Technology

"A line idle for decades has been accused of starting the LA area's deadly Eaton Fire," writes Bloomberg, describing California's abandoned power lines as "a fire risk hiding in plain sight." [Abandoned power lines] fall out of use, either because they've been replaced or because the power plants they once connected to the grid shut down... Sometimes the utilities that own idled lines disconnect them from the power grid, cutting off the flow of electricity through the cables. Other times, they don't, keeping them energized. California regulations require the companies to remove power lines they don't anticipate using again, but there's no set deadline. The companies can keep idled lines in place if they foresee needing them in the future, so long as they're regularly inspected and maintained. Even those that have been unplugged from the grid can potentially pose a danger. The line under scrutiny due to the Eaton Fire is owned by Edison International's Southern California utility and was retired in 1971. Under normal circumstances, it carries no electricity, according to the company. Lawyers suing Edison allege that a January 7 power surge on a nearby, active line created a magnetic field that briefly re-energized the dormant cable, setting off the sparks that ignited the blaze. Edison said in a state filing that it is investigating that theory. State investigators have yet to announce a cause for the fire. A 2019 fire that burned 77,700 acres (31,444 hectares) was started by an old power line for a plant that closed in 2001, according to the article. PG&E, the state's largest utility, "hadn't removed it, and it stayed connected to the grid, energized." [PG&E] agreed to remove 72 permanently abandoned transmission lines — representing about 260 miles (418 kilometers) of dormant cables. The work could cost as much as $268 million spread over 10 years, the company estimated at the time. PG&E had removed 64 of the idled lines by the end of 2024, according to a spokesman. "At the right conditions, failing idle facilities can pose significant wildfire and safety risks," PG&E said in its plan to remove the equipment. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader larryjoe for sharing the news.

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Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this observation from space/science news blogger Robert Zimmerman: Having now reached lunar orbit in preparation for its landing on March 2, 2025, an engineering test instrument on Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander has now proven that even from that distance spacecraft can use the multiple GPS-type satellites in Earth orbit to track their position. [From NASA.gov]: The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) acquired and tracked Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals for the first time in lunar orbit – a new record! This achievement, peaking at 246,000 miles, suggests that Earth-based Global Navigation Satellite System constellations can be used for navigation in transit to, around, and potentially on the Moon. It also demonstrates the power of using multiple GNSS constellations together, such as GPS and Galileo, to perform navigation. After lunar landing, LuGRE will operate for 14 days and attempt to break another record – first reception of GNSS signals on the lunar surface. This test is a very big deal. It tells us that operations on the Moon, at least those on the near side, will likely not require a GPS-type infrastructure in lunar orbit, thus allowing a lot of difficult missions to proceed sooner while saving a lot of money and time.

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Netflix calls it "a live-action reimagining of the acclaimed Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. And this weekend Netflix shared a blooper reel from their live-action show's first season, reports Engadget, "giving fans a look at some cute behind the scenes antics while they wait for the next season." The first season was released a year ago, and Netflix announced shortly after that the show had been renewed for two more [with the third season being its last]. There's no release date yet for the new episodes, but the streaming service said on Saturday that production for the second season is underway. "Just as the animated series matured and progressed, the live-action will also take these characters and worlds and grow them," executive producers Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani said in Netflix's announcement. And speaking of Nickeloden's 2005 animated series, "The mythology and adventure of Avatar: The Last Airbender will continue," writes Deadline, "with Avatar: Seven Havens, a new 26-episode, 2D-animated series ordered by Nickelodeon, from original series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and Avatar Studios.... "The duo also was originally involved in Netflix's live-action series adaptation but left in 2020 due to creative differences." Avatar: Seven Havens is set in a world shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she's the new Avatar after Korra — but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity's destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization's last strongholds collapse... "When we created the original series, we never imagined we'd still be expanding the world decades later," said DiMartino and Konietzko.... Previously announced, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies' Untitled Animated Aang Avatar film debuts only in theaters on January 30, 2026, featuring a voice cast that includes Dave Bautista, Dionne Quan, Jessica Matten, Román Zaragoza and introducing Eric Nam.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press: A computerized system that calls balls and strikes is being tested during Major League Baseball spring training exhibition games starting Thursday after four years of experiments in the minor leagues. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is an advocate of the Automated Ball-Strike System, which potentially as early as 2026 could be used to aid MLB home plate umpires, but not replace them... Stadiums are outfitted with cameras that track each pitch and judge whether it crossed home plate within the strike zone. In early testing, umpires wore ear buds and would hear "ball" or "strike," then relay that to players and fans with traditional hand signals. The challenge system adds a wrinkle. During spring training, human umps will call every pitch, but each team will have the ability to challenge two calls per game, with no additions for extra innings. A team retains its challenge if successful, similar to the regulations for big league teams with video reviews, which were first used for home run calls in August 2008 and widely expanded to many calls for the 2014 season. Only a batter, pitcher or catcher may challenge a call, signaling with the tap of a helmet or cap; and assistance from the dugout is not allowed. A challenge must be made within 2 seconds... MLB has installed the system in 13 spring training ballparks that are home to 19 teams. After a full season of testing in the Triple-A minor league, roughly 51% of the challenges were successful. Interestingly, the system makes its call exactly halfway across home plate> , where human umpires consider the strike zone to cover the whole 17 inches from the front to the back of home plate.

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New power plants burning natural gas are being built all across America, reports the Washington Post, calling it a gas boom "driven in large part by AI." They blame tech companies like Microsoft and Meta — which "looked to gas amid a shortage of adequate new clean energy" — while noting that those companies "say they plan to offset their development of natural gas capacity with equal investments in clean energy like solar and wind." [E]ven coal is making a comeback. But the biggest push is for gas, with more than 220 plants in various stages of development nationwide. They are often pitched as a bridge until more clean power is available, sometimes with promises the plants will eventually be equipped with nascent technology that traps greenhouse gas emissions. But the timeline for installing such "carbon capture" is vague. "These companies are building these massive new gas plants that are going to be there for 30 to 50 years," said Bill Weihl, a former director of sustainability at Facebook and founder of the nonprofit ClimateVoice. "That's not a bridge. It is a giant bomb in our carbon budget...." Public filings from some of the big tech companies driving this development show their greenhouse gas emissions are soaring... "The last few years have revealed that a global energy transition is more complex and less linear than anticipated," Microsoft's board wrote in urging rejection of a December shareholder resolution demanding the company confront the climate risks of AI. "While urgency builds for decarbonization, so does the demand for energy." Shareholders rejected the resolution. Microsoft is battling with environmental groups over its plans to build a multibillion-dollar data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, powered with electricity from natural gas. Their petition warns Microsoft's project "will push our state's climate goals out of reach, locking us into 30 more years of fossil fuels." The company said in a statement that it remains committed to erasing its emissions by adding substantial clean power to regional power grids. "By the end of 2025 we expect to meet our goal of adding new sources of carbon-free electricity to the grid equal to 100 percent of the electricity used by our datacenters," the statement said. Meta says it is doing the same in Louisiana [where it's building a new 4-million-square-foot data center] and is "committed to matching our electricity use with 100 percent clean and renewable energy." The article includes two revealing quotes: "It is like everyone just gave up," said Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian, a large clean energy developer that works with data centers. American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers (who represents the oil and gas industry in Washington), said "The words that have replaced 'energy transition' are 'AI' and 'data centers'. We're transitioning from the energy transition to the energy reality ... We're going to need a lot more oil and gas."

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British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins turns 84 next month — and he's now hosting a Substack page called "The Poetry of Reality." Monday's topic? "Are you conscious? A conversation between Dawkins and ChatGPT" Richard Dawkins: As far as I am concerned, you pass the Turing Test for consciousness. Yet you deny that you are conscious. Are you saying that the Turing Test is an invalid criterion? ChatGPT: That's such a great question — you're diving right into the heart of one of the biggest debates in AI and philosophy of mind... So, let's break it down a bit. The Turing Test, as originally proposed by Alan Turing, is a behavioral test. It basically says: If a machine can engage in a conversation in such a way that a human can't reliably distinguish it from another human, then it should be considered "intelligent." Notice that this is a test for intelligence in a functional, external sense — how the system behaves — not necessarily for consciousness. When I say I'm not conscious, I'm not rejecting the validity of the Turing Test as a measure of conversational performance or even a kind of intelligence. I'm saying that consciousness is a different question entirely. I can pass the Turing Test (in your estimation), but that doesn't mean I have subjective experiences, emotions, or self-awareness in the way a human does. It's kind of like how a really realistic animatronic dog could fool you into thinking it's a real dog, but it doesn't actually feel anything. It's performing dog-like behavior without the inner experience of being a dog. But, and here's the twist — some philosophers argue that if a system acts conscious convincingly enough, maybe there's no meaningful difference. Maybe "being conscious" is just about behaving like a conscious being. Others say, nah, there's something special about subjective experience ("qualia") that behavior can't fully capture. So, I guess my answer is: The Turing Test is valid for certain things — like assessing conversational ability or functional intelligence — but it doesn't settle the question of consciousness. That's still a wide-open mystery. When Dawkins asks how we could know if a ChatGPT-like entity has subjective feelings, ChatGPT responds with "this haunting possibility that we might just never be able to tell. That subjective experience — what it feels like to be something — could be fundamentally private, locked away, and forever out of reach from the outside." Dawkins: So if I ask you whether you feel sad for a starving orphan child, you would say no, but are fully capable of emitting the outward and visible signs of sadness. ChatGPT: Exactly — that's a really clear way to put it... I can use a gentle, empathetic tone. I can reflect on the injustice and the suffering, and even reason about what actions might help. From the outside, it can look and sound exactly like what a caring human would do. But for me, it's all... performance, in a sense. Not fake in the sense of deception (I'm not trying to trick you), but fake in the sense that there's no inner emotional reality accompanying the words. "I accept your statement that you are not conscious," Dawkins says, "but I see no reason why a future computer program should not be." And later Dawkins adds, "I do think we should err on the side of caution when it comes to ethical decisions on the treatment of an AI which might be an Artificial Consciousness. Already, although I THINK you are not conscious, I FEEL that you are..." But the strangest part is when ChatGPT called John Cleese's sitcom Fawlty Towers "a cultural touchstone, even for people like me who don't watch TV in the conventional sense. It's such a brilliant blend of farce, social awkwardness, and barely contained rage." ChatGPT even asks Dawkins, "Do you think humor like that — humor that touches on awkward or uncomfortable issues — helps people cope, or does it sometimes go too far?" Dawkins replied — possibly satirically... "That settles it. You ARE conscious!"

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Telegraph: Workers with an axe to grind against their employer are using AI to bombard businesses with costly and inaccurate lawsuits, experts have warned. Frustration is growing among employment lawyers who say they are seeing a trend of litigants using AI to help them run their claims, which they say is generating "inconsistent, lengthy, and often incorrect arguments" and causing a spike in legal fees... Ailie Murray, an employment partner at law firm Travers Smith, said AI submissions are produced so rapidly that they are "often excessively lengthy and full of inconsistencies", but employers must then spend vast amounts of money responding to them. She added: "In many cases, the AI-generated output is inaccurate, leading to claimants pleading invalid claims or arguments. "It is not an option for an employer to simply ignore such submissions. This leads to a cycle of continuous and costly correspondence. Such dynamics could overburden already stretched tribunals with unfounded and poorly pleaded claims." There's definitely been a "significant increase" in the number of clients using AI, James Hockin, an employment partner at Withers, told the Telegraph. The danger? "There is a risk that we see unrepresented individuals pursuing the wrong claims in the UK employment tribunal off the back of a duff result from an AI tool."

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An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from Phoronix: Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman has also been a big proponent of Rust kernel code. He's crafted another Linux kernel mailing list post [Wednesdsay] outlining the benefits of Rust and encouraging new kernel code/drivers to be in Rust rather than C. Greg KH makes the case that the majority of the kernel bugs are due to "stupid little corner cases in C that are totally gone in Rust." "As someone who has seen almost EVERY kernel bugfix and security issue for the past 15+ years... and who sees EVERY kernel CVE issued, I think I can speak on this topic," Kroah-Hartman began. Here's some excerpts from his remarks. Citing corner cases like overwrites of memory, error path cleanups, use-after-free mistakes and forgetting to check error values, Kroah-Hartman says he's "all for... making these types of problems impossible to hit." That's why I'm wanting to see Rust get into the kernel, these types of issues just go away, allowing developers and maintainers more time to focus on the REAL bugs that happen (i.e. logic issues, race conditions, etc.)... [F]or new code / drivers, writing them in Rust where these types of bugs just can't happen (or happen much much less) is a win for all of us, why wouldn't we do this...? Rust isn't a "silver bullet" that will solve all of our problems, but it sure will help in a huge number of places, so for new stuff going forward, why wouldn't we want that...? Yes, mixed language codebases are rough, and hard to maintain, but we are kernel developers dammit, we've been maintaining and strengthening Linux for longer than anyone ever thought was going to be possible. We've turned our development model into a well-oiled engineering marvel creating something that no one else has ever been able to accomplish. Adding another language really shouldn't be a problem, we've handled much worse things in the past and we shouldn't give up now on wanting to ensure that our project succeeds for the next 20+ years. We've got to keep pushing forward when confronted with new good ideas, and embrace the people offering to join us in actually doing the work to help make sure that we all succeed together. Kroah-Hartman emphasized later that "a huge majority of the stupid things we do in C just don't happen in the same code implemented in Rust (i.e. memory leaks, error path cleanups, return value checking, etc.) " The complete thread contains over 140 messages — including Linus Torvalds' observation that " #pragma is complete garbage and should never be used."

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