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Submission + - Python Software Foundation refuses $1.5 million grant with anti DEI provision. (blogspot.com) 1

Jeremy Allison - Sam writes: The PSF has withdrawn a $1.5 million proposal to US government grant program.

"We became concerned, however, when we were presented with the terms and conditions we would be required to agree to if we accepted the grant. These terms included affirming the statement that we “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Comment Re:Wait until (Score 1) 91

The REAL headline and buried lede for the original post should be:

Trump guts nuclear safety regulations

“The president signed a pair of orders on Friday aimed at streamlining the licensing and construction of nuclear power plants — while panning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its ‘myopic’ radiation safety standards.”

We now have industry capture of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Who here knows about Admiral Hyman RIckover? All of this is worth reading:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHyman_G._Rickover%23Safety_record

Comment Re:Wait until (Score 1) 91

Are You Scared Yet?

I would be.

The Department of Energy is selling off more than 40,000 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from the Cold War arsenal to nuclear reactor startups. All of which I’m sure will be thoroughly vetted and monitored, because this is done under the direction of a former board member. Yikes!

Christopher Allen Wright (born January 15, 1965) "12) is an American government official, engineer, and businessman serving as the 17th United States secretary of energy since February 2025. Before leading the U.S. Department of Energy, Wright served as the CEO of Liberty Energy, North America's second largest hydraulic fracturing company, and served on the boards of Oklo, Inc., a nuclear technology company, and EMX Royalty Corp., a Canadian mineral rights and mining rights royalty payment company.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FChris_Wright

Who IS Oklo, Inc. the "private nuclear reactor builder/operator"? Oklo is Sam Altman:

Trump Administration Providing Weapons Grade Plutonium to Sam Altman

"If there were adults in the room and I could trust the federal government to impose the right standards, it wouldn't be such a great concern, but it just doesn't seem feasible."

We're in territory where weapons-grade plutonium is being given at fire-sale prices to billionaires who's ethical boundaries include creating their own demand for otherwise unnecessary, high-risk energy projects. Guys like Altman, who get their ideas from Wikipedia articles about Ayn Rand — because they are one rung lower than people who actually READ that garbage.

But I'm sure no inventory of hot nuke metal will ever go missing.

Comment Re:Once again (Score 1) 11

Apple had a culture of authenticity. Culture dies pretty hard in most cases. I think we will see the last of that culture dissipate, as it eroded so greatly under Cook and Ive. Then the extractive, enshittifying corruption will spread from Apple, too.

There really was something, that began with Jobs and Woz. It wasn't perfect, and Jobs had a way of twisting ethical stances in ends-justifying-means sophistry. But Steve Jobs would never have prostrated before Trump, proffering a solid gold token.

Submission + - Am I The Last Surviving 3-Digit User ID on Slashdot? 5

Jeremiah Cornelius writes: Some distinctions mean very little to anyone other than the singular individual holding them. Are there others remaining? Does Rob Malda ever bother checking in here? Who remembers the promising ascent and rapid zenith of VA Linux Systems? How about the decade-old sighting of the Slashdot PT Cruiser?

If you're out there we want to hear from you. Or just tell us why we don't.

Comment Re:Once again (Score 2) 11

Oh, you want profit? This is a surveillance spyware wrapper around the entire MacOS user experience - so if you thought Microsoft's Copilot Recall was invasive monitoring, you haven't seen anything yet.

If Apple won't monetize a user panopticon and partner with governments to do it, OpenAI will be right there, to take the cash.

Comment Virtual batteries (Score 1) 76

the core challenge of renewable energy is it's inconstancy. Physical batteries are a bandaid and long distance grids are a council of despair. The real solution for reliable renewable energy is to just build out four or five times the peak load. Then when it's cloudy or not windy you still have way more power than you need to supply the peak load. But of course this has the problem that you just spent four of five times as much capital. And that's a non-starter. But the easy, though bad solution, to this is bitcoin batteries. Just mine bitcoin with the excess and shut off the mining when it's cloudy .

Now along some AI. What a match made in heaven. A completely portable task. Move the calculation to whatever data center currently has power whether it's Norway or Texas. You can soak up all that excess renwable power. Plus there's plenty of non-real time batch jobs you can run that can adapt. For example training.

Perfect.

Shame the US decided to lose the AI power race by nixing renewables

Comment Re:The irony (Score 1) 120

I really need to get some self discipline. As much as I try I keep checking Reddit. I loath myself. The only good thing to happen in the last few years was Elon buying twitter. That made getting unhooked on that time waste easy. But Reddit became my methadone.

I've resolved that I'm going to start hitting you tube for educational videos. Gonna learn Lie Group theory!

The problem is Trump. Everyday I have to see what fresh hell he's caused. Life was so placid when we had Biden or Obama or George Bush. Like them or loathe them it wasn't insanity.

Comment Re:I use Win11 (Score 1) 24

...the desktop apps are better than just about anything you will find on Linux or the BSDs.

I will argue against strict adherence to this statement. Gnome applications written to the project guidelines have become very fine, since the introduction of GTK-4 and libadwaita. I prefer many of these to their equivalents on MacOS.

It's true that most of these fall into a general category of "utilities", and that Windows enjoys a broader ecosystem driven by commercial incentive. But Windows programs are hardly "better' for this, and the widely varied usability is generally sub-par compared to level that's become norm for Gnome/Adwaita software.

Comment Re:I still don't see how there's a basis to compla (Score 2) 37

The difference depends on context, of course.

Generally speaking there are several cases to consider:

(1) Site requires agreeing on terms of service before browser can access content. In this case, scraping is a clear violation.

(2) Site terms of service forbid scraping content, but human visitors can view content and ...
(2a) site takes technical measures to exclude bots. In this case scraping is a no-no, but for a different reason: it violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
(2b) site takes no technical measures to exclude bots. In this case, the answer is unclear, and may depend on the specific jurisdiction (e.g. circuit court).

(3) Site has a robots.txt file and ...
(3a) robots.txt allows scraping. In this case, even if the terms of service forbid scraping, the permission given here helps the scraper's defense.
(3b) robots.txt forbids scraping. In this case obeying robots.txt isn't in itself legally mandatory, but it may affect your case if the site takes other anti-scraping measures.

Comment Re:Shouldn't have circumcised those babies (Score 1) 59

Not *explicitly*. Offering such a database would be an invitation for people to look at the whole data broker industry. So what you, as a databroker who tracks and piegeonholes every human being who uses the Internet to a fare-the-well, do to tap into the market for lists of gullible yokels? You offer your customer, literally anyone with money, the ability to zero in on the gullible by choosing appropriate proxies.

For example, you can get a list of everyone who has searched for "purchasing real estate with no money down". Sad people who buy colloidal silver and herbal male enhancement products. People who buy terrible crypto assets like NFTs and memecoins. Nutters who spend a lot of time on conspiracy theory sites.

It's kind of like doxxing someone. You might not be able to find out directly that John Doe lives on Maple St and works for ACME services, but you can piece it together by the traces he leaves online. Only you do it to populations wholesale.

Comment If you don't like this (Score 2) 82

wait a week or two and the details will change completely.

Trump is nothing if not mercurial. His fans will tell you he's playing 11 dimensional chess... I have my doubts, but let's say that's true. The problem is that when it comes to the economy it's not chess. It's more like basketball, and the President is the point guard calling plays, except the play being called keeps changing before the players can execute the last call. It's a tough time to be running a business, you can't plan out more than a couple of weeks.

Comment Re:Every military that cares about homeland securi (Score 1) 197

Right, the economist refer to this as "externality". Fossil fuels aren't cheap, if you factor in the costs that people using them transfer to third parties. Theoretically, if the true cost of using fossil fuels were factored into every pound of coal or gallon of gasoline consumed, then we would use *exactly the right amount* of fossil fuels. Probably not zero, but not as much as we do when we pretend pollution isn't a cost.

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