ReHacked #25: a lot of space news and historical facts. Prepare for a long break to read them all.

Hello, everyone! Today’s read begins from social media and economy, has some strange nature facts and ends with abundant space news and dive into space exploration history. Enjoy!

Italy demands €733M in fines from food delivery platforms #politics #economy

Milan prosecutors and the Italian Labour Inspectorate have jointly ordered four major food delivery platforms to fully hire over 60,000 couriers — and pay a total of €733 million in fines.

Couriers who worked for Uber Eats, Glovo, Just Eat and Deliveroo in Italy from 2017 to 2020 must now be treated as "coordinated and continuous workers," prosecutors declared.

If the companies pay the fines within 90 days, they will be able to avoid criminal proceedings — but legal experts say it's a little more complicated than that.

Scientists begin building a highly accurate digital twin of our planet #science #datascience

A di­gital twin of our planet is to sim­u­late the Earth sys­tem in fu­ture. It is in­ten­ded to sup­port policy-​makers in tak­ing ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures to bet­ter pre­pare for ex­treme events. A new strategy pa­per by European sci­ent­ists and ETH Zurich com­puter sci­ent­ists shows how this can be achieved.

Rare bird: 'Half-male, half-female' cardinal snapped in Pennsylvania #nature

At first Mr Hill wondered if the bird was leucistic - a term that means the specimen would have a loss of pigmentation in its feathers, but would not be half-female, half-male.

But after seeing mobile phone pictures, he suspected it had what is called bilateral gynandromorphism, which is when a bird would have both a functioning ovary and a functioning single testis.

Amazon Sends ‘Vote NO’ Instructions to Unionizing Employees, Tells Them to Use New Mailbox #politics #economy

Unionizing Amazon workers in Alabama received a mailer from the company with instructions imploring them to "Vote NO" on the historic union election and to then "mail the … envelope right away to make your vote count!" A USPS mailbox intended for mailing union ballots was recently installed just feet from where Amazon workers exit and enter the warehouse, a move that workers say makes them feel surveilled in the election, which is supposed to be anonymous.

Apple buys a company every three to four weeks #economy

Apple has acquired about 100 companies over the last six years, the company’s chief executive Tim Cook has revealed.

That works out at a company every three to four weeks, he told Apple’s annual meeting of shareholders on Tuesday.

Apple recently delivered its largest quarter by revenue of all time, bringing in $111.4bn (£78.7bn) in the first-quarter of its fiscal year 2021.

Missed going out during quarantine? Create a pub environment sounds at home. #fun

Rural users testing Elon Musk’s satellite broadband reveal ‘amazing’ improvement #technology #internet

People in rural areas of the UK have reported huge jumps in speed after switching to Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service.

Early testers claim to have achieved download speeds of up to 215 megabits per second (Mbps), making common activities like streaming possible from multiple devices at the same time.

In contrast, some users say their traditional broadband would often lag between 0.5 and 1Mbps, only capable of basic tasks such as email.

Aaron Wilkes, who lives in Bredgar, Kent, told the PA news agency his household’s fixed line should achieve about 20Mbps – significantly less than the 71.8Mbps national average reported by Ofcom for May 2020.

Create fake phone contacts, to do data-poisoning. #software #security

Android phone app that creates fake contacts, which will be stored on your smartphone along with your real contacts. This feeds fake data to any apps or companies who are copying our private data to use or sell it. This is called "data-poisoning".

A Vim Guide for Advanced Users #software

Welcome to the third part of this series aimed to help you unleash a power never seen on Earth using the Almighty Vim. If you don’t understand what’s happening in this article, I recommend you to read the previous ones of the series first

Former SolarWinds CEO blames intern for "solarwinds123" password leak #security

Current and former top executives at SolarWinds are blaming a company intern for a critical lapse in password security that apparently went undiagnosed for years.

The password in question, "solarwinds123," was discovered in 2019 on the public internet by an independent security researcher who warned the company that the leak had exposed a SolarWinds file server.

1991's PC technology was unbelievable #computers #history

ZDNet's 20th anniversary: Thinking about the computer industry from a 20-year perspective makes my head hurt, a lot.

Living Off Grid With No Money #how-to #manual #offgridliving #society #longread

Animated Subway Map GIFs Compared to Actual Geography #fun

Animated GIFs Reveal Differences Between Subway Maps and Their Actual Geography. Big thanks to Nerijus for the link.

The Mars Helicopter is Online and Getting Ready to Fly #space #technology

Earth is the only planet in the solar system with aircraft capable of sustained flight. Suppose the ground-breaking Ingenuity helicopter, currently stowed aboard the similarly spectacular Mars Perseverance rover, accomplishes its planned mission. In that case, Mars will become the second planet to have a powered aircraft fly through its atmosphere.

Apollo in Real Time #space #history

A real-time journey through the Apollo missions. Entirely of historical mission material.

spaceprob.es catalogues the active human-made machines that freckle our solar system #space #engineering #fun

Spaceprob.es catalogues the active human-made machines that freckle our solar system and dot our galaxy. For each space probe, we've affectionately crafted a short-and-sweet summary as well as handpicked geeky hyperlinks.

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Dainius