NRC Vandaag is met vakantie, maar we zijn niet helemaal weg. Deze week hoor je de winterselectie: zes van onze beste afleveringen van afgelopen jaar.

Damien Douxchamps has added a photo to the pool:

uchi uchi has added a photo to the pool:

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uchi uchi has added a photo to the pool:

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I don't like to talk in absolutes about security, but... my headphones are 100% immune from the latest exploit, via this One Weird Trick!

Now hear me out...

I call it "eargapping". I learned about it in my Intro to Antique Coding class.

quat:

vendor of bluetooth chip used in sony, bose, and everyone else's headphones leaves debugging protocol completely open with no authentication over bluetooth low energy:

uh oh:

• remotely connect to headphones over thus protocol without needing a pairing interaction
• dump "now playing" data
• connect audio stream and eavesdrop
• dump your phone number
• brick the headphones
• dump the pairing key used to make your phone recognize your headphones as your headphones, and then impersonate your headphones

and that's when the REAL fun starts:

• talk to your voice assistant remotely
• make and manage calls while your phone is in your pocket
• eavesdrop from your phone microphone (by making you call them and then dropping the bluetooth connection so your phone switches to builtin mic)
• steal your whatsapp from 10ft away (since they have your phone #, the ability to accept the "we'll call and verify it's you" phone call before your phone starts vibrating, and the ability to listen and hear the code)
• steal your amazon (since you can login thru a phone number and a whatsapp confirmation code)

Once again it feels like I read more books than this, but the teetering tower of OSHA violations does not lie. Here are the books that I enjoyed this year, in desk-stack order:

• Damned -- Genevieve Cogman
• Piranesi -- Susanna Clarke
• When We Were Real -- Daryl Gregory
• Ghost Station, Dead Silence, Cold Eternity -- SA Barnes
• Foundryside, Shorefall, Locklands -- Robert Jackson Bennett
• Letters from the Dead -- Isabella Valeri
• w0rldtr33 -- James Tynion IV
• City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City -- Ian Lambot & Greg Girard
• Kowloon Large Illustrated -- Kazumi Terazawa
• The Regicide Report -- Charles Stross
• The Adventures of Mary Darling -- Pat Murphy
• Descender Compendium -- Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen
• Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder -- Lawrence Weschler
• Strandbeest, The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen -- Lawrence Weschler & Lena Herzog
• Howard The Duck, The Complete Collection Vol 1-5 -- Steve Gerber, etc.
• The Essential Ellison -- Harlan Ellison (I skimmed; he's much more uneven than I remembered)
• The Ghost Hunters Guide to the Alphabet -- Violet Blue
• Visual Experiments Lain -- Acura Honda & Takahiro Kishida
• An Omnipresence In Wired -- Yoshitoshi Abe
• The Art of Robert E. Mcginnis
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Record of a Spaceborn Few, A Closed and Common Orbit, The Galaxy and the Ground Within, To Be Taught If Fortunate, Monk and Robot -- Becky Chambers
• Blue Champagne -- John Varley
• Come Closer -- Sara Gran
• Negative Space -- BR Yeager
• Vurt -- Jeff Noon
• We Are Legion, We Are Bob -- Dennis E. Taylor
• Time Windows -- Kathryn Reiss
• Rebel Girl: My Life As a Feminist Punk -- Kathleen Hanna
• The Secret History -- Donna Tartt
• The Night Circus -- Erin Morgenstern

But! I now have a strong theory as to why my book reading has been down. This was the year that I finally stopped living in denial and bought reading glasses. After doing that I came to realize that I had been following all kinds of stupid rules that I hadn't even noticed, like, "I only read books in direct sunlight".

Dammit.

(Yes, I read books on paper, no, I don't want to hear about your Kindle.)

Previously.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

handwritten on back of photograph, "1977 trip to Minnie Margarets, I am an old cowhand"

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

date stamped on slide November 1959

Popplio728 has added a photo to the pool:

Wednesday 31st December 2025.