Posts by Jimmy2Cows

Biden proposes 30% tax on cryptominers' power bills

Re: backed by the same thing as any other

"funny money" isn't very funny. It's every bit as legitimate as state currencies. It's a traded stock, just like any other, backed by the same thing as any other. "Full Faith" of something that shouldn't be trusted in the first place.

Utter bollocks. Fiat currency might not be backed by, say, gold, but that doesn't automatically lump it in with crypto currencies.

Fiat currencies are backed by a country's government, international reputation for paying their bills, and a military presence to back up that government. Hence fiat currencies are generally somewhat stable. Funny money has none of that, so any imagined value fluctuates wildly.

Streaming apps – and maybe even Cloud PCs – coming to electric cars

Functionality as a service vs. warranties

FaaS has to be the shittiest of shitty idea. There needs to be a law saying warranties must last the lifetime of the subscription service.

Personally I'm hopeful this is a fad that will die on its arse once enough people tell the manufacturers to fuck off.

Re: "subscriptions that enhance the EV experience"

Same must be said for "functionality as a service". Your car's primary and/or comfort functions are subscription-based? No sale.

Techie sacked after jetting to tropical island on sick leave

Re: Nice coworker

Imagine that you're the coworker who has to work long hours because this guy is sick and work needs to be done urgently. Then you see him clearly not being sick, having dropped all his work onto you. How would you feel then?

Fair question, it's indeed a shitty thing to do. Although, in this case the coworker who ratted him out was also in Hainan, so is unlikely to have been picking up the slack.

Smallsats + solar sails = Photos of exoplanets at 1970s digital camera resolution

solar sail smallsat craft sitting at the SGL focal point

The keyword there is "sitting". All well and good getting a smallsat out there, but it's got to maintain that SGL focal point, at least long enough to achieve a viable image. 12 months minimum to collect enough photons. The SGL focal point is very sensitive to the relative positions of the smallsat, the sun, and the thing you want to image. If that focal point can't be maintained, sending anything there isn't much use.

So kudos for a way to get their. Now really impress us with a way to stay there.

Python head hisses at looming Euro cybersecurity rules

Re: Something needs to be done to protect consumers

Then, assuming Fred's OK Computer business is selling rather than giving away the cookies, FOC gets financial gain from that transaction and should therefore rightly be liable for any bad outcome. Due dilligence. Duty of care.

On the other hand if FOC is giving the cookies away for free, caveat emptor.

America ain't exactly outlawing gas cars but it's steering hard into EVs

Re: Current EV battery technology is unsustainable

The panic mass overreaction to pretty much no radioactive emmission from Fukishma was entirely due to FUD.

Re: this is simply not feasible

Solar in "deserty" places seems like a good idea, until you factor in damage from constant sandblasting, which gradually etches the panel surface making each panel less effective. Also windblown dust that builds up and reduces the panel efficiency. All this means a shorter life and greater maintenance effort, which increases cost a lot.

Solar thermal e.g. molten salt could be a better bet, since the mirrors tend to be less spread out than PV panels, and the thermal mass of the molten salt acts as a buffer to solar variations.

Still they are expensive to build and come with their own regular maintenance issues. And you still have to get the power from the deserts to the people, which means billions spent on transmission lines.

Couple this to the fact you really don't want to be relying on another nation for your energy security. Russian gas dependency has thoroughly proven this. For most countries that need a lot of power, desert areas tend to be in someone else's country. It'd be great if we could all just play nicely together, share power all around the world, but history and current events demonstrate time and again how naive such a view is.

SpaceX calendar marked with big red circle for 'first Starship launch' this month

Re: I can't wait.

Yep they're going to simulate a catch attempt against a virtual tower. Slow to a hover over the water, as if landing for a catch, and see if / how well it lines up to the virtual tower. Still gonna dump it in the ocean, but it saves the cost of a tower if things go wrong.

Vessels claiming to be Chinese warships are messing with passenger planes

Re: Joining the dots

Hipocrisy is complaining that AUKUS is building nuclear powered subs that won't be nuclear armed, while ignoring that PLANSF has at least 6 nuclear armed ballistic missile subs, and at least 6 conventionally armed nuclear powered attack subs. Some estimates are as high as 16 nuclear powered subs.

Nuclear armed vs nuclear powered PLANSF subs are different classes of boat, and it's not immediately clear to me whether the nuclear armed subs are also nuclear powered.

Re: The world noticed a thug order his enforcers to shoot down a plane of civilans.

Wasn't that MH17, not MH370?

Re: God forbid, if something happens then the world will take notice.

You're assuming the crew wasn't somehow incapacitated before MH370 went off course e.g. loss of oxygen supply, CO2 build up.

Anyone want an International Space Station? Slightly used

Re: Although there are bound to be some who would complain about "polluting the sun".....

Someone has to protect the Sun from all that dangerous radiation. If we aren't careful about protecting the Sun's delicate ecosystem it could explode in a giant fireball.

Here's a fun idea: Try to unlock and drive away in someone else's Tesla

Re: If you wanted to.

Don't even want one, never mind 2.

Microsoft and GM deal means your next car might talk, lie, gaslight and manipulate you

One would hope you still had the car in neutral, or at least the clutch depressed, when starting the car. Assuming a manual car, of course.

In that context it's really no different to put the car in neutral (or park, for an auto) and put your foot on the brake pedal.

Re: Turn the windshield into a Stable Diffusion image projector

They could turn the windshield into a full size, eye-tracking HUD that projects the edges of the road onto it, so I can see where the road goes when hidden by corners, bends, hills etc.

Overlay the satnav directions onto that so I can see the route I need to take without looking down at the satnav screen, or trying to interpret a multifacted arrow that current HUDs like to shown.

You know, something actually useful. But no. Let's spend billions shoving AI no one wants into cars because Chat-GPT is the latest fucking bandwagon AND WE ABSOLUTELY 100% CATEGORICALLY MUST BE ON IT NOW FIRST OR WE'LL BE LEFT BEHIND BY OUR COMPETITORS WHO ARE ALSO CRAMMING POINTLESS AI INTO EVERYTHING THEY CAN. Aaaaaand.... breathe...

Re: not sat on a stupid looking stick like most of the modern models

I look on in horror at the number of manufacturers no longer enclosing the instrument binacle in a canopy to shade the instruments from direct sunlight. You know, the fully digitised instruments where it's actually an LCD or OLED screen. Those won't be washed out and impossible to see in direct sunlight, nosiree.

Don't even get me started on touch-screens and pads for controlling the ventilation, AC and screen heaters.

Secret Service, ICE break the law over and over with fake cell tower spying

Re: Following the Law

Not confused. Rather, knowing with 100% confidence there will be exactly zero legal repercussions from breaking this law.

Texas mulls law forcing ISPs to block access to abortion websites

Umm... What!?!

The nutjobs are now the tide-pod hair land whale brigade who want unlimited abortion up-to and in some cases post birth

I accept there may be a tiny minority who want to allow abortion very close to the due date, but they really are a tiny minority and should be ignored as such.

But post birth....? That would 100% categorically be murder.

As for the pro/anti abortion sides - there's only one person whose view is actually important, and that is the woman or girl who is pregnant. It's not up to you, me, or anyone else, so butt the fuck out.

Her body, her choice. That should be the end of it.

Sadly there are always extremists who want to take that choice away. Quite bizarre, for such a supposedly freedom loving, low-interference-government preferring group.

To explore caves on Mars and the Moon, take a hint from Hansel & Gretel, say boffins

Re: ICE

RTG battery packs FTW, baby!

FBI boss says COVID-19 'most likely' escaped from lab

Re: Just making that stuff is a crime against humanity

Just making that stuff is a crime against humanity, you’d have to be a psychopath to do it in the first place, there’s no way funding for a disease that threatens all humans on Earth equally can possibly get funding.

You can't possibly be that naive. Every weapon ever created is an equal threat to enemies, allies and self, alike. Yet weapons research and manufacturing continues, regardless.

Gain of function research is conducted all the time. Has been for years. And it's not just to create weaponised pathogens. Mainly just trying to figure out what future evolutions of something might look like.

OpenAI CEO heralds AGI no one in their right mind wants

Re: History has shown

And the US, and Egypt, and China, and Japan, and... probably every region, country in the world has considered slavery acceptable at some point in its history.

You seem to have an extremely blinkered view.

Re: The aim is not to use it to code something you don't know.

The aim is not to use it to code something you don't know.

Maybe not, but people (as a generalised collective) are lazy and will gravitate toward things that appear to make their tasks simpler.

Those who already know how to code will most likely use it as you suggest, taking care of the tedious boilerplate. Although there are already plenty of code assistance tools that already do that.

The ones who don't know how to code are the danger. They'll use it as shortcut to minimise their own effort, with no idea about type correctness, structural optimisation, appropriate algorithm selection, defensive coding, stability, security or any of the other myriad considerations a skilled an experienced developer will work through.

The end result won't be an improvement.

Infosys founder slams working from home, side hustles, as slowing India's growth

Re: Ffffft

So he's gaslighting moonlighting, then?

Moon-gassing? Gas-mooning? Help me out here...

Save $7 million on cloud by spending $600k on servers, says 37Signals' David Heinemeier Hansson

Re: it doesn't, it won't and it can't

Ah look, a "gubbermint is too big and makes things expensive for me" rant.

None of these things prevent competition. What they do prevent is Billy the Useless Builder from building whatever and wherever he likes, without needing to prove any actual skills or qualifications to do so.

This is generally a good thing.

Elon Musk's Neuralink probed over pathogen transport

Re: pesky hands and arms seem to get in the way

That's ok, they're just the telekinetic interfacing layer between your mind the game controller.

Eurocops shut down Exclu encrypted messaging app, arrest dozens

Re: Then why are lawyers using it?

How else will they score their Bolivian marching powder after a hard day in court? Having your dealer on speed-dial is far too insecure.

Mitsubishi gives up on Japan's first domestically manufactured passenger jet

Re: Nobody seems to dare do anything that might cause even mild inconvenience for anyone else

Whereas the western capitalism style of do what I want and screw everyone else is an enviable bastion of civilised business culture.

Microsoft swears it's not coming for your data with scan for old Office versions

Re: Just sayin'.

More like just missin' the point, entirely.

It's fundamentally unethical to bang on about how much user privacy is respected, while planning to trawl every user's machine looking for out-of-support Office versions. The reasons behind the trawl might be noble (but come on, the only reason for this trawl is see how many legacy users they can try to foist O365 onto), but the act itself is a complete and blatant invasion of user privacy.

Hence MS scrambling like mad to try not coming across is the privacy invading data fetishists they provably are.

Chinese surveillance balloon over US causes fearful gasbagging

Re: Yet again - more proof that China needs to be obliterated in a nuclear armageddon

Nah, don't you know, they have super-mega-ultra-top-secret-squirrel remote viewer x-raying technology. How could you not know? Everyone knows! Derived from that crashed alien spacecraft at Roswell, and testing massive doses of psychodelics on death row prisoners. Come on! Everyone knows this.

But don't worry, friends. 5 layers of highest quality aluminum* foil will block their nefarious acts and protect your brain from remote implantation of mind control devices. Don't you understand!?! They need the remote-x-ray tech to see inside our heads to ensure the mind control devices are correctly attached to our prefrontal cortex. Spying on spy balloons is all just a cover for their real actions.

* Yes, I said aluminum. All the best nut jobs use only the finest American aluminum. None of that European aluminium crap.

User was told three times 'Do Not Reboot This PC' – then unplugged it anyway

Re: Have users ignored your instructions?

I suppose that is technically correct. And as any fule kno, that's the best kind of correct.

Re: he pressed the main power breaker switch for that factory unit

Sometimes there's just no defence against stupid. Face it, they're better at stupid than we are.

[ Icon = the ever-popular "Don't push this button!" ]

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

Re: Pressure washer (why would I want a phone anywhere need a 150psi water jet)

If you mean that top-of-the-line Karcher thing, I'm sure you weren't alone in your WTF?!? moment. Certainly what I thought. What could you possibly need a data connection for? You're stood there holding the damn trigger anyway.

Water usage telemetry? Perhaps, but why? Did Karcher's market research discover a huge number of their existing or potential customers were crying out for an IOT jet washer? Or did some morons in the crayons dept decide there's enough other morons who'll buy anything "connected"? Actually my money's on the latter.

Lockheed Martin demos 50kW anti-aircraft frickin' laser beam

Re: Mirrors?

The tiniest fleck of dirt or imperfection will rapidly heat up and damage the mirror around that point. This increases laser absorbtion in the damaged areas and further increases the damage. It might take a few more seconds with the laser on target, but the end result is still the same.

Spinning the target can resist a laser attack for longer, but not much longer.

Ablative armour which creates a vapour cloud at the contact site is the most viable defence, as the vapour will block the laser (momentarily - the target is moving through air, so ablated material is rapidly swept away). Trouble is you need a lot of material, which isn't a great option for missiles, mortars, artillery rounds etc. And the ablative armour will still transfer heat to the rest of the target, just not as quickly.

It depends on the exact laser frequency and whether that is absorbed by atmospheric water. Lowest absorbition in the visible spectrum is just below ultraviolet. Water seems to have a high absorbtion range, so, particularly toward red and infrared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water

Re: slow enough for small arms.

So what you're saying is: it's time to ramp up T-Rex cloning then deploy them at squad level, so each squad gets protection from drones and loitering munitions. I like your thinking and I don't see any drawbacks.

Intel casts doubt on Italy for chip factory location

Don't get it

Excuse my ignorance here, but why would a packaging plant be so far from the chip factory that will supply it with things to, you know, package?

From perspectives of logistics, security, convenience, time, reduction of breakages in transit, surely it makes far more sense to site them next door to each other.

I guess they might package other manufacturers' chips, so it might make sense for an independent packager. But this is an Intel packaging plant and an Intel foundry. Why separate them at all?

Plugging end-of-life EV batteries into the grid could ease renewables transition

demand-side management is also vital in shifting and flattening peak demand

In other words, energy companies can't be arsed to build enough generating capacity and storage themselves, and governments can't be arsed to force them or do it themselves. So the public has to suck it up in the form of accepting inconveniences imposed upon them. When you can wash and dry your clothes. When you can charge your car. When you can do anything else the state deems "energy intensive".

And say we all have to use our cars to prop up the grid. What happens when everyone then needs to use their car? No power because the grid has sucked it dry. So now all those cars have to go back on charge, drawing a massive load from the grid and causing instabilities elsewhere in the system. Except they probably can't because they're being demand-side managed.

Absolutely. Terrible. Idea.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is not progress to a better, more energy secure and more relaxed society. This is a massive leap toward energy insecurity, artificial energy scarcity, increased public anxiety and a more controlling state.

Publisher breaks news by using bots to write inaccurate stories

Re: No reply from CNET you say?

Also needs far more capitalisation of random sets of words, and a liberal sprinkling of acronyms.

Bringing cakes into the office is killing your colleagues, says UK food watchdog boss

Re: Dieting really is cruel

Why do you think it's DIE with a T on the end...?

Tesla faked self-driving demo, Autopilot engineer testifies

Denied.

Should have been denied with extreme prejudice resulting in a summary decision against Tesla.

Not at all suprising they tried to pull that, but I am surprised it's allowed to happen.

Anyone trying to prohibit evidence that could make them look guilty should suffer the same. Evidence should certainly be challenged for veracity, but it should be impossible to prohibit such depositions.

If your DNS queries LoOk liKE tHIs, it's not a ransom note, it's a security improvement

I find it helps give extra support and stops the lower end of the drop flapping around.

LUMI supercomputer puts GPU partition through its paces with hardcore science

Re: But Why?

You sure it's not a pepperoni slice that escaped from its pizza?

Third-party Twitter apps stopped dead with no explanation from El Musko

Re: Dig deeper?

No, no, no, dig up! Any fule kno that's how you get out of a hole.

Intel offers desktop chip that can hit 6GHz if everything goes right, you can keep it cool, stars align, pigs fly

Re: widening roads does not improve the flow of traffic; why do we keep doing it?

Nah that's just what happens when you piecemeal upgrade the road network slower than the traffic growth rate. And then cover the upgraded sections and the rest of the roads with random roadworks. Always building for what the traffic is when the upgrades are planned, rather than building for what the traffic will be10 years after the upgrades are completed.

[For any traffic planners out there, yeah I know it's more complex than that]

Nice smart device – how long does it get software updates?

Re: sending route details to the car from indoors and checking how much fuel i have

Not gonna tell you anything more than you will see by looking at the fuel gauge when you start the car. Either way you'll still need to get fuel if you've got less range than your journey needs. Not sure how knowing that in advance helps, other than you might need to allow another 10 mins for your trip.

I can appreciate that sending the destination to the satnav remotely could be useful though, especially if the satnav is fiddly to use compared to your smart app.

Of course, if manufacturers made satnavs that actually considered usability, that would also help. Far to many seem to forget the thing needs to be used by a human, with fingers.

Re: Nobody

She'll know exactly when not to walk down the stairs, lest she gets lumbered with unloading the machine.

Re: Home devices at risk?

The sad thing is buyers should hold the most sway, as they're the ones who elect goverments to office (assuming said buyers live in some semblance of a democracy).

But it'll take the voters acting collectively to vote anyone out of office who doesn't support such long support periods and EOL requirements. Which is why it'll propbably never happen.

Self-driving car computers may be 'as bad' for emissions as datacenters

Re: Based in real technology already available as of today

Space-based solar power ideas have been around for ages, and don't involve a tightly focussed laser incinerating insects, birds, planes and anything else that happens to enter the beam.

Usually because the beam is radio frequency and distributed over a large areas such that incident power levels are around 250W per sq. metre. Use really big rectennas to harvest the RF energy and convert it back to electricity.

Problem solved, right? The physics is well known says it's theoretically perfectly viable.

Your existing "real technology" is the problem. You neeed vast solar collectors in space, areas measured in square kilometers, rather than square metres. We know how to make solar panels for use in space. We don't know how to construct collosal space structures, complete with station keeping and everything else you need to collect enough energy and keep the beam on target.

So that's a big problem, but even that can be overcome with sufficient will, time, effort and lot's and lot's of money. The biggest things missing right now are the will and enough funding to make it happen. Not enugh ROI for private investors, so it has to be governments. And they only care about the next election. SBSP is way to far out to be on their radar beyond "yeah, we've heard of it".

I think Caltech has just launched a cubesat demonstrator to test the principles. But that's an 8 inch cube, not a Disneyland carpark. Proving a concept won't solve the need for a truly vast collection area in space.

Re: ...is it not possible that the "hidden" cost of the autonomy is countered...

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. All such factors should be thoroughly investigated to give a complete picture of whether FSD cars are the same, better, or worse for the environment. Otherwise it's just facts-free handwaving.