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Comment YouTube cares about nothing but $$$$ (Score 5, Insightful) 74

YouTube's only concern these days is revenue and profit.

They breach their own community guidelines each and every day by running scam ads that continue to run despite hundreds or even thousand viewer-reports. Those ads run until the advertiser's spend is exhausted -- however if a creator (the life-blood of the platform) is falsely accused of "scams or deceptive practices" by YT's AI then they're gone in the blink of an eye.

They also allow AI spambots to post endless comments linking to porn pages/sites and claim that their AI can't automatically detect such things -- although that same AI, when unleashed on creator's videos, constantly demonetizes anything that is deemed to be unsuitable.

I hate the AI dross that is overwhelming YT as much as anyone but I really have doubts that YT intends to do anything effective to stem its flow. You see, so long as AI-generated videos are getting eyeballs on ads, YouTube will be happy because they'll be generating revenue and profits.

Let's face it, YouTube is actually *encouraging* the use of AI on its platform. AI suggests ideas for new videos and will create thumbnails for you. VEO3 will even create shorts or entire videos on demand. Google wants to sell its AI services and is pitching them at YouTube creators so they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot are they?

This is why I'm moving to self-hosting my own videos on an instance of PeerTube and I encourage other creators to do the same. When you self-host you have *FULL* control and you no longer have to worry about censorship or losing your entire community just because one of YT's AI bots has runamok and identifies your cute cat videos as CSAM.

Comment Re: "far too small to generate any lift"?? (Score 4, Interesting) 106

That's how I read it. It should say it has no thrust.

A typical jet turbofan airframe has two engines that each have a generator shaft taking turbine energy and making electrical current. It then has a whole 'nother turbine engine used on the ground and in some other flight legs called the APU; this exhausts out the tail cone usually, and can start engines or provide extra hydraulic power if needed, but is slow to start just like the main engines.

For power loss emergencies, a small spring-loaded fan pops into action super fast, called a Ram Air Turbine or RAT. It can only make enough electrical power to reboot key systems like engine FADECs or avionics, often only on one electrical channel instead of all channels. It's only a turbine, not a thrust-producing fan. It's a pinwheel toy in comparison to the APU and even the APU cannot produce significant thrust.

Comment Re: Elites took 90 jets (or yachts) to Bezos' Wedd (Score 1) 215

Actually I have an F150. I'm willing to replace it with a cyber truck (if my finances permitted). But puzzle me this. What is better for the climate? Me holding on to the old F150 and rarely driving it. Of selling the F150 to someone who most certainly will drive it far more than me and me owning a cyber truck that perhaps I drive more because it doesn't cost as much for gas?? I'd like to know how much carbon goes into making a cyber truck.

The huge problem is if consumers don't consume there is no economy. The other huge problem is that if a decision that negatively affects a group that finds their employment affected they'll never accept it no matter how "green" it is. But they'll certainly be sure to fly in to the local climate conference!

The solution?? Small scale nuclear everywhere. Make repairability easier. And tax the heck out of things forcing an upgrade. Coincidentally, I consider all these concepts to be conservative.

Submission + - University of Phoenix reveals surprising truth about the future of IT careers (nerds.xyz)

BrianFagioli writes: A new white paper from the University of Phoenix dives deep into what the future of IT might actually look like, and it is based on real insights from the people working in the field. Titled The Future of IT: What IT Practitioners Predict Will Drive Career Opportunities and written by Dr. J.L. Graff, the report pulls from a 2025 survey of technology professionals. What it uncovers is a mix of optimism and pressure, where opportunity is high but the pace of change is leaving many workers struggling to keep up.

The good news is that most IT professionals still believe in the value of their field. According to the survey, 86 percent are optimistic about the future of information technology. More than half say they are very optimistic. But that confidence drops when it comes to keeping up with fast-moving trends. Nearly two out of three say they are not fully confident they will be able to keep up over the next five years.

Submission + - US judge rules copyrighted books are fair use for AI training (nbcnews.com)

SonicSpike writes: A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in a major copyright ruling, declaring that artificial intelligence developers can train models using published books without authors’ consent.

The decision, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sets a precedent that training AI systems on copyrighted works constitutes fair use. Though it doesn’t guarantee other courts will follow, Judge William Alsup’s ruling makes the case the first of dozens of ongoing copyright lawsuits to give an answer about fair use in the context of generative AI.

It’s a question that has been raised by creatives across various industries for years since generative AI tools exploded into the mainstream, allowing users to easily produce art from models trained on copyrighted work — often without the human creators’ knowledge or permission.

AI companies have been hit with a slew of copyright lawsuits from media companies, music labels and authors since 2023. Artists have signed multiple open letters urging government officials and AI developers to constrain the unauthorized use of copyrighted works. In recent years, companies have also increasingly reached licensing deals with AI developers to dictate terms of use for their artists’ works.

Submission + - This crewless ship is defending Denmark's and NATO's waters. This is how it work (euronews.com)

alternative_right writes: Drones are mounted on these 10-meter-long vessels and artificial intelligence (AI) helps analyse data of the surrounding environment under and above the surface of the ocean using advanced sensors.

"So, the vehicles [work] like a truck. The truck carries the sensors and we use on-board sophisticated machine learning and AI to fuse that data to give us a full picture of what's above and below the surface," said Richard Jenkins, the founder and CEO of Saildrone, the company that makes the ships.

Submission + - Microsoft's big lie: Your computer is fine, and you don't need to buy a new one (technical.ly)

FlipperPA writes: Microsoft's latest lie is primed to created the largest single E-waste event in human history, argues Timothy Allen, Principal Engineer at the Wharton School, in an article for Technical.ly:

Before the turn of the millennium, computer hardware was advancing so quickly that upgrading your machine every few years made sense, because you got so much more power than just a few years prior. That rapid evolution has ended; the average home user (excepting hardcore gamers and crypto miners) should only need a new machine every decade, if not less frequently. Any computer bought new in 2015 should be perfectly capable of running an operating system, a web browser, email, video meetings and an office suite without feeling slow. Microsoft suggesting people have to toss their devices is not only discriminatory — not everyone can afford to do this — it’s also horrible for the environment. E-waste is one of the world’s fastest-growing waste streams, and while some of it is being repurposed, the trash piles are rising a reported 5x times recycling efforts.

The article gives practical suggestions, and argues the migration from Windows 10 to Linux Mint is easier than Windows 10 to Windows 11:

Linux Mint is a desktop version of Linux that is meant to appeal to people familiar with Windows. It comes with everything the average home user needs, and just works. I would argue, in fact, that switching from Windows 10 to Linux Mint is less jarring than switching from Windows 10 to Windows 11. The user interface is actually more similar.

The article also gives advice to those who need to run Windows 11 for some reason: use Windows 11 Debloat, and O&O ShutUp to minimize the amount of crapware and privacy-invasion.

Comment Re:Compare Starship to the Saturn V (Score 1) 167

Are you stupid? Do you have any idea how many rockets NASA had explode before they managed to get one to space? DOZENS.

Do you know how many Saturn V rockets (you know, the one that was used to take men to the moon) failed in flight?

NONE

Not bad, considering there were 17 Apollo missions!

Rocket scientists don't come up with success on the first iteration. They come up with a design and test it.. Having a rocket explode during testing isn't a failure, it's how you learn. You learn what doesn't work. Hopefully you learn why it doesn't work and you try something else. Every rocket the US has ever designed has had multiple failures and explosions during the development phase. Every rocket we've ever developed has had multiple (sometimes dozens) of iterations.

*Some* failures are inevitable -- but what happened to Elon's promises of Starship reaching Mars in 2020 and manned missions landing by 2024? Instead all we've got are fireworks and skies over the Bahamas that look just like the skies over Israel right now -- raining hot metal.

Remember... Elon claims to be an "engineer" and has told us that he knows more about manufacturing than anyone on the planet -- yet he's so far off with his promises and the capabilities of his products that he paints himself a fool with every utterance.

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