Free Republic

Hi everyone. For the last couple of days, when I copy something, my computer refuses to paste it on the Internet. I've tried rebooting. I would hate to have to do a serial reboot. Does anyone have any ideas how I might fix this problem?

By now, we’re all tired of hearing about the virtual currency turned investment craze known as Bitcoin. Created in response to the 2008 financial crisis, anarcho-capitalists hailed it as the decentralized future of commerce. But as prices soared and the biggest names on Wall Street bought in, Bitcoin became mostly known as a speculative, unregulated investment. Think Beanie Babies, but you can also use them to buy drugs and engage in human trafficking. Perhaps the most remarkable Bitcoin storyline recently has been just how much computational horsepower it takes to create the virtual currency: some 26 quintillion calculations per second....

Four months ago, James O'Keefe caught multiple Twitter employees on undercover video discussing how algorithms are used to "shadowban" their conservative users. What's a shadowban? It's basically stealth censorship that throttles or hides a user or his content from some or all of Twitters users. There are no warnings. Everything looks the same to the user, except he's largely tweeting into a void. Twitter, of course, denied that the employees were speaking for the company or that Twitter uses shadow bans. This week's announcement that Twitter will be using algorithms that analyze user behavior to downgrade or hide tweets from...

Researchers have been able to confine light down to a space one atom, the smallest possible. This will pave the way to ultra-small optical switches, detectors and sensors. Light can function as an ultra-fast communication channel, for example between different sections of a computer chip, but it can also be used for ultra-sensitive sensors or on-chip nanoscale lasers. There is currently much research into how to further shrink devices that control and guide light. New techniques searching for ways to confine light into extremely tiny spaces, much smaller than current ones, have been on the rise. Researchers had previously found...

Today, May 16, is a grave day in our battle for the Internet, as it is the last ditch effort to save Net Neutrality. The Senate will vote to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality repeal. Odds are, with Republican opposition, Congress won’t do it, but it’s the last, best shot we have of restoring net neutrality this year. The FCC published the final notice of the repeal in the Federal Register in February. Net neutrality is now scheduled to end on June 11. By using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Congress can overturn the FCC’s rulings by...

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by Israeli drone maker Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd. is being used by the Israeli military to dump skunk-water on protesters in Gaza, according to a video posted to Twitter by the Israeli Defense Ministry Wednesday. Tens of thousands of Palestinians had been protesting near Gaza’s perimeter fence since March as part of a campaign dubbed the “Great March of Return” which calls for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands in Israel. The protests escalated earlier this week ahead of the inauguration of the American Embassy in Jerusalem. Israeli defense forces have...

The King, Queen and Joker of Social Media’s False Gods Overlooked in the aftermath of thousands of conservative casualties left behind by the brutal social media truck drive-through: Many who are (infuriatingly to social media giants) still standing; still being followed by those who will still go looking for their favorite sites on the now pothole-warped Information Highway. Long before Facebook be-knighted itself as the ‘Hate Speech Killer of All Time’, people saw through the phoney claims of prominent users like former President Barack Obama deceitfully claiming more than 45 million fawning fans. Social media has been in cahoots with...

Teachers have long supplemented their incomes by tutoring. And there’s perhaps never been a better, or easier, time to do it than right now. The reason: China-based online education companies are in an apparent race with each other to hire U.S. teachers who’d like to work from home this summer and, using their webcams, “teach cute kids” the English language — in the marketing parlance of one of those companies, Beijing-based VIPKid. If you doubt that’s true, you haven’t been looking at the classifieds. Just today, five-year-old VIPKid i — which reportedly raised $200 million in fresh funding last summer...

A top nonpartisan political crowdfunding site on Tuesday cut ties with its CEO, a Fox News weekend host, and temporarily suspended all fundraising on its platform for Republican candidates. In a Medium.com post, entitled “A stand against Trumpism, a stand for democracy,” Crowdpac, a for-profit website that helps candidates raise money online, announced a series of major changes including the departure of founder and CEO Steve Hilton, acknowledging that his vocal advocacy for President Donald Trump “created a tension within our platform and community.” “We’ve heard from many quarters of the Crowdpac community that, in light of Steve Hilton’s political...

When I watched this video, I had to do a second take. I thought I had misunderstood this man’s words, but I was not mistaken. I am still amazed at what he said to the audience in trying to explain the sinister facets of artificial intelligence. As Elon Musk had said at an earlier time, “we are summoning the demon.” This, too, is amazing to me, as Musk helped to create A.I. I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but Elon has been on the downside of luck recently. He has had accident after accident with his inventions....

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Zensar, a provider of services to help clients implement digital solutions, is planning to hire as many as 200 people over the next two years at a new customer support center in RTP. Zensar, which is part of India-based RPG Enterprises, says the “current plan” is to hire “about 100” people, all of whom will be “local hires.” Jobs will be for developers, testing business analysts, data analysts, project leads and project managers. The center will provide customer support, consulting and training, Hiring up to 200 people could occur by the end of 2019 depending upon...

While Austin is the Texas city most commonly known as being trendy and tech-forward, there is a group in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex working hard to change that idea. Natalie Fletcher, director of innovation at the Dallas Regional Chamber, works daily to make the area seem cutting-edge by helping companies make the connections they need. “A lot of what I do is support the launch and growth of activities in DFW,” Fletcher said. The Dallas Regional Chamber is nonprofit business organization with other 1,200 member companies, many of whom Fletcher said are on the Fortune 500 list. “We are blessed...

Research data shows Twitter heavily censors replies to government officials. This is NOT a partisan issue: Twitter censors about as many replies from liberals as they do conservatives. See the examples involving @AjitPaiFCC, @NancyPelosi, @EPAScottPruitt, @HouseDemocrats, and many more at the link. This censorship gives some citizens an unfair advantage over others. We are not asking you to regulate Twitter or similar. We only ask you to speak out against this practice and to urge government officials to tell Twitter not to censor replies to their accounts. If Twitter refuses to allow a level playing field, then government officials should...

Citibank and Barclay Credit Cards can be denied based on systems issues. Barclay readily acknowledges they have an issue but it took over 20 minutes on the phone with Citibank for them to get their administration to acknowledge they have an issue. In my specific case I was trying to buy an airline ticket but it kept getting a system error. Calls to the CC company did not fix the problem, however it was nice to find out it was their issue. It seem strange that both Citi and Barclay would have the same issue at the same time. Looks...

If you build it, they will come. And if you 3D-print it, they will come faster, cheaper and more sustainably. We live in an era of overpopulation and mass housing shortages. Yet we also live in a time of phenomenal digital innovation. On the one hand we have major crises affecting the health, liberty and happiness of billions of people. But look at the other hand, where we have potential for life-changing technological breakthroughs at a rate never before seen on this planet. Our challenges are vast, but our capabilities to produce solutions are even greater. In the future, we...

I never imagined this would be impossible until I actually had to try and do it.I'm trying to connect via USB my desktop (homebuilt, Intel based, Win 7 Ultimate) to a Lenovo Yoga tablet (Win 10) to copy over about 40 gig of files.An hour long web search reveals no straightforward way to do this, indeed many sites say it's not possible by design.I never give up until I have checked FR.Am I stuck shuttling the files between computers using a flash drive, or my bog-slow home wireless network?

Former WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell warned the audience at the Techonomy NYC 18 conference on Tuesday about the power of Amazon and China, praised the Trump economy, and predicted that US president Donald Trump might win a second term. Sorrell pointed out that Facebook and Google should be worried about the growing power of Amazon in the ad world and the economy. "They don’t like being referred to as ‘the duopoly’ for obvious reasons," he said of Facebook and Google. "But they still have a stranglehold. The one threat to them is Amazon. Last quarter, I saw that...

The head of the United States Marine Corps says the Marines' air power could be completely uncrewed within 15 years. General Robert B. Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, says the technology exists to realize this future. Neller stressed, however, that aircraft would not be completely autonomous, and would still be directed by a human being making key decisions. The Marine Corps Times quoted Neller from an event at the Brookings Institution saying: “I don’t know what war is going to look like in the future, [but] I think things that fly in the sky, the great majority of them...

The venerable photo-sharing website will for the first time since 2005 be run by a photography-focused company. Here's what'll change and what won't.

Aether, the biotechnology company behind the multi-tool Aether 1 3D bioprinter, is developing an artificially intelligent (AI) program for 3D printing organ models. Described as the “missing piece” in the wider, 3D bioprinting puzzle, Aether’s Automatic Segmentation and Reconstruction (ASAR) process will be capable of identifying different tissues in CT Scan data and converting the results into a mutlimaterial, 3D printable file.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)According to Aether CEO Ryan Franks, “AI is the only way bioprinting can reach its full potential.” With AI, the file preparation process is automated, bringing 3D printing closer to the “click of a button” usability which is essential...