Open pod bay doors, HAL
How fitting and nice it is that the one aspect we have managed to reproduce from the vision of AI advanced by Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey is psychosis.
118 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2014
It would seem that you aren't involved in the modern IP game. The name of the game is numbers; companies amass patent portfolios and cross-license them to each other. Nobody has the desire to sit and evaluate 40,000 individual patents for their and haggle over their relative value, so the measure used is one recognizable on any kindergarten playground - the count. You might be surprised at how small an idea can be to be patentable -- the standard at one company I worked at was that any idea that would take over 30 seconds to explain to a colleague met the standard of novelty for filing a patent. With the old IBM system, 3-4 patent filings for $1200 is in line with what a my former company was paying 20-25 years ago for just putting words on a page (a successful patent garnered another bonus). The patent process is expensive, and not every little idea merits the protection of that sledgehammer, so the company can buy some cheap insurance by publishing the idea to establish prior art.
This game was a nice side-hustle for engineers. At that other company 20-25 years ago, a group could go to lunch and come back with a couple of ideas, type them up, and get a quick $600. Not all ideas are going to create the next $100 billion industry, and most ideas are not going to recoup the cost of filing for a patent (unless you are trying to cross-license your patent portfolio to Microsoft); most of the "innovations" were worth about what the company paid for them.
--"We have to put over to the people who are developing [weapons systems]: is there a way of essentially ring-fencing, some code or whatever it might be, that couldn't be amended … that would essentially set boundaries to how an autonomous system learn and evolve and evolve on their own … something that would put boundaries to how it might operate?" he asked the Lords.--
It sure sounds to me as if the gentleman is looking for The Three Laws of Robotics.
When I was at university, Dave Gifford introduced me to the concept of a "Least Publishable Unit," and explained how in academia, publication was the name of the game. He referenced this in respect to some absolutely brilliant paper by Butler Lampson, noting that the number of LPUs in the paper was almost off the charts and that someone less secure in their position could have strung out the ideas in the paper through a dozen different publications. I would fully expect that as smart people get better at gaming the system, the average content of a paper or patent hyperbolically approaches the LPU, and so each individual paper/patent is almost insignificant, but in aggregate, something more interesting emerges.
Sure, I _can_ do it, but _should_ I?
It is always great to see paperless systems reverting to paper (not).
This is in the category of printing out E-mail for The Boss, and is just barely less fanciful than putting the Internet on a CD for Jen.
El Reg doesn't offer Moss or Roy as icons!?!?!?!
One odd thing I'm seeing in my server logs. Over half of the door-knocking probes for the Log4Shell problem seem to be coming from obvious white-hats, presumably looking for bug bounties/honoraria. I'm actually struck by how competitive that market seems to be.
Is anyone else seeing a similar trend?
I will dispute your last point. IBM still has brand recognition and a reputation (deserved or not) for being selective, so it attracts top talent in India -- for two to five years. With a stint at IBM on the CV, that person can then find a job almost anywhere and command a high salary.
I'm not sure I understand the plan here. This isn't a ransomware attack, so the NRA's computer infrastructure is still functioning.
Generally, the threat to release documents implies that there is something in the documents that may be illegal or shameful. The NRA's legal woes have been documented, and there are multiple attorneys general from various states looking at the NRA's finances. Perhaps there is something in the stash that would help the case against the organization, but it seems that the organization has already provided plenty of evidence against itself.
If the plan is to shame the NRA, I fear that the hackers have betrayed their lack of knowledge of the subject. The NRA is the organization that, after each massacre of schoolchildren in the US, mounts a massive press blitz to explain why it is so important that we sacrifice said schoolchildren so that any idiot can assuage his penile inadequacy by owning as many guns as some small countries. The NRA as an organization has no sense of shame.
I'm the geezer with a nice spot to work in my house in the suburbs, and I'm not keen on commuting 45 minutes each way to try to concentrate from my few square feet of space in an open office. But I've also seen the younger folks avail themselves of the opportunities presented by their minimalist lifestyles. Once they discovered that they could operate out of an Airbnb shared rental in Oahu for a couple of weeks and then move on to other spots (COVID restrictions permitting), the allure of free food in the office diminished considerably.
I'm not sure we wouldn't be having this conversation if we were all working in the offices of the 1960's, with defined spaces and doors, but the trend over the years from contained offices, to cubicles, to pods, and then to library carrels (or worse) has made the working experience in the office so inferior to what is available at home that there is no contest for many people.
Perhaps those wishing to re-populate their offices should consider making those offices less horrific.
While you ARE correct, perhaps you haven't had the experience with management and beancounters that others have had. Please allow me to disillusion you. Sometimes, the stupidest reason to do something is EXACTLY the reason it will be done.
Some anti-GMO folks are anti-science, and are unreasonable. Others are "anti-GMO" because of a very specific modification: the one that makes a crop resistant to Round-Up. They object for a couple of reasons. Some consider Round-Up (based on some evidence) to be a fairly nasty pesticide that has ill effects for humans. Others object to an economic model that forces farmers to buy seed annually rather than using a portion of their crop (in poorer areas of the world, anything that increases the base costs of food production threatens food production). Others object to the use of Round-Up (and other pesticides), because they don't remain tightly confined, so one farmer using Round-Up forces neighbors to buy Round-Up resistant seed to preserve crop yield. And if you end up being forced to buy the resistant seed, you might as well use the pesticide as well to increase yield.
So he isn't necessarily a hypocrite or unreasonable for being anti-GMO. As for being tech savvy -- dweebs who can devise audio compression algorithms and implement devices are a dime a dozen. Even tech folks who can insert a USB-A plug correctly on the first shot every time are numerous.
There is exactly one guy in the universe who wrote "Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," "The Needle and the Damage Done," and "After the Gold Rush."
With that kind of genius, who cares if he can identify the next hot portable music player?
Thank you, eBay, for putting to lie the myth that Silicon Valley hires the best and brightest!
I cannot fathom the stupidity of committing federal felonies in trying to intimidate into silence the Mom & Pop proprietors of an almost-completely-unknown blog, thereby bringing the blog to prominence. But what the article casually mentions is that these masters of intimidation and intrigue were talking about going after the Wall Street Journal next. I really wish the feds had left them alone long enough for that to happen. Watching the National Enquirer take on Jeff Bezos and "ruin" him by exposing him as a wealthy man who schtups beautiful women with a schlong so big that his shorts can't contain it was priceless entertainment. One wonders what geniuses like this could do with the Murdochs.
After a lifetime of slinging software, I didn't blink at all when I saw "POS" in the story. It did take a few seconds to realize that, in this context, it meant "point of sale." Perhaps "point of purchase" might be used instead, leading to "That POP package is a real POS."
As one who has heaped scorn on Clippy over the years, I am uneasy. The marriage of machine learning, a bullied and scorned Clippy, social media, and the Internet of Things can only result in the oft-foretold, dreaded cyborg death machine. Think of something on the order of Carrie at the prom or Rambo being busted for vagrancy. This cannot end well for the human race, and all because we couldn't accept the assistance of a well-intentioned, albeit incredibly annoying, helpful animated paperclip.
"You are supposed to launch it full screen and it becomes your desktop and gives you access to all the applications you every need."
I remember when EMACS embodied this philosophy. Of course, in an era pre-dating shell history, integrated applications, etc., running everything through EMACS represented a huge improvement in productivity and in the user experience.
"IIRC, Volkswagen has been doing it for decades. Via their internal union I believe. Arguably quite successfully.'"
It depends on your definition of success and what value employee representation is intended to provide. If direct contact between employee representatives and those responsible for corporate governance is intended to produce greater transparency to prevent unfortunate occurrences such as a far-reaching engineering scandal to cheat emissions standards world-wide that would cost the company billions of dollars and some of its reputation, then one could argue that VW hardly constitutes an example of success.
If the purpose of employee representation is to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page as the corporation pillages the world, then I suppose a hearty "Well done, VW!" is in order.
--For values of "minority interest" that includes "used by millions of actual human beings (if not tens of millions) each and every day".--
Well, that's the funny thing about numbers, even large ones. Mark Zuckerberg was in front of the US Congress decrying the failure of the banking system, because over a billion people don't have access to bank accounts. There are 7.7 billion (say it like Dr. Evil, folks) people on the planet. That means that the banking system covers about 87% of the people on the planet. To me, that seems like a pretty rousing success story. It isn't perfect, and the access isn't very evenly distributed, but... 87%!
So it is perfectly possible to have millions or tens of millions of devoted followers and still be a niche product when compared against products that are distributed to billions.
It is best to remember that when a Unicorn service claims that its "innovative" approach to market disruption is to drive out market inefficiencies, safety and security for customers, workers, and just about anyone except the owners are among those "inefficiencies." There isn't anything particularly innovative about that approach. The "muckrakers" in the US documented the approach and its effects over a century ago. Applications of that approach well over a century and a half ago prompted Karl Marx to start musing about economics.
"Over the last three years one of our key indicators of product quality – customer service call and chat volumes – has steadily dropped even as the number of machines running Windows 10 increased,"
Perhaps decreasing numbers of requests for support are an indication of the increasing quality of Microsoft's products, but from my personal experience, it is more likely an indicator of the pain, frustration, and lack of helpfulness of Microsoft's support organization. The members of the support team with whom I've spoken are uniformly polite, almost to an irksome degree. But as a native of New Jersey, I would be more than willing to trade politeness for the ability to solve problems.
"Now listen here, ya stupid jag-off. Right click on file while pressing the f'ing shift key to activate the secret menu. Then select 'Repair Files', let it work for 10 minutes, and then don't ever do anything stupid like that again! Capeesh?"
The stunning ignorance of history in the original post makes me wonder if it isn't intended as flame-bait.
This sentence alone is just so stunningly incorrect as to be almost Trumpian:
"Not surprisingly Stalman doesn't write code but take advantage of other people's work."
It is sad, because the original motivations behind the free software movement (God, I wish there were a better terse description than "free as in freedom, not as in beer") have never been more pertinent in an era where Apple produces products that are almost impossible for third parties to repair legally and where one could prevent a machine from running unsanctioned operating systems.
Is anyone else thinking about that scene in the Dark Knight where Morgan Freeman incredulously asks Joshua Harto if his plan really is to blackmail one of the richest, most powerful men in the world -- https://youtu.be/1z6o1GIEsQE
Also, let's face it -- if your semi-saluting manhood is poking out all over the place and making noticeable bulges, is being exposed as someone who is incredibly wealthy, dates attractive women, and has a large schlong really much of a threat. There are men who PAY to get that kind of PR.
"A Power9 desktop at sensible price (say £1000) would have me jump like a shot off X86."
Precisely. IBM isn't capable of functioning in a low-margin, high-volume environment, so IBM cannot take advantage of such opportunities. IBM functions best in markets like the one for the Mainframe -- one where there are very specific requirements that only a specific product can meet, where cost is not a critical concern, and where being locked in to a particular vendor is not a problem. There aren't many markets where customers are willing to let their vendors grab them by the tallywags and squeeze until wallets pop open, and there are fewer such markets with each passing year.
Yes, IBM. Rest assured that it is the grey hair that repels Millennials and not anything else about the company.
For giggles, I turned to the Millennial next to me and asked. His response: "I have friends who work for Google and Facebook. I know those companies and their products. I can't think of anything IBM makes that I can buy or want to buy."
I'm thinking the kid has managed to put his finger on the problem (he is a bright guy with a great future in front of him).
The incidents goes to show that a USA telco like ATT, VZ, etc (the ones which Google "peers" with) will accept anything China telecom feeds them and say "thank you, with pleasure".
I believe the phrase you are looking for is "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
https://youtu.be/bIZoVO8ZyyQ
It's not April 1st, is it?
Look up "hagiography" in the dictionary and this article will be the definition.
"Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast; I would catch it!" -- Drax
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiah5GB4vbdAhXydN8KHeXlB8kQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftenor.com%2Fview%2Fdrax-the-destroyer-dave-bautista-metaphor-guardians-of-the-galaxy-over-my-head-gif-3613490&psig=AOvVaw2yuPcRbpxa-g26PoLcFaZY&ust=1539085389794735
Why does Twitter exist? It showcases the absolute worst in humanity with very little real benefit. Its business model is straight out of South Park:
1. Give every clod a 144 (now 288!) character megaphone.
2. ???
3. Profit!
At what point to investors finally realize that there is no path to "monetization" and that they own a piece of the next MySpace? While other services are at least paying lip-service to addressing cyberbullying and propaganda distribution, Twitter is cautiously playing footsie. Why? Because most of the "problems" with Twitter are actually its features and are the reasons it is attractive for many people.