Comment Pick a damn standard, you say? (Score 1) 85
Um, okay.
Comment The Sinclair telephone ... (Score 2) 85
... will be this but priced at $99.
Comment Re:Brand necrophilia at its worst (Score 2) 85
there are people who don't have any emotional investment in Commodore
People who are too young to have used a Commodore or who were adults when it came out and who never had one at home, university, or work come to mind.
But yeah just about any American who was school-aged between the late 1970s and the late 1980s probably used a Commodore computer or gaming system somewhere. Throw in the Amiga users, K-12 teachers, and it's a whole lot of people.
Comment Corner case indeed (Score 1) 1
making Usenet's remaining worthwhile discussion corners
"Usenet's remaining worthwhile discussions" has been a corner case for well over a decade now.
Submission + - College Students Are Rapidly Losing the Ability to Read (futurism.com)
schwit1 writes: In a new essay for The Chronicle Higher Education , university-level literature and writing instructor Tyler Jagt recalls how not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20-page article, something that he had read "without complaint" as an undergraduate a decade ago.
One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone.
Jagt cites the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment results released last year. It showed that 12th grade reading scores were at the lowest level since the assessment began in 1992. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's "basic" level in reading, meaning they likely "cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text." Younger children aren't better off: a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 70 percent of fourth graders, or around two million kids, can't read at a proficient level.
"What I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch," Jagt writes. "There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires."
Pupils arriving unable to read is an increasingly common complaint from college-level educators amid the explosion of generative AI. Many students treat AI as a genuine learning tool — perhaps to summarize a lengthy article they can't understand, for example — becoming reliant on its speedy responses to race through coursework.
More flagrantly detrimental to learning, plenty more use the tech to generate entire essays and solve math problems — or, in a word, cheat. That many universities have partnered with tech companies to provide students with access to their shiny AI models has only served to rubber stamp and accelerate the tech's adoption in the classroom, marooning individual instructors to figure out how to work around AI on their own.
One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone.
Jagt cites the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment results released last year. It showed that 12th grade reading scores were at the lowest level since the assessment began in 1992. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's "basic" level in reading, meaning they likely "cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text." Younger children aren't better off: a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 70 percent of fourth graders, or around two million kids, can't read at a proficient level.
"What I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch," Jagt writes. "There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires."
Pupils arriving unable to read is an increasingly common complaint from college-level educators amid the explosion of generative AI. Many students treat AI as a genuine learning tool — perhaps to summarize a lengthy article they can't understand, for example — becoming reliant on its speedy responses to race through coursework.
More flagrantly detrimental to learning, plenty more use the tech to generate entire essays and solve math problems — or, in a word, cheat. That many universities have partnered with tech companies to provide students with access to their shiny AI models has only served to rubber stamp and accelerate the tech's adoption in the classroom, marooning individual instructors to figure out how to work around AI on their own.
Comment Temporary workaround (Score 1) 120
On phone unlock and frequently thereafter, have the user prove they are over 18.
If they can't or won't, then the phone reverts to "text only" mode, where the only images you see are those provided by the OS or compiled in the apps. Web sites load with placeholder images. Images stored in the camera roll and in the SMS app are replaced with placeholders. The camera is turned off. You get the idea.
I call it a "temporary workaround" because ideally it will result in a political compromise.
Comment Re: Wait, what? (Score 1) 105
Are you people really that brainwashed, to the point where all you can do is do the "fuck AI companies" kneejerk, without any shred of rational thought?
It has nothing to do with "AI" at least for me. It has to do with being good corporate citizens. I'd make the same arguments if an aluminum smelter or other heavy-electricity-user was causing grid problems by suddenly turning the power demand from very high to very low in ways that are known to harm the grid when there are commercially available, economically feasible ways to ramp power up and down without hurting the grid.
Comment Yes, in part Re: Wait, what? (Score 1) 105
While the grid operator has the primary responsibility to care for the grid, all users have a responsibility to "play nice" with the grid and not do things that are known to be harmful to it.
It's reasonable for the grid operator to say "99.x% of the time we will be operating within y% of specifications, see that you behave well when we are operating within these specifications. When you do disconnect and reconnect, see that do do so in a manner that is no more harmful than throwing a switch (e.g. limit rushes of current)."
The problem with the data centers is they are disconnecting and reconnecting in ways that harm the grid even when the grid is operating within the specifications provided by the grid operator.
Going from using 100MW to using less than 1MW (or zero) in less than 1 second is going to harm the network. It's reasonable for the grid operator to tell you that you as a matter of contract that you are only allowed to do that if 1) you have a bona fide emergency, or 2) the grid itself is operating outside of specifications. Instead of going to zero in less than 1 second, it's reasonable for you to be required to ramp usage down slowly, in a manner that does not harm the grid.
Comment Re:many smaller less-obtrusive may be better for a (Score 1) 105
There will no doubt be anti-theft/anti-tampering measures in place.
My hope is that if someone opens the case without the right key a stink bomb explodes on them.
More realistically, there will be technical measures in place to make the computer hardware useless to thieves. Once word gets around there won't be any incentive to steal them.
Comment Re:Wait, what? (Score 3, Informative) 105
How will the UPS help the grid if the data centers suddenly cut their connection, e.g. stop drawing power?
The issue is that the disconnections happen when grid power quality drops below acceptable levels.
A poor-power-quality-tolerant UPS doesn't have to be disconnected from the grid when the power quality dips.
Therefore such sudden cutoffs would be much rarer.
Comment many smaller less-obtrusive may be better for all (Score 1) 105
The biggest complains from huge data centers are noise, traffic, water use, and power use/impact on the grid, without the economic benefits that a large-energy-using factory would typically bring.
Depending on location, a bunch of smaller complexes spread over hundreds of square miles vs. one big one might have tolerable noise and traffic levels, particularly if they are in non-residential areas. If you can get the data center down to under, a few thousand square feet, you can literally disguise it as a house.
Water is becoming a non-issue with closed-loop systems.
Electricity is still an issue. On-site power-generation/storage can mitigate this. This is one area where a single big complex may be better than a bunch of smaller complexes.
As a sidebar: Data centers do bring in some economic benefits, the most obvious one being through taxes paid (assuming the companies didn't get any sweetheart deals to avoid taxes). But after construction is complete they don't have the ongoing payroll/head-count that a big factory has.
Comment Re:I can hear it now (Score 0) 105
Comment deca-megawatt-or-bigger, not deci (Score 1) 105
Sorry. I need decaounces of caffeinated liquid.
Comment Wait, what? (Score 4, Interesting) 105
data centers are engineered to cut their connection to the grid at the first sign of trouble to protect their equipment and keep services running.
You are building a billion-dollar data center and you aren't putting routine-but-poor-power-quality-tolerant power-conditioning uninterruptible power supplies between the grid and your sensitive equipment???
Besides, if you are going to build a deci-megawatt-or-bigger power consuming complex, it would help the grid out if you put some grid-scale-batteries and a large amount of always-on local power generation on-site, as some data center complexes and other heavy-industry-consumers are already doing.
Comment Update: It looks like they are planning for power (Score 1) 25
According to this promotional web site it looks like they are planning to self-power.
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