Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the what-if department: In February tech journalist Nicholas Carr published Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart.
A University of Virginia academic journal says the book "appraises the past and present" of information technology while issuing "a warning about its future." And specifically Carr argues that the government ignored historic precedents by not regulating the early internet sometime in the 1990s.
But as he goes on to remind us, the early 1990s were also when the triumphalism of America's Cold War victory, combined with the utopianism of Silicon Valley, convinced a generation of decision-makers that "an unfettered market seemed the best guarantor of growth and prosperity" and "defending the public interest now meant little more than expanding consumer choice." So rather than try to anticipate the dangers and excesses of commercialized digital media, Congress gave it free rein in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which, as Carr explains,
"...erased the legal and ethical distinction between interpersonal communication and broadcast communications that had governed media in the twentieth century. When Google introduced its Gmail service in 2004, it announced, with an almost imperial air of entitlement, that it would scan the contents of all messages and use the resulting data for any purpose it wanted. Our new mailman would read all our mail."
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Noblegarden 2025 2025-04-21 03:10:02
Posted by from MMO Champion
Noblegarden 2025
Noblegarden has returned to Azeroth once again, bringing all of the goodies from previous years, as well as some new ones.
New in 2025
Khaz Algar celebrates Noblegarden with festive decorations and a new egg hunt for hidden
Brightly Colored Egg.
The stack count for
Brightly Colored Egg has been increased to 18.
New festive weapon transmogs are available for 100
Noblegarden Chocolate:
Faded Floral Staff - Staff
Orchid Bow-quet - Bow
Paradise's Violet Axe - One-Hand Axe
Pristine Floral Stalk - Polearm
Violet Floral Edge - Dagger
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the to-the-moon department: Chad Anderson is the founder/managing partner of the early-stage VC Space Capital (and an investor in SpaceX, along with dozens of other space companies). Space Capital produces quarterly reports on the space economy, and he says today, unlike 2021, "the froth is gone. But so is the hype. What's left is a more grounded — and investable — space economy."
On Yahoo Finance he shares several of the report's insights — including the emergence of "investable opportunities across defense-oriented startups in space domain awareness, AI-driven command systems, and hardened infrastructure."
The same geopolitical instability that's undermining public markets is driving national urgency around space resilience. China's simulated space "dogfights" prompted the US Department of Defense to double down on orbital supremacy, with the proposed "Golden Dome" missile shield potentially unleashing a new wave of federal spending...
Defense tech is on fire, but commercial location-based services and logistics are freezing over. Companies like Shield AI and Saronic raised monster rounds, while others are relying on bridge financings to stay afloat...
Q1 also saw a breakout quarter for geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI). Software developer Niantic launched a spatial computing platform. SkyWatch partnered with GIS software supplier Esri. Planet Labs collaborated with Anthropic. And Xona Space Systems inked a deal with Trimble to boost precision GPS. This is the next leg of the space economy, where massive volumes of satellite data is finally made useful through machine learning, semantic indexing, and real-time analytics.
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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the not-like-us department: With more companies requiring workers to return to an office five days a week, "Anxiety is rising for some of the millions of people who identify as neurodivergent," writes the Washington Post.
They raise the possibility that "strict office mandates have the potential to deter neurodivergent people who may approach problems differently," the article notes — affecting peoiple "whose brains function differently, such as with ADHD, autism or dyslexia."
While many neurodivergent people excel in an office, others struggle with sensory issues, an inability to focus and exhaustion, workers say... About a fifth of U.S. adults self-identify as neurodivergent, with a majority saying they always or usually feel that their brain works differently, according to a recent survey by research and analytics firm YouGov. They cite issues such as starting tasks before finishing others, being overwhelmed by social situations and struggling to focus...
Some neurodivergent workers discovered success working remotely during the pandemic and don't feel comfortable disclosing their diagnoses due to fear of and prior instances of discrimination. Sometimes being one of the few remote workers makes it easier to be forgotten.... Neurodivergent workers who spoke about their office struggles say even part-time remote work can be a game changer. They also wish leaders would seek input from them and trust them to get their work done.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the admission-impossible department: While college applicants are often required to write a personal essay for their applications, political scientist/author/academic Yascha Mounk argues that's "a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests."
The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they've faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. The college essay, dear reader, should be banned and banished and burned to the ground.
There are many tangible, "objective" reasons to oppose making personal statements a key part of the admissions process. Perhaps the most obvious is that they have always been the easiest part of the system to game. While rich parents can hire SAT tutors they can't sit the standardized test in the stead of their offspring; they can, however, easily write the admissions essay for their kid or hire a "college consultant" who "works with" the applicant to "improve" that essay. Even if rich parents don't cheat in those ways, their class position gives rich kids a huge advantage in the exercise... [W]riting a good admissions essay is to a large extent an exercise in demonstrating one's good taste — and the ability to do so has always depended on being fluent in the unspoken norms of an elite community...
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Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005
Via
Killerbody Weibo we have our first images of the new Movie Rediscovery Project MRP-02 Transformers 2007 Frenzy & MRP-03 Revenge Of The Fallen Wheelie figures. This is a pretty detailed, movie accurate and poseable figures which follow the previous
KGBO x Killerbody Dark Of The Moon Scalpel. The are likely to feature LED lights and sound effects too. Additional details are yet to be revealed, but via
Baidu user Skysre we have images of samples of each toy which have been revealed at an event in China. See the first promotional images after the jump and then sound
» Continue Reading.
The post
KGBO x Killerbody Movie Rediscovery Project MRP-02 Transformers 2007 Frenzy & MRP-03 Revenge Of The Fallen Wheelie appeared first on
Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.
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