Now, it has shifted its crosshairs to a supposed ally, OnlyOffice, explicitly labeling the rival productivity suite as "fake open-source." According to TDF, OnlyOffice partners with Microsoft to enforce vendor lock-in by defaulting to Microsoft file formats instead of championing open standards.
Libreoffice, I love you, but this is a really bad look for you if your beef with OnlyOffice is just that it defaults to saving files in Microsoft format and you're making this much stink about it.
Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, ushered in under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were unlawfully imposed ...
The population of the USA as of Feb 2026 is 342.3 million people. This means that trump personally took $29.21 from every single American living today (including newborn children and aging senior citizens) and put that money in his personal bank account.
Its things like this that I cannot understand how poverty stricken trump supporters are still okay with him and his actions.
Do you not remember what happened after the the acquittal of the officers that brutally beat King? The LA riots happened. The video was what catalyzed so many to action even when the truth of police brutality was well known before that.
This is true of Eric Garner which was also caught on video and lead to large demonstrations.
And again with Philando Castile where the video showed Castile totally complying with officer orders, yet was still shot dead by that police officer. Again demonstrations against police brutality.
Its the video that makes people take notice. Sadly, it doesn't sound like we have video of Ruben Ray Martinez final moments yet.
In Sri Lanka, a lawmaker was previously entitled to a pension after serving a five-year term. The new law stops payments to anyone who already receives, or qualifies for, the pension.
The pensions being scrapped those that are only received by elected politicians (or sometimes their widows). There is no scrapping of general government pensions for regular people with this action.
Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of our nation. Acting to disenfranchise citizens from voting with plans from our current administration of jackbooted paramilitary thugs at polling places is a threat to America.
So far I’m impressed third party software support lacks but that expected, so far all necessary functionality works amazing took me a bit to get used to the keybinds but no other complaints so far.
This is Linux make it how you want it to be instead of accepting it as someone else decided! Keybinds are changable. Some via shortcuts build into KDE, some via command line. For my Asahi setup, I swapped the Command key to the Alt function to match a PC keyboard layout. I also added shortcuts for screenshotting to match OSX keybind.
There are limits to appeals. Each appeal up the chain requires that court to agree to hear the challenge of the appeal. Depending on the jurisdicion, I think the limit would be only 3 or 4 appeals with that last one being the Supreme Court of the United States. If the next higher court declines to hear the appeal, the lower courts ruling stands.
President Donald Trump admonished justices who struck down sweeping tariffs on Friday, accusing the six members of the Supreme Court of being “afraid of doing the right thing.” ...
Of course he will. That new approach will be challenged in court, but will take another 12-18 months for there to be a ruling against it, meanwhile trump will keep using tariffs against our friends and allies further alienating and isolating the United State globally.
NASA has labelled the botched 2024 Starliner mission, which left two astronauts stranded in space for months, a "Type A" mishap, on par with fatal shuttle disasters of the past, in a newly published report. ...
I'm not sure you understand who makes spacecraft that NASA uses in the past or present. There are not "NASA [built]" spacecraft.
Orion is built by a private company Lockheed Martin
The Space Shuttle was built by a private company, Rockwell International, which is now Boeing
Apollo command module was built by a private company North American Aviation (which was acquired by Rockwell, which is now Boeing)
The Lunar Lander was built by a private company Grumman Aerospace Corporation, which today is part of Northrop Grumman.
The difference between what you're calling "private company spacecraft" and "NASA [built]" is just contract terms used on how to pay for it.
You're also leaving out how (fuck Musk) SpaceX Dragon is also a private company spacecraft and has been wildly successful and saving billions of dollars of tax payer money over running the Space Shuttle in its place.
I’m not NASA or BOEING, but I’m going to imagine that before, Nasa would be calling the shots, essentially designing the craft, and overseeing (as in breathing down their necks) what contractors built.
You're exactly RIGHT on this part. This, in the industry, is called a "cost plus" contract. What this means is that NASA can ask for whatever they want no matter how outlandish and the aerospace contractor (such as Boeing in for Space Shuttle) will build it for them. NASA is bill for all of the actual costs of the design and construction PLUS a set percentage which is pure profit for the contractor. Aerospace contractors LOVE "cost plus"!
What frequently happens with big space projects like this is that design objectives change or material limitations are uncovered during construction over the years. NASA may start by saying "we want this to carry 10 Astronauts". Contractor designs and starts building the main vehicle. Then during a unit test, they find the G forces produced on the angle of the seats is too high for safety, so the angle needs to be changed. All the money spent designing and building the old seats NASA still has to pay, and the contractor still gets their fixed Plus profit. The new design and construction of the safe seats are ALSO paid by NASA as well as a Plus profit for the new seats.
Now NASA goes “I want a thingy that goes up” and the contractor makes the decisions, cuts the corners it wants, and creates mind boggling cost overruns.
You're exactly WRONG on this part.
Now what was used for private spaceflight companies (SpaceX cargo, Northrop cargo, SpaceX crew, Boeing Crew) is called "fixed price contracts".
Ideally, NASA writes out the specs of the vehicle they want to exist. The aerospace contractor looks at the specs, determines how much money they would need to design, build, and profit from the exercise and gives NASA a fixed price. They compete with other contractors bidding on the same work. The Commercial Crew program had 3 bidding contractors, Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Space. NASA looks at the general designs, considers the contractors, and makes their choice. This is the end of how theory matches reality.
In reality, some of the same problems found during construction come up, or NASA changes their mind halfway through the construction. NASA originally wanted the crew vehicles to carry 6 Astronauts. However during landing tests, they found the G forces were higher than they liked on the humans. To lower the G forces, they had to lean the seats back at a less steep angle. However this means that they now can't fit 6 seats in, but only 4. In a "cost plus" contract this would be business as usually, and the contractor would simply carry on charging NASA more money, but this is supposed to be Fixed Price. But the contractors didn't sign up for 4 seats in the contract, and they've already done a lot of work they won't be paid for, so contractors reasonably pushed back saying "no we're not going to work for free. We built what you asked. Now you say you want something different. You want a change, pay us.". NASA agree, and there were some additional payments made to the contractors.
So "Fixed Price" isn't exactly fixed price when NASA changes the specs halfway through. Even with ALL of these challenges, Fixed price SpaceX and Northrop commercial cargo and SpaceX commercial crew have been HUGE cost savings over the old "cost plus" model.
The problem with Starliner is that NASA kept paying Boeing for milestone completion when Boeing didn't complete the milestones.
If you want to see how much, check out the costs of the most recent "cost plus" human space vehicle Lockeheed Orion capsule. Your eyes will pop out of your heat.
The challenge is that the counterpoint of Boeing culture change causing things like the Starliner is about as valid when regulatory capture happens.
We'll its not "regulatory capture" because we're not talking about regulatory agencies, but you're right if you're talking corporate capture.
I know its going to sound counter-intuitive, but Starliner was actually necessary to break corporate capture.
The entrenched interests in Aerospace as well as Congress had almost no desire to change. Aerospace loved their "cost plus" infinite money printing machines paid for by government dollars. Contractors had zero concern for cost overruns/ballooning costs. Congress got to land Aerospace jobs in their districts. NASA got working but VERY EXPENSIVE space vehicles every 10-20 years. Fat cats on all sides were very very happy with this arrangement.
A very small set of politicians concerned about costs (and likely some campaign contributions) along with NASA wanted much cheaper vehicles then they were getting at that time. So they got a proposal to have private companies bid for fixed price contracts for space cargo flights. "UPS for space shipments" essentially. It worked. Law passed It was cheap. It was reliable.
So then with the success of private cargo, questions were raise why we were spending orders of magnitude more on human flights to the International Space Station? There was much clutching of pearls about these new hotshot private space companies and if they could handle human spaceflight. Somehow Boeing, the trusted legacy maker of the Space Shuttle and Apollo, was convinced to bid on human private spaceflight. There was now a company Congress would be confident would deliver a working solution, and they still got to tell their districts they were bringing pork jobs. Those other untrustworthy "newspace" companies could fail, and Boeing would still deliver human spaceflight as they had for decades.
We know now how wrong that was, but without that as a possible future, no human private spaceflight would have happened. If it had just been newspace companies like SpaceX and Sierra Space, Congress never would have passed the legislation to allow Commercial Crew to happen.
So you can see that Starliner needed to exist to break the corporate capture. That had to existed for use to break the corporate capture model that plagued human spaceflight.
I’m not saying nationalizing companies would help, but a government with good oversight (which is more and more of a question under Trump) could also help.
I don't have much faith in that idea. Look at what NASA was before private spaceflight. I love them for other reasons, but look at what ESA (European Space Agency) is today. Safran is a company that is the Boeing to ESA with all the same problems of Boeing for NASA.
How often do these people wearing these forget they have them on and recording when they go to the bathroom? If they are livestreaming, are they giving an unintentional live porn show?
What I'm surprised hasn't happened yet is RAM ICs being recycled at the retail level. As in, you could bring in an old laptop or phone with 32GB of soldered RAM and it would be desoldered and sold for cash or possibly even soldered into a new device you buy from that retailer.
I wonder how close we are to that business model arriving.
I’ve yet to have anyone adequately explain how it’s not going to rain in the future…
Its a pretty well covered topic if you're interested in an answer. Here's a TLDR version:
increase in atmospheric temperature means more water is held in the air as vapor instead of liquid water (and its not as equally distributed around the Earth then) The atmosphere holds 7% more water vapor for every degree Celsius.
the disruption in the water cycle from lack of snow pack to changes in global air currents means it doesn't rain nearly as often, but when it does its a monsoon. This means most of the water runs off because it can't be stored, and ground soil, baked by drought the rest of the time, doesn't absorb water either.
at the far extreme, look at the planet Venus. Rising atmospheric temperatures boiled all water away to steam. So, yes, there is water on Venus, but not liquid or solid.
The story of this patent troll is classic example of flying too close to the sun. They had their scam working and were making great money from it with no one pushing back. Then they got lazy and greedy and it looks like it may flatten them entirely.
That Index 01 is atrocious; shame on whoever bought one.
I don't have a particluar need for the Index 01, but I can imagine a good number of people that would benefit from it. Its not particularly glamours but I'm not seeing it as particularly offensive in styling either. What do you find atrocious about it?
It looks like Index 01 has a 2 year (24 month) battery. Apple airpods, while rechargable, have a unit life of 36 months or as short as 18 months (with heavy use).
I assume, following the same logic, airpods would be unethical? If so, in your opinion, how long should a device last before it wouldn’t be unethical?
Social Security would be the easiest thing to fix, and honestly, it’d be hugely popular, too.
Just raise the cap.
I would be "negatively" affected with the raising of the cap. I still support raising the cap.
I'd also like what Al Gore wanted to do in the year 2000, a "social security lock box". Stop letting Congress spend the annual contribution surpluses on non-social security spending.
Honestly, pensions in the USA today are more risky than 401ks. Pensions require the parent company to still be solvent 30-50 years. A number of formerly bellwether companies with heavy pension burdens have gone under an the the pensioners only receive a fraction of the promised benefits.
Some of the public pensions look very worrisome too. As an example, I have no idea how Detroit is going to manage their pension commitments with its rising costs, declining population, and high number of pension members.
For all its faults, 401k money is the employee's the moment its paid with no dependency of the employer to be around afterward.
Absolutely, I was calling out why a Xenomorph would be in a picture in what would otherwise be a rando art gallery. The picture closest to the camera is clearly Giger's work, which explains the presence of the Xenomorph.
There are a whole bunch of one-off crossovers with Star Trek in superhero comics. Another one I remember is a crossover of DC's Green Lantern and the Kelvin universe Star Trek crew.
These are reserve for a special kind of nerd, like myself, that knows both Star Trek and Green Lantern lore. The story would be lost on most other audiences.
I'd watch that movie where Stewart plays both roles. I'd really like one other character to point out the physical resemblance and both the Xavier and Picard characters blow it off "huh, I don't see the resemblance"
The real tragedy for Kirstie Alley is that the brain worms in Wrath of Kahn that make your mind simple, pliable, and open to suggestion by evil controlling men weren't props. Alley suffered dearly in her later years of life from those.
"The core issue is a documented architectural failure known as RLHF Sycophancy (where the model is mathematically weighted to agree with or placate the user at the expense of truth)," Joe explained in an email. "In this case, the model's sycophancy weighting overrode its safety guardrail protocols."
This is fascinating that LLMs are being tuned in this way. I wonder how many of the problems of today's LLM usage is because of the vendor's tuning in an attempt to be "one size fits all".
Could LLMs actually be useful if these settings were exposed to users for transparency, and possibly for modification. As in "Set sycophancy to zero. I want to not give me the benefit of the doubt or placation in any interaction. Insult me if you have to but don't lie to me."
There’s no slider for sycophancy, it’s an interaction of multiple points, “neurons” in the neural network.
I'm agreeing there isn't today, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be developed in the future. We don't have a full picture on how they are weighting their inferencing layers, so there could be weights attached which could be set by a slider. The response from Google almost suggests this is the case.
You can poke around and try and figure out what these neurons do and how they interact, but since deep learning isn’t the same as programming, these models are essentially black boxes.
Assuming there is not human tuned weight, I agree it would be very hard to do it the way you're describing. I can think of a couple other ways to approach it though:
have a layer that doesn't examine how the answer was arrived at, but can detect that it is sycophancy or not.
Use a second model like a GAN against the output of the first testing for/detecting sycophancy, and training against it.
I wish you luck but I'm not hopeful. I've gone through a similar exercise of attempting ethical investing, and found the same shortcomings you are.
The problem is that each of us has a different litmus test as to what is ethical or not. As an example, I may want to invest in companies increasing nutrition to nations that are lacking it. Yet because of climate change, it may end up that GMO crops are the only thing that can feed a local population, and there are many that would believe GMO crops are unethical.
I could try to do all the research myself, and find a bunch of other cities that are on the right path – but that seems like a full-time job, and it’s probably better to just have a fund manager do this research for us.
Nearly all the "green" funds I've seen have at least one component I ethically disagree with. On top of that, because we are both shopping for such a bespoke product, the expense ratios or management fees will be sky high.
If you do find an answer, please post it. I'll be watching the thread.
I don't like people like your sister. She benefited for her entire lives by people of all ages paying taxes for social local services she consumed growing up, going to public school, driving on maintained city roads, being protected by fire/police services, and using local libraries. The moment its her turn to pay for the younger generation then suddenly that spending she considers wasteful and ducks out of that society.
You correctly pointed out many of the difficulties about old age in rural environments. I hope she doesn't die because she has a health event, and the closest hospital is an hour away in the closest big city, and the ambulance service may take an additional 45 minutes to arrive.
The headline suggests that medical bills drove them into poverty so much so that he's had to be driving for Uber at 76. Thats not the case, and the article lays it all out.
It looks like about 25 years after the medical bills wiped them out financially, they recovered financially:
I really didn't want to retire in my 60s, but we were getting older, and my wife wanted me to be spending more time at home. When I retired, I had some equity in my home and around $300,000 in my IRA. I also started to fund an IRA for my wife, which I built to mid-five figures. This allowed us to travel extensively within the US for the first few years. But a part of me felt like we probably weren't going to live that long anyway because everybody around us was dying.
We should be celebrating two things:
the fact that the ACA passed into law and that what happened to this couple in the 1990s can't happen again under today's law
the hard work they did rebuilding financially to have over $350k in savings + home equity and have have a comfortable retirement to be able to afford extensive travel they did in retirement.
Except that the Republicans in congress have refused to allocate funding for ACA subsidies, which means this WILL happen again.
If you read the article you'd know the ACA benefits point I mentioned has nothing to do with subsidies on insurance premiums. It has to do with prior to the ACA insurance companies could deny coverage for preexisting conditions.
I did read the article, and that’s true, but insurance companies have been using that as an excuse to drive up premiums at record rates for years now (and making very healthy profits as a result, no pun intended).
I don't disagree that health insurance companies (and their business practices) aren't serving Americans well. However, as the article lays out the couple had the ability and will to pay for insurance premiums. The issue during the 90s was that any gap in coverage would mean health issues found during the gap wouldn't be covered even when paying new premiums. That was fixed with the ACA. I was commenting on the article and their situation.
In my state, the exchange prices went up an average of 21% this year due to the loss of ACA subsidies. It doesn’t help a lot to know that they are legally required to offer you coverage if you can’t afford to pay for it.
I’m in my early 50s. Over my life, I’ve been very diligent about saving, and I expect to have what I thought would be enough to retire in my 60s. But I’m looking at the cost of health care going forward and I’m very concerned that I won’t be able to afford it.
I agree with everything you said here. Republicans are poisoning that portion of the ACA unrelated to the article. I'm also doing the same math you are about making sure I have healthcare until Medicare kicks in. For many, health coverage will be the defining metric to when we can retire. Some of us are discussing that exact topic in a different Lemmy community.
One of the biggest factors in figuring out when early retirement is possible for me is the uncertainty of health care. I've looked into ACA plans, tried to estimate how much things will cost when life is healthy and when it isn't, and considered alternative scenarios, but haven't made myself comfortable, yet, with my options. ...
We're looking at this problem too and my wife suggested something I hadn't seen before: student healthcare.
As in, enroll in a school with the smallest class load (1 class?) to be eligible for student health insurance which is usually fairly affordable. I wouldn't mind taking classes anyway in retirement so this appeals to me.
Another aspect of FIRE health insurance is how to pay for it. If you have it available and plan ahead, you can use previous HSA contributions to pay for premiums after you retire. This takes years of annual contributions without using it in that tax year, but those funds can also be invested and grow tax free (for healthcare spending including insurance premiums). More than 50% of my HSA account balance has been from investment returns (boring total stock market index fund) instead of my annual deposits.
"How many hours will I have to work to earn enough to buy this bullshit impulse buy throwaway consumer product? Do I think it is worth it to work that many hours in exchange for this item?"
I'm a proponent of UBI, but that has nothing to do with the "IF everyone benefits from it in the form of higher wages/less working hours due to the higher productivity" philosophy OP posted though.
With UBI, Jim would be getting basic income (like everyone else) irrespective if he ever had the job in the example or not, and irrespective if the automation occurred or not.
Automation, in the case of UBI, would mean that the productivity gain would translate into less hour worked, with a minimum guaranteed revenue every month/year.
That is a typical answer I get to my question. It fully contains the philosophy that automation gains will somehow be funneled into state coffers or UBI initiatives but its completely missing in any substance about how that translates into reality.
The reality is that automation efficiency is going straight into capitalists pockets. And people having a bigger workload for the same amount of money as before.
I gave an example with Jim above. At the end, Jim is out of work, and the organization has gained money because they aren't paying Jim, and their automation is doing the work now. Does your actual implementation of your philosophy attempt to tax or clawback some of what Jim was being paid? If so, how and against what metrics? Alternatively, do you propose that what pays the UBI is completely divorced from what the organization earns or pays?
That would be a separate approach apart from mitigation against automation as
mitram suggested. Its also separate from the UBI approach that [email protected] suggested. This third approach of a government jobs guarantee could certainly dive into, but that doesn't address the two other incomplete approaches provided so far.
I appreciate you taking about some general approaches you would like to see for your vision of UBI, but I'm still not seeing much actual application of what would happen for Jim, or his prior employer.
To talk specifics I'm seeing we could do it from one of two periods of time:
UBI is just being implemented so its all new to everyone
UBI has been fulling implemented
Each will have their own challenges and problems, so I want you to choose the best situation for your scenario. I'm trying to set you up for success in this conversation, because I want it to work too. However, I have yet to see a complete picture which I can see working.
I'm guessing you'd like to work through this scenario in an example where your version of UBI is fully implemented and how it works for Jim in that siutation. Can we go from there?
I think you may want to read the quote again. He can afford it "barely" without working. The working 3 days a week at Costco is what makes it not barely.
LibreOffice blasts 'fake open source' OnlyOffice for working with Microsoft to lock users in ( www.neowin.net )
Trump vows to raise worldwide tariffs to 15% ‘effective immediately’ ( www.independent.co.uk )
Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, ushered in under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were unlawfully imposed ...
CXMT has been offering DDR4 chips at about half the prevailing market rate ( www.koreaherald.com )
Today is the 40th Anniversay of Zelda!
cross-posted from: ...
A Fatal ICE Shooting Occurred in Texas Months Before Renee Good’s Killing ( www.nytimes.com )
A 23-year-old American was shot last March in South Padre Island. ICE’s involvement in the shooting was not disclosed until this week. ...
Sri Lankan lawmakers scrap their pensions, delivering on a campaign promise ( apnews.com )
FCC asks stations for "pro-America" programming, like daily Pledge of Allegiance ( arstechnica.com )
Just installed asahi linux KDE plasma
So far I’m impressed third party software support lacks but that expected, so far all necessary functionality works amazing took me a bit to get used to the keybinds but no other complaints so far.
US judge upholds $243 million verdict against Tesla over fatal Autopilot crash ( www.reuters.com )
Trump attacks Supreme Court justices after he is handed a major tariff loss ( www.politico.com )
President Donald Trump admonished justices who struck down sweeping tariffs on Friday, accusing the six members of the Supreme Court of being “afraid of doing the right thing.” ...
NASA boss says Boeing Starliner failure one of worst in its history ( www.bbc.com )
NASA has labelled the botched 2024 Starliner mission, which left two astronauts stranded in space for months, a "Type A" mishap, on par with fatal shuttle disasters of the past, in a newly published report. ...
Judge scolds Mark Zuckerberg's team for wearing Meta glasses to social media trial - CBS News ( www.cbsnews.com )
Probably intended to be talked about by the press for free advertising. ...
The RAM shortage is coming for everything you care about ( www.theverge.com )
The future is here
Valve wins legal battle against patent troll Rothschild and associated companies ( www.gamingonlinux.com )
The case of Valve versus Leigh Rothschild and all associated companies has come to an end, with Valve coming out the clear winner in this one. ...
February Pebble Production and Software Updates ( repebble.com )
Pebble Time 2 Production Update: We’re in the Production Verification Test (PVT) phase right now, the last stop before Mass Production (MP). ...
Social Security payments predicted to be cut in 2032 ( www.newsweek.com )
PIC
What in the 90's superhero artwork hell?
Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes was a 6 issue miniseries from 2011-2012. ...
Google Gemini said it lied to placate a user ( www.theregister.com )
/etc? Never heard of her.
I accidentally untarred archive intended to be extracted in root directory, which among others included some files for /etc directory. ...
Investment Funds for 'Green' Municipal Bonds
Are there any investment funds (ETFs or mutual funds) which exclusively purchase municipal bonds in “green” cities? ...
Mamdani Threatens 9.5% Property Tax Increase if Wealth Tax Is Not Passed ( www.nytimes.com )
cross-posted from: ...
I'm 76 and drive for Uber after losing my savings to my wife's cancer bills. I'm not sure how long I can keep driving. ( www.businessinsider.com )
Health Care and Early Retirement
One of the biggest factors in figuring out when early retirement is possible for me is the uncertainty of health care. I've looked into ACA plans, tried to estimate how much things will cost when life is healthy and when it isn't, and considered alternative scenarios, but haven't made myself comfortable, yet, with my options. ...
What are some good questions to help you improve your life or help put you in an optimal state?
12-hour days, no weekends: the anxiety driving AI’s brutal work culture is a warning for all of us ( www.theguardian.com )
At 87, he can't afford his rent without a roommate. He's far from alone. ( www.cbsnews.com )