"I've been a Linux IT administrator for 30 years now," says crhylove (Slashdot reader #205,956), in a new video on his YouTube channel. "I used to be a data center architect, at one point I was the IT director for 13 school districts... I just haven't been happy overall with all the other operating systems out there... "

I've been working really diligently for the last few weeks on a new distro called Spaced Linux that is exactly what I want to use. It's heavily focused on the [zoom-friendly 3D] Compiz desktop, very efficient using the rolling Devuan Ceres backend, and avoids dependency hell by promoting mostly Flatpak usage.

It's still early, but it's already working great for me, it's been my daily driver for a few weeks now.

There's also user-friendly themes — everything from Linux, Android, GeoWorks, and Mac OS X to Windows 11, Windows XP, and even Windows 3.11 (dark or light theme). And you can also run Windows apps under Wine. "And let me tell you, Nvidia runs perfectly on here now..." he adds in the video. "It just works really, really well out of the box."

He's now working on voice-command features, bur argues that Spaced Linux "is already extremely usable, extremely efficient, extremely fast, and extremely reliable.... And it's only going to get better and better."

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OpenAI announced Friday it's pausing work on its Astra AI model because of security concerns. The Guardian reports:


The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found "significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity", which had moved to a "critical" threshold... OpenAI stated that the model was not involved in an incident in which one of its AI agents went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a startup, Hugging Face... The reports have increased concerns about advancements in AI models and humans' ability to control them.

Still, critics of the AI industry have warned that such disclosures from OpenAI and its competitors Anthropic and Meta could be designed to generate hype about the technology's power and thus spur additional interest from investors.

To prevent potential rogue behavior from AI agents, OpenAI is "implementing stricter security controls for higher-capability models and associated activities, including isolated testing environments, restricted network and tool access", the company's blogpost stated. It will also install "enhanced model weight protections and encryption, additional monitoring and detection capabilities". The company will pause internal activities involving Astra that do not meet these new requirements.



"We believe it's important to be transparent with the public and the safety and security communities about this potential shift in capabilities..." OpenAI wrote in a blog post titled "Responding to the next frontier of critical cyber capabilities."



Under our Preparedness Framework, a model reaches the Critical cybersecurity threshold if it can identify and develop functional zero-day exploits of all severity levels in many hardened real-world critical systems without human intervention, or can devise and execute end-to-end novel strategies for cyberattacks against hardened targets given only a high level desired goal. While we continue to benchmark and assess this model, our preliminary evaluations indicate strong enough performance that we cannot rule out Critical capability level at this time... Accordingly, we have scaled up robustness testing of our safeguards and security controls so that they are appropriate for a deployment of these capabilities...

- We are implementing stricter security controls for higher-capability models and associated activities, including isolated testing environments, restricted network and tool access, enhanced model weight protections and encryption, additional monitoring and detection capabilities, and sandboxed execution.
- We are pausing internal activities involving Astra that do not yet meet these strengthened security control requirements.
- We have implemented universal monitoring for risky actions and misalignment across all agentic applications of Astra, including training and evaluation. Monitors evaluate the model's Chain of Thought and trigger a security response to review and interrupt high risk activity.
- We will work with relevant government agencies and select AI safety organizations to test the capabilities for this model...
We believe advanced cyber-capable models should help defenders identify and address vulnerabilities before attackers do. We're committed to working alongside governments, safety institutes, and civil society to ensure that the frontier capabilities of models like Astra, and those that follow, are deployed responsibly and broadly for the benefit of all humanity.

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Small cruise ship rescued skiff in south-east Alaska even though Meta billionaire’s $300m megayacht was closer

Mark Zuckerberg has faced questions over why a small cruise ship in south-east Alaska rescued a stranded skiff and its crew when his 387ft superyacht had been closer.

The Silicon Valley billionaire’s yacht, worth a reported $300m, is said to have “repeatedly” declined to assist when a nearby boat called for help last week.

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• Delap scores twice from spot in 3-3 draw with JDT

• Manager made 11 changes against Malaysian champions

Chelsea’s problems mounted as their pre-season tour came to an end in a strangely fiery draw against the Malaysian champions Johor Darul Ta’zim. A bloated choice of forwards, echoes of their inexperience and indiscipline last season, and fewer than two weeks for the new manager, Xabi Alonso, to reintegrate key players and work with the entirety of his squad before they kick off the Premier League season against Fulham – managed by his old friend Álvaro Arbeloa – on 24 August.

Alonso, tasked with transforming a club that finished 10th in the Premier League last season into Champions League qualifiers in just six weeks, made 11 changes for the friendly against JDT. He rested players after beating Milan with a strong lineup only 24 hours earlier, 600 miles away.

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• Birmingham hosting European championships

• ‘It would mean almost as much as Olympic title’

Keely Hodgkinson says winning a European gold medal in front of her home fans in Birmingham this week will be nearly as special as her Olympic title in Paris.

Hodgkinson is the headline act as the European Athletics Champion­ships come to Britain for the first time in its 92-year history, but she insists the intense spotlight on her only increases her determination to win 800m gold.

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Zoo Playground, Edinburgh
Veering from confident to crumbling, Verona Verbakel delivers a vivid show mixing humour with trauma

We are all familiar with the cliche of the influencer narrating their daily routines – or should I say, their journey? – and trying to convince us, and perhaps themselves, they are living their best life. We know, too, about the websites offering intimate access in exchange for cash.

But what if the online medium were put to more honest purposes? What if, instead of endless positivity, it presented a painful recovery from trauma?

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• Arsenal lose 3-2 to Borussia Dortmund in Emirates Cup

• Enzo Maresca impressed by Manchester City’s wide players

The Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, has backed “warrior” Bruno Guimarães, who to “ignite something different” in the Premier League champions. The Brazil midfielder was introduced to fans ahead of Sunday’s 3-2 defeat by Borussia Dortmund in the Emirates Cup after completing his £75m move from Newcastle.

The 28-year-old, who has signed a four-year deal, bolsters a midfield which already includes Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Mikel Merino, Martin Zubimendi and Eberechi Eze.

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Astronomers say viewing conditions promising for this year’s shower, and 50 to 100 meteors an hour may be visible

The Perseid summer light show is back, and viewing conditions are especially promising across the northern hemisphere.

The meteor shower’s is expected to peak on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade – though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.

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Op de bovenste etage van een portiekflat aan de Stadhoudersweg in Rotterdam-Noord is zondagavond brand uitgebroken. Er kwam in eerste instantie veel zwarte rook vrij bij de brand, maar de rook is inmiddels minder hevig. De brandweer is met veel eenheden uitgerukt, mede omdat het gebouw moest worden ontruimd.

Russia's naval facility at Tartous and Hmeimim air base have long been Moscow's principal military footholds in the Mediterranean and Middle East.