ReHacked vol. 239: Carl Sagan’s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking, The Japanese Art of Luggage Forwarding, 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of obscure ruler from pre-Roman and more
In a chapter titled “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” Sagan reflects on the many types of deception to which we’re susceptible — from psychics to religious zealotry to paid product endorsements by scientists, which he held in especially low regard, noting that they “betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers” and “introduce an insidious corruption of popular attitudes about scientific objectivity.” (Cue in PBS’s Joe Hanson on how to read science news.) But rather than preaching from the ivory tower of self-righteousness, Sagan approaches the subject from the most vulnerable of places — having just lost both of his parents, he reflects on the all too human allure of promises of supernatural reunions in the afterlife, reminding us that falling for such fictions doesn’t make us stupid or bad people, but simply means that we need to equip ourselves with the right tools against them.
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Rare 2,100-year-old gold coin bears name of obscure ruler from pre-Roman Britain | Live Science #history
A gold coin minted by a little-known ruler in ancient Britain — an Iron Age man who said he was as "mighty" as a god — has been found by a metal detectorist and auctioned off in England.
The rare coin was discovered in March 2023 in Hampshire county and was auctioned Sept. 28 for 20,400 British pounds ($24,720), Spink auction house said in a series of statements.
A Latin alphabetic inscription on the coin bears the name "Esunertos," which can be translated as "mighty as the god Esos," (also spelled Esus) the statements said. The name itself is Gaulish, a language commonly spoken in the region at the time, John Sills, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford's Institute of Archaeology who examined the coin before it was auctioned, told Live Science in an email.
The Magical Japanese Art of Luggage Forwarding — Ridgeline issue 170 #travel
If you’re one of these suitcase luggers, there’s an easy, cheap way to relieve yourself of this burden: takkyu-bin (pronounced: tah-cue-bean, written sometimes oddly in English as “ta-Q-bin”).
To send a giant suitcase to your next hotel — arriving next day, waiting in your room, handled with utmost care and gentleness — costs about $13 USD (maybe even less considering current exchange rates). Every hotel (from the humblest Dormy Inn to some oligarch-owned Aman) does takkyu-bin. Every hotel has the forms and will help you fill them out. “Hi, I’d like to send my luggage using takkyu-bin.”
Cold war satellite images reveal hundreds of unknown Roman forts | Archaeology | The Guardian #history
Declassified cold-war spy satellite images have thrown new light on the workings of the Roman empire by revealing hundreds of previously undiscovered forts, with dramatic implications for our understanding, experts have said.
Archaeologists examining aerial photographs taken in the 1960s and 70s said they reveal 396 sites of unknown Roman forts in Syria and Iraq across the Syrian steppe.
The findings, published today in Antiquity, an international archeology academic journal, have now forced a re-evaluation of life at the Roman frontier.
A previous survey of the region in 1934 by Antoine Poidebard, a French Jesuit explorer who pioneered aerial archeology in the Middle East from his bi-plane, recorded a line of 116 forts.
Autumn Haiku Picks From Japan's Poetry Tradition | Tokyo Weekender #culture #art
Despite the moon being a regular monthly presence in the sky, it’s considered an autumn seasonal keyword in Japanese haiku. This is particularly the case for moon-viewing or tsukimi. Tsukimi is a centuries-old practice in Japan, with moon-viewing parties thrown to this day.
詠むるや江戸には稀な山の月
(nagamuru ya Edo ni ha marena yama no tsuki)
Gazing on something
so seldom seen from Edo,
the moon-topped mountains
By Matsuo Basho | Translation by Andrew Fitzsimons from Basho: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Basho
Internet Artifacts #internet #history #fun
Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation - ScienceDirect #society #career
Loyalty is often touted as a moral principle, or virtue, worth exemplifying in social and business relations. But is it always beneficial to be loyal? We investigate possible negative consequences of being a loyal employee in the workplace. Instead of protecting or rewarding them, loyal employees are selectively and ironically targeted by managers for exploitative practices. The targeting of these loyal workers is mediated by the assumption that loyal individuals are readily willing to make personal sacrifices for the objects of their loyalty. We then find evidence for the reverse causal pathway: workers who agree (versus refuse) to be exploited in the workplace acquire stronger reputations for loyalty. These bidirectional causal links between loyalty and exploitation have the potential to create a vicious circle of suffering. We discuss the implications of these results for obtaining a reputation for loyalty.
Microsoft now demands to know why you just won’t use Edge when you inevitably download Chrome using it | TechRadar #software #privacy #bigcorp
Microsoft is making some interesting (and potentially controversial) moves to try and encourage users to its browser, Edge, instead of its arch-rival Google Chrome. If you want to download the installer for Google Chrome using Edge (which is the only web browser pre-installed in Windows 10 and Windows 11), Microsoft now apparently demands to know why in a poll.
Also Microsoft now thirstily injects a poll when you download Google Chrome
Scammers posing as customer service agents on X as companies leave platform | NL Times #internet #security
Since X, formerly Twitter, changed its terms of service, fewer companies are offering customer service via the platform. Scammers are taking advantage of that by posing as companies’ customer services and actively approaching customers who have questions, RTL Nieuws reports.
The name is one of many things that changed at Twitter since Elon Musk took over. Another change is that it is no longer always possible for companies to load questions asked via DM on the platform into their customer service systems. Many companies, therefore, no longer offer customer service on X.
1Password detects “suspicious activity” in its internal Okta account | Ars Technica #security
1Password, a password manager used by millions of people and more than 100,000 businesses, said it detected suspicious activity on a company account provided by Okta, the identity and authentication service that disclosed a breach on Friday.
“On September 29, we detected suspicious activity on our Okta instance that we use to manage our employee-facing apps,” 1Password CTO Pedro Canahuati wrote in an email. “We immediately terminated the activity, investigated, and found no compromise of user data or other sensitive systems, either employee-facing or user-facing.”
Since then, Canahuati said, his company has been working with Okta to determine the means that the unknown attacker used to access the account. On Friday, investigators confirmed it resulted from a breach Okta reported hitting its customer support management system.
NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12 billion miles away #space #engineering #software
Voyager 2 is over 12 billion miles from Earth, making its way through interstellar space. Along its almost 50-year journey, the probe has seen more of the universe than we ever will. Now, NASA has completed a critical software update for Voyager 2 that will help keep it running even longer.
The update, which took almost 18 hours to complete, was transmitted to help Voyager 2 avoid the same problem that its sibling, Voyager 1, experienced last year. Back in 2022, NASA reported issues with readings from Voyager 1’s AACS, which stands for attitude articular and control system. The telemetry data that NASA was getting didn’t make sense, and NASA was concerned it had lost the probe forever.
SFO Alaska Airlines Flight: Pilot Tried To Crash Plane #safety
An off-duty pilot riding in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines' Horizon Air flight bound for San Francisco International Airport (SFO) tried to crash the plane, officials say.
The San Francisco-bound flight on Sunday diverted to Portland, where it was met by law enforcement officers. The flight took off from Everett, Washington, at 5:23 p.m. and landed in Portland an hour later.
Federal officials allege Joseph David Emerson tried to shut down the engines in midflight and had to be subdued by the two pilots.
Privacy Win: Chat Control Has Been Postponed for a Second Time! #privacy
The Council of EU Member States has postponed the final vote on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR), which had been scheduled for Oct. 19th - which is the second postponement already. EU countries simply can't get an agreement on this highly controversial draft, which then - even if EU Member States come to an agreement eventually - also needs to be discussed in the EU Parliament. This is great sign that the regulation, also dubbed chat control and one of the most criticized EU laws ever, might fail.
Shopify Files Lawsuit over Illegal DMCA Takedown Abuse * TorrentFreak #copyrights
E-commerce platform Shopify is suing a 'John Doe' defendant for sending numerous false copyright complaints. The DMCA takedown notices have targeted a variety of vendors, who had their legitimate products taken offline as a result of the fraudulent actions. In addition, these vendors risked losing their entire accounts due to multiple false claims.
The DMCA takedown process gives copyright holders the option to remove infringing content from the web.
It’s a powerful, widely-used tool that takes millions of URLs and links offline every day. This often happens for a good reason, but some takedown efforts are questionable.
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