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Comment Allergy? (Score 2) 23

by gurps_npc (#65628268) Attached to: Smelling This One Specific Scent Can Boost the Brain's Gray Matter

Brain matter got bigger, aka as "Inflammation".

You what something to get bigger? Have a bee sting that part of your body. It doesn't make skin tougher, muscle stronger, or brains smarter.

Intelligence is caused by greater CONNECTIONS, not by increases in size. It's how many folds your grey matter has that matters, not how big it is.

Submission + - Intel Get $5.7 Billion Early (reuters.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Intel amended the CHIPS Act funding deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce to remove earlier project milestones and received about $5.7 billion in cash sooner than planned. As part of the deal, Intel issued the U.S. government 274.6 million shares and promised the government the option to buy up to 240.5 million more shares under certain conditions. The company also said it has spent at least $7.87 billion on eligible CHIPS Act-funded projects. The government's $8.9 billion investment is in addition to the $2.2 billion in grants Intel has previously received, making for a total investment of $11.1 billion, the company has said. Corporate bailout without loan guarantees, welcome to the new American economy!

Comment Re:Commies in charge of the GOP (Score 1) 105

GM: US lost $10 Billion.
https://www.nbcnews.com/busine...

Chrysler: US lost $1 billion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/0...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: The government have not exited from them yet. Hard to tell whether it will be a profit or loss, particularly if Trump decides to sell them all to his son-in-law for $1 But if he puts them up for a reasonable price, these are likely to come out as a profit, the Mortgage Crisis was more of a temporary thing than the total failure of US car companies to make cars that non-americans will buy. Nothing wrong with a giant gas guzzler, but if the rest of the world wants smaller cars maybe make ONE model for them?

Government buy outs are a bad idea. The only time someone is too big to fail is when you let them have a monopoly.

Comment Bet you it is because of stupid money requests (Score 2) 106

I can guarantee that Google is not trying to stop Republican emails, that would be something only an idiot convicted of a felony would do, but instead has totally reasonable standards the Republicans fail to live up to.

I bet the emails from Democrats have words that attack Trump, and perhaps a request for an unspecified donation.

While the emails from 'Republicans" say things like "You must reply TODAY to get your free Maga Hat after paying $53 for shipping".

Submission + - Florida Deploys Robot Rabbits To Control Invasive Burmese Python Population (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots. It's the latest effort by the South Florida Water Management District to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they are decimating native species with their voracious appetites. In Everglades National Park, officials say the snakes have eliminated 95% of small mammals as well as thousands of birds. "Removing them is fairly simple. It's detection. We're having a really hard time finding them," said Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the water district. "They're so well camouflaged in the field."

The water district and University of Florida researchers deployed 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Previously, there was an effort to use live rabbits as snake lures but that became too expensive and time-consuming, Kirkland said. The robots are simple toy rabbits, but retrofitted to emit heat, a smell and to make natural movements to appear like any other regular rabbit. "They look like a real rabbit," Kirkland said. They are solar powered and can be switched on and off remotely. They are placed in small pens monitored by a video camera that sends out a signal when a python is nearby. "Then I can deploy one of our many contractors to go out and remove the python," Kirkland said. The total cost per robot rabbit is about $4,000, financed by the water district, he added.

Submission + - Capital One Leaves International Customers Unable to Use their new ATM cards (capitalone.com)

Submitted by n0w0rries
n0w0rries writes: Just a heads up to any Capital One customers who travel internationally. I got a new Capital One ATM card in August, and they've switched networks. I live full time in Mexico, and their ATM card no longer works at BanBanjio, Santander, or HSBC. I have not found a bank it works at yet. Because they acquired Discover, they are using their network and have removed the Visa or Mastercard symbol and associated networks, likely to save on bank fees. The new cards only work with Discover, Diners Club, and Pulse.
When traveling, the most cost effective way to get your USD to the local currency is to use local bank ATM machines. Bringing cash is problematic, you usually get screwed on the rate, there are limits due to money launderers, and usually there are more hoops to jump through, like requiring your passport or other documentation.
#capitalone #santander #hsbc #banbanjio

Comment Good vs bad jargon. (Score 1) 147

by gurps_npc (#65619674) Attached to: Workplace Jargon Hurts Employee Morale and Collaboration, Study Finds

Good Jargon is created for specificity between professionals.

Doctors need to talk about the left Tibia not the leg bone, nor even the left long.lower leg bone. Lawyers need to say Habeas Corpus not the legal order from a judge requiring the immediate release of someone illegally arrested.

The problem is that when talking to a child, the doctor should say leg bone, not Tibia. In fact, there is little reason to say Tibia even to an adult. Same with Habeas Corpus.

Similarly most of the time, business jargon is a bad idea. It should NEVER appear on a company's public website. If you are in a technical meeting with ONLY technical people it can make sense, but even then it is overused.

Good jargon is for highly technical discussions intended to only be heard/read by highly skilled professionals. Not anyone else.

Bad Jargon is used to convince morons that you are 'a highly skilled professional', and obviously know more than they do - see all the big words I used?

Examples of horrendous, UNPROFESSIONAL business words and their professional English definitions.

Synergize - work together
Solution - product for sale
Enterprise - anything people do, including business, government, charity, or even hobby.
Circle Back/touch back - talk later
Cloud - network of computers
Offline - anything not on the internet.
Agile - adaptable, flexible, reactive
bandwidth - capacity
pivot - change
110% - all out effort, I'm not kidding, I really mean all out effort
KPI/Key Performance Indicators - objectives that people measure and therefore care about.
AI/artificial intelligence - mathematical formulas used by computers.

Note that most of these terms do not add anything to the conversation. Most of the time the specificity they add is negligible. In normal conversation/websites there is often a single, normal every day English word that can be used. But if you avoid the jargon idiots will not think you are a super-genius that definitely knows what you are talking about. But normal people will think you are not a douchebag trying to trick people.

Because that is what I think every time I hear some moron using two or more those words in a sentence.

If you disagree, well lets circle back on that offline, see if we can find a solution that synergizes with our enterprises' agile KPI. Because my bandwidth is low right now I need to pivot, and check out what the AI hallucinated so I can give 110%.

What a bunch of Shmucks.

Comment Re:"Harmful" response? (Score 4, Insightful) 73

by gurps_npc (#65619606) Attached to: One Long Sentence is All It Takes To Make LLMs Misbehave

You sound like AI propaganda to me.

For most of computer history, the easiest way to gain illegal access to a computer is to hack the weakest part of the system - the human. You use social hacking to deceive the human into giving you passwords and rights to places you have no business going.

Have you heard of spam? More words.

Phishing emails? More words.

Sticks and Stones can only break my bones, words can bankrupt you, send you to jail, and destroy your reputation so badly that people will ostracize you despite a court finding you Not Guilty (they never call you innocent)

Submission + - Worms can't solve PVC problem: Analysis finds no sign of biochemical degradation (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: In a study led by Ph.D. student Zahra Mohammadizadeh Tahroudi, researchers from UWA's School of Molecular Sciences tested whether mealworms and superworms (insect larvae of Tenebrio molitor and Zophobas morio) could metabolize polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a highly chlorinated plastic widely used in pipes, flooring and consumer goods.

While the larvae readily consumed PVC, especially when it was softened with the common plasticizer dioctyl phthalate, detailed chemical analysis revealed no signs of biochemical degradation. Instead, the PVC proved actively toxic, with larvae showing reduced growth and survival.

Submission + - Reading For Fun Is Plummeting in The US, And Experts Are Concerned (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: When's the last time you settled down with a good book, just because you enjoyed it? A new survey shows reading as a pastime is becoming dramatically less popular in the US, which correlates with an increased consumption of other digital media, like social media and streaming services.

The survey was carried out by researchers from the University of Florida and the University of London, and charts a 40 percent decrease in daily reading for pleasure across the years 2003-2023, based on responses from 236,270 US adults.

"This is not just a small dip – it's a sustained, steady decline of about 3 percent per year," says Jill Sonke, director for the Center for the Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. "It's significant, and it's deeply concerning."

The number of US people reading for pleasure every day peaked in 2004 at 28 percent, the researchers found, but by 2023 this was down to 16 percent. There was a silver lining though: those people who are still reading are reading for slightly longer on average.

Comment Totally agree, should have added... (Score 3, Interesting) 95

by gurps_npc (#65609046) Attached to: 4chan Refuses To Pay UK Online Safety Act Fines

I totally agree with this guy. Buy he also should have added....

"I will not comply with your privacy invading law, but... if you guys have a problem without service, feel totally free to ban us and use any and all methods legal in your country to prevent your citizens from going to our website. You totally have the right to build an Iron Curtain or something similar. But you will have to tell your people what you are doing and why."

Comment GDP is not equal to prosperity (Score 1) 224

by gurps_npc (#65608936) Attached to: Europe Is Losing

GDP is usually a measure of how wealthy the wealthiest person in a country. It is NOT relevant to poverty. Many countries with high GDP also have high poverty. And many countries with low GDP have low poverty.

Mainly because salaries have not kept up with profits. So GDP no longer is correlated to poverty.

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