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The Backdoor To The Entire Internet That Didn't Happen
A rather large drama unfolded a couple of weeks ago when it was discovered that someone had installed a backdoor into an installation utility used by much of the Open Source community. Backdoor found in widely used Linux utility targets encrypted SSH connections [Ars Technica] This was found by accident, a worker was maintaining his own code and found discrepancies in computer performance and investigated. How one volunteer stopped a backdoor from exposing Linux systems worldwide [The Verge] This seems to have been largely the work of one online account that spent years gaining trust in the group that maintain this tool. THE OTHER PLAYERS WHO HELPED (ALMOST) MAKE THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BACKDOOR HACK [The Intercept] The Mystery of ‘Jia Tan,’ the XZ Backdoor Mastermind [WIRED] Today, Fedora announced its own systems all clear of this thwarted backdoor attempt. CVE-2024-3094: All Clear
Sugar: Olivia
After solving a case in Japan, private eye John Sugar returns to LA to help find a missing woman with ties to a Hollywood legend. Streaming on Apple TV
Fallout: The End
Okey dokey..
That vast, astonishing, multiplicity of vision
“So when I started working on the story that turned into All Systems Red, I realized right away I wanted to write an AI that didn't want to be human…I was thinking a lot about what an AI would actually want, as opposed to what a human might think an AI would want…. I think it would want that connection to other systems, that vast, astonishing, multiplicity of vision.”—Martha Wells, from her keynote speech at the annual Jack Williamson Lecture at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico.
I feared that being near all of this would mean the end of my career
“This was a catch-and-kill,” I told Alpert. “What’s a catch-and-kill?” he asked.
I went on to explain the tabloid practice of buying stories to bury them. Alpert already had the outline of the story, I learned, and I filled him in on more: how Howard had flown out to Los Angeles that summer to buy McDougal’s story for $150,000, with the direction from Pecker to kill it to protect Trump. I stressed to him the importance of the term “catch and kill” and told him that if The Journal included it, it would give me some breathing room. I went back to my office and closed the door. My heart was racing, and I was sweating. from What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise by Lachlan Cartwright [NY Times; ungated] [CW: Trumpland]
X-Men '97: Remember It
Team members hit Genosha as UN honorees while a press event risks exposing the team’s dirty laundry.
X-Men '97: Motendo/Lifedeath - Part 1
Jubilee must relive the X-Men’s greatest adventures when she’s transported into a 16-bit video game. Meanwhile, Storm hooks up with Forge in Texas.
Delicious in Dungeon: Red Dragon II
The red dragon has been slain, and Falin's remains recovered. All that's left is to ressurect the young tallman woman - but doing so will have her friend make some grave choices...
Delicious in Dungeon: Red Dragon I
This is it. This is what all the adventures, all the trials, all themeals have been leading up to. For Team Touden, it's do or die - for Falin's sake, the red dragon must fall...
Delicious in Dungeon: Giant Frogs/Aboveground
Refreshed physically, emotionally, and manawise, Team Touden begins the descent to the castle town - and to their confrontation with the red dragon. Unfortunately, the path downward will not be an easy one, with the stairwell down full of dangers. Meanwhile, Tansu reports his findings to the (nominal) head of the island, while Namari looks to see if by some miracle Falin's corpse has made it back for revival.
One thing is clear - things are coming to a head, in several ways...
Delicious in Dungeon: Tentacles/Stew
With Marcille weakened from the undine's assault, Team Touden is surprised when another adventuring party comes upon them - with a familiar face in tow. But the realities of how dungeoneering works forces Laios to trade his labor for healing. And the enraged undine is still out there - but Marcille has a plan to kill two birds with one stone, and use it to replenish her mana...
Delicious in Dungeon: Raspberries/Grilling Meat
Marcille thinks back on how she and Falin first met at school, and how she taught the elf valuable lessons about how there's more to the world than what's in books. Unfortunately, her ablutions wind up creating a very angry water spirit with murder on its mind...
Like "The Net", But For Real
A high ranking Iowa hospital systems administrator has plead guilty to identity theft after stealing his former coworker's identity - for thirty years. (SLArs Technica)
Rude Britannia
What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? by Sam Knight in The New Yorker
This is a compelling narrative only if you ignore every available fact
The long and short of it is that Swisher is not a good journalist—or, framed more generously, that she thrived in an industry with remarkably low standards for which we are still paying the price. from The Miseducation of Kara Swisher, a review of Burn Book by Edward Ongweso Jr. [The Baffler; ungated]
Mary Poppins had more magic than you know
The folks at Corridor Crew recently reached back sixty years to recreate a truly wonderous piece of special effects technology that was thought to be long lost.
ZachsMind: "It's awesomely awesome!"
Culled from a cancelled FMV 3DO game from 1996, you may never have seen anything so incrediculous as the 7 1/2 minute trailer Duelin' Firemen. While the trailer has been bouncing around the internet for 16 years (previously from 2007 by hypocritical ross), a higher resolution version has turned up that's almost watchable. It contains Rudy Ray Moore, the Rev. Ivan Stang, Mark Mothersbaugh, Dr. Timothy Leary and Tony Hawk. The Youtube channel of a documentary about the game's making has some other obscure clips from it.
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
When a hurricane struck Florida in 2018, Christina’s neighborhood lost electricity, cell service and internet. For four weeks her family was cut off from the world, their days dictated by the rising and setting sun. But Christina did have a vast collection of movies on DVD and Blu-ray, and a portable player that could be charged from an emergency generator. Word got around. The family’s library of physical films and books became a kind of currency. Neighbors offered bottled water or jars of peanut butter for access. The 1989 Tom Hanks comedy The ’Burbs was an inexplicably valuable commodity, as were movies that could captivate restless and anxious children. “I don’t think 99% of people in America would ever stop to think, ‘What would I do if I woke up tomorrow and all access to digital media disappeared?’ But we know,” Christina told me. “We’ve lived it. We’ll never give up our collection. Ever. And maybe, one day, you’ll be the one to come and barter a loaf of bread for our DVD of Casino.”The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming: As more movies vanish from streaming services, cinephiles are rallying to physical media. Can they save a seemingly dying format?
Hallucination attack
"During our research [we] encountered an interesting python hallucinated package called “huggingface-cli”...
In three months the fake and empty package got more than 30k authentic downloads! (and still counting)... Our findings revealed that several large companies either use or recommend this package in their repositories..." [via The Register]
A computer that could expand with the addition of modular components
The Apple Jonathan
: A Very 1980’s Concept Computer That Never Shipped
An Infamous Anime Genre Comes To English
As part of their regular updates to the English lexicon, the Oxford English Dictionary has added a number of Japanese loan words, most notably the term for a notorious genre of anime and manga - isekai, or "portal fantasy".
Hugo Award Finalists Announced
Announcement video: ”Hello, my name is Nicholas Whyte and I have a baller accent.” (video with transcript).
Text announcement on the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon Bluesky account. Full list of finalists with details about nominating numbers and disqualified or self-withdrawn items is online at File 770.Previously, censorship report- Previously, scandal erupts - Previously, 2023 boycotts - Previously, full tag list.
Do you know how to make a proper cup of tea?
Most of us know how to make a proper cup of tea. But perhaps you'd like to test yourself with this wonderful tea making simulation game. Exquisite!
(other delicious and refreshing games made on the same platform here).
X-Men '97: Fire Made Flesh
When a visitor arrives at the mansion with a dangerous secret that threatens Cyclops and Jean's relationship, the team is propelled into a tragic confrontation with an immortal mad scientist.
X-Men '97: To Me, My X-Men + Mutant Liberation Begins
One year after Professor Charles Xavier left Earth, the X-Men continue their mission to defend mutants and humans alike.
Movie: Taylor Tomlinson: Have It All
Tomlinson ponders achieving perfect work-love balance despite anxiety and insomnia, asking if one can really "have it all."
Delicious in Dungeon: Kelpie/Porridge/Broiled In Sauce
Finally reaching an underground lake at the base of the castle, the party - and Senshi in particular - gets a valuable lesson in the reality of wild monsters being exactly that. And as Team Touden crosses the lak, they wind up finding out personally how one very large predator can throw off the ecosystem...
Delicious in Dungeon: Court Cuisine/Boiled In Salt Water
Curiosity - and a rumbling tummy - lead Laios to try seeing if the food in the enchanted paintings is a possible food source. But he gets more than a meal as the scenes he enters tell the tale of the Golden Kingdom, as well as that of the Mad Mage. Later, a midnight bathroom break leads to Chilchuck trapped with his nemesis...
Delicious in Dungeon: Snacks/Sorbet
All that glitters is not gold, as one adventurer group finds out the hard way when the treasure they find winds up being a bit more...alive than expected. And when Team Touden finds themselves dealing with spirits sans their indisposed healer, Senshi comes up with a creative - and tasty! - method of ghostbusting.
Delicious in Dungeon: Stewed Cabbage/Orcs
It's farming dungeon style as Senshi shows Team Touden his...ambulatory gardens in the form of golems he has turned into walking vegetable patches. Though when they go to trade in their leafy bonanza, it turns out that the red dragon's actions have caused further displacement - and further trouble...
Tar Trap Caught
A sophisticated backdoor in Linux's xz compression tool, apparently inserted by a long time contributor, was fortunately discovered yesterday in the latest unstable distribution of Debian, before it could be spread more widely.
May this meme never die
How many days are in a week?
The debate began on 2008, on the forums of bodybuilding.com, when a user asks ‘ Is it safe to do a full body workout every other day?’ The answer is yes…the question is, if you do that, how many times a week are you working out? (Trigger warning for words some people thought it was ok to use in 2008, and fatphobia).
Arachnophobia
The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story
Miles Morales struggles to balance his responsibilities as a teenager, friend, and student while acting as Brooklyn’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. After a particularly challenging day living with these pressures, Miles experiences a panic attack that forces him to confront the manifestations of his anxiety and learn that reaching out for help can be just as brave an act as protecting his city from evil. The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story was developed and produced in the inaugural year of Sony Pictures Animation (SPA) and Sony Pictures Imageworks’ (SPI) Leading and Empowering New Storytellers (LENS) program, a 9-month leadership training program that provides candidates from underrepresented groups with an opportunity to gain valuable leadership experience in animation.Sony Unveils First Look At Spider-Verse Short Film Tackling Mental Issues & Showing Miles Morales Suffering An Anxiety Crisis
"Polio Paul" Has Died
"Polio" Paul Alexander spent 70 of his 78 years alive inside of an iron lung.
He was paralysed from the neck down due to complications from Polio. Despite this he became an author and lawyer.
Delicious in Dungeon: Living Armor
Finally entering the castle proper, Team Touden finds themselves at a tricky impass, as the path to move further into the castle is guarded by suits of living armor - a threat that Laios himself has fallen to (he got better, thankfully.) But this means no meals, as living armor are magical constructs, not living creatures...right?
Delicious in Dungeon: Roast Basilisk/Omelet/Kakiage
Team Touden continues to explore the odd treetop "level" of the dungeon, while seeing other parties as well - and with rations rather than resorting to hunting. But even this early in the dungeon is dangerous if you're not prepared...or if you're letting jealousy color your view...
Delicious in Dungeon: Hot Pot/Tart
It's been...a bad run for Team Touden in the dungeon, after confronting a red dragon on little rest and less food - they got trounced, two of their fighters have tendered their resignation, and their healer Falin was eaten by the dragon after she sent everyone else to safety. Party leader (and Falin's older brother) Laios is determined to ressurect his little sister, but with no supplies, he has to resort to...dungeon self-sufficiency...
Movie: The Marvels
Carol Danvers gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, forcing them to work together to save the universe.
escaping realtime
Vernor Vinge, author of many influential hard science fiction works, died March 20 at the age of 79.
Special Event: Mystery Fandom Theater 3000: ELIMINATORS
The fourth of five Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 fan-made episodes, this one riffing the movie Eliminators. A "Mandroid" fights against his(?) master, who has a time machine. It's got so much cheese it might as well be a pizza.
Obliterated: Obliterated (full season)
An elite special forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas. After their celebratory party, filled with booze, drugs and sex, the team discovers that the bomb they deactivated was a fake. The now intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, find the real bomb, and save the world. From the creators of Cobra Kai and the Harold and Kumar films, featuring C. Thomas Howell as you’ve never seen him before!
Default fonts and quantum dingbats
Elle Cordova is a poet, singer, comedian, filker, science geek and more. She recently published three hilarious brief skits where she embodies 20 fonts hanging out and gossiping. Compiled with open captions 4:12 at this single YouTube link. With her former Raina del Cid persona previously and previouserly
—You got the wrong guy, pal.
If Minute 9 is the first time we hear the names Deckard and Blade Runner, it’s also the first time we meet the plainclothes cop who will play a key role in LAPD surveillance of Deckard — and in the changed emphasis of four subsequent versions of Blade Runner released over the next twenty-five years. from Minute 9: Blade Runner [3 am magazine]
A matter concerning a square and a circle
Snif & Snüf (five minutes), a cartoon about two friends who find a couple of mysterious shapes, by Michael Ruocco, an animator who's worked on New Looney Tunes, the Cuphead Show and Bojack Horseman.
Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth
After 4 nail-biting months of gibberish, Voyager 1 is making sense again.
Since November 2023, the almost-50-year-old spacecraft has been experiencing trouble with its onboard computers. Although Voyager 1, one of NASA's longest-lived space missions, has been sending a steady radio signal to Earth, it hasn't contained any usable data. Now, there may be hope for recovery.
Extraordinary: Extraordinary Season 2
Extraordinary, the delightful British superhero share-house sit-com is back with Season Two.
Is Super Mario Maker Beaten Yet?
Is Super Mario Marker beaten yet?
Back in 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, which allowed users to create their own Mario levels and upload them for others to play. Over 8 million levels were created for the game. On March 31, 2021 Nintendo "discontinued" the game, which meant no new levels could be uploaded. Then the second shoe dropped: Nintendo announced the Wii U servers would be turned off forever on April 8, 2024, effectively removing all of these user levels from existence. Upon hearing this news, the Super Mario Maker community began to rally around a single goal: clear every single level uploaded to the servers before the shutdown date.