Netflix now offers a how to guide to making smart socks that will pause your show if you fall asleep.

Have some extra time on your hands? Love watching Netflix but hate when you fall asleep in the middle of a show? You're in luck!

Netflix now offers a step by step guide to make high tech smart socks to detect when you've dozed off and send a signal to your TV, automatically pausing your show. Never again will you binge-watch yourself to sleep, only to wake up two seasons later wondering what happened.

How does it work? Netflix starts with instructions for knitting socks, and helpfully includes pattern designs for its most popular shows, including House of Cards and Master of None.

Building the electronics setup is step two. This includes an accelerometer (to detect when feet have stopped moving), IR LEDs (to send a signal to the television) and a battery, among other components.

The electronics are then inserted into the socks. A few strips of felt help keep them comfy. In order to get everything to work smoothly, users will also need to do a little soldering and computer programming.

Ready to start your sock project? Check out the guide at makeit.netflix.com.

The federal government has been asked to stay away from Defcon hacker event this year!

The federal government is persona non grata at this year's Defcon.

For the first time in the 21-year-history of the famed hacker's convention, government employees are being asked to stay away, albeit in a polite fashion.

Def Con founder Jeff Moss, aka The Dark Tangent, posted the following plea on the event's Web site late Wednesday:

Feds, we need some time apart.
For over two decades DEF CON has been an open nexus of hacker culture, a place where seasoned pros, hackers, academics, and feds can meet, share ideas and party on neutral territory. Our community operates in the spirit of openness, verified trust, and mutual respect.
When it comes to sharing and socializing with feds, recent revelations have made many in the community uncomfortable about this relationship. Therefore, I think it would be best for everyone involved if the feds call a "time-out" and not attend DEF CON this year.
This will give everybody time to think about how we got here, and what comes next.
The Dark Tangent

Moss, who also advises the Department of Homeland Security on security issues, told Reuters he believes the Defcon community needs some time to digest the recent leaks about U.S. surveillance programs.

"The community is digesting things that the Feds have had a decade to understand and come to terms with," Moss said. "A little bit of time and distance can be a healthy thing, especially when emotions are running high."

But Def Con won't be hiring a bunch of bouncers to throw out the Feds.

"We are not going on a witch hunt or checking IDs and kicking people out," Moss added.

Def Con has always been geared toward hackers, researchers, and other security devotees. But employees from the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and other government branches have been welcome and have attended for many years.

General Keith Alexander, the head of National Security Agency, even gave a keynote speech at last year's event. Alexander was asked at the time whether the government was snooping on its citizens and denied that the NSA was gathering information on all Americans.

Source: CNET