Minding my own bid-ness

August 21, 2024

🧑‍⚖️ Minding my own bid-ness: Christie’s is auctioning off some insanely rare items from the collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Highlights include an Apple-1 from Steve Jobs’ desk (valued up to $800,000) and a signed letter from Albert Einstein to then-President Franklin Roosevelt (worth an estimated $6 million). Full details here if you have a few million lying around.

Tags: Apple, desk, jobs

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Delete these red-flag apps ASAP

Are you a criminal, hacker, spy or scammer? Step right up! You can have your own app for anyone to download in the app store, and it won’t cost you a dime. Here’s a dirty secret: Apple tries to vet most apps. Google doesn’t even try to do that, but there is a setting that helps. More about that below.

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Make sure websites are following your rules: How to check permissions

Hey, where do you live? Can I listen to what you say through your microphone? What about watching through your webcam? Send me all your contacts. Oh, and I’d like to send notifications anytime I feel like it and also watch what websites you visit and what you do there.

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Jeff Bezos shows off at Blue Origin factory

Jeff Bezos took a break from, you know, counting his money to show off New Glenn, one of the largest rockets ever built at 320 feet tall.

$48 per hour

To train Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus. “Data collection operators” can make $25.25 to $48.00 an hour, but the job is a weird one. You wear a motion-capture suit and VR headset and perform mundane tasks to teach a bot how to do them. Apply here, and be ready to walk at least seven hours a day.

$750,000 ransom demand

Made by an IT contractor paid to protect his victim. The infrastructure engineer used his access to lock out the company’s IT administrators, delete all their backups and get access to the rest of their servers. If you own a business, be aware of how much control you’re handing over.

90% of workers

Use their company-issued laptops for non-work surfing. That includes (brace yourself) viewing adult content, gambling, accessing the Dark Web and streaming sports illegally. Beyond the fact your IT gal or guy sees everything you do on a work machine, it’s a major security risk. Don’t be that person.

$257,631 lottery prize

Left sitting for six months because the winner thought it was a scam. The 41-year-old Michigan man had no idea he was entered in the giveaway since it was a bonus for playing other eligible games online. If you get calls and emails about a big win, call your state’s lottery office to confirm. How come this stuff never happens to me?

$142 million ranch

In New Mexico hitting the market soon. The 500,000-acre Great Western Ranch was home to the late homebuilding titan D.R. Horton. The property includes eight homes and a fully operational cattle ranch (yes, they will throw in 900 cows for more money). Giddyap.

76 of 150 diagnoses

What ChatGPT got wrong, despite passing part of a medical licensing exam. Researchers at Western University in Ontario, Canada, gave ChatGPT case info and the results weren’t pretty. AI is pretty good at interpreting test results or educating you on a diagnosis, but it’s as bad as Google at figuring out what’s wrong.

50% higher

Expected car insurance costs in California, Missouri and Minnesota this year. Insurers are blaming damage from severe storms and wildfires. Across the U.S., premiums are expected to go up 22%. Check your state here.