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Report: How Pinterest is Ruining the Internet for Everyone

Andrew Orr ·

Chris Stokel-Walker isn’t happy with Pinterest and writes how the company has ruined image search for internet users.

Beloved by moodboard aficionados and wedding planners alike, the platform is hated by rank-and-file web surfers. It’s not that it doesn’t have its purpose; it’s just that it intrudes on the search experience of pretty much everyone who doesn’t want to use it.

I have Pinterest to thank for one thing. My annoyance, and eventual hatred, spurred me to move to a standardized data curation system in which I store files in my own folders and not inside Pinterest’s putrid platform.

Cool Stuff Found

10 Arduino IoT Projects for Beginners

Jeff Butts ·

Got an itch to start tinkering with Arduino, but want it to be something useful? As I explained on Apple Context Machine, Arduino is a microcontroller that lets you do just about any task you can find parts and write code for. A great way to get started and have it mean something is with a project that helps your daily life. One way to achieve both is with an Internet of Things (IoT) project. There are hundreds of tutorials on building with Arduino. Some are useful, some are just cute and/or fun. This MakeUseOf article highlights 10 Arduino IoT projects perfect for beginners. From monitoring your plants’ health to reminding you when it’s time to take your medicine (and even dispensing a glass of water to wash the pills down), these Arduino IoT projects will get you on the right path. There’s even a tutorial on building your own automated pet feeder.

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Police Called on Parents Who Built an Open Source School App

Andrew Orr ·

Parents in Stockholm built an open source version of a school app that didn’t work properly. The school called the cops on them.

The work started at the end of November 2020, just days after Stockholm’s Board of Education was hit with a 4 million SEK GDPR fine for “serious shortcomings” in the Skolplattform. Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten, Sweden’s data regulator, had found serious flaws in the platform that had exposed the data of hundreds of thousands of parents, children, and teachers. In some cases, people’s personal information could be accessed from Google searches.

Podcast

A Summit of Geeks – Mac Geek Gab 899

John F. Braun · · Add Comment

MacMost’s Gary Rosenzweig joins John and Dave today to share Quick Tips, Cool Stuff Found and, yes, to help answer all of your Apple-related tech questions. Topics include dealing with Monterey’s “Load Content Directly” issues in Mail, Network Utility Replacements, Monterey image tricks, portable Apple Watch chargers, and much more! Press play and learn at least five new things with your three favorite geeks!

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A Drone Tried to Attack a Pennsylvania Power Station in 2020

Andrew Orr ·

Wired published a fascinating story of a unknown person who used a drone to attempt to short circuit a power substation last year.

The operator of the Pennsylvania drone appears to have attempted a less brute-force approach. But efforts to hide the operator’s identity may have contributed to their failure to connect with the intended target. By removing the camera, the joint bulletin says, they had to rely on line-of-sight navigation, rather than being able to take a drone’s eye view.