ReHacked #118: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work, Mars rover detects carbon signature that hints at past life source, A NASA Probe Went and Booped the Sun and more
“Gee, will your company be in business in 5 years?” --Nick
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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work - Leiden University #society #economy #futurism
A basic income would not necessarily mean that people would work less. This is the conclusion of a series of behavioural experiments by cognitive psychologist Fenna Poletiek, social psychologist Erik de Kwaadsteniet and cognitive psychologist Bastiaan Vuyk. They also found indications that people with a basic income are more likely to find a job that suits them better.
Unredacted Antitrust Complaint Shows Google's Ad Business Even Scummier than Many Imagined | naked capitalism #internet #bigcorp #copyrights
The State of Texas and fifteen other states plus Puerto Rico have filed a suit against Google for antitrust abuses in the online ad market. Late last week, the Southern District of New York unsealed the complaint, which at this point is the third amended complaint. We’ve embedded the document at the end of the post.
As we’ll discuss, the complaint paints a damning picture of how Google has monopolized all of the critical informational choke points in the online ad business between publishers and advertisers; as one employee put it, it’s as if Google owned a bank and the New York Stock Exchange, only more so.
Mars rover detects carbon signature that hints at past life source | Science | AAAS #nature #science #space
Since 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has trundled across Mars, drilling into rocks and running the grit through a sophisticated onboard chemistry lab, aiming to tease out evidence for life. Today, a team of rover scientists announced an intriguing signal, one that may or may not be evidence of past life, but is, at the very least, surprisingly weird. The team found that the carbon trapped in a handful of rocks probed by the rover is dramatically enriched in light isotopes of carbon. On Earth, the signal would be seen as strong evidence for ancient microbial life.
Mr. Kaor's Portrait – Volendam, Netherlands - Atlas Obscura #world #interesting
Not many people get handwritten letters anymore, especially ones full of inquiring about superficial things like how the weather is. But for the last 40 years, Hotel Spaander in Volendam has received just that, almost daily, from a mysterious man in Japan.
The staff of the Dutch hotel is accustomed to getting a colorful letter from a one Mr. Kaor at least once a week, but often more frequently.
A NASA Probe Went and Booped the Sun - The Atlantic #science #space #nature
The NASA probe, named Parker, made the historic dive in April of last year, but scientists waited until last month to announce the news, after they’d analyzed the data and made sure that the spacecraft had indeed crossed into the top layer of the sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona. NASA then declared that Parker had “touched the sun,” basking in a bit of poetic license. The spacecraft can’t reach down to the photosphere, the layer that radiates light, what’s commonly understood to be the “surface” of the sun. But even that isn’t a distinct, solid surface like the ground on Earth, hence the quotation marks. So touch, shmuch: Parker certainly has, to use a less scientific term, booped the sun.
Ask The Headhunter® - Stupid Interview Questions: #11 #career
Question
What’s a good way to answer stupid interview questions like, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
Nick’s Reply
Answer: “Gee, will your company be in business in 5 years?”
Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens - CTech #privacy
Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus spyware to remotely hack phones of Israeli citizens, control them and extract information from them, Calcalist has revealed. Among those who had their phones broken into by police are mayors, leaders of political protests against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former governmental employees, and a person close to a senior politician. Calcalist learned that the hacking wasn’t done under court supervision, and police didn’t request a search or bugging warrant to conduct the surveillance. There is also no supervision on the data being collected, the way police use it, and how it distributes it to other investigative agencies, like the Israel Securities Authority and the Tax Authority.
eyeo wins landmark copyright court decision; protects digital rights and sets important legal precedent for who ‘owns’ HTML – eyeo GmbH #internet #copyrights
This 2021 copyright lawsuit filed in Hamburg was a new challenge to a 2018 Federal Court case, also brought against eyeo by Axel Springer, which was previously decided in favor of eyeo.
While the website HTML copyright protections sought by the plaintiff appear innocent on the surface, the technical ramifications are onerous and dangerous. In practice, most of the modern browser features that the Internet ecosystem enjoys today would have become instantly illegal, and copyright sanctions would have become enforceable: all privacy and anti-tracking technologies; all website language translation features; all accessibility utilities for blind and handicapped readers; all ad blockers; and all CSS modifications of any kind. The burden would have fallen upon code developers and ordinary users to seek explicit permission from a website publisher to grant an exception to run their browser features — before visiting each and every website.
Rightfully, the Hamburg court rejected the copyright argument from the plaintiffs and once again decided in favor of eyeo.
U.S. FAA clears 45% of commercial plane fleet after 5G deployed | Reuters #security
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Sunday it had cleared an estimated 45% of the U.S. commercial airplane fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5G C-band will be deployed starting Wednesday.
The FAA has warned that potential interference could affect sensitive airplane instruments such as altimeters and make an impact on low-visibility operations.
U.S. passenger and cargo airlines have been sounding the alarm to senior government officials that the issue is far from resolved and could severely impact flights and the supply chain.
Ireland to Launch Universal Basic Income Program for Artists - Artforum International #economy #society
Catherine Martin, Ireland’s minister of tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media, on January 6 initiated an online consultation aimed at soliciting opinions regarding the creation of a basic income plan for a number of the country’s artists. The scheme, which Martin described as a “once-in-a-generation policy intervention,” is meant to assist those working in the fields of arts, culture, audio-visual, and live performance and events who suffered economically as the global Covid-19 crisis surged in-country.
The program will cover two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years. The government has earmarked €25 million ($28.3 million) for the plan, which is expected to go into force later this winter. The online consultation runs through January 27 and follows on a report from a task force assembled by Martin last year to wrestle with the problem of how best to assist those in the culture sector. The committee’s top recommendation was the creation of a basic income pilot program that would award selected arts workers €10.50 ($11.90) per hour.
Google kills YouTube Originals, its original video content group | Ars Technica #internet
Variety reports that Google's original video content group, YouTube Originals, is dead. The YouTube division was founded six years ago to make exclusive, original content for the pay-per-month YouTube Premium service. Now, the group is being shuttered, and YouTube's global head of original content, Susanne Daniels, is leaving the company in March.
Period tracking apps, surveillance capitalism, health data privacy : Short Wave : NPR #health #privacy #podcast
Health apps can be a great way to stay on top of your health. They let users keep track of things like their exercise, mental health, menstrual cycles — even the quality of their skin.
But health researchers Giulia De Togni and Andrea Ford have found that many of these health apps also have a dark side — selling your most personal data to third parties like advertisers, insurers and tech companies. Their research makes clear that surveillance capitalism is here. You are the commodity.
'G Suite legacy free edition users' have to pay for Workspace - 9to5Google #internet #software
In 2020, G Suite became Google Workspace as part of a mass reorganization of the company’s apps for the “future of work.” Various plans were migrated over, and Google is now finally getting rid of the G Suite legacy free edition.
“Google Apps” for businesses and schools were introduced 16 years ago and was discontinued in 2012. However, the company made no significant changes to those free accounts in the past decade, until today.
In an email to administrators this morning, Google said it “will now transition all remaining users to an upgraded Google Workspace paid subscription based on your usage.” As such, Workspace’s only free plans are for Nonprofits and Education (Fundamentals).
After getting free Gmail, Drive, Docs, and other apps for the past several years, companies/people will need to start paying for those Google services and the ability to use your own custom domain (instead of just gmail.com).
Is Google Analytics illegal? - Is Google Analytics illegal? #privacy #software
Due to recent rulings on the GDPR, Google Analytics users are under fire for transmitting personal data outside of the EU.
I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone. : antiwork #programming #career
The Arch Linux Handbook #software
Arch Linux is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose GNU/Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model.
The default installation is a minimal base system, configured by the user to only add what is purposely required.
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