Author: arthursheikin@gmail.com

[ad_1] Russia’s high recruitment bonuses to sustain its war effort in Ukraine are straining the country’s economy, according to a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War.Costs have ballooned for the bonuses and the labor expansion in the defense industry,Last July, Putin signed a decree more than doubling the standard enlistment bonus from 195,000 rubles to 400,000 rubles — nearly five times the country’s average monthly wage.The head count drive has placed the military in direct competition with civilian industries for labor, driving up wages and prices, particularly in services, while Russia continues to pour funds into…

[ad_1] New York CNN  —  First it was eggs, now it’s beef. The last time Americans likely noticed spiking prices at the grocery store was when eggs reached record-highs. Since then, egg prices have fallen after the deadly avian flu outbreak was contained and producers built back supply. Now, beef prices are hitting records, rising almost 9% since January, according to the Department of Agriculture, and retailing for $9.26 a pound. June’s consumer price index showed steak and ground beef prices are up 12.4% and 10.3%, respectively, over the last year. But lowering beef prices will be harder than lowering…

[ad_1] New York CNN  —  People have worried that computers will take their jobs for basically as long as they’ve been around, but those fears have felt more realistic than ever over the past year as artificial intelligence has begun to overhaul the way people work. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei amplified those concerns in May when he warned AI could spike unemployment, particularly among white-collar jobs, to 20% over the next one to five years. Certain companies are already enlisting AI to do some of the work previously done by people; Meta, Microsoft and Salesforce are increasingly using AI to…

[ad_1] Washington, DC Reuters  —  Microsoft has issued an alert about “active attacks” on server software used by government agencies and businesses to share documents within organizations and recommended security updates that customers should apply immediately. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Sunday it is aware of the attacks and is working closely with its federal and private sector partners, but offered no other details. In an alert issued Saturday, Microsoft (MSFT) said the vulnerabilities apply only to SharePoint servers used within organizations. It said SharePoint Online in Microsoft 365, which is in the cloud, was not hit by the…

[ad_1] London CNN  —  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the defense alliance of 32 countries, is on a spending spree, with plans to funnel billions into their militaries and security systems over the coming decade. But it’s a splurge that some European members of NATO, grappling with huge and ballooning debt burdens, can ill-afford. “It’s something unprecedented in peacetime to have such a massive increase in spending on any item – in particular, on defense,” Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research or DIW, told CNN. Last month, NATO members agreed to boost their respective defense spending…

[ad_1] This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Katie and Alan Donegan, who retired at the ages of 35 and 40, respectively. The couple is originally from the UK and has been nomadic since 2020. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.Alan: When I was growing up in the nineties, my dad went bankrupt for 5 million pounds and gambled away our family home. The years we spent fighting in court to keep a roof over my family’s head taught me that I never wanted to be financially insecure.As an adult, someone bought me a self-development book…

[ad_1] The founders of Windsurf, the now much talked about AI startup, are having a roller coaster couple of weeks.Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen nearly struck a deal to sell the company to OpenAI for $3 billion before it suddenly fell through.Then, the two decamped to Google DeepMind, leaving the rest of the company scrambling. Windsurf’s remaining executives struck a deal with another AI startup, Cognition, the following weekend, which its new CEO, Jeff Wang, described as “crazy.”Now, legendary venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has weighed in on the drama, criticizing the founders’ decision to leave. Khosla Ventures is an investor in Cognition.”Windsurf…

[ad_1] This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lee Seung-jun, a 47-year-old retired professional basketball player who represented South Korea internationally. His words have been edited for length and clarity.A mix of my American dad’s height and my Korean mom’s identity took me places — literally.I was born in the US and grew up as Eric Lee Sandrin, but after moving to Korea and giving up my US passport, I became Lee Seung-jun.I went on to play professional basketball and on the Korean national team. Both sides of my family shaped me in different ways.Settling down in SeattleMy…

[ad_1] One of the most lucrative corporate skills these days is effective prompting — making requests of chatbots to get what you want — but it’s not as easy as it sounds.Chatbots are like children. They will do only what you ask, if even that, and nothing more. To get what you want, you have to be explicit and specific.AI startup Anthropic is offering some help on this front. The company recently published a “Prompt Engineering Overview” to help users get started.While its guide applies to pretty much any chatbot, it’s tailored to its own, Claude.The first order of business,…

[ad_1] CNN  —  A sudden resurgence of interest in Jeffrey Epstein, and unanswered questions about his crimes, has been measurable this month in book sales, Netflix streams and YouTube searches. The data points to deep public curiosity in Epstein’s underage sex trafficking operation, and a possible government coverup, at a time when President Trump is trying to shift attention away from the topic. Old copies of investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s 2021 book “Perversion of Justice,” about Epstein, have been snapped up by buyers in recent weeks, leaving the book out of stock all across the web, from Amazon and…