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Submission + - China Builds Wild Gravity Machine. It can compress space and time (futurism.com)

schwit1 writes: It can effectively compress space and time, allowing researchers to recreate the conditions during catastrophic events, from dam failures to earthquakes. For instance, it can analyze the structural stability of an almost 1,000-feet-tall dam by spinning a ten-foot model at 100 Gs, meaning 100 times the Earth’s regular gravity.

It could also be used to study the resonance frequencies of high-speed rail tracks, or how pollutants seep into soil over thousands of years.

The previous record holder was the centrifuge at the Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which can generate 1,200 g-tonnes, a metric that combines gravitational acceleration (G) and a mass measured in tonnes (2,200 pounds), of force.

To generate these forces, CHIEF1900 spins a payload inside a beefy centrifuge, not unlike those being used by the US Air Force to simulate high G-forces during pilot training.

Except that the forces are orders of magnitude stronger. It can generate 1,900 g-tonnes of force, or 1,900 times the Earth’s gravity. To put that into perspective, a washing machine only reaches about two g-tonnes.

Submission + - This Is What Convinced Me OpenAI Will Run Out of Money (archive.is) 1

schwit1 writes: Last March, Mr. Altman surpassed himself, raising $40 billion from investment funds, far more than any other company has raised in any private funding round, ever. (Second prize goes to Ant Group, a Chinese fintech company that raised a comparatively modest $14 billion in 2018.) Mr. Altman’s $40 billion triumph also exceeded the amount that any company has raised by going public. The biggest I.P.O. ever was Saudi Aramco in 2019, which raised less than $30 billion for its government owner. Whereas Ant Group was profitable and Saudi Aramco was extremely so, OpenAI appears to be hemorrhaging cash. According to reporting by The Information, the company projected last year that it would burn more than $8 billion in 2025 and more than $40 billion in 2028. (Though The Wall Street Journal reported that the company anticipates profits by 2030.)

Not even Mr. Altman can keep juggling indefinitely. And yet he must raise more — a lot more. Signaling the scale of capital that he believes he needs, OpenAI has committed to spending $1.4 trillion on data centers and related infrastructure. Even if OpenAI reneges on many of those promises and pays for others with its overvalued shares, the company must still find daunting sums of capital. However rich the eventual A.I. prize, the capital markets seem unlikely to deliver.

The probable result is that OpenAI will be absorbed by Microsoft, Amazon or another cash-rich behemoth.

Comment Re:Turns out, not (Score -1, Offtopic) 29

We are finding that this isn't true in Minnesota with all of the Somali day care facilities having zero kids enrolled.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...

At Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, the volume of cash leaving in passenger luggage has turned a regional hub into a national outlier. What began as a local curiosity about suitcases stuffed with bills has evolved into a broader debate over Somali remittances, welfare fraud, and whether MSP is functioning like a de facto foreign ATM for money headed overseas.

Submission + - UK: Starmer is hell-bent on destroying your right to a private life (telegraph.co.uk) 1

schwit1 writes: Sir Keir Starmer is about to turn your smartphone into a government surveillance device with access to all your private messages in real time.

This is the terrifying endpoint for the Online Safety Act (OSA), legislation that serves as a weapon against British citizens that was passed by the Tories, and is now being enriched by Labour.

Section 121 of this Orwellian Act grants Ofcom the power to compel messaging platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage to deploy “accredited technology” for scanning messages sent with end-to-end encryption. Officially, it’s targeted at child sexual exploitation and abuse material and terrorism content.

Who could object to stopping these most heinous crimes? But make no mistake: this is “client-side scanning”. Messages will be analysed on your device, before encryption, meaning true end-to-end privacy evaporates. Every text, photo, or voice note you send could be inspected in real time not just flagged ones, but all of them.

Lord Hanson of Flint, who is steering this awful mission, recently confirmed the Government expects Ofcom to exercise these powers swiftly, in fact he “set a date of April 2026”. That’s when Ofcom will finalise guidance and minimum standards for the technology, paving the way for mandatory deployment. The clock is ticking. Within months, your private conversations will likely be subject to real-time state-mandated surveillance.

Starmer's Great Firewall is going to rival China's.

Comment Every company should do this. Fight fire with fire (Score 3, Insightful) 50

If the UK wants to force Apple to backdoor their systems, Apple should shutdown Apple accounts and devices for UK government officials AND their families. Tell them to use Android.

The outcry would get the government to back off SO quickly.

Set a precedent.

Submission + - 'Kill Switch'—Iran Shuts Down Starlink Internet For First Time (forbes.com)

schwit1 writes: We have not seen this before. Iran’s digital blackout has now deployed military jammers to shut down access to Starlink. This is a game-changer for Plan-B connectivity for protesters and anti-regime activists when domestic internet plugs are pulled.

Simon Migliano, who has just compiled a comprehensive report into recent internet shutdowns, told me “Iran’s current nationwide blackout is a blunt instrument intended to crush dissent," and this comes at a stark cost to the country, underpinning the regime’s desperation. “This 'kill switch’ approach comes at a staggering price, draining $1.56 million from Iran’s economy every single hour the internet is down.”

Overnight, NetBlocks reported that “Iran’s internet blackout is now past the 60 hour mark as national connectivity levels continue to flatline around 1% of ordinary levels."

Submission + - US used powerful mystery weapon that brought Venezuelan soldiers to their knees (nypost.com) 11

schwit1 writes: The US used a powerful mystery weapon that brought Venezuelan soldiers to their knees, “bleeding through the nose” and vomiting blood during the daring raid to capture dictator Nicolas Maduro, according to a witness account posted Saturday on X by the White House press secretary.

In a jaw-dropping interview, the guard described how American forces wiped out hundreds of fighters without losing a single soldier, using technology unlike anything he has ever seen — or heard.

Submission + - FCC Approves 7,500 More Starlink Gen2 Satellites (broadbandbreakfast.com)

schwit1 writes:

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday approved SpaceX’s request to launch an additional 7,500 of its Starlink Gen2 satellites, bringing the total allowed Gen2 constellation to 15,000. The agency also granted the company’s request to operate in additional spectrum bands and to operate at higher power in other bands between 10.7-30 GigaHertz (GHz), pending the completion of an existing FCC rulemaking where the question is being considered.

The order also allows SpaceX satellites to use lower orbits, down to 340 kilometers, and provide direct-to-cell service. The company is seeking approval for a separate 15,000-satellite constellation that would provide upgraded direct-to-cell service using spectrum it’s purchasing from EchoStar.

The article notes that under the Trump administration has also revamped the FCC’s grant program, that under Biden canceled an $886 million grant, claiming absurdly that Starlink did not provide service to rural areas. Under the new program “SpaceX is set to serve the most locations of any ISP under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program after new Trump administration rules that made it easier for satellite providers to compete for funding.”

Submission + - Cory Doctorow explains how legalising reverse engineer would end enshitification (theguardian.com)

Bruce66423 writes: 'Donald Trump’s tariffs have opened up a new possibility for the technology we have become increasingly dependent on. Today, nearly all of our tech comes from US companies, and it arrives as a prix fixe meal. If you want to talk with your friends on a Meta platform, you have to let Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg eavesdrop on your conversations. If you want to have a phone that works, you have to let Apple’s Tim Cook suck 30p out of every pound you spend and give him a veto over which software you can run. If you want to search the web, you have to let Google’s Sundar Pichai know what colour underwear you’ve got on.

'This is a genuinely odd place for digital computers to have got to. Every computer in your life, from your mobile phone to your smart speaker to your laptop to your TV, is theoretically capable of running all programmes, including the ones the manufacturers would really prefer you stay away from. This means that there are no prix fixe menus in technology – everything can be had à la carte. Thanks to the infinite flexibility of computers, every 10-foot fence a US tech boss installs in a digital product you rely on invites a programmer to supply you with a four-metre ladder so you can scamper nimbly over it. However, we adopted laws – at the insistence of the US trade rep – that prohibit programmers from helping you alter the devices you own, in legal ways, if the manufacturer objects. This is one thing that leads to what I refer to as the enshittification of technology.

'There is only one reason the world isn’t bursting with wildly profitable products and projects that disenshittify the US’s defective products: its (former) trading partners were bullied into passing an “anti-circumvention” law that bans the kind of reverse-engineering that is the necessary prelude to modifying an existing product to make it work better for its users (at the expense of its manufacturer). But the Trump tariffs change all that. The old bargain – put your own tech sector in chains, expose your people to our plunder of their data and cash, and in return, the US won’t tariff your exports – is dead'

Comment Re:It's not as busy as it once was (Score 1) 45

Facebook marketplace is run by aholes.

I tried selling some Pelican cases there. The cases are called rifle cases by Pelican but can be used for many other things such as camera, electronic or fishing gear.

FB marketplace permanently closed my marketplace account. Sent me a form letter email saying I violated the TOS. Appeals generate the same mindless, robotic form letter.

It is a plastic case, but it had the word 'rifle' in its name.

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