It’s not enough that we need to worry about climate change making the Earth inhospitable to human life. Apparently, now, scientists are starting to worry about the moon shrinking.

The moon’s shrinking has been measurable, but small. It has contracted about 150 feet in diameter over the last few hundred million years.

It’s impressive that we could know that, but it doesn’t seem like very much. What’s the problem?

There’s no reason Earthlings would need to be concerned with a shrinking moon — unless we move there.

Ah. OK, I guess astronauts should pay attention to this. As for me, I’m going to go back to ignoring it forever, so I can focus my energy on being terrified about existential threats on the celestial body where I currently reside.

Hurricanes are classified via the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, which organizes based on wind speed. A category 1 storm has maximum sustained wind speeds of 74 to 95 miles per hour, a category 2 storm hits 96 to 110 miles per hour, and so on. A category 5 storm is the most deadly, with speeds of 157 miles per hour or more.

There’s no upper bound for category 5, however, and we may need one. As our climate has warmed, storms have gotten stronger. Scientists are now proposing a category 6, for the powerful storms which are becoming more prevalent.

Previously in horrifying hurricane news: Hurricanado

Yesterday, friend-of-the-site Oliver Y. linked me to a ridiculous story of a toothbrush-based botnet. Imagine getting hacked by an army of toothbrushes! Just the thought of it is enough to make me want to fill my pockets with lead and walk into the ocean.

And yet funny though it was, the whole thing rang false to me. I’m fairly certain this story is at the very least misunderstood, and more likely, flat out false. I’ve seen Bluetooth toothbrushes, but never one with the actual wifi access that would be needed to take part in a distributed denial-of-service attack. And even giving your smart toothbrush Bluetooth access seems like a waste of time and energy. I own a toothbrush that could talk to my phone, but I sure as hell don’t actually let it do so. I don’t need an electronic coach for any of my brushing, thanks all the same. I’m skeptical that millions of people have configured this nonsense feature.

ZDNet published their own version of the story with the headline “3 million smart toothbrushes were just used in a DDoS attack. Really”, but it’s a good bet that it’s actually “not really”. There are scant few details in either of these posts, but further digging led me to a German-language source, which translated thusly:

She’s in the bathroom at home, but she’s part of a large-scale cyber attack. The electric toothbrush is programmed with Java, and criminals have unnoticed installed malware on it – like on 3 million other toothbrushes. One command is enough and the remote-controlled toothbrushes simultaneously access the website of a Swiss company. The site collapses and is paralyzed for four hours. Millions of dollars in damage is caused.

This example, which seems like a Hollywood scenario, actually happened. It shows how versatile digital attacks have become.

While that does seem to be saying this did actually happen, it provides no further details, and nothing else I’ve found online verifies this claim. Further, I’m still stuck on the unlikelihood of an army of rogue toothbrushes. I just don’t buy it.

Ultimately, I suspect this post has it right:

This news article claims this happened, but my guess is that what actually happened is this:

Journalists talks with guy from fortinet, fortinet guy explains how a bot net of 3 million devices took down a Swiss companies site, Journalists asks what devices, fortinet guy talks about different things (like smart home devices / iot) and mentions that even a smart toothbrush could be part of such a bot net.

And the rest is history.

My belief that this story is probably false led me to consider scrapping this whole post, but a wary semi-debunking seemed like it might be useful. Also, quite frankly, I’m too pleased with that headline to give up on it.

Update (February 10, 2024): Sure enough, there were issues here. From Wired:

Fortinet belatedly sought to correct the record, writing in public statements that “it appears that due to translations the narrative on this topic has been stretched to the point where hypothetical and actual scenarios are blurred.” But the Aargauer Zeitung pointed the finger back at Fortinet, noting in a follow-up story that Fortinet provided exact details of the dental doomsday it described as real, and that the company even reviewed the text of the article prior to publication.

The Lunar New Year isn’t for another 8 days, but it seems that 2024 is the Year of the Elmo. On Monday, the furry red seal (?) posted a tweet asking how folks are doing:

This was, perhaps, a mistake. The internet responded vociferously, and the answer was “Not so hot”. At least we all learned the phrase “trauma dumping”. It’s kind of funny to drop that on a Muppet.

As a result of this whole mess, Elmo wound up on the Today Show to discuss things. It was there that he got assaulted by Larry David. In David’s words, “Somebody had to do it”. Still, shortly after, he gave a not very convincing apology.

I don’t know what’s next for Elmo, but 2024 is weird, y’all. I don’t think it’s going to get less weird.

I use the roads around Boston just about every way imaginable. I walk, run, bike, ride a motorcycle, and drive a (fairly small) car. In recent years, I’ve been alarmed to notice the size of the average automobile growing larger and larger. Vehicles like the ridiculously-but-aptly named Nissan Armada and the GMC Yukon feel physically threatening, and indeed, the increased height of hoods on vehicles like these really is a danger. The supersizing of American vehicles has significantly increase pedestrian deaths.

If I eventually get flattened by an oversized motor vehicle, you will not find my corpse looking surprised. The worst part is that absent government intervention, the rational choice for any one individual is to buy their own behemoth, so as to protect themselves and their vehicle’s occupants from the other tanks on the road. That just leads to more giant cars on the road, and then to ever larger giant cars.

new Hampshire’s state motto is “Live Free or Die”, but this is apparently beyond the pale.

Previously in endeavoring to let people enjoy things: Introducing Quadball

I would love to know the exact steps that led to the creation of this sign:

Was it an autocorrupt in a text message? Whatever the truth, the result is incredible.

Apparently, Chipotle has a busy season:

Burrito season, according to Chipotle, runs from March to May and is the busiest time of year for the fast-casual restaurant chain.

The chain is looking to hire 19,000 new workers to cope with the spring rush. I’m not looking for work right now, but I am extremely curious why springtime is burrito season at Chipotle.