Comment Re:It's not dangerous...for Linus Torvalds (Score 2) 70
Maybe the successor is Satoshi Nakamoto.
Comment Re:That will be one big map (Score 1) 259
There is one. I think they keep it in Africa.
Comment Re:Ya, but ... (Score 1) 259
...as long as there's a sharpie nearby.
And there does always seem to be one nearby.
You know that tradition in which the pen (or pens) that is used to sign important legislation is sometimes put aside as a relic to memorialize the signing?
It's a damn sharpie now!
Comment Re: Most extreme objects? (Score 1) 30
But they are damn fast at smashing things indescriminately.
Comment Re:Chupacabra Particle (Score 2) 30
Probalby "a PeVton".
Comment Why a pickup truck? (Score 1) 130
Is their first "lower-cost" EV a pickup truck because a pickup truck won't compete with BYD?
Comment Re:Funny how these people always steal data (Score 1) 16
"...helpful."
I mean, maybe "helpfu" is a thing, too.
I mean, maybe "helpfu" is a thing, too.
Comment Re:Funny how these people always steal data (Score 1) 16
Sure, but even knowing that specific things are possible and useful can be a large contributor to success. Pieces of the puzzle are helpfu.
Submission + - Microsoft investigates Israeli military's use of Azure cloud storage (theguardian.com) 1
Epeeist writes: Microsoft is investigating how Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, is using its Azure cloud storage platform, amid concerns the company’s staff in Israel may have concealed key details about its work on sensitive military projects.
The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found Unit 8200 has used a customised and segregated area within Azure to store recordings of millions of calls made each day in Gaza and the West Bank.
According to Unit 8200 sources interviewed as part of the investigation, intelligence drawn from the enormous repository of phone calls held in the cloud has been used to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza.
The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found Unit 8200 has used a customised and segregated area within Azure to store recordings of millions of calls made each day in Gaza and the West Bank.
According to Unit 8200 sources interviewed as part of the investigation, intelligence drawn from the enormous repository of phone calls held in the cloud has been used to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza.
Submission + - Someone read Rama series? Designed actual spacecraft. (livescience.com)
fahrbot-bot writes: Proposed spacecraft could carry up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri
Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our own. The craft, called Chrysalis, could make the 25 trillion mile (40 trillion kilometer) journey in around 400 years, the engineers say in their project brief, meaning many of its potential passengers would only know life on the craft.
Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable.
The project won first place in the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a challenge that requires teams to design hypothetical multigenerational ships for interstellar travel.
The ship could theoretically be constructed in 20 to 25 years and retains gravity through constant rotation. The vessel, which would measure 36 miles (58 km) in length, would be constructed like a Russian nesting doll, with several layers encompassing each other around a central core. The layers include communal spaces, farms, gardens, homes, warehouses and other shared facilities, each powered by nuclear fusion reactors.
[My first thought was that someone read Arthur C. Clarke's book, Rendezvous with Rama and used it as a model design.]
Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our own. The craft, called Chrysalis, could make the 25 trillion mile (40 trillion kilometer) journey in around 400 years, the engineers say in their project brief, meaning many of its potential passengers would only know life on the craft.
Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable.
The project won first place in the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a challenge that requires teams to design hypothetical multigenerational ships for interstellar travel.
The ship could theoretically be constructed in 20 to 25 years and retains gravity through constant rotation. The vessel, which would measure 36 miles (58 km) in length, would be constructed like a Russian nesting doll, with several layers encompassing each other around a central core. The layers include communal spaces, farms, gardens, homes, warehouses and other shared facilities, each powered by nuclear fusion reactors.
[My first thought was that someone read Arthur C. Clarke's book, Rendezvous with Rama and used it as a model design.]
Submission + - If the AI Bubble Pops, It Could Now Take the Entire Economy With It (futurism.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
AI companies are pouring so much money into AI, experts are starting to warn that it may be propping up the entire US economy.
As investor Paul Kedrosky told the Wall Street Journal , spending on AI infrastructure has already eclipsed spending on telecom and internet infrastructure during the dot-com crisis over two decades ago, raising the specter of a massive bubble.
I'm not sure that's the doomsday warning it's intended to be, as the 2000 dot-com bubble really wasn’t the end of the world for the rest of the economy: “A Nasdaq sell-off in March 2000 marked the end of the dot-com bubble. The recession that followed was relatively shallow for the broader economy but devastating for the tech industry. The Bay Area in California, home to tech-heavy Silicon Valley, experienced a sharp rise in unemployment.” But unemployment throughout the US remained quite low in 2000 and 2001, prior to 9/11.
Submission + - Smartwatches Offer Little Insight Into Stress Levels, Researchers Find (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: They are supposed to monitor you throughout the working day and help make sure that life is not getting on top of you. But a study has concluded that smartwatches cannot accurately measure your stress levels – and may think you are overworked when really you are just excited. Researchers found almost no relationship between the stress levels reported by the smartwatch and the levels that participants said they experienced. However, recorded fatigue levels had a very slight association with the smartwatch data, while sleep had a stronger correlation.
Eiko Fried, an author of the study, said the correlation between the smartwatch and self-reported stress scores was “basically zero." He added: “This is no surprise to us given that the watch measures heart rate and heart rate doesn’t have that much to do with the emotion you’re experiencing – it also goes up for sexual arousal or joyful experiences.” He noted that his Garmin had previously told him he was stressed when he was working out in the gym and when excitedly talking to a friend he had not seen for a while at a wedding. “The findings raise important questions about what wearable data can or can’t tell us about mental states,” said Fried. “Be careful and don’t live by your smartwatch – these are consumer devices, not medical devices.”
Eiko Fried, an author of the study, said the correlation between the smartwatch and self-reported stress scores was “basically zero." He added: “This is no surprise to us given that the watch measures heart rate and heart rate doesn’t have that much to do with the emotion you’re experiencing – it also goes up for sexual arousal or joyful experiences.” He noted that his Garmin had previously told him he was stressed when he was working out in the gym and when excitedly talking to a friend he had not seen for a while at a wedding. “The findings raise important questions about what wearable data can or can’t tell us about mental states,” said Fried. “Be careful and don’t live by your smartwatch – these are consumer devices, not medical devices.”
Submission + - AI Industry Horrified To Face Largest Copyright Class Action Ever Certified (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They've warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic's AI training now threatens to "financially ruin" the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement. Last week, Anthropic petitioned (PDF) to appeal the class certification, urging the court to weigh questions that the district court judge, William Alsup, seemingly did not. Alsup allegedly failed to conduct a "rigorous analysis" of the potential class and instead based his judgment on his "50 years" of experience, Anthropic said.
If the appeals court denies the petition, Anthropic argued, the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months" based on a class certification rushed at "warp speed" that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine. Confronted with such extreme potential damages, Anthropic may lose its rights to raise valid defenses of its AI training, deciding it would be more prudent to settle, the company argued. And that could set an alarming precedent, considering all the other lawsuits generative AI (GenAI) companies face over training on copyrighted materials, Anthropic argued. "One district court's errors should not be allowed to decide the fate of a transformational GenAI company like Anthropic or so heavily influence the future of the GenAI industry generally," Anthropic wrote. "This Court can and should intervene now."
In a court filing Thursday, the Consumer Technology Association and the Computer and Communications Industry Association backed Anthropic, warning the appeals court that "the district court’s erroneous class certification" would threaten "immense harm not only to a single AI company, but to the entire fledgling AI industry and to America’s global technological competitiveness." According to the groups, allowing copyright class actions in AI training cases will result in a future where copyright questions remain unresolved and the risk of "emboldened" claimants forcing enormous settlements will chill investments in AI. "Such potential liability in this case exerts incredibly coercive settlement pressure for Anthropic," industry groups argued, concluding that "as generative AI begins to shape the trajectory of the global economy, the technology industry cannot withstand such devastating litigation. The United States currently may be the global leader in AI development, but that could change if litigation stymies investment by imposing excessive damages on AI companies."
If the appeals court denies the petition, Anthropic argued, the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months" based on a class certification rushed at "warp speed" that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine. Confronted with such extreme potential damages, Anthropic may lose its rights to raise valid defenses of its AI training, deciding it would be more prudent to settle, the company argued. And that could set an alarming precedent, considering all the other lawsuits generative AI (GenAI) companies face over training on copyrighted materials, Anthropic argued. "One district court's errors should not be allowed to decide the fate of a transformational GenAI company like Anthropic or so heavily influence the future of the GenAI industry generally," Anthropic wrote. "This Court can and should intervene now."
In a court filing Thursday, the Consumer Technology Association and the Computer and Communications Industry Association backed Anthropic, warning the appeals court that "the district court’s erroneous class certification" would threaten "immense harm not only to a single AI company, but to the entire fledgling AI industry and to America’s global technological competitiveness." According to the groups, allowing copyright class actions in AI training cases will result in a future where copyright questions remain unresolved and the risk of "emboldened" claimants forcing enormous settlements will chill investments in AI. "Such potential liability in this case exerts incredibly coercive settlement pressure for Anthropic," industry groups argued, concluding that "as generative AI begins to shape the trajectory of the global economy, the technology industry cannot withstand such devastating litigation. The United States currently may be the global leader in AI development, but that could change if litigation stymies investment by imposing excessive damages on AI companies."
Submission + - Apollo 13 moon mission leader James Lovell has died (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97.
Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday.
“Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount,” NASA said. “We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.”
One of NASA’s most traveled astronauts in the agency’s first decade, Lovell flew four times — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth.
In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the first to leave Earth’s orbit and the first to fly to and circle the moon. They could not land, but they put the U.S. ahead of the Soviets in the space race. Letter writers told the crew that their stunning pale blue dot photo of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968.
Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday.
“Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount,” NASA said. “We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.”
One of NASA’s most traveled astronauts in the agency’s first decade, Lovell flew four times — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth.
In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the first to leave Earth’s orbit and the first to fly to and circle the moon. They could not land, but they put the U.S. ahead of the Soviets in the space race. Letter writers told the crew that their stunning pale blue dot photo of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968.
Comment Re:Smarter Trump supporters (Score 2) 65
I think the proportion of people who just want to watch Trump punch things is pretty high. They seem to want to see that, more than they want to have things run using facts and careful planning.
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