Geek News

Earlier today, Netflix announced it was getting rid of user reviews , which has been a mainstay of its platform from day one. According to the company, the decision was made because of declining usage. But that discounts the fact that Netflix hasn't exactly made the feature all that accessible. User reviews can only be seen on the web, and the company made a decision to drop bylines and star ratings earlier thi s year. It's no wonder then, that users have written fewer reviews. Maybe, just maybe, Netflix doesn't actually want them. Netflix is no longer just a distributor of movies and TV shows; these days, it's a bonafide studio, with critically-acclaimed hits like House of Cards , Stranger Things and The Crown . Of course, it's a good thing when the shows get good reviews -- Stranger Things , for example, has well over 3,000 (most of them positi...

Noctilucent clouds over Wismar, Germany in 2011. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kWcx1dai8D3Z9iOkmeiTY9SspxA=/0x17:400x284/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60288641/677798main_20110709_225314_orig_full.0.jpg" style="max-width:600px;margin:0 auto;"> Strange clouds that glow in the night sky are getting easier to see — and it could be because of all the methane we're pumping into the atmosphere, a new study says . The bad news is that methane is a greenhouse gas that's contributing to global warming . But the good news is that more methane means that more of us might get a chance to see these stunning, night-shining — or noctilucent — clouds, according to the study, which was published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters . Noctilucent clouds form around the poles in the summer months, when ice ...

Twitter suspended 70 million accounts in in the past two months as part of a crackdown on malicious activity on its platform, according to a report in The Washington Post . The rate of suspensions for May and June is reportedly twice the company's October 2017 suspension rate. The company has faced increasing pressure The company has been widely criticized for years over seemingly lax efforts to police bad actors, including abusive users. As the scope of Russian disinformation campaigns were revealed, Twitter, along with Facebook, has faced increasing pressure from the public to stop trolls and spam. In a blog post last month , Twitter said it had been working to improve its safety policies, and that its "systems identified and challenged... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2NxMkdC ...

Twitter been ramping up its purges of fake users, suspending 70 million accounts in May and June in its attempts to reduce the impact of misinformation. That's more than double the rate the social media platform was suspending back in October, according to The Washington Post . Twitter's increasingly aggressive purges were already alarming some users; In February, the platform assured that it was wiping out bots, not silencing conservatives. But the company has also taken the opportunity to liquidate retweet-spamming accounts in order to promote more genuine interaction. While today's revelations are more about controlling misinformation, the heavier-handed platform policing is a definite policy shift for a company that has avoided banning users for behavior or abuse. Suspending 70 million users still sounds like a blow to a company that's struggl...

A pair of watchdog groups reported that despite Amazon's policy against the sale of racist or 'hatred-glorifying' goods on its platforms, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and homophobic goods are still sold on the sites. That allegedly includes products in its online store along with material on its pub lishing and music outlets. The two groups, Action Center on Race & the Economy and the Partnership for Working Families, released the report (PDF) today criticizing the online shopping giant for failing to enforce its policies, which explicitly prohibit "products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views." The researchers allegedly found toys with propaganda symbols, books and other products aimed at children that normalize racist beliefs. Amaz...

Environment Andrew Wheeler's discreetness could make him more effective at dismantling environmental protections The head of the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped down from his position, according to a Twitter announcement from President Donald Trump but there is little… via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2m0RBOo"

NASA announced today that the Kepler spacecraft, which has been searching for distant Earth-like planets near Sun-like stars, is running very low on fuel. So much so, that it has decided to put Kepler in a sleep mode to preserve fuel over the next few weeks. Back in March, the agency warned that this could happen soon and on Monday, the Kepler team observed a drop in the spacecraft's fuel pressure, indicating a very low fuel level. So for now, Kepler won't conduct any more scientific observations and will instead rest until August 2nd when research it has collected over the last 51 days is scheduled to be downloaded. Since May 12th, Kepler has been focused on a patch of sky in the direction of the Cancer constellation, an area it also observed back in 2015. This latest data collection will help researchers confirm any exoplanet candidates noted during the firs...

If you're familiar with the phrase "that's a terrible idea, let's do it" then you might be one of the British MPs who think that the UK should do its own version of FOSTA-SESTA. That's exactly what Labour MP Sarah Champion has done by leading a debate this week for the creation of laws to criminalize websites used by sex workers in the UK -- under the rubric of fighting trafficking, of course. A self-appointed group of MP's (the "All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade") fronted by Ms. Champion made a call to ban "prostitution websites" during a Wednesday House of Commons debate. Conflating sex work with trafficking just like their American counterparts, they claim websites where workers advertise and screen clients "directly and knowingly" profit from sex trafficking. Watc...

Environment Climate change can pose some unexpected challenges to infrastructure. It was so hot last week, even steel bridges were sweating. The DuSable Bridge in Chicago was so overheated, firefighters had to hose it down with cold water. via Popular Science "https://ift.tt/2MW6m0d"

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a serious Pokémon player. I don't know a Kanto from a Johto, and really have no clue where an Alolan Exeggutor comes from. Still, when Pokémon Go came out for mobile two years ago, this almost 50-year old was outside with everyone else in our downtown area, capturing little pocket monsters and trying to take over gyms. There were a solid few months where it seemed like Pokémon Go players were everywhere. I'd see them in the mall, at the playground, walking the various bike and footpaths here in town. People I only knew from Facebook would suddenly appear in real life, swiping up furiously on their phones and cackling when they caught a particularly rare species. We would head for specific breweries that had a Pokémon gym right outside, quaffing some local beers while waiting for it to cool down so we could hit it ...