Comment Re:Tariffs can be retaliatory or protectionist. (Score 1) 69
When they are slapped on by the Orangutang in Washington they have no market value, but are childless tantrums by Trumplestiltskin.
Comment Re:Summary is referring to EV plus Hybrids (Score 1) 69
so don't do charging stations, do battery replacement stations. Hot swappable batteries does away with the charge time and makes a whole new subscription business model for the service stations to move to and not die. The Govt. could specify a standard battery compartment and hookups, allowing for a HUGE 3rd party market. Just imagine the AmazonBasics[tm] battery line that catches fire as often as AIs hallucinate.
Submission + - LLM-inspired study sheds light on how brain cells encode the meaning of words (medicalxpress.com)
alternative_right writes: To investigate how the brain encodes the meaning of words, the researchers first recorded the activity of individual neurons in the hippocampus of 10 people who were listening to stories. Their recordings were collected using tiny wire electrodes that were implanted in the participants' brains as part of clinical monitoring procedures for epilepsy.
The team then used mathematical models to analyze the language used in the stories and the brain recordings. This allowed them to examine whether information about the meaning of words could predict the recorded neuronal activity.
"We recorded responses of hippocampal neurons while individuals listened to narrative speech," wrote Melissa Franch and her colleagues in their paper. "Using an encoding model approach, we find robust encoding of semantics, even after controlling for phonemics and grammar. Individual words had complex selectivities that included multiple words in multiple semantic categories."
The team then used mathematical models to analyze the language used in the stories and the brain recordings. This allowed them to examine whether information about the meaning of words could predict the recorded neuronal activity.
"We recorded responses of hippocampal neurons while individuals listened to narrative speech," wrote Melissa Franch and her colleagues in their paper. "Using an encoding model approach, we find robust encoding of semantics, even after controlling for phonemics and grammar. Individual words had complex selectivities that included multiple words in multiple semantic categories."
Comment Re:Isn't an AI based film really an animated film? (Score 2) 45
If that'll all they intended they could have agreed on a very narrowly-tailored agreement limiting the use to the same aspects of the film as manual animation.
Maybe Cage is doing some solidarity thing with animators or maybe Amazon intended to do much more and were attempting an underhanded trick.
It's hard to tell except you'd expect Cage to say something if animators' jobs were his cause.
It sounds like his agent or manager knew what was up.
Comment Re:Think smaller (Score 1) 93
I think the man pages need a graphical UI update and at least 1 AI function in order to attract the "modern" programmers attention.
/sarcasm
Comment Hitting too close to home (Score 1) 22
This attempt to manipulate public opinion seems remarkably similar to the US corporate media outlets strategy every 30 minutes of every hour of everyday. I imagine the "Media" is going to have to do something about that. It is not like they can stomach having competition, it might cut into the Masters' profit margin.
Comment Re:Think smaller (Score 4, Insightful) 93
> you apparently desire to use systems beyond their design points
Who doesn't include cost in design?
If my CPU/SoC is plenty fast for my task and the DRAM is faster than I need it to be and a CPU instruction to compress takes less power than a write out to the bus - it would just be wasteful to manufacture and purchase twice as much DRAM as the application needs.
Either the end user gets a better price (and all money is the result of expending energy, so we save again) or the manufacturer makes a larger profit (in a constrained market).
Now then - all you lunatics embedding Electron and costing me 400MB to send an 80 character text message - we need to talk about this.
CRAM seems like a great idea but it's not the solution to not caring about the Craft.
Submission + - ChatGPT, Gemini Call BS on Microsoft's PERM Program Ban 'Comment'
theodp writes: Asked to comment on the merits of the Microsoft Comment on Recent Immigration Questions, which was posted without attribution on the Microsoft On The Issues blog in response to the U.S. Government's suspension of Microsoft, Adobe, and IT outsourcing giants from the Green Card program (PERM), ChatGPT suggested it was a red herring defense at best: "The central issue is whether Microsoft has complied with the requirements governing permanent labor certification, including whether qualified American workers were genuinely considered for positions being offered to foreign workers. Microsoft instead emphasizes that 80% of its H-1B applications involved existing employees rather than new hires. That framing encourages readers to think the government's concern rests on a basic misunderstanding: that the government is counting existing workers as new foreign hires. But that is not necessarily the government's argument. Existing H-1B employees can subsequently be sponsored for permanent residency, and their employers must still comply with the applicable PERM requirements."
Asked to provide a second AI opinion, Google's Gemini agreed: "Microsoft’s response is a classic piece of defensive corporate communication. It successfully highlights true statistics—such as its high median wages and the fact that most H-1B filings are internal extensions—to counter the narrative that it is a low-wage outsourcing shop. However, its statement completely sidesteps the central accusation: that its ongoing sponsorship of thousands of green cards via the PERM program ran afoul of labor regulations while it was concurrently laying off thousands of domestic American workers. By omitting this tension, Microsoft's response answers questions the administration wasn't actually asking while ignoring the underlying compliance and fraud investigations that triggered the freeze."
Microsoft is hardly the only tech giant whose PERM program hiring practices have attracted U.S. government scrutiny. In August 2026, the U.S Dept. of Justice's Civil Rights Division announced a $3.2 million settlement involving OpenAI OpCo LLC and its analytics provider Statsig that addressed allegations of "discriminating against U.S. workers" during the PERM hiring process. And in 2023, Apple was required by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to pay up to $25 million in backpay and civil penalties to "resolve allegations that Apple illegally discriminated in hiring and recruitment against U.S. citizens and certain non-U.S. citizens." And in 2021, Facebook agreed to pay up to $14.25 million to settle civil claims by the U.S. government that the social media company discriminated against American workers and violated federal recruitment rules.
Asked to provide a second AI opinion, Google's Gemini agreed: "Microsoft’s response is a classic piece of defensive corporate communication. It successfully highlights true statistics—such as its high median wages and the fact that most H-1B filings are internal extensions—to counter the narrative that it is a low-wage outsourcing shop. However, its statement completely sidesteps the central accusation: that its ongoing sponsorship of thousands of green cards via the PERM program ran afoul of labor regulations while it was concurrently laying off thousands of domestic American workers. By omitting this tension, Microsoft's response answers questions the administration wasn't actually asking while ignoring the underlying compliance and fraud investigations that triggered the freeze."
Microsoft is hardly the only tech giant whose PERM program hiring practices have attracted U.S. government scrutiny. In August 2026, the U.S Dept. of Justice's Civil Rights Division announced a $3.2 million settlement involving OpenAI OpCo LLC and its analytics provider Statsig that addressed allegations of "discriminating against U.S. workers" during the PERM hiring process. And in 2023, Apple was required by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to pay up to $25 million in backpay and civil penalties to "resolve allegations that Apple illegally discriminated in hiring and recruitment against U.S. citizens and certain non-U.S. citizens." And in 2021, Facebook agreed to pay up to $14.25 million to settle civil claims by the U.S. government that the social media company discriminated against American workers and violated federal recruitment rules.
Submission + - For The First Time Ever, Quantum Spins Shift a Centimeter-Scale Object (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: There's another notable first in the field of quantum physics to report on, and it's all to do with electron spin: the tiny, built-in magnetism of these particles, as if each one is carrying a microscopic compass needle.
Previously, the force of these spins has only proved enough to nudge individual atoms in one direction or another. Now though, researchers have managed to shift something much, much bigger.
A team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan has published a new study in Science Advances that details how a centimeter-sized object can be nudged by these quantum forces.
Previously, the force of these spins has only proved enough to nudge individual atoms in one direction or another. Now though, researchers have managed to shift something much, much bigger.
A team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan has published a new study in Science Advances that details how a centimeter-sized object can be nudged by these quantum forces.
Submission + - Blinding headlights finally being addressed (reuters.com)
technology_dude writes: It's about time! The NHTSA is going to modernize standards and address the brightness problem. Of course it will take some time before we see the change. Only new vehicles will have the new tech so all of existing blinding headlights will still be on the road for quite some time but it is a step in the right direction.
Comment This won't go away... (Score 2) 38
This won't go away, Flock is just the first and the one that made the mistake of getting in the public eye. When Flock goes bust, several smaller companies will pop up offering the same technology but with NDA's. The info is too valuable to no be sold by some greedy sob with no morals. The government is gonna want this any way they can get it to go with the echelon phone data. Once the genie was out of the bag it is just a matter of time. Our grandkids will wonder how we survived without Uncle Sam knowing where we were at all times.
methuselahs children
Comment Waaaaaay off base (Score 1) 187
The world ended in 1987. Everyone worth anything was raptured. Those really bad got sucked into hell and the rest of use are cursed to wander forever in a AI induced hallucination shaped vaguely like our world.
Comment Serves Adobe right (Score 1) 1
Adobe is one of THE most predatory software companies in existence, and that includes Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, VMWare, and SalesForce.
They're absolute predatory scumbags who do everything they can to punish you for daring to use their software. Suck it, Adobe.
Submission + - "Software is over" Developer uses AI builds Adobe clones after cancellation fees (techspot.com) 1
joshuark writes: Ars Technica reports, developer Brandon Thomas is taking on seven of Adobe's best-known applications through Artcraft. The project extend beyond Adobe's famous photo editing program to video production, vector graphics, page layouts, and PDF tools.
In his Reddit announcement, Thomas says he used Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 to build the replacements in Rust. Photocraft imitates Photoshop, while Vectorcraft and Filmcraft take on Illustrator and Premiere. Lightcraft, Effectcraft, Designcraft, and Printcraft are the alternatives to Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro, respectively.
The apps are open source and free, with no subscription required. Users can download the source code, modify it, and contribute fixes. Thomas describes himself as a software industry veteran with 15 years of experience, including roughly a decade working with Rust. He also insists the project has team support and will not be abandoned after launch.
"We're going to reach 100% parity within a month," he said, which is an ambitious claim.
For now, the software remains at an early stage, and commenters have reported problems with basic functionality. They might look like Adobe's apps, but it doesn't sound like they're able to replace the long-established programs just yet.
Thomas says Adobe's cancelation fees helped motivate the project, which is understandable.
Thomas believes other developers will follow suit, predicting a future where free, near-identical open-source versions of popular paid apps will be widely available.
"Now you can just create 1:1 functional equivalents, clean room, that are highly performant and cross-platform. Nothing is stopping you," Thomas wrote. "We'll replace Google Search, we'll build our own smartphones, we'll build better infra. We'll remove all the ads and de-enshittify the entire tech world."
"Software is over," he declared, somewhat boldly. And hopefully cancellation fees.
In his Reddit announcement, Thomas says he used Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 to build the replacements in Rust. Photocraft imitates Photoshop, while Vectorcraft and Filmcraft take on Illustrator and Premiere. Lightcraft, Effectcraft, Designcraft, and Printcraft are the alternatives to Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro, respectively.
The apps are open source and free, with no subscription required. Users can download the source code, modify it, and contribute fixes. Thomas describes himself as a software industry veteran with 15 years of experience, including roughly a decade working with Rust. He also insists the project has team support and will not be abandoned after launch.
"We're going to reach 100% parity within a month," he said, which is an ambitious claim.
For now, the software remains at an early stage, and commenters have reported problems with basic functionality. They might look like Adobe's apps, but it doesn't sound like they're able to replace the long-established programs just yet.
Thomas says Adobe's cancelation fees helped motivate the project, which is understandable.
Thomas believes other developers will follow suit, predicting a future where free, near-identical open-source versions of popular paid apps will be widely available.
"Now you can just create 1:1 functional equivalents, clean room, that are highly performant and cross-platform. Nothing is stopping you," Thomas wrote. "We'll replace Google Search, we'll build our own smartphones, we'll build better infra. We'll remove all the ads and de-enshittify the entire tech world."
"Software is over," he declared, somewhat boldly. And hopefully cancellation fees.
Submission + - Margret Hamilton, Director Working on the Apollo Guidence Computer, Passes Away
BrendaEM writes: From Wikipedia: Margaret Hamilton (née Heafield; August 17, 1936 – September 30, 2026) was an American computer scientist. She directed the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, where she led the development of the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer for the Apollo program. She later founded two software companies, Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
https://arstechnica.com/scienc...
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