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Bitcoin’s “genesis block”—the digital token’s very first set of transactions—was mined nine years ago today. The reward for the block computation is listed at 50 BTC, which at today’s price is worth roughly $670,000. First adopted by techno-libertarians with the intention of building a trustless payment system that skirted the regulatory control of governments, the…
She died 11,500 years ago at the tender age of six weeks in what is now the interior of Alaska. Dubbed “Sunrise Girl-child” by the local indigenous people, the remains of the Ice Age infant—uncovered at an archaeological dig in 2013—contained traces of DNA, allowing scientists to perform a full genomic analysis. Incredibly, this baby…
It’s commonly expected that the journey to true love will be sprinkled with deception, but the British ad industry’s self-regulatory watchdog doesn’t believe that should include billboards. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a London Underground eHarmony ad for misleading passersby that the dating service was grounded in scientific proof. The ad in question…
The US and North Korea seem to be on the brink of starting a nuclear war almost every single day here in 2018. But even if a nuclear bomb is used and millions die, whatever humans left surviving will try to achieve some level of normalcy in the aftermath. How do I know that? In…
As far as I can tell, the only downside to living in the woods, besides the bears and coyotes that are plotting to kill you at any moment, is the claustrophobic range of my home wi-fi router. But Netgear claims to have just the device to bring sweet, sweet internet into the great outdoors. The…
Paul LePage, the governor of Maine, is primarily known for being a racist and, as Politico phrased it, “America’s craziest governor.” So, when a young member of his constituency wrote to him expressing her concern that ending net neutrality threatens her education, he responded in just the way you’d expect a raging asshole to respond.…
The founders of Fusion GPS, the private intelligence firm that produced the so-called “Steele dossier,” took to The New York Times on Tuesday night and challenged congressional Republicans to release transcripts of their interviews before the House Intelligence Committee. The explosive op-ed, titled, “The Republicans’ Fake Investigations,” dropped in the middle of a disturbing Twitter…
Sure, the restaurants are great, and you’ve probably got a decent sports team to root for. But the bright lights of a big city mean that at night you can rarely see more than a few stars in the sky, and these stunning timelapses of the galaxy overhead will make you realize the spectacular show…
Just in case you had trouble sleeping after Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump traded threats about each ruler’s “nuclear button,” the North Korean supreme leader also said something uncharacteristically optimistic in his New Year’s Day speech. Kim expressed hope for a “peaceful resolution” to the half-century-old conflict with South Korea and said that talks…
Image recognition technology may be sophisticated, but it is also easily duped. Researchers have fooled algorithms into confusing two skiers for a dog, a baseball for espresso, and a turtle for a rifle. But a new method of deceiving the machines is simple and far-reaching, involving just a humble sticker. Google researchers developed a psychedelic…
Are you having a hard time justifying the cost of Apple’s new $5,000+ iMac Pro? If you’re willing to part with the computer’s matching Space Gray-colored keyboard, mouse, and trackpad, which are only available with the desktop, you could sell them on eBay for obscene amounts and make some of your investment back. How obscene…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that as gadgets get older they slow down—your 3-year-old laptop or phone isn’t going to have the same spring in its step as it did when you first unboxed it. But what are the factors that cause this inevitable sluggishness? Is your precious device quite simply wearing out? Gadget…
There’s small screwups and big screwups. Here is tremendously huge screwup: Virtually all Intel processors produced in the last decade have a major security hole that could allow “normal user programs—from database applications to JavaScript in web browsers—to discern to some extent the layout or contents of protected kernel memory areas,” the Register reported on…
Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, the Donald Trump supporter best known for suspicious deaths in a jail he oversaw, blowing a potential job at the Department of Homeland Security amid a plagiarism scandal, and decorating his uniform with nearly as many dubious pins as a North Korean general, can add temporarily thrown in Twitter…
On New Year’s Eve, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned his enemies “that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office, and this is just a reality, not a threat.” In response, President Donald Trump tweeted…
I’ve been dreading this moment for the last few years. The moment a company would tell me all about its new TV and spend more time on the processor than the display itself. That moment finally came last month when I sat in on a call for LG’s 2018 line up of televisions. While the…
Venezuela and Russia both have economies that are heavily dependent on the price of oil. Both countries are dealing with economic sanctions imposed by the United States. And in the past few days, both countries began moving forward with an official state cryptocurrency. Neither of offering sounds like it should be taken seriously. We’ve mentioned…
It’s not what you think. The YouTube video “Cooking With Your Mouth | Christmas Turkey” sounds like some crazy science experiment where some brave chef heats up ingredients in her cheeks and then swallows them. In fact, it’s much more disgusting than that. I can’t stop watching it, but I also have some questions. Quick…
If you were one of the twelve people passionately awaiting the integration of Cortana with Alexa and vice versa, then I have some news for you. Both Amazon and Microsoft have missed the key “later this year” deadline announced back in August 2017. The original announcement was a splashy affair, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella…
The NES version of Tetris debuted in 1989, but its popularity remains steadfast in the competitive scene nearly 30 years later. Almost every record currently available on Speedrun for Tetris is months, if not days old, with experts practicing to continually hone their craft and dethrone competitors. And then there’s Jonas Neubauer. Better known as…
