Geekish

Anyone who works as a freelancer these days has to be at least a bit familiar with techie things. But it isn’t just that. When I was a kid and those vaguely SF puppet shows were on the television and all the other kids wanted to be Greg Gogetem or Steve Savetheuniverse, I wanted to be the guy in a white coat and glasses called Doc or Brains. Here are some technology-related feeds I find useful and/or entertaining.

Slashdot » License Plate-Scanning Company Violates Privacy of Millions of California Drivers, Argues Class Action

Saturday 24 February 23:34:00 UTC 2024

"If you drive a car in California, you may be in for a payday thanks to a lawsuit alleging privacy violations by a Texas company," report SFGate: The 2021 lawsuit, given class-action status in September, alleges that Digital Recognition Network is breaking a California law meant to regulate the use of automatic license plate readers. DRN, a Fort Worth-based company, … [Link]

Slashdot » Boeing Removes Head of Its 737 Max Program After January's 'Door Bolts' Incident

Saturday 24 February 22:34:00 UTC 2024

On Wednesday Boeing "removed executive Ed Clark, the head of its 737 Max passenger jet program," reports CNN, "after a dramatic — and terrifying — midair blowout in January underscored ongoing problems with the jet." A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the four bolts that should have held the door plug in place were missing … [Link]

Slashdot » New York Will Start Requiring Credentials for All CS Teachers

Saturday 24 February 21:34:00 UTC 2024

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In 2012, Microsoft President Brad Smith unveiled Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, which called for K-12 Computer Science education for U.S. schoolchildren to address a "talent crisis [that] endangers long-term growth and prosperity". The following year, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org burst onto the scene to deliver that education to schoolchildren, with Smith and execs from tech giants … [Link]

Slashdot » Covid Death Toll in US Likely 16% Higher Than Official Tally, Study Says

Saturday 24 February 20:34:00 UTC 2024

The Guardian reports: The Covid death toll in the U.S. is likely at least 16% higher than the official tally, according to a new study, and researchers believe the cause of the undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testing. The second year of the pandemic also had nearly as … [Link]

Slashdot » Service Mesh Linkerd Moves Its Stable Releases Behind a Paywall

Saturday 24 February 19:34:00 UTC 2024

TechTarget notes it was Linkerd's original developers who coined the term "service mesh" — describing their infrastructure layer for communication between microservices. But "There has to be some way of connecting the businesses that are being built on top of Linkerd back to funding the project," argues Buoyant CEO William Morgan. "If we don't do that, then there's no way … [Link]

Slashdot » US Court Stalls Energy Dept Demand For Cryptocurrency Mining Data

Saturday 24 February 18:34:00 UTC 2024

"Crypto mines will have to start reporting their energy use in the U.S.," wrote the Verge in January, saying America's Energy department would "begin collecting data on crypto mines' electricity use, following criticism from environmental advocates over how energy-hungry those operations are." But then "constitutional freedoms" group New Civil Liberties Alliance (founded with seed money from the Charles Koch Foundation) … [Link]

Slashdot » 15 Million Toshiba Laptop Adapters Recalled Over Burn and Fire Risks

Saturday 24 February 17:34:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN: Dynabook Americas, the company formerly known as Toshiba, has recalled 15.5 million Toshiba laptop AC adapters over potential burn and fire hazards. The company said it received 679 reports of the recalled AC adapters overheating or catching on fire, melting and burning, including 43 reports of minor burn injuries. Consumers should stop … [Link]

Slashdot » 'Can a Programming Language Implement Time Travel?'

Saturday 24 February 16:34:00 UTC 2024

Stack Overflow's blog reports on a new programming language called Mariposa. They call it a "toy" programming language, "created as a way to play around with a novel or odd feature, like variable assignment outside of the normal order of execution — more colloquially, time travel." Computer science has long sought to reason about time in electronic systems, thanks to … [Link]

Slashdot » 5,000-Pound Satellite Successfully 'Deorbited' Wednesday

Saturday 24 February 15:34:00 UTC 2024

On Wednesday afternoon "a European Space Agency satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean…" reports CNN, "and there have been no reports of damage, according to the agency." The agency's Space Debris Office, along with an international surveillance network, monitored and tracked the Earth-observing ERS-2 satellite throughout February to make predictions about the reentry, which occurred at 12:17 … [Link]

Slashdot » Tinder Owner Inks Deal With OpenAI

Saturday 24 February 13:00:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In a press release written with help from ChatGPT, Match Group announced an enterprise agreement with the AI chatbot's maker, OpenAI. The new agreement includes over 1,000 enterprise licenses for the dating app giant and home to Tinder, Match, OkCupid, Hinge and others. The AI tech will be used to help Match … [Link]

Slashdot » Vending Machine Error Reveals Secret Face Image Database of College Students

Saturday 24 February 10:00:00 UTC 2024

Ashley Belanger reports via Ars Technica: Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent. The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, "Invenda.Vending.FacialRecogni~ displayed after the … [Link]

Slashdot » Odysseus Moon Lander 'Tipped Over On Touchdown'

Saturday 24 February 7:00:00 UTC 2024

On Thursday, the Odysseus Moon lander made history by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown. While the lander is "alive and well," the CEO of Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which built and flew the lander, said it tipped over during its final descent, coming up to rest propped up sideways on a … [Link]

New Scientist – News » Why science relies too much on mathematics

Saturday 24 February 6:57:22 UTC 2024

Mathematics is at the heart of modern science but we shouldn’t forget other ways to reason, says author and researcher Roland Ennos [Link]

Slashdot » Air Pollution Could Be Significant Cause of Dementia

Saturday 24 February 3:30:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Air pollution from traffic is linked to some of the more severe forms of dementia, and could be a significant cause of the condition among those who are not already genetically predisposed to it, research suggests. Research carried out in Atlanta, Georgia, found that people with higher exposure to traffic-related fine … [Link]

Slashdot » Microplastics Found In Sediment Layers Untouched By Modern Humans

Saturday 24 February 2:02:00 UTC 2024

Microplastics have been found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, "showing microplastics' pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans," reports Futurism. From the report: A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at three lakes in Latvia, as detailed in a study … [Link]

Slashdot » Florida Lawmakers Pass Ban On Social Media For Kids

Saturday 24 February 1:25:00 UTC 2024

Florida lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday that forces social media companies to keep most minors off their platforms. The Hill reports: The legislation, which passed the state House Thursday after earlier being approved by the Senate, now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) desk, though he says he's not quite ready to sign on. DeSantis told reporters Friday that … [Link]

Slashdot » Former Gizmodo Writer Changed Name To 'Slackbot,' Stayed Undetected For Months

Saturday 24 February 0:45:00 UTC 2024

Tom McKay successfully masqueraded as a "Slackbot" on Slack after leaving Gizmodo in 2022, going unnoticed by the site's management for several months. The Verge reports: If you're not glued to Slack for most of the day like I am, then you might not know that Slackbot is the friendly robot that lives in the messaging service. It helps you … [Link]

Slashdot » India's Plan To Let 1998 Digital Trade Deal Expire May Worsen Chip Shortage

Saturday 24 February 0:02:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: India's plan to let a moratorium on imposing customs duties on cross-border digital e-commerce transactions expire may end up hurting India's more ambitious plans to become a global chip leader in the next five years, Reuters reported. It could also worsen the global chip shortage by spiking semiconductor industry costs at … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons