ReHacked vol. 234: NASA’s Osiris-Rex capsule lands in Utah with Bennu asteroid sample, The World’s Oldest Active Torrent, Light Saber Transportation and more

‘A treasure for scientific analysis’: Nasa holds Bennu asteroid sample press conference – as it happened | Nasa | The Guardian #science #space #engineering

Scientists say that they expect to have a “pretty good idea of what the nature of the collection is” by 14 October. They added that one of the key scientific objectives for the sample analysis program is to characterize its thermal properties.

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The World’s Oldest Active Torrent Turns 20 Years Old * TorrentFreak #copyrights #history

Twenty years ago, a group of friends shot a Matrix fan film on a limited budget. Sharing their creation with the rest of the word initially appeared to be too expensive, but then they discovered a new technology called BitTorrent. Fast forward two decades and their “Fanimatrix" release is the oldest active torrent that's still widely shared today.

Light Saber | Transportation Security Administration #fun

Sadly, the technology doesn't currently exist to create a real lightsaber. However, you can pack a toy lightsaber in your carry-on or checked bag. May the force be with you.

Pluralistic: Apple fucked us on right to repair (again) (22 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow #copyrights #hardware #economy

Why does Apple hate repair so much? It's not that they want to poison our water and bodies with microplastics; it's not that they want to hasten the day our coastal cities drown; it's not that they relish the human misery that accompanies every gram of conflict mineral. They aren't sadists. They're merely sociopathically greedy.

Tim Cook laid it out for his investors: when people can repair their devices, they don't buy new ones. When people don't buy new devices, Apple doesn't sell them new devices.

Philips Hue will soon force users to create a Hue account and sign in to continue to use the app and control the smart lights. #software #privacy

The SEC cracks down on greenwashing | Semafor #politics #journalism

The EU is also cracking down on greenwashing. From 2026, products that can’t back up the accuracy of products marketed as being “climate neutral,” “eco,” or other sweeping environmental claims will be banned. The new rule, which climate NGOs have long agitated for, will make the EU the toughest region in the world in terms of green claims made to the public, the Financial Times reported. “Carbon neutral claims are greenwashing ,” the head of a European consumer association said. “The truth is that these claims are scientifically incorrect and should never be used.”

Install Windows the Arch Linux Way #software

Installing Windows strictly through the Command Line is an important tool to have. If windows changes the installer or out of box experience, you can bypass any changes with this guide!

Terraria developer bashes Unity, donates $200k to open source alternatives - lemm.ee #software

Airlines make more money from mileage programs than from flying planes - The Atlantic #economy

Last week, Delta Air Lines announced changes to its SkyMiles program that will make accruing status and taking advantage of perks much harder. Instead of relying on a combination of dollars spent and miles traveled in the air, Delta will grant status based on a single metric—dollars spent—and raise the amount of spending required to get it. In short, SkyMiles is no longer a frequent-flier program; it’s a big-spender program. These changes are so drastic that one of the reporters at the preeminent travel-rewards website The Points Guy declared that he’s going to “stop chasing airline status.”

Archaeologists discover world’s oldest wooden structure - News - University of Liverpool #history

Half a million years ago, earlier than was previously thought possible, humans were building structures made of wood, according to new research by a team from the University of Liverpool and Aberystwyth University.

The research, published in the journal Nature, reports on the excavation of well-preserved wood at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dating back at least 476,000 years and predating the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. #health #science

How many clinical-trial studies in medical journals are fake or fatally flawed? In October 2020, John Carlisle reported a startling estimate¹.

Carlisle, an anaesthetist who works for England’s National Health Service, is renowned for his ability to spot dodgy data in medical trials. He is also an editor at the journal Anaesthesia, and in 2017, he decided to scour all the manuscripts he handled that reported a randomized controlled trial (RCT) — the gold standard of medical research. Over three years, he scrutinized more than 500 studies.

For more than 150 trials, Carlisle got access to anonymized individual participant data (IPD). By studying the IPD spreadsheets, he judged that 44% of these trials contained at least some flawed data: impossible statistics, incorrect calculations or duplicated numbers or figures, for instance. And in 26% of the papers had problems that were so widespread that the trial was impossible to trust, he judged — either because the authors were incompetent, or because they had faked the data.

George Orwell - Complete works, Biography, Quotes, Essays #literature

This site contains the complete works of George Orwell, as well as a biography, pictures and famous quotes.

Forty years of GNU and the free software movement — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software #software #history #gnu

On September 27, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the GNU operating system and the launch of the free software movement. Free software advocates, tinkerers, and hackers all over the world will celebrate this event, which was a turning point in the history of computing. Forty years later, GNU and free software are even more relevant. While software has become deeply ingrained into everyday life, the vast majority of users do not have full control over it.

The Pirate Bay Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary * TorrentFreak #copyrights

The Pirate Bay celebrates its 20th anniversary today. Founded in 2003 by a collective of hackers and activists, the small Swedish BitTorrent tracker grew to become a global icon for online piracy. The rebellious torrent site has a turbulent history and clashed with law enforcement authorities on multiple occasions. Despite these setbacks, it remains online today.

Striking UAW auto workers want a 40% pay increase—how much they make now #economy

Thousands of United Auto Workers members are officially on strike after three Detroit automakers failed to reach an agreement with the union, which represents about 146,000 workers at Ford, GM and Stellantis, by a Thursday night deadline, CNBC reports.

One major issue on the table is worker pay. The union proposed 40% hourly pay increases over the next four years. The average U.S. autoworker on a manufacturing production line earns about $28 per hour as of August, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s up $1 from the previous year.

38TB of data accidentally exposed by Microsoft AI researchers | Wiz Blog #privacy #security

Microsoft’s AI research team, while publishing a bucket of open-source training data on GitHub, accidentally exposed 38 terabytes of additional private data — including a disk backup of two employees’ workstations.

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