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Comment Re:A US thing (Score 1) 170

by david-bo (#66285038) Attached to: Toxic Underground Fires Are Spreading at California Landfills

As a Swede born in the 70s I had never heard of "landfills" until I read about it in US contexts probably around the year 2000. And Sweden *IMPORTS* large amounts of garbage to burn, yet only dispose (per the linked EU source) 1 % in landfills (I suspect that that 1 % is ashes).

https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...

Submission + - Freenet: Apps Without Platforms

Submitted by Sanity
Sanity writes: Earlier this year Slashdot covered the launch of the completely redesigned Freenet. I recently gave a talk about what we've been building since then. Unlike traditional web applications, apps on Freenet have no central server or database, with application state instead distributed across the network. These now include decentralized group chat, publishing, search, and fully decentralized Git hosting. The talk also gets into some of Freenet's internals, including how we use machine learning for network routing.

Submission + - This 'adversarial' pattern can prevent surveillance cameras from detecting you (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by ZipNada
ZipNada writes: Bill Swearingen has spent the past year running largely the same test, over and over again. The goal was to produce a computer-generated pattern that could block the surveillance cameras lining America’s streets from detecting it.

Some 31 million tests later, Swearingen says he can now produce patterns on-demand that, when applied to clothing and objects, prevent some of the most commonly deployed license plate readers and surveillance cameras from detecting whatever the pattern covers, from people to vehicles.

His project, which he calls noRecognition, allows people to escape the automatic detection and algorithmic surveillance used across the U.S. and beyond.

Comment Re:Suggests abiogenesis is easy (Score 1) 104

by david-bo (#66278574) Attached to: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

"There was already an argument that we should expect life to be somewhat easy since if not, we'd expect it to have arisen somewhat late on Earth's existence, not soon after."

That argument is false. There are probably billions, if not trillions, of planets "out there". With so many opportunities for life to start soon, if it did so on one planet is just statistics.

Submission + - China-free batteries made from salt are finally here (msn.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: U.S. startups are finally delivering something researchers have been working on for decades: a battery in which rare, hard-to-get elements are replaced with the same stuff found in ordinary table salt.

This tech has the potential to help every country on earth break its dependence on China for batteries, and the critical minerals that go into them.

Like any other battery, sodium-ion cells can store and release energy. They are initially being deployed where they’re needed most, in America’s power grid and fast-expanding crop of data centers. As in our homes, giving the grid or other infrastructure the ability to stockpile energy when it is cheap and plentiful, and discharge it when it is scarce, can increase reliability and lower the cost of electricity.

Submission + - NASA Engineers Help Prolong Voyager 2's Science Mission (nasa.gov)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully freed up power on Voyager 2, extending how long the spacecraft can continue to do science.

Nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the effort involved simultaneously turning off certain powered devices and substituting them with lower-power alternatives while ensuring the spacecraft remains warm enough to operate.

The Voyagers get their power from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, devices that convert heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. Due to the plutonium supply continually depleting, both probes lose about 4 watts of power each year. After almost a half-century since launch, the spacecraft power margins have grown razor thin, requiring the team to conserve energy by shutting off non-essential devices and systems.

The mission team plans to perform the same swap on Voyager 1, which is farther from Earth than Voyager 2, and to complete the effort in the coming months.

Submission + - Times Magazine now serves ads that only AI chatbots can see (theregister.com)

Submitted by mccalli
mccalli writes: Times Magazine has started serving adverts with 'brand messages' to AI crawlers, which are not part of its main page. The aim seems to be to influence the chatbots to talk about the brand offerings in a positive light that can't be traced back to the actual page. Notably they've excluded Google chatbots from this, likely because Google penalise companies that show different search offerings to their bots vs actual human visitors.

More here as well as on the The Register.

Comment Re: Let them choose (Score 1) 183

"I think we should have more respect than we do for the indigenous peoples"

Why?

Why should we respect people that were, and indeed are, happy with 50 % of their children dying before the age of 5? Stop romanticising un(der)developed cultures. They kill innocent children with their lack of development.

Submission + - Veridenz Uses Nostr To Verify That Photos Have Not Changed (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Slashdot reader Brian Fagioli has released Veridenz, an iPhone app that creates a cryptographic witness for photos without uploading the original image. The app hashes the file, signs the hash using a dedicated identity stored in Apple Keychain, and publishes the witness to Nostr relays while keeping the photo inside the app unless the user chooses to export it.

Rather than trying to determine whether a scene was genuine, Veridenz answers a narrower question by verifying whether a photo file matches the one that was originally witnessed. Users do not need a Nostr account because the app creates its own signing identity, keeping private documentation separate from a public Nostr profile.

Submission + - Waymo CEO explains why Tesla's camera-only self-driving falls short (electrek.co)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov laid out the clearest technical case yet for why cameras alone can’t take a self-driving system to full autonomy, arguing that “weak sensing” hits a safety ceiling long before it reaches superhuman performance. He never said the word Tesla. But camera-only is Tesla’s entire bet, and this was a direct shot at it.

“Humans of course can drive with just eyes, so there’s that proof of existence,” he said. “If the goal were to just approximately match human performance or to build an assist product, that’s a very reasonable way to go.” Then the catch. If you’re targeting full autonomy and strongly superhuman performance, he said, “you find that weak sensing just leads to a safety curve that flattens out way too early.”

Submission + - China wants physical buttons on cars instead of touchscreens (autobuzz.my)

Submitted by cantle2000
cantle2000 writes: The Chinese Government has mandated physical buttons on Chinese built cars instead of using touchscreens, from July 1st 2027. Essential functions such as the demister, defogger, power windows, lighting,and gear shifting will be button controlled instead of touchscreen controlled.

Submission + - FSB Issues "Arrest Warrant" for Telegram's Pavel Durov (dw.com)

Submitted by D,Petkow
D,Petkow writes: The honeymoon is over. In 2024, French authorities nabbed Telegram founder Pavel Durov and the Kremlin had a geopolitical meltdown over their definition of 'freedom of speech.'
Now the FSB has issued its own international arrest warrant for Durov, charging him with 'facilitating terrorism.'
According to DW, the FSB is furious that Telegram's lack of moderation is biting them back.
They claim Ukrainian intelligence has been using Telegram dating bots to pose as young women, lure Russian teens, and get them to commit arson and sabotage against police stations. Essentially: 'Hot singles in your area want to burn down a draft office.'
Classic hypocrisy. Kremlin suddenly discovers unmoderated free speech isn't fun when it's happening in their own backyard and reverts to the trusty authoritarian playbook. Meanwhile, Telegram learns that playing neutral command-and-control platform for a ground war is a great way to end up on everyone's most-wanted list.

The official Telegram response on X/twitter is just a middle finger from Durov himself.
Durov thought he could ignore law enforcement forever, but it may turn out doing nothing unites East and West in the race to lock him up.

Comment Codex does this on desktop computers. (Score 1) 106

Codex (That is now renamed to ChatGPT) did exactly this on my Mac. I uploaded a shell script I had in ~/bin and asked it to modify it, which it did, in place (!!!), an deleted the original script. Weirdest thing I have experienced. Note that I *uploaded* the script into the application as an attachment to a chat message I wrote to it and never downloaded the resulting file.

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