Monthly Archives: January 2018

Elon Musk is selling a Boring Company flamethrower because why not?

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Enlarge (credit: Boring Company)

Over the last 15 years, Elon Musk’s companies have had a big impact on the rocket, electric car, and battery markets. This weekend, Musk entered yet another new market: flamethrowers. Musk’s Boring Company began selling branded novelty flamethrowers for $500 apiece.

“Obviously, a flamethrower is a super terrible idea,” Musk tweeted on Saturday evening. “Definitely don’t buy one.”

By late Sunday evening, California time, customers had reserved 7,000 of the 20,000 units the company planned to produce.

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Source: Ars Technica – Elon Musk is selling a Boring Company flamethrower because why not?

Artificial Intelligence May Have Cracked Freaky 600-Year-Old Manuscript

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Since its discovery over a hundred years ago, the 240-page Voynich manuscript, filled with seemingly coded language and inscrutable illustrations, of has confounded linguists and cryptographers. Using artificial intelligence, Canadian researchers have taken a huge step forward in unraveling the document’s hidden…

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Source: Gizmodo – Artificial Intelligence May Have Cracked Freaky 600-Year-Old Manuscript

Automation To Take 1 in 3 Jobs in UK's Northern Centres, Report Finds

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Workers in Mansfield, Sunderland and Wakefield are at the highest risk of having their jobs taken by machines, according to a report warning that automation stands to further widen the north-south divide. From a report: Outside of the south of England, one in four jobs are at risk of being replaced by advances in technology — much higher than the 18% average for wealthier locations closer to London. Struggling towns and cities in the north and the Midlands are most exposed. A total of 3.6m UK jobs could be replaced by machines. The Centre for Cities thinktank says almost one-third of the jobs in the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield, near the Sports Direct warehouse, are involved in lines of work under threat as robots begin to replace humans in the years up to 2030. Jobs at the highest risk of replacement include those in retail sales, customer services, administration and warehouse work.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Automation To Take 1 in 3 Jobs in UK’s Northern Centres, Report Finds

Ruling raises songwriter royalties from Spotify, Apple Music by 44%

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Jimmy Iovine announces new Apple Music app. (credit: Megan Geuss)

The mechanical royalty rates from streaming—royalties paid out to songwriters and publishers, as distinct from those paid out to performers—will increase by nearly 44 percent over the next five years. This comes as a result of a ruling from the United States Copyright Royalty Board after hearings that were held from March through June of last year.

Currently, 10.5 percent of streaming services’ monthly gross revenue is assigned to be paid to songwriters and publishers; the payouts are determined by the number of streams in that period. That will rise each year until it reaches 15.1 percent in 2022. This year, the rate will be 11.4 percent, it will be 13.3 percent in 2020, and so on.

Songwriters and publishers have long claimed they’ve gotten the short end of the stick with regards to streaming music royalties. One songwriter, Nashville-based Kevin Kadish, claimed in 2015 that he received only $5,679 from 178 million Pandora streams. In 2016, the National Music Publishers’ Association settled a deal with Spotify to help music publishers and songwriters claim royalties, as the messiness of the current system has led to lawsuits and other negative outcomes.

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Source: Ars Technica – Ruling raises songwriter royalties from Spotify, Apple Music by 44%

Stop Giving Your ISP Extra Equipment Rental Fees – Buy This $50 Modem Instead

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If you’re still paying your cable company a monthly modem rental fee, stop what you’re doing and buy your own for just $50. This model supports maximum download speeds of 680mbps, which should cover just about every cable internet plan out there. Just be sure to clip the $10 coupon to save.

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Source: LifeHacker – Stop Giving Your ISP Extra Equipment Rental Fees – Buy This Modem Instead

Dare To Dream: Man Sets World Record For Juggling Most Samurai Swords

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juggling-katanas.jpg

This is a Guinness World Record video of juggler Josh Horton setting the record for most katanas juggled at once, which surprisingly wasn’t set at ‘any without loss of limb or dying.’ Josh managed to keep four katanas in the air long enough to be crowned world record holder, as well as be offered a very prestigious AND LUCRATIVE position in my traveling circus. Well — what do you say, Josh? “You’re driving from town to town in an old 1985 Chevy Astro van.” No, YOU’RE driving from town to town in an old 1985 Chevy Astro van, I’ve been drinking.

Keep going for the video, which I suspect would not have possible without the training of Master Splinter.

Source: Geekologie – Dare To Dream: Man Sets World Record For Juggling Most Samurai Swords

Steven Soderbergh Loves His iPhone So Much He Wants to Make All of His Movies With It

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You might love your iPhone because it’s easier than ever to take snapshots of your misbehaving dog. Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh loves his Apple product so much he made a feature film with it. It’s a horror flick, and Soderbergh reportedly enjoyed the experience so much he wants to shoot all his…

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Source: Gizmodo – Steven Soderbergh Loves His iPhone So Much He Wants to Make All of His Movies With It

Don’t Use Gordon Ramsay's Trick to Get Out of Speeding Tickets

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Follow Gordon Ramsay’s cooking hacks, not his traffic hacks. Ramsay claims (or jokes) that he covers his license plates in plastic wrap so he can avoid traffic cameras when he speeds his Ferrari around L.A. in the middle of the night. This, is, of course, illegal in California, as in many states. It also might not…

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Source: LifeHacker – Don’t Use Gordon Ramsay’s Trick to Get Out of Speeding Tickets

Longest-standing Video Game Record Declared 'Impossible,' Thrown Out After 35 Years

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Twin Galaxies, the video game record keeper and official source for Guinness World Records, has declared one of the oldest gaming world records invalid after 35 years. From a report: Player Todd Rogers has been stripped of his world record for finishing the simple Atari 2600 racing game Dragster, after months of debate over his completion time. “Based on the complete body of evidence presented in this official dispute thread, Twin Galaxies administrative staff has unanimously decided to remove all of Todd Rogers’ scores as well as ban him from participating in our competitive leaderboards,” reads a post on the Twin Galaxies forum from the organization’s staff. That’s a major blow to a prolific record holder, whose career stretches back to the earliest days of console gaming. Rogers courted controversy with his oldest record, however — and it directly caused his ban. In 1982, Rogers submitted to Activision’s official fan newsletter a time of 5.51 seconds, which the company recognized in print, awarding Rogers a patch Twin Galaxies later added Rogers to its own leaderboards in 2001, and Guinness World Records awarded the player with the honor of holding the world’s longest-standing gaming record in April 2017.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Longest-standing Video Game Record Declared ‘Impossible,’ Thrown Out After 35 Years

In a first, US hit by “Jackpotting” attacks that empty ATMs in minutes

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Enlarge (credit: Martin Iturbide)

For the first time on record, ATMs located in the US are falling prey to jackpotting, an attack in which malicious hardware or software forces the machines to dispense huge amounts of cash to waiting thieves, KrebsOnSecurity reported over the weekend.

Jackpotting has been documented in other countries, but until recently it had never been reported in the US. Citing an unnamed person close to the matter and a confidential alert, reporter Brian Krebs reported on Saturday that the US Secret Service has received credible reports of front-loading ATMs made by Diebold Nixdorf being targeted by so-called cash-out crews. The thieves are carrying out the heists by first getting physical access to the machines and infecting them with malware known as “Ploutus.D.”

“The targeted stand-alone ATMs are routinely located in pharmacies, big box retailers, and drive-thru ATMs,” stated the confidential Secret Service alert sent to financial institutions and obtained by KrebsOnSecurity. “During previous attacks, fraudsters dressed as ATM technicians attached a laptop computer with a mirror image of the ATM’s operating system, along with a mobile device, to the targeted ATM.”

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Source: Ars Technica – In a first, US hit by “Jackpotting” attacks that empty ATMs in minutes

Congress Has Questions About Meltdown and Spectre

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Congress has some questions about Meltdown and Spectre, and they are calling out those involved. Members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have drafted letters to the heads of several companies involved in the security flaw. The companies whose CEO’s received letters are; Apple, Amazon, AMD, ARM, Google, Intel, and Microsoft.



There are some serious questions in these letter, and I am very much looking forward to hearing the response that these companies have to them. The first question in particular “Why was an information embargo related to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities imposed?” is particularly good. Big thanks to thesmokingman for the story.

As more products and services become connected, no one company, or even one sector working in isolation can provide sufficient protection for their products and users. Today, effective responses require extensive collaboration not only between individual companies, but also across sectors traditionally siloed from one another. This reality raises serious questions about not just the embargo imposed on information regarding the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, but on embargos regarding cybersecurity vulnerabilities in general.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – Congress Has Questions About Meltdown and Spectre