Linux fréttir

The century-old duty-free import exemption that transformed American online shopping has ended, The Atlantic argues, closing a loophole that allowed packages valued under $800 to enter the United States without tariffs. The de minimis threshold, raised from $200 in 2016, processed millions of daily shipments directly from overseas sellers to American consumers. China lost access earlier this year; the exemption now terminates for all countries. Platforms including Shein, Temu, and marketplace sellers on Amazon, Etsy, and eBay built business models around direct shipping from manufacturing hubs in Asia and elsewhere. Import duties will apply to all international packages regardless of value, with tariffs reaching 50% for some countries. The policy shift affects everything from $30 specialty faucet parts shipped from Britain to handmade crafts from India, fundamentally altering the economics of cross-border e-commerce that emerged over the past decade.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Some Microsoft Azure customers have had a worrying few days after a problematic account migration caused forecast costs for the cloud service to skyrocket, triggering budget alerts. An alarmed Register reader got in touch after receiving warnings from Azure's automated systems that they had significantly exceeded their budgets, and a glance at Microsoft's support forums indicates their issue was not isolated. The problem was that costs had suddenly ramped up. One user, with a budget threshold of $85, received an automated alert indicating that their spend was forecast to reach $1,027. Another said: "We're actively seeing the same issue, costs have blown up by a crazy amount. No official notice or announcement from Microsoft either, it's appalling."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans are having a record low amount of sex -- even less than they did during the Covid-19 pandemic -- according to a new study led by researchers at the Institute for Family Studies. WSJ: This continues the downward shift in sexual activity that has been worrying sociologists and psychologists for decades. For the report, called "The Sex Recession," researchers at the IFS analyzed the data on sex and intimacy in the latest General Social Survey produced by NORC at the University of Chicago, which was collected in 2024 and released in May. They found that just 37% of people age 18-64 reported having sex at least once a week, down from 55% in 1990. The decline is even more striking for young adults: Almost a quarter of people age 18-29, or 24%, said they had not had sex in the past year; this is twice as many as in 2010. Much has been written in recent years about the trend of young people having less sex, attributed to everything from stunted social skills to a rise in internet pornography. Yet the IFS study shows that the same trend holds true for people up to the age of 64, of all sexual orientations, both married and single. (After age 64, there was no significant change in the amount of sex people have, largely because this group reports having sex less frequently to begin with, the researchers said.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Taylor Otwell says skip the clever code, keep it simple

Taylor Otwell, inventor and maintainer of popular PHP framework Laravel, is warning against overly complex code and the risks of bypassing the framework.…

Waymo robotaxis are repeatedly selecting identical parking spots in front of specific Los Angeles and Arizona homes between rides, puzzling residents who document the same vehicles returning to precise locations daily. The company states its vehicles choose parking based on local regulations, existing vehicle distribution, and proximity to high-demand areas but cannot explain the algorithmic specificity. Carnegie Mellon autonomous vehicle expert Phil Koopman attributes the behavior to machine learning systems optimizing for specific spots without variation. Waymo said it had received neighbor complaints and has designated certain locations as no-parking zones for its fleet. The vehicles comply with three-hour parking limits, according to Los Angeles Department of Transportation regulations, governing commercial passenger vehicles under 22 feet.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Could dramatically reduce latency between datacenters and on mobile nets

A team of networking boffins has published fresh research on hollow fiber cables that it claims could offer the lowest ever recorded optical loss for a fiber – meaning the signal would weaken less as it travels, leading to faster speeds and lower latencies.…

A review of published meta-analyses examining protein supplementation found no evidence supporting intake beyond 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight daily, according to an analysis by cardiologist Eric Topol. The review examined multiple randomized controlled trials encompassing thousands of participants. The most widely cited Morton study, which included 1,863 participants across 49 trials, showed no statistically significant benefit at higher protein levels, with a p-value of 0.079. Recent research from Washington University identified the essential amino acid leucine as activating mTOR in macrophages, promoting atherosclerosis progression. The mechanism was demonstrated in both mouse models and human studies measuring circulating monocyte changes following acute high-protein challenges increasing dietary protein from 22% to 50% of energy intake. Current USDA data indicates 55% of American men and 35% of women already exceed the 0.8 g/kg/day recommendation from the National Academy of Medicine. The protein supplement industry, exemplified by David bars containing 28 grams of protein in 150 calories using a modified plant fat called EPG, projects $180 million in 2025 sales.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Executive order adds space agency to National Security Exclusions, voiding collective bargaining rights for staff

Happy Labor Day. The US administration has removed union recognition from NASA as budget cuts and layoffs loom.…

Cloud customers left reeling as forecasts leap hundreds of percent

Some Microsoft Azure customers have had a worrying few days after a problematic account migration caused forecast costs for the cloud service to skyrocket, triggering budget alerts.…

Oracle billionaire funds project to predict immunity and develop treatments for hard-to-prevent diseases

A research group funded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison is set to invest £118 million ($169.6 million) in applying AI to vaccine research with the UK's Oxford University.…