Comment DEI for robots (Score 1) 169
We obviously need to pass legislation prohibiting discrimination for robots and AI in general. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Comment Amazing: Rapid advances in technology (Score 0) 79
There are many ways AI is guiding rapid advances in technology.
The Rapid Trajectory Of Artificial Intelligence
AI revolutionizing industries worldwide: A comprehensive overview of its diverse applications
The Rapid Trajectory Of Artificial Intelligence
AI revolutionizing industries worldwide: A comprehensive overview of its diverse applications
Comment Re:Wake me when they actually shift (Score 1) 91
The bigger you are, the harder it is to turn the ship in an emergency. See Titanic.
Exactly. And Vmware's calculus is that as long as it has a dozen gigantic clients (governments, huge enterprises) that it can charge whatever it wants, then the small fish aren't worth it.
Submission + - First Nuclear Clocks Start Ticking in Vienna and Beijing (phys.org)
necro81 writes: Two groups, one in Vienna and one in Beijing, have successfully demonstrated the world's first nuclear clocks. Standard atomic clocks, like the caesium clocks that define the second, operate by observing the transition of electrons between different orbits about the nucleus. The resulting radiation is usually in the microwave range, and can produce clocks accurate to one second in 100 billion years.
Nuclear clocks go a step further, and probe energy transitions within the nucleus itself. Nuclei can arrange their protons and neutrons into different configurations, called isomers. The isomer with the lowest energy is the one usually found; higher-energy ones are only metastable and decay quickly. Usually it takes serious energy — x-rays and gamma rays — to excite a nucleus into a higher-energy arrangement. It so happens that thorium-229 can be excited using UV light with a wavelength of 148 nm — just within the capabilities of some exotic lasers.
It's still been quite a challenge. For one thing, Th-229 is not found in nature; it must be extracted from the decay chain of uranium-235. The Beijing team used just a microgram mixed in a crystal of calcium fluoride.
Although these prototype nuclear clocks are not yet more accurate than existing atomic clocks (one second in millions, rather than billions, of years), they show the way towards what may be possible. Because the energy transition is in the nucleus, rather than the electron cloud, it is less susceptible to outside disturbances like magnetic fields. And the fundamental frequency is much higher (five orders of magnitude), which should yield more precise timing. This development could lead to smaller and more reliable time standards across the world (and solar system).
Nuclear clocks go a step further, and probe energy transitions within the nucleus itself. Nuclei can arrange their protons and neutrons into different configurations, called isomers. The isomer with the lowest energy is the one usually found; higher-energy ones are only metastable and decay quickly. Usually it takes serious energy — x-rays and gamma rays — to excite a nucleus into a higher-energy arrangement. It so happens that thorium-229 can be excited using UV light with a wavelength of 148 nm — just within the capabilities of some exotic lasers.
It's still been quite a challenge. For one thing, Th-229 is not found in nature; it must be extracted from the decay chain of uranium-235. The Beijing team used just a microgram mixed in a crystal of calcium fluoride.
Although these prototype nuclear clocks are not yet more accurate than existing atomic clocks (one second in millions, rather than billions, of years), they show the way towards what may be possible. Because the energy transition is in the nucleus, rather than the electron cloud, it is less susceptible to outside disturbances like magnetic fields. And the fundamental frequency is much higher (five orders of magnitude), which should yield more precise timing. This development could lead to smaller and more reliable time standards across the world (and solar system).
Comment Re:Summary ... (Score 1) 274
Interesting point! I did not know that was the origin of their zone oddness. Thanks for that information.
Lots of other places drift west. Like lots of islands that are in the wrong zone for no real good reason. Probably silly reasons like past (or current) country ownership.
Comment Re:Summary ... (Score 2) 274
Stupid it may be, but there are a lot of places in the world that already do that and are effectively already going permanent DST. In fact, some of these places then also do DST again, making double DST. Don't believe me? Well, let's look at a time zone map:
Time zone map
Places that do DST
Consider the US state of Alaska. It is nominally in time zones -10 and -11 (check the water north and south of the state). But for some reason, the whole state is in -9. And for some reason, despite their high latitude, they also do DST. I guess they have so much, or so little, sun that it doesn't really matter if their clocks align to it, but then why change twice a year?
But a sparsely populated place not very interesting? Then consider China. Despite being 4 time zones wide, the whole country is in a single time zone (+8). The western border of China is in effectively triple permanent DST. Must be annoying to have solar noon at 3 in the afternoon. At least they don't do DST, through, and a lot of China's population is on its eastern side, which is in the right time zone for its longitude.
But maybe an authoritarian dictatorship isn't a great example. Then turn your eyes to France and Spain. They are effectively south of the UK and effectively in the GMT (+0) time zone entirely. But for some reason, they choose to be in the +1 timezone, giving them permanent DST. Then they also do DST in the summer, making it effectively double DST.
Basically, a lot of time zones "drift" to the west. There are probably a lot of reasons for this, some reasonable, some perhaps less so (the cynical part of me thinks it is older leaders trying to get younger people to wake up earlier and stop sleeping in, though it is actually hard to assign that much forethought to country leaders).
Interestingly, if you look at the DST map linked above, it is clearly just a European and US concept. Not to get too political, but I expected the non-thinking, white-things-are-bad, extreme TDS sufferers to loudly call for an end to DST now that Trump supported it so strongly, but so far that doesn't seem to have happened.
Submission + - Wisconsin U–Madison Prof Francis Halzen named 2026 Nobel laureate in physi (wisc.edu)
schwit1 writes: Halzen is the principal investigator of the NSF IceCube Neutrino Observatory, the world’s largest — and perhaps strangest — telescope. The U.S. National Science Foundation-funded observatory is operated by an international collaboration of scientists led by the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center based at UW–Madison.
Embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, IceCube uses thousands of light sensors to survey the universe for neutrinos, nearly massless particles that rarely interact with other matter. Neutrinos provide information about the workings of black holes, galaxies and other objects in the cosmos.
“IceCube is like no other telescope in the world,” says UW–Madison interim Chancellor Eric M. Wilcots. “And there is no other scientist quite like Francis Halzen, whose idea to create a neutrino detector under almost a mile of ice has led to a remarkable multinational and multi-institutional scientific collaboration and a fundamental shift in how we think about the universe.”
Embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, IceCube uses thousands of light sensors to survey the universe for neutrinos, nearly massless particles that rarely interact with other matter. Neutrinos provide information about the workings of black holes, galaxies and other objects in the cosmos.
“IceCube is like no other telescope in the world,” says UW–Madison interim Chancellor Eric M. Wilcots. “And there is no other scientist quite like Francis Halzen, whose idea to create a neutrino detector under almost a mile of ice has led to a remarkable multinational and multi-institutional scientific collaboration and a fundamental shift in how we think about the universe.”
Comment AI is helping us improving our lives! (Score 2) 26
Quote: "IBM and Red Hat say their AI-powered Lightwell initiative has identified and helped remediate more than 400 previously unknown vulnerabilities across widely used Java libraries."
AI is helping us improve our lives! Technology is moving forward rapidly.
AI is helping us improve our lives! Technology is moving forward rapidly.
Comment Nothing to do with emergencies (Score 1) 199
In a dire emergency, your car is the last place you should be, and the last thing you should try to hang onto. FEMA's official disaster preparedness communication calls for you to have a PORTABLE AM radio and to avoid travel unless absolutely necessary. "Let's get in the car and go to Disney" is not part of FEMA's official recommendations.
Also, to assume that AM radio will even work in an emergency or disaster is a stretch in the first place. Ancient broadcasting equipment living in swamps with hundreds of meter tall towers, seldom internet access, and nonredundant uplinks, are not reliable.
When Helene hit us in 2024, AM/FM radio was the first thing to go off the air, followed by the land-based Internet providers, followed by the cellular networks. We got by with local amateur radio operators who were able to communicate outside the zone on batteries and solar panels.
There is no "one thing" that is going to be universally reliable in a disaster. You have to have an "all of the above" mindset and prepare to communicate by different available means.
Comment Re:Practical Solution (Score 1) 199
It's not about emergency preparedness.
Comment Re:Plague is a problem in Russia? (Score 1) 68
We have bubonic plague infections every year in the United States. Very, very few, admittedly, but it's not like it's been eradicated. So there's still benefit in studying it.
Comment Re:sounds like bad accounting... (Score 1) 50
The only human payloads being sent up are going to ISS, which is scheduled to be decommissioned at about the same time as Dragon. I doubt Isaacman is losing any sleep over this.
NASA is moving it's focus from ISS to a moon base, SpaceX is moving its focus from Falcon to Starship. Starship is a lunar capable rocket, Falcon is not.
Isaacman will probably be glad to have one more reason to hasten the decommissioning of ISS so the resources can be moved to the lunar effort.
Comment Re:Perhaps of interest (Score 1) 90
The SF Democratic machine is all in on Flock [missionlocal.org]. That might have something to do with the Flock being in the SF Democratic Party.
The more I hear about this so-called "SF Democratic Party," the more I'm convinced they don't speak for the majority of SF voters. Seriously. They seem to be some strange, centrist organization that no voters belong to and nobody knows where they get their money from.
Comment Re:its bad (Score 3, Informative) 67
I'm still impressed that the Teams web client can't edit a message with an emoji in it without messing up the keyboard controls and often corrupting the message and losing data. It's had this bug for years. It's literally a messaging app where you can't reliably send messages.
Submission + - New Ai-Powered "America.gov" Government Website Uses Gemini and Grok (cnn.com) 3
fahrbot-bot writes: CNN is reporting (and others) that President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, a government website meant to serve as a one-stop shop for people trying to accomplish basic tasks like renewing a passport, enrolling in Medicare or applying for disaster relief.
The site, which launched with some basic functions ahead of a full rollout next year, is designed to serve as an AI-powered guide through the thicket of government agencies that Trump officials pledged would ultimately save people a whole lot of frustration.
The administration’s new initiative aims to allow Americans to access dozens of federal websites through a single point, making America.gov akin to a search tool that pulls information from across the government. And in the same way that people increasingly use AI models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compile information and provide customized answers, Trump officials claimed that America.gov would be able to do the same for people’s interactions with the federal government.
Enrolling in Medicare, for example, will become a matter of typing the request into the America.gov AI tool and following its step-by-step instructions. The same goes for applying to a government job — the new tool will now let people upload their resume directly to the site — or answering questions about federal benefits, publicly available documents or other necessities that fall under the federal government’s vast umbrella.
“Our vision is that one day, this type of convenience and simplicity will be across every government service,” said Joseph Gebbia, who leads the government’s National Design Studio.
But the reality is that the most advanced actions won’t be available until some point in 2027, raising questions about how long it will take for the administration to revamp the way the people interact with the government’s websites. The current version of America.gov can only do “answers.”
In related news, Variety notes that America.gov confirms, for now anyway, that Biden won the 2020 election.
The site, which launched with some basic functions ahead of a full rollout next year, is designed to serve as an AI-powered guide through the thicket of government agencies that Trump officials pledged would ultimately save people a whole lot of frustration.
The administration’s new initiative aims to allow Americans to access dozens of federal websites through a single point, making America.gov akin to a search tool that pulls information from across the government. And in the same way that people increasingly use AI models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compile information and provide customized answers, Trump officials claimed that America.gov would be able to do the same for people’s interactions with the federal government.
Enrolling in Medicare, for example, will become a matter of typing the request into the America.gov AI tool and following its step-by-step instructions. The same goes for applying to a government job — the new tool will now let people upload their resume directly to the site — or answering questions about federal benefits, publicly available documents or other necessities that fall under the federal government’s vast umbrella.
“Our vision is that one day, this type of convenience and simplicity will be across every government service,” said Joseph Gebbia, who leads the government’s National Design Studio.
But the reality is that the most advanced actions won’t be available until some point in 2027, raising questions about how long it will take for the administration to revamp the way the people interact with the government’s websites. The current version of America.gov can only do “answers.”
In related news, Variety notes that America.gov confirms, for now anyway, that Biden won the 2020 election.
