Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
The Mirai botnet is “evolving” (not the biological metaphor I wanted to hear)
Dyn has not issued anything new on the Oct. 21 DDOS attack that clogged it up and took down some major customers, including Twitter - specifically, who did the attack and why. (Their most recent public report was Oct. 26 on the company blog.) Meanwhile, the Mirai...
Latest sign of a hostile online world: Wikipedia sets up two-factor authentication
Wikipedia has had to change its philosophy (delightfully forward-looking or pitifully naive, depending on your point of view) to cope with the reality of human beings.
Tonight: Science Cafe Concord discusses 3-D printing
Our last Science Cafe before the December break is tonight in Concord. The topic? 3-D printing: It was the next big thing a couple of years ago, with visions of a world where we could print out most of our worldly goods on demand, and then it faded out of view. Two...
Hey, good news! China uses less coal & global CO2 emissions have flattened
How about a bit of good environmental news? Global CO2 emissions has flattened over the past couple of years, largely because China has cut back on its use of coal: The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil...
Climate change isn’t just altering seasons, it’s altering their transition periods (think mud season)
Scientists refer to the transition from winter to spring, as temperatures rise, ice melts and frost heaves buckle our roads, as the “vernal window”, and a new study shows it’s changing. New Hampshire researchers investigating how climate change influences the...
Dungeons and Dragons enters the Toy Hall of Fame
I never was a Dungeons and Dragons fanatic but I know plenty of people who play or used to play, and of course it has become a sort of totem of geek culture. So it's appropriate that it was one of the three playthings just added to the Toy Hall of Fame - along with...
The nation’s first statewide multiple-candidate voting will take place on our border
N.H. has tried for decades to institute some sort of alternative voting – Maine beat us to it.
As hackers eye Internet of Things, here are ways to limit the damage
In light of the DDOS attack on Dyn from scads of infected Internet of Things items, I talked to Dyn fellow Andrew Sullivan about what we, as IoT buyers, should do.
Maine backs ranked-choice voting; Florida likes GMO mosquitoes (sort of)
Tuesday night results of a few ballot initiatives of interest to Granite Geek types: In Maine, there was an effort to allow ranked-choice voting for all statewide and federal elections (not local races). That system is one of several alternatives to the...
How to fake your ballot selfie! (and it might be important)
I have a story and video in the Concord Monitor about how to fake your ballot selfie, so you can go to your blowhard brother-in-law and pretend that you supported his candidate even if you didn't want to. The column and video are here, and they're highly entertaining....
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