ReHacked #168: Uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments, Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe and more

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Uber broke laws, duped police and secretly lobbied governments, leak reveals | Uber | The Guardian #uberleaks #politics #economy

Leaked messages suggest Uber executives were at the same time under no illusions about the company’s law-breaking, with one executive joking they had become “pirates” and another conceding: “We’re just fucking illegal.”

The cache of files, which span 2013 to 2017, includes more than 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages, including often frank and unvarnished communications between Kalanick and his top team of executives.

Why do so many brands change their logos and look like everyone else? #design #economy

There is a trend in logo design that started around 2017-2018. It’s as if many companies decided that being unique was a handicap and that it was better to be like everyone else. Or at least, that’s how it feels to me.

The trend started with fashion logos. Many iconic fashion companies ditched their recognizable logos and switched to a bland and very similar version of a sans serif font.

The technology sector followed soon after.

NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet | NASA #science #nature

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

Webb Compare to Hubble #science #space

The Uber Leak Exposes the Global War on Workers #economy #society

The 'Uber Files' leak reveals the power of the company’s multimillion-pound lobbying effort – and how it worked with governments across the world to undercut workers’ rights.

State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds #economy #society

Over the past two decades, state lotteries have nearly doubled in size, driving a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer from low-income U.S. communities to powerful multinational companies.

A nationwide investigation of state lotteries by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland found that lottery retailers are disproportionately clustered in lower-income communities in nearly every state. The investigation's analysis of cellphone location data shows that the people who patronize those stores come from the same kinds of communities.

Once rare, lotteries now operate in all but five U.S. states. Driven by more than a half-billion dollars in annual ad spending, lottery ticket sales have grown from $47 billion to $82 billion since 2005, according to La Fleur's 2022 World Lottery Almanac. In 10 states, lotteries generate more revenue than corporate income taxes.

Lofi Girl: YouTube sorry for taking down music stream - BBC News #copyrights

YouTube has said sorry for taking down two of its most popular music streams in response to a bogus copyright claim.

The Lofi Girl channel - famous for its anime-inspired thumbnail - plays relaxing hip-hop music on a loop as a study and sleep aid.

On Sunday, its creator announced its "radios" had been silenced after two years of continuous streaming, sparking an outcry from fans.

YouTube has since confirmed the original claim was "abusive".

Lofi Girl has built up 10 million subscribers with its regularly updated mixes of low-fidelity, instrumental music.

Heathrow tells BA (and other airlines) to stop selling tickets for the Summer period #economy

The Summer air travel situation took a surprising turn on Tuesday when Heathrow effectively stopped airlines from selling any further seats for flights this Summer.

In an open letter, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said that the airport had realised that it was, effectively, no longer possible for it to offer the level of service it wanted this Summer and that something had to give. This is especially true for ground handling staff – albeit these are not employed by the airport – which are still chronically below the number required.

Could there be consequences for Googling how to do something that is normally a crime? - Law Stack Exchange #law #society

40 Years Ago, Disney's Weirdest Failure Changed Sci-Fi Movies Forever #culture #history

When Jeff Bridges rocked the cover of Rolling Stone on August 19, 1982, his most well-known movies were probably The Last Picture Show (1971) and, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), both of which got him Oscar nominations. But on that vintage magazine cover, Bridges is decked-out in a funky costume adorned with circuit-board flourishes. This is his Tron outfit, in which he starred as Kevin Flynn, a programmer who gets sucked into the matrix — sorry — make that the Grid, and has to figure out what it’s like to navigate a video game world from the inside out. Tron was groundbreaking when it debuted, but it was also a failure. Here’s why despite its rocky reception in 1982, it’s still freaking awesome, 40 years later. Mild spoilers ahead.

If the News is Fake, Imagine History | The Network State #society #longread

“If the news is fake, imagine history.” This pithy tweet reverses Orwell, because he who is acknowledged to be faking the present can no longer distort the past. That is, once enough people see that the establishment has been lying about today’s events, they naturally begin to think the establishment might have been lying about yesterday’s news as well.

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