NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore could finally hitch a ride to the ISS aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner on July 21, but tests of the capsule’s parachute system threaten to delay the beleaguered project even further.
Source: Gizmodo – Boeing Sets Date for First Crewed Starliner Launch, but Parachute Tests Remain
Dear Weirdos Who Dance Emote Past Midnight,
Source: Kotaku – A Letter To The Fortnite Weirdos Who Play Past Midnight
Early on in Resident Evil 4, Leon encounters a large lake. It’s a bit creepy but otherwise seems harmless. And according to many players online, you should actually walk onto the pier and start shooting the lake for a fun, hidden reward. However, this is actually a dirty—and also very funny—trick that RE4 vets are…
Source: Kotaku – Resident Evil 4 Vets Are Trolling Rookies, Telling Them To ‘Shoot The Lake’
Chris Pratt is no stranger to massive fan franchises. He’s been a sitcom star, Marvel superhero, Jurassic Park employee, and even a Lego figure. And yet even with all that behind him, he thinks the role of Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the one that holds the most responsibility.
Source: Gizmodo – Chris Pratt and Charlie Day on the Super Mario Bros. Legacy, Controversy, Sequels, and More
Enlarge / A woman uses AutoCAD on a MacBook Pro in this promotional image from Autodesk. (credit: Autodesk)
It has been two years and four months since the first Apple Silicon Mac hit the market, and now Autodesk has finally updated some of its massively popular professional applications (AutoCAD and Maya) to run natively on M1 and M2 chips.
The availability of AutoCAD for Mac 2024 was announced in a blog post on Autodesk’s website on March 28. Like other major AutoCAD updates, it adds new features like expanded automation tools and easier workflows, but the announcement that “for the first time, AutoCAD for Mac 2024 and AutoCAD LT for Mac 2024 now run natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon architectures, including M1 and M2 chips in the M-series chips” is clearly the headlining feature.
Autodesk claims that Apple Silicon support “can increase overall performance by up to two times” compared to the 2023 version of AutoCAD.
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Source: Ars Technica – After two years, Autodesk Maya and AutoCAD become Apple Silicon-native
Renewables are already producing more energy than fossil fuels in Europe, and now the US is approaching that milestone. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has determined that renewable power generation overtook coal in 2022, with 4,090 million megawatt-hours coming from solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass and geothermal technology. These green sources leapt past nuclear in 2021, but widened the gap last year. They have about 21 percent share combined.
The shift came through the combination of increasing renewable capacity and coal’s years-long decline. Wind was the dominant source of clean electricity, with the capacity jumping from 133 gigawatts in 2021 to 141 gigawatts a year later. Hydro was second, followed by utility-level solar, biomass and geothermal. Coal dropped to 20 percent share due to both the closure of some plants and the reduced use of others. Nuclear has remained relatively steady, but the shutdown of Michigan’s Palisades powerplant saw it dip to 19 percent.
It might not surprise you to hear which states dominated certain renewable energy sources. Sunny California was the leader in solar power generation with 26 percent of the output, while Texas had a similar slice of wind generation. Texas also has the largest shares of coal and natural gas, although its lead in those areas is only slight.
Renewables weren’t the top power source in 2022 — that distinction went to natural gas, which claimed a 39 percent share. However, it’s evident that clean tech has a firm foothold in the US despite attempts to undermine it through regulation. We’d expect the trends to continue, too. President Biden’s administration has heavily promoted renewable electricity, including the approval of the first large offshore wind farm in the country, while the EIA expects coal use to shrink to 17 percent. Natural gas may retain a comfortable lead, but it now has a new chief rival.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/renewable-power-generation-overtook-coal-in-the-us-last-year-200907783.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Renewable power generation overtook coal in the US last year
Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a globe that has stopped spinning. (credit: Stable Diffusion)
On Wednesday, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter on its website calling on AI labs to “immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” Signed by Elon Musk and several prominent AI researchers, the letter quickly began to draw attention in the press—and some criticism on social media.
Earlier this month, OpenAI released GPT-4, an AI model that can perform compositional tasks and allegedly pass standardized tests at a human level, although those claims are still being evaluated by research. Regardless, GPT-4 and Bing Chat’s advancement in capabilities over previous AI models spooked some experts who believe we are heading toward super-intelligent AI systems faster than previously expected.
Along these lines, the Future of Life Institute argues that recent advancements in AI have led to an “out-of-control race” to develop and deploy AI models that are difficult to predict or control. They believe that the lack of planning and management of these AI systems is concerning and that powerful AI systems should only be developed once their effects are well-understood and manageable. As they write in the letter:
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Source: Ars Technica – Fearing “loss of control,” AI critics call for 6-month pause in AI development
Highlights of the GnuCash 5.0 release include a new Stock Transaction Assistant that can be accessed from the Actions menu.
The post GnuCash 5.0 Released With New Stock Transaction Assistant appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – GnuCash 5.0 Released With New Stock Transaction Assistant
While still CEO of now-collapsed FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried transferred millions of dollars to his father. Some of those funds have since been used to pay for his mounting legal fees, Forbes os reporting, citing two sources close to the company. From a report: Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX who claimed to have just $100,000 in his bank account last November, is preparing for trial in October backed by a roster of powerful attorneys. But it has remained unclear, until now, how the former billionaire would afford his pricey defense. Forbes has learned that Bankman-Fried has been paying legal fees from a multi-million dollar gift he gave his father with money borrowed from FTX’s sister company. In 2021, while CEO of FTX, Bankman-Fried made a large monetary gift to his father, Stanford Law professor Joseph Bankman, two sources with operational knowledge of both companies told Forbes. It was funded by a loan from the exchange’s trading firm, Alameda Research, they said.
Bankman-Fried — who has pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal charges including wire fraud, money laundering and securities fraud, and faces an additional bribery charge — is accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds through Alameda dating back to the exchange’s founding in 2019. A source close to Bankman-Fried told Forbes that his defense costs are likely in the single-digit-millions range. “I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away,” he wrote on Substack earlier this year. Two additional sources familiar with the family told Forbes that Bankman once begged his son to put away savings, but Bankman-Fried reportedly declined.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Sam Bankman-Fried’s Legal Defense Is Being Funded With Alameda Money He Gifted His Father
This morning, I received an exciting press release from the Department of Energy: The federal agency now has a strategy in place to significantly expand the U.S.’s offshore wind capacity. Under the shiny new “Advancing Offshore Wind…” plan, the DOE hopes to support the Biden administration’s existing goal of…
Source: Gizmodo – Biden Admin Brags About Wind Energy the Same Day It Holds Huge Offshore Oil Auction
I’ve compiled this list of the Top 7 Best Linux Distros for Security and Privacy. Each of these distros has unique features that make them ideal for users who are looking for a secure and private computing experience.
Source: LXer – Best Linux Distros for Security and Privacy
Good Smile, one of the world’s most popular toy companies, reportedly acted as the brace for one of the internet’s worst cesspools, financially backing 4chan. The site has gone on to facilitate harassment campaigns, racism, misogyny, and homophobia while being a vortex for internet conspiracy theories.
Source: Gizmodo – Famed Japanese Toy Company Good Smile Has Reportedly Propped Up 4chan for Years
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Hup)
A federal judge yesterday ruled that Google intentionally destroyed evidence and must be sanctioned, rejecting the company’s argument that it didn’t need to automatically preserve internal chats involving employees subject to a legal hold.
“After substantial briefing by both sides, and an evidentiary hearing that featured witness testimony and other evidence, the Court concludes that sanctions are warranted,” US District Judge James Donato wrote. Later in the ruling, he wrote that evidence shows that “Google intended to subvert the discovery process, and that Chat evidence was ‘lost with the intent to prevent its use in litigation’ and ‘with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation.'”
He said that chats produced by Google last month in response to a court order “provided additional evidence of highly spotty practices in response to the litigation hold notices.” For example, Donato quoted one newly produced chat in which “an employee said he or she was ‘on legal hold’ but that they preferred to keep chat history off.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Judge finds Google destroyed evidence and repeatedly gave false info to court
Every hero needs a villain, and Marvel’s Wonder Man—the alias of Hollywood-star-turned-indestructible-superhero Simon Williams—has the Grim Reaper, a bad guy best known for two things: 1) wielding a truly goofy scythe-gauntlet, and 2) being Simon Williams’ brother Eric. The Wonder Man TV series found its Simon in …
Source: Gizmodo – Marvel’s Wonder Man Disney+ Series Summons Its Grim Reaper
The time has come once again for PlayStation enjoyers to fire up their console’s jet engine and check out April’s helping of PlayStation Plus games. Imma keep it a buck with you, I half expected Sony to come out of the gates swinging with a cavalcade of Capcom titles this month, more specifically Resident Evil games…
Source: Kotaku – PlayStation Plus Has A Couple Of Hidden Gems For April
The AMDGPU kernel driver patch flow has ticked up in recent days with working on new hardware support/features…
Source: Phoronix – AMD Linux Graphics Driver Seeing More Patches Around Multi-XCC Support
Apple has officially announced it will host its annual developer’s conference at Apple Park in Cupertino beginning June 5. The conference will offer an “in-person experience” but will take place primarily online.
Source: Gizmodo – Apple Announces WWDC 2023 Will Take Place June 5
An anonymous reader shares a report: In the midst of perpetrating what federal prosecutors say was a massive corporate hacking campaign, Israeli private detective Aviram Azari in 2017 received welcome news. A group of hackers in India wrote him to say they had successfully infiltrated the email and social-media accounts of a group of environmental activists campaigning against Exxon. “On a happy note I would like to report some success below: Project Name Rainbow,” the hackers wrote in electronic messages that were viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The messages included evidence of the successful intrusions, including screenshots of compromised email inboxes.
The messages along with court records reveal new details about the hacking campaign, including that thousands of individuals and companies were targeted and at least some of the attacks resulted in the hackers successfully gaining access to the private accounts of the victims and obtaining their passwords. Among the targets was the Rockefeller Family Fund, a charity created by some of the heirs of John D. Rockefeller, who founded Exxon’s forebear Standard Oil. The fund has for years been involved in campaigns arguing that Exxon hid from the public the full extent of what it knew internally about climate change and the role fossil fuels played in causing it.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Exxon’s Climate Opponents Were Infiltrated by Massive Hacking-for-Hire Operation
Battle royales and the culture that surround them have collected a litany of archetypes, creating a sort of BR zodiac that can help you understand the machinations of the people you encounter in Warzone, Fortnite, Apex Legends, or PUBG. Maybe you feel like one or more of these stereotypes sorta kinda speak to you,…
Source: Kotaku – 11 Battle Royale Players You’ll Always Match With (Or Die To)
The Legend of Zelda series is one of the most widely celebrated in all video games, and for good reason. Even the worst Zelda game is in a class of its own, but all of them have their occasional drawbacks. We’re here today to break down the best and worst parts of each mainline game, from the iconic original NES…
Source: Kotaku – The Best And Worst Parts Of Every Mainline Zelda Game
