Posts by Catkin

FBI boss says COVID-19 'most likely' escaped from lab

Re: The dangers of certainty

That seems like a worrying level of certainty about the state of mind of another person (not to mention competing theories) and acceptance of ideology over reality.

Regarding Lysenkoism, perhaps I oversalted the statement to make it flow. I meant that attributing measures of truth to concepts based on their association reminds me of Soviets denying Darwinism because it seemed bourgeoisie. In the end this caused the Holodomor. That's not to say you can't discount the validity of statements based on the source but it's important to distinguish between this and using them to tacitly validate alternatives.

Re: The dangers of certainty

I'm confused, am I "confessing" to being wrong for the right reasons or that I'm actually a believer in the Soviet form of Lamarckism?

Re: The dangers of certainty

So they were (potentially) right for the (definitely) wrong reasons, while the people censoring them were (potentially) wrong for the (definitely) right reasons?

Your falsification by association reminds me of Lysenkoism.

The dangers of certainty

I recall a lot of people being censored for 'misinformation' over this theory. It doesn't make them automatically right, or those censoring them automatically wrong but should serve as a warning to remain sceptical (distinct from being gullible).

Chinese defence boffins ponder microwaving Starlink satellites to stop surveillance

Re: Working

The USAF was pretty happy with Titan. It was more that NASA, faced with spiralling costs, stuck their neck out to sell it as the best way for the DoD to get stuff into space.

European Commission bans TikTok from staff gadgets

Re: Why were they ever able to install it?

I may be overly paranoid. I work on the principle that I wouldn't do anything on my corporate phone that I wouldn't be comfortable being live streamed to my departmental director.

Why were they ever able to install it?

My modest employer has their corporate phones locked down so nothing can be installed without ITs approval. I don't understand why an organisation responsible for governing would allow any personal use of provided devices.

The clock is ticking on a possible US import ban for Apple Watch

Remember when they were so upset about a judge forcing them to apologise (after making a contemptuous non apology) that they implemented specific code to ensure that visitors would only see their (new) apology by scrolling:

https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/05/apple_apology_take_2/

Unless things change, first zettaflop systems will need nuclear power, AMD's Su says

Re: late stage capitalism

Initially, I said own but I thought that was too narrow and mentioned major because those are the ones that they disclose up front (i.e. not precluding minor but less well documented). Any evidence at all of cross investment would be a nice starting point.

But there's a risk that the turbo button slows it down (it's not certain, manufacturers generally used an on position/light to indicate a restricted clock speed but this was far from universal).

Re: late stage capitalism

Sorry, we're talking about "late stage capitalism" here where, I'm told, competing corporations don't exist.

Re: late stage capitalism

[citation needed], doesn't look like any of those hold major stakes in both.

Re: late stage capitalism

Do tell about the investment funds that own both Intel and AMD

Re: late stage capitalism

Is a great phrase to use to tell someone you don't understand capitalism without saying you don't understand capitalism.

For example, how do you prevent the competition from being similarly energy hungry and how do you ensure that it's your energy running your inefficient supercomputer?

Microsoft begs you not to ditch Edge on Google's own Chrome download page

Re: Cease and desist

I can see that backfiring spectacularly and destroying ad blockers. Sure, they won't be able to get them all but look at what happened to Vanced and the lack of a decent replacement.

Sick of smudges on your car's enormo touchscreen? GM patents potential cure

Re: A better idea

They're turned to dust

Re: A better idea

Actually, it breaks down grime at a molecular level. It's quite a neat idea with a reasonable history of outdoor use (glass skyscrapers) but the implementation of it inside a vehicle poses the problems covered in the article.

Hong Kong to crypto exchanges: get a securities broker's licence, or go home

Going home imminent

The Beijing bandits aren't going to tolerate any system that doesn't involve them holding the keys for very long.

Yukon UFO could have cost unfortunate balloon fan $12

Republicans have a lot to answer for

Never forget, they were the ones who goaded the President into acting rashly by repeatedly portraying his earlier, sensible decision to wait and see as weakness.

This app could block text-to-image AI models from ripping off artists

Re: A potential wokable solution?

If you did use a training set of commercial logos and faced legal action for it, the means by which you'd produced the image would be immaterial to the case. At worst, it would hurt your defence because it demonstrates intent to copy, just as having a series of tracings where you physically copied parts of the logo would be incriminating.

The real issues would be confusing similarity and/or your attempted use. Perhaps the worst thing you could do is attempt to sell a competing product using a confusingly similar logo but that would apply just as much if you doodled out a yellow inverted 'W' on a red background and used that to sell hamburgers as it would if you'd used hours of GPU time to come up with something similar. At the same time, if you were drawing a comic and wanted to make a generic soft drink logo which wasn't used in a defamatory way (e.g. claiming it caused cancer) then you'd probably be fine.

Norway finds a way to recover crypto North Korea pinched in Axie heist

Re: Tornado cash

I had difficulty finding a precedent to cite either way but I would draw the distinction that these are fungible tokens. If the authorities were able to seize specific tokens now held by innocent parties with no mens rea then I would never hold on to bank notes again, on the basis that robberies of cash have happened in history and the serial number on my notes might be matched to a specific crime, leading to their seizure.

The precedent I'm looking for is an attempt by authorities to seize specific physical currency that has been previously stolen but has since passed through several innocent hands in otherwise legitimate transactions.

If you have a fan, and want this company to stay in business, bring it to IT now

Refrigerant or refrigerating fluid?

It sounds like fluid and I can imagine that sitting idle behind an open fill valve until the circulating pump kicks in. Refrigerant would, I expect, vent immediately unless there's some strange check valve and the compressor operating boots the pressure over a threshold.

Outage-ous: Twitter OKs cannabis ads, then goes up in smoke

Re: decriminalisation

Within the United States, it's a little more formal (though barely less woolly) and comes down to the difference between state and federal rights. It's still illegal at a federal level but has been decriminalised at a state level in certain states. Technically, use, possession and distribution is still a federal crime but, as you said, are unlikely to face arrest; more specifically, state police officers cannot act without federal direction.

Musk says he ain't going anywhere as Twitter CEO until at least late 2023

Re: I might ...

Your broker must be laughing all the way to the bank (or be suicidal about their business). In all seriousness, I believe you're just lying about holding on to a short but I'll humour you (and put aside my personal views on the predatory nature of shorts); the reason to not hold a short for a prolonged period is because not only are the potential losses unlimited but the potential profits are limited to the value of the initial loan (which can only be realised if the stock loses all value).

For any other amateur investors reading this, if you think a stock is overvalued but aren't confident about when the drop will come, it's safer to identify correctly or undervalued competitor stock than it is to run a short. This is why they're called short and long positions, the educated investor doesn't plan to hold a short and doesn't swap long positions quickly. (standard disclaimer about not being financial advice, prices may go down as well as up, your entire investment may be at risk, ect.).

Tl;dr: it's a funny story but I hope no one actually takes your bitterness as a serious example. If you are serious, please seek help.

Re: I might ...

If you're currently holding a short on Tesla, I'm sorry for your pain (deserved as it is). If it's somehow still a profitable short, I'm amazed you found a broker willing to let you take liability for one so long and if still must be painful to have watched so much profit evaporate. The worst part must be knowing that if you'd just purchased in January, your profits would be greater than any short stretching back even 6 months (without risking unlimited losses).

Satya Nadella wants to make Google dance in battle for AI chat-powered web search

Getty skating on thin ice

They have a nasty habit of hoovering up public domain images and trying to sell them.

Amazon convinces FCC it can avoid space junk chaos

I imagine the deaths from space debris compare quite favourably with the deaths of workers needed to maintain and telecommunications cable/fibre.

What's up with IT, Doc? Rabbit hole reveals cause of outage

Re: Ouch

Despite their best efforts to prevent repeat nibblings, I think a former neighbour's rabbit made it to 4 or 5 nibblings with current flow before it expired.

Bank of England won't call it Britcoin but says digital pound 'likely to be needed in future'

Re: But why is this necessary?

The agencies responsible for CBDC development in China and India have already publicly (but quietly) mentioned token use restrictions as CBDC features. It's semantics whether it meets the dictionary definition of a currency if it becomes the default or enforced means of exchange.

Re: But why is this necessary?

I agree with the principle but what can the average person barter these days and what can they use as a non-decaying store of wealth? Very few people actually produce things themselves these days and the few that do are usually so niche that they rely on remote sales to stay afloat.

Re: But why is this necessary?

Control. CBDCs can do all sorts of things that make certain people excited. Tokens can be set with an inbuilt expiry date, they can be coded to only be exchanged for certain items and they inherently record their precise progress through wallets. All of this control can potentially be turned on or off entirely in secret and only discovered by end users when they try to break a particular rule that's imposed upon their tokens. Among a great many other models, it finally makes Gesell economics possible without the implementation issues associated with standard currency.

Imagine if welfare payments or even private salaries were paid in a form where a certain portion could only be spent on food/housing/energy and another percentage (potentially zero) were permitted to be saved or spent on discretionary items. Imagine a group of political undesirables being identified and being able to instantly turn off their ability to accept funds or purchase travel tickets (or even fuel/EV recharging); as well as identify and question everyone with any financial association with them. The total control offered by CBDCs allows this and prevents the usual workarounds associated with systems like EBT; there's no longer a great interest in bartering (buying items with welfare and selling them at a reduced price for currency) when everyone has tokens they can only spend on the same barterable goods and algorithms can identify any crooked dealings by merchants (for example, an automatic flag if a merchant accepts a lot of payments for 'food items' without the corresponding prior purchases from suppliers) and individuals (picking up that a welfare recipient paid x for an item then was paid x/y by someone not tagged as a merchant).

Essentially, through all the extra levers that can be pulled, the issuer of CBDCs gains control, in time, over all private property, individuals and commerce without the messy business of physically seizing anything.