Using Art to Fight Climate Change

Art has long been an outlet for social commentary and as climate change continues to dominate the news cycle, more artists than ever are using that outlet to inspire people to action. Valentino Vettori’s immersive Arcadia Earth installation is one stunning example of how artists can come together to create something at once beautiful and thought-provoking. With a full lineup of additional experiential artists, Arcadia Earth sprawls a massive 15 rooms, each focusing on an individual environmental threat. And because they’ll partnered with Oceania Global, visitors can rest assured that the money spent on the ticket will help conservation efforts as well. Running through January 2020 at 718 Broadway.

All photos via TimeOut, by David Mitchell.

Our phones aren’t safe

This isn’t news or a panicked overreaction, just a reminder that our phones aren’t inherently safe and we can’t pretend they are. The years of thinking phones aren’t as vulnerable as a computer or one brand is safer than another are over. Google’s Project Zero has recently posted about sustained targeted attacks against iOS devices over the past two years. A flood of 0-day iOS exploits for sale has pushed their market price below that of 0-day android exploits. A popular app on the Google Play store with over 100 million downloads contained malware that scams advertiser clicks.
Image by Thought Catalog, downloaded from Flickr/stockcatalog.

Celebrating the Software that made the Apollo 11 mission possible

Fifty years ago a crew of three astronauts rocketed out of our atmosphere with the goal of landing on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins are immortalized for landing on the moon. Numerous technological advancements helped NASA achieve its mission, but the work of hundreds of thousands of engineers on the software to control the command and lunar modules was the foundation that made this fantastic adventure possible. Their 145,000 lines of code is surprisingly terse compared to modern software projects. The abort routines written by Margaret Hamilton became one of the more important sections of the code. Aldrin and Armstrong encountered the 1202 “system overloaded” error while attempting to land on the moon. This error nearly stopped their mission short, but the astronauts and command crew back on Earth trusted their software and let the on-board computer reset itself and ignore non-essential routines so all available resources could be focused on the landing.
The moon landing was as much a software engineering project as it was a rocket flight. Happy 50th anniversary to the Apollo 11 mission and everyone that helped all of mankind take that giant leap.
HT WSJ

New Apple Watch Updates Will Protect Your Ears Too

With the new rollout of the Apple Watch updates, users will be able to track their activity trends over time, get alerts to harmful levels of ambient noises, as well as track their menstrual cycle. However small these updates may seem, they actually place a significant importance on turning a user’s Apple Watch as the control center of their health. Since its launch in 2015, Apple has made quite the improvements to its watches that in turn has made it one of the best health and fitness trackers out on the market. Other trackers such as Garmin and FitBit provide dozens of tracking models, whereas Apple is able to pack its few devices with a plethora of features that make it so appealing. Until now, for users that wanted to track their menstrual cycles FitBit has been the obvious choice and for those who want to monitor long-term fitness trends, Garmin has been theirs; with Apple’s expansion making the choice of which tracker to purchase will be far more difficult. The stand out feature on the new Watch will be its noise-monitoring capability. In the US alone, hearing loss affects tens of millions and is slow and gradual; the ability to avoid it with just one alert from a user’s wrist can decrease that number exponentially. It is of no surprise that Apple wants to be the main contender in monitoring personal health and we can expect other health developments in the very near future.

Thrones traffic straining Dragonstone filming location

If you’ve had the opportunity to work on an app or website with a big push on TV then you’ve probably had the fun of dealing with the resulting traffic surge. Good planning, a focus on availability and scaling in your platform, and a responsive hosting provider can help a team cope with that type of visibility. But what if instead of an app or a website, the sudden traffic growth is at a small 10th century church on an islet in Spain?

The Basque islet of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe’s chapel in Bermeo, Bizkai which serves as the filming location for Game of Throne’s Dragonstone castle has seen a dramatic and possibly overwhelming increase in tourists this past summer. According to EL PAÍS at least 75,000 tourists visited the site in July, averaging out to 2,419 people per day that scaled the long slender stairs to reach the top. Local officials are dealing with plans on how to handle the increase in visitors while supporting their tourism economy, preserving the historical significance of the site, and maintaining the unique biotope that extends from Bakio to Cape Matxitxako.

This isn’t a new problem for the TV and film industry though. Other fan favorite locations such as Luke Skywalker’s island from the end of The Force Awakens or the Walsh family house that almost got sold off for a country club expansion have drawn similar attention.

Here Lies iPod Nano and Shuffle

After more than 400 million products sold, Apple has pulled the iPod Nano and Shuffle off its website. The iPod Touch can still be found online however its more similar to an iPhone than its standalone music playing cousin. RIP to a generation of click wheel whirring and waiting for iTunes to sync. I think we can all remember the rise of the iPod, correlating with sites such as Napster and LimeWire, because we well know no one had that kind of money to download several hundred songs. No one will argue its convenient size and ability to create playlists that I usually ended up skipping 10 songs at a time to find the one I was in the mood for. This beginning definitely helped urge in numerous streaming services and algorithms that we all use now that have left the iPod to the curb. The remaining iPods will be sold in stores at least for a little bit longer for those of us who want to relive the glory days.

Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality

Today has been dubbed a “Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality“.  Several of the world’s largest tech companies (including Google and Amazon) are staging elaborate (but worthy) stunts to mess with the internet to prove how important Net Neutrality is. Net neutrality means that internet service providers (oddly enough, AT&T came out in support of Net Neutrality today) have to serve all websites and services with the same speed. They are not permitted to make deals to speed up and slow down traffic to premium sites. Currently there is a FCC rules change that could destroy that neutrality.

“Websites, Internet users, and online communities will come together to sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. We’ll provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your followers / visitors to take action. From the SOPA blackout to the Internet Slowdown, we’ve shown time and time again that when the Internet comes together, we can stop censorship and corruption. Now, we have to do it again!” source

Here is a video explaining more about net neutrality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8v8MhSUvCw

 

If you would like to voice your support in favor of net neutrality, you may do so on the FCC website.

What Kind of Idiot Gets Phished?

One of my favorite podcasts, Reply All has been doing a series of stories on internet security after their founder and president, Alex Bloomberg’s Uber account got hacked. The story that caught my attention was this piece about how easy it is for someone, even smart, internet savvy people to get phished.  Also how things 2-step authentication do not protect you in this case. These phishers are able to mimic the entire google experience in a seamless way that you would never know you’re giving away your information including your 2-step code. It makes me feel a little bit better about all the horror stories you hear with political campaigns and major corporations getting hacked.  It can happen to anyone so just be suspicious and careful out there on the world wide web!

Listen to the story here and I highly recommend subscribing to all of Gimlet’s podcasts.

Open Sourcing Mental Illness

Starting in 2013 as a speaking series by Ed Finkler, Open Sourcing Mental Illness is the largest 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to mental health in tech. They help to help shine a light on problems that have too long been a taboo discussion topic in the workplace. Since its inception Ed has given over 50 talks at conferences, meetups and corporate events spreading the message of OSMI. In addition to the talks, OSMI conducts research by polling the tech community to help gauge the attitudes towards mental health in the workplace and produces documentation to improve the workplace for those that suffer from mental health disorders.

Their 2017 fundraising campaign recently kicked off and they’re goal is to collect $50,000 to continue and expand their work.

Google’s ‘Noto’: Free and readable in over 800 languages

If you’ve ever digitally communicated with someone in another language and you’ve never heard the term “tofu,” you’ve almost certainly experienced what it describes. “Tofu” is the nickname given to the square blocks that appear in text in place of specific characters that your language doesn’t recognize. Now, with the release of ‘Noto,’ Google and Monotype have set out to eliminate “tofu” from getting in the way: simultaneously unifying a multitude of different typesets and encouraging global communication.

‘Noto’, short for “no tofu,” is the result of five years worth of work on the part of its creators to build a universal typeface that can be translated into over 800 languages, including those that are lesser-used or “dead.” On top of the legibility of the typeface, they also set out to make sure that it was aesthetically pleasing and acceptable for each culture. For example, seeking critique and approval from Buddhist monks for the Tibetan version of the design. After such significant research, the resulting product is clean and crisp and highly accessible.

More information, including download instructions here.