Posts by strum

Producers allegedly sought rights to replicate extras using AI, forever, for just $200

It can only lead to mediocrity - especially as 'AI' (it isn't really AI) proceeds to train itself on AI-output.

So, quite a lot of Hollywood is mediocre, you say. Well, yes. Making mediocre shows is how writers/actors/sfxers learned their trade. They hacked their way through the kind of pot-boilers that AI may now be able to replicate. But those learners will never have a chance to learn. There won't be the writers/actors/sfxers to make the important movies, the moving movies, the groundbreaking movies. They'll be (pretending to) flip burgers at McDonalds.

It's time to reveal all recommendation algorithms – by law if necessary

Twitter/Mastodon

I'm currently migrating from Twitter to Mastodon and, while Twitter's algo is (a) poisonous & (b) shit, I find myself missing algorithmic help in Mastodon. (Mastodon is proud of having no algorithm.)

I'd like to be recommended stuff I might like (I can always say no), I'd like the system to understand that I'm not really interested in certain subjects (which probably won't respond to text filters).

I'd even like to construct my own algo - which would require, of course, that the algo is transparent.

Massive energy storage system goes online in UK

Re: it can only take the output of about 15 Dogger Bank turbines

"The dirty little secret of renewables is that when the sun don't shine, the wind don't blow and the dam is empty"

As opposed to when the planet heats up enough to kill off most species?

The answer to "when the sun don't shine, the wind don't blow and the dam is empty" is to over-supply (since supply is so cheap) and store energy for the quiet times.

It doesn't have to be lithium. Pumped hydro, gravel beds, green hydrogen & the rest can do the job. In addition, tidal energy & geothermal *never* goes away.

Nuke fans really have to face the facts; there is no way enough nukes to make a difference can be in place in time to make a difference (leaving aside the huge CO2 output of all that concrete.

You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

Yep

"You paid $25 per letter for a really bad Scrabble hand"

Truth

UK terror law reviewer calls for expanded police powers to imprison people who refuse to hand over passwords

Re: Come Down From Your Ivory Tower

Yes, that 'rare' comment screamed of naivity.

Any power that is available will be used, often just as a fishing expedition, into the affairs of someone the police find annoying - a journo, lawyer, activist.

Ever felt that a few big tech companies are following you around the internet? That's because ... they are

Time and again

I don't really care who's tracking me (I'm not that interesting), but I do care about the time it takes to load the fuckers, before I get to read the page I've tried to open.

Missing GOV.UK web link potentially cost taxpayers £50m as civil servants are forced to shuffle paper forms

TPA

Instant mistrust of any issue raised by the 'Tax Payers Alliance', who are very selective about which examples of wastage they highlight. A broken web-link gets their attention - but billions spaffed on Tory cronies go unmentioned.

European Commission redacts AstraZeneca vaccine contract – but forgets to wipe the bookmarks tab

Re: Clearly states the first batch is manufactured in EU, not UK

What they said and what they did are two different things.

Shine on you crazy diamond: We don't know who needs to hear it but NASA's explained the weird shape of the Bennu asteroid

Turns out - that equatorial bulge is just a Bennu hill.

Oh Hell. Remember the glory days of Demon Internet? Well, now would be a good time to pick a new email address

It was 'Tenner-a month' on CIX.

Cricket's average-busting mathematician Tony Lewis pulls up stumps

> if he was also the Tony Lewis who played for England

Yeah. I had always assumed it was him. I even have a (false, I now know) memory of him explaining the method.

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Re: Asimov was a letcher

Bottom-pinching was wrong then, too (as Pohl's attitude confirms). It was just that blokes stuck together and ensured that any woman who objected was ridiculed into silence.

You'd only need to ask leches like Asimov whether they'd approve of similar treatment of his sister?

Questions hang over Gatwick Airport after low level drone near-miss report

Re: Pointless Statement

>Since when exactly did a law / regulation / rule actually prevent miscreants doing the very thing(s) that said law (etc) makes illegal?

Classic example - seatbelts. The law changed general behaviour, almost overnight. Some people still break it, but most don't.

Same applies to drink/drive laws, speeding laws

Most people are law-abiding (no matter how much they may disagree with the law). Some people don't give a shit about the law, social norms - or anything at all.

Oops, wait, yeah, we did hand over photos for King's Cross facial-recog CCTV, cops admit

Re: Transcript of the meeting after Sadiq's statement

>MPS : You told a lie.

No he didn't. MPS lied to him. He reported their assurances in good faith.

Can you download it to me – in an envelope with a stamp?

CIX

Er, CIX had binmail (binary mail), quite early. I joined in 1989.

Electric cars can't cut UK carbon emissions while only the wealthy can afford to own one

>Michael Mann, inventor of the (in)famous 'Hockey Stick'

...which is still in play, despite deniers attempts to rubbish it.

Re: Personal Ownership

>Find a different solution.

That requires finding a different physics. Good luck with that.

US regulators push back against White House plan to police social media censorship

Re: biased against right-wingers.

>This requires them to impose SOME standard of morality

Simple test; if you are happy to have a Morality Tsar appointed by President Trump, are you equally happy to have one apponted by President Sanders?

Re: Looney Tunes

>At least Boris is intelligent.

He's not that smart.

A few years ago, he appeared on a BBC politics prgram (Leviathan), where he sat a GCSE level exam (the prog was examining the myth of 'grade inflation').

He embarrassed himself, and was out-done - by Toyah Wilcox.

One of the important lessons taught at Eton and other 'top' schools, is how to busk through, appearing to know what you're talking about. Throw in a few latin tags and an air of confidence and you can get away with a lot.

Re: Except ...

>They need that system or else California, Texas and Florida will decide it all...

They need that system or else the people would decide it all - and that would never do.

Re: Except ...

>Eisenhower wasn’t a Republican

Hahaha!

I suppose Nixon wasn't a Rep either? (creator of EPA)

Or Reagan?

Or Bush?

Or the other Bush?

Ludicrous doublethink.

Re: Except ...

>So yes, they do need to be regulated.

So, you are happy to have the media regulated by President Sanders, or President Warren?

(And, one thing that makes commenters look wild-eyed and stupid is when they accuse anti-fascists of fascism.)

Re: Except ...

>there's nobody in the democrats line up who stands a chance against him

Yet the polls show that any one of Warren, Biden or Sanders would swamp Trump.

These 'leftists' would have been centrists, throughout the 20th cent. Only the GOP's lurch to the far right makes common sense look 'left-wing'.

Electric vehicles won't help UK meet emissions targets: Time to get out and walk, warn MPs

It's sad that some commentards still seem to take pleasure in rubbishing any option which isn't the status quo. Time to acknowledge that the status quo is not a viable option. This report is saying that even HMG's (relatively radical) plan is inadequate - even if we replace all ICE vehicles with EV (it would help, despite El Reg's headline, but wouldn't be enough).

There are a few realities that need to be absorbed:-

You do not have a right to drive. You may want to, but it isn't a right, just because you are accustomed to it.

You do not have a right to live in the middle of nowhere, and work in the middle of somewhere. It may make sense, if you believe you have a right to drive - but you don't.

You do not have a right to live in territories which are only livable with huge energy expenditures (or by stealing someone else's water).

You do not have a right to jet off to distant climes, several times a year.

You do not have a right to exotic, seasonal foods, all year round (and this includes red meat).

Once you have acknowledged that none of these are yours, as of right, you might be able to find a balance between what you want, and what you can have (bearing in mind you may have to look grandchildren in the eye, one day).

"Electric vehicles won't help UK meet emissions targets"

That's a misrepresentation of the report (one I have seen, elsewhere). The report says that electric vehicles /alone/ won't achieve the targets. There is no question that they will help.

Cambridge Analytica didn't perform work for Leave.EU? Uh, not so fast, says whistleblower

Re: Same old smokscreen

>Iain Duncan Smith said that 3m people will lose their jobs.

IDS was (and still is) a rabid Brexiteer. I think this demonstrates your attitude to the truth.

Re: Same old smokscreen

>The one the courts ruled wasn't a lie, you mean?

The courts ruled no such thing. Another lie, to defend a lie.

Re: So what?

>From what I've seen of "European society" these past 25 years those politicians have done more harm than good

Then you haven't been looking.

Europe is more prosperous, more peaceful, more effective (at controlling megacorporations) than ever before. That wasn't an accident - that's what the Treaty of Rome was designed to do.

Much of that will continue in our absence (though we did contribute quite a lot), but not here. We will become less prosperous, less peaceful and less able to resist the orders of the megacorps.

Re: No One Cares

>People who use the term 'Whataboutery' automatically lose.

People who rely on whataboutery to deflect criticism of their own crimes, are not to be trusted. Most of them have a whole checklist of logical fallacies to run through, before they face their own faults.

Re: No One Cares

>By the way keep going on about the coach too. No one would have picked up on the statement

Except that the lie was repeated, time after time, in the pub, on the buses, on social media. You are deluding yorself.

Re: No One Cares

>It doesn't matter what crimes you commit, so long as you win.

"Treason never prospers.

For, if it prospers, none dare call it treason."

UK digital network Openreach takes 15 electric vans for a spin

>most of them are unworkable for

...those who have dug their heels into the 20th century, and won't let go.

>being ~10 times more expensive

Bollocks.

Re: apples for apples

>to make EVs an effective full replacement for all ICE applications.

Or reduce the number of applications where any vehicle is really necessary.

Some people need to face facts; if ICE cars are no longer acceptable, they'll have to find other ways to work/live. That may include living somewhere closer to public transport - not somewhere only reachable by car.

Re: Hmm..

>No point in having roads if there is nowhere to park.

If there's nowhere to park, what's the point of most car journeys?

Re: Hmm..

>We like to be independent whilst also being social creatures.

Just because we've become accustomed to something, doesn't mean we have a right to it.

Boris Johnson's promise of full fibre in the UK by 2025 is pie in the sky

Re: Lies versus incompetance

>no more talent or brain power than your average middle manager

More talent & brain power on a single HoC bench than in the entire Register comments circus.

Nearly every MP goes into politics to make thing better (or, at least, stop them from getting worse). But politics is difficult, complicated and boody hard work. You can't get anything done without power. You can't get power without aggregating yours with lots of others. You can't keep power unless everyone involved gets what they want (or appears to). And then you come up against forces that don't give a shit about anything but profit.

Why does it look so corrupt and chaotic - well, sometimes it is, but quite a lot of our perception of politics comes from the Fourth Estate, who resent politicians having all that power and are convinced they could do so much better, if only they could be arsed to get off this bar stool. So they spend their time slagging of their betters.

Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

>because Toxic Theresa banned them

They were banned long before May came to power.

Re: BroBo

>Do we really need one?

We do have a rather large pharma industry of our own. If we can'r accredit its products, we'll just have to trust the other guys' word on it.

Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

>I just struggle to understand the concept of how a country tied to the EU is more free than one that's independent,

One defintion of 'freedom' is the capability to those things you want to do. But the power to do it is a severely limiting factor. Our shared power (in the EU) is massively greater than our national power, outside.

Take our ability to restrict the power of big tech. UK can't do anything much, on its own. EU can. Ergo, freer inside than out.

You could make a 10 y-o child more independent by turfing him out of the home. Free to die.

A Register reader turns the computer room into a socialist paradise

Re: Socialism

>Moreover Socialism is rooted in Marxism

Tosh. Marx came to Britain to study a socialism that owed more to Christianity than to materialist philosophies. I believe he got it wrong, but there can be no doubt - Marxism is rooted in socialism.

Brexit: Digital border possible for Irish backstop woes, UK MPs told

Organisation whose political life depends on the possibility of a solution, thinks there might be a solution. Yeah. Sure.

There is one aspect of this that needs addressing; the fear is that a hard border would provide hard targets for asymmetric warriors. But, has no-one noticed that AWs have long since developed expertise in attacking 'soft' targets - like intricately-drawn software/data/AI solutions? I'm sure the (A)IRA have.

Those darn users don't know what they're doing (not like us, of course)

Lusers

It's extraordinary how many commentards have completely missed the point of Dabbsy's rant. The Lusers are the ones who assume that everyone should understand everything they (sort of) do.

If poking about Doctor Who's TARDIS in VR sounds like fun to you, better luck next time

>Dr Who has sunk even lower

A remark that has been repeated, regularly, for the last 60 years.

Rising sea levels? How about the rising risk of someone using a nuke?

Re: @TheVogon ... How about both?: Rising sea levels and nuke use

>there are ways to build safe latest gen nuclear plants

There have always been 'ways to build safe nuclear plants'. Problem is - they cost too much, so there will always be shareholders who don't mind cutting safety corners to boost profits.

Note that UK/US has had no ban on nukes - they haven't built them because they make no economic sense.

Re: How about both?: Rising sea levels and nuke use

What utter bollocks.

>Greenland called that because it was GREEN at the time]

Greenland was called 'Greenland' as a marketing strategy - to attract gullible settlers. Most of it was as white as it is now.

>~1500 AD - the peak of another warming period, particularly noted in Europe

Only noted in Europe. It was a local anomaly. And the temp change was minimal.

> the Thames froze over

The Thames froze over, in part, because it was wider, shallower and slower (not constrained by embankments).

Climate change deniers keep repeating these lies - even though they've been debunked, over and over again.

California's politicians rush to gut internet privacy law with pro-tech giant amendments

Re: Meteor. Sacramento. Crater.

> nothing good ever comes out of the Cali-Fornicate-You state legislature.

Perhaps you'd like to point to a red state legislature doing a better job on privacy.

Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

>when was the last time you heard of horsemeat being introduced into the U.S. beef supply

When was the last time anyone checked?

You were warned and you didn't do enough: UK preps Big Internet content laws

>So that's all relatively straightforward.

And that's the delusion that got us into this mess. Nothing about life is straightforward (except death). Nothing about politics is straightforward (except that the ignorant will imagine that they could do a better job).

And that's just the normal processes in stable times. In unstable times, such as these, anyone who thinks our problems are 'straightforward' needs a straitjacket.

Brit Parliament online orifice overwhelmed by Brexit bashers

Re: EU ≠ EEC

Bollocks. It was perfectly clear in 1975 that the EEC was a political project. I have a copy of Edward Heath's leaflet, in which he makes this abundantly clear. Also, the central plank of the No campaign's platform was 'loss of sovereignty' (which is why I voted No in 1975).

The Euroseptics started lying about this (along with a steady deluge of other lies) only a few years later.