Free Republic

Over the last decade or so, computer science seemed like a pretty safe bet when it came to choosing a major, but a recent Washington Post analysis reports that enrollment growth in computer science has begun to stall or decline as students rethink what artificial intelligence means for coding careers. Today we’re going to delve into why computer science majors are on the decline, along with what it could mean for students and recent graduates looking to start careers in computer science. Let’s begin. Why Computer Science Enrollment Is Cooling OffIt’s not as if tech jobs disappeared overnight, so what...

What happens when engineers build something that works perfectly — and the world still finds a way to make it disappear? The Napier Deltic was a genuinely bizarre piece of engineering: a diesel engine shaped like an equilateral triangle, with three crankshafts, thirty-six pistons, and no cylinder heads at all. Born out of postwar desperation at D. Napier and Son — a company that had built some of the most powerful aircraft engines of the Second World War and suddenly had no aircraft left to power — the Deltic went on to serve in Royal Navy minesweepers for over thirty...

The five-year survey finished ahead of schedule and with more data, hinting at unexpected dark energy properties. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has achieved its goal. Every single area of the sky that the collaboration set out to map has been mapped, and slightly ahead of its five-year target. DESI was set to gather data on 34 million galaxies and quasars. The final tally of the survey was 47 million galaxies and quasars, the largest high-resolution 3D map of the Universe ever assembled. The ultimate goal is to understand dark energy. Dark energy is a crucial component that is...

Americans are staring at $4+ gas and asking a simple question that should have a simple answer. If the United States is the largest oil producer on Earth, why does it still feel like an oil-importing country every time prices spike? That question matters far beyond the gas station. It cuts straight into inflation, consumer behavior, Fed policy, and where capital flows next. What looks like a pricing anomaly is actually a structural reality that investors ignore at their own risk.This Was Supposed to Be the Easy PartGasoline prices have climbed to an average of roughly $4.26 per gallon, the...

Dan Abrams ripped House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Thursday for calling the U.S. Supreme Court “illegitimate.” Jeffries made the comments after the court ruled 6-3 to erode the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that gave voters the ability to challenge electoral maps as “racially discriminatory.” “Today’s ruling by this illegitimate Supreme Court strikes a blow against the Voting Rights Act and is designed to undermine the ability of communities of color all across this country to elect their candidate of choice,” Jeffries said at a Wednesday press conference. President Donald Trump responded on Truth Social, calling Jeffries “a Low...

Archaeologists in Chile have uncovered a 16th-century silver coin, confirming the location of one of South America's most infamous failed colonial settlements at the site of Rey Don Felipe – later known as Puerto del Hambre, or "Port Famine".Located on the north shore of the Strait of Magellan, Rey Don Felipe was founded in 1584 with around 300 Spanish settlers. According to historical accounts, the extreme conditions led to the settlers starving or freezing to death, and by the arrival of English navigator Thomas Cavendish in 1587, the settlement was mostly in ruins.The coin, valued at eight reals and bearing...

President Trump withdrew the Casey Means nomination yesterday afternoon, blamed Senator Cassidy, and within minutes named Dr. Nicole B. Saphier of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as his third Surgeon General nominee in fifteen months. The first MAHA-base reaction I have seen, online and in my inbox, has been something between “who?” and “Fox News pick - sellout.” I want to push back on the second reaction before it hardens, because the documentary record on Saphier is genuinely more interesting than the press coverage has so far conveyed, and the right MAHA reading of her is not the obvious one.This...

US Space Command Gen Stephen Whiting warns such a move could disrupt GPS, communications and daily life across the globe/ The head of U.S. Space Command said the U.S. is "very concerned" that Russia may be developing a nuclear weapon in space to target satellites, warning such a move could disrupt global communications, GPS systems and daily life on Earth. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, the commander of U.S. Space Command, made the remarks during an appearance on The General & The Journalist, a weekly podcast by The Times. "Russia remains a very historic and sophisticated space power. Yes, they have...

Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, has repeated his belief that Iran will take part in the World Cup this summer despite the federation failing to attend congress in Vancouver. A three-man delegation representing the Iranian Football Federation flew to Toronto on Tuesday, but one of their number was denied entry to Canada, with the two others declining to attend congress in an apparent act of protest. Iranian media reported earlier this week that the IFF president, Mehdi Taj, was turned away at Toronto’s Pearson airport despite having been given permission to travel. Fifa sources described the matter as a “regrettable situation”...

I honestly never expected to hear Chuck Schumer announce that he and the rest of the official Democratic Party apparatus would hereby spend millions of dollars to elect a man with a literal Nazi tattoo on his body and a trail of Hamas fandom on his Internet history. But perhaps that’s on me—my expectations were too high. Because that’s what happened today. Graham Platner, a man who makes excuses for political violence, obsesses about the Jews and their supposed nefarious influence on public life, and who according to acquaintances and former employees laughed and bragged about his Nazi tattoo for...

Fifty-one years ago today, April 30, 1975, the last American helicopter lifted off the Saigon embassy roof. We had won. Nixon and Kissinger’s Paris Peace Accords forced the North to recognize South Vietnam’s sovereignty. America promised air power and supplies if they violated it. The ARVN was finally ready to defend itself. Then Watergate. Democrats won huge majorities in 1974. They slashed aid by over 75%, banned any U.S. response to Soviet rearmament of the North, and watched as the Communists violated every agreement. No bullets. No gas. No tires for their Jeeps. South Vietnam collapsed—not from lack of courage,...

Our own commercial shipbuilding industry has a lot of catching up to do. We should pass the SHIPS for America Act to support it as soon as possible. Last month an eye-popping headline came out of the Chinese shipping and logistics industry: Cosco, a state-owned shipping conglomerate based in Shanghai, had struck a deal with another state-owned firm – China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) – for 87 new vessels across all segments of its fleet. Maritime Executive said the order includes “ultra-large container ships, ultra-large bulk carriers, ultra-large oil tankers, grain transport ships, multi-purpose heavy lift vessels, MR tankers, ro-ro...

… If cigarettes are suddenly back in the frame, it’s because they suit the mood. “We have moved on from clean girl culture and we're interested in this sort of hedonistic, slightly rebellious, even nihilist culture,” says Wellman. Pop culture is starting to grow bored with self-optimization and more interested in looking messy and a little destructive — think “Brat Summer” — a vibe that suits cigarettes. In popular media, smoking signals someone is “cool, edgy and sexy,” according to Grace Kong, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine with expertise in preventing youth tobacco use. Cigarettes...

Unmanned Surface Vessels and Submarines Form Ghost Fleet's Core · U.S. Navy Plans 10 of Each by 2028 · Aegis Combat Systems and Multiple Missiles Onboard Deployed Ahead of Carrier Strike Groups.. Within and outside the U.S. military, critics frequently point out that aircraft carrier operations — long a showcase of America's supreme military power — have become dangerously vulnerable. The concern is that China has been building up its arsenal of long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers and Aegis destroyers, potentially cornering the United States in a contingency. China has completed development...

Archaeologists from the University of Warsaw have discovered a concentration of shipwrecks near the ancient port of Ptolemais in northern Libya... one of the five cities that formed the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica, established by the Ptolemaic dynasty between the late 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The city emerged as a major hub for maritime trade until the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD.Covering a stretch of over 100 metres, the large concentration of submerged material suggests that multiple shipwrecks accumulated over time as a navigational danger for ships approaching the harbour.After a 13-year hiatus due to the Libyan civil...

US and five Latin American nations accuse Beijing of politicizing maritime trade after canal port dispute. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned China that "the sovereignty of our hemisphere is non-negotiable" after the U.S. and regional allies accused Beijing of detaining Panama-flagged ships in a dispute tied to canal port control. In a joint statement with Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S. said China’s actions targeting Panama-flagged vessels were a "blatant attempt to politicize maritime trade" and infringe on regional sovereignty, framing the dispute as a broader strategic test over control of one of the...

American officials are considering foreign designs and having U.S. warship components built in overseas yards as part of an expansive manufacturing study proposed in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget,... Specifically, the Pentagon has directed the Navy to consider Japanese and Korean shipyards and designs for use in the U.S. fleet, USNI News has learned. Earlier this week, when asked about the study, the now former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan told USNI News that the Department of the Navy was considering foreign shipyards for not only auxiliary supply ships, but also for work on U.S. warships... South Korea and...

Spanish archaeologists have documented over 30 shipwrecks in the waters between the Rock of Gibraltar and the port of Algeciras.This discovery follows a three-year study titled Project Herakles. Led by the University of Cádiz, the team identified 151 archaeological sites and 134 total wrecks, according to The Guardian...The researchers worked with colleagues from the University of Granada to document 34 specific wrecks.These vessels represent a diverse array of eras and cultures:Punic era: One ship dating back to the fifth century B.C.Roman period: 23 Roman ships and two late Roman ships.Medieval period: Four vessels, including three that may clarify seafaring practices...

The easiest way to misunderstand the Navy’s shipbuilding mess is to treat it as a shipyard story. That is how the issue is usually framed. Too few workers, too much complexity, too much bureaucracy, too many delays. None of that is wrong, but it is only the visible part of the problem. The deeper problem sits upstream. The Navy’s procurement troubles reflect not just industrial strain, but a long stretch of strategic drift. If Washington cannot decide what kind of fleet it wants, shipbuilders will never deliver it on time... For most of the Cold War, the Navy knew what...

In April, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. It aims to address the nation’s dependence on foreign manufacturers of commercial and military ships. To make this possible, we are going to have to restore conditions and levels of investment that haven’t been seen since the 1970s. That was the last time the U.S. had anything approaching global maritime dominance. The U.S. needs warships as well as containerships and bulk ships, and it needs them pronto. We don’t have the workforce required to mount the kind of resurgence the government is looking for, and costs are...