Dangerous fixes made by Scott Parazynski in 2007 show no signs of wear or tear.
Enlarge/ Over Astronaut Kate Rubins' left shoulder, the repair work done by Scott Parazynski in 2007 still looks great. (credit: NASA)
It made for one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the International Space Station. Dangling at the end of a 50-foot boom, attached to the station's robotic arm, astronaut Scott Parazynski could barely reach his target at the distant edge of the orbiting laboratory—a torn solar array.
Stakes were high in late 2007. NASA had just recovered from the space shuttle Columbia tragedy, and its primary focus was completing construction of the space station. Astronauts had added a new 110-foot solar array in preparation for the expansion, and the additional power was needed for new European and Japanese modules. But a 2.5-foot tear had formed in the array, likely due to a stray guide wire. Absent a repair, mission managers had two options: leave the array as is and use the available power, or jettison it. The problem with the first solution was that the tear might spread, making the array unusable. That could have meant no expansion for the station, which at the time was a only fraction of its finished size.
The cobbled-together plan called for Scott Parazynski, an emergency physician by trade and one of the agency's most experienced spacewalkers, to use a wire-and-tape contraption he and his crew mates built on orbit. The physician would then thread the cufflink-like device through reinforced holes on the panels, allowing them to take the strain of a fully extended solar array.
Copyright trolls are known for their dubious tactics but a new report from Canada shows just how low they can sink. According to the University of Manitoba’s copyright office, among a flood of 8,000 piracy notices are some warning students that they could lose their scholarships or even be deported if they don’t pay a fine.
At the turn of the century when file-sharing was in its infancy, some of the earliest adopters of P2P technology were those in the student population.
Freely available Internet access for those in educational establishments meant unprecedented numbers of young people going online, and with that a large upswing in unauthorized downloading.
The RIAA was one of the first groups to take a stand, suing thousands of students across the United States in an effort to send a message that free music may very well come at a cost. Later, changes in legislation meant that schools and universities across the country could lose funding if they didn’t keep piracy under control.
Of course, students continue to download to this day and each time they do they risk receiving a warning letter or worse, as students in Canada are finding out.
According to the copyright office at the University of Manitoba, mainly US-based rightsholders are writing on a regular basis to students demanding cash settlements for alleged infringement.
Noting that the university forwards copyright infringement notices to students as they’re required to under the country’s ‘notice and notice‘ regime, the copyright office says some of the letters are “tantamount to extortion.”
In a piece published in official student newspaper The Manitoban, copyright office strategy manager Joel Guenette says that while many of the 8,000 notices received are legitimate (HBO is said to have sent many warnings in connection with Game of Thrones downloads), others sink to reprehensible lows.
In addition to cautioning over the potential for multi-million dollar lawsuits, some notice senders are stepping up their threats to suggest that students could lose their scholarships if fines aren’t paid. For visiting students, things become even more scary.
According to the university’s copyright office, some porn producers have told foreign students that they could face deportation if an immediate cash settlement of hundreds of dollars is not forthcoming.
“None of these are real consequences that could ever happen in the Canadian scheme of things, but we hear from students all the time – especially international students – who are really freaked out by this,” Guenette says.
While being scared is understandable in such situations, Guenette’s department is keen to educate students on what these notices really mean. Particularly, they’re keen to stress that notice senders have no idea who notices have been delivered to, so students shouldn’t believe that copyright holders already know who they are.
Day to day, there’s nothing in current law that compels the University to hand over their identities but students can still compromise themselves by negotiating directly with notice senders, so that isn’t advised.
“We can’t tell students ‘ignore these notices’ and we can’t tell students ‘never pay a claim’ but, personally, I want students to know what these are and I want them to know that most of these settlement claims are extortion,” Guenette says.
“When I’m talking to students directly, without giving them legal advice, I would say ‘if I were you, I would never pay this.’ In my opinion, I don’t think any student on campus should be paying this.”
The University of Manitoba certainly isn’t on its own as other educational establishments are reporting similar problems. According to a separate report, the University of Calgary also finds itself in a similar position.
The university says that it’s been receiving similar copyright notices since January 2015 and now wants to crackdown on unlawful file-sharing across campus. A meeting took place in August to discuss how the university intends to deal with unauthorized downloading but the problem isn’t straightforward.
“We can certainly track an IP address, but the difficulty is that the owner of that device is not necessarily the downloader of content. Someone can use someone else’s computer without that person’s knowledge,” says provost and vice-president Dru Marshall.
Complications aside, it’s likely that if the flood of notices to universities continue, they could be forced to take more robust action. How that will manifest itself is yet to be seen, but it’s unlikely that copyright trolls will benefit, despite being the main cause of the problem.
Google Android 7.0 introduces multi-window support, allowing you to see two or more apps on a screen at once. But what if you want to see the same app twice?
Parallel Windows for Nougat lets you do that.
This free Android app allows you to open two ins…
Google Android 7.0 introduces multi-window support, allowing you to see two or more apps on a screen at once. But what if you want to see the same app twice?
Parallel Windows for Nougat lets you do that.
This free Android app allows you to open two instances of the same app and view them in split-screen mode on a phone. You can also view more than two instances of an app on tablets or other devices with larger screens.
Mit dieser weltweiten Empörung hatte Facebook wohl nicht gerechnet. In Zukunft dürfen Nutzer ein bekanntes Foto aus dem Vietnam-Krieg posten und teilen, das ein nacktes Kind auf der Flucht vor Napalm-Bomben zeigt. (Facebook, Soziales Netz)
Mit dieser weltweiten Empörung hatte Facebook wohl nicht gerechnet. In Zukunft dürfen Nutzer ein bekanntes Foto aus dem Vietnam-Krieg posten und teilen, das ein nacktes Kind auf der Flucht vor Napalm-Bomben zeigt. (Facebook, Soziales Netz)
Fährt in Zukunft doch kein iCar über die Straßen? Angeblich hat Apple seine Entwicklungsabteilung für autonome Autos teilweise geschlossen und Mitarbeiter entlassen. (Bob Mansfield, Technologie)
Fährt in Zukunft doch kein iCar über die Straßen? Angeblich hat Apple seine Entwicklungsabteilung für autonome Autos teilweise geschlossen und Mitarbeiter entlassen. (Bob Mansfield, Technologie)
After having covered many YouTube copyright and Content-ID horrors stories, we can now share a personal experience. A few days ago we uploaded the archive of old TorrentFreak TV episodes to YouTube and within hours we received our very first copyright claim. Ironically, it’s from a friend of the site and one of the last people we expected.
YouTube is a great platform for creators, allowing them to broadcast their work to hundreds of millions of people around the world, for free.
At TF we focus on writing news so we don’t use YouTube much for the site. A few years ago, however, we did host TorrentFreak TV and last week we decided to put the video archive on YouTube.
The shows were released seven to eight years ago so the news that’s discussed is all dated. However, having it all in one place on YouTube helps to keep it archived in an orderly fashion.
What we didn’t expect, however, is that hours after the first upload we were already presented with a copyright claim from a third-party.
Interestingly, the copyright claim was not coming from a major rightsholder or an obscure trolling operation. Neither was it some random bird humming that was flagged. The claim in question was made on a track by none other than Dan Bull. Yeah, Bull.
Copyright dispute
Dan Bull is an English rapper and songwriter who writes tracks about video games and various Internet related topics. We know him very well at TorrentFreak and he was featured and interviewed in several of our articles over the years.
For example, he protested against restrictive copyright legislation that would hunt down file-sharers and trample on free speech and fair use. In fact, the Dan Bull rap that was featured in the TorrentFreak TV video is a protest against the UK’s Digital Economy Bill.
Dear Mandy
We prominently featured this track in a TorrentFreak news article as well and used it with explicit permission from Dan himself.
So why are we receiving a copyright claim on YouTube now, seven years later? Perhaps Dan’s online accounts were hijacked? His Twitter account obviously wasn’t, as this was the first tweet I saw in his timeline.
How appropriate.
Dan’s tweet from last week
To find out what really happened we got in touch with Dan himself, who had a good explanation for the rather ironic situation.
“I am so embarrassed that TorrentFreak’s first copyright claim has been for a piece of content that I created. Ironically, TorrentFreak’s coverage of the music in question 7 years ago is what made it popular in the first place,” he says.
Dan explains that he’s part of a YouTube network which helps to monetize his videos and as part of this strategy they also claim his content on videos of other people who use his work. This includes our video.
So, the bots Dan was referring to in the earlier tweet also work ‘for’ him.
“The claim was made on my behalf by the YouTube network I’m a part of – Brave Bison. It was presumably done automatically by a bot which is unable to deal with the nuances of fair use. This is one of many serious issues with YouTube’s Content ID system,” Dan says.
The sad part is that this is not what Dan wants these bots to do. In fact, he actively encourages people to use his content in their own creations. However, the Brave Bison network doesn’t give him the option to do so without specifically whitelisting every video by hand.
“But even putting fair use aside, I have told the network before that I don’t mind people using clips of my music in their own videos. However, apparently the only way I can put that into practice is to personally submit them a whitelist of individual videos – this is of course not realistic, especially as new videos are being made all the time.
“For the record, I would like to say that if you want to use something I’ve made as part of your own project, please go ahead, I love seeing where people take things I’ve made,” Dan adds.
We applaud Dan for being so open about the situation and obviously don’t blame him for what happened.
However, we hope that Brave Bison and other YouTube networks seriously reconsider their restrictive policies. If a creator is more than happy to allow others to use his or her work, this should be allowed, instead of squeezing every cent from third-party videos.
Luckily, the TorrentFreak TV video that featured the Dan Bull track is still up. The only difference is that Brave Bison is now showing their ads on it, while it was free of advertising before.
We filed a counterclaim several days ago to get this lifted, clarifying that we have explicit permission from the owner to use the video. Fingers crossed that the entire situation will be resolved in a few weeks, more or less.
Dieselgate hat nun auch strafrechtliche Konsequenzen für Volkswagen-Mitarbeiter. Eine neue Sammelklage gegen Bosch erläutert zudem, warum die Betrugssoftware den Namen Akustikfunktion trägt. (Auto, VW)
Dieselgate hat nun auch strafrechtliche Konsequenzen für Volkswagen-Mitarbeiter. Eine neue Sammelklage gegen Bosch erläutert zudem, warum die Betrugssoftware den Namen Akustikfunktion trägt. (Auto, VW)
Apple stellt ein Telefon vor, Sony eine Spielmaschine und Oettinger ein Linkverbot. Sieben Tage und viele Meldungen im Überblick. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Server)
Apple stellt ein Telefon vor, Sony eine Spielmaschine und Oettinger ein Linkverbot. Sieben Tage und viele Meldungen im Überblick. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Server)
When the folks at Andromium launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Superbook project in July, they were hoping to raise $50,000. They did that… and then raised more than $2.9 million additional dollars.
Apparently they weren’t the only ones interested in an affordable accessory that lets you use an Android smartphone as if it were a laptop.
On the latest episode of the LPX Show podcast, I speak with Andromium CEO Andrew Jiang about the Superbook, his vision for the future of computing, and what’s next for the company.
When the folks at Andromium launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Superbook project in July, they were hoping to raise $50,000. They did that… and then raised more than $2.9 million additional dollars.
Apparently they weren’t the only ones interested in an affordable accessory that lets you use an Android smartphone as if it were a laptop.
On the latest episode of the LPX Show podcast, I speak with Andromium CEO Andrew Jiang about the Superbook, his vision for the future of computing, and what’s next for the company.
A new study reveals that ants carefully select the right aphids for their herds.
Enlarge/ Ants from the species Pheidole megacephala tending aphids. They protect the tiny insects from predators and milk them for a sugary fluid called honeydew. (credit: Alex Wild)
One of the worst effects of ant infestation doesn't happen inside your house or on your picnic blanket. It takes place in farms and gardens, where many species of ants tend to herds of aphids. These tiny insects are a bane to plants—aphids weaken plants by feeding on their sap, and they sometimes transmit deadly viruses while eating. This has earned aphids the nickname "plant lice." But for ants, aphids are more like cows. They secrete a sugary fluid called honeydew that ants love to eat.
Aphid ranchers on the mugwort frontier
Just as humans have transformed millions of acres of open land into ranches for cattle, ants can easily transform fields into aphid ranches. A new study by a group of environmental scientists in Japan reveals that ant cultivation of aphids isn't a haphazard process, either. Researchers in Science Advances describe an experiment where they discovered that ants in a Hokkaido field are often the only factor that prevents aphid colonies from going extinct. In addition, the ants prefer aphid colonies with a nice balance of green and red aphids, and they select aphids to exhibit these colors.
Even though many ant species tend aphids and similar sap-eating insects, the researchers focused exclusively on ants from the species L. japanocus. These ants tend colonies of the species M. yomogicola, a kind of aphid that feeds on the mugwort plant. The researchers identified three groups of eight aphid colonies for observation. They left one group alone to be tended by ants, while another group was isolated from their ant benefactors by painting the base of their mugwort homes with a sticky substance called Tanglefoot that prevents ants from climbing the stalks to their herds. The third group was a control, tended by ants, but exposed to a minimal amount of Tanglefoot. This was just to measure the effect of Tanglefoot on aphids (it was negligible).
Mit dieser weltweiten Empörung hatte Facebook wohl nicht gerechnet. In Zukunft dürfen Nutzer ein bekanntes Foto aus dem Vietnam-Krieg posten und teilen, das ein nacktes Kind auf der Flucht vor Napalm-Bomben zeigt. (
Fährt in Zukunft doch kein iCar über die Straßen? Angeblich hat Apple seine Entwicklungsabteilung für autonome Autos teilweise geschlossen und Mitarbeiter entlassen. (
YouTube is a great platform for creators, allowing them to broadcast their work to hundreds of millions of people around the world, for free. 
Dieselgate hat nun auch strafrechtliche Konsequenzen für Volkswagen-Mitarbeiter. Eine neue Sammelklage gegen Bosch erläutert zudem, warum die Betrugssoftware den Namen Akustikfunktion trägt. (
Apple stellt ein Telefon vor, Sony eine Spielmaschine und Oettinger ein Linkverbot. Sieben Tage und viele Meldungen im Überblick. (
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