"The Internet's Own Boy" was inscribed below the bust, according to the San Francisco Standard, adding that the 312-pound marble statue "was crafted using a mix of AI-driven robotic milling and traditional hand carving." It was unveiled Friday at the Internet Archive auditorium for a crowd of around 300 people. "Aaron's legacy is bringing people together to make change, said Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "There's a renaissance happening now in Aaron Swartz-land," said Lisa Rein, the co-founder of Creative Commons, a nonprofit devoted to expanding public access to information. She founded Aaron Swartz Day in 2013, an annual hackathon and tribute held on his birthday. There's now an Aaron Swartz Institute in Brazil, a documentary, multiple books and podcasts — even an Aaron Swartz memecoin ("Do not buy," she warned). "It's great that people idolize him as long as they get the story right: He was not a martyr," Rein said, her eyes welling with tears. "He stood for freedom of access to information, especially for scientific research — things the public had already paid for." The evening included a number of video tributes, which Rein played on a large screen behind the stage. They included commentary from science fiction author Cory Doctorow, members of the Aaron Swartz Institute in Brazil, and Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation... Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch and a partner at Y Combinator, was one of the few people who knew Swartz personally. "I'm glad he's become a symbol, he would approve of that," he shared, his voice slightly breaking. "I really miss him." Starting next week, the bust will be moved to the [Internet Archive] lobby, where it will remain until Peniche secures a permit to place it in a local park [said Evan Sirchuk, the Internet Archive's community and events coordinator]... "Aaron really means something to the San Francisco community," [Rein said]. "He can keep inspiring generations — even the ones who weren't alive when he was." Tech blogger John Gruber thinks Swartz would appreciate that the bust came from people "aligned with Aaron's own righteous obsessions." But at the same time "I think he'd be a little weirded out. He wasn't a 'I hope they erect a larger-than-life statue of me' sort of guy. "And if he had been, we wouldn't have loved him like we did. It's just a terrible thing that we lost him so young."

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Andrew worked with Stuart. Stuart was one of those developers who didn't talk to anyone except to complain about how stupid management was, or how stupid the other developers were. Stuart was also the kind of person who would suddenly go on a tear, write three thousand lines of code in an evening, and then submit an pull request. He wouldn't respond to PR comments, however, and just wait until management needed the feature merged badly enough that someone said, "just approve it so we can move on."

.comment {border: none;} int iDisplayFlags = objectProps.DisplayInfo.BackgroundPrintFlags; bool bForceBackgroundOn = false; bool bForceBackgroundOff = false; // Can't use _displayTypeID because it will always be 21 since text displays as image if (_fileTypeID == 11) // TEXT { if ((iDisplayFlags & 0x1008) != 0) // Text Background is required { bForceBackgroundOn = true; } else if ((iDisplayFlags & 0x1001) != 0) // Text Background is not available { bForceBackgroundOff = true; } } else if (_displayTypeID == 21) // IMAGE { if ((iDisplayFlags & 0x1200) != 0) // Image Background is required { bForceBackgroundOn = true; } else if ((iDisplayFlags & 0x1040) != 0) // Image Background is not available { bForceBackgroundOff = true; } } bool useBackground = bForceBackgroundOn; // If an object does not have an Background and we try to use it, bad things happen. // So we check to see if we really have an Background, if not we don't want to try and use it if (!useBackground && objectProps.DisplayInfo.Background) { useBackground = Convert.ToBoolean(BackgroundShown); } if (bForceBackgroundOff) { useBackground = false; }

This code is inside of a document viewer application. As you might gather from skimming it, the viewer will display text (as an image) or images (as an image) and may or may not display a background as part of it.

This code, of course, uses a bunch of magic numbers and bitwise operators, which is always fun. We don't need any constants. It's important to note that all the other developers on the project did use enumerations and constants. The values were defined and well organized in the code- Stuart simply chose not to use them.

You'll note that there's some comments and confusion about how we can't use _displayTypeID because text always displays as an image. I'm going to let Andrew explain this:

The client this code exists in renders text documents to images (for reasons that aren’t relevant) when presenting them to the user. We have a multitude of filetypes that we do similar actions with, and fileTypes are user configurable. Because of this, we also keep track of the display type. This allows the user to configure a multitude of filetypes, and depending on the display type configured for the file type, we know if we can show it in our viewer. In the case of display type ‘text’ our viewer ultimately renders the text as an image. At some point in time Stuart decided that since the final product of a text document is an image, we should convert display type text over to image when referencing it in code (hence the comment ‘Can’t use display type ID’). If none of this paragraph makes any sense to you, then you’re not alone, because the second someone competent got wind of this, they thankfully nixed the idea and display type text, went back to meaning display type text (aka this goes through OUR TEXT RENDERER).

What I get from that paragraph is that none of this makes sense, but it's all Stuart's fault.

What makes this special is that the developer is writing code to control a binary status: "do we show a background or not?", but needs two booleans to handle this case. We have a bForceBackgroundOn and a bForceBackgroundOff.

So, tracing through, if we're text and any of the bits 0x1008 are set in iDisplayFlags, we want the background on. Otherwise, if any of the bits 0x1001 are set, we want to force the background off. If it's an image, we do the same thing, though for 0x1200 and 0x1040 respectively.

Then, we stuff bForceBackgroundOn into a different variable, useBackground. If that is false and a different property flag is set, we'll check the value of BackgroundShown- which we choose to convert to boolean which implies that it isn't a boolean, which raises its own questions, except it actually is a boolean value, and Stuart just didn't understand how to deal with a nullable boolean. Finally, after all this work, we check the bForceBackgroundOff value, and if that's true, we set useBackground to false.

I'll be frank, none of this quite makes sense to me, and I can certainly imagine a world where the convoluted process of having a "on" and "forceOff" variable actually makes sense, so I'd almost think this code isn't that bad- except for this little detail, from Andrew:

The final coup de grace is that all of the twisted logic for determining if the background is needed is completely unnecessary. When the call to retrieve the file to display is made, another method checks to see if the background was requested (useBackground), and performs the same logic check (albeit in a sane manner) as above.

The code is confusing and unnecessary.

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Today T-Mobile announced what they're calling "the next big thing in wireless" — T-Mobile Starlink. But the real surprise is "The beta is now open for absolutely everyone — yes, even Verizon and AT&T customers — to register for free access until July." And, as they explained to Americans watching the Super Bowl, "If you can see the sky you're connected." Now in public beta, this breakthrough service, developed in partnership with Starlink, uses straight-out-of-a-sci-fi-movie satellite and mobile communications technology to help keep people connected — even you, Verizon and AT&T customers — in the more than 500,000 square miles of the country unreached by any carrier's earth-bound cell towers. That's nearly the size of two Texases...! The beauty of the service is its simplicity: users don't need to do anything out of the ordinary. When a user's cell phone gets out of range of a cell tower, the phone automatically connects to the T-Mobile Starlink network. No need to manually connect. Messages are sent and received just as they are today on a traditional network, even group texts and reactions. And it works on most smartphones from the last four years. It's not limited to a few smartphones or operating systems... The beta is free until July at which point T-Mobile Starlink will be included at no extra cost on Go5G Next (including variations like Go5G Next 55+), T-Mobile's best plan. Business customers will also get T-Mobile Starlink at no extra cost on Go5G Business Next, first responder agencies on T-Priority plans and other select premium rate plans. T-Mobile customers on any other plan can add the service for $15/month per line. Through February, T-Mobile customers who have registered for the beta can secure a $10/month per line Early Adopter Discount, 33% off the full price. AT&T and Verizon customers hate dead zones, too When your service is amazing and different, you want as many people to try it as possible. T-Mobile is giving AT&T and Verizon customers the opportunity to try out T-Mobile Starlink satellite service on their existing phones... During the beta period, Verizon and AT&T customers can experience T-Mobile Starlink text messaging for free, and once the service launches in July, it will be available for $20/month per line... More details and consumer registration can be found here. A Vision for Universal Coverage As T-Mobile and Starlink continue to work towards eliminating mobile deadzones, the companies welcome wireless providers from around the world to join their growing alliance, which aims to provide reciprocal roaming for all participating carriers. So far, KDDI (Japan), Telstra (Australia), Optus (Australia), One NZ (New Zealand), Salt (Switzerland), Entel (Chile & Peru), Rogers (Canada) and Kyivstar (Ukraine) are among the providers that have signed on to join the cause and launch satellite-to-mobile technology. Learn more about the alliance and how providers can join at direct.starlink.com.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from Fortune: More than 14 million job seekers' applications went completely ignored in a single quarter last year, according to one hiring platform. Now, sites like Greenhouse and LinkedIn are experimenting with new ways to hold companies accountable for making the hiring process so miserable for applicants. Three of the biggest job search sites — LinkedIn, Indeed and Greenhouse — have put tools in place to highlight which companies frequently respond to applicants in a timely manner... According to Greenhouse, half of applicants say they've been ghosted after an interview. Meanwhile, new artificial intelligence tools have made it easier for candidates to play a numbers game, generating tailored resumes for hundreds of roles. But that's led to an increasingly overwhelming flood of applications for companies, making it nearly impossible to process the deluge and respond to every hopeful in a timely manner — let alone find their perfect match... [LinkedIn is] refining its "job match" feature that uses AI to see how well qualified a candidate is for a given listing. The feature is designed to help cut down on the flood of applications companies are receiving by nudging users to focus their efforts on jobs where they actually have a good shot at hearing back. That, in theory, should make the hiring process more efficient for both parties... Indeed chose to focus on encouraging employer responsiveness after the issue showed up as the biggest pain point for job seekers in a recent survey. While the platform has issued "responsive employer" badges since 2018 to recognize companies that consistently reply to more than half of all messages, it started releasing even more detail in 2023, including labels that share the employer's median response time with candidates... Greenhouse, meanwhile, is testing a set of four badges that would verify an employer meets the platform's respectful, communicative, prepared and fair hiring process standards for a given job posting... For "communicative," they're expected to clear out active candidates on closed jobs and send out rejection emails. LinkedIn is also adding "responsiveness insights," according to the article, which "show applicants which listings are being actively reviewed by employers. "It's testing the insights on a small number of job postings before rolling them out sitewide in the coming months."

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Fortune remembers that in 2011 Steve Jobs had told author Walter Isaacson that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates would "be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger." But The Indendepent notes that in his new memoir Gates does write about two acid trip experiences. (Gates mis-timed his first experiment with LSD, ending up still tripping during a previously-scheduled appointment for dental surgery...) "Later in the book, Gates recounts another experience with LSD with future Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and some friends... Gates says in the book that it was the fear of damaging his memory that finally persuaded him never to take the drug again." He added: "I smoked pot in high school, but not because it did anything interesting. I thought maybe I would look cool and some girl would think that was interesting. It didn't succeed, so I gave it up." Gates went on to say that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who didn't know about his past drug use, teased him on the subject. "Steve Jobs once said that he wished I'd take acid because then maybe I would have had more taste in my design of my products," recalled Gates. "My response to that was to say, 'Look, I got the wrong batch.' I got the coding batch, and this guy got the marketing-design batch, so good for him! Because his talents and mine, other than being kind of an energetic leader, and pushing the limits, they didn't overlap much. He wouldn't know what a line of code meant, and his ability to think about design and marketing and things like that... I envy those skills. I'm not in his league." Gates added that he was a fan of Michael Pollan's book about psychedelic drugs, How To Change Your Mind, and is intrigued by the idea that they may have therapeutic uses. "The idea that some of these drugs that affect your mind might help with depression or OCD, I think that's fascinating," said Gates. "Of course, we have to be careful, and that's very different than recreational usage." Touring the country, 69-year-old Gates shared more glimpses of his life story: The Harvard Gazette notes that the university didn't offer computer science degrees when Gates attended in 1973. But since Gates already had years of code-writing experience, he "initially rebuffed any suggestion of taking computer-related coursework... 'It's too easy,' he remembered telling friends." "The naiveté I had that free computing would just be this unadulterated good thing wasn't totally correct even before AI," Gates told an audience at the Harvard Book Store. "And now with AI, I can see that we could shape this in the wrong way." Gates "expressed regret about how he treated another boyhood friend, Paul Allen, the other cofounder of Microsoft, who died in 2018," reports the Boston Globe. "Gates at first took 60 percent ownership of the new software company and then pressured his friend for another 4 percent. 'I feel bad about it in retrospect,' he said. 'That was always a little complicated, and I wish I hadn't pushed....'" Business Insider adds that according to his memoir, Gates "eventually gave his additional 4% stake to [Steve] Ballmer to convince him to quit business school for Microsoft. 'He joined in 1980 and became the 24-hour-a-day partner I needed,' Gates wrote." Benzinga writes that Gates has now "donated $100 billion to charitable causes... Had Gates retained the $100 billion he has donated, his total wealth would be around $264 billion, placing him second on the global wealth rankings behind Elon Musk and ahead of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg." Gates told the Associated Press "I am stunned that Intel basically lost its way," saying Intel is now "kind of behind" on both chip design and fabrication. "They missed the AI chip revolution, and with their fabrication capabilities, they don't even use standards that people like Nvidia and Qualcomm find easy... I hope Intel recovers, but it looks pretty tough for them at this stage." Gates also told the Associated Press that fighting a three-year antitrust case had "distracted" Microsoft. "The area that Google did well in that would not have happened had I not been distracted is Android, where it was a natural thing for me. I was trying, although what I didn't do well enough is provide the operating system for the phone. That was ours for the taking." The Dallas News reports that in an on-stage interview in Texas, Mark Cuban closed by asking Gates one question. "Is the American Dream alive?" Gates answered: "It was for me."

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Slashdot reader headlessbrick writes: Google security researchers have discovered a way to bypass AMD's security, enabling them to load unofficial microcode into its processors and modify the silicon's behaviour at will. To demonstrate this, they created a microcode patch that forces the chips to always return 4 when asked for a random number. Beyond simply allowing Google and others to customize AMD chips for both beneficial and potentially malicious purposes, this capability also undermines AMD's secure encrypted virtualization and root-of-trust security mechanisms. Obligatory XKCD.

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Slashdot has been covering Harvard's legendary introductory programming course "CS50" since it began setting attendance records in 2014. But now long-time Slashdot reader theodp brings some news about the course's fate over at Yale. From Yale's student newspaper: After a decade of partnership with Harvard, Yale's CS50 course will no longer be offered starting in fall 2025.... One of Yale's largest computer science courses, jointly taught with Harvard University, was canceled during a monthly faculty meeting after facing budgetary challenges. [Yale's endowment is $40+ billion]... Since Yale started offering the course in 2015, CS50 has consistently seen enrollment numbers in the hundreds and was often the department's largest class.... According to [Yale instructor Ozan] Erat, the original [anonymous] donation that made CS50 possible ended in June 2024, and the cost of employing so many undergraduate learning assistants for the course had become unsustainable. theodp reminds us that CS50 and its progeny "will continue to live on in all their glory in-person and online at Harvard and edX."

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The unemployment rate in America's information technology sector "rose from 3.9% in December to 5.7% in January," reports the Wall Street Journal. (Alternate URL here.) Meanwhile last month's overall jobless rate was just 4%, they point out, calling it "the latest sign of how automation and the increasing use of artificial intelligence are having a negative impact on the tech labor market." Companies began implementing their annual spending cuts in January, and there were layoffs at large tech companies like Meta. But whatever the reason, "The number of unemployed IT workers rose from 98,000 in December to 152,000 last month, according to a report from consulting firm Janco Associates based on data from the U.S. Department of Labor," while the Labor Department said the overall economy added 143,000 jobs. One management consulting firm offers this explanation: Job losses in tech can be attributed in part to the influence of AI, according to Victor Janulaitis, chief executive of Janco Associates. The emergence of generative AI has produced massive amounts of spending by tech giants on AI infrastructure, but not necessarily new jobs in IT. "Jobs are being eliminated within the IT function which are routine and mundane, such as reporting, clerical administration," Janulaitis said. "As they start looking at AI, they're also looking at reducing the number of programmers, systems designers, hoping that AI is going to be able to provide them some value and have a good rate of return." Increased corporate investment in AI has shown early signs of leading to future cuts in hiring, a concept some tech leaders are starting to call "cost avoidance." Rather than hiring new workers for tasks that can be more easily automated, some businesses are letting AI take on that work — and reaping potential savings. The latest IT jobs numbers come as unemployment among white-collar workers remains at its highest levels since 2020, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at hiring website Indeed. "What we've really seen, especially in the last year or so, is a bifurcation in opportunities, where white-collar knowledge worker type jobs have had far less employer demand than jobs that are more in-person, skilled labor jobs," Stahle said. Stahle notes that job postings at Indeed.com for software developers declined 8.5% in January from a year earlier...

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Long-time Slashdot reader Shayde once restored a 1986 DEC PDP-11 minicomputer, and even ran Turbo Pascal on a 40-year-old Apple II clone. Now he's exploring a 27-year-old Macintosh PowerBook G3 — with 64 megabytes memory and 4 gigabytes of disk space. "The year is 1997, and Apple is in big trouble." (Apple's market share had dropped from 16% in 1980 to somewhere below 4%...) Turns out this was one of the first machines able to run OS X, and was built during the transition period for Apple after Steve Jobs came back in to rescue the company from bankruptcy. It's clearly old technology. There's even a SCSI connector, PCMCIA sockets, a modem port for your phone/landline cable, and a CD-ROM drive. There's also Apple's proprietary ports for LocalTalk and an Apple Desktop Bus port ("used for keyboards, mice, and stuff like that"). And its lithium-ion batteries "were meant to be replaced and moved around, so you could carry spare batteries with you." So what's it like using a 27-year-old laptop? "The first thing I had to note was this thing weighs a ton! This thing could be used as a projectile weapon! I can't imagine hauling these things around doing business..." And it's a good thing it had vents, because "This thing runs hot!" (The moment he plugs it in he can hear its ancient fan running...) It seems to take more than two minutes to boot up. ("The drive is rattling away...") But soon he's looking at a glorious desktop from 1998 desktop. ("Applications installed... Oh look! Adobe Acrobat Reader! I betcha that's going to need an update...") After plugging in a network cable, a pop-up prompts him to "Set up your .Mac membership." ("I have so little interest in doing this.") He does find an old version of Safari, but it refuses to launch-- though "While puttering around in the application folder, I did notice that we had Internet Explorer installed. But that pretty much went as well as expected." In the end it seems like he ends up "on the network, but we have no browser." Although at least he does find a Terminal program — and successfully pings Google. The thing that would drive me crazy is when opening the laptop, Apple's logo is upside-down!

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Keynotes at this year's FOSDEM included free AI models and systemd, reports Heise.de — and also a progress report from Miguel Ojeda, supervisor of the Rust integration in the Linux kernel. Only eight people remain in the core team around Rust for Linux... Miguel Ojeda therefore launched a survey among kernel developers, including those outside the Rust community, and presented some of the more important voices in his FOSDEM talk. The overall mood towards Rust remains favorable, especially as Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman are convinced of the necessity of Rust integration. This is less about rapid progress and more about finding new talent for kernel development in the future. The reaction was mostly positive, judging by Ojeda's slides: - "2025 will be the year of Rust GPU drivers..." — Daniel Almedia - "I think the introduction of Rust in the kernel is one of the most exciting development experiments we've seen in a long time." — Andrea Righi - "[T]he project faces unique challenges. Rust's biggest weakness, as a language, is that relatively few people speak it. Indeed, Rust is not a language for beginners, and systems-level development complicates things even more. That said, the Linux kernel project has historically attracted developers who love challenging software — if there's an open source group willing to put the extra effort for a better OS, it's the kernel devs." — Carlos Bilbao - "I played a little with [Rust] in user space, and I just absolutely hate the cargo concept... I hate having to pull down other code that I do not trust. At least with shared libraries, I can trust a third party to have done the build and all that... [While Rust should continue to grow in the kernel], if a subset of C becomes as safe as Rust, it may make Rust obsolete..." Steven Rostedt Rostedt wasn't sure if Rust would attract more kernel contributors, but did venture this opinion. "I feel Rust is more of a language that younger developers want to learn, and C is their dad's language." But still "contention exists within the kernel development community between those pro-Rust and -C camps," argues The New Stack, citing the latest remarks from kernel maintainer Christoph Hellwig (who had earlier likened the mixing of Rust and C to cancer). Three days later Hellwig reiterated his position again on the Linux kernel mailing list: "Every additional bit that another language creeps in drastically reduces the maintainability of the kernel as an integrated project. The only reason Linux managed to survive so long is by not having internal boundaries, and adding another language completely breaks this. You might not like my answer, but I will do everything I can do to stop this. This is NOT because I hate Rust. While not my favourite language it's definitively one of the best new ones and I encourage people to use it for new projects where it fits. I do not want it anywhere near a huge C code base that I need to maintain." But the article also notes that Google "has been a staunch supporter of adding Rust to the kernel for Linux running in its Android phones." The use of Rust in the kernel is seen as a way to avoid memory vulnerabilities associated with C and C++ code and to add more stability to the Android OS. "Google's wanting to replace C code with Rust represents a small piece of the kernel but it would have a huge impact since we are talking about billions of phones," Ojeda told me after his talk. In addition to Google, Rust adoption and enthusiasm for it is increasing as Rust gets more architectural support and as "maintainers become more comfortable with it," Ojeda told me. "Maintainers have already told me that if they could, then they would start writing Rust now," Ojeda said. "If they could drop C, they would do it...." Amid the controversy, there has been a steady stream of vocal support for Ojeda. Much of his discussion also covered statements given by advocates for Rust in the kernel, ranging from lead developers of the kernel and including Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself to technology leads from Red Hat, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and others.

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"Can you skydive continuously without landing...?" asks Red Bull. Imagine jumping out of a helicopter, "only to latch onto a speeding plane in mid-air and soar back up into the sky." Harnessing the plane's momentum, [skydiver Max Manow] soared out of the canyon, embarking on what he calls his "endless skydive", a manoeuvre that potentially could be done continuously without him ever needing to land... After exiting a helicopter, he manoeuvred his wingsuit to close the gap with a nosediving Cessna 182, piloted by Luke Aikins. Precision was key: Manow attached himself to a hook on the aircraft as the plane descended, allowing him to ascend back to a safe altitude of 2,500 feet before releasing into another freefall... Manow spent five months training, including sessions in a Stockholm wind tunnel, to master the techniques needed for mid-air connection. Meanwhile, Aikins modified his aircraft to ensure the feat was safe and repeatable. Skydiver Max Manow's goal was to develop a manoeuvre that could potentially be repeated an infinite number of times without ever having to land. Manow's mid-air manoeuvre opens the door to a new vision of skydiving, where athletes could remain airborne without ever needing to land. Reflecting on the experience, Manow said: "Who knows where this will take the future of the sport?" "If that wasn't enough adrenaline for you," writes New Atlas, "a previous bonkers wingsuit stunt from 2017 is equally jaw dropping, in which a pair of skydivers BASE-jumped off a mountain summit, and entered a passing airplane."

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Google's Super Bowl ad about a Gouda cheese seller appears to be using fake AI output, writes the Verge: The text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business's website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived webpage. Google didn't launch Gemini until 2023, meaning Gemini couldn't have generated the website description as depicted in the ad. The site Futurism calls the situation "beyond bizarre," asking why Google doesn't seem to trust its own technology. Either Google faked the ad entirely, or prompted its AI to generate the web page's existing copy word-for-word, or the AI was prompted to come up with original copy and instead copied the old version. In the publishing industry, that's referred to as "plagiarism." And ironically if Gemini did plagiarize that text, the text that it plagiarized is also inaccurate.

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"It is now 45+ years since C++ was first conceived," writes 74-year-old C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup in an article this week for Communications of the ACM. But he complains that many developers "use C++ as if it was still the previous millennium," in an article titled 21st Century C++ that promises "the key concepts on which performant, type safe, and flexible C++ software can be built: resource management, life-time management, error-handling, modularity, and generic programming... "At the end, I present ways to ensure that code is contemporary, rather than relying on outdated, unsafe, and hard-to-maintain techniques: guidelines and profiles." To help developers focus on effective use of contemporary C++ and avoid outdated "dark corners" of the language, sets of guidelines have been developed. Here I focus on the C++ Core guidelines that I consider the most ambitious... My principal aim is a type-safe and resource-safe use of ISO standard C++. That is: - Every object is exclusively used according to its definition - No resource is leaked This encompasses what people refer to as memory safety and much more. It is not a new goal for C++. Obviously, it cannot be achieved for every use of C++, but by now we have years of experience showing that it can be done for modern code, though so far enforcement has been incomplete... When thinking about C++, it is important to remember that C++ is not just a language but part of an ecosystem consisting of implementations, libraries, tools, teaching, and more. WG21 (and others) are working on "profiles" to enforce guidelines (though they're "not yet available, except for experimental and partial versions"). But Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines "use a strategy known as subset-of-superset." First: extend the language with a few library abstractions: use parts of the standard library and add a tiny library to make use of the guidelines convenient and efficient (the Guidelines Support Library, GSL). Next: subset: ban the use of low-level, inefficient, and error-prone features. What we get is "C++ on steroids": Something simple, safe, flexible, and fast; rather than an impoverished subset or something relying on massive run-time checking. Nor do we create a language with novel and/or incompatible features. The result is 100% ISO standard C++. Messy, dangerous, low-level features can still be enabled and used when needed. Stroustrup writes that the C++ Core Guidelines focus on rules "we hope that everyone eventually could benefit from." No uninitialized variables No range or nullptr violations No resource leaks No dangling pointers No type violations No invalidation Bjarne Stroustrup answered questions from Slashdot readers in 2014...

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Friday the Orlando Sentinel covered NASA's 2024 mission-safety report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (formed in 1968). The report "commended the agency's handling of last year's beleaguered Boeing's Starliner mission [prioritizing astronaut safety], but revealed yet another issue found during the flight and questioned the agency's needs for the spacecraft in the future..." [The report] stated that it was unclear how a decision was made to waive a failure tolerance requirement on some of the thrusters without flight or qualification data to justify the decision. "These examples illustrate the panel's concern that, absent role clarity, risk management choices could unintentionally devolve to contractors, whose interests may not fully align with NASA's," the report warned... It also revealed that in addition to the thruster and leak issues on the propulsion module driving the decision to fly home without astronauts, Starliner had a new issue as it made its way back to Earth. "Overall, Starliner performed well across all major systems in the undock, deorbit, and landing sequences; however, an additional mono propellant thruster failure was discovered in the crew module — distinct from the failures in the service module experienced during orbit," the report stated. "Had the crew been aboard, this would have significantly increased the risk during reentry, confirming the wisdom of the decision." As far as Starliner's path to certification, the ASAP report said it would continue to monitor several unresolved issues with thrusters and seek information on how NASA and Boeing plan to get the spacecraft certified. "While the thruster issues have received considerable attention, the panel has previously noted other Starliner issues that require resolution prior to certification," it stated. That includes a battery redesign and work to strengthen the landing airbag apparatus. "Beyond these technical matters, schedule and budget pose substantial challenges to Starliner certification," the report added... "Until the Starliner certification plan is well understood, it remains unclear as to whether a second provider will be available prior to the end of the ISS's operational life [in 2030]," the report stated. The report "also suggested that NASA immediately adapt next-generation extravehicular mobility units, or EVUs," reports ExecutiveGov, "as current space suits astronauts use for operations outside the ISS are now beyond their design life."

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I just saw an ad for TikTok on a YouTube video. But at the same time YouTube is running ads on TikTok, reports Bloomberg, targeting TikTok content creators in "an effort to lure these valuable users to the Google-owned rival and capitalize on TikTok's uncertain future." One of YouTube's ads even received over a thousand likes, with Bloomberg calling it that TikTok "is willing to accept ad dollars from one of its fiercest competitors promoting a message aimed at undercutting its business." YouTube is the latest TikTok competitor to try to capitalize on the app's looming US ban, which could go into effect in early April. Meta Platforms Inc.'s Instagram announced a new video editing tool in January, and X also teased a new video tab as part of an effort to win over TikTok's content creators... Google would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a ban in the US. Both its flagship video service YouTube and its TikTok copycat, YouTube Shorts, would likely see an uptick in traffic if TikTok goes away. Google also plays an unusual role in TikTok's potential ban because it runs one of two mobile app stores controlling whether people in the US can download the video app. It has blocked TikTok from its Google Play store since the divest-or-ban law went into effect January 19.

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The tech startup "purported to make smart home and business products," writes America's Justice Department — products that were "meant to stop package theft, prevent weather damage to packages, and make it easier for emergency responders and delivery services to find homes and businesses." Royce Newcomb "developed prototypes of his products and received local and national media attention for them. For example, Time Magazine included his eLiT Address Box & Security System, which used mobile networks to pinpoint home and business locations, on its Best Inventions of 2021 list." But then he told investors he'd also received a grant by the National Science Foundation — one of "several false representations to his investors to deceive and cheat them out of their money... Newcomb used the money to pay for gambling, a Mercedes and Jaguar, and a mansion." He also used the money to pay for refunds to other investors who wanted out, and to pay for new, unrelated projects without the investors' authorization. During this period, Newcomb also received a fraudulent COVID-19 loan for more than $70,000 from the Small Business Administration and fraudulent loans for more than $190,000 from private lenders. He lied about Strategic Innovations having hundreds of thousands and even millions in revenue to get these loans. Newcomb was previously convicted federally in 2011 for running a real estate fraud scheme in Sacramento. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison for that offense, and he was on federal supervised release for that offense when he committed the offenses charged in this case... Newcomb faces maximum statutory penalties of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud charge, and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the money laundering charge... This effort is part of a California COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Strike Force operation, one of five interagency COVID-19 fraud strike force teams established by the U.S. Department of Justice. SFGate writes that "Despite receiving significant funding, his startup, Strategic Innovations, never made a dime or released any products to market, according to legal documents." The owner of a California tech startup has pleaded guilty to stealing over $4 million from investors, private lenders and the U.S. government in order to live a luxurious lifestyle, the United States Attorney's Office announced Monday... When investors asked about product delays and when they'd be paid back, Newcomb made excuses and provided conflicting info, telling them that there were supply chain issues or software problems, according to the indictment. In reality, federal prosecutors said, he was using the money to travel and continue to make these lavish personal expenses.

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"Open source can be something of an illusion," writes TechCrunch. "A lack of real independence can mean a lack of agency for those who would like to properly get involved in a project." Their article makes the case that the "spirit" of open source means more than a license... "Android, in a license sense, is perhaps the most well-documented, perfectly open 'thing' that there is," Luis Villa, co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift, said in a panel discussion at the State of Open Con25 in London this week. "All the licenses are exactly as you want them — but good luck getting a patch into that, and good luck figuring out when the next release even is...." "If you think about the practical accessibility of open source, it goes beyond the license, right?" Peter Zaitsev, founder of open source database services company Percona, said in the panel discussion. "Governance is very important, because if it's a single corporation, they can change a license like 'that.'" These sentiments were echoed in a separate talk by Dotan Horovits, open source evangelist at the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where he mused about open source "turning to the dark side." He noted that in most cases, issues arise when a single-vendor project decides to make changes based on its own business needs among other pressures. "Which begs the question, is vendor-owned open source an oxymoron?" Horovits said. "I've been asking this question for a good few years, and in 2025 this question is more relevant than ever." The article adds that in 2025, "These debates won't be going anywhere anytime soon, as open source has emerged as a major focal point in the AI realm." And it includes this quote from Tidelift's co-founder. "I have my quibbles and concerns about the open source AI definition, but it's really clear that what Llama is doing isn't open source," Villa said. Emily Omier, a consultant for open source businesses and host of the Business of Open Source podcast, added that such attempts to "corrupt" the meaning behind "open source" is testament to its inherent power. Much of this may be for regulatory reasons, however. The EU AI Act has a special carve-out for "free and open source" AI systems (aside from those deemed to pose an "unacceptable risk"). And Villa says this goes some way toward explaining why a company might want to rewrite the rulebook on what "open source" actually means. "There are plenty of actors right now who, because of the brand equity [of open source] and the regulatory implications, want to change the definition, and that's terrible," Villa said.

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After finalizing loan terms with the IMF, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly approved changes to the country's Bitcoin Law last week by a 55-2 vote, "effectively removing bitcoin's status as legal currency," reports Reason. Under the new rules, bitcoin is no longer considered "currency," though it remains "legal tender." Another change makes using bitcoin entirely voluntary. (Previously, the law mandated that businesses accept bitcoin for any goods or services they provided.) Additionally, bitcoin can no longer be used to pay taxes or settle government debts. The government is also stepping back from its involvement in Chivo Wallet, the state-backed digital wallet... The reforms come as part of a broader financial agreement between Bukele and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One of the conditions for a proposed $1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility loan was that El Salvador mitigate "potential risks of the Bitcoin project." The IMF has been critical of the country's crypto policies since Bukele made bitcoin legal tender in 2021. "There are large risks associated with using Bitcoin as legal tender, especially given the high volatility of its price. We don't recommend it," the organization said in 2022. Despite these changes, the administration insists it remains committed to bitcoin. Milena Mayorga, El Salvador's ambassador to the United States, has said that El Salvador is still a "bitcoin country" and will maintain — and even expand — its bitcoin reserves. "You have to adapt to the current situation and this is the decision that was taken in the Assembly, but that does not mean that the country will stop having a bitcoin reserve," she explained. Government data suggests El Salvador now holds 6,072 Bitcoin worth $586,888,000.

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Twisting two atomically thin sheets of graphene enables "a host of exceptional properties," writes MIT News, "including unconventional superconductivity." (Which makes this graphene "a promising building block for future quantum-computing devices.") And now "We find the superfluid stiffness to be much larger than expected..." a team of researchers reported this week in Nature. Hackaday explains that "Part of the problem has been that it is hard to make large pieces of multi-layer graphene. By creating two-ply pieces and using special techniques, an international team is finding that quantum geometry explains how graphene superconductors resist changes in current flow more readily than conventional superconductors." Or, as Science Alert puts it, "Forced to run a labyrinth of carbon atoms uniquely arranged in twisted stacks, electrons do some rather peculiar things." Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada, the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University in the US, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan recently discovered a strange new state of matter in the dynamics of currents flowing through layers of graphene. The findings confirm predictions on how electrons ought to behave when squeezed into crystalline arrangements, and may contribute fresh ideas on how to achieve reliable approaches to quantum computing or reveal ways to develop room-temperature superconduction... Graphene has been increasingly seen as something of a wonder material over recent decades, its lattice of carbon atoms connected in a way that leaves spare electrons to leap about like tokens in a game of quantum checkers. Physicists have consistently bent the rules of this game, finding new and unusual ways to alter properties of resistance or coordinate into exotic states. For these reasons, graphene has become a perfect playground to search for clues on low-resistance conductivity or test the boundaries of various quantum effects. This week MIT research scientist Joel Wang (a co-lead on the study) said "There's a whole family of 2D superconductors that is waiting to be probed, and we are really just scratching the surface." New Scientist explores where their research could lead: Why do cold thin sheets of carbon offer no resistance to electric currents? Two experiments are bringing us closer to an answer — and maybe even to practical room-temperature superconductors... Past experiments have shown that very cold stacks of two or three layers of graphene can superconduct, or perfectly conduct electricity without resistance and energy loss, if some of the sheets are rotated by a special angle. But why this happens remained mysterious... [B]oth teams had to innovate a setup where the tiny graphene flakes were exposed to microwaves while the researchers slowly varied properties like temperature, which must be kept very low for superconductivity to occur at all... "We are finding interesting laws which seem to emerge in both these material systems. Maybe what we are uncovering is something deeper," says [Harvard postdoctoral researcher Abhishek Banerjee]. Both teams are planning on performing similar experiments with other very thin superconductors.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Telegraph: Volkswagen has teased plans for a "China-killer" electric vehicle that will cost just €20,000 ($20,664 USD or £16,700) as the German carmaker gears up to take on a flood of Beijing-backed low-cost rivals. The company on Thursday shared its first images of a new vehicle expected to be called the ID.1, which will go into production from 2027. The low-cost EV is intended to go head to head with all-electric brands from Chinese carmakers such as BYD, which overtook Tesla in British sales for the first time last month. Previous images of the vehicle suggest it will be an electric hatchback. Thomas Schäfer, the VW chief executive, said the new model would be "an affordable, high-quality, profitable electric Volkswagen from Europe, for Europe". Quentin Willson, the motoring journalist and founder of FairCharge, said the car could be a "possible China EV killer". Dan Caesar, of Electric Vehicles UK, added: "Cheaper EVs are exactly what legacy auto-makers need to be competitive during this critical time. We would expect the ID.1 to be warmly welcomed by motorists." Ginny Buckley, of consumer advice website Electrifying, said Volkswagen had been "clear about its intent to compete with China's low-cost EVs"... The German carmaker is planning to cut 35,000 jobs by 2030 as it grapples with stalled demand for EVs in Europe and growing competition from Chinese rivals. Volkswagen executives describe the upcoming EV will be a "true Volkswagen for everyone," according to the article It also notes that the number of EVs sold across Europe "fell by 3% to 3 million during 2024, according to data from analysts Rho Motion."

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