Ransomware is where hackers gain access to a computer system and then prevent its legitimate users from accessing the data until they pay a ransom. Hospitals have often been targeted. The city government of Atlanta is the latest victim of this practice, having been locked out of its computers since last Thursday.

I presume all these institutions do backups of their systems pretty much all the time. So why, when attacked like this, can they not do a complete wipe of their systems and then reload using the backup? It may take some time, of course, but that can’t be why they don’t do it since the Atlanta lockout has gone on for almost a week.

I know that there are computer experts who read this blog. Can anyone explain this?

I would have thought that this would be impossible. But engineers never cease to amaze me at what they can do and this particular solution boggled my mind. What they did was slice the ship in two and insert a new piece to extend it, like one would insert a leaf into a dining table to accommodate more people.

Incredible.

Galileo used the newly invented telescope to persuade people that the moon was not a perfectly smooth sphere, as all celestial objects were believed to be at that time, but had mountains and valleys and craters that made it seem just like the Earth. This caused considerable consternation at that time with some denying what they saw, saying that it was the telescope that was creating those blemishes.
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I have not written anything about the death of iconic physicist Stephen Hawking because there did not seem much that I could add to the massive coverage it received. But throughout his life, there has been one thing that troubled me about the way he was covered and that was how the media dealt with his motor neurone disease. I could not quite put my finger on what bothered me but Ellis Palmer, who also identifies himself as disabled and is a wheelchair user, explains his own unease with how people like him are seen and portrayed.
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When 3D printing came on the scene, I imagined that it would be pretty useful for the custom manufacture of small items. But its applications have gone well beyond my imaginings and the latest example is the ability to build an 650 square foot house in about 12-24 hours for a cost of just $10,000. The people behind it hope to reduce the cost to around $4,000.
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The video below shows what happens when you put a small amount of whipped cream in a vacuum chamber and then suck the air out of it.

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The evolution of mammals that live in the sea (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) are of particular interest because they went from ocean to land and then back to the ocean again. There are many depictions of the first stage but fewer of the second. This animation by artist Jordan Collver shows the second stage of the evolution of the sperm whale, from the amphibious Pakicetus to its present form.
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The winter in Cleveland has been relatively mild so far, and the last two weeks in particular saw warm temperatures and no snow at all. The forecasts seemed to indicate that this would continue but just yesterday the forecast changed suddenly because of the emergence of a storm in the northeast and we had a major snowstorm last night that dumped a large amount of snow on the ground as we slept.
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