Massive university hack

China behind massive Australian National University hack, intelligence officials say

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Intelligence officials believe China may have been behind a massive data breach which compromised the personal details of thousands of Australian National University students and staff. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that senior intelligence officials have pointed the finger at China as one of only a few countries capable of pulling off the hack, which compromised up to 19 years’ worth of personal data from students and staff. The ANU revealed the breach on Tuesday, with vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt saying the university had detected an “unauthorised access to significant amounts” of data including the bank numbers, tax details, academic records and passport details of students and staff dating back almost two decades. The Australian Signals Directorate said the hack appeared to be the work of a sophisticated actor, and now intelligence officials are reportedly pointing the finger at China.

I know a bunch of people who are affected by this. Heck, half of Canberra is affected by this. The ANU is Australia's top university. I'm not personally affected because I never went to uni, but many high-level public servants, including a significant number of people in intelligence agencies, have now had their data compromised.

This is a Really Big Deal.

The irony is that due to the university having a huge number of overseas students, China now has a ton of data on many of its own citizens.

Massive littering at Trafalga square

Trash including discarded signs littered the square in messy heaps. The area looked like a dump. Reading the signs I read "Stop Trump" what exactly do people want Trump to stop doing?

Pretend Podcast

This is really just an excuse to share a fun-for-me story, but I recommend checking out the podcast itself, too.

My wife listens to true crime podcasts while she works. Today, she was telling that she was listening to one at the moment about an Israeli spy who bends spoons. Her comment was completely out of context, so it took me a moment for what she said to click. I asked, "Israeli... Uri Geller?"

Its so rare that I get to drop obscure knowledge bombs on my wife, she just stared at me.

The Mainstream Media is MK Ultra and you are the subjects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oreu9j-LIx0


The media makes you believe in false facts and then consent to laws based on those false facts without realizing the laws take away your freedoms

Some Cultures Are Bette?

https://youtu.be/2JXrDwtiqQs

Virginia governor demands action on guns

https://www.apnews.com/6168796d8f1140a7bb3c3a88c990253c

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Northam, a Democrat faced with a gun-friendly, Republican-controlled General Assembly in the middle of a legislative election year, also said he wants every lawmaker to go on record for or against his proposals during the special session, rather than avoid tough votes by quietly killing the bills in subcommittee.

I like this part. What happens in closed door committee meetings is much different than the dog and pony shows that take place in public hearings.

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Northam’s bills include a ban on silencers and high-capacity magazines,

This will do nothing to prevent crime or save lives. Or perhaps hi-cap mags in VA will be defined as anything more than one round?

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as well as a broadening of the ability of local governments to prohibit guns in city buildings.

Not going to work either, unless the perp had a habit of bringing his gun to work prior to quitting. Might as well make murder somehow more illegal.

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The governor said he also wants mandatory, universal background checks before gun purchases; a limit of one handgun purchase per month; and a “red flag” law that would allow authorities to seize weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.

This is the only part of the new bill (if it exists) that isn't stupid.

Ranb

Is the planet from Interstellar impossible?

Well, here comes another black hole question from yours truly. I'm sure everyone is surprised ;)

So I've heard arguments from physicists before, saying that the planet near a blackhole in Interstellar would be unstable, or bathed in lethal radiation from the accretion disk, etc. But it just dawned upon me that it should be flat out impossible for it to be there.

Of course, that's calculated from my position of not understanding most of GR, so I might be wrong. (I know, it surprises me too.;)) If anyone knows better, please do correct me.

So for a Schwarzschild kind of black hole, the time dilation effect in relation to a far far away observer is the square root of (1 - 2GM/rc²). So as you get closer to the Schwarzschild radius, that approaches infinity.

Black holes also have a photon sphere, i.e., a radius under which even photons can't maintain a stable orbit. In the recent photo of a black hole, yeah, that was what the black blob in the middle was. It wasn't the event horizon itself.

That radius, again for a Schwarzschild kinda black hole, is 3GM/c².

Thing is, if you substitute the latter formula into the former, you're still at VERY tame time dilation.

Ok, so at this point I should probably add SR time dilation, since that planet or its star would be orbiting around the star, not hovering in place. And the thing is, we still have some thousands of times worth of time dilation for that to explain. The OVERWHELMING difference in how fast time flows would in fact be from it moving incredibly close to the speed of light, rather than the black hole itself.

I.e., that planet wouldn't be somewhere at the outer edge of the accretion disk. It would be right at the INNER edge of the accretion disk, and at that, quite spaghettified.

So am I wrong there?

Also, obviously I'm not qualified to touch the maths for a ROTATING black hole with a 10 lightyear pole. Which the one in Interstellar probably would be. So if anyone wants to shed light on that one, please help.