🍹 Hola, beaches! “Quiet vacationing” is all over the internet. Millennials and Gen Zers are sneaking in time off work without taking PTO. The ruse takes a few fake meetings on the calendar and strategically timed emails to make your boss think you’re working. Yeah, this is also called stealing.
$600,000 lost
After a homebuyer’s law firm was hacked. Now he’s suing them. Richard Bates hired the firm to help him buy a house. Hackers broke into their email and stole enough to trick Bates into wiring them his home payment. Bates says it wouldn’t have happened if his lawyers had basic cybersecurity like 2FA. Well, he’s not wrong.
🛰️ Lookin’ fresh: A satellite designed to remove space junk captured a 360-degree view of a discarded rocket floating around. The 36-foot-long rocket, about the size of a city bus, has been orbiting Earth for 15 years and has barely aged. The orange foam insulation is intact and the engine nozzle looks polished.
MILF (Man, I Love Football!) alert: The NFL is rolling out facial authentication at stadiums starting with Thursday’s season openers. The new system will verify the identity of thousands of staff, players and media. No scanning for fans (yet). Get your ticket scanned as usual on game day.
🖥️ Pricey pixels: Get your hands on a rare piece of digital art by Andy Warhol … for a cool $26 million. The portrait of Blondie’s Debbie Harry was made on a 1985 Commodore Amiga 1000 computer. Only two copies are believed to exist. NFTs from restored Amiga images sold for $3.38 million back in 2021.
Wildfire drones: Startup Rain is equipping helicopters with software that lets them fly and drop water autonomously. The shorter response time could help catch fires early — before they get out of control. Firefighters can then step in to finish the job (paywall link). Talk about lifesaving.
It’s a scam: On Facebook, posts are popping up asking you to share photos of missing kids or folks in need. The goal is to get a ton of shares, and then the posts are edited to include malicious links. Spot the fakes: If it’s a real story, local news or law enforcement accounts will post about it, too.
50% decline
In brain volume loss for folks trialing a drug similar to Ozempic. Liraglutide simulates the hormone GLP-1, which regulates appetite and blood sugar. It might be a tool to fight Alzheimer’s, too. Participants saw an 18% slower decline in cognitive function. Promising, right?
👩🏼🏫 Gen Z’s latest craze? PowerPoint presentation parties (paywall link). Guests whip up literal slideshows on weird, wacky topics and show them to the group. It’s all about flexing creativity, getting some laughs and reliving high-school nostalgia (or nightmares). One of my favorite topic prompts: “Predictions for how each friend here will end up in jail.”