No, you don’t have to be a spy or a criminal on the run (which I hope you’re not) to get one. Burner phones can come in handy for one’s privacy and safety. These cheap prepaid mobiles for temporary use can help you stay safe while chatting with strangers online. Popular Science lists the benefits of getting one: 

Think about any one-time occasion when people might have to text you or call you, but you don't really want to give out your main number. If you're organizing a wedding, going to a festival, or helping arrange any kind of local event, you'll need to get in touch with lots of new contacts, but you might not want them to contact you outside of that particular context.

Another example—many online dating services let you chat anonymously through their apps, but if things go well, most people decide to swap numbers and take the conversation elsewhere. If you reach this point but you're still not sure you can trust a potential partner, a burner will let you keep your distance. Ghosting is rude, but giving out an alternative number can be a lifesaver if a person you're dating doesn't respect your desire to break off a relationship.

Online dating isn't the only occasion when you have to share contact information with strangers you meet on the internet. Sites such as Craigslist also require that you get in touch with unknown buyers or sellers, and a burner number can act as an extra buffer. People might use your real phone number to look you up online, but a burner doesn't give them the same power—if the person becomes intrusive, you can cut them off immediately by eliminating your second number.

Image via William Iven via Unsplash

Let’s get real, we’re not living in the best of times right now. Unemployment is high, there are political tensions all over the globe, and the pandemic seems to be the cherry on top of the chaotic year of 2020. Most of us just want to fast forward through the next year, hoping things will get better. While I say that we should take our time and try to live through the year at our own pace, there is also no harm in aiming for continuous learning. We need every advantage we can get if we want to stay employed, or find a job, right? CNBC lists some skills that people can learn before the next year hits, along with some online courses that can help us learn them. Check the full piece here. 

Image via CNBC

Thousands of women were burned at the stake for witchcraft in later Renaissance Europe. Some were burned alive, while some were hanged, strangled, or beheaded prior to being burnt. Besides the grim and tragic tale of the Nordic Witch Trials that people know, an exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Denmark aims to provide more information concerning the tragic event: 

Titled “Witch Hunt,” the show juxtaposes contemporary commissions with historical works by the likes of Albrecht Dürer and Claude Gillot.

“The participating artists explore discriminatory fear and hatred as it spreads from both the bottom up and the top down—between neighbors onto larger communities and from governments to other political institutions, questioning how such narratives are often written out of history,” says the gallery in a statement. “At a time of global unrest, as the politics of commemoration are in question, ‘Witch Hunt’ suggests the need to revisit seemingly distant histories and proposes new imaginaries for remembering and representation.”

Featuring such female artists as Louise Bourgeois, Carol Rama, Carmen Winant and Aviva Silverman, the exhibition contextualizes works of art on view by presenting scholarship and archival materials that detail the social, gendered and geopolitical aspects of Nordic witchcraft trials.

“From the impact of Danish colonialism to the multifaceted violences of misogyny, the exhibition proposes a present haunted by persecutions of the past—but one that is also occupied by new critical voices of opposition,” says Kunsthal Charlottenborg in the statement.

Image via the Smithsonian 

Never judge a book by its cover. Alternatively, never judge a problem’s difficulty until you try solving it. The ‘three hats’ logic problem might look simple at first glance, but only 36 percent of people actually managed to solve it. The problem is as follows: 

"There are three hats, each with an accompanying statement.

Hat One: The cat is in this hat.

Hat Two: The cat is not in this hat.

Hat Three: The cat is not in Hat One.

Exactly one of the statements is true. Exactly one hat contains a cat. Which hat contains the cat?"

If you would want to see the answer (and how the problem can be solved), check out Prevention’s full piece on the problem here. 

Image via Prevention 

The question is: did a hacker successfully steal the whopping amount of money, or did the long-dormant owner of the wallet move out their savings? Whoever has the control of the money from  the Bitcoin address "1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx” is now 69369.16716000 BTC or roughly $964,000,000 richer. Damn, that’s a huge amount of money! The digital wallet has been a long topic of discussion for hackers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts for years: 

More recently, several hackers have been trying to break into it, trying to bruteforce the passcode that protects the wallet in an attempt to steal the funds. 

Now, the money is gone, moved to another Bitcoin address, and we will never know what happened unless the person who ordered the transfer comes out publicly. 

"It was either the person who cracked the password or the original owner who may have noticed the recent articles about his wallet being circulated among hackers," Alon Gal, a security researcher who's been keeping an eye on the wallet, said on Twitter. "Maybe the owner? Hard to know."

The wallet was considered "dormant" since 2015, meaning the owner didn't move any Bitcoin out of it since then, As Gal, the Chief Technology Officer of cybercrime intelligence company Hudson Rock, explained. 

Image via Vice 

A snapshot of what could be the Air Force’s spy drone surfaced on Instagram. Suspiciously, the image was taken down soon after it was posted. Don’t worry, people of the Internet are very fast when it comes to saving receipts, and the image has been archived and reposted on Twitter. The photo depicts a flying wing-shaped aircraft , as Popular Mechanics details: 

According to Aviation Week & Space Technology, the aircraft “was flying in a racetrack pattern at an estimated altitude of 20,000 [feet].”

The mystery aircraft, as Kolinsky points out, does indeed look like the new B-21 Raider bomber. The B-21 Raider is a new strategic bomber under development by Northrop Grumman.

The U.S. Military currently operates the RQ-4 Global Hawk for high-altitude reconnaissance missions, but the plane lacks the stealth to allow it to operate near modern air defenses. In June 2019, Iran—not exactly a giant in the world of air defense—shot down an RQ-4 in the Strait of Hormuz. It was a wakeup call for a Pentagon that relies on persistent surveillance of adversaries as an early warning system.

The Air Force has never publicly acknowledged the RQ-180’s existence. In early 2020, the service sought early retirement for more than two thirds of the 35-strong RQ-4 Global Hawk fleet. This is a curious decision considering the platform is relatively young, with the average age being less than 10 years. It’s not so curious, however, if there’s a newer, stealthier replacement for the giant drone already flying.

Image via Popular Mechanics

Apple is the one tech company that almost everyone praises for its design and aesthetic prowess. But of course, the owners and managers of the company are human, and are sure to create something that the market won’t like. The company’s phone accessories for the new iPhone 12 range aren’t as popular as they thought they would be. One accessory in particular has been catching the Internet’s disdain: 

One of the main new features of the iPhone 12 is its magnet-powered MagSafe feature, which allows accessories to snap onto the back of the phone. These include chargers, cases and even card holders – but a serious design flaw with the latter suggests that even if it's one of the best camera phones, the iPhone 12 might not be the best choice of wallet.

A hands-on video by MacRumors has revealed that when it comes to protecting your credit cards, the iPhone 12 MagSafe wallet is anything but safe. While the magnets are strong enough to adhere to the back of the phone while it is "shaken vigorously," that changes when the wallet is tapped – it many cases it simply "pops right off".

Users have made their feelings known in the comments of MacRumors' video. "Could this be the worst idea for a product Apple has had in decades?" One user asks, while another adds, "That's a design failure. When did they come up with this? Two hours before the keynote?" One even goes so far as to call it the "biggest over-promise/under-deliver by Apple in a long time".

Image via Creative Bloq 

Are these actually birds? While these birds share the basic characteristics of  birds, some of their features can make people take a second glance at them. Check out this list by Fodors that features the eleven weirdest birds on the planet. My favorite odd bird is the one with the mohawk. Which one is yours?

Image via Fodors 

Researchers have discovered the genes that are responsible for governing height in related people. Researchers have identified nearly 10,000 DNA markers that explain the influence of common genetic variants over height. The geneticists involved in the study were able to amass genome data for four million people. Yes, that many! Science Magazine has more details: 

“This is a genuine landmark,” says Daniel MacArthur of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia.

If the missing genetic contributors to other traits and diseases can be identified, and extended to other ancestries, the results could “inform new biology and contribute to personalized medicine,” suggests Loïc Yengo of the University of Queensland in St. Lucia, Australia, whose team presented the work online this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. For example, geneticists could more accurately assess people’s risk of diseases from genome scans. But the study leaves some scientists dissatisfied because it identifies only markers linked to genes that sway height, not the genes.

But it turned out that each identified marker, which may be in or just near a relevant gene, only contributes slightly to a trait or disease risk, and tallying them up didn’t solve the problem. For height, the first 40 DNA markers linked to the trait explained just 5% of its variation.

Image via Science Magazine 

Listen. We might pride ourselves to be more advanced and more literate than our predecessors thanks to the available resources and technology we have at our disposal, but have you ever wondered if you can actually pass a literacy test from a few decades ago? How about trying to pass a literacy that was designed to be impossible to pass? The 1964 Louisiana literacy test was a common vote suppression tactic for Black voters in the South. A sad reality, really. 

(via Flipboard) 

Image screenshot via Flipboard

Now more than ever, a lot of people are looking at art as a means to help them retain their sanity during these troubling times. If you’re looking for other things to browse on the Internet to take your mind off your problems , why not stare at calming pieces of art? Check out Art Net’s list of calming art works, from paintings of the ocean to a sculpture of Buddha, hopefully these artworks can help you out! 

Image via Art Net 

Multiple hikers and travelers have encountered a nameless hiker, who only introduced himself as a ‘mostly harmless’ hiker before he was found dead in a tent. Investigators tried to identify the unknown man, but his fingerprints didn’t show up in any law enforcement database, and his DNA did not match any entry in the national DNA databases. His cause of death was ‘undetermined’, just like how no one knows his identity. The mystery behind his death and his identity has alluded investigators for years, and even the Internet tried their best in trying to solve the mystery of the hiker: 

The investigators were stumped. To find out what had happened, they needed to learn who he was. So the Florida Department of Law Enforcement drew up an image of Mostly Harmless, and the Collier County investigators shared it with the public. In the sketch, his mouth is open wide, and his eyes too. He has a gray and black beard, with a bare patch of skin right below the mouth. His teeth, as noted in the autopsy, are perfect, suggesting he had good dental care as a child. He looks startled but also oddly pleased, as if he’s just seen a clown jump out from behind a curtain. The image started to circulate online along with other pictures from his campsite, including his tent and his hiking poles.

Soon there were dozens of people jumping in. They had seen the hiker too. They had journeyed with him for a few hours or a few days. They had sat at a campfire with him. There was a GoPro video in which he appeared. People remembered him talking about a sister in either Sarasota or Saratoga. They thought he had said he was from near Baton Rouge. One person remembered that he ate a lot of sticky buns; another said that he loved ketchup. But no one knew his name. When the body of Chris McCandless was found in the wilds of Alaska in the summer of 1992 without any identification, it took authorities only two weeks to figure out his identity. A friend in South Dakota, who’d known McCandless as “Alex,” heard a discussion of the story on AM radio and called the authorities. Clues followed quickly, and McCandless’ family was soon found.

The story pulled people in. Everyone, at some point, has wanted to put their phone in a garbage can and head off with a fake name and a wad of cash. Here was someone who had done it and who seemed to have so much going for him: He was kind, charming, educated. He knew how to code. And yet he had died alone in a yellow tent. Maybe he had been chased by demons and had sought an ending like this. Or maybe he had just been outmatched by the wilderness and the Florida heat.

Image via Wired 

If I get a master's degree in this subject, will I become a hokage (you know, the head of the ninja village from Naruto)? All jokes aside, it’s a surprise that a university actually offers a ninja studies program! Genichi Mitsuhashi, the first graduate of the ninja studies degree program at Mei University in Japan, was recently awarded his masters in ninja studies, as My Modern Met details: 

As one of their earliest students, Mitsuhashi had to pass examinations in Japanese history and reading tests in ninja documents for admission. The course of study is primarily historical, although strategies of stealth and survival are also taught. Students are not required to be ninjas, but Mitsuhashi has devoted his life to the study and practice of the ancient art. While he hopes to complete his PhD in ninja studies, he lives the day-to-day life of many past ninjas. In the morning, he farms, followed by training and martial arts in the afternoon. He also runs a local inn using the produce he grows.

If you would like to learn more about the history of ninjas, International Ninja Research Center provides a number of online resources. And for more quick snippets of ninja history, ThoughtCo wrote an informative piece on famous ninjas (including women) who made history.

Would you apply to the program if you were given a chance?

Image via My Modern Met

Who knew there are specific cat breeds that are more ‘loyal’ to their owners compared to other breeds? We always think that dogs are the loyal bunch, and cats are most likely to just walk away from their owners when they think it’s inconvenient for them. But that’s not true. A pet’s loyalty can be shown through different actions, and different cats show their loyalty in different ways: 

With that in mind, there are two standouts. First, we have the Manx, which Purina says will follow you around, swim, enjoy car rides and act as a guard-cat for you and your family. The fabled Maine Coon Cat, which will grow to a dog-sized 20-ish pounds, acts similarly, but as a bonus, will also welcome other family pets into their circle. In that sense, it may take the cake.

The Manx and Maine Coon are likely to be your best bets for loyalty, but no matter the breed, there's no guarantee of any quality in any purebred animal. So give serious consideration to a rescue cat. Because loyalty goes both ways.

Image via Grunge

Between you and me, I wouldn’t  shell out a whopping $6.5 million for a photo. Then again, I’m also not rich enough to pay that amount of money for a single photo. Photographer Peter Lik’s photo, called “Phantom,” holds the record for the most expensive photo sold. The Phoblographer details on the very expensive purchase: 

“The purchase also included Lik’s masterworks “Illusion” for $2.4 million and “Eternal Moods” for $1.1 million.  With this $10 million sale, Lik now holds four of the top 20 spots for most expensive photographs ever sold.  He already has a position in the ranking with a previous $1 million sale of famed image, “One.”

$10,000,000. So why so much money? Peter is well known for his landscape photography and his color work. To see landscape and black and white together is very rare. Combine that with the very ghost-like look due to dust and the little sliver and light, and you’ve got yourself a winner. Technically, this is a very tough image to accomplish because of the high amounts of contrast. According to Lik’s news post today, it was shot in the Southwest part of the United States.

Image via The Phoblographer