Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. 23andMe’s Data Sold to Nonprofit Run by Its Co-Founder - ‘And I Still Don’t Trust It’
  2. In Shallow Water Ships Trigger Seafloor Methane Emissions, Study Finds
  3. Android Phones Can Detect Earthquakes Before the Ground Starts Shaking
  4. What Eyewitnesses Remembered About the World’s First Atomic Bomb Explosion in 1945
  5. Boeing Fuel Switches Checked, as Critic Cites a Similar Fuel Switch Cutoff in 2019
  6. Chinese Companies Now Authorized to Conduct Foreign Cyberattacks, Sell Access to Government
  7. After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New ‘Commodore 64 Ultimate’ for $299
  8. OpenAI CEO Says Meta Tried Poaching ChatGPT Engineers With $100M Bonuses
  9. ‘Edge of Space’ Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Dies in Paragliding Accident
  10. ‘Utopian’ City ‘California Forever’ Announces Huge Tech Manufacturing Park
  11. Microsoft To Stop Using Engineers In China For Tech Support of US Military
  12. Largest Piece of Mars On Earth Fetches $5.3 Million At Auction
  13. Scientists Make ‘Magic State’ Breakthrough After 20 Years
  14. Intel Kills Clear Linux OS As Support Ends Without Warning
  15. Google Sues Operators of 10-Million-Device Badbox 2.0 Botnet

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.

23andMe’s Data Sold to Nonprofit Run by Its Co-Founder - ‘And I Still Don’t Trust It’

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
"Nearly 2 million people protected their privacy by deleting their DNA from 23andMe after it declared bankruptcy in March,” writes a Washington Post technology columnist.

“Now it’s back with the same person in charge — and I still don’t trust it.”
As of this week, genetic data from the more than 10 million remaining 23andMe customers has been formally sold to an organization called TTAM Research Institute for $305 million. That nonprofit is run by the person who co-founded and ran 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki. In a recent email to customers, the new 23andMe said it “will be operating with the same employees and privacy protocols that have protected your data.” Never mind that Wojcicki and her privacy protocols are what put your DNA at risk in the first place…

The company is legally obligated to maintain and honor 23andMe’s existing privacy policies, user consents and data protection measures. And as part of a settlement with states, TTAM also agreed to provide annual privacy reports to state regulators and set up a privacy board. But it hasn’t agreed to take the fundamental step of asking for permission to acquire existing customers’ genetic information. And it’s leaving the door open to selling people’s genes to the highest bidder again in the future…

Existing 23andMe customers have the right to delete their data or opt out of TTAM’s research. But the new company is not asking for opt-in permission before it takes ownership of customers’ DNA… Why does that matter? Because people who handed over the DNA 15 years ago, often to learn about their genetic ancestry, never imagined it might be used in this way now. Asking for new permission might significantly shrink the size (and value) of 23andMe’s DNA database — but it would be the right thing to do given the rocky history. Neil M. Richards [the Washington University professor who served as privacy ombudsman for the bankruptcy court], pointed out that about a third of 23andMe customers haven’t logged in for at least three years, so they may have no idea what is going on. Some 23andMe users never even clicked “agree” on a legal agreement that allowed their data to be sold like this; the word “bankruptcy” wasn’t added to the company’s privacy policy until 2022. And then there is an unknown number of deceased users who most certainly can’t consent, but whose DNA still has an impact on their living genetic relatives…

[S]everal states have argued that their existing genetic privacy laws don’t allow 23andMe to receive the information without getting permission from every single person. Virginia has an ongoing lawsuit over the issue, and the California attorney general’s office told me it “will continue to fight to protect and vindicate the rights” of consumers....
Two more points of concern:

In Shallow Water Ships Trigger Seafloor Methane Emissions, Study Finds

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post:
Ships trigger seafloor methane emissions while moving through shallow water, researchers report in Communications Earth & Environment. The scientists say the unexpected discovery has nothing to do with the type of fuel used by the ship. Instead, “ship-induced pressure changes and turbulent mixing” trigger the release of the gas from the seafloor. Bubbles and gas diffusion push the methane into the atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas…

Container and cruise ships triggered the largest and most frequent methane emissions, but the study suggests that ships of all kinds, regardless of their type of engine or size, trigger methane emissions. Researchers said they observed emissions that were 20 times higher in the shipping lane than in undisturbed nearby areas. Given the number of ports in similarly shallow areas worldwide, it’s important to learn more about emissions in shipping lanes and to better estimate their "hitherto unknown impact,” study co-author Johan Mellqvist, a professor of optical remote sensing at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said in a news release.

Easy fix …

By drnb • Score: 3 Thread
So containerships are a problem, so the green thing to do is build products on the continent they will be sold on.

Android Phones Can Detect Earthquakes Before the Ground Starts Shaking

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
Electronic messages travel faster than seismic waves, Gizmodo points out — meaning some people near an earthquake receive an Android Earthquake Alert “before the seismic waves reach them — and even a few seconds could be just enough time to hide under a table or run outside.”

Richard Allen from the University of California in Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory, writes in a new study that “The global adoption of smartphone technology places sophisticated sensing and alerting capabilities in people’s hands, in both the wealthy and less-wealthy portions of the planet.”

From Gizmodo:
According to the study, 70% of the world’s smartphones are Android phones, which by default come with the aforementioned sensing and alerting capabilities. From 2021 to 2024, the Android Earthquake Alert (AEA) system detected an average of 312 earthquakes per month across 98 countries. The earthquakes had a magnitude between 1.9 and 7.8, and the system alerted users of earthquakes at or over a magnitude of 4.5, averaging around 60 events and 18 million alerts per month. The AEA system also collected user feedback, revealing that 85% of users who received alerts experienced shaking, with 36% receiving the alert before, 28% during, and 23% after the shaking began…

“AEA demonstrates that globally distributed smartphones can be used to detect earthquakes and issue warnings at scale with an effectiveness comparable to established national systems,” the researchers wrote.
The system detected 11,231 earthquakes between April of 2021 and March of 2024, according to the study, which notes that the length of the advanced warning “ranged from seconds up to a minute” for moderate shaking, and about 15 seconds for the strongest shaking.

Don’t miss one in Italy

By nospam007 • Score: 3 Thread

You might get sentenced for not alerting by bozo judges.

The technology is useless…

By imunfair • Score: 3 Thread

… when your mom is walking around.

What Eyewitnesses Remembered About the World’s First Atomic Bomb Explosion in 1945

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
Historian Garrett M. Graff describes his upcoming book, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb. “I assembled an oral history of the Manhattan Project, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II in the Pacific, told through the voices of around 500 participants and witnesses of the events — including luminaries like Albert Einstein and Oppenheimer and political figures like President Harry Truman.”

It was 80 years ago this week that physicists and 150 other leaders in the atomic bomb program “gathered in the desert outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, for the world’s first test of a nuclear explosion.” In an except from his upcoming book, Graff publishes quotes from eyewitness:
Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves: I had become a bit annoyed with Fermi when he suddenly offered to take wagers from his fellow scientists on whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world. He had also said that after all it wouldn’t make any difference whether the bomb went off or not because it would still have been a well worthwhile scientific experiment. For if it did fail to go off, we would have proved that an atomic explosion was not possible. Afterward, I realized that his talk had served to smooth down the frayed nerves and ease the tension of the people at the base camp, and I have always thought that this was his conscious purpose. Certainly, he himself showed no signs of tension that I could see…

As the hour approached, we had to postpone the test — first for an hour and then later for 30 minutes more — so that the explosion was actually three- and one-half hours behind the original schedule… Our preparations were simple. Everyone was told to lie face down on the ground, with his feet toward the blast, to close his eyes and to cover his eyes with his hands as the countdown approached zero. As soon as they became aware of the flash they could turn over and sit or stand up, covering their eyes with the smoked glass with which each had been supplied… The quiet grew more intense. I, myself, was on the ground between Bush and Conant…

Edward Teller: We all were lying on the ground, supposedly with our backs turned to the explosion. But I had decided to disobey that instruction and instead looked straight at the bomb. I was wearing the welder’s glasses that we had been given so that the light from the bomb would not damage our eyes. But because I wanted to face the explosion, I had decided to add some extra protection. I put on dark glasses under the welder’s glasses, rubbed some ointment on my face to prevent sunburn from the radiation, and pulled on thick gloves to press the welding glasses to my face to prevent light from entering at the sides… We all listened anxiously as the broadcast of the final countdown started; but, for whatever reason, the transmission ended at minus five seconds…

Kenneth T. Bainbridge: My personal nightmare was knowing that if the bomb didn’t go off or hang-fired, I, as head of the test, would have to go to the tower first and seek to find out what had gone wrong…

Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Farrell: Dr. Oppenheimer held on to a post to steady himself. For the last few seconds, he stared directly ahead.
A few examples of how they remembered the explosion:

Re:Can’t wait

By DamnOregonian • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

They have Tsar Bomba.

1) No they don’t. They dropped it. It’s gone.
2) That’s not a weapon, it’s a demonstration.

What is the US going to do?

Same thing the Russians’ll do in a nuclear war. Sit and wait for the reentry vehicles to hit after our birds pass each other in space like ships in the night.

oppenheimer’s reaction

By belmolis • Score: 3 Thread
Oppenheimer is is said to have quoted from the Bhagavad Gita (11:32): “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.

Boeing Fuel Switches Checked, as Critic Cites a Similar Fuel Switch Cutoff in 2019

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
ABC News reports:
Dialogue heard on a cockpit voice recording indicates that the captain of the Air India flight that crashed in June, killing 260 people, may have turned off the fuel just after takeoff, prompting the first officer to panic, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited sources familiar with U.S. official’s early assessment… The president of the Federation of Indian Pilots condemned the Wall Street Journal report, saying, “The preliminary report nowhere states that the pilots have moved the fuel control switches, and this has been corroborated by the CVR [cockpit voice recorder] recording.”
But meanwhile “India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing aircraft models,” reports Reuters, “while South Korea ordered a similar measure on Tuesday, as scrutiny intensified of fuel switch locks at the centre of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash.”
The precautionary moves by the two countries and airlines in several others came despite the planemaker and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration assuring airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets are safe… [The preliminary report] noted a 2018 advisory from the FAA, which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally… Some airlines around the world told Reuters they had been checking relevant switches since 2018 in accordance with the FAA advisory, including Australia’s Qantas Airways. Others said they had made additional or new checks since the release of the preliminary report into the Air India crash.
The web site of India’s Financial Express newspaper spoke to Mary Schiavo, who was Inspector General of America’s Transportation Department from 1990 to 1996 (and is also a long-time critic of the FAA). The site notes Schiavo "rejected the claims of human error that a pilot downed the Ahmedabad to London flight by cutting off the fuel supply.”
Schiavo exclusively told FinancialExpress.com that this is not the first time fuel switch transitioned from “Run” to “Cutoff” on its own. It happened five years ago, too. “There was an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight in 2019 in which the 787 aircraft did this itself, while the flight was on final approach. No pilot input cutting off the fuel whatsoever,” Schiavo told FinancialExpress.com… “The investigation revealed the plane software made the 787 think it was on the ground and the Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation System cut the fuel to the engines,” she told FinancialExpress.com, before adding, “The pilots never touched the fuel cutoff…” Both engines flamed out immediately after the pilot deployed the thrust reversers for landing. The aircraft, which was also a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was towed away from the runway by the authorities, and no injuries were reported.

UK Civil Aviation Authority, four weeks before the crash, had warned about similar fuel system issues on Boeing aircraft [on May 15, 2025]. “The FAA has issued an Airworthiness Directive addressing a potential unsafe condition affecting fuel shutoff valves installed on Boeing aircraft,” the UK regulator’s notice read, listing the B737, B757, B767, B777 and B787…

Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation informs FADEC [a digital computer] about whether the aircraft is on the ground or in the air, and if it believes the aircraft is on the ground, it may automatically throttle back the engines, without the pilot’s input.
Reuters notes that the Air India crash preliminary report “said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.”

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader wired_parrot for sharing the news.

WSJ source?

By UnknowingFool • Score: 5, Informative Thread

While the WSJ declares that the captain turned off the fuel, the preliminary report does not indicate that. The WSJ article is behind a paywall so I am unable to determine where they got this information. The preliminary report stated that the data recorder logged the fuel switches went from RUN to CUTOFF and back again 6 seconds later. There are 4 possibilities:

  1. The switches changed states electrically in the computer but the physically the switches never moved.
  2. The switches moved physically on their own without input from the crew.
  3. The switches were moved accidentally by crew.
  4. The switches were moved deliberately by crew.

If the fuel switches had been replaced with ones that did not have the advisory condition, the third one is least likely as it takes a two step motion to move the switches.

That’s just false

By Kyogreex • Score: 5, Informative Thread

There was an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight in 2019 in which the 787 aircraft did this itself, while the flight was on final approach.

The investigation revealed the plane software made the 787 think it was on the ground and the Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation System cut the fuel to the engines

The plane was not “on final approach.” It was in fact on the ground.

What happened was that the Thrust Control Malfunction Accommodation System shut down the engines after reverse thrust was selected quickly after touchdown. That is a serious issue but did not happen when the plane was in the air.

Re:WSJ source?

By DamnOregonian • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
1 is highly unlikely.

The preliminary report makes it pretty clear that while how they got to CUTOFF is unknown, their manual movement back to RUN was well established, and several second delay between each immediately after the pilot asking the copilot why he had shut the fuel off.

So really, your possibilities are 2, 3, and 4.
2 seems impossible, but who knows.

What did John Barnett know?

By Misagon • Score: 3 Thread

This again brings my thoughts to what whistleblower John Barnett had said.

He had worked as a quality control engineer on the 787 plant, where he had claimed that defective parts that were supposed to be recycled had gone missing — with the fear that they had been taken and installed into air planes.
Another claim was that he had seen clusters of metal shavings in the electrical wiring.
He had urged his bosses to take action, but instead he got transferred. He retired early because of job-related stress, and started blowing the whistle.
And then he died from a gun shot wound on the day of a deposition in the whistleblower case … which the police somehow determined to have been suicide.

This makes me wondering, of course …

I have a long-haul flight booked on a 787 coming up in two months. I’d like to get some definitive answers.

Re: That’s just false

By Kyogreex • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

No, my claim is that what Schaivo said is false. And that for that matter, what happened to that ANA flight only happened because they were on the ground.

If there is a fault with the 787’s Air/Ground Sensing System that would be another issue, but there’s no evidence of that yet.

Chinese Companies Now Authorized to Conduct Foreign Cyberattacks, Sell Access to Government

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“The U.S. is absolutely facing the most serious Chinese hacking ever.” That’s what the Washington Post was told by a China-focused consultant at security company SentinelOne:
Undeterred by recent indictments alleging widespread cyberespionage against American agencies, journalists and infrastructure targets, Chinese hackers are hitting a wider range of targets and battling harder to stay inside once detected, seven current and former U.S. officials said in interviews. Hacks from suspected Chinese government actors detected by the security firm CrowdStrike more than doubled from 2023 to more than 330 last year and continued to climb as the new administration took over, the company said… Although the various Chinese hacking campaigns seem to be led by different government agencies and have different goals, all benefit from new techniques and from Beijing’s introduction of a less constrained system for cyber offense, the officials and outside researchers told The Washington Post… Chinese intelligence, military and security agencies previously selected targets and tasked their own employees with breaking in, they said. But the Chinese government decided to take a more aggressive approach by allowing private industry to conduct cyberattacks and hacking campaigns on their own, U.S. officials said.

The companies are recruiting top hackers who discover previously unknown, or “zero-day,” flaws in software widely used in the United States. Then the companies search for where the vulnerable programs are installed, hack a great many of them at once, and then sell access to multiple Chinese government customers and other security companies. That hacking-for-hire approach creates hundreds of U.S. victims instead of a few, making it hard to block attacks and to decide which were China’s key targets and which were unintentionally caught in the hacks, an FBI official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to follow agency practices… “The result of that incentive structure is that there is significantly more hacking....”

China has mastered the ability to move undetected through networks of compromised U.S. devices, so that the final connection to a target appears to be an ordinary domestic connection. That makes it easy to get around technology that blocks overseas links and puts it outside the purview of the National Security Agency, which by law must avoid scrutinizing most domestic transmissions. Beijing is increasingly focused on hacking software and security vendors that provide access to many customers at once, the FBI official said. Once access is obtained, the hackers typically add new email and collaboration accounts that look legitimate… Beyond the increased government collaboration with China’s private security sector is occasional collaborating with criminal groups, said Ken Dunham, an analyst at the security firm Qualys.
The article notes that China’s penetration of U.S. telecom carriers “is still not fully contained, according to the current and former officials.” But in addition, the group behind that attack “has more recently shown up inside core communications infrastructure in Europe, according to John Carlin, a former top national security official in the Justice Department who represents some U.S. victims of the group.” And documents leaked last year from a security contractor that works with the Chinese military and other government groups “described contracts and targets in 20 countries, with booty including Indian immigration data, logs of calls in South Korea, and detailed information on roads in Taiwan.

“It also detailed prices for some services, such as $25,000 for promised remote access to an iPhone, payment disputes with government customers and employee gripes about long hours…”

Re:Aaaand, why don’t the gov’t punish them for it?

By Pinky’s Brain • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Liberals : don’t be nationalist/racist
Buesiness: Don’t disrupt my supply chain
Economists : free trade uber alles

You have to become an arch enemy of the entire mainstream to enter a cold war with China. This doesn’t require strength, this requires madness. The administration is mad, unfortunately they have made trade balance their hill to die on.

They Smell Weakness

By sound+vision • Score: 3, Insightful Thread

They see the best opportunity to strike America in living memory. The national defense is being led by people with no experience in that domain, and a general lack of competence across the board. It sounds passe at this point, but the picks this round make the first the first Trump administration look like actual statesmen in comparison.

The guys there now are in way over their heads. They’re going to get played in ways we haven’t even thought of, and ways we’ll never know.

After 30 Years, You Can Buy a New ‘Commodore 64 Ultimate’ for $299

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
“Commodore has returned from a parallel timeline where tech stayed optimistic, inviting, and human,” explains the official web site for “the first real Commodore computer in over 30 years…” You can check out an ad for it here. “Not an emulator. Not a PC… Powered by a FPGA recreation of the original motherboard, wrapped in glowing game-reactive LEDs (or classic beige of course).”

Fast Company calls it “a $299 device that its makers claim is compatible with over 10,000 retro games, cartridges, and peripherals.” In a YouTube video posted last month, “Peri Fractic” said he’d purchased the company for “a low seven-figure sum,” and said he’d recruited several former Commodore employees to help relaunch the brand.
The new C64s are expected to begin shipping as early as October, though that date could slip… There are three models to choose from, all with the same internal components. If you were expecting a vastly outdated machine, however, you’re in for a surprise. The Commodore 64 Ultimate will include 128 megabytes of RAM and 16 megabytes of flash memory. It connects to modern monitors via HDMI in high-definition 1080p resolution and features three USB-A ports and one USB-C port. Beyond the computer itself, the power source, and HDMI cable, your $299 also gets you a spiral-bound user guide, a 64-gigabyte USB drive featuring over 50 licensed games, a quick-start guide, and stickers.

Aesthetically, the Commodore 64 Ultimate is available in the original beige or in premium variants: the Starlight Edition, with a clear case and LED lights ($249), or the Founder’s Edition, which includes 24-karat gold-plated badges, satin gold keys, and a translucent amber case ($499). Just 6,400 units of the Founder’s Edition will be produced, according to the company. The preorder setup resembles a Kickstarter campaign, though it doesn’t use that platform. Commodore says all preorders come with a money-back guarantee, but it chose to skip the service’s fees. Buyers should be aware that accounts are charged at the time of preorder…

The product will come with a one-year limited warranty, and Commodore says most parts are already in production, including the updated motherboard, the case, and the keycaps that recreate the blocky keys that early users remember.

Cost basis

By NadNad • Score: 5, Informative Thread

For comparison, C64 was released at $595 in 1982 and later came down to $250 the next year https://americanhistory.si.edu… which are $1,988.85 and $809.64 in today’s dollars.

Re:You can buy a modern laptop for $299.00

By Kwirl • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
If that’s what you think this product is, you are not their target demographic.

At $299 it *is* a great deal

By Misagon • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

People who have never been into a niche hobby don’t understand how much it costs to manufacture something in low quantities.

The Commodore 64 Ultimate consists of several components that on their own used to cost more to buy separately and put together. With all the attention that the reformed Commodore is getting, I assume that they must be expecting more orders to come in — and that that could get the total price down.

Just a separate motherboard costs $299.

Then add a new reproduction injection-moulded plastic case. Even the metal moulds for a small part can cost tens of thousands of dollars to have made to exact tolerances, not to mention the injection-moulding machine it is put into. Plastic is cost-effective only when you use the mould to cast many parts.

Then, unlike the original or the emulation box that came out a few years ago, this new Commodore 64 has a mechanical keyboard. OK, the actual keyboard is actually new and with N-key rollover and LED backlighting, but replacement keyboards for the Commodore 64 have been made multiple times by several enthusiasts.

And BTW, this is FPGA-based. Not an emulator running on an ARM-based SBC.
There is therefore no joystick input delay, and it works with original joysticks and other peripherrals.

Re:You can buy a modern laptop for $299.00

By mysidia • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

No.. A C64 at this point is specialty hardware in low supply and thus more valuable than some generic laptop. Put it this way: You see broken C64s sold “for parts” at more than $100 these days, and very old used C64s in working condition sell for $200 to $400.

And my friends laughed …

By drnb • Score: 3, Funny Thread
And my friends laughed when I didn’t throw out the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Manual in the 1990s, 00s, 10s, or 20s. :-)

OpenAI CEO Says Meta Tried Poaching ChatGPT Engineers With $100M Bonuses

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
The Independent notes a remarkable-if-true figure that’s being bandied around this week.

Meta “started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told his brother Jack on his podcast. “You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year… I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that.”

Previous reports have also suggested that Meta is targeting employees at Google DeepMind, offering similar levels of compensation. Some of these efforts appear to have been successful, with DeepMind researcher Jack Rae joining Meta’s ‘Superintelligence’ team earlier this month…

During the podcast, which was published on Tuesday, Mr Altman also gave details about future AI products that OpenAI is hoping to build, claiming that they will enable “crazy new social experiences” and “virtual employees”. The most important breakthrough over the next decade, he said, would involve radical new discoveries powered by AI. “The thing that I think will be the most impactful in that five-to-10 year timeframe is AI will actually discover new science,” he said.
The Washington Post notes that Zuckerberg “responded to recent reports of his compensation offers in an interview posted by the Information on YouTube on Tuesday, saying that ‘a lot of the numbers specifically have been inaccurate” but acknowledging there is “an absolute premium for the best and most talented people.”
Zuckerberg’s recent hires and other comments this week suggest he’s not taking any chances of being left behind. He announced plans for a giant data center campus large enough to obscure Manhattan to power future AI projects by his superintelligence team.

I gotta deal yas can’t refuze

By Richard Dick Head • Score: 3, Insightful Thread
Thats the kinda money you offer when you don’t plan on paying. Condolences in advance to the families of the developers who take that offer due to their unfortunate suicide in a month or two

Psy-ops

By SpinyNorman • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

The numbers that Altman is claiming are presumably made up.

Millions or 10’s of millions salary for superstars is possible, and maybe similar sign-on bonus (with some minimum stay requirement), but $100M sounds like bunk.

It’s been suggested that Altman is making up these crazy numbers to pre-empt an OpenAI exodus by making anyone who is offered less money feel as if they are being low-balled.

Best people

By Maury Markowitz • Score: 3 Thread

> I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people

So… your worst people DID take them up on that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdjf4lMmiiI

‘Edge of Space’ Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Dies in Paragliding Accident

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
Felix Baumgartner has died. He was 56.

In 2012 Slashdot extensively covered the skydiver’s "leap from the edge of space.” ABC News remembers it as a Red Bull-financed stunt that involved “diving 24 miles from the edge of space, in a plummet that reached a speed of more than 500 mph.”
Baumgartner recalled the legendary jump in the documentary, “Space Jump,” and said, “I was the first human being outside of an aircraft breaking the speed of sound and the history books. Nobody remembers the second one....”

Baumgartner, also known as “Fearless Felix,” accomplished many records in his career, including setting the world record for highest parachute jump atop the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, flying across the English Channel in a wingsuit in 2003, and base jumping from the 85-foot arm of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil in 2007.
“Baumgartner’s altitude record stood for two years,” remembers the Los Angeles Times, “until Google executive Alan Eustace set new marks for the highest free-fall jump and greatest free-fall distance.”

They report that Baumgartner died Thursday “while engaged in a far less intense activity, crashing into the side of a hotel swimming pool while paragliding in Porto Sant Elpidio, a town on central Italy’s eastern coast.” More details from the Associated Press:
“It is a destiny that is very hard to comprehend for a man who has broke all kinds of records, who has been an icon of flight, and who traveled through space,” Mayor Massimiliano Ciarpella told The Associated Press.Ciarpella said that Baumgartner had been in the area on vacation, and that investigators believed he may have fallen ill during the fatal flight… Baumgartner, a former Austrian military parachutist, made thousands of jumps from planes, bridges, skyscrapers and famed landmarks…
ABC News remembers that in 2022 Baumgartner wrote in Newsweek that “Since I was a little kid, I’ve always looked up to people who left a footprint on this planet… now I think I have left a footprint…

“I believe big dreamers always win.”

We need more people like him

By backslashdot • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Without these people who dare to push the boundary, we’d hardly advance as a species. We need people who want to do things bigger.

Re:We need more people like him

By UnresolvedExternal • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Not sure what his jump did to help us “advance as a species”

I remember watching it live - it seemed like he wasn’t going to jump - but he did and spun out of control for a while - and yea he landed.

Doing something silly to advertise an energy drink and almost die… did not help us “advance as a species” in my humble opinion

That being said - my condolences to any family or friend that might see this.

Why I always stuck to hang gliding.

By AlanObject • Score: 3 Thread

Paragliders are much easier to learn to fly and carry between sites. That’s why they are more popular than hang gliders.

The issue is that they present risks that other flying wings do not. The wing collapses through turbulence or mismanagement. Or a botched stunt.

They very fact that paragliders are “easy” makes them more dangerous. There is more opportunity for an inexperienced pilot to get into situations where they don’t even understand the risk they are taking. One death I observed was simply due to the guy flying above terrain where he should not have been.

This guy was an adrenaline junkie. The very kind of guy who is attracted to aviation and the last kind of guy who should be practicing it. Paid the price for it, and paraglider flying is pretty much e perfect legal tender for that kind of transaction. That is all.

Died in a “routine” activity.

By RockDoctor • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

As the Mountain Rescue at Chamonix say, “tous les meilleurs alpinistes sont tuées en rapelles”. (For the linguistically challenged, “all the best alpinists are killed abseiling”.)

It’s so common - someone who regularly pushes their sport to the bleeding edge … dies in a routine bit of entertainment. Or work - I remember the shock when Jochen Hausenmeyer (the eponymous in the “Dead Man’s Handshake” incident of the mid-70s of cave diving) was killed on a routine commercial dive some time … late ‘90s was it? Not even involving decco as I heard it.

Vale.

‘Utopian’ City ‘California Forever’ Announces Huge Tech Manufacturing Park

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
California Forever announced on Thursday plans to build a massive manufacturing park called Solano Foundry, the newest addition to its master-planned “utopian” city backed by a group of Silicon Valley billionaires. Solano Foundry is 2,100 acres that can host 40 million square feet of advanced tech manufacturing space. The manufacturing park will be built as part of its planned walkable city with over 175,000 homes, CEO Jan Sramek said at the Reindustrialize conference in Detroit.

Sramek tweeted that U.S. manufacturers can’t win by “building factories off of random freeway exits in the middle of nowhere. The best people don’t want to work there.” This site will offer expedited permitting, transportation for finished goods, and plenty of power from renewable energy, he said. The hope is that it will attract hardware, engineering, and AI talent from relatively nearby Silicon Valley. Solano County is about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Welcome to Company Town!

By ChesterRafoon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Our new financial overlords bid you greetings.

I support this

By hdyoung • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
There are a lot of billionaires out there with way more money than they know what to do with. It turns out that most humans are pretty bad at dealing with that level of resources. We’re clearly not evolved to handle that sort of thing. When people get a million times more money than they need, their brains clearly start misfiring. The result tends to be purchases of supercars, superyachts, castles, or various pet projects that don’t go anywhere and have almost no impact. Musk buys X and turns it into a chewtoy. Zuckerberg throws wads of cash at literally anything except selling ads and fails. Hell, even the well meaning stuff tends to be a bust. All due respect to the Gates foundation and Bezos’ ex, but the NSF and NIH would have spent that money smarter. It’s like watching Python code execute and seeing “overflow error” in these guys brains. In a way, I’m sympathetic - iheir hardware isnt equipped to handle the input they managed to accumulate and I certainly couldn’t do any better.

A bunch of them banding together and building an industrial city could actually leave an impact. The rest of US society has mostly given up on big construction, and it’s clear that we need more. It would have been even smarter to just fund infrastructure - write checks to refurbish and replace a thousand bridges and sewer systems, or maybe update the power grid. But that’s boring. I get it. A new city would be the second best thing,

However, they’ll only succeed if they build a PRACTICAL city, not some stupid attempt at a futuristic utopia. Try that and they’ll get something like NEOM. They should build an actual functional city, where large numbers of both people and companies can operate simultaneously. In texas, where theres lots of land, that probably means a grid of streets, apartment clusters, LOTS of cars, industrial parks, and permissive zoning. Lots rectangular buildings with boring sheet metal exteriors and tons of 5+1 apartments. Throw in some nice walkable planned mixed-use residential/retail/entertainment zones to make it pleasant, but THATS NOT WHERE THE REAL WORK GETS DONE, so dont go overboard on that stuff.

Do that, and it just might still be standing and operating 200 years from now.

As someone who’s been in water for 20 years…

By kackle • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
I hope they’ve thought about water. And I don’t mean in a profity, “sure there’s enough for us” way.

Re: Noooo stop

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Yeah I was wondering about the idea of factories attracting the best people. That’s not how factories work, the few people doing the maintenance aside. The work for the people on the line is designed to not require the best people.

Re:Welcome to Company Town!

By bagofbeans • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

The project will die because the higher paid tech talent doesn’t want to live there, and lower paid don’t want to commute there.

Unless they build onsite dormitories for the $15/hr staff, the support/service workforce won’t exist either.

Microsoft To Stop Using Engineers In China For Tech Support of US Military

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Microsoft will stop using China-based engineers to support U.S. military cloud services after a ProPublica report revealed their involvement, prompting backlash from Senator Tom Cotton and a two-week Pentagon review ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In response, Hegseth announced an immediate ban on any Chinese involvement in Department of Defense cloud contracts. Reuters reports:
The report detailed Microsoft’s use of Chinese engineers to work on U.S. military cloud computing systems under the supervision of U.S. “digital escorts” hired through subcontractors who have security clearances but often lacked the technical skills to assess whether the work of the Chinese engineers posed a cybersecurity threat. [Microsoft] told ProPublica it disclosed its practices to the U.S. government during an authorization process.

On Friday, Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw said on social media website X the company changed how it supports U.S. government customers “in response to concerns raised earlier this week … to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance” for services used by the Pentagon.

Really?

By Savage-Rabbit • Score: 3 Thread

Microsoft To Stop Using Engineers In China For Tech Support of US Military

They have been doing that? … Really? … LOL!!

I am not surprised

By TuballoyThunder • Score: 3 Thread
I don’t have a large enough sample size, but the IA people I have dealt who are responsible for the software review process (e.g., review reports from source code analyzers) are not coders and have no idea what the report actually is saying.

I can see someone making the argument that digital escorts is the same thing as physical escorts, so it is ok. Plus, there is what I call the Princess Bride Effect. You have been told that a process is so robust that it is inconceivable that it could fail.

Its turtles all the way down

By brunes69 • Score: 3 Thread

The only way to stop this is to entirely cease allowing companies that use contractors and subcontractors on military projects.

Otherwise what is going to happen is the military will sign a contract with Lockheed who will outsource part of it to IBM who will off-shore part of that to India who will outsource part of that work to another subcontractor who uses people in China and Vietnam.

Too late

By gweihir • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

If they were serious, they would now rebuild everything touched by these people. But it is MS, so this is just a bit of cosmetics over what they did out of unfettered greed.

Largest Piece of Mars On Earth Fetches $5.3 Million At Auction

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
At Sotheby’s Geek Week auction, the largest known Martian meteorite on Earth sold for a record-breaking $5.3 million. The Associated Press reports:
The 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock named NWA 16788 was discovered in the Sahara Desert in Niger by a meteorite hunter in November 2023, after having been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike and traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, according to Sotheby’s. The estimated sale price before the auction was $2 million to $4 million. The identity of the buyer was not immediately disclosed. The final bid was $4.3 million. Adding various fees and costs, the official sale price was about $5.3 million, making it the most valuable meteorite ever sold at auction, Sotheby’s said.

The live bidding was slow, with the auctioneer trying to coax more offers and decreasing the minimum bid increases. […] The bidding for the Mars meteorite began with two advance offers of $1.9 million and $2 million. The live bidding slowly proceeded with increases of $200,000 and $300,000 until $4 million, then continued with $100,000 increases until reaching $4.3 million. The red, brown and gray meteorite is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7% of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby’s says. It measures nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches (375 millimeters by 279 millimeters by 152 millimeters). It was also a rare find. There are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, the auction house says.

Largest possible piece of Mars

By arglebargle_xiv • Score: 3 Thread
There’s a lot of debate over whether so-called SNC meteorites (shergotites, naktites, and … the other one) are from Mars or not. It’s sort of assumed that they probably come from Mars, although others disagree.

Reminds me of gold

By pipatron • Score: 3 Thread

This reminds me of the people who are impressed that there are (potentially) asteroids made of gold, and how much that would be worth.

Well, here you are, proof that Mars is worth about twice as much as gold! Just build a railgun on Mars and keep shooting rocks down to earth! We’ll all be billionaires!

Re:Largest possible piece of Mars

By Tim the Gecko • Score: 4, Informative Thread

There’s a lot of debate over whether so-called SNC meteorites (shergotites, naktites, and … the other one) are from Mars or not. It’s sort of assumed that they probably come from Mars, although others disagree.

Wikipedia:

There are three groups of Martian meteorite: shergottites, nakhlites and chassignites, collectively known as SNC meteorites. Several other Martian meteorites are ungrouped. These meteorites are interpreted as Martian because they have elemental and isotopic compositions that are similar to rocks and atmospheric gases on Mars, which have been measured by orbiting spacecraft, surface landers and rovers.

Scientists Make ‘Magic State’ Breakthrough After 20 Years

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Live Science:
In a world first, scientists have demonstrated an enigmatic phenomenon in quantum computing that could pave the way for fault-tolerant machines that are far more powerful than any supercomputer. The process, called "magic state distillation,” was first proposed 20 years ago, but its use in logical qubits has eluded scientists ever since. It has long been considered crucial for producing the high-quality resources, known as "magic states,” needed to fulfill the full potential of quantum computers. […] Now, however, scientists with QuEra say they have demonstrated magic state distillation in practice for the first time on logical qubits. They outlined their findings in a new study published July 14 in the journal Nature.

In the study, using the Gemini neutral-atom quantum computer, the scientists distilled five imperfect magic states into a single, cleaner magic state. They performed this separately on a Distance-3 and a Distance-5 logical qubit, demonstrating that it scales with the quality of the logical qubit. “A greater distance means better logical qubits. A Distance-2, for instance, means that you can detect an error but not correct it. Distance-3 means that you can detect and correct a single error. Distance-5 would mean that you can detect and correct up to two errors, and so on, and so on,” [explained Yuval Boger, chief commercial officer at QuEra who was not personally involved in the research]. “So the greater the distance, the higher fidelity of the qubit is — and we liken it to distilling crude oil into a jet fuel.”

As a result of the distillation process, the fidelity of the final magic state exceeded that of any input. This proved that fault-tolerant magic state distillation worked in practice, the scientists said. This means that a quantum computer that uses both logical qubits and high-quality magic states to run non-Clifford gates is now possible. “We’re seeing sort of a shift from a few years ago,” Boger said. “The challenge was: can quantum computers be built at all? Then it was: can errors be detected and corrected? Us and Google and others have shown that, yes, that can be done. Now it’s about: can we make these computers truly useful? And to make one computer truly useful, other than making them larger, you want them to be able to run programs that cannot be simulated on classical computers.”

Re: Yep, suuure…

By Big Hairy Gorilla • Score: 4, Funny Thread
Sooo… you don’t believe in magic?

Re:A little confused on “Distance”.

By ThosLives • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Hamming distance is the term you’re looking for.

Convergence, only arcane

By burtosis • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
So it looks to me the same as any other approach, combine low fidelity qubits into a single high fidelity qubit. With enough crappy cheap lower maintenance qubits into an actual deterministic one able to reliably solve problems correctly. It was originally conceived of about 5 minutes after the first low fidelity qubit was envisioned, a concept now decades old and soon to be centuries old. Someday, in the next 500 years, I assume quantum computers will vastly surpass classical for some limited classes of algorithms, but from an engineering standpoint we are still in the 40’s to having a working digital personal computer.

“Us and Google”

By RoccamOccam • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
I find it interesting that noun combinations cause so much pronoun confusion. No one would say “Us have shown…”, but not blink at “Us and Google … have shown ....” I see it happening more and more.

Re:A little confused on “Distance”.

By rocket rancher • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Great question—distance here doesn’t mean spatial separation. It refers to quantum error correction, specifically the code distance in a quantum error-correcting code (like a surface code or stabilizer code). It’s directly tied to how many physical qubit errors the system can detect and correct. If you’ve had some undergraduate CS courses, think Hamming distance, but for quantum computation. In classical coding theory, Hamming distance measures how many bit flips are needed to turn one valid codeword into another. A higher distance means better error tolerance.

In quantum codes, a code with distance d means the system can detect up to d–1 errors and correct up to floor((d–1)/2) errors across physical qubits. So a “distance-5 logical qubit” is a logical qubit encoded across many physical qubits, with enough redundancy to correct 2 errors. That’s a big deal when you’re building magic states—special resource states needed to implement non-Clifford gates like the T-gate, which are essential for universal quantum computing.

Clifford gates (like Hadamard and CNOT) are easy to do fault-tolerantly. But the T-gate isn’t. To work around this, we inject carefully prepared magic states into the circuit. Problem is, those states are fragile—and encoding them in distance-5 logical qubits gives them a fighting chance at surviving real-world noise.

So, in a bucket, “Distance” = error-correcting strength, not spatial distance. It’s measured like Hamming distance in classical computing, but adapted for quantum codes. Bigger distance = better fault tolerance = more reliable magic states. Magic states are how we implement T-gates—and without T-gates, a quantum computer is stuck in the Clifford-gate only zone, which means they are no faster than a classical computer at solving problems — no quantum speedup, no Shor’s algorithm, no magic. T-gates (via magic states) are what push the system into the fully universal quantum computing regime—where it can solve problems that classical systems fundamentally can’t keep up with.

Hope that helps clear it up.

Intel Kills Clear Linux OS As Support Ends Without Warning

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz:
Intel has quietly pulled the plug on Clear Linux OS, officially ending support for the once-promising Linux distribution that it had backed for nearly a decade. Effective immediately, the company says it will no longer provide any updates, security patches, or maintenance for the operating system. In a final blow, the Clear Linux OS GitHub repository is now archived in read-only mode.

The move was announced with little fanfare, and for users still relying on Clear Linux OS, there’s no sugarcoating it… you need to move on. Intel is urging everyone to migrate to an actively maintained Linux distribution as soon as possible to avoid running unpatched software.
“Rest assured that Intel remains deeply invested in the Linux ecosystem, actively supporting and contributing to various open-source projects and Linux distributions to enable and optimize for Intel hardware,” the company said in a statement. “A heartfelt thank you to every developer, user, and contributor who helped shape Clear Linux OS over the last 10 years. Your feedback and contributions have been invaluable.”

And nothing was lost?

By markdavis • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I am pretty connected in the Linux news/user space. Everything I run at home, work, for friends, user group, etc for decades is Linux. Servers, desktops, laptops, appliances, virtualized, embedded, you name it. I have never seen *ANYONE* say they have used, had interest in, or have even seen Clear Linux in use anywhere.

I am guessing it didn’t really have much impact.

Re: You keep using that word. I don’t think it mea

By Samantha Wright • Score: 5, Informative Thread

“Penultimate” isn’t a synonym for “ultimate”—it means the thing before the ultimate. Likewise we have penumbra for the blurry edge of a shadow (umbra). This results in some truly special words like “antepenult,” meaning “the thing before the thing before the final thing,” commonly used when discussing where the stress/accent falls in a Greek or Latin word.

“Invaluable” does indeed mean “not able to be valued” when analyzed morphologically, but the standard usage of it is indicating something is beyond value, i.e. infinitely or inestimably valuable. A value of zero is still a value, after all.

“Inflammable” however actually means “able to be inflamed,” as in “put in flame” or “set on fire.” The confusion comes from assimilation of the Latin preposition “in” (which we have as “in” or “on”) instead of the more typical prefix “in-" (which demarcates negation.) You don’t have to look very far for other words where “in” doesn’t mean “not”: indicate, inherit, imply, investigate, indict, involve…

Re:I just installed it!

By martin-boundary • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Sure. Got a new PC last month to play with (simulations/computations). Thought I would try a Linux optimized for modern hardware, instead of trusty old Debian (which I normally use).

Clear Linux was attractive because it’s stateless and container friendly, and the system libraries are (were!) tuned with high performance compiler flags.

I’m a user of math, so I care about BLAS, MKL, AVX instructions etc, not so much games and desktop bling.

I had literally just learned to use it and set it up with my favourite software configuration… Oh well:)

Distrowatch description

By FudRucker • Score: 3 Thread
https://distrowatch.com/table....

Clear Linux is a minimal distribution primarily designed with performance and cloud use-cases in mind. The operating system upgrades as a whole rather than using individual packages. Extra software can be added to the system (along with associated dependencies) using pre-compiled bundles which can be accessed through the distribution’s swupd software manager

Re: You keep using that word. I don’t think it mea

By serviscope_minor • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

English doesn’t need confusing synonyms, we relish them!

It’s a very mongrel language, based on a Germanic grammar, a large number of Norman French imported words, then we just started grabbing vocabulary from every available source. Also we spent about 600 years with educated people obsessing about the purity of Latin and trying to impose Latin rules on a Germanic language. There have repeatedly been attempts at imposing regularity, none have worked.

Funny things about genders though is they are in the middle of undergoing a shift and have noticably changed during my lifetime.

When in the 80s it used to be common (if a little old fashioned, in, day the 50s it was ubiquitous) to refer to groups or individuals as default masculine if unknown [*]. In the 80s you’d have sounded a bit fusty for doing that, but it was not uncommon. Now that’s basically gone with neutral words being used instead, and you really sound like your making a point if you speak in the old way. The one that’s currently in progress is words with gendered suffixes dropping out of use, like waitress and actress is becoming less common with waiter and actor becoming greener neutral terms.

That’s one’s ongoing, no one will look at you weird for saying waitress today, but it’s a noticeable shift. I reckon in 20 years it’ll sound weird and old fashioned.

Anyway, English has been slowly losing gender for about 900 years, it’s interesting to see one bit being chipped away in real time rather than reading about it. I wonder what’s next?

[*] Funnily enough “man” in old English is gender neutral person and the apparently gendered phrases like “mankind” derive from a non gendered root. At some point Wer for man vanished and man was coopted to mean, well, man. Wer remains only in “werewolf”. So you shouldn’t really have a female werewolf, it should be a wyfwolf. Anyhoo…

Google Sues Operators of 10-Million-Device Badbox 2.0 Botnet

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
Google has filed a lawsuit to dismantle the sprawling Badbox 2.0 botnet, which infected over 10 million Android devices with pre-installed malware. Badbox 2.0 “is already the largest known botnet of internet-connected TV devices, and it grows each day. It has harmed millions of victims in the United States and around the world and threatens many more,” Google said in its complaint. SecurityWeek reports:
The internet giant cautions that, while it has been used mainly for fraud, the botnet could be used for more harmful types of cybercrime, such as ransomware or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In addition to pre-installing the malware on devices, Badbox 2.0’s operators also tricked users into installing infected applications that provided them with further access to their personal devices, Google says. As part of their operation, the individuals behind Badbox 2.0 sold access to the infected devices to be used as residential proxies, and conducted ad fraud schemes by abusing these devices to create fake ad views or to exploit pay-per-click compensation models, the company continues. The internet giant also points out that this is the second global botnet the perpetrators have built, after the initial Badbox botnet was disrupted by German law enforcement in 2023.

According to Google, Badbox 2.0 is operated by multiple cybercrime groups from China, each having a different role in maintaining the botnet, such as establishing infrastructure, developing and pre-installing the malware on devices, and conducting fraud. “The BadBox 2.0 Enterprise includes several connected threat actor groups that design and implement complex criminal schemes targeting internet-connected devices both before and after the consumer receives the device,” Google says. “While each member of the Enterprise plays a distinct role, they all collaborate to execute the BadBox 2.0 Scheme. All of the threat actor groups are connected to one another through the BadBox 2.0 shared C2 infrastructure and historical and current business ties,” the company continues.

Block china entirely

By rossz • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Given that China doesn’t allow everyday citizens unlimited access to the internet, we can assume the only ones allowed out are bad actors like badbot, so blocking China entirely would be a net benefit for the entire world. We’d have to get the VPN operators to cooperate, which is near impossible since they’d sell their own mothers for a quick buck.