Boardwalk Empire

February 24, 2024

The inventor of the world’s most popular board game, Monopoly, created it in 1904 to demonstrate what? Was it … property ownership, gambling, land overdevelopment or the stock market?

The answer: Land overdevelopment. In 1904, Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord’s Game to show the economic consequences of land concentration and overdevelopment. It became Monopoly by Parker Brothers in 1935.

Tags: monopoly, stock market

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Live alone or need a gift for someone who does? This is Kim's home security pick

When you go to bed for the night or leave your home, are you confident you, your family and all your possessions are safe? If your answer isn’t a resounding “Yes!” you must know about SimpliSafe. It’s Kim’s home security pick, and you’ll love it for many reasons.

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🎮 Keeping up with the other Kim: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood fans, say goodbye to your digital dream life. The game is shutting down in April, and players like Alexis Costello (WSJ, paywall link) are heartbroken to lose their jets and Tokyo homes.

Tacos with a side of TMI

You guac my world. Most people don’t realize all they share when sending a picture via text. Nearly every social media site strips out the metadata that reveals a photo’s little details, like when, where and how it was taken. But that info is not protected if you text a pic. You can stop that.

To stop location sharing on iPhone:

Open the image you want to send and tap the share button.
Select Options and toggle off Location. Tap Done.

To disable location tracking in your camera altogether:

Open Settings. Tap Privacy & Security > Location Services.
Scroll down, tap on Camera, then select Never.

On Android, here’s how to wipe the location data for a single photo:

Open your gallery and select the photo.
Go to Details (it may be a three-dot menu) and click Remove location data.

Did you hear they removed some Monopoly game pieces? They were thimbles of an older time.

Busted: The FTC hit antivirus company Avast with a $16.5 million fine for selling your browsing secrets for ads. They promised to protect users’ privacy … while making bank off of it since 2014. Need a new option? TotalAV is $19 for a year.

Bad day at the office: Rivian, once the darling of the EV world, cut 10% of its staff and dialed back on production. Its stock took a 25% nosedive. Will the R2 model save the day? With production not starting until 2026 and battery fears looming, sounds like a bumpy road. I wouldn’t buy one.

Turning the tide: The FDA has approved a new treatment that supercharges tumor cells to fight cancer. The cells are then infused back into the patient. It’s pricey (over $500,000), but it works — Scott Goedeke’s tumor shrunk significantly in six weeks. Such great news, right?

Watts of love: After a fling with a mannequin named Pierre (yes, you read that right), Alicia Framis is marrying an AI hologram named AILex. This time, her lover is crafted from the data of her exes (because why not?). She’s even trying to get a joint bank account. I don’t understand it. But at least she won’t have to pick up her hologram husband’s dirty underwear.

⚠️ A cautionary tale: Marley Stevens, a student at the University of North Georgia, learned the hard way Grammarly can spell trouble. She used the grammar-checking tool for a paper and was flagged for AI use. That snowballed into a failed assignment, lost scholarship and academic probation. Ridiculous.

Future-proof: Apple’s all excited because they’re rolling out PQ3, a new cryptographic protocol for iMessage in iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4 and watchOS 10.4, this March. Huh? In real-world speak, it’s a standard that would keep messages safe from quantum computer attacks. A quantum leap in security? Eh, time will tell.