ReHacked #76: How We Live With the Coronavirus Forever, Escaping Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox, Fighting Like Taliban and more

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How We Live With the Coronavirus Forever - The Atlantic #health #society
In the 1980s, doctors at an English hospital deliberately tried to infect 15 volunteers with a coronavirus. COVID-19 did not yet exist—what interested those doctors was a coronavirus in the same family called 229E, which causes the common cold. 229E is both ubiquitous and obscure. Most of us have had it, probably first as children, but the resulting colds were so mild as to be unremarkable. And indeed, of the 15 adult volunteers who got 229E misted up their nose, only 10 became infected, and of those, only eight actually developed cold symptoms.
The following year, the doctors repeated their experiment. They tracked down all but one of the original volunteers and sprayed 229E up their nose again. Six of the previously infected became reinfected, but the second time, none developed symptoms. From this, the doctors surmised that immunity against coronavirus infection wanes quickly and reinfections are common. But subsequent infections are milder—even asymptomatic. Not only have most of us likely been infected with 229E before, but we’ve probably been infected more than once.
The web of today #fun #internet #ui/ux
GitHub - sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi: Code. Music. Live. #software
Sonic Pi is a complete open source programming environment originally designed to explore and teach programming concepts within schools through the process of creating new sounds.
In addition to being an engaging education resource it has evolved into an extremely powerful and performance-ready live coding instrument suitable for professional artists and DJs.
Netta Engelhardt Has Escaped Hawking’s Black Hole Paradox | Quanta Magazine #nature #physics #science #longread
Hawking’s calculation posed a paradox — the infamous “black hole information paradox” — that has motivated research in fundamental physics ever since. On the one hand, quantum mechanics, the rulebook for particles, says that information about particles’ past states gets carried forward as they evolve — a bedrock principle called “unitarity.” But black holes take their cues from general relativity, the theory that space and time form a bendy fabric and gravity is the fabric’s curves. Hawking had tried to apply quantum mechanics to particles near a black hole’s periphery, and saw unitarity break down.
So do evaporating black holes really destroy information, meaning unitarity is not a true principle of nature? Or does information escape as a black hole evaporates? Solving the information paradox quickly came to be seen as a route to discovering the true, quantum theory of gravity, which general relativity approximates well everywhere except black holes.
Tech Interview Handbook | Tech Interview Handbook #job #career #link
Fighting Like Taliban – The Scholar's Stage #politics #history
Men fought, men switched sides, men lined up and fought again. War in Afghanistan often seemed like a game of pickup basketball, a contest among friends, a tournament where you never knew which team you’d be on when the next game got under way. Shirts today, skins tomorrow. On Tuesday, you might be part of a fearsome Taliban regiment, running into a minefield. And on Wednesday you might be manning a checkpoint for some gang of the Northern Alliance. By Thursday you could be back with the Talibs again, holding up your Kalashnikov and promising to wage jihad forever. War was serious in Afghanistan, but not that serious. It was part of everyday life. It was a job. Only the civilians seemed to lose.
Plane damaged after being hit by York police drone at Buttonville Airport | CTV News #aviation #safety
A plane has major damage after a York Regional Police (YRP) drone struck the aircraft at Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport earlier this month.
On Aug. 10, a Canadian Flyers International Inc. Cessna plane was on a flight to the airport in Markham at an unknown time during the day.
The small plane was about to land at the airport’s runway when the pilot felt a jolt that “pushed them back on their seat”, according to a report from Transport Canada issued this week.
The pilot thought the plane hit a large bird and proceeded to land the plane, the report said.
When the pilot exited the aircraft they saw a “major dent” on the left underside of the engine cowling and the airbox was also bent.
No injuries were reported but the airplane suffered significant damage, including a propeller strike.
Samsung Supports Retailers Affected By Looting With Innovative Television Block Function – Samsung Newsroom South Africa #hardware #privacy #security
Samsung South Africa has announced the implementation of a Television Block Function on all Samsung TV sets. The blocking system is intended to be implemented in respect of televisions that have been obtained by users through unlawful means and in some cases, stolen from the Samsung warehouses. TV Block is a remote, security solution that detects if Samsung TV units have been unduly activated, and ensures that the television sets can only be used by the rightful owners with a valid proof of purchase. The aim of the technology is to mitigate against the creation of secondary markets linked to the sale of illegal goods, both in South Africa and beyond its borders. This technology is already pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3's camera breaks after unlocking the bootloader #privacy #hardware
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 represent the best foldable technologies that Samsung can provide to its consumers. Needless to say, if you are in the market right now for a premium smartphone, the latest Galaxy Z lineup will surely figure in your list as a possible purchase option. While the hardware and software combo make these devices great for most buyers, advanced users and enthusiasts might still feel the need to unlock the bootloader and root these devices to unleash their true potential. Unfortunately, Samsung already makes it extremely difficult to have root access without tripping the security flags, and now the Korean OEM has introduced yet another roadblock for aftermarket development. In its latest move, Samsung disables the cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 after you unlock the bootloader.
Reuters photographer died after being left behind, Afghan general says #world #journalism #inmemoriam
Danish Siddiqui was with soldiers on the front line of an Afghan Special Forces clash with the Taliban. New reporting, and his last photographs, cast light on his final hours, on the collapse of the Afghan military, and on the risks faced by journalists who cover conflict.
EU will make Bitcoin traceable and ban anonymous crypto wallets in anti-money laundering drive | Euronews #blockchain #privacy
Cryptocurrency exchanges could be forced to collect the details of people sending and receiving crypto under new rules proposed by the European Commission.
The EU's executive branch announced the potential change on Tuesday as part of a package of reforms aimed at tackling financial crime within the bloc.
"The aim of this package is to improve the detection of suspicious transactions and activities, and to close loopholes used by criminals to launder illicit proceeds or finance terrorist activities through the financial system," the Commission said in a statement.
SCIENCE HOBBYIST: Top Page - science hobbyist website from 1994. #link #fun #retro
Europe has now created more $1bn 'unicorn' companies than China | Sifted #economy
Europe’s unicorn herd has outgrown China’s, following a bumper year of VC investments into the region. Since 1990, Europe has created 296 unicorn companies, worth more than $1bn in total, whereas China’s created a total of 276.
According to new data from Dealroom, Europe has produced 72 new unicorns in 2021 — more than 3x that of China’s 22. Europe is also the fastest-growing region for VC investment globally, having attracted €49bn of investments so far in 2021 — exceeding China, the US and all of Asia.
More Than 80 Cultures Still Speak in Whistles | Science | Smithsonian Magazine #culture #history #anthropology
Whistled languages are almost always developed by traditional cultures that live in rugged, mountainous terrain or in dense forest. That’s because whistled speech carries much farther than ordinary speech or shouting, says Julien Meyer, a linguist and bioacoustician at CNRS, the French national research center, who explores the topic of whistled languages in the 2021 Annual Review of Linguistics. Skilled whistlers can reach 120 decibels — louder than a car horn — and their whistles pack most of this power into a frequency range of 1 to 4 kHz, which is above the pitch of most ambient noise.
As a result, whistled speech can be understood up to 10 times as far away as ordinary shouting can, Meyer and others have found. That lets people communicate even when they cannot easily approach close enough to shout. On La Gomera, for example, a few traditional shepherds still whistle to one another across mountain valleys that could take hours to cross.
Mental Phenomena Don’t Map Into the Brain as Expected | Quanta Magazine #nature #science
Not only do researchers often depict the brain and its functions much as mapmakers might draw nations on continents, but they do so “the way old-fashioned mapmakers” did, according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University. “They parse the brain in terms of what they’re interested in psychologically or mentally or behaviorally,” and then they assign the functions to different networks of neurons “as if they’re Lego blocks, as if there are firm boundaries there.”
But a brain map with neat borders is not just oversimplified — it’s misleading. “Scientists for over 100 years have searched fruitlessly for brain boundaries between thinking, feeling, deciding, remembering, moving and other everyday experiences,” Barrett said. A host of recent neurological studies further confirm that these mental categories “are poor guides for understanding how brains are structured or how they work.”
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OnlyFans suspends plan to ban "sexually explicit" content - Axios #internet
OnlyFans, an online creator platform known for its adult content, announced via Twitter Wednesday that it has dropped plans to ban sexually explicit content on its platform in October.
Why it matters: The move comes after the proposed ban sparked an outcry from sex workers who relied on the platform to safely make a living.
What they're saying: "Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard," the platform tweeted. "We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change."
Careers - RelevantDB Next Generation Search #career #culture #advertisement
Unlike Silicon Valley, we do not discriminate based on age. Experience matters. We hire old people. (And young people, too.)
Haiku, Inc. has hired an existing contributor to work on Haiku full-time! | Haiku Project #software
Haiku, Inc. is proud to announce that we have hired existing contributor waddlesplash to work on general Haiku improvement full-time. The contract was signed on Monday, August 23, 2021 and waddlesplash plans to start work tomorrow.
Nirvana sued by the baby from Nevermind's album cover - BBC News #copyrights #history
Spencer Elden, the man who was photographed as a baby on the album cover for Nirvana's Nevermind, is suing the band alleging sexual exploitation.
The cover depicts Elden as a four-month-old in a swimming pool, grasping for a dollar bill that's being dangled in front of him on a fishing line.
Now 30, Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising the use of his image on the album.
He also alleges the nude image constitutes child pornography.
"The images exposed Spencer's intimate body part and lasciviously displayed Spencer's genitals from the time he was an infant to the present day," legal papers filed in California claim.
Non-sexualised photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography under US law.
How Data Brokers Sell Access to the Backbone of the Internet #privacy #security #internet
There's something of an open secret in the cybersecurity world: internet service providers quietly give away detailed information about which computer is communicating with another to private businesses, which then sells access to that data to a range of third parties, according to multiple sources in the threat intelligence industry.
The information, known as netflow data, is a useful tool for digital investigators. They can use it to identify servers being used by hackers, or to follow data as it is stolen. But the sale of this information still makes some people nervous because they are concerned about whose hands it may fall into.
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