CAD Blocks | Dibujos CAD | Diseño urbano de la ciudad : noviembre 2014

Ralph McQuarrie Is Star Wars, and This Mini Doc Proves It

The internet is understandably excited about the new Star Wars trailer. I have no problems considering myself a mega ultra super fan. I've made pilgrimages to conventions around the country and seeing new live-action Star Wars footage that isn't the prequels is really exciting. But there's one name that's been woefully absent during the internet's long discussions about the plausibility of lightsabers and that really cool x-wing scene—Ralph McQuarrie.

McQuarrie is Star Wars, and I say that with no exaggeration. Sure the scripts belong to George Lucas, and Star Wars would be nothing without them, but McQuarrie gave the original series that classic Star Wars feel that even 35 years later can still capture imaginations. Character concepts? McQuarrie. Vehicle designs? McQuarrie. Planet topography? McQuarrie. The guy was in every sense a creative genius.

And it wasn't just the original trilogy. His artistic influence guided the prequel films and the Clone Wars series. In a five-part documentary, filmed in 2012 after McQuarrie's unfortunate passing, George Lucas and tons of other creatives who helped shaped the franchise weigh in on McQuarrie's monumental influence.

The documentary itself isn't much, just a bunch of interviews split up by stunning McQuarrie concepts, but there's a part in the first segment that always gets me. Scott Farrar, ILM's visual effects supervisor, puts into focus how McQuarrie was as instrumental to Star Wars as George Lucas.

The concepts they came up with were brilliant. Just brilliant. It helped every one up and down. Whether you were a model maker, a photographer, or a costumer, they broke new ground in ways nobody else had. You look back at the work, even at this point, and it holds up. There's lots of movies and lots of pieces of art that don't hold up past five years. We're talking shots and designs and things 25 or 30 years or more and they hold up as beautifully now as they did then. Now that's genius.

If you've got about 40 minutes to spare, it's a fitting tribute to the man, who even now, is making us ravenously watch an 88-second Star Wars teaser trailer on repeat.

Still via Ralph McQuarrie, Star Wars Artist: Tribute to a Master

Welcome to Movie Night, where Gizmodo staffers tell you what you should be streaming tonight.

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A Los Campesinos! Christmas Is a Great EP for the Holidays

So this Friday, I trudged into Manhattan for Black Friday. Mind you, I wasn't there to buy anything. For a couple years now, I've seen this strange holiday traditional as a sort of primal spectacle rarely witnessed on the day-to-day, and I just wanted to be in it. But there's one thing that always ruins my relaxing day of people watching—Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

Now I'm a little biased. I actively hate Christmas songs. Yeah, there are a few good ones—"Silent Night" is pretty chill—but whenever I hear Mariah Carey start up that familiar refrain, I just want to collapse in the fetal position in whatever store I'm in. A few artists have made valiant attempts to sway my opinion of yuletide music. Some have been successful. Others have really, really, really not been. Luckily Los Campesinos' A Los Campesinos! Christmas is a notch in the former category.

Releasing on December 8th (but you can stream at Pitchfork riiiiight now), the EP features six tracks, five originals and one cover, and are all better than Mariah Carey. Los Campesinos applies the same sonic wonder it has on all its albums with wonderful harmonies on "When Christmas Comes" and a "Doe to a Deer." We even get a great acoustic- and banjo-fueled number on "The Holly & The Ivy."

I can't think of any better way to shake off those lingering Thanksgiving thoughts and getting into the sans-Mariah Carey Christmas Spirit. [Pitchfork]

Welcome to Soundtrack, what Gizmodo's staff are listening to every night.

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This Guy Made a Spinning Wheel of Death With Clothespins and a Drill

Joerg Sprave is YouTube's pre-eminent creator of all things slingshot. On The Slingshot Channel, he shows off his various crazy-genius creations varying from all different levels of lethality. This Sunday Sprave debuted, as he describes, "the world's first drill-powered, fully automatic dart launcher."

Essentially each dart is strapped in a clothespin. Once Sprave powers on the drill, the wheel begins turning, and a specifically designed hand crank fires off the entire round. Sprave mentions that it's not very accurate, and it's not as lethal as some of his other borderline-scary creations, but it's a neat little piece of engineering.

Plus, Sprave's love of creating slingshots is incredibly infectious. I don't know if I ever loved something as much as this guy loves building his awesome slingshot/machine gun creations. [YouTube]

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World's Biggest LAN Party Had Over 22,000 Computers, Looked Awesome

Your Favorite Razer Gaming Peripherals, Discounted

What Is Your Favorite Gadget Travel Companion?

As many of us unpack from a long weekend at the rents' place or actively plan out our upcoming Christmas trip, I'm always reminded that travel can be incredibly fun—if you have the right gadgets to get you through it.

Growing up, I had family that lived 10 hours away (by car) in Atlanta. For a long stretch of years, we'd annually trek down there for a visit. In the late 90s and early aughts, it was much more vital that you prepared your upcoming trip. Do I have a enough batteries for my Gameboy and Walkman? In later years, does my MP3 have enough charge to last me the trip? Sometimes, my trip would get even more intricate as I'd remove one of our van's chairs and stick in a small portable television, complete with a cigarette lighter power source, for 10 hours of movie-watching bliss.

However, my most memorable little gadget was a 7-inch Sony portable DVD player. There wasn't anything particularly remarkable about it. In fact, it gobbled of a charge so fast you'd be lucky if you could get through one two-hour movie, but I remember being fascinated with that little portable LCD screen and that I could just let it sit right on my lap. Now, traveling is less cluttered, and by extension, less fun: "Do I have my smartphone? Ok, cool. I'm good."

What about you? Do you have or have every had any favorite gadgets you would bring along to help pass the time when sequestered in the passenger seat of a vehicle or airplane?

Image via gualtiero boffi/Shutterstock

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"iPad Air Plus" Leak Supposedly Details Apple's Upcoming Mega Tab

This weekend, a leak from Japanese magazine Mac Fan (subsequently picked up by Macotakara) reveals what they believe to be schematics and specs surrounding Apple's rumored 12.2-inch tablet, the same mega tablet that Bloomberg reported was coming back in August.

However, this leak shaves about 0.7 inches off the 12.9-inch tablet that Bloomberg was expecting. A few more details also say that the huge tablet will have the currently unannounced A9 processor and "four speakers to offer stereo sound in any orientation," according to 9to5 Mac, who also points out that it's near impossible to verify Mac Fan's claims of legitimacy regarding these schematics, but the publication did provide accurate dimensions of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus before its launch.

Many have pegged this new monster iPad with production starting this month, but the Wall Street Journal reported in October that delays due to high iPhone 6 demand had delayed Apple's plans.

Regardless of Apple's plan for production and distribution, I'm having trouble finding the point of making bigger iPads. Other than increased real estate, the iPad Air Plus—as described currently—seems like another spec bump in comparison to the current generation of tablets. I still have an iPad 3, and I'm still not seeing a reason to upgrade to anything new, mainly because iPads are forever.

Also, along with this report, Apple will supposedly launch an iPad mini 4, which will have a "design" similar to this year's iPad Air 2. That kind of makes it sound like it's the mini that should have launched this year, instead of the uninspired iPad mini 3 that only added TouchID and nothing else. In fact, this lackluster outing for the mini, coupled with Apple's new iPhone 6 Plus, made it seem that the mini was facing extinction. This rumor would suggest otherwise.

But that's all it is, just a rumor. But regardless, would a A9-powered, 12.2-inch iPad Air Plus be just thing for you to finally upgrade your tablet? [9to5Mac]

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100 Lives Are On The Line In This Week's Puzzle. How Many Can You Save?

Some of the week's tech news in VIDEO EGG form!

Youtube Video

Want this week's top tech news as read to you by a cynical little egg? Then tune in as our very own Regina Eggbert talks about that M-company's Chinese tax bill, Twitter telling us what we all should have known already and Steelie Neelie sobs as European net neutrality runs into trouble.

To find out more about these stories, click here, here or here. Headline caught your eye? Read the Reg for more! ®

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Trevor contemplates Consumer Netgear gear. BUT does it pass the cat hair test?

Internet Security Threat Report 2014

Sysadmin blog Is consumer networking gear really crap? As technologists, we tend to have a chip on our shoulder about it because it can't do all the things the latest, greatest enterprise stuff can do, but does that really matter? The capabilities of consumer gear have been steadily increasing, and perhaps some of our ire is unwarranted.

Netgear is famous for making stuff for homes, but it has made inroads into the SMB and mid-market space that are worthy of note. For the past couple of years I have had the opportunity to work with some Netgear equipment, and I am suitably impressed.

Most of the equipment I have to hand is outdated. An older model ProSafe Wireless Access Point. A dated ReadyNAS. A virtually unlimited number of WNDR 3700 V2 routers. (With OpenWRT installed, they're absolutely magical devices.)

I also have a UTM150 that is still sold today as well as an 8-port XS708E 10GbE switch.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to work on some sites with the next-generation versions of these products. I am seeing modern ReadyNASes, business and personal Wi-Fi routers and an ever-increasing number of Netgear 10GbE switches in the various SMBs I serve.

Netgear has served me well for a while, and given its increasing prevalence in businesses, it's time to give it a once-over.

The hardware

Netgear's hardware tends to be more-or-less the same as everyone else's. A 10GbE Netgear switch is a typical Broadcom-chipset affair. My Supermicro and Dell switches are very similar hardware, just with a different OS flinging the packets about. There's absolutely nothing special about ReadyNAS storage devices, Netgear routers, access points, UTMs, VPNs etc ... at least from a hardware standpoint.

And that's a good thing. By working with well-known components Netgear can learn as much from their competitors as form their own testing. Thermals, sensitivity to radio interference, even antenna design – all these companies learn from each other as well as innovate on their own.

The result of using what amounts to white-box equipment is that the focus becomes the software, features and – hopefully – security. Depending on whether your ReadyNAS is powered by an ARM or x86 processor, for example, there are any number of applications you can install on it.

Thus far, everything I've worked with from Netgear has proven reliable well beyond the stated temperature ranges. They've all handled absurd levels of cat hair, cables pulled at odd angles, and so on; they survive real life.

Software to run a home cluster

The software on Netgear equipment is a mixed bag. I really like the XS708E switch. For a sub-$1000 10GbE switch, I think it plays well. It certainly doesn't have the sort of full feature-set that something like my Supermicro or Dell switches possess, let alone a Cisco or a Juniper, but that doesn't really matter.

The overwhelming majority of people using Netgear switches will never log into them and create a VLAN, let alone attempt any really tricky things. Most people will just create flat layer 2 networks, and at this, Netgear has proven to provide a range of reliable options.

On a fairly regular basis I hook the four nodes of my Caesium cluster up to the XS708E and create a server SAN. I have pushed all nodes to their limits and had zero problems with this switch. I've run some very intense practical multicast work through it using Caringo and it has reliably delivered.

Like the other Netgear switches I've worked with in the past, it's simple, but it works. The same goes for the ReadyNases and the access points. They're simple, and they work. You can run them at the red line all day long and they'll do fine.

But nerds are never happy with "good enough." This is where I rather like Netgear Wi-Fi routers. I have deployed rather a large number of WNDR3700V2 routers because they are truly excellent when OpenWRT is installed on them. OpenWRT and its competitor DD-WRT work well on a number of Netgear routers including the 802.11ac gear.

This is important, as the stock software is pretty limp by modern standards. It's certainly nowhere as horrible as, for example, the sort of locked-down tripe that you'll get supplied to you with your ISP's rebadged ZyXEL or Actiontech router, but it's still nowhere near as capable as something like a Microtik device. Third-party operating systems are a great way to bridge the gap.

Choosing a cloud hosting partner with confidence

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Social media data is RIDDLED with human behaviour errors, boffins warn

Beginner's guide to SSL certificates

Researchers who heavily rely on social media data when studying human behaviour have been warned that such information can be very easily skewed.

Computer scientists at McGill University in Montreal and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh said in a paper published yesterday in the Science magazine that trick-cyclists were failing to spot the flaws in the data.

And yet, in recent years, there has been an explosion of studies on human behaviour using social media as a barometer for all kinds of predictions about the world we live in now.

"Many of these papers are used to inform and justify decisions and investments among the public and in industry and government," said McGill's assistant computer science professor Derek Ruths.

He added: "The common thread in all these issues is the need for researchers to be more acutely aware of what they're actually analysing when working with social media data."

The boffins offered up a list of "challenges" faced by researchers who glean their statistics from social media data.

Different social media platforms attract different users – Pinterest, for example, is dominated by females aged 25-34 – yet researchers rarely correct for the distorted picture these populations can produce.

Publicly available data feeds used in social media research don't always provide an accurate representation of the platform's overall data – and researchers are generally in the dark about when and how social media providers filter their data streams.

The design of social media platforms can dictate how users behave and, therefore, what behaviour can be measured. For instance, on Facebook the absence of a "dislike" button makes negative responses to content harder to detect than positive "likes".

Large numbers of spammers and bots, which masquerade as normal users on social media, get mistakenly incorporated into many measurements and predictions of human behaviour.

Researchers often report results for groups of easy-to-classify users, topics, and events, making new methods seem more accurate than they actually are. For instance, efforts to infer political orientation of Twitter users achieve barely 65 per cent accuracy for typical users – even though studies (focusing on politically active users) have claimed 90 per cent accuracy.

Despite the blindingly obvious weaknesses found in such data, Ruths remained optimistic about researchers using social media in their studies, if they tackle the problems outlined by the prof and his colleagues.

The Social Media for Large Studies of Behaviour paper can be viewed here. ®

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'America radicalised me!' cries Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom

QuoTW This week’s security scare came in the form of Regin, the highly advanced malware that’s said to be as sophisticated as Stuxnet and Duqu. Symantec researchers were the first to report the evil software, saying:

Regin is a complex piece of malware whose structure displays a degree of technical competence rarely seen.

Customisable with an extensive range of capabilities depending on the target, it provides its controllers with a powerful framework for mass surveillance and has been used in spying operations against government organisations, infrastructure operators, businesses, researchers, and private individuals.

It is likely that its development took months, if not years, to complete and its authors have gone to great lengths to cover its tracks. Its capabilities and the level of resources behind Regin indicate that it is one of the main cyber espionage tools used by a nation state.

Symantec didn’t specify what nation state might be behind the virus, but Kaspersky found that virtually no infections had cropped up in the so-called Five Eyes nations, leading to speculation that Western intelligence agencies could have something to answer for.

The security firm also said:

For more than a decade, a sophisticated group known as Regin has targeted high-profile entities around the world with an advanced malware platform. As far as we can tell, the operation is still active, although the malware may have been upgraded to more sophisticated versions. The most recent sample we've seen was from a 64-bit infection. This infection was still active in the spring of 2014.

The ability of this group to penetrate and monitor GSM networks is perhaps the most unusual and interesting aspect of these operations. In today's world, we have become too dependent on mobile phone networks which rely on ancient communication protocols with little or no security available for the end user. Although all GSM networks have mechanisms embedded which allow entities such as law enforcement to track suspects, there are other parties which can gain this ability and further abuse them to launch other types of attacks against mobile users.

The EU said that its laws on snooping technology exports needed to be updated in light of the Regin super-spyware, after it was revealed that it was used to successfully hack Belgian telco Belgacom, which counts the European Parliament and Commission among its customers. Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake told The Reg:

Our data has been breached by EU-made technology. We would expect companies and governments to work as hard as they can to prevent attacks, to protect their own digital infrastructure and the freedoms of their citizens.

Trading in dangerous technologies that can be used to infiltrate computers, spy on users and threaten both human rights and our own security could be the biggest boomerang we could throw.

German MEP Bernd Lange quizzed the European Commission on when it would put forward a new law, promised since April. He asked:

How does it envisage addressing the specific problem of the export of surveillance technologies from the EU? By means of what concrete measures does it intend to further address the human rights implications outlined in the above-mentioned communication? How does it view proposals to restrict the export of surveillance technologies to a predefined list of countries?

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Be your own Big Brother: With the help of Apple, Facebook ... oh, HANG ON

So far in this series, we've looked at ways of monitoring specific things, but this time round, people are the topic. There are, the media would have you believe, dreadful things out there – predators lurking behind every corner, dreadful accidents waiting to befall the unwary.

The Trax app gives you an "augumented reality" view to help find the kids

You might think, in these days of smartphones, that there's no need to spend money on specialised devices, but with battery life still normally measured in hours rather than days, they're not suitable for everyone, and so there's still a thriving market in tracking and monitoring devices. What price peace of mind, eh?

Making tracks

Looking at what's on offer, it seems that the power of parental worry is indeed a powerful motivator. Hoping that it will motivate you to the tune of $249 or €199 is Swedish firm Trax, whose dedicated tracker includes two years of data coverage, after which the service is €3.95 per month. A forthcoming update to the app will allow tracking of smartphones too, which will be handy once the kids are old enough to have one of their own. And a nice touch is the augmented reality view, which some will find easier to use than a map.

Swedish firm Trax offers this small GPS tracker, with two years of service included.

UK-based Loc8tor is one of many other companies offering a similar device for kids. Theirs costs £100 for the device, but at another £100 for 12 months of tracking, it's going to be pricey in the long run.

If you don't want live tracking, they also have a "wander alert", which is essentially a proximity alarm and direction-finding device. You can buy extra tags at £30 for a pair.

They're billed as "ideal for use with kittens, children and other small objects" but will probably be just as useful for partners who are prone to wandering off in the supermarket.

Similarly, TrackYour has a range of products, including BTLE tags, and full gaps trackers, for children, the elderly or pets. Theirs are sold SIM-free, so you can shop around for the best deal on a SIM card – and indeed the best coverage.

While some of the devices around include an "SOS" button – to either send an alert, or make a phone call home ("Dad, we need a lift…") – there are models available with no buttons at all, to stop tampering.

Of course, you don't have to spend quite so much money. A trawl through eBay, for example, will turn up various Bluetooth keyrings and bracelets that, while designed to remind you when you've left your phone behind, will equally well do the job of alerting you should little Johnny stray too far while you're trying on a new outfit. With some of these starting at under a tenner, they're rather more affordable than the dedicated tracking gizmos.

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BORGED! Expat moves from New Zealand to Norway to be acquired by Cisco

eXpat Files This week's expat has two lessons for us. The first concerns life in remote countries beginning with “N” where the mountains and snow are pretty decent.

Welcome to Oslo

The second thing Kane Archer's tale of moving from New Zealand to Norway and back teaches us is what it's like to be acquired by Cisco.

Over to you, Kane.

The Register : What kind of work do you do and with which technologies?

Kane Archer: I began working in the Tandberg TAC (Technical Assistance Centre) wrangling the RMA tickets for resellers with faulty equipment that needed repairs or replacement. Tandberg was (at the time) a highly regarded and world-leading corporate video-conferencing hardware company that was later acquired by Cisco. After a couple of years there I moved into the Reverse Logistics team handling RMA escalations, technical queries from the TAC techs and managing the third party companies that manufactured and repaired the equipment.

Back in NZ it's nothing so glamorous. Working for local government on their IT Helpdesk. Anyone got any jobs going? :-)

The Register : Where's home and why did you want to leave?

Kane Archer: Home is deepest darkest Waikato region of New Zealand. At the time my husband was working for a NZ company that was acquired by Tandberg and got offered the opportunity to work at the company's head office in Oslo. Several reasons to leave, primarily the money but also the opportunity to "scare ourselves" (aka expand our horizons) by experiencing a different culture, language and do a bit of travel while we were there. NZ is a very small, isolated country and it is easy to become rather insular and inward-focused until you get the opportunity to leave for a while and explore the world.

The Register : Why Norway?

Kane Archer: It's where Tandberg had their head office and main R&D group.

The Register : How did you arrange your new gig?

Kane Archer: The opportunity was offered by Tandberg themselves.

The Register : Pay - up or down?

Kane Archer: Up - by about three times what I was earning at the time in NZ, later it was closer to five times. They showed me the money!

The Register : How do workplaces differ between NZ and Norway?

Kane Archer: NZ is like Australia in that it has a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere for the most part; people don't tend to be quite so formal here. Norwegians are a lot more serious, formal and stratified with a rather dry sense of humour. Although once you get to know them better...

The Register : Will your expat gig be good for your career?

Kane Archer: Absolutely - having a big name like Tandberg/Cisco in your CV always looks good, not to mention getting to know and work with others from all over the planet. You get to work and play with some incredibly cool toys as well, and I'm all about the toys!

The Register : What's cheaper in Norway? What's more expensive?

Kane Archer: Cheaper? Absolutely nothing – Norway is one of the most expensive countries on the planet, including the tax rates (both income and sales/import taxes). About the only thing that is cheaper would be the education and healthcare, which is heavily subsidised or paid for by the state.

The Register : What did you miss about Norway when you went home?

Kane Archer: We're back home now, however the people we got to know while we were there and the physical country itself are the things I miss. Norwegians are very cliquey; they grow up in groups, go to school in groups, and socialise in groups. Breaking into those groups as a dirty foreigner is not easy but once you are accepted into the tribe they are wonderfully friendly, outgoing people. As a country, Norway has some of the most spectacular scenery and landscapes you'll find anywhere.

The Register : What's your top tip to help new arrivals settle in?

Kane Archer: Learn at least a bit of the language. While most Norwegians speak very good English, they respect you a lot more if you can get by in theirs. It also makes getting around on public transport a lot easier, shopping etc; the last thing you want to discover when you get home from the supermarket is that innocuous looking tin or jar containing some local "delicacy" instead of something more familiar :-)

The Register : What advice would you offer someone considering the same move?

Kane Archer: Do it! Do it now! Do it before you get too old and set in your ways. Experiencing a foreign culture is one of the most amazing and educational experiences you can ever have.

The Register : How easy is it to watch the All Blacks from Norway?

Kane Archer: Let's just say that most Norwegians wouldn't know what a rugby ball if one jumped up and bit them on their attractively ski-toned posteriors. Time zones weren't exactly conducive to watching any of the games live either. The interwebs are your friend in that respect.

The Register : Is there a Kiwi expat community in Norway? And should others embrace it, pop in from time to time or stay the hell away?

Kane Archer: There is, apparently, and much to my surprise at the time, although not in great numbers and nothing formal. I reckon you'd get more benefit from just experiencing the country through your own eyes and immersing yourself in it. While not harmful, I don't really think there would be much benefit in hanging around with other expats. That said, if there were more of them it might be a different story so depending on the country you're from, YMMV.

The Register : And because this is the weekend edition, what can you do on weekends in Norway that you can't do at home?

Kane Archer: Skiing during the winter, if you're into that – simply strap skis on and step outside your door and away you go. NZ has skiing but you've got to travel a long way to get to the mountains. Also the opportunity to throw yourself onto a jet and be almost anywhere in Europe in a couple of hours or less is rather neat. A weekend trip to Paris in the spring or a dodgy visit to Amsterdam is actually do-able from Norway.

Where have you lived and how did it go? We're always keen for more expat stories, so drop us a line and we'll give you the gentle eXpat Files grilling. ®

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The most amazing and inspiring vision of the future I've ever seen

Eat FATTY FOODS to stay THIN. They might even help your heart

Have our health authorities been spouting unscientific nonsense for the last few decades? Dr Pan Pantziarka looks at whether official advice on fatty foods has been wrong all along.

A reduction in dietary fat consumption, especially saturated fat, has been the cornerstone of official dietary advice for as long as most of us can remember.

Saturated fats are primarily animal fats, including dairy fat – think cheese, butter, lard, eggs – and from a few vegetable sources such as coconut oil. The NHS Live Well website lists reduction in saturated fats as a key objective, suggesting that: “Eating a diet that is high in saturated fat can raise the level of cholesterol in the blood. Having high cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease.”

The guideline is for no more than 30g of saturated fat a day for men and 20g a day for women. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggests saturated fat supplies less than 10 per cent of daily calories.

The rationale is that saturated fats are associated with obesity and risk factors for cardiovascular disease. This is effectively the consensus opinion from government health agencies across much of the world, not just the UK and US.

Does the evidence support this advice? The obvious point is to ask what evidence there is for the core idea that reducing dietary saturated fat intake makes a difference to health. The answer is that there’s not much.

A good place to start is to look at the evidence from clinical trials where dietary fat intake has been modified to see what it does in terms of health and those cardiovascular risk factors. What we’re interested in is human data here, not animal models. More than that, we’re interested not in the molecular effects or the variation in differing serum lipid fractions; we’re interested in actual health outcomes.

Luckily some of the hard work in looking at the data has been done for us by the good people at the Cochrane Collaboration, a global not-for-profit project involving thousands of scientists working to analyse data and perform systematic reviews of evidence in medicine.

In all, the data covered 48 randomised clinical trials, and the headline result is plain – there is no clear effect of dietary fat changes on total mortality or cardiovascular mortality.

The Cochrane Heart Group have carried out a meta-analysis of clinical trials that looked at both dietary fat reduction and modification to see what effect these had in cardiovascular disease. Where the meaning of fat reduction is clear, fat modification means swapping the relative share of types of fat (saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated) in the diet.

The review looked at the data from large interventional trials that tracked health outcomes over a reasonably span of time ( more than six months). In all the data covered 48 randomised clinical trials, and the headline result is plain – there is no clear effect of dietary fat changes on total mortality or cardiovascular mortality.

Does this mean there are no health outcomes associated with dietary fat change? Not quite. When looking at cardiovascular events ( such as heart attacks, strokes and so on) the results are a bit more positive. Overall there is a 14 per cent reduced risk of cardiovascular events due to dietary fat change.

Unpacking this result to get at the detail shows the effect is down to a reduction in risk of men who modify fat intake for more than two years, though it’s not clear what the specific modification should be. While this is certainly a reduction in risk – albeit modest – for a specific population, it is hardly indicative of a major problem in the population at large. And looking at secondary measures, such as cancer incidence or mortality, it appears that dietary fat reduction or modification has minimal effect.

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The Best Deal In 4K Monitors Gets Way Better

Under the Iron Sea: YES, tech and science could SAVE the planet

Worstall @ the Weekend Back last week we had the news from Google bods (almost but not quite boffins) telling us there's no way to make renewable energy fuel in an advanced industrial society.

Our esteemed editor here at El Reg then pointed out that we've got a reasonable and cheap method of producing all the power we need: nuclear. The frustration comes from the fact that those who insist that we've got to have some non-carbon-emitting energy system are exactly the people who also insist that we should not be using the one non-carbon emitting (OK, low carbon, nothing is actually “zero carbon” as such) energy technology that we do have.

This brings me to another useful technology from the same subject: one the powers-that-be in the environmental movement seem to insist that we cannot use. It's very much the same cause for venting one's spleen. They want something that reduces climate change. Right, here's something which will do that. Yet we mustn't use that technology because... well, the “because” seems to wander off into nonsense, to be honest.

The technology I'm talking about is iron fertilisation of the ocean. It works, to some degree at least. It's only an increase in the occurrence of a natural process, but not only do we have people opposing its use, we've got laws stating that even researching it is illegal. It is almost as if some people don't actually want a solution.

Iron in me sea

The basic background is that there are large areas of the ocean that are essentially deserts. It's not, obviously, as with a land-based desert, a lack of water that is the problem. Rather, it's a lack of nutrients: if plankton cannot grow, then there's nothing for the next stage up to eat – thus there are no fish and so on.

Where are these deserts? This is a fun Google Map of where all the illegal fishing boats are around the world. Roughly speaking, those areas without illegal boats in them are where there ain't no fish: our deserts.

The nutrient we're most interested in here is iron. It acts as a catalyst for those tiny critters to grow. There's large areas (often said to be really only the Southern Ocean, but not quite so) where there's just not enough iron around. So, no critters and no fish. Yet we also know that quite naturally iron-rich sand can get picked up by the wind and dumped in the ocean: those pics you see of the Sahara being red are the iron in that sand. When those dust clouds do touch down in the ocean we then see algal blooms.

These aren't the same as the nitrogen-based ones that choke off the Gulf of Mexico every so often: they're far more dispersed than that. But enough that the local population of fish does rise substantially when it all happens. We also know that some of those critters don't get eaten but sink to the bottom and become rock when they die. Proper geologic sequestration of atmospheric CO₂ takes place there, as the reaction that's being catalysed by the iron is the fixing of CO₂ from the water into carbonates to make the critters.

There's even, would you believe it, some proof that the Bahamas exist as a result of this happening over the millennia.

So far so good: natural phenomenon, fixed carbon out of the atmosphere (the CO₂ taken out of the water is replaced by that from the air) and something that we can help along by seeding more bits of the ocean with more iron.

There's also other areas deficient in silicic, acid which we can also add if we choose.

Sounds like we'd rather get on with it, eh? Except, of course, we want to know quite how efficient this is: how much carbon gets sequestrated, how much it all costs and so on. If it costs $1,000 per tonne of CO₂, then it's not worth it. If it's 50 cents, then let's get on with it! That's where our problem comes in.

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Ebay's Selling $50 PlayStation Network Gift Cards for $40 Right Now

Watch Kevin Spacey Be Nice, Then Evil in '21'

The most recent instalment in the Call of Duty franchise is notable — not because of the running around and blowing stuff up, that's dull — but because Kevin Spacey plays a genuine, multi-faceted character. He starts out nice, and ends up trying to destroy the world with poison gas whilst being a racist or something. This isn't new for Spacey.

He plays a virtually identical character in 21, one of my favorite movies. He swoops in on the protagonist when he's seemingly out of hope, offers him a new beginning, and then goes slightly psycho later on. 21's more than just a good Spacey performance, though: it's all-around one of the better films about gambling ever made. Best of all, it's based (loosely) on the real-life MIT Blackjack Team, so you can actually enjoy the down-on-his-luck college kid screwing over the establishment.

It's streaming on Netflix, or you can rent for a few bucks on the movie service of your choice.

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Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' Will Remind You Why Albums Are Great

One common criticism of the modern digital music industry is that the album, as an artistic concept, is being destroyed by the endless streaming of individual tracks. That's a shame, because it would mean that some incredible albums, like Pink Floyd's The Wall (which celebrates its 35th birthday tomorrow) might never have existed.

The Wall is one of the quintessential examples of album-as-an-artform. The album tells the story of an aspiring rock star, who with his success builds a 'wall', isolating himself from human contact. The plotline was tight enough for the album to be turned into a feature-length film (admittedly, one that you would have to be as high as a kite to actually understand).

In any case, as the album becomes firmly middle-aged tonight, it's the perfect opportunity to sit down with a half-bottle of something strong, kick back, and actually listen to an entire album, distraction-free, from beginning to end. It's honestly worth it.

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Rock-Inspired Tables Bring The Outdoors In

Decorating with a nature theme is all well and good, but hauling two-ton boulder up three flights of stairs gets old quick. That's why these tables, inspired by rocks but weighing significantly less, could make so much sense. Well, that, and they look sweet.

The designs are the brainchild of Antoine Morris, a Canadian architect who also designs furniture. There's three pieces in the range: a coffee table, side table, and cute little wall shelf you could fit maybe three whole books on.

Rock-Inspired Tables Bring The Outdoors In

It's not just the nature-derived design that appeals to me: the geometric shapes are so far removed from the gentle curves or 90-degree angles most furniture is composed from, but it still all makes sense. Sadly, Morris is still looking for a manufacturer, so you can't buy them quite yet. [Antoine Morris via Design Milk]

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These Dollar Bill Concepts Are Better Than The Real Thing

While U.S. currency does change a little on occasional, the basic design of the notes has stayed fairly constant: green/black background, a portrait on one side, and a pretty picture on the other. These concepts take that classic design, and turn it on its head.

They're the work of designer Travis Purrington, and his philosophy was to create a currency that was forwards-looking, rather than reminiscent of the past. Rather than railroads and 19th-century landscape portraits, you get molecules, astronauts and silicon circuits. As Purrington explains:

This particular series plays on themes of human discovery and endeavors to connect achievement, theory and the fundamental properties of life.

This is of course not a conspiracy to trivialize or shun the great deeds of the past, but to communicate principle rather than effigy permeating through the spirit of industrial, organic and elemental systems.

Aesthetically, I also think he's nailed it. There's something strangely appealing about a portrait-oriented banknote. As far as I'm aware (although I'm sure a currency expert will be along to correct me post-haste), every country uses landscape-oriented money, so to see a portrait design is decidedly refreshing. The pastel colors and monochrome contrast definitely gives a modern look, which chimes well with his overall design philosophy.

These Dollar Bill Concepts Are Better Than The Real Thing

Purrington says that he was inspired by Switzerland, which holds a contest every 20 years or so to redesign the franc. If there were a competition to replace our bills tomorrow, these would definitely get my vote. [Travis Purrington]

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Just in time for Christmas, Microsoft launches Digital Gift Cards for Windows Phone

It’s the time of year when attention turns to buying gifts. Black Friday is now out of the way, but there's still Cyber Monday for you to stock up on low-cost presents for yourself and others. There are plenty of electronic devices vying for attention as companies try to tempt you into parting with your cash, but if you're the indecisive type, there's always the trusty fall-back of the gift card.

Keen to give you as many ways as possible to throw your money in its direction, Microsoft has launched Digital Gift Cards for Windows Phone. This is an app that does very much what you would expect, making it possible to buy and share gift cards from the comfort of your Windows Phone. But Microsoft isn’t stupid. The gift cards themselves are not limited to Windows Phone purchases -- they can be used to buy apps, games, movies and music from Xbox and Windows stores.

Great for a last-minute gift, the digital gift cards are emailed out the instant payment is made. Bringing the gift card idea to mobile devices is interesting. Should you find yourself out shopping and unable to locate the perfect gift for your friends and family, you can opt to sort out all of your gift buying over a coffee -- send a batch of gift cards and leave your loved ones to decide what they would like to buy for themselves.

In a fine example of canny marketing, Microsoft is billing digital gift cards as "the perfect 'add-on' for family and friends receiving an Xbox or Windows device". Bought a Windows Phone, Xbox or even a Surface Pro 3 as a gift for someone? Microsoft thinks you might like to "top-up" the present with the gift card as an extra. It's a bit of a cheeky idea, but it makes perfect sense from a money-making point of view.

Of course, this is not just an app that can be used at Christmas -- although the timing is interesting to say the least. It is possible to schedule purchases throughout the year so you don’t forget an important birthday. Is it handy to have a dedicated app for this, or would the existing website have sufficed?

Picture credit: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock

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What's The Best Easter Egg On The Internet?

The Easter egg as a concept can be dated back to rich aristocrats hiding things inside priceless jewellry. But in the modern age, you're far more likely to encounter one when you Konami-code a website, or made some odd menu choices in a game.

Personally, I find it difficult to decide on my favorite. Google has a strong heritage with dicking around — do a barrel roll, the infamous swimming directions, and the YouTube loading animation being class-A examples. But honestly, the prize has to go to Excel 97's hidden flight simulator. Anything that turns spreadsheet software into a game is already pretty good, but the convoluted path you had to take to get there made this virtually unbeatable*.

With the whole wide internet out there, though, I'm willing to bet that you've seen some things. Post your best (with URL, you tease) down below.

*I appreciate that this isn't exactly on the Internet. Shush.

Lead Image by leungchopan/Shutterstock

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A Boy Missing For 4 Years Was Just Found Behind A 'False Wall' In A Georgia Home

A 13-year-old boy reported missing four years ago was found behind a "false wall" in the suburban Atlanta home of his father and stepmother on Friday, according to police. The boy had used a smartphone to contact his sister online, and she relayed the message to their mother, Clayton County police Capt. Angelo Daniel told NBC News. The boy's biological mother called police and tipped them off to where the boy might be, Daniel said.

Investigators then conducted a welfare check at a Jonesboro home where the child was living, but the five people inside the home denied having any connection with the boy, police said. The investigators left, but received a second call that made them go back inside and perform a more thorough search.

During the second search, the young boy was able to call his mother, who passed along critical information to the officers on scene. That led them to find the child hiding behind a wall. Five people — two adults and three juveniles — in the home were charged with obstruction, false imprisonment and cruelty to children, according to the Clayton County Police Department, which said additional charges are pending. The two adults are the teen's father and stepmother, Daniel said.

Local media reported that the boy's father refused to return him to his mother during a visit in 2010. The mother, who lives out of state, reunited with her son in Georgia on Saturday.

WXIA

A boy who had been missing for four years is reunited with his mother in Georgia on Nov. 29.

— Elisha Fieldstadt

First published November 29 2014, 7:34 AM

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The Pain Of The Watermelon Joke

Razer's slightly crazy Nabu fitness band finally has a price and release date: $100, launching this

A Haunting Video Postcard From Chernobyl

Stunning ground shots in combination with remarkable drone flyovers make this video as eerie as you might imagine.

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How The Architects Of The New Sandy Hook Elementary School Addressed The Town’s Past, And Its Future

Of Course Someone Has Recreated The New Star Wars Trailer In Lego

I'm just taking it as read by this stage that you've seen the trailer for the new Star Wars movie. But you can't claim true nerddom until you've seen this incredible Lego recreation.

YouTube user Snooperking has made an impressive shot-by-shot recreation in less than 24 hours. Lego rolling droid? Check. New crazy cross-handled Lego lightsaber? Check. Sure, some of the graphics might be a little less smooth, and the green-screening a quite choppy, but it's a pretty sterling effort nonetheless. [YouTube]

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These Wirelessly Powered Christmas Lights Would Decorate Tesla's Tree

Now that you've polished off the last of the turkey leftovers, it's probably time to think about rolling your catatonic body off to find a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, that also means trying to untangle the seven miles of tree lights, a solid 50 percent of which will have broken in the last year.

This is exactly the kind of first-world problem Kickstarter was created to solve, and thankfully, this Winter Solstice, it's outdone itself. Aura is an insanely clever alternative to regular lights that promises a wire-free, Wi-Fi controlled Christmas. The lights look like regular tree decorations, but they light up when given the control from your smartphone.

On its own, that would be a little gimmicky. But the power system for Aura is the part that makes it clever: no batteries or wires, but rather a 'power ring' at the base of the tree, which uses electromagnetic wizadry to transmit power to the lights (up to 100 are supported per ring).

There are, of course, the usual caveats. Crowd-funding projects often deliver late, if at all, and I image the risk is magnified tenfold when it involves magic electricity projects. Still, if you're willing to risk $65, you'll get a starter set of a power ring and 12 lights, which should add enough illumination for almost every tree. [ Kickstarter]

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Protesters United Against Ferguson Decision, But Challenged In Unity

Why I Left My iPhone 6 For An iPhone 5S

Why I Left My iPhone 6 For an iPhone 5S

A week after the iPhone 6 launch, I found myself drunk, eligible for a contract phone upgrade, and holding my finger perilously close to the checkout. $200 for Apple's latest seemed like a no-brainer. Two months of less-than-blissful life with the 6 later, and I'm switching back.

For the first two months, everything seemed perfect. Texting from my desktop seemed magical, HealthKit was kinda handy, and it hadn't even bent. But heading abroad, I needed an unlocked phone, so grabbed my poor, forgotten 5S out of a drawer and took it adventuring. Over the course of a couple days, I realized something: in every different way that matters to me, the iPhone 5S is a better phone.

Apart from the size, and the ability to pay for stuff over NFC, the 6 and 5S are basically indistinguishable for the user. Sure, the 6 has a faster processor, more pixel-dense screen, better camera, faster Wi-Fi chip, and the ability to film stuff in doubly slow slo-mo. But honestly, even as addicted to my phone as I am, I have a hard time noticing the difference. Both phones are extremely fast, both cameras similarly excellent, and my home Wi-Fi equally sluggish on both. (Although I will admit that my flatmates are probably twice as funny when viewed through 240fps slo-mo than 120.)

As it turns out, the thing that most clearly sets the two devices apart—the size and design—is what I find to be the most annoying on the 6. I have small (but not ridiculously tiny) hands, and I basically live in perpetual fear of dropping it. That prompted me to spend even more money on Apple's own leather case, and that improved things a little, but it's still nowhere near as comfortable to hold as the 5S. The idea that big phones are ergonomically worse is far from new—heck, Apple made ads to that effect back when they launched the 5—but it bears repeating just how annoying it can be.

And personally, I don't find the alleged benefits of a bigger screen to be nearly worth it. I've read full-length novels on my 5S before, watched TV shows, browsed Twitter when I really should've been talking to real people. None of that was demonstrably easier or better on the 6.

This isn't just an iPhone gripe, either. Exactly the same thing applies to almost every handset across the board. I've still got last year's Moto X, which I use when I need an Android phone for some reason, and I still prefer it in every way to this year's Motorola flagship. Not only is it a respectable size, but it still runs the latest Android version with the same aplomb as 2014 phones, and so far there's no real exciting features I'm missing out on by owning a last-gen version.

Ultimately, most new features on phones these days (the ones you notice, anyway: I'm not counting over-powered processors or ludicrously pixel-dense screens here) come in the form of software, which can often can run on years-old or budget phones. That's why the iPhone 5S can be better than its newer sibling, and, for that matter, Motorola can produce a $160 phone that's almost as good as anything else on the market.

I'm not suggesting that every single person should sell their shiny new phones and come join me in 2013-land. That extra screen real estate is clearly valuable for some people, and older phones will (by definition) become obsolete and need replacing sooner. But I absolutely think that you should judge the iPhone 5S and 6 (or Android equivalents) as equals, rather than automatically assuming that whatever's newest is the best. You may well end up with something you prefer, and more beer money left in your pocket.

In totally unrelated news, if you know anyone in the market for a lightly-used iPhone 6, I'm taking offers. I can even throw in a case.

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All The Best Images From NASA's Black Hole Friday

In a proud and noble tradition stretching back a whole two years, NASA yesterday did Black Hole Friday, rather than just flogging a few Apollo mini-figs for 25 percent off. We got science, we got knowledge, and of course, a bunch of jaw-dropping images of black holes. Here are the best.