Posts by MonkeyCee 1262 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2013
It's a few years back, but Elon did ask how much it would cost to solve world hunger.
People who care about these things made a decent plan, ballpark price 6 billion.
Rightho says Elon, "donates" 6 billion in stock to his charity (tax benefit, but still has stock under his control) and says he'll solve it.
Charity sits there, donating the minimum each year to maintain it's charitable status, sitting on the stock.
Elon gets appointed to Lord of Breaking Things in the Most Expensive Way Possible, decides to make world hunger worse instead.
The spectacle of one of the worlds richest men taking money away from the poorest people in order to pay to for tax breaks is obscene.
As a cook these days, who the hell is boiling eggs en masse?
Stick them in the steamer for seven minutes and then cool. How rapidly you cool determines how squidgy the yolk is. Boiling water is medieval ;)
The reward for making a great batch of soft boiled eggs is usually having to make another batch and have the boss grumble about it. See also fresh baked bread, pastry and fresh cut fruit.
At least in some parts, tea and coffee is a legal requirement.
Often in small places it's just a fridge, kettle and supplies.
There's some American style companies that supply their staff with food and beverages on the understanding that the staff stay in the office all day rather than pop off to the shops. Usually do soup, sandwiches and salads and they tend to have lunch together.
It's seen as a way to streamline communication and build company spirit/loyalty, and it's seen as lower cost and organic rather than spending time and money on seagull managers.
Mate, I understand the point you're trying to make, but it certainly doesn't apply in this case.
"The article clearly articulates that the student didn't cite any of the output of the AI, nor did they quote it."
It jolly well doesn't, because I suspect that the author actually read some of the court papers cited.
The student admitted to using ChatGPT and Grammerly.
"RNH recounted that he used an AI tool to generate ideas and shared that he also created portions of his notes and scripts using the AI tool. RNH discussed using Grammarly, and indicated that he pasted sections from Grammarly into the Google document. "
"RNH explained his process for generating his script and described the specific prompt that he put into the chat bot."
"Hoey indicated that much of the research notes and first draft script were generated with AI technology and passed off as RNH’s own."
The student and parents also didn't appeal the decision with the school, which would have been the normal course of action.
The student had also been on a course specifically about correct essay technique, including using and citing AI.
To be fair there's only really a couple of cookbooks per cuisine that are worth it, then a few more decent ones with many of the same recipes made more accessible, and then a zillion repeating the same.
For example, Larousse Gastonomique and your choice of an Escoffier will cover pretty much everything classical French and much Northern European, but will assume you already know how to actually cook, and what specific terms mean. There also built and costed like textbooks. Delia Smith will cover much of the same ground, but hold your hand while doing so, and be more reasonable price.
Most other cookbooks are, broadly, junk. Certainly compared to cooking forums and discussion groups.
There's a few where it's mostly junk, but there's a few gems. The Fat Duck is one of those, where there's some nice detailled stuff on setting agar and xanthium for plating sauces, a proper OCD detailing of making the perfect chips (which should be published by itself) and a bunch of BS :D
I have come across this in a variety of fields, recruiters and HR types seem to only appreciate the skills and attitude of fellow HRs, they often view independence of thought and action as positively dangerous.
One of my references has the line "while Mark does not always follow the letter of the rules, he always obeys the spirit of them". Without fail, recruiters HATE it, and want me to use another referee. Almost without fail, hiring managers quote me that line as why they decided to hire me.
In a similar vein, I've known several managers who get HR to sort the resumes for a job application, and then select candidates from the reject pile :)
I'm very much on board with Cavil Cain :D
There's decent material to work with, both one off and serial adventures, there's plenty of blank canvas to work with, and it's already structured in a way that introduces the universe without being too crazy.
It's also damn funny.
I'm not really interested in Astates(tm) stuff. Make great anime IMHO.
If they go something original, then doing a cowboy bebop/firefly style rogue trader could be fun.
Oh, and the infinite and divine, with a movie length final episode please. "No, I brought five" :)
"Did you ever hear the story of the hundred year lightbulb? It's great conspiracy theory/urban myth where somebody managed to buy up and disappear patents."
It's more the lightbulb companies getting together and deciding to all deliberately reduce the life of their bulbs. With fines paid by companies making longer lasting products to other members of the cartel.
Designed obsolescence is nothing new, you don't need any sort of conspiracy for that.
HP Laserjet 3, 4 and 5 series are the best. Utter tanks. There was a LJ4 that had flipped it's page counter at least three times and still kept chugging along.
They were both the best HP products, because they were great, and worst, because they didn't die.
The modern clones are not as good (plastic instead of metal gears etc) but are still nice solid machines. Brother does some, I'm sure there are others.
The HP4 really should win some design award :D
In general, unless you have a very specific need, inkjets are a waste of money.
A mono laser is about 40 bucks new, and should be plug and play (may have to check with current PrinterSpoolerMadness).
Colour lasers are nice, if you want that sort of thing.
Inkjets are just money makers. Check out most stores: 100 inkjets, 2 laser printers. Guess which one they make their money on :D
Even if you need a proper inkjet, it's often cheaper to outsource your printing to a professional shop.
Just to note, it does look like it was an actual bitcoin farm, as compared to GPU or other ASIC farms. Since a lot of times BTC = crypto in the media, it's nice to have them be accurate for once.
There's a couple of pictures up, a close up of a couple of units that are labeled S9, and look like Antminer S9's. Larger shot of about 60 units.
S9 should bang out 2-3 quid a day, while eating 30 kWh. For comparison, that's my entire mining setup (~50 per day) for a single unit. My PV array does about 60kWh, before I get the hair shirt chest beaters.
What I'm curious about is how so much power (50-100 kW units) can be drawn without the power company noticing. Then again, they will insist blind that meters are correct, even when they clearly are bonkers.
One? Belgium could lose three governments and still function. For a certain value of function.
Things not working and working are the order of the day. Well, chaos of the day :)
It has seven governments, of equal standing. A marvel of witlof social engineering ;)
I grew up in the UK countryside. There were plenty of work guns around on farms, and you never messed with them. I'm not sure exactly how it was spelled out, but you got to use them in a controlled setting, you didn't just help yourself to them. Like power tools, or a vehicle. Shooting rats is quite fun for kids :D
Both of those places have pretty tame wildlife. You can leave your dogs outside.
There are plenty of places in the US where, as I understand it, the local wildlife is a little more testy. In general, I'm inclined to listen to the people who live on a farm on how best to deal with it. Be that on firearm safety or child labour :)
Is this a particular state in Oz?
s 10.4(2) of the Criminal Code 1994 (Cth):
A person carries out conduct in self-defence if, and only if, he or she believes the conduct is necessary:
to defend himself or herself or another person; or
to prevent or terminate the unlawful imprisonment of himself or herself or another person; or
to protect property from unlawful appropriation, destruction, damage or interference; or
to prevent criminal trespass to any land or premises; or
to remove from any land or premises a person who is committing criminal trespass.
@Hague - The point is that you're supposed to stay at home.
The provision to "do exercise" means you can leave your home for a walk/run/bike, for health and all that. It doesn't mean "go for a walk" a la the middle classes, where you drive to the Walking Place and go for a stroll.
Either you're getting essentials or going to work. Other than that, stay home, go outside in a private area if you have one, so the poor buggers who don't can use the nearby public areas.
I'm a climber. It's perfect climbing weather. I could get into my local gym for a sneaky climb. But I don't go and do it, because STAY THE FUCK AT HOME.
@AC - Bollocks, Corbyn's skill lies in his ability to hold his seat and the leadership of the labour party whilst being unelectable due to a combination of how he is portrayed, how he reacts to that, and who he actually is.
He would rather be in charge of labour and them never be in government than step back and let someone more palatable run.
I mean, I agree with him on many areas politically, but even I have so many doubts. Same deal with Hillary Clinton. The debate has been poisoned before it began, it sucks, but a decade of slowly dripping poison will kill a politician's mass appeal.
That Cummings exit is magnificent. Totally made my day. Had the Benny Hill music playing over it in my head.
"A client couldn't find one who could do the work in a reasonable timeframe"
Or wasn't prepared to cough up.
I currently work as a housekeeper for a big (20k staff) cleaning company . Hotels are all closing, so our usual 18 FTE team is currently 2. Which tomorrow includes me.
There are about thirty five people on the teams, and everyone has as much work as they can handle if they are prepared to clean hospitals, police stations and various other public areas. A number of these contracts have been classified as required for the emergency. So if the cleaning company has to fill these roles first.
So much like the bog rolls and rice, almost all the normal cleaners are already booked and paid for. Plus if you're doing it yourself, you can use products that are not safe for us to use daily.
"I regularly have to correct the grammar in both English and German for native speakers. "
General observation, speaking a language like a native, rather than fluently, means you speak it "wrong" in the right way. Hence why written language is trickier (and requires more formal grammar) than spoken, since you can't just miss out certain words and get the point across.
Same way there are several different versions of English (British, American, Indian) that are mutually intelligible, conversationally similar, but when written start to differ more, due to the "higher" level grammar rules, such as structuring arguments, different levels of formality etc.
So exactly what is and isn't correct grammar differs by context and culture.
Since I'm usually the native speaker on a projects, I tend to view it as clarification rather than correction. Especially when it's getting the tone of a piece right.
"Smartwatch owners love their calorie-counting gadgets, but they are verrry expensive"
I did sort of miss any mention of that in the actual article. Not sure why you'd use a watch, since taking a photo of everything you eat works quite well.
It's the same way a food diary helps by the fact you actually pay attention to what you shove down your gob :D
These days I'm moving enough that I can use the traditional one of how hungry I am. Plus all climbers eat like hobbits :D
"If this shirt delivers on its promise without any showstopper-sized downside, I'll be in the market."
They already exist, give a wee google. 30-45 euro a pop, labfresh and underarmour are pretty good.
Personally I go for thick cotton ones, wear them for half a day, hang dry and biff them in the freezer. If I'm outside and sweaty then merino, but they are not a cheap option. Plus if keeping warm is an issue, then smelling of sweat isn't.
Then again, these days I do housekeeping, where everyone is sweating by 1300, and bouldering, where everyone is sweaty.
For me the obvious red flag is "why are they selling me anything?"
If you have something that another person (Monster or Coke in this instance) will pay $23 for, why would you sell it for less? If you need funding to actually create the product, great. But then any buyout offer is bollocks.
As for money refunding, I've given that promise to people giving me seed/angel capital. But as a personal guarantee to make them right, rather than part of the investment. I've certainly sold shares at $10 each that were later bought out for $100+, along with ones that ended up being worth $0.0001. I couldn't promise either result at the time. Certainly never sold shares for $3 that I was expecting to get $23 for....
Plenty of investment schemes are just there to fleece people who are bad at math.
I'll go to the counter or the screen depending which queue is shorter. Main advantage of the screen is tha if you know what you want, you can get it through nice and quick.
Biggest issue for me is that people are SLOW on the screens. Like look through the menu twice kind of thing.
Admittedly BK can usually just ask "how many cheeseburgers today?" for 99% of my orders :)
"I wouldn't fancy being hit by that as a fleshy pedestrian."
It's a truck. Even getting tapped by a tractor that's not hauling anything isn't going to be good for a meatbag. If it's hauling something then it's going to be worse. The cab is designed to allow to driver to survive when if it hits something at 60mph with 100+tons. Do not step in front of it. Don't pull in front of it and brake.
Fortunately they are in the main driven by professional drivers, who take proper care and attention, who will lose their livelihood if they have a stupid accident. Thus they are, in general, less danger to pedestrians than your average car or van. Pedo guy obviously isn't a professional driver, so is probably more dangerous. Especially as using the tractor to go out to eat is.... weird.
"mental health isn't a subject for ridicule"
I actually read it as gallows humour. It's about the only way you can talk about it sometimes. Even just acknowledging that other people also genuinely think "Fuck it, I'm done" and then get on with it can help.
Stoicism is the exception, not the rule. Life sucks, and sometimes there doesn't seem like a way out. In the same way a drowning person just needs to breath but can't by themselves, a person in a depression needs to reach out for emotional support, but can't by themselves.
I've missed the signs, and I've had to bury too many friends who took their own lives.
"Advertisements are a halfway house."
In most jurisdictions, advertising has rules. Yes, they can be misleading, but they can't be outright false.
As an example, Red Bull settled a false advertising claim as the product didn't give anyone wings, and the claims of improvements in concentration are not backed up by evidence.
Since Facebook/Google et al are the ones selling the ad space, then they are liable for not making outright false claims.
@Ian agreed.
While the issue is technically an IT failure, it's really a management failure. Probably starting with doing it on the cheap. Having done a spot of IT admin in K-13, you can solve it by either getting better servers, networking or technical staff.
Often the tech lead is a teacher that kind of took over stuff, with very mixed results. Stupid long log on times (~3 minutes assuming your teaching staff and students are all logging off and on in the same 10 minute window) is clearly an issue with profiles. Mapped drives should be very quick on dedicated hardware.
The staff logging issue is also solved by giving everyone their own device. Or the departments. Or both. Or having a local log in for the smartboard/projector desktop.
There are so many ways of solving it, that the lack of accountability is the issue.
Oh, and if it's a school in NZ, then your BOFH might even be one of the clowns who's IT estate I've had to dissect and rebuild.
"At which point they bring out an organisational chart and say "Precisely where on here does it say you have authority to give me instructions?" "
Typically the answer is "I have no authority to give you instructions. however, these are not my instructions, but the CEO/Board/Army/you boss's instructions, please take it up with them." if they start trying to boss me around, I point out that unless my box in the OC connects directly with theirs, they don't get to boss me around either.
I've said it to a judge, who pretty much doesn't have a boss. Not so much "you will obey" more "if you don't follow these steps, we can't assist you when your email fucks up". Also pointed out he was violating the letter of the law, but that he was the expert on these things.
Also said it a CEO, when he tried to skip the usual channels. Even got an apology for that one, written by his EA who was on leave that week, so he'd been allowed to handle his own correspondence :)
@diodesign <pedant> The logs show the driving software thought she was either a unknown, pedestrian or bike. When it thought it was a bike, it thought it was moving, in the left hand lane </pedant>
Perhaps the changing characteristic is what made it unpredictable, since it seemed to lose the history each time it changed the classification.
Jaywalking is an American thing anyway. Hopefully they'll have a "don't run down pedestrians" mode ofr the rest of the world :)
"However the shares can be used as collateral for loans, which provides a lot of scope to invest elsewhere."
As I understand it, that's pretty much how shares (and investments) generally work.
You buy it as cheap as possible. You never sell it. Ever. You rent it out, you borrow money against it, but never sell.
"At some point I may go back to the venerable Model M I have."
Like all tools, quality really lasts.
There are plenty of modern versions of the model M, pretty much anything built with Cherry keys is good. The knock offs aren't bad either, and you can usually replace WASD and any other high use keys with the genuine article.
Plus having a mechanical is the best way to get yourself a private space in the office,. since no-one wants to listen to you hammer away all day :D
"why do we need so many fking houses??"
Residential land is worth massively more than any other. A lot of what was a walking distance industrial site on the outskirts of town a century or two ago is now part of the town itself.
New industrial sites are built on farmland (lowest value land), and the workers commute there.
Even running an office, it's probably not going to be allowed in certain residential areas.
The cost of rent or mortgage drives the demand for housing.
@ JetSetJim - in the UK, if you are in a vehicle then the cops can require you to prove identity. Not just the driver.
The UK civil service wanted an ID card. It's a very unpopular concept. So in true Sir Humphrey manner, ID is not required, except for purchasing booze, cigarettes, driving, using public transport, opening a bank account, renting property, get a job etc etc.
So in practice the UK has ID cards, but not explicitly. In the same way the UK police are armed, but only voluntarily.
In Belgium you need an ID card to buy booze and fags from vending machines. Which is surprisingly convenient at times :D
@Sir Spoon - I think the point is missed. Once the story is out, that it's not true, but people want it to be, means it will be "true".
So a certain gammy ex British PM, red snappers and rock bands, hamsters and rock stars back passages and so forth are clearly unproven, but pass for accepted truths.
It's more about confirming a persons world view than convincing a skeptic.
40, amicably divorced, own my house outright, one kid.
I learnt how to configure, repair and support PCs because I played games on them. I got my network chops setting up LAN parties. I've gotten countless jobs and customers from gaming connections. I would not have an IT career without gaming connections.
My PFY cut her teeth making minecraft servers on a paper round budget. She put it on her CV. Builds the most reliable boxes. Better than me, but don't tell her I said that.
IT often feels like my hobby turned career. If Elite 2 hadn't required me editing autoexec.bat and config.sys then I'd have never been put in charge of the blinken lights.
"Works in places like Finland"
Or Germany. Or Scotland, for your first degree anyway.
It's almost like education (and property) in the UK is deliberately used to stratify and impoverish society, and that wasn't working well enough, so they kept upping tuition.
Personally I went for the Netherlands. 2k per year tuition, courses taught in English.
@ Det. Evil - Thanks, couldn't be bothered looking up the numbers, but suspected something like this.
Source claims it costs companies $0.10 per Gb.
Based on numbers above:
HP charge $250 for +128Gb = $1.95 per Gb
MS charge $400 for +256Gb and +8Gb RAM. Say $50 for the RAM* so $350 for +256Gb = $1.37 per Gb
Dell (on sale) charge $50 for +256Gb = $0.20 per Gb
Apple charge $200 for +128Gb or +256Gb on 13" and iPads and $400 for +256 on 15", giving $1.56 or $0.78 per Gb
So while only Dell is going competitive on it (given it's a sale price too) Apple Mac Pro and iPad Pro are the next cheapest per Gb upgrades.
* why they don't just chuck it in the base unit too and bump the price by $20-30 I don't know...
"Trendy shiny shiny hipster smartphone on one side
Slave Labour Pain Machine on the other..."
Unfortunately pretty much all technology, clothing and food (and their disposal) in the Western world has it's costs kept down by said SLPM.
There are more slaves now than at any time in history. Convicts are paid a few quid a day for real work.
"Makes you think that some of the EU countries haven't quite grasped what "EU freedom of movement" means."
Makes me think you don't understand freedom of movement, or how immigration is in fact still in control of the UK.
Freedom of movement means the same rules apply to locals as to other EU citizens. In many EU countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium) you have to register with your local municipality. So you can get the exact same catch-22 for a local as well as an immigrant. The UK doesn't do this for the locals, so can't do it to the EU immigrants.
For the Netherlands it goes like this:
In order to have health insurance, you have register at an address
In order to get a job, you need health insurance
In order to rent a place, you need a job
So unless you can plonk down 7 months rent (and fuck yourself out of any rent review) plus deposit, buy a house, or have a place to permanently live (ie you have to be evicted if you don't choose to leave) you're kinda fucked. If you can get a job, the company will usually sort everything for you.
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