Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - Google co-founder leaves California amid wealth tax fears (yahoo.com)

schwit1 writes: Larry Page, the Google co-founder and world’s second-richest person, has reportedly left California amid concerns about a wealth tax on billionaires.

Mr Page has moved the registrations of several entities, including his family office and flying car business from California to Delaware, according to filings with the states.

He has also personally moved out of the state ahead of a potential vote on a 5pc wealth tax, according to Business Insider, which first reported the move.

Mr Page, who founded Google in 1998, is the world’s second-richest person with a net worth of $270bn (£200bn).

The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, left California for Texas in 2020.

Submission + - How Bright Headlights Escaped Regulation — and Blinded Us All (autoblog.com)

schwit1 writes: Modern LED technology promised safer roads. Instead, it’s creating a blinding menace that regulators refuse to address.

- Headlight brightness has doubled in a decade, with widespread driver complaints and frustration.
- Regulatory loopholes allow manufacturers to increase brightness because of outdated federal standards.
- Regulations capping maximum brightness for LED headlights have still not been formulated.

Submission + - Trump says he will not permit dividends and stock buybacks for defense companies (cnbc.com)

schwit1 writes: All United State Defense Contractors, and the Defense Industry as a whole, BEWARE: While we make the best Military Equipment in the World (No other Country is even close!), Defense Contractors are currently issuing massive Dividends to their Shareholders and massive Stock Buybacks, at the expense and detriment of investing in Plants and Equipment. This situation will no longer be allowed or tolerated!

Also, Executive Pay Packages in the Defense Industry are exorbitant and unjustifiable given how slowly these Companies are delivering vital Equipment to our Military, and our Allies. Salaries, Stock Options, and every other form of Compensation are far too high for these Executives. Defense Companies are not producing our Great Military Equipment rapidly enough and, once produced, not maintaining it properly or quickly. From this moment forward, these Executives must build NEW and MODERN Production Plants, both for delivering and maintaining this important Equipment, and for building the latest Models of future Military Equipment. Until they do so, no Executive should be allowed to make in excess of $5 Million Dollars which, as high as it sounds, is a mere fraction of what they are making now. Additionally, the maintenance and repair of Equipment, once sold, is far too slow, and must be immediately enhanced. As President, I am demanding that maintenance be “spot on, on time.”

Submission + - NYC Wegmans is storing biometric data on shoppers' eyes, voices and faces (gothamist.com)

schwit1 writes: Wegmans in New York City has begun collecting biometric data from anyone who enters its supermarkets, according to new signage posted at the chain's Manhattan and Brooklyn locations earlier this month.

Anyone entering the store could have data on their face, eyes and voices collected and stored by the Rochester-headquartered supermarket chain. The information is used to "protect the safety and security of our patrons and employees," according to the signage. The new scanning policy is an expansion of a 2024 pilot.

The chain had initially said that the scanning system was only for a small group of employees and promised to delete any biometric data it collected from shoppers during the pilot rollout. The new notice makes no such assurances.

Wegmans representatives did not reply to questions about how the data would be stored, why it changed its policy or if it would share the data with law enforcement.

Comment UK is jailing people for simply criticizing others (Score 3, Insightful) 53

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Start with Britain, where "grossly offensive" communications can be a police matter. In 2023, British police made more than 12,000 arrests under two communications statutes. For comparison, during America’s first Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, one of the worst crackdowns on speech in the nation’s history, the United States averaged about 2,000 arrests per year, when the U.S. population was more than 50 percent bigger than Britain’s today.

Behind the numbers are stories like that of Elizabeth Kinney, a mother of four who was arrested for having called a man who assaulted her a homophobic slur — not to his face, but in a private message to a friend. After the two fell out, the now former friend sent the messages to law enforcement. Kinney’s attacker wasn’t punished, but she was, under the Malicious Communications Act. Told she potentially faced 10 years in prison, Kinney pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to the British equivalent of probation and community service, and fined the equivalent of nearly $500.

Submission + - EPA to regulate widely used phthalates to reduce environment and workplace risks (msn.com)

schwit1 writes: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday that the agency will move to regulate dozens of applications of five widely used phthalate chemicals to reduce environmental and workplace risks.

“Our gold standard science delivered clear answers, that these phthalates pose unreasonable risk to workers in specific industrial settings and to the environment,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a written statement.

The EPA announced its decision to regulate usage of Butyl Benzyl Phthalate (BBP), Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Dicyclohexyl Phthalate (DCHP), Diethylhexyl Phthalate (DEHP), and Diisobutyl Phthalate (DIBP), which are common chemicals used to make plastics more flexible in things from building materials to industrial applications. The agency said in its release that it used gold standard science and independent peer reviewers to research into determining the risks associated with exposure to these chemicals, which include hormone deficiencies and endocrine disruption.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a sub-institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), noted that although there are limited studies on the effects of phthalates on humans, there are many reproductive health and developmental problems found with phthalate exposure in animals. These include:

- Early onset of puberty
- Interfering with male reproductive tract development
- Interfering with the natural functioning of the hormone system
- Causing reproductive and genital defects
- Lower testosterone levels in adolescent males
- Lower sperm count in adult males

Submission + - Author of LAFD Palisades fire report declined to endorse final version (latimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: He called it ‘highly unprofessional’

The author of the LAFD’s after-action report on the Palisades fire declined to endorse the report and said the document has undergone “substantial modifications and contains significant deletions of information.”

AKA, Coverup.

Submission + - UCLA prof suspended for refusing lenient grading for black students 2

An anonymous reader writes: Judge rules against UCLA prof suspended after refusing lenient grading for black students

Key Takeaways

* A judge ruled against UCLA lecturer Gordon Klein, who was suspended after refusing to grade black students leniently in the wake of George Floyd's death, siding with UCLA on every issue

* Klein sought $13 million in damages, alleging his suspension harmed his expert witness consulting practice, but the judge ruled Klein's own actions contributed to the harm and UCLA acted reasonably

* The judge's ruling allows UCLA to maintain its administrative decisions during a public controversy, finding no violation of Klein's academic freedom, and Klein's legal team has appealed the decision based on what they claim are significant oversights in the ruling

Comment Job advertisements should have to be online (Score 1) 72

One of the H1B requirements is that the open jobs must be advertised in the US for a certain amount of time without qualified candidate responses before they can go to an H-1B. The Hiring companies game the system by advertising the jobs in small town newspapers and require applications be filed via the USPS.

Any new system needs to mandate that jobs be posted on top 20 online job sites.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers* from it." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Working...