Judge:
"Sam Bankman-Fried, you lead a trite, meaningless life. And you are a
very bad person!"

I am wondering if the IgNobel priize is so coveted these days that people are trying really hard to win it. This article looks like such an attempt.

At the time I was using PyXLL (https://www.pyxll.com/) to execute Python code as it was so much better than VBA.
I believe Ballmer was CEO at that time and he did not pay any attention to Open Source, hence no Python in Excel.
Maybe the market share of Excel is slipping or Nadella is looking to monetize yet another Open Source project after successfully monetizing Linux by running Azure on it.

Why is there such a fuss over the encryption used by the apps? In the end messages have to be decrypted to be read and there are enough backdoors already at the OS and hardware level to slurp the messages after they are decrypted.
The whole encryption bruhaha is only a smokescreen to give the users a false sense of security when using the apps with "end-to-end encryption".
Same with messages that are "deleted right away, so they are present for only a very short time" on the servers. As if they cannot be copied and filed away in the short time they are processed by the server.
it reminds me of the presentations I had to sit through a t work to be familiarized with the rights I have over my personal data my employer collects.
The presentation would start with:
"First we send a copy of all your personal data to ..."
"For the data that WE retain you have the right to ..."
To them a copy of the data is not the same as the original. Maybe bean counters and lawyers can tell the difference between an original digital file and a copy of it.

Back in 1998 the spiel was the "Free PC" that was given away with a subscription to an ISP (for a minimum of 2 years IIRC).
A third of the screen was taken up by ads that were running non-stop.
Now this is a re-take using 4K TVs instead of PCs.
Either the proponents assume that everyone forgot about the Free PC failure or they ignored history and are now repeating it.

Based on the article, the problem they are facing are lawsuits from artists whose images have been used in training the AI.
Simply using the artists' name in the prompt will result in the AI creating an image indistinguishable from that of the artist.
This is the same issue they face with GitHub Copilot, namely "open source laundering.":
https://drewdevault.com/2022/0...
It is not like M$ cares about ethics, it is just that they face much higher liabilities if turns out that they were aware of art and code laundering by the AI.
Eliminating the ethics team reduces their legal exposure.

I used an apple and an insect egg

Fuchsia is meant to allow better ad revenue (TL;DR; search for "prevailed" in the article): https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/pr...
There are also security issues expected in a new OS: https://blog.quarkslab.com/pla...

I installed WhatsApp on my phone and where the phone used to last 5 days on a full charge, it went down to 12 hours.
I uninstalled WhatsApp and the battery life was back to normal, but in the uninstall process WhatsApp popped up a message saying that it took ownership of the contact list.
After that it deleted my contact list.
Will not be using WhatsApp ever again.

I see that most comments are saying that students should better shut up and be good at what they do.
Learn, become competent, and you'll be rewarded. This is nothing but a Utopian Meritocracy
The students learn things at home before they go to univesity. And their parents tell them that being political is a much better guarantee of success than competence.
Knowing whom to complain about will keep your job a lot more stable than being able to do the job yourself.
Then I have my own experince of job interviews. I have a pretty good CV (Ph.D, postdoctoral experience, industry experience) and I am interviewed by some knuckle-head with an undergrad degree from Pork Barrel Community College who has been at the company 20+ years. The opening question? Solve a problem on the spot faster than he can regurgitate the memorized solution.
No amount of experience and competence will get you the job in such situations.
And even if you are given the job and take it, you end up with the shittiest of tasks, since you are "the smart guy".
Example from personal experience: Spent a month to find a bug and then boss tells me during performance review "You've written no code for a whole month!"
If on the other hand you are political and know how to cause trouble if there is hint that your job is in danger, the bosses will make sure that you stay employed.
They can always bring in foreigners who belive they are in a meritocracy and don't know how to play the system.
Starting to play the system in university is a much safer career path.

A similar idea was pushed by the Soviets back in the 80's. The idea was to have a sattelite that was essentially a large mirror which can re-direct sunlight at a city.
The purpose was not to generate power, but to save energy by not using street lighting.
The orbit of the satellite was to be chosen such that the mirror could provide light to a given city for about 2 hours after sunset.
Additionally, the mirror could have been made of a very thin foil, so the idea was feasible with the technology of the time.
I don't know why it was not pursued, I believe the main reason is the economic problems of the Soviet Union in the 80's.

I already switched to Linux, back in 1998 to be precise. After 2004 (the much-derided "Year of the Linux desktop") I did not run into any hardware that was not working in Linux.

I recently bought an HP Pavilion laptop for about 500 quid and installed Linux on it without any problems. I would like to see you getting the same level of functionality from a MacBook of the same price.

A good 'ol x86 laptop with Linux on it offers much better value at a fraction of the price.

This is nothing but Time Capsule craze done BBC-style.

I think the people of the future will react the way described here:

https://www.theonion.com/newly...

At least they are following the UNIX tradition of going from System 3 to System 5.

"What happened to System 4? Ask Napoleon the 2nd!"