Enter the domain name or IP address of the NTP server you want to measure.

Data from PMM, Percona's open source database management tool, shows that 58 percent of MySQL and MariaDB (a MySQL fork) instances are running MySQL 8.0, while 18.8 percent are running 5.7, which went out of support in 2023.

While users might put off database migration because of the disruption involved, they should be aware that the upgrade from MySQL 8.0 to 8.4 – the most recent stable version – is not nearly so onerous as the upgrade from 5.7 to 8.0. "It was a very big and painful jump," Zaitsev told us.

Fred Duck Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
13y
6,614
Nate Anderson said:
But those who value both thought and expression will see the AI “easy button” for the false promise that it is and will continue to do the hard work of engaging with ideas, including their own, in a way that no computer can do for them.
Some people liken LLM to typewriters. They say that just as with typewriters, instead of labouriously hand writing messages out, the end result is what's important and this new technology helps distill that as quickly as possible.

However, typewriters dispense with the metadata of handwriting. Emotion can be displayed differently in handwriting, all of which is lost when merely presenting the text of the message. More crucially, in the modern LLM case, the ideas presented aren't even those of the submitter but they claim the ideas are close enough that they should be treated as such, which is a load of dingos' kidneys.

People will try to justify LLM by citing people with poor communication skills or physical disabilities which limit their ability to craft messages quickly and easily. However, communication is a skill and vanishingly few people are born knowing how to communicate perfectly. Everyone needs to put some work into skills to improve them and it boggles the mind that so few people realise that's what coursework is: practice for when you need to do something to accomplish a real goal, not simply marks for a course.

Unfortunately, modern life is at odds with thinking. We're constantly being bombarded by information, adverts, entertainment, news, comments from random internet yahoos, etc. So many messages come to us crafted to sway our opinions and shape our thoughts yet in the modern age, we tend to silo ourselves, content to seeking out echo chambers to self-validate our "vibes" instead of engaging with other ideas to see if they're sound or not.

Some people claim LLM are, as with calculators, something that are simply going to be with us so fighting them is meaningless. This skirts the issue that a calculator won't automatically generate answers for multistep procedures whereas an LLM will.

Perhaps what needs to be done is explain to the youth what exactly is expected of them. We put so much emphasis on finding the right answers but do we ever stop to emphasise it's the journey, not the destination that's of greater importance? As a young person, I don't believe anyone ever told me directly.

I imagine such a concept is too difficult for many to grasp but I still feel we should try. As the old saying goes, you can lead a duck to bread but you can't make him eat.

AI can be an amazing tool that can assist with coding, web searches, data mining, and textual summation—but I’m old enough to wonder just what the heck you’re doing at college if you don’t want to process arguments on your own (i.e., think and read critically) or even to write your own “personal reflections” (i.e., organize and express your deepest thoughts, memories, and feelings). Outsource these tasks often enough and you will fail to develop them.

I recently wrote a book on Friedrich Nietzsche and how his madcap, aphoristic, abrasive, humorous, and provocative philosophizing can help us think better and live better in a technological age. The idea of simply reading AI “summaries” of his work—useful though this may be for some purposes—makes me sad, as the desiccated summation style of ChatGPT isn’t remotely the same as encountering a novel and complex human mind expressing itself wildly in thought and writing.

And that’s assuming ChatGPT hasn’t hallucinated anything.

So good luck, students and professors both. I trust we will eventually muddle our way through the current moment. Those who want an education only for its “credentials”—not a new phenomenon—have never had an easier time of it, and they will head off into the world to vibe code their way through life. More power to them.

But those who value both thought and expression will see the AI “easy button” for the false promise that it is and will continue to do the hard work of engaging with ideas, including their own, in a way that no computer can do for them.

Nvidia recently made headlines by announcing that one of the companies it is partnering with, Starcloud, plans to build a 5-gigawatt orbital data center with “super-large solar and cooling panels approximately 4 kilometers in width and length.”

To put that into perspective, the eight main solar arrays on the International Space Station—the largest ever assembled in space, requiring many space shuttle launches and spacewalks—span about 100 meters and produce a maximum of about 240 kW. That’s about 0.005 percent of the power Starcloud intends to generate. //

However, it sounds a little more feasible if such an array could be assembled autonomously. And on Thursday morning, Starcloud, along with a new in-space assembly company, Rendezvous Robotics, announced an agreement to explore the use of modular, autonomous assembly to build Starcloud’s data centers.

➤ You, the consumer, purchased your Android device believing in Google’s promise that it was an open computing platform and that you could run whatever software you choose on it. Instead, starting next year, they will be non-consensually pushing an update to your operating system that irrevocably blocks this right and leaves you at the mercy of their judgement over what software you are permitted to trust.

Shortly after our post was published, Google aired an episode of their Android Developers Roundtable series, where they state unequivocally that “sideloading isn’t going anywhere”. They follow-up with a blog post:

Does this mean sideloading is going away on Android? Absolutely not. Sideloading is fundamental to Android and it is not going away.

This statement is untrue. The developer verification decree effectively ends the ability for individuals to choose what software they run on the devices they own.

It bears reminding that “sideload” is a made-up term. Putting software on your computer is simply called “installing”, regardless of whether that computer is in your pocket or on your desk. This could perhaps be further precised as “direct installing”, in case you need to make a distinction between obtaining software the old-fashioned way versus going through a rent-seeking intermediary marketplace like the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

Regardless, the term “sideload” was coined to insinuate that there is something dark and sinister about the process, as if the user were making an end-run around safeguards that are designed to keep you protected and secure. But if we reluctantly accept that “sideloading” is a term that has wriggled its way into common parlance, then we should at least use a consistent definition for it. Wikipedia’s summary definition is:

the transfer of apps from web sources that are not vendor-approved

By this definition, Google’s statement that “sideloading is not going away” is simply false. //

You, the consumer, purchased your Android device believing in Google’s promise that it was an open computing platform and that you could run whatever software you choose on it. Instead, starting next year, they will be non-consensually pushing an update to your operating system that irrevocably blocks this right and leaves you at the mercy of their judgement over what software you are permitted to trust. //

As a reminder, this applies not just to devices that exclusively use the Google Play Store: this is for every Android Certified device everywhere in the world, which encompasses over 95% of all Android devices outside of China. Regardless of whether the device owner prefers to use a competing app store like the Samsung Galaxy Store or the Epic Games Store, or a free and open-source app repository like F-Droid, they will be captive to the overarching policies unilaterally dictated by a competing corporate entity. //

Developer verification is an existential threat to free software distribution platforms like F-Droid as well as emergent commercial competitors to the Play Store. We are witnessing a groundswell of opposition to this attempt from both our user and developer communities, as well as the tech press and civil society groups, but public policymakers still need to be educated about the threat.

To learn more about what you can do as a consumer, visit keepandroidopen.org for information on how to contact your representative agencies and advocate for keeping the Android ecosystem open for consumers and competition.

Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph (295 kph), one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects.

A 9-year-old child was attacked by a coyote that snagged a sock off the youngster who was playing a game of hide-and-seek in Oregon, according to authorities.

The 9-year-old and a 3-year-old were “playing hide-and-seek in their yard” when a wayward coyote approached them and chomped on the older child’s foot last week in Alameda, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department said in a press release.

The coyote then chased the 9-year-old until the child’s father, who was on the front porch, yelled at the rogue animal and scared it off, authorities said. //

Dave Keiter, a district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told KATU the attack was a “very unusual incident.”

“The vast majority of encounters with coyotes are entirely benign,” Keiter told the outlet.

Alameda residents have been “strongly encouraged” to supervise their young children playing outside and to scare away coyotes by yelling, using airhorns, and creating other loud noises.

The Issue: Bill Gates’ revision of his former stance on the urgency of fighting climate change.
Well, well, well — Microsoft founder and climate-change zealot Bill Gates has had a change of heart (“Gates: OK, sky not falling,” Oct. 29).

He knows he’s milked the climate-change cow for all its worth, and now he’s on to the next big money-maker: artificial intelligence.

He’s acutely aware of the tremendous need for electricity to power Microsoft’s development and deployment of AI.

He’s also aware that this energy won’t come from windmills and solar panels, but from gas, coal and nuclear power plants.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then greed is the father.

Way back in the 1870s — when global temperature were supposedly ideal — approximately 50 million people died globally related to extreme weather, particularly related to an extreme El Nino event of 1877-88.

The 1870s also saw the Great Midwest Wildfires of 1871 which killed as many as 2,400 people, the massive 1872 Baltic Sea flood, a 1875 midwestern locust swam of an estimated 12.5 trillion locusts, the 1878 China typhoon that killed as many as 100,000 people, and the U.S. experienced 6 landfalling major hurricanes in the 1870s, compared to just 3 in the 2010s.

It is not widely appreciated, but 2025 (still with two months to go), is currently on track for the lowest global death toll from extreme weather in all of human history. Part of that is good fortune to be sure — for instance, the Northern Hemisphere is well below average in terms of tropical cyclone activity.

When chlorine gas, bleach or other chlorine-containing disinfectant contacts water, it becomes hypochlorous acid. This acid readily reacts with organic matter contained in the water to form trihalomethanes.

These compounds are carcinogenic, meaning they are known to lead to cancer. In 1974, these effects were first acknowledged and in 1979, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began regulating allowable concentrations of THMs in drinking water, limiting it to 100 parts per billion.

adiation. Should I be concerned about it? Is it safe? Is it harmful? How do I know when it is okay and when it isn’t? Some people say it is nothing to be concerned about, but others say even a little is too much—what should I believe?

We all have questions about radiation and it isn’t easy to sort through the available material to find answers. Sometimes the information is too technical or it is too hard to find just the answer you’re looking for. The purpose of the information on this Web site is to help you find answers quickly and easily.

The radiation warning symbol should not be confused with the civil defense symbol designed to identify fallout shelters. For more information about the latter, view the collection item Civil Defense Fallout Shelter Sign.

Radiation Warning Symbol (Trefoil)
Radiation warning symbol

The civil defense symbol for a fallout shelter consists of a circle divided into six sections, three black and three yellow. The general form is very similar to the above however there is no central circle. The Office of Civil Defense originally intended fallout shelters to use the radiation warning symbol with the circle in the center and the three blades, but this idea was rejected because a fallout shelter represents safety whereas the radiation warning symbol represents a hazard.

The three-bladed radiation warning symbol, as we currently know it, was "doodled" out at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley sometime in 1946 by a small group of people. This event was described in a letter written in 1952 by Nels Garden, head of the Health Chemistry Group at the Radiation Laboratory: "A number of people in the group took an interest in suggesting different motifs, and the one arousing the most interest was a design which was supposed to represent activity radiating from an atom."

The first signs printed at Berkeley had a magenta (Martin Senour Roman Violet No. 2225) symbol on a blue background. In an earlier letter written in 1948, Garden explained why this particular shade of magenta color was selected: "it was distinctive and did not conflict with any color code that we were familiar with. Another factor in its favor was its cost... The high cost will deter others from using this color promiscuously." Explaining the blue background, he said, "The use of a blue background was selected because there is very little blue color used in most of the areas where radioactive work would be carried out." //

Despite Garden's view to the contrary, most workers felt that a blue background was a poor choice. Blue was not supposed to be used on warning signs, and it faded, especially outdoors. The use of yellow was standardized at Oak Ridge National Lab in early 1948. At that time, Bill Ray and George Warlick, both working for K.Z. Morgan, were given the task of coming up with a more suitable warning sign, a blue background being too unacceptable. Ray traveled to Berkeley and picked up a set of their signs. Back in Oak Ridge, Ray and Warlick had their graphics people cut out the magenta symbols and staple them on cards of different colors. Outdoors, and at a distance of 20 feet, a committee selected the magenta on yellow as the best combination.

The Office of Civil Defense originally intended fallout shelters to use the radiation warning symbol (yellow background with a magenta circle in the center of three magenta blades) but this idea was rejected because a fallout shelter represents safety whereas the radiation warning symbol represents a hazard. The above version of the national fallout shelter sign was introduced to the public by the Defense Department on December 1, 1961. It was intended to only be used with federally approved shelters. Unlike this example, these signs often had yellow arrows below the words "fallout shelter" to indicate the direction to the shelter. In 1962, contracts were negotiated for the production of 400,000 aluminum outdoor signs and one million steel signs for indoors.

Yesterday, in his periodic letter to the world, Bill Gates shared three truths about climate change — and shook up the climate discussion. While the longer term implications of his letter are uncertain, early signs are that Gates has injected a welcome dose of climate realism into the discussion.

Here are his three truths (and I encourage everyone to read his whole letter):

1. Climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization;
   1. Temperature is not the best way to measure our progress on climate;
   2. Health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change.

For most THB readers, these truths will be well understood, even common sense, and will seem neither shocking nor scandalous.

But for some steeped in climate advocacy grounded in visions of “existential threat” or a looming apocalypse, Gates’ truths have rocked their world.

The document concentrates accurate information about radiation into a a tri-fold that can be read and understood in just a few minutes. It is a valuable presentation handout, would be a useful addition to the material offered in doctor’s offices, and should be a part of any classroom discussion about radiation.

Robert Hargraves, who has lived a life of achievement including writing a well received book titled Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, founding a business, serving as Chief Information Officer for Boston Scientific, serving as an assistant professor and associate director of the computation center at Dartmouth College, publishing numerous peer-reviewed articles on a variety of topics and earning a PhD in Physics from Brown University, researched and produced “Radiation: The Facts” as a “labor of love”.

Hargraves tapped a deep pool of expertise by requesting reviews and comments from his extensive contact list that includes radiation biologists, health physics professionals, and nuclear engineers. Though space on a brochure is obviously limited, Robert has provided the references supporting the statements on the brochure on his web site and given creative commons license for others to republish his work.

We are writing to express our concerns with a January 30, 2014 article by Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman. The article is alarmingly titled, “We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer”, and is accompanied by a frightening cartoon that appears to be a doctor holding an X-ray film, and wearing a gas mask and helmet. The picture and title are the first clues that sensational claims follow, and the article does not disappoint in that regard, though it falls far short in offering prudent medical advice to frightened patients and parents.

The authors only mention in passing that medical imaging can save lives, and quickly move on to assert that there is little evidence of better health outcomes from current scanning practices. They do not mention, for example that the National Lung Screening Trial recently found that former smokers who received CT screening were 20% less likely to die from lung cancer and 7% less likely to die from any cause, compared to those who were screened with lower dose chest radiography. They do not mention the studies demonstrating the clear clinical benefits of mammography, bone mineral densitometry, and CT colonography. They do not mention the hundreds of studies that suggest that the body’s natural defense systems are quite capable of dealing with very low doses of radiation – like those that have existed on our planet since its beginning and those associated with modern medical imaging.

This essay responds to an article by Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson et al, 
100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World. Their controversial WWS roadmap has several interesting features and benefits. //

Several authors have pointed out the impossibility of this Stanford WWS roadmap. Jesse Jenkins and Samuel Thernstrom published Deep Decarbonization of the Electric Power Sector. Mathijs Beckers wrote The Non-Solutions Project of Mark Z. Jacobson.

Misled by Jacobson, climate activists such as Bill McKibben of 350.org calls for world war-like mobilization of nations to effect the $125 trillion WWS roadmap.

This present essay describes a doable, affordable liquid fission (LF) power roadmap to solve the multiple issues of climate change, air pollution, and poverty reduction.

In August 2025, Google announced that starting next year, it will no longer be possible to develop apps for the Android platform without first registering centrally with Google. //

➤ You, the consumer, purchased your Android device believing in Google’s promise that it was an open computing platform and that you could run whatever software you choose on it. Instead, starting next year, they will be non-consensually pushing an update to your operating system that irrevocably blocks this right and leaves you at the mercy of their judgement over what software you are permitted to trust.