Tag: cities

Scientists Unearth The Truth Behind Ultra-Creepy Earthquake Lights

Have you ever heard of “earthquake lights”? I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in shake-happy coastal California and this phenomenon is news to me—but, for centuries, people have reported seeing a wide variety of illuminations just slightly before and during major tremblers. The origin of these glows have consistently baffled scientists—and no doubt freaked the hell out of eyewitnesses—but a new study seems to have found an explanation (one that doesn’t involve supernatural forces). Read more…        

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Scientists Unearth The Truth Behind Ultra-Creepy Earthquake Lights

The NSA Has Crazy Good Backdoor Access to iPhones

We already knew that the NSA had developed a taste for intercepting packages to put backdoors in electronics . Now, it turns out that those hacks provide it with almost complete access to the iPhone , too. Read more…        

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The NSA Has Crazy Good Backdoor Access to iPhones

An Electric Chainsaw So Badass It Needs Two Batteries

Electric chainsaws aren’t anywhere near as powerful as the ones with gas engines, but Makita’s X2 LXT comes close—and offers several key advantages if you don’t need a tool capable of clear-cutting a forest. Read more…        

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An Electric Chainsaw So Badass It Needs Two Batteries

12 Maps of America From Before We Knew What It Looked Like

The island of California. A huge triangle of land called Florida. A great ocean that cut down from the Arctic into the Midwest. As the New World came into focus beginning in the 17th century, explorers and cartographers struggled to measure a massive expanse of land that would take centuries to accurately map. Read more…        

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12 Maps of America From Before We Knew What It Looked Like

A US Army Base Is Running a Bunch of Illegal Windows 7 Copies

Given the United States’ intolerance for copyright infringement and the piraters that propagate it , you’d think Uncle Sam would be a little more keen on making sure that his men were playing by the book themselves. As it turns out, a whole mess of computers running unlicensed, illegal copies of Windows 7 belong to none other than the US Army itself . Read more…        

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A US Army Base Is Running a Bunch of Illegal Windows 7 Copies

NSA Paid Security Firm $10 Million Bribe to Keep Encryption Weak

Reuters reports that the NSA paid massive computer security firm RSA $10 million to promote a flawed encryption system so that the US spook organization could wiggle its way around security. In other words, it bribed the firm to leave the back door to computers all over the world open. Read more…        

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NSA Paid Security Firm $10 Million Bribe to Keep Encryption Weak

When Did There Become Too Many Books to Read in One Lifetime?

We’ve all done it: stood in a library, looking around, we’ve been confronted by the fact that there are way, way too many books in existence for us to ever read. But when in history did that happen? Read more…        

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When Did There Become Too Many Books to Read in One Lifetime?

Hackers Broke into the Washington Post for "a Few Days"

Looks like Jeff Bezos’s new toy, The Washington Post, is the latest victim in the hacker war on newspapers . Company officials announced Wednesday that hackers had gained access to employees’ usernames and passwords, though it’s unclear how much data the company lost. Read more…        

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Hackers Broke into the Washington Post for "a Few Days"

The YouTube app is now available on Roku 3, and it features full HD streaming and a send to TV featu

The YouTube app is now available on Roku 3 , and it features full HD streaming and a send to TV feature from your phone. Might we suggest this Beyonce video as a candidate for the first thing you watch? Read more…        

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The YouTube app is now available on Roku 3, and it features full HD streaming and a send to TV featu

Saturday Night Live Hilariously Riffs on Obama’s Recent Tech Troubles

Obama hasn’t had a great time with all things technological recently: Healthcare.gov is still struggling , and he was embarrassingly forced into posing for a selfie with Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt last week. This Saturday Night Live video takes an amusing look at it all. Read more…        

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Saturday Night Live Hilariously Riffs on Obama’s Recent Tech Troubles