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 » PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' To Officially Be Removed from Food Packaging, FDA Says

Saturday 9 March 23:34:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this article from Live Science: Manufacturers will no longer use harmful "forever chemicals" in food packaging products in the U.S., according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In a statement released February 28, the agency declared that grease-proofing materials that contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) will not be used in new food … [Link]

Slashdot » 'Canonical Turns 20: Shaping the Ubuntu Linux World'

Saturday 9 March 22:34:00 UTC 2024

"2004 was already an eventful year for Linux," writes ZDNet's Jack Wallen. "As I reported at the time, SCO was trying to drive Linux out of business. Red Hat was abandoning Linux end-user fans for enterprise customers by closing down Red Hat Linux 9 and launching the business-friendly Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Oh, and South African tech millionaire and … [Link]

Slashdot » US Cybersecurity Agency Forced to Take Two Systems Offline Last Month After Ivanti Compromise

Saturday 9 March 21:34:00 UTC 2024

" A federal agency in charge of cybersecurity discovered it was hacked last month…" reports CNN. Last month the U.S. Department of Homeland Security experienced a breach at its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, reports the Record, "through vulnerabilities in Ivanti products, officials said…" "The impact was limited to two systems, which we immediately took offline," the spokesperson said. We … [Link]

Slashdot » 13-Year-Old Wins Science Fair with 'Death Ray' Experiment. Sort of…

Saturday 9 March 20:34:00 UTC 2024

It was an idea first proposed by Archimedes, reports CNN. But now, "Brenden Sener, 13, of London, Ontario, has won two gold medals and a London Public Library award for his minuscule version of the contraption — a supposed war weapon made up of a large array of mirrors designed to focus and aim sunlight on a target, such as … [Link]

Slashdot » Was Avi Loeb Led to His 'Alien Debris' Meteor by the Sound of a Truck?

Saturday 9 March 19:34:00 UTC 2024

Remember Avi Loeb, the Harvard professor who claims fragments of alien technology turned up in a high-speed meteor he retrieved from the waters off of Papua, New Guinea? "Reanalysis of seismic data now suggests Loeb may have been looking for the meteor remnants in the wrong place," writes the Washington Post: The analysis, led by seismologist Benjamin Fernando of Johns … [Link]

Slashdot » How $138B in US Student Loans Were Cancelled – Roughly One-Third of Planned Amount

Saturday 9 March 18:34:00 UTC 2024

Roughly $138 billion in U.S. student loan debt has now been cancelled, reports CNN. "That's about one-third of the $430 billion that would've been canceled under the president's one-time forgiveness plan, which was struck down by the Supreme Court last year." It's 9% of all outstanding federal student loan debt, according to the article, "wiping out debts for about 3.9 … [Link]

Slashdot » Earth Has Its Warmest February Ever – the 9th Record-Setting Month in a Row

Saturday 9 March 17:34:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: The Earth just observed its warmest February, setting a monthly record for the ninth time in a row, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Wednesday. The unrelenting and exceptional global warmth — fueled by a combination of human-caused warming and the El Niño climate pattern — has spanned … [Link]

Slashdot » Amazon-Backed Rivian Surges 13% After Announcing Cheaper New SUV

Saturday 9 March 16:34:00 UTC 2024

"Shares of Rivian Automotive surged 13% on Thursday," reports CNBC, "as the EV maker unveiled three new vehicles and announced more than $2 billion in savings related to pausing construction on a plant in Georgia." CNBC notes that Rivian's current vehicles "start at roughly $70,000 and can top $100,000," so the new cheaper R2 midsize SUV (starting at $45,000) could … [Link]

Slashdot » Study Finds That We Could Lose Science If Publishers Go Bankrupt

Saturday 9 March 15:34:00 UTC 2024

A recent survey found that academic organizations are failing to preserve digital material — "including science paid for with taxpayer money," reports Ars Technica, highlighting the need for improved archiving standards and responsibilities in the digital age. From the report: The work was done by Martin Eve, a developer at Crossref. That's the organization that organizes the DOI system, which … [Link]

Slashdot » Chrome 124 Lets You Turn Any Website Into an App

Saturday 9 March 13:00:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Android Police: Seven years ago, Google announced that it would phase out all Chrome apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux by 2018 (it would actually take until 2023). In its place would be what the company called Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), web apps that can be installed on a user's desktop that act … [Link]

Slashdot » Akira Toriyama, Creator of Dragon Ball Manga Series, Dies Aged 68

Saturday 9 March 10:00:00 UTC 2024

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: Akira Toriyama, the influential Japanese manga artist who created the Dragon Ball series, has died at the age of 68. He died on March 1 from an acute subdural haematoma. The news was confirmed by Bird Studio, the manga company that Toriyama founded in 1983. "It's our deep regret that … [Link]

Slashdot » Palantir Wins US Army Contract For Battlefield AI

Saturday 9 March 7:00:00 UTC 2024

Lindsay Clark reports via The Register: Palantir has won a US Army contract worth $178.4 million to house a battlefield intelligence system inside a big truck. In what purports to be the Army's first AI-defined vehicle, Palantir will provide systems for the TITAN "ground station," which is designed to access space, high altitude, aerial, and terrestrial sensors to "provide actionable … [Link]

Slashdot » 5,800 Pounds of Batteries Tossed Off the ISS in 2021 Fell to Earth Today

Saturday 9 March 4:15:00 UTC 2024

Space.com describes it as "a nearly 3-ton leftover tossed overboard from the International Space Station" — which crashed back to earth today. One satellite tracker claims to have filmed it passing over the Netherlands… "A couple minutes later reentry and it would have reached Fort Meyers" in Florida, posted astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. But instead … [Link]

Slashdot » Google's Newest Office Has AI Designers Toiling In a Wi-Fi Desert

Saturday 9 March 1:25:00 UTC 2024

Google's swanky new office building located on the Alphabet's Mountain View, California headquarters has been "plagued for months by inoperable, or, at best, spotty Wi-Fi," reports Reuters citing six people familiar with the matter. "Its recliner-laden collaborative workspaces do not work well for teams carting around laptops, since workers must plug into ethernet cables at their desks to get consistent … [Link]

Slashdot » Warner Bros. is Now Erasing Games As It Plans To Delist Adult Swim-Published Titles

Saturday 9 March 0:45:00 UTC 2024

Michael McWhertor reports via Polygon: Warner Bros. Discovery is telling developers it plans to start "retiring" games published by its Adult Swim Games label, game makers who worked with the publisher tell Polygon. At least three games are under threat of being removed from Steam and other digital stores, with the fate of other games published by Adult Swim unclear. … [Link]

Slashdot » Gemini Nano Won't Come To Pixel 8 Due To Hardware Limitations

Saturday 9 March 0:02:00 UTC 2024

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MobileSyrup: Google's new smart assistant, Gemini, is available on multiple devices but Gemini Nano, the multimodal large language model, isn't coming to all Pixel smartphones. Gemini Nano is only available on the Google Pixel 8 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series; however, we've recently learned that it's not making its way to … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons