Comment Take critical infrastructure off the net. (Score 2) 22
Wanting total internet connectivity is a sign of utter ignorance, and that ignorance is a choice.
Make ignorance shameful again.
Comment Vapes are not a survival or economic need. (Score 1) 48
Ban them for safety reasons.
Nicotine addicts have plenty of delivery options including lozenges.
Selling products intended for volatile substance abuse is illegal in the UK. Products inherently designed in a way that their normal real world disposal is dangerous make sense to regulate.
Not everything everyone wants to do makes sense for society to permit, including producing flammable products whose nature makes them into incendiaries when broken.
I inert all my expended lithium cells by destruction either in my welding shop or outdoors on my land, then dispose of the metallic slag safely with other mixed scrap metals. Small cells make impressive incendiaries so I'm not surprised cell disruption during recycling of objects containing them causes fires.
I use welding PPE so it's no risk to me and have ample water to flood cool spatter (which I do anyway after welding outdoors). I suggest other Slashdotters (the original techy sort who know how to safely break lithium cells which is quite simple) self-educate so they have direct experience of how powerful small cells really are.
Comment The metro area has little known options (Score 2) 46
If you're rocking tech money there are many good places to spend it. The metro area has some beautiful wealthy neighborhoods, especially in northern New Jersey, which have fine old housing stock with large plots and good schools. Many good boarding schools are in easy range of the metro area.
The news focuses on the usual urban hellholes but many metro areas were never heavily industrialized and remain surprisingly refined. Passenger rail is well developed and built the burbs long before automobiles were more than a curiosity.
Tech money can also buy into Pennsylvania which is in easy reach by rail. If you're a tech worker expecting to make bank I suggest not living IN NYC but in rail commuting range instead.
I quite enjoyed relaxing on the train vs. driving.
Comment Re:The alternative... (Score 1) 40
Many people want the US disarmed. Many others do not. Even wanting that data center there in the first place is bizarre.
Submission + - Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover (404media.co)
alternative_right writes: Brands have completely taken over the modern world, from established corporate trademarks to the proliferation of online influencers. But the allure of brands is nothing new, according to a study about an ancient style of pottery called Qurayyah Painted Ware that was a progenitor of branding some 3,200 years ago.
This brand of pottery was popular in what is now Saudi Arabia during the Bronze Age. The tradition is distinguished by distinctive black-and-red geometric designs and stylized animal and human figures. These unique visual properties, along with a consistent production technique and quality, suggest that it was an early branded commodity that was made to be recognizable to the wider community.
âoeIt is now understood that brands and proto-brands existed well before modern economies,â said researchers led by Marta Luciani of the University of Vienna. âoeIn this contribution we analyze the process by which the commodity itselfâ"decorated pottery vesselsâ"was developed into a brand not by added symbols but on the virtue of its visual identity, material consistency, technological continuity, centralized production, export circulation, local imitation, intentional commercial scope, and cultural reputation.â
This brand of pottery was popular in what is now Saudi Arabia during the Bronze Age. The tradition is distinguished by distinctive black-and-red geometric designs and stylized animal and human figures. These unique visual properties, along with a consistent production technique and quality, suggest that it was an early branded commodity that was made to be recognizable to the wider community.
âoeIt is now understood that brands and proto-brands existed well before modern economies,â said researchers led by Marta Luciani of the University of Vienna. âoeIn this contribution we analyze the process by which the commodity itselfâ"decorated pottery vesselsâ"was developed into a brand not by added symbols but on the virtue of its visual identity, material consistency, technological continuity, centralized production, export circulation, local imitation, intentional commercial scope, and cultural reputation.â
Submission + - Battery fires at recycling centres are costing UK £1bn a year, figures sho (theguardian.com)
AmiMoJo writes: Fires at recycling centres caused by wrongly discarded lithium batteries such as those found in vapes are occurring at the rate of more than 10 a week, according to new figures.
Experts say the sheer volume of battery fires now occurring at waste facilities has reached a crisis that is putting lives at risk, costing £1bn a year and frustrating fire chiefs.
In figures shared with the Guardian, the Environment Services Association (ESA), the trade body for waste management companies, said its members had reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026. At least 541 of these fires were directly attributed to lithium ion batteries, the survey found. There were a further 216 battery fires in bin lorries.
Experts say the sheer volume of battery fires now occurring at waste facilities has reached a crisis that is putting lives at risk, costing £1bn a year and frustrating fire chiefs.
In figures shared with the Guardian, the Environment Services Association (ESA), the trade body for waste management companies, said its members had reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026. At least 541 of these fires were directly attributed to lithium ion batteries, the survey found. There were a further 216 battery fires in bin lorries.
Submission + - Microsoft Blames Windows Gaming Issues on RGB Lighting Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
joshuark writes: Microsoft says ongoing issues causing games to crash or fail to launch after installing the August 2026 Windows updates may be caused by peripherals with RGB lighting. Microsoft explained when it confirmed it's investigating on Wednesday, this known issue affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tkon: Fighting Souls, and The Finals on systems running Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2.
"Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected," Microsoft said on the Windows release health dashboard.
On impacted PCs, users are also experiencing gaming freezes, "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" errors, and even unexpected system restarts.
Embark Studios, the Swedish video game developer behind ARC Raiders and The Finals, also said these issues are caused by inpoutx64.sys, but added that they stem from changes made to the Windows kernel driver.
"We're aware of a crash that has been impacting some players since the most recent Windows update (KB5121003). This is a crash related to the file inpoutx64.sys, which changed with the Windows update," Embark said on Monday.
Until Microsoft ships an official fix, Embark shared a multi-step temporary workaround that requires users to delete the service and remove the inpoutx64 file from the Windows drivers folder.
"Following the release of Windows updates on August 11, 2026 (KB5121003) and later, Microsoft received reports of issues involving inability to run games as expected," Microsoft said on the Windows release health dashboard.
On impacted PCs, users are also experiencing gaming freezes, "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" errors, and even unexpected system restarts.
Embark Studios, the Swedish video game developer behind ARC Raiders and The Finals, also said these issues are caused by inpoutx64.sys, but added that they stem from changes made to the Windows kernel driver.
"We're aware of a crash that has been impacting some players since the most recent Windows update (KB5121003). This is a crash related to the file inpoutx64.sys, which changed with the Windows update," Embark said on Monday.
Until Microsoft ships an official fix, Embark shared a multi-step temporary workaround that requires users to delete the service and remove the inpoutx64 file from the Windows drivers folder.
Submission + - Defamation suit demanding Elsevier retract paper heads closer to trial (retractionwatch.com)
sandbagger writes: A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying technology over objections from peer reviewers. The case has already cost Elsevier a $10,000 sanction from a judge.
Comment Exams should be hand-written on the spot. (Score 1) 52
Camera proctoring can reduce cheating.
Comment Ideals are adorable but futile (Score 1) 286
Fantasy solutions must be ritually recited these days due to social fashion but humanity was never good which is why there is only technical, not "moral" progress (vanity is not progress).
Government is bad because humanity is bad and always was bad.
We are bestial apex predators who happen to be good at technology. Our race tends savage and stupid, intelligence being neuro-divergent. That dictates reality.
Comment Idealism in the real world is childishly naive. (Score 2) 286
Having much of anything on one's phone is terrible security because spyware can easily exfiltrate it without user knowledge, so I don't do that.
Having stuff that matters on your phone is like storing drugs in your car, you can but nothing makes that smart. At most a phone used when crossing borders should be a distraction whose storage holds plausible files like ebooks and does not have an email client etc. If one must an alternative is storing encrypted, useful files elsewhere for later downloading with nothing on one's phone.
Making one's phone a central information repository is silly
with or without possibility of formal inspection. Wishful thinking is not security. The world was always a very bad place so choose wisely without passion.
Submission + - SpaceX's orbital data centers would create a new category of e-waste (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo writes: Elon Musk’s talk about maintaining a million-strong AI data center satellite megaconstellation may not exactly be practical or economical, but it might be unique. It’s about the closest we’ve come to confronting a scheme that would export a considerable amount of valuable materials into space. Humans aren’t doing a great job of material sustainability, but normally we’re talking about stuff escaping a recycling pipeline rather than escaping Earth’s gravitational pull.
Given the roughly five-year expected lifetime for data center GPUs, about 200,000 of the 1 million proposed SpaceX AI1 satellites would be decommissioned each year. Based on their May 29 FCC filing, about 40,000 would definitely deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. (Those materials would largely be dispersed throughout the atmosphere, turning a resource into a diffuse contaminant that slowly settles over the globe. One related issue: the aluminum would cause an unknown amount of ozone depletion over a period of decades.) Some or all of the remaining 160,000 satellites would be moved outward into a distant “disposal” orbit, instead. Either way, they’re lost from a “material life cycle” point of view.
Given the roughly five-year expected lifetime for data center GPUs, about 200,000 of the 1 million proposed SpaceX AI1 satellites would be decommissioned each year. Based on their May 29 FCC filing, about 40,000 would definitely deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. (Those materials would largely be dispersed throughout the atmosphere, turning a resource into a diffuse contaminant that slowly settles over the globe. One related issue: the aluminum would cause an unknown amount of ozone depletion over a period of decades.) Some or all of the remaining 160,000 satellites would be moved outward into a distant “disposal” orbit, instead. Either way, they’re lost from a “material life cycle” point of view.
Comment Good. Politicians should fear the people (Score 1) 94
In the US they're corrupt by nature and will only cooperate when terrified.
Coerce them to serve the people by any means necessary and without empathy, compassion or mercy. They are selling out the commons in return for power.
In a just society the public would use them to decorate lamp posts. The system is beyond fixing without pitiless aggression which I can only hope accelerates.
Comment Re:100M is enough (Score 1) 150
Well wtf does he mean by speedtest then? If he's doing it from his phone or wifi connected laptop, then it's going to reflect the speed of his wifi. If he's doing it from his router, and complaining that the speedtest is wrong because his wifi is slower than his router uplink, I'd say that's a statement only a doofus would make.
Comment Re:100M is enough (Score 1) 150
"Now I'm currently using fiber at the speed fast than my wifi router, which makes my speedtest always wrong."
oh please expand on this - this is gunna be hilarious
