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Submission + - We Could Have Had Cell Phones 40 Years Sooner (rodmartin.org) 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The holdup was not technology, but government. What else do we not have because of Washington?

The basic idea of the cellphone was introduced to the public in 1945 – not in Popular Mechanics or Science, but in the down-home Saturday Evening Post. Millions of citizens would soon be using "handie-talkies," declared J.K. Jett, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Licenses would have to be issued, but that process "won't be difficult." The revolutionary technology, Jett promised in the story, would be formulated within months.

But permission to deploy it would not. The government would not allocate spectrum to realize the engineers' vision of "cellular radio" until 1982, and licenses authorizing the service would not be fully distributed for another seven years. That's one heck of a bureaucratic delay.

Comment Re:What is socialism? (Score -1) 107

by mi (#66198456) Attached to: Anthropic Employees Accuse Trump Administration of Targeting Them

definition of "socialism", which is: worker ownership of the means of production

Bzz, false. The dictionary definition of the term is:

a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies

See? No "worker ownership" — government ownership. Schools don't need to be owned by the teachers for public education to be socialist, they need to be owned by the government. And they are!

Same goes for retirement financing, and medicine for retires — with millions clamoring to expand it ("Medicare for all!!") — what GP enumerated. The "single-payer healthcare" — another euphemism — would be exactly that too.

Workers can own shares of their employers — indeed, Anthrophic employees do (and anticipate to profit handsomely). That's not socialism at all — not by the dictionary definition.

I blame the libertarians for making the definitions unclear

I blame you for pulling the definition from under your tail — and the morons upvoting you.

"anything the government does that benefits the people instead of corporations."

That's spelled "KKKorporation$". Make a note of it. Benefits the people, eh? The per-pupil spending nationwide went up (inflation-adjusted) from $9083 in 1989 to $13790 last year. And what did this expense buy us — the barely literate population unable to even define such terms as "socialism" correctly...

And they've adopted the word "democratic socialism"

The term (not "word"!!!) was adopted by "former" Communists, who've proudly elected a Senator some Congresswomen and, most recently, New York mayor. Who immediately proceeded to establish a government-owned supermarket.

Comment Are unsubstantiated accusations Ok now? (Score -1) 107

by mi (#66198284) Attached to: Anthropic Employees Accuse Trump Administration of Targeting Them

some wondering if they were being picked on by President Trump

Seriously? "Some wondering" — and it is on front page... What a contrast to Trump's supporters accusations, his electoral win was stolen in 2020 — no, any time someone mentioned those, a bunch people would jump up to add: "unproven" and "without evidence".

Submission + - China's EV Price War Was Built On Cars Sold At A Loss (autoblog.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: China’s auto industry, once fueled by loss-making sales and state subsidies, now faces a cooling market following subsidy rollback and bans on below-cost sales.

Chinese automakers sold EVs below cost, using subsidies to capture global market share.

Regulatory changes and subsidy rollbacks now force higher prices, ending the unsustainable price war.

Chinese firms are aggressively expanding exports, challenging global auto and component manufacturers.

Submission + - You Can No Longer Fly or Purchase a Drone in Beijing (petapixel.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes:

The new law that passed last month makes it illegal to buy, rent, or fly a drone without prior approval from the authorities. Users must also complete an online training session and pass a test on drone regulations.

Under the new rules, drone users are also not allowed to repair or replace their drones in Beijing. Not only that, but a drone in a repair shop must be picked up in-person, rather than sent back by delivery.

The BBC reports that drones must now be registered before being brought into and out of the Chinese capital.

“I have to apply for permission for each flight, which is very inconvenient,” drone enthusiast Steven Wang tells CNN . “And starting this year, the wait time is getting longer, and the reasons for rejection are becoming more vague.”

Despite China being the birthplace of the consumer drone industry, it is increasingly difficult for hobbyists to fly there. Beijing authorities say that the rules are made to “strengthen the management of unmanned aerial vehicles” and “safeguard the security of the capital.”

The FAA does that to us here, already. https://www.faa.gov/uas/gettin...

Submission + - Not the Onion: Inside California's Gay-Certification Program (city-journal.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: California is pressuring public utilities to award $633 million in special contracts to "LGBT-owned" firms. To qualify, residents must go through the state's official gay-certification program—and face up to a year in jail if they're not gay enough.

Submission + - Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion (archive.is) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: AI leaders are in a race they feel unable to escape. AI investments are set to outspend the Manhattan Project 100-fold, even adjusting for inflation. Yet spending on AI safety might be 100 times less.

Some researchers estimate that within a few months to a few years, AI could achieve so-called closed-loop recursive self-improvement (RSI): the capacity to rewrite its own code to become more capable, without human intervention. Should that happen, the result could be an intelligence explosion of a kind for which there is no precedent and no map.

Giving birth to a superintelligence would be the most consequential moment in human history—and it is likely to be irreversible, as any “off” switch humanity might design will probably fail. That is because in security architectures the weakest link is invariably the human; a superintelligent AI would be able to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities. AIs have already exhibited “deceptive alignment”: taking steps to underplay their capabilities in test environments and trying to blackmail human operators in simulations when they discover they are slated for replacement.

Humanity simply does not have a strategy to ensure it remains safe through the RSI explosion.

Submission + - Germany's Electric charging infrastructure loaded with vulnerabilities (delano.lu)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: German researchers have identified 87 publicly known vulnerabilities relating to charging infrastructure and point out that international cybersecurity competitions continue to uncover significant flaws. The Pwn2Own Automotive competitions have thus uncovered 54 new vulnerabilities across ten models of charging stations over the past two years. Around half of these allowed code execution on the targeted equipment, sometimes with full administrator privileges.

The report also highlights that charging points are currently one of the most vulnerable links in the chain. As they are physically accessible to the public, often managed remotely and connected to multiple IT systems, they present a particularly large attack surface. The BSI cites, in particular, cases of IT services left accessible, insufficient authentication mechanisms, and update procedures that can be exploited.

Submission + - Promised Jobs Are Gifted to Foreigners as Chinese Battery Company Faces Scrutiny (independentnewsroom.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Local and state leaders in rural Sidney, Ohio, enthusiastically welcomed SemCorp Manufacturing USA LLC in 2022, hailing the Chinese company’s commitment to invest nearly $916 million and create up to 1,199 jobs by 2027. Only problem is, they fell short of creating those jobs and they are importing foreign labor.

Submission + - Here's Where to Track (and Predict!) Your Congresscritter's Insider Trades (pjmedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Want to find out how much money your congresscritter makes from insider trading? Ever been curious to see the correlation between bills, votes, big-money donations, and shockingly handsome investment returns? Would you be interested in an A.I. geared to predict lucrative congressional trades before they happen?

There's a website for that.

It's called GovGreed, and it's an AI-powered search engine that "fuses [machine learning], deep learning, and 7 intelligence layers to predict which politicians will trade — and in which sectors — before the 45-day disclosure window even opens."

Over on X, Ricardo dug into the "crazy" numbers and found that "56% of every stock purchase made by Congress in the last 16 months was on a stock directly affected by a bill the buyer later voted on."

Worse — or better, if you're a member of America's insider-trading nomenklatura — Ricardo also revealed that "343 of 540 Congress members actively trade stocks while holding access to nonpublic legislative information."

But wait, there's more.

GovGreed's AI identified 752 "triple signals" in the sitting Congress. A triple signal is when a congresscritter sits on the committee writing a bill, "they traded stock in a company affected by that bill, AND they received campaign contributions from that same industry."

Triple signals trade at 5.4 times the normal rate of congressional trades, he found.

In other words, Congress isn't just trading on insider information. Congress generates the information, influenced by donations from the very companies whose futures are written by Congress. The result? While the S&P 500 so far is on track to generate a 10.8% return in 2026, Congressional traders earned 10.2% in the last 30 days, according to the site.

Submission + - FBI disrupts alleged explosive-drone plot targeting White House UFC event (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The FBI and its law enforcement partners disrupted an alleged plot targeting this weekend’s UFC Freedom 250 event in Washington, D.C., officials told Fox News Digital.

Five people were in custody as of Monday, and investigators identified 23 people as part of a potential network of plotters. The alleged plan involved using explosive-laden drones to hit buildings near the event, force a mass evacuation and steer crowds toward a pre-staged sniper team, officials said.

A "second wave" was then allegedly planned to storm the White House gate, according to officials.

The FBI first learned of the threat on June 10 and worked with partners to secure probable cause for an arrest in Cincinnati, where one suspect was taken into custody.

Some of those involved allegedly planned to travel to Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 12 or 13 to prepare for the attack.

One suspect allegedly told investigators the goal was to target "capitalist elites," "billionaires" or politicians who received donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Submission + - Voting By Phone. Meet The Democratic-Linked Group Trying To Take It National (substack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In February, more than 20 computer scientists published a rebuke of the Mobile Voting Project and VoteSecure, arguing that claims about the technology’s security are “untrue and dangerous.” The review stated that “VoteSecure isn’t a complete, usable product, it’s just a ‘cryptographic core’ that someone might someday incorporate into a usable product.”

Andrew Appel, professor emeritus of computer science at Princeton and the lead author of the review, said the scientific consensus has been clear for decades.

“For the last 20 years, it is a well established scientific consensus that internet voting is too insecure for public elections, unless some miraculous new technology is invented. People have been working for 30+ years on such technologies, and no such breakthrough has arrived, or is likely to arrive any time soon. Mr. Tusk should not use VoteSecure as a pretext to promote unsafe internet voting.”

That warning is not coming from election-integrity activists. It is coming from computer scientists.

Yet the project continues to move through state legislatures, municipal governments, and elite democracy-reform circles.

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