How to find the Winter Hexagon or Winter Circle

The brightest stars in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter sky form the shape of a large hexagon, or circle, that will help you locate 6 constellations. Source: https://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns/winter-circle-highlights-brightest-winter-stars…

Bull’s head: The Hyades star cluster

Meet the bright star Aldebaran, part of a V-shaped pattern of stars called the Hyades. This easy-to-find star cluster represents the face of Taurus the Bull. Source: https://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns/v-shaped-hyades-star-cluster-easy-to-find…

Physical Addresses of 270K Ledger Owners Leaked On Hacker Forum

A threat actor has leaked the stolen email and mailing addresses for Ledger cryptocurrency wallet users on a hacker forum for free. BleepingComputer reports: Ledger is a hardware cryptocurrency wallet that is used to store, manage, and sell cryptocurrency. The funds held in these wallets are secured using a 24-word recovery phrase and an optional secret passphrase that only the owner…

The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

Reader shanen shares a report (and offers this commentary): When the open source concept emerged in the ’90s, it was conceived as a bold new form of communal labor: digital barn raisings. If you made your code open source, dozens or even hundreds of programmers would chip in to improve it. Many hands would make light work. Everyone would feel ownership….

YouTube Criticized For Not Removing Post-Election Misinformation

“YouTube is facing growing criticism for allowing election misinformation after it decided not to remove or individually fact-check videos that spread unfounded conspiracy theories alleging voter fraud,” reports NBC News: While all internet platforms are struggling to contain the volume of misinformation since voting ended last week — and all have been criticized to some degree by researchers for their handling…

Here are 3 amazing feats of spiders

Halloween time is spider time. Three amazing spider skills you might not have known about. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/three-amazing-feats-of-spiders…

What’s a Blue Moon, and when is the next one?

We have a Blue Moon coming up on October 31, 2020. It’ll be called a Blue Moon because it’ll be the 2nd of 2 full moons in a single calendar month. And it’ll be near a bright red object in the sky, Mars! Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/when-is-the-next-blue-moon…

Google’s Internal Data Suggests Employees Feel Less Productive At Home

The Information reports:
Google’s engineering directors are grappling with a worrisome trend: internal data that indicate productivity during the coronavirus shutdowns deteriorated among engineers, particularly newly hired ones. One internal survey viewed by The Information found that in the three months ended in June, only 31% of the company’s engineers polled felt they had been highly productive, down 8 percentage points from…

What’s the birthstone for October?

If you were born in October, your birth month has 2 birthstones: opal and tourmaline. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/october-birthstone-opal-tourmaline…

EarthSky’s top 10 tips for super stargazers

Here are 10 simple tips that can help you connect with the night sky, and have fun. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/getting-started-2…