Adebar is back. Not seen him since last week, so I thought he may have found a different nest. Or maybe this is a different stork, no idea. Perhaps he had to get used to the new farm owners and more activity first. Or was snoozing somewhere after the long trip. Or went to MiceDonalds and devoured 23 McRodent in a row. 🤷♂️
Hey guys and girls, this is a video of a huge white stork (ciconia ciconia, Weißstorch) hunting after, catching and swallowing mice whole. It catches several...
They were all in violation of US law law.justia.com/codes/us/2020/t… (below), classified or not, when thy conspired to avoid NARA so that there would no record of their OFFICIAL conversations!
I can’t believe the UK’s 5th emergency service is volunteer-only!Matt Gray | http://mattg.co.uk | @MattGrayYes💷 Advert 💷 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount...
He might as well have told auto companies, "obliterate your profits." This absolute simpleton really does have no idea how tariffs work. wsj.com/business/autos/trump-t…
Replaced this electric lantern in the barn with a LED projector. Much less romantic yellow light, but I can actually see something in there after dark. Also I won't have to sell a kidney whenever I forget to switch it off over night.
It's actually a pretty robust and well designed housing, so I want to restore it and eventually hang it on a lamp post somehwere, with a yellow LED bulb inside.
I think it's time for you to go Old Testament on some old Testicles. Well, those that have 'em. But I wish there was a way to include Lindsey and a few others...
Official Music Video for “Frontier Psychiatrist” by The Avalanches, remastered in HD.Listen to 'Frontier Psychiatrist' by The Avalanches here: https://TheAva...
Errmm... Yes 🤔 Not completely convinced the pricing of audiobooks is based on the amount of ears of the protagonist. Come to think of it, much less swash-buckeling in a story about a Buccaneer Sturgeon. Maybe it's a step to far
This will be read by Danes as another maximally arrogant remark from the vice president of a country that wants to annex Greenland, yet has not read up upon what Greenland is.
@benroyce Meh. It’s just small talk meant to get a laugh. Don’t get me wrong, he’s said plenty of other things that reveal his American arrogance, but this is just him trying to be conversational.
Sure, it’s just meant as banter, but the idea that you’d need to be “told” at Vance’s age, that Greenland is cold, is basically saying, “Hey, I’m a total fucking idiot, guys!”
as a Dane watching him live on national television was something else. The sheer arrogance was something to behold.
But more importantly, he forgot to wear a SUIT (visibly) - That's disrespectful to the soldiers and the people watching the broadcast. (Do I need a /S?)
@Workshopshed Yep, he clearly fell for that joke where the military flies you to Whiteland and tries to convince you that it’s Greenland. But one look at a satellite image immediately tells you all you need to know.
Mr. VP, don’t trust the woke, liberal military. I’ve marked it out for you on the map below.
@Workshopshed I was once told that the old Norse folks called the more pleasant country Iceland, and called the country with the colder weather Greenland as a marketing ploy to fool would-be invaders.
Probably not a true story, but it made sense at the time 😀
..uh..dafuuk?...like all fasicism, annexation plans, and genocide aside 4a sec....who doesnt, in the very least, check the weather of the place they are going to so they know how to pack? lmao, do Americans also expect the weather to accommodate them wherever they go?😂 😂
Power, influence, and money aren't primarily about intelligence and cleverness. Has any of the current world leaders invented or initiated anything that would allow humanity and our world to look positively toward the future? The advantage of people of JD Vance's caliber is that the universe doesn't have time to deal with such people.
🎤 “I’m at a total loss for words at how dramatically the rejection of knowledge, hostility toward science & censorship have escalated”, says #MPIM Director Jochem Marotzke in an interview with @maxplanckgesellschaft. He spent several years conducting research in the US 🇺🇸& shares his assessment of what the #Trump administration's policies mean for his US colleagues, national & international #ClimateScience, the work of the #IPCC and #ClimateProtection. ➡️ mpg.de/24355236/interview-maro…
Jochem Marotzke, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, spent several years researching in the USA himself. He shares his insights on what the Trump administration's policies mean for his U.S.
I wonder, why @maxplanckgesellschaft is so active on X. X became part of the desinformation that is spread by Trump and Musk. There ist time, to #eXit the former Twitter platform. It is anti-scientific. How do you think?
The image features two individuals in a casual setting, likely a bedroom. The person in the foreground is wearing a dark blue top and is looking directly at the camera with a surprised expression. The person in the background is shirtless, holding a phone and a cup, seemingly engrossed in their phone. The text at the top reads, "When the party adopts too many NPCs and they finally get a downtime session." At the bottom, the text says, "Who the fuck is that." The image humorously captures a moment of confusion or surprise, likely referencing a scenario from a role-playing game where players have many non-player characters (NPCs) and are now experiencing a break from their usual activities.
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Ovis2-8B
I built myself a medium format camera with spare camera parts and some stuff from aliexpress. It's still missing a proper grip and focus markings. Designing the body so the focus tube focuses exactly to infinity at its shortest was too difficult with 3d printed tolerances, so I left a millimeter of room and will just adjust the focus markings accordingly.
Newsletter: As the US government lays a very favorable groundwork for the crypto industry, Trump positions himself for maximum personal profits. Meanwhile crypto companies write their own rules, and an adviser mulls swapping US gold reserves for bitcoin.
Lead crypto adviser Bo Hines is already hard at work getting “a lot of high IQ people” to work on “countless ideas” for how the US can add more bitcoin to its reserve while remaining technically “budget neutral”.
Trump is seeking to expand his personal crypto footprint, and his Trump Media company is looking to partner with Crypto.com to launch ETPs. The Singapore-headquartered company is an odd choice of partner for a plan with a “Made in America focus”.
In order to close the deal, Crypto.com had to resurrect $7 billion in CRO tokens that were burned in 2021. This was decided by a “vote” in which Crypto.com validators controlled more than 70% of the voting power — nearly all other CRO holders opposed.
Trump Media execs have filed paperwork for a SPAC to target the crypto industry, reasoning that it’s strategic because of Trump’s “unprecedented steps to integrate digital assets into the national financial strategy” that were “aimed at benefiting the digital assets industry”.
And Trump’s WLFI is looking to launch a stablecoin. Though Trump has described central bank-controlled stablecoins as “a dangerous threat to freedom”, he seems to have no qualms with a president-controlled token.
Other input has come from the likes of Lee Reiners, who writes “I must admit that whole endeavor seems performative and intended to justify a predetermined outcome.”
The crypto super PACs have spent a combined $1.5 million on two special elections in deeply red districts in Florida, where Republicans have been panicking about being outspent by Democrats. Musk’s America PAC also dropped some cash to help out Trump’s picks.
That and more in this week’s issue of Citation Needed, a completely independent and subscriber-funded publication. To support my work, please consider subscribing!
🔥 Pecinta Komik, Ini yang Kamu Tunggu! 🔥 Chapter terbaru dari Shuumatsu no Valkyrie (Chapter 100) sudah hadir dalam Bahasa Indonesia! 🎉 📖 Gabung bersama ribuan pembaca lainnya dan nikmati kisah serunya. ✨ Jangan biarkan orang lain tahu kisah ini lebih dulu, baca sekarang dan rasakan sendiri keseruannya! 👉 Klik di sini untuk mulai membaca sekarang: e-komik.org/komik/68005 ⏳ Jadilah yang pertama tahu apa yang terjadi selanjutnya! #EKomik #Komik #Comic #Manga #Action #Drama #Fantasy #Seinen #SuperPower #Supernatural
🔥 Pecinta Komik, Ini yang Kamu Tunggu! 🔥 Chapter terbaru dari Shuumatsu no Valkyrie (Chapter 102) sudah hadir dalam Bahasa Indonesia! 🎉 📖 Gabung bersama ribuan pembaca lainnya dan nikmati kisah serunya. ✨ Jangan biarkan orang lain tahu kisah ini lebih dulu, baca sekarang dan rasakan sendiri keseruannya! 👉 Klik di sini untuk mulai membaca sekarang: e-komik.org/komik/68005 ⏳ Jadilah yang pertama tahu apa yang terjadi selanjutnya! #EKomik #Komik #Comic #Manga #Action #Drama #Fantasy #Seinen #SuperPower #Supernatural
🔥 Pecinta Komik, Ini yang Kamu Tunggu! 🔥 Chapter terbaru dari Shuumatsu no Valkyrie (Chapter 101) sudah hadir dalam Bahasa Indonesia! 🎉 📖 Gabung bersama ribuan pembaca lainnya dan nikmati kisah serunya. ✨ Jangan biarkan orang lain tahu kisah ini lebih dulu, baca sekarang dan rasakan sendiri keseruannya! 👉 Klik di sini untuk mulai membaca sekarang: e-komik.org/komik/68005 ⏳ Jadilah yang pertama tahu apa yang terjadi selanjutnya! #EKomik #Komik #Comic #Manga #Action #Drama #Fantasy #Seinen #SuperPower #Supernatural
🔥 Pecinta Komik, Ini yang Kamu Tunggu! 🔥 Chapter terbaru dari Shuumatsu no Valkyrie (Chapter 103) sudah hadir dalam Bahasa Indonesia! 🎉 📖 Gabung bersama ribuan pembaca lainnya dan nikmati kisah serunya. ✨ Jangan biarkan orang lain tahu kisah ini lebih dulu, baca sekarang dan rasakan sendiri keseruannya! 👉 Klik di sini untuk mulai membaca sekarang: e-komik.org/komik/68005 ⏳ Jadilah yang pertama tahu apa yang terjadi selanjutnya! #EKomik #Komik #Comic #Manga #Action #Drama #Fantasy #Seinen #SuperPower #Supernatural
🔥 Pecinta Komik, Ini yang Kamu Tunggu! 🔥 Chapter terbaru dari Shuumatsu no Valkyrie (Chapter 104) sudah hadir dalam Bahasa Indonesia! 🎉 📖 Gabung bersama ribuan pembaca lainnya dan nikmati kisah serunya. ✨ Jangan biarkan orang lain tahu kisah ini lebih dulu, baca sekarang dan rasakan sendiri keseruannya! 👉 Klik di sini untuk mulai membaca sekarang: e-komik.org/komik/68005 ⏳ Jadilah yang pertama tahu apa yang terjadi selanjutnya! #EKomik #Komik #Comic #Manga #Action #Drama #Fantasy #Seinen #SuperPower #Supernatural
Google confirms Pixel 9a launch for April 10 Google has sorted out its Pixel problems and will begin the 9a rollout on April 10. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0…
I joke, but I never understood the whole disposable phone market. I do not need, nor want, to go wasting money on a new phone every year or so. Some of these phones today, cost nearly 1,000 bucks, and the idea of rushing to buy another one, when the current one works just fine, does not interest me.
I have seen the specs of many of these new phones, too. There is often not much of a significant different between versions. If you truly want the latest, greatest, right away, I guess that is your thing. But even if I were as wealthy as Elon Musk, I wouldn't go rushing to buy a new phone every year.
Agreed, but phone manufacturers have a perverse incentive, because they're the ones who decide how long to keep supporting a phone with security updates.
I'd like to see a law compelling vendors to specify a monthly price as well as an overall price. For example, if you're selling a £600 phone with 36 months' security updates left, that's nearly £17 a month. That would get manufacturers competing on long support times.
I oppose subscription hardware. I never bought a Tesla, because I never wanted to pay a subscription to the feature of the car. The same with my phone or computer. I want to own my device, completely, with all the software updates too. Hardware should not be a service.
No, my smartphone is owned. I pay for my device in full, wipe the thing complete clean with a new ROM, and use my device my way with the latest updates. I rent nothing, and disagree with any terms that would claim otherwise.
The problems are, it's a Pixel, and it's by Google. Surely Google and Facebook will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the DEBT forever.
Voting still open for the DH Awards 2024. If you wish, please give "Lines of Flight" a vote for the category of "Best use of DH for fun" dhawards.org/dhawards2024/voti…
Opening Up 2024The Opening Up Competition celebrates all entries that are eligible that have been submitted to the Main and Student Prizes - it does not affect the forthcoming shortlist/winners in those categories but allows for a public vote for a f…
"This Tricorder is not a toy; it is a working display-grade replica developed to give its owner the maximum level of enjoyment." #diegeticprototype #realized
Completely rewriting a multi-million line COBOL codebase that has life-or-death consequences for real people in the space of a few months, using gen AI?
I’ve been writing software for 40-some years, and I have to say: this may be, without exaggeration, the stupidest software-related idea I’ve ever heard from leadership.
I urge you to listen to the riveting and wonderful radio feature about what happens when you try to build a make-or-break project on a ridiculously tight timeline:
The page has summary text, but listen if you can. I’ve heard very few instances of a developer speaking so candidly and with such self-awareness about what it feels like to be part of a failing software project.
Listen. Then imagine that instead of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it’s social security for the entire USA.
Deep within the National Museum of American History’s vaults is a battered Atari case containing what’s known as “the worst video game of all time.” The game is E.T.
I always give that story as an assignment to my Software Design and Development students. One of the things we talk about is that if the developer •hadn’t• managed to build the game, if the project had collapsed at any point before release, it probably would have saved the company.
The worst possible outcome here is that these DOGEbags manage to build •something• and actually think it works.
that would be not just disastrous for social security itself but for the entire software industry. The damage could happen even if they fail to actually replace anything but simply say they did it. A bunch of managers and investors are suddenly going to have absolutely absurd beliefs about what's possible in development. So many people are so credulous towards Musk because they want to believe him.
I learnt this at work as the “no heroes” principle. And these days, if there is a hero, he or she will be a Schindler, will look like an arsehole and act secretly.
Depends on what your priorities are. I believe it’s a pretty bright idea when you want to ensure those depending on it won‘t receive funding but to avoid direct accountability for what is inevitably going to Happen.
There was never any doubt that these were not serious people and that they have zero concept of what it means to create something critical. But the failed total-rewrite is a complete cliche in the industry for good reason! How is a crew this terminally online not aware of this?
They're the Therac25 Appreciation Society and nobody will convince me otherwise.
Is it possible for the smallest units (municipalities, districts) to somehow save the data for those for whom they are directly responsible, so that at least someone can later trace who has which claims and can assert them?
Just please, for the love of all that is good and holy, let there be one adult somewhere in the mix who makes sure the existing code is backed up safely.
Because you're 100% right, this is the stupidest idea yet from a group of people whose footnote in history will read "Oh yeah, those dickheads."
@MarvClowder I think the old conundrum doesn't apply here. These arseholes are both evil AND stupid. They'll do damage whether they achieve their scummy fascist goals or just break a bunch of stuff in the attempt.
Take the current example: the goal appears to be to install a new, fascist, system, but the outcome is likely to be no system at all. Either way, we're fucked, and our only option is to stop them.
When I put my conspiracy hat on, I think about Musk et al. writing into the system a bunch of fictitious people to receive checks, or maybe boosting MAGA checks and lessening funds for folks in blue states.
translation to real terms is helpful. They want an intentionally failed software project. And use the failed result instead of working software. Because Fascism despises the poor.
Let me guess: they will end up with a broken new system with the old system running in parallel but a few bits are now interconnected and you can't touch either without everything going boom?
see the paragraph starting “Conversion…”. As a person who has to deal with the resulting errors, the conversion was not successful. cms.gov/files/document/medicar…
I think that characterizing COBOL as 'archaic' is not fair.
Yes, it's not the kind of modern language that most people program in - but it remains fit for the very specific purpose for which it was invented: extremely reliable, consistent, code that remains functional with little to no maintenance for years - decades! - at a time.
Reliability is a desirable quality in infrastructural codebases.
Changing it to something else merely because it's old has no merit - it's creating unnecessary work, and the end result will absolutely not be as reliable as the system it is replacing.
I agree with your statement but I have to say your allegation that THERE IS any leadership to be seen in the current hive of locusts harvesting the government for profit..
They still believe a government is there to be profitable and not maximize services for the people it SERVES. Government SERVES and doesnt profit.
BY the PEOPLE, FOR the PEOPLE. No king, no emporer, no foreign born dictator.
What if the "AI" just emits a COBOL interpreter in Java, bound with the COBOL source itself, and so it works in all small test cases, but fails at scale?
If you could assign a physical model to what this end product would look like there is zero doubt this will look and perform like a Cybertruck aka Swasticar.
Anyone who has written software professionally knows that a complete, fully-functional rewrite is 100% a pipe dream. One hundred percent impossible. It will never happen.
And in months? That just means that it will fail quickly.
@emilvolk they want it to fail / not distribute folks money. They don't care about delivering an actual product (let alone a viable one). All a big smokescreen :/
My expectation: The software can be replaced by something that works correct for 90% of cases… and everyone knows on that scale less than 99.999% is a disaster. So it will be, but 90%(!!!) with so little budget/time(!!!) will be sold as a *huge success*. MAGA will cheer. Still, failure will inevitably happen, this is also acceptable to Republicans as “welfare state” needs to be destroyed. Blamed on whoever comes to Trumps mind, probably Biden or Obama. MAGA will cheer. #projec2025
yeah, just brilliant. Let’s get the kids who can’t even read cobol to rewrite the whole system using their fave lazy-hands tool…AI. What could possibly go wrong, and WTF is this going to cost?! Guess DOGE is just DOG now. Efficiency was the first thing these idiots threw out!
The best reason to be concerned about any Musk-led rewrite of the SSA code -- which I imagine is a gargantuan patched Sargasso -- is that the people running that show are completely untrustworthy,.
even if you know the stack the old software is on, and even if the original developers are on hand rewriting software on new tech is on of the hardest things you can do. With something this old, the code is the documentation and nobody really understands it. Factor in critical timing and massive data and it makes it even more complicated. Also there isn't so much COBOL material online so the gai won't even be able to guess well. I can't see how this will even slightly work
Interesting idea. Just imagine what it will be like to test the thing that the ai generates. But then again, maybe another ai could do that job. Or maybe use the old system as the test oracle, and turn it into a reinforcement learning thingy?
Everyone who has personal data in that system should be worried.
And I'd bet they don't properly handle all the race conditions that using something besides a language like COBOL introduces to something like this either.
Just to start with some simple issues that commonly prevent such rewrites (esp. with such a timeline): * Just wait for your funds being withdrawn from one account but not showing up on the other. * Money just showing up on one side but never being withdrawn from the other side.
it’s stupid if you want social security to function. If your goal is to break it so severely that privatizing it looks appealing—which has been the prerogative of these shitheads for 40 years—then this idea is exactly in line with their goals
wired calling cobol archaic isn't useful. I work for a bank. A major one. We have 22.5M lines of cobol in production and so does most everyone else in our sector. Every major financial out there with on-the-street accounts for you and i... Has at least 5 abandoned attempts to replace cobol and z/os with java and distributed. Muppets.
If the project reduces what the SSA pays out, it will be considered a success, whether that leaves half the recipients starving, or costs millions in lawsuit for the next administration.
One might reasonably ask for them to give an example of a similarly large code based delivered on such a time frame using AI. Of course, no such example exists, certainly not with one that has such importance to the lives of millions of Americans.
I’ve done IT in a multi-$B/yr social services benefit eligibility & payment environment.
No bank would let these vandals near its Cobol codebase; it’s nuts to expect anything remotely close to a clean outcome, or even operational in any meaningful way.
Canada’s own Phoenix project (pay system for fed gov’t workers) gives an idea what to expect:
Makes perfect sense, Paul, if Musk's real goal us not to update the Social Security Administration's databases, but to destroy Social Security as a functional part of people's retirement planning. #Musk #SocialSecurity #USPolitics #Sabotage
Would they test general functions before going into live production? Hopefully. Would they test all the edge cases which exist?? No. Nobody has a way to know all the edge cases solved in the past. #WCGW
I can understand why on day one people would think this is stupid. But they've been at this for more than 2 months now. When are people going to wake up and realize it's not stupidity. They aren't doing this despite the fact that it's a bad idea - they're doing it BECAUSE it's a bad idea which will destroy the agency's ability to carry out its mission.
They know they can't outright just end social security without massive voter backlash, but they *can* break completely and then blame it on AI "hallucinations".
California is the fifth largest economy in the world and Sacramento runs on COBOL. Long ago (when I remembered COBOL) I was offered a job maintaining it, which I politely declined.
I offered to refactor the thing (with a Massive team) in modern data-stores and languages. Project time? FIVE MOTHERFUCKING YEARS.
So as usual, the Sales Guy (Musk) is full of shit.
Fuckwit couldn't code his way out of a wet paper bag with a chainsaw, so yeah ... p
They need to do something so they can send that huge invoice from one of Musk’s companies to the government. (Of course I have no proof of that, just a gut feeling inside of me)
I just read something in Gizmodo about this. I've worked around software development a good bit and I laughed at the timeline. What could possibly go wrong??
No sane management would EVER agree to that process:
It's a HELLA lotta work.
Translating from one language to another provides NO benefits to the end-user.
Look -- I read the Wired article, too. It convinced me that the Social Security system absolutely needs good engineers to update it -- anything both critical and fragile needs better engineering. But the way to do is is exceedingly BORING (maintaining Blue-green systems that demonstrate that they produce exactly the same output) and painstaking.
There used to be a team in the Federal government that did exactly this kind of stuff... oh, yeah -- federalnewsnetwork.com/reorgan…
Thomas Shedd, the commissioner of Federal Acquisition Service, said the decision is part of the President’s Workforce Optimization Initiative executive order.
they will fail horribly in a matter of months, claim they suckceeded and walk away. They have never met a mountain quite as obdurate as SSA's Systems people.
The best LLMs are only 60% accurate. Unless the model has been developed, trained, and tested for this task then it cannot succeed. It would still need expert human minders to do the debugging.
There is also the very real possibility that they *want* the rewrite to fail, in parallel with putting the old system offline – to get rid of the social security system altogether. Think about it.
…but that’s the idea…isn’t it? They *can’t* do it…the plan is to break it so it can’t be fixed. No politician in congress would consider touching Social Security with a 1000ft pole. They’d lose their job. They can’t do real cuts for the same reason. So breaking it solves those problems. Politicians get cover, they don’t pay anything out, it still comes out of your paycheck, and they rid themselves of the poorer old people. Breaking things *is* the plan.
years ago I worked at a Bank that hired contractors to translate 20 years of SAS macros into PySpark, and let me tell you it looked exactly like somebody had translated 20 years of SAS macros into PySpark. (It also literally would not run.)
Well, at least it'll be an interesting study of how far "vibe coding" has gone. But surely the post mortems are probably going to be even more interesting.
Your key phrase is "leadership." This is not the act of leaders. This is a bunch of inexperienced 19 year olds with no empathy under the direction of a ketamine-addled illegal immigrant that prefers to use the hard R.
@stompythebeast I just can’t support that. This isn’t going to just hurt people who voted for it. It’s going to hurt every elderly and/or disabled person who depends on Social Security to live — including many who desperately tried to keep the fascists out. There’s zero justice in this.
@mloxton @mwyman Oh, sure, I’ve seen plenty of the •attitude• — but never on something whose failure had the potential to kill so many people. That’s what pushes it into realms unmatched.
Not to distract from the bigger picture but seriously Wired, "COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages", is that the best you can do? How about "the USA, among the earliest united states in America"...
(and yes, of course, it is to distract the bigger, soooo much dumber. picture.. My brain can only process some much idiocy in a single day)
@mwyman Dunno I have seen this kind of wild-eyed ignoramus enthusiasm before in people who have cult-like leadership by people who are imperious and make sweeping changes, but are as immune or unaware of consequences as they are ignorant of the actual technology involved.
It is actually quite common among venture capital and private equity crews
This is a good time for anyone that has ever paid social security and medicare taxes to download their current social security statement and full earnings record, just in case.
not the most efficient approach I’ve ever seen. Americans are just dying on the in between. Efficient fraud investigations would start with corporate cronyism
$30k to convert a brilliant collection of JMP scripts generating daily manufacturing metrics in a fab to PHP2, rather than $700 for JMP to be installed on a new host.
JMP is stats software, with a mix of brilliant matrix, query, stats and graphing functionality. PHP2 did none of these well. I was averaging 6 lines of new code per line of original, was guaranteed to burn thru the budget, and had no idea how I was going to effectively debug self-rolled equivalents to selects, and graphs with error bars, etc, nor A/B compare my output against original. I said so to the CIO, and mercifully got fired off the task as it was cancelled.
See why I see resemblances? Bonkers idea, bad scoping, unlimited hubris, etc.
If you know COBOL there will be some highly paid work in the near future to clean up the mess they will create. If you do not know COBOL, consider that the need for this language is about to go up quickly and violently in a few months.
"the stupidest software-related idea I’ve ever hear"
This isn't about intelligent solutions that make life better for everyone. This is about breaking the institutions of a somewhat social, democratic society.
One thing I've learned about big, complicated systems built over a period of many years is that they are more often than not that way for a reason, and you'd better understand the reason before you mess with them.
@mattblaze The flawed mentality of “I can do it better than all the collective minds of the past despite having no experience” is an extreme exhibition of Dunning-Kruger effect.
A core component of making great decisions is understanding previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.
even if it were a brilliant idea, they still shouldn't be doing it? wtf -- given the connections they have, and the lack of oversight (and accountability), seems like a really fuckin stupid idea to let them do it?
@tsturm They will cite the failure as evidence that the government is incompetent, and that social security should be privatized. They will do this without irony or even a hint of a smirk.
But they reduced the public support staff *before* they refactor the entire system. Everyone might want to protect themselves by downloading any statement or reporting to use should things not line up on the other side
Based on scale and importance, I completely agree. However, I worked at a multi billion $ plant that wanted their mainframe code to run on Solaris, so they were going to use a COBOL to C converter. There are some completely stupid fucking ideas out there.
as an old in software development, I do not have enough fingers and toes to count how many fresh new hires say "we should start this over from scratch!"
they don't know any better because they lack the experience and judgement needed to differentiate between code that is _needlessly_ complex and code that is simply complex. part of my job is to help teach them that difference.
so yeah, basically just saying these DOGE assholes are n00bs. however, unlike shiny new employees, they have full commit access and aren't subjected to oversight.
setting aside the ignorance and insanity of their plans, there is no amount of money you could pay me to use or test anything conceived of, managed, or coded by these half wits. I will never set foot in a Tesla. Not go near any of his rocket launches nor his robots or autonomous cars. Musk is a dangerous imbecile. How he has managed to fool some many people for so long, I do not understand. #USPol #Tesla #SocialSecurity #Incompetents
holy wow. I always used to say that it was the hallmark of a senior engineer, that they had learned to resist the urge to rewrite it all. I guess Elon isn't exactly a senior engineer, so that checks out.
Several suggestions here that the actual aim is to break the system, default on payments and kill people seem to me to overlook a more plausible alternative.
Musk has long had an unshakeable commitment to having X becoming the everything app for all financial services (see Founders by Jimmy Soni on The PayPal Mafia). He failed. Taking over the social security system and effectively making it mandatory to have an account may be Take 2. Will fail again.
interesting a couple of weeks ago a friend was mention what happen to him when they try to optimize processes and remove unused routines to optimize their COBOL many years ago.
The best decision that his boss did: backup all
It was amazing they optimize a lot. Problem, it was a caos when live. Many of the processes unused status related by hidden sub processes 😀
Obviously there is a lot of news that is concerning (to put it lightly) but this is one that I feel in a deep, visceral way after 20+ years of keeping systems running, often during the migration to newer implementations (because the first re-implementation didn’t work). And by “a deep, visceral way” I mean actual physical nausea. And none of my systems were likely to result in the negligent mass homicide of elderly people.
I am shocked---shocked I say---that the guy who thought you could use bleach to treat COVID would believe someone who tells him we could use AI to rewrite COBOL
I worked on COBOL to PC translations in the 90's, including a big project at Oracle. They meant to go into that business big time but backed out as they realized how much harder and more expensive it was than it seemed.
I have often joked that I would learn COBOL after the boomers are gone for some lucrative and interesting job, however I wasn't expecting that to be somehow in the aftermath of something like this
Back in the early 1990s, I worked on a huge project that was mostly written from scratch in C++. Problem was, there wasn't a C++ compiler on the market yet that was capable of compiling the code without loads of compiler bugs. So instead they used a C++ translator that generated C, which was compiled conventionally.
But Glockenspiel was, at the time, incomplete. It didn't do multiple inheritance (no loss) and didn't do templates (very inconvenient). 1/
@FrozenPeach Dismantling the SEC would explain the jump in Tesla share prices last week. Cantor Fitzgerald published a ridiculously favorable analysis with a $400 share price target. With the SEC non-functional, the chances of anyone getting caught in a pump-and-dump scheme become miniscule.
See also the White House directive to end ownership reporting on shell companies. Makes insider trading on tariff news really easy.
Today's Low Quality Ad is for the Greenworks Cordless Lawn Mower, on sale for 25% off. It runs on batteries, like a Cybertruck. But it's not held together with shoddy glue. And rain won't destroy it. And its CEO isn't a big manchild that does Nazi salutes. amazon.com/dp/B09SY912MK?ref=t…
For the record I do know know anything about Greenworks' CEO, but in general I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they do not do Nazi salutes.
Is Greenworks basically the same company as Yardworks? Looks quite similar design and branding. I have to say... The yardworks cordless chainsaw I was... "Yeah I really want something with zero kickback protection..." Just like I would really like to have a spinning chain saw to hit me in the face if I'm not properly careful.
The image features a character from an animated series, dressed in a red hooded robe with a gold emblem, a gas mask, and red goggles. The character is holding out both hands, emitting blue magical energy from the palms. The background shows a sunset with an orange sky. The text at the top reads, "Wizard: You've powers are great. What school of magic to you specialize in? Could I peek at your spell book?" Below the image, the text reads, "Artificer: IT'S SCIENCE. I AIN'T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT."
Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Ovis2-8B
Epirus Leonidas High-Power Microwave (HPM) family of systems features the lowest cost per drone kill on the market using non-kinetic, high-power microwave di...
His absemtee father was an american citizen, Chess master Emory Tate so he has dual citizenship. He's also popular with the kind of disaffected white males Trump is hoping to use as his brownshirts, come 2028.
Trump administration invited a convicted rapist from Ireland, Conor McGregor, to the White House on St Patrick's Day. This went down like a lead balloon in Ireland.
One of Andrew Tate's girlfriends says he nearly choked her unconscious during a violent sexual encounter 2 weeks ago, prompting her to report the alleged incident to police ... TMZ has learned.
Pittsburgh's Carrie Furnace is a blast furnace which was part of Andrew Carnegie's massive Homestead Steel Works along the Monongahela River. I highly recommend the guided tour from May through October. backpackandsnorkel.com/USA/Pit…
If your goal is to uninstall the United States virus, because it may as well be one, there are some companies that appear to be outside Us Jurisdiction.
GenAI destoying Social Security is so narratively perfect I don't have words. In one fell swoop this regime may anger a critical mass of the population, ruin our social safety net, and demonstrate the snake oil of LLM technology.
It might not be Pi Day anymore, but Elliot and Dan got together for the approximately 100*Pi-th episode of the Podcast to run through the week’s coolest hacks. Ultrasound seemed to be one of …
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![Any sense of relief that may have followed the March executive order’s stipulation that a “strategic bitcoin reserve” would not incur costs to taxpayers has melted away with news that White House are already looking for creative ways to acquire bitcoin in a “budget neutral” way.
Bo Hines, the baffling choice of executive director for the White House’s “crypto advisory council” [I72, 74], sat for an interview in which he commented that “there’s a lot of high IQ people working on ... countless ideas” to ~~pump bitcoin prices to profit bitcoin holders~~ acquire additional bitcoins for the reserve, including “realizing the gains” on US gold reserves. Asked by the interviewer if he might consider selling some of the country’s gold reserves to swap them for bitcoin, Hines answered, “if it's budget neutral and doesn't cost a taxpayer a dime”.5
In the same interview, he commented that bitcoin “is different” from the other crypto assets like Ether, Ripple’s XRP, Solana, or Cardano’s ADA. “It’s unique. It’s a commodity, not a security.” Evidently, Hines has not been briefed that they’re not supposed to admit anymore that these other crypto assets are securities.5](https://friendica.rogueproject.org/photo/preview/640/395672 "Any sense of relief that may have followed the March executive order’s stipulation that a “strategic bitcoin reserve” would not incur costs to taxpayers has melted away with news that White House are already looking for creative ways to acquire bitcoin in a “budget neutral” way.
Bo Hines, the baffling choice of executive director for the White House’s “crypto advisory council” [I72, 74], sat for an interview in which he commented that “there’s a lot of high IQ people working on ... countless ideas” to ~~pump bitcoin prices to profit bitcoin holders~~ acquire additional bitcoins for the reserve, including “realizing the gains” on US gold reserves. Asked by the interviewer if he might consider selling some of the country’s gold reserves to swap them for bitcoin, Hines answered, “if it's budget neutral and doesn't cost a taxpayer a dime”.5
In the same interview, he commented that bitcoin “is different” from the other crypto assets like Ether, Ripple’s XRP, Solana, or Cardano’s ADA. “It’s unique. It’s a commodity, not a security.” Evidently, Hines has not been briefed that they’re not supposed to admit anymore that these other crypto assets are securities.5")
![Though the details were scarce, the press release suggested the crypto ETFs would “include a unique ETF basket of cryptocurrencies incorporating Bitcoin, Cronos, and other crypto assets.” (Cronos is the token issued by Crypto.com subsidiary Cronos Labs.) All of this will happen via the “Truth.Fi” brand, a business venture announced by Trump Media in February [I76]. There has been some controversy over this deal in the crypto world, centering around a decision by Crypto.com and Cronos to fund the deal by “reissuing” tokens notionally worth $7 billion that had been burned (ostensibly permanently destroyed) in 2021.7 The proposal was unpopular among many Cronos holders, and comments on the proposal were universally negative. “Veto. Reversing a burn is a violation of trust and integrity of the ecosystem,” commented one community member. “This is a disaster on so many levels—I don’t even know where to begin. This should be a firm NO, with a veto. It feels more like a rug pull from [Crypto.com], where they’re essentially seeking exposure to the US reserve using consumers' money,” argued another.8 Most Cronos validators voted no on the proposal. However, at the last minute, a sudden surge in yes votes came in from validators operated by Crypto.com, which controls 70–80% of the voting power in Cronos, forcing through the proposal.9](https://friendica.rogueproject.org/photo/preview/640/395676 "Though the details were scarce, the press release suggested the crypto ETFs would “include a unique ETF basket of cryptocurrencies incorporating Bitcoin, Cronos, and other crypto assets.” (Cronos is the token issued by Crypto.com subsidiary Cronos Labs.) All of this will happen via the “Truth.Fi” brand, a business venture announced by Trump Media in February [I76]. There has been some controversy over this deal in the crypto world, centering around a decision by Crypto.com and Cronos to fund the deal by “reissuing” tokens notionally worth $7 billion that had been burned (ostensibly permanently destroyed) in 2021.7 The proposal was unpopular among many Cronos holders, and comments on the proposal were universally negative. “Veto. Reversing a burn is a violation of trust and integrity of the ecosystem,” commented one community member. “This is a disaster on so many levels—I don’t even know where to begin. This should be a firm NO, with a veto. It feels more like a rug pull from [Crypto.com], where they’re essentially seeking exposure to the US reserve using consumers' money,” argued another.8 Most Cronos validators voted no on the proposal. However, at the last minute, a sudden surge in yes votes came in from validators operated by Crypto.com, which controls 70–80% of the voting power in Cronos, forcing through the proposal.9")
Krahabors
in reply to Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar • • •Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar
in reply to Krahabors • • •@krahabors No coming back up that long neck.
youtube.com/watch?v=YEy_0XXI0h…
White stork - hunting, catching and swallowing mice - Weißstorch
YouTubeKrahabors
in reply to Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar • • •Uwe
in reply to Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar • • •Y⃒̸̷̝̜̙ͥͥͥngmar
in reply to Uwe • • •