Daily Tech News 11 July 2024

• Construction of a Bitcoin "mine" in a Texas town has caused a massive outbreak of hypochondria and innumeracy. (Time)

  On an evening in December 2023, 43-year-old small business owner Sarah Rosenkranz collapsed in her home in Granbury, Texas and was rushed to the emergency room. Her heart pounded 200 beats per minute; her blood pressure spiked into hypertensive crisis; her skull throbbed. "It felt like my head was in a pressure vise being crushed," she says. "That pain was worse than childbirth."

  Sounds nasty, but what does that have to do with Bitcoin?

  Over the course of several months in 2024, TIME spoke to more than 40 people in the Granbury area who reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine: hypertension, heart palpitations, chest pain, vertigo, tinnitus, migraines, panic attacks.

  Over several months, dozens of people had a variety of symptoms ranging from the purely physical to the neurological to the psychological. In a town of 11,000, and since they say "the Granbury area", let's note that the county is home to 60,000 people.

  "I'm sure it increases their cortisol and sugar levels, so you're getting headaches, vertigo, and it snowballs from there," Bhaloo says. "This thing is definitely causing a tremendous amount of stress. Everyone is just miserable about it."

  You're sure. Great.

  Not all data centers make noise.

  Yeah, this is not a serious article.

  Jenna Hornbuckle, 38, lost hearing in her right ear and was diagnosed with heart failure; ear exams document her hearing loss along with that of her 8-year-old daughter Victoria, who contracted ear infections that forced doctors to place a tube in her ear.

  Bitcoin is bad in many ways. It does not cause heart failure or ear infections.

  As rock music blares from the speakers and other patrons chatter away, Rosenkranz pulls out her phone and clocks 72 decibels on a sound meter app-the same level that she records in Indigo's bedroom in the dead of night. In early 2023, her daughter began waking up, yelling and holding her ears. Indigo's room directly faces the mine, which sits about a mile and a half away.

  Okay, there's a tiny problem there.

  Shirley sticks his recorder out the window and the numbers on it flicker up and down as the roar washes over it. Eventually, the recorder caps out at 91 decibels, which the CDC estimates as roughly in between the output of a lawnmower and a chainsaw.

  91 decibels is pretty loud. Even on a still night, at a distance of a mile and a half, it would be barely louder than leaves rustling in the trees.
  
  To register 72 decibels at that distance, the Bitcoin "mine" would have to be as loud as a Shuttle launch, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Microsoft is pushing its AI bullshit, named Copilot, into Windows 10 as a mandatory update. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  This is the existing bullshit; the next-level bullshit is named "Copilot+" is still isolated to Windows 11.
  
  
  
• Nintendo is targeting Switch emulators Suyu, Nuzu, Uzuy, Torzu, Sudachi, and Bob. (TorrentFreak)
  
  Some of these emulators contain copyrighted Nintendo code, making them easy targets for a DMCA takedown. Others don't, but Nintendo is going after them anyway.
  
  
  
• Twitter does not owe its thousands of fired paperweights any additional severance. (Tech Crunch)
  
  All the laid-off employees received at least three months of severance pay, more than satisfying the legal requirements.
  
  They sued anyway, apparently on the basis that they were useless and couldn't find employment anywhere else.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:20 AM

| Access Comments