Comment Seems about right (Score 1) 17
I don't think the US actually enforces anything approaching the spirit of robust anti-trust law now. The goalposts have been moved back so many times, they're on another field now.
Submission + - NASA Is Tracking a Vast Anomaly Growing in Earth's Magnetic Field (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: For years, NASA has monitored a strange anomaly in Earth's magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa.
This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for decades, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers.
The space agency's satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.
This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for decades, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers.
The space agency's satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.
Submission + - Children With Autism, ADHD, And Anorexia Share a Common Microbe Imbalance (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: A new, small study suggests children with autism, ADHD, and anorexia
share similarly disrupted gut microbiomes, which, by some measures, have more in common with each other than with their healthy, neurotypical peers.
Led by researchers from Comenius University in Slovakia, the study used stool samples to assess the gut microbiomes of 117 children.
The exploratory study included 30 boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 21 girls with anorexia nervosa, and 14 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The remaining samples were from age- and sex-matched healthy and neurotypical children, providing a control group.
share similarly disrupted gut microbiomes, which, by some measures, have more in common with each other than with their healthy, neurotypical peers.
Led by researchers from Comenius University in Slovakia, the study used stool samples to assess the gut microbiomes of 117 children.
The exploratory study included 30 boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 21 girls with anorexia nervosa, and 14 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The remaining samples were from age- and sex-matched healthy and neurotypical children, providing a control group.
Submission + - AI-induced psychosis: The danger of humans and machines hallucinating together (phys.org)
alternative_right writes: These may be extreme cases, but clinicians are increasingly treating patients whose delusions appear amplified or co-created through prolonged chatbot interactions. Little wonder, when a recent report from ChatGPT-creator OpenAI revealed that many of us are turning to chatbots to think through problems, discuss our lives, plan futures and explore beliefs and feelings.
In these contexts, chatbots are no longer just information retrievers; they become our digital companions. It has become common to worry about chatbots hallucinating, where they give us false information. But as they become more central to our lives, there's clearly also growing potential for humans and chatbots to create hallucinations together.
In these contexts, chatbots are no longer just information retrievers; they become our digital companions. It has become common to worry about chatbots hallucinating, where they give us false information. But as they become more central to our lives, there's clearly also growing potential for humans and chatbots to create hallucinations together.
Submission + - Owning a Cat Could Double Your Risk of Schizophrenia, Research Suggests (sciencealert.com) 1
schwit1 writes: Having a cat as a pet could potentially double a person's risk of schizophrenia-related conditions, according to an analysis of 17 studies.
Psychiatrist John McGrath and colleagues at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research in Australia looked at papers published over the last 44 years in 11 countries, including the US and the UK.
Their 2023 review found "a significant positive association between broadly defined cat ownership and an increased risk of schizophrenia-related disorders."
T. gondii is a mostly harmless parasite that can be transmitted through undercooked meat or contaminated water. It can also be transmitted through an infected cat's feces.
Estimates suggest that T. gondii infects about 40 million people in the US, typically without any symptoms. Meanwhile, researchers keep finding more strange effects that infections may have.
Once inside our bodies, T. gondii can infiltrate the central nervous system and influence neurotransmitters. The parasite has been linked to personality changes, the emergence of psychotic symptoms, and some neurological disorders, including schizophrenia.
Psychiatrist John McGrath and colleagues at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research in Australia looked at papers published over the last 44 years in 11 countries, including the US and the UK.
Their 2023 review found "a significant positive association between broadly defined cat ownership and an increased risk of schizophrenia-related disorders."
T. gondii is a mostly harmless parasite that can be transmitted through undercooked meat or contaminated water. It can also be transmitted through an infected cat's feces.
Estimates suggest that T. gondii infects about 40 million people in the US, typically without any symptoms. Meanwhile, researchers keep finding more strange effects that infections may have.
Once inside our bodies, T. gondii can infiltrate the central nervous system and influence neurotransmitters. The parasite has been linked to personality changes, the emergence of psychotic symptoms, and some neurological disorders, including schizophrenia.
Submission + - Physicists reveal a new quantum state where electrons run wild (sciencedaily.com)
alternative_right writes: Electrons can freeze into strange geometric crystals and then melt back into liquid-like motion under the right quantum conditions. Researchers identified how to tune these transitions and even discovered a bizarre “pinball” state where some electrons stay locked in place while others dart around freely. Their simulations help explain how these phases form and how they might be harnessed for advanced quantum technologies.
Submission + - Germany caps power prices to save industry
argStyopa writes: From https://www.zerohedge.com/ener...
"Germany has agreed to subsidize electricity for its heavy industries, capping prices at about €0.05 per kilowatt-hour from 2026 through 2028—a major policy move aimed at keeping its industrial base from eroding under the weight of Europe’s soaring energy costs."
As the vanguard of industrial states embracing green power, is this a tacit admission that "sustainable" was never actually a synonym for "green"?
"Germany has agreed to subsidize electricity for its heavy industries, capping prices at about €0.05 per kilowatt-hour from 2026 through 2028—a major policy move aimed at keeping its industrial base from eroding under the weight of Europe’s soaring energy costs."
As the vanguard of industrial states embracing green power, is this a tacit admission that "sustainable" was never actually a synonym for "green"?
Comment What's old is new again/using wasted space (Score 2) 90
When I demoted my single Pentium 4 rig to workshop use
it noticeably raised winter temperature inside my
sealed 40ft High Cube shipping container machine shop.
It's not difficult to rack or shelve many computers near the ceiling or hang them off walls. I hang a 1U server off the wall of my office as one would a painting (and could cover it with a painting if I cared). Total cost is a couple of small lag hooks costing less than a dollar.
I don't do mini/tiny PCs for space reasons because there is more than enough unused space in most rooms to make that unnecessary, and for access a computer on the wall is hard to beat. Needing no desk my server doesn't clutter mine.
If I wanted mining rigs I could line walls with them high enough not to interfere with anything else with heating as a bonus.
Submission + - Five people plead quilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies (techcrunch.com)
smooth wombat writes: Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job. The FBI is even warning companies that North Koreans working remotely can steal source code and extort money from the company, money which goes to fund the North Korean government. Now, five more people have plead guilty to knowingly helping North Koreans infiltrate U.S. companies as remote IT workers.
The five people are accused of working as “facilitators” who helped North Koreans get jobs by providing their own real identities, or false and stolen identities of more than a dozen U.S. nationals. The facilitators also hosted company-provided laptops in their homes across the U.S. to make it look like the North Korean workers lived locally, according to the DOJ press release.
These actions affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un’s regime $2.2 million in revenue, said the DOJ.
Three of the people — U.S. nationals Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis — each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests.
The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly “certified” IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said.
Another participant in the scheme who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and another count of aggravated identity theft is Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors accuse of stealing U.S. citizens’ identities and selling them to North Koreans so they could get jobs at more than 40 U.S. companies.
The five people are accused of working as “facilitators” who helped North Koreans get jobs by providing their own real identities, or false and stolen identities of more than a dozen U.S. nationals. The facilitators also hosted company-provided laptops in their homes across the U.S. to make it look like the North Korean workers lived locally, according to the DOJ press release.
These actions affected 136 U.S. companies and netted Kim Jong Un’s regime $2.2 million in revenue, said the DOJ.
Three of the people — U.S. nationals Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar, and Alexander Paul Travis — each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused the three of helping North Koreans posing as legitimate IT workers, whom they knew worked outside of the United States, to use their own identities to obtain employment, helped them remotely access their company-issued laptops set up in their homes, and also helped the North Koreans pass vetting procedures, such as drug tests.
The fourth U.S. national who pleaded guilty is Erick Ntekereze Prince, who ran a company called Taggcar, which supplied to U.S. companies allegedly “certified” IT workers but whom he knew worked outside of the country and were using stolen or fake identities. Prince also hosted laptops with remote access software at several residences in Florida, and earned more than $89,000 for his work, the DOJ said.
Another participant in the scheme who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and another count of aggravated identity theft is Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko, who prosecutors accuse of stealing U.S. citizens’ identities and selling them to North Koreans so they could get jobs at more than 40 U.S. companies.
Submission + - It's Official: Scientists Confirmed What Is Inside Our Moon (sciencealert.com) 1
alternative_right writes: A thorough investigation published in May 2023 found that the inner core of the Moon is, in fact, a solid ball with a density similar to that of iron.
To figure it out once and for all, Briaud and his colleagues collected data from space missions and lunar laser-ranging experiments to compile a profile of various lunar characteristics. These include the degree of its deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, the variation in its distance from Earth, and its density.
To figure it out once and for all, Briaud and his colleagues collected data from space missions and lunar laser-ranging experiments to compile a profile of various lunar characteristics. These include the degree of its deformation by its gravitational interaction with Earth, the variation in its distance from Earth, and its density.
Comment Mozilla won't ever do that. (Score 1) 42
Politics is more important than code quality, and while it's a non-profit that doesn't make it unprofitable to senior leadership.
There is no incentive to improve Mozilla whose revenue is not tied to performance.
Comment Re:Why? (Score 2) 82
In an of itself, that's a perfectly cromulant opinion to hold, but I doubt it's going to be shared by a bunch of people with Robinhood accounts paying electronically for the delivery of "freedfrom from techy surfdom".
Comment Re:Who asked for this (Score 1) 98
Low quality PC to console ports have always existed (and vice versa for that matter.) Define broken - crashing your console?
Comment Re:Who asked for this (Score 2) 98
I'm a game programmer, 20 years in the industry shipping dozens of games across the entire history of consoles starting from the PS2/GC era up to and including the consoles of today. Take it from me, the fact that console hardware is fixed ensures the experience of running games designed to push hardware to their functional limits is far more stable/hassle free.
If you don't wanna play games that do that, then this might not be as big of an issue. But the fixed hardware of a console simply cannot be discounted. Valve is not stupid for making a "verified on our console" program. The console platforms spend OODLEs of money ensuring that console games are by and large rock solid. (Counter examples not welcome, I'm just saying in comparison to the arbitrary hardware landscape of the Windows PC install base)
Also console OSes are designed for their main purpose - turn it on, play the game, stop playing the game whenever you like, come back to the game whenever you like. They're optimized towards that experience in a way that a general purpose PC struggles to do (admittedly Steam's big picture mode is pretty good, but you can't totally handwave away the fact that Windows is running in the background)
I'm not against gaming PCs, I have a nice one, it's my main daily game driver. (Also have a PS5, because I'm not only a developer, I'm also a customer!)
Comment Re:Routine cash grab + warning to SV donors (Score 0) 45
there are 5 billion Roblox accounts created
5 billion more accounts than you have brain cells, apparently
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