Slashdot.org

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Jennifer Ouellette: Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned "with heartfelt sadness and great regret," according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors' full statement. It's the 20th mass resignation from a science journal since 2023 over various points of contention, per Retraction Watch, many in response to controversial changes in the business models used by the scientific publishing industry. "This has been an exceptionally painful decision for each of us," the board members wrote in their statement. "The editors who have stewarded the journal over the past 38 years have invested immense time and energy in making JHE the leading journal in paleoanthropological research and have remained loyal and committed to the journal and our authors long after their terms ended. The [associate editors] have been equally loyal and committed. We all care deeply about the journal, our discipline, and our academic community; however, we find we can no longer work with Elsevier in good conscience." The editorial board cited several changes made over the last ten years that it believes are counter to the journal's longstanding editorial principles. These included eliminating support for a copy editor and a special issues editor, leaving it to the editorial board to handle those duties. When the board expressed the need for a copy editor, Elsevier's response, they said, was "to maintain that the editors should not be paying attention to language, grammar, readability, consistency, or accuracy of proper nomenclature or formatting." There is also a major restructuring of the editorial board underway that aims to reduce the number of associate editors by more than half, which "will result in fewer AEs handling far more papers, and on topics well outside their areas of expertise." Furthermore, there are plans to create a third-tier editorial board that functions largely in a figurehead capacity, after Elsevier "unilaterally took full control" of the board's structure in 2023 by requiring all associate editors to renew their contracts annually -- which the board believes undermines its editorial independence and integrity. In-house production has been reduced or outsourced, and in 2023 Elsevier began using AI during production without informing the board, resulting in many style and formatting errors, as well as reversing versions of papers that had already been accepted and formatted by the editors. "This was highly embarrassing for the journal and resolution took six months and was achieved only through the persistent efforts of the editors," the editors wrote. "AI processing continues to be used and regularly reformats submitted manuscripts to change meaning and formatting and require extensive author and editor oversight during proof stage." In addition, the author page charges for JHE are significantly higher than even Elsevier's other for-profit journals, as well as broad-based open access journals like Scientific Reports. Not many of the journal's authors can afford those fees, "which runs counter to the journal's (and Elsevier's) pledge of equality and inclusivity," the editors wrote. The breaking point seems to have come in November, when Elsevier informed co-editors Mark Grabowski (Liverpool John Moores University) and Andrea Taylor (Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine) that it was ending the dual-editor model that has been in place since 1986. When Grabowki and Taylor protested, they were told the model could only remain if they took a 50 percent cut in their compensation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a set of low-cost VR goggles for lab mice. Called MouseGoggles, the VR headsets will allows scientists to provide immersive virtual environments for the mice while capturing fluorescent images of the rodents' brain activity. Phys.Org reports: The goggles -- which dwarf the tiny mice in size -- were built using low-cost, off-the-shelf components like smartwatch displays and tiny lenses, researchers said. [...] About a decade ago, researchers began rigging up clunky projector screens for mice as a means of creating virtual reality environments, but these devices frequently created so much light and noise that they spoiled experiments, researchers said. "The more immersive we can make that behavioral task, the more naturalistic of a brain function we're going to be studying," senior researcher Chris Schaffer, a professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell, said in a news release. The new VR setup, called MouseGoggles, requires a mouse to stand on a ball-shaped treadmill with its head fixed in place. The headset is attached to its head and held in place with a rod while the mouse skitters about on the treadmill. To see if the headset worked, researchers projected the image of an expanding dark blotch that appeared to be approaching the mice. "When we tried this kind of a test in the typical VR setup with big screens, the mice did not react at all," Isaacson said. "But almost every single mouse, the first time they see it with the goggles, they jump. They have a huge startle reaction. They really did seem to think they were getting attacked by a looming predator." The researchers also examined two key brain regions to make sure the VR images were working properly. Results from the primary visual cortex confirmed that the goggles form sharp, high-contrast images that mice can see, and readings from the hippocampus confirmed that mice are successfully mapping the virtual environment provided them. These VR goggles could be used to help study brain activity that occurs as mammals -- be they mice or men -- move around their environment, potentially giving researchers new insights into disorders like Alzheimer's disease, the study's authors said. The research has been published in the journal Nature Methods.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay the upcoming TikTok ban while he works on a "political resolution." In a legal brief (PDF) on Friday, his lawyer said Trump "opposes banning TikTok" and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office." The BBC reports: Trump had met with TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week. In his court filing on Friday, Trump said the case represents "an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other." While the filing said that Trump "takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute", it added that pushing back the 19 January deadline would grant Trump "the opportunity to pursue a political resolution" to the matter without having to resort to the court. [...] Trump has publicly said he opposes the ban, despite supporting one in his first term as president. "I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points," he claimed at a press conference earlier in December, although a majority of young voters backed his opponent, Kamala Harris. "There are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that," he added. Earlier this month, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to block the ban, saying that the law violates both its First Amendment rights and those of its 170 million American users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Traditional barcodes are set to be replaced by next-generation QR-style codes by 2027, offering enhanced functionality such as embedding sell-by dates, allergens, and recycling information. The Guardian reports: Tesco has started using them on some products, and other trials have suggested that waste of perishable food such as poultry can be cut by embedding sell-by dates in the new QR-style codes, allowing for more dynamic discounting. QR (quick response) codes will allow customers to instantly access more information about the product, including how to recycle batteries, clothes and building materials when tougher environmental regulations bite. But they will also put a greater demand on the world's cloud computing resources, where the extra data they contain will be stored -- meaning a potentially greater carbon footprint. The first barcode was read in an Ohio supermarket in June 1974 when a packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum was rung up. It was devised by Joe Woodland, an inventor who had been implored by a retailer frustrated at losing profits, to speed up checkout queues and stocktaking. Coca-Cola has used the new generation of codes in parts of Latin America for refillable bottles, with the QR code allowing the counting of refills so that a requirement of 25 before recycling can be enforced. The Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is said to have reduced food waste by up to 40% in some areas, as the codes allow stores to better spot products approaching expiry and discount more efficiently. "We've defined an ambition that by the end of 2027 all retailers in the world will be able to read those next-generation barcodes," said Renaud de Barbuat, the president and chief executive of GS1. "We think it's doable ... It represents some investment on the part of retailers to adapt their point-of-sale systems, but it's already well under way." Anne Godfrey, the chief executive of GS1 UK, said: "This has been in the works for some time, but Covid really accelerated it. During the pandemic, everyone got used to pointing their phones at QR codes in pubs and restaurants to access the menu."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In a press release today, Apple said their TV Plus subscription service will be free this weekend (January 3 through January 5). From the press release: Apple TV+ is ringing in the New Year by offering an all-access pass to customers all around the world. Enjoy Apple TV+ for free the first weekend of 2025 (January 3 through January 5), Apple TV+ will be free on any device where Apple TV+ is available. All you need is an Apple ID to see what all the buzz is about. "A full weekend may be enough to binge some of Apple's top shows, including Severance, which has its hotly anticipated season 2 launching on January 17th," notes The Verge's Umar Shakir. "The free days could also help potential subscribers get a taste of Apple's eclectic mix of sci-fi shows, such as the space race drama For All Mankind, postapocalyptic thriller Silo, and the Godzilla serial Monarch: Legacy of Monsters."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Americans check their phones an average of 205 times a day, a 42.3% increase from last year. Millennials are leading the charts in frequency, attachment, and anxiety over phone use, while Gen Z spends the most time daily on their devices at over six hours. PCMag reports: There's a good chance that you're currently reading this article on your phone. If you're like one of the Americans surveyed by Reviews.org, this is one of 205 times today that you'll be checking the device in your hand. To spare you opening the calculator app, that's about once every five minutes you are awake or two and a half full months out of your year. That's an alarming 42.3% rise from last year when the reviews company asked the same question and found people checked their phones 144 times per day. Some of the ways they spend those 205 moments are: - 80.6% check their phones within the first 10 minutes of waking up - 65.7% use their phone on the toilet - 53.7% have texted someone in the same room - 38.1% use or look at their phone while on a date - 27% use or look at their phone while driving And, of course, there are those many, many times when people check their notifications, with 76% checking their phones within five minutes of receiving one. Millennials are the fastest on the draw, with 89.5% of them checking within 10 minutes. Gen Z and Gen X have found common ground (finally), with 84% of each group looking at notifications shortly after receiving them. Boomers and the Silent Generation aren't as anxious to see who is trying to reach them, with 69% and 53.3%, respectively, checking their notifications within a few minutes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month and stole documents from its workstations, according to a letter to lawmakers that was provided to Reuters on Monday. The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity service provider and were able to access unclassified documents, the letter said, calling it a "major incident." According to the letter, hackers "gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental Offices (DO) end users. With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able override the service's security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users." After being alerted by cybersecurity provider BeyondTrust, the Treasury Department said it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI to assess the hack's impact. Developing...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Crypto News: Power providers in the Siberian crypto mining hotspot of Irkutsk have discovered an illegal mining "farm" operating on their own property. The Irkutsk Region Prosecutor-General's Office posted on VK, explaining that an unnamed Irkutsk-based "electric grid supply organization" was "found illegally providing a plot of land" to crypto miners. The prosecutors explained that the state had set aside the plot to help provide "public utilities." Instead, however, the unnamed company leased the land to crypto miners, who built a "mining farm" on the property. The office said that it had fined the power provider 330 thousand rubles (over $3,120) and censured the firm. Prosecutors have also opened an administrative case against the power company. The report notes that Siberia's cheap electricity and cold winters have attracted crypto miners, causing grid instability and power outages in regions like Irkutsk. "Miners favor the low operating costs of crypto mining farms in Siberia," reports Crypto News. "They also favor the area's cheap power costs and famously low winter temperatures, which help reduce cooling fees." Despite temporary mining bans from Moscow, illegal operations persist, prompting local crackdowns.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

South Korean officials said Monday they will conduct safety inspections of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country's airlines, as they struggle to determine what caused a plane crash that killed 179 people a day earlier. From a report: Sunday's crash, the country's worst aviation disaster in decades, triggered an outpouring of national sympathy. Many people worry how effectively the South Korean government will handle the disaster as it grapples with a leadership vacuum following the recent successive impeachments of President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the country's top two officials, amid political tumult caused by Yoon's brief imposition of martial law earlier this month. New acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday presided over a task force meeting on the crash and instructed authorities to conduct an emergency review of the country's aircraft operation systems. "The essence of a responsible response would be renovating the aviation safety systems on the whole to prevent recurrences of similar incidents and building a safer Republic of South Korea," said Choi, who is also deputy prime minister and finance minister.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

German electric air taxi company Volocopter has filed for bankruptcy protection, the latest in a string of similar startups to hit financial turbulence. From a report: Volocopter is one of the more well-funded electric air taxi startups, having raised hundreds of millions of dollars over nearly a decade with backing from major automakers like Germany's Mercedes-Benz and China's Geely.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees the company faces critical challenges in 2025 as it races to catch up in AI amid rising competition and regulatory scrutiny. "The stakes are high," Pichai said at a strategy meeting, details of which were reported by CNBC. "I think it's really important we internalize the urgency of this moment, and need to move faster as a company. The stakes are high. These are disruptive moments. In 2025, we need to be relentlessly focused on unlocking the benefits of this technology and solve real user problems." The meeting revealed employee concerns about ChatGPT "becoming synonymous to AI the same way Google is to search." In response, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis outlined plans to "turbo charge" Google's Gemini app, which executives hope will become their next product to reach 500 million users. Pichai showed a chart positioning Gemini 1.5 ahead of OpenAI's GPT, though he expects "some back and forth" in 2025. The report adds: [Pichai] acknowledged that Google has had to play catchup. "In history, you don't always need to be first but you have to execute well and really be the best in class as a product," he said. "I think that's what 2025 is all about."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia has completed its acquisition of Run:ai, a provider of GPU cloud orchestration software for AI workloads, and announced plans to open-source the platform. The deal, valued at $700 million, brings the Israel-based startup under Nvidia's umbrella after their collaboration since 2020. Run:ai's software helps enterprises manage and schedule Nvidia GPU resources for AI applications across cloud and on-premises environments. Founded in 2018, the company's platform currently supports only Nvidia GPUs, but open-sourcing will enable expansion to other AI ecosystems, according to founders Omri Geller and Ronen Dar. The acquisition strengthens Nvidia's software portfolio as the company, now valued at $3.56 trillion, expands beyond its core graphics chip business into AI infrastructure management.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Speaking of robots, Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University researchers say they trained robots to perform surgical tasks autonomously using video learning, marking a breakthrough in robotic surgery capabilities. The robots successfully manipulated needles, tied knots, and sutured wounds independently, demonstrating ability to correct errors like dropped needles without human input. Testing has advanced to full surgeries on animal cadavers. Researchers aim to address a projected U.S. surgeon shortage of 10,000-20,000 by 2036. The technology builds on decades of robot-assisted surgery, which recorded 876,000 procedures in 2020.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nvidia is betting on robotics as its next big driver of growth, as the world's most valuable semiconductor company faces increasing competition in its core AI chipmaking business. The US tech group, best known for the infrastructure that has underpinned the AI boom, is set to launch its latest generation of compact computers for humanoid robots [non-paywalled link] -- dubbed Jetson Thor -- in the first half of 2025. Nvidia is positioning itself to be the leading platform for what the tech group believes is an imminent robotics revolution. The company sells a "full stack" solution, from the layers of software for training AI-powered robots to the chips that go into them. [...] Talla said a shift in the robotics market is being driven by two technological breakthroughs: the explosion of generative AI models and the ability to train robots on these foundational models using simulated environments. The latter has been a particularly significant development as it helps solve what roboticists call the "Sim-to-Real gap," ensuring robots trained in virtual environments can operate effectively in the real world, he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

World chess champion Magnus Carlsen has returned to the International Chess Federation (FIDE) World Rapid and Blitz Championships after new rules allowed players to wear "elegant" jeans with jackets. Carlsen had withdrawn from the New York tournament when officials demanded he change out of jeans he wore after a lunch meeting, threatening him with fines and disqualification. FIDE revised its dress code following the incident, permitting "appropriate jeans matching the jacket" as an "elegant minor deviation" from standard attire.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

President-elect Donald Trump has defended the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. "I've always liked the visas. I have many H-1B visas on my properties... It's a great program," Trump told The New York Post. His comments follow recent support for the program from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The H-1B program allows 85,000 skilled workers to immigrate annually, including 20,000 spots for those with U.S. advanced degrees. Trump's businesses have received approval to hire over 2,100 foreign workers since 2008, with about 70 positions through H-1B visas, mostly over a decade ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

America's aerospace industry is overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA) — which also handles safety warnings from the industry's whistleblowers. But the Seattle Times says an analysis of reports to Congress found "an overwhelmed system delivering underwhelming results for whistleblowers... More than 90% of safety complaints from 2020 through 2023 ended with no violation found by the FAA, while whistleblowers reported them at great personal and professional risk." Aside from the FAA's in-house program, employees of Boeing, Spirit and the FAA can report safety hazards to the Office of Special Counsel, which has no FAA ties, or through internal employer complaint programs, such as Boeing's Speak Up and Spirit's Quality 360, to trigger company reviews... In the aftermath of the door-plug blowout over Portland, Boeing specifically asked its employees to use the Speak Up program or the FAA's internal process to report any concerns, according to Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal. Both have done a poor job protecting whistleblowers from retaliation, according to a congressionally appointed expert panel... While both were designed to guard against retaliation, critics say they have instead become enablers of it... A panel of aviation safety experts in February rebuked Boeing's Speak Up program in a report to Congress. Whistleblower advocates criticized Speak Up for commonly outing whistleblowers to the supervisors they're complaining about, exposing them to retaliation. Managers sometimes investigated complaints against themselves. Employees mistrusted the program's promise of anonymity. Collectively, the befuddling maze of whistleblower options sowed "confusion about reporting systems that may discourage employees from submitting safety concerns," according to the expert panel's report.... [Boeing quality inspector Sam Mohawk, who alleged the 737 MAX line in Renton was losing track of subpar aircraft parts], continues to pursue his FAA claim, originally submitted through Boeing's Speak Up program. Months passed before Boeing addressed Mohawk's complaint. When it did, Mohawk's report was passed to the managers he was complaining about, according to Brian Knowles, Mohawk's South Carolina-based lawyer. "If you do Speak Up, just know that your report is going to go straight to the guys you're accusing of wrongdoing. They aren't going to say, 'Thanks for speaking up against us,'" Knowles said. The article includes this quote about the FAA's in-house whistleblower program from Tom Devine, a whistleblower attorney with nearly a half-century of experience across a spectrum of federal agencies, and legal director of the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, which helps whistleblowers navigate the federal system. "It's been a disaster from the beginning. We tell everyone to avoid it because it's a trap... We've warned whistleblowers not to entrust their rights there."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"I still can't quite believe that I'm using an Arm-powered Windows laptop every day," writes a senior editor at the Verge: After more than a decade of trying to make Windows on Arm a reality, Microsoft and Qualcomm finally nailed it this year with Copilot Plus PCs. These new laptops have excellent battery life and great performance — and the app compatibility issues that have plagued Windows on Arm are mostly a thing of the past (as long as you're not a gamer). Microsoft wanted 2024 to be "the year of the AI PC," but I think it was very much the year of Windows on Arm... The key to Windows on Arm's revival this year was Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite processors, which were announced in April. They've provided the type of performance and power efficiency only previously available with Apple's MacBooks and challenged Intel and AMD to do better in the x86 space. After much debate over Microsoft's MacBook Air-beating benchmarks, the reviews rolled in and showed that Windows on Arm was indeed capable of matching and beating Apple's MacBook Air. Qualcomm even hired the "I'm a Mac" guy to promote Windows on Arm PCs, showing how confident it was in challenging Apple's laptop dominance. Microsoft and Qualcomm also worked closely with developers to make key apps compatible, and it's now very rare to run into an app compatibility issue that can't be solved by a native Arm64 version or Microsoft's improved emulator. Even Google, which previously shunned Windows Phone, has created Arm64 versions of Chrome and Google Drive to support Microsoft's efforts. With developers continually providing native versions of their apps, it makes it a lot easier to switch to a Windows on Arm laptop. The only big exception is gaming, where x86 still reigns supreme for compatibility and performance... It's hard not to see 2025 as the year that Windows on Arm continues to eat into the laptop space. A Dell leak revealed Qualcomm is preparing new chips for 2025, and the chip maker has also been rolling out cheaper Arm-based chips to bring laptop prices down. The article acknowledges that both AMD and Intel "have the key advantage of game compatibility that Windows on Arm is definitely not ready for..." But "Given the Windows on Arm gaming situation, a new generation of Nvidia's GPUs could help generate fresh excitement around x86 laptops throughout 2025." And "Nvidia might also be planning to help the Windows on Arm effort. The chip maker has long been rumored to be planning to launch Arm PC chips as soon as 2025... Whatever happens to laptops in 2025, you can guarantee that there's going to be fierce competition between Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm." But the author still complains about the dedicated Copilot key on his new WIndows-on-Arm laptop. "While the Copilot experience on Windows has gone through several confusing revisions, it's still a key I accidentally press and then get frustrated when a Copilot window appears."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader SysEngineer shared this report from the Guardian: AI tools could be used to manipulate online audiences into making decisions — ranging from what to buy to who to vote for — according to researchers at the University of Cambridge. The paper highlights an emerging new marketplace for "digital signals of intent" — known as the "intention economy" — where AI assistants understand, forecast and manipulate human intentions and sell that information on to companies who can profit from it. The intention economy is touted by researchers at Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) as a successor to the attention economy, where social networks keep users hooked on their platforms and serve them adverts. The intention economy involves AI-savvy tech companies selling what they know about your motivations, from plans for a stay in a hotel to opinions on a political candidate, to the highest bidder... The study claims that large language models (LLMs), the technology that underpins AI tools such as the ChatGPT chatbot, will be used to "anticipate and steer" users based on "intentional, behavioural and psychological data"... Advertisers will be able to use generative AI tools to create bespoke online ads, the report claims... AI models will be able to tweak their outputs in response to "streams of incoming user-generated data", the study added, citing research showing that models can infer personal information through workaday exchanges and even "steer" conversations in order to gain more personal information. The article includes this quote from Dr. Jonnie Penn, an historian of technology at LCFI. "Unless regulated, the intention economy will treat your motivations as the new currency. It will be a gold rush for those who target, steer and sell human intentions. "We should start to consider the likely impact such a marketplace would have on human aspirations, including free and fair elections, a free press and fair market competition, before we become victims of its unintended consequences."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has died. Born in 1924, he had just celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1st. If you want to catch a glimpse of his political charisma, YouTube has a clip of Carter's appearance on "What's My Line" when he was still only governor of Georgia. Within five years he'd be president of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981. But it seems like today everyone has a story to tell. More than two decades later, long-time Slashdot reader destinyland saw Jimmy Carter speak in Las Vegas in 2001 on the final day of the CTIA Wireless tradeshow. "I feel thrilled to be a part of this," 77-year-old Carter had said.... Carter applauded the work of "entrepreneurs and scientists and engineers that are transforming the face of the globe." And he noted their technologies could address problems targeted by the Carter Center. Interrupted by a few cellphone rings, the former President conversed on a stage at the Sands Expo and Venetian Hotel with Tom Wheeler, the president of the wireless communications trade association. Wheeler reminded the audience of Carter's decidedly nontechnical background, discussing An Hour Before Daylight, Carter's memoir about growing up on a farm in Georgia during the Great Depression. "We were the only family blessed with an outhouse," Carter told the crowd. Wheeler also asked a question many in the technology community could relate to. Carter, he pointed out, had been involuntarily retired. "What's it feel like?" The former President told the audience he'd re-focussed his energies into humanitarian efforts through the Carter Center, which is active in providing health services around the world as well as monitoring elections. Carter donated his appearance fee to the Carter Center... Midway through the hour-long discussion, the former President touted his administration's record of deregulating several industries, including transportation, energy, and communications, saying "If it hadn't been for that deregulation, this environment in which you all live wouldn't have been possible." Carter also shared with the business crowd that it was a belief in free enterprise that made him want to enter politics, drawn from his experiences selling peanuts as a young boy for a dollar a day. The audience greeted the former president warmly, giving him a standing ovation both when he took the stage and when he left. Carter joked it was almost enough to make him want to get back into politics. Everyone has their own opinion. When a friend of mine was in high school, she got to meet Jimmy Carter early in his presidency. He'd seemed unusually kind and good, she said, but remembered her first reaction. "They're going to eat you alive." And yet then, pointing to the humanitarian work he would continue for four decades, she said he was also clearly America's very best ex-president. And the liberal blog Talking Points Memo argues Carter's accomplishments as president are being re-evaluated: Some found him to be distinctly unsung, with little attention given to his brokering of peace with the Camp David Accords and emphasis on global human rights. And some just liked him. A serious, intelligent, faithful, deeply honest man who spurned political expediency and burned through hundreds of pages of memos a day, he preached self-restraint, stewardship and commonality to an electorate that cast him off four years later for the glib excesses of Ronald Reagan.... "People assume that because he wasn't warm and cuddly with Congress that he didn't get much through," said John Alter [who wrote the first independent Carter biography in 2020]. "He signed more legislation in four years than Clinton or Obama did in eight. He has the most prodigious legislative record since World War II, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson." That record includes, by Alter's count, 14 major pieces of environmental legislation. In one of Carter's more creative moves, he dusted off the 1906 Antiquities Act to keep pristine 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness. His piecemeal approach, cloaked in distinctly unsexy bills like the 1978 Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, planted the seeds for a changing national energy system in the face of climate change. Carter had started underlining passages in scientific journals about what is now the most existential crisis of our time as early as 1971. What's most wrenching about Carter's improvements in energy and environmental policy now is what he wasn't able to accomplish. On his way out of office, he issued a report that included recommendations for cutting carbon emissions — at exactly the same rate the Paris Climate Accords coalesced behind 35 years later.... His Carter Center has virtually eradicated certain devastating diseases on the African continent, part of the work for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He and Rosalynn have also helped build and repair over 4,000 homes for Habitat for Humanity, work that continued well into his 90s. I've got my own story. As a young boy I saw Jimmy Carter give a speech in 1977 — just six months after he'd assumed the presidency. A crowd of teenagers thrilled to see the president gave him a long, loud round of applause. And when it finally died down, Carter said... "I wish I got that kind of reception from Congress."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.