Posts by John Robson

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Why wouldn't I compare the aggregated driving of millions of vehicles?

Particularly those with reasonably developed self driving - they all report back what's going on.

Indeed I recall seeing somewhere that Tesla AP was effectively always on, just not always connected to the controls - and noted when it's predicted actions differed from the drivers... you know to allow more scenarios to be discovered and simulated.

So it's entirely fair to compare the driving of all of the vehicles in a given fleet against each human driver - and even back in 2018/2019 they did more than a billion miles a year - that's 3 million miles a day, or about 30 years of serious trucking (and truckers can fit in about four times more miles than taxi drivers).

You know what if you'd quoted the rest of my post then you'd have saved yourself some typing.

Wow - it's almost as if you didn't get to the part where I called out that exact issue with the stats as presented.

Re: Step #1, define your terms

"Computer nopes out of the scenario"

So your assumption is that the failure case is one where the computer simply lets go of all controls, rather than one in which it comes to a controlled stop to hand over?

Well if you never catch errors in your own work then I can imagine why you might think that. This isn't legislation designed for the current crop of vehicles with some self driving capacity, maybe not even for the next generation (which is likely to be sooner than most people think, Elon is of course an eternal optimist. It can't be denied that he has managed to achieve quite a lot with that drive and vision.)

When vehicles are level 4 or 5, then they won't be rejecting control back to a meatsack, at least not at speed - because there is no reason for that to be their failure mode.

Re: Step #1, define your terms

The only time it would ever be an annoyance is when you decide to break the law.

I'm all for that kind of annoyance.

Re: Too early.

You've not seen the footage of a car going into emergency braking just before the car in front puts it's brakes on and collides with the car in front of that?

Frankly to outperform a sizable minority of meatbags an AV only needs about four feet of forward awareness.

Re: Too early.

Any for some reason people still insist on doing 40+mph between the two sets of traffic lights.

With an average speed of 16km/h - why not have a speed limit of 20-25? That would significantly reduce the damage done by vehicle collisions, and would also likely encourage people to use more sustainable transport options... if you're in a city they should be the default.

Re: Too early.

"This is compounded by EVs needing to have longer lifespans to offset their increased pollution during production."

Erm??? ICE Myth alert.

Nope - that's offset within a pretty short time (a small percentage of a typical vehicle's life), and of course a "young" EV failure just means even better batteries to reuse or recycle.

Re: too poor to ever own a car.

Well - Just from this week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61022329

And from a couple of years ago: https://citymonitor.ai/transport/london-roads-tfl-subsidy-vehicle-excise-duty-road-tax-3521

London public transport users subsidising car drivers in London

The 2009 select committee saw a significant subsidy for the motorist (about a grand each IIRC)

The first people Rishi Sunak helps, and it's not just him... motorists (well, and oil company shareholders):

http://www.passengertransport.co.uk/2022/04/a-nudge-in-the-wrong-direction/

The cost of motoring is heavily subsidised by the rest of society - it's time it wasn't.

One of the reasons to look at Tesla with AP, and Tesla without... it is comparing apples with apples, not Teslas with autopilot against G Wiz drivers...

I've deliberately not listed overall miles/accident. Partly because I imagine that their stats include a variety of countries, so it's rather hard to discern what the "typical" miles/accident would be.

Re: Too early.

Or just maybe the convoy of automated lorries will simply open gaps on approach to junctions... or maybe there will always be that gap.

Re: Too early.

High speeds aren't an issue for an AV on a motorway - there are very limited things to have to watch out for - and continuous 360 degree observation at all available distances, as well as potential v2v communications will make this the easiest element of the journey to automate... Drive to the motorway - tell the car what junction you want to get to and relax.

That would improve safety *off* the motorway as well - with drivers less tired etc.

Really - you think it's a high target to meet?

You can already look at the stats for self driving vehicle incidents, since they are already driving more miles in a day than basically anyone will ever drive in a lifetime.

Just Telsa:

Autopilot technology on:

Q4 2021: one accident for every 4.31 million miles driven

Autopilot technology off:

Q4 2021: one accident for every 1.59 million miles driven

They're already suffering fewer accidents per mile driven than the same cars being driven manually.

Now I have a serious issue with these stats, in that there is no breakdown by road type, or how many miles were driven when autopilot wasn't available - which could have a serious impact on the distribution.

Re: too poor to ever own a car.

"Cars are expensive, but not as expensive as public transport."

That's because car ownership is heavily subsidised, unlike public transport.

Re: Step #1, define your terms

"Hopefully insurers will increase premiums to cover the increased risk."

Yes - I sincerely hope that human premiums will be increased rapidly when level 4/5 vehicles are available.

Re: Too early.

Can we slow traffic so that human errors cause "less damage" first please?

Re: Too early.

Not a significant power draw.

With ~4m/kWh as a reasonable baseline efficiency... on a motorway journey (where you care about range) you should be averaging 60+ mph. That's 15+kW... No computer would make much dent.

Google tests battery backups, aims to ditch emergency datacenter diesel

Re: Can someone do the math for me please?

There are *other* technologies available. I don't say that since diesel generates smoke we shouldn't use engines because a steam engine is even worse.

Re: Can someone do the math for me please?

Why do you presume that?

I don't know what the expected lifetime of a generator is, but I do know that they need regular testing and maintenance.

Batteries of this sort will require very little maintenance - but they will also be mostly on perma test.

And the batteries will have serious lifetime... it doesn't actually matter if they drop to 80% capacity, they'll still be good for backup purposes.

Immersion-cooled colo is coming to Ohio... via a crypto-mining datacenter

Re: Environmental - Warming River Water

The thermal gradient around the plant will exist, but that will be a very localised effect. Looking at the river as a whole, there is a small effect that a localised temperature difference might have by making it hard for fish etc. to pass through the affected region, but I struggle to see that being particularly significant here.

How many miles down a fairly turbulent water flow would you expect a relevant gradient to persist?

Using the whole mass flow is done to account for the fact for the vast majority of the river the effect will be distributed amongst the entire mass flow.

The presence of buildings at all is likely to have a significant impact on the local environment anyway - even if it didn't directly connect to the river it would significantly affect runoff etc.

Re: "without a time component"

Either way it's a rather slow rate of acceleration.

Indeed, although at some point during a reasonable acceleration phase it will be true, although I would imagine that the jerk would be quite high, so it wouldn't be at that for very long (and is therefore a ridiculous unit).

Re: "without a time component"

It is 52MW - ie 52 million joules per second.

How fast is that car travelling? 52mph

But is that 52mph per hour or per day?

erm... what?

I read it as the data centre would scale to using 52MW... not that running the cooling would be 52MW...

Since all input eventually ends up as heat... that's 52MW to dissipate.

Re: "without a time component"

Nope - power is the correct unit... I'll dump 52MW into this river...

I'm not going to do it once, I'll be doing it 24/7.

So the effect is spread amongst the mass flow of the river at that point.

Re: Environmental - Warming River Water

52MW is enough to heat ~12 cubic metres of water 1 degree celsius per second.

- Specific heat capacity of water is ~4200J/kg/deg

Flow rate of the mississippi is about 17 thousand cubic metres of water per second (into the gulf)

- https://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm

So to heat the mississippi by a degree F you'd need ~17000/12 * 1.8(c/f conversion) => two and half thousand of these facilities.

The major assumption is that the heat is evenly distributed amongst the entire mass flow, which feels reasonable within a relatively short distance from the facility.

The second major question is "what bothers the fish" because things like the solubility of oxygen in water is reduced as temperature increases.

IoT biz Insteon goes silent, smart home gear plays dumb

Re: Home Automation is the Future

It's great if you have the technical abilities to set it up yourself.

It's not ridiculous, but there is a learning curve - and it takes time to find things that will talk locally, not relying on some external service.

South Yorkshire to test fiber broadband through water pipes

Re: common ducting

Even if it is well drained, because that drainage will eventually get clogged.

Re: common ducting

You also can't share ducts at the moment - legislative separations, both vertical and horizontal, make it quite a big hole to lay them all at once (I've just done it for a new build).

There is some logic here as well - you don't really want a gas leak to run along a duct that actually enters a building - so gas ducts terminate externally, with just a pipe entering the building (and a metal pipe by that point, so that a fire doesn't cause the gas main to rupture).

Re: Great idea...

So they have to replace a huge number of buried valves to install the fibre... wouldn't it be easier to ... just run the fibre overhead, or to use a pipe which doesn't have valves...

Great idea...

But how will they deal with valves?

I thought they were going to use sewer pipes, since those shouldn't have valves in them very often.

Vital UK customs system outage contributes to travel chaos at its borders

Re: @Spaceman9

""You have failed to suggest a single benefit"

And there we go. You cannot answer, cannot refute the benefit and even admitted the result in your own comment but then the fingers go back in the ears and 'lalalala'. "

So which EU regulation would have forced us to join their vaccine rollout?

None - none at all. It was a choice, and a rational choice, made by the grown ups in the EU to deal with a pandemic. Not to hoard, not to be selfish, but to export vaccines, even to the UK. The UK however didn't do likewise, and as far as we can tell didn't export any vaccines for months.

The vaccine rollout was a "triumph" of selfishness. Given the corruption we have seen since I have no doubt that there were direct benefits in terms of financial interests held by those in government.

You keep claiming it's something magically Brexit, despite every reputable source pointing out that it was completely independent of Brexit (and in fact that our membership of the EMA was rather important).

You seem to think that stopping exports and not validating imports is good for the UK, which is contrary to every rational economist. You fail to understand even the most basic concepts of trade.

https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net%2Fprod%2F8b505410-ac3e-11ec-9a07-41123ed8a48e-standard.png

You haven't ducked or weaved, you've just declared that the square root of i is positive, and that it was always positive. Doublethink in the extreme.

Re: @Spaceman9

"Lies! Go back and answer my comment I link above and answer why you hold UK supremacist views. Dont change the subject or run away with the goalposts again but see if you can answer."

Sorry - what planet are you on?

You think I hold UK supremacist views? On what basis is that? Because there were different options available to us? Because you can't face the fact that the options weren't changed by our relationship with the EU?

The EU didn't screw up - they realised that a global situation demands a global response. We however acted like the selfish brat in the corner.

""In particular the EU are complying with WTO rules and applying checks on our exports. We however are not complying with WTO rules, and are in fact a smugglers paradise."

So the EU cant get access to what they want but we can. Awesome. Especially as people got grumpy when stuff wasnt on the shelves at one point."

Erm - what? Stuff is still not available on our shelves - and the EU can import anything they like, although it's now easier to source it from a supplier within the remaining single market (i.e. it's worse for us, not them).

You're genuinely trying to claim that actively giving an advantage to foreign suppliers is a Brexit benefit.

I think that rather says as much as I need to hear. There is a reason people stop responding to you - you fail to let the facts penetrate or influence your argument in the slightest.

You have failed to suggest a single benefit of the hard tory Brexit that stands up to even the most basic scrutiny - and will continue to fail to do so.

I do hope that your echo chamber is comfortable enough that you don't try to come out into the real world again.

Re: @Spaceman9

"So they had to catch up? Why was that? *yeah I am hitting you with the point*."

The point being?

We paid more and started earlier - both things we could have done without Brexit. We were still in the EMA, which is the only reason we could approve the vaccines in the first place.

And yes, we started earlier - but only barely.

And we were particularly bad at being a global player in the vaccine market: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2021/03/25/has-the-uk-really-outperformed-the-eu-on-covid-19-vaccinations/

And it wasn't Brexit related anyway:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/covid-vaccine-decisions-brexit

It never was a Brexit benefit. However much you try to bleat about it.

"Eh? If its a problem caused by trade barriers but we havnt implemented them how is it the barriers?"

You know when you started building a wall in front of your house - and you'd only put down a few courses of brick.. it was a bit awkward to jump over... but each new course of brick you put on made it harder and harder... You haven't "built the wall" until you've finished it - but it's still difficult to pass whilst the wall is being built.

We haven't completely implemented the trade barriers we chose to erect. But there are some bits which are in force. In particular the EU are complying with WTO rules and applying checks on our exports. We however are not complying with WTO rules, and are in fact a smugglers paradise.

"HMRC have changed how they collect data" Of course they have, got to try and hide the effects as much as possible.

Just look at the roads in Kent and tell me with a straight face that international trade is anywhere near pre covid levels. Bear in mind that lorry drivers won't even go to dover if they haven't already got the paperwork sorted - what's the point. So most of the delays aren't in Kent, they're in the warehouses across the country.

Just look at the shelves in your local supermarket - I've never seen so many empty shelves, so little choice.

Just look at our inflation, particularly when looking at the cheaper products, compared with our global peers.

Then compare Britain with NI...

British trade has been, and will continue to be, strangled by the hard tory Brexit which is completely counter to what was promised in an illegally contested referendum which was "won" by a small minority - why wasn't there a confirmatory referendum when the deal was known? Oh yes - because the Brexit party didn't want to lose out on the personal gain they could see.

Re: @Spaceman9

Well, we're currently (Apr 6th 2022) behind: Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, France, Sweden - just to list the EU countries we're lagging behind.

We're at 73.6% double jabbed, the EU as a whole is at 73.2%.

That's not a substantial difference - but the trend is that the EU has narrowed that gap - i.e. their performance has been better - for a while now.

The EU paid $2.15/dose initially, whilst the UK paid about $3/dose.

There is no basis at all to say that our vaccine programme is/was better than the EU... it's on a par, it started a few weeks earlier, and we paid significantly more as a result.

"And data shows that most developed economies are now at ~3% above pre pandemic trade, except for Britain"

This will be interesting to keep an eye on.

Yes it will, I wonder what you think will change this? We are still suffering significantly as a result of our world leading trade barriers, which we still haven't implemented. And yet our trade deficit continues to grow.

Re: @Spaceman9

Rather depends on your memory...

"We're all doomed" wasn't what was predicted. A drop in trade, a reduction in choice on the shelves, an increase in corruption, all of those were predicted - and have come to pass.

There hasn't been any benefit to the country from Brexit - it's not just that I don't think the benefits outweigh the losses.. I am yet to hear anyone claim an actual benefit that stands up to even mild scrutiny.

Re: @Spaceman9

Well - yes we started faster, but that was nothing to do with EU membership or otherwise.

We were still members of the EMA at the time - or did you forget that?

There is nothing that would have stopped us doing exactly what we did if we had remained in the EU - so it had nothing to do with being a brexit benefit.

And we've been low performing in terms of vaccination for a long while now.

And data shows that most developed economies are now at ~3% above pre pandemic trade, except for Britain (not the UK, since NI is doing far better - I wonder why) which is ~13% down.

Re: @Spaceman9

"Yup, that is saying the gov is doing a good job delaying the checks."

Ah yes - take back control of our borders by completely opening them to any smugglers, and not checking whether goods are safe...

In the same way seeking medical attention is a good idea if you shoot yourself in the foot...

Re: @Spaceman9

"You do realise project fear turned into a disappointing damp squib for the EU and fanatical remainers?"

Project reality (to give it's proper name) has been proved rather accurate.

Of course we've only seen a 15% drop in trade compared with other similar economies (i.e. excluding the inevitable effects of a pandemic, and other global pressures) - but we haven't yet implemented brexit in full - and we never will - every time we want to change any standards it will need a new round of negotiations...

'Bigger is better' is back for hardware – without any obvious benefits

Spin one of those screens through 90 degrees, and then you'll have a decent document viewer.

Soon MS will spot the adobe style "detachable menu" and decide that's a great idea, then three years later they'll stop doing so, then rinse and repeat.

They just changed the UI for track changes such that even when my wife had figured out *how* to turn it of and on, nd was pointing me at the change that indicated it... it still took my ~30 seconds to see what the indicator was. And I could only tell by repeatedly turning it off/on and watching for the change.

It used to be a little slider button that was green when it was on (right hand side), and grey when it was off (left hand side). Now the icon *background* changes between two subtly different greyscales...

Creator of SSLPing, a free service to check SSL certs, downs tools

Re: I feel for the guy, but..

The containers... yes.

Docker itself still needs to run though.

Cooler heads needed in heated E2EE debate, says think tank

Re: Tongue in cheek

Absolutely the only way to stop e2ee is to prevent maths.

Since we're pretty sure that maths can't be prevented...

Re: Suppression of citizens

Nuanced conversation is all well and good, but you can't have nuance around security... it's hard enough to do security well, let alone when trying to ensure that your black paint scatters 99% of incoming light.

There aren't many things that are black and white - but encryption is one of those things:

- Either communications are encrypted at source, and only able to be decrypted at the destination OR

- they are not effectively encrypted, and may as well not be at all

First Light says it's hit nuclear fusion breakthrough with no fancy lasers, magnets

Also a 12 year 1/2 life is nothing compared to the 24,000 year 1/2 life of plutonium.

No, but that does mean that the product is significantly *more* radioactive... half lives measured in tens of thousands of years require relatively low rates of emission compared with short half lives.

Stuff with a half life measured in seconds or minutes is difficult to distribute, but highly radioactive. Stuff with a very long half live is easy to distribute but not very radioactive. 12 years is easy to distribute, but still short enough to be pretty active.

If you fire someone, don't let them hang around a month to finish code

Never write the smartest code you can.... most bugs are at least one level more subtle than the code, so if you can only just understand your code - you won't understand your bugs.

Hooking up to Starlink might be pricier than you thought

"The current pricing model keeps people in poorer countries (especially africa and asia essentially locked out"

It's possible that a community might be able to afford a starlink terminal as a shared resource - though there are a myriad other questions that that then entails.

Brit watchdog fines financial services biz £80k for text spam

That makes a text 20p (plus standard message rate)

Far cheaper than many other text options.

NASA will award contract for second lunar lander to a biz that's not SpaceX

Can't believe I missed the opportunity to say...

it's padding all the way down (or up)

Man arrested, accused of trying to track woman using Apple Watch attached to car

Re: airtag alert

Or it's followed you for a while without being able to see the owner's device.

Re: I can see why

"I don't want some alert on my phone popping up every single time someone with an Apple Watch walks past"

That's not really how it works though - If they are within range of the airtag it won't alert anyone else, since it's clearly not being used for tracking.

Apple's Mac Studio exposed: A spare storage slot and built-in RAM

Re: RAM

"I'd love to have some idea of the intrinsic latency of TB4"

Well, https://www.abaco.com/thunderbolt-3 suggests that the latency is sub microsecond (which I appreciate is an absolute age in CPU time), but compares well with PCIe.

It also reminded me that TB has DMA capability as well..