ReHacked #52: Stargates portal between two cities, ISS has hit and damaged by space debris,house in rural Japan for $500 and more

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Space Debris Has Hit And Damaged The International Space Station #space

The inevitable has occurred. A piece of space debris too small to be tracked has hit and damaged part of the International Space Station - namely, the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

The instrument is still operational, but the object punctured the thermal blanket and damaged the boom beneath. It's a sobering reminder that the low-Earth orbit's space junk problem is a ticking time bomb.

NSA spying row: Denmark accused of helping US spy on European officials #politics #privacy

Denmark's secret service helped the US spy on European politicians including German Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2012 to 2014, Danish media say.

The Defence Intelligence Service (FE) collaborated with the US National Security Agency (NSA) to gather information, according to Danish public service broadcaster DR.

The Most Expensive Number in Engineering #engineering

By my estimation, a single number cost $1.5 billion on the Space Shuttle. Almost more amazing is what it represents and how it came to be. But for all its importance and intrigue, the number itself has an unassuming name -- the factor of safety.

Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct #nature

Native to China’s Yangtze River, these fish grew 23 feet in length, but haven’t been spotted since 2003.  

The Chinese paddlefish and its close relatives have been around for at least 200 million years. The species, reaching up to 23 feet in length, survived unimaginable changes and upheavals, such as the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs and marine reptiles like plesiosaurs that it swam alongside. In its time, flowering plants evolved, and came to populate the shores of its ancestral home, the Yangtze River, in modern-day China.

Japanese Government Is Selling Houses for $500 to Populate Rural Areas #economy #culture

There are millions of vacant homes in Japan, and some of them are being given away nearly for free.

To find occupants for its millions of "akiya," or unoccupied homes, the Japanese government is enticing would-be homeowners with financial incentives like free properties and sizable renovation subsidies.

Japan's Housing and Land Survey, conducted every five years, logged a record high of 8.49 million akiya in Japan in 2018. Many of these homes were left empty after relatives died or when people moved away, the survey found. The 2018 survey found a 3.2% increase in the number of akiya compared to 2013.

This “stargate” connects two cities 400 kilometers apart #fun

The cities of Vilnius (Lithuania) and Lublin (Poland) are just over 400 kilometers apart as the crow flies. However, they are now connected thanks to a strange connected portal called PORTAL. An artist’s initiative that allows passers-by from both cities to communicate.

Belarus bans most citizens from going abroad #politics

Belarus has temporarily banned most of its citizens from leaving, including many foreign residency permit holders.

There are some exceptions, such as for Belarusian civil servants on official trips and state transport staff.

The State Border Committee's tightening of the rules follows international outrage over Belarus's recent diversion of a Ryanair flight and arrest of a top dissident and his girlfriend on board.

Many dissidents have left Belarus since a disputed election last year.

Helix: A post-modern text editor #software

Mass scale manipulation of Twitter Trends discovered #internet

New EPFL research has found that almost half of local Twitter trending topics in Turkey are fake, a scale of manipulation previously unheard of. It also proves for the first time that many trends are created solely by bots due to a vulnerability in Twitter’s Trends algorithm.

PayPal Shuts Down Long-Time Tor Supporter with No Recourse #internet #freespeech

Larry Brandt, a long-time supporter of internet freedom, used his nearly 20-year-old PayPal account to put his money where his mouth is. His primary use of the payment system was to fund servers to run Tor nodes, routing internet traffic in order to safeguard privacy and avoid country-level censorship. Now Brandt’s PayPal account has been shut down, leaving many questions unanswered and showing how financial censorship can hurt the cause of internet freedom around the world.

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months #history #longread

G7 nations committing billions more to fossil fuel than green energy #nature #economy #politics

The nations that make up the G7 have pumped billions of dollars more into fossil fuels than they have into clean energy since the Covid-19 pandemic, despite their promises of a green recovery.

As the UK prepares to host the G7 summit, new analysis reveals that the countries attending committed $189bn to support oil, coal and gas between January 2020 and March 2021. In comparison, the same countries – the UK, US, Canada, Italy, France, Germany and Japan – spent $147bn on clean forms of energy.

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Dainius