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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 65 declined, 5 accepted (70 total, 7.14% accepted)

Submission + - Writer turns down grad school acceptance due to AI misinformation (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: A promising young writer rejected her invitation into the University of Sidney's creative writing program on speculation that AI will make creative writers obsolete.

In late 2023, I began noticing changes in the media landscape. Publications were laying off most of their writers, and friends in the industry lost out on great gigs and started competing with AI-generated writing.

As for the book industry, I realized AI will not spend years crafting a thrilling romance novel; it will instead churn out a thousand ebooks a month. For the commercial side of the industry, that will always be enough.

The link used for an example of AI-generated writing consuming the industry discusses cover letters and resumés, and in a great fallacy of equivocation the author decides this means creative writers like Brandon Sanderson, David Webber, and herself will be replaced by ChatGPT.

Instead of AI taking her job, the AI narrative took her job, or at least convinced her to give up on her career as a writer.

Submission + - Cancer Cured by HIV (msn.com)

Submitted by bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: Apparently cancer has been cured, by injecting people with HIV. From the article, "As the white cells killed the cancer cells, the patients experienced the fevers and aches and pains that one would expect when the body is fighting off an infection, but beyond that the side effects have been minimal." Nifty. Poorly edited run-on sentence, but nifty.
Security

Submission + - Net shoppers bullied into being Verified by Visa (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: According to The Register, several banks are forcing users to opt-in to the Verified by Visa optional service by locking their cards if and when they encounter a Verified by Visa participating site and fail to opt-in. Register reader Steve says, "This seems like a strange way to implement a voluntary system. On most of the retailers' websites there is no clue that you are about to be challenged by Verified by Visa until you attempt to complete the transaction. This means that you trigger the 'fraud protection' unintentionally. And when you have located a retailer who doesn't require Verified by Visa to complete a purchase, you can't because your account is on hold." Further, "[I]n some cases resetting the password is all too easy. Fraudsters know this and go after these credentials which, once obtained, make it harder for consumers to deny responsibility for a fraudulent transaction. Phishing scams posing as Verified by Visa sites have sprung up targeting these login credentials."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Why do we use x86 CPUs?

Submitted by bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: With Apple having now switched to x86 CPUs, I've been wondering for a while why we use the x86 architecture at all. The Power architecture was known for its better performance per clock; and still other RISC architectures such as the various ARM models provide very high performance per clock as well as reduced power usage, opening some potential for low-power laptops. Compilers can also deal with optimization in RISC architectures more easily, since the instruction set is smaller and the possible scheduling arrangements are thus reduced greatly. With Just-in-Time compilation, legacy x86 programs could be painlessly run on ARM/PPC by translating them dynamically at run time, similar to how CIL and Java work. So really, what do you all think about our choice of primary CPU architecture? Are x86 and x86_64 a good choice; or should we have shot for PPC64 or a 64-bit ARM solution?
Books

Submission + - What are good technical books?

Submitted by
bluefoxlucid
bluefoxlucid writes: "Lately I've been looking into technical books, and have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of useful books out there containing information that could be useful to me. To my alarm, I've found that many of these titles are not in my local public library! This requires action; I must build my own library, and actually use that bookshelf in my room! But, without a way to sample the books, how should I know which to buy? What (mainly non-fiction) recommendations would you make for anyone who would fall into the Slashdot audience to read?

Here I present a list of books I have and am looking into buying, with ISBN for each as well; in case anyone wants to know anything about a particular title, the objects I own are accompanied by a '*' while those on order stand next to a '#'. I haven't read all those I own; particularly, I skimmed Silence on the Wire and only read a chapter of Game Design: Secrets of the Sages. These range from

Hobby. These books have hobbyist value, giving tips for making useful things out of other less useful things. These range from ballistics to shoving a survival kit in a watch. Nothing on rail guns, gauss guns, sonic canons, particle accelerators, magnetic drive launchers, ionic wind engines, or any of the other nifty electromagnetic projects you can create; maybe in the future I'll find something.
  • The Art of the Catapult (ISBN 1556525265)
  • Backyard Ballistics (ISBN 1556523750)
  • Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks (ISBN 0596003145)
  • Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things (ISBN 0740738593)#
  • Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things (ISBN 0740754963)#
  • The Unofficial MacGyver How-to Handbook: Revised 2nd Edition (ISBN 1887641475)


Computers, Hacking, Security. These books give technical puzzles or information for programmers and security experts. These include an outdated Assembly book and a Game Design book, just because I had them and programmers and game designers may find use for this information. I should probably find a more up-to-date Assembly book that can be used with gas on Linux.
  • 1337 h4x0r h4ndb00k (ISBN 0672327279)
  • The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element Of Security (ISBN 076454280X)
  • The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers (ISBN 0764569597)
  • Assembler Inside and Out (ISBN 0078818427)*
  • Game Design: Secrets of the Sages (ISBN 1575952572)*
  • Hacker's Delight (ISBN 0201914654)
  • Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (ISBN 1593270070)*
  • Programming Challenges (ISBN 0387001638)
  • Puzzles for Hackers (ISBN 1931769451)#
  • Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering (ISBN 0764574817)
  • Silence on the Wire (ISBN 1593270461)*


Mathematics. These books are mathematics related. Actually there's only one here, I was going to throw it in the above section and label it "Technical" but the Psychology and Neuroscience stuff below is also "Technical."
  • Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds (ISBN 0596101643)


Psychology and Neuroscience. These pieces are interesting because they explain the brain and learning, and how to use yours better. They may possibly have been more amusing if written by Q; the authors don't appear to want to remind you that you're primitive beings that can only expand your realm of thinking for fractions of a second at a time. Sadly, they were written by sane individuals and not egomaniacle alien beings.
  • Mind Hacks (ISBN 0596007795)#
  • Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain (ISBN 0596101538)#


Humor and Nonsense. Funny stuff only a nerd could enjoy... but you know, if there's ever a Class 4 zombie invasion, you'll be ready. None of this stuff is useful, unless your brain is burning out and you need something to distract you while it relaxes and repairs itself; what better way than to read up on how to enter a burning building or choke a man with your bare thighs?
  • The Action Hero's Handbook (ISBN 193168605X)
  • The Action Heroine's Handbook (ISBN 1931686688)
  • Prank University (ISBN 0307338436)
  • The Superman Handbook (ISBN 1594741131)
  • The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead (ISBN 1400049628)*


That's it for my list. Surprised? Not only is it short but I actually own only a few of the items that have caught my eye! And yes, all of the humor is from ThinkGeek; that's where I found Hacking: The Art of Exploitation in the first place, which started all this. With the exception of Mind Hacks and The Zombie Survival Guide, none of the '*' and '#' items were found in a library search. I searched on some of the others as well, with no good results. Some of this stuff is in the Library of Congress; but a good number of the ones I searched for weren't.

This leaves my options for discovering new and interesting reads pretty limited—I can buy the books, or harass Slashdot and see if any of you actually have something useful. Rather than try to tailor your responses to me, just go wild; I'm sure anyone in any other technical field besides just programming would appreciate knowing about little gems they'll not find in a library anywhere."

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