,” he said.

Indian authorities have said a recent uptick in “terrorist violence” is behind the move. But rights groups have warned that civil liberties are at risk.

Scientists have found evidence that a fundamental physical constant used to measure electromagnetism between charged particles can in fact be rather in constant, according to measurements taken from a quasar some 13 billion light-years away.

Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces that knit everything in our Universe together, alongside gravity, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. The strength of electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles is calculated with the help of what’s known as the fine-structure constant.

However, the new readings – taken together with other readings from separate studies – point to tiny variations in this constant, which could have huge implications for how we understand everything around us.

Thermal cameras sound like a great idea for folks who are looking for a false sense of security and/or lack a basic understanding of what being an asymptomatic carrier means…

When the Venetian Resort reopens following the lifting of Las Vegas’ stay-at-home order, it will empoy thermal screening and full-time medics.

“” India says we have not killed anyone in Kashmir, and we say you killed over 70,000 people over the past 30 years!!” — Tanveer Mir.

Kashmiris from New York and neighboring states organized a vigil in Times Sqaure on October 27th to mark 72 years of brutal Indian occupation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. #standwithkashmir “

#standwithKashmir

Cosmic ray observatory prepares for its next decade of operations.

An interesting article from Australia.

Australia is in an unusual situation, being at once potentially extremely self-reliant and in practice extremely vulnerable to disruptions in international trade.

Whereas disruptions could come from any one of many types of natural disasters or due to politics, I am glad to see that the Australians are seriously considering what it would require to maintain their civilization in the face of disruptions.

Continue reading “Think of coronavirus as a test run: Australian military leaders warn we must prepare for worse” »

Lithium-sulfur batteries have been hailed as the next big step in battery technology, promising significantly longer use for everything from cellphones to electric vehicles on a single charge, while being more environmentally sustainable to produce than current lithium-ion batteries. However, these batteries don’t last as long as their lithium-ion counterparts, degrading over time.

A group of researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has found a way to stabilize one of the most challenging parts of lithium-sulfur batteries, bringing the technology closer to becoming commercially viable. The team’s findings, published today in Joule, show that creating an artificial layer containing tellurium, inside the battery in-situ, on top of lithium metal, can make it last four times longer.

“Sulfur is abundant and environmentally benign with no supply chain issues in the U.S.,” said Arumugam Manthiram, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Texas Materials Institute. “But there are engineering challenges. We’ve reduced a problem to extend the cycle life of these batteries.”

Albert Einstein famously postulated that “the only real valuable thing is intuition,” arguably one of the most important keys to understanding intention and communication.

But intuitiveness is hard to teach—especially to a machine. Looking to improve this, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) came up with a method that dials us closer to more seamless human–robot collaboration. The system, called “Conduct-A-Bot,” uses human muscle signals from wearable sensors to pilot a robot’s movement.

Continue reading “Conduct-A-Bot system uses muscle signals to enable more natural human-robot communication” »