If you still look forward to reading a physical newspaper now and then, you might have been in for a rude surprise this weekend. An unspecified malware strain has attacked Tribune Publishing’s network, delaying the release of Saturday editions of at…
Source: Engadget – Malware stalls delivery of LA Times and other major US newspapers
Monthly Archives: December 2018
Check Out Sara Pichelli's Fantastic Original Illustration for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Miles Morales, breakout hero of Into the Spider-Verse and one of the best and most memorable Spider-people around, was created by two people: writer Brian Michael Bendis, and artist Sara Pichelli.
Source: io9 – Check Out Sara Pichelli’s Fantastic Original Illustration for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Get Two Amazon Echo Dots And A Pair Of TP-Link Smart Plug For $70 With This Hot Deal
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If you’re looking to expand your footprint with regards to smart home integration, or are simply looking to get started from scratch, we’ve got an excellent deal for you today. Best Buy is currently running a promotion that nets you two third-generation Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers plus two TP-Link HS105 Smart Wi-Fi Plug Minis for just $70.
The
Source: Hot Hardware – Get Two Amazon Echo Dots And A Pair Of TP-Link Smart Plug For With This Hot Deal
Jack Black's YouTube Gaming Channel Hits 1 Million Subs with Only One Video
Actor and comedian Jack Black has launched a gaming channel on YouTube, “Jablinski Gaming,” and things are off to an incredible start despite the utter lack of content. The venture is barely a week old, but Black has already managed to acquire over a million subscriptions thanks to his celebrity. Only two videos are available thus far, in which Black announces his intention to overtake Ninja and PewDiePie in popularity.
The quick sub escalation was a bit expected. When Black first announced he was making the leap into gaming, his big reveal hit astronomical numbers instantly. He’s also been in the public eye for decades for his acting and his comedic band Tenacious D. With gaming being such a huge part of mainstream culture in recent years – and a notable source of income when done correctly – it’s fun to see him bring his specific brand of humor over into our community.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Jack Black’s YouTube Gaming Channel Hits 1 Million Subs with Only One Video
As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic
An anonymous reader shared a report: Sam Schreiber was mid-shampoo at a Drybar blow-dry salon in Los Angeles when someone from the front desk approached her stylist with an emergency: a woman was trying to pay for her blow-out with cash. “There was this beat of silence,” says Ms. Schreiber, 33 years old. “She literally brought $40.” More and more businesses like Drybar don’t want your money — the paper kind at least. It’s making things awkward for those who come ill prepared. After all, you can’t give back a hairdo, an already dressed salad or the two beers you already drank. The salad chain Sweetgreen has stopped accepting cash in nearly all its locations.
Most Dig Inns — which serve locally sourced, healthy fast food — won’t take your bills either. Starbucks went cashless at a Seattle location in January, and at some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes. The practice of not accepting cash has become popular enough to catch the attention of American lawmakers. […] Despite the popularity of debit- and credit-card transactions, plenty of people do still pay for things with actual money. Cash represented 30% of all transactions and 55% of those under $10, according to a Federal Reserve survey of 2,800 people conducted in October 2017.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It’s Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic
Videos Show Southwest Key Employees Dragging and Shoving Migrant Kids

Using state public-records laws, The Arizona Republic has obtained video from surveillance cameras showing staff at a now-shuttered Southwest Key shelter for migrant children in Arizona physically dragging and pushing children in their care. But authorities determined that the physical aggression used against the…
Source: Gizmodo – Videos Show Southwest Key Employees Dragging and Shoving Migrant Kids
Book tells the inside story of how Reddit came to be the Internet’s “id”
Enlarge / Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian (credit: Getty Images)
Entrepreneurs Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman famously founded Reddit as college roommates in 2005. Tech journalist Christine Lagorio-Chafkin’s recent book, We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory, follows their sometimes rocky relationship as Reddit grew from a simple, user-directed front page for the Internet, to a scandal-rocked dominating force in online culture.
As the subtitle implies, the site has been at the forefront of issues like the limits of free speech, privacy policies, and the unfettered spread of misinformation or “fake news,” grappling with those thorny matters well before social media giants Facebook and Twitter took notice. In a sense, Reddit is the “id” of the Internet, and that’s what has long fascinated Lagorio-Chafkin. “My friends thought I was nuts talking to these guys who happened into the idea for Reddit,” she said. “It had the reputation of being sort of a cesspool, and I wanted to know just how it got there.”
So she started meeting regularly with Ohanian at a Brooklyn cafe and he told her about the early days when Reddit was still in its infancy. It was a tough summer, personally: his mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, his childhood dog had died, and his girlfriend at the time suffered a nasty fifth story fall. Yet he still threw himself into promoting what Lagorio-Chafkin dubs “a little scrappy site—I mean, they barely had a product.” She was equally impressed with Huffman, and knew he, too, would make a great subject.
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Source: Ars Technica – Book tells the inside story of how Reddit came to be the Internet’s “id”
NYPD Deploying Drone for First Time to Secure New Year's Party
This week’s New Year’s Eve celebration and ball drop in Times Square will be just as noisy, cramped, and packed with security like all others, but the NYPD is introducing new toys to boost the latter, which includes a camera-equipped drone to supplement traditional surveillance tools. The FBI will also be present with new “counter-drone technology” that can block other devices from the area.
In a first, the department will also be deploying its own drone to add another camera to the sky, augmenting the NYPD’s helicopter fleet. The drone will be tethered to the ground and will have an area cordoned off below it to protect revelers in the event of a malfunction. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force will also be on hand with counter-drone technology, authorities said. The extraordinary security measures include welding shut manhole covers and embedding officers inside area hotels.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – NYPD Deploying Drone for First Time to Secure New Year’s Party
Truck Owners Are Blocking Tesla Superchargers in "ICE-ing" Protests
Tesla owners throughout the country claim they’re being harassed by truck drivers who are evidently threatened by the advent and growing popularity of electric travel: in what is being dubbed “ICE-ing” (an acronym for “internal combustion engine”), owners of large, gas-dependent vehicles are going out of their way to piss Tesla drivers off by blocking Supercharger parking spots.
Tesla drivers are reporting a spate of “ICE-ing” by large trucks at Superchargers across the country. In one instance, Reddit user Leicina said a group of trucks blocked all of the charging spots while chanting “F Tesla” before being asked to leave by an employee of the store. Another Tesla owner in Bristol, Tennessee spotted a Dodge Ram truck blocking a charging spot, with the charging cable mockingly attached to the bed.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Truck Owners Are Blocking Tesla Superchargers in “ICE-ing” Protests
Soulja Boy Has Stopped Selling His Consoles Due to a Potential Nintendo Lawsuit
Soulja Boy was confident he wouldn’t be sued for his game consoles and called people “retarded” for thinking so, but new tweets suggest he is now running scared: the rapper acknowledged yesterday he had to “boss up” (with defense lawyers, presumably) because he “didn’t have a choice.” His game consoles are no longer featured on the SouljaWatch website.
Rapper Soulja Boy seems to have had a change of heart when it comes to advertising his “consoles” and putting them on his SouljaWatch website. He has since taken them down presumably because of an impending lawsuit. The “consoles” looked suspiciously like other consoles on the market and included games from retro Nintendo platforms and others, which he didn’t have permission to sell or obtain.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Soulja Boy Has Stopped Selling His Consoles Due to a Potential Nintendo Lawsuit
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Beautifully Remastered Using Unreal Engine 4
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It has been a number of years since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has received an update. However, one fan has taken it upon themself to modernize the award-winning game. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is currently being beautifully remastered in Unreal Engine 4.
YouTube user CryZENx has been lovingly overhauling Ocarina of
Source: Hot Hardware – Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Beautifully Remastered Using Unreal Engine 4
NYPD will deploy a drone at Times Square on New Year's Eve
Security at Times Square tends to be extra-tight on New Year’s Eve, but it’s now poised to have some robotic support. The NYPD is deploying one of its new camera-toting drones at the event for the first time, giving it an aerial surveillance tool th…
Source: Engadget – NYPD will deploy a drone at Times Square on New Year’s Eve
Dev vs. Ops: The State of Accountability
Here’s an analysis by OverOps on how shared accountability affects the delivery of reliable software in a DevOps environment, and what are some of the top challenges teams face when it comes to building and maintaining quality applications. Conclusion from the report [PDF], which relies on a survey of over 2,000 IT professionals around the globe : At the center of this DevOps adoption chaos is the evolving relationship between development and operations. Many organizations are already taking a shared approach to accountability for application health, however they still lack the tools and application visibility needed to know who is ultimately responsible for addressing and fixing each issue. As the lines between these two teams continue to blur, organizations will need to focus on adopting tools that deepen visibility into their applications. Clarifying ownership of applications and services, and avoiding the “multiple owners = no owner” syndrome is a crucial for even the most bleeding edge organizations.
The “Dev vs. Ops: State of Accountability” survey revealed that as more organizations begin the transition to DevOps workflows, defining roles and processes becomes more difficult and more important. Furthermore, businesses of all sizes are building and releasing new code and application features faster than ever before, which adds additional pressure across the entire software delivery supply chain. Organizations going through the DevOps transformation are more likely to face visibility challenges that make it difficult to maintain or improve application quality and reliability.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Dev vs. Ops: The State of Accountability
Updated My Journal: Goodbye!

Today is my last day as the Weekend Editor at Kotaku. That’s right: your Cities: Skylines-loving, Rollercoaster Tycoon-playing, isometric RPG-enjoying buddy is moving on. What can I say? It’s the adventurer’s way.
Source: Kotaku – Updated My Journal: Goodbye!
Netflix Permanently Pulls iTunes Billing for New Users
Netflix has become much less tolerant of Apple’s 15-percent revenue cut for in-app subscriptions: following a test in select territories, the streaming giant will no longer allow new subscribers to sign up and pay for the service via iTunes. While nothing will change for current streamers, new customers will have to join through the official website. Netflix “remains one of the top-grossing apps on Apple’s App Store.”
Music streaming service Spotify, news outlet Financial Times, Fortnite developer Epic Games, and Steam developer Valve have also brushed shoulders with the giants. Epic Games, which first ditched Google Play altogether, launched its own game store for PC and Mac platforms with a 12 percent cut of revenue early this month. Days later, communication platform Discord announced that it was planning to charge only 10 percent on each sale to game developers on its recently launched store.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Netflix Permanently Pulls iTunes Billing for New Users
The Epic Games Store's Latest Freebie Is Super Meat Boy
“Tough as nails” 2D-platformer Super Meat Boy, which stars an animated cube of meat who’s trying to save his girlfriend, is free on the Epic Games Store until January 10. According to indie developers Team Meat, this is the first time the game has ever been offered for free. It may be an attempt to drum up interest for the sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, which will be released next year as a time-limited Epic Games Store exclusive.
Our meaty hero will leap from walls, over seas of buzz saws, through crumbling caves and pools of old needles. Sacrificing his own well being to save his damsel in distress. Super Meat Boy brings the old school difficulty of classic NES titles like Mega Man 2, Ghost and Goblins and Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Japanese one) and stream lines them down to the essential no BS straight forward twitch reflex platforming.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – The Epic Games Store’s Latest Freebie Is Super Meat Boy
A Journey Into the Solar System's Outer Reaches, Seeking New Worlds To Explore
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will visit a tiny and mysterious object in the Kuiper belt on Tuesday, seeking clues to the formation of our cosmic neighborhood. From a report: In June 1983, newspaper headlines declared that NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft had left the solar system, crossing beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system’s big, interesting things — the sun and the nine planets — were behind Pioneer 10. Thirty-five years later, the Kuiper belt — the region Pioneer 10 was just entering — and the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system. In their vast, icy reaches are clues about how the sun and planets, including ours, coalesced out of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago. Even farther out might be bodies the size of Mars or Earth, or even a larger one some astronomers call Planet Nine, and technological advances could usher in a new age of planetary discovery.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 — its designation in the International Astronomical Union’s catalog of worlds — or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – A Journey Into the Solar System’s Outer Reaches, Seeking New Worlds To Explore
KDE Plasma, GNOME Shell, Xfce, LXQt & MATE Linux Gaming Benchmarks, Including X.Org/Wayland
One of the recent leading requests by new Phoronix Premium members was to see some current Linux gaming benchmarks across a variety of desktop environments and with Wayland and X.Org where applicable. Here are those tests with KDE, GNOME, Xfce, LXQt, and MATE when testing with a Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card.
Source: Phoronix – KDE Plasma, GNOME Shell, Xfce, LXQt & MATE Linux Gaming Benchmarks, Including X.Org/Wayland
The good news: “Persona 5 R” is a real thing, presumably an enhanced version of the popular PS4 game

The good news: “Persona 5 R” is a real thing, presumably an enhanced version of the popular PS4 game (like Persona 4 Golden). The bad news: There’s no indication here that it’s coming to Switch. Yet. Developer Atlus says more news is coming in March.
Source: Kotaku – The good news: “Persona 5 R” is a real thing, presumably an enhanced version of the popular PS4 game
Major US Newspapers Crippled By Foreign Ryuk Ransomware Cyberattack
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Typically when we talk about malware, we are talking about malicious code that is hidden inside software to try and take advantage of end users. An example is a malware that was hiding aboard a fake Adobe Flash update that was designed to install cryptocurrency mining software or other nefarious payloads. Earlier this month, another malware
Source: Hot Hardware – Major US Newspapers Crippled By Foreign Ryuk Ransomware Cyberattack


