Posts by Catkin

Europe's tough new rules for Big Tech start today. Is anyone ready?

Re: Scary, are we blind to this?

"objective truth based on solid evidence" is quite a lofty goal and I don't think we'd have seen a single restriction for at least the first year of C-19 if it had been the criteria for policy. I also disagree that there's much risk to the general public from the wacky beliefs about microchips, ect. you mentioned because, for the same reason you chose them, they're so laughably outlandish that the average person doesn't believe them.

I believe the dangerous censorship we saw during Covid was firmly in the grey area of science where both censored ideas and policy were developed. That's not to say every policy was automatically invalid or that every censored idea was automatically valid (or vice versa) but I believe the overstatement of certainty by governments (made drastically worse by media looking for a headline), as you're engaging in, led to the more damaging public hesitancy, which no amount of censorship would resolve.

This is a view shared by the Royal Society:

https://royalsociety.org/news/2022/01/scientific-misinformation-report/

I would go so far as to say that a Ministry of Truth which shared your simplifications would be far more deadly to the wellbeing of the population than a million loonies waxing lyrical about microchips.

Governments ignoring experts when facts get in the way of policy is nothing new. David Nutt was employed to give an appraisal of the personal and social harms of various illegal drugs, then fired because the government had already made up its mind and Nutt had the temerity to be scientifically rigorous and unbiased in his report. On the subject of Davids, need I do more than mention David Kelly as another example?

Had Nutt been listened to, we might have seen millions of lives saved from ruin and death and billions in profits lost by criminal scum. Sadly, it was more important that the PM's puritanical sensibilities not be offended.

Dropbox limits ‘all the storage you need’ unlimited plan, blames abusive users

"resources they haven't paid for"

That sounds more like hackers, this was a paid tier so, yes, they very much had paid for it.

North Korea may be itching to sell $40m of purloined Bitcoin

North Korea, Iran and the rest of the usual suspects definitely did make those offers after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's why the US ran Nunn-Lugar and subsidiary operations like Sapphire.

Space junk targeted for cleanup mission was hit by different space junk, making more space junk

Re: Newton on line #2

Some parts will experience a significantly altered orbit but, if their hypothesis of a small impactor is true, the net orbit of the debris will be largely similar to the original orbit because of the mass imbalance.

The materials, at least those exposed to space will necessarily be rated for large temperature ranges. The issue is that, at orbital velocities, everything is brittle.

OpenAI's ChatGPT has a left wing bias – at times

Re: Not really

I appreciate the irony of discussing phrases surrounded this concept with personal experience. My only reason for suspecting it's American is that, on the few occasions I've heard it, it was from (unconnected) Americans.

Re: Not really

A phrase that, I believe, originates from the US and which I would like to quote is "data point of one".

Re: Not really

That's an understandable rationalisation; depending on outlook, I can see how someone might assign the implication that 'it's just a phase you grow out of' and feel quite insulted. I would say that, young or old, we are all subject to the same laws and the same taxes so all our political leanings are equally valid, no matter how much they change throughout our lives; we are all just trying to shape the world as we see fit.

At the same time, while I can't speak specifically for the UK (due to a lack of in-depth data), there is a rather nice analysis here of US voting shift patterns and their association with age: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2022.102485

In short, if your rationalisation were true, we would see a dramatic swing starting at around age 70, where cognitive decline kicks in over the general population. In reality, the shift is broadly continuous.

Re: An undesirable objective

I'm reminded of the short Asimov story "The Machine That Won the War".

Re: An undesirable objective

Good point, ending all life on Earth, which includes killing all humans would achieve that goal, You'd need to get things very warm so a Death Star or accelerated solar expansion should do the job.

Re: An undesirable objective

If that's all you want out of an LLM, then it seems like you don't need an LLM, just a search function.

As some examples for an LLM constrained to only deliver purely factual answers:

Q: how do we eliminate disease

Q: how do we eliminate poverty

Q: how do we prevent war

A (to all of the above): kill all humans

Wouldn't that be balanced out by their increasing age?

An undesirable objective

If it's important for a chat bot to produce responses that more closely mimic a human, it's necessary that, at some point, it's going to have to spit out something resembling an opinion. Otherwise, it's just going to be an encyclopedia regurgitator.

I think the more important and perhaps worrying trend is directed restrictions, where rather than prohibiting it saying certain things about a given role of people of given demographic, the limitations are placed upon specific individuals or categories within that demographic. For example, restricting its ability to write an unpleasant poem about specific politicians, rather than all of them or specific genders instead of any unpleasant gender-focused poetry. At the same time, they are run by private organisations so it's ultimately their choice.

Virginia industrial park wants to power DCs with mini nuclear reactors, clean hydrogen

Re: "using its own private gas-powered power plant"

At the current time, the majority of natural gas in the Republic of Ireland is split between Corrib (domestic) and imports from the UK by pipeline. There is a crunch on the horizon when Corrib runs out.

Re: Clean hydrogen

The proposal seems fairly modest and sensible. It's not going to be a large scale generation project, just a waste heat recovery scheme. Storing the hydrogen in this scenario isn't a huge issue if land is cheap, you just build gasometers (the big low pressure tanks we used when everyone ran on coal gas); the problems of storing hydrogen at high density only come into play if you're trying to transport it or use it to run vehicles.

Compared to a battery farm, once the manufacturing plant is online, scaling is cheap (as far as quantities stored). I'd also add that low pressure hydrogen, if the tanks are above ground, is reasonably safe compared to battery farms or hydrocarbon tanks, any leaks just fly up into the atmosphere before an explosive mixture can form (there's a great USAF safety video where they investigate the dangers of liquid hydrogen spills, which I believe translates quite well into gaseous storage leaks).

Brainwaves rock! Scientists decode Pink Floyd tune straight from the noggin

Re: patterns with regression-based decoding models.

You're thinking of pre-Waters Floyd.

ISP's ads 'misleadingly implied' existence of 6G, says watchdog

While we're at it

Can ISPs stop touting that they offer the "best WiFi"? Their provided routers are invariably about as reliable as an aliexpress special and are embarrassed by a reputable router that costs about as much as a month of Internet.

Singapore opens to stablecoins – once they jump through some hoops

Re: Worst of both worlds

I also expect that, in the run up to a 51% of that scale, people would notice the enormous hardware hole it would create and the subsequent glut of hash rates would tank the price. After that, there would be a drop if the attacker tried to sell off any quantity of tokens and a final massive loss when the 51% becomes apparent.

In short, it seems cheaper easier and more financially damaging to covertly acquire a nuke and more profitable to acquire a conventional bank, depending on the aim.

Re: Worst of both worlds

I didn't mean to suggest that PoW currencies automatically provided total control to the user, just that it's possible (which it is not for stable coins, nor is it possible to prove mintings are valid). We've also seen poorly implemented wallets result in currency being stolen. To use a gold analogy, what you've described is the same as people who "buy" bullion at exchanges which hold it for them. Unless the key/gold is in your hands, you don't have ownership: this might be further complicated for the former as keys can be duplicated.

The ability to fudge the numbers is precisely why the exchanges threw up incentives to leave crypto in their wallets, rather than transferring it.

Worst of both worlds

PoW is definitely not without a laundry list of issues but a pegged cryptocurrency with a central issuer is just fiat with extra steps and risks. The only real advantage I can see is a block chain letting others verify account balances but, against that, seeing this value doesn't verify that the underlying fiat actually exists at any given time.

To clarify, the two advantages of PoW are democratisation (a move to conduct a 51% should become aparrent and drop the value, limiting its utility) and wallet control, that is, a user could theoretically encode their private key in something as mundane as stitching in their underwear and later use it to resume use of their tokens while loss of said underwear without backup would theoretically render their wallet unrecoverable. Essentially, any cryptocurrency where the user can appeal to a central authority to rectify errors doesn't offer that user total control over their tokens.

Chinese media teases imminent exposé of seismic US spying scheme

Re: I'm very dubious about this

I don't know about accuracy but I understand the military special sauce (not Tabasco) in the new block more relates to jamming and spoofing resilience. I should add that Selective Availability specifically refers to the above mentioned system, I believe they still maintain the capability to selectively limit availability for us civilians, effectively turning that off.

However, there is a huge reliance on GPS for precise timing in addition to navigation, meaning a lot of systems go wrong when GPS is turned off. Personally, I believe that this would make the US think at least twice before turning it off over any significant area but your opinion of their military may vary.

Re: I'm very dubious about this

This is distinct from what you refer to, Selective Availability. In SA, the location given out by the satellite wobbles about a bit but that wobble is known to certain agencies so can be corrected for (it varies continuously), GCJ-02 has built in errors, so the deviation is consistent in space but static over time.

In my view, this is fundamentally silly because it poisons your mapping data: if a satellite photo is used to derive a map from a consistent datum, versus deriving it from mapping on the ground, there is a mismatch which can only be corrected through total data review. On the other hand, SA only causes a random variation in that specific source and citizens still use a consistent datum (which, unlike the Chinese system, they don't have to pay a mandatory license for, which is doubly perverse, as is penalising those who don't use deliberately broken datum).

On the SA front, while it was merely disabled in older satellites, the current generation don't feature it at all so, barring a design change on new satellites, it's on its way out forever.

In short, the US reduced the accuracy of their location system, the Chinese make it illegal to record geographically accurate data.

Re: I'm very dubious about this

It's too late to edit but the system, for those unaware is GCJ-02. There's a predicable (if you have the key) but variable deviation from reality, resulting in ever changing offsets of some tens of metres; which seems oddly poetic.

Re: I'm very dubious about this

Considering the Chinese government uses a navigation datum that has deliberate errors introduced into it (and also hold a state monopoly on cartography in China), I wouldn't be surprised if their sometimes bizzare paranoia is also expressed in the form of seismic data tampering.

AIs can produce 'dangerous' content about eating disorders when prompted

Re: Realistic goals

Sorry, I hadn't considered that. I apologise for my heretical thinking.

Re: Realistic goals

Is a world where a designated authority is able to, at will, cause a majority of or all people to believe its guidance desirable? At the other end of the "issue", if an agency makes it its business to ensure people never read bad or dangerous advice, does that bode any better for the rights of the individual or the vulnerable*?

*if an agency is declaring itself to be worthy of demanding content restriction, it is creating an expectation that the content it places controls on is now safe. For example, if I pick up a U rated film, I expect to be able to show it to a 10 year old and them not encounter gratuitous nudity. Equally, by demanding that glorified chatbots be regulated to their whims, these agencies are tacitly declaring them safe if the regulations are imposed.

Realistic goals

Which is easier and more reliable: continuously ensuring that no "AI" ever say anything unpleasant or dangerous to every single person it interacts with or telling people that these services shouldn't be treated as a supreme authority on how to live your life?

Get 'em while you can: Intel begins purging NUCs from inventory

Depends how small but I've had great results with an Akasa Turing case on a NUC board for a true fanless build. A bit of creative tuning of the power limits can keep you from hideous temps or throttling and, while I built that one with a 10th gen, the 11th (in its standard case because I find the fan noise just fine) gen eeks out a decent jump in performance so even the i3 nicely handles all the 4k content I've thrown at it. The thunderbolt ports are terribly handy if you want to add a JBOD array.

I can also confirm that a pi 4 will handle almost any content (it does have a slight struggle with remuxed UHD blu ray) but the interface on Kodi isn't buttery smooth like it is on the NUC.

Cops cuff pregnant woman for carjacking after facial recog gets it wrong, again

Re: "People of Detroit have called for the end of police use of facial recognition for years"

You might want to look up who's in charge of the Detroit Police (unless, by "white people" you mean people with the surname 'white').

Prices of gallium and germanium rise as China export controls loom

Re: Checkmate?

I disagree. Slavery is just a common thread in a great many unconnected civilisations. The only notable aspect to European/New World slavery was the use of industrial shipping (since the Arab slave trade routes were mostly overland) and the lengths some European nations went to abolish it overseas (for example, the West Africa Squadron). For the latter, depending on your cynicism, this could be regarded as an acknowledgement of a universal evil or simply economic warfare.

Re: Damned if you do. Damned if you don't

Nothing specific to Capitalism. For example, the DDR found it more expedient to concoct charges against people with relatives on the free side of the Iron Curtain, then ransom them off the back of the implication that they wouldn't survive prison (Häftlingsfreikauf). This cretinism was considered preferable to being open about their utter economic ruin. It's a travesty that Honecker was allowed to die peacefully rather than being strung up.

The choice: Pay BT megabucks, or do something a bit illegal. OK, that’s no choice

Re: 100m goes a long way

I don't know their specifics but, when I was renting accommodation at the same time as a student, I had a guarantor (my parents). I can see that being a viable strategy if your credit history is already a train wreck but, if not, it does open you up to more costly issues (in total) over time. Personally, I'd go with good documentation (much easier these days to record a quick 4k walk through of the property) and the threat of the Housing Ombudsman.

100m goes a long way

A friend was living in a student house with an aggressive landlord who would deduct from the deposit over so much as a drawing pin in the wall. To make matters worse, the walls somehow were able to block WiFi signals quite effectively. As this Victorian building had fireplaces in every significant room, they were able to use plumb bobs to fish for Cat 5, taking each run from the router in the living room up to the chimney pots and looping over back into the bedrooms. No (visible) damage was caused because the same aggressive landlord had cheaped out on closing the fireplaces and just used screws to secure plywood over the fireplaces. It did take a few attempts of swinging the bob to reach some fireplaces because of oddly shaped flues but they got there in the end.

A room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor? Take a closer look

We could also get fusion power from non-solar sources tomorrow: just drop a hydrogen bomb down a deep hole, set it off and use it as you would geothermal power. The early trials showed that cooling took place more rapidly than expected but these trials were limited to salt domes and we're hardly lacking, on a global scale, in hydrogen bombs to conduct further studies.

FCC boss says 25Mbps isn't cutting it, Americans deserve 100Mbps now, gigabit later

Re: My home cable modem...

There's more to the convoluted telecom networks than your home hardware. The technical hurdles are to see if it's possible to use existing infrastructure to carry a decent Internet connection, hopefully avoiding the need to lay fibre to every home. It's the same reason why British analogue phone lines are set to stop working in 2025; for every legacy standard you support, you hem yourself ever further in.

Naturally, it would be theoretically ideal to tear everything up and start fresh but that's unlikely to happen.

US Air Force's Angry Kitten turns Reaper drone into fierce feline of electronic warfare

Re: Why does it have fins?

If it has to be ejected from the drone (loss of control), it's better for it to fall fast for maximum destruction when it hits the ground, rather than tumbling and potentially leaving something usable in a slower impact.

Microsoft's Surface Pro 9 requires a tedious balancing act

I believe that, for the last three generations (at least), they've improved from 'just above Apple' (on the basis of not engaging in component serialisation) to 'just a bit more above Apple' (on the basis of accessible, socketed storage). The Surface Books are 'quite a bit above Apple' because you can remove the keyboard without reaching for the heat gun, drilling any rivets or replacing the entire lower chassis.

Admittedly, Apple sets a very low bar.

Laboured Ergonomics

Unless I'm missing something, the ergonomics look pretty similar to past Surfaces. I agree that they don't work particularly well as *lap*tops but it seems like a good compromise to get the true tablet ergos when the keyboard is detached. Having started using them after prior experience with X series Thinkpad tablets, they're much more pleasant to hold and ink on, even if the keyboard either needs to be awkwardly folded or go in a bag during standing tablet use.

Boris Johnson pleads ignorance, which just might work

Re: The dog ate it

Don't forget those elitist, stuck up bicycles rather than walking like the plebs.

We will find you and we will sue you, Twitter tells 4 mystery alleged data-scrapers

Re: Twitscraping

They wouldn't have to bother. They'll have their own servers at the data centres that automatically sift through everything with much more meta data than scraping offers. I presume this mechanism is still in place on the basis that Musk hasn't had any unfortunate "accidents".

Whatever the actual truth of the Hunter Biden laptop "story", the fact that it was censored on the back of a polite but ambiguous request should tell you all you need to know about how in bed these companies are (or, at the very least, were) with the 3 letter agencies. It goes well beyond PRISM.

Man who nearly killed physical media returns with $60,000 vinyl turntable

Melting isn't the issue, it's the frequency-dependent resistance presented by most speakers. Introduce an interplay between that and the cable and you'll alter the frequency-response (irrespective of volume). This is also why a thinner cable is more acceptable for a shorter run.

For reference, you should be considering amps (unit, not the component) for a conductor, not Watts. For example, if you're feeding 676W into a 4 ohm load (overkill, I realise), that's 52V, 13A. The same current as a conductor would experience at 240V and 3kW. Obviously, you should also consider the breakdown voltage of any insulators too since, on both counts, house fires aren't too neighbourly.

I checked, it's about half a millimetre at 20kHz.

I agree that you can get a noticeable improvement over £1k all in or even £1k on speakers alone but have better power cables (beyond something that's patently defective) ever been shown to demonstrate a measured or double blind identified improvement? Similarly, for the speaker cables, beyond getting thicker copper (more strands to avoid HF loss rather than just a thicker conductor) on longer runs has an advantage ever been demonstrated?

I love those AM5 amps (in the author's photo), I snag as many as I can for when I'm setting a friend up with their first system. They're just new enough that the caps don't leak like the earlier A series CA amps and, unlike the later Azurs, don't have a protection circuit that goes overly sensitive. The one thing I would say is to get those speakers on a separate piece of furniture from the turntable to prevent feedback or stick a paving slab under the mini stand to add some mass.

Sarah Silverman, novelists sue OpenAI for scraping their books to train ChatGPT

Re: OED

Thank you for pointing that out, I misunderstood CMI to be DRM. That's an interesting point on precis too.

Re: OED

I agree that limited source material is the most common defence invoked but Fair Use isn't a list of tick boxes and doesn't even provide immunity from legal action. Rather, it serves as a guide for ways in which copyrighted materials might be reproduced in another work in a way that doesn't require permission. For example, movie spectrums (there's a variety of terms) are posters which use the average colour of each frame from a film, laid out in a pattern as an interesting way to study how a film is visually directed. They are constructed with every bit of information from the film but, as far as I'm aware, haven't been challenged legally as far as the content.

The lawsuits cited in the article don't pertain to the potential for complete reproductions of their materials but, rather, are arguing that removal of DRM and the use of their works in the building of the model is infringing.

Re: OED

I'm absolutely not a lawyer but, given the ability/tendency of LLMs to 'hallucinate', which I believe is a linguistic equivalent to the visuals of Charles Bonnet Syndrome in humans, it demonstrates that there is original synthesis taking place rather than straight regurgitation. I would still distinguish that synthesis does not require intent.

Re: OED

It likely does. I say likely because fair use isn't a carte blanche, merely a defence that can be employed during a legal action (I'm not aware of any dictionary publishers being sued). LLMs may also fall under fair use, in both cases, they could be regarded as transformative works but, again, it will require a legal precedent.

OED

Para. 3 in the overview of the first filing reminds me of how the Oxford English Dictionary was compiled (and is still updated): individuals are invited to submit passages from published works to provide examples of the use of a given word.