Comment IPxl should've had a chance... (Score 2) 225
It wou;d have been backwards-compatible and given us the expanded address space desired.
Comment Going for the "Too Big to Fail" I see. (Score 2) 31
Oh for some actual anti-trust enforcement... sigh.
Comment Re:Old man yells at chatbot in the cloud... (Score 4, Interesting) 54
Oh no, he is *definitely* angry about the spam... the vast energy wasted in generating it, the insincerity-by-proxy of the AI tech-bros who tasked it with generating this email
Guillotines cannot come soon enough for these bunker-building post-capitalist corporatist arseholes.
OpenAI Joins the Linux Foundation's New Agentic AI Foundation (nerds.xyz) 18
OpenAI, alongside Anthropic and Block, have launched the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, describing it as a neutral home for standards as agentic systems move into real production. It may sound well-meaning, but Slashdot reader and NERDS.xyz founder BrianFagioli isn't buying the narrative. In a report for NERDS.xyz, Fagioli writes: Instead of opening models, training data, or anything that would meaningfully shift power toward the community, the companies involved are donating lightweight artifacts like AGENTS.md, MCP, and goose. They're useful, but they're also the safest, least threatening pieces of their ecosystem to "open." From where I sit, it looks like a strategic attempt to lock in influence over emerging standards before truly open projects get a chance to define the space. I see the entire move as smoke and mirrors.
With regulators paying closer attention and developer trust slipping, creating a Linux Foundation directed fund gives these companies convenient cover to say they're being transparent and collaborative. But nothing about this structure forces them to share anything substantial, and nothing about it changes the closed nature of their core technology. To me, it looks like Big Tech trying to set the rules of the game early, using the language of openness without actually embracing it. Slashdot readers have seen this pattern before, and this one feels no different.
With regulators paying closer attention and developer trust slipping, creating a Linux Foundation directed fund gives these companies convenient cover to say they're being transparent and collaborative. But nothing about this structure forces them to share anything substantial, and nothing about it changes the closed nature of their core technology. To me, it looks like Big Tech trying to set the rules of the game early, using the language of openness without actually embracing it. Slashdot readers have seen this pattern before, and this one feels no different.
Comment Re:no systemd (Score 1) 32
>XLibre/no Wayland, no Rust re-writes of basic utilities,
This is sounding better and better. If Devuan ever drops the ball I guess it'll be time to go BSD.
Comment So, limit ALL UI modifying calls to 60fps (Score 1) 24
... without a user-approved popup for things like games, simulations etc. that might require it.
Comment Hopefully the 'AI' bubble will burst shortly after (Score 2) 23
... and these reactors can then be used for actual *useful* work.
Hopefully, as well, CANDU style reactors will be more prevalent, which can use spent fuel/waste from light-water reactors so we can extract maximum benefit from the waste of other designs.
Comment At least our successors will not have the option (Score 1) 180
... of mining vast amounts of cheap energy in the form of squished forests (not dinosaurs -- it was early forests decaying without the presence of fungi to break them down, mostly) as coal, oil, LNG for their industrial revolutions.
The raccoons, or crows, or octopuses will have to move directly from manual labour to machinery powered by renewable resources like solar and wind, since we will have sucked most of the fossil fuels out of the planet just before we drive ourselves to extinction.
Presuming the resulting climate, due to our stupidity, will still allow their evolution to intelligence and industry, honestly at this point I think it'll be for the best. We will have removed the easy, tempting, but ultimately destructive option so they cannot be beguiled by it.
Comment Nothing new under the sun here (Score 3, Insightful) 111
When margarine first came onto the market, the dairy industry lobbied hard to make sure it looked disgusting by requiring it to be dyed pink, blue, or anything other than yellow. Protectionism from innovation.
Comment Re:Never heard of it. (Score 1) 11
https://web.archive.org/web/19...
Too bad modern browsers don't allow audio auto-play, for the proper experience.
Comment No thanks, just bring back what was nerfed (Score 1) 36
Assistant used to:
- let me play music not on Youtube Music;
- play some actually fun party games;
- have an SDK for custom voice-controlled apps.
- (the BIG one) let me ask for and play podcasts outside of Youtube Music. (newsflash: not everyone hosts podcasts on youtube!)
All this was nerfed in the past 2-3 years and now our Assistants at home are used for nothing more than asking the time, date, weather, maybe an alarm or reminder, switching on/off some lights.
If they gimp the platform any more I'm just going to throw them out at this point.
Comment If reliable, it could also feed us (Score 3, Interesting) 62
Mealworms are a potential human protein source, see https://medium.com/signals-of-...
Submission + - Boffins report: "AI" creates more "work" than it saves (arstechnica.com) 1
Mr. Dollar Ton writes: Moreover, previous estimates of huge "productivity gains" are largely faked and the new "work" it is not necessarily useful.
A new study analyzing the Danish labor market in 2023 and 2024 suggests that generative AI models like ChatGPT have had almost no significant impact on overall wages or employment yet, despite rapid adoption in some workplaces.
The reported productivity benefits were modest in the study. Users reported average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours (about an hour per week).
The finding contradicts a randomized controlled trial published in February that found generative AI increased worker productivity by 15 percent on average. The difference stems from other experiments focusing on tasks highly suited to AI, whereas most real-world jobs involve tasks AI cannot fully automate.
A new study analyzing the Danish labor market in 2023 and 2024 suggests that generative AI models like ChatGPT have had almost no significant impact on overall wages or employment yet, despite rapid adoption in some workplaces.
The reported productivity benefits were modest in the study. Users reported average time savings of just 2.8 percent of work hours (about an hour per week).
The finding contradicts a randomized controlled trial published in February that found generative AI increased worker productivity by 15 percent on average. The difference stems from other experiments focusing on tasks highly suited to AI, whereas most real-world jobs involve tasks AI cannot fully automate.
Submission + - Apple Maps putting Long Island drivers at risk with false red light camera alert (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli writes: Sigh. It’s May 2025, folks, and believe it or not, Apple Maps still hasn’t caught up with a change that happened on Long Island way back in 2024. If you’re driving through Suffolk County, New York, chances are your iPhone is still screaming about red light cameras that no longer exist. You see, the county shut the whole program down in December of last year, but Apple hasn’t bothered to update its navigation data. The alerts keep coming like the cameras are still up and active — but they actually aren’t.
For years, Suffolk’s red light camera program was a point of frustration. Sure, officials said it was about safety, but many residents saw it differently — especially once it brought in nearly $290 million. Then came a court ruling that said the extra fees attached to the tickets weren’t legal. That basically brought the system to its knees. Suffolk shut it all down. But Apple? Still acting like nothing’s changed.
In case you are wondering, I personally tested this on an iPhone 16 Pro Max running the latest iOS version. I was getting the false alerts as recent as May 3, 2025! Quite frankly, it isn’t just annoying — it is worrying.
Drivers depending on Apple Maps are now stuck reacting to ghost warnings. You approach an intersection, the app warns of a red light camera, and you hit the brakes — even though there’s no reason to. It’s unnecessary and disruptive. And it could cause accidents. Truth be told, it’s a bad look for Apple. For a company that pushes out flashy features every few months, you’d think updating map data would be a basic task.
Let’s not forget — this is a Suffolk County issue, not all of Long Island. Nassau County still runs red light cameras. But Suffolk pulled the plug months ago. That’s not a small detail. It’s a fundamental change in how driving enforcement works in that area, and Apple is still stuck in the past.
Apple Maps is on every iPhone. It’s not some niche product. It shapes how millions of people drive and make decisions behind the wheel. So when the app keeps shouting about enforcement that ended last year, it makes drivers question how accurate any of its other data is.
At this point, there’s no excuse. Apple has the money. Apple has the data. Apple has the engineers. But somehow, Suffolk County drivers are still being spooked by alerts tied to a program that hasn’t been active since 2024. That’s not just outdated — it’s careless.
For years, Suffolk’s red light camera program was a point of frustration. Sure, officials said it was about safety, but many residents saw it differently — especially once it brought in nearly $290 million. Then came a court ruling that said the extra fees attached to the tickets weren’t legal. That basically brought the system to its knees. Suffolk shut it all down. But Apple? Still acting like nothing’s changed.
In case you are wondering, I personally tested this on an iPhone 16 Pro Max running the latest iOS version. I was getting the false alerts as recent as May 3, 2025! Quite frankly, it isn’t just annoying — it is worrying.
Drivers depending on Apple Maps are now stuck reacting to ghost warnings. You approach an intersection, the app warns of a red light camera, and you hit the brakes — even though there’s no reason to. It’s unnecessary and disruptive. And it could cause accidents. Truth be told, it’s a bad look for Apple. For a company that pushes out flashy features every few months, you’d think updating map data would be a basic task.
Let’s not forget — this is a Suffolk County issue, not all of Long Island. Nassau County still runs red light cameras. But Suffolk pulled the plug months ago. That’s not a small detail. It’s a fundamental change in how driving enforcement works in that area, and Apple is still stuck in the past.
Apple Maps is on every iPhone. It’s not some niche product. It shapes how millions of people drive and make decisions behind the wheel. So when the app keeps shouting about enforcement that ended last year, it makes drivers question how accurate any of its other data is.
At this point, there’s no excuse. Apple has the money. Apple has the data. Apple has the engineers. But somehow, Suffolk County drivers are still being spooked by alerts tied to a program that hasn’t been active since 2024. That’s not just outdated — it’s careless.
Submission + - Toyota sued over sale of driver's data without permission to insurance (youtube.com)
sinij writes: Suit Says Toyota Sold Driversâ(TM) Data Without Permission.
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