“when I used my phone again to display my barcode, the person at this desk said ‘you can’t sign your name but you’re tech-savvy?’ I replied that I was a computer science professor who just happened to have an injured arm. I’m sure that people with more permanent disabilities get this sort of nonsense all the time.”
SMBlog -- 31 October 2024
“The state’s top education official relied on generative artificial intelligence to draft a proposed policy on cellphone use in Alaska schools, which resulted in a state document citing supposed academic studies that don’t exist. The document did not disclose that AI had been used in its conception. At least some of that AI-generated false information ended up in front of state Board of Education and Early Development members.” https://alaskabeacon.com/2024/10/28/alaska-education-department-published-false-ai-generated-academic-citations-in-cell-policy-document/
The U.S. Library of Congress is hiring an enterprise architect, a rare non-supervisory GS-15 position:
USAJOBS
USAJOBS connects job seekers with federal jobs across the United States and around the world as the official employment site for the federal government
<p>This position is located in the Enterprise Architecture Division, IT Governance Directorate, Office&nbsp;of the Chief Information Officer.&nbsp;...
 #getfedihired cc: @npub1rl44...l72p
The U.S. Library of Congress has an open fully-remote position for a DevOps engineer:
USAJOBS
USAJOBS connects job seekers with federal jobs across the United States and around the world as the official employment site for the federal government
<p>This position is located in the&nbsp;DevOps Section, Software Engineering Division,&nbsp;IT Design and Development Directorate, Office of the Ch...
 #GetFediHired cc: @npub1rl44...l72p
Remember when Eric Schmidt said that we should let AI solve climate change because we aren’t? https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/08/google-meta-omaha-data-centers/
Beyond the obvious “don’t use Uber” lesson, this feels like an argument for antitrust breakups – ordering a burrito shouldn’t require a ToS which also applies to a taxi service.
Ars Technica
Uber beats crash victims’ attempt to try case in court instead of arbitration
Couple said daughter agreed to terms update when ordering food via Uber Eats.
The U.S. Library of Congress is hiring a GS-14 #accessibility specialist eligible for remote work:
USAJOBS
USAJOBS connects job seekers with federal jobs across the United States and around the world as the official employment site for the federal government
<p><strong>This permanent position is eligible for 100% distant or local telework.&nbsp; The salary range advertised is for the Washington, DC area...
 #a11y #section508 #wcag #getfedihired cc: @npub1rl44...l72p
“there are concerns that these displaced communities may never be able to return to their lands. While weather extremes regularly displace whole communities in other parts of the world, this could be the first permanent mass displacement due to climate change.”
The Conversation
South Sudan floods: the first example of a mass population permanently displaced by climate change?
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes and might never return.
“Local farmers, authorities came to believe, were systematically destroying vital weather data in order to falsely claim millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded crop insurance, for a drought they made up.”
The Colorado Sun
Wrecked rain gauges. Whistleblowers. Million-dollar payouts and manhunts. Then a Colorado crop fraud got really crazy.
The sordid story of two ranchers who conspired to tamper with rain gauges on the Colorado-Kansas plains to get millions in false insurance claims