Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is an AI-powered website that displays a random, computer-generated face each time you refresh your browser. Here are some examples — all fake. (These are 1/4-resolution screen-grabs; the site produces higher-res images.) It’s interesting… and spooky. More on the site and its tech: ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses AI to generate endless fake faces Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=2092
Some estimates say YouTube adds something north of a petabyte of new data every day. That’s impressive in itself, but remember that YouTube is owned by Google, whose servers have to store data for: Google Search; Google Docs/Sheets/Slides; Gmail/Inbox; Google Calendar; Google Drive; Google Translate; Google Maps; Waze; Google Earth; Street View; Google Keep; Google…
Recordings released by NASA/JPL let you listen to “plasma waves moving from Saturn to its rings and its moon Enceladus… like an electrical circuit between the two bodies, with energy flowing back and forth.” NASA/JPL article: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7186 Recording, if above embed doesn’t work: https://youtu.be/hWHLCHv4PiI Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=2082
Some things never change: Linguists have translated a clay cuneiform tablet from the city of Ur, circa 1750BCE. The tablet is from a copper buyer named Nanni to the seller, Ea-nasir, complaining that the ingots were inferior, and that Ea-nasir was rude. “What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with…
You’re right. There’s absolutely no sense in that. Storing backups on the same physical hardware as the original is a terrible idea because, as you say, any major PC problem that takes out the original is also likely to take out the backup. You’d be left with nothing. True backup copies should be stored on…
If a laptop is completely unresponsive to normal keys and switches, your only option is to kill the power. Try pressing and holding down the PC’s power button for 15 seconds or so: Many electronic devices (not just PCs) will perform a forced power-off after the power button is continuously depressed for around 4-10 seconds….
After some 15 years into a planned 90 day mission, it looks like NASA is about to finally declare the Opportunity rover lost; succumbing to a massive, planet-wide dust storm that engulfed Mars and covered the rover’s solar panels. More: NASA Says Goodnight to Opportunity, Its Most Enduring Mars Rover Multiple news stories Coverage of…
This week’s new AskWoody Plus newsletter is out; and for now you can read it for free, online. Here’s what inside issue 16.5.0: In the LangaList column, I cover “Three unusual, but interesting, reader queries“ In Patch Lady, Susan Bradley discusses “Still on Win7? Get over it, for security’s sake“ In Best Practices, Michael Lasky…
Reader Simone Paciaroni* asks: “Does it still make sense to buy external hard drives in the cloud era?“ I think so, yes. But not instead of cloud storage — with cloud storage. Local storage gives you immediate access to everything, regardless of the size or number of files you’re accessing. When you’re dealing with terabytes of…
Boston’s 2018-19 winter has been warmer and wetter than normal. There’s been some serious cold, but not too much; and a little snow and ice, but mostly liquid rain. It’s simultaneously convenient, and disturbing. Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=1966