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'The Oral Tradition That Built Software May Not Survive AI' Published on 2026-05-31T22:15:00Z A historian-turned-software engineer warns that "so little is ever written down" by professional programmers in a new article for Fast Company: Perhaps there's an early design doc, but then it turns out that everything was substantially revised before work began. Maybe there are a few wiki pages explaining known issues, some of which were solved a long time ago and others that have been left to molder in the codebase. Somebody might have left a comment in the code itself, but typically it's a warning not to change something or else something else will break... Software engineering has an ambivalent relationship with documentation. Everyone agrees documentation matters in theory, but in practice it's inconsistent, outdated, or missing entirely. Part of that is simple inertia. Writing documentation is usually less interesting than writing the code itself. But it...

US Teachers' Union Urges Schools To Curb AI Chatbots and Screen Time Published on 2026-05-31T21:15:00Z Axios reports: The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers' union in the U.S., released a 10-point plan to introduce AI and screen-time guardrails in classrooms. The plan would limit AI use and ban screens for students in prekindergarten through second grade "unless there is a compelling reason," such as supporting students with special needs. The teacher union's president Randi Weingarten warned that young students "are drowning in tech," according to the New York Times, which reports the union president also "called on schools on Wednesday to stop giving digital devices like iPads to children in prekindergarten through second grade." In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, Weingarten also urged elementary schools to avoid using artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemi...

New Star Wars Movie Falls to #3 Behind Two Movies Directed By YouTube Stars Published on 2026-05-31T19:34:00Z Disney's Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu "suffered a catastrophic 70% drop in its second weekend," reports Variety, suggesting the movie isn't finding audiences "beyond an aging group of core fans." "Despite playing on far more screens, The Mandalorian and Grogu landed in third place on weekend charts behind Backrooms and Obsession." (described as "two buzzy horror films.") Suprisingly, both movies were directed by 20-something YouTube stars, "and cost nearly nothing to produce." Analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations tells Variety, "We knew indie horror was hot, but we didn't know how hot. It's actually competing with the big summer blockbuster." Directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, "Backrooms" has earned $118 million globally so far... With a production budget of roughly $10 m...

Renewable Energy is Surging in Africa Published on 2026-05-31T18:34:00Z Almost a fifth of the earth's population lives in Africa. And Africa's next generation of power projects "is increasingly being built around solar and wind power and battery storage," reports the Associated Press, "as governments and investors shift away from coal and large hydropower dams in search of cheaper, faster and more reliable electricity." The shift is visible in a $1.5 billion energy agreement between China and Zambia announced in early May that includes three separate 300-megawatt projects spanning solar, wind and coal-fired power. While the inclusion of coal underscores the continent's continuing need for stable baseload electricity, African countries facing rising fuel import bills as a result of the Iran war, unreliable grids and growing industrial demand are increasingly turning to renewable energy projects that can be deployed faster and more cheaply than traditio...

'Call Of Duty: Warzone' Is Shutting Down On PS4 And Xbox One Published on 2026-05-30T20:34:00Z Call Of Duty: Warzone is shutting down on PS4 and Xbox One later this year, reports Kotaku. As Call of Duty fully transitions to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (and Switch 2), its popular battle royale spin-off, Warzone, is also ditching the old consoles. Later this year, Warzone will no longer be playable on PS4 or Xbox One... Shortly after Modern Warfare 4 ( MW4) launches on October 23, it will be integrated with Warzone. But because MW4 is skipping PS4 and Xbox One, Activision is starting the process of shutting down Warzone on those older consoles... "Beginning June 4, the game will no longer be available for new downloads on those platforms," [Activision wrote on their blog], "though existing players can continue playing until Season 1 launches. Certain items, such as Call of Duty Points bundle purchases, will no longer be available on those platforms...." Pla...

Microsoft Criticized for Threatening Legal Action Against Security Researcher Published on 2026-05-30T19:34:00Z "A security researcher published a series of unpatched bugs in Microsoft products," reports TechCrunch, "along with code to exploit them." Microsoft's response to the researcher? "Threatening to take legal action and call the cops on them." On Wednesday, Microsoft published a blog post criticizing the researcher, who goes by the handle "Nightmare Eclipse," for publicly disclosing a series of bugs, including BlueHammer, RedSun, UnDefend, and YellowKey. The flaws affected products such as the Windows built-in antivirus engine Defender and the disk-encryption tool BitLocker. The core of Microsoft's complaints is that the researcher did not attempt to report the bugs so that the company could fix them. That would have been "responsible," as Microsoft's blog put it. The other side of the company's argume...

Mars Minerals Reveals an Ancient Ocean's Potential For Life - and a Possible Way to Make Oxygen Published on 2026-05-30T18:34:00Z Researchers have identified a ring of minerals around the largest basin in the northern hemisphere of Mars (which past research suggests held a large body of water). Phys.org says the research provides new clues on when life may have been possible on Mars — and how future astronauts could make oxygen: Manganese oxides and hydroxides (collectively written as manganese (hydr)oxides) can act as geological proxies for past oceans... The team involved in the new study analyzed short-wave infrared (SWIR) data from China's Zhurong rover, ESA's OMEGA orbiter and NASA's CRISM orbiter to identify and quantify manganese (hydr)oxides... The team says the placement of the ring indicates that the ring formed during the Hesperian epoch — a geologic period on Mars that occurred roughly 3.7 to 3.0 billion years ago. The Hesperian epoch marked the transi...