Posts by I ain't Spartacus

OpenAI's latest o1 model family can emulate 'reasoning' – but might overthink things a bit

Re: Implied assumptions

Wellyboot,

This depends on your definition of apple. If I have 3 apples and I turn them into apple sauce, I no longer have 3 apples. You could say I have some apple. Or that I have 3 apples' worth of apple sauce. Or I have some apple peel and some apple pips in the bin and a saucepan containing the residual material combined with a bit of sugar and water.

But, without ownership of a time machine, I am no longer in a position to hand you an apple.

In the same way that if I'd cooked 3 humans - I would no longer have 3 people in my kitchen - I would now have some meat pies, some long-pork, some long-bacon, some sausages, various leftover bits too horrible to even put in sausages and an urgent desire to leave before the police turned up. But you wouldn't say I have people in my kitchen - though you might say there are bodies in that kitchen - but mroe likely the police report would say "remains".

Pokémon GO was an intelligence tool, claims Belarus military official

Re: "members of the military should exercise caution"

They may be many things but they are not unaware of the penalties and reasons why taking selfies is dumb.

CowHorseFrog,

18 year-old young men are not famous for their willingness to obey authority. Especially if that's an authority that's just conscripted them, and they don't really want to be there.

18 year-old young men are also famous for thinking they're immortal and their inability to properly assess risk.

Add in either bad instruction (telling people to do things without telling them why) or lack of belief in what the instructor says (many people have no idea how traceable modern electronic kit is) and you've got the perfect reason for homesick kids to want to communicate with home.

Re: "members of the military should exercise caution"

How stupid do you have to be to take selfies of the secret base you are living and training and post them on the internet

Anyone can be that stupid. Common sense isn't that common. Which is why you train. And you have an ops manual - which is basically a list of all the fuck-ups that previous people have made (and often paid in blood) - so you can be taught not to do the same thing again.

By definition, trainees haven't had the training yet. And probably don't particularly want to be there, so discipline is a serious problem and they'll only obey rules when they're made to. Plus they've been fed a relentless diet by the Russian government of news about how Ukraine are losing and aren't that good - and any day now Russia will be beat both Ukraine and the evil NATO that back them. So why worry?

Also the same thing happened at the start of the war, where various international volunteers were in Lviv and some of them were posting on social media about what they were up to in Ukraine. I'm guessing probably the idealistic/foolish ones rather than the foreign military veterans. That place got bombed by the Russians pretty quick.

I think the funniest one was the Russiain journalist who posted on Twitter a photo of himself entering the secret FSB headquarters in Donetsk - he was going there to interview them for Russian TV. Ukranian artillery obliterated the building within minutes of him posting it.

There's a sign on the A12 at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, which says, "this way to the secret nuclear bunker." Bit of a giveaway that... It's a Cold War bunker that's now a museum.

Re: "members of the military should exercise caution"

Phones are a good way to get into trouble. All sorts of data on Russian incursions into Ukraine has been gathered from smartphone pictures and Russian soldiers' social media posts. Including tracking the Russain SAM launcher that shot down MH17 from Russia, into and then back out of Ukraine.

There was also a Ukrainian battalion in 2015 that had their mobiles on and got slaughtered by Russian artillery - teaching the Ukrainian military valuable lessons about electronic warfare and how to keep your units safe on the frontline. Ironically they were taught that lesson by some of Russia's most competent troops from Southern Military District - but large amounts of the Russian army didn't get the memo - and Ukraine did it right back to them, at scale, in 2022.

The comment about Strava in the article reminded me of various special forces soldiers (who are often very serious about their exercise regimes) - who were running laps of the perimeter fences of their bases. Suddenly outlining their bases for all to see on Strava maps. Oops.

Apple owes billions in back taxes over Ireland state aid rule break

Re: This won't cost Apple a penny

Americans abroad are liable for US tax. But can usually offset the taxes they pay in country against that. So long as you’re living somewhere that have a tax agreement with the US. If not, then it’s double tax a go-go.

Re: Who gets the billions?

Option 4: Give everyone in Ireland €2,500 and send them down the pub.

Apple debuts iPhone 16, Watch Series 10, assorted AirPods

Re: Being amazed no more

Neil Barnes,

It's definitely a little bit nicer if you prove and rise your own bread slowly - then bake it with a small container of boiling water for a crunchy crust. Unless you've got a steam oven. But it's not a huge quality difference from just doing my usual wholemeal loaf in the breadmaker. And that just requires me to turn up after 4 hours to take the bread out and put it on a wire rack. Whereas the manual process means I've got to be around a lot more - I do find mixing and kneeding it by hand to be quite a nice process. For some reason it seems little more effort than weighing and fiddling to get the breadmaker just right.

I'm not into sourdough and guess breadmakers don't work well for that.

It's magic technology. Until the breadmaker starts walking itself across your kitchen work surface, with the action of the ball of dough moving round inside it, and then jumps off in a bid for freedom or death.

Re: Being amazed no more

Nah. I’m still frequently amazed by new technology. Just not the 16th iteration of the same tech.

However, even then things can impress. My new 13” iPad Air, is lighter than my previous 10” one, from 2019. And has speakers that are actually loud enough to be used and sound that’s not too bad. Ten years ago, when we moved to flat screen TVs - they couldn’t manage anything even that good.

Plus the new HDR screens, that mean when a director decides to go all arty-farty and make the screen impossibly dark - I still have some idea of what’s going on.

Or that for £20 I can get an LED work light - powerful enough to light an entire room in a power cut, that also has a rechargeable battery that can top up my phone.

And that’s just the frivolous stuff. During the pandemic, the CEO of BioNTech was able to run the DNA sequence of coronavirus through the program he’d set up on his computer as he went to bed - and wake up to have the vaccine design on his PC by the time he woke up. Obviously it required a lot of testing and an absolute beast of a manufacturing process to turn that into actual doses to put into arms - but that’s some pretty amazing tech. By the Summer of 2020 the UK had re-designed it’s government laboratory service to be able to sequence the DNA of a large proportion of NHS covid tests - such that they were able to track the virus’ mutating in realtime. By July, the UK were doing something like 40% of the world’s DNA sequences of the virus.

And all that tech built for the pandemic, the BioNTech and Oxford vaccines actually pre-prepared for the SARS and MERS epidemics, is now being re-purposed for other diseases. The Oxford process having succeeded in getting a 60-70% effective malaria vaccine into production.

Meanwhile SpaceX are able to launch rockets and land them again, then re-use them after a couple of months.

Oh, and I’ve got a machine in my kitchen that cost less than £30 which you just put flour, water, yeast and a few other bits to taste in - and in 2-4 hours you get a beautiful fresh loaf of bread. How’s that not awesome?

Boeing's Calamity Capsule returns to Earth without a crew

Re: uh oh

velcro class.

Shut up! Don't give Ryanair ideas!

MI6 and CIA using generative AI to combat tech-driven threat actors

Re: technology, when deployed alongside traditional weaponry, "can alter the course of war,"

LLMs have been having a pretty big impact in the military and intelligence spheres for a decade or two now. Probably not as much as the hype might suggest - but also probably a lot more than most people realise.

Modern military sensors are taking in vast amounts of data. Far more than can be processed by humans. So you want to try and use that data - and this has been a problem the military have struggled with and tried to automate since World War II. A lot of the patterns you’re looking for are quite repetitive too - and can be confirmed by humans. Which gives you a good ability to both train, and test, an LLM.

There’s an awful lot of businesses who’ve jumped on the “AI” bandwagon, now it’s fashionable. But serious militaries have been using this stuff for a long time now.

D Notices in the UK are voluntary. And always have been.

It’s a request by the government not to publish something, and reasons have to be given - or the journos will break it. As has happened before.

US govt halts medical study into Havana Syndrome, cites 'coercion' of participants

Re: There a whole lot of other worlds out there to share ...

Cheers for the beers!

All hail to the ale!

Re: @I aint Spartacus

amanfromMars1,

Yet again, the word-salad, while also maybe trying to join the proper discussion. Perhaps pick one and stick to it? Otherwise you've just made no argument, it's gibberish.

But to answer your point - no. The situations in Palestine and Ukraine are totally and utterly different and share few similarities. Other than that they're awful, and that innocent people are suffering through no fault of their own.

The Gaza situation is hideously complex and there is no easy option for Israel to withdraw. They tried that in 2005 - when Israel unilaterally withdrew all its settlements and presence in Gaza. The West Bank was more complex and so remained largely occupied. The people of Gaza chose to vote for Hamas - in a broadly free election - Hamas who's founding charter calls for genocide against Israel. So you might argue that the people of Gaza freely voted for permanent war with Israel. Probably not though. More likely it was disilusionment with the Palestinian Authority, the PLO and Fatah in particular. Plus Hamas did lots of charity/humanitarian work. Or election bribes paid for by the Iranian government (as you could also call it - because that's what it also is).

We can never know what the people of Gaza want, because Hamas are a vicious dictatorship who've never allowed an election since - and who accuse anyone they don't like of being an Israeli spy so they can murder them.

It's a long and complex history, but in this particular instance Hamas broke the status quo and launched a massive attack on Israel. Sadly Israel have an awful government - and so you have the situation we se, of war crimes on both sides on a huge scale and an irresolvable situation. The leadership of Hamas don't want peace, because they don't give a fuck about their own people, they're believers in a cause - and further are instrumentalised by Iran for Iran's own ends. If Netenyahu makes peace, that's the end of his government and probably career - quite possibly he'll be off to prison for corruption a few years after that.

Meanwhile in Ukraine. Russia launched an unprovoked war of naked imperial aggression on a neighbour in order to seize territory and annex it to itself. After invading Ukraine in 2014 and seizing and annexing Crimea. And then invading Ukraine again in 2015 to get its forces into a supposed Ukrainian "civil war" - which its side was losing. A civil war whose pro-Russian leaders weren't Ukrainian, but were Russian nationals most of who have served in the Russian intelligence services. i.e. It wasn't a real civil war, it was also a Russian invasion but on a smaller scale.

So in the last 10 years, Russia has launched 4 separate invasions of Ukraine. And annexed 5 Ukrainian provinces, Crimea, Kharkiv, Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia (curse you for making me look up the spelling). Admittedly they've never controlled all the territories of the 4 other provinces they've annexed...

So one is a complex conflict that's been going on since the 1920s, in its current iteration - and arguably for thousands of years before that. And the other is Vladimir Putin's imperial project, while Russia was under no threat from Ukraine.

Re: @I aint Spartacus

amanfromMars 1,

The Israel situation is complicated.

Quite why you think the mainstream media aren't giving the truth about that situation is beyond me though. The media are full of criticism of the Israeli government.

However, you yourself show one of the areas where the media fail. We have no idea of the number of innocent civilians killed. The media report Hamas' own statements on it as if they're broadly true - while managing no independent scrutiny of that data - and usually not even bothering to mention the uncertainty. Of course independent media weren't welcome in Gaza before the latest orgy of violence kicked off - and it wouldn't exactly be safe to operate there now.

However perhaps I might accuse you of just a touch whataboutism here. You reply to my above (over-long) post about the dangers of not deterring Putin with a pretty argument-free answer saying, "but what about..." Plus you can't play the pseudo random-generated word salad poster/forum jester and then at the same time try to join the serious discussion. You can do both, but separately.

Or, of course, I've just fallen for the AI trolling. In which case well done. But I rather think you're trying to have your cake and eat it.

David 12,

He's done a bunch of research, with other journalists, and come to a conclusion. Like it or not, he's at least worth listening to.

I've listened to some of his other stuff - and it's mostly well researched and I've not caught him out in any errors - so I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

He's making big claims here, so needs big proof. But it's not a stretch of the imagination to think that governments might not be telling the truth in intelligence matters. Particularly embarrassing ones, with no easy policy response.

A big problerm is mirroring. We assume the opposition see the world in the same way we do. However, someone like Putin is probably of a much more conspiratorial mindset than most people who grew up in relatively open and free democratic societies can understand. I've heard good analysts claim that he genuinely believes all Western democracies are basically fake "managed" democracies like Russia. It was a common view in Soviet circles that NATO was basically a mirror of the Warsaw Pact (which wasn't an alliance but a Soviet empire) and that the US pretty much told everyone else in NATO what to do. And that Putin still shares that opinion. So to him, Ukraine have no agency. They're basically a US puppet and he wants them to be a Russian puppet. So if Ukraine take some action, like invading Russia, it's only because Biden told them they could. Rather than what seems to have happened, which is that the Ukranians looked at all the places they wanted to launch offenses, counted all the trenches and minefields - and decided to attack somewhere without any of that.

In reverse there are clearly lots of Western politicians who can't get their head round why Putin won't behave "rationally" as they see it. Because he just doesn't see the world the same way they do. And this is common through history. It's how you can easily get misunderstandings that start wars.

Putin keeps pushing away, niggling at Western powers. A bit of election interference here, a murder there, a quick mini invasion somewhere else. And if he doesn't get sufficient pushback he thinks that all the Wester politicians are lily-livered wusses who don't have the will to respond. Right up until he goes way too far and invades Ukraine - and suddenly there's a massive reaction he didn't predict - and it all goes horribly wrong. But now he's committed - and because he still believes his opponents are fundamentally weak he decides to carry on and keep the war going until they get bored and abandon Ukraine to its fate. It's a hellishly expensive policy choice in terms of the Russian economy and society, not to mention the tens to hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

But then to him, I think he sees divisions as weakness. Which in some ways they are. But the strength of a democratic system (when it's working) is that public disagreements can get thrashed out and the winners of the argument can then have the legitimacy to pursue that policy. Another weakness is that we sometimes change policy too often, but on the upside - in a democracy Putin would have losthis job for the utter clusterfuck that is his Ukraine policy - and so rather than doubling-down the war would be over by now.

In 1939 Hitler couldn't believe that Britain and France would actually fight for Poland. Whereas they thought that by telling him in advance that they'd actually fight this time - it would deter him from war - because negotiating after the fact kept failing. Maybe the only way to stop that war would have been to put their money where their mouth was and have actual troops on the ground.

Before the invasion of Ukraine Canada, the US and UK gave the Ukrainians lots of training. But didn't really arm them - because we didn't want to escalate tensions with Russia. What I'd guess Putin sees as a lack of willpower. Perhaps if we'd armed Ukraine it would have annoyed Russia, but also stopped them attacking. But that meant pain now for (in particular) European leaders who wanted a quiet life of buying Russian gas and turning a blind eye when Putin did something disobliging.

Maybe Putin genuinely belives his essay from 2022 - that Ukraine isn't a real country and all Ukrainians are basically just misguided Russians. Led astray by Lenin's mistake in 1922. In which case there may have been no way of deterring him short of letting Ukraine into NATO. But I suspect that his plan was a quick 3-day march on Kyiv - murder the Zelensky government, put in a puppet regime and then leave and take some weak sanctions from the West - mission accompolished. Ukraine back in Russia's orbit. Ukrainians wouldn't really fight too hard and he'd shown everyone his genius. But had we pushed back on his bullshit more, he'd have been more wary. And had we given Ukraine a couple of billion dollars worth of good military kit, he'd have maybe thought he couldn't get away with a win in a week, and the risk would be too high.

Counter-factuals are of course mere speculation. But what is certain is that the West's collective Russia policy for the last ten years has been a massive failure. A failure that has failed to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria and Ukraine - that with better diplomacy might have been avoided. Not that there were great options in Syria, but we could have done better.

Yes. That’s the point. If true, which is a big if. It’s a global attack on US intelligence and diplomatic personnel, breaking all the unwritten rules of international intelligence, and several written rules of international relations. It’s high risk, even for the current Russian regime. But deniable, unless the GRU fuck up. They’ve got away with a lot of assassinations, and even blowing up a warehouse full of weapons in the Czech Republic. And most of this happened before the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Perhaps if there’d been a coordinated response to these , and other Russian moves, Putin might have been deterred from launching that invasion.

I listened to a very interesting interview with a US journalist called Michael Weiss - who's written a lot about intelligence. He thinks it's the Russians - specifically a GRU unit - and says he's shown pictures of known GRU agents from other operations to victims and they've identified them as having been around at the time of the "attacks". GRU have had a lot of operational successes, but been very lax in security - like the team that got caught by the Dutch hacking into the OPCW (Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Warfare - to get data on the Salisbury Novichok attack) also had data they'd hacked from WADA (the World Anti-Doping Authority), which they'd been trying to hack in support of Russia's doping program. So they can trace some of those peoples' movements.

He thinks the government aren't admitting to it, because they don't know what to do about it, and it's hard enough dealing with Russia at the moment. I'm at least half convinced.

For another example there was a rumour about ten years ago that the Russian government were paying bounties to any Taleban fighter in Afghanistan who killed a US serviceman. The US government denied it publicly. Because embarrassing, and what are you going to do? I don't think it's proven or anything, but the CIA's assessment is apparently still that it's very likely to be true. However it's much easier to publicly deny it - rather than try to do something about it.

Putin's intelligence services have broken a lot of the "rules" that were mostly adhered to in the Cold War. As a way of not having an escalating "war" between intelligence agencies. So why not this? They tried to murder Skripal who'd been exchanged - which is a massive breach of the "rules". He'd been officially pardonned in Russia, before being released - and if the Russians thought he was a danger, they wouldn't have swapped him.

In general a bit of honest spying and diplomacy is actually good for international stability. Getting spied on is obviously bad but it makes your enemies less likely to panic and think you're about to launch a surprise attack. Plus if you're not murdering their spies, they hopefully won't murder yours - so you can hopefully find out if they're planning to attack you.

White House seizes 32 domains, issues criminal charges in massive election-meddling crackdown

doublelayer,

The logistics of launching an amphibious invasion are horrific.

On D-Day the Allies used over 4,000 ships to land 7-8 divisions on 5 beaches. Plus another 3 divisions dropped by parachute and glider. Until they could capture a port, they had to keep putting the supplies onto the beaches and the Mulberries (massive artifical harbours). They had already built an underwater pipeline to get fuel to the forces on beach (PLUTO).

Russia did not have the naval or economic resources to manage that. Quick Googe:

Between June 6th - 30th 1944 the Allies landed 850,000 men, 148,800 vehicles and 570,500 tonnes of supplies in Normandy. They captured Cherbourg on the 26th, but I don't think it was useable for weeks after that. So they had to run and supply a huge army from what could be put on beaches alone.

In 1943 the D-Day plan only had 3 beaches and about 4-5 divisions - because there simply weren't enough landing craft to do any more. That would probably have been a disaster, if the US had persuaded Churchill to go for it, rather than the landings in Italy.

The Russians, under Stalin, were incredibly hard to work with. They were barely even capable of cooperating with the Royal Navy on the Murmansk convoys, where large numbers of ships and sailors were lost trying to get vital equipment to help Russia survive in 1941.

Re: Card or cash?

You can't buy someone as untrustworthy and inconsistent as Trump. He'd never stay bought. Even if he was sufficiently disciplined to stick to what he agreed - which he isn't, he's not trustworthy anyway.

The estimates for an allied invasion of Japan were 5 million Japanese and 1 million allied casualties. The rule of thumb for that era, was that 1 third of casualties would be expected to die. I don't think the Russians could (or would) have been much help in the invasion - as they'd have had to commit their troops to both under allied command, and use the allies supply chain. Something that never happened in the war. It might have meant all of Korea would now be a hideous dictatorship though.

There's also a higher chance that the Cold War might have gone hot - and Western Europe would have had to have a much more military outlook, rather than having the bare minimum conventional foces and relying on the nuclear umbrella for protection. Which you'd expect to have some profound effects on society.

On the other hand, if the Cold War had had a similar ending, and Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2022 - there's a good chance that NATO might have given a lot more support - given the quality of Ukraine's army I think the war would be over by now if just a few countries had got together and given them air support.

However, on the downside - with nuclear uncertainty removed - there would be much less risk for China to attempt to conquer Taiwan or India and Pakistan to go to war over some dispute.

Also, without nuclear weapons, more countries might choose to have chemical weapons.

Of course the Internet Archive’s digital lending broke the law, appeals court says

Sundog UK,

Or they could, you know, get a fucking job.

They've got a fucking job!

It's creating stuff for the rest of us to enjoy.

How is this so hard to understand?

Bollocks. Almost all authors get an advance on future earnings, well before publication.

SundogUK,

Depends on the sector and the author - and if we're talking other content creators depends even more.

Unless you're very popular (and so publishers are competing for you) - your advance might not be a large percentage of your final earnings from a work. However, they're quite important - as you need to eat while you're writing the book - writing/recording the album. A book often takes a year - an album is usually a few months. Which is all fine, royalties to follow - except of course if you've had an advance you don't then get any royalties until your advance has been paid off. Also - if you take a while to get another commission - then no advance to live on - hence you are back to the problem of having to eat. As a content creator builds a portfolio of work, then they may have more work that's now earning, so a regular income from it - and also more reputation so more commissioned work, so advances to allow them to work.

What people seem to forget is that most content-creators are not rich. Sure you get your very rich JK Rowlings or Rolling Stones - but there are loads of bands and authors who are working for not much more than minium wage - but at least get to do something they love. This is also true for lots of professional actors, artists and performers. Having a system that allows them to make a living, while doing what they love and get paid for it - enriches their lives - but also enriches society with their work. Most of them would do it anyway, for the love of the work, but would also have to have day jobs - so society would get less of their stuff - and it would probably be of worse quality.

So a lot of the supposed harms of copyright aren't really harms at all. Because if copyright didn't exist, a lot of that copyrighted material would never have been made, because the creators could never have found the time and resources to make it. So without copyright the stuff wouldn't exist that people seem to want to use for free.

Perhaps a middle ground of x years/death of the author, whichever is the longer?

That is how the law works in some cases. I remember Cliff Richard complaining that his first records were about to go out of copyright, and yet he was still alive. I've now lost track of how long it goes - because it's different for music and books in the UK. And also, I think, different for the writers of a song and the performance rights for a song.

It seems a bit harsh that a creator should lose control of something they did while they're alive. So maybe a 50 year limit (extended for the life of an author)?

So, if an author dies the day after writing his book, his family should starve? Is that how you want it to work?

Pascal Monet,

There’s a problem with not allowing an author to sell their copyright. It destroys its value. Sometimes an author needs to eat. Copyright on a work comes in small amounts, as your work is bought or used. So being able to sell on the rights for an upfront payment can be very useful. But if you make it so companies can’t own it, then companies can’t buy it.

Also, how would films or TV get made? Would every animator, cameraman, actor, sound recordist, writer, producer own a bit of the copyright for a film? Or would the director or writer own it all, but then have to pay everyone out of their own pocket?

How could a symphony orchestra work?

Do look up! NASA unfurls massive shiny solar sail in orbit

Re: Space Pirates

Hoist the Jolly Ro...cket! Set course for... UP! There be treasure up there! Mark me!

Orbital dubloons! Shiver me timbers!

Yarrr!

Now I understand

Something interesting to see in the sky over the next couple of days? No wonder my phone has been pinging repeatedly for the last 3 days with severe weather warnings for rain and thunderstorms.

Why can't the Met Office plan the rain for different days, when there's nothing to see?

We need Admiral Kutuzov to protect us from the lightsail riding Motie menace!

Starlink U-turns, will block X in Brazil after all

More likely it's because he doesn't wholly own SpaceX, and therefore presumably Starlink. So the other shareholders get to tell him to wind his neck in. Some of them will have board representation. They're probably already annoyed that he's got some of their company's assets seized due to a dispute with Twitter (which only he owns). Probably they're incandescent that he's about to break the law, with partly their company, in support of his own personal one.

The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station

Re: "A toasted bacon sandwich"

Although I did see a documentary on named trains a few years ago, where Laurence Olivier was shown in old news footage bemoaning the removal of the buffet car from the Brighton trains. Because he enjoyed his morning kippers, on the way up to London.

Elon Musk’s Starlink won't block Elon Musk’s X in Brazil, as required by court order

Re: Musk isn't alone

Mach Diamond,

I agree. Crypto isn't a viable solution for a proper business. The transaction costs are enormous, and most people can't be bothered. It's not all that untraceable anyway - should some company try it, and the government be motivated to stop them.

Local advertisers coudn't use it anyway. If you've decided to operate in Brazil illegally, then legit Brazillian companies can't pay you by whatever means.

But you could take money from users and claim it's on grounds of defending "freedom". Like supporting users in China to get round the Great Firewall. But I imagine he won't risk that, with a Tesla factory in China.

Re: Musk isn't alone

But Starlink wants ground stations and needs to license radio spectrum.

If he breaks the Brazilian court order with Starlink then the Brazilian regulator can take away his spectrum license and sell it to someone else. Or just jam it. Plus Brazilian customers have to pay for Starlink. The courts can intercept that cash to pay the fines, or just ban local banks and credit card companies from processing the payments.

Also, if you get into disputes with spectrum regulators, you may struggle to get approval in other countries. Ignore the fact I’m operating illegally in Brazil, I promise to be good in your country. Honest!

Musk isn't alone

Loads of tech companies think Internet = no country can stop me. To be fair quite a lot of people in IT seem to share that view, when it comes to discussions on governments trying to control the internet on these very forums.

The internet is of course global - so in a lot of cases you can get away with ignoring the law in one country. But only successfully if you don't really make any money there. Or I suppose, if you do all your transactions in crypto. And even then, only if the government isn't really motivated to try and stop you - given how often crypto can be traced.

But once you've got money there, the courts can seize it or block payments being made to you.

It's an interesting question whether there should be the legal right to take money from one company for the actions of another - even with a significant co-owner. You'd have to look at Brazillian law to know if that's allowed - him being owner of one and a major shareholder of another. Might give his minority shareholders pause though...

There are ways of getting at governments in international courts - but it's harder. And even if you win, you often get overturned on appeal. Some of the companies that held Argentina's debt (issued under US law) when they defaulted in 2001 kept suing them all over the world. Got an Argentinian Navy training ship seized in Africa, until a higher court in that country ruled it was illegal. They also got interest payments to other US debtors (on bonds that hadn't been defaulted on) siezed to pay their debts - thus causing another default - that one was tied up in NY courts for years - I don't know if they settled, got paid, or gave up. But that's the opposite effect, where governments forget they're only sovereign at home - you can default on all your domestic debt and nobody can do anything - but if you get cheaper debt in foreign jurisdictions you're under that country's law (not your own) and can't default in the same way. When Greece defaulted in the Eurocrisis, the debts under UK law got paid in full.

There was a really determined investor after Russia defaulted in the 90s who tried to get the Russian embassy in Paris (I think he got a lower court order that was overturned) - managed to get various Aeroflot jets grounded with injunctions - though I think he finally lost all those cases too. I seem to remember he even had a go at seizing some MiGs on display at the Paris air show.

Spamouflage trolls pretend to be American patriots on X, TikTok ahead of US presidential election

Re: Do we care?

tiggity,

British politics just doesn't have the money for massive corruption. The two main parties spend about £20-£30 million each in a general election year and survive on about half that the rest of the time. some of which is Short money (i.e. public money) and some from members.

In contrast, the US 2020 election (all races, so President, Congress, states) had $14.4 billion of political spending.

Re: Authoritarianism

Excused Boots,

Tell me, at the current rate of expansion it is possible that within 20-25 years, China might be the dominant military force on the planet

China can't continue the current rate of military expansion. In a similar way to their economic expansion naturally slowing down. It's very easy to have lots of low quality equipment and poorly trained troops, it's also quite easy to replace lots of low quality kit with better stuff and get a large improvement in military power quite quickly - in the same way you can grow your economy by mechanising agriculture and moving the freed labour into more productive factories. It's then hard to take the next step. Going from medium quality to high quality, but also keeping up the numbers and the now much more complex maintenance and the training required for the new kit.

Xi Xinping himself has admitted that he's not happy with the military's levels of training and wants them improved. Allegedly he's set a deadline of 2028 when they're supposed to be capable and ready to invade Taiwan - if required. He wants a solution before he retires. Of course he's also increasingly dictatorial and operates much less in the reasonoably collegiate way the Chinese Communist Party has operated since the reforms of Deng Xiapoing. It's quite hard to square the circle of wanting officers to take risks and use initiative in a system that punishes risk-taking and initiative. And it's not clear how much his anti-corruption campaigns are actually purges in disguise, and therefore how much they're actually getting a handle on corruption.

China are certainly capable of making new kit, in a way Russia haven't been for years. I suspect Chinese military corruption may be more of the spending the maintenance and training budget on your mistress - rather than stealing all the money for new encrypted tactical radios and buying cheap unencrypted Chinese gear and re-badging it (as happened in Russia). Unlike Russia though, the People's Liberation Army own a lot of factories and businesses - and not just weapons ones - so there's a source of goodies, as well as jobs for sons of important Party people you need to influence.

China are banging out a lot of ships, which look impressive - and probably are. Although their submarines are mostly very out-of-date and noisy. They didn't get much help from the Soviets, after the 60s and so a big worry is that they'll help Russia over Ukraine and Russia might pass over the crown jewels of their sub tech, which isn't that far behind NATO. Just Russia can't build many.

The air force is large. But of its 2,200-odd strike aircraft, 350 are variations of the MiG21 (from the 50s) although some are decently modernised. Another 200 are Tu16 Badger knock-offs (again from the 50s). So at the moment they've got some 200 J20s - very modern stealth aircraft (I'm not qualified to say how good). But to keep growing they can't just keep buying new kit - they've also got to retire a quarter of their air force soon - it's very old. The Badgers could of course be modernised (like the B-52) - but that's almost as expensive as new aircraft. The B-52s are 70s ones (the 50s ones are long retired) and are getting brand new engines and electronics to keep them flying into the 2060s - they're the same age as me - why won't Rolls Royce build me new super engines?

But basically for the Chinese to keep growing their forces they need to double current (massive) growth in order to cope with all the old crap that needs to be retired.

if you've time to waste there's an excellent Aussie defence analyst who has a YouTube channel, calling himself Perun, who's done a whole Power Point presentation on the problems with growing a military like this - and how it has to slow down. YouTube Perun link [nerd warning]

Also China's demographics do not help. They've got the demographics of Italy - without having got their economy to the developed stage first. Which is starting to limit their economy and may have a similar effect on their military. Although, to be fair, they've been shrinking their military in order to increase training quality anyway.

TikTok isn't protected by Section 230 in 10-year-old’s ‘blackout challenge’ death

My school had a similar pub next door. Although, we were able to drink there because the landlord wasn’t very nice, and nobody else went in.

That pub is now a famous Michelin stared restaurant. I tried to book a table a few years ago, and there was an 18 month waiting list. So it was easier to get in, when I was 16,in school uniform and it was illegal…

LEGO's Concorde is the only supersonic jet you can build for the price of a fancy dinner

Re: What is the max skin temperature?

here's not many spyplanes that serve (chilled) champagne during a mission!

You’ve clearly not watched enough Bond films. If you can’t drink chilled Bollinger, as you peep at the baddy’s base - then you’re doing it wrong.

To crew, or not to crew – that is the question facing Boeing's stricken Starliner

Re: Its official now

Boeing haven’t been paid yet. They get interim payments, as contract milestones are achieved. The last flight was an extra, so done entirely at their expense. Since this flight has been a failure, NASA can make them re-do it for free as well. They get more money, after they succeed at that.

If they pull out, they may have to pay back what they’ve already had. Depends on contract terms, so I don’t know.

But the only way to get the bulk of the cash, is to perform 6 crew flights. Something they’ll struggle with, as they only have 6 rockets left, and this test to re-run.

Microsoft sends Windows Control Panel to tech graveyard

Re: Raise

Luxury! Windows 98 were posh!

We 'ad to use Windows ME, and like it!

...

I bloody well didn't like it though.

HMD Skyline: The repairable Android that lets you go dumb in a smart way

Re: No headphone socket

I made the same choice. Was rather annoyed to lose the headphone jack, especially as my previous Huawei phone lied about it on the specs - it came with an 3.5mm to USB C adaptor - so I suppose you could argue it was technically true that there was a headphone jack... But then Lidl had some rather good quality Bluetooth headphones for £20 - so I tried my luck. And actually I found the cables very annoying, and whenever I use one of my old wired headphones, they get pulled at least once every time. So I've decided Bluetooth is better.

I won't buy expensive headphones, because I tend to mostly listen to podcasts, and mine get thrown into a bag every day - as they're used walking or on public transport - so nothing seems to last more than 4 years. But you can get reasonable quality Bluetooth over-ear ones for under £30 - I don't know about the in-ear types because I hate those with a passion - I may have funny shaped ears?

Missing scissors cause 36 flight cancellations in Japan

Re: The ghost of 9/11 casts a long shadow

collinsl,

A mass stabbing incident is little worse than one in a train or anywhere else. Worse, because the passengers are further from medical attention - not because it's on a plane.

The September 11th hijackings worked, because the training at the time was to let the hijackers get on with it and make their point, then talk them to death with professional negotiators afterwards and free the hostages. Using the plane as a suicide weapon was a new thing. Even on that day - once the passengers of one plane realised what was going on, they launched an attack on the hijackers and stopped the plane being used as a weapon - even if they were too late to save it.

If you try to hijack a plane now, people are likely to assume that they're as good as dead anyway - and so it's better to die dealing with you and saving the rest of the passengers as to let you get on with it. So you need a better weapon than a knife. And certainly more than the Stanley knife / box-cutters of September 11th or a pair of craft scissors from an airport shop. The plane is as full of stuff that can be improvised into more deadly weapons than those, such as drink cans, glasses, glass wine bottles.

I lost my nail clippers at Stanstead airport security once, I was using a spare washbag which I'd forgotten came with a little zip compartment with a shoehorn (huh?) nail clippers, comb and small hand/stand mirror. The mirror was 4" across and made of glass. I was allowed to keep that. They took the nail clippers with which I could seriously have damaged the stewardesses' manicures...

From windfarms to Amazon Prime, UK plans to long range test six drone services

Re: 'Drones' covers a multitude of sins...

Hmm. Oops!

OK damage control time. Have you heard about my favourite 50s kids cartoon? Rocket Ricketts was a kid who was unable to walk, due to the tragic deformity of his leg bones. But a kindly scientist equipped him with rocket boots - so he could fly round the world helping people. Or being the 50s perhaps selling cigarettes to children...

Does that sound plausible?

My new company will delivery you the DVD by SpaceX Falcon 9 - by 2026. You'll need a sufficiently large garden for the rocket to land - although you can always pay extra and we'll deliver to your neighbours house - and incinerate their roses instead.

I don't know....I have some pretty weird desires...possibly weird enough to irrevocable freak the AI out enough to bring it to a grinding halt. In fact, if your scenario pans out then it could be me that prevents the singularity from happening.

Anon,

Allow me to introduce you to the GCU Grey Area...

Re: 'Drones' covers a multitude of sins...

hoola,

You've got this wrong. The problem isn't that drone delivery is going too far - a solution that is more intrusive than the problem (slightly slower delivery).

The problem is that the solution doesn't go far enough!

I don't want my packages in several hours. Delivered by some drone that might get hijacked by local nerdowells! I want my delivery now!

Ricket delivery direct from the warehouse is the only acceptable method of rapid delivery! And I will brook no argument against this!

I want my £5 doormat delivered immediately! And by that I mean within minutes. From my slightest whim to satisfaction must be the greatest concern for society to fulfill.

NASA pushes decision on bringing crew back in Starliner to the end of August

Re: Only

Resetting that to the unmanned flight state, with all the other software changes they've made, means a lot of testing

imanidiot,

Excuse me? Did you just suggest that Boeing were going to do a lot of testing? Ah well, there's a first time for everything I suppose...

Starliner's new updated software should be ready, and more-or-less tested by say October. October 2026.

Re: It's a political decision, not tech/safety

Binraider,

I'd agree that the whole Starliner contract has been a clusterfuck. From Beoing getting paid twice as much as SpaceX to do exactly the same job, down to the various failed tests. But it's pretty clear that as well as Congress wanting to give money to Boeing, NASA also want a second supplier. And Boeing have done most of the work to get there. Hopefully with Boeing under new management and NASA having the contractual whip-hand - they should be able to get the capsule sorted out. Most of the bugs seem to have been the propulsion system, thrusters and valves, and the software.

This looks like something that's possibly fixable.

Re: Only

You can easily make a USB C fit into a USB A. All you need is one cardboard flightplan cover, one sock, some plastic bags and a roll of gaffer tape.

Re: It's a political decision, not tech/safety

John Sager,

If they kill astronauts, then Starliner might well be dead. Because the public perception will be that Boeing knew and said launch anyway. Whereas it's probably safe to return - given that they managed to dock and they can test their thrusters while docked, but with much reduced safety margins. And the big risk is them failing during undocking or the de-orbit burn - and maybe this time not being able to restart them.

On the other hand, teething troubles with new spacecraft are normal. They're mostly forgotten once the thing is fixed. If it's fixed. If Boeing and NASA want to keep using it, they can use two of their six contracted ISS supply missions as another unmanned, then manned tests, and then get 4 of their contracted launches. Or they can do a deal where Boeing get the money for 4 ISS flights and the last two are cancelled from this contract and added to the next. Given Boeing currently only have 6 boosters to use. Or NASA can choose to make Boeing perform the full contract or forfeit the money - but that's where political pressure can easily be used to protect Boeing.

There's been too many discussions on this for it to be safe to try and ignore safety concerns - someone will talk. And the risk is too obvious.

This could be much more a question of risk assessment. But with unknown risks.

Undocking is something the Starliner is going to have to do anyway. Manned or unmanned. They need the docking port back. Plus you don't really want to leave a fuelled spacecraft attached to your manned station as it goes past its use-by date. It might start to leak (more than just helium), in dangerous ways. So there are large risks to undocking, which become less if you've got an astronaut on board who can take manual control.

However that increases the risk to said astronaut. So they may actually be debating the risk to the ISS of undocking vs the risk to the astronauts of being on it when it then tries to do its de-orbit burn. I'm not sure we've got anything with the airlocks to allow rescue from Staliner if it's unable to de-orbit or get back to the ISS.

I did see one comment that said NASA thought some of the fuel valves had partially melted. But I don't believe that, as otherwise there'd be no decision to make. The spacecraft at that point is a bomb, and they'd have to sacrifice the docking port to eject it from the ISS in some way - because there's no way they'd dare to start the engines. They've also publicly suggested tess burns while attached to the ISS.

AI stole my job and my work, and the boss didn't know – or care

Re: That human touch has never had a rival. Now that it does.....

It's OK. They are hidden. The secret society is always blocked from view by a small horse. This strategy is called the Mask-a-Pony.

I should brie ashamed of myself. But I'm not. So hard cheese! I will however get my coat.

China-linked cyber-spies infect Russian govt, IT sector

It's hilarious. BRICS was a marketing and descriptive term from a fund manager in London - describing growing economies to invest in - preferably with him please. Since then Brazil and Russia have stopped growing much at all, and South Africa's economy is a bit of a disaster. India and China are of course doing well, but also the two most likely countries in the group to go to war with each other, with regular border clashes in the last ten years - where hundreds of both sides' troops have been killed.

When all the sanctions hit Russia, after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the BRICS bank said that they would no longer finance projects in Russia (a founder member). This is because it's one of those international banks that basically has a small amount of capital from the governments and borrows money on the Western markets at relatively low interest, and then invests that money for a small profit on projects the governments approve of - that can't get funding directly from those Western markets. So if they broke sanctions on Russia, their credit would dry up, because Western financial institutions wouldn't be allowed to deal with them. So a bank partially owned and capitalised by the Russian government doesn't dare invest in Russia - even though it was set up for that very purpose.

Also, the last BRICS summit was in South Africa. To which Putin couldn't go. As they're signatories to the ICC (International Criminal Court). And South Africa's supreme court said they'd have to arrest Putin for war crimes, if he turned up.

Re: Methinks there might be a chance of a phone call

Pascal Monett,

Spying on allies is perfectly normal. You need to make sure they're still planning to be allies in future, after all. Of course, it's a little embarrassing when you get caught. Although that's more a problem for democracies, where public opinion is a lot more important.

China and Russia are only allies of convenience though. They both believe they share some common enemies - and both would like to change the post WWII international settlement, so they can do more of what they'd like. But both are also exremely wary of each other - and China does the minimum to help Russia.

For example, Russia has been seriously trying to diversify its gas sales for the last 15 years. China finally signed up about a decade ago, and the first pipeline (Power of Siberia?) is finishing around now, or already is. But China didn't agree to pay market price - they would only sign up if it was deeply discounted. And Russia are paying for the pipeline. So it'll make a few billion a year, but not until the 2030s - at the moment all the cash is going to paying off the build costs. Russia has been trying to get an expansion of that deal done ever since, and the Chinese have never quite managed to sign on the dotted line. And that one used different gas fields than the ones that ship to Europe, an expansion might have made it worth building the longer pipelines to be able to use the fields further West in Siberia (the ones that serve Europe) - but China hasn't been willing to do that, even now most of Russia's deliveries to Europe have stopped.

Similarly with oil exports. When sanctions hit, the Chinese were willing to buy Russian oil, at a 30-40% discount and with Russia paying for the shipping.

China has also mostly refused to sell Russia weapons. There were allegations they were laundering old artillery shells via North Korea - either shipping Kim ones in exchange for what he sends to Russia or just routing them that way. But I've not seen them even partially confirmed by anyone credible. They've also helped with some chips somewhat. But not everything Russia wants.

Finally I remember Ukrainian (and a couple of Russian) sources last year talking about how China were about to ban both Russia and Ukraine from buying Chinese drones, even FPV drones off Ali-Express. And both sides were having problems getting them, and worried. Ukraine made serious efforts to build more drones in country - even if a lot of that is from kits that are still sourced from China. Also a lot of Ukraine's front-line drones are bought by Western governments - or even volunteer groups - and then shipped in. I've no idea if China changed their mind on this - I lost track of the story.

Despite all Putin's talk of an ever closer alliance, whenever they meet, the Russians never get to walk away clutching an actual agreement with an solid support.

I suspect Xi is actually pissed off, because his hopes of conquering Taiwan have taken a massive hit from the response to Russia invading Ukraine. Everyone's worrying about it, and it's top of the topics for international foreign policy discussions. Lots of countries are worried about it, and I think there's a much higher chance of a reasonably well coordinated set of international sanctions if China moves on Taiwan - and maybe even a higher risk of military intervention. European navies are all starting to send flag-waving task forces to Asia, Italy and France are sending carriers this year, we are next year, France and us both did in 2019/2020. Putin has queered his pitch.