Posts by phil dude 1937 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2011
In case you wonder, the regime required to achieve reasonable "buffness", is 5-7 hours a week to get into shape, 3-5 hours a week to maintain and a diet to match.
Doing something different every day, helps to even out the tone and adapt to working conditions.
You're welcome.
P.
PS If you ever wondered what that Wednesday afternoon was at school where you didn't to write anything....
especially with face scanning software getting pretty decent.
It is plausible you can be in the database simply because you were in the wrong place, wrong time and in the background of someone else's photograph.
I wish we had that device the Tracy's had in the thunderbirds!!!
P.
they have $1,000,000 per driver here in the USA. I know this because they sent email saying so, this is it:
--cut here--
Uber
>From before the start of your trip until after it's finished, safety is built into every step of the Uber experience. Look under the hood and see how.
BEFORE YOU RIDE
BACKGROUND CHECKS
Drivers pass federal, multi-state, and county background checks before driving.
Extensive Screening
Uber prohibits drug or alcohol offenses, severe traffic violations, and sexual offenses.
Insurance
>From pick up to drop off, your ride is covered by a $1M commercial insurance policy.
REQUEST A RIDE
Safe Pickups
The app pinpoints your location so you can request a ride from anywhere and wait safely.
Nobody's A Stranger
Your driver's name, photo, and vehicle information appear in the app.
Disguised Phone Numbers
Communication between riders and drivers is anonymized to protect private phone numbers.
DURING YOUR TRIP
Always On The Map
The GPS-enabled map provides your driver's location and trip details in real-time.
Share My ETA
Share your ETA with friends and family to keep track of your ride and safe arrival.
Hassle-Free Payments
Your credit card is on file so you never need to carry cash or stop at an ATM.
AFTER YOU RIDE
Actionable Feedback
You rate your experience after every trip and drivers do the same.
Trip History
After each ride, you receive a detailed email receipt with trip route, driver name, and total fare.
--cut here--
P.
I modded you up +1, because I agree it does seem untoward.
However, you may notice that any deviation from an information free conversation will garner downvotes. I'm not that paranoid.... but I suspect some corporate interests probably hire shills to signup to introduce noise into any forum that disses (sic) them.
If I knew the clinical name for having ones sense of humour removed I would used it here.
Better still, we could have an Eddy Murphy icon (GTFOOH).
P.
"In countries with Napoleonic-based laws, it is up to you to prove your innocence"
One of the many reasons the English speaking think Europe is a bad idea (note the lack of national assignation).
Yes juries are not perfect. But the principle that you should be innocent before proven guilty is central to a civilised society.
That's why it is ignored by the state at all levels and there is a proliferation of cameras...
P.
the gardeners don't want to let someone else plant prettier flowers, or let you grow mint.
I install f-droid for GPL apps , and I'll bet that the Google Play store doesn't allow them because it is not built with their closed-source malware library with the click-jack "YOU HAVE A VIRUS" show_us_your_privates(phonehome, victim).
Walled gardens only work if you are allowed to tend a bit of the garden and you trust the landlord....
P.
So perhaps they should make it all FOSS and then work together to make secure software?
Let's face it if Pwn2Own can rip holes in browsers, I don't hold out much hope for random software on an embedded system.
It is time that liability is attached to closed source software AND hardware, to form appropriate limits.
I suspect this may lead to the creation of a funded "third party" development organisation, something like mozilla but with the DD-wrt type deployment.
I will put it in crayon for the downvoters:
FOSS DOES NOT GUARANTEE BUG FREE, BUT IT GIVES A NON-ZERO CHANCE OF FIXING IT.
For as long as there is not liability for crap software, crap software will be standard.
P.
True heroes are often not decided until after the eulogy...
The balance of probabilities would suggest they all know something we don't. That of course doesn't stop media articles from saying what they want..
My "spidey sense" would have JA checking his food for glass, his glass for cyanide, and a wary fear of strangers of either gender...
P.
@Ossi: You mean this link?
If you scroll down you will see the Integral Symbol. This means differential equations are almost inevitable for real work.
To further the point in the original post the value of $Y (how much it can be sold for) is highly dependent on $X(T) "How do we think there is in the ground?", but also $Z. If you pump eleventy squinty (!) barrels, the simple existence of this product changes the price. Unlike iPhones...
Let Z=all the other sources of energy available. What fraction is Y of Z? (assuming some nice agreed upon conversion).
The concern over the lack differential equations is that complex phenomena have complex answers and in generally in the physical sciences there is an expectation of "show your working".
In economics it seems that general lack of understanding of the calculus makes many politicians nervous about asking the right questions, especially if they are on TV or being interviewed by the media.
In general, the media makes this worse by presenting pointlessly simplified pieces, which therefore lack any useful precision. And this is so much worse then "averages without variance" problem that is so common.
These are predictions based upon guesses from other predictions that are simply made up.
I'm not saying I know the answer (if there is one). I am asserting the point that much of the media churn distracts the average viewer from the complete lack of data available.
Other than that, a nice article...
P.
A lot of the coverage is predicated on the assertion there is some correlation between a company's mission statement and the future state of the world.
For example, let's say total oil in ground at initial time is $X(0) and the cost to extract a barrel is $Y.
So long as you think $X(T)>0 and you can sell a barrel of oil for >$Y the companies are worth *something*.
The problem is $Y is a complex function as it depends a great deal on the technology to extract as well as the location of the resources. Especially d$X/dT...
The recent drop in petroleum prices in the US is a good example of this. OPEC upped production to piss off Russia, and in conjunction the US is pumping a lot more oil. The reality of global energy, is that it is just that - global demand for a non-linear resource. But very few people get to choose the price they pay at the pump.
Economics is as close to voodoo as you can get with a straight face and without a billowing cape.
The necessary descriptive differential equations rarely make it onto the Grauniad pages....
P.
If you can read Chinese (which we all can with modern browsers!!), almost everything from the West can be found on their "super exciting house of pictures" websites.
And the good thing is the Chinese subtitles does not interfere with the English dialogue...
But just as visiting the Asian pleasure resorts can result in unwanted affliction, infection and regret, best to double-bag the browser...
P.
I have android 5.0.2 on my Moto-E LTE and it seems to already do this.
I am not sure it isn't a proximity sensor detecting the phone is in the pocket, but the phone will lock when placed on a table, which is ok.
However jostling the table (or rocky bar table) will also wake up the phone, and that is a bit annoying...
P.
@Richard Taylor 2: Your statement deserves 0001 0000 0000 upvotes.
Seriously though, computer arithmetic is a very interesting subject when you see where approximations are made, and how errors can propagate.
Integers can be used for many assumed floating operations that do not change scale. e.g. molecular distance calculations. However, often the hardware is optimised for approximate fixed point calculations, and double precision is a tragedy in GPU computing....
P.
yes that seem to be correct. 36.0.3 was "in response to PWN to own competition", see here.
And then 4 hours later there was 36.0.4 and the only difference I could make out was:
2015-28 Privilege escalation through SVG navigation
and
2015-29 Code execution through incorrect JavaScript bounds checking elimination
Interestingly, the latter was patched before the former...!
P.
@80s_coder: My whacky JS code does gene predictions and other molecule/protein calculations - as you can spit out JS data to HTML5 very easily.
I *never* expect my code to be used in a security environment, I would hope it was locally tethered.
In that case, surely a proper "sandbox" so that EVERY piece of javascript is isolated form harming the system? I can imagine how this would work in Linux, but not sure if Microsoft has the technology.
And this is a shout out to Mozilla - get the per-process tabs default working as a first security order of business. Tabs that can crash the browser are security holes waiting to be exploited. Then a good *hard* look at plugins...
P.
Alternatively, how about making sure the child gets the clinical attention this decidedly sad act would seem to suggest, rather than the criminal torture and further damage that will inevitably be the result.
The thing is, this is click bait and feeds the pathology of media sympathy by proxy.
How disturbed is that family and will the media coverage improve their situation?
P.
I would hope that the police have more than "images on hard drive", and a proper forensic browser history coupled with surveillance and other supporting evidence.
With the leaky software and malign government agencies in play, one would hope that these alleged despicable acts are properly investigated, rather than used as political capital.
Sad icon for such a sad subject.
P.
I think that is what is causing the kerfuffle with the "its the end of the world posts".
Mercedes is a traditional and somewhat conservative , expensive automobile company.
Tesla is a non-traditional bleeding edge , automobile, battery, computer company run by a guy who is a rocket scientist and has a solar city. With the drops in pricing that come with the aforementioned.
I have by very cynical scientific "show me the evidence" nature, but he is not promising magic. Highway driving is considerably less problematic than city driving.
I would say he is making some people very nervous as they can see the writing on the wall, and it says "Exit this way".
P.
Thank you AC. Yes a dodgy minicab ride in London is a risk...we've all been there including threats of violence and demands for more money when they get lost.
In NYC we were approached by a guy who said "need a ride" at the Cloisters museum. You couldn't make this up as dodgy as it looked. Needless to say the Uber arrived (picture of the driver, and make model and colour of car), leaving us wondering "who would go with that guy". The final irony, there is a bus that goes there but no taxis.
Uber insures all vehicles or at least compels drivers to be adequately covered - I think there was a lawsuit about that, no?
I'll say it again for those who are scared of progress and want to have another go at downvoting for the status quo, taxis should license the Uber app.
It's not as if Uber doesn't charge for different vehicle classes...add a picture of a Black cab and see if people pay for it.
P.
Risk, seriously? Do you live in Bogota or Lagos?
I have had much dodgier taxi rides in London and New York than I have had (so far) with Uber.
The problem is taxis live in a pampered world of regulated profit. You say "you know who the driver is" as if someone seriously intent on hurting you would care?
If taxis had immediate feedback like Uber, some of your points may be valid. I'm betting this is the reason the taxi industry is REALLY fighting Uber.
How about the taxi firms buy a license from Uber (or Lyft) and quit their whining?
P.
I suspect that initially it will be sold as "driver assist".
But you raise an excellent point. There are *many* people who are *unable* to drive, that could be provided with a means of transport.
And no, a bus or train is not the same thing as they represent a static resource.
In general, disabilities are, perhaps self-evidently, rarely convenient.
P.
I wonder if FUD can be used to power the car?
Seriously, everyone seems to be so focused on the edge cases that they ignore the great deal of uncertainty in human driving is the other humans.
@earl grey : I had thought about this, and it seems that initially these cars will drive only where there are not *supposed* to be humans e.g. Motorways , large roads. Any person "jumping in front of a car"
will likely be arrested (or more likely) sent directly to hospital.
I have proposed this on El Reg before but I expect these cars will come with "manual" vs "auto" operating modes.
Specifically, if you are in "auto" mode and grab the wheel the car will try and do the absolute safest thing - stop or remove vehicle from traffic etc... More importantly, the insurance for the car will go from $30/mth to $3000/mth.
Hence, rich people will have cars that don't stop for humans in the road as they'll pay $3000/mth to have a chauffeur.
I'm all for the tech, but it is clearly dual-use...
P.
I must say that being forced from Nokia (N900,N8,N9) to an android (Moto-E LTE) felt a touch inevitable.
Nokia hardware is very good (except crab usb charging for N900).
When Micro$oft bought nokia my phones stopped working properly due to "updates". I don't know if this some internal decision to get us all to buy the Win-landfill-fone, but from my sample of 2 it certainly looks that way...
The Moto-E comes with Android 5.0.2 (soon to be lollipop). It took 2 days to turn off all the notifications, and to install "f-droid" and other FOSS apps. Chatsecure, Textsecure, Redphone etc and a 64GB SDXC card.
$149. Not landfill, but quad-core, 1.5 days battery and so not bad.
P.
PS I do miss the Nokia Sleeping screens on the N8 and N9. OLED is so luscious...
LINPACK is reported as double-precision, which is why Nvidia doesn't talk about it. At 0.2 TFlops it is pretty poor.
I have a few Intel MICs and they all do 2xSP for 1DP so a much more balanced arch. YMMV of course.
They could have made wider memory since there are fewer texture units (which I think carry very fast memory), a 512 bit bus would greatly help utility.
P.
This is one reason why I am a FOSS fanboi. Not because it is more secure, but because it *can* be secured in a reasonable time.
If you sell me a binary blob, the company is liable for security.
If I have the source code, I at least have the choice to PAY for security. Of course,
If the liability for bad and accidental security flaws (I believe there is a distinction) were more significant, perhaps more resources would be spent to actual check code?
Does this sound workable?
P.
I trust the maths.
The software less so.
The govt , not really much. Not because of malign intent (though there is certainly some of it), but due to the general competence of large organisations.
If everything was encrypted and law enforcement were forced to use their brains and legal means(not the current illegal shortcuts), perhaps the orgy of human rights abuse would be stemmed a bit. I would hope anyway....
And further to the maths point, RSA is not provably difficult, just no demonstrated algorithm has been discovered.
As with all things in science, solving a problem in one area may lead to the solution in another...
P.
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