* Posts by WUStLBear82

7 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2024

Arecibo telescope might have failed because of weak sockets

WUStLBear82

Re: Failure in 3,2,1...

It's in Puerto Rico, where Trump won't even acknowledge he's the Head of State, and Republicans today rarely acknowledge was conquered by one of their party.

CHIPS Act funding in question as House Speaker waffles on plan to repeal bill

WUStLBear82
WTF?

(sigh)

Do any "pro-business" Republicans understand how long it takes to build a foundry--or any factory--and get it up and running? Not to mention hiring and training a qualified workforce. If it weren't for the CHIPS Act, even if Trump's tariff plan works as advertised and manufacturers started building US plants, they'd be breaking ground in 2026 at the earliest and we'll be lucky to see product before Trump's third term. And minion Mike has already walked it back, saying they'll just get rid of obstacles like environmental reviews before construction, pollution controls on waste water, etc., to make the Act more efficient.

Writers sue Anthropic for feeding 'stolen' copyrighted work into Claude

WUStLBear82

Re: This really isn't going to work...

The allegation isn't that the AI replicated their work, it's that the AI was trained using accumulated textual material that included ebooks that were not agreed to be licensed, including their works. The fact that the stolen ebooks were republished, without permission, in a repository on the internet, does not necessarily make them freely usable in US law.

National Public Data tells officials 'only' 1.3M people affected by intrusion

WUStLBear82
Unhappy

Number probably closer to unique Social Security numbers, minus dead people

I haven't received an official letter, but two of my credit cards that offer free monitoring notified me. Six records with my SS number. Three different variations on my name; full, no middle initial, just first and middle initial. Three with my current address, and three with my address from 1990-2004. All have my current cell phone number, which I didn't even have until after 2004, so it's the wrong area code for the old address. Three other phone numbers, none ever mine, with the correct area code for the old address but wrong for the current one. Three email addresses, none ever belonging to me, two using my last name with a different first name or initial and one some else's name, one Gmail, one Yahoo!, and oddly one at a major chemical corporation where I've never worked.

AI Catholic 'priest' defrocked after recommending Gatorade baptism

WUStLBear82

Re: our AI app, Father Justin

Clifford D. Simak wrote about humans and robots trying to create an infallible AI pope in his 1981 novel 'Project Pope'.

Oracle changes its tune with HQ move to Music City

WUStLBear82

Nashville isn't as bad as Memphis, but you couldn't pay me enough to live in Tennessee vs. Austin. But Gov. Abbott gloated so much when Oracle moved to Texas without even getting taxpayer-funded incentives; does this mean Tennessee is more "pro-business" than Texas? Such delicious schadenfreude.

Senator Warren slams Intuit's 'junk fees' as America's Tax Day rolls around again

WUStLBear82
WTF?

Actually there is a way

I direct you to <https://www.irs.gov/e-file-providers/free-file-fillable-forms> which I have used for the past several years. It has limits but does everything I need since I am comfortable reading the instructions and filling out the PDF forms. It will copy relevant information between forms, and perform most of the arithmetic if you choose. If you have 1099s you need to transcribe info from your copies to a facsimile to submit. You can save and or print copies of the return, then submit and pay electronically. Don't wait until the last minute; it can take hours for the IRS to acknowledge receipt of your submission, and if it doesn't pass some elementary sanity checks the return will be rejected until you fix those mistakes.