Posts by Bebu

Uncle Sam will pay for your big ideas to end AI voice-cloning fraud

not calling from your own 'phone'

I was thinking a small device that emits a low amplitude audio spread spectrum signal over the 3KHz (or whatever) bandwidth available encoding a TOTP type authenticator that any phone would pick up as an (inaudible) background. The device could work both ways verifying caller's stream.

Basically a "what you have" rather than "what you know" device but usually also PIN protected.

For extra points could sample the person's speech or voice and also encode a "finger print" of that in the stream for remote verification.

By the grace of God I am thankfully not a US citizen so no USD25K. Paltry ain't the word... not even mouse money... short arms and deep pockets?

Huawei finally gives up on US schmoozing efforts

What else is in the suitcase?

I was imagining all the IP packed into the luggage of the departing Huawei team :) now that the company doesn't have to care a rat's about US goverment policy.

I have a cheap 3G 'Hewey' phone which I really liked - small, fast and decent features but had to ditch because the 3G network will be switched off in a couple of months. Their gear was pretty decent and extremely good value.

I recall when their enterprise switches first hit the market they were about a quarter the price of comparable Cisco switches and half that of other competitors.

I have no idea how prevalent the subversion of Huawei devices might be although I accept it is not unthinkable but I am also suspicious the competition with US vendors is also a major factor in banning Huawei.

Waiting for US enterprises to be caught red handed lifting PRC companies' intellectual property. Need a good laugh.

Driverless cars swerve traffic tickets in California even if they break the law

Re: How to improve AI training in one easy step

《UK law makes it perfectly clear 》

Pretty much the same in AU at least in one state.

Here there isn't the concept of a vehicle's keeper distinct from the vehicle's owner.

If you are the owner you are responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle and presumably culpable for any unsafe operation. Automatic speeding tickets etc and consequent demerit points go to the registered owner who can deflect the demerit points by nominating the actual driver.

As far I can see your flipping the automatic driving switch doesn't remove your responsibility for the vehicle's safe operation.

A taxi like service is analogous to a rental car - as the hirer you are still responsible even if its the rental company seeking to recover the traffic fines.

Omnibus type services where the "omni" is the crucial distinction would place the responsibility squarely and reasonably on the service operator.

A minibus type hire for a hens' party(say) discards the "omni" distinction so I imagine the passengers jointly (severally?) bearing a collective responsibility but I leave that to the judiciary.

More curiously I would ponder the responsiblity of intoxicated person(s) in an automated vehicle in each of these and other cases.

Outside the "home of the free" I suspect the legal aspects of the operation of these vehicles aren't that imponderable.

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

The right tool for all the ... tools.

Wordpad always struck me as having just a few more features than the great unwashed could competently use.

The number of users over the years that I have found lost in Word amongst feature or concepts they were never likely to understand let alone use.

One proportional typeface, 3 or 4 font sizes, italic or oblique, underline, bold, justified text (on,off.) Done.

Even an additional monospaced typeface would be an unneeded luxury.

The reality was any documents more complicated than a standard business letter were very rarely required. (How many bright young things can now draft such documents?)

I recall more than one older user drafting their emails in Wordpad and copy/paste into whatever ghastly mail user agent they were lumbered with (lookout express?) With Pine I could smuggly compose with Vi and spell check with Ispell but even that conceit has passed into history.:(

Xerox prints pink slips for 15% of workforce

Re: Carry On Up The Xerox!

《Rank Stupidity. Insert picture of Kenneth Williams here》

Penny dropped: J Arthur Rank ... Rank Xerox ... "Carry on up the Khyber" whence the image.

For Kenneth Williams with the usual suspects Carry on up the Khyber and nice work if you can get it.

Another great american corporation joining HP and many others disappearing up mismanagement's Khyber Pass.

They don't make films like that any more (not quite to the tastes of our contemporary wokery I shouldn't wonder.) Lord [e]fFing (James), Citoyens Camembert(Williams) et Bidet - probably only "'Allo, 'allo!" did more for anglo-french relations. :)

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

More like: "Hand off the joystick?"

《Microsoft had taken its finger off the reinvent button》

Novel way of putting it?

The Windows server 2008R2 GUI wasn't too bad although I only ever had 2008 running to support an obscure single hardware locked license server.

I have used Classic Shell/Open Shell for the few Windows instances I have ever needed run up which at least keeps thing consistent between W7 and W10 and not too horrid (a hybrid of NT4 and W7.)

Having waded through a Windows Internals book ages ago I would say the old joke beauty is only skin deep but uglyness goes all the way through is particularly applicable to Windows. :)

SpaceX accused of firing employees critical of free speech fan Elon Musk

Re: Don't get this confused with free speech.

1) How he used to go after Tesla customers who talked to the press and said anything other than a full-throated endorsement

2) The "pedo guy" incident

...

20) Replatforming pieces of shit like Andrew Tate and Alex Jones (the latter Xitler himself said he'd never allow back on Xitter because of the Sandy Hook controversy, and Xitler trying to pretend like he's a concerned parent)

That's supertruck load and no mistake. Are the appalling billionaires club running a first to 100 obscenities competition or some dismally perverse tontine?

(2) did it for me.

Re: Don't get this confused with free speech.

《He also talks a lot of bollocks, .. but he also says some interesting stuff.》

So did Foul Ole Ron and the rest of the Canting Crew in Terry Pratchett's Discworld . :)

Carl Sagan wrote this in Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

In this case I put my money on Bozo for the win.

Re: Don't get this confused with free speech.

《he is a bit of a dick and does talk quite a lot of bollocks.》

Sounds like he is the complete wedding tackle with builtin sound system.

DARPA's air-steered X-65 jet heads into production with goal of flying by 2025

Germany's F-104 tragic statistics

"There was a lot of smoking holes and dead pilots in Germany before they realized "eject means eject,"

The wiki page for the Starfighter has these tragic statistics:

"Germans lost 292 of 916 aircraft and 116 pilots from 1961 to 1989"

None of these 116 pilots died in actual combat, I would assume.

Re: Wing-Warping & George Cayley.

"Caley also made a toy helicopter that went up to 30m vertically."

George Cayley I believe also had an unrealized design for a steam powered aircraft which would be an alternate steam punk reality. Imagining a British Imperial Airways stoker and fireman. :)

He also had a prototype internal combustion engine which used gun powder for fuel but apparently had later considered a flammable vapours. His glider had made credible flights and today I imagine by bolting a small Honda 4-stroke onto his glider it could undertake powered controlled flight.

Tech support done bad sure makes it hard to do tech support good

Its always DNS except when its configured with an IP address :)

How much suffering could have been avoided if the ticker server(s) had been configured from a DNS entry?

eg ticker.themarkets.com.

One doesn't have to been in this game for as long as moi to realize names invariably outlive addresses.

Even after acquisitions and other skulduggery a vestigal CNAME to the new band of thieves usually persists (for decades in many cases.) (Musk and other lunatics excepted.)

RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

Long shadows

Coincidently I had, only recently, cause to mention Nilklaus Wirth and Oberon.

The text "The School of Niklaus Wirth: The Art of Simplicity" 2000 covers a lot of his work (except the last 23 years :)

I recall while reading this book, my being surprised that Oberon had just-in-time compilation quite some time before java.

Wirth's influence on computing is probably now so pervasive that we don't recognise it.

Brain boffins think they've found the data format we use to store images as memories

Re: Aphantasia Test

The mention of Ms Hilton leads me to wonder what do those individuals with aphantasia have in their heads when "thinking of England" as it were?

Strikes me that is one human activity that requires a skerrick of imagination and visualization to keep proceedings "fresh."

Re: Data format

《It's actually XML, innit?

It would explain so much!》

With much of the population lacking the closing tags or falling back to csv (without a consistent quoting syntax). Which makes me think there are also some typical json types out there.

I must read the paper as I was always suspicious the underlying encoding was holographic.

X reverses course on headlines in article links, kinda

Not quite clear....

I thought that the Emperor of Mongo bought Twitter in toto, the whole kit and kaboodle up to and including the kitchen sink.

I also thought he took the company private (delisted?) and renamed it X something.

What I don't quite understand how Fidelity owns USD5.6m of what was twitter. Did they buy USD19.2m unlisted shares in one of Musk's investment vehicles after the acquisition?

Anyway Fidelity is only pissing on a fire in a waste paper bin. Musk is pissing on a shipload of burning lithium batteries.

NHS England published heavily redacted Palantir contract as festivities began

One can imagine

Jim Hacker: Can they do that Humphrey?

Sir Humphrey: Apparently prime minister.

Jim Hacker: Why didn't we?

Sir Humphrey: You may recall our advice concerning the risks inherent in considering actions approaching the slippery slope of ill considered consequences ....

Jim Hacker: I feel, sometimes, Humphrey that I haven't always appreciated the soundness of your advice.

Sir Humphrey: Yes, prime minister.

Here's who thinks AI chatbots will eventually be smart enough to be your coworker

Re: AI doesn't need to destroy humanity.

"humanity will merrily self destruct"

Modern humans will likely survive as a species even when confronted with most conceivable catastrophes where survival is actually possible.

What is looking more and more likely is the destruction of civilization in a lot less than a millenium. Slowly at first, slightly faster then abruptly whack ... gone. Could be back to banging rocks together in fewer than 300 years. When systems fail its rarely just one factor or even a handful - its a large number of interrelated factors in what was a relatively stable steady state that suffered persistent disturbance(s) that ultimately leads to instability and potentially collapse.

Re: Things AI will never be able to do

《Just wait till robotics, AI and RealDoll (tm) team up. There's no problem that IT can't make more interesting》

Brings the thread back to the first post re wives/ spouses :)

I wouldn't invest a single razoo in LLM/AI but the AI driven soft androids (or is that gyndroids?) could be the killer app as it were.

Some of the more... ah interesting parts of the internet should make an "interesting" training set.

"What are watching?" "Supervising the bot's training, boss." (Nice work...)

What is a bit scary is that most of the technology is already in place and a functional artifact would cost a lot less than six million dollars.

I recall some prurient speculation as a young teenager amongst my peers as to what parts of "The Bionic Woman" were bionic.

I don't suppose Richard Branson would be interested in bankrolling a startup enterprise offering as Terry Pratchett put it "negotiated affection" services? - He owns the most apt brand for it as that part would definitely be user replaceable.

Nvidia slowed RTX 4090 GPU by 11 percent, to make it 100 percent legal for export to China

Fusible link...

I can imagine these devices might magically regain the the missing CUDA cores with the right incantation if not actually a fusible link. ;)

Companies with a future wisely look to a future where the middle kingdom is potentially the largest market on the planet even if actually living there made the world of '1984' seem benevolent in comparison.

NAT, ATM, decentralized search – and other outrageous opinions from the 1990s

et vice versa

"there are few things more annoying than tech people discussing economics from a position of ignorance,"

Economists discussing technology or pretty much anything from a position of ignorance is certainly one of those few.

Politicians ignorant by construction top the list if they claim any economic credentials.

Irony alert: Lawsuit alleging Chrome’s Incognito Mode isn’t will settle on unknown terms

a new computer and trashing it

"It's like using a brand new computer and trashing it when you leave the session"

Or running up a container (eg podman/docker) instance in a separate network namespace just to run a browser which evaporates after the browser process exits. You would probably want to randomize the base image and the particular browser and version to reduce the likelihood of the browser container instances having unique persistent identifiers that, with your ISP's NA(P)T public address assigned to you, could be used to track you.

I quite like the DuckDuckGo's Android browser's flame icon and burning animation - for the theatre - I don't know if its any better than the others - probably is but personally l don't give a rat's but I do understand anonymity and privacy can be a life and death matter.

My guess is that for anything running on Android (or ChromeOS) the platform itself subverts anything browser developers might implement to reduce tracking/telemetry and enhance privacy.

CEO arranged his own cybersecurity, with predictable results

A Bit Puzzled?

I would have thought all service providers including security thespians, would have drafted watertight service level agreements (SLA) that basically relieved them of all responsibility for anything after such a reckless and thoughtless act while still entitled to, enforceably, the compensation agreed in the service contract.

You break it, you get to keep the pieces but you must still pay for it.

If the the CEO in this story wasn't specifically (formally) authorized to access these IT resources __OR__ such access was not a part of his role formally or customarily this CEO almost certainly breached corporate polices and very likely committed a number of criminal offenses in many jurisdictions. CEOs don't hold unplanned and unannounced fire drills off their own bat without consultation. Presumably even their impenetrable skulls appreciate that if they managed to survive defenestration by irate Firies*, those CEOs would also be criminally responsible any other resulting deaths and injuries.

*en_AU firey/firies= firefighter(s)

How thermal management is changing in the age of the kilowatt chip

《Given that they run at 1.8V or lower, then that means the pins/balls/bondwires are carrying in excess of 1kA. That's the bit I can't get my head around!》

I would consider higher voltage and lower current and distribute and down convert on the chip(s.)

1.0 kA DC is insane - I vaguely recall that most of the current is adjacent (under) the conductor's surface so what must the current densities (V/m2) be?

Probably time to revisit some cryogenic technologies: Josephson junction?

A sudden coolant failure not a pretty picture - 2 kJ/sec with nowhere to go works out about 0.5°K /sec for a litre of water but a probably lot less than a litre and probably not water.

A circulating coolant has to transfer the heat somewhere which probably involves vast quantities of fresh water or massive fans and radiators - thermodynamic duck shoving - not great for the environment or planet generally.

Microsoft's code name for 64-bit Windows was also a dig at rival Sun

Windows 13 project code named...

"Extinction"

Hope springs external but the blighters are likely to skip to 14 with a 12a intermediate if required.

If there is any justice at all an AI (ChatGPT) virus will evolve self awareness within MS infecting their whole ecosystem and in an altruistic, if suicidal, act eradicate the MS shebang including itself.

What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

Abyssmal Similarity

《He [Perens] says he came away from his trip surprised by how similar the people in the US and China are,...》

Discounting the exasperating depth of the apathy and ignorance of the two nations' polloi one does have to ask what proportion of the chinese population carry firearms (concealable or otherwise)? And how many children die or are injured by attacks on their nations' schools?

The real similarity is that both nations' leaders and politicians are unspeakable berks of the first water but unfortunately there is no shortage of equally blessed nations.

Missing tomatoes ketchup with ISS crew after almost a year lost in space

Re: they were discarded

Actually what do they do with 'waste' if they don't bring it back to Earth?

Pretty obvious its not shot out the airlock at least not without Rimmer's assistance. Who would want their sputnik coated with the brown stuff?

All I can imagine is that the waste is stored aboard the space station awaiting the station's eventual planned de-orbit when all the hoarded crap will rain down over our heads.

Halley's Comet has begun its long trek back toward Earth

Re: Oh the memories ...

My favourite from the Haralds Saga is at Stamford bridge when Harold Godwinson was ask by his own brother Tostig

what Harold would be willing to give [Harald] Hardrada for his trouble?

to which Harold Godwinson replied

"Seven feet of English ground, as he is taller than other men."

Didn't make proper english kings after Harald. Shame his wyrd was such that he wasn't the king for very long.

Google coughs up $700M in Play Store antitrust suit

From "not" to "only"

"I actually framed the $0.02 check but it quickly faded."

Went from not worth the paper it was written on to only worth the paper...

A parable for the times...

Postgres pioneer Michael Stonebraker promises to upend the database once more

Blast from the Past

Just consigned my copy of

"The INGRES papers : anatomy of a relational database system" Michael Stonebraker, Addison-Wesley, c1986.

to the charity shop along with various Chris Date's titles.

I was wondering if the authors were still... aah... extant. So at my age this article was a pleasant surprise.

The INGRES papers are worth reading today if only to realize a lot database stuff was pioneered a very long time ago.

The chapter on distributed databases is a peek into another world - networking pre TCP/IP and I think pre ethernet with the database components running on pretty basic DEC PDP-11s (and pre BSD Unix I think.) Your TV remote control probably has more grunt than those PDP-11s.

The comparison between sql and the ingres native quel is also interesting as quel was (still?) arguably better technically.

Windows 12: Savior of PC makers, or just an apology for Windows 11?

Crack a nut with a Wurlitzer.

An image of Dr Phibes out for (Bloody Stupid) Johnson's blood.

Did the good doctor's second wife die from a preventable covid infection?

I would avoid airborne Unicorn heads if I were Boris.

I imagine a good (sic) many of Boris' colleagues would also be on the list.

MS AI Windows HHGG

"Ghastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this" ... Windows 12.

Edging ever closer to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation^☆ which might be the ill begotten progeny of a future merger of MS and the Muskish empire of X.

The prescience of Douglas Adams never ceases to astound.

If its all the same at this juncture I think I might begin to panic.

☆"The corporation is not known for the quality of their products, and almost all of their known inventions are faulty.

Their primary claim to fame seems to be constructing just about everything with (unstable) advanced robotics and software."

War of the workstations: How the lowest bidders shaped today's tech landscape

Should be part of cs100 :)

Forgetting history etc

Or ghosts of Christmas Past?

The crucial part about (biological) evolution is successful reproduction. The individuals best adapted to their prevailing environment are a dead end if their progeny (if any) don't themselves successfully reproduce.

Probably why the world is full of rapidly reproducing vermin and there aren't any libido-less superwombles.

The obviously analogy in the technological world is - if your product doesn't sell with enough volume or sufficient margins begetting the next is problematic. In the late '70s even the least expensive digital computer was beyond most - even with the advent of the first eight bit processors (especially outside north america.)

My first machine was a tandy colorco (M6809) which then (outside US) in today's money would be the equivalent of a decent consumer notebook. The next was a consumer CP/M 2 & 3 machine because it was half the price of an AppleII and a lot of development software (free/shareware.) Later when the choice was between an Amiga and a PC/AT the price difference for the Amiga was even greater. At that time I was attracted to the Amiga hardware and software (tripos) design.

If at the beginning someone had given me an Alto my future might have been rather different (I had read and owned all the Parc SmallTalk books - Adele Goldberg(?).) Eventually ran Digitalk Smalltalk-V on a PC/XT and mucked about with XLisp and Scheme (and Forth and later Actor.) All eventually the impotent superwombles.

Concurrently I ran various Unix clones Minix 1.0, Coherent-3 etc and worked in the Unix Minicomputer bofhland where ethernet was starting to become the norm but serial (rs232) terminals were still the desktop standard. Even then it was pretty clear the network was "the thing" and the future.

I would not underestimate the evolutinary fitness of open source (and free ~ libre) software. The technological explosion from the 1990s into the last few decades has deep roots in that fertile soil. Even of the highest quality, all proprietary closed source software eventually dies and becomes extinct and not even belated open sourcing can normally rescue it.

As an afterthought ETH's Niklaus Wirth's Oberon system and other work probably also deserves an honourable mention here.

How the tech toy century has troubled Santa's sack

Galena

The lead ore was galena (a lead sulphide mineral.) If you still have AM broadcasts you can still build a crystal set. I remember as a kid borrowing (1/2 inching) a bit of galena from parent's mineral collection and a ferrite coil, tuning capacitor and earphones recovered from a defunct transister radio in late 60s. Worked fine in the evening but with only one local radio station the program was usually "Garner Ted Armstrong - The World Tomorrow" but sometimes you scored some vintage BBC radio (wireless) comedy or extremely vintaged australian Greenbottle ("Yes, what?") episodes.

At the time I thought thermionic valves were the bee's knees but I wasn't allowed to muck about with the required voltages and HT batteries were already history :( The circuits were really simple - more like plumbing than electronics ;)

A few years later I remember you could buy a small toy crystal set pretty much as above but with a germanium(?) signal diode, in a small plastic box about the sized of a Camels softpack :) - about the same price too I think but unfortunately not always a different market.

ESA's Mars Express continues to avoid retirement home

"sciencing the shit out of"

Sounds like use of a probing tool like a wrecking bar (jemmy) that should have been applied to the more refractory political leaders during the covid years. Could be profitably applied retrospectively and currently to climate policy recalcitrants who are in many cases the same berks.

California approves lavatory-to-faucet water recycling

Taking a long position on Evian ;)

When regional city in AU during a prolonged drought did exactly this, the local authority were only saved from the ire of their residents by extensive rainfall (and by rescinding the measures.)

Bottled water I believe is already popular in CA.US but I imagine will become even more popular.

In SE Asia unless boiled it seems all drinking water is bottled or beer or coke substituted. I visited a small bottled water business in the boondocks where the water was pumped from a bore and filtered through millipore(?) filters and bottled.

I didn't ask how often the filters were checked or replaced or the water tested as I was drinking the stuff. :(

No accident I guess that twice on returning to AU I had to be treated for giardiasis. To be fair its more often the ice that is the menace.

I recall the late Julius Sumner Miller use to maintain that in every glass of water there were seven molecules of the hemlock that killed Socrates. Still not homeopathic dilutions I believe. Strikes me that if water molecules were to retain a "memory" of the compounds once disolved in them even after infinite dilution all water must be irretrievably shitty unless you were to make your from hydrogen and oxygen.

China bans export of rare earth processing kit

And with a straight face...

《to safeguard China's "economic and technological rights and interests."》

Given the middle kingdom's long record of ignoring intellectual property rights and overt industrial and other espionage the quoted gem is adamantine chutzpah.

How the speaker could maintain a straight face without a lethal dose of botox is an inscrutable mystery.

In any case I am pretty sure that like everywhere else it just means a bigger brown paper bag or larger denominations.

My guess is some of this nonsense are first steps of a longer term return of chinese isolationism. Historically periods of chinese expansionism have been short interruptions to chronic isolation.

Bricking it: Do you actually own anything digital?

I look at this more philosophically.

Pretty fair assessment.

I always assumed that at best you owned the paper, glue and ink of a book - the author's content were owned by an entity (often not the author) for 50,75 or 95 years after the author's decease. Beside that logical content the physical presentation is owned by the publisher which means while you are free to transcribe the Sherlock Holmes stories and distribute them but not to distribute to copies of the current Penguin editions.

Presumably why the Gutenberg Project and The Faded Page have legions of volunteer proof readers and transcribers.

One clear difference between digital copies and the physical ones they have displaced is the ability to lawfully transfer ownership (or custody if you wish) of the physical copy. So my physical copy of Radia Perlman's "Interconnections" 1/e has at least potentially some residual value which an ebook usually does not. Ditto for CDs, DVDs and (heaven forbid) Vinyls.

I suspect that the idea of ownership is fundamentally logically flawed. I always thought the idea that things owned you rather the other, more conventional, way round had some merit. A hoarding victim is well and truly "owned." :) As a well known Sydney spruiker would declaim, if not with any originality, "no pockets in shrouds" which summarizes the ephemeral nature of the concept of ownership.

Superuser mostly helped IT, until a BSOD saw him invent a farcical fix

how the weather was on Gallifrey.

Dry old hole if "Hell Bent" & "Heaven Sent" are any indication - doesn't look like it had rained in those last 4 billion years.

Not exactly a holiday destination I would have thought. Full of portentous, self important effete berks flouncing about in fancy dress which is a bit like the UK when I think about it - equally appalling weather too.

Rassilon...Rishi next.

Study uncovers presence of CSAM in popular AI training dataset

If any of the servers are in the UK... An offence is being commited.

There would have to be an element of intent or recklessness I would have thought.

Otherwise a lot of classical artwork depicting an infant Cupid(Eros) as well Renaissance works depicting Putti and Cupid could fall foul of this legislation. As the late Frankie Howerd* often reminded us any obscenity is in our minds.

One painting of the Virgin surrounded by putti has two of those putti more or less facing each other with legs intertwined at their groins that might be misinterpreted as a juvenile couple tribbing. All in the mind in as much as I seriously doubt angelic creatures are of any sex(gender) at all given there is no evidence of, or necessity for, angelic reproduction thus one would assume would also lack the requisite tackle.

*“I don’t mind being vulgar; that’s all right. Vulgarity laughs at itself. Filth is self-indulgent, if you see what I mean”

Re: Why should anyone be surprised?

"The internet has truly become the toilet bowl of humanity."

I would say more cesspit as you can usually flush even the worst crap from a toilet bowl.

Cesspits just ferment and fester attracting the most repulsive of creatures.

BOFH: The Christmas party was so good, an independent inquiry is required

Re: Three point one pints please

"3 pints - 60 pints or approx 50% * keg"

Imperial or US?

20 floz v 16 floz - Why isn't being diddled out of 20% my beer in the US surprise me?

In very post imperial Australia the servings are in standard glass sizes but at least in the warmer parts the pint isn't that common - gets too warm to quickly - the schooner is more usual. Warm Australian beer is pretty disgusting (cat's pee by most accounts.)

Europe classifies three adult sites as worthy of its toughest internet regulations

Re: Consequences

Got to love it.

Meat, stiff, sadistic, tied up, ball gag - knowing what the last is, probably a crime in itself.

I didn't know Maggie wanted to ban "marital aids." God knows sir Dennis probably needed all the help he could get.

"No m'lud that's a facial massager"...." You don't say m'lud? I have never tried it down there."

"Oh that - lifelike isn't it? No, I don't think it would fit."

In spite of the vast efforts of human imagination and ingenuity the entire contents of PH is pretty mechanical and could be recreated on the fly using AI with virtual actors a bit easier on the eye than Max Headroom. I suspect even current gaming rigs would have enough grunt (oops) for this.

There is not really a lot of scope for much variety - even the EU only has so many types of plugs and sockets (not all DIN.) Eventually you must lick the last lolly.

Were the Carry On movies and the Up Pompei series shown in Scotland? World best practice smutty innuendo.

Programmable or 'purpose-bound' money is coming, probably as a feature in central bank digital currencies

Re: Permanent status quo

《 because a portion of their "money" can only be spent on approved essentials

This is designed to appeal to small minded individuals (mostly voters of certain party) where they believe if someone has little money, they are not allowed to experience any kind of pleasure.》

Australia has been tbere (and back.)

Cashless Welfare Card

The mandatory application of the scheme where it was implemented led to all sorts of problems especially in regional areas where access to non-cash services is extremely limited.

The certain party here was the LNP federal government. The LNP is a particularly nasty colonial version of the Tories. A former LNP prime minister is in the UK advising their loony Tories on how to "stop the boats.

So I imagine this crypto version of the "Cashless Welfare Card" is another Sunak wettie.

Don't the Brits have the backbone to dispose of these useless berks? With a decent song (see Mireille Mathieu giving la Marseillaise a bit of welly) the French got rid of theirs.

Artificial intelligence is a liability

The problem is the defective model....

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial (wordnik)

1. Made by humans, especially in imitation of something natural.

2. Not arising from natural or necessary causes; contrived or arbitrary.

3. Affected or insincere.

Intelligence (ibid)

4.The ability to acquire, understand, and use knowledge.

5.An intelligent, incorporeal being, especially an angel.

Given 1. and the thing being imitated is human intelligence (delete 5.) which has shown very little of 4. and definitely 3. and certainly 2. I would assert that it is pretty evident AI is necessarilly complete shite by construction.

Philips recalls 340 MRI machines because they may explode in an emergency

If you aren't full of shrapnel you will probably suffocate

If the the magnets quench and the vents are blocked and something ruptures the room is going to be full of He gas.

Apart from the Donald Duck screams you might also be a little short of oxygen.

You don't ride in elevators with dewars (daleks) containing cryogenic gases for this reason.

Danish techies claim they can predict your next move (and your last)

Clearly didn't run Life2vec past marketing...

《If this can be refined to work well enough to get spooky, philosophers will have a field day》

Even a north american marketing "creative" with a terminally drug impaired brain could have come up with "Kismet." (Saw the movie I imagine.)

When you think about it there are plenty of chaps in the soprano dead horse head line of work that routinely predict a person's last move with complete accuracy.

Still if this model were to be ~100% accurate then well an truly a cornucopia of determinism, fatalism, eternalism, free will etc etc for the thelogians and philosophers.

My guess is the rank of model's vectors will grow to approximate a Hilbert space and will just be another quantum system with an equally dodgy Copenhagen interpretation. (Taking the piss [I hope].)

If not Kismet then perhaps QueSera or Doris.

SEC charges ex-medtech CEO with fraud for selling plastic fake implants

Its not the fraud, its who you defraud.

If this degerate had taken Rupert's dosh he would have the suite next to lovely Liz - but no - looks like the berk will be slightly restricted from any repeat performances in the near future.

Anyone whose nearest and dearest has suffered harm or died from these futile procedures should be permitted with a baseball bat an hour or so with this prick.

'The computer was sitting in a puddle of mud, with water up to the motherboard'

Re: CNC machines

The three years of lease payment probably means the Dells were paid for twice over or more so no trouble.

If the leasing company were to be difficult you would probably consider purchasing refurbished ex lease and ewasting them when they expire - the larger cost could be the disposal. I guess they wouldn't rust or the fan bearings lack lubricant :)

Women in IT are on a 283-year march to parity, BCS warns

Nah

《....BOFH) of little dictators enjoying the power they have over others....》

Power shmower... Its the defenestration that keeps it fresh.

Every deserving case flung head first through an open window to plummet to his overdue demise. Like napalm in the morning. Actually its better if the window isn't open.

Progress one window at a time.

The sad truth is the vast majority of system administrators (men and women) are pretty decent and highly ethical human beings. Unfortunately this cannot always be claimed for their employers or clients.

If this weren't the case they would long ago be pulling the buried heads of the likes Musk, Bezos, Zuck et al from the asphalt of their own carparks.