OpenDaylight and friends spin up 'CloudRouter Project'

Another day, another waft at the software-defined networking (SDN) and/or network function virtualisation (NFV) market, this time in the form of the new “CloudRouter Project” backed by CloudBees, Cloudius Systems, IIX, NGINX and OpenDaylight.

The latter you probably know – it's the Linux Foundation's effort to create a standard SDN and/or NFV stack. Cloudius is an Israeli effort to create a very lightweight OS for bare metal deployment, CloudBees is a continuous integration player, NGINX offers a web server and load balancer while IIX is a global peering company.

The latter is driving the CloudRouter Project, because its senior director of DevOps, and , CloudRouter Project lead, Jay Turner reckons “As the industry moves to cloud computing, there needs to be a bridge from legacy architectures to SDN, hybrid clouds and data-center-­to-­data-center connections.”

The group's first effort is yours for the downloading here. The tool is based on Fedora and is said to offer the following features:

• capability to run on public and private cloud infrastructures at scale with a fully­-automated configuration system


• container-­ready, including support for Docker, Cloudius, OSv and KVM images


• secure connectivity using standard-s­based IPSec VPN, SSL or L2TP


• monitoring and reporting with integrated network protocol analysis for network detail at a fine-­grained level


• high availability and system redundancy with failover and synchronization


• minimal resource consumption

The group reckons this approach “... provides DevOps for networks (NetOps) with the ability to easily deploy an integrated and hardened stack.”

OpenDaylight has a mighty membership roster – just about any vendor that's ever considered SDN or NFV, or can spell either, has signed as a member – so its participation in this project means it deserves to be taken seriously. the project is also motivated by the desire to provide an open alternative to commercial SDN and NFV, which means it has every chance of becoming increasingly relevant. ®

Sponsored: Network DDoS protection

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/opendaylight_and_friends_spin_up_cloudrouter_project/

via IFTTT

Netflix teams with AWS to launch VHS-as-a-service

Streaming video titan Netflix will shortly launch a variant of its service in which classic 1980s programs, and modern content, are streamed in a form that approximates the unbelievably bad video quality of the VHS video cassette.

The Reg understands Netflix has worked with Amazon Web Services to tweak the cloud giant's Elastic Transcoder service so it degrades video to VHS quality.

The VHS variant will be used to promote a new trove of content, including 1980s soaps like Dallas and Dynasty, plus then-blockbuster miniseries. The Reg has learned that this option will be branded “Netflix Brown” and will be marketed as TV's equivalent of a vinyl revival. We further understand that Netflix developers used the slogan “Netflix Brown turns gold into sh*t” during in-house testing.

“A small but influential group of Netflix users is complaining the service is not authentic enough,” a Netflix insider told The Reg. “This group overlaps significantly with the big-bearded, vinyl-listening, artisanal pickles and ancient grains sourdough crowd, which is taking over youth culture. We need a service for that demographic.”

“It doesn't make sense to remaster the likes of Dallas or Dynasty,” our mole said. “Those shows can only be properly celebrated in a low-fi format. And audiences actually deserve the chance to see newer shows, like House of Cards, in VHS, because the performances shine even brighter if the images don't. It's a lesson in acting to see Robin Wright's Clare Underwood look completely and utterly bloodless, instead of just ice cold.”

The new service looks terrible. “Thanks to Netflix Brown, orange really is the new black,” our source said.

The Reg understands Netflix will announce a 41 day countdown for the service's commencement, starting at 4:01 today.

“Subscribers won't believe the Netflix Brown experience,” said our source. “The day after they relive VHS, they'll wonder how they let themselves be fooled into buying stuff on the format back in the day.” ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/netflix_teams_with_aws_to_launch_vhsasaservice_variant/

via IFTTT

If You Didn’t Kill That Zombie, Maybe I Won’t Either

The first time I played the “Walking Dead” video game, I killed an elderly man. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I had stepped into the shoes of Lee, a black man from Georgia trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. I found myself trapped in a meat locker with Larry, a surly, racist old man who had previously left me for dead, as he began to suffer a potentially fatal heart attack. I knew that if Larry died naturally, he would instantly return as a zombie and try to kill me. My choice seemed clear. I picked up a heavy object from the corner of the room and used it to crush his skull.

Later, some unnerving statistics appeared on the screen: how my choices compared to everyone else who had played the game. I saw a long, red bar of discord stretch out next to my decision to kill Larry. Over 68 percent of players had disagreed and refused to take his life. I gulped. Until that moment, I’d felt certain I made the right decision. Now I wasn’t so sure.

Using data to create moral complexity in video games has become a specialty for Telltale Games, a studio whose titles — including adaptations of both “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” — focus not on battering enemies with weapons, but on asking players to make difficult ethical choices. Their interactive stories are a sandbox of morality, one where we’re able to glimpse not just how we might respond in life-or-death scenarios, but also how we stack up against everyone else. Are we braver? Less loyal? More pragmatic? And how do we feel when our moral decisions are measured by the yardstick of our peers?

“We definitely wanted people to do a comparative analysis of the way they reacted in difficult moral situations versus the way other people did,” said Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner. “It reinforces the commitment that you made. It might make you ask yourself, why did I choose that in the moment? What was I thinking? What was someone else thinking?”

The data doesn’t just influence players, it’s also an important tool that allows developers to tailor the game as they’re making it. In every episode, there are decision points designed as narrative barometers, opportunities to gauge how the audience feels — and whether they’re having the reactions Telltale hoped for.

Telltale’s games usually offer no obvious “good” and “bad” options. Indeed, if the results for any choice are too lopsided — if the decision is too easy to make — they tend to count it as a swing and a miss.

In “The Wolf Among Us,” a Telltale game about mythological characters living in New York City, Bruner says they worried that the immense strength of the main character might make it too easy to commit violence. So they tweaked the game, encouraging players to be more conscientious about their use of violent force.

“We’d have [characters] in the world push back and say, ‘C’mon, we all know you can do this, but it’s not really helping,'” said Bruner. After looking at the data, they could tell it worked: In the second episode, when faced with an attack from a weaker character, 78 percent of players subdued their foe but chose not to hit him a second time. “We got people to this place where they were a very powerful character, but they were concerned about the way they were wielding that power.”

That sort of moral complexity is exactly what prompted Tobias Staaby, a high school teacher in Norway, to integrate the “Walking Dead” video game into the curriculum for his ethics class. Before each significant decision, he discusses various ethical frameworks with his students — including relational ethics, consequential ethics, and ethics of duty or virtue — and asks them to debate each choice before voting as a class on which way to go.

“Depending on what kind of ethics you base your arguments on, there are no evil decisions in ‘The Walking Dead,’” says Staaby. “Rather, are you making decisions [to create] the best consequences or making sure that the action itself is a good deed?”

These morally ambiguous forks in the road have prompted passionate debates both online and offline about which choices players believe are “right,” “wrong,” or even “unforgivable.” And of course, the comparative data that appears at the end of each episode feels like a conversation all its own, a digital expression of social norms that can leave players feeling justified — or judged — by the decisions of their peers.

In his classes, Staaby observed a tendency for students in the same session to lean in a similar ethical direction over the course of the game as they debated and observed the opinions of their peers. “There’s a culture that solidifies during gameplay,” says Staaby. “The voices that are the loudest or most outspoken are often the voices that most students lean towards.”

Dr. Praveen R. Kambam, a psychiatrist who consults with the media analysis group Broadcast Thought, says this tendency to be influenced by social feedback is what’s known as a conformity bias. “In other words, [people] tend to look to the actions of others in deciding how they should behave,” said Kambam. “This bias is stronger when faced with questions that do not have absolute answers, like moral questions.”

The layered nature of identity in video games can complicate matters as well, since players make different decisions depending on whether or not they’re role-playing the characters they inhabit. This gets particularly complicated in the second season of “The Walking Dead,” where you play as an 11-year-old girl named Clementine. When you’re faced with horrifying situations, will you make the decisions that you would make, or the ones you think she would make?

In one particularly disturbing scene, one of your allies announces that he’s going to kill a man who has tortured or murdered several of his friends. You can either leave before he does it or stay and watch the villain die a horrible death — which means Clementine has to watch as well. It’s the sort of question that tests how willing people are to give in to some of our darker, more voyeuristic impulses, and allows us to follow those urges to their logical conclusions. Ultimately, more than 68 percent of players decided to stay and watch the murder — a decision that becomes a consequence unto itself, as it really is horrific to behold.

“We all drive down the freeway and slow down at the accident,” says Bruner. “What if you could get out of your car and really check it out? Is that what you’re really trying to do? In this situation, if you say you want to watch, that means you want to watch. So here it comes.”

Although violent video games are often demonized by critics who claim they desensitize people to violence — or encourage it in real life — Bruner says that Telltale’s games rely fundamentally on the humanity and empathy of their players. “Our games would absolutely not work if players were desensitized to violence, if they didn’t care about other people.”

While “The Walking Dead” can be undeniably upsetting, Staaby calls it “violence with a purpose. I don’t think you’d get quite as interesting dilemmas in nonthreatening or nonviolent situations.” And in his classes, at least, the players are very morally engaged. “A lot of my students feel really responsible, especially towards Clementine. And without that empathy and sympathy, relational ethics is impossible. Even though they’re fictional characters, many of my students argue as if [they] have real feelings.”

His students struggled particularly hard with a scenario where a young woman who has been bitten by a zombie begs to borrow the player’s gun so she can end her own life before she becomes a monster. The decision led to a heated debate, in part because a student at a neighboring school had committed suicide just a few weeks earlier — a tragedy that was still fresh in the minds of his students. “I almost didn’t go through with it because of that,” said Staaby, “but I’m so glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the best discussions that we ever had.”

Staaby thinks games like these provide an important experimental space in which to explore real-life ethics, not only because Telltale’s data-driven tweaking aims them so squarely at moral gray areas, but also because they explore difficult dilemmas through unfamiliar fantasy scenarios that often allow players to see these quandaries with new eyes. “These questions don’t have any ready-made answers,” says Staby. “The zombies, after all, are yet to come.”

from ffffff http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-you-didnt-kill-that-zombie-maybe-i-wont-either/

via IFTTT

Play The Bill Belichick Offseason Simulator

This must be emphasized from the outset: The Bill Belichick Offseason Simulator is a tool, and not a toy. It does not exist to amuse you. It is meant to train prospective football coaches in the art and science of managing the travails of the offseason.

Any fun you may have, or amusement you may find, while piloting this simulator is purely accidental, and should be reported as a software bug.

This "video game," if you would like to call it that, is not about fun and games. It is about getting dressed, resetting the clock on your car radio, shopping at the hardware store, and accomplishing offseason tasks. In other words, it is the exact sort of game Bill Belichick might himself make.

This game is possible to beat, but you may find it frustrating and difficult at times. That is because you are not Bill Belichick.

Best of luck piloting the Bill Belichick Offseason Simulator. Due to its immersive realism and state-of-the-art graphics, the Simulator may take a few moments to load.

DO NOT ABUSE OR ENJOY THE BILL BELICHICK OFFSEASON SIMULATOR.

Warning! The Bill Belichick offseason simulator is a 46mb file! Are you sure you want to play it right now?

"); } $(".game-container li").click(function() { if($(this).index()==0) { if(navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone|iPad|iPod/i) != null) { $(".game-container").html("

Well then go play at this link already! Another warning: this will take a while to load.

Smart. Bill Belichick's life is too big for your puny phone anyway.

from ffffff http://www.sbnation.com/2015/3/31/7979801/bill-belichick-offseason-simulator

via IFTTT

You'd Never Leave This Folding Bike Helmet Behind

I'm normally a safety first, second and third kinda cyclist. But even with my lifelong fear of cars, I'll sometimes leave the helmet at home if I don't want to lug it around an office all day. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could have the best of both worlds? You probably see where this is going.

A folding bike helmet is not a radically new idea. But making one that's simple (and would actually protect your skull) is a challenge that has eluded engineers thus far. At first looks, though, the Fuga helmet seems to tick most of the boxes.

The helmet is made of three circular shell components, which fold down and nest inside each other to make a package that fits inside a bag. According to manufacturer Closca, the helmet has passed certification in Europe, Canada and the States, thanks to a combination of polystyrene and polycarbonate in the shell.

You can pre-order a small, medium or large now for about $75, with shipping expected this spring. [Closca via Cool Hunting]

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/youd-never-leave-this-folding-bike-helmet-behind-1694925110

via IFTTT

Firefox hits prime time as version 37 manifests

Version 37 of Firefox is upon us, for ye olde PCs and Android.

It's not the Mozilla Foundation's most revolutionary release by a long shot, with the headline feature being the inclusion of a new “Heartbeat” user feedback feature that “provides real-time understanding of our existing Desktop user population” and “ties user perception to technical information so we can take your feedback and feed that into future Firefox releases.”

There's also HTTPS for Bing searches, the adoption of Russian search outfit Yandex as the default for Turkish users and “Improved protection against site impersonation via OneCRL centralized certificate revocation.”

Another security nicety means that when the browser encounters a server that supports HTTP/2 AltSvc, encryption will be enabled.

A lucky 13 security problems have also been repaired.

The updated browser's available now, so if you see it in server logs or find a lot of traffic heading to Mozilla mirrors, that's why. Now to tell your users to back off while you make sure there's no cooties hiding in the Fox's fur. ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/firefox_hits_prime_time_as_version_37_manifests/

via IFTTT

World's Oldest Person Dies In Japan At 117

updated 15:37

Published: 3:25PM Wednesday April 01, 2015 Source: AAP

Misao Okawa. - Source: Getty

The world's oldest person has died nearly a month after celebrating her 117th birthday.

Her nursing home says Misao Okawa died of heart failure today.

Okawa, born in Osaka on March 5, 1898, was recognized as the world's oldest person by Guinness World Records in 2013.

Her Osaka nursing home says she lost her appetite about 10 days ago. She stopped breathing as her grandson and nursing home officials attended.

Okawa, the daughter of a kimono maker, said at a birthday celebration last month that her life seemed rather short.

Okawa married her husband, Yukio, in 1919, and they had three children — two daughters and a son. She was survived by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 1931.

Copyright © 2015, Television New Zealand Limited. Breaking and Daily News, Sport & Weather | TV ONE, TV2 | Ondemand

from ffffff http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/s-oldest-person-dies-in-japan-aged-117-6275402

via IFTTT

POODLE vuln dogs Australian consumer modems

The persistent awfulness of consumer broadband modems is once again in evidence, with the Poodle and Freak bugs present in a huge number of Australian households.

The issue has hit Twitter, with some people reporting that ISPs are notifying them of possible malicious traffic – but without useful information on what to do.

For example, the image above is a screen-grab that @OaaSvc posted, which identifies TPG as the service provider.

The Register has been told that the two bugs are still present in DLink, Netcomm and FritzBox devices (among, we're quite sure, many others), and that the security problems are exacerbated by devices that ship with external admin enabled by default.

There's no doubt that there are a great many vulnerable services still presented to the Internet in Australia. The Australian Communications and Media Authority's AISI Malware statistics page shows vulnerable services at more than 200,000 hosts and rising.

The “Other” chart on that page, first published on March 27, “includes” Freak and Poodle vulnerabilities, but The Register has reason to believe these two bugs represent nearly all of the “other” hosts.

Many of those hosts are un-patched servers – such as, for example, the Attorney-General's department (see Tweet below), but there could be as many as 100,000 Poodle/Freak vulnerable home devices as well.

I'll just leave this here shall I @acmadotgov? @CERTAustralia (see previous tweet) pic.twitter.com/mLbsbyMAYa

— Outrage as a Svc (@OaaSvc) March 31, 2015

It's also quite likely that a large number of turnkey VoIP services remain on the vulnerable list, according to The Register's source, who requested anonymity.

+Comment: It's almost impossible to expect home users en masse to learn even the most basic configuration tasks. There's no way Joe Sixpack is going to run a firmware upgrade and navigate a bunch of menus to find out where the remote management check-box is.

For that reason, it's also unfair to threaten blocking services to users who don't know what's going on.

It would seem at least prudent to Vulture South for ISPs to block traffic on the TCP ports used for remote management to vulnerable devices. ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/poodle_dogs_australian_consumer_modems/

via IFTTT

This one weird trick deletes any YouTube flick in just a few clicks

Security bod Kamil Hismatullin has disclosed a simple method to delete any video from YouTube.

The Russian software developer and hacker found videos can be instantly nuked by sending the identity number of a video in a post request along with any token.

Google paid the bug hunter US$5000 for the find along with $1337 under its pre-emptive vulnerability payment scheme in which it slings cash to help recognised researchers find more bugs.

"I wanted to find there some CSRF or XSS issues, but unexpectedly discovered a logical bug that let me to delete any video on YouTube with just one request," Hismatullin says.

"... this vulnerability could create utter havoc in a matter of minutes in [hackers'] hands who could extort people or simply disrupt YouTube by deleting massive amounts of videos in a very short period of time."

Hismatullin says Google responded quickly when he reported the bug Saturday.

He says he spent seven hours finding the bugs and resisted the near overwhelming urge to "clean up Bieber's channel".

Google's Vulnerability Research Grants is described as cash with "no strings attached" that allows known security bods to apply for US$3133.70 to begin bug hunting expeditions.

The search and service giant handed out some $1.5 million last year to bug hunters for reporting vulnerabilities. ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/simple_trick_to_delete_any_youtube_flick/

via IFTTT

Ethernet Alliance plots 1.6 terabit-per-second future

Think 100 Gbps Ethernet is The Coming Thing? You ain't seen nothing yet: one of the venerable standard's custodians wants it going a hundred times faster by the end of another decade.

No, this isn't El Reg April Foolery: that's what the Ethernet Alliance's 2015 roadmap expects to be able to deliver.

Of course, the screaming speeds at the far end of the rainbow won't be using your venerable blue cable: getting to 1 Tbps will first need 100 Gbps to settle down. That way, ten 100 Gbps lanes – or even sixteen – will yield up to 1.6 Tbps Ethernet connections.

President of the Ethernet Alliance told The Platform's Timothy Prickett-Morgan that advance on Ethernet is expected around 2020, when a low-cost 100 Gbps lane that fits onto SPF+ ports should hit the market.

Between now and 2020, the group expects to have ratified the 25 Gbps speed proposed last year by the 25G Ethernet Consortium, along with 50 Gbps, 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps documents.

As The Platform notes, a reasonable expectation by 2025 will be for most deployments to be running “100 Gbps on the server, 400 Gbps on the switch, and 1 Tbps on the router”.

The roadmap shows that the Alliance wants to have multi-mode fibre ports carrying 25, 50, 200 and 400 Gbps lanes (distances up to 100 metres), the single mode fibres will run distances out to as much as 10 km (for the proposed 400 GBASE-LRn standard).

The 25 and 40 Gbps twisted pair connections will require Cat8 cable, the roadmap says. ®

Sponsored: Network DDoS protection

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/ethernet_alliance_plots_multiterabit_future/

via IFTTT

Microsoft releases Music and Video Preview apps for Windows 10 -- drops Xbox branding

While I love Spotify, I recently invested in an Xbox Music Pass subscription. The reason why is quite simple -- cost. On March 14, which is Pi Day, Microsoft offered a steep discount on a year of the service. While the experience is sub-par on Android, it works brilliantly on Windows.

Today, Microsoft releases previews of both the Music and Videos apps for the Windows 10 Technical Preview. While there are many changes -- both visually and under the hood -- the most surprising is the apparent dropping of the Xbox branding. Is this the sign of a bigger change?

You can download the apps using the below links. Please note, you must be on Windows 10 Technical Preview 10049.

Download the Music Preview app (PC)

Download the Video Preview app (PC)

I eagerly downloaded both apps, but was far more excited for the Music Preview, as I actually use it. Typically, I will use VLC for watching locally stored video files and stream stuff from Netflix and Amazon Prime. Quite frankly, I have no use for Microsoft's Video app.

Microsoft shares the following about the Video app.

Features to try:

• Browse and play video files (including MKV!) on your device: Try out filtering and sorting your collection and adding a folder of videos to include in your collection.


• Browse and play movies & TV shows you’ve purchased from any Xbox Video device: Try starting a purchased video on one Xbox Video device and pick up playback right where you left off on another device.

What's coming next:

• Discover great new movies and TV shows in the Windows Store Beta – until then you can still get them in the existing Video App or the new web Store at here.


• Download movies and TV for offline play


• New device management so you can play your downloads offline more reliably on the devices you care about


• Improved search results


• Movie reviews and cast information


• Settings improvements


• And much more!

Here's what we know isn’t working quite right yet:

• Movies and TV shows downloaded in other versions of the app cannot be played in this preview app. They can only be streamed. This preview app only supports streaming at this time.


• Playback of purchased content may take several seconds to begin.


• Adding or removing folders from your video library can hang the app. Instead, use File Explorer to manage your video library.


• Playback of movies and TV may fail with error 0x8004c029. If it does, go here to learn more about how to fix it.


• Expired rentals incorrectly show a play button. Playing expired content will result in a playback error.

Microsoft shares the following about the Music Preview app.

Features to try:

• Browse and play your music collection: MP3s on your device, songs you’ve put in OneDrive, or music you’ve added to your collection with an Xbox Music Pass will all show up in the Music Preview App. Try out shuffling, filtering, and sorting your music collection. And try playing a Radio station based on one of your favorite artists or bands.


• Make playlists: Make playlists with all your music including music from OneDrive. Just create a new playlist and drag and drop the songs you want in that playlist. You can access all your playlists across your Windows devices, Xbox consoles and on the web at music.xbox.com.


• Xbox Music Pass: If you have an Xbox Music Pass, you can browse our full catalog and stream or download music for offline use and discover new music with artist radio stations.

What's coming next:

• Browse and buy music in the Windows Store Beta -- until then you can still buy music in the existing Music App


• Right-click context menus


• Better back button for easier app navigation


• Dark color theme


• Compact mode


• Settings improvements


• Improved support for accessibility


• And much more!

Here's what we know isn’t working quite right yet:

• After heavy use you may see galleries disappear and show a blank white page. Restarting the app will solve the issue.


• Playback of Music Pass content may fail with error 0x8004c029. If it does, go here to learn more about how to fix it.


• There are no playback controls on hover when the app appears in the taskbar.

So, is the Xbox Music brand going away? Time will tell, but I get a strong feeling that this may be the case. Gone is the "Xbox Music" logo in the music app and the iconic green and back colors in the app too. You can see side by side images above (click to enlarge). Hell, even the Xbox Music Pass is simply referred to as "Music Pass" in the settings.

Quite frankly, moving away from the Xbox Music branding is probably a smart idea, as some consumers could misunderstand it to only work on an Xbox console.

from ffffff http://feeds.betanews.com/~r/bn/~3/KWtQErVcSYw/

via IFTTT

AWS flops out massive D to vaporise big data rigs

Big data's a fine concept, but when it meets the real world of buying kit to run it on things can get nasty because the cost of the rigs required to crunch lots of data can be very considerable.

Some big data vendors make a virtue of offering their own specialised servers for the job and the likes of VMware offer ways to create virtual servers clusters you can spin up to do some data crunching when the spirit moves you. Some cloud operators and/or managed service providers combine the two approaches to offer rental of virtual big data rigs.

All those models now get the fun of competing with Amazon Web Services (AWS)m which has just created a new instance type for its elastic computing service (EC2), designed for “processing multi-terabyte data sets”.

The new D2 instances run on Intel Xeon E5-2676 v3 CPUs at 2.4 GHz (bursting to 3.0GHz) and come in four sizes, as explained in the table below.

Instance Name	vCPU Count	RAM	Instance Storage	Network Performance	Disk Read Throughput (with 2 MiB Blocks)	Linux On-Demand Price
d2.xlarge	4	30.5 GiB	6 TB (3 x 2 TB)	Moderate	437 MB/second	$0.690
d2.2xlarge	8	61 GiB	12 TB (6 x 2 TB)	High	875 MB/second	$1.380
d2.4xlarge	16	122 GiB	24 TB (12 x 2 TB)	High	1,750 MB/second	$2.760
d2.8xlarge	36	244 GiB	48 TB (24 x 2 TB)	10 Gbps	3,500 MB/second	$5.520

The d2.8xlarge instance throws in Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) and all of the new types include elastic block store optimisation. AWS wants you to use newer Linuxes on these instances, preferably its own distro, in order to access faster storage access speeds (thanks to new bits inside Xen). The new D2 instances give big data users an interesting alternative. It won't be long, of course, before Google, Microsoft or a niche player trumps these new rigs' specs. But that's beside the point, because the mere availability of cloud instances dedicated to this kind of application sets the cats among the pigeons in yet another market. ®

Sponsored: Network DDoS protection

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/aws_flops_out_massive_d_to_vaporise_big_data_rigs/

via IFTTT

Harper review: break up ACCC, free up IP*, let freedom reign

Australia's federal government has conducted a review into competition policy and there's plenty in it to ponder for the country's tech sector.

Following last September's release of its preliminary study, the Harper Review has now issued its final report.

Aside from the recommendation that the rules governing ride-sharing be reviewed immediately – an interesting route for the federal government to take, since the taxi industry is regulated at the state level – the review highlighted various aspects of the country's intellectual property regime for reform.

The greatest impact on the telecommunications sector would be the proposed split-up of functions governed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Under the current regime, the ACCC is in charge of access pricing, access regulation, and competition policy for the telecommunications industry.

The Harper Review instead says pricing and infrastructure access should be split from the ACCC and handed to a new regulator, while the ACCC retains its competition and consumer functions.

Unsurprisingly, ACCC chairman Rod Sims isn't so keen on the idea, issuing a statement which while broadly welcoming the reports, notes:

“Apart from the increased overheads from having to run two organisations rather than one, there would be very real costs for businesses in having to deal with two regulators, who may have conflicting views.”

“Breaking up the ACCC would also go against the international trend, which is towards agency consolidation”.

The report singles out laws governing parallel imports, but seems to leave content industries off the deregulation list, confining its recommendations for reform to books and second-hand cars.

As tech buyers well know, companies that think they can discourage punters from buying products offshore often respond with higher prices.

“The threat of parallel imports may also induce international suppliers to re-think their regional arrangements”, the report notes (but not for movies or TV broadcasts, it seems).

Vertical market restrictions should be eased

In its resale price maintenance discussion, the review does say that the Competition and Consumer Act should ensure that “consumers are able to take lawful steps to circumvent attempts to prevent their access to cheaper legitimate goods”.

Vertical restrictions in the current act should be simplified, the report states: third-line forcing (“we'll only sell you the razor if you'll also buy our blades”) should be ignored except where it reduces competition.

Resale price maintenance (“if you discount our product we'll stop supplying you”) should still be prohibited, but the Apple workaround where the manufacturer operates the retail outlet should be permitted.

The report states: “Currently, there is no exemption for RPM [resale price maintenance] between a manufacturer and a retailer that is a subsidiary of the manufacturer”, something the report says should be created.

This would, The Register supposes, be defended on the basis that Australian companies would be on the same footing as multinationals like Apple, Sony and Samsung who operate vertically integrated retail outlets.

IP and treaties

The report makes a suggestion that's bound to be ignored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: the intellectual property (IP) provisions of international trade treaties like the Trans Pacific Partnership should only be ratified after they're made public.

“Trade negotiations should be informed by an independent and transparent analysis of the costs and benefits to Australia of any proposed intellectual property provisions. Such an analysis should be undertaken and published before negotiations are concluded”, it says.

Given the impact of technology on IP policy, Harper also suggests the Productivity Commission devote a year to a separate review covering: “competition policy issues in intellectual property arising from new developments in technology and markets; and the principles underpinning the inclusion of intellectual property provisions in international trade agreements”. ®

Sponsored: Network DDoS protection

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/01/harper_review_break_up_accc_free_up_ip_let_freedom_reign/

via IFTTT

Now Aerial Photographers Can Get 80 Megapixel Photos From a Drone Camera

Remember that breathtaking 10k-timelapse video we stumbled upon last month? Expect to see more stuff like that in the future, but shot from drones: PhaseOne has announced the world’s smallest 80-megapixel medium format camera—a high end, lightweight shooter designed specifically for aerial photography.

The iXU 180 will weigh in at a modest two pounds without a lens and has a low profile, gyro-mountable 3.8 x 3.6 x 4.3-inch body. It doesn’t sound that light (and a lens will add another pound), but when it comes to drones, every ounce counts. PhaseOne hasn’t announced pricing yet, but says the new shooter will ship in mid-April alongside a pair of 60 megapixel RGB and achromatic (read: black and white) variants.

A lot of technical mumbo jumbo, I know—but what it means for photography is stunning: just check out what the level of detail photographers caught with the company’s last 80-megapixel medium format camera:

[PhaseOne via PetaPixel]

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/now-aerial-photographers-can-get-80-megapixel-photos-fr-1694905418

via IFTTT

Verizon: FINE OK, you can now rid your life of our stalker supercookies

Verizon has finally got around to giving its subscribers the option to opt out of its controversial supercookie tracking program. Customers can find the switch in their My Verizon account settings, or by calling the toll-free number (866) 211-0874.

"Verizon Wireless provides customers the ability to opt-out of our advertising programs, and we have been working to expand the opt-out to include the Unique Identifier Headers, also known as an identifier," a company spokesperson told El Reg.

"Our systems have been changed so that we automatically stop inserting the Unique Identifier Headers for customers who opt out of our Relevant Mobile Advertising program or activate a line that is ineligible for our advertising programs."

The use of the tracking mechanism, which injects a Unique Identifier Token Header (UIDH) into every HTTP request to websites via its mobile data network, drew criticism from privacy advocates, who argued that the inability to completely disable the tracking system was a violation of their rights. The UIDHs are unique to each subscriber, allowing ad networks to follow Verizon users around the internet, get an idea of their interests, and serve them tailored web adverts.

Verizon has been injecting the UIDHs since 2012 to track traffic running through its mobile network. Ad networks were using the always-on supercookies to track and target users even when they had asked Verizon not to track them.

Verizon said in January that it would be working on an opt-out switch to let users remove themselves from the UIDH program. Users who were on enterprise or government service plans were not subjected to the UIDH tracking. ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/verizon_supercookies_disabled/

via IFTTT

Atmel stoops to an 'all-time low' in Internet of Things battle

Atmel reckons it has crafted the world's lowest-power ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers, a family of chips that can go for "decades" on the same batteries. The SAM-L21 family is aimed at "fire alarms, healthcare, medical, wearable, and devices placed in rural, agriculture, offshore and other remote areas."

Atmel says samples of SAM-L21 microcontrollers are in the hands in customers. The chips use just 35µA/MHz while active, and 200nA while in sleep mode, apparently, consuming less than 900nA while retaining 32KB of SRAM and running a real-time clock and calendar.

Being a Cortex-M0+-powered chip, the SAM-L21 is not particularly powerful: it tops out at 48MHz, and runs ARM Thumb (and some Thumb-2) code. But the family does pack a few features like USB interfacing, op-amps and comparators, DMA with peripherals, a random number generator, and AES cryptography in hardware, plus other bits and pieces.

The idea is for each chip to sleep, wake up when something happens, make a decision on whether or not it needs to alert the wider world, and then go back to sleep.

Constantly being in contact with its base over wired or wireless networking will drain its batteries; activating external electronics for power-hungry IP communications should only be done if its sensors detect something significant. Like an explosion or a fire.

This is for the Internet of relatively rarely disturbed Things. The SAM-L21 family looks like this:

• ATSAML21E15A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 32KB Flash, 6KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, four serial communication modules (SERCOMs, used for I2C, USART/UART and SPI), USB Host and Device, 10-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 32 pins


• ATSAML21E16A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 64KB Flash, 12KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, four SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 10-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 32 pins


• ATSAML21E17A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 128KB Flash, 24KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, four SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 10-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 32 pins


• ATSAML21E18A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 256KB Flash, 40KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, four SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 10-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 32 pins


• ATSAML21G16A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 64KB Flash, 12KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, six SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 14-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 48 pins


• ATSAML21G17A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 128KB Flash, 24KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, six SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 14-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 48 pins


• ATSAML21G18A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 256KB Flash, 40KB SRAM, 48 MHz, six 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, six SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 14-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 48 pins


• ATSAML21J16A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 64KB Flash, 12KB SRAM, 48 MHz, eight 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, six SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 20-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 64 pins


• ATSAML21J17A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 128KB Flash, 24KB SRAM, 48 MHz, eight 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, six SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 20-channel 12-bit ADC, 2-channel 12-bit DAC, 64 pins


• ATSAML21J18A: ARM Cortex-M0+ based ultra-low-power microcontroller with 256KB Flash, 40KB SRAM, 48 MHz, eight 16-bit timer/counters, DMA, 6 SERCOMs, USB Host and Device, 20-channel 12-bit ADC, 20-channel 12-bit DAC, 64 pins

The SAM L21 family will be released into the wild in September this year, we're told. ®

Sponsored: Network DDoS protection

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/atmel_sam_l21/

via IFTTT

Secret Bezos delivery helicopters operate from mystery Canadian base to evade US regulators

Amazon's relationship with Uncle Sam's Federal Aviation Authority has apparently deteriorated so much that the web-based retailer has fled its jurisdiction for the more liberal regulatory regime of Transport Canada.

Showing off its secret-keeping credentials, the Guardian reports that Amazon has an undisclosed drone-testing location in Canada, hidden "somewhere in British Columbia, only 2,000 feet from the US border, which was clearly visible from where [we] stood on a recent visit".

A previous Amazon request to test-fly delivery drones actually received such a late response from the FAA that the tech was considered obsolete by the time it was actually authorised to fly.

The Sultans of Seattle are obviously unhappy with this state of affairs and have sneaked across the border to test-fly their (probably impractical for anything more than a couple of Mills & Boon paperbacks) delivery drones among the hills of British Columbia.

"Amazon has acquired a plot of open land lined by oak trees and firs, where it is conducting frequent experimental flights with the full blessing of the Canadian government," according to the Guardian, also noting its visit was watched by "three plain-clothed security guards".

The excitable Grauniad exclusive cites Amazon's "drone visionaries" fine-tuning "the essential features of what they hope will become a successful delivery-by-drone system.

The Guardian witnessed tests of "a hybrid drone that can take off and land vertically, as well as fly horizontally", not an entirely unique capability.

Amazon wants to utilise GPS to autonomously fly packages of under five pounds to customers' doorsteps within 30 minutes of ordering online.

However, questions remain regarding Amazon's preparation to deal with the critical technical and regulatory challenges. ®

Sponsored: Today’s most dangerous security threats

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/amazon_testing_drones_in_top_secret_canadian_location/

via IFTTT

Periscope smeared by streaming security SNAFU

Twitter's Meerkat-strangling live streaming app Periscope has had its first privacy SNAFU, leaking the titles (but not the content) of videos meant for private circulation only.

Periscope allows users to stream live video into their Twitter feeds. The app debuted mere days after a very similar app, Meerkat, became the Bong! crowd's latest darling.

The flaw in Twitter's app means audio and video of a private broadcast will remain private: only the title leaks. While most users will think of it as an annoyance more than a catastrophe, there will still be some Bobs wondering if the mere title Private Striptease by Alice for Bob might tip off Eve that there's something to ask about.

Periscope Tweeted the problem thus:

2/If Tweet option is ON, and then you switch to private broadcast mode, the app will accidentally tweet the title of your broadcast.

— Periscope (@periscopeco) March 31, 2015

3/Your video IS STILL PRIVATE. The link WILL NOT load video or audio. Only intended participants can view the broadcast in the app.

— Periscope (@periscopeco) March 31, 2015

4/In the meantime, A temporary solution is to disable the Twitter button before tapping the private lock icon. This will disable tweeting

— Periscope (@periscopeco) March 31, 2015

5/We're very sorry and worked to fix this bug as soon as we discovered it. Should be live in the App Store soon (we will confirm when it is)

— Periscope (@periscopeco) March 31, 2015

Twitter's chequebook-wranglers worked at relativistic speeds when it became clear that Meerkat had quit standing and looking around and was on a sprint, something confirmed at SXSW when VCs started unloading overburdened wallets in its direction.

The microblogging macrophage had already roped its merger-and-acquisition department to the oars, beat the drum, cracked the whip, and grabbed Periscope in January, but waited until just before SXSW to go public with the buy.

A Twitter user known to Vulture South, @scott_thewspot drily noted that Periscope's privacy bug doesn't affect Android or Windows Phone apps (because there's only an iOS client at this stage). ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/periscope_smeared_by_silly_snafu/

via IFTTT

Pre-Snowden NSA grunts wanted to nix phone spying: report

Even before Edward Snowden spilled the beans on the National Security Agency's(NSA's) extensive surveillance programs, high-level US bureaucrats were considering spiking the program.

So says The Associated Press, thanks to unnamed sources who told the wire service the mass surveillance was disappointing as a counter-terrorism strategy.

They claim the phone collection programs missed most mobile calls, and spent too much money hoovering landlines, adding vox interceptions were not central to counter-terrorism efforts.

It flies in the face of boilerplate public responses from the spy agency that the costly and intrusive programs are worth every cent.

President Barack Obama has proposed the NSA only pull interception data from telecommunications providers on an as-needed basis, but that has yet to pass Congress.

Sources told the AP that top managers had received the proposal drafted from lower-level grunts, but it had not reached then NSA boss General Keith Alexander, who they say would probably have rejected the report.

A presidential task force also suggests the programs should be dumped, since the phone record collection leaves open the dangerous possibility of abuse by future governments.

The AP says the revelations could impact Congress' decision to renew the NSA's phone tapping warrant in June.

Civil libertarians accuse the US Government of solving only one domestic terrorism case through the spying mechanisms in which a San Diego taxi driver was convicted of raising $15,000 for a Somali terrorist group.

The claims follow early Snowden disclosures that revealed the NSA dumped the collection of email metadata due to poor cost-benefit analysis results. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/presnowden_nsa_grunts_wanted_to_nix_phone_spying_report/

via IFTTT

SoftLayer and Telstra in cloudy embrace

Australia's dominant telco Telstra, which also operates an AU$2bn a year IT services arn, has struck a deal to resell IBM's SoftLayer cloud down under and is chatting about taking the arrangement global.

Telstra and IBM today announced a new relationship whereby the former's customers are offered access to the latter's cloud over the former's networks. Telstra will resell all of SoftLayer's as-a-services, giving Big Blue a nice leg-up and Telstra customers another cloud to contemplate (the carrier will also operate vCloud Air in Australia, has a few clouds of its own and is a Cisco intercloud buddy).

The Reg has also been told by that IBM and Telstra are “currently working through the commercial and operational mechanisms to extend this to our global customers.” There's “no specific timeframe as yet on this.”

Which brings us back to that AU$2bn a year IT services arm inside Telstra, as should this deal come to pass it will become a global, if smallish, cloud player.

Telstra has form working closely with IBM - the two had a services JV in the late 1990s until Big Blue bought it out in 2003. This new deal probably isn't much more than the two looking at ways to tackle the Australian market. But if it goes global, it could be interesting. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/softlayer_and_telstra_in_cloudy_embrace/

via IFTTT

Prostrate yourself before the GNU, commands Indian DEITY

The best-acronymed government department in the world – India's Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) – has laid out a new policy (PDF) commanding the nation's government to use only open source software.

The policy statement is rather blunt:

Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software (CSS). The Open Source Software shall have the following characteristics:

• The source code shall be available for the community/adopter/end-user to study and modify the software and to redistribute copies of either the original or modified software.


• Source code shall be free from any royalty.

Compliance with the policy is “mandatory” and applies to all central government agencies for state agencies when they replace or upgrade “e-governance” software.

There's an out if an agency needs software that isn't readily available as open source, but the policy insists on calling for only open source products in all future RFPs.

When the UK government adopted open document format, Microsoft made its displeasure known. The Reg's trawl of the web has turned up no such reaction this time, from Redmond or others. That may be because India's still a smallish market, in terms of sales.

There's also lots of wriggle room in the definition of “e-governance”, which DEITY says is “A procedural approach in which the Government and the citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders are able to transact all or part of activities using Information and Communication Technology tools.”

Between that loose definition and the get-out clause for apps that aren't easily found as FOSS, it looks like India's not blocking proprietary software entirely, but is making it plain it prefers open source whenever possible. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/indian_deity_commands_government_to_use_only_open_source_software/

via IFTTT

Dyson Put a Filter In Its Bladeless Fan To Cool and Clean a Room

Following up on its first humidifier that used a UV light to kill germs in its water reservoir, Dyson has just announced an updated version of its Cool fan that now includes a built-in 360-degree glass filter to remove 99.95 percent of airborne invaders in a room. And not just any filter, but a high-efficiency particulate arrestance—or HEPA—filter as regulated by the U.S. government making it as effective as you can get in a consumer-grade appliance.

Since a fan is often pointed directly at people, the inclusion of a HEPA filter on the new Dyson Pure Cool means that any germs or allergens floating around won't be directed right towards them. And the use of a 360-degree filter means that all of the air being sucked into the Pure Cool's base passes through it and is scrubbed of all particles as small as 0.1 microns.

To torture test its new creation Dyson's engineers blasted smoke from 228 cigarettes through the filter without seeing any drop in airflow or performance. And hopefully it works just as well with pipe smoke, because everyone just looks cooler with a pipe in their mouth, right?

When available next month the Dyson Pure Cool will only be sold in China and Japan initially, although sadly there's no specific date for when you'll be able to buy it in North America or other parts of the world. But if you remember what the smoggy skies looked like during the Beijing Olympics, you'll be more understanding of why those living in China can probably benefit from getting their hands on these first. [Dyson]

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/dyson-put-a-filter-in-its-bladeless-fan-to-cool-and-cle-1693787699

via IFTTT

Expanding Wheels Cover Every Type Of Terrain

The normal tire has been adapted over the course of a century to be pretty damn good at carrying people places. But from time to time they still break,

Ackeem Ngwenya is a Royal College of Arts graduate who has been working on his expanding wheel concept for a few years now. I met him two years ago, when his design prototype was built out of paper, sticks, and a few 3-D printed components.

The current evolution stays fairly true to the original design principles: using a scissor-jack mechanism, the wheel can become smaller and fatter to increase grip, or larger and thinner for better paved surfaces. Internal structure comes from a series of spokes, which attach to a central hub, and are then tensioned by pushing the spokes in or out, allowing the wheel to contract or expand.

The idea is to produce a robust wheel that's puncture-resistant, and able to adapt to all sorts of terrain — Ngwenya's hope is to make the lives of rural farmers in developing countries easier. His project isn't the first to take the air out of tires — that honor goes to Michelin — but the expandability trick (if it works) could prove unique. [Dezeen]

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/expanding-wheels-cover-every-type-of-terrain-1694692293

via IFTTT

Google plans ROBOTS to SLICE YOU OPEN AND CUT YOU UP

Google has signed a deal to collaborate with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon to work on surgical robotics applications.

The J&J statement says the two companies will “bring together capabilities, intellectual property and expertise” in building a robotic-assisted surgical platform, with the kind of supporting sentence that can only be crafted by the dead hand of investor relations.

Whatever the two outfits build will be “integrating advanced technologies with the goal of improving health care delivery in the operating room”, the statement says.

The Chocolate Factory's Google X playpen is going to set its Life Sciences team loose to tackle procedures normally performed in open surgery.

Google told the Wall Street Journal it wants to contribute its computer science, imaging and sensor capabilities into surgical tools to do things like highlighting blood vessels and nerves, or spot the edge of tumours.

There's also the question of information organisation: surgeons often need multiple screens in the operating room so they can check medical images, look over the results of previous surgery, and help navigate the patient's anatomy.

J&J also notes that better surgery helps minimise both trauma and scarring, which in turn help post-surgical healing. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/chocolate_factory_takes_on_robot_surgeons/

via IFTTT

The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

G

ood cars are a dime a dozen, and they get you from point A to point B daily, with little drama or fanfare. But great cars are a different breed. They’re memorable for more than just consistency. They inspire driving, and their road prowess is spoken of, lusted after and ardently sought after for generations. The Audi Sport Quattro sits in the realm of “Great”, and the Ingolstadt manufacturer has built its now-stellar reputation on the foundation of their permanent all-wheel-drive Quattro system. But that car is far more than just a historical moment for the brand. All past and present all-wheel-drive rally cars owe their status to the dirt-throwing wheels of the original, blocky Quattro. And what was once a cult favorite amongst the racing cognoscenti is now highly sought after at auctions because of its racing history, rarity and unabashed cool.

MORE LEGENDS: Jensen Interceptor | Volkswagen Type 14 Karmann Ghia | Maserati Ghibli

What It’s All About

The Sport Quattro is known for one thing — changing rally racing forever. What was once a series for either rear-wheel- or front-wheel-drive cars changed when Audi took advantage of the new rules of Group B racing (they essentially made the sky the limit for the cars). Before the Sport Quattro, manufacturers thought all-wheel-drive systems were too complicated and too burdensome to bother with. Then the Sport Quattro hastily silenced the naysayers by winning Audi the WRC Manufacturer’s Championship in 1982 against the likes of Opel, Ford, Nissan and Porsche. It was the first year it raced. Then, the Quattro won again in 1984. It also clinched the Driver’s Championship in 1983 and 1984. What the Sport Quattro effectively did was prove that an all-wheel-drive setup could not only work, but be the best.

The traction present in conditions like mud, gravel, ice and snow gave the Quattro a leg up on the competition, and after it proved itself, all-wheel-drive became the de-facto drive system for most competition rally cars. The Subaru Impreza WRC, the Peugeot 206, the Ford Focus RS — all of these followed in the Quattro’s tire treads. To mark the shift, Audi has since given a lower-case “q” to every subsequent quattro that came after the rally icon. For homologation purposes, only a few were made, and those original capital “Q” Quattros are rarer than even the 272 Ferrari 288 GTO.

Technical Rundown

Although the Sport Quattro made Quattro’s all-wheel-drive famous, it wasn’t the first to run the system. A car named the Ur-Quattro ran Quattro first, but that model’s longer wheelbase, heavy body and balance issues (due to the longitudinally mounted engine) made it less successful in competition. So Audi engineers developed the more purpose-built Sport. The Sport Quattro benefitted from a shortened wheelbase that chopped off 12.6 inches between the B-pillar and C-pillar. The steel body was also lightened by the use of fiberglass and carbon Kevlar panels, solving the problem of the Ur-Quattro’s weightiness.

Front and rear differential locking. And yes, that is an “ABS off” switch.

Even more impressive than the beautiful squared-ness of the Sport Quattro and the lightness of the body was the seemingly small-displacement engine that hid a beast underneath the hood. The 2.1-liter five-cylinder engine — whose relatively small size was required by the FIA because the engine’s big KKK-K27 turbocharger delivered 17 psi — emitted over 450 horsepower in competition trim. The road-going cars that were produced and made available only to Audi’s top-notch customers had an output of 302 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque, providing a 0-60 sprint in 4.8 seconds and handily beating far more exotic cars like the Ferrari 308 and the Porsche 930 Turbo. The Sport Quattro’s other performance-enhancing features included Bosch electronic fuel injection, fully independent front and rear suspension, a five-speed manual transmission and an advanced selectable anti-lock braking system.

Its Place in History

The Sport Quattro took the best of what Audi engineers had to offer in a hyper-competitive Group B racing environment and created a legend in the annals of racing history. What was once a car that was only known to racing enthusiasts is now one of the most sought-after cars at auction, with prices nearly doubling in the past few years. In January of this year, a pristine version sold for just over $430,000 at auction — evidence that the rare race-bred car is growing in popularity as a collector car.

from ffffff http://gearpatrol.com/2015/03/30/icon-audi-sport-quattro/

via IFTTT

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S6?

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S6? You might want to wait: LG just invited us to an event on April 28th, where it'll likely introduce the G4, another new Android flagship. Oh, and did we mention we haven't reviewed the Samsung GS6 yet? Look for that later this week.

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/buying-a-samsung-galaxy-s6-you-might-want-to-wait-lg-1694683472

via IFTTT

Glow-In-The-Dark Tampons Are Being Used To Fix Broken Sewers

The UK has a problem: thanks to bad plumbing and a groaning sewer system, 'grey water' — the stuff that comes out of your dishwashers and washing machines — is ending up in rivers, bringing all sorts of contaminants with it. Hi-tech solutions exist to monitor the problem, but a much cheaper (and more amusing) option exists: tampons.

Working out where grey water is coming from is normally an expensive and time-consuming process. You can add dye to the source, to test a specific building to see if it's the cause, or, you've got the option of expensive fiber-optic cables, or repeated water sampling.

But thanks to the specific type of contaminants found in grey water, a simpler solution exists. Optical brighteners are compounds put into laundry detergents to make your whites whiter. They do this by absorbing invisible UV light, and re-emitting it as a blue-white color. The compounds also tend to stick to fabrics like a leech sucking the last leg in town.

Together, that means that if you dip a piece of absorbent, untreated cotton into contaminated water, it should glow under UV light. So, a team from the University of Sheffield did just that: they stuck tampons into 16 surface water sewers, tying the tampons to bamboo poles with the oh-so-handy attached string. The result: 9 samples glowed under UV light, confirming Sheffield's waste-water problem.

Once a contaminated sewer has been identified, it's a simple (and cheap) matter to progressively test upstream, until you find the particular house that's the cause of the problem. All in all, it's an ingenious solution to a very real problem — and proof that tampons are way more useful than you'd think. [Water and Environment Journal]

from ffffff http://gizmodo.com/glow-in-the-dark-tampons-are-being-used-to-fix-broken-s-1694675435

via IFTTT

Body Of Knowledge

In June 2011, I competed in a figure/bodybuilding competition as a form of embodied research. This photograph shows me standing onstage during the Northern Alberta Bodybuilding Championships, wearing a tiny blue velvet bikini and high heeled plastic shoes while covered in tanning dye.

Figure is a category of physique competition in which women train like bodybuilders to increase their muscle mass, focusing on growing a wide back and strong legs. They then gradually lose fat to reveal those muscles, ideally displaying small waists to create a desired “X” shape.

As a specialist in the early modern body in France (1550-1750), I had written books and articles about the history of childbirth, illness, health and medical portraiture. And I had worked for decades inside libraries, archives and museums.

At age 45, however, I needed a new challenge and decided to use my own body and my own life as sites for learning. I wanted to try what was for me a new approach to producing knowledge.

I decided to undertake an auto-ethnographic project, analyzing my own experiences within broader cultural frameworks to interrogate the gendered dynamics of fitness culture and assumptions about the practice of bodybuilding.

I was exploring popular topics such as body image, fat phobia and feminism, which are misrepresented in much popular culture. I started to write about these topics for broader audiences in a blog.

Figure competitions can help women reject gender norms

At first I thought that becoming a figure girl was at odds with my feminist identity and politics. I was not interested in being objectified and judged in terms of my appearance instead of my intelligence. Yet I discovered that figure competitions can benefit women, helping them to be strong, independent, and to reject gender norms.

The successful figure girl is, after all, larger and more muscular than your typical fashion model. She also eats a lot of chicken and sweet potatoes, without apology.

For me, feminism involves a commitment to expanding opportunities and diminishing restrictions in the lives of girls and women (which in turn improves the lives of boys and men). It does not involve producing or enforcing rules for living, but encourages everyone to think critically about sexism and gender roles, starting with their everyday experiences.

My posing and walking lessons were informative—I was awkward and simply could not convey the proper form of femininity. In this process, I made connections with many amazing women and men, who taught me how to appreciate my physical strengths.

I strove for an impossible ideal

Like many figure girls (and women in general), I strove to embody an impossible ideal. In the end, my failure to conform was a liberating experience.

I learned that bodybuilding is not really about discipline and mastery; it is about pursuing long term and in many ways impossible goals in a consistent, intensive and open-ended manner.

Bodybuilding is a lot like academic work. I begin any research project in order to create new knowledge and not reach predetermined conclusions. The Feminist Figure Girl project allowed me to try out different methods, meet new people, write for different audiences and produce a scholarly book, Feminist Figure Girl: Look Hot While You Fight the Patriarchy .

In it, I offer these and other arguments about bodybuilding, linking it with yoga, while focusing on what it feels like, not what it looks like. In Chapter Two, for example, I analyze the sensation of muscle failure—it happens when you lift weights repetitively to the point of muscle exhaustion—arguing that it is an enlightening and potentially transformative experience.

In Chapter Five, I examine the role of photography in physique culture, focusing on the act of being photographed instead of the resulting images. Sometimes bodybuilding is equated with photographs, like the one of me onstage included with this article, but I must admit that this photograph conceals more than it reveals. For instance, it does not show the years of lifting weights, months of strict dieting (I ate a ton of chicken, bison, egg whites, sweet potatoes and oatmeal) and a final week of contest preparation, which included a period of water loading before days of water restriction in an effort to make my body look tight and vascular during the competition.

This picture alone does not tell the whole story

Nor does the photo portray the sheer misery that I felt while standing onstage, dehydrated, with a spitting headache and throbbing feet. Figure girls—figure boys do not exist—wear crystal encrusted bikinis and four-inch heels while onstage, moving through front, back and side poses for a panel of judges. Afterwards, exhausted figure girls rush backstage to drink water and eat cheesecake.

Also, this picture says little about the practice of bodybuilding.

For serious bodybuilders, their own bodies are the primary sources of knowledge. Real bodybuilders, such as those who compete multiple times, work hard to learn about their own flesh. They discover what foods best fuel their muscle growth, whether their bodies retain water or shed it very quickly, like mine did.

They do not strive for a static ideal, but inhabit a body that continually changes, whether bulking up during a phase of muscle growth, leaning out for a show, recovering from injuries, or performing a flawless posing routine.

It is not possible to maintain a strict diet

Finally, this photo shows a body that is unsustainable. I immediately became softer after the show, gaining weight as I drank water and indulged in carb-laden meals. I have since trained hard to increase my muscle mass, but these muscles are no longer visible because I cannot maintain the strict diet required.

I have also had a baby since then, relishing the fascinating bodily changes that occurred in an entirely new context. The static fiction portrayed in my onstage image has little to do with real flesh, which is always changing as we live and learn.

Lianne McTavish is a Professor of History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the University of Alberta.

from ffffff http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121408/professor-studied-her-own-stint-bodybuilder?utm_content=buffera5b65&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

via IFTTT

AMD opens kimono on chip futures a little more

The best way to protect corporate secrets is to announce them at a tech conference in Japan, which is why word is only just arriving of AMD's February reveal of a clustering roadmap.

Consumer and commercial business lead Junji Hayashi told the PC Cluster Consortium workshop in Osaka that the 2016 release CPU cores (an ARMv8 and an AMD64) will get simultaneous multithreading support, to sit alongside the clustered multithreading of the company's Bulldozer processor families.

Hayashi also told the conference the company's planning a two-year upgrade cycle for the Accelerated Processing Units in its GPUs, with a performance target by 2019 of multiple teraflops for HPC target applications.

By 2017, the company wants to be able to ship a 200-300 W thermal design power (TDP) HPC GPU, with high-bandwidth memory the company expects to be nine times faster than GDDR5 memory and 128 times better than DDR3.

The company is also moving forward with its SkyBridge strategy, announced in May 2014, in which ARM and x86 SoCs will be pin-compatible, so motherboard-makers only need to work up a single design.

Hayashi reconfirmed that AMD's first “Ambidextrous Computing” SkyBridge products will be arriving this year.

Original source from Japan here. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/amd_opens_kimono_on_chip_futures_a_little_more/

via IFTTT

Cisco wipes its memory from susceptible-to-Row Hammer list

Cisco has worked through data centre and switch products that may have been vulnerable to the Row Hammer vulnerability, and decided there's nothing with the bridge brand on the front that's subject to the bug.

Back at the beginning of the month, Google cheerily announced to the world that writing and re-writing memory in DRAMs could force capacitor errors.

Hammering one row, the report found, could corrupt data in an adjacent row – which if exploited correctly could have resulted in giving kernel-level privilege to normal user-space programs.

When it first announced it was looking at the issue, The Borg said only a “limited number of products” allowed unprivileged users to load and execute binaries. These included a handful of Nexus, web security and e-mail security products running various IOS or ASA software.

Cisco now says “this issue is not exploitable on devices that are equipped with ECC DDRAM and have the ECC checking options enabled in their BIOS” – which is the default configuration.

All Cisco UCS products have been cleared if they're using Cisco DIMMs, but if users have installed non-Cisco DIMMs, these could be vulnerable. ®

Sponsored: Designing and building an open ITOA architecture

from ffffff http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/31/cisco_clears_its_memory_of_row_hammer_vuln/

via IFTTT

I Took A Lot Of Drugs At A Psychedelic Boot Camp

Just before Christmas I booked myself onto a thing called the African Savannah Transformation Retreat. This was a ten-day getaway in South Africa that promised to transform people through a combination of starvation, sunshine, and psychedelic drugs.

The drugs we would take were ayahuasca, mescaline, and iboga, though the participants on the retreat didn't call them by their real names, they called them the Mother, the Father, and the Grandfather, which was confusing for a minute.

"Have you done Mother before?"

I beg your pardon?

There were 25 people on the retreat, mostly from North America and Europe. They ranged in ages from 22 to 50. When I fell into conversation about why they were there, they first answered that they were just curious but as the retreat wore on and we became more comfortable tales about heroin addiction, child abuse, and repeated failed suicide attempts crept out. By that I don't want to say that the people on the retreat were especially damaged, but you don't book yourself into a highly experimental, vaguely legal, and potentially dangerous drug therapy retreat because you're tired of package holidays. Many of them had been through rehab and traditional therapy before and had arrived at a stage of their life where they were so used to feeling like shit all the time that a ten-day psychedelic boot camp didn't seem so outlandish.

A confession: While I've tried many drugs, I've never managed to get addicted to any. I can't even get truly hooked on cigarettes. I buy packets, forget about them, find them in a coat pocket weeks later and chide myself: Must try harder.

In less than 24 hours we'd be vomiting in front of each other and sobbing uncontrollably.

On the first day, in glorious sunshine, we arrived at the retreat center in the countryside a little over an hour from Johannesburg. We were fenced in by giant walls and CCTV cameras: standard South African design for any property not held together by cable ties and sand. Everyone was a little bit nervous, as if it were the first day of school, the first day at Psychedelic High. In less than 24 hours we'd be vomiting in front of each other and sobbing uncontrollably and all that nervousness would be as foreign to us as sleep, good-smelling breath, and a regular source of food.

Fabian is the brains behind the retreat. He's a German who made a killing working in finance in London, only to spend it all becoming a shaman in the Peruvian jungle. Fabian has taken ayahuasca so many times, he says, that it doesn't work on him anymore. Imagine that: The first time I ever took ayahuasca I thought I might die. It's so strong that people sometimes shit themselves. So strong that you imagine you're back in the womb, pressure on all sides as you shoot down the fallopian tube and pop back into life. For Fabian, there's more buzz to a mug of Rooibos tea. You get to a point where the Mother has told you everything you need to hear, he says, and won't tell you anymore.

Fabian is quite the cult hero in psychedelic circles, and he looks the part with long hair, a beard, and a T-shirt he wears day after day, turning it inside out rather than washing it. People on the retreat love him. His energy is monumental, so much so that you often find yourself captured in the orbit of one of his many lectures.

Fabian prepares shots of mescaline. Photos courtesy of the author

"He sure can talk a lot," I say to Jana, a German girl with a tattoo of her dead cat on her shoulder ("Renate 1996-2012").

"I wish he'd never stop talking," she says, and walks away from me.

Jana, I'll discover some time later, has given up her house to spend the last half a year attending Fabian's ceremonies all over the world. Her dream is for Fabian to take her on as an apprentice.

Fabian and his wife, Nicole, have set themselves up in South Africa because they love the country, but also because it's an awful lot safer to operate here than in Europe or North America. Mescaline is illegal in the US and considered a Class A drug in the UK. And ayahuasca's active ingredient, DMT, is considered just as illegal as heroin in North America. Fabian hasn't once had a brush with the law. That's because he's smart but also because most countries haven't caught on to the rise of plant drug usage yet. (In South Africa, DMT is a schedule 7 drug, meaning it is a controlled substance with the same legal status as heroin or heavy prescription drugs.)

Fabian grows some of the plants to make the drugs himself—although he calls it medicine. The rest he ships across the ocean in UPS boxes from a connect he has in the Peruvian jungle. When not in South Africa, Fabian's performing ceremonies in New York, London, Berlin, and wherever else there's a demand. In 2014, he did almost 250 of these events.

I've passed through to the other side and I'm smoking a cigarette out on the lawn wondering what will get to me first: the drugs, the hunger, or the spotty WiFi.

The first night we go into the ceremony room, which is normally a yoga studio, lie on mattresses with puke buckets at the ready, and take our first dose of ayahuasca while Fabian plays a soundtrack of jungle noises from a pair of tiny speakers. I'm a little familiar with ayahuasca and know what to expect. Within half an hour I can see fractals, Aztec patterns, and the music, annoying up until now, has become as integral to me as my own heartbeat. An hour later, I've passed through to the other side and I'm smoking a cigarette out on the lawn wondering what will get to me first: the drugs, the hunger, or the spotty WiFi.

The next morning over breakfast, people talk about their experience. Some feel a little let down by the first night. They've all paid a few thousand dollars to be here. One guy, Bill, is particularly gung-ho about the whole thing. He suffers from extreme back pains as a result of a car crash he had 20 years ago. The doctors have told him he's cured but Bill has somehow held onto the feeling of pain.

"Something in me wants me to feel bad," he says. "And I don't know what it is, but this medicine better fix it."

I ask Bill what he does. "I live in a converted garage and pay hardly any rent so I don't do that much," he says. "I used to do more, he goes on, but then my back and well..." He goes silent. This is hard, he whispers into his hands, I haven't spoken to so many people in a long time.

Fabian is one of the few shamans who actually cooks his own ayahuasca from scratch. It smells like boiling boot leather.

That night, we all take ayahuasca again. Bill takes double and then triple shots. It's impossible to tell how much because I'm high and experiencing a type of emotional incontinence. I'm crying and then laughing at the same time. But I'm sure I see Bill get up from his mattress at least two more times to get refills from Fabian. He has the walk of a boxer who's been slapped hard for nine rounds. I can't stop laughing. Fabian's laughing too. He runs around the ceremony room giggling. At one stage I ask for more ayahuasca but when Fabian comes over, all giggles, his face exactly like the Richard D. James masks in "Windowlicker," I'm right back in the deepest of hallucinations and fall down on my mattress.

My hallucination: I'm falling through thick banana leaves chasing after a fox who is actually just a wood cutting. Every time I get close to him, the banana leaves change into branches, or long grass, or huge wings and I loose the fox. My mother's in there too. She's power-walking on the street where I grew up, which is strange because she'd never do anything like that. Then the fox comes back, and then I puke.

l have a horrible thought: I've joined a cult and don't have enough WiFi signal to RoutePlanner, Airbnb, and Skyscanner my way to safety.

In the morning we take mescaline. The theory behind this back-to-back excess is that both drugs compliment each other. One's the Mother, the other's the Father. Ayahuasca is a deep, immersive, dislocating experience while mescaline is pure joy in a greasy shot glass. Fabian explains that it can actually make you feel like the cactus plant it comes from and for the rest of the afternoon all us pale-skinned North Hemisphere escapees sit out under the hot African sun lifting our arms, branch-shaped, into the air.

Beyond the swimming pool, where the compound joins a farm, I can see Jana. She's carrying a stone in the cradle of her arm and petting it. Further away is another guy called Keith. Earlier he'd mentioned to me that he wanted to go talk to the cows. Topless and barefoot with a bald head that looks like a circumcised penis, he's walking back and forth into the electric fence and getting shocked. He's giggling just like Fabian was. Next to me, a girl who I haven't been introduced to yet is dry-heaving on the grass. She's German. Her hair is blonde and she's wearing Thai fisherman's pants and can't really be older than 25. Between heaves, she turns to me and says with a mouth festooned in vomit, spit, and perspiration, "This is some really great healing."

I have a horrible thought: I've joined a cult and don't have enough WiFi signal to Routeplanner, Airbnb, and Skyscanner my way to safety.

We don't eat all day. There are two reasons Fabian does this: One, voluntarily starving yourself teaches you discipline. Two, hungry people are more malleable. If you've got nothing in your belly the drugs take effect more easily and your resistance breaks down. I have a stash of nuts and chocolate and rice crackers in my bag. I've decided I can take the medicine but I really can't starve myself. In order to not arouse suspicions, I carefully transfer the nuts from my suitcase to my pockets and then eat them in the bathroom with the shower running.

Every morning and evening, before we take our next dose of medicine, either Fabian or Nicole give us a lecture. The lectures are long. They talk about breaking down the ego, ceding control to the Mother or the Father. The power of the medicine to cure disease and break addiction.

"We haven't met a nut yet that we can't crack," Nicole says and everyone laughs, even though she's called them all nuts and she's threatened to crack them.

That night the ayahuasca comes on the way it always does at the beginning: fractals, sound distortions, and the connected feeling that you get on MDMA and mushrooms, where objects take on a mutable, liquid quality and you feel that you're you, you're the people in the room, you're the moon in the sky, and you're even the dry-heave in the bucket between your legs.

Back when we spent all our money on pills and all our Tuesdays on the brink of suicide, we used to get this feeling we called "pill wisdom." It was the moment when you were high and all your anxiety tuned out and you sensed that everything around you was somehow illusionary and not important and you blissed out, danced, fell home and listened to Since I Left You for so long the neighbors formed a committee, wrote to your landlord, and sent you a notice to vacate.

In a more overwhelming way that's what the ayahuasca does too. But then it also plays on your memories and brings to life images from your past, things you'd rather not think about. An ex-girlfriend jumps into my head one night and I feel a strong inclination to write her an apology letter that I never get around to.

We wake up and take mescaline again. You get a really fun high off mescaline and while Fabian instructs us to stay in the ceremony hall and meditate on the drug's healing effect, most people don't. It would be easier to give a child a toy and tell him he can't play with it. Ayahuasca is connected to death, entombment, the past; mescaline is sunshine and light. Most of us go outside and get into after-party conversations. You know the type, where two people manage to focus intensely on some micro-topic for so long they don't notice the room emptying and everyone going home? I spoke about Addis Ababa Airport with a girl from Toronto for at least an hour, even though neither of us had ever been there—to top it all off, her closing statement on the subject was, "It's in Mali, right?"

Back in the ceremony hall, Jana, with the dead cat tattoo, is going through hell. She's on her knees with her face and hair inside her puke bucket. The rest of us are outside laughing, staring at our hands or petting the rocks. Mescaline is the most wonderfully upbeat drug I've ever taken and it's really heartbreaking to see someone not enjoying it. And really indicative of how unwell they must be.

Cleaning the pool; sleeping off mescaline

By the fifth day, the retreat is in full swing. With no food in their bellies and two doses of psychedelics every day, people are very strange. Bill is lying on his back on the grass. He's waving his arms and legs in the air like an upturned beetle. Bill took what looked like a whole pint of mescaline this morning. I ask him if he needs a hand getting to his feet and he smiles back up at me. "It works," he says. "This whole beautiful, fucked-up thing really works."

I go for a cigarette with a guy from London named Mark. He caught me earlier in the day coming out of the shower with a mouthful of rice cracker. He laughed and offered me half a banana. So I figure he can be trusted.

"Aren't you a little worried that maybe we've joined a cult?" I say to him.

"We have joined a cult," he says. "But that's how these things have to be. They only work when you believe completely in the system. If you're not into it 100 percent, then you may as well not even be here. It's just like NA."

Mark knows. He was so heavily addicted to cocaine that there are areas of London that he won't even travel through for fear of being sucked into a binge again, meaning getting to the airport for this trip required a one-hour detour.

"I'm cynical like you," he says. "But I also know I'm pretty fucked up and I want to believe this will work."

I decide I'm not that fucked up, I'm just a hopelessly curious journalist. While the rest of them file into the ceremony hall, I sneak out of the compound and hitchhike to the nearest village. I flag a car down and ask the driver if he can drop me anywhere there's food. He brings me to the door of a a Wimpy's. I order a veggie burger and fries and a chocolate and banana milkshake. A deserter's spoils. I eat and get stomach cramps. Outside on the street, Africans are coming home from work, welcoming in the evening, walking through the market with baskets full of potatoes. A kid goes by on a bicycle, too fast, too close. He brushes past an enormous woman and she screams blue murder at him. Life.

I hitch back to the compound. Jana's out on the lawn wandering in the darkness. During the ceremonies it's customary to wear white. That's so the shaman can see you in the dark. But the problem with white is it does very little to conceal vomit or grass stains. The back of Jana's long white dress is covered in muddy dog prints. She looks like a runaway bride. She walks up to me and with the utmost sincerity says, "The Mother just spoke to me. She says you need to come back into the ceremony room. You shouldn't be afraid anymore, Colin. It will all be OK."

"The Mother called me Colin?" I ask. She nods. I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower and stuff my face with trail mix.

At this stage there are two types of people on the retreat: those who can barely stand anymore and those who are skipping around the place. The first are suffering from a lack of food. They walk with all the purpose of someone who's been trapped under rubble for weeks. Their tongues hang out of their mouths. They go to speak and the noise that comes out is not language. The second group run around them with ear-to-ear smiles, bragging that they don't feel hungry, don't feel tired, have never felt so good, so free, so alive. But they'll be just as fucked as the first bunch when the mescaline finally wears off.

I'm far and away the only cynic at the retreat. I speak to Fabian about it and explain that maybe this isn't for me. That the thought of going back into that ceremony room, the vomit, the bodies, the wailing and crying is too much to take anymore. Fabian is in complete understanding. "Some people need more," he says. "We're not going to force you to take the medicine."

And when he says that I feel relieved because even though I always knew he wouldn't force me to take drugs, the group pressure and the exhaustion and the gentle paranoia that is to be expected when you spend almost an entire week in an altered state of mind hadn't left me entirely convinced that I could opt out.

"But you still want to try iboga?"

"Yes, I do," I say.

Anthony, one of Fabian's apprentice shamans, gives a hug.

So the following day, as the rest of the group goes into the ceremony room, I sit on the lawn in the shadow of a tree and take iboga on my own. Like all the plants we've ingested this week, iboga tastes like something you wouldn't feed a stray dog. Fabian stirs it up in water and I down it. Iboga is known as a wonder heroin cure. Something in its psychoactive makeup resets opiate receptors in the body. Taken properly, it can put you out for over a day. The Grandfather, as everyone else is calling it, is the showpiece drug of this retreat. It leaves you in a type of waking dream. Some people claim they can actually talk to the drug, can ask it questions and get feedback on their life choices. Tommy, a young guy from Berlin, has taken it five times. Each time, he says, the grandfather gives him another nugget of information about the girl of his dreams.

"Do you know her?"

"Oh yes, I've met her," he says.

"And have you spoken to her?"

"Yes," he says, "I told her what the Grandfather said."

"And?"

"She thinks it's strange."

"I'll bet."

"And that I'm a bit weird, but then the Grandfather said she would."

Away from the ceremony, out on the lawn, the iboga starts to come on and it feels like really good cocaine. I'm sharp. My eyes can focus in on everything at any distance. My hearing, too. Somehow I'm able to tune in to specific bird calls. I feel like there's something bionic going on inside my head. This isn't the gentle sensation of oneness that you get from ayahuasca; iboga makes me feel like I'm the most powerful being in the universe, that if I want I can do everything and anything. But then the munchies come on really strong so I hitchhike back to Wimpy and eat veggie burgers and fries again. This time I order a tutti frutti milkshake. When I go to take a leak my piss comes out in actual golden flames, but I've been hallucinating on and off for eight days now, so this doesn't bother me as much as the fact that the white tourist in the black village has just dribbled all over the clean tiled floor.

The noise of dry-heaving is louder than a ship's horn. It doesn't let up until the next afternoon.

Back at the compound, things are beginning to look like the Dawn of the Dead. Some people are still in the ceremony room, the rest are dragging their bare feet across the lawn or are slumped in the garden chairs, trying to make cigarettes from butts and tobacco dregs. No one's having a good time. The noise of dry-heaving is louder than a ship's horn. It doesn't let up until the next afternoon.

On the last day, we get to eat again. This moment should be very special but everyone seems a little down. The Grandfather apparently didn't show up. Fabian tries to cool things by saying that the plant keeps working long after the retreat but for those who've given up homes, quit jobs, and spent upwards of $3,000 to be there, that's not the answer they need.

Jana comes out and says that she hasn't felt anything all week. She hasn't managed to hallucinate even once. "I think it's because I puke as soon as it touches my mouth," she says. "Even the thought of it makes me puke."

Some people do feel a genuine transformation. One young kid from New York, the youngest on the retreat, had never done anything harder than alcohol in his life before he came here. He told me that the reason he came along was because he felt disconnected from the world. I answered that I'd never met anyone in their 20s who didn't feel disconnected. He's got this look on his face like he'd just fallen in love. "I don't know how I'm going to tell my family about this," he says. "They're never going to believe me."

And to be honest, I don't know how I'm going to tell people about it either. My overriding impression is that there's something not quite right about it, that Fabian is taking advantage of the long-term fucked-up—by calling the drugs Mother, Father, and Grandfather he's built a troika of authority figures for those who would rather not take responsibility for their own lives. And that is the perspective I have when I begin to write this article. But then a couple of weeks later I start receiving emails from the other participants.

There was this one:

All that was blocking me from being truly happy and from allowing me to move onto becoming the woman I am meant to be has released me and I am grateful in my very heart of hearts.

And this:

I was on 60mg of Prozac and anywhere up to 80mg of Ritalin as all my life I was 'adhd' and had depressive tendencies which really was just me acting out to a very difficult relationship with my mother who is bipolar and an alcoholic. Since the retreat I've given up all medication and have never felt better.

And then this:

I feel reborn

The first time I ever took acid we were in a bedroom. We were teenage friends, it was probably cold, I can't even remember the music but I do remember thinking that nothing would be the same after that. I remember feeling transformed but also remember feeling we could get caught or that the acid might never wear off, or that one of us would truly lose his mind and flip out. What the psychedelic bootcamp offered was an amplified, holistic version of that in a safe environment, conducive to introspection, and as advertised, transformation.

The one recurring comment people made was how they'd been released from anxiety, and this meant a release from fear and, well, a new sense that they had autonomy over their own lives. The "complete all-American de-anxietized man," as William Burroughs called it.

Of the 25 people who took part, almost everyone felt something shift inside them. Whether that was from overcoming hunger, or taking a time out from their regular routines, being part of a group, or the actual healing effect of taking psychedelics for nine days straight. And even though I cheated, ate burgers, and skipped out on a couple of doses of medicine, I could see how it reduced a lot of unnecessary anxiety from my own life. Although I was raised Catholic so, you know, I feel a comfortable attachment to persistent, needless guilt and suffering.

And then there was Jana, who weeks later still complained that she couldn't sleep, that she was depressed, that she had discovered some magical palindrome which had outlined her new mission and that she had found another shaman who incorporated hashish into his ceremonies. She said she would go try that instead.

Follow Conor Creighton on Twitter.

from ffffff http://www.vice.com/read/drug-boot-camp-131

via IFTTT