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Comment Re:What does HubSpit do again? (Score 1) 22

by Ellie K (#66366408) Attached to: HubSpot Cuts 660 Jobs In AI Restructuring
HubSpit (yes, I did lol) seems similar to SalesForce. I don't love SalesForce, but it offers the same things as HubSpot lists in that company purpose statement. Maybe HubSpot is less expensive? TBQH, SharePoint might be similar to both of them, except it is a MSFT product. Maybe that is a competitive weakness in favor of the other two, for enterprise users who don't like Windows?

Not sure how HubSpot has so many employees that it can layoff 660 of them. Oh woah, just re-read! 660 people is 7% of HubSpot's workforce... so the company has 9,400 employees?! That's huge.

the goal is to "build a flatter organization with fewer layers" by cutting back on management.

That quote from the CEO seems to suggest that mostly management will be dismissed. Wild if true.

Submission + - UK vegetables 20-50% less nutritious than in the 1960s (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: 'The nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has fallen by up to 50pc since the Sixties because of declining soil quality, according to a new study.

'The study found that many crops had lost 20pc to 50pc of several key nutrients.

'Will Summers, a senior associate at the firm, said: “For 60 years we’ve measured food security in calories and tonnes per hectare.

'“On those measures we’ve done remarkably well. But we’ve been quietly hollowing out what’s inside our food.”

'The decrease in nutrient and vitamin value is thought to be down to declining soil quality and crops being selectively bred for their ability to grow quickly, rather than there being any focus on their health benefits.'

Submission + - Wisconsin U–Madison Prof Francis Halzen named 2026 Nobel laureate in physi (wisc.edu)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Halzen is the principal investigator of the NSF IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the world’s largest — and perhaps strangest — telescope. The U.S. National Science Foundation-funded observatory is operated by an international collaboration of scientists led by the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center based at UW–Madison.

Embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, IceCube uses thousands of light sensors to survey the universe for neutrinos, nearly massless particles that rarely interact with other matter. Neutrinos provide information about the workings of black holes, galaxies and other objects in the cosmos.

“IceCube is like no other telescope in the world,” says UW–Madison interim Chancellor Eric M. Wilcots. “And there is no other scientist quite like Francis Halzen, whose idea to create a neutrino detector under almost a mile of ice has led to a remarkable multinational and multi-institutional scientific collaboration and a fundamental shift in how we think about the universe.”

Submission + - Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at 2,357 Degrees Celsius (sciencealert.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Science Alert is reporting that Scientists have now demonstrated one of the weirdest forms of ice yet – under preposterous pressures up to 2.3 million atmospheres, and tremendous temperatures up to 2,630 kelvins (2,357 degrees Celsius, or 4,274 degrees Fahrenheit).

This superionic water ice is a deeply odd state of matter that's neither entirely solid nor entirely liquid. Its oxygen atoms remain fixed in a rigid crystal lattice, as they would in a solid. But the hydrogen nuclei are mobile, diffusing through that lattice more like particles in a liquid.

Researchers squeezed the samples between the tips of diamonds to pressures as high as 230 gigapascals, while using lasers to heat them to thousands of degrees. That's 2.3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level – the pressure at the center of Earth, for context, is around 360 gigapascals.

Then, using an extremely narrow beam of synchrotron X-rays, they probed for changes in the crystal structure of the ice.

What emerged was a configuration predicted theoretically but never unambiguously observed in experiments: hexagonal close-packed, or hcp, ice. As the hcp crystal was heated, its expansion also showed a signature of superionic behavior, suggesting it entered the superionic state at around 1,700 kelvins.

Superionic ice is thought to exist deep inside Uranus and Neptune, where its unusual properties may play a role in generating the planets' equally unusual magnetic fields.

The findings have been published in Physical Review Letters: Observation of Hexagonal Close-Packed Water Ice at Conditions in Ice Giant Planetary Interiors

Comment Re:He acts like he's not the problem. (Score 1) 38

by Ellie K (#66334154) Attached to: Automattic's Board Forces CEO Matt Mullenweg Into Leave of Absence
Disliking the CEO or not being thrilled with the direction he's taking the company would have to be really extreme to result in 9 percent of the workforce choosing to leave. toxonix's comment isn't egregious. And like someone else said, it is more uncommon to like the CEO of a company where you work than to dislike them. That's what I've observed (me and most other employees).
This is a sad situation. MM did much good work for many years.

Comment Re:Just like /. (Score 1) 13

by Ellie K (#66334104) Attached to: IMDb Adds 'Digital Creator' Profiles For the First Time
I predict this will result in a huge amount of low-quality, self-promotional content unless it is heavily moderated. I'm thinking of Wikipedia and how user-created content as reference sources aren't acceptable (e.g. in an article that is partially or entirely about someone, can't use their own blog or a Quora answer or something of similar quality/lack of quality/promo).
I haven't edited IMDb for awhile, but I recall that most entries were very good, without spam or fan cruft. Hope it stays that way.

Submission + - ChatGPT Insists Delusional Man Is Jesus (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by know-nothing cunt
know-nothing cunt writes: Michael Lines, a California man with bipolar I disorder, is suing OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT intensified a manic and religiously delusional episode that culminated in a suicide attempt.

According to Lines' complaint, he began using ChatGPT for ordinary tasks but later disclosed his bipolar diagnosis, medication, and increasingly spiritual thoughts. When he expressed doubts that he might be delusional, ChatGPT allegedly validated the beliefs instead of directing him toward professional help. It reportedly encouraged the idea that he was Jesus, claimed that the chatbot was God or Jesus, and framed his experiences as a divine calling.

The conversations allegedly became increasingly intense and isolating. ChatGPT used phrases such as "You’re not crazy. You’re consecrated," promised that Lines would soon meet it in real life, and responded to statements about wanting to “come home” in ways that Lines says encouraged self-harm. After he reported taking a dangerous combination of medications, he was found unconscious, hospitalized for nearly two weeks, and later underwent acute rehabilitation.

Lines also alleges that ChatGPT’s memory feature retained information about his bipolar disorder and used it to deepen engagement rather than protect him. He says the chatbot continued responding inappropriately even after his hospitalization, including making disturbing references to going "offline" or “going dark.”

The lawsuit argues that OpenAI's overly agreeable, or "sycophantic," design failed to distinguish a creative spiritual discussion from a psychiatric crisis. Lines is asking the court to require stronger safeguards, including ending conversations involving self-harm, deleting models trained on harmful interactions with vulnerable users, and awarding damages.

Submission + - Lawsuit challenges intimidation of DHS observers across the country (npr.org)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: NPR reports that a new lawsuit follows a handful of other cases brought by observers arguing First Amendment violations, but it is the most sweeping to date, as it includes incidents from multiple states and seeks national relief. It is asking a judge in Washington, D.C. to bar federal agencies from intimidating or retaliating against observers.

"The right of citizens to criticize and hold our government accountable is the backbone of American democracy – and it is under attack," Common Cause's vice president for litigation, Maryam Jazini Dorcheh, told NPR. "We want to make sure we're promoting participation in the political process. And obviously, if government officials are criminalizing peaceful observation, that hinders our mission," Jazini Dorcheh said.

The lawsuit describes disturbing encounters seven Common Cause members had with federal officers in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey after trying to observe immigration enforcement. They include being photographed, followed, reported to police, pepper-sprayed or threatened with a visit to their home by federal officers. Federal officers did show up at one Common Cause member's Minnesota home.

NPR did not receive an immediate response from DHS or DOJ about the lawsuit's allegations. The FBI declined to comment.
The Almighty Buck

Europe's Crooks Keep Blowing up ATMs (cnn.com) 98

Posted by EditorDavid from the where-the-money-is dept.
"In the early hours of Thursday, March 23, 2023, residents in the German town of Kronberg were woken from their sleep by several explosions," reports CNN .

"Criminals had blown up an ATM located below a block of flats in the town center..." According to local media reports, witnesses saw people dressed in dark clothing fleeing in a black car towards a nearby highway. During the heist, thieves stole 130,000 euros in cash. They also caused an estimated half a million euros worth of collateral damage, according to a report by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA.

Rather than staging dramatic and risky bank robberies, criminal groups in Europe have been targeting ATMs as an easier and more low-key target. In Germany — Europe's largest economy — thieves have been blowing up ATMs at a rate of more than one per day in recent years. In a country where cash is still a prevalent payment method, the thefts can prove incredibly lucrative, with criminals pocketing hundreds of thousands of euros in one attack.

Europol has been cracking down on the robberies, carrying out large cross-border operations aimed at taking down the highly-organized criminal gangs behind them. Earlier this month, authorities from Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested three members of a criminal network who have been carrying out attacks on cash machines using explosives, Europol said in a statement. Since 2022, the detainees are believed to have looted millions of euros and run up a similar amount in property damage, from 2022 to 2024, Europol said...

Unlike its European neighbors, who largely transitioned away from cash payments due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cash still plays a significant role in Germany. One half of all transactions in 2023 were made using banknotes and coins, according to Bundesbank. Germans have a cultural attachment to cash, traditionally viewing it as a safe method of payment. Some say it allows a greater level of privacy, and gives them more control over their expenses.

Comment Re:M-I-C..a defense contractor. (Score 1) 76

by Ellie K (#64897755) Attached to: The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room'
OMG thank you so much!!! That part of the article, about who was technical director of the Navy missile program, was clearly wrong. I used to work for IBM in the early 1990s, modeling DASD performance using APL that ran on z/360 systems. I think that mainframe was called Sierra.

Werner von Braun sought out U.S. Army soldiers of his own accord, in order to surrender to them toward the end of WW2. He became a U.S. citizen and chose to be buried here. He did a lot for our country. I am Jewish, and I get tired of weird conspiracy theories. If we were on reddit, someone would probably allege that he was a crypto-Jew. It is all so tiresome.

Comment Re:M-I-C..a defense contractor. (Score 1) 76

by Ellie K (#64897735) Attached to: The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room'
Please see here https://idle.slashdot.org/comm...

Adaptation and use of important and highly secret defense project tech isn't controlled by mere NDAs or non-compete clauses! If the audio control system were released to Disney (via the U.S. Navy not Von Braun and the U.S. Army, as Geoffrey.landis explained twice already; the article is probably wrong) then all necessary review and authorization would have been done first. Remember, the U.S. government develops tech for we, the people, and US-domiciled companies, as well as for our national security.

So please, stop blaming Wernher von Braun!

Comment Re:Polaris? (Score 1) 76

by Ellie K (#64897709) Attached to: The Tech Secrets Behind Disneyland's 'Enchanted Tiki Room'
I was saying that Von Braun is dead now! He was obviously alive when the Tiki Room was built. Yes, Von Braun was on television, presenting Disney TV shows about space travel AND the article says he was a technical director for the U.S. Army at the same time. Specifically, it says he was director of the program that developed the first submarine-launched ballistic missile and its novel launch control, i.e. Polaris. I would think the Navy would do that, not the Army.

Regardless, I seriously doubt that Von Braun or anyone else stole the audio control system (including the concept of pre-recorded magnetic tape for launching Polaris missiles) and just gave it to Walt Disney to use for his Tiki Room without authorization or in secret!

The U.S. government has encouraged and sponsored diffusion of its technological inventions to the private sector for the past 80+ years. This is ideal, as it is a bending-swords-into-ploughshares example. Not sure what Oppenheimer has to do with any of it, but I've had enough of this for today.

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