Forget the guilt trip: there’s a better way to get people to eat more bugs

Study: appealing to pleasure made people more likely to eat mealworm truffles

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Enlarge / We double dog dare you to eat those bugs. (credit: John Tlumacki, Boston Globe/Getty Images)

A few years ago, French chef David Faure traveled to Asia. The many different bugs routinely offered for consumption in that part of the world inspired him to create an insect-based tasting menu at Aphrodite, his Michelin-starred restaurant in Nice. Adventurous diners could sample "crickets in a whiskey bubble with cubes of French toast and pears," or "squares of peas, carrot foam, and mealworms."

According to a new study by Swiss scientists, Faure's marketing strategy to make bugs more palatable to Western diners was a good one: present insects as an exotic delicacy or a luxurious indulgence, rather than a healthy protein source that is more environmentally responsible than consuming meat. They just published their fundings in Frontiers in Nutrition.

This is part of broader push toward accepting insects as an alternative protein source in Western diets, since food production accounts for as much as 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, much of that due to livestock. Farming insects could reduce that significantly. But how to overcome the strong revulsion most Westerners feel upon encountering insects in their food?

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Smart Home: Tado lenkt bei neuem Abomodell teilweise ein

Mit der Einführung seiner neuen Thermostatserie hat Tado bisher kostenlose Funktionen zum Teil eines monatlichen Abos gemacht. Bestandskunden fanden das gar nicht lustig, weswegen Tado die Änderungen nun teilweise widerruft. (Tado, Applikationen)

Mit der Einführung seiner neuen Thermostatserie hat Tado bisher kostenlose Funktionen zum Teil eines monatlichen Abos gemacht. Bestandskunden fanden das gar nicht lustig, weswegen Tado die Änderungen nun teilweise widerruft. (Tado, Applikationen)

Project Stream: Google testet mit kostenlosem Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Leider nur in den USA: Google will mit einem großangelegten Pilotversuch den Stream eines grafisch anspruchsvollen Blockbuster-Spiels ausprobieren und bietet den Testern kostenlosen Zugriff auf Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. (Assassin’s Creed, Google)

Leider nur in den USA: Google will mit einem großangelegten Pilotversuch den Stream eines grafisch anspruchsvollen Blockbuster-Spiels ausprobieren und bietet den Testern kostenlosen Zugriff auf Assassin's Creed Odyssey. (Assassin's Creed, Google)

Kim Dotcom Loses Privacy Battle Following High Court Appeal

In March, Kim Dotcom was awarded damages after his requests for the government to hand over information held on him were denied. That ruling was immediately appealed by the Crown. The New Zealand High Court has now overturned the earlier decision by the Human Rights Review Tribunal that concluded that Dotcom’s privacy rights had been breached.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Ever since his cloud storage site Megaupload was shut down in a blaze of publicity in 2012, Kim Dotcom has been fighting legal battles on several fronts.

One of those was aimed at forcing the government to hand over information relating to his case.

In 2015, Dotcom asked dozens of ministers and multiple government departments to “urgently” disclose information. Most of the entities receiving the requests transferred them to then-Attorney General Chris Finlayson. He denied the requests, describing them as vexatious and baseless.

Dotcom subsequently filed a complaint with the Human Rights Review Tribunal (HRRT), accusing the New Zealand Government of wrongfully withholding information. In March 2018, the Tribunal ruled in Dotcom’s favor, stating that the Crown was “in clear breach of its obligations under the Privacy Act.”

Dotcom was awarded NZ$60,000 in damages for “loss of dignity or injury to feelings” plus NZ$30,000 to compensate for the information not being handed over. However, the Crown quickly appealed the decision and in September the matter was heard before the High Court in Wellington.

In a decision published today, Dotcom was handed defeat after the High Court sided with the Attorney-General’s appeal.

“We find that there was a proper and lawful purpose for the transfer of the requests and that, because of the insistence that all 52 requests were required to be responded to urgently, on the ground that the information sought was relevant to the eligibility proceedings, they were vexatious,” ruling reads.

“Had we been required to determine the issues of remedies, we would have quashed the remedies ordered against those entities that were not defendants; set the awards of damages aside on the basis they were wholly erroneous and remitted the question of damages to the HRRT for determination in accordance with the principles outlined in this decision.”

In other words, the High Court ruling states that Dotcom should not have received the damages he was granted back in March.

“The damages awarded were wholly erroneous as there was no evidential basis for assuming that the information sought would have been relevant to the proceedings and there was no direct evidence relating to Mr Dotcom having suffered loss of dignity or injury to feelings such as to warrant an award..,” the Court notes.

True to form, Kim Dotcom received the news with defiance. This morning the serial entrepreneur slammed the decision as bad for New Zealanders.

“The High Court did not just ignore the law and parliaments intention. New law was made from the bench. This new law means Kiwis will have a harder time to access information they are legally entitled to. The Government will use this against Privacy Act requests it doesn’t like,” he said.

Shortly after the decision was published, Kim added to his earlier comments with an outburst on Twitter, suggesting that some judges in New Zealand are corrupt and care little about the law.

Of course, like most decisions handed down against Dotcom, this one can be appealed. A short time ago the Megaupload founder confirmed that his team will be taking that option.

“We will obviously appeal today’s judgment from the Wellington High Court. It is ignorant of the law and parliament’s intention to provide citizens with access to information that the Government holds about them. A bad day for human rights in New Zealand. The fight goes on,” he concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Dav1d: Videolan-Community erstellt eigenen AV1-Decoder

Die Multimediaspezialisten der Open-Source-Communitys Videolan, VLC und FFmpeg erstellen einen eigenen Decoder für den freien AV1-Codec. Dieser ist schon jetzt in einigen Belangen besser als die Referenzimplementierung. (AV1, Video-Codec)

Die Multimediaspezialisten der Open-Source-Communitys Videolan, VLC und FFmpeg erstellen einen eigenen Decoder für den freien AV1-Codec. Dieser ist schon jetzt in einigen Belangen besser als die Referenzimplementierung. (AV1, Video-Codec)

Elektroauto: Renault plant günstiges elektrisches Kompaktmodell K-Ze

Renault hat mit dem K-Ze ein elektrisches Kompaktfahrzeug angekündigt, das in China und in Europa auf den Markt kommen soll. Die Reichweite liegt bei nur 250 km und es soll ein Elektroauto für die Masse werden. (Renault, Technologie)

Renault hat mit dem K-Ze ein elektrisches Kompaktfahrzeug angekündigt, das in China und in Europa auf den Markt kommen soll. Die Reichweite liegt bei nur 250 km und es soll ein Elektroauto für die Masse werden. (Renault, Technologie)

Abgespecktes Betriebssystem: MacOS Server Mojave kaum noch brauchbar

Apple hat nach der Desktop-Version von Mojave nun auch das Server-Betriebssystem gleichen Namens für 22 Euro vorgestellt. Ob Nutzer es überhaupt wollen, ist fraglich. (Server, Apple)

Apple hat nach der Desktop-Version von Mojave nun auch das Server-Betriebssystem gleichen Namens für 22 Euro vorgestellt. Ob Nutzer es überhaupt wollen, ist fraglich. (Server, Apple)

Apple: Akku des iPhone und iPad lässt sich mit iOS 12 nicht laden

Es werden immer mehr Probleme mit den neuen iPhone-Modellen bekannt. Käufer beklagen sich darüber, dass der Akku im iPhone Xs und im iPhone Xs Max oftmals nicht geladen wird. Auch ältere iPhone- und iPad-Modelle sollen davon betroffen sein. (iPhone, Sm…

Es werden immer mehr Probleme mit den neuen iPhone-Modellen bekannt. Käufer beklagen sich darüber, dass der Akku im iPhone Xs und im iPhone Xs Max oftmals nicht geladen wird. Auch ältere iPhone- und iPad-Modelle sollen davon betroffen sein. (iPhone, Smartphone)

Surface Go im Test: Ein vollwertiges Windows-Tablet kann auch 10 Zoll groß sein

Das Surface Go ist Microsofts kleinstes Surface-Tablet. Es ist leicht und handlich, aber trotzdem als vollwertiges Windows-System zu gebrauchen. Dabei leisten die Intel-Pentium-CPU und das helle Display überraschend gute Arbeit. Vom Type Cover würden w…

Das Surface Go ist Microsofts kleinstes Surface-Tablet. Es ist leicht und handlich, aber trotzdem als vollwertiges Windows-System zu gebrauchen. Dabei leisten die Intel-Pentium-CPU und das helle Display überraschend gute Arbeit. Vom Type Cover würden wir aber vorerst die Finger lassen. Ein Test von Oliver Nickel (Surface, Microsoft)

Police to Seattle’s techies, streamers: Sign up for our anti-swatting service

Dept’s video includes guns-drawn response to hoax call, “sounds… like swatting to me.”

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Enlarge / Body-cam video taken from an apparent Seattle police response to a hoax hostage-situation report. (credit: Seattle PD)

The practice of "swatting," or calling in fake threats to activate an aggressive police response to an unwitting home or business, has unfortunately lingered for the past few years. Starting this week, one police department in the United States is rolling out a system targeted directly at this illegal hoax practice.

On its official "swatting" resource site, the Seattle Police Department acknowledges how swatting works, along with the fact that citizens have requested a way to submit their own concerns or worries about being a potential victim. (Full disclosure: after having my own personally identifiable data distributed in a malicious manner, I asked SPD for this very thing... in 2015.)

"To our knowledge, no solution to this problem existed, so we engineered one," SPD's site reads. The site claims that swatting victims are "typically associated with the tech industry, video game industry, and/or the online broadcasting community."

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