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Eine Forschungsgruppe scheint eine Vorhersage über den drohenden Anstieg der Todesfälle ausgearbeitet zu haben, auf die der Bund-Länder-Beschluss zur Corona-Pandemie basiert
It’s based on the Japanese manga by Haro Aso and directed by Shinsuke Sato.
Three Tokyo slackers find themselves drawn in to a parallel world where they must play games to survive in Alice in Borderland.
A video-game-obsessed young man and his two best friends find themselves in a strange version of Tokyo where they must compete in dangerous games to survive in Alice in Borderland, a new live-action original series from Netflix. Based on the Japanese manga by Haro Aso, it looks like a hybrid of Alice in Wonderland and Ready Player One, with a dash of the 1997 sci-fi horror film, Cube, thrown in for good measure. The series is directed by Shinsuke Sato, best known for 2001's The Princess Blade and last year's Kingdom, and co-written by Haro Aso and Yasuko Kuramitsu.
First serialized in 2010, the manga series ended its run in 2016. It tells the story of Ryōhei Arisu and his pals Karube and Segawa, a group of bored high schoolers who long for more exciting lives. Arisu's wish is granted during a fireworks celebration: he and his friends find themselves in a post-apocalyptic parallel world known as Borderland, where they must play a series of dangerous games to survive.
The Netflix adaptation follows the same basic premise, with a few minor tweaks. Per the official synopsis: "Arisu—a listless, jobless and video-game-obsessed young man—suddenly finds himself in a strange, emptied-out version of Tokyo in which he and his friends must compete in dangerous games in order to survive. In this strange world, Arisu meets Usagi, a young woman who’s navigating the games alone. Together, they set out to unravel one mystery after another as they risk their lives and confront what it means to live."
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Ecologist/epidemiologist Chris Golden on looking for patterns that cause pandemics.
Enlarge / Scientists around the world are working not just to stamp out the current COVID-19 pandemic, but are also racing to prevent an even worse outbreak in the future.
As much damage as the current coronavirus pandemic has inflicted on the world at large—killing over 230,000 American citizens alone so far, and nearly 1.2 million people worldwide—scientists know there are other viruses lurking out there, one of which could be just as contagious as COVID-19, yet much more deadly. And they know we need to be prepared for such an outbreak.
That's the central message of Virus Hunters, a new documentary special premiering tonight on the National Geographic channel. The documentary follows award-winning ABC News foreign correspondent James Longman and Harvard ecologist and epidemiologist Chris Golden as they travel to hot spots around the world: Liberia, Thailand, Turkey, and (yes) the United States. It's a companion piece to a special issue of National Geographic magazine released in mid-October devoted to COVID-19.
A National Geographic fellow, Golden's interest in studying the ways in which environmental change affects human health dates back to childhood, when he used to go on nature walks with his mother. "I saw the way that she responded to nature, this connection between mental health and the outdoors, and I ended up pursuing this all throughout my educational experience," he told Ars. After earning an undergraduate degree from Harvard—creating his own major out of a mix of courses in ecology, medical anthropology, and development studies—he earned his PhD in epidemiology and ecology from the University of California, Berkeley.
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A few months after the turn of the new millennium, a new piece of software called LimeWire saw the light. At the time, Napster was still the dominant file-sharing tool and the music industry’s greatest threat. However, it didn’t take long before LimeWire took over, dwarfing all other P2P applications. Two decades later, we talk to several developers who witnessed it all first hand.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Twenty years ago, a new trend called file-sharing started to conquer the Internet.
What used to be a niche activity, only reserved for the technically inclined, suddenly became a popular pastime for the masses.
At the turn of the century, Napster was the first to be widely embraced, which happened to be right around the time MP3 players became popularized as well.
This new sharing culture did not just intrigue music-loving teens. It offered limitless inspiration for many developers as well. In the year following Napster’s release, other P2P applications such as Direct Connect, iMesh, eDonkey2000, Freenet, and LimeWire launched.
Napster initially remained the most popular application but this reign ended in the summer of 2001, when it was ordered to shut down by a US federal court. By then, however, its successors were queuing up to take over, and LimeWire stood out.
LimeWire was founded by entrepreneur and hedge fund manager Mark Gorton. The application was created under the wings of Lime Group, LLC, by a small group of developers with a keen interest in peer-to-peer technology.
According to the online history books, the Gnutella-based software was first released on May 3, 2000. However, at the time, it wasn’t called LimeWire yet. The application as people know it, the Gnutella-based file-sharing client, came out a few months later.
“To say we had a slow start was an understatement. At the time, we celebrated every 100 downloads and then every thousand but that was just a drop in the bucket,” Greg Bildson, former LimeWire CTO/COO, and employee of the first hour, recalls.
“Newer clients like LimeWire were definitely an improvement on the Gnutella network but we were still only a tiny fraction of the network,” he adds.
That slow start should be seen in perspective. While the official Gnutella client from Nullsoft was much more popular early on, LimeWire caught up quickly. Within a year more than three million copies of the software were downloaded, something most developers could only dream of.
During the time the file-sharing business was booming, LimeWire grew faster than other applications. This growth was helped by the shutdown of competitors such as Napster and Grokster. Also, the site was less aggressive on ads and toolbars than some competitors.
This doesn’t mean that it didn’t have downsides of course. The Gnutella network was dealing with spam and fakes, for example, where the files were not always what they promised to be.
Many former users will be familiar with the frustration of downloading a music track, to realize after half an hour of downloading it wasn’t what its title promised. At the time, that was all part of the game.
Despite the drawbacks, LimeWire became the dominant file-sharing tool during the first decade of this millennium. While BitTorrent generated more traffic, LimeWire appealed to a broader audience of casual file-sharers.
Around its height in the mid-2000s, roughly one in five of all PCs in the world had a copy of the software installed.
The software became the go-to tool for millions of people, many of whom used it to fill up their MP3 players. At the same time, heaps of money were flowing in thanks to people who paid for the ‘Pro’ version, even though a pirated copy could be downloaded with the free LimeWire version.
With LimeWire’s first release now twenty years ago and its eventual demise ten years later, we decided to reach out to some people who were working for the company at the time. We spoke to Angel Leon, Zlatin Balevsky, and Dave Nicponski, three members of the LimeWire team.
Over the years many stories have been told about LimeWire but we wanted to hear from insiders why they think their software became such a success.
Leon, who later started the LimeWire spinoff FrostWire, joined in 2005 after responding to a Craigslist ad. He became the webmaster for Limewire.com and Magnetlink.com but, along the way, mastered the application’s code as well.
According to Leon, the LimeWire developer team was very talented and the technology itself worked well. However, the success, as is often the case, also came down to timing.
“The technology was very easy to use, search, download, share all in one place. The project was developed and maintained by a group of very talented developers, truly a world-class team,” Leon says.
“But I think they rode greatly on the circumstances, soon after I got there, if I remember correctly there was a ruling against Grokster, I imagine they took in a lot of their userbase,” he adds.
Nicponski joined the LimeWire team in 2004 but already was an experienced P2P developer by then, as he worked at Bearshare since 2001. There was a healthy competition between the two teams as both were trying to build the best and most appealing file-sharing application.
Why LimeWire eventually became the most popular of the two is still a mystery to him and there probably was a bit of luck involved
“In many ways, BearShare was a technically superior product, but at the end of the day, that wasn’t the primary differentiating factor which determined popularity. I don’t rightly know what was. I suspect a combination of branding and a whole lot of luck,” Nicponski says.
Balevsky also joined the LimeWire team in early 2004, while he was still at university. He reached out to the company directly to see if LimeWire was hiring, while offering a solution to a problem they were trying to solve.
“I was contributing to an open-source project called Freenet which was written in Java and saw that LimeWire was trying to solve a problem I had already solved,” Balevsky tells us.
This initial offer was rejected but after some time had passed, Greg Bildson invited him for a job interview, after which he joined the team as a developer.
According to Balevsky, the team worked very hard to create the ultimate file-sharing experience. However, he believes that LimeWire’s success also stems from the fact that it was relatively clean, while other software was bundled with adware and toolbars.
“That wasn’t always the case – when I first joined we did bundle some third-party software in the ‘basic’ version. I remember clearly that within a month or so of removing the adware our popularity had exploded,” Balevsky says.
LimeWire was also relatively virus-free in the early years. This set it apart from competitors such as Kazaa, whose hashing algorithm allowed viruses and fake files to masquerade as genuine.
“The virus writers eventually figured out how to use LimeWire as an infection vector, but that didn’t happen until years later which gave us plenty of time for good publicity,” Balevsky notes.
In the meantime, life was good at the LimeWire office. There was an open-source mentality and the company itself was very open as well, involving and respecting all team members. The was no shortage of money either and the sky was the limit.
Leon recalls LimeWire’s well-known rooftop parties which attracted many outsiders as well, including Casey Neistat and his brother. Located in Manhattan, the Limewire building had a great location with a terrace of top and a view of the New York skyline.
This team of young and talented people worked hard but also knew how to enjoy life. Balevsky seconds this party atmosphere, as well as the company’s openness.
“We were young, crazy, had virtually no management or oversight as the bosses let us do whatever we wanted,” he says, adding that he is reluctant to share too much as that may make some former colleagues uncomfortable.
“The fact that we had a $300 fancy waterpipe in the office – a gift from the owner – should give you enough of an idea of what the atmosphere and culture were like.”
“The inventor of Kademlia – Petar Maymunkov worked in a different company owned by the same owner so we had many in-depth technical discussions over a waterpipe and poker.”
LimeWire’s seemingly limitless expansion eventually came to an end. This started in 2006 when a group of music companies, represented by the RIAA, sued Lime Group over copyright infringement. Leon had left the company by then but was served nonetheless.
“I was still served with a subpoena with very loud and scary bangs at my Bushwick, Brooklyn apartment one early morning. LimeWire was kind enough to take care of my legal bills at the time,” he recalls.
Nicponski was more directly involved in the lawsuit and he was deposed for roughly eight hours by New York lawyers working for the major music labels.
“It was a bit surreal to have to give testimony to a small army of lawyers at the top of a Manhattan skyscraper for an early-twenty-something,” Nicponski says, while highlighting another important point.
Looking back, many people believe that the file-sharing boom helped to change the music industry. While the labels witnessed a loss of control and income, people including Nicponski see things differently.
“My general feelings during that deposition were that I had helped open the pandora’s box of technology against an industry that I viewed (and still view) as overwhelmingly evil. We exposed the cracks in the foundation of that business, and once the cracks started to appear, they then began to widen.”
In a way, file-sharing helped to break up the music industry monopoly, turning music into a community. This meant more choice for consumers and paved the way for “per song” sales, new distribution models such as Apple’s iTunes, and eventually streaming.
The LimeWire lawsuit was expected to a degree and didn’t come as a shock. However, as the legal battle dragged on for several years, uncertainty grew at the LimeWire office. While Mark Gorton explored several options to survive, the end was always near.
“Every other Friday was the last day at work, we had at least three ‘Goodbye dinners’ and in general development stagnated due to the uncertainty,” says Balevsky, who was still with the team.
Balevsky, in the meantime, started to help Leon and another developer with the FrostWire spinoff. This would ensure that the LimeWire spirit would survive, even after the company shut down.
LimeWire’s demise eventually came in 2010. Facing trillions of dollars in potential damages, Lime Group LLC decided to settle the lawsuit. The company agreed to pay $105 million in damages and a message on the official site urged users to remove the software.
People who visit LimeWire.com today will no longer see the shutdown notice. The domain was eventually taken over by Balevsky who uses it to promote his own anonymous file-sharing application MuWire.
The developer never witnessed LimeWire’s end as he left the company in 2008 after obtaining his green card. Leon was gone by then too, and continued working on FrostWire, which despite troubles with Google’s Play store, is still around today.
With LimeWire gone, the name lives on in the memories of millions of people, and partially in FrostWire and MuWire. What happened to the $300 waterpipe is unclear, however.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Bleiben wir realistisch: Umfragen und Konstanten der US-Politik sprechen eine klare Sprache
Über das Gefährdungspotential des Tabakrauchens, des Gebrauchs von E-Inhalationsprodukten und Tabakerhitzern und die Taktik der Verschleierung durch die Tabakindustrie
“We do have to think about the fact that 20 years is a long time.”
Enlarge / The essentially complete International Space Station in 2010, as seen by space shuttle Atlantis. (credit: NASA)
The Cold War had been concluded for less than a decade when NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, crammed themselves into a Soyuz spacecraft and blasted into orbit on Halloween, 20 years ago.
Two days later their small spacecraft docked with the International Space Station, then a fraction of the size it is today. Their arrival would herald the beginning of what has since become 20 years of continuous habitation of the laboratory that NASA, leading an international partnership, would continue to build for another decade.
Born of a desire to smooth geopolitical tensions in the aftermath of the great conflict between the United States and Soviet Union, the space station partnership has more or less succeeded—the station has remained inhabited despite the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, and later, nearly a decade of no US space transportation. NASA, Roscosmos, and the European, Japanese, and Canadian partners have been able to rely on one another.
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Google hat die Sicherheitslücke nach nur 7 Tagen veröffentlicht, weil sie bereits aktiv ausgenutzt wurde. Patches gibt es nicht. (Windows, Microsoft)
Ungeachtet der Corona-Krise schießen die Rüstungshaushalte in vielen europäischen Ländern durch die Decke
Eta to produce flooding in Central America, then may turn north
Enlarge / Tropical Storm Eta's satellite appearance on Sunday morning, Nov. 1.
Late on Saturday night, the National Hurricane Center upgraded a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea to become Tropical Storm Eta.
This is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, and ties 2005 for the most tropical storms and hurricanes to be recorded in a single season. The Atlantic "basin" covers the Atlantic ocean north of the equator, as well as the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.
Eta poses a distinct threat to land. Although the storm's track remains ultimately uncertain, Eta should move somewhat due west for the next few days, likely strengthening to become a hurricane before landfall in Nicaragua by Tuesday evening or Wednesday. As it will be a slow-moving, meandering storm, Eta will produce a prodigious amount of rainfall, with up to 30 inches possible over parts of Nicaragua and Honduras. This will lead to significant flooding, with landslides and swollen rivers.
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Google hat die Sicherheitslücke nach nur 7 Tagen veröffentlicht, weil sie bereits aktiv ausgenutzt wurde. Patches gibt es nicht. (
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