AnActOfCreation

• Paleontologists found matching Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints in Brazil and Cameroon, showing where dinosaurs walked before Africa and South America split.
• The footprints, mostly from three-toed theropods, date back 120 million years and reveal how dinosaurs migrated across the supercontinent Gondwana.
• Geological evidence supports that these areas were connected before the continents drifted apart, forming the South Atlantic Ocean.

• Sonos's botched app rollout is a significant leadership failure, resulting in widespread customer dissatisfaction and technical issues that undermine its brand.
• Over 100 employees were laid off, likely due to the mishandling of the app, reflecting poor leadership priorities and decisions.
• Sonos now faces potential long-term damage to its customer loyalty and market confidence, with upcoming updates needing to address these issues urgently.

• Peloton is introducing a $95 "used equipment activation fee" for bikes purchased from outside its official channels in the US and Canada, aiming to boost revenue and maintain onboarding quality for new subscribers.
• The fee has sparked criticism as it reduces the cost savings typically associated with buying secondhand equipment and diverges from practices in other industries, potentially discouraging used market purchases.
• Peloton's hardware sales continue to decline, but subscription revenue has seen slight growth; the company still faces financial struggles despite cost-cutting measures and layoffs.

• YouTube is intensifying efforts to combat adblockers, including blocking video playback and warning users of potential account suspension.
• Increased ads on YouTube have driven many users to adblockers, hurting both YouTube’s ad revenue and content creators reliant on ad-based income.
• Despite these measures, many users are leaving YouTube or finding workarounds, leading creators to seek alternative revenue streams off-platform.

• Judge James Donato intends to dismantle Google’s Android app store monopoly, following an earlier ruling declaring it illegal.
• Google argued that opening its store to competitors would be too costly and complex, but the judge dismissed this claim, emphasizing that barriers will be removed.
• Proposed remedies include banning discriminatory practices against rival app stores and setting up a committee to monitor compliance and report regularly.

• Sen. JD Vance recounted being asked if he had a "secret family" during the vice presidential vetting process, which he found intrusive and bizarre, especially since his wife was present.
• Vance described the vetting process as detailed and intrusive, including questions about potential family criticisms and criminal history.
• Politicians undergoing vice presidential vetting often face extensive scrutiny to prepare for media examination, highlighting past examples like Herschel Walker and John Edwards who had hidden children.

“Christians, get out and vote, just this time,” Trump exclaimed to a cheering crowd in West Palm Beach, Fla.

“You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians” he added.

“I love you Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote,” Trump said.

• Proton VPN doesn't use RAM-only servers, arguing they offer no additional security over full-disk encryption on hard drives.
• Full-disk encryption ensures data on hard drives is secure and inaccessible without proper authentication, even when servers are powered off.
• Proton VPN prioritizes a strict no-logs policy, independent audits, and operating servers in privacy-friendly jurisdictions to protect user privacy.

“The implication here is that any code committed to a public repository may be accessible forever as long as there is at least one fork of that repository,” the report’s authors claim.

Am I dumb or is this exactly the purpose of forks? I feel like I'm missing something.

• Travelers can opt out of facial recognition at US airports by requesting manual ID verification, though resistance or intimidation may occur.
• Facial recognition poses privacy risks, including potential data breaches, misidentification, and normalization of surveillance.
• The Algorithmic Justice League's "Freedom Flyers" campaign aims to raise awareness of these issues and encourage passengers to exercise their right to opt out.

#killedbygoogle

• Google's URL shortening service goo.gl links will stop working on August 25th, 2025, resulting in 404 errors.
• Starting August 23rd, 2024, goo.gl links will show an interstitial page warning users of the upcoming shutdown.
• Google initially suggested migrating to Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL), which has also since been deprecated.

• A global Microsoft Windows outage, caused by a CrowdStrike software update, has disrupted airlines, banking services, and 911 lines, leading to grounded flights and long queues.
• The issue resulted in many systems experiencing the “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD), affecting major carriers and airports worldwide, and also impacted the London Stock Exchange and Australian banking systems.
• CrowdStrike has identified and isolated the defect, deploying a fix, but recovery is expected to be slow due to the need for manual intervention on affected devices.