On Wednesday, the Tampa Bay water utility announced a rather bizarre side effect of Florida’s out-of-control Covid surge: It wasn’t getting enough deliveries of liquid oxygen to treat its water. More than 17,000 Covid patients—who require supplemental oxygen to stay alive—are now hospitalized across the state, and there isn’t enough oxygen to go around. Even… Continue reading Why Florida’s Covid Surge Is Screwing With the Water Supply
Author: Wired Magazine
A Bad Solar Storm Could Cause an ‘Internet Apocalypse’
Scientists have known for decades that an extreme solar storm, or coronal mass ejection, could damage electrical grids and potentially cause prolonged blackouts. The repercussions would be felt everywhere from global supply chains and transportation to internet and GPS access. Less examined until now, though, is the impact such a solar emission could have on… Continue reading A Bad Solar Storm Could Cause an ‘Internet Apocalypse’
Vaccine Mandates Work—but Only If They’re Done Right
The point is, formal FDA approval wasn’t necessary for a mandate, but it’s turning out to be sufficient. Businesses, schools, and local governments that wanted to avoid a backlash over requiring “experimental” vaccines now feel like they have an even greener light. (This might’ve been a feint anyway; Texas governor Greg Abbott’s anti-mandate policy used… Continue reading Vaccine Mandates Work—but Only If They’re Done Right
The OnlyFans Porn Ban Reversal Does Not Reassure Creators
That didn’t last long. Less than a week after OnlyFans announced plans to ban porn from its platform due to pressure from its banking partners, the subscription site announced Wednesday that decision may have been premature. Instead of eliminating sexually explicit content on the site, the company said in a tweet, it had “secured [the]… Continue reading The OnlyFans Porn Ban Reversal Does Not Reassure Creators
The Stealthy iPhone Hacks That Apple Still Can’t Stop
It’s a shocking revelation: The Bahraini government allegedly purchased and deployed sophisticated malware against human rights activists, including spyware that required no interaction from the victim—no clicked links, no permissions granted—to take hold on their iPhones. But as disturbing as this week’s report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab may be, it’s also increasingly… Continue reading The Stealthy iPhone Hacks That Apple Still Can’t Stop
Would It Be Fair to Treat Vaccinated Covid Patients First?
Around the world, hospitals and clinicians have broadly agreed that both Covid and non-Covid patients should have the same triage principles applied, that care shouldn’t be first-come, first-served (because of differences in accessibility), and that the primary metric should be getting the greatest number of people to leave the hospital alive. Cultural values sometimes come… Continue reading Would It Be Fair to Treat Vaccinated Covid Patients First?
The 12 Best Electric Bikes for Every Kind of Ride
The concurrent crises of the coronavirus pandemic and climate change have prompted many of us to rethink how we live our daily lives. For millions of Americans, that included hopping on an ebike, whether we rented one from a bike-share or bought our own. For years, electric bicycles were bulky, inconvenient, expensive machines whose usefulness… Continue reading The 12 Best Electric Bikes for Every Kind of Ride
Tesla Bot Takes Tech Demos to Their Logical Conclusion
The robot was not at all real. Or it was very real, depending on whether you believe realness is closely related to physiology or whether you think this whole reality is a simulation. Which is to say, the robot was actually a human cosplaying as a humanoid robot. The robot shuffled on stage during Tesla’s… Continue reading Tesla Bot Takes Tech Demos to Their Logical Conclusion
The US Is Getting Covid Booster Shots. The World Is Furious
The Biden administration’s decision to offer Covid boosters to healthy fully vaccinated Americans has provoked an unusually broad and sharp reaction among researchers and policymakers. They view it as subverting regular decisionmaking, relying on data that seems more dramatic than it may be, and undermining commitments the US made to other countries to prop up… Continue reading The US Is Getting Covid Booster Shots. The World Is Furious
Google Docs Scams Still Pose a Threat
In May 2017, a phishing attack now known as “the Google Docs worm” spread across the internet. It used special web applications to impersonate Google Docs and request deep access to the emails and contact lists in Gmail accounts. The scam was so effective because the requests appeared to come from people the target knew.… Continue reading Google Docs Scams Still Pose a Threat