Robot strawberries: In Virginia, a vertical farm is growing 4 million pounds of strawberries a year indoors, on two-story towers, with no soil, no bees and a whole lot of AI. The system analyzes 10 million+ data points a day. It’s less “Old MacDonald,” more “Black Mirror: Produce Edition.” Can’t wait for my future salad to come with bug patch notes.
Tags: data, future, notes, patch, robot
How to make any USB drive self-destruct
“Kim, I’m paranoid about losing my USB drive. Is there any way to make it so if someone steals it, they can’t see or open anything?” — Dave in Denver
It’s Friday, and I’m feeling a little nostalgic. Let’s take a fun walk down memory lane back when our gadgets were clunky, slow and somehow magical.
Remember when flipping your phone shut made you feel like a movie star? Or hearing the sound of a modem? Good times. Take a look at this list and see if there are any you miss.
The Minecraft movie is meh, but Jack Black’s unhinged chicken ballad, “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” shot up to # 78 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It’s now the shortest song ever to hit the famed list, clocking in at 34 seconds, making it both a record and maybe a cry for help for our attention spans. Listen here, you have been warned.
The weekly amount of weight training needed to gain muscle. One study found just two 30-minute sessions a week helped participants get noticeably stronger and more jacked (paywall link), no five-day grind or bro science required. One set per exercise. Nine moves. That’s it. I hear you: “Instead of calling my bathroom the John, I call it the Jim. That way I can tell people I go to the Jim every morning.”
That’s how many HTML attachments are malicious. They usually show up in your inbox with names like “invoice.html,” and when you click, they redirect you to phishing websites. That’s where scammers steal your info or drop malware on your device. Moral of the story? Stay sharp and use real-time protection. My pick is TotalAV, just $19 a year.
How much revenue TikTok creators are collectively pulling in daily. New data also shows it’s now the second most-watched livestreaming platform on the net. So far in Q1: Twitch has 4.85 billion hours, TikTok Live 8.03 billion and YouTube leads with 14.98 billion hours. Dang, that’s crazy.
What someone paid at auction for a chilling letter from a Titanic survivor. The first-class passenger wrote it five days before the Titanic went down, saying, “It is a fine ship, but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her.” The cruel twist? He still died a few months later from health issues made worse by the wreck.
That’s how many shark bites are reported globally each year. Not a huge number, but it’s been going up. Why? Blame social media. Some influencers are telling tourists to snap selfies or reach out for a pat. Add to that the fact that most people can’t tell a reef shark from a bull shark. Yeah, natural selection in action.
That’s the price for the dish and router when you sign up for a new 12-month Starlink plan. You’ll save $349, the monthly service fee stays the same, and you’ll have 30 days to return it for a refund. The catch? If you then cancel or change your service address, you’ll have to pay a prorated cost for the hardware.
