Posts by Baucent

Datacenters dip a toe back into waterborne computing despite obvious challenges

Ocean cooling ?

I would have though the idea of pumping large volumes of cold sea water through the last stage of your cooling system might be better proposition than evaporating large volumes of scarce fresh water.

The datacentre could be away from the seashore (like Fukushima) and even underground. The saltwater open circuit cooling exchanges heat with a closed circuit cooling system which possibly with further stages cools the hardware. The pumping costs might be excessive and dealing with salt water corrosion might be troublesome.

Possibly could be coupled with a desalination plant to utilise the datacentre's waste heat.

My guess is that these big tech geniuses have thought "let's melt Greenland — it is one giant reservoir of cold."

"Hey Donald, we need Greenland."

Cloudflare teams up with big browsers to help websites tell welcome from unwelcome visitors

Re: Totally doomed

"How exactly are they going to 'prove' that someone is a person in a way that can't be replicated by LLMs or cheap mechanical turks?"

I suppose phishing them — only humans are that gullible (and greedy) or lure them with a bit of "adult" entertainment. Instead of playing to human strengths which are both uneven and unreliable, try their weaknesses which might be relied on.

Re: Trying Something New

"Let's tattoo UUID barcodes on everyone's right wrist! It will make paying for things and receiving government services much-more convenient."

Careful the last fellow is just out of Nº10 the new chap is probably up for such delightfully simple idea.

"What do you mean after 4 years and £5bn everyone got the same barcode? … Another Crapita cockup."

Re: Yet another ID grab.

You are in the desert and see a turtle on it's back.... click on the squares showing only good things about your mother

Sounds like an Omnian religious text from "Small Gods." I don't suppose anyone expected the Omnian Quisition. ;)

CERN eggheads burn AI into silicon to stem data deluge

"problem with finding rare hadrons is an abundance of morons."

.

I suppose smashing bunches of morons together at near light speed wouldn't produce any new physics… just more morons.

Turns out your coffee addiction may be doing your brain a favor

Re: Specificity

Cups ? a metric cup is I believe 250ml (also Australian cup)

The (old) UK cup was/is 10 fl. oz. (284ml) and the US cup 8 fl. oz. (237ml) and the US fl. oz. is ~4% larger larger than the imperial.

Bit of a mess really.

Canada apparently both the metric cup and US cup are still used and I think I read that ~200ml cups were once used for some ingredients.

In the case of a cup of coffee the caffeine content is likely to vary even more - between brewed and instant or between the beans themselves. The assumption that it's the caffeine in coffee (or tea) that is retarding the loss of marbles might be misplaced - might be some antioxidant peculiar to these beverages. Just as likely that individuals with a congenitally less firm grip on their marbles prefer beer or carbonated drinks instead.

Cryptographers engage in war of words over RustSec bug reports and subsequent ban

Handbags at ten paces…

now no spitting or biting, ladies.

UK blinks on AI copyright carve-out after star-studded revolt

London couldn't have been fed - not sure whether it was a good idea or not.

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The 18th century radical, William Cobbett was not so undecided. He would have been enormously pleased for the "Great Wen" to have starved into nonexistence.

He incidentally also published an equally inflammatory "Register."

Microsoft breaks Microsoft account sign-ins in Windows 11 with latest update

"What a time to be a Windows user."

Was there ever a good time?

Google gives Android users a way to install unverified apps if they prove they really, really want to

"Users must first enable developer mode in system settings."

That alone would stump most gormless users as most would have the attention span to press the particular setting the requisite number of times, even if they understood the instructions in the first place.

Although I would agree that Alphabet in the first instance is just following the "do evil" part of its corporate mission statement.

Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin applies to launch 51,000 datacenter satellites

Re: Six impossible things before breakfast

"To build a system that is too inaccessible to maintain, for a customer that cannot be found and at a cost no-one can imagine"

Pretty much defines the current AI mania I would have thought.

Re: Cooling?

"Vacuum tubes? They need to get up to over 1000K to work and they need vacuum..."

And you wouldn't need the glass tubes either. I suppose you might even use focussed sunlight to heat the cathode. :)

I imagine a typical AI capable GPU would need to be planet sized if implemented using thermionic valves.

(Old enough to have messed around with that tech when a kid.)

Time to end the 'uncontrolled experiment' of social media on kids, scientists say

Re: Why stop at kids?

"His latest thing with mentioning Pearl Harbor to the Japanese PM is just cringe worthy."

Even Basil Fawlty thought it expedient to not mention the war, if unsuccessfully.

PwC will say goodbye to staff who aren't convinced about AI

PWC

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Prats Without [a] Clue — equally Pricks Without [a] Conscious (or Consciousness for that matter, which rather mirrors AI itself.)

Re: It’s almost poetic

"if you differentiate a consultant you get 0."

But I suspect you will need to apply L'Hôpital's rule… repeatedly.

Nobody does DR tests to survive lightning striking twice

Nothing stops lightning...

'Nothing stops lightning, and no one wins but the lawyers'

The trick is to get the two to meet.

Venerable Clarkson? Venerated by whom? I concede he has a peculiar imagination when writing about your Royal Family which apparently hasn't been entirely to their liking.

In any case I will try to avoid driving in the Cotswolds as I don't imagine he has many careful driving awards.