How To Fall 35,000 Feet and Survive

Massachusetts-based amateur historian Jim Hamilton, who developed the Free Fall Research Page — an online database of nearly every imaginable human plummet, documents one case of a sky diver who, upon total parachute failure, was saved by bouncing off high-tension wires. Contrary to popular belief, water is an awful choice. Like concrete, liquid doesn’t compress. Hitting the ocean is essentially the…

Final Episode Aired For American Quiz Show Host Alex Trebek

“More than two months after Alex Trebek’s death, fans of Jeopardy! finally got the chance to say goodbye,” reports CBS News:
A video tribute to the host closed Friday’s episode of the quiz show, the final one that Trebek taped before pancreatic cancer claimed his life on November 8. The 90-second montage, set to Hugh Jackman singing the Peter Allen song “Once…

Seeing the Invisible Ones: My Journey to Coursera and Grace Hopper

Hi everyone! My name is Nhu. I’m a recent graduate and a Software Engineer at Coursera. I was also a first-time representative at Grace Hopper. This year, we experienced the conference virtually—there were no free shirts, colorful booth displays, or long lines. We did not get to experience the energy of being in a room […]
The post Seeing the Invisible Ones:…

Japan Acted Like the Virus Had Gone. Now It’s Spread Everywhere.

After initial success, Japan is facing a reality check on the coronavirus. From a report: The country garnered global attention after containing the first wave of Covid-19 with what it referred to as the “Japan Model” — limited testing and no lockdown, nor any legal means to force businesses to close. The country’s finance minister even suggested a higher “cultural standard”…

Could Working Remotely Kill Silicon Valley’s Culture?

This week Medium’s editor-at-large argued remote working could kill Silicon Valley in a new article on Medium’s business site “Marker” — because working remotely could bring an end to those “serendipitous encounters” which lead to blockbuster products:
Tech serendipity is the means to an end in Silicon Valley. “You bring together a density of entrepreneurs and capital with a belief in crazy…

Printing’s Not Dead: The $35 Billion Fight Over Ink Cartridges

America’s onetime innovation icons are wrestling over their biggest remaining piles of money. From a report: The HP 63 Tri-color ink cartridge retails for $28.99 at Staples. Stuffed with foam sponges drenched in a fraction of an ounce of cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes, this bestseller, model No. F6U61AN#140, can spray 36,000 drops per second in the Envy printers made by…

This Year’s Y2K20 Bug Came Directly From ‘A Lazy Fix’ to the Y2K Bug

Slashdot reader The8re still remembers the Y2K bug. Now he shares a New Scientist article explaining how it led directly to this year’s Y2020 bug — which affected more than just parking meters: WWE 2K20, a professional wrestling video game, also stopped working at midnight on 1 January 2020. Within 24 hours, the game’s developers, 2K, issued a downloadable fix. Another…

‘King of Kong’ Billy Mitchell Argues He Was Framed for Donkey Kong Cheating, Threatens Legal Action

“Billy Mitchell, the former Donkey Kong and Pac-Man high-score champion made famous in the 2007 film The King of Kong, has threatened legal action against the sanctioning bodies who threw out all of Mitchell’s high scores in April 2018 after finding that two were illegitimate,” reports Polygon.
This week, lawyers for Mitchell sent a letter to Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records…

10 ways to accelerate progress against climate change

Source: https://www.vox.com/2018/10/10/17952334/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report-solutions-carbon-tax-electric-vehicles…