Posts by Chris Miller

GPT-5 bests human judges in legal smack down

I wonder how much of the case was written up on the Internet. I recall a press release bragging that an AI had 'aced' a Maths Olympiad paper. Very impressive, until it was discovered that all the answers had been posted online. These AIs are damned cunning!

Concorde at 50: Twice the speed of sound, twice the economic trouble

Re: HS2 then

HS was never about speed - it is about capacity, putting high speed intercity trains on their own lines frees up local lines for stopping services and freight.

Bollocks. It was originally claimed it would pay for itself by time savings for highly paid businessmen - until some clever clogs pointed out that it's possible to work on a train. So a couple of consultants with a spreadsheet were hired to 'prove' that the WCML would run out of capacity in a decade or so. Trouble is, if capacity is the issue, HS2 is completely the wrong solution. A new 'traditional' (say 150mph) 4-track main line could have been built for a fraction of the cost of HS2 and provide much more capacity. But that wouldn't allow our glorious leaders to win "mine's faster than yours" willie-waving competitions at Davos.

Very high speed rail makes absolutely no sense in Central England, which (with nearly 50 million people living in 25,000 square miles) is one of the most densely populated areas of its size on the planet.

Why Elon Musk won't ever realize the shareholder-approved Tesla payout

No one is worth a trillion dollars,

If (gigantic if) someone can raise the value of my shares by a factor of 5, I'd happily let them have 20% of the profit. That's all this is saying (apart from all the other caveats).

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Seems the Louvre's password was 'Louvre', except for their Thalys systems, which was 'Thalys'.

Britain's AI gold rush hits a wall – not enough electricity

Re: SMRs

You're right but it's not as simple as that. Lots of things on warships don't have to meet civilian safety standards, and access to cooling water is less of a critical issue for a submarine. Before they could be deployed across the countryside, either SMRs or nuclear safety regulations would need significant redesign.

Submarine cable security is all at sea, and UK govt 'too timid' to act, says report

75% of our transatlantic data may go through Bude, but is that 75% of capacity, or just the part that's heavily used because it's slightly cheaper than alternatives?

Renewables blow past nuclear when it comes to cheap datacenter juice

Re: Really!

And written by a shameless shill for unreliable energy. UK support for Nut Zero is sliding almost as fast as our energy bills are increasing to pay for it, but it will drop through the floor when the lights go out during a winter dunkelflaute.

Make Windows 11 more useful and less annoying with these 11 Registry hacks

Re: Super helpful...

When this happens, it's 90% certain to be due to use of roaming profiles (a good thing) that haven't been set up correctly (a bad thing). This can be resolved by beating those on the admin team responsible for active directory with a clue stick.

HPE finally closes Juniper deal, but offers no details on what happens next

Re: Maybe this time?

And don't forget Autonomy.

Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire

The most surprising part of this story is that there is still commercial shipping operated by a UK-based company.

M&S warns of £300M dent in profits from cyberattack

Re: Do insurers ever bother to test the resilience of these systems before offering to insure them?

For the corner shop, probably true. For clients where the risk runs to 9 or more figures, it will be a little more substantial.

TBF the password was actually "nimda".

Re: A £300million reduction in profits

If you think security is expensive, just wait till you have a breach.

Nationwide power outages knock Spain, Portugal offline

Re: Simulated Inertia

Interesting paper, but that *can* is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I'd prefer to rely on spinning metal until someone has run a major grid stably using inverters for a decade or two.

Engineers also plan to reduce the likelihood of failure.

This one weird trick can make online publishing faster, safer, more attractive, and richer

I wish them well, but right now (0900UT on St Paddy's Day) the top item on Betelgeuse takes you to a 404 page.

C++ creator calls for help to defend programming language from 'serious attacks'

O/T but a brilliant quote:

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.

Bjarne Stroustrup (1950- )

NASA solar mission data recovering after server room flood fiasco

Given NASA is one of SpaceX's biggest clients, I'd be quite surprised if Elon closed it down.

"If you think business continuity is expensive, try having an outage."

Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Re: Barclays

25 years ago, I attended an AIX (IBM Unix) conference for large UK users. There were about 30 organisations represented, and 10 of them were from different teams at Barclays, half of whom weren't aware of the other Barclays installations' existence.

Shove your office mandates, people still prefer working from home

Just a thought

If you can do your job effectively without going into the office … so can someone in Bangalore.

SpaceX hits 400 launches of Falcon 9 rocket

Re: Male bovine excrement.

You're right, of course, but if you expect to read anything wholly positive about Musk in ElReg, you'll be waiting until Hell opens a skating rink.

EU buyers still shunning pure electric vehicles, prefer hybrids

Most people who can realistically operate with an EV - own drive for charging, wealthy (to afford the purchase) and not a "road warrior" - have already got one, to cash in on the tax and other incentives offered by government subsidies (money transfers from the poor to the rich, whodathunkit!). To the amazement of nobody at all, the bottom then drops out of the new EV market.

Reaction Engines' hypersonic hopes stall as funding fizzles out

SRN-4 was indeed a fabulous machine - Thunderbirds come to life! - but best experienced in a dead flat calm, otherwise it rapidly became the vomit comet.

I made this network so resilient nothing could possibly go wro...

In my experience (strokes long grey beard) much the most common cause of failure in resilient systems is a single failure (which causes no operational problems) followed by an attempt to repair the working, not failed, device. It never happened to me (honest), but I've heard some tales ...

The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station

Re: "A toasted bacon sandwich"

I'm old enough to remember griddle cars. 50 years ago, my brother and I (travelling round Scotland on a rail rover ticket) took breakfast on the Royal Highlander out of Inverness. Toasted bacon sandwiches and unlimited refills of toast and tea, while Aviemore and the Pass of Drumochter flowed past the windows - hard to beat. ISTR there were griddle cars on a few of the southern electrics from London, too,. BR dining cars weren't all curly sandwiches!

iGulu F1 could be the hoppy ending to your home-brew horror show

Since you're starting with 4.5 litres of water, I assume the 9 pints are tiddly US pints (16 fl oz) rather than proper Imperial pints (20 fl oz).

EV sales hit speed bump as drivers unplug from the electric dream

Re: Range is not the issue!

My weekly charge normally costs me in the region of £3 because I charge it when I'm sleeping.

But you're paying more for the rest of your electricity. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Trivially? If you're a member of the right 'club' (how many different EV charging brands are there?) and pay your dues. But if not, you can be on 70p a kWh (UK), which is broadly the same cost per mile as petrol. Unless you've got an 'off-peak' deal (and are therefore paying more for you 'peak' electricity), even home charging is unlikely to be ¼ the price of petrol.

The problem EV manufacturers face is that EV owners need to: be wealthy (they're still significantly more expensive than ICE equivalents); live in a house with a private drive (so they can charge at home); and not be a road-warrior (or you'll be spending a lot of time recharging remotely at a cost per mile hardly cheaper than petrol). And most people who satisfy these criteria already have an EV.

I live in a wealthy Home Counties village and there are more EVs than you can shake a stick at, with Teslas* on every other drive. But I don't know anyone who doesn't also have an ICE vehicle for when they need to do real driving.

* other EV manufacturers are available, allegedly

Hello? Emergency services? I'd like to report a wrong number

In the UK, at least, you needed an extra digit (usually '9') to obtain an outside line. So emergency calls would be 9999 not 999, and no internal extensions could begin with a 9.

San Francisco set to ban rent-hiking algorithms used by landlords

Re: I suppose...

'Rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing,' declared Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck in 1971. Lindbeck may have belonged to the political left but he understood basic economic principles.

Second NHS IT system confirmed to be affected by CrowdStrike issues

Re: systmonline seems fine

I can't renew my prescription using the NHS app. No biggie (for me) as I always keep a month's supply in hand, and can hand deliver a request to the pharmacy if the problem persists for weeks.

HP to discontinue online-only e-series LaserJet amid user gripes

Whoever thought that (certainly in a corporate environment with security to consider), requiring printers to connect to an outside site on the Internet in order to print would be a winning strategy?

Outback shocker left Aussie techie with a secret not worth sharing

Is 50V correct or a typo? Seems suspiciously low, though my understanding of 80s Aussie telephony is not the best!

ITER delays first plasma for world's biggest fusion power rig by a decade

Re: Optional

If you live in Europe, this is literally true.

US Army: We want to absorb private-sector AI 'as fast as y'all are building them'

"Young Bang – principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology"

Best example of nominative determinism I've seen this year.

Millions forced to use brain as OpenAI's ChatGPT takes morning off

Oh noes! Did someone ask it to calculate the value of π to the last decimal digit?

Dublin debauchery derails Portal to NYC in six days flat

An obvious part of the problem is that closing time in Dublin is leaving work time in NYC, and 'closing time' (OK we know they never sleep, there) in NYC is 4-5am in Dublin, when I imagine few people are watching.

Ransomware negotiator weighs in on the extortion payment debate with El Reg

Re: It is better to avoid a problem than have to fix it.

There may well be some businesses and organisations that could or should operate in the way you suggest, but for most ordinary folks and non-safety-critical organisations, following all of your suggestions would mean going out of business (I'd except "don't hold personal data you don't need to hold" - but that's a standard part of most data protection legislation in any case).

China 'the most competitive market in the world' for the iPhone says Tim Cook

Re: How Competitive?

The problem with Chinese smart phones in the West is (apart from concerns about quality and support) a worry that the CCP may be listening in. Not an issue in China, where you can be absolutely certain they'll be listening in!

San Francisco's light rail to upgrade from floppy disks

Re: "best in the US"

Once safe, cheap commercial air travel was developed, rail became hopeless for journeys much longer than 500 miles. I've taken 1,500 mile rail journeys in the US (because I'm a rail nerd) - it takes 2 or 3 days and the only passengers are tourists and those who refuse to travel by air (mainly Amish and similar). Even taking European high-speed trains, I've done London-Lyon-Barcelona in a day, but it was a very long day (over 11 hours for an average speed of ~90 mph) - I could have flown to LA in the same time (and probably cheaper, too).

Big US cities (NY, Boston, Chicago, even LA to an extent) have extensive, cheap, well-used commuter rail systems, but inter-city distances are just too great, except for the Bos-Wash corridor.

Note to editors: BART isn't a "light rail" system by most definitions, it's too fast and too heavy. It's a pretty standard commuter rail network with a weird track gauge (for odd reasons known only to the locals).

Engine cover flies from Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 during takeoff

Re: Is it Just Me??

Causing any damage? Of course, land as soon as practicable is absolutely the correct course of action, but the press vibes are that the aircraft was about to fall from the sky, which is nonsense. To purse my analogy, your wing mirror cover coming off **might** land under your tyre, and then cause a blowout and a crash, but that doesn't of itself mean it's a major incident.

Re: Is it Just Me??

Indeed, and a relatively minor one at that, roughly equivalent to getting the back knocked off your car's wing mirror.

Nvidia: Why write code when you can string together a couple chat bots?

Re: "It is very likely that you assemble a team of AI"

Obligatory

Genius! I literally can't think of a single thing that might go wrong with this cunning plan.

Billions lost to fraud and error during UK's pandemic spending spree

Re: Oops, we stole it

And what would have been your reaction (and that of the media) at the time, if the government had said: "Faced with a pandemic, we're procuring lots of PPE and other medical equipment, but we must go through all the necessary steps to prevent fraud, rigorous testing to ensure quality standards are met, getting three competitive tenders on each bid, validating DEI and anti-slavery policies of suppliers, etc, which will delay things by a few months."? Note that Starmer's Labour were supportive of all these purchases, except for demands for "harder and faster".

Work to resolve binary babble from Voyager 1 is ongoing

"Lunchtime, doubly so."

Japanese government finally bids sayonara to the 3.5" floppy disk

Obligatory!

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Exactly. The best way to improve a cuppa made with teabags is to pour it down the sink.

AIUI the original US thought was that, if you've 'stewed' your tea by leaving it too long (unlikely in the US, where I've never experienced water hotter than lukewarm), you can rescue it by adding a little salt to counteract the bitterness. But if I stew the tea, I just throw it away and make fresh, it's not as though a couple of teaspoons of tea will break the bank.

For the benefit of overseas readers - how to make a cuppa (it's not rocket science) - you will need:

A kettle; a teapot; some loose leaf tea (M&S Extra Strong for me); milk; cups or mugs for drinking from; sugar (no thanks, but optional).

1. Empty kettle and refill with sufficient fresh water to fill the teapot.

2. Bring to boil.

3. Fill the (empty) teapot.

4. Pour back into kettle and reboil.

5. Add a couple of teaspoons of tea to the teapot (mine's a 1l pot, if you're using a larger one scale up accordingly).

6. Pour on the **boiling** water, stir vigorously and leave for 6 minutes (timing can be adjusted for strength).

7. Add milk to the cups/mugs and pour through a strainer. Some will insist that milk must be added after the tea; I won't argue, but they're simply wrong :)

8. Enjoy!