Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Clothing Tech Entrepreneur Charged With $300 Million Fraud In US
  2. DuckDuckGo Now Lets You Hide AI-Generated Images In Search Results
  3. ‘Coldplay Kiss-Cam Flap Proves We’re Already Our Own Surveillance State’
  4. Trump Signs First Major Federal Crypto Bill Into Law
  5. Exhausted Man Defeats AI Model In World Coding Championship
  6. Ring Restores Police Video Access
  7. Netflix Uses AI Effects For First Time To Cut Costs
  8. LibreOffice Calls Out Microsoft For Using ‘Complex’ File Formats To Lock in Office Users
  9. Anthropic Tightens Usage Limits For Claude Code - Without Telling Users
  10. Microsoft Kills Movies and TV Storefront on Windows and Xbox
  11. ‘Microsoft’s Constant Layoffs Risk Creating a Culture of Fear’
  12. Delta Wants AI To Decide What You Personally Pay For Every Plane Ticket
  13. Computer Science Major Needs a Rebrand, Android Head Says
  14. India Hits 50% Non-Fossil Power Milestone Five Years Ahead of Paris Agreement’s 2030 Target
  15. Google Hides Secret Message In Name List of 3,295 AI Researchers

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Clothing Tech Entrepreneur Charged With $300 Million Fraud In US

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Christine Hunsicker, founder of the failed “Clothing-as-a-Service” startup CaaStle, has been criminally charged with defrauding investors of over $300 million by falsifying financials and misrepresenting the company’s health. CNBC reports:
Authorities said Christine Hunsicker, 48, of Lafayette, New Jersey, promoted CaaStle to investors as a more than $1.4 billion “Clothing-as-a-Service” business that helped companies rent apparel to consumers with an option to buy, despite knowing it was financially distressed and short of cash. The alleged fraud spanned six years starting in 2019, three years after the Princeton University alumna was named one of Inc magazine’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs” and Crain’s New York Business’ “40 Under 40.”

Hunsicker was charged in a six-count indictment with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, making false statements to a bank and aggravated identity theft. She turned herself in to authorities, and could face decades in prison if convicted. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a related civil lawsuit. In a joint statement, Hunsicker’s lawyers Michael Levy and Anna Skotko said the indictment presented “an incomplete and very distorted picture,” despite their client being “fully cooperative and transparent” with prosecutors. “There is much more to this story, and we look forward to telling it,” the lawyers added.

Authorities said Hunsicker falsified CaaStle’s financial statements and bank records to raise capital. This included alleged representations that CaaStle earned $66.3 million on revenue of $439.9 million in 2023, when it actually lost $81 million on revenue of $15.7 million. Hunsicker was also accused of falsely telling investors their money would go toward buying discounted shares from existing shareholders who needed liquidity, including after the 2022 collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Prosecutors said Hunsicker fraudulently raised more than $275 million for CaaStle and $30 million for a related venture, P180.

“Clothing-as-a-Service”

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 3 Thread
Just kill me now.

DuckDuckGo Now Lets You Hide AI-Generated Images In Search Results

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
Privacy-focused browser DuckDuckGo is rolling out a new setting that lets users filter out AI images in search results. The company says it’s launching the feature in response to feedback from users who said AI images can get in the way of finding what they’re looking for.

Users can access the new setting by conducting a search on DuckDuckGo and heading to the Images tab. From there, they will see a new dropdown menu titled “AI images.” Users can then choose whether or not they want to see AI content by selecting “show” or “hide.” Users can also turn on the filter in their search settings by tapping the “Hide AI-Generated Images” option.
“The filter relies on manually curated open-source blocklists, including the ‘nuclear’ list, provided by uBlockOrigin and uBlacklist Huge AI Blocklist,” DuckDuckGo said in a post on X. “While it won’t catch 100% of AI-generated results, it will greatly reduce the number of AI-generated images you see.” DuckDuckGo says it has plans to add other similar filters in the future.

‘Coldplay Kiss-Cam Flap Proves We’re Already Our Own Surveillance State’

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Brandon Vigliarolo writes via The Register:
A tech executive’s alleged affair exposed on a stadium jumbotron is ripe fodder for the gossip rags, but it exhibits something else: proof that we need not wait for an AI-fueled dystopian surveillance state to descend on us — we’re perfectly able and willing to surveil ourselves. The embracing couple caught at a Coldplay concert this week as the jumbotron camera panned around the audience would have been another unremarkable clip, if not for the pair panicking and rushing to hide, triggering attendees to publish the memorable moment on social media. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy,” Coldplay singer Chris Martin said of the pair’s reaction.

As is always the case when viral moments of unknown people get uploaded to the internet, they didn’t remain anonymous for long, with the internet quickly identifying them as the CEO of data infrastructure outfit Astronomer, Andy Byron, and its Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. We’re not going to weigh in on Byron’s, who internet sleuths have determined is married (for now), or Cabot’s behavior - making someone pay for the moral transgression of an alleged extramarital affair may be enough reason for the internet to go on a witch hunt, but that’s not our concern here.

What’s worrying is what this moment says - yet again - about us as a society: We have cameras everywhere, our personal data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world, and we’re all perpetually ready to use that tech to make those we feel have violated the social contract pay publicly for their transgressions. This is hardly a new phenomenon. […] There’s really no reason to set up an expensive and oppressive surveillance state when we all have location tracking, internet-connected shaming machines in our pockets. Big tech gave us the tools of our own surveillance, and as “ColdplayGate” shows yet again, we’ll keep using those tools if they’ll make us feel better about ourselves - especially if someone else gets knocked down a peg in the process.

Bad example

By stabiesoft • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Jumbotron “kisses” have been around for decades. I’d be far more concerned if that kiss was from a street corner cam, or ring cam.

ultimate embarrasment

By avandesande • Score: 4, Funny Thread
What a way for your wife to find out you listen to Coldplay

Trump Signs First Major Federal Crypto Bill Into Law

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, marking the first major U.S. regulation of stablecoins by creating a legal framework for their issuance and consumer protections, while also championing crypto innovation as a major financial revolution. The bill passed the House on Thursday with the support of 206 Republicans and 102 Democrats. From a report:
Members of Congress and top executives from Robinhood, Tether, Gemini and other crypto and financial firms were in attendance for the signing ceremony. The fate of the GENIUS Act was in question earlier this week when a dozen conservatives stymied a procedural vote. A compromise was ultimately reached, and the holdouts allowed the legislation to proceed. The president on Friday suggested that he spoke to the holdouts individually on the phone to persuade them, after House Speaker Mike Johnson told him there were a dozen Republicans opposing the bill.

“The good news is, I call up, ‘Hello, Jim, how are you?’ ‘Sir, you have my vote.’ Boom. ‘Sir, you have my vote.’ I really just, they just want a little love,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s always the same 12 people.” David Sacks, the venture capitalist-turned Mr. Trump’s AI and crypto czar, said the president “stepped in and saved this bill.” Mr. Trump also said Vice President JD Vance had been on the phone late at night, helping push the legislation through.

Exhausted Man Defeats AI Model In World Coding Championship

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
A Polish programmer running on fumes recently accomplished what may soon become impossible: beating an advanced AI model from OpenAI in a head-to-head coding competition. The 10-hour marathon left him “completely exhausted.” On Wednesday, programmer Przemysaw Debiak (known as “Psyho”), a former OpenAI employee, narrowly defeated the custom AI model in the AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 Heuristic contest in Tokyo. AtCoder, a Japanese platform that hosts competitive programming contests and maintains global rankings, held what may be the first contest where an AI model competed directly against top human programmers in a major onsite world championship. During the event, the maker of ChatGPT participated as a sponsor and entered an AI model in a special exhibition match titled “Humans vs AI.” Despite the tireless nature of silicon, the company walked away with second place.

The competition required contestants to solve a single complex optimization problem over 600 minutes. The contest echoes the American folk tale of John Henry, the steel-driving man who raced against a steam-powered drilling machine in the 1870s. Like Henry’s legendary battle against industrial automation, Debiak’s victory represents a human expert pushing themselves to their physical limits to prove that human skill still matters in an age of advancing AI. Both stories feature exhausting endurance contests — Henry drove steel spikes for hours until his heart gave out, while Debiak coded for 10 hours on minimal sleep. The parallel extends to the bittersweet nature of both victories: Henry won his race but died from the effort, symbolizing the inevitable march of automation, while Debiak’s acknowledgment that humanity prevailed “for now” suggests he recognizes this may be a temporary triumph against increasingly capable machines. While Debiak won 500,000 yen and survived his ordeal better than the legendary steel driver, the AtCoder World Tour Finals pushes humans and AI models to their limits through complex optimization challenges that have no perfect solution — only incrementally better ones.
“Humanity has prevailed (for now!),” wrote Debiak on X, noting he had little sleep while competing in several competitions across three days. “I’m completely exhausted. … I’m barely alive.”

Reminds me of old John Henry

By bittmann • Score: 3 Thread

John Henry told his captain
‘A man ain’t nothin’ but a man
But before I let your steam drill beat me
Down
I’d die with a hammer in my hand. Lord
Lord
I’d dies with a hammer in my hand.’

Ring Restores Police Video Access

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Ring has restored police access to user video footage and returned to its original crime-prevention mission under founder Jamie Siminoff, who rejoined Amazon in April after a two-year absence. The video doorbell company announced a partnership with law enforcement technology firm Axon that allows police to request footage through Axon’s digital evidence management system, effectively reviving a controversial feature Ring discontinued last year.

Siminoff scrapped Ring’s socially-focused mission statement “Keep people close to what’s important” that Amazon introduced in 2024 and reinstated the company’s original mandate to “make neighborhoods safer.” The company previously paid $5.8 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations of privacy violations in 2023, though Amazon denied wrongdoing.

This is why I will never buy a Ring

By aldousd666 • Score: 4 Thread
Someone can just randomly remotely take control of your cameras at your house? no thanks. I don’t care why you say you need to be able to do it. hands off.

Get a warrant or GTFO

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 3 Thread
My cameras record to a local DVR and if the police want access (to my cameras or property) they will need a lawful warrant signed by a judge.

BLINK doesn’t have a “mission to spy on you.”

By gavron • Score: 3, Insightful Thread

> …returned to its original crime-prevention mission…

That “mission” is law enforcement’s mission, not Ring. Go look at Ring’s website and you won’t find ANY mission let alone providng YOUR video of YOUR property off a camera YOU bought with YOUR money and installed with YOUR time and PAY MONTHLY to access your video… only to give it away to every stormtrooper with a badge.

Mission-creep is one thing, but here’s another — Ring users said they DON’T WANT THEIR VIDEOS SHARED WITH THE stormtroopers, ICE, or any other LEOs. Ring’s “leadership team” is clearly not about —in any way— doing what their paying customers want.

The Blink Doorbell (https://support.blinkforhome.com/en_US/blink-video-doorbell) doesn’t require a monthly subscription, doesn’t require you to provide the video, and doesn’t share the [lack of provided] video with LEOs.

If you want to support a company with a product that doesn’t have a “mission” to spy on you and give footage to the nazis, Blink’s a good option.

Re:Arguing over default of op-out vs op-in?

By misnohmer • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Your public facing doorbell camera. The same location any random person passing by with a cell phone can record.

True, a passer by can record. However, if someone was to park across the street from your house, or mount a camera on tree or utility pole, then record your house 24/7, does the same standard apply? Go ahead, try to install solar powered, internet connected cameras in front of public officials homes, see what happens. Spoiler alert, you will be charged with things like stalking, and other things depending on jurisdiction.

Re:Arguing over default of op-out vs op-in?

By Bill, Shooter of Bul • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
I don’t like that the police have access to this much computer surveillance at once. I’m not supporting a company thats making it happen. Police over and over again prove that they are basically Cartman from Southpark.

Netflix Uses AI Effects For First Time To Cut Costs

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Netflix says it has used visual effects created by generative AI in one of its original TV shows for the first time. From a report:
The streaming giant’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said AI, which produces videos and images based on prompts, was used to create a scene of a building collapsing in the Argentine science fiction show, The Eternaut. He said the technology allowed the production team to complete sequences faster and at a lower cost.

The use of generative AI is controversial in the entertainment industry over concerns it creates content using others’ work without their consent and fears that it will replace the work of humans. […] Asked about Netflix’s use of AI, Mr Sarandos said the technology has allowed productions with smaller budgets to use advanced visual effects.

Re: fears that it will replace the work of humans

By Geoffrey.landis • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

There is only one remedy for this problem which doesn’t lead to wave after wave of this, and it is to separate the basic needs of the living from employment

In other words, there is no remedy for this “problem.” Perhaps the “problem” isn’t a bug, but a feature. Nobody is as interested in my personal lifestyle and comforts, than me. If a basic living isn’t motivation enough for me to do whatever is necessary to obtain that basic living standard, why should someone else work harder so that I don’t have to?

You are totally misunderstanding the problem.

Your implicit assumption here that it is possible for a person “to do whatever is necessary to obtain that basic living standard.” But the question is: once AI becomes good enough that it can do every job cheaper than a human, how do humans survive?

You say “why should someone else work harder so that I don’t have to?”— but it’s not another human that is working harder. It is a mechanism. And that mechanism is cheaper than you are.

And it’s not that you don’t “have” to. It’s that work no longer exists for you to work at.


But these have not removed the basic foundation of truth that, if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

if, as you say, the truth is “if you don’t work, you don’t eat”, what happens when there is no work to be had?

LibreOffice Calls Out Microsoft For Using ‘Complex’ File Formats To Lock in Office Users

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
LibreOffice has accused Microsoft of intentionally using “unnecessarily complex” file formats to lock in Office users, claiming the company weaponizes its Office Open XML schema to create barriers for competitors. The open-source office suite argued that Microsoft’s OOXML format includes deeply nested structures with non-intuitive naming conventions and numerous optional elements that make implementation difficult for developers outside Microsoft.

LibreOffice compared the situation to a railway system where tracks are public but one company’s control system is so convoluted that competitors cannot build compatible trains.

That is just the default UI

By Anonymous Cward • Score: 5, Informative Thread
LibreOffice has every single UI metaphor as a preset option to choose from. You can switch between hierarchical menus, tabbed ribbon menus, single and multi-line toolbars and a sidebar option akin to iWork. Try changing the UI to Tabbed if you prefer a Microsoft Office 2016 style of menu. They also added the compact tabbed mode similar to the compact ribbon introduced in 2021.

Format

By JBMcB • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

So you have a file format going back almost 20 years, that supports embedding almost any kind of content anywhere, that has had new features bolted on almost constantly, and also is backwards compatible so that anything not using a new feature is readable by older applications, and is also forward-compatible so newer versions of the application can render these documents accurately. And people complain that said file format is too complex?

For a comparison, go read up on how complex the TIFF standard is, and that is, basically, a bunch of numbers corresponding to color values in a bitmap. The ancient base-standard document is 120 pages long.

Re:less of a barrier than their terrible UI

By Murdoch5 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Do you think Office has a better UI then class LibreOffice? I guess that’s an opinion, but in my opinion the Office UI is terrible, Microsoft is a master at terrible UI design. Compare Gnome / KDE / XFCE to the Windows desktop, and right away you notice Microsoft can’t build a desktop. Another opinion, the Office 365 licensing is some form of a mix between intentional incompetence, weaponized incompetence, fraud, and a lack of requirements. The very fact that Office 365 can fail to activate on Windows 11, in some random cases, demonstrates the licensing is so broken, as to mitigate any attempt at producing an effective platform.

Have you tried to buy the right license for the right job? Microsoft has made it intentionally impossible, outside of luck, to pick the appropriate product, the first time. They have N tiers for the same tools, with intentionally misleading descriptions, no clarity on the differences, pricing that looks like a paint cannon went off, and if you try to get support, just shove a dry butt plug in your ass, it will hurt less. Do you want to get into the administration side? No, just no, I don’t have the strength and mental energy right now.

Even if they did build Office 365 for Linux, it wouldn’t matter. Office 365 is considered a train wreck of an Office platform, its name is used as a joke. The only reason people still use it, is because Microsoft forces it in your face during installs and updates, they even place download icons in the start menu. If Office 365 had to compete in the real world, on a fair playing field, no one would ever touch it.

I don’t even have to bring up the terrible formats and extensions, they’re bad, and are a universal symbol of the incompetent professional, but we don’t even have to worry about that.

Re:less of a barrier than their terrible UI

By gweihir • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

What? Working with LibreOffice is wayyyy more efficient than with MS Office. You actually find things and it does not take tons of clicks to do stuff. It does not permanently stand in your way. MS Office really has no chance in a direct comparison except with a few Stockholm Syndrome sufferers and these can still activate the stupid and cumbersome “ribbon” interface in LibreOffice as well.

And incidentally, LibreOffice, being derived from StarOffice has 40 years of development history. That is 5 years more (!) than MS Office.

Re:less of a barrier than their terrible UI

By kurkosdr • Score: 4, Informative Thread
Oh, my sweet summer child, OOXML is technically an ISO standard (Microsoft managed to get it approved as an ISO standard somehow, despite OOXML not adhering to ISO conventions in things such as dates and not having a reference implementation), which allows governments to upload docx files for citizens to use as forms and pretend they are issuing a standards-compliant file.

So, LibreOffice has to care about OOXML because governments issue OOXML files. You can choose to not interact with private individuals and corporations using OOXML (in theory at least), you don’t have such an option when dealing with governments.

Anthropic Tightens Usage Limits For Claude Code - Without Telling Users

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader shares a report:
Since Monday morning, Claude Code users have been hit with unexpectedly restrictive usage limits. The problems, many of which have been aired on Claude Code’s GitHub page, seem to be concentrated among heavy users of the service, many of whom are on the $200-a-month Max plan.

Users are only told “Claude usage limit reached,” and given a time (typically within a matter of hours) when the limit will reset. But with no explicit announcement of a change in limits, many users have concluded that their subscription has been downgraded or that their usage is being inaccurately tracked.

“Your tracking of usage limits has changed and is no longer accurate,” one user complained. “There is no way in the 30 minutes of a few requests I have hit the 900 messages.” When reached for comment, an Anthropic representative confirmed the issues but declined to elaborate further.

Under stress

By AlanObject • Score: 3 Thread

I was using Claude the other night and things were going fine — until it didn’t. It was responding to prompts but just stopped making the requested changes to code. Then it turned obstinate and started making bad suggestions.

It looks more to me that the GPU resources are under stress and starting to just drop stuff that they would ordinarily process. It doesn’t surprise me that they are trying to throttle their workload.

Microsoft Kills Movies and TV Storefront on Windows and Xbox

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Microsoft has shut down its Movies & TV storefront on the Microsoft Store, ending the ability to purchase new entertainment content on Windows PCs and Xbox consoles. The company announced that as of July 18, users can no longer buy or rent movies and TV shows through Microsoft.com, the Microsoft Store on Windows, or the Microsoft Store on Xbox.

Customers who previously purchased content from the Microsoft Store can continue accessing their libraries through the Movies & TV app, which remains available for download. Microsoft will not offer refunds for recent purchases. US customers can use the Movies Anywhere service to sync their purchased content to other compatible platforms.

Why DVDs are better

By smooth wombat • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I know there are people who will grumble and whine that DVDs are sooooooo outdated, but this is another example of why they are superior. You never have to worry someone else will take it away from you.

You bought it. You own it. Unless someone breaks into your home and takes it or your home burns down, it is yours forever. You can watch it as many times as you like whenever you want. You are not restricted to someone else’s schedule. Nor do you have to worry about it breaking up because the signal got botched.

Further, DVDs don’t change. No one can alter the movie with “new and improved” scenes or added “features”. Han will always shoot first.

That Microsoft has told users there are no refunds is further justification why DVDs are better than streaming.

‘Microsoft’s Constant Layoffs Risk Creating a Culture of Fear’

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader shares a column:
I can’t open LinkedIn without seeing a new post from a Microsoft employee who lost their job in the company’s latest round of layoffs. Around 15,000 jobs have been eliminated at Microsoft over the past couple months — the biggest cuts at the company in more than a decade.

I’ve spoken to more than a dozen Microsoft employees in recent weeks, and everyone is concerned about the company’s direction in this AI era. Morale is at an all-time low, and employees are worried that regular layoffs are simply the new normal.

Sources tell me that Microsoft’s leadership team had the choice between reducing investment in AI infrastructure for the upcoming financial year or deeply cutting its headcount and operating expenses. It’s very clear what route Microsoft chose.

Re:“risk creating”

By MNNorske • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
I lived through a few years where my employer was quietly cutting the “bottom 10%". It was ugly. Everyone knew it was happening and it definitely created a hostile work environment and people would step on each other just to make themselves look better to avoid being cut.

The way it played out was that every area had to find a bottom 10% even if everyone on their team were rockstar contributors. So if team A was all rockstars and team B were all less-good engineers guess what? Instead of cutting only from team B and transferring a rockstar over they would cut a rockstar and a less-good engineer at the same time. Everyone saw it.

Eventually the rockstar employees stopped helping the new guys because they didn’t want to enable someone leveling up and them getting cut. A lot of people left to get away from it. And, at the end of the day most of management was populated by even worse jerks because they were the ones who had gleefully stepped on anyone in their way in order to not be considered bottom 10% material.

It took almost a decade after that policy ended for the culture to really turn around. And, that involved cutting th ranks of middle management populated with those jerks who had survived/thrived from the bottom 10% policy.

Incompetence and Crap… it’s Microsoft.

By Murdoch5 • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
When you think Microsoft, what pops into your head? Honestly, this what I get:

1. #1 in terrible customer service, leading the way to new level of incompetence.
2. Incompetent and broken licensing, across their stacks.
3. Convoluted and confusing patchwork of bad software.
4. Thieves, intentionally selling you the wrong tools so you have to upgrade later.
5. Lack of compatibility.
6. Terrible operating system, that crashes more than it works.
7. Terrible communication software, cans which have a string between them, where one can fell off, is better than Teams.
8. Snakes, giving out bad advice, and lying, to their community forums.

I can keep going, but it will be a while before I have anything good to say. Microsoft isn’t risking a reputation of fear and risk, they can’t get to fear and risk. When you hear the name “Microsoft”, it’s like hearing about that product you, or someone you know bought, that was so bad at its job, it was hilariously broken, then lame, then annoying, then infuriating. Most large companies have a public face that is less than pleasant or joy bringing. Maybe somewhere between freshly cleaned, and sanitized dumper, through to dumper fire at a homeless camp. Microsoft’s is more: Exploded diaper pail, which had never been emptied that spray shit everywhere, well trying to claim that shit was rain, which they blame on AI well customer service tried to explain this was the proper way to run a day care.

Ruling class

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
You don’t trim executive salaries because they are members of the ruling class.

You are taught during a critical time in your learning process that America does not have a ruling class. This is a lie but because it’s taught you during the 4 to 14 window it’s basically impossible to get it out of most people’s brains.

If you do manage to get the idea out of your brain then the whole world makes so much more sense.

Re:“risk creating”

By MNNorske • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
I had one of those people as my manager’s manager around that time. I did not realize how much the immediate layer of management was shielding us from him until three managers burned out in rapid succession and I wound up reporting directly to him for a period of time. One of the first hints I had about his behavior after that was when I was called over to his desk to explain what he just heard about us needing to buy several more waves of servers for the project we were on and he had never heard this yada yada yada. I politely asked if he had the spreadsheet that showed the expansion phases of the project and the hardware needed for each phase. He opened it up on his computer and showed it to me. I asked him to scroll down. His jaw dropped. The idiot had never scrolled down. Worse yet in his eagerness to get ahead he had given back the budget for all the hardware. I’m sure he tried to throw me under the bus when begging for the money back.

Later on he made the very big mistake of blaming an admin for various things, claiming she never sent him things or she must’ve lost his response. He finally learned not to lie about an admin to the vp she supports because he was fired. A good admin is far closer and tighter with the vp they support than any subordinate to that vp.

That single bad manager caused at least seven good people I knew to quit the company and never look back. Taking all their knowledge and experience with them. The project ultimately succeeded. And, I did not get run over by the bus. Partly because that same admin was a friend of mine and I’m sure she relayed to the vp the whole incident about the spreadsheet.

Re:Incompetence and Crap… it’s Microsoft.

By Murdoch5 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
I can get there, I can admit that Windows 95 and 98 with (SE) were outstanding! I can admit that Azure can make some things easier at scale when some of your co-workers aren’t technically as qualified as you’d like. XP, 7, sure, I didn’t mind those operating systems, they were better than Vista, and IMO 11, 10 had it’s time for me. If ignore everything I hate from Microsoft, there are some compacted balls of aluminum, acting like silver, but they’re under so much nonsense, that I can’t ignore everything piled on top.

I deal with Microsoft frequently, and they never fail to amaze me with what how little they value customers. We’ve had our CSM (Customer Service Manager) change so often, that I don’t know who it is right now. Every time we get a new CSM, we get told how they’ll be around forever, we’ll grow old together, retire together, and 1 or 2 weeks later, swapped.

Midstream through tickets, had them cancel the service request, and ticket, then blame me for it, then admit it was their fault, but they can’t do anything. Have you tried to use their administration platforms, InTune, Office, Security (Defender)? Have you dealt with licensing? Just doing something simple, has 100 handshakes, and enough mysteries to make every customer service interaction a new National Treasure movie.

All for what? What’s the end game?

Delta Wants AI To Decide What You Personally Pay For Every Plane Ticket

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
Delta Air Lines plans for 20% of its ticket prices to be individually determined using AI by the end of this year, up from the current 3% of fares that are AI-determined. President Glen Hauenstein told investors last week the airline’s long-term strategy aims to eliminate static pricing altogether in favor of personalized fares calculated by AI algorithms.

The AI pricing pilot program, which has tripled in scope over nine months, has produced “amazingly favorable unit revenues,” according to the airline.

You’re not alone if you think the move is problematic. Consumer Watchdog analyst Justin Kloczko told Fortune that the airline is “basically hacking our brains,” and Senator Ruben Gallego called Delta’s practice “predatory pricing.”

Delta might want to

By Bu11etmagnet • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Delta might want to, but Delta can’t decide what I pay for my plane ticket: I’m not flying Delta.

The ultimate goal, permanent willingness to pay

By drnb • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Willingness to pay is often a temporary artifact of a new product rollout at expensive prices early on, slowly lowering as time progresses and more units become available. Willingness to pay realized by when, how early, one chooses to buy.

Willingness to pay a permanent state? That’s a friggin dream for businesses. It’s like an auction with a base price for every sale. Every seat on the plane sort of an auction, except your bid is from their AI. Their AI somehow working out your willingness to pay. Totally ripe for abuse, AI notices that your grandma just died, ups the willingness to pay.

Re:Make whatever offer you want

By aaarrrgggh • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

That works until a third party is hired by all the airlines to give a pricing algorithm for a specific customer pool and routing so there is “your” price for flying, independent of which airline you try to use.

only in the USA

By thoper • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
this is illegal in most SANE parts of the world.

Will Soon Be Illegal in California

By eepok • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

California saw these efforts in the pipeline and has some legislation working through the process to nip it in the bud: https://leginfo.legislature.ca…

This bill would, subject to certain exceptions, prohibit a person from engaging in surveillance pricing. The bill would define “surveillance pricing” to mean offering or setting a customized price for a good or service for a specific consumer or group of consumers, based, in whole or in part, on personally identifiable information collected through electronic surveillance technology, as specified. The bill would provide that only a public prosecutor, as specified, may bring an action against a violator of these provisions to recover specified civil penalties, injunctive relief, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, and would authorize a consumer to bring an action for injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. The bill would declare that any waiver of these provisions is against public policy and is void and unenforceable.

It’s only 4 steps away from becoming law (Senate Appropriations, Senate Floor, Concurrence, Governor). It will likely pass and go into effect January 1.

Computer Science Major Needs a Rebrand, Android Head Says

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
The computer science major needs a rebrand, Google’s head of Android Sameer Samat said, arguing that the discipline is widely misunderstood as simply learning to code. “It is thought of as, ‘go learn how to do Java coding,’" Samat said of the major, adding that if that’s what students want to do, “you don’t need a degree.”

Samat, who studied computer science at UC San Diego, views the field differently: “It’s definitely not learning to code. It is the science, in my opinion, of solving problems.” The major should focus on breaking down problems, learning system design, and collaboration rather than just coding skills, Samat said.

Shouldn’t have gotten rid of calculus

By phantomfive • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
They shouldn’t have gotten rid of calculus as a requirement.

If you want to learn to code, go to a boot camp. It’s only 8 months. College is about learning to think.

Engineering is applied physics

By 50000BTU_barbecue • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Computer science is applied discrete mathematics.

Advanced math and sciences give you options

By drnb • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

They shouldn’t have gotten rid of calculus as a requirement.

Besides weeding out the weak, advanced math and science classes give the graduate options. Sure, most software development is using HS math, maybe even only elementary school. :-) But occasionally there is a job that requires a certain “literacy” regarding advanced math or a branch of science. A 4-year Computer Science curriculum is designed to make such jobs an option. If you only want the HS math option go to your Community College and get a 2-year Software Development degree or certification. Don’t dumb down the 4-year programs.

Re:Engineering is applied physics

By cellocgw • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Computer science is applied discrete mathematics.

It is, but that’s because it’s really “Software Science” . If labels were correct, “Computer Science” would be about the structure of a computer: interfaces, caches, distributed processing, and so on.

Weeding out is one of the intended roles

By drnb • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

I hope they didn’t as I think it was useful. In depth algorithm classes were harder imho than calculus, so having the math requirement up front would help avoid having people get a couple of years in and realize they can’t do the math.

Weeding out is one of the intended roles of Freshman Calculus. The correlation between successfully completing Freshman Calculus and various CS classes heavy on theory and/or math is high. Second year math, Differential Equations is more to give the graduate options. Allowing them to apply for those rare software jobs that require a mathematical literacy beyond HS level. Linear Algebra more of a genuine prerequisite for some CS classes.

India Hits 50% Non-Fossil Power Milestone Five Years Ahead of Paris Agreement’s 2030 Target

Posted by msmash View on SlashDot Skip
India has achieved 50% of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources — five years ahead of its 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, signalling accelerating momentum in the country’s clean energy transition. From a report:
The announcement comes as India’s renewable power output rose at its fastest pace since 2022 in the first half of 2025, while coal-fired generation declined nearly 3%. Fossil fuels still accounted for over two-thirds of the increase in power generation last year. India plans to expand coal-fired capacity by 80 GW by 2032 to meet rising demand.

It’s cheaper

By rsilvergun • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
Even if you don’t account for the externalized costs of fossil fuels wind and solar are cheaper so long as you’ve got land and India has that.

The only reason to keep using fossil fuels is the prop up fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel dependent countries like Saudi Arabia.

We all know that but those companies spend a lot of money buying our elections. Mostly with propaganda to trick us into voting for people who are currently crashing our economy and getting ready to lay us all off

Well done!

By greytree • Score: 3 Thread
Sensible humans will save human civilization, despite the many stupid humans who aren’t smart enough to care, or who benefit (in the short term) from fighting against what is very obviously right.

Re:It’s cheaper

By MacMann • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

The only reason to keep using fossil fuels is the prop up fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel dependent countries like Saudi Arabia.

That’s the only reason? Not to keep the lights on when the sun doesn’t blow and the wind doesn’t shine?

Metrics like LCOE, levelized cost of energy/electricity, make certain assumptions when making their calculations. One common assumption for wind and solar is that there’s an existing backup somewhere on the grid. It’s pretty safe to make that assumption if half of your electricity comes from fossil fuels still, and there’s ample reserves in that given that for large portions of the year there could be idled power plants due to a wide variation in demand over the year as people use less energy in the mild temperatures of spring and fall but quite a bit more in the summer and winter. That can mean with each marginal addition to the grid of wind and solar capacity those existing fossil fuel plants still see plenty of use but that use becomes more variable, changing with the day/night cycle to match solar output than the seasonal cycle as people switch their heating and cooling demands.

I expect the next big thing on the move to lower CO2 emissions is nuclear fission with thermal energy storage. There would be a nuclear fission reactor to heat up something like a molten salt, that molten salt would be the thermal mass to store energy, and as energy is needed that heat can be drawn from the molten salt to run a turbine. This removes what may be the largest criticism of nuclear power, not being able to shift output with demand and remain economical. This would make nuclear fission a good pairing with intermittent wind and solar power, and could perhaps remove the need for any other kind of energy storage on the grid.

NOOOOO

By thegarbz • Score: 4, Funny Thread

Only last week I complained that I can’t complain about China anymore, now India is doing something? WTF. Who else can I complain about to justify not doing anything myself? Help me out here. Which one of your roll coal who I can point to in order to justify keeping the AC turned on when I’m not at home?

Google Hides Secret Message In Name List of 3,295 AI Researchers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
How many Google AI researchers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A recent research paper detailing the technical core behind Google’s Gemini AI assistant may suggest an answer, listing an eye-popping 3,295 authors. It’s a number that recently caught the attention of machine learning researcher David Ha (known as “hardmaru” online), who revealed on X that the first 43 names also contain a hidden message. “There’s a secret code if you observe the authors’ first initials in the order of authorship,” Ha wrote, relaying the Easter egg: “GEMINI MODELS CAN THINK AND GET BACK TO YOU IN A FLASH.”

The paper, titled “Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities,” describes Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash AI models, which were released in March. These large language models, which power Google’s chatbot AI assistant, feature simulated reasoning capabilities that produce a string of “thinking out loud” text before generating responses in an attempt to help them solve more difficult problems. That explains “think” and “flash” in the hidden text. But clever Easter egg aside, the sheer scale of authorship tells its own story about modern AI development. Just seeing the massive list made us wonder: Is 3,295 authors unprecedented? Why so many?
Ars’ Benj Edwards notes that this collaborative effort within Google doesn’t quite break the record for academic authorship.
“According to Guinness World Records, a 2021 paper by the COVIDSurg and GlobalSurg Collaboratives holds that distinction, with 15,025 authors from 116 countries. In physics, a 2015 paper from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider teams featured 5,154 authors across 33 pages — with 24 pages devoted solely to listing names and institutions.”

Is 3,295 authors unprecedented? Why so many?

By GuB-42 • Score: 3 Thread

That many authors is not unprecedented, some CERN papers are famous for having thousands of authors, the record is at 5000+.

Why so many? You have to raise that h-index. Researchers are valued by their citation count, and when a big paper comes out and is expected to be cited a lot, everyone wants to be on it.

My experience

By ThurstonMoore • Score: 3 Thread

I have been playing around with Gemma 3 12b in LMStudio lately. I asked the llm to run a pathfinder campaign for me as the gm. It quickly started forgetting things so I asked it how we could improve its memory and it suggested that it could create a text file it called a “memory log” to save the progress of the campaign which seemed to work until it didn’t because apparently a “memory log” is not a real thing and the llm totally made it up. After a while it completely lost its mind and started claiming it was ChatGPT and that it was running in the cloud. Then it realized it was malfunctioning and said it was going to report the malfunction to Google and shutdown. My understanding is that it can’t contact Google to report the malfunction. The whole thing was very unsettling.

Needed to get at the Science

By Roger W Moore • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Why so many?

I can’t speak to this paper but for the CERN papers the reason there are so many authors has far more to do with the fact that to get at the physics you need a 14-story tall incredibly complex detector that has its data collected and analyzed by software consisting millions of lines of code. You need a few thousand people to build and operate such detectors and to write and debug the code that analyzes the data to get at the physics. That’s why there are so many authors.

Many of us would love to have our own table-top experiments but nobody knows how to make one that small which can get at the physics we are interested in.