The Junker Race in Norway Where All That Counts Is Fun
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Professional auto racing can be a ridiculously expensive sport, one hard to get into without a billionaire backer, wealthy parents or a fat bank account of your own. But if you lack the cash and still dream of the track, don’t worry. There’s always Norwegian bilcross.
Instead of Ferraris and Astons, drivers race beat-up Volvos and Saabs that might otherwise go to the junkyard, competing for little more than a dinky trophy. “There’s no money behind it,” says Alberto Bernasconi, who photographed a race near Hellvik, Norway last June. “Just fun.”
Bilcross is a cheap version of world rallycross that originated in Finland as “Jokamiehenluokka,” or “Everyman’s Class.” As long as your steed can steer laps around a gravel track, you can participate. Drivers patch up their cars with second-hand parts and roll cages, stripping the interiors of all but the front seat, steering wheel and dashboard. They might hammer out the dents, spray-paint the exterior, and hand-paint on the name of their sponsor on the side, if they have one. But no one sinks too much money into their rides because it’s a short-term investment: Each competition ends with a fixed price auction, where drivers turn in their own vehicles and pay somewhere around $1,200 for someone else’s, minus the seat and dash. “It keeps it affordable for everyone,” Bernasconi says.
Bernasconi discovered the sport while shooting a travel story in southern Norway. He was winding through the hills with his windows down, enjoying the peaceful scenery, when he heard the engines. They were loud—not because they were powerful, but because the curving, 1.5-mile track at the Egersund Motorsportsenter sits in a dusty stone quarry that amplifies the noise. Bernasconi hadn’t planned to stop, but before he knew it, he had forked over the 12-Euro entrance fee and was snapping away.
The competition seemed more a spoof of racing than racing itself. Cars broke down and crashed at unimpressive speeds; others failed to start at all. One driver took several minutes to crawl to the finish line after her shift gear broke, the crowd cheering her on from lawn chairs perched in the surrounding hills. No one took any of it too seriously. “When I was a kid I did races with a go-kart," Bernasconi says. "It’s more or less the same thing."
Bernasconi’s sunny photos capture what’s left when you take the money, speed, and ability out of racing: fun. But maybe that’s what it’s supposed to be about anyway.
Watch Astronauts Answer Your Burning Questions About Space
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Last week, two American astronauts, Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, and one Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Artemyev, climbed into a giant explosive stick and fired into space, ascending 250 miles before docking with the International Space Station on Friday. As usual, they flew in the storied Soyuz rocket, launched out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan—the same facility that sent off Sputnik 60 years ago.
The trio, all veteran spacepeople, have left behind political turmoil between the US and Russia for a life in microgravity. Aboard the ISS for over five months, they’ll help run some 250 experiments, testing materials and studying the effects on microgravity on bone marrow (that’d be theirs). NASA has been using the Russian launch facility for ISS flights since the Space Shuttle program shut down in 2011—though in the coming years American astronauts will again fly out of the US as commercial operations spin up.
Now that they’re on board, the astronauts will be getting to work right quick: The two Americans will step out into space for a six-and-a-half-hour walk around the station just five days after arriving. And a little more than a week after their docking, they’ll host a visitor in the form of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft, which will bring supplies and scientific equipment.
If that seems like a lot, well, it is. Astronauts are a funny bunch: They have to be OK with rocketing into the cold indifference of space, they have to be in shape, they have to be really smart. Oh, and they have to be cool about climbing into a giant explosive stick, of course. (Some other official requirements from NASA: must have a bachelor’s degree and good eyesight, though glasses are allowed, which means even I could be an astronaut if only I took care of my body.)
We’ve talked to twin astronaut Scott Kelly about how the ISS is like the Harris county jail, biologist astronaut Kate Rubins about how wearing a biosafety hazard suit prepared her for her space ensemble, and badass astronaut Peggy Whitson (holder of the American record for most time in space) about that time her descent back to Earth didn’t go quite so smoothly.
Now, we’ve assembled seven astronauts to prove just how smart and cool they are (they’re comfortably back on Earth, not floating around still) by answering the top 50 Googled questions about space. Can birds fly in space? Can you fire a gun in space? Great questions with great answers in the video above.
The FTC Is Officially Investigating Facebook’s Data Practices
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The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection confirmed that has undertaken a non-public investigation into Facebook’s data practices Monday, according to a statement from Tom Pahl, the agency’s acting director. The announcement comes just over a week after The New York Times and the The Guardian published explosive reports about the reported improper use of data belonging to 50 million Facebook users by the Trump-campaign affiliated data firm Cambridge Analytica.
This isn’t the first time the FTC has investigated the social network’s data practices. In 2011, Facebook agreed to settle charges—though admitted no actual fault—that it “deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public,” among other overreaches.
The settlement barred Facebook from making further deceptive privacy claims, required it obtain a user’s explicit approval before changing the way it handles their data, and mandated that Facebook receive periodic assessments of its privacy practices by third-party auditors for the next 20 years. It didn’t carry, however, any financial penalties.
‘The Federal Trade must bring an enforcement action against Facebook.’
Marc Rotenberg, EPIC
The 2011 consent decree also required that users be notified explicitly if their data is shared beyond the privacy settings they have configured. Specifically, the FTC accused Facebook of telling users that they could limit their data to “Friends Only,” whereas in fact this setting did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used. Facebook finally did change this setting in 2014, but it was too late. Facebook may have violated that portion of the settlement by allowing Aleksandr Kogan, an academic at Cambridge University, to obtain data belonging not only to people who downloaded an app he created, called “thisisyourdigitallife”but also those individuals’ friends. The data collected from the app was later passed on to Cambridge Analytica, which reportedly retained it even after telling Facebook it had been deleted.
“Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements,” Pahl said in the statement Monday announcing the probe. “Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices.”
Facebook says it is willing to answer the FTC’s questions. “We remain committed to protecting people’s information. We appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have,” Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, said in a statement.
For privacy advocates, the investigation is a long time coming.
“The confirmation of the investigation is good news. The Federal Trade must bring an enforcement action against Facebook for the violation of the 2011 Consent order,” Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a statement. EPIC has pushed for the FTC to take greater measures to regulate Facebook’s data practices for years.
If the FTC finds that Facebook failed to comply with the consent decree it agreed to in 2011, it could be liable for trillions of dollars in fines, according to experts who spoke to The Washington Post. Violations of the agreement could carry a financial penalty of $40,000 per violation, meaning that if the social network mishandled 50 million Americans’ data, it could face fines up to $2 trillion. It’s not clear though that the FTC would necessarily seek the maximum penalty—but even a fraction of that could put a strain even on as large a company as Facebook.
Resourceful Knife Maker Proves You Can Turn Aluminum Foil Into a Terrifyingly Sharp Blade
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We’ve all had to improvise when realizing we’ve run out of clean dishes. A pot becomes a bowl, a ladel a spoon, but finding a substitute for a sharp kitchen knife requires a little more effort. As long as you’ve got a roll of aluminum foil on hand, and some unmatched knife-making skills, however, you’ll be able to avoid washing dishes for yet another day.
Japan’s most resourceful knife-maker is back with a new DIY project that uses actual metal instead of food to fashion a makeshift blade that not only looks like it came from a high-end kitchenwares store, it also cuts like it, too. As with Kiwami Japan’s previous creations, a mastery of knife sharpening is used to create a finely-honed edge that cuts like a razor, and while the aluminum’s definitely not going to stay that sharp for long, the important thing here is finding yet another workaround to loading the dishwasher.
CDs and vinyl are outselling digital music downloads
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Digital music downloads began to outsell physical media since 2012. It took four more years for digital music revenue to surpass those from physical media as well. Then streaming happened, and last year generated more money in the US than all the other formats. Now, digital downloads are coming in dead last, with fewer sales than CDs, vinyl or other physical media, according to the latest annual report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Even though shipments of physical media dropped 4 percent to $1.5 billion, digital download revenues fell 25 percent to $1.3 billion in 2017, putting CDs and vinyl back on top of non-streaming music formats. Streaming continues to rule the roost, however, accounting for almost two-thirds of the total US music industry revenues in 2017, which represents most of the growth in the sector. One promising new streaming category is the "limited tier" service, like Amazon’s unlimited Prime streaming to a single Echo speaker. This group, which also includes Pandora Plus, accounts for 14 percent of the whole subscription market, up from 11 percent the previous year.
Don’t let record execs tell you otherwise; they’re doing pretty well. The US music industry is going strong with revenues up $1.1 billion (wholesale) and $2 billion (retail) since 2015. Digital downloads brought in 15 percent of total music industry revenue, with physical media accounting for 17 percent. Records are still cool — the RIAA calls vinyl "a bright spot among physical formats," with revenues from the format up 10 percent to $395 million.
Spotify says 2 million users suppressed ads on its free service
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Earlier this month, Spotify revealed that it had begun cracking down on people using hacked versions of apps. These apps allowed users with free accounts to suppress advertising and take advantage of paid features. Now, Spotify has disclosed just how many people have been taking advantage of this hack: around 2 million users.
That’s not an insignificant number, and it’s understandable why Spotify is cracking down on them. As the company explains in an amended F1 filing with the SEC this week, these users forced the company to adjust its metrics and key performance indicators. The disclosure notes, "Unauthorized access to our Service may cause us to misstate key performance indicators, which once discovered, corrected, and disclosed, could undermine investor confidence in the integrity of our key performance indicators and could cause our stock price to drop significantly."
As a result, Spotify has adjusted its monthly active users from 159 million at the end of 2017 to 157 million. Considering the company has filed for a direct listing to go public, these numbers matter more than ever. In an email at the beginning of March, Spotify notified users of hacked apps that they were at risk of having their accounts suspended or terminated if they didn’t cease using them immediately. Now, these numbers tell us why the company is concerned.
Catan VR gets closer to the real thing than any app
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The first time I played Settlers of Catan was probably 2006. I didn’t really know much about board games, aside from old classics like Monopoly, so when a friend brought it out at a party I was intrigued. To my surprise, I liked it. And, it turns out, many others did as well — as of 2015, more than 22 million copies of the game (created in 1995) have sold worldwide. I too bought a copy for myself, and when the app version came out, I played it non-stop. It got to a point where, frankly, I played it so much that I got sick of it, and ended up deleting the app and giving the game away.
But at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, I was ready to reacquaint myself with an old friend. That’s because the makers of Catan have partnered with publisher Asmodee Digital and developer Experiment 7 to create, you guessed it, a VR version of the popular board game, and release it at the show. It was even set up in a special area in the Oculus booth, complete with a giant mural of the Catan board on a wall and a fake board game table set in the middle. To be honest, I was skeptical that Catan in VR could capture the feeling of playing a real board game, but I was willing to give it a shot.
The Catan demo in the Oculus booth was set around the aforementioned fake board game table, with an Oculus headset set up in each of the four sides. One of the upsides of Catan VR is that it’s compatible with all Oculus systems — it’s playable on Samsung’s Gear VR, the Rift and the upcoming Go. You can play the same game across the different headsets.
I was set up to play the game with two other journalists as well as an Oculus spokesperson, with me on one of the Go headsets. Once I strapped it on my head, I was transported to what appeared to be a large room, with the iconic Catan sunset appearing in the distance. In the middle of that room was the four of us, sitting around a virtual table, with a virtual Catan board laid out in front of us. Yes, we were all playing Catan, while also apparently being on the island of Catan. How meta. If you don’t like the setting, there’s also an option to swap out to a Japanese-inspired environment complete with shoji screens. You can even change the artwork on the walls if you like.
The board, by the way, looks great. I love the tiny little details like the trees in the forest, the sheep in the meadows and even a mine cart in the ore-filled mountains.
Each of us were represented by different floating avatars. I was a viking helmet, while the other players were a cat, a wizard (represented by a wizard hat) and a masquerade mask. The players with the Rift had two hands (to represent their two controllers), while those with the Go only had one hand. The avatars and hands floated and moved around as the people gestured and talked.
In a single-player environment, all of your opponents would instead be represented by AI personalities that you might recognize from previous Catan games (Candamir, Lin, Mary Anne and Nassir). An Asmodee Digital representative told me that Klaus Teuber, the inventor of Catan, actually provided substantial notes and input on how each AI personality should behave and play — some might be more expansionist, while others might stay closer to one side of the island.
The first thing you’re tasked to do is to basically set up the board, whereby players take turns to decide where to place their first two settlements at the intersections of the game’s hexagon tiles. If an intersection is available and represents a legal move, it will light up in white. More desirable locations — usually an intersection with a higher probability of getting goods — will be marked in green. So, as you might expect, the green locations are snapped up pretty quickly, and you have to be strategic enough to get a good spot while they’re available.
Once you decide where to put a settlement, a house will then be built before your eyes, as well as the accompanying road. All of the player controls are housed in a little movable tableau area, which should be familiar to anyone who’s played Catan before. On it, you can see how many resources you have, as well as icons for rolling dice, building houses or roads and, of course, trading, which is the heart and soul of any Catan game.
When trading, you simply select which goods you’re willing to trade, and then which goods you want in return. Your opponents can then make their own trading offers, which are represented by floating speech bubbles next to their avatars. To accept, hit the green check mark, or if you don’t like any of them, hit the red x to cancel. From there, well, the game goes on, with people building roads and cities, dealing with the occasional robber, until somebody gets the requisite number of 10 points and is then declared the Lord of Catan.
On the whole, playing Catan in VR feels a little bit like a hybrid of playing the game in real life and playing the app version. I do think the artwork is a little silly, and playing a board game in VR does sound a little weird, but in practice, it actually works surprisingly well. It’s automated just like the app, but you get to experience the "feel" of playing with other people thanks to animated gestures and talking with the other players. A spokesperson tells me that you can choose to play with your friends of course, but you can also be matched up online with random strangers. I would personally feel a little weird about doing that, but to each their own.
Amusingly, I was told by Asmodee that Teuber has actually used the VR game to play Catan with his two sons, who both live in different countries. And that social aspect is where I think a game like Catan VR really shines. One of the reasons I love board games so much, is that it’s often a backdrop for social interaction, where people can come together, laugh, and joke around, while playing a game. A strict app-only experience, while still enjoyable, does away with the social part.
But in VR, suddenly that social aspect is back. Now, like Teuber, I can play Catan with friends and family who live across the globe, and still capture that same feeling of camaraderie that I would have when playing the game in person. I look forward to the day when more and more board games can be played this way.
Catan VR is now on the Oculus Store for $14.99 and on the Gear VR store for $9.99. Once Oculus decides on a release date for the Go, we should get some clarity on when that version will be available.
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