Saturday 27th April 2024

Hackers try to exploit WordPress plugin vulnerability that's as severe as it gets

Hackers are assailing websites using a prominent WordPress plugin with millions of attempts to exploit a high-severity vulnerability that allows complete takeover, researchers said.

Continued here

Android TV has access to your entire account--but Google is changing that

Google says it has patched a nasty loophole in the Android TV account security system, which would grant attackers with physical access to your device access to your entire Google account just by sideloading some apps. As 404 Media reports, the issue was originally brought to Google's attention by US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as part of a "review of the privacy practices of streaming TV technology providers." Google originally told the senator that the issue was expected behavior but, after media coverage, decided to change its stance and issue some kind of patch.

Continued here

Court upholds New York law that says ISPs must offer $15 broadband

A federal appeals court today reversed a ruling that prevented New York from enforcing a law requiring Internet service providers to sell $15 broadband plans to low-income consumers. The ruling is a loss for six trade groups that represent ISPs, although it isn't clear right now whether the law will be enforced.

Continued here

Putting Microsoft's cratering Xbox console sales in context

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it made 31 percent less off Xbox hardware in the first quarter of 2024 (ending in March) than it had the year before, a decrease it says was "driven by lower volume of consoles sold." And that's not because the console sold particularly well a year ago, either; Xbox hardware revenue for the first calendar quarter of 2023 was already down 30 percent from the previous year.

Continued here

NASA still doesn't understand root cause of Orion heat shield issue

NASA officials declared the Artemis I mission successful in late 2021, and it's hard to argue with that assessment. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft performed nearly flawlessly on an unpiloted flight that took it around the Moon and back to Earth, setting the stage for the Artemis II, the program's first crew mission.

Continued here

How to Find Your Faith

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out.The United States has long had a great deal of religious diversity, and was built on the idea of religious tolerance. But one type of belief was always rare: none. Until recently, that is. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who profess no religion (as opposed even to having one that they rarely or never practice) has risen from 16 percent in 2007 to 29 percent in 2021. (Back in the early 1970s, only about 5 percent of Americans espoused this position.)


Continued here

Why Does Taylor Swift See Herself as an Albatross?

She can’t help identifying with the notorious bird from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem.How do you get the albatross off your neck? You know, your albatross. Your own dank collar of bird carcass, bespoke feathery deadweight of shame/rage/neurosis/solipsism/the past/whatever, the price of being you as it feels on a bad day … How do you let it drop?


Continued here

The Inflation Plateau

Just a few months ago, America seemed to have licked the post-pandemic inflation surge for good. Then, in January, prices rose faster than expected. Probably just a blip. The same thing happened in February. Strange, but likely not a big deal. Then March’s inflation report came in hot as well. Okay—is it time to panic?The short answer is no. According to the most widely used measure, core inflation (the metric that policy makers pay close attention to because it excludes volatile prices such as food and energy) is stuck at about 4 percent, double the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. But that’s a long way from the crisis of 2022, when core inflation peaked at nearly 7 percent and the price of almost everything was going up dangerously fast. Instead, we seem to be facing a last-mile problem: Inflation has mostly normalized, but wringing out the final few percentage points in a handful of categories is proving harder than expected. There are two conflicting views of what exactly is going on, each with drastically different implications for how the Federal Reserve should respond. One camp worries that the Fed could lose control of inflation all over again; the other fears that the central bank will—whoops— unnecessarily bring the U.S. economy to its knees.


Continued here

Would Limitlessness Make Us Better Writers?

AI embodies hypotheticals I can only imagine for myself. But I believe human impediments are what lead us to create meaningful art.The scrolls lay inside glass cases. On one, the writing was jagged; on others, swirling or steady. I was at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, admiring centuries-old Chinese calligraphy that, the wall text told me, was meant to contain the life force—qi—of the calligrapher expressed through each brushstroke. Though I couldn’t read the language, I was moved to see the work of writers who lived hundreds of years ago, whose marks still seemed to say something about the creators long after they’d passed.


Continued here

The Campus-Left Occupation That Broke Higher Education

Elite colleges are now reaping the consequences of promoting a pedagogy that trashed the postwar ideal of the liberal university. Fifty-six years ago this week, at the height of the Vietnam War, Columbia University students occupied half a dozen campus buildings and made two principal demands of the university: stop funding military research, and cancel plans to build a gym in a nearby Black neighborhood. After a week of futile negotiations, Columbia called in New York City police to clear the occupation.


Continued here