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Scientists officially unveil baffling 240-million-year-old 'Chinese dragon' skeleton
Scientists officially unveil baffling 240-million- ...

The discovery of a 240-million-year-old fossil from the Triassic period that resembles a mythical Chinese dragon has been officially unveiled by a team of international scientists. The skeleton was found in China's Liaoning province and is believed to be one of the most complete and well-preserved examples of its kind.The fossil, which measures about 10 feet long and weighs several tons, has been tentatively named Yi qi, after the local deity who was said to have the body of a dragon and the head of a human or animal. The skeleton features a series of elongated limbs, sharp claws, and a set of large, bat-like wings that could have allowed it to glide through the air.The discovery has sparked excitement among scientists, who believe that Yi qi may be one of the most bizarre creatures ever discovered. While some researchers have suggested that it may be related to modern-day birds or bats, others believe that it may represent an entirely new group of animals that existed during the Triassic period.The fossil has been dated to around 240 million years ago, making it one of the oldest known examples of a flying creature. It is also believed to be one of the largest flying creatures ever discovered, with some estimates suggesting that it could have had a wingspan of up to 30 feet.The discovery of Yi qi has already provided scientists with valuable insights into the evolution of flying animals and the diversity of life that existed during the Triassic period. Further research on this fascinating fossil is sure to yield even more exciting discoveries in the future.


An Enormous Animatronic Dragon Caught on Fire at Disneyland
An Enormous Animatronic Dragon Caught on Fire at D ...

"Thousands of stunned guests were on hand Saturday night to watch a Disneyland malfunction for the ages," writes SFGate — when a 45-foot-tall animatronic dragon burst into flames, and continued burning for several minutes in front of the stunned crowd. SFGate reports The fire occurred during the 1030 p.m. performance of Fantasmic, a show staged on the Rivers of America. The elaborate show uses ships, barges, projections on the water and fire effects to tell the story of Mickey Mouse's dreams and nightmares. Near the end of the show, the dragon form of Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," emerges from the island. The big finale went awry Saturday, and flames engulfed the entire dragon. Video taken by shocked spectators shows the fire beginning on the dragon's face and rapidly spreading down its body as chunks of flaming debris fall to the ground. Smoke and heavy flames billow from the prop as firefighters begin hosing down the dragon. The remainder of the show was canceled, and guests were escorted out of the immediate area... The dragon, one of the most memorable parts of Disneyland's beloved nighttime spectacular, has jokingly been referred to as Murphy, a reference to Murphy's law. Over the decades, it's been part of countless malfunctions and mishaps, although none quite so destructive as this. Though it is supposed to breathe fire, there are times when the effect doesn't work at all. "Disneyland employees armed with garden hoses and fire extinguishers were no match for the inferno," reports the Orange County Register. "The dragon's head erupted into a fireball and a flamethrower effect from the dragon's mouth shot directly toward the stage, according to MiceChat." The newspaper has a picture of the charred mechanical skeleton that was still lying on the ground Sunday on Tom Sawyer Island — and a 146-second video of the blaze. (Apparently realizing they're witnessing an unplanned fire, one spectator can be heard telling another one wryly, "Happy birthday, Danny.") "Some spectators thought it was part of the show," reports the New York Times. One visitor told the newspaper, "My sister and I were talking about how it was impressive. I was like, 'Man, they can set that head on fire and it just stays perfectly intact?' So we were kind of amazed at Disney at first..." When interviewed by the Associated Press, Ryan Laux, a frequent Disneyland visitor, "said Mickey vanished from the stage as soon as the dragon's head became engulfed in flames." Then a voice over a loudspeaker announced the show wouldn't continue "due to unforeseen circumstances..." (as heard in the video). "We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause — and hope you enjoy the rest of your evening here at Disneyland. Once again, this performance cannot continue due to unforeseen circumstances. Thank you." At that moment the head burst into more flames, some members of the audience gasped in unison — and the announcement continued playing in Spanish. ("No podemos continuar con este presentacion...") Then cheery banjo music began playing. At least six workers were eventually treated for smoke inhalation from the burning dragon prop, reports the New York Times. In a statement Disney said they were now "temporarily suspending fire effects" in "select" shows in their parks around the world — "out of an abundance of caution." Read more of this story at Slashdot.


Water cremation hits a snag as health authorities object
Water cremation hits a snag as health authorities ...

Water cremation, also known as aquamation, is a process in which the body is placed in a container filled with water and heated to a high temperature. The heat breaks down the organic matter in the body, leaving behind only the skeleton and other non-organic materials.In recent years, there has been growing interest in water cremation as an alternative to traditional burial or cremation. However, the process is not yet widely available in many countries, including Malta.One of the main reasons for this is that health authorities have raised concerns about the safety and effectiveness of water cremation. In particular, they are concerned about the potential for contamination of the environment if the process is not properly regulated.In addition to these concerns, the Zabbar council in Malta has also expressed opposition to the development of a water cremation facility in the area. The council has raised concerns about the impact on local residents and the potential for increased traffic and noise pollution.Despite these challenges, some proponents of water cremation argue that it is a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional burial or cremation. They point out that water cremation does not produce harmful emissions or require the use of fossil fuels, making it a more sustainable option.Overall, while water cremation is an innovative and potentially beneficial process, it will need to be carefully regulated and monitored in order to ensure its safety and effectiveness.


Towards debuggability and secure deployments of eBPF programs on Windows
Towards debuggability and secure deployments of eB ...

The eBPF for Windows runtime has introduced a new mode of operation, native code generation, which exists alongside the currently supported modes of operation for eBPF programs JIT (just-in-time compilation) and an interpreter, with the administrator able to select the mode when a program is loaded. The native code generation mode involves loading Windows drivers that contain signed eBPF programs. Due to the risks associated with having an interpreter in the kernel address space, it was decided to only enable it for non-production signed builds. The JIT mode supports the ability to dynamically generate code, write them into kernel pages, and finally set the permissions on the page from read/write to read/execute.Enter Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, a type 1 hypervisor, which has the Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) feature. It splits the kernel memory space into virtual trust levels (VTLs), with isolation enforced at the hardware level using virtualization extensions of the CPU. Most parts of the Windows' kernel and all drivers operate in VTL0, the lowest trusted level, with privileged operations being performed inside the Windows secure kernel operating in VTL1. During the boot process, the hypervisor verifies the integrity of the secure kernel using cryptographic signatures prior to launching it, after which the secure kernel verifies the cryptographic signature of each code page prior to enabling read/execute permissions on the page. The signatures are validated using keys obtained from X.509 certificates that chain up to a Microsoft trusted root certificate. The net effect of this policy is that if HVCI is enabled, it is no longer possible to inject dynamically generated code pages into the kernel, which prevents the use of JIT mode. Similarly, Windows uses cryptographic signatures to restrict what code can be executed in the kernel. In keeping with these principles, eBPF for Windows has introduced a new mode of execution that an administrator can choose to use that maintains the integrity of the kernel and provides the safety promises of eBPF native code generation. The process starts with the existing tool chains, whereby eBPF programs are compiled into eBPF bytecode and emitted as ELF object files. The examples below assume the eBPF-for-Windows NuGet package has been unpacked to c\ebpf and that the command is being executed from within a Developer Command Prompt for VS 2019. How to use native code generationHello_world.c// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation// SPDX-License-Identifier MIT#include "bpf_helpers.h"SEC("bind")intHelloWorld(){bpf_printk("Hello World!");return 0;}Compile to eBPF>clang -target bpf -O2 -Werror -Ic/ebpf/include -c hello_world.c -o out/hello_world.o>llvm-objdump -S out/hello_world.oeBPF bytecodeb7 01 00 00 72 6c 64 21 r1 = 56022949063 1a f8 ff 00 00 00 00 *(u32 *)(r10 - 8) = r118 01 00 00 48 65 6c 6c 00 00 00 00 6f 20 57 6f r1 = 8022916924116329800 ll7b 1a f0 ff 00 00 00 00 *(u64 *)(r10 - 16) = r1b7 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 r1 = 073 1a fc ff 00 00 00 00 *(u8 *)(r10 - 4) = r1bf a1 00 00 00 00 00 00 r1 = r1007 01 00 00 f0 ff ff ff r1 += -16b7 02 00 00 0d 00 00 00 r2 = 1385 00 00 00 0c 00 00 00 call 12b7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 r0 = 095 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 exitThe next step involves a new tool introduced specifically to support this scenario bpf2c. This tool parses the supplied ELF file, extracting the list of maps and stored programs before handing off the byte code to the eBPF verifier, which proves that eBPF byte code is effectively sandboxed and constrained to terminate within a set number of instructions. The tool then performs a per-instruction translation of the eBPF byte code into the equivalent C statements and emits skeleton code used to perform relocation operations at run time. For convenience, the NuGet package also contains a PowerShell script that invokes bpf2c and then uses MSBuild to produce the final Portable Executable (PE) image, (an image format used by Windows). As an aside, the process of generating the native image is decoupled from the process of developing the eBPF program, making it a deployment time decision rather than a development time one.> powershell c\ebpf\bin\Convert-BpfToNative.ps1 hello_world.oC\Users\user\hello_world\out>powershell c\ebpf\bin\Convert-BpfToNative.ps1 hello_world.oMicrosoft (R) Build Engine version 16.9.0+57a23d249 for .NET FrameworkCopyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.Build started 5/17/2022 93843 AM.Project "C\Users\user\hello_world\out\hello_world.vcxproj" on node 1 (default targets).DriverBuildNotifications Building 'hello_world_km' with toolset 'WindowsKernelModeDriver10.0' and the 'Desktop' target platform. Using KMDF 1.15.<Lines removed for clarity>Done Building Project "C\Users\user\hello_world\out\hello_world.vcxproj" (default targets).Build succeeded. 0 Warning(s) 0 Error(s)Time Elapsed 000003.57> type hello_world_driver.c// Snip Removed boiler plate driver code and map setup.static uint64_tHelloWorld(void* context){ // Prologue uint64_t stack[(UBPF_STACK_SIZE + 7) / 8]; register uint64_t r0 = 0; register uint64_t r1 = 0; register uint64_t r2 = 0; register uint64_t r3 = 0; register uint64_t r4 = 0; register uint64_t r5 = 0; register uint64_t r10 = 0; r1 = (uintptr_t)context; r10 = (uintptr_t)((uint8_t*)stack + sizeof(stack)); // EBPF_OP_MOV64_IMM pc=0 dst=r1 src=r0 offset=0 imm=560229490 r1 = IMMEDIATE(560229490); // EBPF_OP_STXW pc=1 dst=r10 src=r1 offset=-8 imm=0 *(uint32_t*)(uintptr_t)(r10 + OFFSET(-8)) = (uint32_t)r1; // EBPF_OP_LDDW pc=2 dst=r1 src=r0 offset=0 imm=1819043144 r1 = (uint64_t)8022916924116329800; // EBPF_OP_STXDW pc=4 dst=r10 src=r1 offset=-16 imm=0 *(uint64_t*)(uintptr_t)(r10 + OFFSET(-16)) = (uint64_t)r1; // EBPF_OP_MOV64_IMM pc=5 dst=r1 src=r0 offset=0 imm=0 r1 = IMMEDIATE(0); // EBPF_OP_STXB pc=6 dst=r10 src=r1 offset=-4 imm=0 *(uint8_t*)(uintptr_t)(r10 + OFFSET(-4)) = (uint8_t)r1; // EBPF_OP_MOV64_REG pc=7 dst=r1 src=r10 offset=0 imm=0 r1 = r10; // EBPF_OP_ADD64_IMM pc=8 dst=r1 src=r0 offset=0 imm=-16 r1 += IMMEDIATE(-16); // EBPF_OP_MOV64_IMM pc=9 dst=r2 src=r0 offset=0 imm=13 r2 = IMMEDIATE(13); // EBPF_OP_CALL pc=10 dst=r0 src=r0 offset=0 imm=12 r0 = HelloWorld_helpers[0].address(r1, r2, r3, r4, r5); if ((HelloWorld_helpers[0].tail_call) && (r0 == 0)) return 0; // EBPF_OP_MOV64_IMM pc=11 dst=r0 src=r0 offset=0 imm=0 r0 = IMMEDIATE(0); // EBPF_OP_EXIT pc=12 dst=r0 src=r0 offset=0 imm=0 return r0;}As illustrated here each eBPF instruction is translated into an equivalent C statement, with eBPF registers being emulated using stack variables named R0 to R10.Lastly, the tool adds a set of boilerplate code that handles the interactions with the I/O Manager required to load the code into the Windows kernel, with the result being a single C file. The Convert-BpfToNative.ps1 script then invokes the normal Windows Driver Kit (WDK) tools to compile and link the eBPF program into its final PE image. Once the developer is ready to deploy their eBPF program in a production environment that has HVCI enabled, they will need to get their driver signed via the normal driver signing process. For a production workflow, one could imagine a service that consumes the ELF file (the eBPF byte code), securely verifies that it is safe, generates the native image, and signs it before publishing it for deployment. This could then be integrated into the existing developer workflows.The eBPF for Windows runtime has been enlightened to support these eBPF programs hosted in Windows drivers, resulting in a developer experience that closely mimics the behavior of eBPF programs that use JIT. The result is a pipeline that looks like thisThe net effect is to introduce a new statically sandboxed model for Windows Drivers, with the resulting driver being signed using standard Windows driver signing mechanisms. While this additional step does increase the time needed to deploy an eBPF program, some customers have determined that the tradeoff is justified by the ability to safely add eBPF programs to systems with HVCI enabled.Diagnostics and eBPF programsOne of the key pain points of developing eBPF programs is making sure they pass verification. The process of loading programs once they have been compiled, potentially on an entirely different system, gives rise to a subpar developer experience. As part of adding support for native code generation, eBPF for Windows has integrated the verification into the build pipeline, so that developers get build-time feedback when an eBPF program fails verification.Using a slightly more complex eBPF program as an example, the developer gets a build-time error when the program fails verificationeBPF C codeThis then points the developer to line 96 of the source code, where they can see that the start time variable could be NULL.As with all other instances of code, eBPF programs can have bugs. While the verifier can prove that code is safe, it is unable to prove code is correct. One approach that was pioneered by the Linux community is the use of logging built around the bpf_printk style macro, which permits developers to insert trace statements into their eBPF programs to aid diagnosability. To both maintain compatibility with the Linux eBPF ecosystem as well as being a useful mechanism, eBPF for Windows has adopted a similar approach. One of the key differences is how these events are implemented, with Linux using a file-based approach and Windows using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). ETW has a long history within Windows and a rich ecosystem of tools that can be used to capture and process traces.A second useful tool that is now available to developers using native-code generation is the ability to perform source-level debugging of eBPF programs. If the eBPF program is compiled with BTF data, the bpf2c tool will translate this in addition to the instructions and emit the appropriate pragmas containing the original file name and line numbers (with plans to extend this to allow the debugger to show eBPF local variables in the future). These are then consumed by the Windows Developer Kit tools and encoded into the final driver and symbol files, which the debugger can use to perform source-level debugging. In addition, these same symbol files can then be used by profiling tools to determine hot spots within eBPF programs and areas where performance could be improved.Learn moreThe introduction of support for a native image generation enhances eBPF For Windows in three areasA new mode of execution permits eBPF programs to be deployed on previously unsupported systems.A mechanism for offline verification and signing of eBPF programs.The ability for developers to perform source-level debugging of their eBPF programs.While support will continue for the existing JIT mode, this change gives developers and administrators flexibility in how programs are deployed. Separating the process of native image generation from the development of the eBPF program places the decision on how to deploy an eBPF program in the hands of the administrator and unburdens the developer from deployment time concerns.The post Towards debuggability and secure deployments of eBPF programs on Windows appeared first on Microsoft Open Source Blog.


An Enormous Animatronic Dragon Caught on Fire at Disneyland
An Enormous Animatronic Dragon Caught on Fire at D ...

"Thousands of stunned guests were on hand Saturday night to watch a Disneyland malfunction for the ages," writes SFGate — when a 45-foot-tall animatronic dragon burst into flames, and continued burning for several minutes in front of the stunned crowd. SFGate reports The fire occurred during the 1030 p.m. performance of Fantasmic, a show staged on the Rivers of America. The elaborate show uses ships, barges, projections on the water and fire effects to tell the story of Mickey Mouse's dreams and nightmares. Near the end of the show, the dragon form of Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," emerges from the island. The big finale went awry Saturday, and flames engulfed the entire dragon. Video taken by shocked spectators shows the fire beginning on the dragon's face and rapidly spreading down its body as chunks of flaming debris fall to the ground. Smoke and heavy flames billow from the prop as firefighters begin hosing down the dragon. The remainder of the show was canceled, and guests were escorted out of the immediate area... The dragon, one of the most memorable parts of Disneyland's beloved nighttime spectacular, has jokingly been referred to as Murphy, a reference to Murphy's law. Over the decades, it's been part of countless malfunctions and mishaps, although none quite so destructive as this. Though it is supposed to breathe fire, there are times when the effect doesn't work at all. "Disneyland employees armed with garden hoses and fire extinguishers were no match for the inferno," reports the Orange County Register. "The dragon's head erupted into a fireball and a flamethrower effect from the dragon's mouth shot directly toward the stage, according to MiceChat." The newspaper has a picture of the charred mechanical skeleton that was still lying on the ground Sunday on Tom Sawyer Island — and a 146-second video of the blaze. (Apparently realizing they're witnessing an unplanned fire, one spectator can be heard telling another one wryly, "Happy birthday, Danny.") "Some spectators thought it was part of the show," reports the New York Times. One visitor told the newspaper, "My sister and I were talking about how it was impressive. I was like, 'Man, they can set that head on fire and it just stays perfectly intact?' So we were kind of amazed at Disney at first..." When interviewed by the Associated Press, Ryan Laux, a frequent Disneyland visitor, "said Mickey vanished from the stage as soon as the dragon's head became engulfed in flames." Then a voice over a loudspeaker announced the show wouldn't continue "due to unforeseen circumstances..." (as heard in the video). "We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause — and hope you enjoy the rest of your evening here at Disneyland. Once again, this performance cannot continue due to unforeseen circumstances. Thank you." At that moment the head burst into more flames, some members of the audience gasped in unison — and the announcement continued playing in Spanish. ("No podemos continuar con este presentacion...") Then cheery banjo music began playing. At least six workers were eventually treated for smoke inhalation from the burning dragon prop, reports the New York Times. In a statement Disney said they were now "temporarily suspending fire effects" in "select" shows in their parks around the world — "out of an abundance of caution." Read more of this story at Slashdot.




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