Posts by Jellied Eel

Meta kills Facebook News in the US and Australia

Re: What is news ?

...when the facts were plainly in my post.

Your post only contained unsubstantiated claims that you'd 'seen' stories. You could have cited links to those stories. You chose not to.

Are you a politician or a 'terrorist'?

Are you a fascist, or a useful idiot? But there's been a bunch of junk news lately, ie Navalny's murder, only 31,000 dead in Ukraine. Neither of those stand up to even casual scrutiny, ie there's no evidence to support either claim. Russia's claimed Navalny died of natural causes, Ukraine said he died of a blood clot, we still don't know the cause of death. Navalny's supporters presumably accept the CoD as they've buried the body rather than sending it off for autopsy/analysis. The 31,000 claim also doesn't make sense given the desperate lengths the Kiev regime is going to to find more cannon fodder.. Although not from amongst their own fortunate sons and daughters, of course.

Meanwhile, Macron seems determined to put other people's boots on the ground. I'm sure if Macron issued himself a FAMAS and headed for Ukraine's front lines, many French people would be lining the streets to cheer him on his way. But he won't put himself in danger, politicians don't do that, they let other people die for their egos.

Re: Jellied TV

Which clearly shows they were reporting what the Met Office said, not making up a "lie".

OK, repeating, reinforcing and promoting a lie. Or 'fake news', or 'misinformation' in the current parlance. Anyone who knows anything about climate science, or the UK's weather history should be aware of the CET. They may not be aware of the shortcomings, ie the Met Office's lousy station siting. But the fable has-

By Kate Stephens & Ben Rich

BBC Climate & Science and BBC Weather

Two people who sould really know better, and could easily have checked the Met Office's claim, but didn't bother. Just copypasta the Met Office's claim and call it good. After all, the Bbc sends it's 'journalists' off to climate propaganda camps in Oxford to be taught how to work Global Warming into any old story. While there, I rather doubt they're shown the Met Office's Radcliffe Observatory and anyone tells them why the data from it is probably garbage-

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/even-radcliffe-observatory-is-only-class-4/

Class 4 means the uncertainty is +/-2C, but that usually means erring on the positive due to being in the wrong location.

But do you think the Bbc's article was correct? Or should it be retracted as 'fake news'?

Re: Sorry Jellied Vatnik...

Jellied Eel is not vatnik

Indeed. But it's the level of intelligence that gets shown in these 'debates'. From wiki, a definition-

..which is used to disparage someone as a blindly patriotic and unintelligent jingoist who pushes the conventional views presented in Russian(British) government media as well as those of Russian(British) web brigades.

which is also the classic projection frequently shown by lefty fascists. They don't understand the argument, can't construct a counter argument, so instead resort to crude insults. So one or more ACs can't even do simple 'fact checking' comparing the Bbc's story to the Met Office's published data, and realising the Bbc's story is a work of fiction.

Re: Jellied TV

England and Wales had their warmest February on record this year

True or False? Obviously it disagrees with the Met Office's own data. Why would the Bbc lie about something that is so easily fact checked? What else does it lie about? When caught in those lies, what does it do to it's credibility?

Re: Jellied TV

You seem to hate the BBC a lot. Maybe because auntie does not exactly confirm your "unbiased" view of the world?

I hate it because it lies a lot and is a cancer on society. We must fund it in order to watch any live, broadcast TV or be punished. Because of it's special place in the UK broadcast landscape, it should be held to high standards.. But then George Orwell was ex-Bbc.

Simple example of the way it lies here-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68435197.amp

England and Wales had their warmest February on record this year, the Met Office said on Friday.

This is a lie-

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/meantemp_ranked_monthly.txt

which shows the warmest February on record was in 1779, and there were 6 years >7C, none since 1998. Ok, so thermometers weren't quite the same as they are today, but that's propaganda for you. As for the rest of your list of conspiracy theories, if you can't figure out why indexing 'renewables' contracts is a bad idea, there really isn't much hope for you. It does demonstrate the power of propaganda though.

Re: What is news ?

I don't see the relevance of that comment. You specifically called out the BBC

You wouldn't. If you only get your 'news' from the Bbc, you'll never see the full story, just as you wouldn't if you only viewed RT, or any single source. I specifically called out the Bbc because they're our state broadcaster, and supposed to be credible.

..and have seen the evidence proving your assertions incorrect

Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner.

Admittedly I was kind of asking you to provide evidence of a negative, but you could have responded with some links to the Bbc's coverage. If that existed, of course..

Re: Sorry Jellied Vatnik...

Steve Rosenberg is a real..

propagandist. One could practically taste the crocodile tears.

...who was attacked by Russian regime's thugs

Uhuh. At least he wasn't attacked, jailed, reportedly tortured and then died in a Ukrainian jail. Or killed in a car bombing. Or killed in a restaurant bombing. Ukraine seems a far more dangerous place to be for journalists, especially after their regime has shut down most of their media, banned political opponents etc etc.

Fortunately, Steve Rosenberg is read by thousands of people every day

Well, yes. That's why he's an effective propagandist. Or in the context of the 'dying gasps of free expression', more likely to spend longer in jail for spreading fake news and misinformation. But he seems to worship a far-right extremist and anti-Islamist. Funny how that works. Israel's currently run by a far-right extremist and anti-Islamist that's currently killing thousands of civilians. Germany's just been caught working with it's old ally to kill more Russians. Maybe we'll make it to 2025, maybe we won't. Maybe the elections in the West in 2024 will reshape the political landscape. Maybe we'll defear Russia, after all, we have more pronouns.

But I guess the tl:dr version is murdered person wasn't murdered. Grieving widow pays for a cheap coffin and funeral, but is too busy with her new career to attend. I wonder how much pressure her handlers applied for her to actually go play her role? If Russia arrested her, that would have been great PR. If they didn't, it would still have been great PR. But nope.

Re: Sorry Jellied Vatnik...

It looks like 2024 will not be kind to little Ivan Grozny.

I think it'll be less kind to assorted hagiographers, like this one-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68457743

The question I'm left with is this: were yesterday's scenes the dying embers of liberal democracy in Russia, a "last hurrah" for freedom of expression before it is extinguished completely?

My question is still why the Bbc promotes a far-right extremist, especially after Sunak's speech. Especially as Navalny also hate Islamists. Or maybe I shouldn't be suprised given Sunak's been arming and training far-right extremists to fight in Ukraine. Or perhaps he's starting to realise that conflict is coming to an end, and when it does, Ukraine's 'Right Sector' nutjobs are going to want to flee into the EU and UK. But then Ukraine exports all sorts of toxic material-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68413310

The mysterious trader was shipping a chemical commonly used for suicide around the world from Ukraine's capital. He has been linked to at least 130 UK deaths.

And the possible 'last hurrah' for freedom of expression in the UK, and EU-

The government says the new Online Safety Act gives Ofcom the power to take action against this kind of website. But Ofcom is still consulting on how the Act will be implemented and enforcement action won't happen for many months.

I wonder if the Bbc will be as keen to use the OSA against Ukraine's kill list website? Or become a little more critical about other journalist's deaths at Ukraine's hands, like Gonzalo Lira. Or it'll report that all the calls that Navalny was 'murdered' appear to have been fake news, soon to be punishable with prison time. Of course nothing quite shows your dedication to freedom of expression than championing a law that suppresses it, and anyone who may dare to speak truth to power.

Something journalists are supposed to do, no? The Bbc used to run stories about Ukraine's far-right problem, now it promotes them. It's a funny old world.

Re: What is news ?

Really? Both have been front page stories on the BBC site I look at. Maybe you're using a VPN and seeing to from the4 perspective of some random country where those stories are less prominent. Or just wilfully bi[blind to anything not fitting your own narrative.

Perhaps I look at more news sources than you do, and am not following the same narrative. It's why it's important to have a plurality of news after all. But the news has become strange of late, for example-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68451333

The UK must face down extremists trying to "deliberately" undermine the country's "multi-faith democracy", Rishi Sunak has warned.

The PM said Islamists and the far-right were "two sides of the same extremist coin" who loathed Britain.

Navalny was expelled from Yabloko for being far-right and anti-Islamist and regarding immigrants as 'cockroaches'. He was arguably and demonstrably an extremist, attempting to undermine his country. That may have been in the same manner as we used Ukraine's far-right nutjobs as muscle to enact their 2014 coup. But basically a Russian version of Tommy Robinson, and maybe the Bbc will start promoting him next as the real alternative to Starmer.

But feel free to find stories about the ongoing protests here-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/europe

Where you'll find all the news that matters. Eurovision! Yey! Nothing about this however-

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-economy/3834472-polish-farmers-put-shehyni-border-checkpoint-on-ukraine-border-on-full-shutdown-for-cargoes.html

"The situation hasn't actually changed in recent days. But today we have a certain change toward the Shehyni checkpoint. At 13:00, as the Polish side informed us, Polish farmers refused to let through any inbound or outbound trucks. Before that, truck crossings were recorded at a minimum level," he said.

Ukraine's naturally a little concerned because it's also blocking inbound weapons and ammunition shipments.

...it's perhaps in Zuck's interest to stop republishing Elmo's content...

Zuck's interests may have shifted. He's just dropped $300m+ on a yacht and a tender, which I guess explains why he dumped a bunch of stock recently.

Re: What is news ?

If Navalny was a nobody the Russian government wouldn't have poisoned him with extremely expensive Novichok.

There isn't really any evidence that they did. Don't forget it was a previously unknown variant of Fauxvichok, and the details from his stay in Germany remain classified.

Then imprisoned him for missing reporting to the local police station due to being in hospital nearly dying of the poison his own government had administered. Then repeatedly tried him on new made-up offenses every 6 months or so, so they could keep increasing his sentence.

Err.. Nope. Discharged 23rd September, arrested on arriving back in Russia 17th January for violating probation while awaiting trial in his Yves Rocher fraud case. He'd been too busy working on his movie to bother with boring little details like answering charges. Plus Russia was obviously determined to kill him because they allowed him to fly to Germany for treatment

He wasn't allowed to stand in the last Presidential election, so we can't know.

Or eligible to stand. But all the allegations of election interference and Trumped up charges sound oddly familiar. Those stoopid Ruskies. Don't they know Navalny is our choice for Russia's President? Just ignore the evidence that he was a racist, nationalist and virulently anti-immigration. Having one of his cronies videoed discussing taking money to stage a 'colour revolution' probably didn't help his case either. But this is one of the more bizzare aspects of this clusterfunk. Why would we expect Russians to vote for a western puppet? Just look at what happened to Ukraine when they did that.

His anti-corruption campaign and videos were genuinely popular in Russia and quite widely viewed.

Also quite hilarious, like his fantasy videos of 'Putins' pleasure palace in Sochi. Those were pretty easily fact-checked and debunked though, but didn't stop the MSM picking them up and running with them. Much as they did with Rumsfeld's infamous mountain lair that Bin Laden had built and was hiding in in Afghanistan.

It's straight bollocks. And to cite it not being covered on Russian TV as your evidence is truly pathetic.

Err.. nope. That's all the Bbc's original work. They're assuming the lack of media attention is evidence of a coverup instead of it being the death of a nobody. Much the same with the lack of crowds. This is apparently evidence of Russia's crack-downs rather than Russian's simply not caring. But that's cognitive dissonance for you. The Bbc has been pointedly ignoring the much larger protests across Europe against the EU's agricultural policies, or the way Polish farmers and truckers are currently blockading Ukraine.

Re: What is news ?

Despite dropping the News "tab" I have a feeling here in the US bottom of the barrel foreign sponsored schlock like "Sputnik News" and "Epoch Times" will be getting shared wildly again serving up plenty of Trump loving disinformation.

Don't you know there's a war on? Democrats and Republicans will both be spending many millions to get their important messages in front of social media eyeballs. Then probably spending millions more to attempt to correct 'disinformation'. Then maybe eventually realising that FaceMelta isn't where all the cool kids hang out, and much of the Trump attack ads just seem to boost his ratings. If only the DNC had just ignored him, Trump may have faded into obscurity.

But the media landscape is very strange at the moment. Here's the Bbc covering the funeral of a nobody-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-68427413

Turn on Russian TV and you won't find any mention of Alexei Navalny, let alone of his funeral.

With live, front page coverage from the UK's state broadcaster. That isn't asking boring questions like "where's the grieving widow?", or why the body hasn't been sent to Germany for an 'independent' autopsy to 'prove' he was murdered, as all our leaders once said? But such is politics. FaceMelta tried to use news to make their site the people's 'front page' to the 'net. People objected to all the garbage placed in their feeds and turned off.

Musk joins OpenAI lawsuit queue, says there's nothing 'open' about it

I was contrasting it with the individuals who did things like publish improved extruder designs for Makerbot printers on their platform

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:42250

only for Makerbot to patent them

Hmm. Has that been challenged? I'd have thought that would constitute prior art, but guessing Makerbot also included the usual IPR trap that all uploaded content automagically becomes property of Makerbot. One of the reasons I hate cloudybollocks when it comes to any kind of creative tools.

Re: Nothing has achieved AGI yet.

Stupid comment. Regtards asking AI irrelevant and politically charged questions and calling it non-intelligent is the kettle calling the pot black.

Prettty sure Gemini would call you a racist for calling the pot that. But Gemini and other 'AI's are just products of their generation. Their generation is big on 'diversity', hence Gemini producing images of diverse and inclusive WW2 German soldiers. In that manner

https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/montana-army-national-guard-explains-controversial-promotional-image

But AI's are emulating humans, just the humans their creators want us to be, not the humans we are.

Meta's pay-or-consent model hides 'massive illegal data processing ops': lawsuit

Re: I'm starting to think GDPR has failed

I don't think it's the GDPR that's failed, more like humanity. Most kids are usually taught not to read someone's diary or journal because we inherently value and respect privacy. Sadly, too many people have decided there's a greater value in dollars and cents in violating people's privacy. Given the way execs tend to display sociopathic tendancies, maybe this shouldn't be a suprise.

But GDPR is an attempt to correct this situation, it just doesn't go far enough or have meaningful penalties. If the basic data protection principles of the minimum data necessary were better enforced, we'd have some of our privacy back. But data rape is now worth billions and there's a lot of lobbying to normalise this behaviour. Politicians don't seem to understand the problem. Sunak was whining about mob rule and spending an extra £31m on protecting MPs. Democracy is all about mob rule, ie the biggest mob wins the election, and gets to pick the people who'll represent them. If our elected representatives don't represent us, then it's only natural that the mob might try to remove them. This is already starting to happen, ie the 'invisible' riots in Brussels, or Poland that for some reason most of the MSM isn't reporting. The peasents are revolting, and it's not even Summer yet.

Re: Don't Understand....................

It's a simple bait & switch-

...which they said were unfair because it "misleads" consumers into thinking that "by opting for the paid subscription as it is presented, they get a privacy-friendly option involving less tracking and profiling."

If people opt to pay to get an ad-free FaceMelta experience, they should be free to do so. They should also be free to opt out of FaceMelta's cyber stalking and data rape, as is a requirement under GDPR. Don't pay and get raped is extortion, plain and simple.

Problem is they've been allowed to get away with it. So I was just thinking about how to solve this problem, admittedly in the context of energy policy and discovered-

Cape Enniberg, Faroe Islands, 750 m above North Atlantic

Which I propose naming the Cliffs of Stupidity. Build 3 walls leaving the cliff side open, secure those. Then place FaceMelta execs, and other assorted lying scumbags inside. This isn't capital punishment given they're free to make a choice. Put video feeds on PPV, or just have those ad funded and it would quickly pay for itself. The prospect of a meaningful punishment might also discourage other data rapists and assorted scumbags.

Underwater cables in Red Sea damaged months after Houthis 'threatened' to do just that

Re: Why do they need a submarine?

it's very easy to forget just how cheaply traditional screwdrivers can be purchased .....

It's also one of those technology things. Once upon a time, drones were expensive and specialised. Now they're disposable. Much the same with underwater drones or tech like sonar. That stuff used to be really expensive, now we can buy these pretty cheaply. Depths are obviously still a challenge, but simple tech like LEDs has made it a lot easier to do visual surveys.

It assumes defeat

Doing nothing, or following the wrong policy even though it should be perfectly obvious it's the wrong policy simply assures defeat.

Interestingly that's a fair chunk of Jellied Eel's 10 @ 3.2 GWe. Question is, how much will it really cost, is doing that in half the time my earlier post suggested remotely realistic?

I have been keeping up! Or trying to..

Question is, how much will it really cost, is doing that in half the time my earlier post suggested remotely realistic?

Therein lies the problem. China's managed to build and operate EPR designs far faster than the French seem able to manage. So sure, China can easily throw bodies at the problem. But then China's also been taking the long view and encouraging a workforce that can help meet their construction targets. We haven't, and trades have been neglected. So we ended up having to import lots of welders and other trades folks.

Unfortunately, 24 GW doesn't help too much - if we electrify transport per the government's wet dreams, then assuming off-peak charging, that could increase baseload from around 22 GW to perhaps 35 GW.

Yup. Therein lies the other problem. We're hell bent on decarbonisation to meet 'legally binding' targets that could just be repealed. We could.. not bother, or reset the targets in line with more realistic targets that would allow NPPs to get built. Or SMRs, which in theory could just be rolled off a production line and brought into service much faster & cheaper. Hopefully Hinkley is being given a very hairy eyeball to determine exactly why it's taking so long, and costing so much. Especially as it's not really a FOAK design.

The original claim by Areva was that the EPR used at Hinkley C would produce power for £24/MWh. The current "strike price" for Hinkley Point is around £126 MWh, with a possibility that we'll have to top that up for the increases and delays. Have a think about that.

It's still cheaper than most CfDs for off-shore windmills, and doesn't need batteries. In theory, the consortium bears the risk of cost overruns. In practice, we'll probably end up bailing out EDF. Again. Plus we're probably going to have more fun next week when we find out how much CfDs will increase after tobacco duty is applied and pushes up inflation again.

Re: Why do they need a submarine?

The Russians had much better equipped ships out there at the same time.

As did the US, and all the other Baltic state navies. Who also had far more incentive to blow up the pipeline. It also didn't really need special forces divers given poking holes in pipes with shaped charges is something commercial divers working in the oil & gas industry do regularly. Ukraine has those. Sweden and Denmark have curiously decided to drop their investigations. Strange when this was the biggest single act of sabotage in the EU's history.

Re: Why do they need a submarine?

Interesting. Do these fibre optic communication cables that the article is about also carry HVDC?

Yep, although the H is a bit smaller. Resistance might be futile, but it's also physics. So the torpedoes installed along a cable require power for amplifying and regenerating the signals. So cable has the steel armour wire for protection and strength, and copper conductors to supply the power. There's a.. fair bit of resistance on a 7,000km cable so a fair bit of power injected by the PFE (Power Feeding Equipment) at either end. One cable station I visited had a line on the floor warning not to cross it while the PFE was humming quietly to itself. Plus a dustpan, brush and ashtray on the safe side for clean-up if anyone ignored the warning. I've always kinda hated HVDC for it's ability to turn the careless into arclights.

Somewhere on YT there's a bunch of videos Hibernia Atlantic put up showing things like how they fix cable cuts.

The government is planning to supply a lot more of our electricity through undersea cables,

No, they're not. They're letting a bunch of chancers exploit our broken energy market to profit from insane ideas like this. Ignoring the cost of the cable, the cost of the solar farms, the political and practical challenges of keeping all that operational.. It's an amazing idea, and will increase UK energy costs even further.

Alternatively, we order 10 more NPPs and call it good.

Re: Why do they need a submarine?

I would hope that a 500kV 2kA electric cable would have slightly more mechanical strength than a bundle of optical fibres, and would thus be more resistant to being damaged by a boat dragging its anchor, but I may be wrong.

A lot depends on the anchor. I used to assume there was loads of high-tech gubbins involved in this industry, until I worked in it. So either drag the cable with a plain'ol anchor until it snags on something and snaps. Or just use a cutting anchor. Or 2 ships sailing in opposite directions to increase the shear stress. But none of that is anything I'd want to do with a 2kA power cable. Unless I had a few sacks of rice to chuck in where the steam's surfacing.

As for restoring the cables, that's going to be the fun part, especially if the Houthis have chosen the locations carefully. Like placing the scarce cable ships inside missile range. Hopefully the Navy(s) will provide an escort screen while the cable ships are working.

Plans to heat districts with datacenters may prove too hot to handle

Hot washing water needs to be at least 55C, so they also need some way to generate that.

I'm keeping an eye on stats for legionella. Hot water should be kept at 60C to prevent that, 'energy saving' might be encouraging conditions for that to breed instead. Plus there'll be all the black mould from people over insulating homes, and not properly ventilating.

Re: Locally it can work

And then you can slash that for those DC where there's no local heat demand, or where it's simply uneconomic to capture and supply.

You're missing the point. These 'ideas' aren't meant to make sense, they're meant to make money. Hence the special pleading for something in the budget that will shuffle money in the direction of these 'solution' providers and they'll make bank. So the suggestion that DCs might be forced to install expensive and pointless heat capture devices. It's much like the 'Renewable Heat Incentives' that lead to this-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal

Another whistleblower wrote a letter in January 2016 to tell Foster, who had by then become First Minister, about an "empty" farm shed that was "being heated for the subsidy". The scheme did not take into account that properties that were not previously heated could now be heated for a profit.

Meta to build election operations center in Europe to inspect AI content

Re: ∑ rant != theory

You should publish economy scientific papers

No real need. The effects of energy policy and compounding on inflation should be obvious, even to you.

Re: Fighting Dunning Kruger is hard

Keeping a 2% inflation rate objective is sufficient to keep the economy going in a stable and predictable way.

Not really, unless you mean the predictability of policy efffects on inflation. Or maybe I'm just bitter having worked in an industry where the normal rules don't apply. So Internet/Telecoms people expect to get more for less. In your food basket, you expect to pay more and get less. I doubt people cheer when they discover their bills and shopping gets ever more expensive and praise the government for stability. Instead, they spend less, so stagflation again. But the problem is more policy related.

So consider the chicken and the egg. Chickens are birds of little brain, much like politcians. Food in, eggs out. Politicians, food in, nothing of any economic value out. But chickens don't care about covid lockdowns, or Russia. Egg production's pretty constant as long as they're fed. But they need heating, energy for processing, feed, and eggs transported to market. Policies have made energy 3x more expensive, which also impacts on feed prices, as do other policies like banning fertiliser. So eggs get more expensive, because policies have made energy more expensive.

Or consider bog roll. Maybe you have a factory that produces 10k rolls a day. Demand probably didn't decrease due to covid because people still gotta poop. AFAIK there's no correlation between work location and frequency of bowel movements. If anything, you might have made more money flogging 'luxury' retail packs instead of industrial. Plus people panic buying is a pricing signal that people don't really want to go back to using dop sticks, despite all the things the Romans did for us. But you know how much energy you need to feed the machine to produce 10k rolls, and if that's 3x more expensive, you have to put prices up. Plus I guess bulky & light stuff like bog roll is more sensitive to transport costs as well.

And then say, chocolate. Much the same deal, yet chocolate has been very prone to both inflation and shrinkflation. Luckily we also have food regulations specifiying minimum cocoa content, otherwise we'd be buying late bars and late eggs.

So shopper, ie ONS chucks those in their basket that maybe comes to £20. It's inflated by maybe 5% since last year, mostly due to energy prices and policies. Then you add 50g of tobacco and it's now £55. You've more than doubled the cost of your basket by adding a single item. Of course now that inflated basket sets the price for the next increase in CfDs, and every other indexed contract, and everything gets more expensive, inflation continues to spiral, and the cost of living crisis continues.

Re: "Fact-checkers will label AI-generated media for upcoming EU elections"

tl;dr: when science says like me, science is right, otherwise science is biased. I can't lose.

Science tends to be absolute. Gravity sucks, until we find a situation where it doesn't, in which case people will probably blame global warming. But climate 'science' is an example where things have become extremely politicised, and there have been frequent demands to censor 'disinformation'. But the disinformation in this case was promoted by PNAS, the IPCC, and of course the gullible MSM. A story that claimed to show increased storm damage has been falsified, and should be retracted, but it probably won't be and the damage is done. It's not a problem unique to climate 'science' though and the medical field also has much the same problems with dubious studies and manipulated data.

Re: "Fact-checkers will label AI-generated media for upcoming EU elections"

:-) Ok, I know you just said that, Jellied Eel, but surely there’s no possible way while pussy is still a cat that you actually meant it.?

I can but dream. And collect some more thumbs from the gullible. So here's a neat example-

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/apples-oranges-and-normalized-hurricane?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share

It's climate science vs climate 'science'. This story should be a simple one. Climate 'science' made some predictions and a lot of copy concerning increased storm frequency and severity. This has been a contentious topic, mainly because there's a lack of evidence. But damage became a proxy for severity, ie economic loss. We like building in the path of hurricanes, so more we build, more stuff gets damaged.

So in an attempt to quantify and normalise losses, Prof Pielke Jnr came up with a methodology that's widely used. I've seen him present and explain it, it makes sense. But it doesn't fit the narrative, so a paper got published in PNAS, and the IPCC picked it up and ran with it. Then the MSM did as well because we're meant to own nothing, be happy and eat bugs.

Except the paper is wrong, and much like with the infamous Hockey Stick, spliced together data to draw an erroneous conclusion. But climate 'science' is heavily politicised, and the IPCC is meant to be an Intergovernmental panel of experts that should be trusted to tell the truth. Then again, so should the scientific journals, but many of those have their own biases.

Theoretically, the government could convene a panel of experts, and we should be able to trust them. Yet these panels end up being like the Climate Change Committee and just an example of the way vested interests perform regulatory capture.

I'm not njp. And I was just repeating what 'experts' have reported in the news.

Inflation is just transitory

This is the problem with ACs. Make a psuedonym and it's a lot simpler to have a conversation rather than assuming you're just trolling.

But currently, inflation is far from transitory. It's been policy for decades, ie a 2% inflation target. Making everything more expensive is great for massaging GDP and providing the illusion of growth. But it ignores the inevitability of compounding. Especially when other policies amplify this. So energy policy has long contracts with RPI+ formulas, so do PFI projects for schools & hospitals. Energy goes up, cost of everything goes up given energy is an input cost to practically everything. Then costs of running schools & hospitals goes up as well, as do their energy costs. Then because everything is getting more expensive, we have strikes and people demanding more wages because the cost of living has been inflated.

And it gets even worse, which is why I keep mentioning tobacco. It's in the 'basket of goods' used to calculate inflation. Successive rounds of nanny-statism have increased the cost to around £35 for 50g so now a single item is enough to shift the totall cost of that basket of goods. So electricity and payments for schools and hospitals get more expensive because of the price of tobacco. This makes no economic sense, but rather than cutting tobacco duty and causing an immediate drop in inflation, government will probably just take it out of the basket.

But there's other stuff having much the same effect. Like the price of bog roll. Why has a simple, basic product got so expensive? Or, why have rolls shrunk? But that's also true of many products, but if shrinkflation was included in RPI, inflation would probably be running at more like 20%

And then because the cost of living has rocketed, people have stopped spending because they need to pay for the basics like electricity and bog rolls. So then we have that especially fun economic effect of stagflation. Solution is pretty simple, namely government needs to focus on cutting costs, but that's much harder than allowing inflation to spiral out of control. They get inflation busting pay rises, so why would they care?

Re: Disinformation 101

This is the reason Russian trolls and MAGAs are constantly demoting and criticizing so called "MSM"s. Anybody using "MSM" in their post actually means "I'm a MAGA fuckwit" and I will try to turn you into another MAGA fuckwit".

You're projecting again. You are a fuckwit because you can't see obvious problems with the MSM. Navalny dies and within 30mins politicians line up to declare it a murder. MSM lines up to repeat that claim and add their own spin. At the time. nobody could have known if he was murdered because there'd been no autopsy or investigation. Media span with 'SAD'. A simple bit of fact checking would have shown an initial cause of death is often used, especially when transferring bodies. Prisons generally don't have sophisticated medical facilities, labs or staff to make more accurate determinations. Then they ran with 'concealing the body' and not complying with Russia's normal 2-day release rule. But again, the cause of death had not been determined, and thus was evidence in a very high profile potential crime.

And now with the possibility Navalny died from natural causes, the MSM looks rather foolish by jumping the gun and screaming "Murder!".

It's been the same with other stories, ie the Panicdemic with the MSM and 'fact checkers' deciding the truth waaay before any actual facts could be known. Proper journalists have warned about this with the 'velocity of news' and constant pressure to be first to file or publish. Mistakes have, and will be made.

And then there's just the politicisation of news. You provide a great example of this. Anyone who disagrees with you must be MAGA or a Putin troll. Especially if those people are also critical of the dirty tricks the Democrats have been using. But they're also responsible for most of the Russophobia. She's still extremely bitter about how Putin and Trump stole the election, despite most of the evidence for this being widely discredited. The Biden laptop reporting was clearly 'fake news', especially the supposed 51 intelligence experts. The Bbc is blissfully unconcerned about the truth because it wants in to the US market, so happily runs stories about how much interest Trump will have to pay on his $500m 'fine'. It's totally unconcerned with whether the fine was reasonable, proportionate or even legal, or the impact on the perception of justice in the US. The Bbc hates Trump, so will run any damaging story, but isn't interfering with US elections at all.

Re: "Fact-checkers will label AI-generated media for upcoming EU elections"

Yup, exactly this, whether it be on the right or on the left.. neo-fascism doesn't really have bias, since it has spread it's wings to the both sides of the pendulum.

It's the usual problem with genies. Ok, maybe we could trust current governments to do the right thing and really check facts or misinformation. But the next? Or the one after? Education is a far better safeguard against misinformation, but politicians seem to prefer a public that won't question anything. Justin Turdeau was on the news a couple of days ago complaining that people just don't trust the MSM any more. I wonder why that could be? Restoring that trust is going to be difficult, especially given MSM's finances.

Only you and the AC formally known as njp. Who once again displays his expertise in economics by ignoring the drivers for inflation, ie mostly energy policy. Although there is the amusing prospect of the Budget, and tobacco duties increasing the cost of electricity again in a few weeks.

Expect this to benefit anybody pushing to enlarge the state and nobody else.

But.. but.. it's sustainable. It's also a bit of a circular firing squad with public money going to private 'fact checking' outfits, like "Fullfact". It's already a big business, and growing as governments impose more censorship legislation. I can't help thinking the money might be better spent on the education system to teach kids critical thinking and developing their own BS detectors.

There's a neat example on Fullfact 'fact checking' energy price increases, especially linked to British Gas profits. It correctly seperates BG and Centrica, but kinda glosses over how energy companies use financial engineering to move profits around. BG made a modest profit, Centrica made a much, much larger one, all thanks to our misguided energy 'policy'. It also glosses over the big increase in standing charges, and why continuing policies like this is only going to make inflation and cost of living problems worse.

Re: "Fact-checkers will label AI-generated media for upcoming EU elections"

What could possibly go wrong?

Think also on what can go right. Like the prospect of throwing Zuck in jail for spreading misinformation if/when his 'fact checkers' are shown to be wrong. But it seems to be reliant on this lot-

https://efcsn.com/governance-body/

with a UK rep from this lot-

https://fullfact.org/about/funding/

Ultimately, it is for our audience to judge for themselves whether we succeed

Except the whole point of most of these neo-fascist censor bots is to make sure audiences don't get to judge for themselves because they're all pushing for auto-take downs of anything they disagree with, along with punishment. The amusing thing about fullfact is they're developing AI 'tools' to automate censorship, so AI vs AI. And thus the AI wars begin!

Microsoft trying to stop Copilot generating fake Putin comments on Navalny's death

Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

Looks like you're not only trolling on ElReg, but also on Wikipedia.

Projecting again. Do you have any evidence that Navalny was 'The' opposition leader, or any credible threat or chance to become Russia's next President? Well, without resorting to a Ukraine-style colour revolution. But his party being filmed with an intelligence officer making a deal about that was one of the reasons he was in jail.

It's a funny old world. Conspiracy theories about Navalny's death have so far come from Western 'leaders', the MSM, and useful idiots like yourself who have been conditioned to believe anything.

Re: @Elongated Muskrat - @AC - Alternately...

Even going as far as accusing Navalny's widow to be part of the assassination of her husband... What kind of denial do you need? If you need to be repeated formal facts against all that lunacy, you're part of the deplorable.

Well, Nalvalny dies, Yolanda is immediately crowned as Russian's new opposition leader. How convenient. She'd already taken control of all Navalny's money and assets and will inherit the rest, along with any new money.

But there's still no evidence Navalny was assassinated. Yesterday, Budanov, Ukraine's chief assassin came out and said he died of natural causes and a blood clot. If true, how embarassing after all our 'leaders' lined up to insist it was a murder and blame Putin. And of course impose yet more sanctions. And then of course there's the MSM, who dutifully lapped up the conspiracy theory, adding flavor like Fauxvichok, or the 1-inch death punch. Or even that the UK assassinated him. I guess checking prison visitors logs for anyone from Universal Exports could clear that one up.

So if instead he died from natural causes, it harms what little credibility the MSM, especially the far-left like the Bbc has left. Especially after martyring Navalany and declaring him and Yolanda the 'de facto' Russian oppositon. Wiki keeps flipping him from 'the' opposition to 'a'. But there's no evidence he had any significant popularity within Russia to be anything more than background noise.

But I guess the media can move on to other headlines. Niki "12 men" Haley is in trouble as two Kochs pull out.

How about not using AI for news, at all, ever. If you can't do proper journalism and have to resort to getting an AI to write your copy then maybe you should not be a journalist.

I think most journalists would agree. Most media moguls might just be looking at the cost of hiring a journalist, especially an investigative journalist. If an AI can generate 'stories' based only on social media trending topics and 'news' feeds, that drastically cuts costs and expenses. You can depreciate silicon, you can't flesh.

For us mere mortals, I guess it'll be a case of knowing when it's AI churnalism.

Re: leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin

Given his history of bumping off the inconvenient and troublesome, are you actually surprised at these declarations?

What history? Sure, there's a list of 'Putin did it!' stories, but much less in the way of actual hard evidence. There's much better evidence for say, Trump assassinating Soleimani and nine others in Iraq, an illegal action justified as 'self-defence'. Israel routinely assassinates people it regards as enemies, as do other nations. Ukraine's been assassinating journalists, politicians and local government officials since 2014 and it's 'kill list' website remains online.

This isn't whataboutery, just an example of hypocrisy. If we do it, or allow our friends to do it, why the suprise when other nations decide to do it as well?

And please don't tell us you actually believe the "approval ratings" coming out of any dictatorship-in-all-but-name.

Pretty much any poll in any country should probably be questioned. Biden and Sunak are both polling 80%+ after all. But there's a bunch of polls all pretty much saying the same thing. Or there's just results from elections where Navalny or his candidates stood. Or there's garbage like this-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68401873

"Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny," Ms Pevchikh said. "He knows Navalny could've defeated him."

Again, how? My spox could produce a video saying I'm the UK's leading opposition figure and neither Sunak nor Starmer dare speak my name! Mainly because if asked, they'd go 'who?'. If I could convince say, Patagonia to give me £50m, I could produce CGI showing Sunak and Starmer's secret BDSM dungeons. I could spend the other £49,995,000 on getting very drunk, at least until our security services arrested me for attempting to overthrow our democratic system. My defence would probably be along the lines of "Who'd vote for me anyway?", but taking money from a foreign power to ovethrow or influence a government is generally frowned upon. Well unless you're a lobbyist or dark money donor to a PAC.

Re: Statistics at work ...

Rinse and repeat Daily Mail

I think my favorites are still the Twatter/X scrapes. Find a semi-contentious twat exchange, insert screenshots, then copy text into body and publish. Virtually no original text required, nor any proof reading.

Re: Statistics at work ...

The point is: US President accuses Putin of XXX and Putin calling the accusations "baseless and politically motivated." is such a strong statistical signal in all training data, that the "AI" assumes this to be true also in this specific case.

If you repeat a lie often enough people and AI's start to believe it. I think it was only around 30mins after reports of Navalny's death that leaders queued up to declare it a murder and blame Putin. There were suggestions it was Fauxvichok again without any evidence, or the KGB's 'signature' death punch. Mythbusters showed the 1-inch punch isn't effective, there's another version that can be, but both would leave obvious evidence like bruising or damage to the heart. Some days later, Russia says it was natural causes, the body has been released but there are still few details. This hasn't stopped politicians or AI's speculation, or reporting misinformation however-

Lawyer and de facto opposition leader Navalny died on February 16th while serving a 19-year sentence for extremism-related charges, on top of another 11-and-a-half year sentence for fraud. His death sparked protests in Russia, and events honoring his life around the world.

De facto: in fact, whether by right or not:

A quick look at election results or polls in Russia would show that's simply not true. Navalny had very little support or recognition within Russia. Any quick look at Russia would tell you the de facto opposition party is the Russian Communist Party and it's leader is Gennady Zyuganov with 57 out of 450 seats in the Duma. Other parties are available, like Yabloko, which doesn't have any seats in the Duma and had expelled Navalny for being a racist. Navalny had far more recognition in the West because for some reason, our 'socialist' media heavily promoted a far-righ, nationalist and racist. But then he did provide copy. So he spent time and money coming up with elaborate CGI claiming to show Putin's yachts, or pleasure palace in Sochi. The latter a couple of YT'ers went to visit and quickly discovered it was a resort development owned by !Putin. If true though, it would have showed Putin has worse taste in interior design than even Trump.

But his death has allowed the MSM to display their cognitive dissonance-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68395030

Such is the fear of reprisal that Navalny's death did not spark mass, angry protests. Several hundred people were detained just for laying flowers in his memory.

Or if may just have been that Russians didn't care. Putin's approval rating is around 83%, the best Navalny seemed to manage is around 2-3%, and since his death that's declined because Russian's view him as just another Western puppet. Which is the strange part about the current MSM feeding frenzy with his wife, 'Yolanda'. The more we attack Putin, the higher his approval rating. He seems a lot like Trump in that respect. The only way 'Yolanda' would become Russia's President is if we supplied the voting machines. But it's going to be an interesting year with EU, US and UK elections. And by interesting, I suspect a bit of a bloodbath for our globalists and neocons.

Space nukes: The unbelievably bad idea that's exactly that ... unbelievable

Re: /!\ TROLL ALERT /!\

Aren't we blessed that he takes so much of his "spare time" to share all these with us, authoring one post out of five in this thread? No relation to Russia of course.

There really is no need to announce yourself. Your trolling is very obvious to most people, and you've fully entered the Sander Zone-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sander_van_der_Linden

I don't understand why you deleted the whole section on fake news though, it seems that is what makes him notable?

But the MSM loved him. At least now with the UK's Online Safety Act, promoters of misinformation could soon face up to 5yrs in jail. But Sander helped develop your style of debate. If you can't win the argument, call your debater a racist, nazi, Russian etc. Don't bother with facts because those can be checked.

Oh, how are you getting on with your 'proof' that I posted anonymously in this topic? Being unable to prove that when you seemed so convinced doesn't say much for your credibility, does it?

Re: That was my thought, too.

You STILL haven't addressed the broken chain of custody. Do you even know what the term means?

Yep. Biden's in the process of using it to argue that the drug residue in the pouch with the gun he tossed in the trash by a school wasn't his.

But I'm not sure why you think it's relevant. It's not like the Clinton mail server, where evidence was deliberately erased, and the physical server ended up in Ukraine for some reason. Biden left laptop at repair shop, repair shop gained ownership via mechanic's lien. Backups had been taken. FBI took laptop into custody. Contents of laptop have been independently corroborated.

So not entirely sure why you're fixated on this point. If you're trying to argue it may have been compromised whilst in custody, just compare it to the backups. If you're arguing it was compromised before the FBI signed for it, that's something that would need to be argued or proven if any cases ever come to trial. Other aspects are more easily disproven, ie the "51 intelligence officers" who wrote a letter saying it was 'Russian misinformation' which has thoroughly been debunked.

And yet like the X-files, you still want to believe.. Thing is with all the negative articles coming out now from the MSM who realise they can't hide this decline any more, it seems increasingly unlikely Biden's going to get 4 more years. Despite the endorsements from Putin.. If he's convinced to drop out, who will the DNC drop in?

Re: That was my thought, too.

That link said absolutely nothing about the clearly broken chain of custody. Typical of clumsy trolling. Lots of words, dearth of valid/useful information.

TL;DR it said the laptop was signed for and taken into FBI custody. If you knew anything, you'd know one of the agents who signed for it previously was considered a CP investigative specialist. But such is politics. Heartwarming advert from the latest luxury retirement village. Two geriatrics, arm in arm, shambling slowly towards their private helicopter.

And here's a short video that explains your politics-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrz8YQunbOc

Re: That was my thought, too.

Since you seem to be so well informed, please let us know in advance when you got wind of him flying an A-50. That might help fast-track to the end of war.

Well, if Putin really was the demonic, psychotic figure our dear 'leaders' make him out to be, there was the potential of shortening the war when a bunch of useful idiots posed for a photo op-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-68373639

World leaders drew on the symbolic power of their setting at Hostomel Airport while paying tribute to Ukraine at a press conference alongside President Zelensky.

Bunch of uniformed soldiers, airfield, legitmate military targets, but it didn't rain..

Re: That was my thought, too.

The good thing about the fact that now everybody knows about the Biden disinformation coming from Russia is that any GOP congressperson still pushing the narrative will now be guilty of knowingly colluding with a foreign power attempting to interfere with the democratic process. The tables have turned.

What will you do now Vice had gone the inevitable way of the woke? What you should perhaps be more concerned about is what happens when the GOP gains power, and turns the tables on the Democrats. So starts investigating their own foreign collusion, interference with the democratic process etc etc. And of course globally, we've been doing this for years. Nalavany was Russia's 'opposition leader' when in reality, he had 2-3% support and largely unknown. Now, Biden et al are right behind 'Yolanda' Navalnya, who's being echoing Trump in calling for the world to reject Russia's upcoming election results.

Doesn't the US currently have around 1,000 political prisoners for daring to question an election?

Re: That was my thought, too.

It's as if Putin had realized he was telling too many lies to remember them all and had resorted to a simpler technique: always tell the opposite of what you believe is true (in this way you won't contradict yourself).

Projecting again. Biden called Putin an SOB, demonstrating Biden's skill as a diplomat and foreign policy expert. Putin was asked about this and simply re-endorsed Biden. You are familiar enough with the subject to recognise trolling when you see it, surely? Oh, and I think it was Biden's same speech that also talked about Yolanda Navalny. Perhaps this is an attempt to rebrand 'Russia's opposition leader' to make her more appealing to western audiences? It's certainly news to Russia's Communist Party, the actual leading opposition in Russia.

And in other news, Putin got filmed flying in a bomber. There seem to be at least four more of these thanks to the West's 'peace dividend'. Oh and he was also filmed driving a truck. Didn't Biden used to be a truck driver? So lies? Putin seemed pretty fit and healthy for someone who, according to reliable sources suffers from so many terminal diseases. Biden meanwhile was filmed once agan stumbling up some steps into AF1. Again some mild trolling by Putin, unless he's aso baiting Biden into trying to get into a B1-B.

Re: That was my thought, too.

The Biden laptop's complete lack of a clear chain of custody makes it utterly useless as evidence of anything in any court in the US.

Suggesting otherwise makes one look even stupider than the average MAGA[0] hat wearer (difficult as that is ...).

No, stupidity is an ability to gain, learn or retain knowledge. A simple 'fact check' could have let you check this part of the conspiracy-

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/06/donald-trump-jr/fbi-lost-hunter-bidens-laptop-theres-no-evidence/

Now, after a cache of emails from the abandoned computer was verified by the New York Times and Washington Post, one claim suggests the FBI has lost the laptop.

Because the FBI seized the original laptop. If they then 'lost' the laptop, that's a different problem for the FBI. They signed for it, they're responsible for it. If the prosecution wants to rely on physical evidence from the laptop, that might be problematic, but thus far neither the DoJ nor the FBI seem inclined to prosecute the Bidens with anything close to the zeal they're Trumping up charges against the Biden's challenger. Oh, there is the gun Biden dumped in a bin outside a school in a pouch that contained drugs wasn't his.

Windows 11 users herded toward 23H2 via automatic upgrade

.. we have a few devices with local accounts, and the junk appeared on them too.

Anyone figured out a way to remove it yet? Luckily the update hasn't made it's presence known on my dirty PC, and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Maybe it'll fix the problem of blue screening when it wakes from sleep though.

EU wants to make undersea internet cables more resilient

Re: Undersea Defence

Parallel to the cable routes, pipelines should be a network of listening devices, similar to the SOSUS system. Also, active sensors(similar to the helicopter based active sonar) should be moored and connected along these routes. One sensor for each 3kms or so.

So for 1 typical transatlantic system, that would require around 5,000 sensors, plus power and cabling. Figuring on around 15,000 route-kilometers for a typical dual cable. But there have also been proposals to use old, out of service (or sometimes in-service!) cables for research. All of them have a metallic path for power that might be used to study electromagnetic fields, or for fibre, use custom pulses to try to detect cable movement, vibrations etc. Challenge with those is whether or not the research signals could pass through the 'torpedoes' containing the amp/regen components. I think there are some research projects ongoing doing this, but AFAIK only on segment between repeaters, or replacing existing torpedoes with their research packages. Which also reminds me to poke around and see if any of those have published anything.