ReHacked vol. 211: Artist Refuses Prize After His AI Image Wins at Top Photo Contest, Spanish climber emerges after 500 days in cave, and more
Healing effects can occur even when subjects know that they are getting a placebo. --Jens Gaab
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3-2-1..Let's Jam! Emily's Cowboy Bebop Page #fun #art #internet #history
Artist Refuses Prize After His AI Image Wins at Top Photo Contest | PetaPixel #art #ai #copyrights #ethics
A photographer has stirred up fresh controversy and debate after his AI image won first prize at one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions. He has since declined to accept the prize while the contest has remained silent on the matter.
Berlin-based “photomedia artist” Boris Eldagsen participated this year in the World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards, a leading photo contest that offers prizes that include $5,000 cash, Sony camera equipment, a trip to London for the awards ceremony, and/or worldwide publicity through a book and exhibition.
Spanish climber emerges after 500 days in cave | CBC News #world
A 50-year-old Spanish extreme athlete who spent 500 days living 70 metres deep in a cave outside Granada with no contact with the outside world has told how the time flew by, and said she did not want to come out.
Beatriz Flamini, an elite sportswoman and mountaineer, is said by her support team to have broken a world record for the longest time spent in a cave in an experiment closely monitored by scientists seeking to learn more about the capacities of the human mind and circadian rhythms. She was 48 when she went into the cave, and celebrated two birthdays alone underground.
Joe Rogan Issues Warning After AI-Generated Version Of His Podcast Surfaces | ZeroHedge #copyrights #security #ai #alternativereality #deepfake
“This is going to get very slippery, kids,” Rogan wrote on Twitter on April 11 in response to a video of the fake show shared on the social media platform by content creator Farzad Mesbahi.
The fake video is titled “Joe Rogan AI Experience Episode #001” and features “guest” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence system ChatGPT.
Hackers claim vast access to Western Digital systems | TechCrunch #privacy #security
The hackers who breached data storage giant Western Digital claim to have stolen around 10 terabytes of data from the company, including reams of customer information. The extortionists are pushing the company to negotiate a ransom — of a “minimum 8 figures” — in exchange for not publishing the stolen data.
On April 3, Western Digital disclosed “a network security incident” saying hackers had exfiltrated data after hacking into “a number of the Company’s systems.” At the time, Western Digital provided few details about exactly what data the hackers stole, saying in a statement that the hackers “obtained certain data from its systems and [Western Digital] is working to understand the nature and scope of that data.”
Google's 2023 Shutdown Spree: 6 Products Pulled in Just 4 Months #software #hardware #internet #bigcorp
‘Youtube-dl Hosting Ban Paves the Way to Privatized Censorship’ * TorrentFreak #privacy #copyrights
Last week, a German court ruled that Uberspace is liable for hosting the website of youtube-dl, an open-source tool that allows people to download content from YouTube. The owner of the hosting company warns that this "ridiculous" and "devastating" verdict opens the door to privatized censorship.
In 2020, the RIAA infuriated many players in the open source community by targeting YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl.
The RIAA sent a takedown notice to GitHub, alleging that the software bypassed technological protection measures, in violation of the DMCA.
GitHub initially complied but later changed course. After consulting legal experts, including those at the EFF, it restored the youtube-dl repository. GitHub also launched a million-dollar defense fund to assist developers in similar disputes.
Even when we know they’re “fake,” placebos can tame our emotional distress #health #psychology
And yet researchers recently used a pill to reduce guilt in healthy human research subjects. In a study published in Scientific Reports at the end of last year, more than 100 people sat down for a “guilt induction.”1 They intentionally generated feelings of guilt by writing down a time they hurt someone they cared about. The researchers instructed participants to choose events that still made them feel bad when excavated from memory. Subjects later underwent a “guilt boost” where they were asked to close their eyes and dwell on the incident.
The purpose of the exercise was not to make study subjects feel bad, but to see if a pill could ease those bad feelings. The twist: The pill was a form of deception. It contained only lactose, sucrose, and glucose; it was a placebo. In the end, the study subjects’ feelings of guilt were significantly reduced after taking the pill—the pain of old hurts softened, the ghosts quelled.
A top newly appointed Nasa official has taken an unconventional oath to assume charge of her duties.
Makenzie Lystrup, who became the first woman in Nasa’s history to be appointed the director of Goddard Space Flight Center on Thursday, took her oath on a copy of Carl Sagan’s 1994 book Pale Blue Dot instead of the conventional practice of using the Bible.
Microsoft is Slowly Rolling Out Ads in Windows 11 Start Menu #software #privacy
These definitely-not-ads appear as a kind of promotion when users click on the Windows button on the desktop, asking them to, for instance, “Back up your files.” Clicking the “Start backup” button will open OneDrive, enticing users to sign up for Microsoft’s cloud backup service (you get 5GB of OneDrive data for free, but that’s not enough for a full backup). Microsoft shared a small screenshot of what the promotions look like, with the text appearing directly above a user’s sign out and account settings options.
NSA prepared courses on security #security
Study: Shutting down nuclear power could increase air pollution | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology #energy #ecology
Their analysis reveals that indeed, air pollution would increase, as coal, gas, and oil sources ramp up to compensate for nuclear power’s absence. This in itself may not be surprising, but the team has put numbers to the prediction, estimating that the increase in air pollution would have serious health effects, resulting in an additional 5,200 pollution-related deaths over a single year.
If, however, more renewable energy sources become available to supply the energy grid, as they are expected to by the year 2030, air pollution would be curtailed, though not entirely. The team found that even under this heartier renewable scenario, there is still a slight increase in air pollution in some parts of the country, resulting in a total of 260 pollution-related deaths over one year.
How To Get Started In Soldering for Beginners #skills #hardware #diy
Soldering is rapidly becoming the skill of a bygone era. Much like the ability to drive a car with a manual transmission, read a map, or write a check, Gen Z is learning less and less about how to work with their hands—and it’s time for that to change.
Soldering looks much harder than it actually is, and proves a surprisingly useful skill. It’s a process used to bond wires, cables, and electrically conductive materials via a filler metal, which is, well ... solder. Commonly used to assemble and fix electronics, it establishes a connection between wires and other metal surfaces—among many other uses. Sometimes conflated with welding, this process heats the adjoining metals, but doesn’t melt them.
The biggest EV battery recycling plant in the US is… | Canary Media #economy
Getting rid of old batteries can be a hassle. But for recycling startup Ascend Elements, other people’s garbage is basically a gold mine, if not better.
The Massachusetts-based company opened a recycling plant in Covington, Georgia in late March that it says is the largest electric-vehicle battery recycling facility in North America. It can process 30,000 metric tons of input each year, breaking down old batteries and prepping the most valuable materials inside to be processed and turned into new batteries.
That capacity equates to breaking down the battery packs from 70,000 electric vehicles annually, said Ascend CEO Mike O’Kronley.
Do Kwon converted illicit funds from LUNA to Bitcoin: S.Korean prosecutors #blockchain
South Korean prosecutors have identified 414.5 billion won ($314.2 million) in illicit assets associated with Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon and his associates. Out of the identified illegal assets, prosecutors have linked about 91.4 billion won ($69 million) of the specified amount directly to Kwon.
Although Kwon amassed millions, none of the assets tied to him are recoverable or under the jurisdiction of the South Korean authorities. This is mainly because the now-arrested former CEO reportedly converted most of the illicit funds into Bitcoin using overseas crypto exchanges instead of investing in physical assets, per a report published by local media outlet KBS.
Z-Library Plans to Let Users Share Physical Books Through 'Z-Points' * TorrentFreak #copyrights
Z-Library appears to be shrugging off a criminal investigation as if nothing ever happened. The site continues to develop its shadow library and, following a successful fundraiser, now plans to expand its services to the physical book market. Z-Library envisions a book 'sharing' market, where its millions of users can pick up paperbacks at dedicated "Z-Points" around the globe.
With more than 12 million books in its archive, Z-Library advertised itself as the largest repository of pirated books on the Internet.
Dutch journalist who writes critically on China targeted in “bizarre” intimidation scheme | NL Times #freespeech #world
Volkskrant journalist Marije Vlaskamp said she has been the victim of serious threats and intimidation since last autumn, including when individual or several people made bomb threats under her name at targeting the Chinese embassy in The Hague and other locations. Threats sent to the Dutch journalist over Telegram demanded that she retract an article critical of China, she wrote in English and in Dutch in the Saturday edition of the Volkskrant. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands responded that it has demanded clarification from China about the intimidation campaign.
Neither the newspaper nor the police have been able to find out who exactly is behind it, but the person who sent the threats claims to represent the interests of the Chinese State. Vlaskamp was a correspondent in China from 2001 to 2019, and has been working as a foreign editor for the Volkskrant since her return to the Netherlands. She regularly writes critically about the Chinese State, and about sensitive subjects such as the oppression of Uyghurs and the activities of Chinese dissidents in the Netherlands.
EY gets banned from new audit business in Germany | The Economist #economy
Ey just can’t get a break. The accounting-and-consulting giant is being sued for $2.7bn by the administrators of nmc, a London-listed hospital operator it had audited and which went into administration after understating debts by $4bn. ey is being investigated by the Financial Reporting Council (frc), a British regulator; the firm denies the administrators’ claims of negligence. Its plan to unshackle an advisory business constrained by its inability to work with audit clients, codenamed “Project Everest”, is in doubt amid a rebellion by a group of American partners. And on March 31st its German arm received the harshest penalty ever meted out by apas, Germany’s accounting watchdog, which includes a €500,000 ($548,000) fine and, worse, two-year ban on auditing new publicly listed clients in the country. This is a financial blow to the firm—and an even bigger reputational one.
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