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Comment Reminds me (Score 1) 138

Of every tv show where a bomb has a convenient countdown clock on it. In the old days it was an alarm clock wired to the bomb, then it was changed to a red digital timer because progress.

Anyone remember the movie V for Vendetta? Conveniently, V's bomb in the control room had a countdown clock so the guy who had no idea what he was doing knew how many seconds he had left.

Comment Re:subscribe to Amazon Prime now (Score 1, Troll) 32

You might say waiting 2 days for a free delivery is super bad inconvenient,

Only whiners living in their parent's basement would say this. For nearly everything one could buy (excluding groceries), two days is insignificant. If you're in that much of a hurry to get something, either an emergency has come up or you're too stupid to plan ahead.

Comment States should use settlements to teach ad-blocking (Score 1) 70

Each state that gets money in a judgement or settlement, should use that money to make sure their public education system teaches kids how to block ads.

By 2030, I don't think anyone should be able to graduate high school in America, unless they've learned how to be ad-free (on screens under their control; obviously they won't gain superpowers to blank out billboards or the sides of buses).
Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the space-is-hard dept.
Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]
Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Submission + - The oral tradition that built software may not survive AI (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: Writing software is not just about knowing what to code. Verbally passing on knowledge of why something is done one way or the other, how to diagnose an issue, or what changes took place after implementation because no one documented those changes has been part of programming since day one. However, with the advent of AI, that institutional knowledge may be under threat.

It’s tempting therefore to imagine that generative AI will step into the breach and solve this for us. After all, even if you don’t want to turn a large language model (LLM) loose on a legacy code base—and there are plenty of reasons that you shouldn’t—having it generate documentation on the codebase itself might sound like a solution to the absence of other written information. LLMs can certainly summarize code back to you.

But hold up with that idea. Beyond hallucinations, there’s a deeper problem: Writing documentation is itself part of the thinking process. Whether I’m writing history or software, putting an approach into words helps refine it before I sink hours into implementation. Documentation also captures intent. An LLM may be able to summarize what a codebase does, but it cannot reliably explain why a developer chose one approach over another, or what trade-offs shaped that decision.

Moreover, it’s a chance for somebody else to understand why you did what you did. If they plan to change what I wrote (especially in a few years), they might understand why I needed to write it that way and what might be lost if you take it out. An LLM can read code that I’ve written. It might even scan a large codebase and accurately summarize what it’s doing. But it can’t assess authorial intent.

Comment Re:The DNC is not socialist or communist (Score 1) 6

by damn_registrars (#66163570) Attached to: A silver lining - will Trumpism bring about understanding?
I've seen people make that argument before, that there is no difference. You can make that argument if you want, but if you can't provide a viable candidate then you're not helping anything.

Let me be extra direct here. I have never seen a candidate in a race I could vote in that I agreed with 100%. Frankly anytime I meet someone who tells me they agree with a politician 100% of the time I tend to want to tell them they need their head examined (unless they are themselves a politician, in which case doubly so). Even politicians like Bernie Sanders I don't agree with 100% of the time.

Complaining about the rules is not productive. We've seen what the SCOTUS will do about such arguments, we can't get help from them either. The only way to advance is to support someone who will actually do something useful. Pretending that they all do the same shit doesn't help either; there are meaningful platform differences. Just because Drumpf has held every position on every issue doesn't mean he doesn't stand for anything, either - he's actually followed through on some of his (very worst) initial promises.

Comment Re: This should not be acceptble... (Score 1) 124

by Sloppy (#66161620) Attached to: California Moves To Exempt Linux From Upcoming Age-Verification Law

That was equally true for previous generations, and all those generations had exceptions -- kids that were excited about it, despite the other kids not being interested. (I figure the majority of Slashdot may have been such exceptions.)

Do we have reason to suspect the current generation is a unique special case, the one generation where somehow all of them make an effort to never learn about computers?

I bet some of them are like some of us, a 2026 minority that we would have recognized 40 years ago.

Comment Re: Say what you will re: free trade or protection (Score 2) 129

by smooth wombat (#66160924) Attached to: SpaceX Launches 29 Starlink Satellites on Memorial Day
nd they're raking in cash thanks to the massive increase in the price of oil from Trump's war in the Middle East.

Ukraine is seeing to it they don't by destroying oil refineries. Right now there are at least 5 big refineries out of commission for the next month or more. That doesn't include reduced loading capacity at several different terminals which have been struck or pumping stations which no longer work.

Comment Re:so much money at stake (Score 1) 81

Just to make it clear - I am against governments

Your post history contradicts that. The correct statement is that you are against governments that are not run by your Lord and Savior. For you, the first rule that needs to go is the separation of church and state, you want to fuse the two forever together.

Comment Re:so much money at stake (Score 1) 81

Don't pretend you wouldn't celebrate it as a great step forward if your Lord and Savior were the one promoting it, instead of the current leader.

Though ultimately, this could be an improvement for drivers and trucking companies. The logs truckers are legally required to keep and carry are a substantial burden. If the government can track it instead that could allow the drivers to spend more time actually driving and less time doing paperwork. You should be celebrating that as it means they have more time to do actual work.

Comment Re:Artidcle? (Score 1) 154

by damn_registrars (#66159848) Attached to: It's Like the Olympics - But Steroids Are Allowed

Surely, Slashdot is allowed to take spell checkers?

Under strict supervision, yes. Unfortunately there is no supervision left as there are only two people working for slashdot and they both have real jobs in the outside world that pay the bills (Taco of course left years ago).

And don't ask about the unicode support they were working on 20 years ago...

Comment Re:The DNC is not socialist or communist (Score 1) 6

Right now the contest is between fascists and cowards. The "independents" cannot compete with the way the system is set up. I'm sorry that is the case, but we all know it's true. Yes third parties can win governor's races and other such non-federal seats but they don't exist where national policy is made. You can go vote for your favorite third party candidate or for Mickey Fucking Mouse if you want. If that makes you feel better about yourself, great. It's marginally better than not voting at all, but only marginally.

long after his cadaver is consumed.

Smart money is on a Lenin-style mausoleum for Trump with a body permanently preserved in a top-secret cocktail of preservatives. Not that he hasn't already begun that process with his diet...

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