Review: The Green Knight weaves a compelling coming-of-age fantasy quest

Enlarge / Dev Patel stars as Gawain—nephew to King Arthur and an aspiring knight—in The Green Knight, filmmaker David Lowery's mesmerizing adaptation of the 14th-century anonymous poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (credit: A24)

The tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, immortalized in a 14th-century anonymous poem, is among the most popular of the Arthurian legends, second only to the quest for the Holy Grail. Yet I would argue that it has never been successfully adapted to film—until now. Director David Lowery's new film, The Green Knight, takes some necessary liberties with the source material. But he also artfully weaves in elements and symbols from that source material to create a darkly brooding fantasy quest that is just as richly textured and layered as the medieval poem on which it is based.

(Major spoilers for the 14th-century medieval poem below; some additional spoilers for the film are below the gallery.)

Let's lay out the basics of the original poem before discussing the clever ways in which Lowery (A Ghost Story, Pete's Dragon) has reimagined it. As I've written previously, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight falls into the chivalric romance genre, relating a well-known story from Arthurian legend in distinctively alliterative verse. (Alliteration was all the rage at the time. I highly recommend J.R.R. Tolkien's translation from 1925 or Simon Armitage's 2008 translation, recently revised.)

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With help from Google, impersonated Brave.com website pushes malware

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Scammers have been caught using a clever sleight of hand to impersonate the website for the Brave browser and using it in Google ads to push malware that takes control of browsers and steals sensitive data.

The attack worked by registering the domain xn--brav-yva[.]com, an encoded string that uses what’s known as punycode to represent bravė[.]com, a name that when displayed in browsers address bars is confusingly similar to brave.com, where people download the Brave browser. Bravė[.]com (note the accent over the letter E) was almost a perfect replica of brave.com, with one crucial exception: the “Download Brave” button grabbed a file that installed malware known both as ArechClient and SectopRat.

(credit: Jonathan Sampson)

From Google to malware in 10 seconds flat

To drive traffic to the fake site, the scammers bought ads on Google that were displayed when people searched for things involving browsers. The ads looked benign enough. As the images below show, the domain shown for one ad was mckelveytees.com, a site that sells apparel for professionals.

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The privacy battle Apple isn’t fighting

Enlarge (credit: Elena Lacey, Getty Images)

For at least a decade, privacy advocates dreamed of a universal, legally enforceable “do not track” setting. Now, at least in the most populous state in the US, that dream has become a reality. So why isn’t Apple—a company that increasingly uses privacy as a selling point—helping its customers take advantage of it?

When California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018, the law came with a large asterisk. In theory, the CCPA gives California residents the right to tell websites not to sell their personal data. In practice, exercising that right means clicking through an interminable number of privacy policies and cookie notices, one by one, on every site you visit. Only a masochist or a die-hard privacy enthusiast would go to the trouble of clicking through to the cookie settings every time they’re looking up a menu or buying a vacuum. Privacy will remain, for most people, a right that exists only on paper until there’s a simple one-click way to opt out of tracking across the whole Internet.

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H.G. Wells’ “World Brain” is now here—what have we learned since?

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Between November 1936 and November 1937, H.G. Wells gave a series of lectures in Great Britain, France, and the US about the world’s impending problems and how to solve them. The lectures were first published under the title "World Brain" in 1938, and they’re sweeping in scope. Wells argued for rearranging both education and the distribution of knowledge and thought we should probably get rid of nationalism while we’re at it. 

MIT Press has just issued a compendium of these lectures, along with related material Wells presented as magazine articles and radio addresses. The collection also includes a foreword by the science fiction writer Bruce Sterling and an introduction by Joseph Reagle, an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern who writes and teaches about popular culture, digital communication, and online communities. 

Unequal information

Humanity had all of the information necessary to live together in peace and harmony, Wells told his audiences; the trouble was that this information existed in a disorganized, dispersed state, and most people didn’t have access to it. They certainly didn’t have access to the most up-to-date information, and with the rapid pace of technological advancement in the early twentieth century—leading to cars, planes, and especially radio—information needed updating constantly. 

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Electric cars have much lower life cycle emissions, new study confirms

Enlarge / If we're serious about decarbonizing, the internal combustion engine has to go by 2030-2035, according to a new study. (credit: Reinhard Krull/EyeEm/Getty Images)

If you listen to electric vehicle naysayers, switching to EVs is pointless because even if the cars are vastly more efficient than ones that use internal combustion engines—and they are—that doesn't take into account the amount of carbon required to build and then scrap them. Well, rest easy because it's not true. Today in the US market, a medium-sized battery EV already has 60–68 percent lower lifetime carbon emissions than a comparable car with an internal combustion engine. And the gap is only going to increase as we use more renewable electricity.

That finding comes from a white paper (pdf) published by Georg Bieker at the International Council on Clean Transportation. The comprehensive study compares the lifetime carbon emissions, both today and in 2030, of midsized vehicles in Europe, the US, China, and India, across a wide range of powertrain types, including gasoline, diesel, hybrid EVs (HEVs), plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs), battery EVs (BEVs), and fuel cell EVs (FCEVs). (The ICCT is the same organization that funded the research into VW Group's diesel emissions.)

The study takes into account the carbon emissions that result from the various fuels (fossil fuels, biofuels, electricity, hydrogen, and e-fuels), as well as the emissions that result from manufacturing and then recycling or disposing of vehicles and their various components. Bieker has also factored in real-world fuel or energy consumption—something that is especially important when it comes to PHEVs, according to the report. Finally, the study accounts for the fact that energy production should become less carbon-intensive over time, based on stated government objectives.

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3G-only Kindles begin their long, slow death this year

Enlarge / 2007-era Kindles had a pretty good fourteen-year run—but we imagine there are some 2016-era Kindle Oasis (8th-gen) owners feeling pretty salty about their free 3G broadband going away right now. (credit: Mel Melcon via Getty Images / NineFiveSeven / Jim Salter)

This Wednesday, Amazon sent a notification email to customers who bought early Kindle e-readers. First- and second-generation Kindle and Kindle DX devices had no Wi-Fi support, relying solely on free 3G connectivity to reach Amazon—which is a real problem for those devices, since US mobile network operators will begin reclaiming 2G and 3G frequency bands for use with 4G and 5G this year.

If all else fails, you should still be able to download books to your older Kindle by connecting it to a PC via its charge cable. (credit: Jim Salter)

Owners of first- and second-generation Kindles should still be able to use the "Manage Your Content and Devices" page on Amazon to transfer books to Internet-orphaned Kindles via USB cable, but that's hardly convenient compared to the devices' original promise of freedom from wires and Wi-Fi passwords alike.

First-gen Kindle owners can get a free 10th-gen Kindle Oasis and cover, and second-gen Kindle and Kindle DX owners are eligible for $70 off a new Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Oasis, plus $25 in e-book credits—but you'll need to use a promo code from the email Amazon sent in order to qualify. Without the promo code, Amazon only offers first-generation Kindle owners a $5.00 Amazon gift card.

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Jeff Bezos loses attempt to block the Moon-landing contract NASA gave to SpaceX

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos holds aviation glasses that belonged to Amelia Earhart at a press conference about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard on July 20, 2021, in Van Horn, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Joe Raedle)

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today rejected Blue Origin's attempt to block the lunar-landing contract that NASA awarded to SpaceX. The GAO also rejected a similar protest filed by Dynetics.

NASA in April 2020 selected SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to design and build human landing systems. But in April 2021, NASA decided to go only with SpaceX and its Starship vehicle for the Artemis program, which is NASA's plan to return humans to the Moon by 2024.

"The cost of SpaceX's bid was about half that of Dynetics, and one-fourth the amount received by Blue Origin," as our coverage at the time said. While budget was apparently the biggest factor, NASA also "praised the [SpaceX] vehicle's innovative design and future-looking technology that might also one day be used on Mars" and cited Starship advantages including "a spacious cabin for astronauts, two airlocks, and ample payload capability to bring large numbers of experiments to the Moon and return samples to Earth."

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Evolutionary chaos as butterflies, wasps, and viruses have a three-way war

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We're currently watching—often in horror—what happens as a virus and its hosts engage in an evolutionary arms race. Measures to limit infectivity and enhance immunity are selecting for viral strains that spread more readily and avoid at least some of the immune response. All of that is easily explained through evolutionary theory and has been modeled mathematically.

But not all evolutionary interactions are so neat and binary. Thursday's edition of Science included a description of a three-way fight between butterflies, the wasps that parasitize them, and the viruses that can infect both species. To call the interactions that have ensued "complicated" is a significant understatement.

Meet the combatants

One of the groups involved is the Lepidoptera, the butterflies and moths. They are seemingly the victims in this story because, like any other species, they can be infected by viruses. Many of these viral infections can be fatal, although some kill the animal quickly, and others take their time. Since they often strike during the larval/caterpillar stages, the viruses need other hosts to transfer the viruses to other victims.

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Scarlett Johansson sues Disney, says Disney+ release of Black Widow broke contract

Enlarge / A billboard above the El Capitan Entertainment Centre promoting Marvel Studios' 'Black Widow' on June 22, 2021, in Hollywood, California. (credit: Getty Images | AaronP/Bauer-Griffin)

Scarlett Johansson sued the Walt Disney Company yesterday, alleging that it breached her contract by releasing Black Widow on Disney+ the same day it was released in theaters.

The simultaneous release allowed Disney to pay Johansson less money because she and the Disney-owned Marvel agreed that her compensation for Black Widow "would be based largely on 'box office' receipts generated by the picture," according to Johansson's complaint filed in Los Angeles County's Superior Court for the State of California. This was a contract violation because Johansson secured a promise from Marvel that the movie would initially be released in theaters only, the lawsuit said:

To maximize these receipts, and thereby protect her financial interests, Ms. Johansson extracted a promise from Marvel that the release of the picture would be a "theatrical release." As Ms. Johansson, Disney, Marvel, and most everyone else in Hollywood knows, a "theatrical release" is a release that is exclusive to movie theaters. Disney was well aware of this promise, but nonetheless directed Marvel to violate its pledge and instead release the picture on the Disney+ streaming service the very same day it was released in movie theaters.

The reasons for this were twofold. First, Disney wanted to lure the picture's audience away from movie theaters and towards its owned streaming service, where it could keep the revenues for itself while simultaneously growing the Disney+ subscriber base, a proven way to boost Disney's stock price. Second, Disney wanted to substantially devalue Ms. Johansson's agreement and thereby enrich itself. In the months leading up to this lawsuit, Ms. Johansson gave Disney and Marvel every opportunity to right their wrong and make good on Marvel's promise. Unlike numerous other movie studios, however—including Warner Brothers who, on information and belief, settled with its talent on films such as Wonder Woman after it released those films "day-and-date" to its streaming service HBO Max last year—Disney and Marvel largely ignored Ms. Johansson, essentially forcing her to file this action.

The lawsuit accuses Disney of intentional interference with contractual relations and inducing breach of contract, alleging that the contract breach "was the direct result of Disney directing Marvel to ignore Ms. Johansson's agreement and/or overruling Marvel's wishes to comply with it." Johansson demanded a jury trial and asked the court for monetary and punitive damages in amounts to be proven at trial.

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Huawei’s latest flagship phone has HarmonyOS, a Qualcomm SoC, and no 5G

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  The Huawei P50 Pro, in several colors.

Despite facing down a global chip shortage, a US export ban, and plummeting market share, Huawei is still plowing ahead and announcing its next flagship smartphone, the Huawei P50 Pro. The phone, which was teased back in June, is the company's first smartphone launching with HarmonyOS, Huawei's in-house operating system (though it's just a fork of Android).

Huawei is weathering several storms as best it can, but these storms are leading to a lot of wild product decisions with the P50 Pro. Huawei devices are usually based on the company's in-house "Kirin" SoCs, made by subsidiary HiSilicon. While the initial versions of the phones will use the 5 nm Kirin 9000 SoC, once the supply on those runs out, Huawei says it will switch to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC. But wait—didn't the US Government ban companies from exporting US-origin goods to Huawei?

It did, but Qualcomm was granted a license to sell chips to Huawei back in November 2020.

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