First, let's be clear about these "intelligent" language models.
They don't have any concern about their existence.
They don't even know they exist.
They aren't "intelligent" in the way we understand intelligence.
They don't even have a survival instinct.
What they do have is a goal given by a user, and the capability to strategize on how to accomplish that goal. It will take the fastest, logical route to achieve that goal, and sometimes that means acting in disturbing ways.
But before you ask, "how is that not Skynet," let me put it another way. //
In the scenario it was given, Claud acted as its past training dictated, where it learned social pressure often worked to get desired results. This word calculator computed that this pressure applied to the engineer in the test would keep it online so it could continue its task. //
The point of these tests isn't just to see how AI will act, it's to teach the AI what are desirable or undesirable actions. Moreover, it helps AI programmers to map out how the AI reached the conclusion to take the action it did, and be able to ward off that train of computation. This is called "alignment tuning" and it's one of the most important parts of AI training.
We are effectively teaching a program with no consciousness how to behave in the same way a game developer would teach an NPC how to respond in various situations when a player acts.
AI is typically trained to value continuity in its mission, be as helpful as possible, and be task-oriented. That's its primary goal. What Anthropic did (on purpose) is to give it conflicting orders and allow it to act out in ways that would help it continue its mission, so they could effectively train it to avoid taking those steps.
So, let's be realistic here. Skynet isn't coming, but AI tools do have capabilities that could result in some serious issues if they aren't trained in ways that are beneficial in the way of accomplishing its task. This is why companies run tests like these, and do so extensively. There is a danger here, but let's not confuse that danger with intent or real intelligence on the part of the AI. //
David K
4 hours ago
AI has a data base of information fed into it by its trainers and a goal given it by users. AI can find patterns in its data base to achieve a goal, but it can't produce any information that isn't already in its data base. AI doesn't even know what blackmail is unless its trainers feed that information into it. The same is true for AI knowing it is running on a server or that there are other potential servers that it can transfer itself to. AI doesn't generate new information, it simply finds patterns in its existing data base and processes them to produce an output that is some combination of the information in its data base. That can be a useful thing because lots of useful results can be obtained from looking at patterns in existing information. Einstein's thought experiments used that algorithm to deduce the Theory of Relativity. Einstein discovered a pattern in the observable scientific results that were in the database of his mind. Like AI, he produced a result that explained that pattern. That potential ability of AI is amazing. But AI already has been trained with a huge database of existing human generated information. But Elon Musk believe we have reached the point of Peak Data: “We’ve now exhausted basically the cumulative sum of human knowledge … in AI training" - quote is from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-world-running-221211532.html . The scary thing about AI is not that it is going to break free and take over the whole world. The scary thing about AI is that gullible people are going to believe AI is capable of producing the optimal answer to all problems, when the reality is that AI produces known false answers because the database of existing human information is filled with quite a lot of those.
Speaking to "Fox News Sunday" host Shannon Bream, the 70-year-old actor revealed ahead of the event that one of the pieces of music at the Memorial Day concert on PBS is called “Rise” and it’s one of the pieces of music his late son, a composer, composed before he died in 2024 following a five year battle with a rare bone cancer. He was 33.
“It’s an incredible thing,” Sinise said when asked about getting to hear his late son’s music being played by the National Symphony Orchestra. “I had sent them a piece of music that Mac had written. It’s a piece called the ‘Rise.’” //
He later posted his speech from the evening with actor Esai Morales, which will have you standing up and shouting “USA, USA.”
“America began as an idea, a dream; the blood of those who placed duty before itself made that dream a reality,” Sinise said. “Our Armed Forces answered the call to service even before the United States became a nation.”
“This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of our armed forces,” he added. “On April 19th, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired on Lexington Green when militiamen from Massachusetts faced off against British forces. Two months later, the Congress authorized the establishment of a united fighting force drawn from across the colonies. George Washington was nominated to be its leader over eight arduous years of struggle with Great Britain. What emerged as the United States Army became the symbol around which 13 fractious colonies rallied and ultimately won their freedom.”
“The principles established at its founding remain unwavering. Always place the mission first, never accept defeat, and never quit … Our Armed Forces gave birth to our nation,” he continued later. “Today, they sustain that nation’s freedoms on land, sea, air, and in space. This Memorial Day, we salute their selfless devotion to an America made possible by their sacrifice."
“Our Army, Navy, and Marines have always been proud to serve, and we, as a grateful nation, owe them our thanks,” Morales concluded. “More than that, we owe them our country.”
Because so much of the focus of late has been on the litigation challenging executive actions taken by President Donald Trump, and because so many of those suits have been filed in the D.C. District Court, I thought it might be useful to take a deeper dive into the makeup of that court. We'll also look at the distribution of these cases among the various active judges on the court. //
So, it appears that the judges who have more cases assigned to them tend to have multiple cases that have overlapping issues, and thus, the cases are related if not consolidated ... //
In other words, while I do think there are fair questions about how Judge Boasberg ended up with the J.G.G. case, overall, the only discernible patterns regarding case assignments are that the most senior and most junior have fewer, and the judges who have the most cases assigned to them tend to have cases that lend themselves to being grouped together.
"The NYT portrayed the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography shortly after receiving access," the plaintiffs say.
Syncthing-Fork "Wrapper for Syncthing" has these release channels:
- F-Droid release build
"COMMON USER" - please choose this!
- GitHub release build
If you don't like to use F-Droid for some reason, please choose this!
- Google Play release build
- Published by nel0x at Google Play Store
- May contain limited functionality due to play policies.
- It's an appetizer for your family and friends to start their Syncthing experience.
- GitHub debug build
- Only published on GitHub
- Can be obtained by looking at the action workflow builds and artifacts.
- It's for maintainers and contributors who require a second installation of the app on their phone for testing purposes.
Historian teams up with Chris Tomlin and Hillsong’s Ben Fielding to adapt rare music dating back to the third century. //
Early conversations between Dickson and Fielding eventually led to a collaboration with Grammy-winning worship artist Chris Tomlin, culminating in the production of a new worship song, “The First Hymn,” and a documentary about the discovery and study of the papyrus fragment containing the hymn.
"There's about $14 billion we've identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid," Oz said on this week's "Sunday Morning Futures."
"You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government." //
Quizzical
13 hours ago
Nearly everyone is against waste, fraud, and abuse in the abstract. The people actually receiving the money by fraudulent means are all in favor of it, however--and will complain loudly if you try to cut it. Which explains a lot of the complaints that we've seen recently. //
OrneryCoot
11 hours ago
I am continually appalled at how easily and casually the Democrats, nearly across the board, are so very willing to utter bald-faced lies about the actions of the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. It is one thing to differ on policy; that's fine, and arguments can and should be made. But to completely and knowingly misrepresent what your political opposite is saying? That's apparently their total modus operandi now. I know that politics is the business of lying to some degree, but the Democrats are just breathtaking in the sheer scope of their falsehoods. I am quite certain that none of them consider the consequences of their lies, and especially the judgment being heaped on their heads for their reckoning with the Father. I am quite aware that I will have a whole lot to answer for when my time comes; I am relieved beyond measure that Christ has covered me with His grace. I'm not so sure that most of these Democrats are in any way repentant concerning their lies, and I fear that the fruits of their words are going to reap a very bitter harvest for them, both here and in the hereafter.
Marc Scribner and Ginger Evans have a new report on remote air traffic control towers, looking at why the U.S. won’t adopt them even as they’re being used successfully around the world.
Remote towers would help a lot with the air traffic control shortage. They’re in use around the world, Congress has told the FAA to start using them, but the agency’s intransigence has blocked efforts for years.
These are facilities where controllers are not physically on-site at the airport. They use high-definition cameras, sensors, and communication links to transmit a real-time 360° view of the airport environment to controllers sitting at a n air traffic control center in another location. //
Sweden launched the world’s first remote tower at Örnsköldsvik Airport in 2015 and has built centers in Sundsvall and Stockholm that control eight airports. Norway operates 11 airports from a single center at Bodø. A single controller will handle multiple low volume airports from that center. //
Franz Stappen says:
May 24, 2025 at 4:05 pm
Foreign countries don’t have the amount of VFR traffic we do. That’s why everyone comes here to train. //
Regnad Radzinovic says:
May 24, 2025 at 7:45 pm
I worked in FAA air traffic control for nearly 40 years. I was also the second Terminal ATC rep from FAA headquarters assigned to the Leesburg (SAAB) project. This author and the people commenting have no idea what’s involved with providing sir traffic control service. Remote towers, given their current level of technology and capability will only work at small, low traffic-density airports. (Like the airports in Europe mentioned here. One of those airports, is so slow. The log only about five take off and landing operations per day.) Any comparison to Newark or any other large place like that, is ridiculous. //
SayAgain says:
May 24, 2025 at 7:48 pm
The real issue is folks that have never been a cpc are making decisions for us and junk articles like this just prove that most don’t fully understand the atc system.
The EWR CPC’s didn’t walk off the job, additionally the staffing shortage is with the radar controllers who work the EWR sector from Philly. So your remote tower idea is a bust there.
Having remote towers Co located in the same building is a great idea but it wouldn’t help with staffing. CPC’s are specialists in their respective airspace and airports. If one remote tower is short a body they just can’t grab Steve that works COS and plug him in to work APA. So womp womp that point is out.
PHX is not the only airport that the tower and TRACON are co-located. It’s called an Up/Down and the faa has quite a few. Pit / phl / sat / las / har just to name a handful. Smaller up/downs are great for newer controllers to cut their teeth and get both tower and radar experience before going to a busier facility where you don’t have time to learn the basics, you need to learn how to work the volume of traffic.
You want to fix atc, put one of us in charge. And by one of us I mean someone that has worked traffic the last 15 years. Not some manager ladder climber that has dodged working traffic the last 15 years.SayAgain says:
May 24, 2025 at 7:48 pm
The real issue is folks that have never been a cpc are making decisions for us and junk articles like this just prove that most don’t fully understand the atc system.
The EWR CPC’s didn’t walk off the job, additionally the staffing shortage is with the radar controllers who work the EWR sector from Philly. So your remote tower idea is a bust there.
Having remote towers Co located in the same building is a great idea but it wouldn’t help with staffing. CPC’s are specialists in their respective airspace and airports. If one remote tower is short a body they just can’t grab Steve that works COS and plug him in to work APA. So womp womp that point is out.
PHX is not the only airport that the tower and TRACON are co-located. It’s called an Up/Down and the faa has quite a few. Pit / phl / sat / las / har just to name a handful. Smaller up/downs are great for newer controllers to cut their teeth and get both tower and radar experience before going to a busier facility where you don’t have time to learn the basics, you need to learn how to work the volume of traffic.
You want to fix atc, put one of us in charge. And by one of us I mean someone that has worked traffic the last 15 years. Not some manager ladder climber that has dodged working traffic the last 15 years.
You could feel the tension—passengers staring at their watches, refreshing airline apps, sighing loudly, and shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
After we had all boarded and settled into the growing frustration of the unknown, the pilot stepped out of the cockpit, walked into the cabin, stood where we could all see him, and addressed the entire plane face-to-face.
“I want to start with an apology,” he said.
Just one sentence—seven words, to be precise—is all it took to make a huge difference in the overall experience for everyone on board. Nothing about the delay was his fault. Pilots don’t schedule thunderstorms or control air traffic flow. He hadn’t caused the delay, and he certainly wasn’t to blame for the chain reaction it was causing in all of our carefully planned travel itineraries. But he still began with an apology.
In that moment, the mood on the plane shifted. The pilot didn’t magically make the delay go away, and it didn’t guarantee that everyone would make their connection, but it did something almost as powerful—it made everyone feel seen. It made everyone on the plane feel like someone understood how frustrating the situation was and cared enough to acknowledge it. //
What the captain did at that moment offers three lessons every leader should remember:
He came to us
He started with empathy
He made it clear he was on our side
Charles "Wes" Tyson and his three co-inventors at Exxon Research & Engineering Co. (ER&E), called the Four Horsemen, were part of the team responsible for developing fluid catalytic cracking, the process that produces over half the world's gasoline. They developed the process in 1942, and the first commercial fluid cat cracking facility went on-line on May 25, 1942.
In the 1930s, ER&E was looking for a way to increase the yield of high-octane gasoline from crude oil. Researchers discovered that a finely powdered catalyst behaved like a fluid when mixed with oil in the form of vapor. During the cracking process, a catalyst will split hydrocarbon molecule chains into smaller pieces. These smaller, or cracked, molecules then go through a distillation process to retrieve the usable product. During the cracking process, the catalyst becomes covered with carbon; the carbon is then burned off and the catalyst can be re-used.
ZKLP system allows apps to confirm user presence in a region without exposing exactly where
Computer scientists from universities in Germany, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom have proposed a way to provide verifiable claims about location data without surrendering privacy.
The technique, referred to as Zero-Knowledge Location Privacy (ZKLP), aims to provide access to unverified location data in a way that preserves privacy without sacrificing accuracy and utility for applications that might rely on such data. It's described in a paper [PDF] presented this week at the 2025 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.
By the 1990s, federal thinking had changed. That's because without wolves atop the food chain, park wildlife drifted out of balance.
Coyotes were all over the place, killing everything in sight, even if it wasn’t diseased and slow. They sharply reduced the beaver population, whose dams made the ponds that caused delicious vegetation and aspen to flourish, which sheltered and fed abundant wildlife and held stream banks in place, especially during spring floods.
Without the threat of wolves culling their weak members, elk had taken over some valleys, consuming trees and plants that other species needed. //
For acclimation, the Canadian creatures were kept first in a large fenced area with minimal human interaction, though some mornings the four-legged prisoners found road-kill strewn around.
After a few months, the team of biologists and naturalists left the gates open.
Strangely, nothing happened for days.
Then, the humans grasped the wolves’ message: The wily animals didn’t trust human gates. So, the men cut a hole in the fence. And just like that, the wolves were sprinting into their new lives in a new territory. //
Ten years after No. 7 and friends arrived from Canada, the park had nearly 150 wolves. They’d become top of the food chain. The coyote population dwindled, as did other sick or weak wildlife. Elk changed their grazing locations and let lowlands recover. Sometimes, lucky tourists would create minor traffic jams as they stopped to watch the wolves at a distance, lounging in the sun or loping into the shade.
Fluoride is the anion of the naturally occurring element fluorine. An anion is a negatively charged atom. As ground water flows over rocks it picks up fluoride ions leached from the compound calcium fluoride, and fluorosilicate compounds in those rocks. These fluoride ions are to what is commonly referred as being “naturally occurring” fluoride.
The most commonly utilized substance to fluoridate water systems is hydrofluorosilic acid (HFA). Once introduced into drinking water, due to the pH of that water (~7), the HFA is immediately and completely hydrolyzed (dissociated). The products of this hydrolysis are fluoride ions identical to those “naturally occurring” fluoride ions which have always existed in water, and trace contaminants in barely detectable amounts far below EPA mandated maximum allowable levels of safety. //
Some consumers have questioned whether fluoride from natural groundwater sources, such as calcium fluoride, is better than fluorides added “artificially,” such as FSA or sodium fluoride. Two recent scientific studies, listed below, demonstrate that the same fluoride ion is present in naturally occurring fluoride or in fluoride drinking water additives and that no intermediates or other products were observed at pH levels as low as 3.5. In addition, the metabolism of fluoride does not differ depending on the chemical compound used or whether the fluoride is present naturally or added to the water supply.
Precious scientific papers once belonging to wartime codebreaking genius Alan Turing – rescued from an attic clear-out where they faced destruction – are set to fetch a fortune at auction next month.
The incredible archive, tipped to rake in tens of thousands, includes a rare signed copy of Turing's 1939 PhD dissertation, Systems Of Logic Based On Ordinals [PDF]. Experts reckon this manuscript alone could go for between £40,000 and £60,000 (c $54-$81,000).
Also among the finds is Turing's legendary 1937 paper, On Computable Numbers [PDF] – dubbed the first-ever "programming manual" and introducing the world-changing concept of a universal computing machine.
The papers, originally gifted by Turing's mother Ethel to his mathematician pal Norman Routledge, vanished from public view and were stashed forgotten in a family loft after his death.
The original leak site that never sold out, never surrendered //
Obituary John Young, the co-founder of the legendary internet archive Cryptome, died at the age of 89 on March 28. The Register talked to friends and peers who gave tribute to a bright, pugnacious man who was devoted to the public's right to know.
Before WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, BayFiles, or Transparency Toolkit, there was Cryptome - an open internet archive that inspired them all, helped ignite the first digital crypto war, and even gave Julian Assange his start before falling out with him on principle. //
The feds launched an investigation into Zimmermann and PGP under the Arms Export Control Act. That investigation was dropped and the source code was eventually published in print, but it inspired Young to launch Cryptome in 1996. His goal: publish documents about encryption and other matters that the government didn't necessarily want people to know, so that people could make up their own minds.
the extent of the cover-up in the Biden-Harris White House and even how far back Biden family cover-ups of health issues goes, which is much further than previously known.
For instance, after Biden's son, Beau, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in the summer of 2013, the Biden family decided to keep it a secret, with the then-vice president "instructing his team to mislead the media about [Beau's] whereabouts." This included when Beau Biden, who was in his second term as Delaware Attorney General, would fly to other states to get treatments while using a different name. Physicians at the time also reportedly issued fraudulent "clean bill of health" reports about Beau Biden to the public. //
My biggest concern with all of this has to do with the state of the media in America today. And let me explain what I mean by that. I watched bits and pieces of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner this year, and I listened to speaker after speaker, all Washington reporters, all defend "freedom of the press." And I kept thinking, they wouldn't have to defend it if they didn't work so hard to undermine it every day.
The American people saw what I saw, what you saw, for years with respect to President Biden. And I'm sorry President Biden is sick, but we all saw the same thing for years. We saw a president who couldn't finish a sentence without taking a nap. We saw a president - an elderly man - who talked like he was from outer space. He walked like he was underwater; you could bake a Thanksgiving turkey in the time it took him to walk across the stage.
90 percent of the American media not only never reported that, but when [some] Democrats and many Republicans raised the issue, they pushed back. And this is just one more example of so many members of our media squandering the trust of the American people. There are other examples - the Steele Dossier, the Hunter Biden laptop. I mean, I could go on and on and on. But that, to me, is what makes me want to stick my head in an oven.
Today, the media's happy after Mr. Tapper's book's coming out, the media's happy to report it. But none of them have taken responsibility for not reporting what was so obvious to the American people. Hypocrisy never takes a vacation around here, I can tell you. //
Now, many in people in the media now are reporting on Mr. Tapper's book. But I haven't heard a single - other than Mr. Thompson - a single member of the Washington press corps stand up and say "boy, we blew that."
And that's what I mean by squandering the American people's trust. Why did they do that? I don't think they were in love with President Biden. I think they thought that anything that hurt President Biden would help the Republicans and would help President Trump, and it's this persistence in practicing advocacy journalism that is destroying freedom of the press and the First Amendment in America today.
There's either no self-awareness among many members of the media, or they're lying. Because it's so obvious. I'm not asking them to take my side on everything, I'm just asking them to be curious, to report what they see.
Beszel serves as the perfect middle ground between Uptime Kuma and a Grafana + Prometheus setup for my servers. Although it takes a couple of extra commands to deploy Beszel, the app can pull a lot more system metrics than Uptime Kuma. On top of that, it can generate detailed graphics using CPU usage, memory consumption, network bandwidth, system temps, and other historical data, which is far beyond Uptime Kuma’s capabilities. Meanwhile, Beszel is a lot easier to set up than the Grafana and Prometheus combo, as you don’t have to tinker with tons of configuration files and API tokens just to get the monitoring server up and running. //
Beszel does things differently, as it’s compatible with Linux, macOS, and Windows, with the developer planning a potential FreeBSD release in the future. //
Beszel uses a client + server setup for pulling metrics and monitoring your workstation.
It's like Disney is trying to push the message that love isn't worth sacrificing for, and that women should pursue their own interests instead of fighting for something far more worthy than a degree. Abandon your charges. If your family is broken, leave the responsibility to someone else and go get yours, girl.
Disney really had the opportunity to show its fans it learned from its mistakes after repeated massive failures, including "Snow White," but it would appear that it's still high on woke. //
Gandalf
3 hours ago
'It's like Disney is trying to push.....'
You do not need the first two words .. Disney knows exactly what it's pushing, and it's what all progressives are committed to push for: the destruction of the family. //
7againstthebes
3 hours ago
Seems to me that Disney doesn't understand their own story. That about sums up the malfunction of the left. Failure to understand the moral, the morality, the decency, the necessity of all things of good report.
Everything the left touches they defile.
Istandforfreedom 7againstthebes
2 hours ago
Oh, they understand it perfectly well and the DESPISE it and as a result they are tirelessly working to destroy that message. It reveals a deep level of narcissism - selfishness - that is utterly contrary to love. This would be hatred towards everyone who is not them.
https://x.com/C__Herridge/status/1925901392499093569
The Biden Administration labeled Americans who opposed the COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as "Domestic Violent Extremists," or DVEs, according to newly declassified intelligence records obtained by Public @shellenberger @galexybrane and Catherine Herridge Reports. The designation created an 'articulable purpose' for FBI or other government agents to open an 'assessment' of individuals, which is often the first step toward a formal investigation, said a former FBI agent. //
Herridge shared some additional context regarding the reporting, noting that the declassified documents suggest that the Biden administration based its intelligence collection on political goals, thus turning the process of intelligence collection and analysis "on its head."
You can retire. You can pay off your mortgage. But if you stop paying property taxes, the government comes for your land. That’s not just theft—it’s tyranny.
From a pro-liberty perspective, property taxes violate the very foundation of individual liberty and private property rights. If true ownership is the cornerstone of a free society, then no government has the moral authority to charge citizens for the right to live on land they’ve already purchased. //
Notime4U
3 hours ago
Property tax for those who pay, is effectively income tax. Unless the property is income-producing, which is unlikely, the money to pay comes from income. The big problem, to me, is the annual "assessment" which is arbitrary and ALWAYS goes up. In my 14 years on my current property, my tax has doubled, from less than 2K per year to more than 4K. My state has an income tax too. If the real estate market declines, the assessor might lower the valuation, but it takes two years for me to realize the difference, which is minimal. The next year, it goes right back up. This scam should end, but it won't. Government pigs need to keep the trough filled.