Joshua Kaufman, or @jmk as his followers on Twitter know him, has a problem: someone stole his MacBook on March 21, 2011, and the police haven’t been nable to recover it for him. This is a common enough occurrence that I doubt many readers have batted an eyelash. It’s a rough world, and there are lots of people out there who have no regard for the property of others. [...]
E!’s “Chelsea Lately” had an unexpected visitor when a slithery extra dropped by the show during Donald Schultz’s visit Monday, May 30. [...]
World of Warcraft (WoW) players tend to live in their own voluntary Mountain Dew-and-Cheeto-fueled isolation. For them, completing the challenges within the video game’s world is an enjoyable way to kill a few thousand hours and a few close, personal relationships. For numerous Chinese prisons, however, WoW is a punishment, and prisoners are forced to play the game for mind-numbing hours on end; all for the financial gain of the prisons’ guards. [...]
As if people don’t have enough to worry about while going about their days, the state of California has recently revealed that a computer error in the prison database has improperly freed more than 1,500 inmates in 2010, and that more than 450 of them are considered highly dangerous and “carry a high risk for violence.” And to make matters worse, these wrongfully freed inmates can not be prosecuted or returned to prison unless they get caught committing another crime. [...]
Hesitation, or better yet, indecision is one of the biggest causes of failure in life. For example, when you set your mind to doing something, you should go for it with everything you’ve got and not turn back or stop part-way through. Apparently the man you’re about to read about falls victim to this costly habit as well. Except his indecision wasn’t about going for a big goal or challenging task, but it was deciding to do a half-hearted job of a bank robbery or just being indecisive about whether he should commit the crime or not. [...]
Most people have heard of black boxes; devices installed in airplanes that record every single aspect of the flight so that airline professionals and manufacturers could tell what went wrong in case of an accident or a crash. Well, now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to make these black boxes mandatory for all new cars as well. [...]
Want that new pair of sneakers but don’t feel like paying full price? If you’re on good terms with Sean Harrington from Louisville, Ky., you might just be in luck. The 36-year-old not only made a business for himself by shoplifting merchandise like shoes and then reselling them on the street, he took it a step further into the real world of entrepreneurship by getting exactly what his customers wanted. [...]
When asked about computer security and virus protection, most people are under the assumption that a Windows computer is expected to be in constant battle against malware and viruses of all kinds, while the Mac is generally safe, allowing users to do or download whatever they wish without any repercussions. Well, this assumption is not only being challenged at this point, but is actively being proven false thanks to the “Mac Defender.”
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Lately we’ve been hearing quite a bit about criminals getting busted for pocket-dialing police while committing or planning crimes; and this story isn’t much different. But it does reenforce the idea that criminals really need to switch to flip phones or lock-screened smartphones. [...]
Recently, a wave of break-ins and violent crime has been hitting the streets of Texas, Michigan, and California in pursuit of something we would never imagine is worth much: human hair. [...]
With a huge portion of smartphone users relying on the Android platform, we just came across a pretty serious vulnerability that can potentially leave all of your login information open for the world of hackers to see and use to inflict serious damage on your digital and financial life. And to make matters worse, this is a vulnerability that affects 99% of Android users. [...]
Flying these days is akin to being treated like a common criminal, with intensive body pat downs, full body scans, or $10,000 fines and the boot if both are refused (which isn’t as well-advertised or talked about). In short, passengers are getting fed up with the way they’re being treated. And it seems like the Transportation Security Administration is taking notice as they are now weighing the pros and cons of creating security exceptions for some fliers, giving them the ability to skip the scans and pat downs altogether. [...]
When you think of surveillance or security cameras, the image that usually comes to mind is that of a camera attached to a wall or even built into something such as a door frame above the main entrance of a building. But with the widespread use of military drones and other remote-controlled devices, security cameras might just go from stationary video recorders to fully remote-controlled surveillance spies. [...]
When you think of GPS tracking, what usually comes to mind is something along the lines of navigation, tracking a package or a person, or maybe using your smartphone to check in at a location so your friends know where to find you. However, there is a different side to GPS as well, a side that most people don’t know about, and especially a side that can be exciting and full of adventure. What we’re talking about here is the fun treasure hunting activity called “geocaching.” [...]
