Posts by Roj Blake

Why Chromebooks are the new immortals of tech

Data

Yeah, Chromebooks are great, until you remember that Google likes grabbing as much data as it can.

Scientists suggest possible solution to space-induced bone loss

From the article:

"Burlington, Massachusetts-based Bone Biologics - appears to have reached the point of doing human clinical trials using NELL-1 to treat degenerative disk disease in a pilot program in Australia"

World's most powerful free-electron laser upgraded to fire a million X-rays per second

Enough about the laser...

...I want to know about the shark that carries it.

UK civil servants – hopefully including those spending billions on tech – to skill up in STEM

Re: You need some economics input

You mean like when Liz Truss made Dr Kwasi Kwarteng her Chancellor?

These days you can teach old tech a bunch of new tricks

Re: A first?

Everyone knows that the correct spelling is Windows? Meh.

NASA rockets draining its pockets as officials whisper: 'We can't afford this'

Re: Please, ell me another one, that one was hilarious

And what's the benefit to the French economy of having a rail network that actually works?

More than €17Bn, I'd wager.

Grant Shapps named UK defense supremo in latest 'tech-savvy' Tory tale

Re: How much lower...

Well put it this way...

The Tories know they're losing the next election. Many of them know that they'll be losing their seats as well.

That gives them a year to cosy up to every dodgy enterprise available in the hope of getting a lucrative job in 2025.

Re: Question

You mean the Diane Abbott who as a working-class black woman got into Cambridge in the early 70s, but who on one occasion got a number wrong while on the verge of a diabetic coma?

That Diane Abbott?

"We will enable the release of government datasets"

This is one policy the Tories have succeeded in enacting, if the recent police database breaches are anything to go by.

IBM shows off its sense of humor in not-so-funny letter leak

Wang

Wang did their "Wang Cares" marketing campaign back in the day, although that particular joke may not have been intentional.

Last rites for the UK's Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it's dead

Re: Not holding my breath

Or it could be that central Oxford has a street plan that dates back hundreds of years and is completely unsuitable for modern cars.

It's not just spin – boffins give quantum computing a room-temp makeover

Re: "difficult to implement on today's error-prone machines"

I think it's referring to today's error-prone quanrtum machines...

Florida Man and associates indicted for conspiracy to steal data, software

Re: Election Integrity

The rules are set up so that it's easier for old people to use their ID than young people.

For example, a Senior Citizen's Railcard can be used as ID at the polling station, but a Young Person's Railcard cannot.

It's pure coincidence that older people are more likely to vote Tory of course, and the same would have applied to the Brexit referendum.

Worst superhero name ever.

Re: This is the most problematic indictment for him, by far

It makes him not guilty of murder.

X-rated auction sells last vestiges of pre-Musk Twitter

Re: An Epic location?

I wager a hundred Quatloos on the newcomer

Palantir lobbied UK pensions department for its software to tackle fraud

"Reduce fraud in the social security benefits system"

It's worth pointing out that the amount of fraud in the benefits system is lower than:

* The amount lost to HMRC through tax evasion

* The amount of benefits left unclaimed

Five Eyes nations detail dirty dozen most exploited vulnerabilities

Five Eyes List...

...the exploits that are already in the public domain rather than the ones they're the only people who know about and are actively exploiting.

Lawrence Livermore lab repeats fusion breakthrough – yep, still kinda works

Re: A question

Yes

We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'

Re: If you were unfairly trreated...

It would be the court who decides whether or not you were treated fairly.

Musky isn't offering to pay anything until after the court says the dismissal was unfair - and if they do decide that was the case, your former employer would foot the bill anyway.

So either way, he doesn't have to pay.

Twitter name and blue bird logo to be 'blowtorched' off company branding

Bird is the word.

Weird radio pulses could be coming from new type of stellar object

I'm not saying it's aliens...

but it's definitely aliens

Microsoft kicks Calibri to the curb for Aptos as default font

Re: "Hu8manisr" is a Term de Jour in Typography

It's Johnston that TfL uses, not Johnson.

As such, we can all rest assured that it has nothing to do with Alexander Boris de Pfeffel.

This AI is better than you at figuring out where a street pic was taken just by looking at it

Re: Sigh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2WVu6A-Fvw

Chipotle welcomes you to the age of robot guacamole

Re: ......."frequently Dud".

It's no more egregious than Budweiser producing beer that's nothing like actual budweiser.

This Won't End Well

"Hi, I'm Autocado! Would you like some guacamole?"

"No"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"What about some avocado toast?"

"No! I don't want avocado soup, avocado smoothie, or avocado salad either!"

"Oh! So you you're more of an avocado sandwich type! Coming right up!"

Another challenger to OpenAI? OK, we'll allow it

Re: An overlooked aspect

Those holes you can paint onto the side of a mountain using Acme paint would certainly help The Boring Company.

Producers allegedly sought rights to replicate extras using AI, forever, for just $200

Re: "address concerns of being replaced by AI"

You're assuming that it hasn't already happened.

It would certainly explain the current trend for Hollywood churning derivative dross.

Intel pulls plug on mini-PC NUCs

The Best Thing About NUCs...

...was the way the Intel tune played when you opened up the box they came in.

Someone at work once took out the chip responsible and put it a mug at the back of a cupboard in the office kitchen, with hilarious consequences.

UK government's newest department to lead mega ERP procurement

Re: Oh my.....

It's Michelle Donelan, whose achievements include a BA in Politics and History and speaking at the Tory conference when she was just 15.

India's space agency set to launch lunar lander, rover

Re: nothing worthwhile on the moon to bother with

Well, there's lots of helium-3 up there and according to a documentary I once saw, some interesting local fauna that exists by harvesting soup from wells.

OpenAI is still banging on about defeating rogue superhuman intelligence

"The San Francisco AI startup"

Can they really be described as a startup when they were founded in 2015?

From cage fight to page fight: Twitter threatens to sue Meta after Threads app launch

Re: what's the biggest different in data privacy/security between UK and EU?

The EU actually bothers to enforce the rules.

UK's proposed alt.GDPR will turn Britain into a 'test lab' for data harvesting

Re: Freedom

Don't forget the blue passports that we could have had anyway!

Oh, great. Yet another tech billionaire thinks he can get microblogging right

Re: What's in a name?

If anyone ever convinces me to join this Threads thing, my avatar will be the traffic warden with the bandaged face.

Experts scoff at UK Lords' suggestion that AI could one day make battlefield decisions

Re: What about AI camouflage?

Not relevant, as Fenwick famously only launches invasions when the enemy are all in their shelters for an air-raid drill.

Virgin Galactic finally gets its first paying customers to edge of space

Re: Bets

But they can build this dream together, standing strong forever, nothing's gonna stop them now

Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office

Re: I went into the office for 40 years

"Am I so out of touch? No! It's the children who are wrong."

- Principal S. Skinner

Google asks websites to kindly not break its shiny new targeted-advertising API

Topics

All this talk of Topics has given me a craving for delicious chocolate bars filled with hazelnuts, caramel, and nougat.

Dialup-era developer writes ChatGPT client for Windows 3.1

Re: One question

According to ChatGPT, "The first CD writer for PCs was introduced by several companies around 1994-1995."

So they just about fitted into the 3.11 era. Internal ones cost $200 to $500, so they weren't cheap.

If you want a big brain, make a habit out of daytime naps

Cause and Effect

So is this really a case of napping helping brains to stay large, or is it because people with big brains need more naps?

Mega-data platform worth half a billion will suck in info from family doctors

Seems Legit

I'm sure we have no reason to distrust any minister from the party of Boris Johnson when they give us assurances that the rules will be followed at all times.

MIT discovery suggests a new class of superconductors

Re: Hey Boffins

Lanthanum decahydride can superconduct at around 250K.

The main reason why it's not everywhere is that the effect only happens at 170GPa of pressure.

North Korea created very phishy evil twin of Naver, South Korea's top portal

Re: Does NK not have something better to do

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

- Benjamin Franklin

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Re: Human Populations Are Not Quantised!

Humans are discrete units. You can't have half a person.

So human populations are absolutely quantised.

I'll Be There

In my view, the only people allowed to use the phrase "reach out" are the Four Tops.

How do you boost server efficiency? Buy new kit, keep it busy

"Servers can account for more than half the energy consumption"

This is a good thing, as it indicates that they're being cooled efficiently.

Scientists claim >99 percent identification rate of ChatGPT content

Re: Lost in translation does not equate to a disturbance in the force and source ‽ .

Here's the proof that generative AI has improved vastly over the last couple of months - an amanfromMars 1 post that's almost intelligible.

UK government proposes legislation to regulate umbrella companies

Umbrella Companies

And here was me thinking that the main problem was when they start doing dodgy research and end up accidentally causing the zombie apocalypse