Submission + - The new F-47 will be a beautiful fighter jet (defense.gov) 3
yemanja writes: What's even more wonderful, it will be built and deployed by the end of Trump's current term.
Submission + - Trump Administration Releases California Dam Water Without State Approval (newsweek.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: As the wildfires continue in Southern California, President Donald Trump's administration released significant amounts of water from California's dams on Friday in a move that bypassed state authorities.
Trump has been fiercely critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to contain the Los Angeles wildfires that broke out last month, dubbing him "Newscum" on social media.
The president has repeatedly attributed the disaster to what he says are water shortages caused by California state policies, such as fire hydrants that ran dry, though this was denied by state officials who claimed a water-pumping station that was down for maintenance has since been reopened.
The directive to release water came after Trump issued an executive order to "maximize" water deliveries in California and "override" state policies where they deem it necessary.
According to the Times on Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had then been directed to dramatically increase the flow of water as federal data confirmed that by the end of Friday increased releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success would total approximately 1.6 billion gallons of water.
The sudden water release has since stunned local officials, who scrambled to prevent potential flooding as state and federal water managers typically coordinate releases carefully, ensuring that enough water is retained for future agricultural use while preventing flood risks. However, the Trump administration's order bypassed this process, creating a chaotic response among local officials.
The unprecedented release, which sent water rushing into the Central Valley, had no impact on the recent Los Angeles wildfires, despite Trump's claims, who took to his Truth Social account to tout the release of water.
"Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," he posted, hailing the release as a "long fought Victory" that he suggested could have prevented the wildfires. "I only wish they listened to me six years ago—There would have been no fire!"
According to the Times, water experts explained the water released is headed for low-lying agricultural land, not Southern California, and has no physical route to reach wildfire-affected areas.
Laura Ramos, interim director of research and education at the California Water Institute at California State University, Fresno told the newspaper, "If the purpose was to help with the fires in Southern California, we do not believe that it will, because that's not where that water goes."
The release of the water comes after Trump claimed on social media on Monday that the U.S. military "just entered the Great State of California" in an attempt to improve the water supply.
Trump, a long-time critic of Newsom, said the military used emergency powers and "TURNED ON THE WATER" from the Pacific Northwest following the wave of devastating wildfires. This was denied by state authorities at the time.
Trump has been fiercely critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to contain the Los Angeles wildfires that broke out last month, dubbing him "Newscum" on social media.
The president has repeatedly attributed the disaster to what he says are water shortages caused by California state policies, such as fire hydrants that ran dry, though this was denied by state officials who claimed a water-pumping station that was down for maintenance has since been reopened.
The directive to release water came after Trump issued an executive order to "maximize" water deliveries in California and "override" state policies where they deem it necessary.
According to the Times on Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had then been directed to dramatically increase the flow of water as federal data confirmed that by the end of Friday increased releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success would total approximately 1.6 billion gallons of water.
The sudden water release has since stunned local officials, who scrambled to prevent potential flooding as state and federal water managers typically coordinate releases carefully, ensuring that enough water is retained for future agricultural use while preventing flood risks. However, the Trump administration's order bypassed this process, creating a chaotic response among local officials.
The unprecedented release, which sent water rushing into the Central Valley, had no impact on the recent Los Angeles wildfires, despite Trump's claims, who took to his Truth Social account to tout the release of water.
"Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," he posted, hailing the release as a "long fought Victory" that he suggested could have prevented the wildfires. "I only wish they listened to me six years ago—There would have been no fire!"
According to the Times, water experts explained the water released is headed for low-lying agricultural land, not Southern California, and has no physical route to reach wildfire-affected areas.
Laura Ramos, interim director of research and education at the California Water Institute at California State University, Fresno told the newspaper, "If the purpose was to help with the fires in Southern California, we do not believe that it will, because that's not where that water goes."
The release of the water comes after Trump claimed on social media on Monday that the U.S. military "just entered the Great State of California" in an attempt to improve the water supply.
Trump, a long-time critic of Newsom, said the military used emergency powers and "TURNED ON THE WATER" from the Pacific Northwest following the wave of devastating wildfires. This was denied by state authorities at the time.
Submission + - Canadaâ(TM)s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potent (theguardian.com)
mspohr writes: Canadaâ(TM)s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potentially billions of dollars, alleging the company is âoestrip-mining journalismâ and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software.
The suit, filed on Friday in Ontarioâ(TM)s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizationsâ(TM) articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.
âoeThese artificial intelligence companies cannibalize proprietary content and are free-riding on the backs of news publishers who invest real money to employ real journalists who produce real stories for real people,â said Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada.
The suit, filed on Friday in Ontarioâ(TM)s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizationsâ(TM) articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.
âoeThese artificial intelligence companies cannibalize proprietary content and are free-riding on the backs of news publishers who invest real money to employ real journalists who produce real stories for real people,â said Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada.
Submission + - Are 'Google Programmers' the New 'Next-Next-Finish Programmers'? 3
theodp writes: Back in 1998, Ellen Ullman wrote in Salon about The dumbing-down of programming: "My programming tools were full of wizards. Little dialog boxes waiting for me to click "Next" and "Next" and "Finish." Click and drag and shazzam! — thousands of lines of working code. No need to get into the "hassle" of remembering the language. No need to even learn it. It is a powerful siren-song lure: You can make your program do all these wonderful and complicated things, and you don't really need to understand."
Twenty-four years later, PVS-Studio has published a translation of Ivan Belokamentsev's cautionary tale of how modernizing his interviewing process from coding on paper to a computer led him to inadvertently hire 'Google Programmers', who dazzled him in interviews and initially on the job, but soon reached a plateau in productivity that puzzled him until he had a gobsmacking realization:
"It was like somebody hit me on the head with a sack of flour. It took me about two days to process it. How is it really possible? The beautiful, well-optimized code they showed me at the first interview was from the Internet. The explosive growth of productivity in the first months was due to the solutions that they found on the Internet. Those answers to user questions after the magic "We'll call you back" from these guys — were found on the Internet. They were coding without understanding the basic constructs. No, they didn't write code — they downloaded it. No, that's not it, either. To download the code is like running "npm i", it's ok. They copy-pasted the code. Without knowing how to write it. That's what angered me – what the...? Well, I understand when you surf the net to figure out how a new technology works. Or when you need to use some exotic feature and not to bloat your head with unnecessary information. But basic things! How can you copy-paste basic things from the Internet?! Do you want to know what they said? "What's the big deal?" I was ready to join the monastery out of grief. I took a break, stopped talking to them, retreated into myself, and started thinking. Of course, I realized that it was not about them. I was the problem. They only followed the laws of their own world. And I was the fool for not seeing these laws — I did not understand them, did not realize their seriousness. The seriousness of superficiality."
Twenty-four years later, PVS-Studio has published a translation of Ivan Belokamentsev's cautionary tale of how modernizing his interviewing process from coding on paper to a computer led him to inadvertently hire 'Google Programmers', who dazzled him in interviews and initially on the job, but soon reached a plateau in productivity that puzzled him until he had a gobsmacking realization:
"It was like somebody hit me on the head with a sack of flour. It took me about two days to process it. How is it really possible? The beautiful, well-optimized code they showed me at the first interview was from the Internet. The explosive growth of productivity in the first months was due to the solutions that they found on the Internet. Those answers to user questions after the magic "We'll call you back" from these guys — were found on the Internet. They were coding without understanding the basic constructs. No, they didn't write code — they downloaded it. No, that's not it, either. To download the code is like running "npm i", it's ok. They copy-pasted the code. Without knowing how to write it. That's what angered me – what the...? Well, I understand when you surf the net to figure out how a new technology works. Or when you need to use some exotic feature and not to bloat your head with unnecessary information. But basic things! How can you copy-paste basic things from the Internet?! Do you want to know what they said? "What's the big deal?" I was ready to join the monastery out of grief. I took a break, stopped talking to them, retreated into myself, and started thinking. Of course, I realized that it was not about them. I was the problem. They only followed the laws of their own world. And I was the fool for not seeing these laws — I did not understand them, did not realize their seriousness. The seriousness of superficiality."
Comment Re:proof is in the pudding (Score 4, Informative) 185
You mean like these people?
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencealert.com%2Ft...
Comment Re:Honestly, slow. (Score 1) 172
so you don't repeat in some interval, I don't see how that contradicts anything I said, or even where I said you had to wait first!
Comment Re:Honestly, slow. (Score 1) 172
actually, it's quite fast, key debouncing tends to use much longer intervals.
Comment Re:I'm not saying it's not aliens .. (Score 1) 120
Indeed, the nostromo received a warning signal from a victim instead.
Submission + - SPAM: uMatrix development has ended
Hmmmmmm writes: Raymond Hill, known online as gorhill, has set the status of the uMatrix GitHub repository to archived; this means that it is read-only at the time and that no updates will become available.
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed.
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
Link to Original Source
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed.
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
Link to Original Source
Comment Re:hindsight is 2020 (Score 1) 223
I am pretty sure it's been a loss for that.
Comment Re: link doesn't allow ad blockers (Score 1) 114
Have the ad servers stopped serving malware yet?
Submission + - New "Metallic Wood" Is as Strong as Titanium But Much Lighter (nature.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Titanium has long been touted as the metal of the future, due to its strength, rust resistance, and amazing lightness. Now researchers have discovered a way to create a new "metallic wood" material that is as strong as titanium, but five times lighter. It was created by building tiny plastic spheres, suspending them in water, allowing the water to evaporate, and then electroplating the spheres with nickel. Researchers then dissolved the plastic spheres, producing an incredibly strong, porous metal that floats on water.
Submission + - New Commercial Amiga 500 game released
Mike Bouma writes: Pixelglass known for their "Giana Sisters SE" game has released a worthy new game for the Amiga 500, called "Worthy". In this cute action puzzler you "Assume the role of a fearless boy and collect the required number of diamonds in each stage in order to win the girl's heart! Travel from maze to maze, kill the baddies, avoid the traps, collect beers (your necessary "fuel" to keep you going), find the diamonds, prove to her you're WORTHY!!" Time to dust off that classic Amiga or alternatively download a digital copy and use an UAE emulator for your platform of choice! Have a look at the release trailer.
Submission + - SPAM: Learning to Program is Getting Harder
theodp writes: While Google suggests that parents and educators are to blame for why kids can't code, Allen Downey argues that learning to program is getting harder. Downey writes: "The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers: 1) Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE — and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first. 2) User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first. 3) Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder." So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?
Submission + - HP Enterprise let Russia scrutinize cyberdefense system used by Pentagon (reuters.com)
quonset writes: A Russian defense agency was allowed to review the cyberdefense software used by the Pentagon to protect its computer networks. This according to Russian regulatory records and interviews with people with direct knowledge of the issue.
From the story:
The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector.
Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.
“It’s a huge security vulnerability,“ said Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight. ”You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary.”
From the story:
The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector.
Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.
“It’s a huge security vulnerability,“ said Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight. ”You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary.”
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