Posts by David M

Governments resent their dependence on Big Tech

Re: The benefits of hindsight

Government departments clearly don't have the skills or resources to build their own IT systems, but what they do need is a few senior people who understand both the workflows and the technology well enough to ask the right questions, to define appropriate requirements, including for security, and to be able to monitor private sector development and deliverables to ensure those requirements are being met. I suspect that a lot of problems stem from the fact that nobody in the organisation has much of a clue about IT, so it's easy for suppliers to pull the wool over their eyes.

China's top EV battery maker announced a breakthrough, but top boffin isn't convinced

Charger power rating

Quick calculation - EVs seem to get around 6..7km to the kWh, so 400km would require at least 60kWh of charge. To get that in 10 minutes would mean a charge rate of 360kW. Even the fastest chargers don't currently get anywhere near that. And I believe the highest charging voltage currently in use is 800V, at which 360kW translates to 450A, which would need a rather hefty cable and connectors. None of this is insurmountable, but it's going to need a lot of infrastructure improvements to make this new battery technology viable.

Post Office Horizon Inquiry calls for compensation to be brought forward

BBC investigation

The BBC radio series about this (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/episodes/guide) is very well-researched and informative. And horrifying.

Amazon Prime too easy to join, too hard to quit, says FTC lawsuit

YES and NO

I was impressed (in a bad way) by the Amazon checkout dialogue box that said "Would you like a free trial of Prime?" with big YES and and NO buttons. On the 'NO' button in tiny text it said "NO, I don't want to miss the opportunity to try Prime!" So effectively it was another YES button. I eventually found the real 'no' option, which was even tinier, and lurking in the corner of the screen.

Decision to hold women-in-cyber events in abortion-banning states sparks outcry

Re: Mixed Feelings

I sort of see the point you're trying to make, but to me the victims of these laws aren't just those who are directly affected. I would never visit one of these states—I'm not LGBTQ+, but what about my friends or colleagues? The idea that someone I know (or even someone I don't) could be punished for this is horrific, and I wouldn't want to be somewhere where that might happen. Conversely you could argue that the abortion laws don't affect 50% of the population, but only the much smaller proportion that might actually seek an abortion, but again that's not the point—these laws take away every woman's rights, whether they're directly affected or not.

Study recommends mandatory 3-year vacation so astronauts' brains can recover

Reduced gravity

I wonder how this would affect those in reduced (but not micro) gravity, e.g. in a Lunar colony at one-sixth g.

Excess profits on Motorola's Airwave estimated to be £1.3B

Market not working well

"...concerns that the market might not be working well."

I confess I don't understand much about economics, but it seems to me that if you have a single monopoly supplier for an essential emergency service, that's not a market at all, and it's hardly surprising that the customer is in a poor bargaining position.

Surely Airwave should just have been a set of open protocols, plus a compatibility testing regime. Then multiple suppliers of the actual equipment could have been appointed, giving some opportunity for a competitive market to operate. Or am I being naïve?

NASA's electric plane tech is coming in for a late, bumpy landing

Re: My plan

Thank you for your comments. You're all correct, of course - it's a rubbish plan, and would never work. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

My plan

I have a scheme for reducing aviation CO₂ emissions by 50% - fly half as much. There we are. Job done. Just organise some kind of voucher system to limit the number of flights anyone can take to (say) two return flights per year. Much easier than all these technical solutions, and could be introduced very quickly. It would only be temporary, of course - the scheme would be withdrawn once truly zero-carbon aircraft are available. I know it wouldn't be popular, but sacrifices are going to have to be made if we want to save the planet.

Uncle Sam sounds like it may actually do something about rampant visa H-1B fraud

Numbers

"The number of H-1B visas available annually is capped at 65,000..."

It so should be 65536.

Cruise emits software fix after self-driving car slams into bus

Unique error

The speed with which Cruise analysed and rectified the problem is impressive.

But I wonder how many other 'unique' situations these vehicles are going to encounter. I reckon that pretty much every time I go for a drive, I see some weird event that I've never encountered before. Some random recent examples:

(1) When joining a large motorway-junction roundabout, met a vehicle that was reversing back round the roundabout.

(2) Had to slow down to let a peacock cross in front of me.

(3) Had to go the wrong way round a traffic island because someone had parked in such a stupid place that I couldn't get through on my side.

(4) Had to disobey a red light at some roadworks, as it became obvious that the lights were stuck on red in both directions.

Really not sure how a self-driving vehicle would have handled any of those. And they're just a few examples.

Wow, so they actually let AI fly an F-16 fighter jet

Weapons hot

I notice it said that "firing weapons" was one of the things the pilot would still do. It's only a matter of time, though...

ChatGPT talks its way through Wharton MBA, medical exams

Full duplex

Education is a two-way process - real students ask questions, whereas the current crop of AIs don't, and you can tell a lot from what questions they ask. Perhaps this could be the basis of an AI-proof exam, where the question doesn't provide all the necessary information, and the student is expected to ask for it.

Forget the climate: Steep prices the biggest reason EV sales aren't higher

Re: The ICE will be with us for...

They'll continue to be on the roads for many years after that, as people hang on to their ICE vehicles, and then sell them into the second-hand market.

Tesla driver blames full-self-driving software for eight-car Thanksgiving Day pile up

Re: Human Versus AI Drivers

I was also taught not just to allow enough stopping distance for me, but also for the vehicle behind. So if something is following too close, I try to allow extra space ahead of me so that I can give the idiot behind more chance to stop. A rear-end crash in those circumstances wouldn't be my fault, but it would still be damned inconvenient.

This seems like a precaution that 'full self-driving' software could handle quite easily.

Financial authorities fine UK bank nearly $60m for platform migration disaster

Will it help to fine the bank?

I'm not clear how taking £48.6 million away from the bank is going to help them to improve. Won't this just impact their customers, in reduced services and/or lower investment returns? It seems to me that we should be directly punishing those responsible, rather than the bank. A year of community service for whoever made the decisions and/or ignored the warnings might make those in a similar position in other organisations sit up and think.

Sirius XM flaw unlocks so-called smart cars thanks to code flaw

Re: Different emphasis

Any software should start with some requirements. In this case, one of those would be "only the legitimate owner can unlock the vehicle." Then there's some software engineering to implement the requirements, then a coder can write the code. And then, crucially, it's subjected to a barrage of tests to ensure it meets its requirements. For anything security-related, that should include penetration testing. So there's a whole bunch of fails here, but the lack of proper testing seems the most egregious. This software is protecting a valuable asset, and ought to have been treated accordingly. Or am I being naïve?

Tesla recalls 40k cars over patch that broke power steering

Re: Power steering

Power steering that has lost power is indeed very heavy. Steering that was never powered in the first place is only heavy at manoeuvring speed, otherwise it's fine.

Cops swoop after crooks use wireless keyfob hack to steal cars

Progress of car security

When my friend's Vauxhall Viva was stolen around 1980, the police found it abandoned and managed to get into it with a Ford Cortina key. Pretty much any small flat piece of metal would unlock it. On top of which, it was possible to open the Viva's bonnet from the outside, and under the bonnet was a button labelled 'push to start engine'. Since then car security has steadily improved, with proper keys, alarms, deadlocks, immobilisers and so on. Until recently, that is, when technology seems to be returning us to the 'push to start engine' stage.

City isn't keen on 5,000 erratic, traffic-jam-causing GM robo-cars on its streets

Re: Isn't it their own damn fault

How about this... all self-driving cars must have a safety driver. The car logs every occasion when the safety driver has to intervene. When every car in the fleet has logged no interventions at all for a period of, say, a year, then maybe we begin to think about allowing vehicles without a safety driver.

Braking news: Cops slammed for spamming Waze to slow drivers down

Seems reasonable

I can't really see a problem with this. Surely better to get people to moderate their speed, even if by mild subterfuge, than to fine them and/or put points on their licence.

Voyager 1 data corrupted by onboard computer that 'stopped working years ago'

Re: 07734

My Sinclair Cambridge Memory (1975-ish?) is still going strong. OK, it randomly turns itself off occasionally due to an iffy power switch, but given its age, I think that's forgivable.

AI's most convincing conversations are not what they seem

Boats

Asking "can a computer think?" is like asking "can a boat swim?" In other words, no it can't, it merely mimics certain aspects of that behaviour in a possibly-useful way.

Concerns that £360m data platform for NHS England is being set up to fail

Re: Misunderstanding the NHS

Sadly I can only give one upvote. This is exactly what I've been saying for years, not because I have any special insight but because it's the obvious thing to do, supporting genuine competition, and not allowing any one company to monopolise things. But when did common sense ever play a part in major government procurements?

TomTom to chop 10% of workforce, blames automation tech

Still use mine

I still use my seven-year-old TomTom GO. It works pretty well, it still gets map and firmware updates, it has a much better windscreen mount than any phone bracket I've been able to find, and it doesn't constantly report my location to Google or Apple. If it broke, I might even consider buying another.

Take this $15m and make us some ultra-energy-efficient superconductor chips, scientists told

Déjà vu

I'm sure I remember Josephson junctions being 'the next big thing' back in the ... 90s, or 80s, was it? It's nice to see them back again. But I'm now wondering how big your supercomputer has to be for the energy saving of this new technology to outweigh the energy cost of the substantial cryogenic cooling plant that would be needed to get everything down to 4.2K. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Govt suggests Brits should hand passports to social media companies

Don't blame the messenger

I've used Facebook for 12 years or so, and have never seen a "tidal wave of hate". A couple of overly-heated discussions, but that's about it. But then I choose my FB friends carefully. All that's needed is a bit of education in how to use the platform and guard against abuse. Take care over sharing settings. Unfollow or unfriend people if necessary. Problem largely solved.

Google's DeepMind says its AI coding bot is 'competitive' with humans

Just another compiler

Isn't this just a new sort of compiler? We used to write assembler, but now a compiler does that for us, based on some input in a high-level language. This AI is doing much the same, translating an even-higher-level description into something that can be swallowed by a traditional compiler. If this catches on, the programmer's job will become the writing of that natural-language description, in a sufficiently precise way that the AI can understand and solve it.

One area where this might get interesting is in software testing. If the AI 'understands' the problem, it should also be able to generate suitable test cases. But would you trust a system where the code and the tests were derived from the same source? Or do we assume that the AI's code is always correct, and therefore doesn't need testing?

US Navy in mad dash to salvage F-35C that fell off a carrier into South China Sea

Re: F35 A, B & C models

The F35B isn't quite VTOL as, unlike the Harrier, it cannot take off vertically - it needs a short airstrip, or an even shorter airstrip plus a ramp, as used on the Queen Elizabeth. It is able to land vertically, though.

Russia blows up old satellite, NASA boss 'outraged' as ISS crew shelters from debris

Re: People In Glass Houses.....

US hypocrisy does not make the Cosmos 1408 action any less dangerous.

Happy birthday, Sinclair Radionics: We'll remember you for your revolutionary calculators and crap watches

Sinclair Cambridge

I still use my Sinclair Cambridge calculator. The power switch is a bit dodgy, so it has a tendency to cut out mid-calculation, but that just adds to the excitement.

Ex-health secretary said 'vast majority' were 'onside' with GP data grab. Consumer champion Which? reckons 20 million don't even know what it is

Simple solution

Make it opt-IN. That way only people who have heard about it and are happy to have their data shared will be affected. It would then be up to NHS Digital to convince everyone that it's a good idea, and that their data will be kept safe and not be misused.

The UK is running on empty when it comes to electric vehicle charging points

Some things that would help the situation

Some things that would help the situation:

1. Standardised cables/connectors so any EV can charge from any charger.

2. No 'account' or special card needed, so you can just turn up, charge and pay, just like with petrol.

3. Breakdown services (AA, RAC, etc.) have a mobile recharging service, so that if you do run out, you can call them out and get given enough charge to make it to the nearest charging point (or, alternatively, just get towed there).

Data collected to promote public health must never be surrendered to police

Privacy assurance cannot be trusted

"Every government, everywhere, that offers a check-in app must agree — in law — that our freely provided data can only be used for public health."

No such assurance can ever be trusted, as the government can always change the law later on.

UK health secretary Matt Hancock follows delay to GP data grab with campaign called 'Data saves lives'

Opt-In

If the data sharing is so great, make it opt-in. Problem solved.

'Vast majority of people' are onside with a data grab they know next to nothing about, reckons UK health secretary

Re: "the vast majority of people are strongly onside"

If most people are onside, then make the process opt-in. Have a form that states what will be shared and with whom, and have people sign that form and send it to their GP. This should be fine if most people are so strongly onside with the plans.

UK government bows to pressure, agrees to delay NHS Digital grabbing the data of England's GP patients

Re: Law enables organisations

“Data protection law enables organisations to claim that they share data safely”

FTFY

Tesla Autopilot is a lot dumber than CEO Musk claims, says Cali DMV after speaking to the software's boss

Completely agree. In fact I'd go further. If anyone tries to sell me a car that claims to be L5, I'll ask them to put their children in it, without a driver, and send it across London. If it can be trusted to do that, I might consider it.

Watchdog 'enables Tesla Autopilot' with string, some weight, a seat belt ... and no actual human at the wheel

False sense of security

I think the point is that the 'brick on the accelerator pedal' approach will result in a crash almost immediately, whereas a Tesla in Autopilot mode can keep driving, following the road, avoiding other traffic, etc, for quite a while, thus giving a false sense of security.

Another successful flight for SpaceX's Starship apart from the landing-in-one-piece thing

Historical precedent

We've been doing successful tail-first vertical landings since the 60s - I've seen film of Thunderbird 3 doing this on a numerous occasions.

'Incorrect software parameter' sends Formula E's Edoardo Mortara to hospital: Brakes' fail-safe system failed

Re: A failure of testing

Having a dedicated testing person or team is really important. For one thing a programmer testing their own code will only test that it does what they think it should do, which doesn't help if they've misunderstood the specification, or missed part of it. But more importantly, test engineering is a whole different mindset - the best programmers often aren't the best test engineers, and vice-versa.

A failure of testing

The fault was primarily in the tests. Software always has bugs, and the tests are there to catch them. The more critical the software, the more comprehensive the testing should be. So the most important issue right now isn't finding the bug, it's working out how it got past the tests.

British govt emits fuzzy vision for UK version of American boffin special forces group Darpa

Red tape

...Kwasi Kwarteng said Aria would accelerate innovation by "stripping back unnecessary red tape..."

I bet there are already armies of bureaucrats preparing thick manuals and lengthy forms to implement this stripping back of red tape.

Calls for 'right to repair' electronics laws grow louder across Europe

Would this work?

If manufacturers won't make products repairable because it costs too much, one option would be to price-in the repairability. If the repairability score is R=1..10, say, charge VAT at 10*(10-R)%, so it's 90% for the least repairable item and 0% for the most repairable. That way there would be a significant financial incentive to make (and to buy) more repairable products.

'We stopped ransomware' boasts Blackbaud CEO. And by 'stopped' he means 'got insurance to pay off crooks'

No consent for data sharing in the first place

I was hit by this via the University of York, which I attended many years ago. One of my concerns is that the University never sought my consent to share my details with Blackbaud, which is a GDPR violation. The details included at least name, address, date of birth and email - very useful for identity theft. But of course the ransom was paid, and criminals are always trustworthy, so that's OK.

Airbus and Rolls-Royce hit eject on hybrid-electric airliner testbed after E-Fan X project fails to get off the ground

Re: Electric planes?

Electric batteries are about fifty times the mass of airline fuel for a given amount of energy. Plus the batteries aren't consumed during flight, so the landing mass is the same as at take-off. And solar doesn't help - a panel the size of the aircraft would only produce a tiny fraction of the required energy.

The only realistic way to reduce airline fossil fuel consumption at the moment is to fly a lot less. And we're currently proving that this is perfectly viable.

Stop us if you've heard this before: Boeing's working on 737 Max software fixes for autopilot, stabilization bugs

Re: Flying less

Quite right - me included. But there are plenty of ways to take a holiday that don't involve flying. And I did say 'reduce', not 'eliminate'. For a start, recent experience has shown that the vast majority of business meetings can be held quite successfully without flying half-way around the world to be there in person.

Flying less

Part of the response to climate change is going to have to be a dramatic reduction in flying. The recent effects on aviation of Boeing's bugs and of Covid-19 are just a preview of what will soon need to happen anyway. Boeing would do well to accept this, give up on developing new aircraft, and start redeploying its engineering resources onto more environmentally-friendly projects.

If you're wondering how Brit cops' live suspect-hunting facial-recog is going, it's cruising at 88% false positives

Motives and false negatives

I wonder why they didn't try to to test the false-negative rate. It would have been easy to add a few known 'test' faces to the watchlist, and then ask those people to wander through Oxford Circus on random days of their own choosing, to see whether they got detected.

I suspect the reality is that the Met are hoping the idea that facial recognition is being deployed will discourage crime, regardless of whether the technology actually works or not.

Broadband providers can now flog Openreach's new IP voice network in bid to ditch UK's copper phone lines by 2025

Unlikely - the bandwidth reserved for analogue telephony is less than 1% of the total used by VDSL2.