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Submission + - GPT's Amazon Listings are a Joke (futurism.com)

Submitted by loserhead
loserhead writes: A piece of furniture sold as "I Cannot Fulfill This Request It Goes Against OpenAI Use Policy"? Futurism found another way Artificial Intelligence is so tragically entertaining. FTA: The admittedly hilarious product listing suggests companies are hastily using ChatGPT to whip up entire product descriptions, including the names â" without doing any degree of proofreading â" in a likely failed attempt to optimize them for search engines and boost their discoverability.
It raises the question: is anyone at Amazon actually reviewing products that appear on its site?

Submission + - The real reason for return-to-office policies? Controlling bosses. (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: Policies regarding returning to the office have sparked significant controversy in the technology sector. Numerous firms had pledged to sustain the work-from-home protocols established during the lockdown indefinitely. However, the majority have since retracted these commitments, with major players like Amazon and Roblox issuing ultimatums to their employees to return to the office or face consequences.

If working from home leads to happy, more productive employees and saves companies money in office space, parking, etc., why are so many firms implementing strict Return-To-Office (RTO) policies? According to new research, the answer could be one that many people already suspected: controlling, narcissistic bosses.

Comment Top-level Boeing managers quit. (Score 4, Interesting) 155

by Futurepower(R) (#64145409) Attached to: United and Alaska Find Loose Bolts on Boeing 737 Max 9 Planes
The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course Nov. 20, 2019

"A company once driven by engineers became driven by finance."

Boeing must change leadership: Former employee Jan. 9, 2024

Quoting that story:

Boeing executives "need to get out of their corporate headquarters and they need to spend time with their troops on the factory floor and they need to understand what they're dealing with," Pierson, a former Boeing Senior Manager and a whistleblower on similar issues in 2019, adding: "If it was up to me, I would absolutely advocate the change of leadership."

Comment BOOKS about Elon Musk (Score 1) 43

by Futurepower(R) (#64117533) Attached to: SpaceX Wows With a Double Header of Final 2023 Rocket Launches
Book about Elon Musk: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. The 39,719 global ratings are 4.6 out of 5. Published January 24, 2017

Another book about Elon Musk: Elon Musk. The 9,421 global ratings are 4.7 out of 5. Published September 12, 2023

I've read part of the 2nd one. At present, I haven't seen enough information about why Elon Musk can be so much more successful than other people.

Like U.S. president Joe Biden, Elon Musk is sometimes sloppy when he talks publicly. But someone who is so successful is obviously not sloppy in his overall thinking.

We live in a world in which many people don't think logically and deeply. Both Musk and Biden are far better for the world than is obvious to shallow thinkers. -- My opinions.

Submission + - US Dept. of Education Spending $4M to Teach 3,450 Kids CS Using Minecraft

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Among the 45 winners of this year's Education Innovation and Research (EIR) program competitions is Creative Coders: Middle School CS Pathways Through Game Design. The U.S. Dept. of Education is providing the national nonprofit Urban Arts with $3,999,988 to "use materials and learning from its School of Interactive Arts program to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using [Microsoft] Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades) in New York and California with the help of "our industry partner Microsoft with the utilization of Minecraft Education."

From Urban Arts' winning proposal: "Because a large majority of children play video games regularly, teaching CS through video game design exemplifies CRT [Culturally Responsive Teaching], which has been linked to 'academic achievement, improved attendance, [and] greater interest in school.' The video game Minecraft has over 173 million users worldwide and is extremely popular with students at the middle school level; the Minecraft Education workspace we utilize in the Creative Coders curriculum is a familiar platform to any player of the original game. By leveraging students’ personal interests and their existing 'funds of knowledge', we believe Creative Coders is likely to increase student participation and engagement."

Speaking of UA's EIR grant partner Microsoft, Urban Arts' Board of Directors includes Josh Reynolds, the Director of Modern Workplace for Microsoft Education, whose Urban Arts bio notes "has led some of the largest game-based learning activations worldwide with Minecraft." Urban Arts' Gaming Pathways Educational Advisory Board includes Reynolds and Microsoft Sr. Account Executive Amy Brandt. And in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons, Microsoft President Brad Smith cited $50M K-12 CS pledges made to Ivanka Trump by Microsoft and other Tech Giants as the key to getting Donald Trump to sign a $1 billion, five-year presidential order "to ensure that federal funding from the Department of Education helps advance [K-12] computer science", including via EIR program grants.

Submission + - What's coming into the public domain in 2024 (latimes.com) 1

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: Along with some of the items that will be available, there's also a discussion of the history of the law, along with criticism from economists who argue that it gives almost no income to the copyright owners, but does postpone the creativity that often bursts into new life when the copyright expires.

Submission + - A new type of jet engine could revive supersonic air travel (economist.com)

Submitted by SpzToid
SpzToid writes: Since the 1960s engineers around the world have been fiddling with a novel type of jet called a rotating detonation engine (RDE), but it has never got beyond the experimental stage. That could be about to change. GE Aerospace, one of the world’s biggest producers of jet engines, recently announced it was developing a working version. Earlier this year America’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded a $29m contract to Raytheon, part of RTX, another big aerospace group, to develop an RDE called Gambit.

Both engines would be used to propel missiles, overcoming the range and speed limitations of current propulsion systems, including rockets and existing types of jet engines. However, if the companies are successful in getting them to work, RDEs might have a much broader role in aviation—including the possibility of helping revive supersonic air travel.

In a nutshell, an RDE “replaces fire with a controlled explosion”, explains Kareem Ahmed, an expert in advanced aerospace engines at the University of Central Florida. In technical terms, this is because a jet engine relies on the combustion of oxygen and fuel, which is a subsonic reaction that scientists call deflagration. Detonation, by comparison, is a high-energy explosion that takes place at supersonic speeds. As a result it is a more powerful and potentially a more efficient way of producing thrust, the force that drives an aircraft forward.
image: The Economist

A conventional jet engine uses lots of moving parts (see diagram). Rotating blades draw in air and compress it before igniting it with fuel in a combustion chamber, creating rapidly expanding hot gases that blast out of the rear. As the gases exit they drive a turbine, which keeps the whole process going. An RDE is simpler. Air entering the front is forced into a hollow space between two concentric cylinders. When fuel is pumped into this area, it mixes with the oxygen in the air and detonates, creating a rotating supersonic shock wave that spirals around the gap and out of the rear. Once it has started, the detonation is self-sustaining.

Read more

Submission + - Cray-1 vs Raspberry Pi (roylongbottom.org.uk)

Submitted by bobdevine
bobdevine writes: "In 1978, the Cray 1 supercomputer cost $7 Million, weighed 10,500 pounds and had a 115 kilowatt power supply. It was, by far, the fastest computer in the world. The Raspberry Pi costs around $70 (CPU board, case, power supply, SD card), weighs a few ounces, uses a 5 watt power supply and is more than 4.5 times faster than the Cray 1"

Submission + - Colorado Supreme Court declares Donald Trump is ineligible for the White House 19

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The AP reports: "A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race."

"Colorado’s highest court overturned a ruling from a district court judge who found that Trump incited an insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but said he could not be barred from the ballot because it was unclear that the provision was intended to cover the presidency."

"The court stayed its decision until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots."

Submission + - SpaceX Worth $180B: This Tops Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Disney, Verizon, IBM, UPS (benzinga.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: SpaceXs new valuation tops the $150 billion the company was previously worth. At its new valuation of $180 billion, SpaceX would be the second most valuable private company according to data from CBInsights, trailing only TikTok owner ByteDance ($225 billion).

Based on a market capitalization of $180 billion, SpaceX would be the 64th most valuable public company in the world, based on data from CompaniesbyMarketCap, if the company were publicly traded.

Submission + - Amazon's Strict Return-to-office Policy Is Pushing More Employees Into Quitting (techspot.com) 1

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: Are you among the many individuals strongly opposed to returning to the office, to the point where you would prefer quitting your job rather than going back? It's an issue several companies are facing, but Amazon appears to be particularly prone to losing staff over its RTO policy, though it doesn't seem willing to do anything about it:

Ending a policy of allowing employees to work from home full-time is always a contentious move by companies, but none have faced as much pushback as Amazon. The original announcement resulted in an employee petition in February, which was resoundingly rejected, and it was one of the reasons behind a walkout later in the year.

Adding fuel to the fire is another Amazon policy introduced in July that requires some corporate workers to relocate to other cities near their teams' "hub" offices – central locations assigned to each individual team.

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