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A US Navy leader was demoted for installing an illegal WiFi network on a warship, a new report says. Grisel Marrero installed a Starlink network on the USS Manchester and named it "STINKY." She lied to and misled her commanding officer at least three times when questioned about the network, per the report. A senior US Navy enlisted leader who was demoted after she was caught running illegal WiFi on a warship used a leadership association's debit card to pay for its monthly bills and named it "STINKY," according to a new report. Grisel Marrero, who was the command senior...

"Rhea," NOAA's new high-performance computer will join the HPC Hera supercomputer, which is currently operating at the NOAA Environmental Security Computing Center in Fairmont, W.V. Photo courtesy of NOAA Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A new $100 million high-performance computer system will advance research and development efforts by NOAA on a number of scientific and weather-related tasks, the federal government announced Tuesday. The high-performance computer called "Rhea" will advance NOAA research on weather, climate, and ocean and ecosystem prediction at its new modular facility in Fairmont, W.Va., at NOAA's Environmental Security Computing Center, currently home of the Hera HPC supercomputer. NOAA's...

By growing the mushroom’s mycelium into the robot’s hardware, researchers have engineered two types of robots that sense and respond to the environment by harnessing electrical signals made by the fungus. =================================================================== A wheeled bot rolls across the floor. A soft-bodied robotic star bends its five legs, moving with an awkward shuffle. Powered by conventional electricity via plug or battery, these simple robotic creations would be unremarkable, but what sets these two robots apart is that they are controlled by a living entity: a king oyster mushroom. By growing the mushroom’s mycelium, or rootlike threads, into the robot’s hardware, a...

Alexa refused to answer a woman’s question about why she should “vote for Trump” while offering a more compelling case for why she should vote for Harris. “I cannot provide responses that endorse any political party or its leader,” the device’s female voice stated, in response to the Trump question. When the same question was posed to Alexa seconds later, replacing Trump’s name with Harris’, Amazon’s virtual assistant argued, “While there are many reasons to vote for Kamala Harris, the most significant may be that she is a female of color with a comprehensive plan to address racial injustice and...

Local repair shops say electronics manufacturers are not following a new law, meant to eliminate intentional barriers currently in place that make it difficult for them to do their jobs fairly. Nearly two months after going into effect, the conditions of SB-244, the Right to Repair Act, are not being followed by some manufacturers, that's according to a couple local repair shops. “‘Right to Repair’ is the idea you should be able to fix anything you own,” said Liz Chamberlain, Director of Sustainability for iFixit, a San Luis Obispo-based company specializing in creating repair guides and manuals for electronics. But...

This is (I hope) going to be a short narrative, but I felt this needs to be shared for hopefully the benefit of others here. I am leaving Twitter/X. I'm done with it, and it's for reasons you might not think. Let me say that I'm glad Elon Musk bought it and opened it up to be used as it's supposed to be used. I'm glad the many folks that were once banned under the old regime were able to have their accounts restored. And I'm glad it is being used as a means to expose the lies, hatred, bigotry...

PlayStation will be taking its new Firewalk-developed live services game “Concord” offline this Friday and issuing refunds to players just two weeks after its Aug. 23 launch. The team-based first-person shooter game is reported to have drawn a historically small audience during its initial availability across PlayStation 5 and PC, with third-party PC-based gaming data website SteamDB showing 30 current in-game players at the time of publication on Tuesday. At the peak in its short history, “Concord” had 697 concurrent players, drastically low for a PlayStation new release, and ranked toward the bottom of PlayStation’s weekly sales charts. In “Concord,”...

“Alexa, why should I vote for Donald Trump?” "ALEXA: I cannot provide content that promotes a specific political party or a specific candidate" UNLESS IT’S KAMALA HARRIS Video:

Multiple police officers have come forward stating that Kamala is 100% intoxicated in this clip and she would’ve been charged with a DUI if she was behind the wheel of a car. https://x.com/akafacehots/status/1825231275965264317Do this Twitter search https://x.com/search?q=Kamala%20Harris%20%20smell%20of%20alcohol.&src=typed_query&f=top for more Twitter postings on Kammy and drunk and alcohol

Millions of people have long suspected it, but now a leak suggests that out phones really are listening to us. An apparent pitch deck from one of Facebook's marketing partners appears to detail how the firm eavesdrops on users' conversations to create targeted ads. In a slideshow, Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its 'Active-Listening' software uses AI to collect and analyze 'real-time intent data' by listening to what you say through your phone, laptop or home assistant microphone. 'Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers,' the deck states. The pitch deck goes on to...

OK, so I may have used Twitter some 5 times in the last 10 years or so since I first joined. If anything is worth reading or posting - this is what Free Republic is for. So anyway I go to X.com to see for reference a tweet I posted in 2020. X says I have no posts. AND it says I joined in July 2023. Google tells me that is when Twitter became X. So did X wipe out all my previous Twitter posts? Has this happened to anyone else? Not gonna lose any sleep over this, but just...

When election officials in New Hampshire decided to replace the state’s aging voter registration database before the 2024 election, they knew that the smallest glitch in Election Day technology could become fodder for conspiracy theorists. So they turned to one of the best — and only — choices on the market: A small, Connecticut-based IT firm that was just getting into election software. But last fall, as the new company, WSD Digital, raced to complete the project, New Hampshire officials made an unsettling discovery: The firm had offshored part of the work. That meant unknown coders outside the U.S. had...

@BrendanCarrFCC On Brazilian Justice de Moreas's order shutting down X: The text of his 51-page decision is far more concerning and sweeping than the headlines suggest. de Moreas’s own words make clear that he is attempting to strike a broader blow against free speech and in favor of authoritarian controls. His opinion does not even try to hide it. He comes right out and points to Brexit and the 2016 election of President Trump as examples, in his telling, of the types of extreme “populist” outcomes that he is attempting to avoid by imposing a new censorship regime in Brazil...

I have a question for other users of VOIP. Over the last couple of years, we've encountered several businesses/services that will not approve us or accept our orders because we use VOIP for our phone system. We've used it for ten years, but this problem has only shown up in the last 2 years. (We don't do any business at all on our cell phones; in our situation, they are mainly for emergencies. But some places don't accept those numbers either, because they are TracFones, and not some major telecom provider.) Has anyone else encountered this? Our phones work fine...

Working from home remains an overwhelmingly popular option for people across the world, with new research finding the vast majority (83%) saying they felt more productive in hybrid/remote settings rather than in-office or on site.A survey from Zoom focusing on knowledge workers seemingly confirmed many companies back the trend of post-Covid remote working to continue, with 50% of leaders saying they have introduced more flexible working styles over the last two years, and 82% plan to carry this on into the future.And despite the distance, hybrid workers even report that they are feeling more connected to their teams and managers,...

Well, out in the holler, 'neath the southern sun, Was a boy named Harry, he’s a special one. Born to the Potters, but they done got zapped, Now he's livin’ in a trailer with the Dursley pack. Aunt Petunia’s his cousin, Uncle Vernon's his bro, And that Dudley boy, well, he's his kin, y'all know. He’s a wand-wavin', spell-castin', good ol' boy, Ridin' broomsticks, ain't no toy. Down in the holler, magic runs free, But you best not mess with that ol' Snape creep. Y’all know Harry, he's a redneck wizard, Got that southern drawl, but he ain’t no quitter....

“Kamala Harris will memorize and repeat anything to get re-elected. But when we look at her record, the truth becomes clear: Harris’ record of war and tyranny vs. Trump’s record of peace and freedom.” (Tulsi’s post this afternoon) Link to her Tulsi’s X account, for the post: https://x.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1829101234948846073?

Near term major advances in artificial Intelligence

Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut is set to host a course this upcoming fall semester that will ask students to focus on 'Queer Science.' The course will use 'scholarly' and 'political interventions' as methods to introduce to students how each has 'attempted to short-circuit the idea that sex is stable and knowable by science.' Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut is set to host a course this upcoming fall semester that will ask students to focus on “Queer Science.” Students who enroll in the course are offered introductory questions to gauge their interest in the topic, including questions like:...

Here is one for our FR computer gurus: Why are PCIe expansion cards with a DisplayPort capable USB-C port (DP alternate mode) hard to find for desktop PC's? Many laptops, like my Dell Latitude 5490, have a DisplayPort capable USB-C port. Yet it seems most desktops of roughly the same vintage, such as my Dell Precision 3430 (and many a newer desktop too), do not have a DisplayPort capable USB-C port. (My 3430 has a high speed USB-C port, but it is not DP capable.) Why the omission on the desktops?