|
slashdot.org
- Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
 Back in 2000, Slashdot founder CmdrTaco marked the 4th anniversary of Jennifer Ringley's pioneering "JenniCam" livestream (saying "It sure beats the Netscape FishCam. It's nuts how Jenni's little cam became such a fixture on The Internet...")
But a new article in the Washington Post remembers how "Once, Ringley looked directly into the camera and held a note in front of her eye. It read: 'I FEEL SO LONELY.'"
By 2003, Ringley had shut down the site and disappeared. She began declining interview requests, saying she was enjoying her privacy; her absence on social media continues to this day.
"But by then, ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Long-time Slashdot reader mbessey (a Mac/iOS developer) writes:
As we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the first release of UCSD Pascal, I thought it would be interesting to poke around in it a bit, and work on some tools to bring this "portable operating system" back to life on modern hardware, in a modern language (Rust).
Wikipedia describes UCSD Pascal as "a version that ran on a custom operating system that could be ported to different platforms. A key platform was the Apple II, where it saw widespread use as Apple Pascal. This led to Pascal becoming the primary ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Chungin Lee used ChatGPT to help write the essay that got him into Columbia University — and then "proceeded to use generative artificial intelligence to cheat on nearly every assignment," reports New York magazine's blog Intelligencer:
As a computer-science major, he depended on AI for his introductory programming classes: "I'd just dump the prompt into ChatGPT and hand in whatever it spat out." By his rough math, AI wrote 80 percent of every essay he turned in. "At the end, I'd put on the finishing touches. I'd just insert 20 percent of my humanity, my voice, into it," Lee told me ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Though global sea levels "varied little" for the 2,000 years before the 20th century, CNN reports that sea levels then "started rising and have not stopped since — and the pace is accelerating."
And sea level rise "was unexpectedly high last year, according to a recent NASA analysis of satellite data."
More concerning, however, is the longer-term trend. The rate of annual sea level rise has more than doubled over the past 30 years, resulting in the global sea level increasing 4 inches since 1993. "It's like we're putting our foot on the gas pedal," said Benjamin Hamlington, a research scientist ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Inspired by researchers who'd bribed people to use Microsoft's Bing for two weeks (and found some wanted to keep using it), a Washington Post tech columnist also tried it — and reported it "felt like quitting coffee."
"The first few days, I was jittery. I kept double searching on Google and DuckDuckGo, the non-Google web search engine I was using, to check if Google gave me better results. Sometimes it did. Mostly it didn't."
"More than two weeks into a test of whether I love Google search or if it's just a habit, I've stopped double checking. I don't have ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Long-time Slashdot reader smooth wombat writes: Over the past year there have been stories about North Korean spies unknowingly or knowingly being hired to work in western companies. During an interview by Kraken, a crypto exchange, the interviewers became suspicious about the candidate. Instead of cutting off the interview, Kraken decided to continue the candidate through the hiring process to gain more information. One simple question confirmed the user wasn't who they said they were and even worse, was a North Korean spy.
Would-be IT worker "Steven Smith" already had an email address on a "do-not-hire" list from law enforcement ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
An anonymous reader shared this repost from the Washington Post:
It's becoming standard practice at a growing number of U.S. airports: When you reach the front of the security line, an agent asks you to step up to a machine that scans your face to check whether it matches the face on your identification card. Travelers have the right to opt out of the face scan and have the agent do a visual check instead — but many don't realize that's an option.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana) think it should be the other way around. They ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Adafruit's managing director Phillip Torrone is also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone.
He stopped by Thursday to share what happened after a large portion of a recent import was subjected to a 125% +20% +25% import markup...
We're no stranger to tariff bills, although they have definitely ramped up over the last two months. However, this is our first "big bill"... Unlike other taxes like sales tax where we collect on behalf of the state and then submit it back at the end of the month — or income taxes, where we only pay if we are profitable — tariff taxes are ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
Google will pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas, reports the Associated Press, "to settle claims the company collected users' data without permission, the state's attorney general announced Friday."
Attorney General Ken Paxton described the settlement as sending a message to tech companies that he will not allow them to make money off of "selling away our rights and freedoms."
"In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law." Paxton said in a statement. "For years, Google secretly tracked people's movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won...." ... Continue Reading » - Posted on Thursday January 01, 1970
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Law enforcement authorities have dismantled a botnet that infected thousands of routers over the last 20 years to build two networks of residential proxies known as Anyproxy and 5socks. The U.S. Justice Department also indicted three Russian nationals (Alexey Viktorovich Chertkov, Kirill Vladimirovich Morozov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shishkin) and a Kazakhstani (Dmitriy Rubtsov) for their involvement in operating, maintaining, and profiting from these two illegal services.
During this joint action dubbed 'Operation Moonlander,' U.S. authorities worked with prosecutors and investigators from the Dutch National Police, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie), ... Continue Reading »
|
The post Open position: Engagement Specialist appeared first on 80,000 Hours.
The post Should you quit your job — and work on risks from AI? appeared first on 80,000 Hours.