South Korea’s Two Presidential Candidates Have Been Chosen For June Election

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 07:36
Lee Jae-myung and Kim Moon-soo represent the opposite sides of a country polarized over former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s use of martial law and his ouster.

Nintendo Can Render Your Switch 2 'Permanently Unusable' If You Break Their Rules

SlashDot - dim, 05/11/2025 - 07:34
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: The new Nintendo Switch 2 is almost here. Next month, eager fans will finally be able to get their hands on the highly anticipated follow-up to the wildly popular hybrid console. But before you line up (or frantically refresh your browser for a preorder), you might want to read the fine print, because Nintendo might be able to kill your console. Yes, really. That's not just speculation, folks. According to its newly updated user agreement, Nintendo has granted itself the right to make your Switch 2 "permanently unusable" if you break certain rules. Yes, the company might literally brick your device. Buried in the legalese is a clause that says if you try to bypass system protections, modify software, or mess with the console in a way that's not approved, Nintendo can take action. And that action could include completely disabling your system. The exact wording makes it crystal clear: Nintendo may "render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part...." [T]o be fair, this is probably targeted at people who reverse engineer the system or install unauthorized software — think piracy, modding, cheating, and the like. But the broad and vague nature of the language leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Who decides what qualifies as "unauthorized use"? Nintendo does. Nintendo's verbiage says users must agree "without limitation" not to... Publish, copy, modify, reverse engineer, lease, rent, decompile, disassemble, distribute, offer for sale, or create derivative works Obtain, install or use any unauthorized copies of Nintendo Account Services Exploit the Nintendo Account Services in any manner other than to use them in accordance with the applicable documentation and intended use [unless "otherwise expressly permitted by applicable law."] Bypass, modify, decrypt, defeat, tamper with, or otherwise circumvent any of the functions or protections... including through the use of any hardware or software that would cause the Nintendo Account Services to operate other than in accordance with its documentation and intended use "...if you fail to comply with the foregoing restrictions Nintendo may render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part."

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25 Ways to Get in on Dance Music’s Renaissance

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 05:00
Where to club, which artists to follow, five songs you’ve got to hear and more.

Dance Music Is Booming Again. What’s Different This Time? A Lot.

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 05:00
Fans emerged from pandemic lockdowns primed to hit the floor. Now online platforms are bringing fresh sounds and budding stars to bigger audiences worldwide.

CISA/DOGE Software Engineer's Login Credentials Appeared in Multiple Leaks From Info-Stealing Malware in Recent Years

SlashDot - dim, 05/11/2025 - 03:35
"Login credentials belonging to an employee at both the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Department of Government Efficiency have appeared in multiple public leaks from info-stealer malware," reports Ars Technica, "a strong indication that devices belonging to him have been hacked in recent years." As an employee of DOGE, [30-something Kyle] Schutt accessed FEMA's proprietary software for managing both disaster and non-disaster funding grants [to Dropsite News]. Under his role at CISA, he likely is privy to sensitive information regarding the security of civilian federal government networks and critical infrastructure throughout the U.S. According to journalist Micah Lee, user names and passwords for logging in to various accounts belonging to Schutt have been published at least four times since 2023 in logs from stealer malware... Besides pilfering login credentials, stealers can also log all keystrokes and capture or record screen output. The data is then sent to the attacker and, occasionally after that, can make its way into public credential dumps... Lee went on to say that credentials belonging to a Gmail account known to belong to Schutt have appeared in 51 data breaches and five pastes tracked by breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. Among the breaches that supplied the credentials is one from 2013 that pilfered password data for 3 million Adobe account holders, one in a 2016 breach that stole credentials for 164 million LinkedIn users, a 2020 breach affecting 167 million users of Gravatar, and a breach last year of the conservative news site The Post Millennial. The credentials may have been exposed when service providers were compromised, the article points out, but the "steady stream of published credentials" is "a clear indication that the credentials he has used over a decade or more have been publicly known at various points. "And as Lee noted, the four dumps from stealer logs show that at least one of his devices was hacked at some point." Thanks to Slashdot reader gkelley for sharing the news.

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U.S. and China Will Meet for Second Day of Trade Talks

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:16
Top officials are scheduled to conclude their weekend of trade negotiations in Geneva on Sunday.

Blizzard's 'Overwatch' Team Just Voted to Unionize

SlashDot - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:15
"The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has unionized," reports Kotaku: That includes nearly 200 developers across disciplines ranging from art and testing to engineering and design. Basically anyone who doesn't have someone else reporting to them. It's the second wall-to-wall union at the storied game maker since the World of Warcraft team unionized last July... Like unions at Bethesda Game Studios and Raven Software, the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild now has to bargain for its first contract, a process that Microsoft has been accused of slow-walking as negotiations with other internal game unions drag on for years. "The biggest issue was the layoffs at the beginning of 2024," Simon Hedrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, told Kotaku... "People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it," he said. "What I want to protect most here is the people...." Organizing Blizzard employees stress that improving their working conditions can also lead to better games, while the opposite — layoffs, forced resignations, and uncompetitive pay can make them worse.... "We're not just a number on an Excel sheet," [said UI artist Sadie Boyd]. "We want to make games but we can't do it without a sense of security." Unionizing doesn't make a studio immune to layoffs or being shuttered, but it's the first step toward making companies have a discussion about those things with employees rather than just shadow-dropping them in an email full of platitudes. Boyd sees the Overwatch union as a tool for negotiating a range of issues, like if and how generative AI is used at Blizzard, as well as a possible source of inspiration to teams at other studios. "Our industry is at such a turning point," she said. "I really think with the announcement of our union on Overwatch...I know that will light some fires." The article notes that other issues included work-from-home restrictions, pay disparities and changes to Blizzard's profit-sharing program, and wanting codified protections for things like crunch policies, time off, and layoff-related severance.

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Can King Charles Heal a Royal Family Crisis Before It’s Too Late?

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:01
Prince Harry’s desperate plea to reconcile with his father highlighted a rupture that could undermine the monarchy’s attempts to model unity.

Can Trump Rename the Persian Gulf?

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:01
His suggestion to call the body of water the “Arabian Gulf” has apparently done the impossible: Unite Iranians.

Why America’s ‘Beautiful Beef’ Is a Trade War Sore Point for Europe

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:01
European officials call food safety standards a “red line,” as Trump administration officials criticize rules that keep American beef and other meats off grocery shelves.

Trump’s No. 1 Fan in Greenland: A Bricklayer Turned Political Player

NY Times - dim, 05/11/2025 - 00:01
Jorgen Boassen’s idolization of all things Trump, which has won him friends in Washington and sometimes hostile attention at home, has given him an unlikely new career: political influencer.

Tufts Student Returns to Massachusetts After 6 Weeks in Immigration Detention

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 23:05
Freed after her painful ordeal in a federal facility, Rumeysa Ozturk expressed joy, gratitude and continued faith in American democracy.

Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 22:40
After Vice President JD Vance suggested that the conflict between India and Pakistan was not America’s problem, the Trump administration grew concerned that it could spiral out of control.

Theranos Fraudster's Partner Launches His Own Blood-Testing Startup

SlashDot - sam, 05/10/2025 - 21:49
"The romantic partner of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has launched a start-up that sounds eerily similar to the venture that landed his girlfriend behind bars," writes The Daily Beast. He's incorporated "Haemanthus" in Delaware a year and a half ago (though the company operates out of his neighborhood in Austin), according to the New York Times. Haemanthus appears to have around 10 employees. From The Daily Beast: California hotel heir Billy Evans' new company is a blood-testing firm that markets itself as "the future of diagnostics," offering "a radically new approach to health testing," according to The New York Times. In other words, exactly what Theranos said it would do. Holmes is even advising the start-up from the Texas prison where she is serving out an 11-year prison sentence for fraud, sources told NPR... Evans has managed to raise nearly $20 million in funds from both friends and established investors in Austin and San Francisco, according to the investor materials. The Times reports that Evan's company "plans to begin with testing pets for diseases before progressing to humans, according to two investors pitched on the company." And TechCrunch reminds readers that Elizabeth Holmes said in a recent interview "that she remains 'completely committed to my dream of making affordable healthcare solutions available to everyone.'"

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Koyo Kouoh, Prominent Art World Figure, Is Dead at 57

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 21:16
She had recently been named to oversee next year’s Venice Biennale. She died just days before she was scheduled to announce its theme and title.

India and Pakistan Announce Cease-Fire but Clashes Persist

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 20:08
President Trump also announced the truce, saying it had been mediated by the United States, although only Pakistan quickly acknowledged an American role.

European Leaders Visit Ukraine and Press Russia for a 30-Day Cease-Fire

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 19:58
Faced with the threat of new sanctions, President Vladimir V. Putin called for direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in the coming days.

Life of a Marathon Streamer: Online for Three Years, Facing Isolation and Burnout

SlashDot - sam, 05/10/2025 - 19:36
Back in 2000, Slashdot founder CmdrTaco marked the 4th anniversary of Jennifer Ringley's pioneering "JenniCam" livestream (saying "It sure beats the Netscape FishCam. It's nuts how Jenni's little cam became such a fixture on The Internet...") But a new article in the Washington Post remembers how "Once, Ringley looked directly into the camera and held a note in front of her eye. It read: 'I FEEL SO LONELY.'" By 2003, Ringley had shut down the site and disappeared. She began declining interview requests, saying she was enjoying her privacy; her absence on social media continues to this day. "But by then, the human zoo was everywhere," they write including "social media, where everyone could become a character in their own show." In 2007 Justin Kan launched Justin.TV, which eventually became Twitch, "a thrumming online city for anyone wanting to, as its slogan said, 'waste time watching other people waste time.'" But the article also notes 2023 stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics survey that found Americans"were spending far less time socializing than they had 20 years ago — especially 18-to-29-year-olds, who were spending two more hours a day alone." So how did this play out for the next generation of livestreaming influencers? Here's the origin story of "a lonely young woman in Texas" who's "streamed every second of her life for three years and counting." One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: "Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. ... This could be helpful." In her first stream, on a Friday night, she played 3½ hours of "World of Warcraft" for her zero followers. Eight years later... Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life... On the live-streaming service Twitch, one of the world's most popular platforms, Emily is a legendary figure. For three years, she has ceaselessly broadcast her life — every birthday and holiday, every sickness and sleepless night, almost all of it alone. Her commitment has made her a model for success in the new internet economy, where authenticity and endurance are highly prized. It's also made her a good amount of money: $5.99 a month from thousands of subscribers each, plus donations and tips — minus Twitch's 30-to-40 percent cut. But to get there, Emily, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that her last name be withheld due to concerns of harassment, has devoted herself to a solitary life of almost constant stimulation. For three years, she has taken no sick days, gone on no vacations, declined every wedding invitation, had no sex. She has broadcast and self-narrated a thousand days of sleeping, driving and crying, lugging her camera backpack through the grocery store, talking through a screen to strangers she'll never meet. Her goal is to buy a house and get married by the age of 30, but she's 28 and says she's too busy to have a boyfriend. Her last date was seven years ago... But no one tells streamers when to record or when to stop. There are no labor codes, performance limits or regulations to keep the platforms from setting incentives impossibly high. Many streamers figure out the optimal strategy themselves: The more you share, the more successful you can be.... Though some Twitch stars are millionaires, most scramble to get by, buffeted by the vagaries of audience attention. Emily's paid-subscription count, which peaked last year at 22,000, has since slumped to around 6,000, dropping her base income to about $5,000 a month, according to estimates from the analytics firm Streams Charts... Sometimes Emily dreads waking up and clocking into the reality show that is her life. She knows staring at screens all night is unhealthy, and when she feels too depressed to stream, she'll stay in bed for hours while her viewers watch. But she worries that taking a break would be "career suicide," as she called it. Some viewers already complain that she showers too long, sleeps in too late, doesn't have enough fun... She said she "used to show true sadness on stream" but doesn't anymore because it makes viewers uncomfortable. When she hits a breaking point now, she said, she closes herself in the bathroom.

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How Front Pages Around the World Covered the Selection of Pope Leo XIV

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 19:07
In a digital age, the front pages of print newspapers can still capture a historic moment as they did on Friday with word-playing headlines, splashy photos and a dose of solemnity.

3 Lawmakers Involved in Newark ICE Protest Could Be Arrested, DHS Says

NY Times - sam, 05/10/2025 - 18:38
The legislators were with Mayor Ras Baraka when he was arrested Friday outside an immigration detention facility. A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said they could face assault charges.

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