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Submission + - SPAM: Million Second Podcast: A Different Way to Crowdsource Content

Submitted by bellwould
bellwould writes: Taking a page from the Million Dollar Homepage playbook, the guys at the Unmade Podcast have rolled out something they call the Million Second Podcast for audio seconds instead of pixels. The deal is that you can snag airtime in 10-second chunks to "post" whatever audio you want. Despite a bit of a slow start, ads have started showing up as expected, but I found more than one that sound like "puzzles". The most interesting so far is a 10-second spot that sounds like a phone call, and nope, it’s not a T9-encoded message. Solve it and you get to post on a “Bragging Page,” and it the proof you provide shows it's a multi-level puzzle. I wonder if they'll censor political content (I didn't read the ToS).

Submission + - SPAM: Million Second Podcast: A Twist on Crowdsourced Content

Submitted by bellwould
bellwould writes: Inspired by Million Dollar Homepage, the Unmade Podcast has launched the Million Second Podcast. You're invited to buy airtime in10-second blocks to share any audio you choose. Despite a slow start, ads have shown up as expected, but I was intrigued by a 10-second segment which sounds like phone call, but reveals itself to be a puzzle. Not a T9-encoded message (I tried), but solving it grants access to a "Bragging Page", while hinting at a layered challenge.

Submission + - How 9/11 and an army of volunteers turned Wikipedia into history's front page (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: In the confusion after the 9/11 attacks, and as phone and internet networks struggled to meet demand, “[y]ou had this massive amount of information-seeking and sense-making that people are trying to make of hugely traumatic events," Brian Keegan, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, tells Alex Pasternack at Fast Company. That day, Wikipedia.org was only nine months old, with only about a hundred editors, but it was ready. "[H]ere’s this platform that’s set up to receive all this demand, not only from a technical capacity, but socially and organizationally.” Then a link appeared on Yahoo's homepage. "That brings in this huge influx of editors who are very motivated to do something altruistic online, whatever they can do.”

The rest is, well, history.

{Shout out to Slashdot, which gave Wikipedia its first traffic bump in the summer of 2001 :}

Submission + - Chinese government lays out new vulnerability disclosure rules (therecord.media)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Chinese government has published new regulation on Tuesday laying out stricter rules for vulnerability disclosure procedures inside the country’s borders. The new rules include controversial articles, such as ones introducing restrictions to prevent security researchers from disclosing bug details before a vendor had a reasonable chance to release fixes and the mandatory disclosure of bug details to state authorities within two days of a bug report.

“This appears to be a sweeping law. It codifies in law some responsible vulnerability disclosure penalties, threatening law enforcement repercussions via the Ministry of Public Safety for any researcher that does not follow the prescribed process,” Dmitri Alperovitch, Chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington-based cybersecurity think tank, told The Record.

Submission + - Exploding stars may have assaulted ancient Earth (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Over the past 2 decades, researchers have found hundreds of radioactive atoms, trapped in seafloor minerals, that came from an ancient supernova explosion marking the death of a nearby star. Erupting from hundreds of light-years away, the flash of x-rays and gamma rays probably did no harm on Earth. But the expanding fireball also accelerated cosmic rays—mostly nuclei of hydrogen and helium—to close to the speed of light. These projectiles arrived stealthily, decades later, ramping up into an invisible fusillade that could have lasted for thousands of years and might have affected the atmosphere—and life. In a flurry of studies and speculation, astronomers have sketched out their potential effects, including a depleted ozone layer, cancer-causing particles, wildfires, and a cooling of the climate that could have helped initiate the ice ages 2.5 million years ago. Most paleontologists are yet to be convinced, but astronomers argue that such supernovae could explain some extinction events that lack customary triggers like volcanic outbursts or asteroid impacts.

Submission + - SPAM: Sega Sued For 'Rigged' Arcade Machine

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sega’s Key Master arcade game is causing problems for the company once again. A new lawsuit alleges that Key Master is intentionally rigged against players. It’s marketed as a game of skill, but players claim machines bar against awarding successful runs, making Key Master more of a chance-based game. Marcelo Muto filed the lawsuit on Monday in a California court. It’s a proposed class action lawsuit looking for $5 million in damages to be distributed amongst wronged consumers. With Sega, Play It! Amusements (which is owned by Sega and now called Sega Amusements) and Komuse America (which co-manufactures Key Master) are named in the suit.

Key Master has been the target of multiple court cases in the past, dating back to at least 2013. This 2021 lawsuit, as well as the others, claims these machines are rigged only to allow players to win prizes at certain times — specifically, at intervals determined by player losses. You’ve probably seen Key Master machines in malls or arcades, touting prizes like iPads, earbuds, and other pricey electronics. To play, you must navigate a key towards a specific keyhole by stopping the automatic movement by hitting a button. If the key goes in, you win the prize. The problem, according to the lawsuit, is that these machines are programmed to only allow players the ability to win after a certain number of player failures. If the machine is not ready to award a prize, it’s allegedly programmed to overshoot the keyhole — even if the player hit the button at the correct time — and force the player to lose.

The problem here is that Key Master isn’t marketed as a game of chance. It’s portrayed as “a simple game of pure skill with a straight-forward directive,” lawyers said. However, lawyers said that the deception behind the machine — that it won’t award players until certain settings are met — is laid out in the game’s manual, which was provided alongside the lawsuit as evidence. In the manual, according to screenshots, the Key Master machine “will not reward a prize until the number of player attempts reaches the threshold of attempts set by [the] operator.” Lawyers for Muto said the default setting is 700, but that each machine can be programmed by individual operators.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Resident Evil Village crack completely fixes its stuttering issues (dsogaming.com) 1

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: As we reported in our PC Performance Analysis, Resident Evil Village was suffering from some really annoying stuttering issues. And, from the looks of it, the culprit behind those stutters was Capcom’s own DRM. Earlier today, EMPRESS cracked this latest Resident Evil game. And, we can now confirm that the pirated version does not suffer from any stuttering issues.

From the looks of it, the culprit behind these stutters is Capcom’s DRM. EMPRESS claims that the game uses Capcom’s anti-tamper V3 and Denuvo V11.

“All in-game shutters like the one from when you kill a zombie are fixed because Capcom DRM’s enty points are patched out so most of their functions are never executed anymore. This results in much smoother game experience.”

Submission + - Study: older LinkedIn users get fewer job offers, but a younger picture helps (psychnewsdaily.com)

Submitted by tinkers
tinkers writes: A new study has found that older job seekers on LinkedIn receive fewer job offers than younger ones. But using a profile photo with a younger appearance reduces this effect. The study's authors say these results reconfirm why photographs are usually absent from traditional resumes or CVs. As such, they suggest that removing photos from LinkedIn might make job-seeking fairer.

Submission + - Is there a universal way to express how to format a number ? (github.com)

Submitted by Pieroxy
Pieroxy writes: I recently created a small open source project to monitor one's computer "essential" metrics: Conkw. Much like Conky, it is aimed at hobbyists that want a small dashboard where their most essential data is displayed. The metrics are exposed through a REST API and there is a HTML UI to display your stuff on any browser (even quite old). The goal was to find some use to the old ipads/tablets/laptops we all have lying around. You can put them next to your screen and have your metrics displayed there. More real estate for the real work on your main screens!

As I was writing this I had to come up with a way for users to format a number. I needed a small string the user could write to describe exactly what they want to do with their number. Some examples can be: write it as a 3-digit number suffixed by SI prefixes when the numbers are too big or too small, display a timestamp as HH:MM string, or just the day of week, eventually cut to the first three characters, do the same with a timestamp in milliseconds, or nanoseconds, display a nice string out of a number of seconds to express a duration ("3h 12mn 17s"), pad the number with spaces so that all numbers are aligned (left or right), force a fixed number of digits after the decimal point, etc.

In other words, I was looking for a "universal" way of formatting numbers and failed to find anything online. Do Slashdot readers know of such a thing or should I create my own?

Submission + - SPAM: New York City's New Biometrics Privacy Law Takes Effect

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new biometrics privacy ordinance has taken effect across New York City, putting new limits on what businesses can do with the biometric data they collect on their customers. From Friday, businesses that collect biometric information — most commonly in the form of facial recognition and fingerprints — are required to conspicuously post notices and signs to customers at their doors explaining how their data will be collected. The ordinance applies to a wide range of businesses — retailers, stores, restaurants and theaters, to name a few — which are also barred from selling, sharing or otherwise profiting from the biometric information that they collect.

The move will give New Yorkers — and its millions of visitors each year — greater protections over how their biometric data is collected and used, while also serving to dissuade businesses from using technology that critics say is discriminatory and often doesn’t work. Businesses can face stiff penalties for violating the law, but can escape fines if they fix the violation quickly. The law is by no means perfect, as none of these laws ever are. For one, it doesn’t apply to government agencies, including the police. Of the businesses that the ordinance does cover, it exempts employees of those businesses, such as those required to clock in and out of work with a fingerprint. And the definition of what counts as a biometric will likely face challenges that could expand or narrow what is covered.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - cURL Author Baselessly Threatened: "I will slaughter you"

Submitted by bellwould
bellwould writes: For over 20 years, the author of cURL has recieved many and varied emails since his email address is in the cURL license file. But as he recently wrote, "I’ve truly never had a problem with these emails, as they mostly remind me about the tough challenges the modern technical life bring to people and it gives me insights about what things that run curl.

But not all of these emails are “funny”.
Category: not funny
Today I received the following email

From: Al Nocai
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 03:02:24 -0600
Subject: I will slaughter you"

Submission + - Zodiac '340 Cipher' cracked

Submitted by bellwould
bellwould writes: The solution to what’s known as the 340 Cipher, one of the most vexing mysteries of the Zodiac Killer’s murderous saga, has been found by a code-breaking team from the United States, Australia and Belgium.

Submission + - Microsoft's new phone is ... $1,400? Why? (cnn.com) 2

Submitted by JustAnotherOldGuy
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Microsoft's first Android phone, the Surface Duo, is coming on September 10, the company announced Wednesday, at a cost of $1,399. What? That's about the same price as a tricked out iPhone 11 Max. Yes, it's expensive. No, people aren't going to rush out to buy it. But Microsoft claims the price and phone make sense for a few reasons. First, it's a dual-screen device. Microsoft described the phone as "a major new form factor," in a blog post. It is essentially a folding tablet, which is also a phone. Each of the Surface Duo's two screens are 5.6-inch displays that combine into a tablet-like 8.1-inch display when unfolded. It has a single camera that supports recording 4K video. So if the phone is really an iPad mini that folds ... and is also a phone ... now we're getting into $1,400 territory. The hinge works both ways, so you can close the phone like a book or open it fully so it's a double-sided phone. At $1400, will this thing catch on or is it another novelty device that will under perform and eventually be abandoned by Microsoft?

Submission + - Aricebo Observatory sustains major damage and is shut down (cnn.com) 2

Submitted by mknewman
mknewman writes: Around 2:45 a.m. Monday, a three-inch auxiliary cable that helped support a metal platform broke, according to a news release from the University of Central Florida. UCF manages the facility alongside Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises, Inc.
When the cable broke, it created a 100-foot gash in the telescope's 1,000-foot-long reflector dish, according to UCF. It also damaged about six to eight panels along the observatory's Gregorian Dome, which is suspended over the reflector dish. The broken cable also twisted a platform used to access the Gregorian Dome, making damage assessment even more difficult.

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