Your Kids’ Toy Gifts Could Be Spying On You
Toys connected to the internet could be a target for crooks who may listen in on conversations or use them to steal a child’s personal information.
Any internet-connected toys with microphones, cameras or location tracking may put a child’s or the parents’ privacy or safety at risk. That could be a talking doll or a tablet designed for kids.
Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct has less than a year left.
The new tunnel under downtown will open mid-October 2018 — a few months early from previous estimates (or three years late from the original deadline).
Demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct could begin in early 2019.
The 8,300-ton 57-foot-diameter tunneling machine known as Bertha began tunneling beneath Seattle in July 2013. The machine completed its tunneling on April 4, 2017 and was fully dismantled and removed from the tunnel on Aug. 23, 2017.
Each direction of the tunnel will have two 11-foot travel lanes with an eight-foot safety shoulder and a two-foot shoulder. These lanes will ensure enough space for all vehicles and legal size trucks.
The 57-foot cutterhead was “gasketed” against the tunnel walls, allowing higher air pressure in front of it to prevent water from leaking in.
Replacing certain tools on the machine’s cutterhead required crews to work in the space between the cutterhead and the ground in front of the machine. Because the machine was underground and below the water table, it was necessary to stabilize the ground in front of the machine and pressurize this space. Crews stabilized the ground by injecting a type of clay, known as bentonite, into the front end of the machine. This created a seal that prevented water and soil from entering – and air from escaping – the work space.
Next, crews over-pressurized the space with compressed air, which pushed against the bentonite to counteract the ground and water pressure at the front end of the machine. This newly created “hyperbaric” work space had pressure levels higher than regular atmospheric pressure, similar to conditions found in an underwater dive. The graphic below illustrates the process.
When the $3.2 billion dollar Highway 99 tunnel opens under downtown Seattle, drivers will have to pay a toll to bypass downtown surface streets. Some studies suggest that drivers will likely avoid the tunnel toll and move to surrounding streets.
Tolls in the 9,270-ft SR 99 tunnel will be collected electronically, just like on all other toll roads in Washington by the GoodToGo system. Drivers will not need to slow down or stop at a toll booth.
A Good To Go! account and pass will be optional in the SR 99 tunnel. Just like other roads, drivers with a Good To Go! pass will pay the lowest toll rates.
If you already have a Good To Go! account, then you will not need to do anything else to use the SR 99 tunnel. Every kind of existing Good To Go! pass will work to pay a toll in the SR 99 tunnel.
Tolls will be based on time of day, similar to tolls on the SR 520 bridge.
Is your unlocking opening your phone an essential aid in your life or just a wasteful compulsive habit done for no purpose?
Finding that the average user unlocked their phone more than 10,000 times a year — or about 28 times a day — the researchers identified about 4,000 phone interactions a year as being “compulsive” (i.e., the owner had no particular act in mind when engaging).
Equally eye-opening was the finding that the highest decile of smartphone enthusiasts — or the top ten percent of users — opened their device 60-plus times every 24 hours.
Still, only a third of respondents earnestly believed they were addicted to checking their device.
“Our smart devices have become an essential part of modern life, and checking them regularly is second nature for most users,” says Greg Tatton-Brown, a spokesperson for Casumo, in a press release. “However, the instances of compulsive checking are much higher than we would have imagined, showing our phones are as much a habit as they are an aide to our busy lifestyles and an immediate source of entertainment, from wherever we are.”
Nuclear Nations Snub Anti-proliferation Treaty
Almost all nuclear nations express disrespect for recent nuclear anti-proliferation treaty because it does not recognize nations’ need to protect themselves against the North Korean threat and other current dangers of nuclear proliferation.
Nearly all ambassadors of the world’s nuclear powers will not attend this year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which honours efforts to ban atomic weapons, the Nobel Institute said Thursday.
Russia and Israel will be the only exceptions, with their ambassadors due to attend.
Noting that the treaty comes “at a time of increased danger of nuclear proliferation”, the US embassy confirmed its lower level of participation.
“This treaty will not make the world more peaceful, will not result in the elimination of a single nuclear weapon, and will not enhance any state’s security,” it said in a statement to AFP.
Without mentioning North Korea by name, it stressed that “this treaty ignores the current security challenges that make nuclear deterrence necessary”, and reiterated Washington’s support of the 1968 global non-proliferation treaty.