Comment The Hellmouth is active as ever (Score 1) 115
This is the first of several rightly famous Jon Katz pieces:
Comment Good News Day (Score 1) 61
I like how we have cool engineering and cool computer science posts today instead of just legal battles, doomer gloom, and political intrigue.
Comment Re:Always found Google Finance to be underwhelming (Score 1) 12
> They now embark on a new task...what's wrong with Google these days?
That's pretty much status quo. They do some stuff, get users, get bored with it, kill the project.
Comment Nunti via F-Droid (Score 1) 171
(open source Android reader)
Comment Re: "users who sync their PC settings to OneDrive" (Score 2) 68
Syncing a VM then using an offline updater is an easy fix for those who care but I too am not among them. Making piracy easy was effective market chumming that served its purpose and still does.
Comment Re:Clickbait Crap (Score 2) 37
The more important anomaly is the JWST observation of galaxies that formed when the Universe was "too young for those galaxies to form".
If you push back the age of the Universe to allow those galaxies to form then you push on the coefficients of expansion and those need to agree with theory which they do not under current theory.
Some theories are compatible but lack a Big Bang which is taken as an article of faith by most and need more observations to consider.
Scientists not agreeing *is* science. If the schools fail to teach that in 13 years that's a massive indictment of the schools.
Comment System 7 (Score 1) 80
It's more like the System 7 icon, but still unnecessarily skeumorphic.
Who is going to buy a Macbook and think that's what their internal storage looks like?
Make Icons Icons Again
Comment Re:Talk to them in their own language - money (Score 1) 14
Alphabet can absorb way more fines than prison sentences.
Hopefully they won't be Evil.
Submission + - AP CSA Exam Takers Struggled Again in 2025 With Simple Array Questions
theodp writes: Presenting the 2025 AP Computer Science A (Java) Exam scores for high school students, The College Board's Trevor Packer reports that after a year's study, students did a far better job of answering multiple-choice questions that included IF statements than they did when asked to come up with actual code to initialize and search a 2-D array (AP CSA students' have long-struggled with array questions).
Regarding multiple-choice questions [MCQs], Packard writes that students exhibited "strong performance on primitive types, Boolean expressions, and if statements (units 1 & 3); 44% of students earned 7-8 of these 8 points," but were challenged by "questions on Arrays, ArrayLists, and 2D Arrays (units 6-8); 17% of students earned 11-12 of these 12 points." Regarding free-response questions [FRQs], Packard writes "The most challenging AP Computer Science A FRQ was #4, the 2D array number puzzle; 19% of students earned 8-9 of the 9 points possible." Despite the low success rate, a sample Java solution is pretty straightforward (as is an Excel VBA solution, which also incorporates a visual presentation).
So, with students having the benefit of access to AI coding assistants and tutors for the full school year and a purported game-changing $15 million AP CS A curriculum from Code.org and Amazon, is it surprising that 33% of students failed to receive a 3+ passing score on the AP CSA exam? Indeed, fifteen years after the tech giants teamed with nonprofit partners to assert control over K-12 computer science education in the U.S., AP CS A has the dubious distinction of having a higher percentage of students receiving the lowest possible AP exam score (1 out of 5) than any other subject except AP Statistics. Still, that track record didn't dissuade the American Federation of Teachers from entrusting the future of education for all subjects to the likes of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Regarding multiple-choice questions [MCQs], Packard writes that students exhibited "strong performance on primitive types, Boolean expressions, and if statements (units 1 & 3); 44% of students earned 7-8 of these 8 points," but were challenged by "questions on Arrays, ArrayLists, and 2D Arrays (units 6-8); 17% of students earned 11-12 of these 12 points." Regarding free-response questions [FRQs], Packard writes "The most challenging AP Computer Science A FRQ was #4, the 2D array number puzzle; 19% of students earned 8-9 of the 9 points possible." Despite the low success rate, a sample Java solution is pretty straightforward (as is an Excel VBA solution, which also incorporates a visual presentation).
So, with students having the benefit of access to AI coding assistants and tutors for the full school year and a purported game-changing $15 million AP CS A curriculum from Code.org and Amazon, is it surprising that 33% of students failed to receive a 3+ passing score on the AP CSA exam? Indeed, fifteen years after the tech giants teamed with nonprofit partners to assert control over K-12 computer science education in the U.S., AP CS A has the dubious distinction of having a higher percentage of students receiving the lowest possible AP exam score (1 out of 5) than any other subject except AP Statistics. Still, that track record didn't dissuade the American Federation of Teachers from entrusting the future of education for all subjects to the likes of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Submission + - Vortex's Take on the Model M: Cover Band or New Legend? (ofb.biz)
uninet writes: What would happen if you took the classic layout and look of the IBM Model M keyboard and rebuilt it with modern mechanical guts? Vortex decided to find out and the result is a unique board with one foot in two different decades. Passed up the Legend itself because it lacks too many modern comforts? I explore whether the Remix might satisfy, fittingly, in our article #1337.
Submission + - Google backpedals on goo.gl shutdown to preserve active links (nerds.xyz)
BrianFagioli writes: Google is changing its mind about killing off all goo.gl short links. The company had originally planned to shut them down entirely by August 25, 2025. That decision sparked concern among developers, educators, journalists, and everyday users who rely on these links across the web.
Now, just weeks before the deadline, Google is taking a softer approach. It turns out the company is only going to disable goo.gl links that haven’t seen any activity since late 2024. If your link is still being used or clicked, it should keep working.
This adjustment comes after what Google describes as community feedback. People pointed out that goo.gl links are everywhere. They show up in YouTube video descriptions, blog posts, PDFs, tweets, QR codes, printed handouts, and more. Breaking all of them would have left a mess of dead links across the internet.
Now, just weeks before the deadline, Google is taking a softer approach. It turns out the company is only going to disable goo.gl links that haven’t seen any activity since late 2024. If your link is still being used or clicked, it should keep working.
This adjustment comes after what Google describes as community feedback. People pointed out that goo.gl links are everywhere. They show up in YouTube video descriptions, blog posts, PDFs, tweets, QR codes, printed handouts, and more. Breaking all of them would have left a mess of dead links across the internet.
Submission + - Facebook intercepts encrypted mobile traffic
An anonymous reader writes: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
“A technical investigation into information uncovered in a class action lawsuit that Facebook had intercepted encrypted traffic from user's devices running the Onavo Protect app in order to gain competitive insights.”
“A technical investigation into information uncovered in a class action lawsuit that Facebook had intercepted encrypted traffic from user's devices running the Onavo Protect app in order to gain competitive insights.”
Submission + - Skipping Over-The-Air Car Updates Could Be Costly (autoblog.com)
Mr_Blank writes: Once a new OTA update becomes available, owners of GM vehicles have 45 days to install the update. After this date, the company will not cover any damages or issues that are caused by ignoring the update. “Damage resulting from failure to install over-the-air software updates is not covered,” states the warranty booklet for 2025 and 2026 models. This same rule applies to all GM’s brands in the USA: Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC. However, if the software update itself causes any component damage, that will be covered by the warranty. Owners coming from older GM vehicles will have to adapt as the company continues to implement its Global B electronic architecture on newer models, which relies heavily on OTA updates. Similar policies appear in the owner's manual for Tesla. Software-defined vehicles are here to stay, even if some of them have far more tech glitches than they should—just ask Volvo.
Comment Re:How can it happen? (Score 1) 29
The Earth's magnetic field is weakening which is measurable by the accelerating traversal of the magnetic poles. That's why a relatively small CME last year caused the same Northern Lights all the way down to Hawaii as the Carrington Event which was 10x stronger. The beauty is unquestionable but the impacts will cause us difficulty.
There was a recent solar storm which ionized the atmosphere more than we are used to as "normal" in our recent history, which sets up the conditions for lightning to travel further. The physics on it are pretty simple with all variables considered.
We're going to see more of these than we're used to as the pole shift continues to accelerate.
This happens every 6000 years or so and we're right on schedule but we're really unprepared to handle it. Preparing for this ought to be a planet-wide project for our species, and to help out the other species that rely on geomagnetic migration for their reproductive success.
As a kid in the 80's we only needed to update our compass calculations for variance to True North every 20 years or so; now it's yearly.
I wish Humanity could not plant their heads in the sand on this one but I'm planning like we will.
Submission + - Peak Energy just shipped the US's first grid-scale sodium-ion battery (electrek.co)
AmiMoJo writes: Peak Energy shipped out its first sodium-ion battery energy storage system, and the New York-based company says it’s achieved a first in three ways: the US’s first grid-scale sodium-ion battery storage system; the largest sodium-ion phosphate pyrophosphate (NFPP) battery system in the world; and the first megawatt-hour scale battery to run entirely on passive cooling – no fans, pumps, or vents.
That’s significant because removing moving parts and ditching active cooling systems eliminates fire risk. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, 89% of battery fires in the US trace back to thermal management issues. Peak’s design doesn’t have those issues because it doesn’t have those systems.
Instead, the 3.5 MWh system uses a patent-pending passive cooling architecture that’s simpler, more reliable, and cheaper to run and maintain. The company says its technology slashes auxiliary power needs by up to 90%, saves about $1 million annually per gigawatt hour of storage, and cuts battery degradation by 33% over a 20-year lifespan.
That’s significant because removing moving parts and ditching active cooling systems eliminates fire risk. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, 89% of battery fires in the US trace back to thermal management issues. Peak’s design doesn’t have those issues because it doesn’t have those systems.
Instead, the 3.5 MWh system uses a patent-pending passive cooling architecture that’s simpler, more reliable, and cheaper to run and maintain. The company says its technology slashes auxiliary power needs by up to 90%, saves about $1 million annually per gigawatt hour of storage, and cuts battery degradation by 33% over a 20-year lifespan.
Slashdot Top Deals
Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
