Comment switching to sign language (Score 1) 28
Between microphones and acoustic fiber optics, it's getting so that concerned citizens can no longer talk about their concerns.
Comment I hope my phone arrives soon (Score 1) 55
I would like my new Trump Phone before the economy crashes. But luckily we have more than six weeks before we have to worry about any serious issues with our economy.
Comment But the mind of robot is fully empty! (Score 1) 32
That's supposed to be the perfect state for Buddhist meditation and the path to true zen.
(But what's AC's excuse for possibly living that way? Or just another AI sock puppet?)
(And of course I'm reading another book on the topic. Oh wait, I see there are two of them. Maybe three?)
Comment Re:public can draw their own conclusions (Score 1) 68
No Epstein anywhere, I gather.
So you don't believe Epstein was an alien, eh? No one's told you about the REAL conspiracy?
I think you should have been modified Funny rather than insightful. Even funnier with some tail-wagging-dog angle about the let's-not-call-it a war in Iran.
Comment Look over here! No, here! Wait, it's over here! (Score 1) 68
Got me to look at AC. Unthanks, even if there might have been an atom of substance in there somewhere. Feeding the sock puppets and trolls is one of those tricks that never works.
(Like solutions that will never happen because Slashdot lacks a financial model that can support improvements, be they ever so evolutionary. Increasingly clear to me that part of the website I am looking for would involve a different kind of financial model... Slashdot is just one of those ancient portable nuisance things?)
Now to look for the obvious joke about the distractive motivation...
Comment Release the AI virtual flying chaos monkeys! (Score 1) 42
How do you complain about dupe without saying dupe (or duplicate)? Citing FP and this thread. But at least FP got a Funny, even if'n I can't understand why.
But is it possible that some serious topics will evolve and develop in ways that justify discussions that extend longer than the one-day lifetime of a Slashdot story? Naw, that can't possibly be it.
Of course I shall now diverge. This time I'm wondering about the source of this vulnerability. So far I haven't spotted any insight into causes here on ye ancient Slashdot of olde. And I think I'd be at risk of a heart attack if I saw something that might be a constructive solution here.
So what's the Subject about? I'm wondering how many of the recent vulnerabilities were discovered with AI tools, perhaps virtually flying swarms of virtual chaos monkeys over and through the code and systems.
(You'll probably be relieved to know that there is no real relationship to the book Chaos Monkeys by Antonio Martinez, where the term is just used to justify a cute drawing of a monkey on the cover. That and the eye-catching orange cover must explain the claim of "bestseller" since the real pitch should be "Facebook" which is barely mentioned on the back cover. Mostly reading it for the yuks and yucks.)
Submission + - MAGAs Are Fuming After Email Confirms They Will Never Get Their $500 Trump Phone (ibtimes.co.uk)
ArchieBunker writes: Nearly 600,000 Trump supporters paid £74 ($100) each towards a gold smartphone that, nearly a year on, does not exist.
The Trump Mobile T1 phone was announced in June 2025 by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as a patriotic alternative to Apple and Samsung, retailing at £370 ($499) and promising a 'Made in the USA' build.
An estimated 590,000 buyers paid a £74 ($100) deposit to secure one, collectively handing the venture roughly £43.7 million ($59 million). As of May 2026, not a single confirmed customer has received the device. Now, a fresh wave of anger is spreading across MAGA forums after buyers received communication making clear that their money is, for all practical purposes, gone.
Trump Mobile launched on 16 June 2025 at an announcement at Trump Tower, headlined by the president's two eldest sons and timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign launch. The T1 was marketed as a gold-coloured Android handset bearing an American flag on its back and bundled with a monthly service plan at £37.50 ($47.45) per month. Initial delivery was promised for late summer 2025.
That deadline slipped to November 2025, then December, then the first quarter of 2026. A mid-March 2026 T-Mobile carrier certification deadline also passed without resolution. By April 2026, Trump Mobile quietly redesigned its website, removing the release date entirely rather than replacing it with a new one.
NBC News, which placed its own £74 ($100) deposit in August 2025 to track the story, called Trump Mobile's support line five times between September and November 2025 and received inconsistent answers each time. A representative said in October that the phone would ship on 13 November, but it did not.
In January 2026, a call centre operator said the T1 was 'in the final stages of certification and field testing,' with a ship date 'sometime in Q1 2026.' That quarter has now passed. At one point, customer service representatives blamed a 43-day federal government shutdown for the delay, an explanation analysts quickly dismissed as irrelevant to a private-sector hardware company.
The clearest signal yet that buyers may never see either a phone or their money came with a revised terms of service published on 6 April 2026. The updated document states explicitly that paying a deposit 'does not constitute a completed purchase and does not create a binding legal contract.' The payment is described as 'a conditional opportunity to buy the device if Trump Mobile eventually chooses to sell it,' with the company retaining all control over whether a phone is produced at all.
The terms confirm that deposits will not accrue interest, are non-transferable and carry no independent cash value. Buyers who wish to cancel must submit a request through customer support before any final sale is completed. If Trump Mobile cancels the project outright, it says it will issue refunds of the original deposit amount. The fine print adds, however, that the company bears no liability for delays caused by 'parts shortages or hold-ups with regulators,' and that buyers waive any right to pursue claims beyond the original deposit figure.
Investigative journalist Joseph Cox of 404 Media, who attempted to place a deposit when pre-orders opened, found the process immediately chaotic. His card was charged the wrong amount, no shipping address was ever collected, and a confirmation email arrived promising delivery notifications that never came. Cox called it 'the worst experience I've ever faced buying a consumer electronic product.' He subsequently reported unauthorised recurring charges being levied against customers' cards.
Android Authority, which placed its own deposit in 2025 and has tracked the story since, wrote in January 2026 that it fully expected to 'never get a phone' and 'never see the $100 deposit again.'
The T1 was sold from day one on the strength of a single, politically loaded promise: it would be built in America. Within days of the June 2025 launch, that language vanished from the Trump Mobile website. 'MADE IN THE USA' became 'American-proud design,' then 'Brought to life right here in the USA,' language that supply chain experts noted was legally and commercially meaningless.
By February 2026, company executives confirmed to reporters that the T1 would not be manufactured in the United States. Final assembly of roughly the last ten components would take place in Miami, while bulk production would happen overseas. In the meantime, Trump Mobile began selling refurbished iPhones, made in China, and Samsung devices, made by a South Korean company, under the same 'American' branding umbrella.
In January 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren and ten other Democratic lawmakers wrote formally to the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate 'bait-and-switch tactics involving deposits for products never delivered' and to determine whether Trump Mobile's 'Made in the USA' advertising constituted false claims. The letter, co-led by Representative Robert Garcia of California, also asked the FTC to confirm whether the White House had communicated with the agency about the venture. 'The American people deserve to know that consumer protection laws apply equally to all businesses, regardless of political connections,' the lawmakers wrote.
As of May 2026, the FTC has not publicly confirmed whether a formal investigation has been opened. Trump Mobile has not responded to multiple press inquiries. California Governor Gavin Newsom's office weighed in publicly, describing the T1 project as appearing to be 'FRAUD.'
For nearly 600,000 Americans who trusted a brand built on the Trump name, the gold phone has become the latest entry in a long record of ventures that took their money and delivered nothing.
The Trump Mobile T1 phone was announced in June 2025 by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump as a patriotic alternative to Apple and Samsung, retailing at £370 ($499) and promising a 'Made in the USA' build.
An estimated 590,000 buyers paid a £74 ($100) deposit to secure one, collectively handing the venture roughly £43.7 million ($59 million). As of May 2026, not a single confirmed customer has received the device. Now, a fresh wave of anger is spreading across MAGA forums after buyers received communication making clear that their money is, for all practical purposes, gone.
Trump Mobile launched on 16 June 2025 at an announcement at Trump Tower, headlined by the president's two eldest sons and timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign launch. The T1 was marketed as a gold-coloured Android handset bearing an American flag on its back and bundled with a monthly service plan at £37.50 ($47.45) per month. Initial delivery was promised for late summer 2025.
That deadline slipped to November 2025, then December, then the first quarter of 2026. A mid-March 2026 T-Mobile carrier certification deadline also passed without resolution. By April 2026, Trump Mobile quietly redesigned its website, removing the release date entirely rather than replacing it with a new one.
NBC News, which placed its own £74 ($100) deposit in August 2025 to track the story, called Trump Mobile's support line five times between September and November 2025 and received inconsistent answers each time. A representative said in October that the phone would ship on 13 November, but it did not.
In January 2026, a call centre operator said the T1 was 'in the final stages of certification and field testing,' with a ship date 'sometime in Q1 2026.' That quarter has now passed. At one point, customer service representatives blamed a 43-day federal government shutdown for the delay, an explanation analysts quickly dismissed as irrelevant to a private-sector hardware company.
The clearest signal yet that buyers may never see either a phone or their money came with a revised terms of service published on 6 April 2026. The updated document states explicitly that paying a deposit 'does not constitute a completed purchase and does not create a binding legal contract.' The payment is described as 'a conditional opportunity to buy the device if Trump Mobile eventually chooses to sell it,' with the company retaining all control over whether a phone is produced at all.
The terms confirm that deposits will not accrue interest, are non-transferable and carry no independent cash value. Buyers who wish to cancel must submit a request through customer support before any final sale is completed. If Trump Mobile cancels the project outright, it says it will issue refunds of the original deposit amount. The fine print adds, however, that the company bears no liability for delays caused by 'parts shortages or hold-ups with regulators,' and that buyers waive any right to pursue claims beyond the original deposit figure.
Investigative journalist Joseph Cox of 404 Media, who attempted to place a deposit when pre-orders opened, found the process immediately chaotic. His card was charged the wrong amount, no shipping address was ever collected, and a confirmation email arrived promising delivery notifications that never came. Cox called it 'the worst experience I've ever faced buying a consumer electronic product.' He subsequently reported unauthorised recurring charges being levied against customers' cards.
Android Authority, which placed its own deposit in 2025 and has tracked the story since, wrote in January 2026 that it fully expected to 'never get a phone' and 'never see the $100 deposit again.'
The T1 was sold from day one on the strength of a single, politically loaded promise: it would be built in America. Within days of the June 2025 launch, that language vanished from the Trump Mobile website. 'MADE IN THE USA' became 'American-proud design,' then 'Brought to life right here in the USA,' language that supply chain experts noted was legally and commercially meaningless.
By February 2026, company executives confirmed to reporters that the T1 would not be manufactured in the United States. Final assembly of roughly the last ten components would take place in Miami, while bulk production would happen overseas. In the meantime, Trump Mobile began selling refurbished iPhones, made in China, and Samsung devices, made by a South Korean company, under the same 'American' branding umbrella.
In January 2026, Senator Elizabeth Warren and ten other Democratic lawmakers wrote formally to the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate 'bait-and-switch tactics involving deposits for products never delivered' and to determine whether Trump Mobile's 'Made in the USA' advertising constituted false claims. The letter, co-led by Representative Robert Garcia of California, also asked the FTC to confirm whether the White House had communicated with the agency about the venture. 'The American people deserve to know that consumer protection laws apply equally to all businesses, regardless of political connections,' the lawmakers wrote.
As of May 2026, the FTC has not publicly confirmed whether a formal investigation has been opened. Trump Mobile has not responded to multiple press inquiries. California Governor Gavin Newsom's office weighed in publicly, describing the T1 project as appearing to be 'FRAUD.'
For nearly 600,000 Americans who trusted a brand built on the Trump name, the gold phone has become the latest entry in a long record of ventures that took their money and delivered nothing.
Comment Re:2TB SSD (Score 1) 67
Macroeconomic theory was surprisingly deficient in the mid-century Soviet Union, or rather someone there took Marx's surplus value theory to the logical extreme, while ignoring all other research on the subject. But hey, not the first time people slavishly follow a single source material to their detriment. (most religions are the same way)
Comment Billionaire class will tell us what to do (Score 1) 67
I'm sure the Billionaire class will tell us normal people what to do. We put them on a pedestal, put them in office, or let them buy our votes in elections.
And you're a Marxist if you aren't on board with allowing our innovative captains of industry to steer this country, no this entire world, to greater heights.
Note: Crucial P310 2TB SSD is under $250.
Submission + - Is it a 4th Amendment violation when Dropbox shares your data with governments?
schwit1 writes: Is it a Fourth Amendment violation when Dropbox shared information about a user's child porn with a quasi-governmental entity? This breezy Seventh Circuit opinion entrenches a circuit split by holding that the fine print in all the online terms of service you never read means you've consented to gov't searches of your electronic files. Some folks (and not just your humble summarist) are skeptical.
Decided May 5.
Decided May 5.
Comment AI gate keepers (Score 2) 69
2025 is the year that personal computing is no longer personal.
You are not going to be permitted to handle your own affairs offline. Everything as a service because AI will be in everything and the equipment must be in the cloud. Average consumers and gamers cannot compete with trillions in hype investment. All you can do is wait for the bubble to pop, and hope your retirement or national economy is not popped with it.
Comment Re: Opinion leader of a mob of idiots? (Score 1) 383
So I now see that I was mistaken to think I was mistaken and therefore mistaken in thanking you [Mean Variance]. The spelling error came from the "reply" that already earned the NAK.
Comment Re: Opinion leader of a mob of idiots? (Score 1) 383
Thanks for calling the typo to my attention. Seems to be the sort that should have been caught by the spelling checker, so either I was in a flippant mood or a hurry.
Curious that Slashdot didn't call this discussion to my attention. Only comment I saw was the one that I gave the NAK to.
However other replies don't merit much more of a substantive response. Obviously I was treating the distribution of intelligence as normal and it appears that Slashdot has become an abnormal environment. Along with most of the Internet?
Perhaps another memory glitch, but I think there was a time when that could have earned a Funny mod.
Comment Re:What A Whiny Little Bitch (Score 1) 145
Mod parent funny.
Also funny that I don't really blame the google for going all EVIL on us? If the once-proud google doesn't grow like a cancer then they will get eaten by a bigger and meaner corporate cancer. Small honest profits are no excuse and no defense against a suitably leveraged buyout.
Submission + - Is this the beginning of the end for "Small Teams Agile" ?
cellocgw writes: Hiding inside another layoff report, https://www.bostonglobe.com/20... Fidelity is reorganizing , "The changes are aimed at moving the teams away from an âagileâ(TM) makeup â" comprising smaller, siloed squads â" and toward larger teams built to move faster on projects"
OMG , as they say, "Sudden outbreak of common sense."
OMG , as they say, "Sudden outbreak of common sense."
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