Halloween just wouldn’t be spookacular without spiders, owls, toads, bats, and other creatures of the night. But how did these specific animals make the cut?
Source: TreeHugger – How did these creepy critters achieve Halloween super stardom?
Monthly Archives: October 2017
Feral Announces F1 2017 Linux System Requirements
Feral Interactive has now published the system requirements for their Linux port of F1 2017 with this racing game set to be released on Thursday…
Source: Phoronix – Feral Announces F1 2017 Linux System Requirements
Curing 'affluenza' needs to become a cultural priority
We need to train ourselves not to love buying new stuff so much.
Source: TreeHugger – Curing ‘affluenza’ needs to become a cultural priority
This Pilot Had the Most Spectacular View Flying Into New Zealand
It doesn’t matter what seat you choose on an airplane, your view will never be as breathtaking as what the pilots get to see during your flight. But sometimes the high-altitude scenery is so stunning that pilots feel obliged to share it with the world, like this descent into Queenstown Airport in New Zealand.
Source: Gizmodo – This Pilot Had the Most Spectacular View Flying Into New Zealand
Don't Slather Your C-Section Newborn With Vaginal Fluid Just Yet
If you’re preparing to deliver a baby, you may have read that babies delivered via C-section are deprived of the microbes that babies ordinarily receive on their trip down the birth canal—microbes that may protect against a host of chronic health problems. Over the past decade, scientists have gathered more and more…
Source: LifeHacker – Don’t Slather Your C-Section Newborn With Vaginal Fluid Just Yet
Only Buy Bitcoin If You're Ready to Lose It
If you’ve been tempted to get in on the blockchain currency racket, first read tech writer Mark Frauenfelder’s story of losing access to $30,000 in bitcoin. Ask yourself if you could handle the stress of trying to guess a seven-digit PIN, knowing that every time you guessed wrong, your money would get locked away for…
Source: LifeHacker – Only Buy Bitcoin If You’re Ready to Lose It
The Best Deal In Vaping Is Under $100 For the First Time
The G Pen Elite was already one of the best vaporizers for the money at its usual $150, but today only, you can get it for $99 with promo code ROCKTOBER5. This deal is only available today, so get in before it goes up in a puff of smoke.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Deal In Vaping Is Under 0 For the First Time
This lamp turns on by holding your smartphone hostage
We’ve all seen those tips and tricks for how to stay offline and stop checking our phones so much; after all, constant distractions can kill your productivity. But have you ever thought of just surrendering your phone altogether? It’s what a new desk…
Source: Engadget – This lamp turns on by holding your smartphone hostage
Weird Google Docs Bug Is Locking People Out of Their Drafts
Google Docs users have been hit with a nasty surprise today as they try to edit documents—they’re getting locked out of their drafts and receiving a message warning them that their documents violate Google’s terms of service.
Source: Gizmodo – Weird Google Docs Bug Is Locking People Out of Their Drafts
Pokémon Pikachu Coin Grabbing Piggy Bank
This is the Pokémon Pikachu Coin Bank available exclusively from ThinkGeek (in the US). When a coin is pressed on the activation button, Pikachu reaches out to steal your money, accompanied by a handful of over 200 different sounds and phrases. It’s a great way to save. Unfortunately, the bank costs $30, which means I’d have to do some saving to be able to afford it, which is impossible when I don’t already have an existing bank for saving. It’s a real catch-22. “Joseph Heller would be proud.” What was he, an outfielder? “The guy who wrote Catch-22.” I thought it was a baseball term.
Keep going for a video of the bank in action.
Source: Geekologie – Pokémon Pikachu Coin Grabbing Piggy Bank
Read Quick Fiction on Your Commute With The Shortly App
iOS/Android: Using your commute time to read is a noble goal in theory, and an uphill battle in practice, between crowded trains, interruptions for transfers, and the difficulty of focusing on a long read or massive novel in five-minute increments. But if you still want to get some reading done in the few minutes of…
Source: LifeHacker – Read Quick Fiction on Your Commute With The Shortly App
Surface Pro with 450Mbps LTE launching December 1, starting at $1,149
Enlarge / Surface Pro with a Cobalt Blue Type Cover.
Microsoft already let slip most of the details of the Surface Pro with LTE back in September at its Ignite conference, but today at an event in London, Panos Panay, vice president of Microsoft Devices, formally launched the device and filled in a few of the remaining details.
The Surface Pro with LTE Advanced takes two configurations of the 2017 Surface Pro—both Core i5, one with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage, the other with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage—and adds to them a Category 9 LTE Advanced modem. Given a suitable phone network to connect to, this can offer up to 450Mbps download speed. The modem supports 20 different radio bands and as such should support LTE connectivity in most countries, provided that a suitable SIM is installed. Microsoft insists that LTE battery life will be substantially identical to that when using Wi-Fi, so as long as you’re only using one kind of connectivity at a time.
The LTE versions are being squarely positioned at business customers and what Microsoft calls a “new culture of work”; in particular, the company estimates that by 2020, some half of all workers will be mobile, to a greater or lesser degree, working not just in an office but at home, in airports, cafés, customer sites, or beyond. Even today, Wi-Fi connectivity is neither as ubiquitous nor as reliable as one might like (and security concerns about Wi-Fi in places like cafés and hotels will always be with us), and integrated LTE bridges that gap.
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Source: Ars Technica – Surface Pro with 450Mbps LTE launching December 1, starting at ,149
Some Apple HomePod Sounds Leak, and Boy Are They Soothing
Look, I don’t really care about Apple’s upcoming HomePod because even though it might sound fantastic, I’m not convinced I need to drop $350 on yet another smart speaker. Even so, I appreciate a job well done, no matter how small, and the person or people responsible for the status sounds for the HomePod have created…
Source: Gizmodo – Some Apple HomePod Sounds Leak, and Boy Are They Soothing
Microsoft Engineer Installs Google Chrome During Presentation After Edge Freezes
A reader shares a report: We’ve seen lots of blunders on stage, and still happen occasionally, but this must be the best of all. A Microsoft engineer downloaded, installed, and started using Google Chrome during a live presentation after Microsoft Edge, the default Windows 10 browser, stopped responding in the middle of a demo. In just a few words, Microsoft Edge froze while the engineer was working with virtual machines in the browser, and judging from how fast he proceeded to downloading Google Chrome, this wasn’t the first time it happened. Because, you know, sometimes reloading the page or restarting the browser does help, but you can’t risk hitting the same error twice, right? “I love it when demos break,” he said. “So while we’re talking here, I’m gonna go install Chrome,” he continued before he started laughing, with many people in the audience cheering. “And we’re going to not make Google better,” he added when unchecking the box to send usage statistics and crash reports to Google, as if this made things less worse. “We’re going to do this again, I’m sorry about this. The age of these machines are [sic] wacked down a little bit, there are some things that just don’t work.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Engineer Installs Google Chrome During Presentation After Edge Freezes
Does your neighborhood pass the Trick or Treat test?
Planner Brent Toderian looked at the classic planning concept of Trick or Treat urbanism.
Source: TreeHugger – Does your neighborhood pass the Trick or Treat test?
’Super Mario Run’ isn't as profitable as Nintendo would like
Source: Engadget – ’Super Mario Run’ isn’t as profitable as Nintendo would like
5 Things You Can Do With Animoji
The new iPhone X has some pretty incredible features, like the Face ID biometric lock that lets me open the phone with a look, and the huge display that takes up the majority of the front of the phone. It also has animoji, a new iMessage app that uses the Face ID sensor module to track you facial movements and map…
Source: Gizmodo – 5 Things You Can Do With Animoji
WMO: Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000-Year Record in 2016
According to the World Meteorological Organization, concentrations of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016: the increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years. Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Nino weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.
2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015.”It is the largest increase we have ever seen in the 30 years we have had this network,” Dr Oksana Tarasova, chief of WMO’s global atmosphere watch programme, told BBC News. “The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998, and it was 2.7ppm; and now it is 3.3ppm. It is also 50% higher than the average of the last 10 years.”
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – WMO: Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000-Year Record in 2016
Guy Documents Nearly a Year of Quality Problems with His Tesla Model S
A Tesla owner named Tyler Martin recently uploaded a 25-minute video to YouTube chronicling every issue he’s had with his 2016 Tesla Model S. Among the issues he mentions are paint imperfections, a dusty touch screen, and poor trim alignment on the door — these were what he found on the day the car was delivered. By the time he took his car to a service center, his electric driver-side mirror would only unfold partially.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Guy Documents Nearly a Year of Quality Problems with His Tesla Model S
Giveaway: Toshiba TR200 240GB, 480GB, & 960GB SSDs
In the mood for some free hardware? Well then you’re in luck: our awesome community team in conjunction with Toshiba is holding a giveaway for a trio of the company’s new TR200 SATA SSDs. Altogether we’re giving away one of each capacity: 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB.
| Toshiba TR200 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 240GB | 480GB | 960GB | ||
| Controller | Toshiba TC58NC1010 (Phison S11) | ||||
| NAND | Toshiba 256Gb 64L BiCS3 3D TLC | Toshiba 512Gb 64L BiCS3 3D TLC | |||
| Sequential Read | 555 MB/s | 555 MB/s | 555 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 540 MB/s | 540 MB/s | 540 MB/s | ||
| 4KB Random Read | 79k IOPS | 82k IOPS | 81k IOPS | ||
| 4KB Random Write | 87k IOPS | 88k IOPS | 88k IOPS | ||
| Write Endurance | 60 TB | 120 TB | 240 TB | ||
| Form Factor | SATA | ||||
| Warranty | Three Years | ||||
Our SSD-meister, Billy Tallis, took a look at Toshiba’s new TR200 drives earlier this month. As Toshiba’s newest generation of entry-level SATA drives, the drives are solid, but performance of the drive is understandably bounded by the limitations of the SATA interface and TLC NAND. However the drives also feature great idle power management, making them particularly useful as a laptop upgrade.
The giveaway is running through November 13th and is open to all US and UK residents. You can find the full details for entering the giveaway over on the storage section of our forums.
Source: AnandTech – Giveaway: Toshiba TR200 240GB, 480GB, & 960GB SSDs