Moto G Play | 2023 | 3-Day battery | Unlocked | Made for US by Motorola | 3/32GB | 16MP Camera | Navy Blue | Android 12.0

Brain scans showed that Botox injected into the forehead altered people’s brain chemistry, impacting how they interpreted other people’s emotions, a new study published in Scientific Reports found.

Botox is an injectable that temporarily reduces or eliminates facial fine lines and wrinkles and is popularly used to reduce the appearance of frown lines, forehead creases and crow’s feet near the eyes. //

As more and more people across the country continue to schedule appointments to get Botox, researchers questioned how the temporary paralysis of the facial muscles that results from the treatment impacts a person’s ability to interpret emotions. //

Botox was found to hinder the facial feedback hypothesis, which claims that people instinctively mirror facial expressions in an effort to identify and experience the emotion being expressed in front of them.

NaturalReader is text to speech app that reads text, PDF, webpages, and eBooks aloud to you with our quality, natural-sounding voices.

The app we’re using is called “NaturalReader.” It’s available for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The app is completely free. For the best experience, you’ll want to sign up for an account. You can easily do so with a Google account or Apple ID.

Lastly, you will need an eBook of some sort. The app we’re using supports a wide variety of file types, including EPUB, MOBI, and PDF.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.naturalsoft.personalweb

soundtrack of Urgaton's videogame "SpaceMission42", a vertically scrolling space shooter for Android with retro-style gameplay and modern graphics.

A version of the soundtrack for stand-alone listening is available since December 2019.

Ditch legacy backup architectures that are no match for the modern threat landscape, and learn how you can improve your security posture and fortify your defenses against modern cyber threats. //

Data Resilience
Secure your data from insider threats or ransomware with air-gapped, immutable, access-controlled backups.

Data Observability
Continuously monitor and remediate data risks, including ransomware, sensitive data exposure, and indicators of compromise.

Data Remediation
Surgically and rapidly recover your apps, files, or users while avoiding malware reinfection.

According to data from the MRC’s Free Speech America’s CensorTrack.org database, there have been 293 cases of documented censorship since Musk took over from Nov. 4, 2022, through Mar. 4, 2023. This is 67 more cases than the 226 instances reported by CensorTrack.org from pre-Musk Twitter during the same time last year.

Soylent Green is more famous for its twist than anything else — and that’s okay. //

Before Star Wars changed everything in 1977, most serious science fiction movies were dark. And 50 years ago, on April 19, 1973, one of the darkest sci-fi movies of all time was released. Half a century later, we’re still quoting Soylent Green and its big twist, but the movie’s cultural influence goes even deeper.

The mounds that certain species of termites build above their nests have long been considered to be a kind of built-in natural climate control—an approach that has intrigued architects and engineers keen to design greener, more energy-efficient buildings mimicking those principles. There have been decades of research devoted to modeling just how these nests function. A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Materials offers new evidence favoring an integrated-system model in which the mound, the nest, and its tunnels function together much like a lung.

It has never been too hard for someone with the right amount of time, desperation, or flexible scruples to get around Windows XP's activation scheme. And yet XP activation, the actual encrypted algorithm, loathed since before it started, has never been truly broken, at least entirely offline. Now, far past the logical end of all things XP, the solution exists, floating around the web's forum-based backchannels for months now.

On the blog of tinyapps.org (first spotted by The Register), which provides micro-scale, minimalist utilities for constrained Windows installations, a blog post appropriately titled "Windows XP Activation: GAME OVER" runs down the semi-recent history of folks looking to activate Windows XP more than 20 years after it debuted, nine years after its end of life, and, crucially, some years after Microsoft turned off its online activation servers (or maybe they just swapped certificates). //

Most people won't actually, hopefully need this tool. Fully functional XP images that you can sandbox inside a virtual machine exist in many places, including Microsoft's own Windows XP Mode for Windows 7. And, of course, installing a highly unsupported XP on a device that's connected to the modern Internet is malice aforethought. Let us all enjoy this for the rhetorical, mathematical victory that it is while we say a small prayer for those dealing with hardware that truly needs XP.

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Thursday in favor of a 94-year-old widow in her battle with a rapacious Hennepin County, MN, government which sold her home for a small tax debt and pocketed the change. //

The court did not rule on the “excessive fines” claim, but the concurrence by Justice Gorsuch indicates that Hennepin County would not have fared better on that issue. //

This decision is a great victory for freedom. It follows the same direction the courts have been taking in regards to Civil Asset Forfeiture; //

Mtnjacket
2 hours ago
One governmental crime bites the dust. Time for similar treatment of civil asset forfeiture and no-knock warrants.

Meter forms 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9

Microsoft Excel's undo / redo feature behaves unlike any other program I know. The undo stack seems to be global across all open files, so that undoing sometimes switches to another file and undoes something you didn't want to undo. And if an edit you want to undo was before an edit in another file, you have no choice but to undo the other file.

I am not the first to complain about this - see "Excel's undo madness", about halfway down.

Besides "edit only one file at a time", is there a way to make Excel's Undo apply to the current file only?

I'm using Excel 2003 if it makes a difference. //

A: Open Excel itself in a new instance

For Excel's main shortcut you could simply add a /x flag after the address in the shortcut's Target field:

"C:\Program Files\...\EXCEL.EXE" /x

It also works for pinned start menu shortcuts in Windows 10 (You need to access the shortcut file in Start Menu\Programs directory)

Open Excel documents in a new instance

This solution works but makes the documents' icon changed which some may find it unpleasant.

To run .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm, etc documents directly in a new instance, you could first create a .bat file with the following content:

@ECHO off
start "" "C:\Program Files...\EXCEL.EXE" /x %1

Then you could simply associate each file format to your .bat file with Always use... checked. [Use a shortcut .lnk to the .bat file and associate the files with the .lnk with correct icon.]

Keep the ability to open files in the current instance
It's still necessary to open files in the current instance if you want to access the other files' content through formulas or VBA. In these cases, you could first open one file and then drag the other file(s) on the opened Excel window.

You could also use File > Open through the opened file. //

MS does this for Excel only due to cross-workbook references. The only way they can maintain integrity of formula relationships in that context is to maintain a single undo history. Further, to make it optional is extremely complicated: how does a user choose whether to have a single history or multiple histories? When would a user choose that? They could make it automatic basing on formula dependencies, but that can easily become impossible to manage logically and performance wise. Remember, they need to deliver a product that WORKS. –
Mr. TA Apr 19, 2016 at 15:47

@Mr.TA: Libre/Apache Office has links between files/sheets and they do undo on a per file/sheet level... just saying (that it is doable, totally doable, if you're not a lazy x -- which apparently seems to be the case with MS developers). –
Erk Feb 7, 2017 at 16:13

I can create cross-document links in Word, while also undoing in a single document. Clearly it can be done. Yes, the link may get broken, but that's my fault. I would greatly prefer that behaviour over this window-jumping undo-hell. –
JMD Jan 19, 2018 at 0:49

The unit consists of two stages of filtration, a coarse screen and a fine screen.

Dirty water enters the inlet, passes through the coarse screen outside-in, and enters the inside of the fine screen. The water then passes through the fine screen from the inside out and exits the outlet.

Unwanted solids accumulate on the inner surface of the fine screen, making it harder for water to pass through the fine screen and creating a pressure differential between the inlet and the outlet. Once the pressure differential reaches a preset level, the factory-supplied control system activates a rinse cycle by opening the rinse valve and starting the motor.

When the rinse valve opens to atmosphere, pressure drops in the rinse chamber. The dirt collector is hollow and connects the rinse chamber and the fine screen chamber, so pressure drops inside the dirt collector and its nozzles as well. The pressure drop causes the nozzles to work like vacuum cleaners, sucking in nearby particles. The nozzles are self-adjusting, allowing the nozzle openings to touch the surface of the fine screen. The water rushes into the nozzles at over 50 feet/second, carrying with it any material stuck on the fine screen. The intense energy can suck off even the stickiest particles.

Meanwhile, the dirt collector is slowly rotating and moving linearly. The drive shaft rotates the dirt collector, while the linear motion shaft moves it linearly. Both are controlled by the motor, on the back of the filter. Together, they ensure that the dirt collector nozzles pass over each part of the screen at least twice during the 45-second rinse cycle.

The descent from lunar orbit to landing was broken into three phases, and each of these phases had a specific computer program associated with it. Here’s the way it worked on all six lunar landings:

The descent began with the braking phase — the first and longest phase. It was flown entirely automatically by the computer (Program 63). Its goal was to slow the spacecraft from about 3,800 miles/hour to about 700 miles/hour, and to decrease the LM’s altitude from about 50,000 feet to 7,000 feet.
The approach phase began when the LM was about 7,000 feet in altitude and about 2 miles from the landing site. The computer was still doing all the flying (Program 64), but the crew could now see the landing site and offer adjustments to the computer.
The landing phase began around 500 - 700 feet in altitude. The Commander flipped a switch next to his left thumb, causing the computer to switch to Program 66. The computer was now in what was known as attitude hold. The Commander selected the spot where he wanted to land, and used his controls to tell the computer where to go. The computer was also responsible for keeping the LM upright. The landing phase ends with the LM on the lunar surface. //

Here are the times (in minutes and seconds) that each of the missions spent in the landing phase:

Apollo 11: 2:23

Apollo 12: 1:44

Apollo 14: 2:01

Apollo 15: 1:16

Apollo 16: 1:00

Apollo 17: 1:08

Apollo 11 had by far the longest landing phase — almost 2 and a half minutes. That’s how long it took Armstrong to find a suitable landing spot and guide the computer toward it.

At the other extreme was Apollo 16 — when it entered the landing phase, a suitable landing spot was right there and it took John Young only a minute to guide the computer through the last few hundred feet and onto the lunar surface.

All of these missions went through the same phases — they differed only in how long each phase lasted.

As far as Armstrong being the one to fly the LM, that was also the plan, and again, it was the Commander who guided the LM during the landing phase on all six lunar landing missions. The job of the LMP (Lunar Module Pilot) was to provide crucial support during the landing, monitoring systems and calling out numbers throughout the landing phase. If you listen to the audio of any of the lunar landings, the voice you hear calling out numbers is the LMP.

Steve Baker
Senior Software Engineer (2013–present)Apr 24

Will SpaceX upgrade Starship to more than three vacuum Raptor engines?

The problem is with the space available.

Although you can fit 33 sea-level Raptors into the 9 meter diameter space at the tail end of the SuperHeavy - the vacuum optimized Raptors need a HUGE engine bell.

Just look at the difference in size (sea-level raptor on the left - vacuum-optimized on the right)…the two engines are almost identical aside from that!

It’s interesting to look at the 1st and 2nd stages of the Falcon-9. It has nine sea-level Merlin engines packed underneath the main rocket - but the second stage has the same diameter - and it’s is pretty much FULL with just one vacuum optimized Merlin!

Same exact rocket motor - but giant bell required for vacuum work.

Andrew Swenson
MS in Space Systems Engineering, US Naval Postgraduate School (Graduated 1993)May 14

Why does NASA not allow anyone to inspect the lunar module (lunar excursion module) that traveled to the Moon during Apollo missions?

Which one would you like to inspect and how would you get there? Here are the locations of each one….good luck with your inspection:

Apollo 5- Destroyed in Earth's Atmosphere.
Apollo 9- Destroyed in Earth's Atmosphere.
Apollo 10- Heliocentric orbit
Apollo 11- released in lunar orbit, location unknown.
Apollo 12- Impacted Moon 20 November 1969 at 22:17:17.7 UT (5:17 PM EST) 3.94 S, 21.20 W
Apollo 13- Burned up in Earth's atmosphere.
Apollo 14- Impacted Moon 07 February 1971 at 00:45:25.7 UT (06 February, 7:45 PM EST) 3.42 S, 19.67 W
Apollo 15- Impacted Moon 03 August 1971 at 03:03:37.0 UT (02 August, 11:03 PM EDT) 26.36 N, 0.25 E
Apollo 16- Released around moon, impact site unknown. Orbited for about a year.
Apollo 17- Impacted Moon 15 December 1972 at 06:50:20.8 UT (1:50 AM EST) 19.96 N, 30.50 E

A drive down Bolivia's infamous "Death Road" takes travellers into a world where two resources have provoked fascination, misunderstanding and controversy for centuries: coca and gold.

After cresting the 4,800m Cumbre pass, the trufi (shared taxi) plunged into a cloud of swirling mist. Inside the vehicle it felt strangely peaceful, as if we were trapped in a bubble, which was perhaps for the best given we were travelling along the "Camino de la Muerte", or Death Road.

Running from the high-altitude Andean city of La Paz to the subtropical Yungas valleys and the Amazonian lowlands beyond, the 64km Yungas Road involves a sharp 3,500m descent. Parts of the highway are only 3m wide; there is a series of sharp turns and blind corners; and mini waterfalls splash down the surrounding rockface. Safety barriers make only a rare appearance – far more common are roadside shrines: white crosses, bunches of flowers, yellowing photos.

During the 1990s, so many people died in accidents on the highway – built by Paraguayan prisoners of war following the catastrophic Chaco War (1932-35) – that the Inter-American Development Bank described it as "the world's most dangerous road".

Bucking and weaving along the rugged contours of Norway's fractured coastline, the 670km road to the Artic is a triumph of human ingenuity and perseverance.
N

Norway's coastal road from the town of Stiklestad to the Arctic city of Bodø is a 670km journey between two very different worlds. It's also one of the most beautiful road trips on the planet.

At one end is the quiet sophistication of central Norway, with its perfectly manicured meadows and oxblood-red wooden cabins. At the other is the spare, serene beauty of the north: a world of glaciers, ice-bound mountains and empty, far horizons. Connecting the two, the Kystriksveien – a route also known as the Coastal Way or Fv17 – charts a sinuous path along the coast, bucking and weaving along rugged contours all the way to the Arctic.

The Scandinavian nation is blessed with one of the most beautiful yet difficult stretches of coast in Europe. Seeming to wrap itself around the country like a protective shield from the freezing Arctic, Norway's coastline appears to have shattered under the strain, riven as it is with islands and fjords cutting deep fissures inland. Along such a coast, it seems impossible that a road should exist here at all. In short, it seems like a miracle.

Home to Portugal's "mountain of stars" and some of Europe's least light-polluted skies, the Alentejo region is best seen at night.
A

A long twisting road leads up Portugal's highest mountain, and here, unlike many other European summits, visitors can drive right to the top. The peak rises 1,993m above sea level, and although its actual name is Torre (tower), most people just call it by the same designation as the range it lofts over: Serra da Estrela or "mountain of the stars".

By day, the drive offers wonderful views across the undulant landscape of this narrow country – from the red hills of Spain in the east to the blue Atlantic Ocean in the west. However, the real spectacle comes as the sun starts to drop. Not only is this mountain a popular spot to watch golden sunsets, but for those who stay later, it offers a glimmering night-time fresco that covers the heavens, made up of millions of white pinpricks scattered in glorious imperfection.

Over the past decade, Portugal has gained recognition for being one of the top places in the world for travellers to observe the night sky, thanks to the creation of the 3,000 sq km Dark Sky Alqueva reserve, in Portugal's central Alentejo region. In 2011, the reserve was certified as the world's first Starlight Tourism Destination by the Starlight Foundation, a Unesco-supported international organisation that promotes science and tourism. This status celebrates the region's ideal viewing conditions (low levels of light pollution and an average of 286 cloudless nights per year, which result in some of Portugal's darkest skies), but also the wider tourism infrastructure it has inspired, which is set up to cater specifically to stargazers.