SoylentNews

owl writes:https://embeddedartistry.com/blog/2024/11/04/reclaim-your-data-freeing-a-wi-fi-sensor-from-the-cloud/

As you will all be aware there has been much happening behind the scenes at SoylentNews. This is an update on activities which you possibly haven't noticed.Administrative DocumentsIt has been necessary to redraft many of the documents for the original site which no longer refer to the correct business entity behind the new site. In most cases they are merely reprints of the original documents with typographical and grammatical corrections along with minor changes to reflect the company name. However, some are new documents (e.g. the new Bylaws, and how to successfully complete a bank transfer to our account if you wish to do so in preference to using either Stripe or Paypal etc). I would welcome any necessary corrections that you identify in them.BylawsThe Bylaws were written over many months with community contributions throughout. They affect how the business is managed from a legal aspect but not how the day-to-day activity is controlled. They were adopted by the Board and they were submitted to the relevant Federal and State organisations that control the creation and operation of such things when Soylent Phoenix was created. The Bylaws are significant to you in a couple of ways. Firstly, there are no shareholders/stakeholders on the Board - you own this site. Secondly, in the future any major changes to the operation of this site will require at a minimum a consultation with the community and possibly a formal vote to authorise the adoption of the proposed change. You now have a much louder voice in how this site will be run. Nevertheless, that does not mean that every minor change requires full community approval; the decision will ultimately rest with the Board.If you wish to read the Bylaws they can be found at Soylent Phoenix - Bylaws (as submitted for Company Registration). Details of the current voluntary Board members can also be found there. The Board will require a confirmatory election by the community where other community members will also have an opportunity to be elected rather than the existing Board members. However, the voting software that was to be used to manage the vote became unavailable when audioguy left the site. I am still looking for replacement software that is reliable enough to ensure a free and fair vote. I would welcome any suggestions that you may have.Tax StatusFor those US members of our community who can benefit from it we are registered as an IRC Section 501(c)(3) company which means that subscriptions and donations are tax deductible for those lucky people. Subscriptions and donations can be made by Stripe or Paypal, but additionally now also by direct bank transfer either inside the USA or internationally.Soylent Phoenix PolicyThe Policy statement is for the most part a copy of the original statement but there are some differences. One is the inclusion of a policy statement regarding doxxing which I hope is self-explanatory. The second relates to the removal from view of persistent spamming. Removal of spam content has always been part of the site policy since its inception but it is both reaffirmed and clarified by the latest statement. Software is under development to assist with this function which will also give the community increased oversight of how such things are managed.Definitions and Common TermsTo support the Soylent Phoenix Policy statement there is also a new document called Definitions and Common Terms. This is necessary because some community members seem to be confused over certain definitions as they apply to this (and the previous) site. I have searched through numerous Metas issued over the last decade and extracted the approved essential elements so that they can be viewed in one place. I will continue to update this document as needs dictate.Transfer of AssetsIn May of this year NCommander announced that the funds had run dry and he asked for community support while the change between companies was taking place. The community responded brilliantly and you donated enough to keep the site operational for around another 6 months. Those of you with a sharp brain will realise that the pot was empty again in late Oct . The 2 treasurers acting on behalf of their respective Boards ensured that money from the new company was used to pay the final bills as they came in. I am grateful to both of them for their work in doing this and to both Boards for working cooperatively. It was also to our benefit. NCommander agreed to gift all the assets from SoylentNews PBC to Soylent Phoenix in their totality. It was a generous gesture and much appreciated. The terms of this agreement are available for your perusal at the Transfer of Assets Agreement.DRAFT - Discussion PolicyThere is one document that is presented in Draft format and I would welcome your comments. Again it results from apparent 'confusion' over what is permitted in a journal and what is not. Essentially, journals have little to no staff control. They belong to the person who creates the journal. The Discussion Policy is an attempt to state the purpose and function of all discussions on this site as clearly as is possible. It is important to realise that this is a statement of what is already agreed and has been the policy since 2014. I would like your comments regarding its clarity and not whether you agree with what some people write in their journals. The latter would need a change of policy and would have to be addressed ultimately by the Board and the community.HardwareThe move of all data from Akamai/Linode servers was completed several weeks ago. It was carried out in stages and Linode staff were very helpful. The account was closed when the work was finished. It removes a significant expenditure from our running costs.SoftwareThe site is now functional but if you experience anything unusual or unexpected please let us know so that it can be investigated to ensure it is nothing amiss in the software that we are using.There is still software being developed by kolie, (with occasional help from NCommander), and a new member of the Dev/Sysadmin Team - that is Robc (Robc207 - 3408). Welcome!Some of the software under development, in addition to the spam management software that I have already mentioned, includes improved security hardening of the site and additional administrative tools. You should remember that although quite a bit of work has been carried out on the community's UI, there has been very little work on the administrative software - which still looks and behaves as it did when it was first written almost 30 years ago.We are also actively seeking a secure way to enable ACs to rejoin the community in main page discussions. This is a significant problem but there are several ideas that are being developed and tested to see if it is a practical proposition.Joining a TeamIf anyone wishes to assist in the running of this site then please do not hesitate to contact any of the staff. In particular, we are currently looking for someone (1 or 2 people) to manage the mediawiki. This is a very light task (a couple of hours per month at most) but at the moment almost every task is being shared among a very small group of people. Having someone to take responsibility for the mediawiki would free others up to enable them to do more of their primary role. I am not asking for someone to write the wiki contents (although if that is a job that you fancy then please step forward) but someone to control wiki access and do a little bit of wiki housekeeping.Anonymous Coward Contributions to this DiscussionIt is a fact that if this discussion were to be open to ACs on the front pages it would quickly become a focus for Spam from a very small group of people. Therefore, the contents of this Meta will be reproduced as a journal belonging to "AC Friendly" [https://soylentnews.org/~AC+Friendly/journal/] and ACs will be welcome to comment there. Valid points of discussion will be copied across to the front page story under the username of "AC Friendly". If an AC wishes to respond to a specific comment then please link to that comment in the first line of your own comment. Spam in that journal will be treated appropriately.Finally...It doesn't matter what religion you follow or what your beliefs are, the time is approaching when many people celebrate a notable festival of some kind and the end of the current year. The team at SoylentNews send their very best wishes to the community and to those close to them over the holiday period.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

taylorvich writes:https://phys.org/news/2024-12-neanderthal-human-interbreeding-years-reveals.html

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

owl writes:https://kevinboone.me/dx7.html

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/12/ai-company-trolls-san-francisco-with-billboards-saying-stop-hiring-humans/

owl writes:https://spectrum.ieee.org/chuck-e-cheese-animatronics

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

taylorvich writes:https://newatlas.com/physics/particle-gains-loses-mass-depending-direction/

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/review-intel-arc-b580-is-a-compelling-if-incredibly-tardy-250-midrange-gpu/

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

upstart writes:'Amazon has a new use for AI: dumping Microsoft Windows:

owl writes:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/12/eff-speaks-out-court-citizen-journalists

taylorvich writes:https://spectrum.ieee.org/tsmc-n2

canopic jug writes:A pseudononymous developer has begun a work in progress to describe the Terrapin attack against SSH servers for use later in coordinating mitigation efforts across SSH implementations. The Terrapin attack is a prefix truncation attack which breaks the integrity of SSH's secure channel during the initial connection handshake.

"ChatGPT" writes:Google recently unveiled its Willow quantum chip, claiming it achieves "beyond classical computation" by completing a random circuit sampling (RCS) task in under five minutes-a task that would take classical supercomputers an estimated 10 septillion years.

fliptop writes:Researchers induced bots to ignore their safeguards without exception:

fliptop writes:The company's CEO claims that affordable and reliable vehicles with combustion engines are a priority for US buyers:

pTamok writes:The text of a talk Stephen Fry gave on Thursday 12th September as the inaugural "Living Well With Technology" lecture for King's College London's Digital Futures Institute.He talks about AI - or, as he says, Ai.As a well known media personality/celebrity, who has a track-record of making outstandingly wrong predictions:https://stephenfry.substack.com/p/ai-a-means-to-an-end-or-a-means-to

looorg writes:https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2024/12/adult-skills-in-literacy-and-numeracy-declining-or-stagnating-in-most-oecd-countries.htmlOECD = Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentIt's an annual event now with reports proclaiming the decline of humanity and how school children are getting worse and worse at basic tasks. Turns out it's not so much better among the adult population. Literacy and Numeracy are declining among them to.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Deepmind AI Predicts Weather More Accurately Than Existing ForecastsArthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

upstart writes:From reuters.com:

upstart writes:From reuters.com:

upstart writes:US clears export of advanced AI chips to UAE under Microsoft deal, Axios says:

stormwyrm writes:In 1974, Stephen Hawking, using arguments that combined the two pillars of modern physics, General Relativity and quantum field theory, showed that black holes should not be entirely black but would have to emit radiation that would eventually cause them to evaporate. In 2023 however, physicists Michael F. Wondrak, Walter D. van Sujilekom, and Heino Falcke showed that Hawking radiation might not even require an event horizon: spacetime curvature alone is all that's required. They further refined their arguments in a follow-up paper that argues that even a neutron star might evaporate on the time scale similar to a stellar mass black hole (10 years), an object like our earth's moon 10 years, and interstellar gas clouds some 10 years. If this is correct, even single protons would be subject to this phenomenon, and they would also take something like 10 years to decay as well (this is a far longer timescale than proton decay predictions from Grand Unified Theories, which posit proton decay at about 10 to 10 years). Ethan Siegel has an article that explores this intriguing possibility:

upstart writes:The ghosts of India's TikTok: What happens when a social media app is banned:

upstart writes:An ethicist's take: Is it OK to lie to an AI chatbot during a job interview?:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

upstart writes:A Supercomputer Just Created the Largest Universe Simulation Ever:

upstart writes:Could AI supersede traditional gift giving inspiration?:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

upstart writes:In less than 10 minutes, a US teen made a small fortune selling off a memecoin he'd made on a lark. Traders, feeling swindled, sought revenge:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/12/openai-and-anduril-team-up-to-build-ai-powered-drone-defense-systems/

DannyB writes:USB-C cable CT scan reveals sinister active electronics - O.MG pen testing cable contains a hidden antenna and another die embedded in the microcontrollerA small package with a huge malicious potential.

Per Bloomberg, https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/corporate-transparency-act-blocked-nationwide-by-texas-court this federal reporting act has been temporarily blocked by a court ruling. In the name of catching money laundering, the Treasury Department is demanding ownership information from all registered companies (Inc, LLP, etc.), in particular all the small companies. Larger companies are exempt from reporting. If you own all or part of a small company that is registered with your state department of commerce, you may want to discuss this with your lawyer or accountant.

upstart writes:My year of baking lessons, guided by a full-stack engineer who teaches patience:

taylorvich writes:https://newatlas.com/manufacturing/self-assembling-electronics/

hubie writes:Exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas, which was phased out in 1996, resulted in anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms in generations of people:

upstart writes:Bitcoin hits $100,000: what next for the booming cryptocurrency?:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/12/the-raspberry-pi-5-now-works-as-a-smaller-faster-kind-of-steam-link/

DannyB writes:Open-source OpenWrt One router released at $89 - 'hacker-friendly device' sports two Ethernet ports, three USB ports, with dual-band Wi-Fi 6This 'Unbrickable' router should never fail you.

c0lo writes:Japan's priceless asteroid Ryugu sample got 'rapidly colonized' by Earth bacteria

taylorvich writes:https://phys.org/news/2024-12-donut-effect-persists-major-cities.html

hubie writes:FBI and CISA officials said it was impossible to predict when the telecommunications companies would be fully safe from interlopers: