Posts by lglethal

Scientists spot massive black hole collision that defies current theories

Re: Wondering

It's been a lonnng time since I read up on this stuff, so I've probably forgotten most of it.

But I think the Supermassive Black Holes at the centre of Galaxies, are believed to have a different origin than "Stellar" Black Holes (those formed from Supernovas). My memory says there were two theories, one was simply they formed closer in time to the Big Bang and so were able to gobble far more in that condensed space than would be possible nowadays, and the other was something to do with early Dark Matter, which frankly I cant remember.

You are right the 100x limit is believed to be the biggest you could get from a single Supernova. I guess if you add them together you should be able to get above 100x, but I think there was something about inherent stability, which they thought would cause the newly formed Black Hole to shed mass.

Gahh now I'm going to have to go back and try and find all those old notes from Uni... Although they are probably massively out of date by now... :P

Iran seeks at least three cloud providers to power its government

Re: Well...

Of course they will be running, just under arm length, disavowable, Caymen Island corporations, that are completely not linked to their Parent. Except for any profits they make of course...

Say Hello to Foofle, Micrisift, and Omozan. Totally not related to large companies with similar names. Yet somehow, seem to have similar architectures and hosting services. Interesting, no?

Google’s Gemini refuses to play Chess against the mighty Atari 2600 after realizing it can't match ancient console

I'm not sure that I would declare an AI that first boasts that it can do something, before backing down from that position, but ONLY after being challenged on it's abilites, as being trustworthy.

Something that's trustworthy would have never made the boasts in the first place. Having to force it to admit it's actually crap, is not something I have to deal with, and in a high pressure environment where it's actions might have real world consequences, a user shouldnt have to challenge it to make sure it can actually do what it claims, before letting it loose.

So no, this is not a step towards a more trustworthy LLM.

At last, a use case for AI agents with sky-high ROI: Stealing crypto

Re: It's all fair game

Wait, Crypto Bros and AI Scammers aren't one and the same???

Well colour me surprised!

Shiny object syndrome spells doom for many AI projects, warns EPA CIO

That's him out of a Job

I expect he'll be the next for the exit ramp, having shown he has more then two brain cells to rub together.

We can't be having people like that in government any more... No,no, no...

ESA backs five rockets in Launcher Challenge – only some have exploded

Re: Cheaper and faster launches

You are aware that Ariane 6 & Vega launch almost exclusively from French Guyana? (so that's a South American east coast launch from France... ;) )

C-suite sours on AI despite rising investment, survey finds

"The declining confidence of CEOs and CTOs – who typically focus on long-term vision, innovation, and competitive positioning... "

I was with them up until that sentence... Since when has any CEO been concerned about anything except the next Quarter's profit margin and the current Share Price... Long term vision? Well I guess them, collecting their golden parachute, whilst sipping champagne from their super yacht, counts as a long term vision, no?

Massive browser hijacking campaign infects 2.3M Chrome, Edge users

Re: They started clean

Wait you want them to actually earn that 30% store commision????

Army and Navy have both asked for right to repair, now Senators want to give it to them

Re: Sense

This is just a bill being tabled. There is still plenty of time for the contractors to "perusade" (through the means of large brown envelopes) enough senators to vote No, or to tie this up in committee for the next bazillion years,

Dont bet on common sense actually achieving the desired outcome this decade...

AI scores a huge own goal if you play up and play the game

Thank you for being an unpaid QA Tester for OpenAI. Should we ever start making a profit, I'm sure we will get around to sending you a cheque in the mail. At some point. If ChatGPT can remember the details.

-- Sam Altman

Call center staffers explain to researchers how their AI assistants aren't very helpful

Re: Interesting

"the AI assistant in question does seem to have some of the characteristics of a half-baked lifelong stoner that has trouble with numbers, accuracy, phrasing, structuring info, emotional connection, rambling verbosity, and the likes.

"Son, I dont think we have a position for you here in customer service. But you ever thought about becoming a manager? I'm seeing all the characteristics, right there..."

AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren't AI at all

Re: Ridiculous

It's the next Bandwagon for people to jump on to.

Think Crypto, Think Blockchain. Think Web 3.0. Think... Well I could go on forever...

Re: Really?

No Sir you are completely wrong, the comapnies making these "AI's" have complete confidentiality awareness! They go to extreme pains, to ensure that no-one else can reverse engineer their AI's or get any understanding of how they operate, or how they make the decisions they do. They are 100% committed to keeping things under wraps.

Oh wait you meant confidentiality in regards to the client? Well yes, that's hardly a priority now, is it?

Re: HAL or Holly?

An IQ of 6,000? It's not that much. It's only about the same as 6000 PE Teachers...

Deutsche Bahn train hits 405 km/h without falling to bits

Re: Privatisation for the win!

This is where privatisation can be good. Private companies need to make a Profit (unless your the likes of Über, anything to do with autonomous cars, or AI apparently).

So they tend to be good at eliminating waste and improving efficiency. The problem comes when all of that newly generated profits is taken as a "reward" by the Shareholders, Board, and C-Suite, and there's nothing left for investment in the firm itself.

Hence my proposed hand rails...

Although I tend to agree with you that Infrastructure should remain in the hands of the State, I think that Cat is well and truly out of the Bag...

Privatisation for the win!

This is what happens with privatisation without hand rails.

Any nationalised firm, especially one that is a model of happy customer service (I was going to say efficiency but DB could have been bleeding cash for all I know) should have laws laid down about the following, that must be obeyed, even after privatisation:

1) Maximum X% of profit going to shareholders. Any other profit is reinvested in the firm.

2) Maximum salary (including all share options, and other bonus bollocks) for C-Suite capped to X times the average employee salary.

3) Bonuses for the C-Suite are cancelled for any 12 month period in which 1% or more of employees are "let go, made redundant, downsized, or any other HR bollocks which means fired".

Normally it's the combination of 1) and 2) which sees ANY Profit stolen out of the firm, with nothing left to reinvest. Often sacking large numbers of employees becomes the only way to maintain profits for the shareholders, and after a while you end up with a massive sh&tshow, like you see now with DB. Then you end up with a new team trying to rescue the case, whilst explaining to new investors why they wont be seeing those old massive paydays anymore, and whilst the original vultures have long since made off with their profits...

Of course, the politicians pushing for nationalisation usually had their hands in a nice big pot of cash from the vultures circling, and so would never think to put such restrictions in their path...

Don't shoot me, I'm only the system administrator!

In the US, the Police shoot the trouble - that's the Problem...

NICER science not so nice as ISS telescope pauses operations

Re: Engineers devised a repair kit

And now the motor isnt moving like it's supposed to. So now we need Space WD40, right?

Visiting students can't hide social media accounts from Uncle Sam anymore

If you buy one, that's fine. You're clearly a capitalist.

If you make one, that's sounds dangerously like you must be a hacker. And a communist. And Anti-trump. Because reasons. No US for you!

Then no US visits for you, Sonny Jim!

Joke time

Why does Trump want regime change in Iran?

He doesnt want the competition when he declares the USA is now a Theocracy...

So foreign Students need to make all posts public, but it's still ok for all those conspiracy theorists/anti-vaxxers/threat-mongers/add-to-list-as-applicable to be effectively anonymous on Xitter, Lies Social, Faecesbook, etc.

The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one...

AFRINIC election annulled after ICANN writes angry letter to African regional internet registry

Lets just do a little thought experiment here.

You have been appointed to finally get the dysfunctional AFRINC organisation back on its feet.

Do you a) hold a spotless election, by first obtaining from each national ISP organisation, the name of the voter who will be coming to Mauritius in advance. Then only allowing that person to vote for their organisation. 1 person, 1 vote. Therefore, truly getting a good result and getting AFRINC back to at least the first stage of having it's governance back. And ensuring you and your firm come out of the election smelling like roses, and with a massive boost to your credentials.

or b) Take the brown envelope left under your hotel room door. Allow one person with fraudulent "Power of Attorney" documentation, to vote for everyone, including people who happen to be in the room at the time, and cause the whole process to sink back into the mire. AFRINC stays on the floor, ICANN starts talking of getting involved, and the sh&tshow roles on. You and your firm come out looking like idiots, and worse than that corrupt idiots. You can probably expect plenty of work from corrupt dictatorships in the future (profitable, yet prone to be dangerous to personal health - dictators dont tend to be the most stable of people), but zero from people wanting competent, non-corrupt services.

or c) Do b), but when you realise that the cat is well and truly out of the bag, try and shut it down and say your "investigating". You now look incompetent, corrupt, and even worse disloyal. Or in other words, someone who doesnt stay bought. Therefore, you can no longer expect the work of the corrupt dictatorships (they like people who stay bought and paid for), nor the work of people wanting competent, non-corrupt services.

Hmmm.... what to do, what to do???

Techie went home rather than fix mistake that caused a massive meltdown

Re: Honestly

Pretty much the only time I've come across "Imperial" units in my 20+ years of Aerospace experience (including working with Boeing and Gulfstream) is in piping. You still take 2 metres of 1" pipe. I find it bloody annoying, but unfortunately, it seems the piping industry is still wedded to the Americans, and so metric diameters are just not available (or would be ridiculously expensive and probably not have the range of accessories you need to finalise a pipe run)...

Probability of Asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon increases

Everyone can make a plan....

Hey I have developed a plan to live forever!!!

And if I should fail, well then that will come as a suprise to me! (Or not, if it happens very quickly...)

It's true the moon gets hit by things regularly, but they are very rarely a) this big, and b) this well documented. Being this well documented would allow us to actually have front row seats for the impact.

Set up specific cameras, watch from the right spot where the impact occurs, be prepared to carry out proper scientific measurements on the comet beforehand and the Ejecta and the crater itself afterwards.

If this turns out to be going to hit the moon, it gives us the chance to learn a LOT.

Most of the time, we are currently working with craters we didnt see form, or had zero warning of. On those rare occasions where an impact is caught on camera, it's rarely optimally positioned in shot, and just by luck rather than judgement in frame. This would be an amazing opportunity, so personally I'm crossing my fingers, that when it reappears in 2028 that that 4% climbs rather higher...

Techie traced cables from basement to maternity ward and onto a roof, before a car crash revealed the problem

The errors really began to pile up after the crash.

Japan's latest Moon landing written off as a failure after ispace probe goes dark

Re: No big deal

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you a bit.

We are currently on a single planet with 8,2 billion people and growing. Resources are getting tighter, problems are building up.

The moon is less than a week away, and if we can get the technologies to prove that we can set up bases on the Moon, then frankly there's almost nowhere in the Solar System that will worry us, when it comes to setting up ventures further afield.

Cost effective extraction of resources out there, would relieve a large portion of the resource problems here on Earth. So anything that moves us further in this direction, is worthwhile in the long term...

HMRC: Crooks broke into 100k accounts, stole £43M from British taxpayer in late 2024

"The UK's tax collections agency says cyberbaddies defrauded it of £47 million ($63 million) late last year, but insists the criminal case was not a cyberattack."

For a moment there I thought HMRC was being honest about Politicians salaries, and how much they are costing us...

Although referring to Politicans as Cyberbaddies might be giving them too much credit. They're just regular baddies after all... And saying they defrauded the country, well... I mean there are some politicians it would be easy to claim were defrauding the country simply by breathing in the air which could be better used for well anything else...

Ship abandoned off Alaska after electric cars on board catch fire

In the latest Shipping News...

Insurance premiums for shipping Electric Cars have skyrocketed...

Ukraine strikes Russian bomber-maker with hack attack

Re: You'd Expect Not, However ...

CATIA has been the go to Aerospace CAD software for the last 30+ years (I've been using it since at least 2002), in various guises.

Everyone in Aerospace uses it. And yes it is owned by Dassault, but that hasnt made Dassault the world leader in Aerospace, so I think we can be safe there are no shenanigans on the go...

Also, unless I'm very much mistaken Dassault are not a member of the Airbus consortium. They occasionally have strategic partnerships, as Airbus does with other Aerospace firms from time to time, but they are not actually a member of the Consortium.

X's new 'encrypted' XChat feature seems no more secure than the failure that came before it

Musk is just misunderstood...

You guys, you're all just misunderstanding what he said!

Musk thinks the world revolves around X! It is the be all and END all of everything. Therefore, when someone sends a direct message on X, they are sending it to X! X might then forward it on to whoever was the intended target, but that's just a side effect. All the messages belong to X!

Therefore to End to End is not a lie, one End is the user sending the message, the other End is X receiving the message. And the message is completely encrypted in that journey! Then there is a second End to End, which is X's End sending the message on to the recipient, with them being the other End. Again, it's encrypted the whole way!

What do you mean, you dont want X to be able to read the messages. But if Elon and his pet AI cant read your messages, they'll get lonely. You wouldnt want Elon to be lonely would you? Would YOU???

(Joke icon, but I absolutely would not be surprised if this was the weasel words plan behind this...)

Engineers bring Psyche's thrusters back online

Space is hard...

... and if your NASA, it's about to get a whole lot harder thanks to this maladministration...

What will UK government workers do with an extra 26 minutes a day?

"thereby freeing public sector staff from laborious tasks through automation"

So a script could free them from the same 23 minutes per day work. I see no reason for anything with AI to be included. If people could save 23 minutes, it means that the work they were doing before was unoptimised. Fix that, and you get the 23 minutes AND save the AI costs.

Profit!

(Sorry, but that would mean Manglement allowing IT to actually talk to the people doing the work and to make the improvements they need, so we know that's never going to happen...)

Mysterious leaker GangExposed outs Conti kingpins in massive ransomware data dump

Re: GangExposed

Because they only care about the Intelligence Agencies of the other states. Ransomware scum are for the police to deal with (in their much-vaunted estimation)...

The fact that half of the rasnomware scumbags are just working at arms length from their local intelligence agencies should make them their business, but then that's not how it works, is it?

Techie fixed a ‘brown monitor’ by closing a door for a doctor

Re: Does not sound like any kind of fix to me

Ahhh so, they should hire a Gastroenterologist...

US to deny visas to foreign officials it says 'censor' social media

Look can we just hurry up and ban everything Meta, Google, X, and every other non-EU based social media site?

If a social media show wants to operate in the EU, then it obeys the laws in full and from the start. If it starts playing games, it's out. Add to that a requirement that those in charge have to reside in the EU, where they can be quickly arrested and made to realise their responsibilities. And suddenly you might get responsible social media... Imagine that?

It will never happen, but god I wish it would...

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

Re: Whacked Out

"Judging from what happens with humans when they start taking their fantasies seriously..."

They become the President of the United States of America?

Trump threatens to add formal Apple Tax on top of the 'Apple tax'

Re: Poor old Trump

Oh I disagree Putin is absolutely competent. He's managed to stay in power for 20+ years in a land previously ruled by rich, ruthless oligarchs. He has stamped his authority so strongly that even though the Russian Economy is tanking hard, hurting all of those Oligarchs where it hurts them most (in their wallets), not a single one has made any move against him. The one person who made a move against him, was forced to retreat, and then Putin simply shot him out of the sky with a ground to air missile. Literally. And openly. And no-one in Russia said a damn thing...

He is absolutely competent as a deranged Dictator and Tyrant. He doesnt care that the economy goes to crap (hell it might be a play to reduce the power of the Oligarchs further), nor that 250 thousand russian soldiers (at last estimate) are dead (hell that's less people of the correct age and demographic to rise up against him). He is in power, and NO one is challenging him for the top job.

The one thing he probably considers a failure is that he can no longer consider himself the equal of Xi.

If Putin were to die suddenly next week (from say a heart attack), Russia would collapse, as the various Generals, Oligarchs and Politicans would fight like crazy to be the next Czar. There is no second in command in Russia, there is only Putin.

Re: Poor old Trump

But one is highly competent and the other is an incompetent nincompoop...

So not so much as cut from the same cloth, as one is the real deal, whilst the other is a cheap knock-off produced in a dirty sweatshop from inferior cloth...

Re: Perhaps ...

Of course American workers could be trained to produce iphones. Or any other Electrical item for that matter. BUT American workers could not survive on the wages paid in Asia. The cost of living is that much higher.

There are also rules on Health and Safety, Environmental regulations, and Employment rules, that mean that you couldnt just pick up one of those Asian factories and drop it in America, because half the process lines would be breaking US Law, and the whole work 84 hour weeks, sleep in a dorm at the factory and see your family once every 3 years or so, would tend to be frowned upon (although perhaps less so under the current administration...).

Apple could do all that anyway. They could make the Iphones in America, set up the factories compliant to local regulations, pay the workers are proper living wage. They could do all that. But then they would have to take a massive hit on their profits, and well we cant have that now can we? Those second yachts for the C-suite and Investors arent going to just pay for themselves, are they now?

I would be very much certain that the cost of an iphone produced in either China or India shipped to the US and subjected to a 100% tariff, would STILL be cheaper than one produced in the US. That's assuming that a US manufacturing facility materialised out of nowhere complete with staff trained to produce the iphones, and all without costing Apple a cent.

In truth Apple would first need to build a factory, and second they would need to train sufficient staff to actually do the manufacturing. So the costs would be massively higher.

If Apple have to pay additional tariffs on their products, either they will take a hit on their already massive profits for each iphone sold, or more likely just raise the prices to include the tariffs, and accept a reduction in sales. They would probably look at that as returning to their more exclusive image (and advertise it as such!). Waiting out the Orange ones nonsense certainly makes more financial sense than actually trying to rush into producing anything in America. The fact Trump seems to have the memory of a gold fish and changes his mind every time he changes his underwear, would make anyone doing long term planning simply decide to wait him out...

Torvalds' typing taste test touches tactile tragedy

Silent mechanical keyboards for the win

For me the best keyboard I've ever had (and am currently using) is the Fnatic Gear Rush Silent. Yes it's a gaming keyboard, but it has only a red backlight (no RGB bollocks), perfect for usage at night. It has that solid mechanical feel, with great travel, and it uses Cherry MX Silent switches, which means that for a mechanical keyboard it's no louder then a standard membrane Keyboard. Meaning even with my bashing away hard at the keys, my family can live with the noise, without wanting to murder me where I sit.

For me, it's proof that you can make a keyboard with the right feel of a mechanical keyboard without the anti-social clickety clack of the full fat Model M's.

Unfortunately, Fnatic dont seem to be building the Rush Silent anymore, so here's hoping this one lasts a while longer, because finding the right keyboard is a right pain in the ........ wrist...

Automatic UK-to-US English converter produced amazing mistakes by the vanload

Re: Argh!

Get better reviewers.

Duct tape, shovel, and a sack of lime can be very useful in achieving this outcome. Please refer to the BOFH training guide for further information...

US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired

You first need to fix your parliament. Ban companies from donating to political campaigns or parties. Put a limit on how much any one person can donate. Put laws in place to prevent one person using multiple relatives/employees/random strangers to donate beyond the accepted amount. With proper penalties for breaches of said rules.

Fix the gerrymandering, such that third parties and independents can win seats federally.

Then when your parliament is fixed, you can start on the courts.

Your name is Sam Altman and i claim my $5...

Attackers pwn charter airline helping Trump's deportation campaign

The quotes are because there's more than enough evidence that more than a few of the people deported were not illegally in the US, including one case where a person was deported to an el salvadorean prison, despite never being convicted of a crime, nor being illegally in the country (confirmed by the US Supreme Court!).

There have even been cases of Children who are US citizens being deported alongside their parents (who may or may not have been illegal, in at least a few cases the legal status was still in front of the courts when they were ejected!).

So perhaps the brackets should have been just on the "illegal" part, but there's also some doubt as to whether they were even non-citizens in some cases...

TikTok's Chinese app - Douyin - in trouble after spat over the price of jade

I think your overestimating the average consumer.

Whilst they may have concerns about privacy (myself included), that's not going to be a deciding factor in choosing their next car. Not compared to price, mileage, and a raft of other features that are important to the individual.

Unlike, say choosing a phone, which is a €300-1000 outlay, where you could make the car for privacy being a deciding differential, on a €40k car purchase, it's nothing but a nice to have...

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

You'll never get into Senior Management with that attitude, Son...

Apple exec sends Google shares plunging as he calls AI the new search

Re: You have to be very careful what you ask for

Nahh clearly it's a government supplying Contractor.

"Oh you want to change the font? Oh that will require a spec change. Here's the bill?"

"You want to move that button 5mm to the left. Woooooo. That's a change, here's your bill?"

"What you want your binary to have both 0's AND 1's? I'm sorry that's going to cost you..."