Instagram is making it harder for people to spam you with DM requests Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The VergeInstagram is trying to make it more difficult for people you don’t follow to spam you with unwanted DM requests. After testing the feature in June, Instagram now only lets users you don’t follow send a one-message invite before they can start chatting with you. That message can also only contain text, so…

LPT It is a lot harder to say “no” to someone in person. A tip I have found is when you call doctors/dentists offices or if you need a refund or some bit of customer service… it is a lot easier for the person on the other end of the phone to just say “We don’t have an appointment” or “a refund is not possible”. But if you just show up at your doctor’s office… or just show up somewhere where you ne…

Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Making Life Harder For Astronomers Space is a tricky thing to study. It’s hard to physically go there, what with the cost and the distance and the deadly vacuum of it all, so scientists prefer to stay on terra firma and merely look out into the heavens. But it seems there’s a new problem with that method, and it has a name: Elon Musk’s Starlink. Read more…

Defecting From North Korea Is Now Far Harder Recent rescue efforts to escape Kim Jong-un’s regime via China have been thwarted by digital surveillance, profiteering and the pandemic.