Items of Interest

Amazon Marketplace Cut-Throat Sellers

This is a fascinating long read by The Verge about the cut-throat goings on between super-competitive Amazon Marketplace sellers. A sub-industry has formed of "Amazon Lawyors" that help sellers recover from attacks by other sellers. Sellers have learnt to use new rules and terms against each other whenever Amazon introduces new legislation to their marketplace. When the hoverboards started exploding, Amazon cracked down on flammable products.

1919 Dáil Eireann & Usk Prison Break

This week Ireland celebrated the centenary of the first Dáil in 1919. An article on IrishCentral.com tells the remarkable story of the prison break of Joe McGrath TD (a member of the Dáil), Barney Mellows and George Geraghty from Usk prison in Wales on the same day. The three Republicans pretended to be American tourists and tried to head for the ferry in Fishguard but couldn't get a train.

Books from 1923

The Internet Archive has released a wealth of scanned books published in 1923, the majority from the University of Toronto Robarts Library. Adding "Ireland" to the search results brings back an interesting collection of books such as The Irish Revolution and How It Came About, Pagan Ireland, and most interestingly, Michael Collins' Own Story.

Alias Voice Assistant Parasite

Bjørn Karmann and Tore Knudsen have created Alias, a parasite smart device that can be used to stop your voice assistant device from spying on you. The DIY device deafens the assistant's microphone with white noise, and only stops when alias hears you speak the device's wake word. Alias then cuts the white noise and relays a recording of the wake word to the assistant, allowing it to work as intended. Details on how to build the alias device are available on Instructables.

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