[-] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

if the entire US political leadership is decapitated in a nuclear strike without warning...

Also - ya gotta control interest rates. You don't want labor grabbing power.

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submitted 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Trump might use the cost as an excuse to fire Powell. But I'm only focusing on the building itself.

The Fed says its main headquarters, known as the Marriner S. Eccles building, was in dire need of an upgrade because its electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems, among others, are nearly obsolete and some date back to the building’s construction in the 1930s.

The renovation will also remove asbestos, lead and other hazardous elements and update the building with modern electrical and communications systems. The H-shaped building, named after a former Fed chair in the 1930s and ’40s, is located near some of Washington’s highest-profile monuments and has references to classical architecture and marble in the facades and stonework. The central bank is also renovating a building next door that it acquired in 2018.

The Fed says there has been periodic maintenance to the structures but adds this is the first “comprehensive renovation.” Trump administration officials have criticized the Fed over the project’s expense, which has reached $2.5 billion, about $600 million more than was originally budgeted.

Like a beleaguered homeowner facing spiraling costs for a remodeling project, the Fed cites many reasons for the greater expense. Construction costs, including for materials and labor, rose sharply during the inflation spike in 2021 and 2022. More asbestos needed to be removed than expected. Washington’s local restrictions on building heights forced it to build underground, which is pricier.

In 2024, the Fed’s board canceled its planned renovations of a third building because of rising costs. The Fed says the renovations will reduce costs “over time” because it will be able to consolidate its roughly 3,000 Washington-based employees into fewer buildings and will no longer need to rent as much extra space as it does now.

There should be far more context. $2.5B seems like an incredibly high number to me but I don't know a thing a construction or construction costs. The article didn't inform me and I got very tired of googling.

[-] [email protected] 20 points 11 hours ago

In 2012, a planned collaboration on a Biblical telling of the ancient Jewish Macabee story with Mel Gibson blew up in spectacular fashion. Eszterhas accused Gibson of being unhinged and of egging on antisemitic supporters to attack the screenwriter. At the time, Eszterhas released a recording of an unhinged Mel Gibson raging through his house in Costa Rica which Eszterhas’s son recorded, citing concerns for his safety and the safety of others.

Now 80, his focus has been on being a man of faith and being a father.

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submitted 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
[-] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

Groucho, Gro-Har-Chipocho, Mike, Zeppo Lighter, Bill, and Ted

[-] [email protected] 13 points 14 hours ago

deep vein thrombosis

How bad is that?

[-] [email protected] 16 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

they call the one pawn shop inside of 50 miles...

Those bits to the crime stories are always my favorite parts. It's like a set-piece and the punchline is entirely predictable but you can't help laughing anyway as you think to yourself "How could they be so stupid and so lazy?"

[-] [email protected] 26 points 15 hours ago

In my mind's eye I see Trump and his doctor. He's demanding his doctor give him a bullet point list of "options" to choose from. The list comes out and Trump points at "chronic venous insufficiency" and says "What's that?" Technical language isn't great misdirection but it is far better than a word with "disease" in it like kidney disease or heart disease.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 15 hours ago

A Bluesky comment

I imagine the legal disclaimer you have to sign is the length of the Lord of the Rings.

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submitted 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Another article

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent can control an entire computer and do tasks for you

Kumar said that since ChatGPT Agent has access to “an entire computer” instead of just a browser, they’ve “enhanced the toolset quite a bit.”

---

Wired is pro this tool and has zero skepticism which I think is pretty funny.

I pictured myself in five years, potentially speed-scrubbing through replays of my AI agent’s actions more often than clicking around the internet myself. If the era of AI agents sticks around, which is far from guaranteed, the way we use the web will fundamentally change.

What could go wrong after you give AI your credit card number? Etc.

An agent, in this context, refers to an AI tool that is able to—or at least attempts to—navigate third-party software and websites and make decisions on its journey to complete digital tasks, following an initial set of instructions from the user. “Agent” is the buzziest of buzzwords right now for companies looking to sell generative AI tools, especially those with an eye on enterprise customers.

[...]

The rollout of the ChatGPT agent is coming first to Pro, Plus, and Team subscribers, starting today for Pro users. Enterprise and Education subs will likely receive access to the feature later in the summer. At launch, Pro users are generally capped at 400 agent prompts a month, with 40 prompts allowed for the other tiers of paying users. It’s unclear when this feature will roll out for free users of ChatGPT.

[...]

In a prelaunch demo for WIRED, Kumar used the ChatGPT agent to automate a range of tasks, from consumer uses like planning a date night, to enterprise-focused examples like parsing Excel sheets for a financial analyst and making a slide deck that unpacks Nvidia's Q1 earnings.

Whereas planning a night out with the ChatGPT agent—going through your calendar, finding a restaurant with availability—may take five minutes, generating an earnings-based slide deck is more research-intensive and may take around 25 minutes. “You can do as many things as you want in parallel,” Kumar says. According to him, an average task with the ChatGPT agent takes around 10 or 15 minutes.

From potentially knowing the types of cuisine my partner prefers, based on past chats, to building a slide deck with formatting that’s aligned with what I may usually request, many of these potential tasks could benefit from accessing ChatGPT’s memory feature. Even though OpenAI wants to integrate memory with the ChatGPT agent eventually, it won’t be part of the initial launch.

“It’s not that we don’t think it’s safe,” Kumar says. “We’re just taking an extra precaution.” He mentions the potential for prompt injection attacks as one example of why OpenAI wants to learn more before hooking up the ChatGPT agent to stored user memories.

Both of the OpenAI staff members emphasized that having the user still feel like they are in control, even as the agent automates tasks, is critical. “We have a list of websites where we think it's risky to go. These include things like social media or financial transactions,” Kumar says.

Building upon the “watch mode” rolled out with Operator earlier this year, the agent has a similar setting where software tasks deemed to involve a high level of personal risk require the user to watch the AI tool actively and not swipe away from the web page.

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submitted 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Full textDallas Apple Stores kept losing product. Now a police officer is accused, affidavit says

DALLAS — Apple's security team noticed a trend over the last two years: Product kept disappearing from the stockrooms at the company's retail stores in Dallas.

In fact, the count variances at the Apple Stores at NorthPark, Knox Street and the Galleria were deemed "exceptionally high," among the top 10 of all Apple Stores in the company, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The security team's investigation, the affidavit said, led them to a Dallas police officer.

Senior Cpl. Le Chau, who was arrested earlier this month, is accused of stealing $37,000 in merchandise while working off-duty overnight security at the Apple Stores, according to the affidavit, which was obtained by WFAA on Thursday.

The affidavit said Chau in March was seen on surveillance footage concealing items in his Dallas police jacket and then leaving the store with "fully loaded" duffels bags of product.

In another instance in March, the affidavit said, Chau was seen on surveillance footage climbing to a top shelf in a stock room and using a trash picker to grab items he couldn't reach. Among the items he took from the top shelf was a full box of AirPod Pros, the affidavit said. He tried to hide the AirPods in his police jacket and stuck the trash picker down his pants, according to the affidavit. The serial numbers from the box were later found in the trash in a restroom at the store, police said.

The affidavit detailed several other time in which Chau is accused of stealing from the Apple Store, including one night he allegedly stole more than $17,000 in product.

The investigation was initiated by Apple's security team after they noticed a series of missing products from stock rooms at Apple Stores in Dallas, including the Knox Street location and stores at NorthPark and the Galleria, the affidavit said.

Apple's security team reviewed surveillance footage and saw Chau "bringing backpacks and duffel bags into the store during his shifts," the affidavit said. He was then seen leaving the store with the bags "fully loaded," according to the affidavit.

The Apple security team then installed "covert cameras" that captured Chau stealing merchandise, the affidavit said.

The Apple security team also provided to police screenshots from Chau's wife's Facebook page, showing that she was selling Apple products through Facebook Marketplace, the affidavit said.

Chau has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Chau has worked for the Dallas Police Department since 2013 and was assigned to the department's Basic Academy, police officials said.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Karaoke playlist

  • Nookie
  • Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)
  • Down with the Sickness

 
What else?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)
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Caption this. (hexbear.net)
submitted 17 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

Ring-a-ring dem machine
A pocket full of crypto
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

"President Trump - the Supreme Court recently ruled you are prohibited from that very action."

"So what."

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

I can't believe Politico - in a matter-of-fact way - put the "Trump could ruin the economy at lightspeed" news under the crypto stuff.

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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
8
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

What a privilege to see the wild boar mosaic up close. The blood spot in the eye, the redness in the mouth and the blueish tesserae making up the diffused shadows. Quite the welcome in the entrance hall of the recently conserved House of the Boar, Pompeii.

23
A steelblue ladybird (www.inaturalist.org)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Halmus chalybeus, commonly known as the steelblue ladybird, is a species of ladybird in the beetle family Coccinellidae and the genus Halmus that is native to Australia.

17
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Is there a "message the mods" link? I wanted to made a suggestion in another comm but where do I send it?

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I wanted to make the thumb a silly snail mail image but when I googled I learned there's a ~~band~~ musician with that name so I ran with it.

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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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InevitableSwing

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