Comment Re: Thank you, Mozilla (Score 1) 77
Honestly? I have over 3500 tabs (no, not kidding) and I know of no other browser that would even consider working under those conditions. ðY
Activision Cooperating With Federal Insider Trading Probes (usnews.com) 9
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Activision Blizzard is cooperating with federal investigations into trading by friends of its chief executive shortly before the gaming company disclosed its sale to Microsoft Corp, it said in a securities filing on Friday.
It received requests for information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and received a subpoena from a Department of Justice grand jury, the maker of "Call of Duty" said in an amended proxy filing.
The requests "appear to relate to their respective investigations into trading by third parties – including persons known to Activision Blizzard's CEO – in securities prior to the announcement of the proposed transaction," it said.
It received requests for information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and received a subpoena from a Department of Justice grand jury, the maker of "Call of Duty" said in an amended proxy filing.
The requests "appear to relate to their respective investigations into trading by third parties – including persons known to Activision Blizzard's CEO – in securities prior to the announcement of the proposed transaction," it said.
Comment Re:government knows better ;) (Score 1) 374
I assume you know about the F-150 Lightning?
https://www.ford.com/trucks/f1...
Comment Re:It's always so far into the future ... (Score 1) 374
Or trade in your BMW for a BMW EV if you prefer.
Comment Re:A ban that far out is not a ban. (Score 1) 374
What sort of psycopath expects to drive 500km without one or two 20-min stops for a pee, coffee, snack, stretch your legs?
If you were a commercial driver, those breaks would be LEGALLY MANDATED anyway!
Comment Re: A ban that far out is not a ban. (Score 1) 374
The nearest charger to you is probably in your garage if you want it to be... and then even if the next WAS 2h away (which seems unlikely, but lets pretend) then that is about the perfect distance to stop for a 15-20min charge, pee, coffee and snack anyway. If you were a commercial driver this would be a legally-mandated break, but even if you"re a recreational driver, it follows all the best advice for your own sanity and safety, just generally a damned good idea even in a dino-juice car not just electrics. Just pretend your charging is helping to enforce the STRONGLY RECOMMENDED driving breaks you should have already been taking - the timing is about right already.
In practice, i'm curious where this black hole is. Just about all the gaps have already been filled, and if your country mandated it, you can bet your butt they would be filled in the next year or two and certainly WELL before the 13yr deadline. "Ten to fifteen years" is standard code for "forever" in any tech industry.
Comment Re: Conspiracy Theorists Unite! (Score 1) 107
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/... - "If Miami Will Be Underwater, Why Is Construction Booming?" Makes for very depressing listening
Comment Well deserved, influential is an understatement (Score 2) 248
To change the direction of even a single industry would be a great achievement for any individual. But to change the direction of multiple industries? Thatâ(TM)s so rare as to defy belief. If this was written into a book you would think it was fiction.
And of course he didnâ(TM)t personally invent the EV or space travel or internet commerce. That criticism is so misguided. The history of Tesla is well-known; Musk invested in an existing EV company and then ousted the founders. But what this criticism misses is that Musk saw the potential to change the world whereas the founders only saw an expensive toy for the rich. And not only did Musk have a vision to change the world he also managed to convince 1000s of engineers, designers, mechanics, to get behind his vision and implement it. Elon also sold the idea to the public and arguably thatâ(TM)s an even more impressive achievement.
That is the rare quality that Elon Musk has which makes him so influential; the ability to lead. Itâ(TM)s so rare a quality that I can think of only a handful of people like him; Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs. These people also strode into existing industries, kicked over the tables, declared the status quo to be bunk and showed them the future. Watching the reaction of the car industry go from denial to acceptance has been so goddamn sweet.
Especially on slashdot where most of the denizens are programmers or engineers, its easy to forget that your work means nothing if nobody uses it. The ability to see a vision for the future, bring several disciplines together to achieve that vision, give them direction and funding, and keep pushing until the vision is realised, too many people underestimate how difficult that is, how insanely rare that is, and how important it is to recognise and celebrate the few individuals who are capable of doing it.
Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter
CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!
Snopes.com Co-Founder Accused of Copying from Other Sites Without Attribution (buzzfeednews.com) 126
The co-founder of the fact-checking website Snopes has been accused of publishing articles that are too accurate: copying text from other more authorative web sites.
Snopes.com describes them as "sentences or paragraphs from various news sites pasted into Snopes news stories without appropriate attribution." BuzzFeed News writes: A BuzzFeed News investigation has found that between 2015 and 2019, Mikkelson wrote and published dozens of articles containing material plagiarized from news outlets such as the Guardian and the LA Times. After inquiries from BuzzFeed News, Snopes conducted an internal review and confirmed that under a pseudonym, the Snopes byline, and his own name, Mikkelson wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material... BuzzFeed News found dozens of articles on Snopes' site that include language — sometimes entire paragraphs — that appear to have been copied without attribution from news outlets that include the New York Times, CNN, NBC News, and the BBC... Snopes's subsequent internal review identified 140 articles with possible problems and 54 that were found to include appropriated material...
"That was his big SEO/speed secret," said Binkowski, whom Snopes fired without explanation in 2018 (she currently manages the fact-checking site Truth or Fiction). "He would instruct us to copy text from other sites, post them verbatim so that it looked like we were fast and could scoop up traffic, and then change the story in real time. I hated it and wouldn't tell any of the staff to do it, but he did it all the time." Two other former employees also said that copying and rewriting content was part of Mikkelson's strategy for driving traffic to Snopes' site...
Thanks to Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid for submitting this story. BuzzFeed notes that Mikkelson himself had also begun using a pseudonym "intended to mislead the trolls and conspiracy theorists who frequently targeted the site and its writers." That byline linked to a satirical bio claiming that in 2006 they'd "won the Pulitzer Prize for numismatics" (coin collecting) and were "also the winner of the Distinguished Conflagration Award of the American Society of Muleskinners for 2005."
Snopes.com actually thanked BuzzFeed's reporter for letting them know, calling BuzzFeed's article "an example of dogged, watchdog journalism we cherish" (while adding "Our staff has moved quickly to fix the problem... Our reputation is dependent on our ability to get things right, and more importantly, to quickly correct the record when we are wrong.") Besides removing Mikkelson's purloined content (and preventing him, though he's still the site's co-owner, from publishing on it), Snopes.com says that in addition, "We will attempt to contact each news outlet whose reporting we appropriated to issue an apology."
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Mikkelson attributed the unattributed sentence-copying to his lack of formal journalism experience. "I wasn't used to doing news aggregation. A number of times I crossed the line to where it was copyright infringement. I own that...."
I remember when Snopes.com was just an entertaining fringe web site debunking kooky claims turning up in forwarded emails or on Usenet. Was it a victim of its own success — drawn into the 24/7 news cycle, with its "race to be first"? Were they overwhelmed by the amount of misinformation being spread on social media that needed debunking? In a statement to BuzzFeed, Mikkelson had this to say: Snopes has grown beyond our roots as a "one-man band" website into a newsroom of dedicated, professional journalists who serve the public with trustworthy information. Thanks to their efforts, Snopes has published original reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent elections, Russian disinformation efforts and so much more. The last thing I ever wanted was to have my mistakes detract from their excellent work, and I'm doing everything I can to make it right.
And on Twitter, BuzzFeed's reporter added that "I don't like that this story is being weaponized by bad actors like Steve Bannon to unfairly and baselessly smear the work of Snopes' staff writers who do good work and had no part in this."
Snopes.com describes them as "sentences or paragraphs from various news sites pasted into Snopes news stories without appropriate attribution." BuzzFeed News writes: A BuzzFeed News investigation has found that between 2015 and 2019, Mikkelson wrote and published dozens of articles containing material plagiarized from news outlets such as the Guardian and the LA Times. After inquiries from BuzzFeed News, Snopes conducted an internal review and confirmed that under a pseudonym, the Snopes byline, and his own name, Mikkelson wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material... BuzzFeed News found dozens of articles on Snopes' site that include language — sometimes entire paragraphs — that appear to have been copied without attribution from news outlets that include the New York Times, CNN, NBC News, and the BBC... Snopes's subsequent internal review identified 140 articles with possible problems and 54 that were found to include appropriated material...
"That was his big SEO/speed secret," said Binkowski, whom Snopes fired without explanation in 2018 (she currently manages the fact-checking site Truth or Fiction). "He would instruct us to copy text from other sites, post them verbatim so that it looked like we were fast and could scoop up traffic, and then change the story in real time. I hated it and wouldn't tell any of the staff to do it, but he did it all the time." Two other former employees also said that copying and rewriting content was part of Mikkelson's strategy for driving traffic to Snopes' site...
Thanks to Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid for submitting this story. BuzzFeed notes that Mikkelson himself had also begun using a pseudonym "intended to mislead the trolls and conspiracy theorists who frequently targeted the site and its writers." That byline linked to a satirical bio claiming that in 2006 they'd "won the Pulitzer Prize for numismatics" (coin collecting) and were "also the winner of the Distinguished Conflagration Award of the American Society of Muleskinners for 2005."
Snopes.com actually thanked BuzzFeed's reporter for letting them know, calling BuzzFeed's article "an example of dogged, watchdog journalism we cherish" (while adding "Our staff has moved quickly to fix the problem... Our reputation is dependent on our ability to get things right, and more importantly, to quickly correct the record when we are wrong.") Besides removing Mikkelson's purloined content (and preventing him, though he's still the site's co-owner, from publishing on it), Snopes.com says that in addition, "We will attempt to contact each news outlet whose reporting we appropriated to issue an apology."
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Mikkelson attributed the unattributed sentence-copying to his lack of formal journalism experience. "I wasn't used to doing news aggregation. A number of times I crossed the line to where it was copyright infringement. I own that...."
I remember when Snopes.com was just an entertaining fringe web site debunking kooky claims turning up in forwarded emails or on Usenet. Was it a victim of its own success — drawn into the 24/7 news cycle, with its "race to be first"? Were they overwhelmed by the amount of misinformation being spread on social media that needed debunking? In a statement to BuzzFeed, Mikkelson had this to say: Snopes has grown beyond our roots as a "one-man band" website into a newsroom of dedicated, professional journalists who serve the public with trustworthy information. Thanks to their efforts, Snopes has published original reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent elections, Russian disinformation efforts and so much more. The last thing I ever wanted was to have my mistakes detract from their excellent work, and I'm doing everything I can to make it right.
And on Twitter, BuzzFeed's reporter added that "I don't like that this story is being weaponized by bad actors like Steve Bannon to unfairly and baselessly smear the work of Snopes' staff writers who do good work and had no part in this."
Cathay Working On Single-Pilot System for Long-Haul (reuters.com) 94
schwit1 writes: Cathay Pacific is working with Airbus to introduce "reduced crew" long-haul flights with a sole pilot in the cockpit much of the time, industry sources told Reuters. The programme, known within Airbus as Project Connect, aims to certify its A350 jet for single-pilot operations during high-altitude cruise, starting in 2025 on Cathay passenger flights, the sources said. High hurdles remain on the path to international acceptance. Once cleared, longer flights would become possible with a pair of pilots alternating rest breaks, instead of the three or four currently needed to maintain at least two in the cockpit. That promises savings for airlines, amid uncertainty over the post-pandemic economics of intercontinental flying. But it is likely to encounter resistance from pilots already hit by mass layoffs, and safety concerns about aircraft automation.
Amazon Calls For Funding K-12 CS, Eyes $250M Seed Money From Congress 31
theodp writes: The U.S. isn't producing nearly enough students trained in computer science to meet the future demands of the American workforce," lamented Amazon in a Friday press release, adding that it is "urging Congress and legislatures across the U.S. to support -- and fund -- computer science education in public schools." Well, the 'urging' seems to be working. On Friday, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) reintroduced the Computer Science for All Act (Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft all lobbied for the bill's predecessor, the CS for All Act of 2019), which provides $250 million in new grants to support a diverse 'tech pipeline' in pre-K through grade 12 education.
Amazon and Amazon-funded nonprofit Code.org were cited as the bill's 'supporting organizations' and quoted in Lee's accompanying press release for the legislation, which aims to improve equity in CS education. "We look forward to working with Representative Lee and the bill's cosponsors to meet these objectives," said Brian Huseman, VP of Public Policy for Amazon, which in 2017 curiously broke from other tech giants and stopped releasing the gender and racial data on its workforce it's required to report to the federal government. "Right now, there are over 400,000 open computing jobs in the United States," added Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi. "Frustratingly, only 47% of our public high schools teach computer science.
Amazon and Amazon-funded nonprofit Code.org were cited as the bill's 'supporting organizations' and quoted in Lee's accompanying press release for the legislation, which aims to improve equity in CS education. "We look forward to working with Representative Lee and the bill's cosponsors to meet these objectives," said Brian Huseman, VP of Public Policy for Amazon, which in 2017 curiously broke from other tech giants and stopped releasing the gender and racial data on its workforce it's required to report to the federal government. "Right now, there are over 400,000 open computing jobs in the United States," added Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi. "Frustratingly, only 47% of our public high schools teach computer science.
Comment Re: All of them fail in other languages (Score 1) 146
At least as much if not more has been said about that by government officials
But I am not a government official and you accused me of holding that position, when in the very post you were replying to I had clearly stated the exact opposite position. As I said before, you are dishonest and you argue in bad faith.
I don't think there has been coercion of that sort.
Well thats because you are deaf dumb and blind. In this thread I have posted links to actual documented on record cases of government coercion. But you "dont think" and that is obvious in everything you have written
Comment Re: All of them fail in other languages (Score 1) 146
Not even a little bit.
Yes, very much so. Fascist governments start by taking over the newspapers and censoring any opinions that arent aligned with the government. I think the best example from recent history is from Serbia. If you dont know the details now is a good time to learn.
No one is talking about the government banning speech,
As I pointed out above, the government is coercing these tech-giants to de-platform and censor on the governments behalf. Recall that Zuckerberg was firmly on the side of zero censorship. Then the senate hauled his ass into congress, reminded him that section 230 could be revoked at a moments notice, and suddenly Zuckerberg is singing a different tune. And thats just one example. You would have to be deaf dumb and blind to not see the obvious coercion.
although your side of this stupid and dangerous dispute is certainly urging that the government compel speech,
I have already stated my opinion on Facebook censoring people. They can. They simply shouldnt. Nothing was said about the government compelling them to allow speech. The exact opposite in fact; the government is coercing them to censor. You are dishonest and arguing in bad faith.
Comment Re:All of them fail in other languages (Score 1) 146
Coward.
Idiot.
That guy who keeps trying to evade slashdots spam filters so he can spam every thread with ascii art swastikas is definitely having his opinion censored.
But if he posted his swastikas to a swastika appreciation thread on a swastika friendly forum, thats not spam so surely that would be ok under your rules. Apparently not because those sites keep getting censored too. Their web-hosting, their dns, their payment processors, all revoked, censored for having the wrong ideas. And although we can all agree that swastika posters are assholes, and their ideas are not just wrong but also repulsive, the problem is the censorship doesnt end there. People are being censored and deplatformed today for having the wrong opinions about far less extreme topics.
I assume I have a standing invitation to voice my opinion in your bedroom with a bullhorn at two in the morning then?
Somebody sharing the wrong opinion in a forum I dont read with people I dont know, is nothing at all like you in my bedroom with a bullhorn. The former is somebody being wrong - what they say. The latter is harassment - how they say it. The former is on-topic discussion in a public forum. The latter is unwanted intrusion into a private space. The former is legally protected speech that the government cant censor (so they get their tech-giants to de-platform it instead). The latter is illegal and the government can most definitely arrest you for harassment and breaking entering into my private bedroom.
In every meaningful sense - the method, the outcome, the legality, the consent - your analogy falls flat. They are nothing alike. They arent even on the same planet. That you even wrote your comment and thought it was a winning argument proves my earlier point.
