Submission + - The new F-47 will be a beautiful fighter jet (defense.gov) 3
yemanja writes: What's even more wonderful, it will be built and deployed by the end of Trump's current term.
Submission + - Trump Administration Releases California Dam Water Without State Approval (newsweek.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: As the wildfires continue in Southern California, President Donald Trump's administration released significant amounts of water from California's dams on Friday in a move that bypassed state authorities.
Trump has been fiercely critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to contain the Los Angeles wildfires that broke out last month, dubbing him "Newscum" on social media.
The president has repeatedly attributed the disaster to what he says are water shortages caused by California state policies, such as fire hydrants that ran dry, though this was denied by state officials who claimed a water-pumping station that was down for maintenance has since been reopened.
The directive to release water came after Trump issued an executive order to "maximize" water deliveries in California and "override" state policies where they deem it necessary.
According to the Times on Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had then been directed to dramatically increase the flow of water as federal data confirmed that by the end of Friday increased releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success would total approximately 1.6 billion gallons of water.
The sudden water release has since stunned local officials, who scrambled to prevent potential flooding as state and federal water managers typically coordinate releases carefully, ensuring that enough water is retained for future agricultural use while preventing flood risks. However, the Trump administration's order bypassed this process, creating a chaotic response among local officials.
The unprecedented release, which sent water rushing into the Central Valley, had no impact on the recent Los Angeles wildfires, despite Trump's claims, who took to his Truth Social account to tout the release of water.
"Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," he posted, hailing the release as a "long fought Victory" that he suggested could have prevented the wildfires. "I only wish they listened to me six years ago—There would have been no fire!"
According to the Times, water experts explained the water released is headed for low-lying agricultural land, not Southern California, and has no physical route to reach wildfire-affected areas.
Laura Ramos, interim director of research and education at the California Water Institute at California State University, Fresno told the newspaper, "If the purpose was to help with the fires in Southern California, we do not believe that it will, because that's not where that water goes."
The release of the water comes after Trump claimed on social media on Monday that the U.S. military "just entered the Great State of California" in an attempt to improve the water supply.
Trump, a long-time critic of Newsom, said the military used emergency powers and "TURNED ON THE WATER" from the Pacific Northwest following the wave of devastating wildfires. This was denied by state authorities at the time.
Trump has been fiercely critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to contain the Los Angeles wildfires that broke out last month, dubbing him "Newscum" on social media.
The president has repeatedly attributed the disaster to what he says are water shortages caused by California state policies, such as fire hydrants that ran dry, though this was denied by state officials who claimed a water-pumping station that was down for maintenance has since been reopened.
The directive to release water came after Trump issued an executive order to "maximize" water deliveries in California and "override" state policies where they deem it necessary.
According to the Times on Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had then been directed to dramatically increase the flow of water as federal data confirmed that by the end of Friday increased releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success would total approximately 1.6 billion gallons of water.
The sudden water release has since stunned local officials, who scrambled to prevent potential flooding as state and federal water managers typically coordinate releases carefully, ensuring that enough water is retained for future agricultural use while preventing flood risks. However, the Trump administration's order bypassed this process, creating a chaotic response among local officials.
The unprecedented release, which sent water rushing into the Central Valley, had no impact on the recent Los Angeles wildfires, despite Trump's claims, who took to his Truth Social account to tout the release of water.
"Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," he posted, hailing the release as a "long fought Victory" that he suggested could have prevented the wildfires. "I only wish they listened to me six years ago—There would have been no fire!"
According to the Times, water experts explained the water released is headed for low-lying agricultural land, not Southern California, and has no physical route to reach wildfire-affected areas.
Laura Ramos, interim director of research and education at the California Water Institute at California State University, Fresno told the newspaper, "If the purpose was to help with the fires in Southern California, we do not believe that it will, because that's not where that water goes."
The release of the water comes after Trump claimed on social media on Monday that the U.S. military "just entered the Great State of California" in an attempt to improve the water supply.
Trump, a long-time critic of Newsom, said the military used emergency powers and "TURNED ON THE WATER" from the Pacific Northwest following the wave of devastating wildfires. This was denied by state authorities at the time.
Submission + - Are 'Google Programmers' the New 'Next-Next-Finish Programmers'? 3
theodp writes: Back in 1998, Ellen Ullman wrote in Salon about The dumbing-down of programming: "My programming tools were full of wizards. Little dialog boxes waiting for me to click "Next" and "Next" and "Finish." Click and drag and shazzam! — thousands of lines of working code. No need to get into the "hassle" of remembering the language. No need to even learn it. It is a powerful siren-song lure: You can make your program do all these wonderful and complicated things, and you don't really need to understand."
Twenty-four years later, PVS-Studio has published a translation of Ivan Belokamentsev's cautionary tale of how modernizing his interviewing process from coding on paper to a computer led him to inadvertently hire 'Google Programmers', who dazzled him in interviews and initially on the job, but soon reached a plateau in productivity that puzzled him until he had a gobsmacking realization:
"It was like somebody hit me on the head with a sack of flour. It took me about two days to process it. How is it really possible? The beautiful, well-optimized code they showed me at the first interview was from the Internet. The explosive growth of productivity in the first months was due to the solutions that they found on the Internet. Those answers to user questions after the magic "We'll call you back" from these guys — were found on the Internet. They were coding without understanding the basic constructs. No, they didn't write code — they downloaded it. No, that's not it, either. To download the code is like running "npm i", it's ok. They copy-pasted the code. Without knowing how to write it. That's what angered me – what the...? Well, I understand when you surf the net to figure out how a new technology works. Or when you need to use some exotic feature and not to bloat your head with unnecessary information. But basic things! How can you copy-paste basic things from the Internet?! Do you want to know what they said? "What's the big deal?" I was ready to join the monastery out of grief. I took a break, stopped talking to them, retreated into myself, and started thinking. Of course, I realized that it was not about them. I was the problem. They only followed the laws of their own world. And I was the fool for not seeing these laws — I did not understand them, did not realize their seriousness. The seriousness of superficiality."
Twenty-four years later, PVS-Studio has published a translation of Ivan Belokamentsev's cautionary tale of how modernizing his interviewing process from coding on paper to a computer led him to inadvertently hire 'Google Programmers', who dazzled him in interviews and initially on the job, but soon reached a plateau in productivity that puzzled him until he had a gobsmacking realization:
"It was like somebody hit me on the head with a sack of flour. It took me about two days to process it. How is it really possible? The beautiful, well-optimized code they showed me at the first interview was from the Internet. The explosive growth of productivity in the first months was due to the solutions that they found on the Internet. Those answers to user questions after the magic "We'll call you back" from these guys — were found on the Internet. They were coding without understanding the basic constructs. No, they didn't write code — they downloaded it. No, that's not it, either. To download the code is like running "npm i", it's ok. They copy-pasted the code. Without knowing how to write it. That's what angered me – what the...? Well, I understand when you surf the net to figure out how a new technology works. Or when you need to use some exotic feature and not to bloat your head with unnecessary information. But basic things! How can you copy-paste basic things from the Internet?! Do you want to know what they said? "What's the big deal?" I was ready to join the monastery out of grief. I took a break, stopped talking to them, retreated into myself, and started thinking. Of course, I realized that it was not about them. I was the problem. They only followed the laws of their own world. And I was the fool for not seeing these laws — I did not understand them, did not realize their seriousness. The seriousness of superficiality."
Submission + - SPAM: uMatrix development has ended
Hmmmmmm writes: Raymond Hill, known online as gorhill, has set the status of the uMatrix GitHub repository to archived; this means that it is read-only at the time and that no updates will become available.
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed.
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
Link to Original Source
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed.
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - New "Metallic Wood" Is as Strong as Titanium But Much Lighter (nature.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Titanium has long been touted as the metal of the future, due to its strength, rust resistance, and amazing lightness. Now researchers have discovered a way to create a new "metallic wood" material that is as strong as titanium, but five times lighter. It was created by building tiny plastic spheres, suspending them in water, allowing the water to evaporate, and then electroplating the spheres with nickel. Researchers then dissolved the plastic spheres, producing an incredibly strong, porous metal that floats on water.
Submission + - New Commercial Amiga 500 game released
Mike Bouma writes: Pixelglass known for their "Giana Sisters SE" game has released a worthy new game for the Amiga 500, called "Worthy". In this cute action puzzler you "Assume the role of a fearless boy and collect the required number of diamonds in each stage in order to win the girl's heart! Travel from maze to maze, kill the baddies, avoid the traps, collect beers (your necessary "fuel" to keep you going), find the diamonds, prove to her you're WORTHY!!" Time to dust off that classic Amiga or alternatively download a digital copy and use an UAE emulator for your platform of choice! Have a look at the release trailer.
Submission + - HP Enterprise let Russia scrutinize cyberdefense system used by Pentagon (reuters.com)
quonset writes: A Russian defense agency was allowed to review the cyberdefense software used by the Pentagon to protect its computer networks. This according to Russian regulatory records and interviews with people with direct knowledge of the issue.
From the story:
The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector.
Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.
“It’s a huge security vulnerability,“ said Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight. ”You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary.”
From the story:
The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector.
Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.
“It’s a huge security vulnerability,“ said Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight. ”You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary.”
Submission + - Ex-Valve writer reveals what might have been Half-Life 2: Episode 3's story
stikves writes: From:
http://www.eurogamer.net/artic...
Ex-Valve writer Marc Laidlaw, who worked on Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and its episodic expansions, has published a summary of the series' next chapter on his blog. Titled, 'Epistle 3', it details Gordon Freeman's next adventure.
Except, likely for copyright issues, the whole story has been genderswapped. So Laidlaw's tale speaks of Gertrude Fremont, Alex instead of Alyx, Elly instead of Eli, and so on
Naturally, Laidlaw's blog is currently down due to traffic, although you can read a backup of the page on Archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20..., or on Pastebin https://pastebin.com/q9DMFa7c , where the names have been corrected.
http://www.eurogamer.net/artic...
Ex-Valve writer Marc Laidlaw, who worked on Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and its episodic expansions, has published a summary of the series' next chapter on his blog. Titled, 'Epistle 3', it details Gordon Freeman's next adventure.
Except, likely for copyright issues, the whole story has been genderswapped. So Laidlaw's tale speaks of Gertrude Fremont, Alex instead of Alyx, Elly instead of Eli, and so on
Naturally, Laidlaw's blog is currently down due to traffic, although you can read a backup of the page on Archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20..., or on Pastebin https://pastebin.com/q9DMFa7c , where the names have been corrected.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Good Quality Good Price NON-SMART TV sets (slashdot.org) 3
williamyf writes: I have always been of the Idea that my TV shall be non-smart, and leaving the Smarts to connected equipment (in my case my Synology NAS running Plex and a Combination of Chromecasts and Laptops do the trick). I think that most of my Slashdot breathen are of a similar persuation.
But, over the years finding decent NON-SMART TVs is becoming harder and harder, unless your are prepared to pay much higher prices for industrial/signage equipment, or are prepared to deal with slighly inferior specs and quality, or get an old (possibly second hand) set, or are prepared to do long hard internet searches for that needle in the haystack (all slashdot readers can google, but here at least we can hear first hands experiences from technicaly minded people, and not fakish reviews)...
In view of the recent story about Samsung TVs being bricked by a firmware update, I ask the slashdot crowd to amass our colective knowledge and see:
What TV makers make Decent NON-SMART TV sets? Which are these sets?
Requirements:
NON-smart, no apps on the TV, no app on the Smartphone, no nothing, the dumber the better.
OTA Tunner optional.
1080p50/60 or higher (1333x768 was barely adequate in 2008, but KRAP in 2017). (p120 optional)
16:9 or 21:9.
From 35 inches (for the master bedroom) to 70 inches (for the middle class living room in an apartment complex).
Real remote (not app in a phone) with at least volume up/down, input change and Sleep function, plus all needed to configure the set.
Lots of HDMI 2.0 (or higher) ports
A decent assortment of legacy ports (including Component, composite, S-Video).
HDR Capable
Good build Quality
Good Price (Idealy slightly lower than similar SmartTVs, since we are forgoig the hardware needed for the smart part, as well as the ongoing support cost for firmware updates).
Good image quality.
Decent warranties.
Reputable manufacturers.
Reputable sellers.
But, over the years finding decent NON-SMART TVs is becoming harder and harder, unless your are prepared to pay much higher prices for industrial/signage equipment, or are prepared to deal with slighly inferior specs and quality, or get an old (possibly second hand) set, or are prepared to do long hard internet searches for that needle in the haystack (all slashdot readers can google, but here at least we can hear first hands experiences from technicaly minded people, and not fakish reviews)...
In view of the recent story about Samsung TVs being bricked by a firmware update, I ask the slashdot crowd to amass our colective knowledge and see:
What TV makers make Decent NON-SMART TV sets? Which are these sets?
Requirements:
NON-smart, no apps on the TV, no app on the Smartphone, no nothing, the dumber the better.
OTA Tunner optional.
1080p50/60 or higher (1333x768 was barely adequate in 2008, but KRAP in 2017). (p120 optional)
16:9 or 21:9.
From 35 inches (for the master bedroom) to 70 inches (for the middle class living room in an apartment complex).
Real remote (not app in a phone) with at least volume up/down, input change and Sleep function, plus all needed to configure the set.
Lots of HDMI 2.0 (or higher) ports
A decent assortment of legacy ports (including Component, composite, S-Video).
HDR Capable
Good build Quality
Good Price (Idealy slightly lower than similar SmartTVs, since we are forgoig the hardware needed for the smart part, as well as the ongoing support cost for firmware updates).
Good image quality.
Decent warranties.
Reputable manufacturers.
Reputable sellers.
Submission + - Linux finally starting to see the problem with certain init systems? (lkml.org)
jawtheshark writes: In a latest Linux Kernel Mailing List post, Linux Torvalds, finishes his mail with a little poke towards a certain init system. It is a very faint criticism, compared to his usual style. While Linus has no direct influence on the "choices" of distro maintainers, his opinion is usually valued.
Submission + - Google Found Over 1,000 Bugs In 47 Open Source Projects (helpnetsecurity.com)
Orome1 writes: In the last five months, Google’s OSS-Fuzz program has unearthed over 1,000 bugs in 47 open source software projects, and it’s ready to integrate even more of them. So far, OSS-Fuzz has found a total of 264 potential security vulnerabilities: 7 in Wireshark, 33 in LibreOffice, 8 in SQLite 3, 17 in FFmpeg – and the list goes on. Google wants even more open source projects to reap the benefit of fuzzing, and has put out a call for more projects to participate in the program.
Submission + - MS Signature PC Requirements Now Blocks Linux Installation
sombragris writes: According to a well-documented /r/linux thread on Reddit, the Signature PC program by Microsoft now requires to lock down PCs. This user found out that his Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2 UltraBook has the SSD in a proprietary RAID mode which Linux does not understand and the BIOS is also locked down so it could not be turned off. When he complained that he was unable to install Linux, the answer he got was: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft."
Even worse, as the original poster said, "[t]he Yoga 900 ISK2 at Best Buy is not labeled as a Signature Edition PC, but apparently it is one, and Lenovo's agreement with Microsoft includes making sure Linux can't be installed."
As some commenter said: "If you buy a computer with this level of lockdown you should be told."
There is also a report on ZDNet which looks very understanding towards Lenovo, but the fact remains: the SSD is locked down in a proprietary RAID mode that cannot be turned off.
Even worse, as the original poster said, "[t]he Yoga 900 ISK2 at Best Buy is not labeled as a Signature Edition PC, but apparently it is one, and Lenovo's agreement with Microsoft includes making sure Linux can't be installed."
As some commenter said: "If you buy a computer with this level of lockdown you should be told."
There is also a report on ZDNet which looks very understanding towards Lenovo, but the fact remains: the SSD is locked down in a proprietary RAID mode that cannot be turned off.
Submission + - Older Workers Adapt To New Technology Just Fine, Survey Finds (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: Those older workers in your office, you know, the one ones you think can't handle dealing with new technology? Turns out, they struggle less with technology than their millennial colleagues. A survey by London-based market research firm Ipsos Mori, sponsored by Dropbox, found that older workers are less likely to find using technology in the workplace stressful and experience less trouble working with multiple devices than the younger cohort. The reason for this might lie in all the clunky old technologies older workers have had to master over the decades. Digital Natives don't know how good they've got it.
Submission + - SPAM: Alzheimer's gene already shrinking brain by age of three
schwit1 writes: The Alzheimer’s gene, which dramatically raises the risk of developing dementia, is already affecting carriers by the age of three, shrinking their brains and lowering cognition, a new study suggests.
Children who carry the APOEe4 gene mutation , which raises the chance of dementia by 15 fold, were found to do less well in memory, attention and function tests.
Areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease, such as the hippocampus and parietal gyri, were also found to be up to 22 per cent smaller in volume.
Link to Original Source
Children who carry the APOEe4 gene mutation , which raises the chance of dementia by 15 fold, were found to do less well in memory, attention and function tests.
Areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease, such as the hippocampus and parietal gyri, were also found to be up to 22 per cent smaller in volume.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - GE Considers Scrapping the Annual Raise (bloomberg.com) 1
ErichTheRed writes: First it was "stack ranking," the process where GE fires the bottom-rated 20% of the workforce every year. Now, a new HR trend may be brewing at GE that is destined to be copied by MBAs everywhere if it takes hold. Personally, in terms of cargo-cult HR trends, I'd take Google's open office nightmare over this one. What do you think this would do to employment stability if widely enacted? I can definitely see banks rethinking 30 year mortgages, for example...
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