183323476
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The Paris Appeals Court found that both Air France and Airbus were "solely and entirely responsible" for the crash of Air France 447 over Atlantic Ocean which killed 228 people on June 1, 2009. The court overturned a lower court's April 2023 ruling which had cleared both companies. Both companies were fined the maximum of €225,000. While both companies blamed the cause of the accident on pilot error, prosecutors contend that poor training and failing to fix an known flaw led to the accident. In the accident analysis identified a root cause of the accident was pitot tubes which iced up during certain flying conditions. That icing caused erratic air speed readings fluctuating between low to supersonic within seconds of each other. Those conflicting readings led to a chain of confusing errors and warnings from the flight system including a stall warning. The plane was stalling however the flying pilot's (PF) attempted to climb out of a stall by pulling back actually caused the plane to stall into the ocean.
While not in the official report, a contributing factor noted by experts is the design of Airbus cockpits. One issue is the electronic fly-by-wire controls where the physical position of certain controls like the throttle does not match the input in the system. In this case, the autopilot had lowered the thrust output during flight, but it could not move the throttle position. The throttle position appeared that plane had more thrust than it did. In the Airbus cockpit, joysticks are used instead of a control yoke. The joysticks are symmetric in the layout of the cockpit in that the pilot on the left has the joystick on the left and the pilot on the right has their joystick on the right. The joysticks are also not linked to provide feedback to each other. The other pilot (pilot in command or PIC) could not know the PF was trying to climb unless he was looking directly at the PF's hands. The PIC realized the error too late to overcome the stall.
As for responsibility, Airbus had identified an icing problem on their Airbus 320 model planes and recommended those pitot tube be replaced as early as September 2007. Air France 447 was an Airbus 330, and Air France delayed replacing the pitot tubes until further recommendations. However, Air France themselves recorded had nine incidents between May 2008 and March 2009 on Airbus 330/340 planes where the pitot tubes failed due to icing conditions. Air France found six unreported incidents after the AF447 crash.
While the cockpit situation was confusing, crash investigators faulted the pilots for failing to follow procedures which would have been to first re-establish controls after the autopilot turned off. After the accident, pilot training now includes scenarios like AF447 where there is conflicting warnings. Also there was more emphasis placed on manually flying instead of relying on the autopilot.
183270949
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
A jury has found that Elon Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit and found in favor of OpenAI in the case of Musk v Altman. OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Musk and Altman. In 2019, OpenAI converted from a non-profit to for-profit model. Musk filed a lawsuit in 2024 claiming the conversion of OpenAI violated the agreements that had been made on the company’s founding. The jury deliberating for less than two hours found that Musk had exceeded the 3 year statute of limitations.
183142416
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Security researcher Tom Jøran Sønstebyseter Rønning has found that Microsoft Edge stores passwords in plain text in RAM. After creating a password and storing it using Edge's password manager, Rønning found that he could dump the RAM and recover his password which was stored in plain text. Part of the issue is Edge loads all passwords to all sites upon a single verification check even if the user was not visiting a specific site. This is very different from Chrome which only loads passwords for specific websites when challenged for the site's password. Also Chrome will delete the password from memory once the password has been filled. Edge does not delete the passwords from memory once they are used.
Microsoft downplayed the risk noting access would require control over a user's PC like a malware infection: “Access to browser data as described in the reported scenario would require the device to already be compromised,” Microsoft said. Rønning countered that it was possible to dump passwords for multiple users using administrative privileges for one user to view the passwords for other logged-on users.
183124958
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
On April 15, 2026, a Microsoft employee made a change to Visual Studio Code and pushed it within 8 hours without review, notification, or documentation. The change would add "Co-authored-by: Copilot " by default to the end of commit messages in Git if Copilot was used in creating the code. However, the implementation was bugged, and the message was added to every commit regardless if Copilot was used or disabled. Since this message was automatically added to the end of commit messages, users were not aware of it as the UI does not show this addition when making commits. The change as been reverted as of May 3, but not before 1.4 million commits were made. Unfortunately those messages cannot be cleansed and are permanent.
181102984
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The FCC has banned sales of any consumer grade routers manufactured overseas citing "security gaps in foreign-made routers to attack American households." Almost all brands are affected including Netgear, TP-Link, Asus, Amazon’s Eero, Google’s Nest, Synology, Linksys, and Ubiquiti. Existing inventories can still be sold until they run out. Manufacturers can apply for exemptions.
181040708
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Rapper Afroman, born Joseph Edgar Foreman, famous for his 2000 hit "Because I Got High", has won a defamation lawsuit that seven Ohio police offers filed against him. A jury found he did not defame the officers in music videos he made about a 2022 police raid of his home. In August 2022, Adams County Sheriff's Department raided Afroman's home on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping. Neither drugs nor kidnapping victims were found, and charges were never filed. However local officials would not pay for damages occurred during the raid including a broken front door and a video surveillance camera. Afroman used his home security footage of the raid to create music rap videos criticizing the police over the incident; "Will You Help Me Repair My Door?", "Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera?", and "Lemon Pound Cake". He posted the videos on YouTube.
In March 2023, seven officers filed a lawsuit against Afroman for invasion of privacy and the unauthorized use of their images from the security footage in addition to defamation claims. The officers requested an injunction for Afroman to stop speaking about them or using their photos. The officers also wanted all proceeds from the videos, song sales, performances, and merchandise claiming they had suffered “emotional distress” due to the videos. Afroman's defense included Freedom of Speech rights to criticize public officials. The ACLU filed an amicus brief supporting the rapper arguing that the lawsuit was a SLAPP suit only meant to silence criticism. In October 2023, the court agreed and dismissed the invasion of privacy, "right of publicity”, and “unauthorized use of individual’s persona” claims but allowed the defamation case to proceed.
Defamation claims by the officers included the allegation Afroman repeatedly had sex with the wife of Randolph L. Walters, Jr. When Afroman's lawyer asked Walters “But we all know that’s not true, right?”, the officer replied he did not know. Defamation from emotional damages requires that harm arise from a false statement; however, if a statement is so outrageous that no one would believe it to be true, then reputational damage cannot be a result.
181037448
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Users of Samsung PCs are reporting the inability to access the C: drive after the Windows 11 February update. The bug seems to be in connection with the Samsung Galaxy Connect app which allows Samsung phones and tablets to connect to Windows machines. This parody explains the situation with humor.
179164826
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The much anticipated sequel to Hollow Knight, Silksong was released on September 4 on all major platforms. All online stores crashed as they struggled with the demand. Part of the demand was the 6 year wait for the sequel and the low price of $20 in the US with variable regional pricing. At 5.2M wishes, it was the most wish listed game on Steam. In Brazil, the local price was 74.95 Brazil Real or 13.94 USD.
In the age of $70+ AAA games with additional costs, not everyone celebrated the consumer friendly price. Some independent game developers have expressed concern that their games may not sell as well compared to Silksong and cannot afford to charge less. Other developers delayed their release dates due to Silksong.
178362108
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
India's Air Accident Investigation Bureau (IAAIB) has released their preliminary report of the June 12, 2025 crash of Air India Flight 171 during takeoff. The 15 page reports notes that the fuel supply to both engines were stopped during takeoff when the fuel switches were flipped from "RUN" to "CUTOFF" position. The flip would turn off the engines.
Heard on the voice recorder, one pilot asked the other why the other pilot "cutoff" the engines. The other pilot responded he did not. Aviation experts have said normally it is difficult to accidentally turn these switches to the "cutoff" position. While the switches were flipped backed to "RUN", the engines require some time to reignite and restart. The 787-8 plane crashed when the engines did not provide adequate power in time.
The report acknowledges that the FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) on December 2018 regarding these fuel switches on Boeing planes. SAIB NM-18-33 advised operators of Boeing planes to check their fuel switches as some had been installed with the locking feature disabled. The locking feature was intended to prevent accidentally flipping as it required the pilot to lift up the switch (pull on it) then flip it.. The bulletin advises operators to replace switches if faulty. The report does not detail if Air India inspected the switches on this plane.
Other notes: Last major maintenance on the plane occurred at 38504 hours with the plane recording 41868 hours at the time of the crash. The next scheduled maintenance was due in December 2025. The landing gear controls was still in the down position as the pilots had not yet retracted them. The Ram Air Turbine deployed and started automatically.
Summarized timeline of events: (UTC)
- 08:07:33 Take-off clearance issued
- 08:08:33 V1 (decision speed) at 153 knots reached
- 08:08:35 VR (rotational/liftoff speed) at 155 knots reached
- 08:08:39 Plane/sensors switch to Air mode (liftoff)
- 08:08:42 Max speed 180 knots
- 08:08:42 Engine 1 fuel switch flips to CUTOFF
- 08:08:43 Engine 2 fuel switch flips to CUTOFF
- (unknown timestamp) Pilot asks other pilot about the switches being flipped
- 08:08:52 Engine 1 fuel switch flipped back to RUN
- 08:08:56 Engine 2 fuel switch flipped back to RUN
- 08:09:05 Pilots transmit "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY"
- 08:09:11 black box recordings stop
178067109
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
A new documentary released last week on Netflix goes into detail about events leading up to the destruction of OceanGate's submersible, Titan that imploded on June 18, 2023 while attempting to visit the wreckage of the RMS Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland. The Titan used a carbon-fiber hull instead of more traditional materials like steel or titanium.
Through exclusive access to whistleblower testimony, pivotal audio recordings, and footage from the company’s early days, the film provides an unprecedented look at the technical challenges, moral dilemmas, and shockingly poor decisions that culminated in the catastrophic expedition.
Some highlights:
- Titan's original carbon-fiber hull had been replaced with a second carbon-fiber one after the first one developed noticeable cracks.
- Three scale models of the second hull failed tests. OceanGate decided to manufacture the second hull regardless of these failures.
- Loud pops were heard in many dives; CEO Stockton Rush dismissed these as "seasoning".
- Many employees raised numerous safety concerns. They were fired like lead pilot and head of marine operations, David Lochridge. Or they quit.
- Some employees like Emily Hammermeister wanted to quit earlier, but external conditions like the COVID pandemic made it difficult. After the scale models failed, she refused to bolt anyone in the future submersible. She was given the two options of being fired or quit; she quit in the middle of the pandemic.
- Rush's blindness to inconvenient facts: After the crack was discovered, Rush questioned Director of Engineering, Tony Nissen, about why Nissen did not anticipate the possibility of a crack. Nissen: "I wrote you a report that showed you it was there." Nissen had warned repeatedly that the hull's fibers were breaking (the pops) with each dive. Rush: "Well, one of us has to go."
- Poor decisions by Rush extended beyond engineering decisions. After Rush fired Lochridge for raising safety concerns , Rush wanted Bonnie Carl, the company's accountant, to be his replacement pilot. While Carl was an experienced scuba diver, she quit as she was extremely uncomfortable being a pilot. Her explanation: "Are you nuts? I'm an accountant."
176697881
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Gamer's Nexus performed tests on the effect of removing legacy PhysX on the newest generation of NVidia cards with older games, and the results are not good. With PhysX on, the latest generation NVidia was slightly beaten by a GTX 580 (released 2010) on some games and handily beaten by a GTX 980 (2014) on some games.
With the launch of the 5000 series, NVidia dropped 32-bit CUDA support going forward. Part of that change was dropping support for 32-bit PhysX. As a result older titles that used it would perform poorly with 5000 series cards as it would default to CPU for calculations. Even the latest CPUs do not perform as well as 15 year old GPUs when it comes to PhysX.
The best performance on the 5080 was to turn PhysX off however that would remove many effects like smoke, breaking glass, and rubble from scenes. The second best option was to pair a 5000 series with an older card like a 980 to just handle the PhysX computations.
176350357
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed top Path of Exile player, has tweeted his claims of fraud with the Social Security Administration records. Among his claims "cursory examination of Social Security showed people in there that are about 150 years old" and "just learned that the social security database is not de-duplicated, meaning you can have the same SSN many times over". His first claim is regarding the fact that there are 18.9M individuals in the database who were born before 1920 but not marked as dead. These are "vampires" according to Musk who are receiving benefits. The actual explanation is that the SSA has never received proof of death to flag these individual as dead. Especially who died before the digital age, these individuals' death records may not exist. Being marked as alive in the database; however, does not mean that these individuals are receiving benefits.
An audit in 2015 found that exactly 266 individuals over the age of 112 were receiving benefits. Of those 253 were found to be not actually over 112 with only 13 individuals recorded with the correct age. Social Security benefits however terminate at age 115.
As for his second claim of duplicate SSNs, without further context, it is difficult to assert that duplicate SSNs in a database is even a problem. For some types of data like contribution and payment records, duplicate SSNs is normal as one should expect multiple records can exist for one unique SSN.
175227805
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The Supreme Court rejected the case of Martin Shkreli (Federal Trade Commission et al v. Martin Shkreli) without comment. Known as "Pharma Bro", Shkreli is infamous for raising the price of Daraprim, a life-saving drug used to treat toxoplasmosis for decades, from between $13.50 and $17.50 to $750 back in 2015. The FTC joined with seven states sued for antitrust claims including illegal anticompetitive grounds. In January 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote ruled in the FTC's favor and ordered a fine of $64.6 million in disgorgement from Shkreli. An appeals court agreed in January 2024, and Shkreli appealed to the Supreme Court. Shkreli argued that the disgorgement fine was unjust as it was his company that raised the prices and not him even though he was founder and owner of the company.
This is the second rejection by the Supreme Court as they previously rejected his appeal of his securities fraud conviction in 2017. In that case Shkreli was convicted of running a ponzi like scheme at his former company, MSMB Capital Management and Retrophin. He was ordered to surrender $7.36 million in that case and agreed to forfeit the WuTang album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin as part of that case. The album is a one of a kind 31-track CD that included a 174 page leather-bound book with lyrics and background.
This is not the last of legal troubles for Shkreli as he is being currently sued by PleasrDAO, a digital art collective who purchased the album in 2021. Shkreli purchased the album in November 2015 for $2 million with the agreement that that it could not be commercially sold until 2103. However, Shkreli made backup digital copies and has threatened to publicly release the album. Federal Judge Judge Pamela K. Chen granted PleasrDAO's preliminary injunction that Shkreli turn over all copies. Shkreli argued he was not obliged to turn over all copies to prosecutors but only the physical copy back in 2017.
175208329
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
The Supreme Court turned down without comment an appeal by X (formerly Twitter) over a subpoena of Trump's messages and metadata on the platform. Special counsel Jack Smith sent a search warrant to Twitter for all messages and metadata of the former President regarding his private account. Fearing destruction of evidence, one condition of the subpoena was that Trump was not to be told about the search. Twitter challenged the subpoena arguing that it was their First Amendment right to tell the former President about the investigation as well as Trump's private account could be considered Executive Privilege.
The DC Court rejected Twitter's challenge and also fined them $350,000 for contempt of court in failing to respond to the subpoena in a timely manner. Higher courts agreed with the lower court on the rejection and the fine. The subpoena was disclosed after Trump was charged with felonies last summer. Twitter appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. While SCOTUS did not indicate why they rejected the appeal, it was likely because any appeal was moot since the subpoena had already been disclosed to Trump.
174477885
submission
UnknowingFool writes:
Upon hearing the issues with Intel 13th and 14th Gen Core i9 processors crashing during games, Level 1 Techs did some investigation on their own and found the problem might be more widespread than just limited to gamers pushing their computers. Wendell from Level 1 Techs posted a video of their investigation and analysis. Combing through different crash report data, what they have found is that Intel 13900K and 14900K processors have a much higher incidence of crashes than comparable AMD CPUs or even Intel's own 12900K. While initially a factor was believed to be gamers overclocking their CPUs for games, their analysis shows that is not the only population that is affected and that the problem is not solved by removing the overclocking settings.
Initially it was believed the problem was some gamers were overclocking their CPUs and pushing performance beyond recommended settings. Level 1 Techs found that there are a significant number of crashes when 13900K and 14900K CPUs are used in datacenter servers. In a server environment, settings are conservative to favor stability over performance, and server hardware like motherboards (W680) and ECC memory have no options to overclock. The crash problem is pronounced enough that at least one datacenter service provider is charging premium support for those two CPU generations as they have replaced many Intel CPUs. That provider is strongly recommending that their customers switch to AMD's 7950x platform instead.
Additionally, Level 1 Techs have found that recommended changes like lowering settings like in the BIOS only helps somewhat but does not solve the problem. The initial culprit was thought to be motherboard manufacturers that pushed their BIOS settings too far and that reverting to more conservative settings would solve the problem. As datacenters run both Windows and Linux, the problem could not be attributed to OS settings or code. One subset of servers that used single DIMM configuration had slightly better stability than those that used dual DIMM configuration.
In testing their own machines, Level 1 Techs found that the crashes were random even when running the latest BIOS. Sometimes a specific test in a suite would fail but on the next attempt would pass yet another test in the suite would fail. Lowering memory speed and disabling the E-cores also did not solve the problem. Replacing the CPU appears to be the only way to solve the problem at the moment and that solution may be temporary as the replacement CPU may need to be replaced in the future.
