Posts by Roland6

ChatGPT's odds of getting code questions correct are worse than a coin flip

“ Our analysis shows that 52 percent of ChatGPT answers are incorrect”

I’m surprised the “error rate” is so low.

So far every MS Bing AI response to a technical search query I’ve made via Edge has been 100 percent wrong and/or inaccurate (I’m now looking at ways including group policy settings to disable Bing AI).

The laugh is once you’ve fought your way through the obstructive AI b*llocks, an authoritative answer can usually be found with the first page of web search results; if not, switch to Google and repeat the search…

Zoom's new London hub – where 'remote work' meets 'we need you back in the office'

Re: Agile tables

Forgotten the squats and knee shuffle to locate a power outlet and connect the power lead..

Re: I must be out of touch from all the remote work... [*]

Suspect it is a reference to a table on wheels that has a surface suitable for writing on with dry markers…

Alternatively, it means a table free of a desktop computer etc. that can be used as a table…

I doubt it is a reference to updated versions of the 2008 Microsoft Surface multimedia “coffee table”.

Re: Zoom video meetings ..

We had many productive meetings in various hostelries back in those days, much favoured by those thought better with a lit cigarette between their fingers. The only downside as a non-smoker was the suit cleaning bill…

I suppose you now leave a note:

“Sorry you were out when I visited. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon. With every good wish, Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP.”

Suggest you learn to use chat or email…

Back in the 90s working out of a hotel room somewhere in the world, such tools were helpful in identifying who was awake and working (somewhere else in the world) and hence could be engaged in a real-time work related phone call. Fortunately, as many of the calls were roaming-to-roaming, calls were expensed…

Re: 15,000 sq ft central London site??

This article- <https://www.uctoday.com/collaboration/zoom-increases-focus-with-new-uk-offices/> seems to imply they made the return to office decision before they signed the 5 year lease. Given the CoViD experience and their claimed importance of local presence, it seems daft they went for a single large London office rather than 3~4 smaller regional offices/hubs).

Re: If you

Milton Keynes is circa 52 miles and by train is probably quicker and easier to get into Holborn than from many other places closer in to London…

Re: 15,000 sq ft central London site??

>” Almost like Zoom … doesn't know how, to build the collaboration tools…”

Don’t see that as a problem: throw some money and set some bright minds to work, using their first hand experience of such matters..

The concern must be that as you say TPTB can’t be arsed.

Re: 15,000 sq ft central London site??

Additionally, from the article this isn’t an office intended.for focus work, like you did in your (assigned sole occupancy) cubicle. This reads like an ideas space, where things get mocked up and explored by a group over possibly a couple of days, it’s not for months long projects to occupy.

So it would seem the real nuts and bolts work will still be happening at home…

Palantir lobbied UK pensions department for its software to tackle fraud

Re: Kind of makes sense

The government could very simply stop using the banks/ money markets to put currency into circulation and simply use the pension and benefits system.

Based on a comparison of the global financial crisis QE and CoViD furlough; furlough delivered greater economic benefit to UK residents…

Re: "Reduce fraud in the social security benefits system"

Given the media only really like sensational stories, it is perhaps noteworthy that the media hasn’t reported on well off people committing welfare and benefit fraud.

But then as we saw with the PPE contracts and general handouts to business during CoViD, the government didn’t really care about the amount of fraud being committed and have made very limited efforts to investigate. Clearly, the person on benefits who claims to have made the required number of job applicant ions per week, but has actually been creative, is a bigger villain than a Tory party donor living in a tax haven…

Apple, Samsung, and Intel to invest in Arm IPO, and emerge with some control: report

Re: “Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung have all bet big on Arm… “

>” They're not THAT stupid”

From a previous press release, I would not be so sure…

A stock market listed company is a legal entity in its own right and has to product financial reports of its activities, yet SoftBank have stated “ SBG does not expect that any such offering would have a material effect on its consolidated results or financial position.” which would seem to imply they believe they can simply include the financials of ARM in the SBG financial statements and that ALL trading surpluses accrue to SBG and not to any other shareholder in ARM.

I also expect SBG, because of their poor financial status, will be wanting to appropriate ALL monies received from the listing ie. Leave ARM with minimal reserves.

So having some major ARM customers involved could be a good thing. Personally, if any the named companies wash their hands and walk away, I would be strongly tempted to give the ARM IPO and listed stock a miss…

“Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung have all bet big on Arm… “

Given this article: Amazon has more than half of all Arm server CPUs in the world

There is a notable omission from the list.

Plus perhaps Huawei might want to invest…

Scientists strangely unable to follow recipe for holy grail room-temp superconductor

Re: It could be useful anyway.

>” Lead, although toxic is easy to handle in such a way as to reduce/remove the risk, so if the super-conductor contains it is not a problem”

Trouble is lead tends to leech. So those super conductors will need to be weatherproof etc.

As you infer in your example, a 10 percent saving/improvement is evolutionary not revolutionary. Revolutionary is when something that was impossible becomes possible, in your example generating electricity in the oil producing countries and transmitting long distance to consumers.

S/4HANA was once the future for SAP – but now it's in the clouds

ERP is just an all-in-one one-stop-solution to a whole bunch of enterprise systems requirements. Unbundling Financials permits companies to begin to ask questions and replace “basic” with “better”; some years back, we had fun-and-games, there were better standard alone warehouse management systems than the WMS module of an ERP, however, we had to kill both the ERP “basic” WMS and the WMS’s basic Financials and web shop. Okay you now need skilled IT personnel to handle the integrations but if your business doesn’t need bespoke integrations then you are only a generic me too business competing on price.

Zoom updates its legalese explicitly promising not to feed vidchats to AIs

By some person in an Indian call centre listening in and transcribing the conversations?

Deutsche Bahn stands to lose €400M if it has to do Huawei with Chinese kit

>” The difference being the Siemens one they'd take back immediately and offer a replacement.”

Looks like a mandatory requirement was omitted from the ITT…

> “Now can we please be done with it and revise procurement law so we don’t have to buy this shit?”

So you are legally required to buy substandard kit from China and so cannot buy the original Siemens breakers, which you note are also sub standard…

Brit healthcare body rapped for WhatsApp chat sharing patient data

Re: If they use official, secure channels...

The AHRA is interesting, given the current government intent to pass patient data to Palantir et al.

From the guidance it would seem the AHRA is focused solely on the right of specific individuals to access a deceased persons medical records, it places no constraints on what the entity holding those records can do with those records.

So it would seem an entity holding medical records can hold and disclose such records (in full or in part) to whomever they chose, however, only those satisfying the strictures of the AHRA have the right to see the complete records held by the entity.

Re: Replacement of GDPR

Remember this was the start of lockdown; the clocks were ticking, real world events weren’t waiting for the IT department, the only viable solutions were those that required zero procurement of devices and would work with whatever you have deployed and your staff already had access to privately.

Those responsible for government IT were remiss in not using gCloud to fire up a government Jitsi service. Remember one of the big things about cloud is the speed with which new services can be spun up…

“an official reprimand [PDF], is nonetheless eye-opening.“

What is notably absent from the report is any concrete indication that the needs WhatsApp satisfied are now satisfied in other ways (although a redacted mitigation indicates they might have implemented a suitably secure system).

So when the next pandemic comes around and staff have to work from home again, will they once again be reaching for WhatsApp and Zoom?

Re: Unintentional adversaries

“ It's a shame that JAMF requires a Windows server in the setup.”

Must admit , I’ve only used the cloud version.

Re: If they use official, secure channels...

>” ...the patient will be dead before they get a reply. But at least their privacy will be protected.”

Once the patient is dead, patient privacy/GDPR no longer applies and the records can be communicated by insecure means…

Re: WhatsApp: the encrypted platform

WhatsApp is an “encrypted platform” (as is Zoom) within a reasonable definition of secure communications targeted at the general public. Obviously, like all secure products it is possible to configure and use them in an insecure way.

As for overselling, did WhatsApp or Zoom claim to have a CLAS certification?

Re: Unintentional adversaries

The device you are describing is an iPhone/iPad managed by Jamf…

For one client we fortuitously got a delivery of 80 iPads just before lockdown, that first week my lounge became an iPad commissioning production line, with my partner becoming a courier getting those devices out to staff isolating in their homes…

However, because not everyone had WiFi and Internet, the iPads had 4G SIMs (thankyou EE for donating them).

Re: "there was no specific policy in place directly for WhatsApp"

>” Staff used WhatsApp. That means that that was the easiest solution.”

WhatsApp and Zoom were the two solutions to hand back at the start of lockdown; need to remember the time pressure and supply constraints when he first lockdown was announced; basically, whatever remote working solution you needed had to be doable on the equipment you had deployed and could reasonable expect people to already have.

Yes there were alternatives to WhasApp and Zoom such as Signal and Jitsi, not forgetting WebEx et al. However, as noted MPs were using these mainstream products so I expect many heard the media stories and “ if it’s good enough for them….”

Fundamentally, this is a collective failure in business continuity planning etc. - however, unless you had been involved with say the IRA bombings in he city of London, who would of planned for workers having to suddenly work from alternative venues such as their home? But even then I suspect no one really considered it happening to everyone at the same time.

In some respects it is noteworthy that the Cabinet Office kept so quiet over both the technologies government and its agencies should be using and how to make them secure.

Soon the most popular 'real' desktop will be the Linux desktop

Re: @StrangerHereMyself - They'll try

In some ways MS exiting the smartphone market was a blessing, people have no expectation that their mobile works like their desktop/laptop.

The problem with the desktop/laptop is branding. People are aware that Apple are different, but have been educated that everything else runs Windows.

It probably needs one of the high st. majors (Dell and HP) to do an Apple and only support a specific Linux distro. Trouble is the Linux community is good at messing things up, so will muddy the waters sowing doubt in people’s minds as the chosen distro isn’t their preferred distro.

How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'

Re: How was "Pig Iron" originally installed?

I suspect cost will have been a factor. Paying out say $100k to have a new $1m system installed is one thing, paying out another $100k to have system moved to another floor…

Japanese supermarket watches you shop so AI can suggest more stuff to buy

Re: "whether it can detect what remains of my hair"

>” What it will deduce is that you should be encouraged to go to the pharmacy aisle to discover hair treatment products, hair regrowth products and assorted coloured dried frog pills.”

Given how supermarkets like to move things around, we can expect the robot system to be behind the times, so you could actually be in the pharmacy aisle, just that the AI has you in the wine section …

Re: Next step?

Given what kids like to eat, looks like that’s a lifetime’s supply of margarita pizza and lemonade…

Re: AI can do it faster and cheaper.

>” Also I'm pretty sure it's still legal to punch a robot in the face”

I value my knuckles, perhaps it will become advisable to visit such supermarkets after Cricket practice…

Aspiration to deploy new UK nuclear reactor every year a 'wish', not a plan

Re: Technical marvel, but it's the economics, stupid

Much depends on what you take “cheaper” to mean. I suspect like the words on the side of the Brexit bus, much depends on the reader misreading what is being said.

Given energy prices have been going up for decades and will continue to increase in real terms, cheaper means cheaper than they would have otherwise been.

So in the current environment, the contribution renewables make to our electricity supply, means we (as a nation) are not importing so much [expensive) gas, hence our bills are “cheaper” than they would have been without the renewable contribution…

If you think renewables will actually result in you paying less in real terms tomorrow for grid supplied electricity than you paid yesterday then you are fooling yourself.

Re: Technical marvel, but it's the economics, stupid

>” People don't buy renewable energy because it's cheap, they buy it because they want to reduce the amount of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere.”

Tha was the case with the early adopters. However, the intent was that by creating demand, investment would be attracted to renewables and production prices would go down and so be affordable to the many…

Obviously, this didn’t take into account the pricing weirdness of the UK electricity market.

Re: Drive me mad

>” As to North Sea gas licences, this I can only approve of if it is used INSTEAD of importing gas,”

This like fracking, isn’t about domestic demand but about stimulating investment in the UK and the contribution the exports will make to GDP.

Would not be surprised if exporting all that new North Sea oil and gas will generate the monies necessary for new nuclear etc faster than if they were only used for domestic demand. Obviously, this being the Tories, we know from the 80s and 90s, using the monies for tax cuts etc. will be more important than actually investing in the much needed infrastructure…

>” The government only needs to pass a law to give itself a carte blanche … to deal with the emergency”

They’re only the small thing of a general election looming on the horizon. However, if the Conservatives win, would not be surprised if they do exactly this and repeal the 5 year limit on tenure…

Re: Summary of the UK's future climate/energy strategy

>” BR was saved by the backup project, which is still nicer than the latest stuff.”

The Italians did a good job on the Pendelino, a development of.the APT…

Re: John Bull presents Little Englander Nuclear

>” If there's one thing they could do to help progress, it would be to get some branding irons, and apply them to the staff of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and sear "Find solutions, not problems" onto their foreheads.”

It would easier if Westminster actually terminated HS2 (“sunk cost circa£8bn) allocated the HS2 budget (ie. Circa £130bn in 2023 money) and gav the.ONR the authority to get on with it.

Trouble is that would require politicians to eat humble pie over HS2 and only get to announce investment in new nuclear once, instead of as at present repeatedly making promises of investment, making small investments, delaying signing of contracts etc. etc.

Re: Technical marvel, but it's the economics, stupid

Probably find need a third generation mart meter to do all that stuff and more. Only problem we are still rolling out second generation smart meters and it will take years to agree the specification for third generation meters…

MIT boffins build battery alternative out of cement, carbon black, water

So combine concrete with carbon capture and we have a use for all those repositories intended for the long-term storage of carbon extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide…

Which brings up the question whether shale carbon (gas/oil) deposits are natural batteries…

That report, like others, focuses only on concrete production. Concrete also reabsorbs carbon dioxide over the years.

Not got an authoritive reference but media reports 30 percent of “production emissions”, however, without detail I cannot say if that is of the Portland cement emissions or of the much higher total production emissions.

Arc: A radical fresh take on the web browser

Re: Convinced

>” An internal windowing system isn't exactly novel or even a unique selling point.”

Trouble is how few applications support this highly useful display feature. Too many have blindly subscribed to the design school ideas that resulted in TIFKAM et al…

>” What about multiple monitor support when using this scheme?”

Far too useful, see above; the design school gods have decided you should only be using one monitor.

Re: Off topic

Style sheets and basic keyboard shortcuts were really easy to create and us in Word for Dos. Then MS improved things … the ribbon also didn’t help.

NASA mistakenly severs communication to Voyager 2

Re: Voyager 1 & 2

Actually, products of a different era of technology and engineering quality; I doubt much of the stuff being launched into space these pass few decades will last as long.

Tesla plots entry to Britain's stagnant energy market

These last few weeks it’s been surprisingly common to find an immobile Tesla as the cause of roundabout/traffic junction congestion.

Probably nothing specific to Tesla, just statistics: more Tesla’s on the road = higher probability one is to fail and block the road.

Re: Reminds me of China

>” I wonder how long until the green dream is dropped”

The bigger concern is how long until people see through the green wash…

Remember Drax is “green” because it currently burns wood pellets instead of coal. But look at the sourcing of pellets and it is decidedly not green in anyway that meaningfully contributes to reducing emission etc.

Get rid of the green wash and basically we are left with nuclear and a gap between now and when nuclear comes on line, gas is unlikely to return to 1990s prices as global demand is much higher, so dashing for gas is going to lock in expensive energy prices… Basically, if you want to keep the lights on at home (so you can read and contribute to el reg), solar panels and a battery pack seem quite reasonable investments…

That is a concern, however, for me the concern is more that the typical installation is next to he electricity meter under the stairs - the main exit route for the upstairs…

Re: I'd give it a chance...

The problem is that solar panels are the modern double glazing, so price is what the commission-based sales person can get away with, obviously they want you to sign on there-and-then so will refuse to come out and quote unless your partner is also present…

From a system I did for a friend a year back, the system cost £12,000, but it would save them circa £2000 Pa in electricity bills; obviously, with electricity prices going up with inflation that saving would only increase, shortening the time to break even. Now with a years worth of data, Looking at installing one for myself, I will be doubling the size of the battery and so increase the amount of self generated electricity I can sell back…

From people with battery setups, the Tesla batteries are very basic, being very much a closed system to the householder. If you really want to get the most out of your battery packs and maximise the returns (to you) from reselling electricity back to the grid, there are better home battery packs and control systems available. Although Octopus seems to be giving the best tariffs..

>” Sadly the profiteering she pretty much started killed off those plans.”

Don’t under estimate the Conservative party’s desire for power…

The Conservatives realised going big on nuclear was going to cost them votes, so they repeatedly kicked nuclear decisions down the road; new Labour just adopted Conservative policy.

Whilst David Cameron made some bad decisions, his decision to actually complete an agreement with EDF and sign it, showed that he was prepared (at times) to do the right thing and take difficult decisions.