I’m pro-gun, but mostly for selfish reasons. Some people (such as celebrities) are probably safer with defensive weapons nearby. But I acknowledge the reality that guns make people less safe in other situations. No two situations are alike. That’s partly why the issue can never be fully resolved. Both sides pretend they are arguing on principle, but neither side is. Both sides are arguing from their personal risk profiles, and those are simply different. Our risk profiles will never be the same across the entire population, so we will never agree on gun control.

That said, I want to call out the worst arguments I have seen on the issue of banning bump stocks. If you are new to the conversation, a bump stock is a $99 add-on to an AR rifle that turns it into an automatic-like weapon for greater kill power. The Vegas gunman used bump stocks. They are legal, whereas a fully automatic rifle is not.

Many pro-gun people in the debate seem to be confused about the purpose of laws in general. Laws are not designed to eliminate crime. Laws are designed to reduce crime. The most motivated criminals will always find a way, and law-abiding citizens will avoid causing trouble in the first place. Laws are only for the people in the middle who might – under certain situations – commit a crime. Any friction you introduce to that crowd has a statistical chance of making a difference. 

Humans are lazy and stupid, on average. If you make something 20% harder to do, a lot of humans will pass. It doesn’t matter what topic you are discussing; if you introduce friction, fewer people do it. With that in mind, let’s look at the least-rational gun control arguments I am seeing lately.

Chicago Example

Gun advocates like to point out that Chicago has strict gun control laws yet high murder rates. This is an irrational argument. The only valid comparison would be Chicago with gun laws in 2017 versus Chicago without gun laws in 2017. Any comparison to other cities, or to other time frames, is pure nonsense. Nothing is a rational comparison to Chicago. There is only one Chicago. And because Chicagoans can easily buy guns from nearby places, the gun ban is probably useless in that case.

Gun opponents use a similarly irrational argument. For example, anti-gun folks might point out that London bans guns and has fewer gun crimes. That’s as irrational as the Chicago argument. There is only one London in 2017. You can’t compare it to anything.

In general, any argument that says, “Look at that one city” is irrational, anecdotal thinking. It has no place in policy decisions.

Criminals Will Break Gun Laws Anyway

As I explained up front, laws are not designed to stop the most motivated criminals. We’ve never seen a law in any realm that stopped all crime. At best, laws discourage the people on the margin. Gun control is no different. The objective is to add some friction and reduce the risk that someone angry enough to pick up an AR doesn’t also have a bump stock in the house.

The Vegas gunman had over 40 guns yet he used bump stocks on his weapons instead of buying illegal fully-automatic weapons in the first place. He also did not purchase grenade launchers, which would have been ideal for his purposes. The reason in both cases is that there was more friction for acquiring the illegal weapons. It wasn’t impossible. It was just harder.

You can Make a Bump Stock on a 3D Printer

No, I can’t. I don’t own a 3D printer. Neither do most criminals. What you mean is that the few people who own 3D printers and have the skill to use them can print bump stocks. Chances are, you’re not one of those people. Again, laws are not designed to stop the most motivated super-criminals. They have lots of ways to get weapons. A 3D printer might be an ideal solution for a few super-criminals. But it won’t have much impact for a number of years on the average person who flips out and wants to start shooting today.

Rubber Bands and other Bump Stock Workarounds

Yes, I know you saw on Youtube a video in which someone rigged an AR with a rubber band on the trigger, or some other clever device that increased the firing speed. I’m no weapons engineer, but I’m fairly certain the rubber band method is less reliable than the bump stock method. And the other workarounds have either more friction (it takes some talent and tools to make anything of that nature) or they are less reliable. I remind you that the goal is not to stop all crime; we’re just trying to add friction to discourage the lazy and less-resourceful types, of which there are many. And perhaps we can add some unreliability to their choice of weapons.

Yes, clever people can create bump stock workarounds that function well enough for making a Youtube video. But most people are not clever, and not terribly resourceful, and they probably haven’t personally tested the rubber band trick. Even a dumb mass murderer wants more reliability than a rubber band suggests. Personally, if I flipped out and decided to kill everyone in my workplace, and I had never tested the rubber band trick, I wouldn’t even consider using it for a real crime, no matter how cool it looked on Youtube.

That’s friction.

Hardly Anyone Has Ever Been Killed by Bump Stock Guns

True. Even if you include the Vegas tragedy, the total percentage of people killed by bump stock-modified guns is tiny. But many people apparently don’t realize that laws are not designed to change the past. Laws are forward-looking devices. And after the Vegas tragedy, 100% of adults have been trained by news organizations on how to procure and use a bump stock. We even know we need multiple rifles because they jam. Compared to last week, the friction for modifying a semi-automatic to an automatic just went from “some” to non-existent. The idea of passing a law banning bump stocks is to add friction to reduce future crimes, not to change the past.

Keep in mind that North Korea might nuke us in the future even though they have no record of nuking us in the past. Policies and laws are not designed to address past risks, only future risks. And our future risk from bump stocks just went through the roof because they are now universally known and also top of mind.

And before you say you already knew how to get a bump stock, just imagine me laughing at you for saying it. I know you already knew how to do that. You are not representative of the entire population of potential killers. No one is suggesting passing laws directed at you personally.

A Guy in Japan Once Killed 30 People With a Knife

The argument here is that motivated killers will find a way to do damage with or without a gun. But does anyone think the guy in Japan killed more people with a knife than he could have with an armory of automatic weapons? And I remind you (again and again) that laws are not designed to stop the most motivated criminals, such as the Japanese stabber. Laws are designed to add friction to the less-clever and less-motivated.

A week ago, a potential killer with low skills and motivation might not figure out how to turn an AR into an automatic rifle. Today – thanks to the news – almost every adult knows how to do it. The existing friction disappeared. You would need to make bump stocks illegal to reintroduce some friction.

Slippery Slope

Gun owners sometimes say banning any weapon leads to banning all of them. In general, the slippery slope argument is nonsense no matter what topic you are discussing. Things do lead to other things, but every decision stands on its own, and should. Banning personal use of grenade launchers did not lead to confiscation of hunting knives, and probably never will. The slippery slope idea inspires fear in gun lovers – because creeping regulations feel like a risk – but in the real world, each decision stands alone. The slippery slope is an irrational fear, not a reasonable factor in policy-making.

The President Can’t Ban Gun Stocks by Executive Order

Sure he can, but it might not be legal. Does that matter?

You think it matters, but it doesn’t. When the Commander-in-Chief makes a thoughtful military decision, and the decision is clearly in the interest of temporarily plugging a security hole during a time of war (with ISIS), that’s defensible no matter what the Constitution says. And you want it that way.

The Constitution grants the Commander-in-Chief a lot of power to make quick decisions on homeland security because speed often matters in such things. As time allows, Congress can do its work. Banning bump stocks until Congress can look into it would be pure Commander-in-Chiefing. It would be public and temporary. Would the Supreme Court overturn the illegal ban? Maybe, but not right away. Remember that the Constitution gives real power to We the People. As long as We the People see our Commander-in-Chief acting responsibly, we’re going to give him a pass, especially for something temporary until Congress gets going.

I acknowledge that the President has no legal authority to ban the sale of legal items. But he could do it anyway. And We the People would largely back him on it so long as it was temporary and clearly intended to give Congress time to address the question.

That’s how Thomas Jefferson would have played it. But he might have looked for a technical way to make his executive order seem legal. I’m sure such an argument exists because lawyers.

Update: The Vegas Killer Would Have Been MORE Deadly Without Bump Stocks

The argument here is that bump stocks make the weapon harder to aim, therefore less lethal. That probably makes sense in some instances, such as a sniper situation. It does not make sense when spraying a dense crowd from above, at long distance. In that case, speed beats accuracy every time. 

In summary, I have genuine respect for both sides of the gun control debate. But the arguments I listed above should not be part of the conversation if we are trying to be rational about it.

—

I usually plug a product here. It doesn’t feel right today.

via Scott Adams’ Blog
The Worst Gun Control Arguments

Windows fans can build their own computers when they can’t find one in stores to match their needs, but custom-made Macs are much harder to put together, as Apple doesn’t like having its software and hardware separated. But if you’ve got the time, and really need your beefy computer running macOS, than you should build up your own hackintosh—that’s what people call custom build macOS machines.

Installing macOS on non-Apple-branded equipment violates its EULA. So you really do have to hack a little to get everything running smoothly. This also means that right out of the gate you won’t have any technical support from Apple or any recourse if it starts blocking your system from its cloud services.

That said, many an enterprising system builder has put together a hackintosh, and it’s not that hard to build if you’ve got a free afternoon. First you’ll need the software: A working copy of macOS. You can’t just walk into an Apple Store and buy the operating system, and even if you could it wouldn’t work out of the box on your new computer.

Instead you’ll want to get access to a Mac machine somehow, use the App Store to download the current OS, and then get it on a USB stick with Unibeast, a software tool used to created a bootable macOS install on non-Apple machines.

Second of all, getting the right components together is also important if you don’t want to be met with a wave of insurmountable bugs and issues—macOS doesn’t like dealing with a lot of hardware it doesn’t recognize—but online resources like TonyMacx86 can help here. You can either build a machine yourself or pick a pre-built desktop or laptop that’s known to work well with macOS.

If that all seems daunting don’t let it be! Building a hackintosh is much easier than you might suspect. And there are plenty of great reasons to give it a go. Below are five good reasons to invest the time and effort in building a hackintosh, together with some pointers for getting started.

1) You can control the spec

Perhaps the number one reason why anyone builds their own computer (macOS, Windows or otherwise): The spec is all down to you. People usually think about processor speed and extra hard drives, but it covers stuff like ports and peripherals as well—if the new MacBook just doesn’t have enough ports for you, put together a hackintosh machine that does.

From the internal graphics cards to the screen display size, it’s all up to you (within reason—as we’ve said, macOS won’t play happily with every hardware component out there). Then there’s the upgrading aspect to consider, because you can configure your system to be much easier to add to in the future than something bought from Apple.

Video card too slow? With a hackintosh you can just order a new card online and install it the next day.

2) Apple’s slow update cycle

Apple is hardly making it easy for power users to get their hands on some high-end Mac kit right now. Recent MacBook Pros are a little on the gimmicky side, the latest and greatest iMac Pro won’t be here until December at the earliest, and as for the long-awaited successor to the trash can-shaped Mac Pro, you’re going to be waiting even longer for that.

On the back of that state of affairs, why not get together your own super-powered, high-spec Mac machine? As we mentioned above, you get your own choice of features and components (within reason), and if you don’t agree with Apple’s choices that’s fine. You can be running macOS at top speed long before any iMac Pro or Mac Pro owners are.

3) Your current Mac machine is flagging

This is tied to the previous point, but as good as Macs are in the longevity stakes, they will eventually start showing their age—and at that point you might start checking out some of the prices for new machines, which tend to err on the premium side. Building a Hackintosh could be a way of treating yourself to a new system without spending quite so much cash.

Having an existing macOS machine up and running makes it easier for you to get hold of the software and the tools you need to create you hackintosh anyways. It also means you’ve got an older system to fall back on if something should go wrong with your new build.

4) You can build a system for a purpose

We’ve mentioned about creating a custom spec for your machine, but another related reason to build a hackintosh is that you can escape the standard designs and form factors put forward by Apple. Whether you want macOS running on a small media center, or as part of a smart home system, or even working in your car, a hackintosh makes it possible.

You suddenly have the same flexibility that Windows users have always had, thanks to the plethora of device options out there. Maybe you even want to try getting macOS up and running on a 2-in-1 tablet, rather than buying an iPad Pro. The freedom of choice you get with a hackintosh applies as much to the type of device as its internal components.

5) You might learn something along the way

Putting together a hackintosh isn’t as difficult as it used to be, but it’s not exactly easy: You’re still going to have to get your hands dirty with software downloads and BIOS updates and system building (if you choose a fully customized rig). Chances are you’re going to hit a few roadblocks along the way as you try and get everything working.

That said though, as anyone who’s built a Windows system knows, you’re going to learn a lot more about the inner workings of your new laptop or desktop than you would if you’d just gone out and bought something already finished. It may take longer to get up and running with your hackintosh but in hindsight the journey will be well worth the time.

If you want to learn more about build up your own Mac than there is one excellent resources you’ll want at your disposal: TonyMacx86. This website has how to guides, component guides, and tons of other hackers building their own devices who can provide you with tons of support and guidance as you create your own new machine. It’s easily the best hackintosh resource available on the internet, and the next place you should head on your journey.

via Gizmodo
5 Reasons to Build a Hackintosh (and How to Get Started)

We can thank the erstwhile TV show Top Shot for a number of things; Chris Cheng, splitting bullets with an axe, and the resurgence of the atlatl.

As you probably know, an atlatl is a device for flinging long darts — essentially oversized, flexible arrows — in ways that most of us previously imagined spears being propelled. It’s a simple device that adds length to your arm, thus allowing you to throw a long arrow much “more better” than you could do with just your arm.

This guy makes one by shamelessly copying another YouTuber (with credit, of course) and then adds some awesome sauce in the way of nice steel heads and wire hooks to contain the flammable steel wool he adds to make them into fiery darts.

some decent tips here, like forming the sharp arrowheads and getting them to fit snugly on the darts.

The post Watch: Make a PVC Atlatl & Flaming Spears appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.

via All Outdoor
Watch: Make a PVC Atlatl & Flaming Spears

By Nick Guy

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter, reviews for the real world. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, they may earn affiliate commissions that support their work. Read the full article here.

After 10 hours of preliminary research, we tested more than 25 USB-C accessories to put together this guide to the best ways to connect peripherals and devices to a USB-C–equipped computer. It’s by no means exhaustive. USB-C can, in theory, replace every other port, and there are a seemingly infinite number of port combinations you might encounter. We focused on the most important tasks you’ll likely face, such as connecting older peripherals like hard drives and hooking up an external display.

How we picked and tested

Each type of adapter or connector we evaluated required different kinds of testing, but we were able to use some common tests across the board. Our main testing machine was a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports), with ancillary testing done using a 2016 Dell XPS 13, our pick for the best Windows ultrabook. We tested the data-transfer speed of the USB ports on hubs and adapters using our favorite flash drive from SanDisk with the AJA System Test app, repeating the test three times per device. To test USB-C–to–USB-A cables, we connected Samsung’s Portable SSD T3 (one of the fastest drives with a USB-C connection) to the Dell XPS 13 and ran CrystalDiskMark.

We tested video adapters using a Dell P2715Q (our pick for the best 4K display), Intel’s Skull Canyon NUC computer, an older VGA monitor, and a 1080p TV. We measured the refresh rate using the Blur Busters Motion Tests.

For connecting older USB gear: USB-C–to–USB-A adapter

If there’s a single accessory most people with a USB-C–only computer will need, it’s a USB-C–to–USB-A adapter. Available as either a small nub or a short cable, this kind of adapter lets you connect legacy USB accessories, including flash drives and cables, that have a traditional USB-A plug. We tested nine adapters and found that they all work equally well. Our favorite nub-style adapter is Aukey’s CB-A1-2, available in a two-pack for less than $10. The plastic-bodied dongle is a little over an inch from end to end, about half an inch wide, and barely thicker than the USB plug that you’ll connect to it.

If you prefer a short cable over a nub adapter, go with Anker’s USB-C to USB 3.1 Adapter. The black cable feels sturdy and has solid housings at the ends. The advantage of a cable over a nub is that it moves the connector away from the computer a bit—about 5 inches in this case—which can make connecting bulkier devices without blocking other ports easier.

For video, USB-A, and charging from a single USB-C port

Our favorite adapters for adding USB-A ports, connecting to HDMI displays, and powering your computer at the same time are Sanho’s HyperDrive USB Type-C Hub and Satechi’s Slim Aluminum Type-C Multi-Port Adapter. They’re identical in every way, including design, performance, and MSRP. Each consists of a solid-feeling aluminum block that connects to your computer via a permanently attached, 6-inch USB-C cable. On one edge are two USB 3.0 ports and a USB-C port—the latter only for passthrough charging—and a single HDMI port is found on the end opposite the cable. Unfortunately, each USB port provides a maximum of only 0.45 amps to connected devices, so neither adapter is well-suited for charging devices or powering bus-powered hard drives.

For video only: USB-C–to–DisplayPort cable

If you’re connecting to a DisplayPort-based monitor, you’ll need a dedicated cable—none of the adapters we tested include a DisplayPort port. (If you’ve got a MacBook with only a single USB-C port, you’ll instead need to use an HDMI-to-DisplayPort cable with one of the adapters with an HDMI port.) Every USB-C–to–DisplayPort cable we tested worked perfectly, offering a pixel-perfect image and full 60 Hz performance, even at 4K. That said, we recommend Cable Matters’s USB-C to DisplayPort 4K 60 Hz Cable if it’s available. It’s the only one of the three cables we tested that has a clip on the DisplayPort plug housing to hold the plug in place—you have to squeeze the clip to release the cable from the port.

For multiple older USB devices: USB-A hub

For those who don’t need video output but still want passthrough power and multiple ports for older peripherals, we like HooToo’s HT-UC004 Shuttle USB 3.1 Type-C Hub. It’s wider and thicker than the HDMI-equipped adapters from Satechi and Sanho, but a lot less expensive. In addition to a USB-C port that supports Power Delivery for passthrough charging, it includes three USB 3.0 ports, as well as an SD card slot—the latter something we didn’t consider necessary for this category, but a nice extra. However, as with other adapters, the HooToo’s USB ports provide only a disappointing 0.45 amps for charging—you won’t be able to charge phones or tablets at anything near full speed, and some bus-powered devices, such as hard drives, may not work properly.

For power and data between USB-C devices: USB-C–to–USB-C cable

Chance are you’ll eventually need a USB-C–to–USB-C cable for charging and connecting USB-C devices. You’ll find a ton of inexpensive options, and though we’d normally lean toward saving a few bucks on cables, that’s not worth the risk with USB-C: Some cables that don’t adhere to the USB-C specification can actually fry your computer. You should spend a little bit more to get something that’s verified to work safely with your machine.

Based on the testing he and Google engineer Benson Leung have done, Nathan K., a member of Google’s Top Contributors Program and an independent USB-C accessory tester, recommends J5Create’s JUCX01 in his accessory guide, where it’s ranked "definitely get." We tested the cable ourselves, and though our tests weren’t as exhaustive, the cable worked well for us. It supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds of up to 10 Gbps, as well as 5-amp and 100-watt charging, and it’s USB-IF certified. Put simply, it will charge your computer as fast as possible (as long as you’re using the right charger) and will move data as fast as USB can. Every JUCX01 also has a unique serial number, so if the company ever has a recall or support issue, you’ll know if your cable is affected.

If you’re not concerned about moving data at the fastest speeds, Apple’s USB-C Charge Cable is a great charge cable that’s a bit less expensive than our top pick. (Just be sure to get model MLL82AM/A in a rectangular, not square, box.) It offers 5-amp, 100-watt charging (the most power USB-C is designed to provide), but supports only USB 2.0 data speeds, so it will be considerably slower than the J5Create if you’re transferring data.

For charging USB-C devices: USB-C charger

In 2015, PCWorld ran a test comparing USB-C chargers across different laptops and found that no single charger could even charge every computer, let alone charge them all rapidly. For this reason, we recommend using whichever charger came with your computer, or an adapter specifically recommended by your computer’s vendor. If it’s too difficult or expensive to replace your computer’s stock charger, we like Apple’s 61W USB-C Power Adapter because it’s widely available and works with many non-Apple devices. You can read about this adapter and our other recommendations in our guide to USB-C chargers.

For connecting to VGA projectors and displays: USB-C–to–VGA adapter

If you need to connect to a projector or an older monitor with a VGA connection, the best option is Kanex’s USB-C to VGA Adapter. All the adapters we tested worked equally well, pushing out 1920×1080 resolution at 60 Hz. The Kanex model is one of the least expensive we found, it comes from a very reputable brand, and it has the longest cable of any VGA adapter we tested—a longer adapter cable gives you more flexibility for connecting video cables, and reduces the stress those heavy cables put on your computer’s ports.

For connecting to HDMI monitors and TVs: USB-C–to–HDMI adapter

The best way to connect a USB-C computer to a high-definition TV or monitor, even at 4K resolution, is to use Anker’s USB-C to HDMI Adapter. All five of the adapters we found that promise a 60 Hz refresh rate worked as advertised. The Anker is our pick because it’s fairly inexpensive, it has a nice metal body, and it works with the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro. Some other models either explicitly warn that they don’t work with the newest Macs or have customer reviews claiming as much.

For connecting to legacy chargers and older computers and peripherals: USB-C–to–USB-A cable

If you’d like to connect a USB-C device to an older computer or charger that has only USB-A ports, you’ll need a USB-C–to–USB-A cable. If you’re concerned more about charging speeds than data-transfer speeds, we recommend Anker’s PowerLine USB-C to USB 3.0 Cable. Much like Anker’s Micro-USB and Lightning versions of the cable, this one features a simple design and good construction at an affordable price. We saw power draw approaching 3 amps when we plugged it into a high-amperage USB-A port, and its data speeds were on a par with every other USB 3.0 cable we tested.

At this point, very few devices support the 10 Gbps data rate that USB 3.1 Gen 2 cables can offer, so we don’t think most people need to spend the extra money on a Gen 2 cable. If you can take advantage of those speeds or would like to future-proof, we recommend Google’s USB-C to USB-A Cable. It matches the charging rates we’d expect, and though we measured read speeds of 3.49 Gbps and write speeds of 3.32 Gbps on the USB 3.1 Gen 1 Samsung T3, it’ll theoretically support faster speeds with faster devices. The build quality is also really nice: The cable is thinner than that of many other models, and the well-designed strain-relief collars should help prevent breakage over time. It even has a built-in plastic clip for keeping the cable coiled.

For connecting to DVI displays and projectors: DVI adapter

We found only a handful of DVI adapters that claim to handle 1920×1080 resolution at 60 Hz, and the best among them is StarTech’s USB-C to DVI Cable. Unlike the other adapters we tested, this one doesn’t require a separate DVI cable: It has a USB-C plug on one end and a male DVI connector on the other. In our tests, the resolution and refresh rate were exactly as promised.

If you need an adapter with a female DVI connection, Cable Matters’s USB 3.1 Type C to DVI Adapter also did well in our tests, but reviews on Amazon suggest issues with some MacBook Pro models.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

via Engadget
The best USB-C adapters, cables, and hubs for old accessories

The connections within and between regions in our brain may affect our performance of both complex and simple tasks, a new study suggests.

“Think of your brain as you would think of a university… Individuals organize themselves into densely interconnected communities…”

The brain is organized into different subnetworks, or “modules,” that support distinct functions for different tasks, such as speaking, memorizing, and expressing emotion. The researchers examined how high or low brain modularity—the degree to which the modules communicate with one another—impacts performance of simple and complex tasks.

“Think of your brain as you would think of a university,” says Simon Fischer-Baum, an assistant professor of psychology in Rice University’s School of Social Sciences and one of the study’s authors. “Individuals organize themselves into densely interconnected communities, like the dormitories and sports teams, though individuals within these groups also have connections with people outside of those groups.

“Brains are the same way: Brain regions are organized into communities with lots of connections between regions in the community and fewer connections to regions outside of the community. But people’s brains are different. Some people have brains that are better described as having rigid community structure—or higher modularity—while other people have brains without such rigid community structure—or lower modularity,” Fischer-Baum explains.

Throughout the course of the study, modularity was measured on a scale from zero to one. Zero represented low modularity—brains in which every region of the brain is just as likely to communicate with any other region; one represented high modularity—brains that can be divided into communities of brain regions whose members only communicate with each other.

In the study, the researchers had 52 participants (16 men, 36 women) between the ages of 18 and 26 undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a process that measures brain neural activity by detecting changes associated with blood oxygen levels. The neural activity of each participant was studied by fMRI for 21 minutes while they were at rest.

If neural activity increased and decreased in two areas at the same time over the course of the scan, it was an indicator that the two areas were connected. Using these data to measure which brain areas were connected to each other, the researchers determined the extent to which participants’ brains could be described as having communities of brain regions that communicate only with each other.

The researchers then took the participants through a series of behavioral tasks, including complex tasks that tested their memory while simultaneously doing simple arithmetic and simple tasks such as indicating the direction an arrow was pointing when their attention had been already drawn to the location the arrow would appear.

The researchers found that participants with high-modularity brains were more successful at performing simple tasks than individuals with low-modularity brains. In the experiment measuring reaction time to the arrows, individuals with high modularity performed nearly twice as successfully (a reaction time advantage of 58 milliseconds for knowing where the target would appear) as individuals with low modularity (34 milliseconds advantage).

Brains of people with dyslexia don’t adapt to new stuff

However, participants with low-modularity brains had greater success with complex tasks than participants with high-modularity brains. For example, those with low modularity correctly recalled 86 percent of the items in the memory task, while individuals with high modularity correctly recalled only 76 percent.

Fischer-Baum says that this effect can be considered relative to the decline in working memory with age, which is a hallmark of the cognitive effects of aging. Based on previous research, this difference in memory recall between the high- and low-modularity subgroups of highly educated, healthy young adults is roughly equivalent to the difference between memory recall at age 20 and at age 70.

Randi Martin, a professor of psychology in the university’s School of Social Sciences and the lead faculty author on the study, says that one of the major strengths of the study is that the relationship between simple and complex tasks and high and low modularity was predicted by a very general theory of biology proposed by coauthor Michael Deem, a professor of biochemical and genetic engineering and a professor of physics and astronomy at the university.

According to this theory, high-modular systems in general should perform better on simpler tasks that take less time to perform, while low-modular systems in general should perform better on more complex tasks that take more time to perform. This study demonstrates that this general principle of biology applies to cognitive neuroscience.

The authors say the research has important implications for understanding the brain as a network.

“There is an increasing focus in cognitive neuroscience on thinking of cognitive function as emerging from interconnected regions of the brain, rather than existing in a single brain region,” Fischer-Baum says. “While other groups have found correlations between brain network properties and performance on different tasks, our study is the first to show that these relationships can be understood by a more fundamental theory of modularity in biological systems.”

Bird brains suggest how ours got so big

The researchers will report their work in the journal Cognitive Neuroscience.

The T.L.L. Temple Foundation and the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics under a National Science Foundation grant supported the research.

Source: Rice University

The post Links between brain ‘communities’ affect how we do stuff appeared first on Futurity.

via Futurity.org
Links between brain ‘communities’ affect how we do stuff

via DIYPhotography.net – Photography and Studio Lighting – Do It Yourself
This woman publicly calls outs catcallers by taking selfies with them

Opinions can change over time. People often change their opinions over time and for a variety of reasons. It’s often productive to look at how these ideas shifted because they may give some guidance on how to get others to change their minds.

At the Washington Post, of all places, there’s a story of one writer’s journey away from being pro-gun control.

Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me. I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.

Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way. We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I’d lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns.

I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.

…

By the time we published our project, I didn’t believe in many of the interventions I’d heard politicians tout. I was still anti-gun, at least from the point of view of most gun owners, and I don’t want a gun in my home, as I think the risk outweighs the benefits. But I can’t endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.

Instead, I found the most hope in more narrowly tailored interventions. Potential suicide victims, women menaced by their abusive partners and kids swept up in street vendettas are all in danger from guns, but they each require different protections.

In other words, writer Leah Lebresco found that the best way to curb gun violence is to focus on the noun (“violence”) rather than the adjective (“gun”). She’s completely correct.

As noted earlier today here at Bearing Arms, mass shootings are terrible but rare. Most violence takes place at a smaller, more personal level, and any sound policies intending to reduce violence need to focus on those crimes, not the horrific events of Las Vegas.

Lebresco states that she’s not actually pro-gun as many might think of it. She has no interest in owning a firearm and she believes the risks of doing so outweigh the benefits. However, she also is pretty plain about no longer buying the anti-gun rhetoric parroted by people like Michael Bloomberg and Shannon Watts.

To be honest, that’s enough.

Lebresco is taking the approach I wish more people who hate guns would take: If you don’t want guns, don’t buy guns. That’s an approach I think we can all get behind.

The post How Research Flipped One Writer’s Opinion On Gun Control appeared first on Bearing Arms.

via Bearing Arms
How Research Flipped One Writer’s Opinion On Gun Control

I’ve used Epoxybond Epoxy Putty for everything from its intended purpose – fixing leaks in swimming pools – to fixing a crack in the case of a garbage disposal under the sink. It’s a two part epoxy, just cut off equal amounts of both sides, mix by folding between your hands for a few minutes, and then apply. You have five to ten minutes to get in place. It’s thick, not runny, sticks to anything and works underwater! Like a rigid plastic when set. It’s relatively cheap for the amount you get, doesn’t need to be sealed up tight between uses (but it doesn’t hurt), and is available at any pool supply place or on Amazon.

— John Wolf

Epoxybond Epoxy Putty For Swimming Pool Spa Cracks, Leaks, Tile, Plaster Repair ($15)

Available from Amazon

via Cool Tools
Swimming Pool Epoxy Putty

Join Percona’s Chief Evangelist, Colin Charles as he presents Databases in the Hosted Cloud on Wednesday, October 4, 2017, at 7:00 am PDT / 10:00 am EDT (UTC-7).

Today you can use hosted MySQL/MariaDB/Percona Server for MySQL/PostgreSQL in several “cloud providers” as a database as a service (DBaaS). Learn the differences, the access methods and the level of control you have for the various public databases in the hosted cloud offerings:

• Amazon RDS including Aurora
• Google Cloud SQL
• Rackspace OpenStack DBaaS
• Oracle Cloud’s MySQL Service

The administration tools and ideologies behind each are completely different, and you are in a “locked-down” environment. Some considerations include:

• Different backup strategies
• Planning for multiple data centers for availability
• Where do you host your application?
• How do you get the most performance out of the solution?
• What does this all cost?
• Monitoring

Growth topics include:

• How do you move from one DBaaS to another?
• How do you move from a DBaaS to your own hosted platform?

Register for the webinar here.

Colin Charles, Chief Evangelist

Colin Charles is the Chief Evangelist at Percona. He was previously on the founding team for MariaDB Server in 2009, worked in MySQL since 2005 and been a MySQL user since 2000. Before joining MySQL, he worked actively on the Fedora and OpenOffice.org projects. He’s well known within many open source communities and has spoken on the conference circuit.

via Planet MySQL
Webinar October 4, 2017: Databases in the Hosted Cloud

As a member of the Data Generation, I’ve found that my photos, videos, and documents quickly expand to fill their containers. A standard USB drive is quickly replaced by another, larger one while home network file servers fall by the wayside as they get full, old, and dangerously lossy. In short, it’s time for the big guns.

That’s why I was pleased to try out the Netgear ReadyNAS 524X, part of Netgear’s new network attached storage series aimed at small businesses and home users. The diskless version costs about $800 and can hold up to 40TB.

This NAS is essentially a small computer. It can run apps including tools for BitTorrent downloads and remote backups and it uses XRAID to ensure hot-swapability on each drive. This feature, enabled by RAID6, allows for the catastrophic failure of up to two of the drives but causes a deep hit in storage capacity. This also means you can literally pull a disk out of this thing randomly and have the entire setup still run. If you want to know your real-world sizing with RAID6 enabled this calculator can help. I tested the performance by pulling two disks and everything worked perfectly although the reindexing process lasted over 24 hours each time the device was hit.

Setup

Setting up the drive is quite simple. To add a drive you simply pull out a carriage and snap the drive into place without tools. When you boot up for the first time you can begin a formatting process that brings all the drives online simultaneously. Then, when you need to swap one out, you can shut down the system manually and replace the drive offline. All you have to do is connect an Ethernet cable – this doesn’t support Wi-Fi, and fire it up.

Once the NAS is up and running the system appears as a Windows and MacOS share. The drive can also support DLNA and UPnP and you can even SSH into the box where you’ll find a standard Debian installation. This also means you can run cron jobs and even side load apps, a feature quite useful if you want to manage files with a little more granularity. Further, the NAS supports ReadyCloud, Netgear’s own remote access protocol that lets you see files remotely. Further, you can connect the drive to Amazon S3, Google Drive, and Dropbox and sync folders back and forth. This makes it perfect for backing up live projects and maintaining a record of your remote files.

Home users will be happy with the Plex support – Plex will scan any folder on the drive and serve it up piping hot to your TV – along with BitTorrent and NZB clients which are useful, obviously, for downloading public domain video from public servers.

Finally if you stuff a load of music on here you’ll also be able to access iTunes shares by clicking a button in the admin system. In short, this thing does it all.

Latest Crunch Report

Apps

If you dig deeper in the ReadyNAS app store you’ll find a number of useful tools including a solution for recording surveillance video as well as systems for managing syncing across servers. The app store, in fact, is the coolest part of this NAS, turning it from a simple storage server into something immensely useful.

For example, you can install Drupal, an HTML5 based SSH terminal, and a Docker management tool right from the main admin screen. Many of the tools are fairly functional and aimed mostly at programmers who want to simulate remote storage conditions in their non-production code.

Because this NAS runs a Intel D1508 Dual Core 2.2GHz processor with 4GB of memory I haven’t yet been able to max this thing out although Netgear recommends a maximum of 80 users. I personally tried many of the streaming apps and found them to be far more efficient than anything I’ve used before, including a Plex server running on a 2014 iMac. Because this is essentially a Debian server it’s quite capable and quite compact.

Performance

In terms of performance this kit is obviously as good as your LAN network but I did a bit of testing using my home network and saw nothing untoward. If you’re looking for solid benchmarks StorageReview posted a nice rundown but I’ll show you what I found.

I used a tool called Helios LanTest to read and write files to the drive.

The results showed real-world performance in my home network and modeling the same tests on the device itself took far less time – a few seconds. An 8GB library of music took about an hour to transfer over that same network – on par with anything else I’ve seen in the space.

Bottom Line

The 524X is a beast. I’m used to using smaller devices with single drives and adding this to my network opened up a whole new world of, well, data hoarding. It’s a file server, a testbed, a media streamer, and more and it’s also a Debian machine and a great way to back up your computers. While the price is a little high – about $800 for a diskless unit – you’re essentially getting a mini-PC with some definite RAID6 smarts. While it might be overkill for folks with a few baby pictures to back up, it’s definitely worth a look if you keep lots of stuff on lots of servers. You will have so much more room for activities.

via TechCrunch
The Netgear ReadyNAS 524X is a data hoarder’s delight