Review: The Green Knight weaves a compelling coming-of-age fantasy quest

Dev Patel stars as Gawain—nephew to King Arthur and an aspiring knight—in <em>The Green Knight</em>, filmmaker David Lowery's mesmerizing adaptation of the 14th-century anonymous poem, <em>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</em>.

Enlarge / Dev Patel stars as Gawain—nephew to King Arthur and an aspiring knight—in The Green Knight, filmmaker David Lowery’s mesmerizing adaptation of the 14th-century anonymous poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (credit: A24)

The tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, immortalized in a 14th-century anonymous poem, is among the most popular of the Arthurian legends, second only to the quest for the Holy Grail. Yet I would argue that it has never been successfully adapted to film—until now. Director David Lowery’s new film, The Green Knight, takes some necessary liberties with the source material. But he also artfully weaves in elements and symbols from that source material to create a darkly brooding fantasy quest that is just as richly textured and layered as the medieval poem on which it is based.

(Major spoilers for the 14th-century medieval poem below; some additional spoilers for the film are below the gallery.)

Let’s lay out the basics of the original poem before discussing the clever ways in which Lowery (A Ghost Story, Pete’s Dragon) has reimagined it. As I’ve written previously, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight falls into the chivalric romance genre, relating a well-known story from Arthurian legend in distinctively alliterative verse. (Alliteration was all the rage at the time. I highly recommend J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation from 1925 or Simon Armitage’s 2008 translation, recently revised.)

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Source: Ars Technica – Review: The Green Knight weaves a compelling coming-of-age fantasy quest

With help from Google, impersonated Brave.com website pushes malware

With help from Google, impersonated Brave.com website pushes malware

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Scammers have been caught using a clever sleight of hand to impersonate the website for the Brave browser and using it in Google ads to push malware that takes control of browsers and steals sensitive data.

The attack worked by registering the domain xn--brav-yva[.]com, an encoded string that uses what’s known as punycode to represent bravė[.]com, a name that when displayed in browsers address bars is confusingly similar to brave.com, where people download the Brave browser. Bravė[.]com (note the accent over the letter E) was almost a perfect replica of brave.com, with one crucial exception: the “Download Brave” button grabbed a file that installed malware known both as ArechClient and SectopRat.

From Google to malware in 10 seconds flat

To drive traffic to the fake site, the scammers bought ads on Google that were displayed when people searched for things involving browsers. The ads looked benign enough. As the images below show, the domain shown for one ad was mckelveytees.com, a site that sells apparel for professionals.

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Source: Ars Technica – With help from Google, impersonated Brave.com website pushes malware

The privacy battle Apple isn’t fighting

The privacy battle Apple isn’t fighting

Enlarge (credit: Elena Lacey, Getty Images)

For at least a decade, privacy advocates dreamed of a universal, legally enforceable “do not track” setting. Now, at least in the most populous state in the US, that dream has become a reality. So why isn’t Apple—a company that increasingly uses privacy as a selling point—helping its customers take advantage of it?

When California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018, the law came with a large asterisk. In theory, the CCPA gives California residents the right to tell websites not to sell their personal data. In practice, exercising that right means clicking through an interminable number of privacy policies and cookie notices, one by one, on every site you visit. Only a masochist or a die-hard privacy enthusiast would go to the trouble of clicking through to the cookie settings every time they’re looking up a menu or buying a vacuum. Privacy will remain, for most people, a right that exists only on paper until there’s a simple one-click way to opt out of tracking across the whole Internet.

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Source: Ars Technica – The privacy battle Apple isn’t fighting

H.G. Wells’ “World Brain” is now here—what have we learned since?

H.G. Wells’ “World Brain” is now here—what have we learned since?

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Between November 1936 and November 1937, H.G. Wells gave a series of lectures in Great Britain, France, and the US about the world’s impending problems and how to solve them. The lectures were first published under the title “World Brain” in 1938, and they’re sweeping in scope. Wells argued for rearranging both education and the distribution of knowledge and thought we should probably get rid of nationalism while we’re at it. 

MIT Press has just issued a compendium of these lectures, along with related material Wells presented as magazine articles and radio addresses. The collection also includes a foreword by the science fiction writer Bruce Sterling and an introduction by Joseph Reagle, an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern who writes and teaches about popular culture, digital communication, and online communities

Unequal information

Humanity had all of the information necessary to live together in peace and harmony, Wells told his audiences; the trouble was that this information existed in a disorganized, dispersed state, and most people didn’t have access to it. They certainly didn’t have access to the most up-to-date information, and with the rapid pace of technological advancement in the early twentieth century—leading to cars, planes, and especially radio—information needed updating constantly. 

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Source: Ars Technica – H.G. Wells’ “World Brain” is now here—what have we learned since?

Electric cars have much lower life cycle emissions, new study confirms

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Enlarge / If we’re serious about decarbonizing, the internal combustion engine has to go by 2030-2035, according to a new study. (credit: Reinhard Krull/EyeEm/Getty Images)

If you listen to electric vehicle naysayers, switching to EVs is pointless because even if the cars are vastly more efficient than ones that use internal combustion engines—and they are—that doesn’t take into account the amount of carbon required to build and then scrap them. Well, rest easy because it’s not true. Today in the US market, a medium-sized battery EV already has 60–68 percent lower lifetime carbon emissions than a comparable car with an internal combustion engine. And the gap is only going to increase as we use more renewable electricity.

That finding comes from a white paper (pdf) published by Georg Bieker at the International Council on Clean Transportation. The comprehensive study compares the lifetime carbon emissions, both today and in 2030, of midsized vehicles in Europe, the US, China, and India, across a wide range of powertrain types, including gasoline, diesel, hybrid EVs (HEVs), plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs), battery EVs (BEVs), and fuel cell EVs (FCEVs). (The ICCT is the same organization that funded the research into VW Group’s diesel emissions.)

The study takes into account the carbon emissions that result from the various fuels (fossil fuels, biofuels, electricity, hydrogen, and e-fuels), as well as the emissions that result from manufacturing and then recycling or disposing of vehicles and their various components. Bieker has also factored in real-world fuel or energy consumption—something that is especially important when it comes to PHEVs, according to the report. Finally, the study accounts for the fact that energy production should become less carbon-intensive over time, based on stated government objectives.

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Source: Ars Technica – Electric cars have much lower life cycle emissions, new study confirms

3G-only Kindles begin their long, slow death this year

2007-era Kindles had a pretty good fourteen-year run—but we imagine there are some 2016-era Kindle Oasis (8th-gen) owners feeling pretty salty about their free 3G broadband going away right now.

Enlarge / 2007-era Kindles had a pretty good fourteen-year run—but we imagine there are some 2016-era Kindle Oasis (8th-gen) owners feeling pretty salty about their free 3G broadband going away right now. (credit: Mel Melcon via Getty Images / NineFiveSeven / Jim Salter)

This Wednesday, Amazon sent a notification email to customers who bought early Kindle e-readers. First- and second-generation Kindle and Kindle DX devices had no Wi-Fi support, relying solely on free 3G connectivity to reach Amazon—which is a real problem for those devices, since US mobile network operators will begin reclaiming 2G and 3G frequency bands for use with 4G and 5G this year.

Owners of first- and second-generation Kindles should still be able to use the “Manage Your Content and Devices” page on Amazon to transfer books to Internet-orphaned Kindles via USB cable, but that’s hardly convenient compared to the devices’ original promise of freedom from wires and Wi-Fi passwords alike.

First-gen Kindle owners can get a free 10th-gen Kindle Oasis and cover, and second-gen Kindle and Kindle DX owners are eligible for $70 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $25 in e-book credits—but you’ll need to use a promo code from the email Amazon sent in order to qualify. Without the promo code, Amazon only offers first-generation Kindle owners a $5.00 Amazon gift card.

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Source: Ars Technica – 3G-only Kindles begin their long, slow death this year

Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

Jeff Bezos holding aviation glasses up to his face.

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos holds aviation glasses that belonged to Amelia Earhart at a press conference about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard on July 20, 2021, in Van Horn, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Joe Raedle)

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today rejected Blue Origin’s attempt to block the lunar-landing contract that NASA awarded to SpaceX. The GAO also rejected a similar protest filed by Dynetics.

NASA in April 2020 selected SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to design and build human landing systems. But in April 2021, NASA decided to go only with SpaceX and its Starship vehicle for the Artemis program, which is NASA’s plan to return humans to the Moon by 2024.

“The cost of SpaceX’s bid was about half that of Dynetics, and one-fourth the amount received by Blue Origin,” as our coverage at the time said. While budget was apparently the biggest factor, NASA also “praised the [SpaceX] vehicle’s innovative design and future-looking technology that might also one day be used on Mars” and cited Starship advantages including “a spacious cabin for astronauts, two airlocks, and ample payload capability to bring large numbers of experiments to the Moon and return samples to Earth.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

ASRock Unveils C621A WS Motherboard, Designed for Xeon W-3300 Workstations

On the back of Intel’s recent Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 announcement, ASRock has announced one of the first motherboards to support the new processors, the ASRock C621A WS. Some of its core features include four full-length PCIe 4.0 slots, three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots, two M.2 slots, eight memory slots with support for up to 2TB of DDR4 memory, and dual 10 Gb plus dual Gigabit Ethernet on the rear panel.


The latest iteration of Intel’s 3rd generation Xeon Scalable platform comes via the Xeon W-3300 family, which is essentially Ice Lake for workstations. The top SKU, Xeon W-3375, contains 38 cores (76 threads), with a base frequency of 2.5 GHz, 57 MB of L3 cache, and a maximum TDP of 270 W. All of Intel’s Xeon W-3300 family includes 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes, up to eight-channel DDR4, and support for up to 256 GM LRDIMMs with a maximum capacity of up to 4 TB per socket.



The ASRock C621A WS motherboard uses a transposed single LGA4189 socket and is flanked by eight horizontally mounted memory slots. There’s support for up to DDR4 DIMMs at speeds up to 3200 MT/s, with a maximum capacity of up to 2 TB, with UDIMMs, RDIMMs, and LRDIMMs all supported. Dominating the lower section of the board are four full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots and three full-length PCIe 3.0 x8 slots, with one PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slot and one PCIe 3.0 x1/SATA M.2 slot. For conventional SATA devices, ASRock includes two SATA ports with one mini-SAS HD connector.



As for network connectivity, ASRock includes a pair of 10 GbE that are powered by an Intel X710-ATX Ethernet controller, as well as another pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports driven by a pair of Intel I210 controllers. Other connectivity includes a D-sub video output which allows users to access the board’s BMC functionality, which is provided via an ASPEED AST2500 controller, with a dedicated Ethernet port allowing for remote access to the BMC. In terms of USB, there are four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports on the rear panel, with further expansion available through internal headers. This includes room to installed up to four USB 3.2 G2 Type-C ports through front panel headers, one USB 3.2 G1 Type-A header for two ports, and one USB 2.0 header, which also can support another two ports. 


Although the new Intel Xeon W-3300 family of processors includes native support for Thunderbolt 4 and Intel’s Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, ASRock has opted not to use either of these features. Whether this is intentional from ASRock remains to be seen, as it may release more variants later. At the time of writing, ASRock hasn’t given pricing information, but we expect the C621A WS to be available in retail channels soon.



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Source: AnandTech – ASRock Unveils C621A WS Motherboard, Designed for Xeon W-3300 Workstations

Evolutionary chaos as butterflies, wasps, and viruses have a three-way war

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Source: Ars Technica – Evolutionary chaos as butterflies, wasps, and viruses have a three-way war

Scarlett Johansson sues Disney, says Disney+ release of Black Widow broke contract

A billboard promoting the movie Black Widow with a giant picture of Scarlett Johansson.

Enlarge / A billboard above the El Capitan Entertainment Centre promoting Marvel Studios’ Black Widow on June 22, 2021, in Hollywood, California. (credit: Getty Images | AaronP/Bauer-Griffin)

Scarlett Johansson sued the Walt Disney Company yesterday, alleging that it breached her contract by releasing Black Widow on Disney+ the same day it was released in theaters.

The simultaneous release allowed Disney to pay Johansson less money because she and the Disney-owned Marvel agreed that her compensation for Black Widow “would be based largely on ‘box office’ receipts generated by the picture,” according to Johansson’s complaint filed in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court for the State of California. This was a contract violation because Johansson secured a promise from Marvel that the movie would initially be released in theaters only, the lawsuit said:

To maximize these receipts, and thereby protect her financial interests, Ms. Johansson extracted a promise from Marvel that the release of the picture would be a “theatrical release.” As Ms. Johansson, Disney, Marvel, and most everyone else in Hollywood knows, a “theatrical release” is a release that is exclusive to movie theaters. Disney was well aware of this promise, but nonetheless directed Marvel to violate its pledge and instead release the picture on the Disney+ streaming service the very same day it was released in movie theaters.

The reasons for this were twofold. First, Disney wanted to lure the picture’s audience away from movie theaters and towards its owned streaming service, where it could keep the revenues for itself while simultaneously growing the Disney+ subscriber base, a proven way to boost Disney’s stock price. Second, Disney wanted to substantially devalue Ms. Johansson’s agreement and thereby enrich itself. In the months leading up to this lawsuit, Ms. Johansson gave Disney and Marvel every opportunity to right their wrong and make good on Marvel’s promise. Unlike numerous other movie studios, however—including Warner Brothers who, on information and belief, settled with its talent on films such as Wonder Woman after it released those films “day-and-date” to its streaming service HBO Max last year—Disney and Marvel largely ignored Ms. Johansson, essentially forcing her to file this action.

The lawsuit accuses Disney of intentional interference with contractual relations and inducing breach of contract, alleging that the contract breach “was the direct result of Disney directing Marvel to ignore Ms. Johansson’s agreement and/or overruling Marvel’s wishes to comply with it.” Johansson demanded a jury trial and asked the court for monetary and punitive damages in amounts to be proven at trial.

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Source: Ars Technica – Scarlett Johansson sues Disney, says Disney+ release of Black Widow broke contract

Huawei’s latest flagship phone has HarmonyOS, a Qualcomm SoC, and no 5G

Despite facing down a global chip shortage, a US export ban, and plummeting market share, Huawei is still plowing ahead and announcing its next flagship smartphone, the Huawei P50 Pro. The phone, which was teased back in June, is the company’s first smartphone launching with HarmonyOS, Huawei’s in-house operating system (though it’s just a fork of Android).

Huawei is weathering several storms as best it can, but these storms are leading to a lot of wild product decisions with the P50 Pro. Huawei devices are usually based on the company’s in-house “Kirin” SoCs, made by subsidiary HiSilicon. While the initial versions of the phones will use the 5 nm Kirin 9000 SoC, once the supply on those runs out, Huawei says it will switch to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC. But wait—didn’t the US Government ban companies from exporting US-origin goods to Huawei?

It did, but Qualcomm was granted a license to sell chips to Huawei back in November 2020.

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Source: Ars Technica – Huawei’s latest flagship phone has HarmonyOS, a Qualcomm SoC, and no 5G

Valve issues scathing reply over the facts behind a Steam antitrust case

Valve issues scathing reply over the facts behind a Steam antitrust case

Enlarge (credit: Getty / Aurich Lawson)

Valve has issued a scathing response to Wolfire’s April lawsuit alleging anticompetitive monopoly practices on the Steam storefront. In that response, Valve argues that the suit should be dismissed because it “fails to allege the most basic elements of an antitrust case.”

There’s no right to free Steam keys

Wolfire’s case centers in part on the fact that Valve requires free Steam Keys generated by developers using Valve’s platform to be sold on other platforms at prices no lower than those offered on Steam. But Valve argues multiple times in its filing that it has “no obligation to distribute Steam Keys, let alone to allow developers to use Steam Keys to undercut their Steam prices in other stores.”

The free key system, Valve says, is intended as a way to “[give] developers a free way to sell (or give away) a reasonable number of copies of their Steam-enabled games.” With that in mind, restrictions on off-Steam pricing for those keys “prevents developers from free-riding on Valve’s investment in Steam.” The pricing and quantity guidelines “prevent developers from eroding large quantities of sales on Steam, which Valve bears 100% of the expense of creating and maintaining, yet provides to users for free.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Valve issues scathing reply over the facts behind a Steam antitrust case

This 900-person delta cluster in Mass. has CDC freaked out—74% are vaccinated

Foot traffic along Commercial Street in Provincetown, Mass., on July 20, 2021.  Provincetown officials have issued a new mask-wearing advisory for indoors, regardless of vaccination status, on the latest data showing that Provincetown COVID cases are increasing.

Enlarge / Foot traffic along Commercial Street in Provincetown, Mass., on July 20, 2021. Provincetown officials have issued a new mask-wearing advisory for indoors, regardless of vaccination status, on the latest data showing that Provincetown COVID cases are increasing. (credit: Getty | Boston Globe)

An analysis of a COVID-19 cluster of around 900 people in Massachusetts—74 percent of whom are vaccinated—is among the alarming data that spurred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse course on masks this week.

According to an internal CDC document first obtained by The Washington Post, data on the Provincetown, Massachusetts, cluster showed that vaccinated people carried surprisingly high levels of the delta coronavirus in their noses and throats. More importantly, vaccinated people were found to be spreading the dangerous virus variant to other vaccinated people. Nationwide, the CDC estimated that there are 35,000 symptomatic breakthrough infections per week among 162 million fully vaccinated Americans.

The CDC document overall highlights that delta is extremely contagious—much more so than previous versions of the virus, as well as the common cold or even the seasonal flu. Delta is more in line with the contagiousness of chickenpox, the CDC document said.

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Source: Ars Technica – This 900-person delta cluster in Mass. has CDC freaked out—74% are vaccinated

America’s favorite truck goes hybrid: The Ford F-150, reviewed

 

Ford’s F-series pickup trucks have been the best-selling vehicles in the United States for what seems like forever, so there’s probably a powerful temptation not to mess with something that has worked so well. But the times, they are a-changin’, and so must pickup trucks.

Ford revealed its new ideas in the form of the all-electric 2022 F-150 Lightning this past spring, but there’s another new option for those who to go green(er) but aren’t willing to give up burning hydrocarbons to get around: the F-150 PowerBoost hybrid. While the hybrid is not a game-changer, it offers better mileage and the ability to use it as a 7.2 kWh generator—even while the vehicle is in motion.

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Source: Ars Technica – America’s favorite truck goes hybrid: The Ford F-150, reviewed

Software downloaded 30,000 times from PyPI ransacked developers’ machines

Software downloaded 30,000 times from PyPI ransacked developers’ machines

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Open source packages downloaded an estimated 30,000 times from the PyPI open source repository contained malicious code that surreptitiously stole credit card data and login credentials and injected malicious code on infected machines, researchers said on Thursday.

In a post, researchers Andrey Polkovnichenko, Omer Kaspi, and Shachar Menashe of security firm JFrog said they recently found eight packages in PyPI that carried out a range of malicious activity. Based on searches on https://pepy.tech, a site that provides download stats for Python packages, the researchers estimate the malicious packages were downloaded about 30,000 times.

Systemic threat

The discovery is the latest in a long line of attacks in recent years that abuse the receptivity of open source repositories, which millions of software developers rely on daily. Despite their crucial role, repositories often lack robust security and vetting controls, a weakness that has the potential to cause serious supply chain attacks when developers unknowingly infect themselves or fold malicious code into the software they publish.

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Source: Ars Technica – Software downloaded 30,000 times from PyPI ransacked developers’ machines

New bank-fraud malware called Vultur infects thousands of devices

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Source: Ars Technica – New bank-fraud malware called Vultur infects thousands of devices

Rocket Report: Ariane V returns after long layoff, Rocket Lab’s tough culture

Artist's conception of cutting-edge rockets.

Enlarge / China’s iSpace releases renderings of a 1-, 2-, and 3-core Hyperbola-3 rocket. (credit: iSpace/Andrew Jones/Twitter)

Welcome to Edition 4.09 of the Rocket Report! I was certainly looking forward to the second launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on Friday, and the Atlas V rocket was ready to go. Alas, serious problems with Russia’s new space station module, Nauka, delayed the launch until next Tuesday.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

New Zealand publication investigates Rocket Lab work culture. Former employees of launch company Rocket Lab claim that, behind its flashy public relations, is a toxic culture of fear where people are pushed out of the business and punished for minor transgressions, BusinessDesk reports. The article asserts that founder Peter Beck is an inspirational leader but that his management style is more appropriate for a very small startup rather than a maturing aerospace company. Although Rocket Lab is based it the US, it operates a rocket assembly and launch site in New Zealand.

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Source: Ars Technica – Rocket Report: Ariane V returns after long layoff, Rocket Lab’s tough culture

That time the vault was set too low at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and everybody fell

olympics-vault-set-too-low.jpg

In honor of Suni Lee winning Olympic gold in the women’s all-around gymnastics, here’s that time the officials set the vault too low at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and all the competitors fell and almost killed themselves.

During the all-around competition in the women’s gymnastics at the 2000 Olympics, it was discovered that the vault was too low. This low vault caused Elise Ray to have some scary falls and Svetlana Khorkina to have an uncharacteristic fall. Similar scary falls and uncharacteristic mistakes occurred during the first subdivision during the preliminary competition. Two of the Australian gymnasts (Allana Slater and Brooke Walker) had scary crashes on their vaults. Liu Xuan underrotated her vault. Kui Yuan Yuan and Kristen Maloney injured themselves on the vault. Kui sprained her knee and was out of team finals. Kristen reinjured the leg that had the rod put in to heal her stubborn stress fracture. Kristen Maloney had not fallen in vault in competition since early 1998. Was the vault too low?

The crazy part is the vault was set to 120cm instead of 125cm, meaning a difference of less than two inches was responsible for all this mayhem. To get an idea of what this is like, there used to be a subway station where one of the stairs was a fraction of an inch taller than the rest and it caused everybody to trip. And that was just walking up the stairs. I can’t even imagine what two inches does when you’re flying through the air like the Tasmanian Devil.

Keep going for the full video as well as the full original NBC coverage from the event.

Source: Geekologie – That time the vault was set too low at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and everybody fell

Intense video of a paddleboarder saved by his lifejacket and waterproof phone pouch

paddleboarder-saved-by-phone-pouch.jpg

This is intense footage of a paddleboarder who was saved by his waterproof phone pouch because it allowed him to make the phone call you’re about to hear.

When Alfie got into difficulty while paddleboarding, not only was he wearing a lifejacket that kept him afloat, but he was also carrying his phone with him in a waterproof pouch.

After alerting the Coastguard that he was in danger, volunteers from Abersoch RNLI launched their lifeboat and raced to the scene to pull Alfie from the water.

When afloat, always wear a lifejacket and carry a means of calling for help.

Bravo to the operator as well as Alfie for collectively keeping their cool and giving this story a happy ending. PFD or not, if I was in the same situation I don’t think I’d have the wherewithal to call the coastguard to save my life. No, my final phone call would be to my internet girlfriend who refuses to video chat with me but I know she’s definitely real and loves me because she lets me send her money.

Keep going for the full video. It’s easy to dismiss because Alfie has a lifejacket on, but you can tell the fear in his voice is real.

Source: Geekologie – Intense video of a paddleboarder saved by his lifejacket and waterproof phone pouch