Posts by graeme leggett

UK Covid-19 Inquiry finds early pandemic surveillance was weeks out of date

Re: Scamdemic

Interesting.

The same authors considered non-Covid deaths.

"The excess mortality due to cardiovascular diseases was particularly pronounced in Finland and Norway in 2022, and the under-mortality due to dementia was particularly pronounced in Sweden in 2021–2022. In conclusion, while COVID-19 deaths emerge as the most apparent consequence of the pandemic, our findings suggest that mortality has also been influenced by substitutions between different causes of death and over time, as well as indirect consequences of COVID-19 infection and pandemic responses—albeit to different extents in the different countries."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-024-01154-0

One layman interpretation is that Sweden failed to protect its more vulnerable citizens while the other countries did but when the other countries removed the protection they ended up in same place as Sweden.

Re: Scamdemic

Swedish stats were worse than neighbouring Denmark and Norway. It was not the advertisement for a laissez faire approach that the conspiracy mongers like to make out.

The mass preventative quarantine that was lockdown worked, it was not perfect (but perfect is the enemy of 'good enough') and future planning should balance preventing infection with the negative effects we know understand better

Elon Musk's Grokipedia launches, filled to the brim with plagiarism and AI slop

Re: Already more accurate

The points is

Wikipedia makes the reason why a person is notable appear in the first sentence.

It's a few sentences further into Grokipedia before the death is mentioned and a few more before the finding of murder is mentioned.

Re: Already more accurate

And, I think readers can figure which online 'pedia is which here:

George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an American man with a lengthy criminal record including convictions for armed robbery, drug possession, and theft in Texas from 1997 to 2007.

vs

George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020

Re: Already more accurate

From "Covid-19 pandemic" on Grokipedia for your consideration

"Federal agencies coordinated with platforms through frequent communications, establishing a censorship apparatus that targeted dissenting scientific views. In the case of Missouri v. Biden (later Murthy v. Missouri), a federal district court found evidence of a "far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign" by officials from the White House, CDC, and FBI, who coerced platforms to suppress content on COVID-19 topics including election integrity ties and vaccine skepticism; the Fifth Circuit affirmed this as likely violating the First Amendment by treating platforms as government proxies, though the Supreme Court dismissed the case on standing grounds in June 2024.

Specific examples include the suppression of the Great Barrington Declaration, a October 2020 proposal by epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford advocating focused protection over broad lockdowns, which NIH Director Francis Collins privately urged colleagues to "take down" via media campaigns labeling it fringe, resulting in Google downranking its website and limited academic discourse. The lab leak theory faced similar treatment: platforms like Facebook banned claims of a man-made virus origin until May 2021, despite early evidence from Wuhan lab safety lapses, with U.S. officials including Anthony Fauci coordinating efforts to discredit it as a conspiracy, as revealed in congressional hearings"

By the way, all the references for the article are just bare urls, such as "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7458444/" which is "Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 through recombination and strong purifying selection" Sci Adv2020 Jul 1;6(27):eabb9153. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb9153

Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers

Re: All we need now...

Apples and Oranges. Truss had the support of the media to prop up her image and only lasted 49 days. Want to guess where her approval could have been after a year?

UK competition cops brand Apple, Google with 'strategic market status' for mobile

Re: And Microsoft?

Brit watchdog pushes to rein in Microsoft and AWS with 'strategic market status'

"Anyone expecting an answer now will be disappointed because the CMA anticipates "options will be considered by the CMA Board in early 2026," and it expects "our findings and recommendations will be taken into account as part of its decision.""

https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/cma_aws_microsoft_sms/

SpaceX's Starship: Two down, Mons Huygens to climb

"However, I must point out that SpaceX has achieved more in less time than any governmental space agency or any other commercial company in the field ever has. So there is no doubt in my mind that they will be able to deliver the techology"

A counter-factual which is difficult to explore since NASA were not given the budget to attempt it. In fact did any of the possible "competitors" have the same budget?

Pentagon decrees warfighters don't need 'frequent' cybersecurity training

this is MAGA in a military setting

The US armed forces are most powerful the world has ever known.

saying it needs to concentrate of war fighting is intended to invoke the impression in civilians that it is actually lacking, that previous administrations emasculated it, it can't defend US against heathen invaders and the answer is to....

MUSAGA - make the US Army Great Again

Re: The actual point gets buried in a tide of anti-republican bullshit

German Army was bled white at Verdun.

but military strategy is often politically directed.

Digital ID, same place, different time: In this timeline, the result might surprise us

Re: Let me check my crystal ball

Now why would a fine upstanding right wing source like the Daily Mail phrase it like that......

From gov.uk (my emphasis)

"As part of our consultation, we will be making sure the scheme is inclusive by considering:

physical alternatives are available for those without smartphones

face-to-face help is on hand during rollout and for ongoing support

dedicated casework is provided for challenging situations such as people who lack proofs of their identity"

Trump threatens extra tariffs, tech export bans, for any nation that dares to regulate Big Tech

Re: Yes please call the orange pedo's bluff

Trump's tariffs are performative as a means to negotiation/intimidation.

It's unlikely he thinks they are a long term prospect. But they look good to a set of the American people and he can announce them with an understated "will take place in 30 days" knowing that the situation will change long before they have to be implemented.

Commodore Amiga turns 40, headlines UK exhibition

Re: Have a CD32...

I've only got the CDROM add on unit - A570 - which made my A500+ closer to a CDTV unit.

Wikidata: Attempting to bridge FOSS ideals and direct democracy

One problem with wikidata

If you have multiple wikipedia projects taking information from wikidata* and you edit wikidata then all those projects are updated simultaneously - whether the data is correct or not. So you could potentially put bad data across several languages versions of a topic.

And it wont show up as a edit if an editor has their own language page on their watchlist so it could go unnoticed for a while.

*a lot of wikidata has just been imported from wikipedias (generally the English language one) in the first place

UK to buy nuclear-capable F-35As that can't be refueled from RAF tankers

Re: How can Starmer be so daft?

The Maginot Line worked.

The German offensive was directed to the north as the French planned.

It used far less manpower than keeping armies to meet German forces there

It stopped a rapid advance from taking control of French industrial production.

Where it was attacked it slowed German advance and remined effective for most of its length until the French Armistice

SpaceX's Starship explodes again ... while still on the ground

1) He joined the Nazi party in order to be able to make rockets

2) He joined the German Army research at Peenemunde in order to be able to make rockets

3) He wasted huge amounts of German resources on a not very effective weapon. (see Tim Harford podcast etc)

Perhaps being allowed to make rockets by the US was repayment for 3.

Personally, I stick with Tom Lehrer's assessment....

Elon Musk pukes over pork-filled budget bill with Tesla subsidies on the line

Are we talking about Musk or Trump at this point?

Ukraine strikes Russian bomber-maker with hack attack

Employee disatisfaction drops

So, you are a middle-ranking employee of Tupelov in the aircraft maintenance and parts supply department.

At the start of the week, you might have felt disconnected from the Special Action with Ukraine. Obviously the news tells you its Ukraine's own fault and you might feel a bit of pride in your work for the Russian nation but the actual combat is happening far away.

Now, Ukrainian intelligence know your name, possibly a photo, where you live, your bank account details, possibly things about your family and health.

You'd be foolish not to think what that might mean.

Perhaps the next parcel delivered to your apartment will not be a box of chocolates from your parents but something spicier.

Perhaps someone will stop you in the stairwell and suggest, strongly, that making copies of aircraft status reports and uploading them to an anonymous web server might be in your best interests.

It might well weigh on your mind.

AROS turns any PC into an Amiga with USB-bootable distro

Re: Tears of nostalgia

Will I become a left handed mouse user again too?

Tears of nostalgia

If I try it, will it just remind me of "better" (different) times.

Or will trying to recall how to use a GUI I was once competent if not actually fluent in (and some scripting too) hit a barrier of 25 years of PC overwriting skills?

Meta's still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb

Re: Legitimate interest

They sound more like things that can be covered by "contract".

Bosses weren’t being paranoid: Remote workers more likely to start own biz

Re: Spying tonite!

Factor in people who don't update their LinkedIn.

People who only just remembered to update their LinkedIn and actually left companies years ago.

People who were in point of "go consultant"

Workers who aren't on LinkedIn

US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check

Was that when Swanwick took over from West Drayton six years later than planned due to issues sorting out software ?

Corruption - all the way down

Oh. now the executive recognises that congress aportions funding for federal agencies.

Am currently watching latest Legal Eagle (featuring Liz Dye) on YouTube - general tone is Project 2025 is using Trump seizing control of the spending (and not spending it on anything) as means to reach their ends.

Microsoft wants us to believe AI will crack practical fusion power, driving future AI

Re: "It's sort of foolish to imagine that we'll do fusion by trial and error"

Listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and this sounds similar to what they are doing with gravitational wave detectors.

The AI generates designs based on performance targets rather than copying existing designs. All very technical so I may have not followed it wholly

https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-1034

https://scitechdaily.com/when-machines-dream-ai-designs-strange-new-tools-to-listen-to-the-cosmos/

Palantir loves the smell of DOGE budget cuts in the morning

GDPR does allow for some information to be collected without express consent.

And you can do a lot of good with aggregate health information.

So long as it's done properly and carefully.....

Data watchdog will leave British Library alone – further probes 'not worth our time'

Re: The ICO - busy not making work for itself.

First they would have to treat the occurrence as diligently as the BL.

Elon Musk's X revenues in the UK crashed in 2023, down 66%

Re: Still, there IS a chill8ing effect,,,

or incitement to riot

Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions

Re: Bollocks

I was surprised this wasn't an offered add-on/replacement for the wired bi-metallic strip

If you know the hot water tank temperature at any time then you can decide if

1) hot enough for a shower right now

2) not too hot for using the sink

3) out of legionella zone

4) worth using the electric immersion heater rather than gas/oil/propane

5) being superheated by an out of control boiler

AI-driven 20-ft robots coming for construction workers' jobs

Who remembers 2000AD robot revolution

no reason at all to worry about equipping robots with dangerous equipment around "fleshy ones"

Especially carpentry.....

Tesla's Optimus can't roll without rare earth magnets, and Beijing ain't budging yet

Re: Robots used internally in Tesla factories.

NTNOCN also had "Built by robots, driven by Italians" to the tune of Rossini's Largo al factotum

Japan serves Google a cease and desist order over its Android bundling deals

The Japanese style

That slide seems typical of the content dense "busy" graphic that Japanese culture uses.

Older Japanese culture (eg tea ceremony, noh, martial arts, woodprints) is portrayed as calmly-paced, mindful, measured but modern presentation looks like a 5-minute infomercial compressed into 5 seconds.

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

Re: re: Chris Krebs

At a minimum, the SAFE act is performative. Creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist and supporters can say "of course its a real problem otherwise they wouldn't put a law in about it"

Self-driving car maker Musk's DOGE rocks up at self-driving car watchdog, cuts staff

Perhaps the states will go after them.

50 years ago the last Saturn rocket rolled out of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building

I could listen to the mission control audio from Apollo 11 all day. Can't remember the one who shouts "Go" though.

Trump orders all government IT contracts consolidated under GSA

Re: ps f47

As I understand it, the Pentagon paused the NGAD project last year to assess whether against rising costs (never a surprise in military aviation) it should go ahead or not.

Presumably the internal assessment came in recently and the Orange Buffoon made maximum media out of the decision.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07/air-force-taking-a-pause-on-ngad-next-gen-fighter-kendall/

Tesla Cybertruck recall #8: Exterior trim peels itself off, again

Re: You love to see it

Kelly says the Chevy was built by unionised labour (labor)

No big changes to UK broadband regs, despite no real competition for BT

One word

"fibre"

Eutelsat in talks with Euro leaders as they mull Starlink replacement in Ukraine

Re: Hmm

Others have suggested its not so much the money as being the most famous person in existence rather than transactional for money.

Obviously the money helps.

And yesterday I heard an explanation that does fit, If you view his activities as the continuation of the reality TV format, new constant "conflict". Stirring the ants nest every day with something intended to get people talking about him. US doesn't need to take over Greenland, through NATO and simple diplomacy it could easily get whatever extra bases it wanted established there, but saying they want to take over, then he becomes the news focus.

Re: Hmm

" Ukraine can't beat Russia. It's a nuclear superpower and it's just too big. They can keep throwing troops and weapons at it till the end of time if they wanted" Like in Afghanistan?

Trump says US should kill CHIPS Act, use the cash to cut debt

Re: As Trump said there is nothing he can do to make them happy or smile.

In 2017 she got hold of a couple of pages from his 2005 tax return. Unfortunately it did not seem to prompt Trump to volunteer any further information.

'Cybertruck ownership comes with ... interesting fan mail'

Re: they're not like us

Both the original Fiat 600 Mutipla (a 1950s minivan) and the reuse of the name from the turn of the century are....distinctive, I'll give you that.

So … Russia no longer a cyber threat to America?

Re: Neville Chamberlain

Munich was 1938. Chamberlain had started rearmament before then.

The Spitfire prototype flew in 1936 and orders placed but delays meant first production aircraft delivered in 1938. The Hurricane was delayed by a change from Mk 1 Merlin engine to Mk 2 but were reaching British squadrons before Chamberlain hopped on a plane to see Adolf.

The expansion began in 1934 with a plan to increase number of RAF airfields from ~50 to ~140 and orders for new aircraft types.

Re: Neville Chamberlain

A bit of disagreement on the analogy.

When Europe faced the Munich crisis, none of the participants were in a position to actually project force into Czechoslovakia to defend it or strike at Germany. The other nations were all building up their armed forces. (UK had a powerful navy but apart from applying external sanctions in the form of a blockade, a navy can't stop one country's army crossing a shared border). Coordination between the (major and minor) countries in Europe was also limited. In those circumstances and the recent horrors of the Great War, the possibility of averting another European War by trading land or at least buying time to prepare for a coming conflict made some sense and was popular.

But in this situation the differences are that the war has already started, we have seen appeasement can be a bad choice, and countries are prepared to work together.

30-year-old NHS supply chain system hit by 35 major alerts in 11 months

Each GP practice is an independent contractor to the NHS - that's how.

As Tim Hartford would say "it's a big number, but is it a significant number?"

Incoming deputy boss of Homeland Security says America's top cyber-agency needs to be reined in

Re: good

She won't be in charge of Musk. She's in charge of the organisation that gives a veer of respectability to the "DOGE Temporary Organisation" that is the vehicle for Musk's Twitler Youth group

They had to name someone to be at the top of the organisation because the Whitehouse press secretary looked even more of an embarrassment claiming they couldn't give out their name while at same time claimed to be totally transparent.

But now they have. And courts can name her in proceedings.

Trump’s cyber chief pick has little experience in The Cyber

A wise man once said

A quote that can be turned on its originator

When Trump sends his nominations, he's not sending the best... ..sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems

India's banking on the bank.in domain cleaning up its financial services sector

I like jam.in, I hope you like jam.in too.