An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The important data loss bug that interrupted the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, version 1809, may be fixed, but it turns out there are plenty of other weird problems with the release. As spotted by Paul Thurrott, the update also breaks the seek bar in Windows Media Player when playing "specific files." Microsoft does promise to fix the bug, but the timeframe is vaguely open-ended: it will be "in an upcoming release." Also in the "how did that happen" category comes another bug: some Win32 programs can't be set as the default program for a given file type. So if you want certain files to always open in Notepad, for example, you're currently out of luck. A fix for this is promised by the end of the month. Setting default program associations is something that's been in Windows for 20-something years, so it's a little alarming that it should be broken. On top of this, there continue to be complaints that Windows 10 version 1809 doesn't work with iCloud, and machines with the iCloud client are currently blacklisted to prevent them from receiving the 1809 update. It's not immediately clear whose fault this one is -- it could be Microsoft's, but it's also possible that Apple is to blame.

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New header image. A burning log, for the season. Previous image: Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.

The touchdown confirmation came through shortly after 19:50 GMT.

"I don't believe it," the president said of his own government's report about global warming.

A two-day international conference in the Swiss city comes at a time when US is seeking a peace deal with the Taliban.

The vote will decide the future of UK's departure from EU, which it is officially set to take place on March 29, 2019.

NASA's latest Mars lander, InSight, successfully touched down on the surface of the Red Planet moments ago, surviving an intense plunge through the Martian atmosphere. From a report: It marks the eighth picture-perfect landing on Mars for NASA, adding to the space agency's impressive track record of putting spacecraft on the planet. And now, InSight's two-year mission has begun, one that entails listening for Marsquakes to learn about the world's interior. After six and a half months of traveling through space, InSight hit the top of Mars' atmosphere a little before 3PM ET. It then made a daring descent to the surface, performing a complex multi-step routine that slowed the lander from more than 12,000 miles per hour to just 5 miles per hour before it hit the ground. To get to the surface safely, InSight had to autonomously deploy a supersonic parachute, gather radar measurements, and ignite its thrusters all at the right time. Altogether, the landing took just under seven minutes to complete, prompting the nickname "seven minutes of terror." "InSight's view is a flat, smooth expanse called Elysium Planitia, but its workspace is below the surface, where it will study Mars' deep interior," Nasa posted Monday, sharing the first photo after the landing.

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The US space agency's robot is the first mission aiming to study the Red Planet's deep interior.

Starting this week, businesses in Ohio will be able to pay taxes in bitcoin through a new platform, OhioCrypto.com, a first in the US. From a report: For many enthusiasts, part of the appeal of crypto has been the very fact that these currencies are not backed by governments. That makes it harder for politicians to manipulate currencies to their own ends, they say. But for the same reason, states have sought to sideline cryptocurrencies, comfortable to dismiss bitcoin as a passing fad. So Ohio, and its treasurer Josh Mandel, see embracing them as a way to signal that the state is tech-savvy and forward-thinking. "I do see [bitcoin] as a legitimate form of currency," Mandel told (paywall) the Wall Street Journal.

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Russia and Ukraine clash off the coast of Crimea, with shots fired and three Ukrainian navy boats seized.

As Facebook struggles to find an audience for its YouTube competitor, Watch, the company has been talking to some media companies about focusing its efforts on audiences 30 years and older instead of teens and younger millennials. From a report: The move signals more troubles for Facebook's video ambitions. Expansion in video, messaging, and Stories are key for the future of Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a call with analysts in October.

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Wave723 writes: What do a Silicon Valley massage spa, a local community college, and a Californian plastics manufacturer have in common? They will soon be testing hundreds of cutting-edge wireless devices, according to an application for an experimental permit filed last week with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). If that sounds unlikely, it is. It seems much more likely that the new devices will actually be tested at three nearby Amazon facilities. These include two buildings belonging to the company's secretive Lab126 research division, and one of the retailer's largest fulfillment centers in the state. On November 19, a company called Chrome Enterprises LLC sought permission to test up to 450 prototype devices using Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), a new technology that aims to deliver ultra-fast wireless broadband over shared radio frequencies. In particular, CBRS opens access to a radio frequency band (3.5 Gigahertz) that the FCC had previously set aside for military use, and makes it so that the military can share that band with anyone who buys a router or phone that supports the service, or has a cell phone plan with a carrier that has paid for a sliver of the band.

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The new Narcos season set in Mexico is terrible. Everything about it is awful. I kept watching because I wanted to understand how they could make something so bad. I think what they did is write down the arc of the various threads in the previous two seasons, and they just repeated the story with different characters. They have these idiotic conversations about characters you know nothing about and don't care about. Even the star, the new Pablo Escobar is a flat character. His old fat sidekick is terrible. I understood him in the first few scenes he appeared in, but then he became this crazy guy. The beauty of Narcos in previous seasons is that you could get into the head of Pablo Escobar and it made sense. You felt for him and each of the people around him, even though he was a monster. In the end of Season 3 there is one scene where the two main characters meet each other for the first and last time. That one scene was good. There was some truth in it. But otherwise it was a big fucking meh. So what. Even their stories about how sensimilla works were wrong. Couldn't they read the Wikipedia page and do a little fact checking? It's actually interesting science.

There should be a service that sends you the daily archive of my blog automatically via email the next morning. It should be totally turnkey. I would have nothing to do with it. It's a simple RSS application. Okay stupid question -- does such an application exist?

US Ambassador Nikki Haley tells UN Security Council that Moscow's 'outlaw actions' make normal ties impossible.