OpenLearn Live

The National Lottery has discovered that some of its online players have been hacked. BBC News reports :

About 26,500 National Lottery accounts are feared to have been hacked, according to its operator Camelot.

The firm said it did not believe its own systems had been compromised, but rather that the players' login details had been stolen from elsewhere.

The company said that no money had been taken from or added to the compromised accounts.

But it added that there had been other suspicious activity on fewer than 50 of them.

So the odds are against your account having had suspicious activity upon it - although, given Camelot's business is persuading people that long adds against something shouldn't make you think it won't happen, that may or may not be reassuring.

Perhaps this is a good time to think about your online security, and toughen up your passwords.

Maybe you've been putting off doing that because it's a faff to keep track of secure passwords. We might have an answer, though.

Find out about how password managers can make you more secure, more easily

The father of the Big Mac dies at 98

The death has been announced of Michael 'Jim' Delligatti, the architect of cultural icon/health bogeyman. Delligatti was the McDonalds franchise holder who came up with the Big Mac. Penn Live reports :

James Delligatti, the Pittsburgh-area McDonald's franchisee who created the Big Mac nearly 50 years ago, has died, the Associated Press reports. He was 98, and died at home surrounded by his family on Monday night.

Delligatti's franchise was based in Uniontown, about 40 miles south of Pittsburgh. While there, he invented the chain's signature burger with two all-beef patties, "special sauce," lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

It's an interesting reverse situation - usually the franchisee is reliant on the central company creating and sharing key products. And, as a 2009 piece for the Pennsylvania Center For The Book records, McDonalds as a corporation weren't initially keen on supporting what would become the company's signature product:

One of Delligatti’s obstacles in getting the Big Mac approved for sale was its proposed price of 45 cents—twice that of a regular cheeseburger. It took the support of Ralph Lanphar, a regional manager in Columbus, to obtain corporate permission to test the Big Mac. This permission was limited—Delligatti could only test the sandwich at his Uniontown store, and he was told he had to use the standard McDonald’s bun. When this bun proved far too small for all the contents of the Big Mac, Delligatti ignored management’s requests and ordered a larger, three-piece bun. Within a few months, the new Big Mac was increasing the Uniontown store’s sales by better than 12 percent. The sandwich was a hit.

Due to the success in the Uniontown store, the Big Mac was soon sold in all of Delligatti’s stores. When each of these stores showed significant gains, McDonald’s managers and franchise owners elsewhere looked to Delligatti and his stores for information on his new sandwich. The McDonald’s chain added the Big Mac to other test markets, and when all of them scored 10 percent or better in sales gains, the new product was finally put into nationwide distribution in 1968. It had taken Delligatti nearly two years to the sell the company on the idea.

The idea wasn't entirely novel, either - the double-burger-in-a-bun model was lifted from the rival Big Boy franchise.

Watch the OU's Dev Kodwani explain why McDonalds shapes itself to fit local markets

Are your Christmas lights going to kill your wi-fi signal?

At the start of Christmas last year, Ofcom issued a warning that fairy lights might cause you connectivity problems. The OU’s Andrew Smith explained the science behind the claim: The whole press release describes how microwave ovens, fluorescent lights and other devices could also play havoc with your wireless connection.Casting your minds back to science at school, you may recall your teacher describing the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum covers radio waves, microwaves, visible light and radiation. It is around us all the time. Our phones, radios, televisions and desk lights all depend on this principle from physical science.Wireless networks typically work on the 2.4 Gigahertz microwave radio spectrum. . The term Hertz means the number of waves per second, so 1 Hertz is one wavelength per second. Your FM radio station may use 100 Megahertz, or 100,000,000 waves per second, while 2.4 Gigahertz, used by wireless, is 2,400,000,000 waves per second, making the radio waves used by wi-fi considerably shorter . Essentially, this means that they are “weaker” than FM radio waves – as they require greater power to cover the same distance.Your wireless router also uses considerably less power than a public FM transmitter. We expect the maximum reach of a domestic wi-fi signal to be 100 metres, while FM in the right conditions can easily be obtained at up to 10km and beyond. (There are also public forms of wi-fi called WiMAX , which can work in larger areas, but it is important to note that this is unrelated to the Ofcom press release.)Because your wireless network is much less powerful than a big FM transmitter and its waves are “weaker”, where you place the router and what you have in your house will have an impact. Home electrics, microwaves, steel girders, concrete cladding and foil insulation all can have an effect. Older properties with their thicker walls make a difference, too, as the lower-powered, high frequency wi-fi radio waves struggle to penetrate them.But while many different factors can dull your wi-fi signal, I can’t recall anyone yet getting miffed about their festive laptop watching of Dr Who being affected as soon as the Christmas lights go on.

Vice's Motherboard feature celebrates the life of Sophie Blanchard, aviation pioneer:

Over the course of her high-flying career, Blanchard gained a massive fanbase and pioneered new flight techniques. Her test flights resulted in multiple near-death experiences before she finally perished in a fatal blaze of glory in 1819. It was a dizzyingly eventful life of 41 years, and worth celebrating on Blanchard’s 237th birthday.

Despite how flagrantly Blanchard flirted with death her whole life, she was a shy, nervous person, terrified of loud noises and riding in carriages. But when she married the ambitious early ballooner Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1804, she finally discovered her ideal habitat—the quiet bliss of high altitudes.

Read at Motherboard: ​The Daredevil Life and Pyrotechnic Death of Sophie Blanchard

Previously on OpenLearn Live: Therese Peltier, first woman to fly in a plane

Where has the business of mail-order mattresses come from? And how are so many companies apparently making cash from the idea? The New Statesman's Scott Limbrick has been losing sleep over the question:

Constantin Eis, co-founder and global managing director at Casper, points to technology as a “huge driver of the boom”, and similarly believes consumer preferences have changed.

In particular, he sees the experience of purchasing a mattress in store as “shockingly out-of-date” and not a useful way to choose the best product. For Eve CEO, Jas Bagniewski, this process is “archaic”. He also sees the price differential as key, with traditional mark-ups creating an opening for online competition. All three companies offer a trial period as an alternative to testing products in a store.

From OpenLearn Live 24th November 2016

Read the full article at New Statesman: Nap Store: Where did all these new mattress start-ups come from?

You'll be familiar with probiotic yoghurts, and the claims that are made for how they will improve your health if only you swap a bacon barm breakfast for their milky charms each morning. But can they also have an effect on your mind as well as your gut? It's possible, as Paul Whiteley explains at Questioning Answers:

The review/re-analysis by Jennifer McKean and colleagues found 7 studies on this topic in the peer-reviewed research literature, that overall "showed that supplementation with probiotics resulted in a statistically significant improvement in psychological symptoms... compared with placebo." Personally, I wasn't surprised at these findings having covered a few bits of science on probiotics and psychology before on this blog. Some recent discussions on how probiotics might be a possible 'stress-reliever' also add to this area.

Read the full article at Questioning Answers: Probiotics and 'subclincial' psychological symptoms: meta-analysed

Does 'eating for health' always make sense?

Prefer to try poetry to give you a boost? Take our poetry prescription