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Submission + - Hosting.com launches AI application hosting platform (nerds.xyz)

BrianFagioli writes: AI tools have made it almost trivial to build applications, but deploying them safely is still very much a bottleneck. Hosting.com is trying to close that gap with a new platform that combines AI-assisted development, hosting, and built-in security into a single environment. It leans on Cloudflare Enterprise for CDN performance, AMD EPYC for compute, and Nova by WebPros for the development side, with support for apps created in tools like Cursor and Windsurf.

The pitch is convenience, especially for newer builders who can now generate code but may not fully understand how to run it in production. That raises an obvious question. Does bundling everything into one platform actually make things safer, or does it just make it easier to deploy questionable code faster? Either way, as more non-traditional developers start shipping AI-generated apps, platforms like this are likely to become more common.

Submission + - Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft's Cloud Was "a Pile of Shit." (propublica.org)

madbrain writes: Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “a Pile of Shit.” They approved it anyway.

To move federal agencies to the cloud, the government created a program known as FedRAMP, whose job was to ensure the security of new technology.

FedRAMP first raised questions about Microsoft's Government Community Cloud High s security in 2020 and asked Microsoft to provide detailed diagrams explaining its encryption practices. But when the company produced what FedRAMP considered to be only partial information in fits and starts, program officials did not reject Microsoft’s application. Instead, they repeatedly pulled punches and allowed the review to drag out for the better part of five years. And because federal agencies were allowed to deploy the product during the review, GCC High spread across the government as well as the defense industry. By late 2024, FedRAMP reviewers concluded that they had little choice but to authorize the technology — not because their questions had been answered or their review was complete, but largely on the grounds that Microsoft’s product was already being used across Washington.

Comment Re: The helium leak (Score 2) 44

You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Diversity in promotions and hiring has lowered standards throughout corporate America as well as in government.

An example: a manufacturing company in the western U.S. needed to replace a mechanical engineer who was leaving. Hiring manager located an excellent candidate, but could not get sign-off to hire, because the candidate was a white male. He was told, “That would hurt our POC metrics.” The departing ME was a south Asian with dark skin, so they counted him as a POC in their ESG reports. After a battle, the manager was able to hire him. True story.

Boeing Corporation has aggressively pursued the hiring of underrepresented minorities, which necessarily has dumbed down what was once the world’s foremost aeronautical engineering company.

NASA same. Whistleblowers and general staff inside the agency have been complaining that the previous leadership was overly focused on racial equity and gender bias training and similar wastes of time. The previous administrator stated that it was NASA’s goal to land “the first woman and the first person of color on the moon”.

Then we could discuss how the FAA has been dumbing down Air Traffic Control. It is rampant.

And no, DEI is not about fairness. It’s about making whites in positions of power feel virtuous.

Comment The helium leak (Score 5, Insightful) 44

A helium leak was reported prior to launch, yet they proceeded with the mission because it was “minor”. Then, it became a major issue and they were forced to scrap the mission. Do I have it right?

The old NASA made occasional mistakes, but they had a culture of must-not-fail; each team had to prove their subsystem was nominal before the mission could proceed. Their dedication was legendary.

Politicization, DEI, and the general decline in American technical standards and work ethic have ruined Boeing and NASA.

Submission + - EPA to Kill Off Stop-Start Systems (caranddriver.com) 2

sinij writes:

Out of all of the features that come installed in modern vehicles, automatic stop-start technology ranks right near the bottom of the list for most buyers. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin has been open about his disdain for the ostensibly fuel-saving setup, going as far as to say he would eliminate it.

I absolutely hate Start-Stop systems, specifically shopped for a car without one. More so, the only reason it exists is because having it produced mileage credit. Yes, not the actual gas savings, but a credit on a test. In actual use, the start-stop system does not produce measurable fuel savings. This is because in circumstances where people actual idle — warmup in the winter, AC when waiting in the car in the extreme heat, etc. this system would not be active.

Submission + - Gallup will no longer track presidential approval ratings after nearly 90 years (usatoday.com)

joshuark writes: Gallup will soon no longer measure presidential approval, the analytics firm confirmed on Feb. 11.

Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the Washington, DC-based management company began tracking the president's job performance 88 years ago. A statistician and founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion, Gallup first sent pollsters across the United States during the Depression era to ask people whether they approved or disapproved of how the nation's commander-in-chief was handling his job.

Starting in 2026, the firm told USA TODAY, Gallup will no longer publish "favorability ratings of political figures," a decision it said "reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership."

The change is part of "a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission," the company wrote. Gallup said the ratings are now "widely produced, aggregated and interpreted, and no longer represent an area where Gallup can make its most distinctive contribution." The company wrote: "Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Submission + - Apple rug-pulls security update 18.7.5 to force users onto 26.3 (apple.com)

sinkskinkshrieks writes: In a premature surprise where 2 major versions of OSes were traditionally supported until the autumn refresh, Apple unilaterally, quietly stopped supporting 18.7.4 and later on devices such as iPad Pro (M4) and (M5). This is because users hate macOS/iOS/iPadOS 26 redesign that breaks performance, usability, and functionality and Apple is forcing a Hobson's choice on users to pick between security and usability.

Comment I get it (Score 1) 54

I'm not a fan of "AI" in general, but it has its uses.

Brave search supplemented with AI has proven helpful to me in 90%+ of cases.

However, anyone smart enough to default to DDG is smart enough to want a choice of NO AI in their search results.

Pretty much everyone else just defaults to Google search, and gets spied on.

I've taken to running a small ollama model locally under proxmox. It's actually rather interesting to talk to. But it still hallucinates when I ask it to write a short bash script to keep only the last 30 days of APFS snapshots.

I think the current LLM is an evolutionary dead-end. Maybe quantum-based AI will do better eventually.

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