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Submission + - EPA to Kill Off Stop-Start Systems (caranddriver.com)

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

Out of all of the features that come installed in modern vehicles, automatic stop-start technology ranks right near the bottom of the list for most buyers. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin has been open about his disdain for the ostensibly fuel-saving setup, going as far as to say he would eliminate it.

I absolutely hate Start-Stop systems, specifically shopped for a car without one. More so, the only reason it exists is because having it produced mileage credit. Yes, not the actual gas savings, but a credit on a test. In actual use, the start-stop system does not produce measurable fuel savings. This is because in circumstances where people actual idle — warmup in the winter, AC when waiting in the car in the extreme heat, etc. this system would not be active.

Submission + - Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after nearly 90 years (usatoday.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Gallup will soon no longer measure presidential approval, the analytics firm confirmed on Feb. 11.

Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the Washington, DC-based management company began tracking the president's job performance 88 years ago. A statistician and founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion, Gallup first sent pollsters across the United States during the Depression era to ask people whether they approved or disapproved of how the nation's commander-in-chief was handling his job.

Starting in 2026, the firm told USA TODAY, Gallup will no longer publish "favorability ratings of political figures," a decision it said "reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership."

The change is part of "a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission," the company wrote. Gallup said the ratings are now "widely produced, aggregated and interpreted, and no longer represent an area where Gallup can make its most distinctive contribution." The company wrote: "Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Submission + - Apple rug-pulls security update 18.7.5 to force users onto 26.3 (apple.com)

Submitted by sinkskinkshrieks
sinkskinkshrieks writes: In a premature surprise where 2 major versions of OSes were traditionally supported until the autumn refresh, Apple unilaterally, quietly stopped supporting 18.7.4 and later on devices such as iPad Pro (M4) and (M5). This is because users hate macOS/iOS/iPadOS 26 redesign that breaks performance, usability, and functionality and Apple is forcing a Hobson's choice on users to pick between security and usability.

Comment I get it (Score 1) 54

by Wolfrider (#65959770) Attached to: DuckDuckGo Users Vote Overwhelmingly Against AI Features

I'm not a fan of "AI" in general, but it has its uses.

Brave search supplemented with AI has proven helpful to me in 90%+ of cases.

However, anyone smart enough to default to DDG is smart enough to want a choice of NO AI in their search results.

Pretty much everyone else just defaults to Google search, and gets spied on.

I've taken to running a small ollama model locally under proxmox. It's actually rather interesting to talk to. But it still hallucinates when I ask it to write a short bash script to keep only the last 30 days of APFS snapshots.

I think the current LLM is an evolutionary dead-end. Maybe quantum-based AI will do better eventually.

Comment Re:But (Score 1) 88

> MS can no longer be trusted. With anything.

This has been the case for years. The last MS OS that was usable/fast / somewhat trustable was Win7 Pro, and it's been EOL for some years now.

Everything after it is just boiling the frog.

It's astonishing to me that people have put up with the outright abuse for so long, the end of the line for the masses was only reached when Win10 went EOL - and the egregious hardware requirements for the broken Win11 spyware shitshow were too much. That's what really sparked interest in a Linux desktop.

Comment Powershell makes my head ache (Score 1) 32

by Wolfrider (#65959464) Attached to: PowerShell Architect Retires After Decades At the Prompt

Don't get me wrong, a few years ago I learned it from the ground up with a book and was able to parallelize several scripts and get their runtime down a good deal.

But the language itself is so Godawful quirky, you can get really strange results just trying to parse a string. It has potential, but I hope to never have to work with it again.

Powershell: Invented by a madman, and maintained by lunatics

Submission + - The plans to turn Europe into a new superpower (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland have exposed Europe’s weakness. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is waging war on its eastern flank. China’s Xi Jinping is a relentless competitor.

In a brutal new age of world powers, the EU wants to build a bigger, richer, stronger “super Europe” that is able to resist the dangerous whims of the globe’s autocrats.

Turning 27 quarrelsome small and middle-sized powers into a geopolitical heavyweight has been Emmanuel Macron’s largely unheeded call ever since the US president’s first term.

“Let’s take a step back and realise we live in a world where the leader of the free world is willing to upend the Western alliance over something he sees on Fox News,” one EU diplomat said.

Submission + - Tech Workers Versus Enshittification

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Writing for the Communications of the ACM, Corey Doctorow makes the case for unionization in Tech Workers Versus Enshittification:

"Now that tech workers are as disposable as Amazon warehouse workers and drivers, as disposable as the factory workers in iPhone City, it’s only a matter of time until the job conditions are harmonized downward. Jeff Bezos doesn’t force his delivery drivers to relieve themselves in bottles because he hates delivery drivers. Jeff Bezos doesn’t allow his coders to use a restroom whenever they need to because he loves hackers. The factor that determines how Jeff Bezos treats workers is 'What is the worst treatment those workers can be forced to accept?'"

"Throughout the entire history of human civilization, there has only ever been one way to guarantee fair wages and decent conditions for workers: unions. Even non-union workers benefit from unions, because strong unions are the force that causes labor protection laws to be passed, which protect all workers. [...] Now is the time to get organized. Your boss has made it clear how you’d be treated if they had their way. They’re about to get it. Walking a picket line is a slog, to be sure, but picket lines beat piss bottles, hands down."

Submission + - Google getting rid of URL shortener. If you depend on it, sucks to be you. (googleblog.com)

Submitted by davecotter
davecotter writes: So Google’s staring at its old goo.gl links and thinking, “Why is this perfectly functioning service still even a thing?” After many businesses and users adopted it like it was the second coming of the way-too-long hyperlink, Google’s now decided to yank the plug. Starting August 23, 2024, you’ll get a flashy “don’t say we didn’t warn you” pop-up, and by August 25, 2025, goo.gl links (unless made by Google itself) will vanish into the 404 abyss.

Translation: Thanks for trusting us—now pack up and find a new shortener.

Submission + - Apple quietly launches Container on GitHub to bring Linux development to macOS i (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called Container, offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system.

Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesnâ(TM)t use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up. That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.

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