Posts by martinusher

Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

Re: Mobile networks have too much spectrum already

Some airport radars interfere with 5GHz (11a) WiFi so the network drivers look for radar chirps and avoid using this area of the spectrum if they detect them. Radar will usually be detected at the bottom of the band as badly formed packets with zero data length.

The same technique could be used to share other parts of the spectrum. These frequencies at the power that WiFi networks use are unlikely to go any distance so the radios could be required to 'see and avoid' any other users, something they could even do dynamically if necessary. The objection to this would be merely business -- business by its nature wants it all so any unlicensed use of spectrum is seen as lost revenue potential.

I should also mention that the entire reason why the ISM bands -- 2.4 and 5GHz -- are open and unlicensed is that they were regarded as useless for communication because these frequencies are absorbed by water molecules. (This is why microwave ovens work.) Its is nothing short of miraculous how radios were developed to make use of this spectrum despite this and it points the way to how spectrum should be used in general. Most people are still wedded to the notion of selecting traffic by frequency -- you 'tune' a radio -- but this is a grossly inefficient way to use spectrum, it just happened that it was easy to do so suited early radio technology. We're stuck with this legacy technology for the time being but for newer uses and bands there's no reason to keep thinking in terms of exclusive spectrum.

China warns Dutch away from Nexperia as it lets chip exports resume

We want to have both our cake and eat it. You can't sell a business and still expect to control it.

I suspect what's happened here is 'the usual' -- the company effectively hollowed itself out by hiving off manufacturing and, increasingly, development work to China leaving the Dutch arm as mostly sales and marketing (with maybe some R&D and support). The shareholders then sold the company to the group that was doing the manufacturing (think IBM/Lenovo or even Boeing/Spirit) only to subsequently discover that the manufacturing 'tail' was indeed wagging the sales and marketing 'dog'. Seizing control of sales and marketing might look like the company on paper but it doesn't make any product.

Re: Pot and kettle

>aren't 100% of Chinese companies under government control?

Not at all. You'll find the same mix of enterprises as you get in the US, including a lot of entrepreneurs (where you think all that cheap tat comes from?).

The PRC government, like all governments, will intervene in issues it regards as of strategic interest (obvious examples would be weapons, space, aircraft etc.) but like everyone else it implements industrial policy by tweaking taxes, favorable land deals, infrastructure investment and so on. At times it seems difficult to tell the difference between 'communist' PRC and 'capitalist' US but I suspect its primarily one of priorities. Here in the US we prioritize business concerns over social concerns, the assumption being that a buoyant economy will automatically adjust social conditions. Over there they're much more concerned with social cohesion and how business enables overall prosperity. (This kind of thinking isn't particularly communist, its seems to be more Oriental than anything, because you see the same kind of mindset in countries like Japan and Singapore, countries that are definitely not communist.)

'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it

I'd actually say NT4 rather than XP. That was a real OS with a Posix compliant kernel, if I recall correctly.

You can see how modern marketing works by the floating of the term 'tenant' to describe customers. In a sense we're reverting right back to the earliest days of data processing where Herman Hollerith figured that selling tabulators wasn't anything like as lucrative as leasing them.

'Vibe coding' named Word of the Year. Developers everywhere faceplant

I'm building a house....

...using a pile of scrap lumber and some nails. What could possibly got wrong?

Seriously, the only people pushing things like vibe coding are not programmers, they tend to be journalists, influencers and their ilk. Word merchants who really can't tell the difference between 'it appears to work' and 'it works'. Just as that house could be a serviceable shed you knocked together or a dicey multistory building knowing just how far you can push one or other technique is part of a programmers skillset.

Famed software engineer DJB tries Fil-C… and likes what he sees

Re: Not quite ...

Memory safety is just not a property of a language like C. If you need memory safety then you either have to design it in or use a language and technique that manages memory use for you. If you need to add to C then you could but you'd be using a library (written in C, most likely) that would implement it for you.

One of the most important properties of C is that it distinguishes between the language implementation and its libraries. Many programmers, especially newer ones, don't quite get this distinction.

China's president Xi Jinping jokes about backdoors in Xiaomi smartphones

Re: Not good

Your phone is a tracking device that can also monitor everything you do and say. If you've been reading the news then you'll also know that the Israelis are not averse to using a phone's IMSI as way of targeting individual users (they killed a Hamas leader in Iran this way).

Where equipment is made is irrelevant. Who wrote the software that goes into it, that's another story. Its true that software vendors are so busy tying both their users and themselves up in knots that nobody seems to know what's going on from one release to the next these days but that's a problem with software methodology that could be easily remedied (if people would put their minds to it)(alas, it might do the advertising ecosystem a disservice so maybe that's too much to hope for). Even with the built in uncertainty of modern software its pretty easy to figure out what's going on from the network traffic and its easy for carriers to filter out traffic that's undesirable.

Reg readers should know all about this stuff. (Xi evidently does.)

Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

During the 1970s industry was run down and badly needed investment to make it globally competitive. The talk then in political circles was that "North Sea Oil" was going to be a windfall that could be used to revive industry. Then there was the change in government in 1979 which put paid to any of this nonsense. Britain's future was 'service' industries, not 'manufacturing'. So large swathes of our industrial heritage were left to rot (because it wasn't systematic under investment that led to this, it was the fault of the lazy, unionized workforce.......we know this because the Sun, among other news outlets, told us so).

Unfortunately a lot of today's adults grew up after this period. The 70s have been cemented in history as a time of industrial strife which the Glorious 80s fixed -- just like Reagan made it "Morning in America" the Thatcher government were similarly monetarists. The numbers speak for themselves -- people on the whole are worse off than they were 50 years ago (hence you can now get away with selling them snakeoil like MAGA) and governments are mired in debt which severely constrains their ability to do anything.

Musk needs to reconsider his position

Musk's foray into politics has hurt his reputation -- his political bedfellows don't believe in 'green' anything and are actively working to undermine it (especially in the US). Their trade policies also make building these cars more expensive which opening the market to better organized competition that can produce product a lot faster and cheaper (BYD is just the biggest example, not the only one).

A year ago I would have regarded shorting Tesla stock as nonsensical. Today, not so much -- the company as it is at the moment is starting to look insolvent**. A trillion dollar stock grant would be just a way of diluting investors' holdings that will improve the financial picture at Tesla (and Musk) at the expense of the rest of the shareholders, the ones that paid money for their holdings. I can understand why the Norwegians would want to nix it, they want to preserve the value of their investment. The company has value but its no longer tied to a charismatic, mercurial individual. It would be better off without him.

(**IMO)

Debian demands Rust or rust in peace for legacy ports

Linux Is Not Windows

This kind of mandate is the sort of thing you'd expect from Microsoft because Windows is really only applicable to a narrow slice of application types. These may be really common and so widely used but it still boils down to just a single user working on a PC, interacting through a GUI and keyboard. (....with multimedia thrown in)

There's a place for memory safety but its a nonsense to think of it as a universal panacea.

Labor organizers accuse Rockstar Games of 'ruthless act of union busting' after layoffs

Re: "what do Rockstar really loose? [sic]"

>I suspect that this may be (once again) a US based employer who either doesn't understand that other countries do things in a more civilised fashion....

I was wondering about that. Rockstar seems to be taking steps that would be normal in the US but AFAIK aren't relevant to British employment law, even in the modern era which is hostile to unions. To an American being dismissed with no notice is a feature of "right to work" states (yes, we Americans really do irony) and 'gross misconduct' is their way of trying to dismiss the employees 'with cause', a trick used in the US to avoid the employer being liable for contributing to their unemployment payments. Although the UK is notorious for slavishly following US practice I still didn't think employment practices were similar; in this case I'd have expected Rockstar to be sued for reputational damage or something like that.

UK government on the lookout for bargain-priced CTO

Re: depends on circumstances

We in the US are dramatically scaling back the Federal Civil Service, reducing job protections for Civil Servants and generally moving employment more into line with how the private sector works. So you'll get a pretty good idea about how life under Reform would work without having to take a chance on it and find out the hard way. One of the immediate results of this kind of tweaking is to make the Civil Service more responsive to politics -- you're either with the Administration's program or you're out on your ear.

As for the 'uniparty' this is what you get when you have the political system cleaned out by "There Is No Alternative". You still have the problems and frustrations of everyday life without any viable alternative being proposed -- the system is the system and the tools and techniques that governments might have once had to try to tweak it are now largely absent. The result is frustration and a tendency to jump on any populist bandwaggon that sounds remotely attractive.

Smile! Uncle Sam wants to scan your face on the way in – and out

Re: Double-take?

When I entered the US early this year the agent remarked that I looked exactly the same as my passport photo, even to wearing the same clothing. It happens.

When I entered the US last month nobody said anything because nobody looked at my passport. The machine scanned my face, gave me a green check mark and I was on my way. Both entries were at the Bradley (International) terminal at LAX (Los Angeles).

Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

It really is irritating

I was trying to type something the other day on an unfamiliar system -- Chrome on Windows, nothing special -- and the damn thing decided not to just autocomplete words but sentences. The suggestions were in light type, like faint pencil marks, but were still profoundly irritating.

My objects weren't just the distraction but the amount of processing cycles and internet traffic it was causing. I don't want my typing speed governed by the loading of my processor and the instantaneous latency of my network connection. I'm typing in English, not Chinese.

OpenAI tells Trump to build more power plants or China wins the AI arms race

What's stopping the AI Bros from building their own power plants?

If OpenAI needs the power then surely OpenAI can provide the capital investment to build it? This is, after all, how freewheelin' capitalism worked back the Gilded Age. But, instead of constructing it, taking the risk and (maybe) reaping the reward they'd rather either buccaneer style rob everyone else of their power or lean on the 'guvmint' -- aka "We, The People" -- to provide it for them.

Invoking China's is just another of those missile gap lobbying tactics**. Maybe they should copy the Chinese and figure out how to run AI levels of processing while using a lot less power than they do at the moment?

(**The "Missile Gap" was a Really Big Deal in the 1950s, it was floated by the MIC as the reason why we had to spend big on their missiles etc. because it was clear that The Russians were overtaking us, we were falling behind.)(Yes, the self same "Russians" that we all know today.)(The Gap was thought to be by many back then a bunch of BS. Post Cold War we learned that our suspicions were well founded -- the 'Gap' turned out to be a figment of the MIC's Marketing/Lobbying imagination.)

(In a rather ironic twist it appears that these days the "Missile Gap" is now very real but we're so busy chasing casino profits that we're too stingy to invest over the long term in just about anything unless it yields that "twelve and a half percent" -- or more -- that the parrot is always going on about.)

The Chinese Box and Turing Test: AI has no intelligence at all

Endless tail chasing

I've talked to many people who'd fail the Turing test. The test itself only seems to work because its comparing a nominally constrained system -- the machine -- against a nominally unconstrained on -- the human. The latter can give the game away by making up stuff, having prejudices and generally 'acting like a human', i.e. imperfectly (aka 'lying'). We should be able to program a sufficiently complex machine to simulate this.

As for ELIZA, anyone who's seen excepts from something like a contemporary White House press briefing will have seen this software in action running on a typical Press Secretary. Its the classic way of saying exactly nothing using a lot of words. The insight here wasn't the use of LISP to turn around statements into questions but the way that humans evade answering questions by questioning the questioner.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Re: It must have been transported...

"Our" one, Endeavor (the one in Los Angeles), was flown to LAX and then hauled by road to the museum site that's south east of the city center, about a dozen miles. Although most of the journey was on specially designed robotic wheels for a short part of the journey it was hauled by a Toyota Tundra because the on-road transporters were too heavy for a freeway bridge. Moving the shuttle was quite a performance.

I'm actually surprised that they haven't tried to steal Endeavor. Its being set up in launch position complete with fuel tank and (dummy) boosters. Putting real ones on it and lighting them would not only get the thing off the ground but also level a significant part of Los Angeles, likely a double win for Trump.

The Cheapest Option

Contract with appropriate talent -- set and prop designers -- to build another shuttle on site. Since it won't have to actually work then it should be quite cheap to make relative to the original. With a bit of appropriate comingling of authentic Shuttle parts and spares it should be enough smoke and mirrors to convince people that the shuttle they have in their museum is actually the real one, especially if you move bits around (think 'shell game' -- keep those cups moving and the 'rubes will never know where the coin actually is).

Personally, I think the entire STS project was a gigantic failure. It probably needed to be undertaken just to prove that this just wasn't the way to go but like Buran it should have been shelved once everyone realized that it was really just an accident waiting to happen. There are better ways to achieve the same goals.

Amazon's AI specs aim to stop delivery drivers getting lost between van and porch

Fundamental Contradiction

As a rule you don't want packages dropped off on people's doorsteps in apartment complexes because that's one of the 'high risk for losing them' scenarios. If the complex is gated then the complex management would likely provide a central drop-off point, a secured location where packages could be stored pending collection (or delivery by building staff).

Its an interesting experiment although it brings to mind those experiments with cyborg insects where some innocent cockroach is issued with some electronics that use electrodes buried in its brain to control it. (It begs the question of whether a cyborg delivery person is more cost effective than a robot; I suspect they are since they're largely self-maintaining and are easy to dispose of at their end of their service life.)

Digital ID is now less about illegal working, more about rummaging through drawers

Its more than just a convenient ID

OffGuardian, that sump of conspiracy theories, actually comes out with gems from time to time and their recent piece on Digital ID should give people pause for thought. My status as an naive sucker meant I thought it was just a variation on those keycard things that we've been using for ever to access workplaces and the like. I had absolutely no idea that the plan was more like a Facebook level collection of user data and habits so that our friend and benefactor, Big Brother, could get to know us a lot better. This might be what's behind the skepticism and pushback although I doubt if it will do any good. If you go anywhere in Europe you'll see that everyone is carrying an ID card, its now a necessity in most parts of the world if you want to work, bank, rent/buy and generally live. Having to use such an ID allows tracking, just not quite as detailed as a full digital ID would.

A single DNS race condition brought Amazon's cloud empire to its knees

Nice they figured it out

...and they told everyone. I daresay a permanent fix will follow. But.....

We're being asked to buy stuff that's centered around an always on Internet connection that doesn't really need this, its just a gimmick to collect data for sale to information brokers. I find it profoundly annoying that, for example, my house thermostats have to converse through a a series of remote servers for me to be able to access them remotely (that is, from just across the ***!!** room). This is inherently bad, unstable, design -- you'd never design an industrial plant like this so why inflict it on people at home? (Greed.....of course.....)

Re: Ouch

Bellevue to Trafford Park via Moss Side

China blames US for cyber break-in, claims America is world's biggest bit burglar

Why should anything change?

Back in the Good Old Days the Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky used to be a leader in exposing malware designed to subtly penetrate systems (at the time invariably Windows systems). We all suspected who was behind it because it dovetailed with the occasional story about rooms in AT&T trunk facilities in San Francisco from the previous decade, revelations about tunneling under divided Berlin to access phone trunks and so on, all pieces of a puzzle that were eventually put into perspective by Edward Snowden's revelations.

So we know that the effort to spy on others' IT infrastructure is real, its systematic and its incredibly well funded. It would be a surprise to learn that nobody else was doing it.

Trump's workforce cuts blamed as America's cyber edge dulls

Re: Krasnov

Unfortunately all an 'adversary' needs to do to win is to do nothing. Attributing changes to subtle plots by evil masterminds is more the stuff of conspiracy theories and, frankly. if I were an evil mastermind I'd send out strict orders to my minions to back off, just watch and wait.

We're way too focused on trying to find evil masterminds 'over there' when in reality we've got a plentiful supply of our own.

Nexperia drama intensifies as Dutch chipmaker denies ousted CEO's claims of Chinese split

Mke up your mind -- Politics or Business

Although its been unfolding quietly behind the scenes for some time we in the US are now subject to quite significant bureaucratic requirements when visiting or interacting with China or other 'adversary nations'. The impact of these varies from state to state so while we in California still tend to be in "You've got to be kidding me" mode states like Texas enforce quite extensive rules, especially for state employees (which includes university academics). We're actually not quite the "Land of the Free" that we profess to be, as it turns out.

Its natural that this influences the Federal government to a greater or lesser degree depending on the current political tide. Its also natural to try to extend our power to our 'allied' (or, more accurately, 'vassal') states. This causes a problem when the desire to return to the Cold War of 50 years ago collides with 50 years of global business. The result is a mess which is starting to cause us serious harm -- not only are trade and production patterns disrupted but, in the US at least, we're starting to be buried under crushing bureaucracy which makes it uneconomic to trade with anyone except a handful of especially compliant (European....) nations. (Think "Brexit chaos on steroids".) If some government had the balls to actually stand up to them, to say "No" and explain why, then maybe the rot could be stopped before it gets out of hand. Because the Chinese don't seem to be too bothered as we self-immolate.

The real insight behind measuring Copilot usage is Microsoft's desperation

Its late stage corporate decay

Terry Pratchett touched on this in his novel "Going Postal" -- how a corporate raid on a technology company strangles both the company and the users that rely on it.

The giveaway in this article is the quote that uses the term 'tenant'. The corporation's development efforts are focused on user lock-in and yield per use -- 'tenant' -- of their product suite. Technical development has been sidelined to the needs of product marketing and product defense (using legal stratagems, public 'attitude management' and, worse case, acquisitions and purchased legal mandates to block competition).

They're not the only corporation that does this, of course. The Marxists among us would recognize this as 'rentier capitalism', the notion that late stage capitalism isn't about controlling the means of production as charging rent (with modern people noticing that 'technology' is increasingly about charging rent for the tools essential for any enterprise to produce anything).

Re: Microsoft's desperation

Do the math....

$88 billion spread among 15,000 people represents about $5.8 million a head. Even if the money was 'static' -- that is, not earning a return, that would provide about 40 years of wages at $150K a year.

Something, somewhere, just doesn't add up.

'Fax virus' panicked a manager and sparked job-killing Reply-All incident

What's with the instant firing?

I don't think I've ever worked for a company that would fire employees just because they've made a mistake or they've embarrassed someone. But then I've always been 'technical', not some seemingly easily replaceable work-widget.

Its a poor attitude by management which likely is the root cause of anemic company performance.

Windows 11 update breaks localhost, prompting mass uninstall workaround

Re: Of course we all know the permanent fix

I've used Mint for a few years now and I've yet to come across any bugs in it. Admittedly I only use it for day to day computer use -- mail, browsing, word processing, image editing, some media and a spot of printing -- but its always "just worked". I can't really say the same about a W10 system; its been subject to the Tuesday Lottery for years, you never know quite what this week will bring, and I expect W11 would be the same.

Like you I am a computer 'expert' -- that is, I can pop the hood (US terminology) and rummage around the internals if I have to and even pull the sources and built a custom kernel if necessary. But I'm not an enthusiast, day to day I just want the things to work.

(One domino fell this week. My brother, a hardened Windows user from the year dot, felt he had to upgrade his system. He's got a micro and its running Linux. He can't believe how well it works. His only issue so far is caused by his habit of composing mail in a word processor and then pasting the text into a gmail web client with consequent font problems. I'm prodding him towards Thunderbird -- use a proper mail client, stop messing with Webmail unless traveling.)

ASML shrugs off China slump with faith in AI-fueled chip demand

Re: Backfire!

I've maintained that all US trade policies did was alter the build/buy trade off so that it made developing competing products not just cost effective but essential. This might slow China in the short term but would generate unwelcome competition in the long term because, if nothing else, a new generation product can avoid the shortcomings of the earlier generation.

We still have a hangover from our colonial past where it was simply impossible for our European centered culture to come to terms with other cultures' attitudes and capabilities. (For a quick primer read Somerset Maughn's "From a Chinese Screen", a collection of essays published in 1922.)(In particular read "The Philosopher".) It will ultimately be our downfall. I know I'll get downvoted, I'm obviously pro-Chinese or a China shill or something like that, but that's not true -- I'm just anti-stupidity.

Schleswig-Holstein waves auf Wiedersehen to Microsoft stack

Re: Meanwhile, here in Blighty...

>recognising Palestine

Its safe to do this now because Palestine doesn't physically exist any more. Our news outlets have been focused on Gaza so haven't been tracking what's been going on in the West Bank.

Researchers intercept unencrypted satellite traffic from space blabbermouths

All the remote towers I've come across use terrestrial microwave links. Legacy satellite would have too much latency (and modern LEO systems such as Starlink are both digital and encrypted).

Even if voice traffic was unencrpyted analog it wouldn't be like the old AMPS system where you could just listen into a conversation with a scanner, it would be a time multiplexed digital feed, not IP based.

You can overdo encryption. A standard like AES is essentially unbreakable but nobody attacks the data, the weak point is key distribution and management. So adding another layer of encryption rather than encouraging users to employ end to end encryption is just giving users a false sense of security.

As for phone conversations being in the clear its likely that the bulk of these are not businesses discussing confidential information (which is likely to be encrypted VoIP anyway) but low cost providers' international links (i.e. junk calls and phishing).

...or San Francisco

Benioff retreats from idea of sending troops in to clean up San Francisco

Re: Benioff is wrong.

Nah, its a pretty good observation about life in contemporary America.

There's not really a whole lot the military can do that the police can't. They lack the intelligence infrastructure to do effective day to day policing. They can help out with logistics following a natural disaster and supplement law enforcement if there's large scale rioting but they have to be working under the auspices of law enforcement to be effective and so far they're just not wanted. (The most effective use of National Guard troops in DC, for example, has been trash pickup.)

What I find puzzling is that we've heard all sorts of justifications over the years for widespread weapons ownership from organized groups like the NRA such as "You need them to push back against government if it becomes oppressive" but when we get obvious governmental overreach we don't hear a peep from them. I personally think its because the real gun nuts are in reality a very small minority -- most Americans just don't feel the need to carry weapons -- and that minority has largely been recruited by ICE (Despite an apparently unlimited budget and a flood of applicants ICE is actually rather selective about who it hires -- and its not because it has high hiring standards.)

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Another 550 employees set to leave the building

Re: Shortsighted

Just looking at height at a spot age is likely to be misleading so I'd expect the study to look at relative growth rates. Journalists would then distill the study into a simple byline.

Like a lot of stories its colored by what people want to believe. I expect there are also wide differences among regions, ethnic groups, classes and so on. (A decent study would take this into account.) But just as the average height of the population increased noticeably in the last century or so, a phenomena widely attributed to vastly improved public health and nutrition, its not unreasonable to suppose that if standards fall then heights will as well. Its just an uncomfortable notion.

US PC shipments hit the buffers as Trump’s tariffs take their toll

Re: "fueled by Windows 11 transition and the need to replace an ageing installed base"

My experience is that Windows puts immovable tracks on the disk which makes partition management fiddly. But then disks are cheap and Linux knows all about NTFS even if MSFT refuses to notice anything but their stuff.

Space Shuttle war of words takes off as senator blasts 'woke Smithsonian'

Re: a lot to move 78 tonnes

>across the Gulf of Mexico.

'scuse me, but that doesn't exist any more. That body of water is now the Gulf of America.

Re: Canada is nuts.

MAGA is very real in the US. Its actually nothing to do with being conservative -- ironically the 'conservative' party in the US tends to be the Democrats -- but rather a desire to radically alter society to conform to an image that never really existed outside of the movies and early TV shows. This is why you get these absurd demands by legislators; you'd think they'd either know better (or at least be advised by people who do) but they don't, they just shoot their mouths off and expect everyone and everything to fall into line.

My attitude to this is that if they want one of these that badly then they can come and get it. Just don't expect me or my fellow taxpayers to pay to move it -- we're having systematic cuts to health and welfare, education and just about all the stuff that's good in life so I'd rather not waste resources on Senators' vanity projects.

Senate says Nvidia chips are for America first as China tightens import controls

Re: Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence (GAIN AI) Act

Its just about all we're good at these days.

Our elected officials are now firmly in the "B-Ark" category.

Kyndryl sued for firing non-white workers, disabled vet

Re: Maybe they were useless ..

If you do non-defense technology work in California then the odds are that very few of your colleagues will be WASP. They like to be in Marketing, Sales, HR and similar roles. Racial makeup where I've worked has a fair number of Chinese (ROC/PRC) and other east Asians (but not Philippinos -- they tend to be on the shop floor), a lot of Iranians/Armenians, some Russian/Ukrainians, nowhere near as many Indians as you'd imagine and a sprinkling of Europeans. Almost always absent are Africans (south Africans excepted), middle east (except Israeli, of course) and Latinos.

But then most of the people I've worked with have at least one postgraduate degree. That not only sharply filters the pool but also rounds them out since 'postgraduate degree' invariably implies 'from a US, European or similar university'.

AI gets more 'meh' as you get to know it better, researchers discover

One fundamental problem with AI...

In real life when someone's faced with a task who only has access to incomplete or contradictory information they'll come back to you and say "I don't understand this" or "That doesn't make any sense to me". At least they should do -- we've all worked with colleagues who claim to be always right and plow on regardless, treating every question about what they're doing and why as a direct assault on their very being. They might produce a work of genius but more often than not what they usually make is a mess.

Current versions of AI seem to be 'that' colleague on steroids --- it will always give you an answer. Whether or not its correct or logical is "TBD". So using it in situations where its not tightly constrained or well supervised is asking for trouble.

.....which really underscores the difficulty of making really good documentation. Technical writing is a skill which is seriously underappreciated, it can make writing software code seem almost trivial.

(BTW -- I'm not a technical writer, I just write some design documentation and some code. But I've worked with enough of them to realize just how difficult it is to describe something succinctly, clearly and with no forward references.)

Think tank warns China's polysilicon subsidies are frying Western fabs

Re: Interesting numbers

This explains the overpriced hammer, toilet seat and whatever that the DoD pays for things, tales that are now is the stuff of urban legend. When you try to do small runs of bespoke, locally sourced, product you end up with something that costs a fortune.

China doesn't subsidize anything in the sense that the government gives manufacturer's cash to undercut foreign competitors. China has mastered production on a huge scale while keeping overheads low. Instead of complaining about how efficient they are we need to figure out how to match them, something we can't do by just squeezing the workforce even more. We've become unbalanced, finance costs eat up a huge amount of productive effort, so this has to be fixed before we can make progress.

Privacy activists warn digital ID won’t stop small boats – but will enable mass surveillance

Doesn't Really Work, Honest

Here in the US there is no national ID card so the situation with ICE turning up and demanding proof of citizenship is actually a bit tricky. Nobody, especially ICE, seems to have a clue what "acceptable proof of citizenship" actually is. This is why we're literally resorting to arresting any "Brown People Who May Be Speaking Spanish". This doesn't work because ICE raids tend to pick up a preponderance of people who are here legally along with a significant number of actual citizens. They don't have the tools to process them quickly so they end up holding them incommunicado for literally weeks in conditions that aren't that dissimilar to early Nazi era concentration camps.

We actually do have a national ID card, its called a "Real ID Enhanced Driver's License". You can get it when you renew your license, it requires the same kind of documentation (and then some) as you'd need to get a passport. Despite exhortations and threats that you won't be able to board planes or enter facilities like nuclear power stations without it most Americans are still lukewarm to the idea. It doesn't help that having such a license cuts no ICE with the security forces -- people have found that ICE agents either disregard it and claim its fake or they won't let you produce it (and Heaven help you if its not in your pocket).

The UK will likely have the same kind of problems. It shouldn't be an issue, though, because back in the Good Old Days when I lived there you didn't need to carry an ID because the cops either knew who you were or could find out instantly. If they feel the need for ID now its just because they've either lost the thread completely or they just need it as a tool to intimidate ("Forgot your ID, Sonny? Tsk Tsk.....")

Senator demands to know status of 'duplicate' Social Security database 'immediately'

DOGE doesn't really exist. Its not an official branch of the Federal Government, its like a Frankenstein's Monster of an organization created out of bits and pieces and nominally headed by someone who worked in a remote office that had nothing to do with the day to day operations of the people involved.

It was the very epitome of "Yes yes I did. It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard." (Hitchhiker reference -- the full quote has life imitating art)

Given the creation, staffing and leadership involved the notion of a "Hostile Work Environment" would likely be a bit of an understatement.

Walmart's bet on AI depends on getting employees to use it

Improving employee's lives

Typically a pay boost and maybe some more relaxed working conditions does the trick.

NASA bars Chinese citizens from its facilities, networks, even Zoom calls

A lot of top talent is Chinese

If you work in technology here you'd be surprised how many foreigners are employed in serious technical roles. Many of them with be Chinese. Quite a lot will be Iranian (or Armenian). Then there's the Indians, lots of them, too many we now think.

Most have been here long enough to have naturalized. But can we be sure that they're really Americans?

Germany now allows dual citizenship. A neighbor and his wife discovered this when they found out that he had lost his German citizenship when he naturalized as a youngster whereas she didn't when she naturalized more recently. This was important because she wanted to move back to Germany -- no problem -- but he's stuck here for the time being.

They're both screwed, regardless. The US will demand that they file taxes regardless and those taxes take precedence over others' taxes. To enforce this the US government has applied indirect rules menacing banks with heavy penalties if they fail t report an American (in their eyes) citizen's income to the IRS. This has caused problems in the UK where 'accidental Americans' have found banks reluctant to open accounts for them. Renouncing US citizenship is long winded, expensive and can get you seriously discriminated against if you apply for a visa to visit the US.

(Its not really as "Land Of The Free" as it pretends. You only find out about that too late....)

AI pricing is currently in a state of ‘pandemonium’ says Gartner

Inflated valuations lead to inflated pricing

Its a basic law of business. You can't go around claiming such-and-such a business is valued in the billions or even trillions unless you've got some kind of revenue strategy to back it up.

Modern Capitalism lives by the notion of "Go Big or Go Broke!". The investment bubbles it generates are a way of borrowing money against expected future revenue, real or imaginary. Scalping a captive customer base can generate revenue but if that's not enough the bubble bursts. (....and if all those inflated investments were bought using borrowed money.....)