Interesting reads, 14 May 2018

Interesting things I read on the Internet this week

• A Recycled IP Address Caused Me to Pirate 390,000 Books by Accident — Don’t leave old subdomain A records kicking around, lest your IP gets recycled.

• Google just gave a stunning demo of Assistant making an actual phone call — Impressive tech, awful use case to choose for a demo. The fake “umm” and other human-like tricks just feel deceptive and dishonest to me.

• Study: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely — Exciting, seaweed that inhibits cows from producing methane. Until such time that we stop eating such massive amounts of beef, perhaps this could limit the climate problem that is cow burps.

• Alexa and Siri Can Hear This Hidden Command. You Can’t. — Now your TV, radio, and hi-fi can secretly control your home.

• The Case for Electric Scooters — There are so many positives for electric scooters as urban transport, I’m really excited about these. Right now they’re seen as childish but I suspect that won’t last.

• How a “location API” allows cops to figure out where we all are in real-time — A loophole to avoid the inconvience of asking a judge for a warrant. Once again, if we collect intimadate date about people, it’s only a matter of time before it gets misused.