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looorg writes:AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) have released a report on the most common UFO observation spots going back 27 years. So what happened 28 years ago?Also there seems to be a band around the earth where they appear to like to visit. Japan, Saudi Arabia, northern Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada.The most common shape are various forms of round shapes such as orbs, spheres and circles.No info on which alien type, what they are doing here or what they like for dinner and entertainment -- but from previous news/stories/eyewitnesses I guess they are into probing and BBQ.https://www.aaro.mil/

NASA Finally Admits What Everyone Already Knows: SLS is UnaffordableFreeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/nasa-finally-admits-what-everyone-already-knows-sls-is-unaffordable/

fliptop writes:A buzzy startup offering financial infrastructure to crypto companies has found itself bankrupt primarily because it can't gain access to a physical crypto wallet with $38.9 million in it. The company also did not write down recovery phrases, locking itself out of the wallet forever in something it has called "The Wallet Event" to a bankruptcy judge:

NotSanguine writes:Ars Technica is reporting on the dismissal of a lawsuit against YouTube by one of its "content creators."From the Ars Technica piece:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/ai-generated-child-sex-imagery-has-every-us-attorney-general-calling-for-action/

DannyB writes:Employees report a rare round of layoffs at Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/connected-cars-are-a-privacy-nightmare-mozilla-foundation-says/

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/apple-details-reasons-to-abandon-csam-scanning-tool-more-controversy-ensues/

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/09/ai-took-my-job-literally-gizmodo-fires-spanish-staff-amid-switch-to-ai-translator/

hubie writes:In politics, tailored ads make sense, but with real limits to the tailoring:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

upstart writes:With hopes and fears about this technology running wild, it's time to agree on what it can and can't do:

upstart writes:The tool, which will monitor voice chat for any bullying and harassment, will be part of Modern Warfare III:

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hubie writes:"A totally unreasonable proposal":

upstart writes:It Costs Just $400 to Build an AI Disinformation Machine:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-66643241

upstart writes:China and the U.S. are collecting the same proportion of their populations' DNA profiles - and the FBI wants to double its budget to get even more:

hubie writes:Research found while heavy drinkers could tolerate some alcohol better than light drinkers, that disappeared when the heavy drinkers drank their typical amounts:

dept.X (nee Twitter) wants to collect your biometric data and employment history:

coolgopher writes:An article in The Age reports on a find that could up-end much of what we believe on the origin of humans.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

hubie writes:Complex organic molecules observed in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away from Earth:

hubie writes:Metaverse could put a dent in global warming:

owl writes:https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/61116/why-did-old-phone-numbers-start-letters

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

hubie writes:The earliest reptiles, birds and mammals may have borne live young:

hubie writes:19-Hour Days for a Billion Years of Earth's History: Study:

hubie writes:This makes the chance of other habitable planets in the Universe more likely:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

hubie writes:Research could pave the way to new anti-malarials that work by "jet-lagging" the parasites that cause the disease:

owl writes:https://gist.github.com/kj800x/be3001c07c49fdb36970633b0bc6defb

hubie writes:Gentle cleansers are just as effective in killing viruses - including coronavirus - as harsh soaps:

upstart writes:Comcast and other ISPs asked FCC to ditch listing-every-fee rule. FCC says "no":

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taylorvich writes:https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/08/we-dont-understand-how-a-freakishly-heavy-exoplanet-could-have-formed/Neptune-sized planet has a density similar to pure silver.

Meeting Announcement: The next meeting of the SoylentNews governance committee will be Friday, September 1st, 2023 at 20:30 UTC (1:30pm PDT, 4:30pm EDT) in #governance on SoylentNews IRC. Logs of the meeting will be available afterwards for review, and minutes will be published when available.The agenda for the upcoming meeting will also be published when available. Minutes and agenda, and other governance committee information are to be found on the SoylentNews Wiki at: https://wiki.staging.soylentnews.org/wiki/GovernanceOur community is always encouraged to observe and participate, and is invited to the meeting. Hope to see you then!Read more of this story at SoylentNews.

looorg writes:From a pool of 32 university-level courses from eight disciplines, from political science to computer science, the average university student is being surpassed by ChatGPT. Exceptions in Maths, which is odd since it's basically a giant calculator, and with tick questions, that it apparently can't identify and detect properly.It is not made clear the level of the courses beyond that it mainly appears to be undergraduate courses, there should still be a difference between first and last year in level. Perhaps there is a difference from first year courses where it's mostly a matter of reciting known facts and data to the later half when the requirements of more critical thinking and interpretation and analysis is required.Other findings include that AI plagiarism detecting is poor and mostly unable to tell which text was written by a human and which is regurgitated AI text blobs.Alternatively it could also be that the average student have just gotten worse over the years. The bottom end of the spectrum has increased as more and more students are forced into academia.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-38964-3

"dalek" writes:Gizmodo and Wired, among other sources, report that Polish railways were halted on Friday and Saturday due to unauthorized radio broadcasts. Polish railroads use the broadcasting of three tones on the 151.010 MHz frequency to instruct trains to stop. This occurred in three locations around Poland. Cheap radio equipment would be sufficient to issue the stop command, though it required that whoever broadcasted the signal would need to be in close proximity to the location affected. Despite the simplicity of the attack, there probably needed to be some coordination to broadcast the signals at different places in Poland.There is no authentication or encryption to issue the emergency stop command, though discussions on various forums suggest that only the stop command is broadcast in this manner. A general design principle in railroad signaling systems is that the default should be to stop trains. For example, the multi-colored signaling lights commonly used in the United States and Canada that still mechanically switch between colors will default to a red stop signal. Trains require long distances to stop, and defaulting to a stop signal will prevent collisions. Authorities in Poland insist that there was there was no safety risk to rail passengers, and this seems reasonable if the unauthorized broadcasts were only able to issue an emergency stop command but not to instruct trains to move.When this topic was discussed on Slashdot, it quickly turned to politics, but I find the technical aspects of this much more interesting. In North America, lights and semaphores are common and simple signaling mechanisms that have widespread use. For example, I know from experience that the same signaling system described in the video for use in Canada is also used on many BNSF main lines in the United States. However, other systems are also in use like the Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) and Positive Train Control (PTC). At some locations in the US, it was possible to use a software defined radio and software like ATCSMon to track the locations of trains in the area. However, railroads also generally also use unencrypted voice communications between trains and dispatchers, and these can still be monitored with a scanner.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.