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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to Manage Seasonal Music Files

Submitted by Thelasko
Thelasko writes: I've recently purchased some Christmas music for my music collection. However, I'm annoyed that my current Christmas music occasionally plays throughout the year when my music player is on random. Adding to the collection will only make that occur more frequently. What's the best way to manage seasonal music files so they're only played at the appropriate time of year?

Submission + - Brazil shuts BYD factory site over 'slavery' conditions (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Brazilian authorities have halted the construction of a factory for Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant BYD, saying workers lived in conditions comparable to "slavery".

More than 160 workers have been rescued in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia, according to a statement from the Public Labour Prosecutor's Office (MPT).

They were allegedly put in a "degrading" environment and had their passports and salaries withheld by a building company.

BYD said in a statement that it had cut ties with the firm involved and remained committed to a "full compliance with Brazilian legislation".

The factory was scheduled to be operational by March 2025, and was set to be BYD's first EV plant outside of Asia.

The workers, hired by Jinjiang Construction Brazil, lived in four facilities in Camaçari city.

At one such facility, workers were made to sleep on beds without mattresses, according to prosecutors.

Each bathroom was also shared among 31 workers, forcing them to get up extremely early in order to be ready for work.

"The conditions found in the lodgings revealed an alarming picture of precariousness and degradation," the MPT said.

"Slavery-like conditions", as defined by Brazilian law, include debt bondage and work that violates human dignity.

The MPT added that the situation also constitutes "forced labour", as many workers had their wages withheld and faced excessive costs for terminating their contracts.

Submission + - In Maine, Remote Work Gives Prisoners a Lifeline (bostonglobe.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Every weekday morning at 8:30, Preston Thorpe makes himself a cup of instant coffee and opens his laptopto find the coding tasks awaiting his seven-person team at Unlocked Labs. Like many remote workers, Thorpe, the nonprofit’s principal engineer, works out in the middle of the day and often stays at his computer late into the night. But outside Thorpe’s window, there’s a soaring chain-link fence topped with coiled barbed wire. And at noon and 4 p.m. every day, a prison guard peers into his room to make sure he’s where he’s supposed to be at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, where he’s serving his 12th year for two drug-related convictions in New Hampshire, including intent to distribute synthetic opioids.

Remote work has spread far and wide since the pandemic spurred a work-from-home revolution of sorts, but perhaps no place more unexpectedly than behind prison walls. Thorpe is one of more than 40 people incarcerated in Maine’s state prison system who have landed internships and jobs with outside companies over the past two years — some of whom work full time from their cellsand earn more than the correctional officers who guard them. A handful of other states have also started allowing remote work in recent years, but none have gone as far as Maine, according to the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, the nonprofit leading the effort.

Unlike incarcerated residents with jobs in the kitchen or woodshop who earn just a few hundred dollars a month, remote workers make fair-market wages, allowing them to pay victim restitution fees and legal costs, provide child support, and contribute to Social Security and other retirement funds. Like inmates in work-release programs who have jobs out in the community, 10 percent of remote workers’ wages go to the state to offset the cost of room and board. All Maine DOC residents get re-entry support for housing and job searches before they’re released, and remote workers leave with even more: up-to-date resumes, a nest egg — and the hope that they’re less likely to need food or housing assistance, or resort to crime to get by.

Submission + - Cloudflare Must Block 'Piracy Shield' Domains and IP Addresses Across its Servic (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a landmark ruling, the Court of Milan has ordered (PDF) Cloudflare to block pirate streaming services that offer Serie A football matches. The court found that Cloudflare's services are instrumental in facilitating access to live pirate streams, undermining Italy's 'Piracy Shield' legislation. The order, which applies in Italy, affects Cloudflare's CDN, DNS resolver, WARP and proxy services. It also includes a broad data disclosure section.

The Court of Milan’s decision prohibits Cloudflare from resolving domain names and routing internet traffic to IP addresses of all services present on the “Piracy Shield” system. This also applies to future domains and aliases used by these pirate services. The order applies to Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN), DNS services, and reverse proxy services. The order also mentions Cloudflare’s free VPN among the targets, likely referring to the WARP service. If any of the targeted pirate streaming providers use Cloudflare’s services to infringe on Serie A’s copyrights, the company Cloudflare must stop providing CDN, authoritative DNS, and reverse proxy services to these customers. (Note: This is an Italian court order and Cloudflare previously used geotargeting to block sites only in Italy. It may respond similarly here, but terminating customer accounts only in Italy might be more complicated. )

Finally, the order further includes a data disclosure component, under which Cloudflare must identify customers who use Cloudflare’s services to offer pirated streams. This should help Serie A to track down those responsible. The data disclosure section also covers information related to the ‘VPN’ and alternative public DNS services, where these relate to the IPTV platforms identified in the case. That covers traffic volume and connection logs, including IP-addresses and timestamps. In theory, that could also cover data on people who accessed these services using Cloudflare’s VPN and DNS resolver. [...] The court ordered Cloudflare to cover the costs of the proceeding and if it doesn’t implement the blocking requirements in time, an additional fine of €10,000 per day will apply.

Submission + - LEAP71 hot fires advanced Aerospike rocket engine designed by computational AI (leap71.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Dubai-based startup LEAP71, focused on using AI software to quickly develop rocket engine designs it can then 3D print, has successfully test fired a prototype aerospike engine on December 18, 2024 during a static fire test campaign conducted in the United Kingdom.

Aerospikes are more compact and significantly more efficient across various atmospheric pressures, including the vacuum of space. They forego the conventional bell-shaped nozzle by placing a spike in the center of a toroidal combustion chamber [as shown in the photo to the right]. Since it is surrounded by 3,500C hot exhaust gas, cooling the spike is an enormous challenge.

Josefine Lissner, CEO and Co-Founder of LEAP71, stated: “We were able to extend Noyron’s physics to deal with the unique complexity of this engine type. The spike is cooled by intricate cooling channels flooded by cryogenic oxygen, whereas the outside of the chamber is cooled by the kerosene fuel. I am very encouraged by the results of this test, as virtually everything on the engine was novel and untested. It’s a great validation of our physics-driven approach to computational AI.”

Submission + - Walmart Sued Over Illegally Opening Bank Accounts For Delivery Drivers (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Walmart and payroll service provider Branch Messenger for alleged illegal payment practices for gig workers. The bureau says Walmart was opening direct deposit accounts using Spark delivery drivers’ social security numbers without their consent. The accounts also can come with intense fees that, according to the complaint, would add either 2 percent or $2.99 per transaction, whichever is higher. It also says Walmart repeatedly promised to provide drivers with same-day payments through the platform starting in July 2021 but never delivered on that.

The Bureau alleges that for approximately two years starting around June 2021, defendants engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, including by requiring Spark Drivers to receive their compensation in Branch Accounts, opening Branch Accounts for Spark Drivers without their informed consent or, in many instances, on an unauthorized basis, and making deceptive statements about Branch to Spark Drivers. Spark delivery workers have been complaining about Walmart’s Branch Messenger account requirements for years, which forced workers to use these accounts with no option to direct deposit to a preferred credit union or local bank. Walmart allegedly told workers they’d be terminated if they didn’t accept the Branch accounts.

Submission + - New methodology for using LLMs to modify code files using ASTs. (github.com)

Submitted by mmiscool
mmiscool writes: aiCoder is a software tool designed to address the challenges associated with integrating AI-generated JavaScript code into existing projects. Traditional line-based code merging techniques often result in conflicts, overwrites, and loss of functionality due to their inability to account for the structural and logical relationships within the codebase. By employing Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) analysis, aiCoder enables code modifications to be performed at a syntactic level. This approach ensures that the integration of new code snippets preserves the original structure and functionality of the codebase, minimizing disruption and reducing the risk of errors.

The use of ASTs allows aiCoder to parse the codebase into a hierarchical tree structure, representing its syntax and logical relationships. Modifications are applied by traversing this tree and performing targeted edits at the appropriate nodes. This methodology ensures that new code is inserted or replaced in a manner consistent with the original code's context. Additionally, the preservation of comments and other non-functional elements is a core feature of the tool, maintaining the clarity and readability of the codebase throughout the integration process.

aiCoder provides a systematic solution to the problem of integrating AI-generated code into software projects. By automating the merging process and ensuring syntactic and contextual accuracy, the tool reduces manual intervention and the likelihood of introducing errors. This functionality is particularly beneficial in collaborative development environments where multiple contributors and frequent updates can increase the complexity of code management. aiCoder represents a practical application of AST-based methodologies to enhance the reliability and efficiency of modern software development workflows.

Submission + - Space Station keeps dodging debris from China's 2007 satellite weapon test (msn.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The International Space Station had to fire thrusters from a docked spacecraft last month to avoid a piece of debris that has been circling the globe for the nearly 18 years since the Chinese government blasted apart one of its own satellites in a weapons test.

The evasive maneuver was the second in just six days for the space station, which has four NASA astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts aboard. That is the shortest interval ever between such actions, illustrating the slowly worsening problem of space junk in orbit. Debris is an increasingly vexing issue not only for NASA, but also for companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb seeking to protect the thousands of small satellites they send into space to provide high-speed internet.

Submission + - Of Mice and Men removed from GCSE course over racial slurs (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Welsh exam board picks removes John Steinbeck’s novella following concerns of ‘psychological and emotional’ harm

John Steinbeck’s classic novella Of Mice and Men will no longer be studied in Wales at GCSE level because of the book’s racial slurs.

WJEC, the Cardiff-based Welsh exam board, said it has instead selected “a wide range” of “appropriate and inclusive texts” for students.

Submission + - New quantum relativity work (perfdrive.com) 1

Submitted by jd
jd writes: A new attempt yo produce quantum relativity is in the works. This time, the physicists have taken the line that if you allow for faster-than-light particles, you can solve a lot of the difficulties of merging the two theories. But it comes with a consequence.

You end up with three time dimensions and one spacial dimension.

The argument is that special cases constitute the real difficulty in merging the two ideas, so the physicists looked for a way to generalise outside the normal bounds, and to have relativity (despite its classical nature) produce the randomness in quantum mechanics.

From the article:

Quantum mechanics is an incredibly successful theory and yet the statistical nature of its predictions is hard to accept and has been the subject of numerous debates. The notion of inherent randomness, something that happens without any cause, goes against our rational understanding of reality. To add to the puzzle, randomness that appears in non-relativistic quantum theory tacitly respects relativity, for example, it makes instantaneous signaling impossible. Here, we argue that this is because the special theory of relativity can itself account for such a random behavior. We show that the full mathematical structure of the Lorentz transformation, the one which includes the superluminal part, implies the emergence of non-deterministic dynamics, together with complex probability amplitudes and multiple trajectories. This indicates that the connections between the two seemingly different theories are deeper and more subtle than previously thought.

Submission + - Energy Prices Drop Below Zero in UK Thanks to Record Wind-Generated Electricity (ecowatch.com) 1

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Record wind-generated electricity across Northern Ireland and Scotland Tuesday night pushed Britain’s power prices below zero.

Wind output peaked at a record high 22.4 gigawatts (GW), breaking the previous high set Sunday evening, the national system operator said, as Bloomberg reported. The record output provided more than 68 percent of the country’s power.

From 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the half-hourly price fell to 6.57 pounds per megawatt-hour, according to data from European power exchange Epex Spot.

Submission + - AI cameras are giving Washington DC's air defense a major upgrade (cyberguy.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of 9/11, Washington D.C.’s airspace got a significant security boost. Now, over two decades later, this system is getting a cutting-edge makeover. The National Capital Region (NCR) is rolling out an advanced artificial intelligence-based visual recognition system that’s taking air defense to a whole new level.

The Enhanced Regional Situational Awareness (ERSA) system represents a dramatic upgrade from previous security technologies. These new cameras are giving air defense operators unprecedented capabilities in monitoring and protecting critical airspace. They come with some seriously cool features that take air defense to the next level. The cameras boast infrared vision with RGB filters for heat signature detection, allowing operators to spot targets even in low visibility conditions. A laser range finder provides accurate distance and altitude measurements, enhancing the system’s precision. Machine learning elements enable enhanced auto-tracking capabilities, making it easier to follow objects of interest. Additionally, a visual warning system is in place to alert non-compliant aircraft, using red and green lasers to illuminate cockpits and prompt immediate action from pilots.

Submission + - Say goodbye to your privacy (dailygalaxy.com) 3

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: Google is rolling out a tracking system unlike anything youâ(TM)ve seen beforeâ"your browser, smart TV, and even gaming consoles could all be part of the plan. Privacy experts are raising alarms, calling this a game-changer for how your data is used.

Googleâs ad-tracking approach will now revolve around digital fingerprinting, moving beyond browser-based cookies to an ecosystem-wide tracking mechanism. Starting February 16, 2024, this update allows Google to track users across virtually all smart devices, from browsers to smart TVs, streaming platforms, and gaming consoles. This shift, touted as a response to technological advancements, has sparked fierce regulatory criticism and raised privacy alarms globally.

Unlike cookiesâ"which rely on stored files that users can deleteâ"digital fingerprinting gathers subtle clues from a deviceâ(TM)s hardware, software, and browsing activity. These clues include:

Device attributes: screen resolution, operating system, browser type, and even font libraries.
Network identifiers: IP address, connected Wi-Fi networks, and geolocation data.
Behavioral patterns: app usage, browsing habits, and engagement metrics.
When combined, this data creates a unique identifier that tracks individuals across devices and platforms. The UK Information Commissionerâ(TM)s Office (ICO) has openly criticized this approach, stating, âoeFingerprinting involves the collection of pieces of information about a deviceâ(TM)s software or hardware, which, when combined, can uniquely identify a particular device and user.â

Submission + - Arctic Siberia summers were up to 10C warmer than today during Last Interglacia (phys.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Interglacials are, as the name suggests, warm periods between planetary glaciations when the expanse of ice on Earth shrinks. Currently, we are in an 11,000 year-long interglacial period known as the Holocene. Prior to this, the Last Interglacial occurred between 115,000 and 130,000 years ago.

During this time, Earth experienced summers that were almost completely ice-free and there was significant vegetation growth in polar regions, changing the ecosystems for life to flourish. Scientists can look to this Last Interglacial as a potential analog for future global warming.

Indeed, new research, currently under review for publication in the Climate of the Past journal, has turned to the geological record of the Arctic to understand how terrestrial environments responded to the warmer world. Here, warming was amplified compared to the rest of the northern hemisphere due to ice albedo feedbacks, whereby solar insolation melted ice sheets, reducing the amount of radiation reflected back out to space and causing further warming, creating a positive feedback loop.

Submission + - I am a robot? 3

Submitted by Anne Thwacks
Anne Thwacks writes: Today, I have twice failed to complete a capcha despite trying as hard as I can for absolutely ages.
Is this because I am secretly a robot?

Or is it because the pathetically poor, grainy, low resolution pictures are impossible for humans to interpret?
Not helped by instructions given in US English?

This side of the Atlantic (LANG=en_GB), our fire hydrants look different, we do not consider motorcycles to be bicycles (despite both having two wheels), and we don't have sidewalks or crosswalks (but do have pavements and zebra crossings).

Also, the foolish questions to not specify whether a part of a motorcycle wheel is considered to be a whole bicycle, and if a part is considered to be the whole, how small a part? Does a single pixel count? Does the handrail count as part of stairs?

I am not opposed to the concept of captchas, However, Google's implementation appears to be designed by the kind of American that does not understand that the rest of the world considers American English to be the work of unintelligible idiots.

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