Posts by Not also known as SC

Elon Musk's galactic ego sows chaos in European politics

Re: Context

Sorry. Is this better?

Big brains divided over training AI with more AI: Is model collapse inevitable?

Re: "it behaves effectively as if it had only been trained on an n-fraction of original data"

It's on arxiv.org.

If this link doesn't work or is blocked, visit Arxiv.org, change the search to Computer Science and search for the paper title.

Tale of Tails: Model Collapse as a Change of Scaling Laws https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.07043

The other papers mentioned :

The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget. : https://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.17493

Is Model Collapse Inevitable? Breaking the Curse of Recursion by Accumulating Real and Synthetic Data. : https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.01413

The inevitability of the Windows 11 UI: New Notepad enters the beta channel

Re: Is it going to end up like windows 8?

Well I 'upgraded' to Windows 11 over Christmas and hated it so much I started running Linux Mint off a USB stick, planning on dual booting once I got around to it. Luckily I then discovered the 10 day grace period where you can regress back to Windows 10 and keep your data. Currently I'm on Win 10 until I get around to setting up the dual boot.

So life changing experience - discovering how much worse a Windows OS can be.

Heart attack victim 'saved' by defibrillator delivery drone*

Re: Know the defibrillator's box code!

You don't use AEDs for heart attacks! They are completely different from cardiac arrests.

https://www.aedleader.com/when-not-to-use-defibrillator/

The Person is Suffering From a Heart Attack

It’s common to confuse a heart attack with cardiac arrest, but these are completely different conditions with different protocols. A heart attack is a plumbing issue while cardiac arrest is an electrical issue. An automated external defibrillator will not help a heart attack victim; on the contrary, it may put them in greater danger.

The good news is that it’s easy to tell the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest. If the person is in pain but still breathing and responsive, it’s most likely a heart attack. If the person is unresponsive and not breathing, you’re probably dealing with cardiac arrest.

Google joins others in Big Tech: Get vaccinated – or you're fired

Re: Illogical policy

This post does highlight the inconsistency of mandating a vaccine but not testing which unfortunately gives the anti-vaxxers an opening in their on-going attempts to persuade everyone else not to get vaccinated.

I'm fully vaccinated with three jabs. I can still catch Covid and be highly infectious. A non-vaccinated individual who does not have Covid will be less infectious than I am. A vaccine passport / requirement to be vaccinated does not make me less infectious or the non-vaccinated individual more infectious. The only way to decide which of us is 'safest' is to test us both. If it is a company policy that staff must be vaccinated then fine, but don't think that eliminates the need for testing. If companies are going to use vaccination status only to decide if someone is safe, then that could lead to an infection outbreak which the anti-vaxxers will seize onto with both hands and give them the chance to persuade others not to get jabbed.

TL:DR; Test as well as vaccinate.

Sir Clive Sinclair: Personal computing pioneer missed out on being Britain's Steve Jobs

I learnt to program on a ZX-81 as well. Sir Clive is responsible for where I am now too. RIP.

AMD promises to spend $1.6bn on 12nm, 14nm chips from GlobalFoundries

Re: Explanation

Thanks all.

Explanation

Could some one explain in simple terms about the difference in these sizes? I take it, that we are talking about the distance between components (not thickness) so is 14 nm better than 12 nm or is it the other way around? Assuming that 12 is better than 14 is the advantage just higher component density?

Tesla Autopilot is a lot dumber than CEO Musk claims, says Cali DMV after speaking to the software's boss

Re: Is the market voting with its feet?

Why does this conjure images of a robotic Hyacinth Bucket?

Working from home on Virgin Media's broadband? Too bad. Outage hits English capital

"there's always free to call customer services and polite requests for a little compensation"

You don't even need to do that. Just visit your account page and click the service link to register that you have a loss of service (assuming you have mobile data) and if the outage last more than a certain amount of time you will be automatically credited.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Black hole quasar tsunamis moving at 46 million miles per hour

Re: Mindboggingly fast

Officially it should be 685.9186 % of the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html

Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees

Excellent. Thank you.

How on earth do the pilots get into their seats? Do they slide back past the centre console or does the chair pivot to the side? There doesn't look much room for either motion.

It's been one day since Blighty OK'd Huawei for parts of 5G – and US politicians haven't overreacted at all. Wait, what? Surveillance state commies?

Maybe this is the first step to a trade deal with China?

This episode of Black Mirror sucks: London cops boast that facial-recog creepycams will be on the streets this year

Effectiveness?

I understand the 98% false positive comment in the article but how good is this technology with actual wanted suspects. If 100 wanted people were scanned how many would this system expect to identify? Is it any more effective than a police officer looking at photos (excluding the scaling aspect)?

A sprinkling of Star Wars and a dash of Jedi equals a slightly underbaked Rise Of Skywalker

Good Popcorn Movie

and my sons and I really enjoyed it, although when a certain planet was mentioned I did silently swear to my self but luckily my fears came to nothing except for a brief moment at the end of the film.

'Ethical' hackers say: It's just hacker. To be one is no longer a bad thing

Hackers v Crackers?

I thought that they already had the term cracker for the bad 'uns and hackers were the good guys / gals???

Creators Update meets its maker: It's 1903 or bust for those clinging to Windows 10 1703

Re: What's My Line

or you can type in winver in the search bar.

Virtual inanity: Solution to Irish border requires data and tech not yet available, MPs told

Re: An alternative solution

That's what happened where I live.

Re: An alternative solution

"Obviously the UKIP-loving retirees from Brum who settled in what they consider to be the far-west English Midlands were a factor, "

Do you have figures to back this up? Every Welsh county except Cardif, The Vale of Glamorgan, Ceredigion, Gwynedd voted to leave. I don't think that even the most moronic UKIP Brummie (Birmingham voted 50.4% leave,49.6% remain) would think that Conwy (54% leave, 46% remain) is the far west of the English Midlands (although now I think about it they might, maybe that is why the margin was so narrow in Birmingham?). If you are going to insult any one please stick to those who deserve it - the South East :-)

Re: An alternative solution

I agree with what you're saying. My area voted leave, depends massively on the EU and will be one of the hardest hit areas by a no deal Brexit.

Re the 'research', I was just commenting on that because It seems to be fashionable at the moment to blame the English voters for everything Brexit related (I'm Scots but live in England) even though only a minority of the electorate (although a majority of those who turned out) voted leave. This is especially true of comments made by Welsh and Scottish nationalists who seem to behave as if everyone in England voted to leave, while conveniently forgetting that sizeable parts of their populations voted leave as well. Then this 'research' was published saying that although Wales voted to leave, it was the fault of the English.

Re: An alternative solution

This analysis is a little suspect because it makes a distinction between natural born Welsh and people who just live there, i.e. English people who have made it their home, and blames the English 'incomers'.

People living in Welsh constituencies voted to leave, if they are Welsh, or not, makes very little difference, because it is still their home.Wales still voted leave.

Re: Lying in the Chamber

"I'm sure Mr. Johnson is only too well aware that no technology actually exists --- but with British Ingenuity unleashed by leaving from under the thumb of our tyrannical European Masters, it will be sorted in time for Christmas"

This is the bit I could never understand. The backstop, so abhorrent to the DUP and ERG, would only come into play if no alternative solution was found. So if this technology is just around the corner why all the fuss about the backstop?

MacOS wakes to a bright Catalina sunrise – and broken Adobe apps

Re: 'Trash' is gone

Does any one know if this is the case for all English language variants or just something special for those of us who speak non US English?

Boris Brexit bluff binds .eu domains to time-bending itinerary

Re: Government Advice and Actions

"We simply couldn't stop a huge swathe of measures the EU insisted on but were extremely unpopular in the UK."

Such as?

Re: Yes, EU Minister

@Jake,

Sadly I must admit that as my wife is Belgian I do spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about naked Belgians. :-)

I spent ages trying to remember the correct spelling, bear or bare and then guessed. I will try to do better next time. Please find an upvote to your credit.

Re: Yes, EU Minister

If spoken to in English in Flanders or The Netherlands I always make a point of replying in (my not very good) Dutch. I think most native Dutch speakers are quite pleasantly surprised, especially considering the UK's reputation for 'foreign languages'.

Re: Yes, EU Minister

My wife is Flemish and she has told me the same. In Flanders they rather you speak Dutch badly or English instead of French. (I don't speak French so that isn't a problem for me.) I think you have to bare in mind the fact that most Belgians (ignoring the German speakers as I don't actually know any) either speak French/ English or Dutch/English. Those who are fluent in all three languages are in a minority, so it may be that whoever you are trying to speak to in Bruges doesn't actually speak French (or not since they left school).

Re: Out of curiosity ...

Interesting - two down votes (at the moment) for a non-political, factual statement about a real life use for the .eu domain. No explanations why!

Is it leave voters down voting just because I've expressed remain sentiments in other comments and I mentioned an EU citizen in a positive light?

Is it remain voters because I suggested that an EU citizen gets home sick and doesn't think Blighty is the greatest place on Earth?

Is it astrophysicists because I made a cock-up in a comment the other day about gravitational waves in a different article?

Will I ever find out...

@J2C

I think you're giving Johnson too much credit. He comes across as a short term opportunist looking only as his own advancement. Threatening a hard / no-deal Brexit is just his way of trying to convince Brexit party members to vote Tory in the next election. The Conservatives are apparently more worried than Labour seem to be about having their vote split (and don't give two monkeys about their remain voting supporters). Remember Johnson is supposed to have written two columns for the paper he was a columnist for; one arguing for remaining in the EU, and one against staying. Johnson doesn't really seem to care which we do as long as it comes across as the most politically expedient.

Re: Good luck with that

I think very few people voted to leave as they couldn't change EU law. I would suspect more used it as a protest vote against austerity than about the legislative structure of the EU.

Re: Out of curiosity ...

A friend and his wife uses one. She is from one of the EU27 nations and has never really felt at home in the UK despite living in the UK for at least thirty years. I don't think she can get one for her home nation, so the EU domain helps her maintain a bit more of a connection with her homeland.

Re: Government Advice and Actions

But inside the EU the UK could negotiate with other EU governments to get changes made and direct the EU from a position of power. Ultimately the UK government has a veto (as do other member states). Once outside we have no say and if we want to trade with the EU will have to accept whatever rules they decide to enforce upon us. Better to be a rule maker than a rule follower.

Tetraplegic patient can now move his four limbs with the help of a badass neuroprosthetic suit

Excellent research but who is funding it?

First of all this is excellent progress. Is it too much to hope for that governments (part) fund this sort of research so it can benefit everyone who needs it once main stream technology? The worry I have is if it is carried out solely by private companies it will become a product for the rich only.

Android dev complains of 'Orwellian' treatment as account banned after 6 years on Play store

If the situation is as described in the article and the developer's observations are accurate this does seem a little bit excessive. It seems perfectly reasonable to have a Sony based app, Samsung based app, etc if these companies use different approaches to how their remote work. Google really need to provide a mechanism to appeal their decisions.

*Disclaimer I have wasted hours trying to get third party URCs to work so anything that makes this easier for people is good with me.

The immovable object versus the unstoppable force: How the tech boys club remains exclusive

Re: Misguided

Two angles to this.

The environmental message and the girl herself.

I don't have any problem with people disagreeing with her message. That is called debate. What I have problems with is when it turns into personal attacks on, what is after all, just a child.

Re: Misguided

"I see the same fear when Trump, Clarkson et al. mock a sixteen year old girl for calling them out on their world view. It's frankly embarrassing."

Is this mocking because they are men or just because they are total tossers? How many men support the girl and don't mock her?

Watch out! Andromeda, the giant spiral galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way, has devoured several galaxies before

Re: Could it be?

However the stars have been around a significantly longer period of time than 50,000 years so if gravity does travel, it would already be at those stars and they would already be attracted to the 'black hole'. As Andromeda and The Milky Way are being attracted towards each other gravity must already exist between them. In fact Astrophysicists recognise structures called galaxy clusters which contain thousands of galaxies all of which are gravitationally bound to each other. 50,000 light years is quite insignificant in terms of those distances.

You also get superclusters in which the galaxy clusters are not gravitationally bound so that suggests there is a limit to how far gravity can impact something. However as we can observe these superclusters from a greater distance than their component clusters then gravity, if it travels either loses most of its strength in that distance, or travels a lot slower than the speed of light.

Re: Could it be?

There are three possible final states for the Universe. Expand at a steady constant rate, expand at an ever increasing rate, or the rate of expansion eventually slows down and once it stops, the Universe collapses in on itself. The models require large quantities of dark matter and dark energy to replicate what is being observed and are further complicate by the fact that the relative proportions of dark matter and energy to 'normal' matter and energy have varied over the life of the Universe. So although the rate of expansion is currently increasing it may not always continue to do so depending upon how these ratios change.

I think your theory (ever increasing rate) is known as the entropic heat death of the Universe (while the contraction is the big crunch).

Microsoft has made an Android phone. Repeat, Microsoft has made an Android phone. A dual-screen foldable mobe not due until late 2020

Data Slurping?

So who will be slurping the user's data? Microsoft with Windows 10 style telemetry, Google, or both?

This won't end well. Microsoft's AI boffins unleash a bot that can generate fake comments for news articles

Re: The comments it generates are short

Nooooooooooooooooo!

Re: If you could try *not* breaking the Internet

@Jake,

I've only just read this article and can't see anything wrong with your comments so I'm going to up vote you because I agree that bots won't break the internet. They might break parts of the internet, for instance social media etc, but that will just be the internet evolving.

Gearheads get their spudgers into an iPhone 11 Pro Max: Bi-lateral charging, anyone?

Agree about Otterbox. I've dropped my iPhone 8 numerous times (falling out of shirt pockets, holding coat upside down etc) onto concrete surfaces from heights of a metre plus. There isn't a mark on my phone although my Otterbox is quite scuffed.

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

Re: No accurate bills

If your gas is so high have you checked that the meter reading and billing units are the same? When I moved house into the one with the smart meter I gave the reading as xxxx kwh (as that was on the IHD) and they billed it as cubic metres (or vice versa) which gave me a gas bill way higher than it should have been. It was only when they went to treble my DD payment I realised what had happened.

Re: In-House Displays

Funny you should say that - ours is in a draw.

Finally! A solution to 42 – the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything

This has got to be the most important reason.

Look, we know it feels like everything's going off the rails right now, but think positive: The proton has a new radius

Empty space

So if a proton is 0.8e-16m and a hydrogen atom is 5e-11m that means that the proton only takes up about 4e-13 % of the volume of the atom. That's a lot of empty space.

Today in tortured tech analogies: Mozilla lets Firefox loose in the hen house, and by hen house, we mean the tracking cookie jar, er...

Re: Targeted advertising?

My wife gets it a lot. She will look at shoes (sorry but this is true) on one web site and five minutes

later Facebook is full of shoe adverts.

Re: How does a third equal single figures?

Doesn't netmarketshare use advertising data to calculate the ratios of browsers? Assuming that most FF users also install NoScript that might explain why the FF figures are so low? Or maybe FF is just really unpopular after all?

Welsh police use of facial recog tech – it's so 'lawful', rules High Court

Re: Would I be right....

"Covering your face in a 'facial recognition zone' will become illegal."

Isn't that effectively the case with things like crash helmets and hoodies in some locations where CCTV is used (banks, shops, petrol stations etc)? If it is similar then any such law as you've suggested would be so easy to introduce.

To be honest I'm less worried about the authorities,who you have to trust at some point, but more about if this technology is then made legal in general. Can you imagine the exploitation advertisers would come up with?