Posts by graeme leggett

Musk's first year as Twitter's Dear Leader is nigh

Re: "Twitter had what no company could buy, with Forbes estimating the brand name's worth at $4bn."

Let me see, if I have this right...

He paid 44 billion to save 1 billion a year?

IF the brand alone WAS worth $4bn

Going downhill fast, and so is Twitter

Elon's recent tweets appear to be

1) posting a straightout antivax meme

2) Anti-Ukraine

3) promotion of anti-immigrant narrative

4) promotion of the right-wing AfD party in Germany

Bids for ISS demolition rights are now open, NASA declares

Re: I know it's old, and I know it's wearing out...

they say the one of the hardest parts of space exploration is getting mass out to orbit and beyond.

And there's a lot of stuff there.While the contents of many modules must be obsolete and pointless to reuse, you might think some of the structure was useful

Doom developer John Carmack thinks artificial general intelligence is doable by 2030

To quote a neurologist and science communicator

"These LLM systems do not think, and are not on the way to general AI that simulates human intelligence. They have been compared to a really good auto-complete – they work by predicting the most likely next word segment based upon billions of examples from the internet. And yet their results can be quite impressive."

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/update-on-dr-ai/

Ex-Twitter employees pull Musk back to money table over missing severance

Re: The dumpster fire is intensifying

Holes the size of trains but not holes sized FOR trains.

Local governments aren't businesses – so why are they force-fed business software?

Re: LA are all the same

At the other end of this link is a long list in Excel (220 rows) of the obligations of local authorities https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7542/18927821.xls

Including the clear, but possibly open-ended, "Make provision for chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear emergency and urban search and rescue." and the potentially ever-changing "Have regard to such guidance as the Secretary of State may issue (e.g. guidance on investments)."

There probably can never be a single system that works for more than a short time before the goalposts shift again.

Re: Kickbacks. It's always kickbacks.

Perhaps the CMS is to publish content to the council employees? (roughly 10,000)

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

Lithium sulfide batteries look to have double the energy/weight performance of current lithium-based batteries.

If you can take a 1/2 ton battery down to 250 kg then that's a substantial benefit.

Even if you used a 1/2 ton of LiS batteries instead but it meant you don't have to dig for cobalt that could be a cost and environmental benefit

PS Yes, I did pass on your strawman.

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

" they get the thermal energy by burning oil."

The whole point is to stop burning oil so we don't put anymore CO2 than necessary into the atmosphere.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

Re: Musk wanted the positive publicity from donating Starlink systems to them

I didn't say "likely" I said "possible".

also possible that Musk was directly informed that Ukraine was using Starlink for unspecified offensive actions but then prevaricated over his decision long enough that it coincided with the naval attack.

A few hours earlier and the attack would not have been put in at all, a couple hours later and the newspapers would have been making comparisons with the battle of Tsushima

Re: Musk wanted the positive publicity from donating Starlink systems to them

possible that neither he nor whoever tipped him/Starlink off didn't know an attack was imminent.

But that cutting the links coincided with a particular attack and we see patterns in the shadows that aren't there.

Wars are complex and messy businesses and bad fortune and good fortune can overtake good planning and bad planning respectively.

Guild behind actors' strike fears video game workers also at risk from AI

i suggest you listen to Tim Harford's recent podcast episode Cautionary Tales on Luddites.

The problem with new tech is not necessarily that it eliminates work but how the transition is managed for those already working.- how to give some protection for those who have their skilled obs suddenly cut out from underneath them but not able to take on other work.

probably counts double in US where the social security blanket is threadbare and healthcare is so often tied to employment

We all scream for ice cream – so why are McDonald's machines always broken?

Re: Wait, their milkshake maker works like an HP printer ?

watching the vid, one of the common "breakdown" faults is something overheating and tripping out.

But with obscure fault codes which remove agency from the user, the operator wouldn't know that solution was something like "Stirrer motor overheated, power down for 1 hour, then reset. If problem remains call maintenance" (and consider checking you're not blocking the vents) or "power supply overload. Do not use machine. Call maintenance"

Uncle Sam accuses SpaceX of not considering asylees and refugees for employment

Re: Strange on so many levels.

They wrote to SpaceX in June 2020.

And then in August 2020.

And when SpaceX wasn't helpful the DOJ eventually through court action got the records from SpaceX in June 2021.

Re: Meanwhile, from NASA

NASA is a federal agency and SpaceX isn't

Musk's latest X-periments: No more headlines, old posts vanish, block gets banned

Re: All this money and bother, for what?

Musk was deploying the Nirvana fallacy - that you shouldn't do things because they are imperfect answers.

Any billions would make a lot of lives better, not cure the problem but would improve the world for many and wouldn't make it worse

Though if he gave it to health initiatives or climate change mitigation, he would be denounced on formerly-known-as-Twitter as a WEF operative in minutes

Re: It is amazing

So one good thing out of the Twitter purchase is he has less control at Tesla...?

NASA still serious about astronauts living it up on Moon space station in 2028

a new century awaits

I say we need to put stations at the Lagrange points to avoid a Side gap.

Though getting developed nations to agree this may require a New type of thinking.

Judge snuffs man's quest to have AI-created art protected by copyright

Re: Different Place, Different Rules

Though that clause was meant to benefit those using PaintDeluxe, or OctaMed to create images or music.

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

Re: Isn't it seeing triple now?

There is a College of West Anglia but it's campuses are all within the area of East Anglia

X-rated auction sells last vestiges of pre-Musk Twitter

Last vestiges?

I found out the other day that opening an image from twitter feed in another tab (in order to zoom in a bit) that the new tab has the blue Twitter bird.

Indicative - I think - that no matter that Musk throws out everything he sees with the Twitter name on it, there'll be something lurking somewhere to remind him he didn't invent it.

Virgin Galactic sends oldest-ever Brit and first mother-daughter duo into space-ish

Re: That's not space ...

"That it's taken years for Virgin Galactic to reach this stage speaks to the technical achievement and challenge of getting up there"

Or it says they're not very good at this high altitude flight malarkey.

Larry Ellison a major contributor to Blair Institute vaccine database plan

Birth rate falls in developed countries. And reduced child mortality feeds into that.

See China, Japan, South Korea for extreme examples.

though high at about 5 Nigeria's TFR has been falling since the late 1970s when it was 7. Extrapolation to 50 years from now is unwise

Now go read the works of Hans Rosling

i wasn't aware of the WHO database, what's its name?

It's not an either or.

You need staff and vaccines but you also need to know which children need the vaccines and when they need them and then you can put the clinics into the right place at right time.

And even then there are more factors that play into uptake.

We need to be first on the Moon, uh, again, says NASA

pollinators?

UK voter data within reach of miscreants who hacked Electoral Commission

Re: How was this made possible?

1) He's the chair not the chief exec. He's supposed to know that there should be adequate security but shouldn't need to know minutiae

2) Commissioners are appointed by a cross-party method " The Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, with membership drawn from MPs within the UK Parliament, oversees the recruitment of electoral commissioners. The candidates for these posts are then approved by the House of Commons and appointed by HM the Queen. The Speaker’s Committee is also responsible for deciding any reappointment of members following a first term of service" (EC website)

We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'

Crash and burn

Which one of them is Achilles (Market) and which one Alexander (Confederation)?

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

Also the users of aircraft fly by wire systems are given extensive training in their use and what to do if they cause problems.

Florida man accused of hoarding America's secrets faces fresh charges

Re: This is not a joke. This is not a drill. This is the messiah for a whole bunch of idiots.

You are Caecilius, and I claim my five pounds.

Tesla plots entry to Britain's stagnant energy market

And for what it's worth, Japan runs on 100 volts. Once made a custom transformer (parts from Maplin) for a friend's relative who had a boom box they brought back with them from Japan after a period TEFL.

It buzzed like a hornets nest that a homeowner had treated with Columbian marching powder. Very embarrassing.

US vendor accused of violating GDPR by reputation-scoring EU citizens

Re: TeleSign told The Register it was compliant with the law?

Oh, I reckon they did tell The Register they were compliant - the question is just if they are not, are they mistaken or lying?

Missing Titan sub likely destroyed in implosion, no survivors

Re: A fitting epitaph??

wikiquotes gives the line as

"Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind." William A. Ganoe, 'MacArthur Close-Up' (1962), p. 137

The context though is in Macarthur handing out disciplinary punishments for cadets and not adhering to the set punishments; the author is praising him for not working from precedent and treating each case individually on its merits.

Inclusive Naming Initiative limps towards release of dangerous digital dictionary

On nature

'Please note that it is inadvisable to feed most birds scones.'

Sometimes, the human doesn't choose to.

My evidence - the gulls haunting the cafe near the lighthouse on Portland Bill.

Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries

Re: EU parliament has little power

"EU laws in areas for which the EU is responsible override any conflicting laws of member countries.

Two important ideas make this system work. These are ‘supremacy’, meaning the higher status of EU laws compared to national laws, and ‘direct effect’, meaning that EU laws can be relied on in court"

"Regulations become part of national law as soon as they’re passed. EU countries must pass their own laws to put directives into practice." (Fullfact, 11 March 2016)

Re: EU parliament has little power

"Although it is up to the Commission to propose new EU laws, Parliament can take the initiative by requesting that the Commission submit a legislative proposal. When making use of "legislative initiative", MEPs may set a deadline for the submission of a proposal. If the Commission refuses to, it must explain why." (EU Parliament website)

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/16/what-are-the-european-parliament-s-powers-and-legislative-procedures

Re: EU parliament has little power

Legislation in the EU parliament is proposed by the EU commission which is drawn from people put forward by the Council of the European Union and the European Council.

The latter two are made up of ministers and heads of government of the member nations of the EU.

IE the member states have a hand in developing the legislation before it reaches the parliament.

Time running out for crew of missing Titanic tourist submarine

Re: Transponder

If it was operating in national waters, then it would have to adhere to things similar to "Merchant Shipping (Submersible Craft Operations) Regulations 1987, SI 2002/1587" and the like.

Re: Transponder

this is where the bit about the vessel not being regulated/registered/approved becomes important.

Yeah, Rishi, it's AI that'll make Britain great again

I don't think the government actually wants to exit the ECHR.

I think it does want us (or sufficent numbers of us) to believe that

1) immigrants are dragging our country down, ruining it for 'hard working families' (though not the undeserving poor)

2) that the ECHR is the only thing (apart from bleeding heart liberals, lefty-lawyers, 'remoaners', His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, the BBC and so forth) that stops the government from preventing this

3)if Labour were to get in they would immediately sign a billion-year-contract with the EU

And it's convenient that if they did try, if the attempt was blocked then it would play to the image of them as the victims.

Lawyers who cited fake legal cases generated by ChatGPT blame the software

Re: The "AI" is a red herring here...

Legal Eagle for those who prefer a visual

How to use ChatGPT to ruin your legal career

https://youtu.be/oqSYljRYDEM

10 years after Snowden's first leak, what have we learned?

Re: Spy vs spy

The worlds first commercial general purpose mainframe was British - the Ferranti Mark 1

The worlds first commercial computer with applications was British - the Lyons Elecrtonic Office

Relative sizes of US and UK economies and post-war UK debt were probably too blame.

Re: Spy vs spy

The Tizard Mission handed over examples of jet technology to the US. getting jet engines built and in use to defeat the enemy was considered more important than profit for Whittle or British companies

He did receive £100,000 for his invention. That's somewhere between 4 and 15 million in todays money depending on what you choose to determine the change against.

(if you choose to consider what the cost was to the country of the award, then its about 20 million as a proportion of GDP)

Microsoft Windows latest: Cortana app out, adverts in

Not so random example of Copilot in action

I just used Copilot in Edge (with a bit of tweaking) to give me this.

"I would like to thank TheRegister for this news item relating to Copilot replacing Cortana as a standalone app in Windows 10 and 11. The article was informative and well-written, and it helped me understand the reasons behind Microsoft's decision to drop support for Cortana and focus on Copilot as a new AI-powered personal assistant for Windows users. I appreciate the insights and analysis provided by the author, Jeff Burt, and the sources he cited in his report. I look forward to reading more news and updates from TheRegister in the future."

1) it'll never replace AManFromMars

2) I would have preferred it delivered with Jen Taylor's voice

Barracuda Email Security Gateways bitten by data thieves

Is that because the cloudy offering was renamed to "Email Gateway Defense" some time ago?

EU tells Twitter 'you can run but you can't hide' from disinformation policy

Re: Erm

But anyone saying it *must* be a lab leak, or a CIA plot is peddling disinformation.

Don't panic. Google offering scary .zip and .mov domains is not the end of the world

I read some of the comments on Googles move as

"other people also have problematic TLD so Google creating more isn't that bad"

rather than the risk averse approach which problematic TLDs exist, let's not add to that while browsers might still be fooled.

Because the world is crying out to use .zip and .mov domains.....

Most of UK agriculture dept's customer interactions are paper based

Re: 21 million customers?

Presume a single person can be "customer" of more than one sub-department/system within DEFRA. So a farmer interacting with DEFRA on subject of pesticides, water abstraction, cattle movement, sheep movement, is four customers?

Microsoft can't stop injecting Copilot AI into every corner of its app empire

Re: AI, AI, AI!

Have they considered asking the AI if it can do anything for the company?