Comment Re:Are there people in the government (Score 1) 77
The USA voted them in. FAFO.
Comment Re:Hmm (Score 1, Redundant) 193
They can't own humans anymore, but they can own the AI. They prefer to own rather than rent.
Comment Advice... (Score 5, Funny) 193
Do a woman's algorithm first. It's more useful.
Male algorithm is "100 think of boobs" then "200 goto 100"
And we ALL know that goto is considered harmful!
Submission + - Supreme Court Sides With Trump Admin On Federal Regulation of Telecom Companies (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Thursday in upholding the power of federal regulators to enforce data privacy laws on telecommunications companies. The 8-1 decision preserved one of the Federal Communications Commission’s key tools, though the companies also won a concession from the Republican administration that could shift the regulatory landscape.
The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined that the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data. The companies argued that the FCC’s process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury. The administration defended the fines are an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the companies’ favor.
The Supreme Court agreed, affirming the FCC’s power to order fines when challenges are still available. “The orders at issue did not settle the carriers’ legal obligations because, stated simply, they did not create an obligation to pay,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. [...] Other agencies use similar enforcement methods, so a sweeping victory for AT&T and Verizon could have had widespread effects, advocates said.
The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined that the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data. The companies argued that the FCC’s process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury. The administration defended the fines are an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the companies’ favor.
The Supreme Court agreed, affirming the FCC’s power to order fines when challenges are still available. “The orders at issue did not settle the carriers’ legal obligations because, stated simply, they did not create an obligation to pay,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. [...] Other agencies use similar enforcement methods, so a sweeping victory for AT&T and Verizon could have had widespread effects, advocates said.
Submission + - A New California Proposal Could Effectively Ban All Aftermarket Tires (caranddriver.com)
sinij writes:
California's proposed "Replacement Tire Efficiency Program" would set standards requiring all aftermarket tires to be at least as efficient as the tires sold on new cars. The proposal posits that OE tires are more energy or fuel-efficient than their replacement counterparts, and that by improving the efficiency of replacement tires, California could cut back on the state's CO2 emissions, and California drivers could save on fuel costs.
California comes up with yet another bad idea.
Submission + - Fedora Linux 43 exposes 20-year-old Microsoft Outlook security failure (nerds.xyz)
BrianFagioli writes: Fedora Linux 43 users upgrading to the latest Dovecot mail server discovered something rather unsettling: some older Microsoft Outlook configurations may have been silently ignoring SSL/TLS settings for POP3 email connections for years. According to a Fedora community blog post, affected Outlook clients reportedly continued using insecure port 110 connections even when encryption was enabled in the application settings. The issue surfaced after Dovecot 2.4 disabled plaintext authentication on non secure connections by default, causing Outlook users to suddenly lose mailbox access after the Fedora 43 upgrade.
The report suggests the behavior may date back as far as Outlook 2007, although modern Outlook builds were not fully tested. Fedora admins stress that the problem could be limited to legacy account configurations rather than current versions of Outlook itself. Still, the discovery has sparked discussion among Linux admins and security folks because many users likely assumed their email traffic was encrypted simply because Outlook claimed SSL/TLS was enabled. The incident also highlights how stricter defaults in modern open source infrastructure can expose ancient assumptions and questionable behaviors that quietly survived for decades.
The report suggests the behavior may date back as far as Outlook 2007, although modern Outlook builds were not fully tested. Fedora admins stress that the problem could be limited to legacy account configurations rather than current versions of Outlook itself. Still, the discovery has sparked discussion among Linux admins and security folks because many users likely assumed their email traffic was encrypted simply because Outlook claimed SSL/TLS was enabled. The incident also highlights how stricter defaults in modern open source infrastructure can expose ancient assumptions and questionable behaviors that quietly survived for decades.
Submission + - EU working to abandon US tech (politico.eu)
whitroth writes: Shutting down Office for the ICC was clearly a wake-up call.
"The EU is moving to counter American dominance in technology by reaching for one of the oldest tools in its arsenal: industrial strategy.
As the European Commission unveiled a plan Wednesday to reduce Europeâ(TM)s reliance on the foreign technology providers that underpin the modern economy, it was careful to stress that it was not picking a fight with U.S. digital giants.
Instead, the tech sovereignty package â" motivated in no small part by U.S. President Donald Trumpâ(TM)s weaponization of Europeâ(TM)s dependence on American firms â" takes a longer-term view: boost the continentâ(TM)s players so they can eventually challenge their U.S. rivals."
"The EU is moving to counter American dominance in technology by reaching for one of the oldest tools in its arsenal: industrial strategy.
As the European Commission unveiled a plan Wednesday to reduce Europeâ(TM)s reliance on the foreign technology providers that underpin the modern economy, it was careful to stress that it was not picking a fight with U.S. digital giants.
Instead, the tech sovereignty package â" motivated in no small part by U.S. President Donald Trumpâ(TM)s weaponization of Europeâ(TM)s dependence on American firms â" takes a longer-term view: boost the continentâ(TM)s players so they can eventually challenge their U.S. rivals."
Comment So what? (Score 1) 1
Middle management has achieved perfect randomness in their decision-making throughout the western world for decades.
Comment Microsoft being Microsoft. (Score 5, Insightful) 190
"I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don't Alter It Any Further."
Comment Re:No. (Score 1) 3
Tell you what, Binky: You go first.
Submission + - Thanks to robots, Ukraine is now talking about winning, not just surviving (defenseone.com)
fjo3 writes: A small but growing number of European officials and analysts are saying what four years ago was unthinkable: Ukraine isn’t just surviving its grueling war with Russia, it is in some ways thriving and may even be on a path to victory.
This isn’t yet captured in headlines—for example, about last weekend’s barrage of Russian drones and missiles around Ukraine—but in the details, like how some 90 percent were intercepted.
Several long-term trends have shifted in Ukraine’s favor, and the core reason is its fierce focus on AI and robotics.
This isn’t yet captured in headlines—for example, about last weekend’s barrage of Russian drones and missiles around Ukraine—but in the details, like how some 90 percent were intercepted.
Several long-term trends have shifted in Ukraine’s favor, and the core reason is its fierce focus on AI and robotics.
Submission + - University of California Math Professors Push for Return of SAT/ACT Math Testing (kpbs.org)
Koreantoast writes: News sources are reporting that faculty members in the University of California system are calling for a return to standardized testing for applications to STEM majors. From KPBS:
Hundreds of University of California faculty members are calling on the university system to require standardized math test scores from applicants to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors.
Nearly 1,000 faculty members have signed the open letter. More than 200 of them are from UC San Diego.
The UC Board of Regents voted to eliminate the requirement in 2020. In their letter, the faculty call it “a temporary measure that has now become a permanent vulnerability...”
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” the letter reads.
Faculty have reported that students being admitted are unprepared for even basic classes: one faculty report last year saying that the number of students placed in classes to remediate elementary and middle-school math before they could take precalculus increased to 8.5% from 0.5% between 2020 and 2025. Several universities which dropped testing requirements in 2020 have already reinstituted testing over the last several years including MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale.
Submission + - Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office for Mac 2019/2021 Installations (osnews.com) 2
joshuark writes: MacOS users who opted to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for macOS back in 2019 or 2021, eschewing the Office 365 subscription, so you could keep on using Office 2019/2021 forever if you wanted to. Just like in the old days.
Consumer Rights Wiki reports:
"Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires.[1] After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would "continue to function."[2] The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined "reduced functionality mode," in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved.[1][3] By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the "continue to function" clause was removed.[4][2]" https://consumerrights.wiki/w/...
Microsoft’s advice to the users they’re stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it’s not because the software industry is a clown show.
Consumer Rights Wiki reports:
"Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires.[1] After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would "continue to function."[2] The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined "reduced functionality mode," in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved.[1][3] By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the "continue to function" clause was removed.[4][2]" https://consumerrights.wiki/w/...
Microsoft’s advice to the users they’re stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it’s not because the software industry is a clown show.
Submission + - GitHub Copilot Users React to New Usage-Based Pricing System (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In April, GitHub announced that it was moving subscribers from request-based billing to a usage-based model for its AI-powered Copilot service. As that new pricing model goes into effect today, many GitHub Copilot users are reporting some extreme sticker shock as they realize just how quickly their previous “normal” usage is burning through their newly limited monthly allotment of AI credits. Across social media and forums, many Copilot users are sharing personal statistics showing how just a few hours of AI usage can now account for a large chunk of their new monthly subscription caps. For some users, it reportedly took less than a day to use up a month’s usage quota.
That’s a big change from previous months, when GitHub Copilot subscribers were allocated a certain number of “requests” and “premium requests” based on their payment tier. GitHub said that the old system meant that “a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session [could] cost the user the same amount,” forcing Copilot itself to “absorb much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage.” [...] Under GitHub’s new usage-based pricing system, paid Copilot subscriptions instead grant users a certain number of AI “credits” each month, with one credit corresponding to $0.01 of usage. Subscribers also get bonus credits depending on their subscription level: the $10/month Pro plan includes 1,500 credits ($15 worth); the $39 Pro+ plan includes 7,000 credits ($70 worth); and the $100/month Copilot Max plan includes 20,000 credits ($200 worth).
That’s a big change from previous months, when GitHub Copilot subscribers were allocated a certain number of “requests” and “premium requests” based on their payment tier. GitHub said that the old system meant that “a quick chat question and a multi-hour autonomous coding session [could] cost the user the same amount,” forcing Copilot itself to “absorb much of the escalating inference cost behind that usage.” [...] Under GitHub’s new usage-based pricing system, paid Copilot subscriptions instead grant users a certain number of AI “credits” each month, with one credit corresponding to $0.01 of usage. Subscribers also get bonus credits depending on their subscription level: the $10/month Pro plan includes 1,500 credits ($15 worth); the $39 Pro+ plan includes 7,000 credits ($70 worth); and the $100/month Copilot Max plan includes 20,000 credits ($200 worth).
Comment Wow. (Score 1) 3
Remind me to make sure "Cremation" is selected for my final choice. I don't want to wake up deaf, dumb, and blind in blinding pain from a toxic drug test.
