Month: February 2016

This is as much of React World as you're likely to see after the "react video" producing duo the Fine Bros shuttered plans to expand its video empire on Monday night. (credit: The Fine Bros)

Up until last week, the Fine Bros' biggest claim to fame was their YouTube series of videos that revolved around a "reaction" gimmick, in which they filmed children, elderly people, or other groups of people as they happened upon some popular toy, show, or object. That changed on Tuesday when the duo announced plans to expand its empire—which involved the real-life brothers filing a trademark claim on the word "react."

The resulting backlash proved so monstrous that the duo made an official announcement late Monday backing off of every initiative they'd announced on January 26. "We're here to apologize," the Fine Bros wrote, before confirming that they'd rescinded all trademarks and applications pertaining to the word "react."

Additionally, the duo confirmed that it would shutter a new "React World" initiative before it had even taken off. As announced, React World would have allowed other video makers to pay the Fine Bros to license their react videos' "format." The Fine Bros tried comparing what they had to offer to the proliferation of "Got Talent" TV series across the globe, but critics complained about an aggressive takedown wave in the meantime. Several YouTube channels complained that they'd received takedown notices from Fullscreen Inc, a company related to the Fine Bros, over their own original "react" videos.

Shaun Bridges, a Secret Service agent who pled guilty to stealing from the Silk Road website while he was supposed to be investigating it, has been arrested again.

The 33-year-old Bridges was arrested at his home in Laurel, MD, on Thursday, just one day before he was scheduled to turn himself in and begin serving a 71-month prison sentence. The arrest was first reported by The Baltimore Sun.

The reason for Bridges' re-arrest is detailed in documents that remain under seal at this point. However, prosecutors have detailed (PDF) some of what they found in Bridges' home when they arrested him. In their view, some of the evidence suggests he was a serious flight risk. To wit:

Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), top-center, poses with a Boys and Girls Club two weeks before being targeted in an apparent swatting attack. (credit: Representative Katherine Clark)

Three months after she introduced the Internet Swatting Hoax Act in US Congress, Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) found herself at the end of an apparent swatting attempt on Sunday night.

Melrose, Massachusetts police press spokesperson John Guilfoil confirmed to Ars Technica that the department received a phone call from "a computerized voice, not a natural voice" alleging "shots fired" and an "active shooter" at the address of Clark's home. The resulting police report confirmed an incident time of 9:57pm for a "life alert alarm" and "automated call reporting shooter."

This type of police report—using a disguised voice to allege false threats at a residence—is known as "swatting," due to the likelihood that police departments will react by sending SWAT teams to respond to serious-sounding threats. In the case of the Sunday night call, however, Guilfoil confirmed that Melrose police followed "established protocols" to choose a de-escalated response of normal police officers, though the officers in question blocked traffic on both ends of Clark's street with patrol cars. Guilfoil was unable to clarify whether weapons were drawn at the scene, and he did not answer our other questions about the incident, particularly those about the nature of the phone call received, "due to the ongoing nature of the investigation."

(credit: Marcelo Graciolli)

Internet service providers and Republicans in Congress have been criticizing the Federal Communications Commission for a report that declares broadband service isn't being deployed quickly enough to all Americans.

In particular, ISPs and Republicans are mad that the FCC is defining "broadband" as Internet speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. Using that benchmark, the FCC found that 34 million Americans, about 10 percent of the country, live in areas where they can't buy home broadband.

ISPs wanted the FCC to stick with its old standard of 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up, which the commission left behind a year ago. But even if the FCC revived that slower definition of broadband, the commission's annual reports would still find that many Americans lack access, mostly in rural areas.

Mark Watney knows how to do everything, including turn his rover into a super-car that he lives in for several weeks. (credit: Fox Movies)

The best part of The Martian isn't the breathtaking rescue, nor the awe-inspiring dust storm. It's watching Mark Watney grow potatoes. Instead of freaking out over his imminent doom, Mark calmly figures how to grow plants in the Martian regolith by fertilizing them with his own poop, and watering them with a DIY device that makes water by heating hydrogen from his leftover rocket fuel, and combining it with oxygen from the Hab environment.

Mark makes The Martian a classic of competence porn by always coming up with a hackerish solution to every problem, just like James Bond or Ellen Ripley with her exoskeleton in Aliens. And he's not the only competence porn star burning up our monitors right now. From Sherlock to The Americans, competence porn is filling us with the satisfaction that comes from watching people attack problems with brains and cunning rather than fists. Well, OK, there are some fists, too.

The birth of the trickster smartass

Clever characters who can weasel their way out of any situation go back to the earliest days of western literature, when ancient Greek hero Ulysses, star of the Odyssey, outsmarted the cyclops and figured out how to listen to the sirens' song without killing himself. In the east, the character Sun Wukong (AKA the Monkey King) plays a similar role, using his trickster cunning to keep the bad guys down. Indeed, most competence porn heroes have an element of the Monkey King's trickster ways—they may use logic to defeat death, but they'll tell a few jokes and pull a few beards along the way.

(credit: f1uffster (Jeanie))

Birth, like life, is messy. But, while life’s messes often harm health, the untidiness of our entrance into the world may profoundly protect it—at least that’s a leading hypothesis among microbiome researchers.

Microbes picked up from mom while in or exiting the womb kick off humans’ lifelong association with the invisible critters that live in and on us and affect our health. In cases where that microbial colonization of a newborn goes awry, researchers have noted links to chronic health problems, such as asthma, obesity, allergies, and immune deficiencies. Researchers have also found that such a microbial debacle is often brought on by Cesarean delivery (C-section), which is a common surgical procedure to birth a baby through the mother’s abdomen rather than the normal shove down the birth canal.

To reverse the potential ill-fate of C-section babies, researchers smeared surgically delivered babies with the vaginal fluids from their mothers in the moments just after birth. After tracking the babies and their microbiomes for a month, the researchers report Monday in Nature Medicine that the quick slather partly restored normal microbiome development.