Featured Links - July 15, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Farming a hill

•  Just a Category 1 hurricane? Don't be fooled by a number—It could be more devastating than a Cat 5. "The circumference of a storm, how fast it's moving and the amount of rain it delivers are all factors that matter, as is the place where it hits: its geography, its population and the quality of its infrastructure. Also, it's important to remember that tornadoes can form regardless of a storm's size."
• Google is making it easier to see if your info is on the dark web — here’s how. "Dark web reports will soon be available for free to all Google users."
• Word Navigation Pane tricks and hidden options. The Navigation Pane is a great part of Word for Windows and Mac. Don’t miss on the hidden features because there’s more in that side-pane than the obvious."
• FTC study finds ‘dark patterns’ used by a majority of subscription apps and websites. "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with two other international consumer protection networks, announced on Thursday the results of a study into the use of “dark patterns” — or manipulative design techniques — that can put users’ privacy at risk or push them to buy products or services or take other actions they otherwise wouldn’t have."
• A NASA Astronaut is Taking Beautiful and Creative Photos Onboard the ISS. "A NASA astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS) is taking a series of epic photographs and sharing the techniques behind them. Matthew Dominick has captured clever selfies of himself zooming through the Destiny module, creative off-camera flash portraits of the crew, and epic photos of the Italian peninsula." He may be the best photographer of any of the astronauts so far.
• Phil A. McBride: Another way that Canadian cops (and banks) have surrendered. "Apparently, a crime in progress is only worth responding to if a lot — a lot! — of money is lost." Our police and banks need to do better. 
• How NASA Fixed Voyager 1 From 15 Billion Miles Away. "Fixing the issue wasn't as simple as uploading a software update for a smartphone app. The Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, and now the engineers had to work with its half-century old technology." This was a remarkable technical achievement, especially considering the limited resources, the time lag, and age of Voyager's computers. 
• Who needs warships when you’ve got drones? Russia loses control over Black Sea. "This February attack, in which a big, expensive warship was taken down by Ukraine’s cheap, remote-controlled pack hunter drones like the Magura, is just one of many illustrations of how the full-scale war has been, in a word, asymmetrical. While Russians have made gains on land, they may as well have lost their dominance and security in the Black Sea for the foreseeable future." 
• How ghost cities in the Amazon are rewriting the story of civilisation. (archive link) "Remote sensing, including lidar, reveals that the Amazon was once home to millions of people. The emerging picture of how they lived challenges ideas of human cultural evolution."