Posts by ChrisElvidge

Airport chaos as eGates down for the count across UK

Current problems

1) Border force / eGates

2) Metropolitan Police

3) Asylum detention centres

4) Windrush

etc.

Do we sense a pattern - Home Office involvement in all cases.

Is the Home Office not fit for purpose?

If you're cautious about using ML and bots at work, that's not a bad idea

Re: tendency to generate false information – a phenomenon known as "hallucination."

Don't all the best liars mix in a modicum of truth to make the lie seem more true?

Intel thinks glass substrates are a clear winner in multi-die packaging

Really?

"Glass enables 50 percent more dye content on the same package size than organic substrates"

Coloured packages now?

Norway court upholds miniscule fine against Meta for flouting privacy rules

Behavioral marketing

"Behavioral marketing is very widespread and has been going on for many years, including the entire period GDPR has been in effect," explains Meta in its machine translated submission [PDF] to the court.

Yes, and it should never have been!!

"Everyone does it" should not make it legal.

AI to replace 2.4 million jobs in the US by 2030, many fewer than other forms of automation

Whatever it says about lawyers, it won't be the Perry Masons of this world that get the chop. it will be the researchers/paralegals(?). ChatGPT will never appear before a judge.

The real problem may come about when lawyers-in-training do not get trained by "real" lawyers.

Three years after setting off, Bus Open Data Service wants consultants to help it on its journey

Better services

Wouldn't it be more sensible to use the £24m just to provide better bus services?

Northern Irish cops release 2 men after Terrorism Act arrests linked to data breach

Terrorism?

Quote:

The Terrorism Act 2000 states that a person commits an offence if they collect or make a record of "information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." It includes viewing, or otherwise accessing by means of the internet, a document or record containing information of that kind, so we'd assume the force's techies are sifting through server logs while others pound the pavement.

"Make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful etc......

So the PSNI has committed an offence by publishing the data, even if by accident.

How many of them are going to be arrested?

Samsung teases 1TB DDR5 modules with launch of 32Gb die

ERNIE

Will it be capable of forecasting Premium Bond winners?

Get a $25 gift card if you help the US check whether these facial logins really work

Bias?

The objectors seem to conflate two views of facial recognition.

One is "Can face be used as ID?" I.e. Can the software say that my face can be recognised as "true" and all others as "false".

The other is "Can the software pick out my face from a myriad of faces on the street?"

The second is provably biased. The first probably not biased - c.f. apple 'phones.

Judge snuffs man's quest to have AI-created art protected by copyright

Disney?

"In our view, the law is clear that the American public is the primary beneficiary of copyright law, .....

And there was I thinking that America's copyright law primarily benefitted "The Mouse"

Telecom giants dial up the heat on suppliers: It's not you, it's your CO₂

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/08/04/jac_emissions_best_practices/

jac emissions - really?

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

Re: Hypocritical

Mine says: PowerShell 7.3.4

Lawyers who cited fake legal cases generated by ChatGPT blame the software

Lawyers!

Even lawyers don't understand that LLM trained on data containing lies could lie?

About time lawyers got an LLM trained solely on laws and court decisions.

(Similarly for all other professions.)

AI weapons need a safe back door for human control

Use the off switch

"Policymakers should insist manufacturers include controls in artificial intelligence-based weapons systems that allow them to be turned off if they get out of control, experts told the UK Parliament."

Couldn't you just unplug them?

How Microsoft hopes to tame large language models with Guidance

I love: the art of phrasing input text to get the desired output.

Why not just state the desired output and say it was ChatGPT wot done it?

Oracle's examplar win over SAP for Birmingham City Council is 3 years late

Tesco and Lidl may both be supermarkets but they have different pricing models. What was being said was that as councils (should) have the same goals, they could have a common software solution. (As should all NHS trusts.) However we all know that "we've always done it this way" rules.

South Korea moves to resolve WWII dispute with Japan that troubles tech supply chains

Re: How far back do we go?

I think you're confusing the Holy Roman Empire with the Roman Empire

UK space faces cash freeze unless watchdogs step up

Re: Civil Service

Manchester University, early 1970s. We were marking multiple-choice exams by computer then (CDC7600 Fortran). Turnround was about 2 days.

Defense boffins take notes from sci-fi writers on the future of warfare

Rail gun

I have recently read the Doc Savage stories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage) written in the 1930s/40s. In one of those a silent gun was used. Description was of a projectile fired by electromagnetic means.

OpenAI opens doors to ChatGPT, another AI to fill the world with kinda-true stuff

Re: The big secret

"If your AI can act very much like a Doctor with years of medical training, it would be unfortunate if it had no concept of whether a diagnosis is fundamentally wrong."

Unfortunately Doctors can be fundamentally wrong, too. Viz. man in a Birmingham hospital died of gall bladder inflamation after Doctors prescribed medication for cancer. They refused to believe him or his family about his long term gall bladder infection.

(BBC Newsnight, last night. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001frvk )

Lonestar plans to put datacenters in the Moon's lava tubes

What happens on the "other" side?

"One side of our bigger natural satellite is tidally locked and constantly faces Earth, meaning it would be possible to set up a constant, direct line-of-sight communication between devices on the Moon and our planet."

I think you'll find both sides are tidally locked!

Timetable for industrial action ballot against BT imminent

Profit / Front-line workers =

~ 25.5k

Help, my IT team has no admin access to their own systems

Passwords

Is it really IT that insist on password changes? Or is it some c-type who has heard that passwords should be changed regularly for "security" and has conviced some higher-up to issue an edict?

IT blamed after HR forgets to install sockets in new office

Re: The current poster boy for this being our favourite Russian dictator.

Pfeffel : new word of the year for the OED?

TikTok under investigation in US over harms to children

It's the algorithm?

"The concern is that the algorithm,

which determines what content others see,

sends users, youths in particular,

down an addictive and harmful rabbit hole."

Well, just ban any and all algorithms directing content.

Let people find content for themselves.

Indian services giants target emerging technologies with PaaS plays

Software defined vehicles

Does this mean I can have a car when I need to visit someone, a van when I need to deliver something, a motorhome to go on holiday?

SDV is misnamed.

Oracle, SAP suspend business in Russia amid invasion

Operation PissOnPutin?

Or: Operation PissOnPutin?

When product names go bad: Microsoft's Raymond Chen on the cringe behind WinCE

Re: reminds me of a song

If OMO doesn't whiten it and DAZ doesn't brighten it - FUCK it.

Macmillan best-biscuit list unexpectedly promotes breakfast cereal to treat status

Re: Re:Hobnob has no worthy challengers?

In my estimation:

Keebler's Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Aldi/Lidl Chocolate Oaties

Astronomers detect burps of interstellar cannibal from 480 million light years away

As usual, the CMA would be late to the party. This event happened 480 million years ago.

Smoking smartphone sparks emergency evacuation of Alaska Airlines jet, two taken to hospital

Re: Absent apostrophes

Or too many?

See Qudo's above!

Amazon sets the date for televised return to Middle Earth: September 2022

Not more fucking elves.

India ponders why just three per cent of its broadband services are wired

Re: Take care of the poverty first.

"However, given that 2020 saw millions of laptops sold in India, there are quite a few people that do have the means to use a wired connection."

How does that even compute?

I use a laptop (and wifi) and a wireless hotspot. No wired connection in sight.

'Biggest data grab' in NHS history stuffs GP records in a central store for 'research' – and the time to opt out is now

Re: link for online opt out.

Page last reviewed 10 July 2019; Next review date 10 July 2022.

Are they keeping up to date?

Home office setup with built-in boiling water tap for tea and coffee without getting up is a monument to deskcess

Re: misread title

I fancied it was just another way for the Home Office to waste more taxpayer's money.

Pigeon fanciers in a flap over Brexit quarantine flock-up, seek exemption from EU laws

Dastardly

Just one of the muttley restrictions brought about by Brexit

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

Re: in the year 2525

Zager and Evans didn't think so.

UBports community delivers 'second-largest release of Ubuntu Touch ever'

Re: Yes.

"Windows phone was really easy and welcoming and great to use (and that's coming from a Linux user)."

And it still is!

California bans website 'dark patterns', confusing language when opting out of having your personal info sold

Appeals

Possibly the appeals process could/should be changed too. Instead of being able to continue with a practice that has been deemed illegal by a "lower" court until the appeals process has been completed, the practice could be banned until/unless the appeal process deems it legal.

Stop us if you've heard this one before: Microsoft to lure users with industry-specific solutions in the cloud

Re: Hmm

Like SAP is fully customisable?

Recovery time objective missed by four weeks, but Parler is back online

Re: Tea Party Patriots

The word "Patriot" is one of those words that should set off some alarm bells. It's almost 250 years ago since Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" and its use has not improved since then.

As I remember it, it was a comment on scoundrels not on patriotism. (Scoundrels like Pitt the Elder.)

Linus Torvalds labels Super Bowl 'violent version of egg-and-spoon race'

Owdham Edge - site of Oldhams RL "scraps"

But now the game has changed, you see

You can't play dirty on TV

Google, Apple sued for failing to give Telegram chat app the Parler put-down treatment

Re: @Overunder Am I bad for not...

I may disagree with what you're saying, but I'm willing to fight for your right to say it.

but also:

you're not using my megaphone to say it.

you can't force anyone to listen to you

Did anyone tell Logitech about lockdown? Biz launches pricey video chat kit for office conference rooms and 'huddle spaces'

Re: Depressed...

Would that be a mount of Venus?

The CIA's 'entire' collection of UFO records has been made available for you to sigh at

Re: If there is nothing there ...

There's nothing there NOW!

Developers! These 3 weird tricks will make you a global hero

Menu standardisation

Does no-one remember the early days of the menu system when company A (could have been Microsoft or Lotus) sued company B (could have been Lotus or Microsoft) for copying their menus system into a competing product?

Mysterious metal monolith found in 'very remote' part of Utah

Clever sheep?

Lets call him Shaun

It may date back to 1994 but there's no end in sight for the UK's Chief customs system as Brexit rules beckon

Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border?

'Another IT system supposed to ensure the smooth departure from EU border arrangements is the "Check an HGV is Ready to Cross the Border" system, formerly known as Smart Freight, also set to go live in December.

'It is designed to ensure HGVs carrying exports from the UK to the EU have the necessary paperwork before they get to port.'

Wouldn't it be better to ensure HGVs carrying exports have the necessary paperwork _before they leave the warehouse?_

After all, planes don't take off if there is no landing slot booked (AFAIK).

I work therefore I ache: Logitech aims to ease WFH pains with Ergo M575 trackball mouse

Bluetooth mice

I used to use BT but found, when dual-booting Linux/Windows, I was constantly re-pairing said mouse whenever I changed OS. Now, using a mouse+dongle combo, I just switch OS and mouse follows.

Linux Foundation, IBM, Cisco and others back ‘Inclusive Naming Initiative’ to change nasty tech terms

Re: What about that special house?

You mean the one that rhymes with 'toilet'?