For newer pixels there’s a feature that runs a local AI to monitor the conversation and will alert you if the conversation seems scam-like.

Telling grandma to be suspicious of buying Target cards to pay the IRS might be an actual good use for AI.

“Cat Lassy will save me!” https://youtu.be/_Q2s8AJbsps

Pykrete was invented by the cousin of the science TV presenter whose voice can be heard on Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”.

Via Tom Scott’s newsletter, an explanation of a strange ngrams anomaly in an xkcd. Why is the 11th of all months apparently the least popular date?

https://drhagen.com/blog/the-missing-11th-of-the-month/

Fish, chips and mushy peas with a breadcake on the side. I then make a butty with some of all three ingredients.

You know how the weather forecast has the temperature and the “feels like” temperature?

Well, this is the 405 and the “feels like” 405.

https://xkcd.com/723/

BASIC uses (used?) it to declare variables. (I don’t know if earlier languages did.)

Not that that’s a reason for other languages to copy it.

From the person who brought us “This video has [number] views.”

With a mesh screen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_lamp

My autistic son would happily play in the park. Just once every few months he would decide that “now is the time to run” and just take off as fast as he could in a straight line. How would that play out in a busy street.

People can’t imagine that: so much of the time things are calm, straightforward to handle, but if EVER you let your guard down for a second at the wrong time, you’ll end up on the news as a “tragic story of grieving negligent parent.”

Oh, many years ago I had a baby monitor that included a pressure mat. If it detected no movement for a while (it was sensitive enough to detect breathing) it set off an alarm.

Although if such a thing exists today, it probably requires an app and a subscription. Enshitification.

Looks like the pixel watch 3 can do something like this, but it only calls emergency services (and plant l only in some regions!)

https://support.google.com/fitbit/answer/15250403?hl=en

“If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the- World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH, the paint would’t even have time to dry.”

• Terry Pratchett

Lithobraking.

Waldo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waldo_Moment

“My leg!”

Except for the Doofenshmirtz “2 nickels” one, I see that everywhere.

“It’s too late for me. But you can still save yourself.”

Well, I used to. They don’t let me talk to the interns any more.

A private key would be built in to the camera. It would be stored in a way that’s hard to get at, physically or in software (like the secure enclaves in phones).

The pics or videos are signed using the private key (again, this process needs to happen in a secure way without revealing the secret key).

The camera manufacturer publishes the matching public key. Anyone can use it to verify that the file matches the signature. But no one can sign a fake image unless they can get at the private key.

This would work even if the camera manufacturer no longer existed. The camera does need to ever be online.

The public/private key pairs are also part of what makes blockchains work, but for this process blockchains would add nothing.