Ops oopsy

August 19, 2025

🫣 Ops oopsy: We’ve all replied to the wrong group text. Awkward, sure. But ICE agents took “reply all” to a whole new level. While tracking a deportation target, they accidentally added a random civilian to their official group chat. That one mistake spilled DMV records, license plate scans and even an unredacted operations worksheet, all through unencrypted texts. The kicker? The civilian thought it was just spam and ignored it for weeks. If ICE accidentally looped me in, I’d send them a Venmo request for “data protection consulting fees.”

Tags: data, mistake, spam, Target, tracking

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🚗💨 Your ‘smart’ car could be days away from going dumb

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Here’s something used car dealers and private sellers won’t shout from the rooftops.

The average new car has 1,400 to 1,500 semiconductor chips. And high-end EVs? Try 3,000. Those computer chips power everything from heated seats to emergency crash alerts.

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AI meets true crime

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In late November 1987, Nashville police got a call about a revolting stench on Charlotte Avenue. What they found under a dirt-floor crawl space shocked even the most hardened crime scene veterans: two decomposing bodies, buried and forgotten beneath a broken-down home.

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After age 40

Your brain loses about 5% of its volume every decade, making it harder to remember details. One way to fight back? Learn a musical instrument (paywall link). It stimulates memory, coordination and problem-solving all at once, building new neurons and pathways. After all, you can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Be a hot-spot hero and always place your Wi-Fi router out in the open and high up for the best connection. Thick walls and nearby electrical appliances are major Wi-Fi signal killers.

The new scams that know you by name

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Ever get a text that feels … a little too real? You know the ones: “Your account has been locked. Click here to verify.” Most of us roll our eyes and delete them.

But the new generation of scams? They’re scarier and a whole lot smarter.

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🍿 Delete Netflix history: You can remove shows and movies from your watch history to improve recommendations (or hide guilty pleasures 🤭). On PC, go to Your Profile > Viewing activity and click Hide from viewing history next to the title. Also handy if you’re trying to remember something you watched months ago.

17.75

The average turbulence score on America’s bumpiest flight. The eddy dissipation rate (EDR) is basically a nerdy way to measure how violently the air’s shaking you around. Albuquerque to Denver nails it, turning a short hop over the Rockies into a midair mechanical bull ride. Expect seat belt signs, coffee spills and a nervous chuckle from the flight attendant.

💬 75 minutes

That’s how long the average Character.AI user chats with a bot every day. More time than most people spend talking to their actual friends. But hey, Sherlock Holmes never zones out mid-convo to scroll Instagram, right? Turns out, you can put a price on friendship (paywall link): $10 a month, to be exact.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Your TV’s USB ports can charge your phone, tablet and other mobile gadgets. If a pop-up asks to access the device, just ignore it. It’ll keep charging anyway. Genius.

$40 billion

That’s how much market value Do Kwon vaporized in his crypto collapse. He hyped TerraUSD as a stablecoin, then secretly used a trading firm to fake its stability. He could face up to 25 years, but the feds will settle for 12. That’s about one year for every $3.3 billion in lost value.