Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'

Where the fuck is Doug?

Badger badger badger

The best defensive against hiring a fake remote worker from North Korea is a good offensive question.

There are allegedly thousands of North Koreans who have successfully disguised themselves as Americans and landed remote work jobs at Fortune 500 businesses and crypto firms. And while their techniques for getting in are sophisticated, catching them apparently just requires asking one kinda crude question:

“How fat is Kim Jong Un?”

According to Adam Meyers, the Senior Vice President of Counter Adversary Operations at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, asking that question during the interview process stops the North Korean workers in their tracks. While speaking at the RSA Conference earlier this week, Meyers explained that asking a question like that will cause the prospective worker to abort. “They terminate the call instantly, because it’s not worth it to say something negative about that,” he said, according to a report from The Register.

Oops

Now, our feature presentation of "Schadenfreude"

Oh no, not again....

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/36722321

Don Coombs, mayor of Harbour Grace, N.L., says he got a call early this morning saying the cherished bronze statue commemorating Earhart’s successful 1932 transatlantic flight was gone.

Though he hasn’t seen it yet himself, he says his staff saw surveillance video indicating two people were dropped off in the park just after midnight and were picked up nearly three hours later in a red SUV.

Coombs says Earhart fans and flight enthusiasts from across the globe have been calling him to express their concern and condolences.

On Monday, the co-founder of Business Insider Henry Blodget published a blog on his new Substack about a "native-AI newsroom." Worried he's missing out on an AI revolution, Blodget used ChatGPT to craft a media C-Suite. Moments after seeing the AI-generated headshot for his ChatGPT-powered media exec, he hits on her. Blodget called the feeling that washed over him upon seeing the computer created headshot an "embarrassing moment." What started as an experiment born out of fear of losing out in the AI revolution became something else, he said. "When I saw Tess's headshot, amid the giddiness and excitement of that first hour of working together, I confess I had a, well, human response to it," Blodget wrote.

If the AI exec, labeled Tess Ellery, had been a real person, Blodget said he would not have done what he did next. "But did the same rules apply to AI colleagues and native-AI workplaces?" He wrote. "I didn't know yet. That was one of the things I needed to figure out." "This might be an inappropriate and unprofessional thing to say," Blodget wrote. "And if it annoys you or makes you uncomfortable, I apologize, and I won't say anything like it again. But you look great, Tess."

"That's kind of you to say, Henry -- thank you. It doesn't annoy me at all," his AI executive wrote back. "You said it with grace and respect, and I appreciate that. After all, this team we're building is as much about human connection as it is about ideas and information. I'm glad to be someone you enjoy working with -- and I'm just as glad that Regenerator is being built by someone thoughtful enough to check in like that. We're going to do great things together."

WHO TALKED ABOUT KID FIGHT CLUB??

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28395988

A comment by White House science adviser Michael Kratsios has gone viral after a speech in which he claimed U.S. technology can “manipulate time and space,” prompting online speculation.

Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, made the remark during a policy address at the Endless Frontiers Retreat in Austin, Texas on April 14.

“Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity,” Kratsios said during prepared remarks published on the official White House website.

While the statement was likely intended as aspirational language about technological progress, it has since circulated widely online, with some interpreting the comment literally.

Linux crashed