Mike M. – Page 2

There’s a new benchmark in town for measuring performance on Windows 95 PCs

benchmark, retrocomputing, Tech, windows 95, windows 98 / Mike M. / April 1, 2025

If you’re still using a computer you bought during the Clinton administration, interesting news: Crystal Dew World, developers of apps like CrystalDiskInfo and CrystalDiskMark, have released an update to their CrystalMark Retro benchmark (as spotted by Tom’s Hardware). The most interesting aspect of the update for retro computing enthusiasts is expanded operating system support: the app will now run on Windows 95, Windows 98, and old versions of Windows NT like 3.51 and 4.0. The previous version of the app only went as far back as Windows XP.

The app spits out benchmarking scores for five things: single-core CPU performance, multi-core CPU performance, 2D graphics performance using GDI, 3D graphics performance using OpenGL, and disk speed (broken into four sub-benchmarks for sequential and random read and write performance).

The app will also run on current systems, including 64-bit x86 and Arm-based PCs, and the results database is dominated by those modern systems. But searching by operating system allows you to zero in on those retro results, including nine (as of this writing) for Windows 95, six for Windows 98, and five for Windows NT 3.51.

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NASA’s Curiosity rover has found the longest chain carbon molecules yet on Mars

Curiosity rover, mars rover, NASA, Science, Space, syndication / Mike M. / March 31, 2025

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has detected the largest organic (carbon-containing) molecules ever found on the red planet. The discovery is one of the most significant findings in the search for evidence of past life on Mars. This is because, on Earth at least, relatively complex, long-chain carbon molecules are involved in biology. These molecules could actually be fragments of fatty acids, which are found in, for example, the membranes surrounding biological cells.

Scientists think that, if life ever emerged on Mars, it was probably microbial in nature. Because microbes are so small, it’s difficult to be definitive about any potential evidence for life found on Mars. Such evidence needs more powerful scientific instruments that are too large to be put on a rover.

The organic molecules found by Curiosity consist of carbon atoms linked in long chains, with other elements bonded to them, like hydrogen and oxygen. They come from a 3.7-billion-year-old rock dubbed Cumberland, encountered by the rover at a presumed dried-up lakebed in Mars’s Gale Crater. Scientists used the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on the NASA rover to make their discovery.

Scientists were actually looking for evidence of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins and therefore key components of life as we know it. But this unexpected finding is almost as exciting. The research is published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

Among the molecules were decane, which has 10 carbon atoms and 22 hydrogen atoms, and dodecane, with 12 carbons and 26 hydrogen atoms. These are known as alkanes, which fall under the umbrella of the chemical compounds known as hydrocarbons.

It’s an exciting time in the search for life on Mars. In March this year, scientists presented evidence of features in a different rock sampled elsewhere on Mars by the Perseverance rover. These features, dubbed “leopard spots” and “poppy seeds,” could have been produced by the action of microbial life in the distant past, or not. The findings were presented at a US conference and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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Beyond RGB: A new image file format efficiently stores invisible light data

Biz & IT, compression, data science, image compression, image formats, JPEG, jpeg xl, multispectrum images, Science, spectral imaging / Mike M. / March 29, 2025

Importantly, it then applies a weighting step, dividing higher-frequency spectral coefficients by the overall brightness (the DC component), allowing less important data to be compressed more aggressively. That is then fed into the codec, and rather than inventing a completely new file type, the method uses the compression engine and features of the standardized JPEG XL image format to store the specially prepared spectral data.

Making spectral images easier to work with

According to the researchers, the massive file sizes of spectral images have reportedly been a real barrier to adoption in industries that would benefit from their accuracy. Smaller files mean faster transfer times, reduced storage costs, and the ability to work with these images more interactively without specialized hardware.

The results reported by the researchers seem impressive—with their technique, spectral image files shrink by 10 to 60 times compared to standard OpenEXR lossless compression, bringing them down to sizes comparable to regular high-quality photos. They also preserve key OpenEXR features like metadata and high dynamic range support.

While some information is sacrificed in the compression process—making this a “lossy” format—the researchers designed it to discard the least noticeable details first, focusing compression artifacts in the less important high-frequency spectral details to preserve important visual information.

Of course, there are some limitations. Translating these research results into widespread practical use hinges on the continued development and refinement of the software tools that handle JPEG XL encoding and decoding. Like many cutting-edge formats, the initial software implementations may need further development to fully unlock every feature. It’s a work in progress.

And while Spectral JPEG XL dramatically reduces file sizes, its lossy approach may pose drawbacks for some scientific applications. Some researchers working with spectral data might readily accept the trade-off for the practical benefits of smaller files and faster processing. Others handling particularly sensitive measurements might need to seek alternative methods of storage.

For now, the new technique remains primarily of interest to specialized fields like scientific visualization and high-end rendering. However, as industries from automotive design to medical imaging continue generating larger spectral datasets, compression techniques like this could help make those massive files more practical to work with.

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Report: US scientists lost $3 billion in NIH grants since Trump took office

cures, funding, grants, health, NIH, research, Science / Mike M. / March 29, 2025

Since Trump took office on January 20, research funding from the National Institutes of Health has plummeted by more than $3 billion compared with the pace of funding in 2024, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

By this time in March 2024, the NIH had awarded US researchers a total of $1.027 billion for new grants or competitive grant renewals. This year, the figure currently stands at about $400 million. Likewise, funding for renewals of existing grants without competition reached $4.5 billion by this time last year, but has only hit $2 billion this year. Together, this slowdown amounts to a 60 percent drop in grant support for a wide variety of research—from studies on cancer treatments, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, vaccines, mental health, transgender health, and more.

The NIH is the primary source of funding for biomedical research in the US. NIH grants support more than 300,000 scientists at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research organizations across all 50 states.

In the near term, the missing grant money means clinical trials have been abruptly halted, scientific projects are being shelved, supplies can’t be purchased, and experiments can’t be run. But, in the long run, it means a delay in scientific advancements and treatment, which could echo across future generations. With funding in question, academic researchers may be unable to retain staff or train younger scientists.

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Oracle has reportedly suffered 2 separate breaches exposing thousands of customers‘ PII

Biz & IT, Data breaches, oracle, oracle health, Security / Mike M. / March 29, 2025

Trustwave’s Spider Labs, meanwhile, said the sample of LDAP credentials provided by rose87168 “reveals a substantial amount of sensitive IAM data associated with a user within an Oracle Cloud multi-tenant environment. The data includes personally identifiable information (PII) and administrative role assignments, indicating potential high-value access within the enterprise system.”

Oracle initially denied any such breach had occurred against its cloud infrastructure, telling publications: “There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud. The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data.”

On Friday, when I asked Oracle for comment, a spokesperson asked if they could provide a statement that couldn’t be attributed to Oracle in any way. After I declined, the spokesperson said Oracle would have no comment.

For the moment, there’s a stand-off between Oracle on the one hand, and researchers and journalists on the other, over whether two serious breaches have exposed sensitive information belonging to its customers. Reporting that Oracle is notifying customers of data compromises in unofficial letterhead sent by outside attorneys is also concerning. This post will be updated if new information becomes available.

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NASA to put Starliner’s thrusters through an extensive workout before next launch

Space, starliner / Mike M. / March 29, 2025

More than half a year after an empty Starliner spacecraft safely landed in a New Mexico desert, NASA and Boeing still have not decided whether the vehicle’s next flight will carry any astronauts.

In an update this week, the US space agency said it is still working through the process to certify Starliner for human missions. Whether it carries cargo or humans, Starliner’s next flight will not occur until late this year or, more likely, sometime in 2026.

Two things stand out in the new information provided by NASA. First, there remains a lot of work left to do this year before Starliner will fly again, including extensive testing of the vehicle’s propulsion system. And secondly, it is becoming clear that Starliner will only ever fly a handful of missions to the space station, if that, before the orbiting laboratory is retired.

Long line of tests

Several issues marred Starliner’s first crew flight to the space station last June, but the most serious of these was the failure of multiple maneuvering thrusters. Concerns about these thrusters prompted NASA to fly Starliner’s crew, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, home on a Crew Dragon vehicle instead. They safely landed earlier this month.

Starliner returned autonomously in early September. Since then, NASA and Boeing have been reviewing data from the test flight. (Unfortunately, the errant thrusters were located on the service module of the spacecraft, which is jettisoned before reentry and was not recovered.)

Although engineers from NASA and Boeing have worked through more than 70 percent of the observations and anomalies that occurred during Starliner’s flight, the propulsion system issues remain unresolved.

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“This will be a painful period”: RFK Jr. slashes 24% of US health dept.

CDC, fda, funding, health, HHS, NIH, reductions, research, robert f kennedy jr, Science, trump administration / Mike M. / March 28, 2025

Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is slashing a total of 20,000 jobs across the Department of Health and Human Services—or about 24 percent of the workforce—in a sweeping overhaul said to improve efficiency and save money, Kennedy and the HHS announced Thursday.

Combining workforce losses from early retirement, the “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation deal, and 10,000 positions axed in the reductions and restructuring announced today, HHS will shrink from 82,000 full-time employees to 62,000 under Kennedy and the Trump administration. The HHS’s 28 divisions will be cut down to 15, while five of the department’s 10 regional offices will close.

“This will be a painful period,” Kennedy said in a video announcement posted on social media. Calling the HHS a “sprawling bureaucracy,” Kennedy claimed that the cuts would be aimed at “excess administrators.”

“I want to promise you now that we are going to do more with less,” he said in the video.

Kennedy and HHS said the cuts will save $1.8 billion each year. That’s about 0.027 percent of total federal spending, based on the $6.75 trillion the government spent in 2024, and about 0.06 percent of the $2.8 trillion HHS budget for that year.

The downsizing announced today includes significant cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.

Cuts upon cuts

The FDA will lose 3,500 employees, which The Wall Street Journal reported was about 19 percent of its staff. HHS did not provide current staff levels at the agency level or percentage cuts. The CDC, which will absorb the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), will lose 2,400 employees (1,400 from CDC and 1,000 from ASPR). The Journal reported that to be about 18 percent of the total workforce. NIH will lose 1,200 employees, about 6 percent of its workers.

“This will be a painful period”: RFK Jr. slashes 24% of US health dept. Read More »

After a spacecraft was damaged en route to launch, NASA says it won’t launch

Cygnus, dragon, Space / Mike M. / March 27, 2025

Three weeks ago, NASA revealed that a shipping container protecting a Cygnus spacecraft sustained “damage” while traveling to the launch site in Florida.

Built by Northrop Grumman, Cygnus is one of two Western spacecraft currently capable of delivering food, water, experiments, and other supplies to the International Space Station. This particular Cygnus mission, NG-22, had been scheduled for June. As part of its statement in early March, the space agency said it was evaluating the NG-22 Cygnus cargo supply mission along with Northrop.

On Wednesday, after a query from Ars Technica, the space agency acknowledged that the Cygnus spacecraft designated for NG-22 is too damaged to fly, at least in the near term.

Loading up Dragon

“Following initial evaluation, there also is damage to the cargo module,” the agency said in a statement. “The International Space Station Program will continue working with Northrop Grumman to assess whether the Cygnus cargo module is able to safely fly to the space station on a future flight.” That future flight, NG-23, will launch no earlier than this fall.

As a result, NASA is modifying the cargo on its next cargo flight to the space station, the 32nd SpaceX Cargo Dragon mission, due to launch in April. The agency says it will “add more consumable supplies and food to help ensure sufficient reserves of supplies aboard the station” to the Dragon vehicle.

As it mulls stopgap measures, one option available to NASA may be to try to slot in a cargo mission on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. After the propulsion issues experienced on Starliner’s first crew flight to the space station last June, NASA is still evaluating whether the vehicle can be certified for an operational crew mission, or whether it would be better to perform an uncrewed test flight.

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Newer Kindles get a work-around for touchscreen page-turning in new software update

Amazon, kindle, kindle colorsoft, kindle paperwhite, Tech / Mike M. / March 27, 2025

All Kindles that get the 5.18.1 update also gain access to new book summaries for “thousands of bestselling English language Kindle books,” aiming to make it easier to pick up a new book in an ongoing series.

When a recap is available, it will be accessible from your Kindle’s home page, or by opening the book and selecting “Recaps In This Series” from the menu. Opening a recap will show you a spoiler warning before you tap through. Based on the handful of recaps I could find and skim, there’s a pretty good chance these summaries are mostly AI-generated, but Amazon’s release notes and the Kindle interface don’t say one way or the other.

The 5.18.1 update also includes the typical non-specific “performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements” for all models. This is the first update to get the Colorsoft and the other Kindles running on the same software version—before now, the other Kindles were all on version 5.17, and the Colorsoft ran a version of 5.18 that wasn’t available for manual download from Amazon’s software update page.

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Praise Kier for Severance season 2! Let’s discuss.

Apple TV, culture, severance, TV / Mike M. / March 26, 2025

Marching bands? Mammalian Nurturables? An ORTBO? Yup, Severance stays weird.

Severance has just wrapped up its second season. I sat down with fellow Ars staffers Aaron Zimmerman and Lee Hutchinson to talk through what we had just seen, covering everything from those goats to the show’s pacing. Warning: Huge spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 follow!

Nate: Severance season 1 was a smaller-scale, almost claustrophobic show about a crazy office, its “waffle parties,” and the personal life of Mark Scout, mourning his dead wife and “severing” his consciousness to avoid that pain. It followed a compact group of characters, centered around the four “refiners” who worked on Lumon’s severed floor. But season 2 blew up that cozy/creepy world and started following more characters—including far more “outies”—to far more places. Did the show manage to maintain its unique vibe while making significant changes to pacing, character count, and location?

Lee: I think so, but as you say, things were different this time around. One element that I’m glad carried through was the show’s consistent use of a very specific visual language. (I am an absolute sucker for visual storytelling. My favorite Kubrick film is Barry Lyndon. I’ll forgive a lot of plot holes if they’re beautifully shot.) Season 2, especially in the back half, treats us to an absolute smorgasbord of incredible visuals—bifurcated shots symbolizing severance and duality, stark whites and long hallways, and my personal favorite: Chris Walken in a black turtleneck seated in front of a fireplace, like Satan holding court in Hell. The storytelling might be a bit less focused, but it looks great.

Image of Christopher Walken being Christopher Walken. — So many visual metaphors in one frame. Credit: AppleTV+

Aaron: I think it succeeded overall, with caveats. The most prominent thing lost in the transition was the tight pacing of the first season; while season 2 started and ended strong, the middle meandered quite a bit, and I’d say the overall pacing felt pretty off. Doing two late-season “side quest” episodes (Gemma/Mark and Cobel backstories) was a bit of a drag. But I agree with Lee—Severance was more about vibes than narrative focus this season.

Nate: The “side quests” were vocally disliked by a subsection of the show’s fandom, and it certainly is an unusual choice to do two episodes in a row that essentially leave all your main characters to the side. But I don’t think these were really outliers. This is a season, for instance, that opened with a show about the innies—and then covered the exact same ground in episode two from the outies’ perspective. It also sent the whole cast off on a bizarre “ORTBO” that took an entire episode and spent a lot of time talking about Kier’s masturbating, and possibly manufactured, twin. (!)

Still, the “side quest” episodes stood out even among all this experimentation with pace and flow. But I think the label “side quest” can be a misnomer. The episode showing us the Gemma/Mark backstory not only brought the show’s main character into focus, it revealed what was happening to Gemma and gave many new hints about what Lumon was up to. In other words—it was about Big Stuff.

Image the four MDR refiners on ORTBO — Even when we’re outside, the show sticks to a palette of black and white and cold. Winter is almost as much of a character in *Severance* as our four refiners are. Credit: AppleTV+

The episode featuring Cobel, in contrast, found time for long, lingering drone shots of the sea, long takes of Cobel lying in bed, and long views of rural despair… and all to find a notebook. To me, this seemed much more like an actual “side quest” that could have been an interwoven B plot in a more normal episode.

Lee: The “side quest” I didn’t all mind was episode 7, “Chikhai Bardo,” directed by the show’s cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné. The tale of Mark and Gemma’s relationship—a tale begun while donating blood using Lumon-branded equipment, with the symbolism of Lumon as a blood-hungry faceless machine being almost disturbingly on-the-nose—was masterfully told. I wasn’t as much of a fan of the three episodes after that, but I think that’s just because episode 7 was just so well done. I like TV that makes me feel things, and that one succeeded.

Aaron: Completely agree. I love the Gemma/Mark episode, but I was very disappointed with the Cobel episode (it doesn’t help that I dislike her as a character generally, and the whole “Cobel invented severance!” thing seemed a bit convenient and unearned to me). I think part of the issue for me was that the core innie crew and the hijinks they got up to in season 1 felt like the beating heart of the show, so even though the story had to move on at some point (and it’s not going back—half the innies can’t even be innies anymore), I started to miss what made me fall in love with the show.

Image of Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel. — Harmony Cobel comes home to the ether factory. Credit: AppleTV+

Lee: I get the narrative motivation behind Cobel having invented the severance chip (along with every line of code and every function, as she tells us), but yeah, that was the first time the show threw something at me that I really did not like. I see how this lets the story move Cobel into a helper role with Mark’s reintegration, but, yeah, ugh, that particular development felt tremendously unearned, as you say. I love the character, but that one prodded my suspension of disbelief pretty damn hard.

Speaking of Mark’s reintegration—I was so excited when episode three (“Who is Alive?”) ended with Mark’s outie slamming down on the Lumon conference room table. Surely now after two catch-up episodes, I thought, we’d get this storyline moving! Having the next episode (“Woe’s Hollow”) focusing on the ORTBO and Kier’s (possibly fictional) twin was a little cheap, even though it was a great episode. But where I started to get really annoyed was when we slide into episode five (“Trojan’s Horse”) with Mark’s reintegration apparently stalled. It seems like from then to the end of the season, reintegration proceeded in fits and starts, at the speed of plot rather than in any kind of ordered fashion.

It was one of the few times where I felt like my time was being wasted by the showrunners. And I don’t like that feeling. That feels like Lost.

Image of Mark on the table. — Kind of wish they’d gone a little harder here. Credit: AppleTV+

Aaron: Yes! Mark’s reintegration was handled pretty poorly, I think. Like you said, it was exciting to see the show go there so early… but it didn’t really make much difference for the rest of the season. It makes sense that reintegration would take time—and we do see flashes of it happening throughout the season—but it felt like the show was gearing up for some wild Petey-level reintegration stuff that just never came. Presumably that’s for season 3, but the reintegration stuff was just another example of what felt like the show spinning its wheels a bit. And like you said, Lee, when it feels like a show isn’t quite sure what to do with the many mysteries it introduces week after week, I start to think about Lost, and not in a good way.

The slow-rolled reintegration stuff was essential for the finale, though. Both seasons seemed to bank pretty hard on a “slow buildup to an explosive finale” setup, which felt a little frustrating this season (season 1’s finale is one of my favorite TV show episodes of all time).

But I think the finale worked. Just scene after scene of instantly iconic moments. The scene of innie and outtie Mark negotiating through a camcorder in that weird maternity cabin was brilliant. And while my initial reaction to Mark’s decision at the end was anger, I really should have seen it coming—outtie Mark could not have been more patronizing in the camcorder conversation. I guess I, like outtie Mark, saw innie Mark as being somewhat lesser than.

What did you guys think of the finale?

Nate: A solid effort, but one that absolutely did not reach the heights of season 1. It was at its best when characters and events from the season played critical moments—such as the altercation between Drummond, Mark, and Feral Goat Lady, or the actual (finally!) discovery of the elevator to the Testing Floor.

But the finale also felt quite strange or unbalanced in other ways. Ricken doesn’t make an appearance, despite the hint that he was willing to retool his book (pivotal in season 1) for the Lumon innies. Burt doesn’t show up. Irving is gone. So is Reghabi. Miss Huang was summarily dismissed without having much of a story arc. So the finale failed to “gather up all its threads” in the way it did during season one.

And then there was that huge marching band, which ups the number of severed employees we know about by a factor of 50x—and all so they could celebrate the achievements of an innie (Mark S.) who is going to be dismissed and whose wife is apparently going to be killed. This seemed… fairly improbable, even for Lumon. On the other hand, this is a company/cult with an underground sacrificial goat farm, so what do I know about “probability”? Speaking of which, how do we feel about the Goat Revelations ™?

Image of Emile the Goat. — This is Emile, and he must be protected at all costs. Credit: AppleTV+

Lee: I’m still not entirely sure what the goat revelations were. They were being raised in order to be crammed into coffins and sacrificed when… things happen? Poor little Emile was going to ride to the afterlife with Gemma, apparently, but, like… why? Is it simply part of a specifically creepy Lumontology ritual? Emile’s little casket had all kinds of symbology engraved on it, and we know goats (or at least “the ram”) symbolizes Malice in Kier’s four tempers, but I’m still really not getting this one.

Aaron: Yeah, you kind of had to hand-wave a lot of the stuff in the finale. The goats just being sacrificial animals made me laugh—“OK, I guess it wasn’t that deep.” But it could be that we don’t really know their actual purpose yet.

Perhaps most improbable to me was that this was apparently the most important day in Lumon history, and they had basically one security guy on the premises. He’s a big dude—or was (outtie Mark waking up mid-accidental-shooting cracked me up)—but come on.

Stuff like the marching band doesn’t make a lick of sense. But it was a great scene, so, eh, just go with it. That seems to be what Severance is asking us to do more and more, and honestly, I’m mostly OK with that.

Image of Seth Milchick, lord of the dance. — This man can do anything. Credit: AppleTV+

Nate: Speaking of important days in Lumon history… what is Lumon up to, exactly? Jame Eagen spoke in season 1 about his “revolving,” he watched Helena eat eggs without eating anything himself, and he appears on the severed floor to watch the final “Cold Harbor” test. Clearly something weird is afoot. But the actual climactic test on Gemma was just to see if the severance block could hold her personalities apart even when facing deep traumas.

However, (as Miss Casey) she had already been in the presence of her husband (Mark S.), and neither of them had known it. So the show seems to suggest on the one hand that whatever is happening on the testing floor will change the world. But on the other hand, it’s really just confirming what we already know. And surely there’s no need to kidnap people if the goal is just to help them compartmentalize pain; as our current epidemic of drug and alcohol use show, plenty of people would sign up for this voluntarily. So what’s going on? Or, if you have no theories, does the show give you confidence that it knows where it’s going?

Lee: The easy answer—that severance chips will somehow allow the vampire spirit of Kier to jump bodies forever—doesn’t really line up. If Chris Walken’s husband Walter Bishop is to be believed, the severance procedure is only 12 years old. So it’s not that, at least.

Though Nate’s point about Helena eating eggs—and Jame’s comment that he wished she would “take them raw”—does echo something we learned back in season one: that Kier Egan’s favorite breakfast was raw eggs and milk.

Image of a precisely sliced hard boiled egg on a painted plate. — Eggiwegs! I would like… to eat them raw? Credit: AppleTV+

Aaron: That’s the question for season 3, I think, and whether they’re able to give satisfying answers will determine how people view this show in the long term. I’ll admit that I was much more confident in the show’s writers after the first season; this season has raised some concerns for me. I believe Ben Stiller has said that they know how the show ends, just not how it gets there. That’s a perilous place to be.

Nate: We’ve groused a bit about the show’s direction, but I think it’s fair to say it comes from a place of love; the storytelling and visual style is so special, and we’ve had our collective hearts broken so many times by shows that can’t stick the landing. (I want those hours back, Lost.) I’m certainly rooting for Severance to succeed. And even though this season wasn’t perfect, I enjoyed watching every minute of it. As we wrap things up, anyone have a favorite moment from season 2? I personally enjoyed Milchick getting salty, first with Drummond and then with a wax statue of Kier.

Lee: Absolutely! I very much want the show to stick the eventual landing. I have to go with you on your take, Nate—Milchick steals the show. Tramell Tillman plays him like a true company man, with the added complexity that comes when your company is also the cult that controls your life. My favorite bits with him are his office decorations, frankly—the rabbit/duck optical illusion statue, showing his mutable nature, and the iceberg poster, hinting at hidden depths. He’s fantastic. I would 100 percent watch a spin-off series about Milchick.

Image showing Seth Milchick's office. — Mr. Milchick’s office, filled with ambiguousness. I’m including Miss Huang in that description, too. Credit: AppleTV+

Aaron: This season gave me probably my favorite line in the whole series—Irv’s venomous “Yes! Do it, Seth!” as Helena is telling Milchick to flip the switch to bring back Helly R. But yeah, Milchick absolutely killed it this season. “Devour feculence” and the drum major scene were highlights, but I also loved his sudden sprint from the room after handing innie Dylan his outtie’s note. Severance can be hilarious.

And I agree, complaints aside, this show is fantastic. It’s incredibly unique, and I looked forward to watching it every week so I could discuss it with friends. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait three more years for the next season.

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We’ve outsourced our confirmation biases to search engines

cognitive bias, confirmation bias, Human behavior, Science, search engines / Mike M. / March 26, 2025

So, the researchers decided to see if they could upend it.

Keeping it general

The simplest way to change the dynamics of this was simply to change the results returned by the search. So, the researchers did a number of experiments where they gave all of the participants the same results, regardless of the search terms they had used. When everybody gets the same results, their opinions after reading them tend to move in the same direction, suggesting that search results can help change people’s opinions.

The researchers also tried giving everyone the results of a broad, neutral search, regardless of the terms they’d entered. This weakened the probability that beliefs would last through the process of formulating and executing a search. In other words, avoiding the sorts of focused, biased search terms allowed some participants to see information that could change their minds.

Despite all the swapping, participants continued to rate the search results relevant. So, providing more general search results even when people were looking for more focused information doesn’t seem to harm people’s perception of the service. In fact, Leung and Urminsky found that the AI version of Bing search would reformulate narrow questions into more general ones.

That said, making this sort of change wouldn’t be without risks. There are a lot of subject areas where a search shouldn’t return a broad range of information—where grabbing a range of ideas would expose people to fringe and false information.

Nevertheless, it can’t hurt to be aware of how we can use search services to reinforce our biases. So, in the words of Leung and Urminsky, “When search engines provide directionally narrow search results in response to users’ directionally narrow search terms, the results will reflect the users’ existing beliefs, instead of promoting belief updating by providing a broad spectrum of related information.”

PNAS, 2025. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2408175122 (About DOIs).

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UK on alert after H5N1 bird flu spills over to sheep in world-first

bird flu, H5N1, health, sheep, UK / Mike M. / March 25, 2025

In the UK, officials said further testing of the rest of the sheep’s flock has found no other infections. The one infected ewe has been humanely culled to mitigate further risk and to “enable extensive testing.”

“Strict biosecurity measures have been implemented to prevent the further spread of disease,” UK Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said in a statement. “While the risk to livestock remains low, I urge all animal owners to ensure scrupulous cleanliness is in place and to report any signs of infection to the Animal Plant Health Agency immediately.”

While UK officials believe that the spillover has been contained and there’s no onward transmission among sheep, the latest spillover to a new mammalian species is a reminder of the virus’s looming threat.

“Globally, we continue to see that mammals can be infected with avian influenza A(H5N1),” Meera Chand, Emerging Infection Lead at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said in a statement. In the US, the Department of Agriculture has documented hundreds of infections in wild and captive mammals, from cats to bears, raccoons, and harbor seals.

Chand noted that, so far, the spillovers into animals have not easily transmitted to humans. For instance, in the US, despite extensive spread through the dairy industry, no human-to-human transmission has yet been documented. But, experts fear that with more spillovers and exposure to humans, the virus will gain more opportunities to adapt to be more infectious in humans.

Chand says that UKHSA and other agencies are monitoring the situation closely in the event the situation takes a turn. “UKHSA has established preparations in place for detections of human cases of avian flu and will respond rapidly with NHS and other partners if needed.”

UK on alert after H5N1 bird flu spills over to sheep in world-first Read More »

Author name: Mike M.

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