Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - Austria's armed forces switch to LibreOffice (heise.de)

alternative_right writes: Austria's armed forces have switched from Microsoft's Office programs to the open-source LibreOffice package. The reason for this is not to save on software license fees for around 16,000 workstations. "It was very important for us to show that we are doing this primarily (...) to strengthen our digital sovereignty, to maintain our independence in terms of ICT infrastructure and (...) to ensure that data is only processed in-house," emphasizes Michael Hillebrand from the Austrian Armed Forces' Directorate 6 ICT and Cyber.

This is because processing data in external clouds is out of the question for the Austrian Armed Forces, as Hillebrand explained on ORF radio station Ö1. It was already apparent five years ago that Microsoft Office would move to the cloud. Back then, in 2020, the decision-making process for the switch began and was completed in 2021.

Submission + - Zuckerberg Humiliated on Stage After AI-Powered Smart Glasses Keep Glitching (dnyuz.com)

fjo3 writes: Tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg was humiliated onstage not once, but twice, as his attempts to showcase the brilliance of Meta’s new AI-powered glasses were met with dismal failure.

Speaking at the company’s annual Meta Connect conference, Zuckerberg introduced the company’s second-generation smart Ray-Bans and a new neural wristband, as part of his vision for an AI that serves people in real-time.

Business Insider reported the vision unraveled when the AI glitched moments after the request, ignoring basic instructions and insisting that the employee had “already combined these ingredients.”

Submission + - Doomed 'cannibal' star could soon explode in a supernova visible during day (space.com)

alternative_right writes: Astronomers have discovered the secret of a strange star system that has baffled them for years, finding it contains a dead star about to erupt after overfeeding on a stellar companion. The supernova explosion of this cosmic cannibal could be as bright as the moon, making it visible with the naked eye over Earth even in broad daylight.

The system in question is the double star V Sagittae located around 10,000 light-years from Earth, containing a white dwarf stellar remnant and its victim companion star, which orbit each other roughly twice every Earth day.

Submission + - Color-changing organogel stretches 46 times its size and self-heals (phys.org)

alternative_right writes: Scientists from Taiwan have developed a new material that can stretch up to 4,600% of its original length before breaking. Even if it does break, gently pressing the pieces together at room temperature allows it to heal, fully restoring its shape and stretchability within 10 minutes.

Comment Re:Unearthed Plague (Score 1) 77

I thought that Yersinia Pestis has been known to be the organism responsible for the plague for a long time, this confirms it. From memory the theory was that the black plague was caused by a strain that was much more virulent than the one normally found now.

The article states that they have found bacterial DNA in 5 samples and are still looking for more to reassemble the genome of the plague bacterium so they can compare it to the current genome.

Music

What Happens To Our Musical Taste As We Age? 361

An anonymous reader writes: New research from Spotify and Echo Nest reveals that people start off listening to chart-topping pop music and branch off into all kinds of territory in their teens and early 20s, before their musical tastes start to calcify and become more rigid by their mid-30s. "Men, it turns out, give up popular music much more quickly than women. Men and women have similar musical listening tendencies through their teens, but men start shunning mainstream artists much sooner than women and to a greater degree."

Comment Re:Can someone explain how multinationals work? (Score 1) 132

Bludger: Australian slang for someone who lives off government handouts, and who refuses to work.

Wrong, its got nothing to do with handouts, there are plenty of bludgers who are "fully" employed.

A better definition:

Bludger: Someone who deliberately avoids work.

I've known bludgers who will spend more effort avoiding a job than it would have taken to complete it.

Comment Re:Delays destabilize the system (Score 2) 212

Bullshit!

This would be credible if the HFT guys bought everything and waited for a buyer to come along, then sold at a modest profit. This would add liquidity.

But they are not, they only buy when they know there is a real buyer in the market already, so they can get in and out quickly with their profit. As the buyer is already in the market they are not adding any liquidity that is not already there, they are just skimming.

I'm an electronics engineer and have had postgraduate courses on this. Any delay introduced in the feedback loop will tend to destabilize the system. HFT works fine, it provides liquidity to the market, it benefits everyone.

Slashdot Top Deals

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.

Working...