h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

⚠️ Update: Live network data show today's telecoms disruption in #Africa has intensified; the incident has high impact to West Africa with significant reductions in connectivity evident across the continent; operators report multiple subsea cable failures 📉

Good news from the Voyager 1 spacecraft that has been stuck sending a 0101 pattern since Nov 2023.

The team has long suspected the root cause to be a corrupted area of memory in the FDS computer. On Mar 1, they sent some commands to make the FDS skip around sections of memory. The data stream rcvd 45 hours later looked different and was decoded to contain a read-out of the entire FDS memory!

Hopefully, they can now identify and fix the offending memory words.
🤞
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/
14/n

Finally obtained a copy of Harry Harrison's 'A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!' (1972, this ed. 1983).

Set in an alternate reality where America never left the Empire. "In charge [of the tunnel] is Captain Augustus Washington... A man to whom success will mean the final erasure of his family shame..."

Was told by the person who gave it to me that "the cover is very misleading".

24,24,255,60,60,60,36,36. I'll always remember those numbers for creating a stick figure UDG (User Defined Graphic) in
#ZXSpectrum #BASIC!

Who started the same way years & years ago scribbling out 8x8 graphics on squared/graph paper for your favourite home microcomputer from yesteryear?

#samcoupe #indiedev #gamedev #retrogaming #retrogames #vintagecomputing #8bit

🌌 On this day in 1978 the very first episode of the very first version of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy went out on Radio 4. We can't tell you how proud that makes us.

Here's a lovely programme about Douglas and his creation, presented by his friend John Lloyd, that went out on the 40th anniversary.

https://bbc.in/4c0ZRpr

#RadioDrama #comedy #ScienceFiction #SciFi #CultFiction #DouglasAdams

Do you sometimes struggle to hear what's said on TV? We're running an experiment to find out how wide-spread problems with TV audio are. If you have half an hour, click here to take part:
https://tv-speech-rating.audio.labs.bbc

NASA really made its own tabletop RPG for you to play https://gizmodo.com/nasa-reveals-tabletop-roleplaying-game-lost-universe-1851306892

I need to stop looking at a piece of equipment and go "Wow, it has USB, it must be pretty new".

The date USB was brought to market is closer to when I was born than to today.

yesterday and today marks the first time we've transmitted Telefax G4 over our OCTOI #retronetworking community ISDN-over-IP network using an actual historical G4 capable fax machine (Canon FAX-L260i) - the machine itself can print D- and B-channel protocol traces!

Google has just updated its 2FA Authenticator app and added a much-needed feature: the ability to sync secrets across devices.

TL;DR: Don't turn it on.

The new update allows users to sign in with their Google Account and sync 2FA secrets across their iOS and Android devices.

We analyzed the network traffic when the app syncs the secrets, and it turns out the traffic is not end-to-end encrypted. As shown in the screenshots, this means that Google can see the secrets, likely even while they’re stored on their servers. There is no option to add a passphrase to protect the secrets, to make them accessible only by the user.

Why is this bad?

Every 2FA QR code contains a secret, or a seed, that’s used to generate the one-time codes. If someone else knows the secret, they can generate the same one-time codes and defeat 2FA protections. So, if there’s ever a data breach or if someone obtains access .... 🧵

#Privacy #Cybersecurity #InfoSec #2FA #Google #Security

Space Colony Art from the 1970s

The cylinder becomes a kind of Eden regained in these space fantasies, an Arcadia retrofitted with solar panels and cosmic-ray shields. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/

The reason why Drax are my old friends is that if you ask Telehouse London for a renewable energy statement they will give you a certificate from Drax saying that they use "100% renewable energy".

We as taxpayers, (still) fund them doing this and then they hand out certificates of greenwashing to other companies. It makes me even more sad how few people who asked me for those certs were interested in knowing more.

No, I will never stop going on about this.

https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Renewable_energy_statement

NEW PROJECT!
The only page that lets you keep track of Oprah Winfrey, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Biggins AND 1970s Tom Baker
https://vole.wtf/celeb-clock/

https://www.danlynch.org/blog/2024/02/the-corresponding-source/ - I am producing a new show for @conservancy called The Corresponding Source. Just blogged about it. Give it a listen and see what you think 🙂

#podcast #freesoftware #audio

We need to end the pretence that burning wood is doing anything useful for the climate emergency. Change the law. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160

Important update from the "is this prime" game: 87 is now by far the most incorrectly tested number, ending just under 1 in 7 games.
After that, 51 and 57 are still almost neck and neck, ending 4.6% of games each.

https://isthisprime.com/game/

#IsThisPrime

Such a great definition, arf arf