{"id":269956,"date":"2024-12-09T09:43:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T14:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=269956"},"modified":"2024-12-09T10:51:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T15:51:34","slug":"pokemon-go-set-off-a-wave-paranoia-in-us-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/12\/09\/pokemon-go-set-off-a-wave-paranoia-in-us-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon Go set off a wave of paranoia in US intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Foreign Policy<\/a>: “As the game\u2019s popularity exploded, pok\u00e9mon materialized at NSA headquarters; near America\u2019s top-secret nuclear weapons laboratories in New Mexico; and at covert CIA facilities in northern Virginia, thanks to ardent devotees of the game working there.This set off alarm bells for U.S. counterintelligence officials. Why were pok\u00e9mon appearing at such sensitive locations? Could this conspicuous placement be evidence of some sort of malicious intent? Could the app be functioning as a targeted spying tool, as part of a \u201cPok\u00e9mon Go hack me\u201d scheme? Security experts from the CIA, NSA, and Energy Department (which manages the country\u2019s nuclear arsenal) subsequently sent memos instructing colleagues to stop playing Pok\u00e9mon Go at their workplaces\u2014and perhaps entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JFK staged his own death in a James Bond\u2013inspired movie just before he died<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Vanity Fair<\/a>: “A<\/strong> visit to the website of the John F. Kennedy Library reveals a silent motion picture, some 16 minutes long, shot on the weekend of September 21 and 22, 1963. The footage depicts scenes of Kennedy, his family, and a few friends at various locations around Newport, Rhode Island. The first lady had made an unusual request. She explained that she and the president were making a humorous short film\u2014a kind of spy movie. At one point, according to Landis, Jackie asked the agents to hurriedly drive up to the main house and react as if they had just heard shots. Landis says the agents entered the house and found the president lying on the floor in the foyer with ketchup smeared on him. Two months later, he was assassinated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The strange theft of a priceless portrait of Sir Winston Churchill<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From The Walrus<\/a>: “It wasn’t the cheap frame that gave the forgery away. Nor was it the photocopied image of the scowling Winston Churchill contained inside. It was the way it hung, crooked against the dark oak-panelled wall\u2014a slight tilt, down and to the right. Bruno Lair couldn\u2019t understand how the portrait had come detached from the wall. As head of engineering at the Fairmont Ch\u00e2teau Laurier, he had personally bolted it in place twenty-five years earlier, using what, at the time, was a state-of-the-art locking mechanism. Inside that frame, he\u2019d been told, was one of the most valuable photographs in existence: a signed, rare, original copy of The Roaring Lion<\/em>, captured by the greatest portrait photographer of the twentieth century. The signature\u2014Karsh<\/em>\u2014in the bottom left corner of the frame was said to be priceless.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either <\/em>through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. And I appreciate it, believe me!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fish have a brain microbiome. Could humans have one too?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Quanta<\/a>: “A study published in Science Advances<\/em> provided the strongest evidence yet that a brain microbiome can and does exist in healthy vertebrates \u2014 fish, specifically. Researchers at the University of New Mexico discovered communities of bacteria thriving in salmon and trout brains. Many of the microbial species have special adaptations that allow them to survive in brain tissue. Matthew Olm, a physiologist who studies the human microbiome at the University of Colorado, Boulder and was not involved with the study, found the new research convincing. \u201cThis is concrete evidence that brain microbiomes do exist in vertebrates,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so the idea that humans have a brain microbiome is not outlandish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His wives kept dying mysteriously and they finally figured out why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From the LA Times<\/a>: “William Dale Archerd drank highballs, married frequently and despised 9-to-5 employment. He was Arkansas-born, slender, with pale blue eyes and wavy silver hair. He inspired romantic devotion in women and trust in criminal confederates. For decades, his wives and acquaintances were fatally stricken with sudden, convulsion-inducing illness that coroners did not grasp as murder.His motive was greed, though he never made much. He was a frail 55 when police finally arrested him at his Alhambra home in 1967. \u201cWell, it took you long enough!\u201d he quipped. Even on death row, he retained his aura of blithe unconcern. Archerd was a natural salesman, at various times hawking vitamins, hearing aids and folding doors. The merchandise he sold best was himself. From 1930 to 1965, he married seven women, sometimes not bothering to divorce the previous one.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has developed an autonomous tire-shaped robot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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China has unveiled a spheric police robot capable of pursuing criminals. The AI equipped robot can operate autonomously. It can even fall from heights.

The robot is capable of confronting perpetrators, shooting nets to immobilise them until police arrive. It attacks opponents\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/kye24yZt2q<\/a><\/p>— HOW THINGS WORK (@HowThingsWork_) December 8, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>