December 2021 – Page 36

2021-12-20

Drakeo the Ruler Dead After Stabbing at L.A. Festival

Drakeo the Ruler was fatally stabbed on Saturday night (Dec. 18) during an altercation at a Los Angeles concert. He was 28.

The West Coast rapper, whose real name was Darrell Caldwell, was scheduled to perform at the Once Upon a Time in L.A. festival at 8:30 p.m. local time. Paramedics responded to a call about a stabbing near the Banc of California Stadium in Exposition Park around 8:40 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

A publicist for the rapper, Scott Jawson, confirmed his death to The New York Times on Sunday.

Drakeo was rushed to the hospital where he died from his injuries. There are unconfirmed reports he was stabbed in the neck.

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The altercation happened in the “roadway backstage” of the venue. Festival organizers ended the show early before headliners 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and the Isley Brothers took the stage.

The LAPD is investigating the stabbing and it’s unclear whether any arrests have been made.

In February, Drakeo released his biggest album to date, The Truth Hurts, featuring a collaboration with Drake. Earlier this month, he dropped his latest mixtape So Cold I Do Em 2.

The hip-hop community is mourning the loss including Drake. “Nah man this sh*t isn’t right for real wtf are we doing

2021-12-20

Episode 212: AURORA

“Runaway”

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AURORA is a singer and songwriter from Norway, who released her first EP in 2015, when she was 19 years old. It featured this song, “Runaway” and after it came out Aurora went on to win Norwegian Grammys for Best New Artist and Best Pop Artist. And she played the voice of the North Wind in Disney’s Frozen 2. This year, six years after that debut EP came out, Aurora’s song “Runaway” became a huge hit on TikTok. At the time this episode was recorded, between YouTube and Spotify, “Runaway” has been streamed over half a billion times. For this episode, Aurora looked back at how the song first began, and how it evolved over time, from the demo to the final version.

You can buy or stream “Runaway” here.

@iamauroramusic

I love this trend so much

Posted on 2021-12-17
Astrophotographer Creates 3D Views of His Space Photos

Photographs of space are usually flat, telling viewers nothing about the relative distances of stars and galaxies seen in the frame. Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has decided to change that by creating amazing 3D conversions from his 2D photos.

“As an artist, I like to find new views of reality,” Metsavainio writes. “My models are not just guesswork — the conversion is based on real scientific data.

“For as long as I have captured images of celestial objects, I have always seen them three-dimensionally in my head. The scientific information makes my inner visions much more accurate, and the 3-D technique I have developed enables me to share those beautiful visions with others.”

Original astronomical photo about part of the Veil nebula SNR in O-III light only.

Metsavainio first began planning the process of converting photos of nebulae into 3D back in 2008, and it starts with collecting scientific data about his target nebula.

Usually there is a recognizable star cluster that is responsible for ionizing the nebula. We don’t need to know its absolute location since we know its relative location. Stars ionizing the nebula have to be very close to the nebula structure itself. I usually divide up the rest of the stars by their apparent brightness, which can then be used as an indicator of their distances, brighter being closer. If true star distances are available, I use them, but most of the time my rule of thumb is sufficient. By using a scientific estimate of the distance of the Milky Way object, I can locate the correct number of stars in front of it and behind it.

Nebulae glow due to stellar radiation ionizing elements inside the gas clouds, Metsavainio explains, and the shape of each one can be estimated by looking at brightness at various parts of figure out “thickness” there.

“Many other small indicators can be found by carefully studying the image itself,” Metsavainio says. “For example, if there is a dark nebula in the image, it must be located in front of the emission one, otherwise we couldn’t see it at all.”

Using all of these data points, Metsavainio builds a skeleton model of each nebula and then uses his photos to turn each model into “a sculpture on a cosmic scale.”

My photo of California Nebyla in mapped colors

A very deep image of the veil nebula supernova remnant in mapped colors.

My photo of Bubble Nebula in mapped colors

You can find more of Metsavainio’s work on his website, Twitter, and Instagram.

2021-12-17

Apple Launches Major Chip Advancements: The M1 Pro and M1 Max

Apple has announced the latest generation of its in-house M1 silicon, the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips that both build on the original chip and dramatically expand their power across multiple categories.

Apple says that it scaled up the performance of the original M1 to offer greater power along with what it calls industry-leading power efficiency. The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1 and the GPU in M1 Pro is up to two times faster than M1, while M1 Max is up to four times faster than M1.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max introduce a system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time and feature unified memory, what Apple claims is industry-leading performance per watt, top-tier power efficiency, and increased memory and bandwidth capability. M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth — twice that of M1 Pro and nearly six times that of M1 — and support for up to 64GB of unified memory.

Multiple times Apple pointed out that the latest PC laptops top out at 16GB of graphics memory, and the new M1 Pro and Max chips significantly outpace that. Apple says that the efficient architecture of M1 Pro and M1 Max means they deliver the same level of performance whether MacBook Pro is plugged in or using the battery. M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing.

M1 Pro

M1 Pro uses a five-nanometer process technology with 33.7 billion transistors, which is more than double that of the M1. It features a new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores and is up to 70 percent faster than M1. Compared with the latest 8-core PC laptop chip, M1 Pro delivers up to 1.7 times more CPU performance at the same power level and achieves the PC chip’s peak performance using up to 70 percent less power.

M1 Pro has an up-to-16-core GPU that is up to two times faster than M1 and up to seven times faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip. M1 Pro can be configured with up to 32GB of fast unified memory.

M1 Max

M1 Max uses the same 10-core CPU as the M1 Pro but adds a 32-core GPU for up to four times faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors — 70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5 times more than M1 — M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. It achieves these performance benchmarks while uses up to 40 percent less power: it has the performance of the highest end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using 100 watts less power.

A Complete Pro System

Apple bills both the M1 Pro and M1 Max as designed specifically for pro workflows. They feaure a 16-core Neural Engine for on-device machine learning acceleration and improved camera performance, a new display engine drives multiple external displays, additional integrated Thunderbolt 4 controllers for even more I/O bandwidth, Apple’s custom image signal processor, and Apple’s Secure Enclave.

“The Mac is now one year into its two-year transition to Apple silicon, and M1 Pro and M1 Max represent another huge step forward,” Apple says. “These are the most powerful and capable chips Apple has ever created, and together with M1, they form a family of chips that lead the industry in performance, custom technologies, and power efficiency.”

Developing…

2021-12-17

Photographer Uncovers the Soviet Underworld Below Tbilisi, Georgia

Beneath the streets of Tbilisi lies a network of tunnels, bomb shelters, and Soviet-era chambers that many locals know nothing about. Over the past several months, photographer David Tabagari has been exploring this silent underworld with extraordinary results.

Beginning in the spring of 2021, the professional photographer began venturing into the entranceways most pedestrians pass by without noticing. Many of those unremarkable entrances lead to an underworld with a mysterious and sinister past.

Decaying wagon tracks in a tunnel beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

Tabagari says his day job, working for Tbilisi’s City Hall, has been some help in sourcing information about where the various Soviet-era facilities exist under Tbilisi.

Massive blast doors leading to a bomb shelter beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

But Tabagari says most of his explorations come after spotting telltale ventilation grills at street level and getting information from various networks of “diggers.”

A bottle of vodka named after the infamous Georgian ruler of the Soviet Union in an underground bomb shelter. Photo by David Tabagari.

Tbilisi’s diggers are adventurous Georgians who frequent these secret underground spaces and sometimes share their discoveries in social-media groups.

A ladder leading to a tunnel deep beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

Little information exists about the construction of Tbilisi’s underworld. According to local journalist and academic Emil Avdaliani, much of the underground network was built by Lavrenty Beria, the notorious chief of the Soviet secret police.

Lavrenty Beria (right) with Josef Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, as the Soviet leader works in the background. Photo by David Tabagari.

Along with fellow ethnic Georgian Josef Stalin, Beria oversaw the most savage repressions and massacres of the Soviet era.

A tunnel beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

Passageways under Tbilisi that reportedly lead from a former secret police headquarters to the city’s train station have led to speculation some tunnels were used to transport prisoners or bodies during the murderous “purges” carried out under Stalin and Beria.

Doors of an apparent underground prison discovered by Tabagari. Photo by David Tabagari.

In the summer of 2021, Tabagari read a rumor on online forums about a subterranean prison under central Tbilisi. After searching online and on foot, he eventually found the remains of prisoner cells beneath a former secret police station.

The inside of a cell believed to have held prisoners during the Soviet era. Photo by David Tabagari.

The site is so little-known that when he asked young teenagers playing in a courtyard, none of them had heard of the disquieting space that lay just beneath their feet.

A barred window in the underground prison. Photo by David Tabagari.

Tabagari recalls that “there was no light in this place. It was very hard for me to stand there, where people were hurt or killed.”

Graffiti apparently dating to the Stalin era inside one of the cells in the underground prison. Photo by David Tabagari.

“Some people used metal to scrape their names in the cells” the photographer explained. “Who knows, but I was told by some local historians that it’s possible some of the names were of people who were shot. In these cells you can see the true face of the Soviet Union.”

Posters slowly peeling away from the walls of a bomb shelter beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

Other spaces below ground were built in preparation for nuclear war.

A sign in Georgian for the “Civil Defense Preparation Organization” in a bunker deep below Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

“Every big city in Georgia had underground shelters” Tabagari claims. “Even under the big factories and hospitals and government buildings, they had their own bomb shelters.”

An underground room beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

The photographer says being inside the underground bomb shelters created a powerful reminder of the tension of the Cold War, when the world came close to erupting in nuclear conflict. “You can feel how dangerous it was,” he says.

A GP-5 gas mask. The masks were distributed in most nuclear fallout shelters in the Soviet Union. Photo by David Tabagari.

Tabagari spoke to some diggers who entered Tbilisi’s underworld soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They told him: “Everything inside was perfect. There was water, there was food, there were generators and air pumps. You could have stayed underground for a month.”

A shaft of sunlight cuts through the space of an empty Soviet-era water reservoir on the outskirts of Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

One of the bomb shelters Tabagari encountered beneath Tbilisi was made up of around 150 rooms. The photographer says the shelter was “like a mini city beneath a city” that could be sealed up with massive steel blast doors. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says.

An apparent communications switchboard, with the names of several Georgian cities, in an underground shelter. Photo by David Tabagari.

Tabaguri says the Fight Club-like rule for Tbilisi’s underworld explorers is that they must not touch anything.

Bats in a chamber beneath Tbilisi. Photo by David Tabagari.

Despite drawing attention to the mysterious Tbilisi underworld, Tabagari says he hopes the exact locations will remain the preserve of only the tight-knit group of local explorers.

A digger steps into the street after a session in Tbilisi’s underground network. Photo by David Tabagari.

“If these places become well-known, they will be destroyed,” Tabagari told RFE/RL. “I hope we can keep them our secret.”

You can find more of Tabagari’s work on his Instagram.

About the author: Amos Chapple is a Kiwi who photographs and writes for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He has been published in most major news titles around the world. You can find more of his work on his website. This article was also published on RFE/RL.