Polymath's Fourth Recruitment Surprise! Lani opened up the group's fourth recruitment thread on April 20th after a mysterious timer was posted on Polymath's description thread counting down 24 hours until a surprise. Not just that, but the thread doubled as a giveaway for cash prizes, awards, crypto currencies, and upgrades for talking to an AI created by the members of Polymath. To win, get the AI to respond with certain phrases and post them on the thread. Many members have broken some codes and there are a lot left unsolved. This idea is a hit and has accumulated almost 500 posts in one day.
Null Interested in Coders/Product Owners Soccer posted a recruitment for Null last week for members interested in assisting or creating Null Products. The products can either be whitehat or blackhat as long as they are up to par by Null's standard on quality. Members accepted will be added to Null, have graphics made for their product, and have their products advertised in Null's sponsored products/services subforum. Keep in mind, though, the group is not interested in VPNs or crypters.
Interview-Formula1: (Click to View) Clark: Welcome to this weeks edition of the HF News. Today I'm here with HF member Formula1. How's it going? Do you have any shout-out's you'd like to make? Forumla1: Good, having a pretty good easter and living drug free on this fine 4/20. As for shoutouts I'll give them to SWS the only guy I trust on HackForums, Bugga because I love her, and Vinnie because of his obsession for me.
Clark: Good for you man. So I take it you're not a pot head? Forumla1 No haha, I've had my fair share of fun but nothing great comes from it.
Clark: Wise words. Would you mind telling us a little bit more about how you found Hack Forums? Forumla1: Well I started out playing on Facebook games, Yoville in particular. Like most I thought I was going to become the worlds best hacker, anonymous, who at the time I believed was a single person, lol. Anyways I signed up and started to care about reputation I later referred two friends from the game who are now -Nas and Soap.
Clark: Haha we were all at that stage at one point or another. Since you're registration, have you learned anything more about hacking? Forumla1: No, actually I completely switched my focus from my desire to deface and program to marketing which has worked out pretty well for me. Though I would still love to learn how to program I don't see it happening.
Clark: And just why is that? Forumla1: Its either lack of time or I'm just too damn lazy, not really sure which one yet haha.
Clark: It is a commitment, no doubt. I noticed you're apart of Respawn, how's that going? Are you enjoying that group? Forumla1: Not as much as I should honestly, I joined when it was innovation but with activities on and offline I don't really have time to game, though I've been playing a bit of Age of Empires lately.
Clark: How about Infamous? What's that group like? Forumla1: Infamous is pretty great right now, its being ran by a lot of great members including bugga. I've only been in it since the conversion of complexity but I see the group going far places.
Clark: What exactly happened with complexity? I've heard a bit about it, but I don't know the details. Forumla1: Well I'm not sure if its been made public or not so I won't mention it in-depth but its was a great personal favor on behalf of Judge Dredd for Inviz who was/is going through a rough patch in life.
Clark: Oh, wow. Ok, we shan't discuss it any further. So if you could give Forumla1: Omni 1 thing to improve upon with HF what would it be and why?
Hmm that's a tough one I'm fine with everything for the most part, probably the sticky system. I've heard he wishes to setup a fully automated one (can't confirm) which would be nice, rather than trying your luck on being the first pm read.
Clark: That's a good suggestion. How do you feel about the current reputation system? Forumla1: Mehh, after getting RFd I stopped caring about reputation as much. Though it definitely helps sales lol. It's been pretty abused over time and personally I'd like to see a reset.
Clark: I didn't know you were RF'd. What for? Forumla1: Well we all go through that personal vendetta stage in life where you dwell on things, that pretty much sums it up for me at least. The particular case was regarding a series of community alerts me and others had opened on Peter L.
Clark: I see. I'd like to thank you for joining us today! If you have any closing statements feel free to share them with us now. Forumla1: Yeah sure, I forgot a shout out to Judge Dredd I don't want him to be jealous about not getting one! Also to old friends Viral Dragon and ShadowCloud who have always offered support to any questions I had, Happy Easter!
Interview-Maximum (Click to View) Clique: Welcome to this weeks edition of HF News. Today I'm here with HF member, Maximum, aka Junior. How are ya doing today Junior? Do you have any shout-out'd you'd like to make before we dive in? Maximum: I'm doing very well today, I'd like to give a shoutout to Syrah, Saturday, Career, Devour, Marvelous, and Lethall.
Clique: Beautiful. I noticed you're quite active in the GT section, is that how you discovered HF? Maximum: I was active in the GT section before but now the sections gone to shit, I actually discovered HF back in like 2009 when I was friends with some people who used DDoS in Halo 3, I just finally ended up making an account a couple years ago when I was more fascinated then ever in gamer tags.
Clique: My next question was going to be "How do you feel about the current state of the GT market?" Do you think it will ever turn around? Would you like to see it come back? Maximum: In it's current state it's not looking good, ever since Omni made it so only Ub3rs can make threads in it there have been way less buying and selling in it. I think it will eventually turn around if Microsoft ever does another gamertag reset though and I'd love to see it come back.
Clique: I imagine you've probably owned some really nice tags. Out of every tag you've ever owned which one is your favourite? Do you still play Xbox? Maximum: The gamertags that I've loved the most that I've owned/own are F(I owned it for about a day), GT, and Scary. I haven't played xbox in well over a year but I plan to get the Xbox One soon and hopefully it'll be enjoyable like Xbox was once in the olden days.
Clique: Awesome tags, do you have an account still? Maximum: I still have about around 10 accounts I still own that I've been holding onto for a while, not sure if I want to sell them or not though.
Clique: Well I hope to see you online soon. You've been on HF for about 2 years now, what is it that keeps you coming back? Maximum: The marketplace is the only reason I keep coming back, I've made a lot of money throughout my time here on HF and hopefully will be making more soon in the days to come.
Clique: All about the profit huh? Aside from GT's do you tend to buy or sell anything else in the market place? Maximum: Lately I've been getting into Twitters since they have a lot of potential to make a ton of profit off of.
Clique: Oh hell yeah. Do twitters get banned when they're passed around like GT's and Tumblr's? Maximum: Not that I've seen so far, so hopefully they don't.
Clique: Yeah, that's pretty much what ruined the GT market. Do you have any future plans on HF? (Anything you'd like to learn, experience or try?) Maximum: Right now I'm going to be working with Syrah releasing a various amount of products in the HF marketplace, I've never really had a business partner like Syrah before, he's fun to work and talk with. I've always love to learn how to code though but I keep getting sidetracked by other things.
Clique: Well best of luck with your products and learning how to code if you ever go for it. Thanks for joining us today, it's been a pleasure. If you have any closing statements you'd like to make by all means please do so now. Maximum: Check out the products soon to come from Zero.
Interview-Robust (Click to View) 630: Welcome to 191st edition of the HF News, today we're here with Robust. Any shout-outs you'd like to make before we begin? Robust: Nope.
630: No shoutouts? Yolo. Robust or themadman300? Why did you end up changing your username? I still can't adapt to calling you Robust. Robust: Too cool for shoutouts. I've had the name themadman300 for ages, back in 2008 or so when I started playing games on the Steam platform I decided to choose some other name I can't even remember, then my friend said to take themadman300, and I just took it. I kept that name for a while and then lately on HF, I believe it was last year, I made a thread in The Lounge about ideas to change my name, it didn't really get many, if any, replies to it. Later on I made a contest and still didn't get any names suitable, there were two nice ones that got taken. Then, if you can remember, I had my unique OG gangsta thread about buying someone's name, because it seemed all the good ones were taken. Diabolic gave me a PM with the name Smug, it took me minutes to attempt to claim it, I really liked that name, but someone had to have that to. He replied and gave me the name Robust. Now, this suits my personality really well, you see. It has a nice sexual feel to it. Definitions include; strong and healthy, forceful, huge in size, due to muscle strength, I can go on all day. It gives me the chance to say "I'm nice and robust." So a lot of my accounts were still called themadman300 and attached to my primary Gmail account. I haven't actually made a new Gmail for my new name and intend to stick with using that. Over at my server we use Google Apps for Enterprise and I have an email there, Robust@..., so I just tend to use that now.
630: I remember your thread buying an HF username, it stirred up a lot of emotions. So tell me about yourself, what do you do in the real world? Robust: I think I get too much time in the fake world these days. I'm actually quite busy with my education outside of here, with my experiences from here I plan to work as a programmer for a game eventually, or start my own company. Someone has to turn out rich and I'll gladly take some more bits of paper in my pocket. Oh, and outside of that too I need to turn into the new Nate, he's obviously ripped.
630: What are you currently studying? Did Hack Forums have an impact on your career choice? Robust: Well, as you may know we don't follow the major and minor system here. I think you major in something be minor in something there. Here you study a subject area for three years usually, and I'm taking computer science, I guess that's not much of a surprise. Computer security with forensics was something I was interested in, but that was more on a personal end rather than something I wanted to take up as a career. So with the branch I'm currently taking I'm a bit off game development, however I get more of a general idea with stuff here too. Other stuff I learn by myself, playing around with stuff always gets you somewhere.
630: Yeah for instance in the US I major in psychology, but minor in criminal justice. How is life in the UK? I've wanted to visit for a while now. Robust: It's great here, it rains wayy too much though. I live up in the North of England. Lots of cool shit over here, free health care, even though it comes out of taxes, pretty nice living style and so on. Though there is stupid stuff like VAT that we pay, makes stuff much more expensive around here. We pay a significant amount more for some stuff. Overall though, not too bad.
630: Good to hear, I need to visit the UK sometime. My boss is from the UK and she always brought us back millions, the candy. Hell, I'd visit just for the candy. So you were pretty involved in Hacker Craft, how do you like the server? Robust: Well, I've been playing on and off since forever. After the initial reset I didn't play for a week or something, I guess this was a few months back because I can't even remember, and over in Stl labs (a nice group chat) Stl was talking about being on HC. I went on and decided to check it out. So Stl had owned Chad, we owned the island of *insert name here and got raided eventually. So, back to the question, back when HackerCraft was full raiding it was really good. Raiding servers are interesting, factions servers if you like. You have to defend, attack and gear up, as well as a thousand other things. This was back when PvP didn't lag and we didn't suffer from stupid "security" measures. Anyhow, I'd have to say the implementation of the farming economy was the start of the server going doenhill imo, and the HackerCraft award was the thing that started it. We've got so many people going for the award, understandable, but nobody raided at all. You've got one or two groups raiding and another 50 or so players going for the award. Props to anyone who went for the award and actually did raiding too. Right now there are indeed improvements but, honestly speaking, a lot more need to be made. For now, it's impossible to PvP with someone with equal armour as you or fairly good armour because they go down two hearts at most before you get a nice minute of not being able to hit anyone. I'm not even sure if raids happen anymore. It's gone from the PvP aspect of it that it once had. It's a farming, survival server and if that's the aim then the server is beautiful. Though I'm sure the server will improve as time comes by.
630: I agree with you, I wish we had more regular players, not just people selling the award. Is it true that you host the server? How did you become a part of a hosting company? Robust: Yeah, we do. So I work for CloudFrost. The leader of the build team that makes stuff for my network approached me back in October and linked me to a tweet by @CloudFrostHost which said they were looking for people to work with them. I tweeted back and they added me on Skype. The requirement was easy, he had a little issue with a few of his nodes and I told him the solution. I got the job and I had to answer support tickets, do technical stuff and I was the sysadmin basically. Salary stayed the same and got lower in January and early this month, which sucks. It's still a great laugh, some of the tickets are hilarious. The job isn't too bad but the salary is getting too low and I can't really afford other stuff that I need to purchase/renew. I have to say, being a support representative sucks, and when you're working for a Minecraft host it sucks more. I recommend you don't try it unless you have extreme levels of patience.
630: Well I'd like to thank you for the hosting, it's greatly appreciated. I've dealt with customer service for products and it's a bitch, I must say. How did you get into Minecraft? What other games are you into at the moment? Robust: Well, back when I chose the name themadman300 I used it mainly to play on Steam. So back, or well in 2010, then I had a friend called Eymas and he played Minecraft, he did it through Steam so we saw he was playing the game. He played it so much that I asked once what the hell it was. So he was talking about it and how he ran a vanilla server, he ran a range of Garry's Mod and TF2 servers at the time too, and I bought the game back then. I played on a couple of servers and went looking for a bigger one to play on. I found a few servers, picked up stuff and moved on. I have to say though, I've learned a lot of stuff off this game. I don't play Minecraft as much, rather more backend work now. Games I play are usually shooters such as CS:GO and Battlefield 4, I'm more into those. Shoot, kill, die, rinse and repeat. Whenever I get on some amazing killstreak my console crashes, this is why you never ever play games on a console unless it's only available for console.
630: I've turned away from console games and moved towards the PC revolution... Can't deal with BS customer support or ToS anymore. So tell me, how did you find Hack Forums? Robust: lmao, tell me about it. Well, back in the whole Minecraft picture I approached Griefing somewhere on the lines. This site was the best site for hacked clients, it had way too many. So I registered here and got myself one because yolo. I was active on various forum sites. I decide to come back here and notice that my account wasn't recognised, I didn't really read the Help Documents and the email was already registered so I used the contact form and got a response back after a week or two saying that the thing was fixed. I decide to get active in the Griefing section and from there I moved away from it because too many shit posts and "OMG PLS GRIFFER THIS SURVU PLS GAY OWNER" and shit like that, I got active in several categories and now I'm most frequent in the HackerCraft forum, surprising, and that's where most of my posts are, I'm also active in groups. This forum is pretty fun to be on so I imagine myself active here in the coming future.
630: I've noticed that you're in Polymath... The group has stirred up some controversy between members on the forum, from a member's points of view, how do you like the group? Robust: Indeed, and lots of it was simply because we refrain from talking too much about what we do. I have to say, the group isn't like what I imagined it would be like when I applied. Groups in general cause controversy between members on the forum. I have to say it was pretty funny to see all of the rage in the Polymath thread about us when they weren't even close to what we do, their speculations were rather humorous. Anyhow, back to the question, it's definitely a rather unique group and I have to say that Lani and Sh1eld have done a great job in making it. It's a group I can be active in and contribute towards stuff that we do. There's always room for improvement and the room is being lost because Lani and Sh1eld eat more than they walk.
630: I think people are getting butthurt over the secrecy, it's hilarious. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your overall HF experience? Has that experience been positive or negative? Explain. Robust: It's been pretty good for me, it isn't owned by some child, there isn't more bullshit any day, most issues I've got are with ub3r l33t skids who think they're the next anonymous or some shit. I have to say that the site is managed well so on a scale I guess it'd be pretty high up there. I think it's safe to say this is the best forum I've been active on. It's easy to have a chat with a lot of people. Quite a lot of members, at least the ones I interact commonly with, are those with intellect. With the kind of stuff I do here I'd rate it around 8.
630: It's funny because I look at the community and I see these anon wannabes, but then there are members who are in their 20s/30s who actually carry themselves with maturity. Being on such a big forum it amuses me the stuff I see day to day here. If you can change one thing about the forum what would it be? Robust: Make a rule where every single one of these wannabes is closed, but then again that would decrease activity a lot. Something more realistic though, and I'm aware these are being done, the implementation of 2 factor authentication as soon as possible as well as Ep1c for the increased PM space.
630: Well that's all the time we have for the interview. Do you have any concluding remarks or statements you'd like to make? Robust: Thanks for having me. Just some little advice to our wannabe virgins; https://i.imgur.com/LXDuXpF.jpg - don't do it.
Apr 23, 2014 09:46 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2014 10:20 PM by Oak.)
Mocking the Hearbleed Exploit and Taking it to Another Level
Can you imagine if your passwords for everything became news for the entire world to see? Some security psudo-martry of sorts posted his disdain for the news swelling around the Heartbleed exploit saying 'I couldn't give a flying fig about the Heartbleed thingamajig. Two years already the thing has been running loose ... and not a word of someone crying over its damage. Say ... does anyone really know its origin? Russian crackers? Seattle high-schoolers? the NSA? Yahoo's marketing department?' Making his point clear that he doesn't really care about his accounts or what would happen if they are hacked, he gives out his password on the comments... for everyone in the entire world to see. Taking it a step further, he even gives possible hackers a plethora of ideas, "read all the eMail I have. Sneak into my WaPo, NYT or CNN accounts and go crazy making comments in my name. Break-into my Facebook or Twitter profiles and change my hometown to Gas City Indiana, swap-out my avatar with a picture of your nads, make friends with people I don't know!" Soon enough, a few of his accounts are hacked and things changed. Most of the time conforming to exactly what he said they would do, purely out of sarcasm. This guy really shows us just how much he cares about his online persona, something many people will not stand to have tarnished; a less we can all learn.
Fingerprints, the Security of the Future.
Fingerprints, the security of the future... uh, not so much. It seems many people love the idea of fingerprint scanning over passwords. To many, it is a perfect solution. Apple and Samsung have already implemented it into their smart phones and deem it technology of the future; however, many security experts have a fundamental problem with fingerprints. People argue that passwords can be cracked, stolen, and typically aren't very unique. They think that the uniqueness of fingerprints allows to expedite security and allow for more wholesome security. The argument security researches propose against it is that you can't change your fingerprint like your password, you leave your fingerprint every time you touch anything, even your keyboard, and once someone has it they always will! These arguments clearly show that fingerprinting is futile and both Samsung and Apple have already been doped. In fact, the same fake fingerprint will work for both devices.
Security Tip of the Week
While we do have a Cryptocurrency new section, I want to talk about regular wallets versus online wallets. There are pros and cons for each side. With a PC side wallet, you face the problem of losing your computer, a fire, or other possible damage. Many people think they can avoid that by using an online wallet. While it isn't a horrible idea, you still have all these problems, but you've now made your money a target for hackers. While the chance of losing data can be a bit slim, the possibility still exists, which is why you should always have multiple safe places for your currency. There are some very creative ways to store it including paper wallets and things of that nature. While no option is explicitly better than the other, I personally always lean toward PC storage.
Morgan Stanley Sees 49% Profit Jump
Financial giant Morgan Stanley saw a massive jump in profits last quarter. The sixth-largest bank in the U.S. reported a net income of $1.45B for the company, up from $936M only a year ago. This news drove up Morgan Stanley's shares by 2.8% in pre-market trading, taking the price up to $30.74 for market opening, though leaving the price steady through trading and closing only two cents higher than opening. Morgan Stanley's CFO Ruth Porat attributed the company's growth to "commodities, credit and mortgage," however the company showed profit growth in nearly every area from equity underwriting to wealth management.
Ron Paul Says That Bitcoin Isn't "True Money"
Ron Paul, a libertarian U.S. Congressman and 2012 presidential nominee, says he doesn't think Bitcoin is "real money." He stated, however, that he believes that the fact that it doesn't fit the definition of money is actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Paul is hardly a fan of the current monetary system. "There should be no prohibitions; there should not be a monopoly and a cartel running our monetary system because it so often benefits the privileged few. We certainly saw this in the bailing out of the financial system where the wealthy bankers got bailed out it in this recent and severe recession. I am a strong believer in competition. Bitcoin is an introduction to that."
Dogecoin Enthusiasts, Creator Set Sights on San Francisco Convention
The jokecoin-turned-internet-sensation Dogecoin is gearing up for a convention on April 25th in San Francisco. Dogecoin's creator, Jackson Palmer, will be in attendance along with a number of Dogecoin enthusiasts. Attendance to the convention will be free, however a donation is encouraged for those who can afford it. With a number of events, many will be present including Litecoin creator Charlie Lee joining Palmer for a "fireside chat," Dogetipbot co-founder David Dvorak, and Doge4Water's Eric Nakagawa hosting a panel on the Dogecoin community's charitable efforts. Throw in contests, entertainment, and more, this Dogecoin convention could shape up to something amazing.
Canada's Marijuana Laws Attract Investors
This month marked a change in Canada's Marijuana laws, allowing licensed companies to grow and ship medical marijuana to patients. Unlike the U.S.' patchwork of conflicting state and federal laws, Canada's laws state in no uncertain terms what companies can and cannot do, which is proving to be a magnet for investors. Twelve companies will initially receive the license to grow and ship marijuana, which sparks significant competition amongst them, a significant change for Brent Zettl's Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which had the market cornered for eleven years as Canada's sole medical marijuana provider. Now, companies are open to raise funds which provides many new opportunities for investors.
Halo, Destiny Composer Fired
The legendary composer behind host games in the popular video game series titled "Halo" has been terminated from his contract with Bungie this week. Composer Marty O'Donnell tweeted earlier this week that he was "terminated without cause." In response, a Bungie representative released the following statement: "For more than a decade, Marty O’Donnell filled our worlds with unforgettable sounds and soundtracks, and left an indelible mark on our fans. Today, as friends, we say goodbye. We know that wherever his journey takes him, he will always have a bright and hopeful future." O'Donnell's departure will not affect the release of the game and his work in the game will still remain in it.
Playstation 4 Outsells Xbox One in March
The Playstation 4 sales seem to be growing like a wildfire. It was revealed this week that the Playstation 4 continues to conquer the Xbox One in terms of sales. To date, The Playstation 4 has sold 7 million units while the Xbox One has sold 5 million units. While this doesn't seem like much of a lead, both Sony and Microsoft report a 60 percent growth over the previous generation's sales from where they were at in the last life cycle of those consoles. For comparison, the Wii U sold 5.86 million units in its first year on the market.
Titanfall DLC Coming in May
Respawn revealed news this week that the next installment of DLC in its Titanfall video game will be released sometime in May. Titled "Expedition," the DLC pack will include three new maps: Swampland, Runoff, and War Games. Swampland is described as having a lot more vegetation than what we've seen on other maps, which will aid in "tree running." Runoff will be themed around water and Wargames will be based around the simulator players first experience when they first play the game. Aside from the maps, Respawn will release a new burn card and a few more multiplayer modes for free. These new modes will be variations of existing modes, which will be a test to see which ones will be popular with players with the possibility of being removed if they do not become popular with the gaming population.
Release Dates for the Week of April 20, 2014:
LEGO: The Hobbit - Wii U - April 22, 2014
Octodad: Dadliest Catch - PlayStation 4 - April 22, 2014
Trials Fusion - PC -April 24, 2014
Dark Souls II - PC - April 25, 2014
Notable Gaming Threads and Events
None Reported
Interested in having your gaming event posted in here? PM Roger Waters.
Minecraft Pocket Edition
If you enjoy gaming on-the-go, you've probably downloaded Minecraft: Pocket Edition. While still far behind the desktop edition of the game, Minecraft PE has been receiving some promising updates to fulfill the needs of those who can't live without Minecraft when away from home. The developers behind Minecraft PE recently posted a thread on Reddit regarding their progress on the game as well as an update showcase and a Q&A stream. To see their progress for yourself, check out this video!
HackercraftNews
Hackercraft is business as usual after last week's reset. Omniscient recently announced that he has disabled factions and re-enabled grief prevention. Factions were disabled because of recurring problems with the plugin, likely due to the large overhauls in preparation for the Minecraft 1.8 update. Many are disgruntled about these changes and because of the nature of the plugins, it's hard to work around these problems. The new anti-griefing plugin is causing trouble for some players, who have had problems placing water and even breaking blocks. Because the factions plugin was removed, the ability to claim land was lost; it is, however, possible for players to claim a 10x10 plot of land that will then grow. Omni is working with the Hackercraft community to configure these plugins to balance raiding, farming, and securing land. If you'd like to give your input, check out this thread in the Hackercraft section.
Featured Server of The Week:TheMagicApple
Tired of PvP factions? Looking for a server where you can build your heart out? The Magic Apple is a survival server meant for serious builders who want to relax and create without the chaos of PvP, raiding, or griefing. To join the server, you first need to sign up here and then can log in to themagicapple.org:25565 to get building! Think your server deserves to be featured? Send over the details via PM to have it reviewed!
Apr 23, 2014 09:46 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2014 10:20 PM by Oak.)
Scientists Discover Brains 'Anti-Distraction' System
Psychologists at the Simon Fraser University have made a discovery that could revolutionize the way doctors treat and identify attention-deficit disorders. This is the first study to reveal that our brains rely on an active suppression mechanism to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information when we want to focus on a particular item or task. Everyone deals with distractions differently and now scientists know how the brain focuses on information that it deems relevant. With this new discovery, doctors can better treat patients with attention-deficit disorders and limit the amount of deaths and injury in high stakes environments, such as driving. This discovery can also help treat schizophrenia and ADHD. as doctors can help the patients' brain focus on relevant information and block out distractions.
Brain Changes Associated With Casual Marijuana Use In Young Adults
According to a study from Northwestern University and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, the size and shape of two brain regions involved in emotion and motivation may differ in young adults who smoke marijuana at least once a week. The team of scientists compared the size, shape, and density of the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala in 20 marijuana users and 20 non-users. Each marijuana user was asked to record their drug consumption over the last three months, including the number of days they smoked and the amount consumed each day. The scientists found that the more the marijuana users reported consuming, the greater the abnormalities in the nucleus accumbens and amygdala. The shape and density of both of these regions also differed between marijuana users and non-users. Even though the study was done on a small amount of people, it highlights the importance of further researching the long-term effects of marijuana use.
New Method of Screening Children For Autism Spectrum Disorders Works At 9 Months Old
Researchers have identified head circumference and head tilting reflex as two reliable bio-markers in the identification of autism spectrum disorders in children that are between 9 and 12 months of age. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ASD is identifiable as early as two years old, although most children are not identified until after the age of four. While studies have reported that parents of children with ASD notice developmental problems in children before the age of one year, there has yet to be a screening tool to identify those children. This study looked at the use of head circumference and head tilting reflex as two biomarkers that can be used during well-baby visits by primary care providers. Both screenings were given to nearly 1,000 patients at the four, six, and nine-month well-baby visits. Of the 49 that displayed abnormal results, 15 were identified at risk of ASD and of the 15 that were identified, 14 later went on to develop ASD.
Air Pollution Over Asia Influences Global Weather and Makes Pacific Storms More Intense
In the first study of its kind, scientists have compared air pollution rates from 1850 to 2000 and found that anthropogenic particles from Asia impact the Pacific storm track that can influence weather over much of the world. The team of scientists looked at two scenarios: pollution in 1850 and pollution in 2000. By comparing the results from an advanced global climate model, the team found that anthropogenic aerosols conclusively impact cloud formations and mid-latitude cyclones associated with the Pacific storm track. These human-made pollutants affect the climate either directly by scattering or absorbing solar radiation and indirectly by altering cloud formations. The Pacific storm track is a critical driver of global circulation by transporting heat and moisture. The circulation of heat and moisture appears to be increased over the storm track downstream, meaning that the Pacific storm track is intensified because of the Asian air pollution outflow. This new study supports previous findings that pollution in the air over Asia tends to affect global weather patterns.
- Replacement Invitation(s) Sent - Will Update w/ World News ASAP *
Samsung Data Center Fire Causes Outages For Samsung Made Devices
A fire broke out on April 19th at Samsung's data center causing outages for quite a bit of people and lasted until 6:15AM ET. The fire broke out at the Samsung SDS building in Gwacheon, South Korea and the devices affected included smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. The outage went mostly not spoken of with only a few of Samsung's social media accounts commenting on the outages. Samsung reported after the outage ended that there were no casualties and they were working to fully restore their services.
HTC Hires Former Samsung Marketing Exec Who Helped Samsung Boom
HTC has had a huge problem with marketing and PR for a while now and it's known by almost everyone. They are looking to change this, though, seeing as they hired a former marketing executive who worked for Samsung during the time that they started to get big. The executive in question is Paul Golden and he is largely credited with helping Samsung become the top of the phone market by creating the popular Galaxy brand. As far as most people know at this moment, he is only a consultant to Chairwoman Cher Wang, but this may change if things work out. Who knows, HTC may be on the rise after all its recent losses.
Google Trends To Start Alerting You Of Popular Things Via Email
Google Trends became known for being able to gauge the popularity of a search at your discretion, but that seems to be too much work for folks nowadays. Google has officially added an option to subscribe to an email version of Google Trends, which sends you an email when there are changes in interest levels for things such as hot searches. Of course, the newsletter can be customized to have specific topics that you like so you can keep up-to-date on all the important things you search for. If you would like to subscribe to Google Trends, you could always click here.
Rufus Cuff Looks to Control the Wearable Market
The wearable device market is weak lately, but is growing as well with each passing day. This leads more companies to start to make devices to try to get into this new market, which is the case with the Rufus Cuff. The device that looks like it came right out of a terrible 80's movie depicting the future has a 3-inch screen, camera, built-in microphone, speaker, web browser, full access to the Google Play store, and a GPS. The Cuff is basically a small phone to put on your arm. It allows you to connect to WiFi as well as your phone's Bluetooth to send texts or make calls, using your mobile data of course. So far it is only available at the IndieGoGo page, in which to get one you need to pledge $259; it seems the full price will be about $280. The Rufus Cuff is dropping in September of this year, so it is not a long wait. If you want to check it out, you can click here.
Apr 23, 2014 09:47 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2014 10:33 PM by Oak.)
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Thoughts, feelings, opinions, news, or information.
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Wow, not much really happened this last week. I'd correlate it with the freshly-arrived Spring, however - everyone's just a little more busy (probably including Omni) and things are turning just a little slower.
Hope it was enjoyable, nonetheless :)
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"What's new?"
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"As each day booms, we find new things and learn something
we never knew before so here is a list of a few new events in our
very forum: I have at long last upgraded to l33t (which was
centuries overdue) and may contribute to the forum and news
under a different name later. Omnicoin is thriving with trades
sprouting everywhere and it's small values of $1:θ15-θ60 brings
hope to our domestic currency. The League of Legends boards
have, as forseen, fallen into a noticable disarray as it's ideologies
and pseudo-social policies break down with the influx of users
registering to obtain content and a social divide between users
whom choose to cheat by "dropping" (DDoS) games and those
whom don't (this is without a shadow of a doubt noticable
compared to social divides for cheating on other boards). Perhaps
this is a change of the forum's game social ideologies as people
on a hacking based forum choose to have a conceptual honour
among thieves by attacking and dividing those that choose to
cheat in video games and those that don't." -Ryuusei Cartwright
Apr 23, 2014 10:25 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 24, 2014 04:03 AM by wellager.)
Drop it like it's hot.
Thanks for the awesome news.
Okay, I'm done reading the news.
We will all remember O'Donnell as a legendary composer, and a father to the Halo fans. I hope he can go work for Microsoft or 343 industries to contribute in the making of Halo 5.
Apr 23, 2014 10:30 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2014 10:57 PM by VRUMM.)
Quote:Scammed by Acroz (UID=1417555) | Illuminati leader for 1100$ - Tɦɛ Gʀiɱ - It seems the former Illuminati leader, Acroz, has gone rogue scamming $1100 earlier this week.
Notable thread? Something seems off about this edition.
Quote:always room for improvement and the room is being lost because Lani and Sh1eld eat more than they walk.
Apr 23, 2014 10:50 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 23, 2014 11:06 PM by VRUMM.)
I don't think someone's scam report should be a notable thread.
Scammed by Acroz (UID=1417555) | Illuminati leader for 1100$ - Tɦɛ Gʀiɱ - It seems the former Illuminati leader, Acroz, has gone rogue scamming $1100 earlier this week.