From the front row to the hot seat — what the midterms mean for Big Tech
Technologyvia TechCrunch
Quick Read
After spending two years getting cozy with the White House, Big Tech is suddenly trying to make friends with Democrats, and the open question is whether that image makeover can hold up against what states, local communities, and the markets are about to do.
After spending two years getting cozy with the White House, Big Tech is suddenly trying to make friends with Democrats, and the open question is whether that image makeover can hold up against what states, local communities, and the markets are about to do.
It’s not easy to extract iron from its ore. But the peoples of the ancient city of Great Zimbabwe—the capital of a thriving kingdom in southern Africa between 1000 to 1700 AD—were masters. At sites near the city’s stone ruins, clusters of iron-smelting furnaces survive today as mounds of rubble. At Mashava, a village 25 miles northwest, fragments bear fingermarks of those who long ago smoothed the structures’ clay interiors. Some of the furnaces were nearly an adult’s arm span in width, with walls thick and strong to contain the heat of more than 2,100° Fahrenheit needed to smelt iron. Unlike other furnaces that required workers to force air into them with bellows, these were designed to suck air in, then out through a chimney, no human labor required. This would have made it significantly easier to produce the iron, which was fashioned into hoes, axes, and arrowheads.Read full article Comments
An Estonian newspaper recently revealed that a British soldier disobeyed a direct order to remove the SIM card from his cellphone before being deployed to a part of Estonia, approximately 90 miles west of the Russian border. As a result of his refusal to engage in this element of operational security (opsec), the soldier, Daniel Barton-Kennedy, had his phone hacked, and nude photos of himself were stolen and used as blackmail against him. Eventually, Barton-Kennedy was court-martialed for disobeying a lawful command, pled guilty, was reduced in rank, and ordered to serve 10 months in detention.Read full article Comments
A man in his 20s showed up to a UK hospital with the hilt of a knife sticking out of his face. The 15 mm-wide blade hidden within went completely through his right eye and through his brain, with the tip of the blade hitting the top of his skull. Despite the ghastly injury, the man was alive and conscious when he arrived. He could still talk and move all four limbs. His doctors described him as being in a state of agitation. On the Glasgow Coma Scale, he scored a 12 (E3 V4 M5), indicating a "moderate" brain injury, just one point above "mild." He could open his left eye when told, but otherwise kept it closed (E3 score); he could talk and answer questions, but was confused (V4); and he intentionally moved away when pressure was applied to his body (M5). In a report published Friday in BMJ Case Report, his doctors said they were concerned that in his confused, agitated state he may try to pull the knife out on his own. So, they swiftly sedated and intubated him. They put him on prophylactic treatments for bacterial infections, including tetanus. Then they used images to see what was going on in his head.Read full article Comments
