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bi-writes · 10 months ago

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whats wrong with ai?? genuinely curious <3

okay let's break it down. i'm an engineer, so i'm going to come at you from a perspective that may be different than someone else's.

i don't hate ai in every aspect. in theory, there are a lot of instances where, in fact, ai can help us do things a lot better without. here's a few examples:

ai detecting cancer

ai sorting recycling

some practical housekeeping that gemini (google ai) can do

all of the above examples are ways in which ai works with humans to do things in parallel with us. it's not overstepping--it's sorting, using pixels at a micro-level to detect abnormalities that we as humans can not, fixing a list. these are all really small, helpful ways that ai can work with us.

everything else about ai works against us. in general, ai is a huge consumer of natural resources. every prompt that you put into character.ai, chatgpt? this wastes water + energy. it's not free. a machine somewhere in the world has to swallow your prompt, call on a model to feed data into it and process more data, and then has to generate an answer for you all in a relatively short amount of time.

that is crazy expensive. someone is paying for that, and if it isn't you with your own money, it's the strain on the power grid, the water that cools the computers, the A/C that cools the data centers. and you aren't the only person using ai. chatgpt alone gets millions of users every single day, with probably thousands of prompts per second, so multiply your personal consumption by millions, and you can start to see how the picture is becoming overwhelming.

that is energy consumption alone. we haven't even talked about how problematic ai is ethically. there is currently no regulation in the united states about how ai should be developed, deployed, or used.

what does this mean for you?

it means that anything you post online is subject to data mining by an ai model (because why would they need to ask if there's no laws to stop them? wtf does it matter what it means to you to some idiot software engineer in the back room of an office making 3x your salary?). oh, that little fic you posted to wattpad that got a lot of attention? well now it's being used to teach ai how to write. oh, that sketch you made using adobe that you want to sell? adobe didn't tell you that anything you save to the cloud is now subject to being used for their ai models, so now your art is being replicated to generate ai images in photoshop, without crediting you (they have since said they don't do this...but privacy policies were never made to be human-readable, and i can't imagine they are the only company to sneakily try this). oh, your apartment just installed a new system that will use facial recognition to let their residents inside? oh, they didn't train their model with anyone but white people, so now all the black people living in that apartment building can't get into their homes. oh, you want to apply for a new job? the ai model that scans resumes learned from historical data that more men work that role than women (so the model basically thinks men are better than women), so now your resume is getting thrown out because you're a woman.

ai learns from data. and data is flawed. data is human. and as humans, we are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, divided. so the ai models we train will learn from this. ai learns from people's creative works--their personal and artistic property. and now it's scrambling them all up to spit out generated images and written works that no one would ever want to read (because it's no longer a labor of love), and they're using that to make money. they're profiting off of people, and there's no one to stop them. they're also using generated images as marketing tools, to trick idiots on facebook, to make it so hard to be media literate that we have to question every single thing we see because now we don't know what's real and what's not.

the problem with ai is that it's doing more harm than good. and we as a society aren't doing our due diligence to understand the unintended consequences of it all. we aren't angry enough. we're too scared of stifling innovation that we're letting it regulate itself (aka letting companies decide), which has never been a good idea. we see it do one cool thing, and somehow that makes up for all the rest of the bullshit?

#yeah i could talk about this for years #i could talk about it forever #im so passionate about this lmao #anyways #i also want to point out the examples i listed are ONLY A FEW problems #there's SO MUCH MORE #anywho ai is bleh go away #ask #ask b #🐝's anons #ai

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commodorez · 1 year ago

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If the Commodore 64 is great, where is the Commodore 65?

It sits in the pile with the rest of history's pre-production computers that never made it. It's been awhile since I went on a Commodore 65 rant...

The successor to the C64 is the C128, arguably the pinnacle of 8-bit computers. It has 3 modes: native C128 mode with 2MHz 8502, backwards compatible C64 mode, and CP/M mode using a 4MHz Z80. Dual video output in 40-column mode with sprites plus a second output in 80-column mode. Feature-rich BASIC, built in ROM monitor, numpad, 128K of RAM, and of course a SID chip. For 1985, it was one of the last hurrahs of 8-bit computing that wasn't meant to be a budget/bargain bin option.

For the Amiga was taking center stage at Commodore -- the 16-bit age is here! And its initial market performance wasn't great, they were having a hard time selling its advanced capabilities. The Amiga platform took time to really build up momentum square in the face of the rising dominance of the IBM PC compatible. And the Amiga lost (don't tell the hardcore Amiga fanboys, they're still in denial).

However, before Commodore went bankrupt in '94, someone planned and designed another successor to the C64. It was supposed to be backwards compatible with C64, while also evolving on that lineage, moving to a CSG 4510 R3 at 3.54MHz (a fancy CMOS 6502 variant based on a subprocessor out of an Amiga serial port card). 128K of RAM (again) supposedly expandable to 1MB, 256X more colors, higher resolution, integrated 3½" floppy not unlike the 1581. Bitplane modes, DAT modes, Blitter modes -- all stuff that at one time was a big deal for rapid graphics operations, but nothing that an Amiga couldn't already do (if you're a C65 expert who isn't mad at me yet, feel free to correct me here).

The problem is that nobody wanted this.

Sure, Apple had released the IIgs in 1986, but that had both the backwards compatibility of an Apple II and a 16-bit 65C816 processor -- not some half-baked 6502 on gas station pills. Plus, by the time the C65 was in heavy development it was 1991. Way too late for the rapidly evolving landscape of the consumer computer market. It would be cancelled later that same year.

I realize that Commodore was also still selling the C64 well into 1994 when they closed up shop, but that was more of a desperation measure to keep cash flowing, even if it was way behind the curve by that point (remember, when the C64 was new it was a powerful, affordable machine for 1982). It was free money on an established product that was cheap to make, whereas the C65 would have been this new and expensive machine to produce and sell that would have been obsolete from the first day it hit store shelves. Never mind the dismal state of Commodore's marketing team post-Tramiel.

Internally, the guy working on the C65 was someone off in the corner who didn't work well with others while 3rd generation Amiga development was underway. The other engineers didn't have much faith in the idea.

The C65 has acquired a hype of "the machine that totally would have saved Commodore, guise!!!!1!11!!!111" -- saved nothing. If you want better what-if's from Commodore, you need to look to the C900 series UNIX machine, or the CLCD. Unlike those machines which only have a handful of surviving examples (like 3 or 4 CLCDs?), the C65 had several hundred, possibly as many as 2000 pre-production units made and sent out to software development houses. However many got out there, no software appears to have surfaced, and only a handful of complete examples of a C65 have entered the hands of collectors. Meaning if you have one, it's probably buggy and you have no software to run on it. Thus, what experience are you recapturing? Vaporware?

The myth of the C65 and what could have been persists nonetheless. I'm aware of 3 modern projects that have tried to take the throne from the Commodore 64, doing many things that sound similar to the Commodore 65.

The Foenix Retro Systems F256K:

The 8-Bit Guy's Commander X16

The MEGA65 (not my picture)

The last of which is an incredibly faithful open-source visual copy of the C65, where as the other projects are one-off's by dedicated individuals (and when referring to the X16, I don't mean David Murray as he's not the one doing the major design work).

I don't mean to belittle the effort people have put forth into such complicated projects, it's just not what I would have built. In 2019, I had the opportunity to meet the 8-Bit Guy and see the early X16 prototype. I didn't really see the appeal, and neither did David see the appeal of my homebrew, the Cactus.

Build your own computer, build a replica computer. I encourage you to build what you want, it can be a rewarding experience. Just remember that the C65 was probably never going to dig Commodore out of the financial hole they had dug for themselves.

#commodore #c65 #commodore 65

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months ago

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Michael de Adder :: @deAdder :: The Globe and Mail

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 2, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 03, 2025

Billionaire Elon Musk’s team yesterday took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

Today Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information.

Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six “engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.” They are connected either to Musk or to his long-time associate Peter Thiel, who backed J.D. Vance’s Senate run eighteen months before he became Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran, and they have little to no experience in government.

Public policy expert Dan Moynihan told reporter Elliott that the fact these people “are not really public officials” makes it hard for Congress to intervene. “So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world,” he said. Law professor Nick Bednar noted that “it is very unlikely” that the engineers “have the expertise to understand either the law or the administration needs that surround these agencies.”

After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?”

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

Musk’s response was to post: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Also last night, according to Sam Stein of The Bulwark, “the majority of staff in the legislative and public affairs bureau lost access to their emails, implying they’ve been put on admin leave although this was never communicated to them.”

Congress established USAID in 1961 to bring together the many different programs that were administering foreign aid. Focusing on long-term socioeconomic development, USAID has a budget of more than $50 billion, less than 1% of the U.S. annual budget. It is one of the largest aid agencies in the world.

Musk is unelected, and it appears that DOGE has no legal authority. As political scientist Seth Masket put it in tusk: “Elon Musk is not a federal employee, nor has he been appointed by the President nor approved by the Senate to have any leadership role in government. The ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ announced by Trump in a January 20th executive order, is not truly any sort of government department or agency, and even the executive order uses quotes in the title. It’s perfectly fine to have a marketing gimmick like this, but DOGE does not have power over established government agencies, and Musk has no role in government. It does not matter that he is an ally of the President. Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup.”

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

Today, Musk reposted a social media post from MAGA religious extremist General Mike Flynn, who resigned from his position as Trump’s national security advisor in 2017 after pleading guilty to secret conversations with a Russian agent—for which Trump pardoned him—and who publicly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory. In today’s post, Flynn complained about “the ‘Lutheran’ faith” and, referring to federal grants provided to Lutheran Family Services and affiliated organizations, said, “this use of ‘religion’ as a money laundering operation must end.” Musk added: “The [DOGE] team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”

In fact, this is money appropriated by Congress, and its payment is required by law. Republican lawmakers have pushed government subsidies and grants toward religious organizations for years, and Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, where it operates senior living facilities.

South Dakota is the home of Senate majority leader John Thune, who has not been a strong Trump supporter, as well as Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem.

The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is not the only bombshell this weekend.

Another is that Trump has declared a trade war with the top trading partners of the United States: Mexico, Canada, and China. Although his first administration negotiated the current trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, on Saturday Trump broke the terms of that treaty.

He slapped tariffs of 25% on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, tariffs of 10% on Canadian energy, and tariffs of 10% on goods coming from China. He said he was doing so to force Mexico and Canada to do more about undocumented migration and drug trafficking, but while precursor chemicals to make fentanyl come from China and undocumented migrants come over the southern border with Mexico, Canada accounts for only about 1% of both. Further, Trump has diverted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents combating drug trafficking to his immigration sweeps.

As soon as he took office, Trump designated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth responded that “all options will be on the table” when a Fox News Channel host asked if the military will strike within Mexico. Today Trump was clearer: he posted on social media that without U.S. trade—which Trump somehow thinks is a “massive subsidy”—“Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada—AND NO TARIFFS!”

Trump inherited the best economy in the world from his predecessor, President Joe Biden, but on Friday, as soon as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump would levy the tariffs, the stock market plunged. Trump, who during his campaign insisted that tariffs would boost the economy, today said that Americans could feel “SOME PAIN” from them. He added “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.” Tonight, stock market futures dropped 450 points before trading opens tomorrow.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum wrote, “We categorically reject the White House’s slander that the Mexican government has alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any intention of meddling in our territory,” and has promised retaliatory tariffs. China noted that it has been working with the U.S. to regulate precursor chemicals since 2019 and said it would sue the U.S. before the World Trade Organization.

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau announced more than $100 billion in retaliatory 25% tariffs and then spoke directly to Americans. Echoing what economists have said all along, Trudeau warned that tariffs would cost jobs, raise prices, and limit the precious metals necessary for U.S. security. But then he turned from economics to principles.

“As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago,” Trudeau began, “geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends, economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.” He noted that “from the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean Peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar,” Canadians “have “fought and died alongside you.”

“During the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged your great city of New Orleans, or mere weeks ago when we sent water bombers to tackle the wildfires in California. During the day, the world stood still—Sept. 11, 2001—when we provided refuge to stranded passengers and planes, we were always there, standing with you, grieving with you, the American people.

“Together, we’ve built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world…. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”

Trudeau said Canada’s response would “be far reaching and include everyday items such as American beer, wine and bourbon, fruits and fruit juices, including orange juice, along with vegetables, perfume, clothing and shoes. It’ll include major consumer products like household appliances, furniture and sports equipment, and materials like lumber and plastics, along with much, much more. He assured Canadians: “[W]e are all in this together. The Canadian government, Canadian businesses, Canadian organized labour, Canadian civil society, Canada’s premiers, and tens of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast are aligned and united. This is Team Canada at its best.”

Canadian provincial leaders said they were removing alcohol from Republican-dominated states, and Canadian member of parliament Charlie Angus noted that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario buys more wine by dollar value than any other organization in the world and that Canada is the number one export market for Kentucky spirits. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario has stopped all purchases of American beer, wine, and spirits, turning instead to allies and local producers. Canada’s Irving Oil, which provides heating oil to New England, has already told customers that prices will reflect the tariffs.

In a riveting piece today, in his Thinking about…, scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder wrote that “[t]he people who now dominate the executive branch of the government…are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation.” “Think of the federal government as a car,” he wrote. “You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them.”

On Friday, James E. Dennehy of the FBI’s New York field office told his staff that they are “in a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy.” He vowed that he, anyway, is going to “dig in.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#deAdder #Michael de Adder #The globe and Mail #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Musk #tariffs #coup #Timothy Snyder #FBI #USAID #DOGE #constitutional crisis #unprecidented

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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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Throughout the 1980s, and into the early 1990s, the New York real estate developer Donald Trump exchanged fan letters with disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon. In 1982, not quite eight years after Nixon’s resignation, Trump described him as “one of this country’s great men.”

Why was Trump such a fan? It might have had something to do with Nixon’s vengeful approach to politics, or their mutual closeness to McCarthyite prosecutor Roy Cohn. But the famously deal-seeking Trump was also an admirer of Nixon’s most famous diplomatic coup: the 1972 visit to China.

Today, the ghost of Nixon is haunting American foreign policy as well, thanks to the administration’s declared intention to strike a grand bargain with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would reorder global politics by sidelining the Europeans and leaving Kyiv in the cold.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine war envoy, revealed the underlying logic for such a move during a presentation at the Munich Security Conference. The Trump administration, he said, will try to “break” Putin’s alliances with China, Iran, and North Korea—apparently by offering Russia a deal better than anything it can get from them.

It’s an approach that strikingly mirrors Nixon’s masterstroke in 1972, when the president who had made his reputation as a diehard anti-communist stunned the world by becoming the first U.S. leader to travel to the People’s Republic of China. By meeting Mao Zedong, Nixon created a new diplomatic relationship that put the Soviet Union on the back foot—giving the United States leverage it used to push Moscow into negotiating a new strategic arms treaty. Now Trump is apparently contemplating a “reverse Nixon”—a dramatic rapprochement with Moscow that would leave Beijing out in the cold.

This doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Trump and his followers have often expressed their eagerness to engineer an end to the war, usually in terms that allow little input from the Ukrainians themselves. At the same time, MAGA loyalists—including Vice President J.D. Vance—have suggested that leaving Ukraine and the Europeans to fend for themselves would free up Washington to focus on countering China.

The anti-China camp inside Trumpism has not been doing well recently. Trump himself has recently made conciliatory sounds about Beijing, even touting his “very good relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and much U.S. government work targeting China has been frozen by Elon Musk’s government efficiency cuts, to Chinese nationalists’ delight.

Yet undermining China has been one of the consistent themes of MAGA foreign policy ever since Trump rode down that golden escalator in 2015. Cozying up to Putin, in Trump’s mind, might be just the way to box in the Chinese.

This logic is deeply flawed. Nixon’s visit took place at a time when Beijing and Moscow were already enemies, three years after a deadly exchange of fire over a disputed island on the Ussuri river had brought the two close to all-out war. Today, in contrast, Russia and China are closer allies than ever.

Russia is deeply dependent on China in just about every way that matters. China is the biggest customer for Russia’s coal and crude oil—a market that Putin would be ill-advised to jettison at a time when his economy is struggling. Western sanctions and the spiraling war costs have hit the Russian economy hard, driving up inflation, which in turn is fueling predictions of a devastating wave of corporate bankruptcies).The two countries share an often-contested border where they resolved long-standing disputes through a complex series of negotiations in the 1980s and 1990s; neither has any desire to relitigate the issue, or to have to use troops and money to refortify their frontiers.

Beijing has been giving the Russians vital military and technological support; by one estimate, China supplies roughly 90 percent of the computer chips currently used in Russian industry. Moscow and Beijing have developed overlapping interests in a variety of diplomatic and political realms, motivated by their deeply held desire to oppose the U.S. wherever they can. Russian and Chinese propagandists promote each other’s disinformation narratives across the world.

They agitate against the West using joint fora such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They have been holding joint military exercises (with a notable emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region) and sharing military technologies. Along the way, China has also been tacitly and not-so-tacitly abetting the war in Ukraine. There’s a reason why Xi declared in 2022 that their countries’ partnership had “no limits.” If the U.S. were to persuade Putin to abandon this relationship, the price would have to be exceedingly high.

And why in the world should the United States pay it? Despite MAGA talk of American decline, the U.S. economy is thriving, and its military remains strong. Russia, by contrast, is shockingly weak. Over the past three years, Putin’s empire has struggled to subdue a foe that has less than a third of its population and merely a fraction of its natural resources.

The economy is in deep trouble. The ruble has lost more than half its value over the past decade; ordinary citizens are struggling to cope with runaway inflation. His central bank recently had to hike interest rates to an eye-watering 21 percent, prompting some experts to warn of a coming wave of corporate bankruptcies.

For most Russians, their country—sapped by corruption and backwardness—is little better than one of Trump’s proverbial “shitholes.” Sanctions have cut off Russians from foreign travel to many countries , international money transfers, and global credit cards. Russia’s GDP, despite its population of 144 million, is smaller than that of Texas or California; if Putin is the leader of a superpower, then so is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, whose economy is now slightly larger than Russia’s.

Trump’s half-assed proposal to pressure the Kremlin by imposing tariffs vividly reveals his funhouse-mirror view of Moscow’s global significance. It’s been a long time since Russia has exported anything in significant quantities to the United States, so the effect of trade barriers would be virtually nil.

Meanwhile, U.S. allies from the United Kingdom to South Korea are unified in their desire to thwart Putin’s Ukrainian ambitions, since they know perfectly well that a Russian victory represents a massive threat to their own security. (The aggregate EU economy, by the way, is 10 times the size of Russia’s.) This constellation of forces makes this the perfect moment to pressure Russia into concessions at the negotiating table. Yet instead Trump is contemplating giving Putin a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Putin has made his own strategic priorities eminently clear. He wants to keep the territory he has illegally occupied in Ukraine; he wants to control the government in Kyiv; and he wants to keep Ukraine neutral (making its security de facto subject to Russian dictates). Putin recently refused to take part in direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he called “illegitimate.” (It’s worth noting that Zelensky was elected president in a competitive election, while Putin has retained power through a series of sham votes engineered by his own minions.) And, above all else, he wants to negotiate one-on-one with his American counterpart, serving his desperate need for status. The Biden administration stuck with admirable consistency to the slogan of “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” The current American president’s version so far sounds more like “Trump to Kyiv: Drop Dead.”

For the West to agree to such terms would be both scandalous and stupid. Rewarding the most blatant act of territorial aggression in Europe since World War II would strike a huge blow to the postwar rules-based order that has kept much of the world at peace for decades. It would establish a disastrous precedent—one that would signal to Beijing, above all, that there is no price to be paid for the armed conquest of weaker neighbors, such as Taiwan.

Until now, despite many shortcomings, the Europeans have done a surprisingly competent job of helping Kyiv militarily and financially. But a Trump-Putin deal, forged over the heads of the Europeans, would almost certainly mean the death of NATO—a massive gift to China, Iran, and other anti-Western tyrannies. There is reason to fear that Putin will make some sort of shallow concessions designed to give Trump a publicizable win.

Russian sources have said that they are aware of Trump’s desire for an achievement he can depict as a victory over China, and they are almost certain to provide him with one. Whatever that may be, there is little reason to think that Putin will see a need to scuttle his alliance with Xi. He simply needs it too much, regardless of what the Americans will give.

No one should be holding the fate of a European democracy hostage over the alleged benefits of a treaty with Putin’s wobbling empire. The Russian dictator has painted himself into a corner. Trump would be a fool to help him out of it.

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 5 months ago

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New SpaceTime out Friday

SpaceTime 20250207 Series 28 Episode 17

Io’s most powerful volcanic activity so far

Scientists with NASA's Juno mission have discovered the largest most powerful volcanic hot spot ever seen on the Jovian moon Io.

Dwarf planet Ceres and the building blocks of life

Scientists are being faced with a new puzzle about the dwarf planet Ceres.

New technology to search for distant Earth like exoplanets in deep space

Scientists and engineers are continuing their work building NASA’s next big window on the cosmos – the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

The Science Report

A new study claims consuming a daily dose of Omega-3 fatty acids may help your organs stay young

New research finds that babies start to be able to sense smells at the age of just four weeks.

Scientists document the tallest trees in Tasmania.

Skeptics guide to flat earthers.

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States. The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science. SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research. The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network. Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor. Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. Gary’s radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually. However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage. Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently. StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016. Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics #esa #spacetimewithstuartgary #starstuff #spacetime #hubble telescope

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yourreddancer · 5 months ago

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Heather Cox Richardson

February 2, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 3

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

South Dakota is the home of Senate majority leader John Thune, who has not been a strong Trump supporter, as well as Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem.

The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is not the only bombshell this weekend.

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nicklloydnow · 4 months ago

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“It might strike some as odd: The new president of the United States won the election by rallying the working class against the establishment swamp, yet he has placed at the helm of his assault on the elite-controlled Deep State none other than the richest man in the world. But this is only a paradox if you grant a couple of assumptions that the above description presupposes: that the “working class” is actually represented at all in our political system, and that anyone but the “elite” is involved in the power struggles within it. Understanding what’s really happening in the second Trump administration requires disabusing ourselves of both of these notions. What we’re seeing is the latest battle in a long war between two factions of the American elite. The working class are just extras on the set—moral props in a struggle that has nothing to do with them.

Americans lack the language to talk about social class. This is partly a result of our country having been founded in opposition to the ancient European class system. But it’s also because the left—the only faction in American politics that talks about class—has clung for more than a century to an orthodox Marxist definition of class that was becoming obsolete by the 1940s and, by the ‘70s, bore almost no resemblance to the post-industrial status order.

In the 19th century, when Marx wrote Capital, for the most part there were owners and there were workers. The owners depended for their profits, and therefore their social power, upon the exploitation of the workers, which meant extracting more monetary value out of their labor than that labor was worth on the open market, which is to say, more than the wages they paid. While the owners had an inherent material interest in maximizing this margin, the workers had an existential interest in bringing it as close to zero as possible. This was the irreconcilable contradiction at the center of capitalism, and the structural reality that galvanized society into two great social classes confronting each other: the industrial proletariat and the capitalist bourgeoisie.

But as industrialization progressed, so did scientific advancements. As technology became infinitely more complex, industrial production came to require scientific researchers, engineers, technicians, and a dozen other knowledge-based professionals. At the same time, Fordism revolutionized the organization of the workforce, transforming small factory-based businesses into massive corporate bureaucracies. This required the creation of a whole new class of managerial employees to organize the increasingly complex logistics of production.

These new employees weren’t “workers” who sold their labor power for an hourly wage. The owners didn’t derive their profits from exploiting their surplus labor. On the other hand, they didn’t own the means of production, either—their offices, computers, laboratories, instruments and devices were no more their property than the industrial machinery on the assembly line was the workers’. Moreover, “ownership” itself had become a more complicated and slippery concept. Corporations were now owned by hundreds or thousands of distant shareholders rather than the factory boss. At the same time, the corporation’s executives directly controlled the day-to-day means of production more than any shareholder, but without owning them at all.

This new breed of knowledge worker, hovering in a purgatory between the proletarians and the capitalists, was what Barbara and John Ehrenreich, in a 1977 essay, termed the “professional-managerial class”—“PMC” for short. Today, with its affluence and social status, the PMC constitutes the largest faction of the American elite, and the new base of the Democratic Party.

The late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu didn’t use the Ehrenreichs’ terminology, but he furnished an essential concept for understanding the PMC’s social position: “cultural capital,” by which he meant the knowledge an individual accumulates that enables him to fit effortlessly into a given social milieu. Cultural capital doesn’t have to be rarified knowledge; it can be, for example, a familiarity with firearms in a rural or exurban working-class social setting. But the cultural capital of the elite is, by definition, the most valuable kind.

Elite cultural capital has changed over time, but a rough index of what it includes at any historical moment can be gleaned from the curricula of a given era’s most prestigious schools. In the postwar years, an elite American liberal-arts education was informed by the pretensions of European aristocrats, with an emphasis on the classics and the kind of fine art that hangs in the permanent collection of the Met. Now it’s more likely to include political treatises by twentieth century anti-colonial intellectuals and social theory by queer deconstructionists. In either case, it constitutes the cultural erudition that enables the well-educated to fit into elite circles.

The trophy of elite cultural capital accumulation is the educational credential. It bestows upon its recipient an officially sanctioned status, like a title for a member of the landed gentry. And like an impoverished English aristocrat with a Sir before his name, it’s a rank one can cling to even in the absence of that ultimate status marker, material wealth.

Generally speaking, members of the elite are relatively affluent in both economic and cultural capital. But the composition of one’s portfolio matters. Within the ruling class, Bourdieu regards those who are far richer in cultural capital than economic capital as structurally subordinate—in his words, “the dominated faction of the dominant class.” Those with the inverse mix—who are rich in money but don’t necessarily boast the most illustrious educational credentials—are the dominant faction of the dominant class.

Politics today is the struggle for supremacy between these two segments of the elite. The economically rich seek to convert their monetary riches into political power by bankrolling their favored candidates (or themselves) in elections and by extending the rules of the free market—the arena in which they are hegemonic—into every facet of human activity. The culturally affluent aim to consolidate political power by constraining the influence of the market to purely economic activity, thereby limiting their rivals’ domain of activities, while proselytizing a vision of government led by professional technocrats. Thus, the rich tend to gravitate toward economically libertarian political ideologies, while the credentialed embrace progressive politics that favor the power of government institutions run by experts.

Neither faction, however, can openly acknowledge these class interests, even to themselves. In a democratic society, one’s political aspirations have to be cloaked in the language of the greater good. Thus, the rich contend (and sincerely believe) that the market serves the best interests of all of humanity, while the credentialed are convinced that increasing the power and reach of the technocratic state is how you improve the lot of the poor and oppressed, rather than their own. Each faction sees clearly through the pretensions of its rival, while extending none of the same skepticism to the self-flattering ideology that upholds its own worldview.

For decades, this competition has animated the culture wars of Silicon Valley, with the venture-capitalist class dismissing the value of formal education and lionizing the self-taught entrepreneur-turned-billionaire, while their left-wing critics malign the tech titans as power-hungry political interlopers and champion the moral authority of activists and non-profit organizations. The latter had a voice in the Biden administration. Now, under Trump, it’s the billionaires’ turn.

For the last eight years, Silicon Valley’s recent MAGA converts have convinced themselves that the civil service and the intelligentsia it represents are the real elite that runs America, first as the Deep State undermining Trump in his first term, then in the actual seat of power under Biden. Now they have their chance to bring the dominated faction to heel. And as befits their class, they are exacting their revenge with the swagger of a corporate raider, wielding spreadsheets as weapons and breaking the enemy’s will to resist with the shock and awe of mass layoffs.

It’s a war on the elite, by the elite. But that doesn’t mean the working class has no stake in it. When even the worst of parents divorce, the fallout is still suffered by the children.

In this case, the custody battle is over the institutions of American government. Where the PMC has long treated the state as, alternately, a tool for its social-engineering schemes and a jobs program for surplus elites, the economic elite has regarded it either as a trophy in its political class war or an asset to be liquidated, and is proceeding accordingly. But to non-elite Americans it’s an actual thing in their daily lives, that can work well, poorly, or not at all. The choices that DOGE makes about which programs to freeze, cut, or eliminate will impact their families’ lives, whether for better or for worse. But as usual, they don’t have a seat at the negotiating table.”

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us-cj · 5 months ago

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Elon Musk’s team took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, using President Donald Trump’s name, is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

South Dakota is the home of Senate majority leader John Thune, who has not been a strong Trump supporter, as well as Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem.

The news that DOGE has taken over U.S. government computers is not the only bombshell this weekend.

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odinsblog · 2 years ago

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(source)

In June 2019, three Israeli computer engineers arrived at a New Jersey building used by the F.B.I. They unpacked dozens of computer servers, arranging them on tall racks in an isolated room. As they set up the equipment, the engineers made a series of calls to their bosses in Herzliya, a Tel Aviv suburb, at the headquarters for NSO Group, the world’s most notorious maker of spyware. Then, with their equipment in place, they began testing.

The F.B.I. had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool. For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else — not a private company, not even a state intelligence service — could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

Since NSO had introduced Pegasus to the global market in 2011, it had helped Mexican authorities capture Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo. European investigators have quietly used Pegasus to thwart terrorist plots, fight organized crime and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying dozens of suspects in more than 40 countries. In a broader sense, NSO’s products seemed to solve one of the biggest problems facing law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in the 21st century: that criminals and terrorists had better technology for encrypting their communications than investigators had to decrypt them. The criminal world had gone dark even as it was increasingly going global.

But by the time the company’s engineers walked through the door of the New Jersey facility in 2019, the many abuses of Pegasus had also been well documented. Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents. The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail. Saudi Arabia used it against women’s rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.

(continue reading)

#politics #spyware #nso group #israel #pegasus #surveillance state #mass surveillance #privacy rights #cyber warfare

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govindhtech · 1 year ago

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MediaTek Kompanio 838 Top 8 tech features for Chromebooks

MediaTek Kompanio 838: Boosts Productivity and Provides Longer Battery Life in Chromebooks That Lead the Class

High performance computing is offered by the MediaTek Kompanio 838, which boosts productivity and improves multimedia, online surfing, and gaming. With the great battery life offered by this highly efficient 6nm processor, Chromebook designs that are thin and light will enable users, educators, and students to be genuinely mobile throughout the day.

Boost innovative thinking, learning, and productive work

The MediaTek Kompanio 838 is a major improvement over the lower-end Kompanio 500 series, offering exceptional performance and greater multitasking.

Due to a doubling of memory bandwidth over previous generations, the improved octa-core CPU with faster Arm “big core” processors and a highly capable tri-core graphics engine can handle significantly more data at a faster rate.

With compatibility for both DDR4 and LPDDR4X, OEMs can now design products with greater flexibility to satisfy market performance needs and BOM targets. Additionally, the highly integrated architecture offers the highest power efficiency available on the market for long-lasting batteries.

Up to 76% quicker visual performance

Increased performance in CPU-based benchmarks by up to 66%

Performance in web-based benchmarks was up to 60% better than that of the MediaTek Kompanio 500 series.

Superior Image Processing Unit for Cameras

The MediaTek Kompanio 838 equips Chromebooks with state-of-the-art dual camera technology and high quality imaging features. Photos and videos produced with the new MediaTek Imagiq 7 series ISP have more vibrant colours, especially in difficult lighting situations, thanks to improvements in HDR and low-light capture quality over the previous generation.

Improved AI on-Device

With unmatched power efficiency, the MediaTek Kompanio 838 with MediaTek NPU 650 offers entertainment that is more engaging and of higher quality. The MediaTek NPU can quickly complete complicated computations and is optimized for processing picture data efficiently.

Dual 4K Displays

For demos, presentations, movie nights, or just increased productivity with more visual real estate, premium Chromebooks with the highest quality screens may also output at the same resolution to a connected 4K smart TV or monitor thanks to support for 4K dual displays.

Perfect for 4K Media Streaming

With hardware-accelerated AV1 video decoding built right into the CPU, the MediaTek Kompanio 838 is now the perfect device for effortlessly streaming high-quality 4K video content without using up too much battery life.

Lightning-fast, safe WiFi

Support with MediaTek Filogic Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E chipsets by the MediaTek Kompanio 838 allows for dual- and tri-band connectivity choices. This enables more dependable connections with 2×2 antennas, quicker speeds of up to 1.9Gbps, and improved security with WPA3.

Extended Battery Life

With the class-leading power efficiency of the highly integrated 6nm processor, Chromebook designers can now construct fanless, silent devices with true all-day battery life.

The MediaTek Kompanio 838 is an excellent tool for the classroom that increases productivity and offers fluid 4K multimedia and web surfing experiences. With the great battery life offered by this highly efficient processor, Chromebook designs that are small and light enable teachers and students to be genuinely mobile throughout the day. These are the top 8 internal tech elements that support more creative thinking, learning, and productive working.

Top 8 Kompanio 838 tech features

1) Improved Efficiency

The MediaTek Kompanio 838 boasts an octa-core CPU with Arm Cortex-A78 ‘large core’ processors, a powerful tri-core graphics engine, twice the memory bandwidth of previous generation platforms, and exceptional speed and enhanced multitasking.

2) HDR cameras that capture excellent low light images

With the improved HDR and low-light capture quality of its latest generation MediaTek Imagiq 7 series ISP, images and videos have more vibrant colours even in difficult lighting situations. For more options and product distinctiveness, product designers can even incorporate dual camera designs with various lenses or sensors.

3) High Definition Webcams

Manufacturers of devices can design 4K webcams to provide superb streaming quality, which enhances your credibility when participating in video conferences and working remotely. In remote learning scenarios, this capability enables students to view the entire classroom and additional information on slides.

4) Improvement of On-Device AI

With unmatched power efficiency, the MediaTek NPU 650, which is integrated into the processor, offers effective picture data processing for more interactive and superior multimedia.

5) Upgrade the workstation with two 4K monitors.

Chromebook manufacturers can now incorporate the greatest detail screens into their newest models and add an external display connection that can output at the same resolution thanks to support for not just one, but two 4K monitors. For demos, presentations, movie evenings, or just to enjoy a healthy dose of increased productivity due to the extra visual real estate, connect to a 4KTV, monitor, or projector.

6) Perfect for Media Streaming in 4K

Now that the MediaTek Kompanio 838 has hardware-accelerated AV1 video decoding built into the CPU, it’s perfect for effortlessly viewing high-quality 4K video streams with the least amount of battery waste.

7) Extended Battery Life

With its class-leading power efficiency and true all-day battery life, this processor—which is based on an advanced 6nm chip production process—allows Chromebook designers to create designs that are light, thin, and even fanless. It also gives users the confidence to leave their charger at home.

8) Lightning-fast, safe WiFi

Although not a component of the Kompanio 838 processor itself, the platform gives device manufacturers the choice to use MediaTek Filogic Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E chipsets, based on what the market demands. This makes it possible to have dual-band or tri-band connectivity options. Both provide dependable connections through 2×2 antenna, improved WPA 3 security, and throughput speeds of up to 1.9Gbps (when using Wi-Fi 6E).

Read more on Govindhtech.com

#Highperformancecomputing #MediaTekKompanio838 #Kompanio500series #DDR4 #Chromebooks #premiumChromebooks #monitor #news #technews #technology #technologynews #technologytrends #govindhtech

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farhan29174 · 1 year ago

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Rice Milling Market Size, Demand Analysis, Price Trends, Global Industry Report 2024-2034

The Rice Milling market report offered by Reports Intellect is meant to serve as a helpful means to evaluate the market together with an exhaustive scrutiny and crystal-clear statistics linked to this market. The report consists of the drivers and restraints of the Rice Milling Market accompanied by their impact on the demand over the forecast period. Additionally, the report includes the study of prospects available in the market on a global level. With tables and figures helping evaluate the Global Rice Milling market, this research offers key statistics on the state of the industry and is a beneficial source of guidance and direction for companies and entities interested in the market. This report comes along with an additional Excel data-sheet suite taking quantitative data from all numeric forecasts offered in the study.

Get Sample PDF Brochure @ https://www.reportsintellect.com/sample-request/2910960

Key players offered in the market: Buhler Group G.G. Dandekar Machine Works Ltd. Satake Corporation Savco Sales Pvt Ltd. G.S International Fowler Westrup Mill Master Machinery Pvt Ltd. Perfect Equipments Patker Engineers

Additionally, it takes account of the prominent players of the Rice Milling market with insights including market share, product specifications, key strategies, contact details, and company profiles. Similarly, the report involves the market computed CAGR of the market created on previous records regarding the market and existing market trends accompanied by future developments. It also divulges the future impact of enforcing regulations and policies on the expansion of the Rice Milling Market.

Scope and Segmentation of the Rice Milling Market

The estimates for all segments including type and application/end-user have been provided on a regional basis for the forecast period from 2024 to 2034. We have applied a mix of bottom-up and top-down methods for market estimation, analyzing the crucial regional markets, dynamics, and trends for numerous applications. Moreover, the fastest & slowest growing market segments are pointed out in the study to give out significant insights into each core element of the market.

Rice Milling Market Type Coverage: - Rice Whitening Machinery Pre Cleaner Machinery Paddy Separator Machinery Length Grader Machinery

Rice Milling Market Application Coverage: - Comercial Home Use

Regional Analysis:

North America Country (United States, Canada) South America Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea) Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy) Other Countries (Middle East, Africa, GCC)

Also, Get an updated forecast from 2024 to 2034.

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The comprehensive report provides:

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About Us: Reports Intellect is your one-stop solution for everything related to market research and market intelligence. We understand the importance of market intelligence and its need in today's competitive world.

Our professional team works hard to fetch the most authentic research reports backed with impeccable data figures which guarantee outstanding results every time for you.

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#Rice Milling Market #Rice Milling Market trends #Rice Milling Market future #Rice Milling Market size #Rice Milling Market growth #Rice Milling Market forecast #Rice Milling Market analysis

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exportimportproducts · 2 years ago

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Export Import Products List

Exporting and importing products is a major part of the global economy. In 2022, the value of global merchandise trade was over $28 trillion. This means that businesses and consumers all over the world are exchanging goods and services on a massive scale.

There are a wide variety of products that are exported and imported, but some of the most common include:

Agricultural products: This category includes food crops, such as wheat, rice, and corn, as well as livestock and animal products, such as meat, dairy, and eggs.

Chemicals: This category includes a wide range of products, such as petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers.

Electrical machinery and equipment: This category includes products such as generators, motors, and computers.

Food and beverages: This category includes processed foods and drinks, as well as fresh produce.

Machinery and equipment: This category includes products such as machine tools, engines, and construction equipment.

Manufactured goods: This category includes a wide range of products, such as textiles, clothing, and electronics.

Minerals and fuels: This category includes products such as crude oil, natural gas, and coal.

Other goods: This category includes products that do not fall into any of the other categories, such as furniture and toys.

Textiles and clothing: This category includes products such as yarn, fabric, and garments.

Transport equipment: This category includes products such as cars, trucks, and airplanes.

The specific products that are exported and imported vary from country to country. For example, the United States is a major exporter of agricultural products, machinery, and equipment, while China is a major exporter of manufactured goods and electronics.

Factors to Consider When Choosing Export Import Products

There are a number of factors that businesses should consider when choosing which products to export or import. These factors include:

Demand: Is there a strong demand for the product in the target market?

Competition: How much competition is there for the product in the target market?

Profitability: Is the product profitable to export or import?

Regulations: Are there any regulations that restrict the export or import of the product?

Logistics: How will the product be transported to and from the target market?

Benefits of Exporting and Importing Products

There are a number of benefits to exporting and importing products. For businesses, exporting can help to increase sales and profits, and it can also help to diversify the business's customer base. Importing can help businesses to access products that are not available domestically, and it can also help businesses to reduce costs.

For consumers, exporting and importing can help to lower prices and increase the availability of goods. For example, consumers in the United States can buy fresh produce from all over the world, and they can also buy electronics and other manufactured goods at lower prices because of imports.

Conclusion

Exporting and importing products is a vital part of the global economy. It helps businesses to grow and consumers to save money. If you are considering starting an export import business, there are a number of resources available to help you get started.

#Export Import Products List #export import products #export import data #exporter #bussiness #export #import #importers

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 1, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 01, 2025

Twenty-five years ago today, Americans—along with the rest of the world—woke up to a new century date…and to the discovery that the years of work computer programmers had put in to stop what was known as the Y2K bug from crashing airplanes, shutting down hospitals, and making payments systems inoperable had worked.

When programmers began their work with the first wave of commercial computers in the 1960s, computer memory was expensive, so they used a two-digit format for dates, using just the years in the century, rather than using the four digits that would be necessary otherwise—78, for example, rather than 1978. This worked fine until the century changed.

As the turn of the twenty-first century approached, computer engineers realized that computers might interpret 00 as 1900 rather than 2000 or fail to recognize it at all, causing programs that, by then, handled routine maintenance, safety checks, transportation, finance, and so on, to fail. According to scholar Olivia Bosch, governments recognized that government services, as well as security and the law, could be disrupted by the glitch. They knew that the public must have confidence that world systems would survive, and the United States and the United Kingdom, where at the time computers were more widespread than they were elsewhere, emphasized transparency about how governments, companies, and programmers were handling the problem. They backed the World Bank and the United Nations in their work to help developing countries fix their own Y2K issues.

Meanwhile, people who were already worried about the coming of a new century began to fear that the end of the world was coming. In late 1996, evangelical Christian believers saw the Virgin Mary in the windows of an office building near Clearwater, Florida, and some thought the image was a sign of the end times. Leaders fed that fear, some appearing to hope that the secular government they hated would fall, some appreciating the profit to be made from their warnings. Popular televangelist Pat Robertson ran headlines like “The Year 2000—A Date with Disaster.”

Fears reached far beyond the evangelical community. Newspaper tabloids ran headlines that convinced some worried people to start stockpiling food and preparing for societal collapse: “JANUARY 1, 2000: THE DAY THE EARTH WILL STAND STILL!” one tabloid read. “ALL BANKS WILL FAIL. FOOD SUPPLIES WILL BE DEPLETED! ELECTRICITY WILL BE CUT OFF! THE STOCK MARKET WILL CRASH! VEHICLES USING COMPUTER CHIPS WILL STOP DEAD! TELEPHONES WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION! DOMINO EFFECT WILL CAUSE A WORLDWIDE DEPRESSION!”

In fact, the fix turned out to be simple—programmers developed updated systems that recognized a four-digit date—but implementing it meant that hardware and software had to be adjusted to become Y2K compliant, and they had to be ready by midnight on December 31, 1999. Technology teams worked for years, racing to meet the deadline at a cost that researchers estimate to have been $300–$600 billion. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration at the time, Jane Garvey, told NPR in 1998 that the air traffic control system had twenty-three million lines of code that had to be fixed.

President Bill Clinton’s 1999 budget had described fixing the Y2K bug as “the single largest technology management challenge in history,” but on December 14 of that year, President Bill Clinton announced that according to the Office of Management and Budget, 99.9% of the government's mission-critical computer systems were ready for 2000. In May 1997, only 21% had been ready. “[W]e have done our job, we have met the deadline, and we have done it well below cost projections,” Clinton said.

Indeed, the fix worked. Despite the dark warnings, the programmers had done their job, and the clocks changed with little disruption. “2000,” the Wilmington, Delaware, News Journal’s headline read. “World rejoices; Y2K bug is quiet.”

Crises get a lot of attention, but the quiet work of fixing them gets less. And if that work ends the crisis that got all the attention, the success itself makes people think there was never a crisis to begin with. In the aftermath of the Y2K problem, people began to treat it as a joke, but as technology forecaster Paul Saffo emphasized, “The Y2K crisis didn’t happen precisely because people started preparing for it over a decade in advance. And the general public who was busy stocking up on supplies and stuff just didn’t have a sense that the programmers were on the job.”

As of midnight last night, a five-year contract ended that had allowed Russia to export natural gas to Europe by way of a pipeline running through Ukraine. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that he would not renew the contract, which permitted more than $6 billion a year to flow to cash-strapped Russia. European governments said they had plenty of time to prepare and that they have found alternative sources to meet the needs of their people.

Today, President Joe Biden issued a statement marking the day that the new, lower cap on seniors’ out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs goes into effect. The Inflation Reduction Act, negotiated over two years and passed with Democratic votes alone, enabled the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices and phased in out-of-pocket spending caps for seniors. In 2024 the cap was $3,400; it’s now $2,000.

As we launch ourselves into 2025, one of the key issues of the new year will be whether Americans care that the U.S. government does the hard, slow work of governing and, if it does, who benefits.

Happy New Year, everyone.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Con Man #Mike Luckovich #Letters From An American #heather cox richardson #history #American History #Y2K #do your job #the work of government #Inflation Reduction Act #technology management #the hard slow work of governing

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 10 months ago

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New SpaceTime out Friday

SpaceTime 20240830 Series 27 Episode 105

Discovery of the heaviest antimatter hyper-nucleus ever created

Physicists from the STAR Collaboration have for the first time observed a new antimatter hyper-nucleus called anti-hyperhydrogen-4.

Rocket engine explodes during UK spaceport test A rocket engine exploded spectacularly during a hot fire first stage test at Britain's new SaxaVord spaceport in northern Scotland.

Why food tastes bad in space

A new study may help explain why astronauts are constantly reporting that their meals taste bland in space.

The Science Report

Five percent of people are consuming products that are potentially toxic to their livers.

The robotic glove that will help people who need hand rehabilitation.

Your social position – income and job – could be linked to your food preferences.

Skeptics guide to the accuracy of ghost hunts

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics #esa #spacetimewithstuartgary #starstuff #spacetime #jwst #hubble space telescope #james webb space telescope #csiro

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boredtechnologist · 3 days ago

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"Can a Computer Make You Cry?" – The Eulogy for a Dream That Once Breathed

In 1983, Electronic Arts believed.

That isn’t sarcasm. That isn’t revisionism.

For one brief moment, before the rot set in, they truly believed software could be art. They believed it could stir, haunt, elevate - not just entertain. They meant it.

"Software worthy of the minds that use it." "A new medium for the mind." "Can a computer make you cry?"

These weren’t slogans. They were scripture. An entire generation of bedroom coders, electrical engineers, and misfit storytellers saw themselves in those words and dared to dream that their labor might outlive the machine that printed it.

EA didn’t sell games. They sold the idea that games could become something else.

And for a short time, they were right.

The Saints of Silicon High: A Moment Before the Fall

Look at the ad. Seven young men and one woman, photographed like a synthpop band, radiating a confidence only the naive can muster. They weren’t executives. They weren’t product managers.

They were dreamers, and they were treated like artists.

This was a time before middleware. Before agile. Before the death march of annualized franchises and venture capital vultures.

They weren’t making games. They were building temples in code - not to sell dopamine, but to provoke awe.

And for a moment, it was working.

You could feel something alive under the pixels. Not profit - presence.

The Betrayal Begins: From Art to Algorithm

But the dream couldn’t last.

By the late '80s, the equity men arrived. The artists still painted - but someone else now owned the canvas, the frame, and the walls it hung on.

Metrics replaced magic. Budgets replaced belief. Marketing departments began writing the endings before the game designers could write the beginnings.

The phrase "Can a computer make you cry?" became a punchline, not a promise.

It was no longer about what games could say - only how long they could keep you hooked.

Those bright-eyed visionaries? Silenced. Laid off. Absorbed. A few went indie. Most disappeared.

And Electronic Arts? It forgot its own name.

What Remains is a Corpse Wearing the Artist’s Clothes

Today’s EA is a cautionary tale. A bloated, profit-drunk shell that harvests nostalgia and licenses like bone marrow.

“We see farther,” they once said.

Now they see only quarterly earnings. Their eyes are still open - but they’re glass. No light reflects from behind them.

This was never a pivot. It was a crucifixion.

They didn’t just betray their values - They commercialized the betrayal and sold it back to us with pre-order bonuses.

The house that dreamed of tears now lives off addiction loops, loot boxes, and legacy IPs like ghouls chewing their own name.

The Grave Was Dug in Real Time

We mourn the loss of something most people didn’t even know had died.

Those men and woman in the photo? They really thought they were changing the world.

And they were - until the world changed them first.

EA didn’t set out to be the villain. That’s the tragedy.

They simply got tired of believing.

Now the only thing a computer can make you cry over…

…is how quickly the dream was sold for parts.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or practices of any individual, organization, or corporation mentioned herein. This work constitutes a form of artistic and cultural criticism protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. References to companies, products, or historical marketing materials are presented solely for critical and transformative purposes. All trademarks and copyrighted materials remain the property of their respective owners. No part of this analysis is intended to defame, misrepresent, or make false claims about any person or entity, living or dead. This commentary is offered in good faith as editorial expression and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.

#We See Farther #opinion #pixel crisis

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