Crossposted from https://thebrainbin.org/m/germany@feddit.org/t/1945027

A small town in eastern Germany banned the installation of new Holocaust memorial plaques that mark the last known residence or workplace of Jews and other victims of the genocide. The motion was proposed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)...

"Researchers reported an average 18 percent chance of near-term human extinction, company leaders talk routinely about the real possibility of catastrophic outcomes, and yet the technology and the industry races full speed ahead, dumping more investment into technological acceleration every quarter, as though a future machine god was trying to drown the whistle-blowers in cash. Again and again, polling finds that the public is not exactly on board. Americans support a ban on superintelligence by more than 2 to 1. Those who are more concerned than excited about A.I. outnumber those who are more excited by roughly 5 to 1. And those who think the technology is progressing too quickly outnumber those who believe it is moving too slowly by more than 30 to 1. These are the kinds of margins you rarely see in democratic systems. The question is whether, when it comes to technology, we’re still really living in one — or whether, by letting the pace of progress outrace oversight, we’ve already relinquished control."

"A data breach at the Pentagon’s vast HR system has exposed Social Security numbers and other personal information of current and former military personnel... 'Unauthorized users' gained access to a vulnerable computer server belonging to the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) beginning last October, but it wasn’t until nine months later, in July, that the Pentagon discovered and remediated the issue."

"With the Education Department, OpenAI’s technology tried to hack the website to gather data from the department’s civil rights office but failed, researchers from the A.I. research firm Transluce said. The A.I. also pulled data from the Census Bureau website, which is housed at the Commerce Department, using login credentials it found online."

McCrimmon had done very well out of the game and might have been there yet had not some inquisitive bystander seen fit to comment, in terms of loud admiration, upon the exquisite delicacy of the workmanship whereby the backs of the cards were painted in fifty-two different patterns.

- Alistair Maclean, McCrimmon and the blue moonstones, The Lonely Sea

Crossposted from https://futurology.today/post/12245375

Crossposted from https://futurology.today/post/12245375

Cross posted from https://slrpnk.net/post/41680206

Economic growth Deficit National debt Manufacturing jobs Tariff revenue Inflation Gas prices Home ownership costs Mortgage rates No Medicaid or Social Security cuts Health care premiums

To repair a ~6" (~150mm) line of pinholes in a NeoAir camping mattress, what is the best repair material?

The line is too long, and the pinholes too close to each other, to use standard or emergency Thermarest patches.

I'm hoping for a solution that will last as long as the sleeping mat, and won't significantly impair its packability.

Does anyone know a UK source for affordable (≤£25 inc p+p) 22mm stainless steel watch straps made in a democracy (a country ideally ≥ 8 on the Economist Democracy Index; definitely ≥ 6)?

When planning a purchase, I'll ask this sub for product/seller recommendations. Unfortunately, I need a UK-based seller or have to pay import fees due to Brexit red tape.

Does anyone here have an email address (or web form address) for Cloudflare support?

I'm asking because increasingly often, Cloudflare-protected sites give me an endless loop:

Performing security verification This website uses a security service to protect against malicious bots. This page is displayed while the website verifies you are not a bot.

Verifying ...

After a few seconds, a "Privacy" and "Help" link are shown next to the word "Verifying". Then they all get replaced with a spinner icon, and the cycle starts again.

The help link goes to this page, which says:

You may encounter a challenge loop where the challenge keeps reappearing without being solved. This is in very specific cases where we detect strong bot signals. If you are a legitimate human, you can follow the troubleshooting guide below to resolve the issue or submit a feedback report.

Well, I am a human - even if my legitimacy is debatable.

The troubleshooting guide takes me here, which says:

Turnstile Failed Despite Passing All Checks All diagnostics passed, but Turnstile still couldn't complete successfully. This is unusual and may indicate an edge case. ... Since the local diagnostics did not find a clear cause, this may require investigation by Cloudflare.

• Copy your Session ID from the top of this page
• Click "Copy Full Results" in Technical Details below
• Share both with Cloudflare support

But it gives no contact details for Cloudflare support.

A web search turned up this page, but it only lists contact methods available for Cloudflare customers. I am not a customer.

Hence my question at the top of this post.

Cross posted from https://slrpnk.net/post/41361937

Modelling finds AI-driven productivity gains in coal, oil and gas enable more emissions than applications in renewables avoid

The paper is here This is above and beyond the direct use of fossil fuels by big tech.

A U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta Platforms, Alphabet's ‌Google, ByteDance's TikTok, and other social media companies over claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies’ bid to reverse a lower court’s ruling forcing them to face more than 3,000 lawsuits over the claims filed in federal court, concluding that the appeal came too early in ​the litigation.

Mbin displays dates in a non-monotonic order (US-American, I think): MM/DD/YY.

How can I set this to monotonic order: DD/MM/YY?

... remind you of angry eyes, like those of Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie?

If so, do you think that's a good thing, bad thing, neither, or are you unsure?

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/50438867

Furious residents packing city-council meetings have become a familiar scene as proposals for data centers spark backlash in towns across America. But in Gilroy, Calif., known as the world’s garlic capital, there’s a twist: The $2 billion facility that residents are railing against is already being built. “Many if not most residents first learned about this project after construction had already begun,” Coleen Crew, an elementary-school teacher, told the council at a recent meeting. There were no public meetings or votes before a lone city staffer gave Amazon the green light last July to build a 438,500-square-foot data center on 56 acres of farmland 30 miles south of San Jose.

I do. I decide to obtain more complete information.

Cross posted from https://leminal.space/post/38378085

Each gas-burning generator at Meta’s El Paso data center will produce about as much pollution as 13 cars, according to the company installing them. When the project is ​d​one, there will be 813 generators, all permitted to run around the clock.