Comment Re:Gee whizz- (Score 1) 96
Don't worry. In addition to rating your driver Uber might also let you give obnoxious co-passengers one star.
Comment At this point, what remedial action can one take? (Score 2) 10
Hacks that involve hackers obtaining data from institutions are becoming so common that it's no longer about hoping that an institution that you have a relationship isn't compromised; it's now about ensuring that you aren't negatively affected by the impact.
Other than [1] monitoring your credit; [2] changing your passwords, or using MFA; [3] being hyper aware of phishing attempts that use information about you, is there really anything else one can do?
Submission + - Niklaus Wirth, inventor of Pascal has died (twitter.com)
axlash writes: It has been reported on X that Niklaus Wirth, inventor and co-inventor of several languages including Pascal, Euler and Oberon died on Jan 1, 2024. He was aged 89.
Comment Re:Apple, politics and race. (Score 1) 48
Turned off politics?
Are you kidding??
Please look at all the topics that have had the highest number of posts on Slashdot (especially over the last four years); you'll find that they are usually political.
I personally prefer to give such topics a hard pass, as they're usually people agreeing with each other, or people shouting past each other, with few insights to be gained.
Comment Re:No, 80% of the industry will not be wiped out (Score 1) 251
These are compelling only if users feel that doing all these is such a hassle that switching to EVs is desirable.
Given that people are creatures of habit, I wouldn't bet on it.
Comment Re:Another weird data structure (Score 1) 155
If you live in a country where you can't trust the electoral system, then even assuming that blockchain technology would introduce more trust, what is the incentive for any party that might become the ruling party (and thus benefit from the status quo) to introduce the technology?
Remembering Apollo 13 at 50 (apnews.com) 34
Marcia Dunn from The Associated Press remembers the Apollo 13 mission 50 years later: Apollo 13âs astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later â" on April 13. Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they're not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses. As mission commander Lovell sees it, he's incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA's most harrowing moonshot, he's around to mark its golden anniversary. "I'm still alive. As long as I can keep breathing, I'm good," Lovell, 92, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his Lake Forest, Illinois, home. A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control's finest hour. Lovell calls it "a miraculous recovery." Haise, like so many others, regards it as NASA's most successful failure. "It was a great mission," Haise, 86, said. It showed "what can be done if people use their minds and a little ingenuity."
Comment Is this really news, though? (Score 1) 195
It's very obvious from the way things were going that this was going to happen, so this is really filler news - up there with "It's the Xth anniversary of Y" and "It's X holiday today".
The real news is when the number of infected people begin to drop worldwide, or when governments start lifting their lockdowns.
We Should Prepare For a US Outbreak of Coronavirus, Not Because We May Feel Personally at Risk, But So That We Can Help Lessen the Risk For Everyone. (scientificamerican.com) 363
Zeynep Tufekci, writing for Scientific American: Preparing for the almost inevitable global spread of this virus, now dubbed COVID-19, is one of the most pro-social, altruistic things you can do in response to potential disruptions of this kind. We should prepare, not because we may feel personally at risk, but so that we can help lessen the risk for everyone. We should prepare not because we are facing a doomsday scenario out of our control, but because we can alter every aspect of this risk we face as a society. That's right, you should prepare because your neighbors need you to prepare -- especially your elderly neighbors, your neighbors who work at hospitals, your neighbors with chronic illnesses, and your neighbors who may not have the means or the time to prepare because of lack of resources or time.
Prepper and survivalist subcultures are often associated with doomsday scenarios and extreme steps: people stocking and hoarding supplies, building bunkers and preparing to go off the grid so that they may survive some untold catastrophe, brandishish weapons to guard their compound while their less prepared neighbors perish. All this appears both extreme and selfish, and, to be honest, a little nutty -- just check the title of the TV series devoted to the subculture: Doomsday Preppers, implying, well, a doomsday and the few prepared individuals surviving in a war-of-all-against-all world. It also feels like a scam: there is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such fears will make people buy more supplies: years' worth of ready-to-eat meals, bunker materials and a lot more stuff in various shades of camo. (The more camo the more doomsday feels, I guess!) The reality is that there is little point "preparing" for the most catastrophic scenarios some of these people envision. As a species, we live and die by our social world and our extensive infrastructure -- and there is no predicting what anybody needs in the face of total catastrophe. In contrast, the real crisis scenarios we're likely to encounter require cooperation and, crucially, "flattening the curve" of the crisis exactly so the more vulnerable can fare better, so that our infrastructure will be less stressed at any one time.
Prepper and survivalist subcultures are often associated with doomsday scenarios and extreme steps: people stocking and hoarding supplies, building bunkers and preparing to go off the grid so that they may survive some untold catastrophe, brandishish weapons to guard their compound while their less prepared neighbors perish. All this appears both extreme and selfish, and, to be honest, a little nutty -- just check the title of the TV series devoted to the subculture: Doomsday Preppers, implying, well, a doomsday and the few prepared individuals surviving in a war-of-all-against-all world. It also feels like a scam: there is no shortage of snake oil sellers who hope stoking such fears will make people buy more supplies: years' worth of ready-to-eat meals, bunker materials and a lot more stuff in various shades of camo. (The more camo the more doomsday feels, I guess!) The reality is that there is little point "preparing" for the most catastrophic scenarios some of these people envision. As a species, we live and die by our social world and our extensive infrastructure -- and there is no predicting what anybody needs in the face of total catastrophe. In contrast, the real crisis scenarios we're likely to encounter require cooperation and, crucially, "flattening the curve" of the crisis exactly so the more vulnerable can fare better, so that our infrastructure will be less stressed at any one time.
Comment Re:Solid State batteries - maybe, graphene are NOW (Score 1) 42
Wow! That is quite a dizzying array of battery technologies.
I wonder which ones will eventually dominate the market...
Comment Re:It's pretty good (Score 1) 64
I'd say that's more of a 'lack of knowledge' than a 'lack of intelligence' problem.
Comment It's pretty good (Score 3, Informative) 64
I looked at samples of chats that humans had had with it, here:
https://github.com/google-rese...
I think that its strength is that it can easily cross-reference data related to topics that a human brings up, and this allows it to open up the conversation.
Comment Not true (Score 2) 84
Now that most smartphones don't have headphone jacks...
Where did they get that from? The vast majority of smartphone users do not use top-of-the-range phones that dispense with headphone jacks.
Comment Re:And the point is? (Score 1) 147
What are you talking about? This isn't some random blogger off the web, it's an executive from Cruise Automation.
They are literally working on making this happen, not just hoping something magically appears out of thin air.
So he should just keep on doing what he's doing, if he believes it's the right and profitable thing to do. There's no need to make any statement - if he's right, then his actions should ultimately speak louder than his words.
Comment And the point is? (Score 1) 147
I am not sure what the point of making this statement is. Is it that nobody agrees with him, and nobody is committing people and resources to make self-driving cars a reality already? Just saying this isn't going to make self-driving cars magically appear out of the air; it's a hard problem to solve.
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