Posts by ArrZarr

AI firms propose 'personhood credentials' … to fight AI

Given the reams of speculative fiction on the powers of AIs, why did we go ahead and build the bloody things with no idea how to manage the inevitable genie once it was out of the bottle?

Oh, right. Money.

Even Asimov, writing in a time functionally before electronic computers, grappled with how to prove that a person wasn't a robot in 1946 (Evidence) and wasn't able to come up with an answer - three laws or not.

I don't think AI is an inherently bad idea, but it really needs to be done more carefully than it has been done.

Juice probe scores epic fuel save after snapping selfies with Earth and Moon

Re: Excellent

The thing that concerns me is that the indirect route they're taking means that the satellite is going to take six years to get to Jupiter, which means it has much longer for components to die as it flies in circle after circle around the sun before hitting its final destination.

I'm not a rocket surgeon, and this has almost certainly been taken into account - but it feels a bit excessive to have 6 flybys to get to the fourth closest planet, spread across six-odd years.

Re: Gravity?

Gravity assists like this are made possible by the Oberth effect, increasing V (from mv^2) at a higher base velocity causes a much stronger increase in Kinetic Energy.

The increased V comes from converting Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy by being deeper in a celestial body's gravity well.

I might be missing something here, I read your comment as "due to [the celestial body's] orbital velocity" rather than "due to [the probe's] orbital velocity".

Console yourself – research finds gaming may actually boost mental health

Re: All things in moderation

Oh, I know what you mean. I got hooked on breathing as a baby and just don't seem to have been able to kick the habit!

While I'm all for reducing the social stigma of gaming as a hobby (why is it viewed so differently to watching TV all evening or scrolling through your social media app of choice), I would be very interested to see a study like this that compares the mental health effects of various genres.

There are some genres out there which have a reputation for their toxic communities (Looking at you, MOBAs) - and it would be fascinating to see if these genres have different effects on mental state or health to city builders.

Google is a monopoly. The fix isn't obvious

Break up Google how, exactly? Split Google Search away from the paid search ads which still functionally pay for Google's search? That still leaves one company with a monopoly on Google Search and one company with a monopoly on those paid search ads.

There is a real and significant risk here of a similar breakup to AT&T's '80s breakup, which only resulted in a number of local monopolies instead of a national monopoly for telecommunication for a long time.

The same risk exists for Google's Banner advertising offering, Google Analytics, Google Search Ads 360, Google Looker Studio/Looker Pro/Looker, Google Drive, Google Chrome etc.

I hate Google with a passion, but if they're going to get got on their BS, they need to be got right.

W3C says Google's cookie climbdown 'undermines' a lot of work

Re: The W3C is living in cloud cookoo land

We do a good job where I work, but that's because we're good at our jobs and work for good clients.

We also work primarily on Paid Search, not Display (Sponsored ads at the top of Google search pages), so it's much less obnoxious than content farm sites that are 10% clickbait and 90% ads (Not that Google's SERP is much better these days, but that's not on us!)

The ads you describe are remarketing, because it is the case that somebody who looked up the specs of e.g. a specific laptop is objectively more likely to buy that laptop than somebody who hasn't. That *is* new media advertisers doing a good job (with caveats. You can and should limit the number of times that a specific user should see a remarketing ad as an example - don't want to waste 100 impressions on a single user) - we just can't read your mind on why you searched.

That being said, there is a lot of laziness, I'm inclined to think that this is from the big agencies.

In short, I will say that new media has the tools to do a good job but Sturgeon's law still applies (which also applies to old media and every other field)

Re: From a W3C member

Cards on the table, I work in marketing (specifically making sure that our marketing data is working)

Have you considered: The only good Google is a Dead Google, so to hell with them?

But yes. A plague on both of our houses is a sentiment I can't disagree with.

Re: The W3C is living in cloud cookoo land

"...their ancestors managed fine for decades if not centuries without the tracking of today's web"

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” - John Wanamaker

I completely understand where you're coming from, but while old media advertisers may have managed, they certainly weren't able to do a good job.

The laziness present in all too much of the industry is also an issue, and even discounting my professional judgement of people wasting marketing budget, that laziness is where a lot of the more annoying marketing/tracking things from a consumer's perspective approach.

Re: It's amazing how badly the internet works without third-party cookies

Small e-commerce sites may also not have the development resources to ensure compatibility for browsers & setups that make lots of intrusive (from the site's point of view) decisions on what's kosher and not.

E-commerce site dev teams tend to be stretched pretty thin at the best of times, even for major retaillers.

Honestly I just want Google to die in a hole.

My perspective is skewed here, because I need to deal with their unfathomably bad multi-levelled sheer incompetence across five separate tools on a daily basis and I'll be damned if Google gets a locked-in monopoly/duopoly position in any aspect of their business under the guise of pretending to give the slightest crap of user privacy.

I'm not going to go into depth here, because it's 11AM and I don't want to be still writing this comment tomorrow with all the ways they (seemingly) maliciously want to make everybody who works directly with them's life worse, but I think you see where I'm coming from!

The death of 3rd party cookies in Chrome has been pushed back so many times at this point, that Google giving up on it isn't that surprising to me. They've been trying and failing for years to actually make their tracking stack make sense without third-party cookies make sense.

However: killing third-party cookies directly benefits Google (and the other big players in the tracking market), assuming they can make their stack play nice. This is because killing third-party cookies puts all the hard work of stitching user journeys together onto the tracking provider and requires the provider to have an existing large install base - something very few providers actually have (realistically we're talking Alphabet and Meta), and actively prevents new tracking providers from getting that install base. That is especially true for remarketing providers (the ads that follow you around the web, of which Google (natch) is currently the dominant provider). People complain about not needing to be shown ads for a fridge after just buying one - this is partly due to lazy marketers - but without third-party cookies, we aren't going to see a new provider in the market that can stop that happening. We become reliant upon Google to do something useful for a change.

Blocking cookies does not stop people tracking you. I'm certain that there will be a response below this post talking about how uBlock and NoScript successfully prevent tracking, and you're *probably* correct, but for the vast majority of users, the statement is fundamentally true - all killing third-party cookies does is ensure that we're dealing with Google and Facebook forever.

Microsoft finds a new way to irritate Windows 11 users – a backup pop-up

Re: When will users decide that enough is enough?

Speaking from personal experience, ChromeOS is almost fantastically limited. Its applications seem to be generally based on the mobile versions rather than the good^H^H^H^H desktop versions, and lots of stuff that I used to take for granted on a windows laptop are beyond it.

I'm not qualified to talk about the actual usability of MacOS and Linux because I've never had cause to give them a shot, but I certainly don't feel that my use-cases can justify giving either a try (Windows specific work applications and legacy gaming).

Inquiry hears UK government misled MPs over Post Office IT scandal

Re: But as Watson might say

Only insults are a one-way street across the pond. Our sense of superiority in the civilized world is a fragile thing ;)

Google's plan to drop third-party cookies in Chrome crumbles

Re: Who’s clicking anyway?

How dare you, I'm not slime!

Definitely some kind of unpleasant insect instead.

GA4 now works (well, kinda works, but what else is new?) even if you block cookies and the site performs as it should, so yes.

To be honest, I'm glad that third-party cookies are staying because if all the tracking providers are forced into first-party cookies, it essentially prevents any competition to Google, Facebook et al. from starting up, so we'd be stuck with only the current incumbents in the tracking field forever.

And while I expect you all to be playing the world's smallest violin in my general direction, the less the big tracking players can do to make themselves more indispensable and more black-boxy the easier my job is.

If you prevent any attempt to read from cookies, you'll get hit on every page with "Will you accept our cookies?" banners though.

The only way to store the information that a user has declined (non-essential) cookies is with a cookie (which is a great example of an essential cookie).

Though if you hard-block any cookie being set, you would get the same problem anyway.

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Re: Rather different

And just to defend the Robin's good name, it was specifically weighted to roll at the drop of a hat.

Tesla parental controls keep teenage lead feet in check

As Said in my post, I have only ever driven a manual car. As I also said, I have a feeling that my fears are unfounded.

That being said, I'm probably getting some strain of EV as my next car which is different again.

After playing video games set in America that include driving, I've had moments where I've been unsure about which side I should be driving IRL.

I've only ever driven a manual. Both my parents have made the transition to automatic petrol hybrids at this point and my Father, never the keenest driver, absolutely sings the praises of having an automatic.

Personally I'm an absolute control freak when it comes to the two-ton metal box I'm trusted to drive, and I am actively nervous about losing fine control over low speeds in an automatic. I get that they're probably not that bad, and as I said above, I've only ever driven a manual, but not being able to shunt the car around on the clutch just feels wrong :/

Speed limiters arrive for all new cars in the European Union

Re: So, now it's speed limiters

The second half of your sentence is reducing OP's post to absurdity.

ABS, TC, Servo Assistance and Power steering give us more control over the car, in the sense that they amplify our ability to do what we intend (Hard braking without locking up, booting it to pull out at a junction without wheel spinning, react quicker to situations).

My understanding of what's being discussed is that it's taking decisions out of the hands of the driver.

Currently, if my car hits another car, I am liable. If my car is speeding, I'm liable. If my car hits a child on their way home from school, I am liable. If my car does something weird & wacky at a junction and causes somebody else to hit me, I am probably liable.

When I stop being liable for the above situations, I will let the car make decisions on speed and steering. Until then it's my responsibility to drive well and do my best to ensure none of the above situations happen. To do that, all I ask is to be able to control my car with the assists I choose to use.

Re: Good

I'm an avid user of the CC button on my car, but the only time I've found the speed limiter useful was the time I was on the space saver spare tyre for a couple of days over a weekend last month. Being able to set the speed limiter to 50 (the rated top speed of the wheel) meant I could focus on driving rather than watching the speedo.

'Skeleton Key' attack unlocks the worst of AI, says Microsoft

Along with instructions on how to make them?

It's fairly obvious that Molotov cocktails were just used as an example, rather than something more overtly sinister like mustard gas or TNT.

Indian govt probes claims Foxconn won't hire married women

Re: Non-problem Problems

You call it a sense of humour failure, I see your comment as a transphobic dog-whistle as TERF Island hurtles towards an only slightly less trans-hostile government than we currently have.

But you could always have used the joke icon, if you were willing to put a name to your post.

Re: Non-problem Problems

ODFO

Airbn-bye: Barcelona bans short-term apartment rentals for tourists

Re: Alternatively….

The thing that's always concerned me about tourism-based economies and industries is that they're one of the first things to get hit in any sort of economic turmoil. It's great to lift a place out of poverty, but you're fully reliant on the general economic health of the world to get enough people coming to support said economy.

Footage of Nigel Farage blowing up Rishi Sunak's Minecraft mansion 'not real'

Re: Pretty funny

Honestly, that's probably the problem - the election will be on this date, so we can plan our whole campaign way ahead of time and build it up gently over time.

Musk wants to ban Apple at his companies for cosying up to OpenAI

I'm explicitly not telling you to use Windows, but your feeling that I am trying to tell you how to use your PC is eerily similar to how I felt reading your WOO LINUX comment.

I've never installed a linux distro on a pc of mine, it's just not something I'm interested in dealing with, but I use VR headsets and other peripherals (racing wheel, controller, joystick) and they all just work on Windows. Maybe they would just work on a Linux distro but the chance of the seamless experience that I have had with these peripherals on windows 8 through 11 on a Linux distro is less likely.

Beyond that, I do play a lot of older games (1995-2005), and that leads to all sorts of other issues. Maybe the community has solved all these issues in a given linux distro, but that's a big if.

Again, I wasn't telling you how to use your computer. I can see how you felt that way. I can see that you weren't telling me how to use my computer in your original post, but I hope you can see why I felt that way.

If your main use-case for a computer is gaming, why wouldn't you run the best OS for gaming? Please note that the best OS for gaming is not the same thing as the most technically proficient gaming OS.

It's also notable that in the case that you do have issues (running old games, for example), the size and consistency of the Windows install base means you're much more likely to be able to find a solution to a problem online. With Linux, not only is the install base smaller, but you have a billion different flavours of Linux that will all have their own quirks. If you want a concrete example, look at Planetary Annhiliation, from a few years back. It was kickstarted explicitly with Linux support. If their developer is to be believed, Linux accounted for <0.1% of sales and >20% of auto reported crashes.

For all it's myriad faults, and I'm not pretending that this list of faults isn't LONG, Windows is a better gaming OS than any flavour of Linux for the vast majority of users, even among those who are technically savvy.

Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure during election year

Re: You literally can't make it up

Yes, I too remember that time when Trump didn't call for Hilary to be locked up. Trump himself told us that he never said "Lock her up", and if you can't believe him, who can you believe?

Re: You literally can't make it up

The house is Republican controlled (just) and neither the Democrats or the Republicans have a majority in the Senate.

Gates-backed nuclear plant breaks ground without guarantee it'll have fuel

Re: Begins to make sense...

And yet California still has about a third of the population density of the UK (and under a quarter the population density of England since Scotland brings the average down so much).

Australia's population density is absurdly low, what with a lot of the country being a near-uninhabitable desert (for a modern city - the Aborigines did a damn fine job of dealing with it), but the US isn't exactly low on elbow room - the whole column of states from Montana to New Mexico aren't being used a whole lot. The US has a whole lot of desert that nobody has found a good use for outside of nuking for the shiggles.

PC makers hopeful that Chromebook refresh cycles about to kick in

Honestly, I can't help but feel that Google would be worse in Microsoft's position than Microsoft are. The only tech company that I would like to see take Microsoft's markets over less than Google at this rate is Twitter (and thank god that's not happening).

And this isn't because I like MS, it's just because I spend all day working with Google tech and it's all atrocious, in a much more obvious way than MS tech is.

Screwdrivers: is there anything they can't do badly? Maybe not

Re: Not screwdrivers but...

Let's just say that I've always felt an affinity to this line of the personality characteristics of J. Random Hacker from the jargon files.

"Accordingly, they tend to be careful and orderly in their intellectual lives and chaotic elsewhere. Their code will be beautiful, even if their desks are buried in 3 feet of crap."

Not screwdrivers but...

As somebody with an eternally messy office, I have learned to be extremely careful with irreplaceable parts while sitting at it. Not because the irreplacable parts are fragile, just because finding anything dropped is an exciting challenge all by itself.

UK PM Sunak calls election, leaving Brits cringing over memory of his Musk love-in

Re: Disappointing

Is that a British or American Gallon?

Re: Disappointing

In the 2019 GE, there was no massive swing to CON from LAB - CON got a single percent more of the national vote than they did in 2017.

The killer for LAB were REF not competing CON seats, but actively splitting the LAB vote in LAB seats.

Uni staff fall back on Excel to work around mis-coded transactions in Oracle system

Re: Nothing changes does it

Silly unknown, we only moved out of caves due to an Excel-powered time machine. Here are the last 100 or so characters of the key formula: "))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))),0)"

Re: Nothing changes does it

Outside of being a functional human being, I maintain that the single best skill you can develop for work in an office is getting good with MS Excel. It's never going away.

Google's €1B Finnish datacenter expansion to heat the local community

It's odd to hear Google referred to as "The Chocolate Factory" these days with their general descent into horror.

Oh to be ten years ago.

At least they're still implementing some good ideas.

FDA gives Neuralink 'a second shot' at human brain chip

For all that Musk is scum, if I were in the US, I would genuinely volunteer to be a test subject for this. I don't qualify as I an fully abled, but god damn this is the future I want to be in.

Don't judge please. I know I'm an idiot for wishing I could volunteer as an abled subject.

Intel's quantum leap in wafer-wide cryo-testing sets cool new standard

Still waiting for the universe to patch the physics glitch that makes Quantum Computers work.

Lazy developers not finding this kind of bug are the bane of my existence!

A tale of two Chinas: Our tech governance isn't perfect, but we still get to say no

Re: Grow Up

It's worse in China than the UK/US, sure.

That doesn't mean that the various governments in the UK/US haven't spent the last 70 years chipping away at any sort of moral high ground they could possibly claim. It's not that the West (as a whole) is a worse place to live than China (which is looking more and more like the biggest economic bubble in history and that's not going to be fun for anybody when it pops), it's that it's so easy for China or Russia to point to <terrible thin the US has done> and say "Well if they can do it, why can't I?".

Russia can invade Ukraine and point to the US messing with Iraq (1959) or Iraq (1963) or Iraq (1991) or Iraq (1992-1996) or Iraq (2003-2021).

China can slurp TikTok things and point to Five Eyes or Snowden stuff.

So yes. The West is better to live in than China, despite the late-stage authoritarian-capitalist dystopia that we are heading towards, but this is an example of why eating your high horse alive is a bad idea.

Obviously the CCP hoovering up data from their companies is bad, in a worse way than Meta, Alphabet et al., but it's really hard to actually feel that way when you know that the CCP has already bought all of our data from the big data brokers anyway.

The other problem is that while the West's various surveillance programs were definitely found to have overstepped legality, it's hard to pinpoint any tangible outcomes outside of our own governments doing their level best to ensure that those same actions are no longer oversteps.

I guess the issue is that while I know the CCP don't care about individual rights, the actions of our own government (and the rhetoric other major party) make me certain they don't care either.

Anyway, if they overstep, they can just pass a law that says Rwanda is a safe place to send dissidents to.

Hard not to feel hopeless at this mess we're in tbh. I'll go and cry quietly in the corner.

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

Re: She is best known for...

At a fundamental level, to describe trans women as men is patently false. To disagree with that is to deny the scientific consensus on the matter.

It is true that trans women are (usually) male, but they are never men.

It is also disingenuous to describe a trans woman as "a man in a frock". You might be one of the "We can always tell" crowd, but that is fundamentally a case of selection bias.

Your argument also collapses once trans men are brought into the conversation. A group therapy chat that only allows females must therefore allow trans men in - many of whom pass as men and wo would probably cause more discomfort to any traumatized women in the room. Should these trans men go to men's rape therapy groups?

The final thing on this is that I do wish to remind you that the concern is about cis men who pretend to be transgender. I do not know any of the 129 trans women in prison, but I would be curious how many of them are genuinely trans. I do, however, know a few people that claim to be trans but I am suspicious of whether they really are (but this includes a trans man).

ChatGPT Plus remembers everything you forgot you told it to remember

Re: Interesting. My first thought:

Have it generate umpteen-billion character profiles (randomised attributes) for the "book" you're writing. Set up a blog on your website that then lists all of these "employees" of various companies & make sure that ChatGPT is welcome to scrape your "employee profiles" to add to its model.

Huawei's woes really were just a flesh wound – profits just soared 564 percent

Re: No surprise

Soon they will have developed equivalent technology to the US, not necessarily better.

Fundamentally I agree with you that it's just a stumbling block but it just forces China to reach approximate parity with "The West". They'll probably do some things better and some things worse.

To be honest, I do see this as a generally good outcome. The Processor market for consumer PCs has been Intel vs AMD for too long and needs fresh blood. Same with the graphics card market - Nvidia is getting closer and closer to being a true monopoly in that space so I'm all for non-US competition coming in and hopefully improving competition.

The US is also unlikely to leave its companies out to dry. One thing they've done relatively well over the years is ensured that they have multiple options for government contracts, especially in the military space. Computing is just as important in the modern day so they will work hard to keep Intel/AMD/Nvidia going through rough patches if they ever need to start playing catchup with foreign competitors.

Apple's 'incredibly private' Safari is not so private in Europe

The issue is that a site that claims to point to a third-party app store will send a unique user ID to that store, enabling you to be tracked around the web.

Realistically, this is only a big problem if somebody big (Meta/Amazon/Alphabet/Microsoft or one of the big data brokers) figures out a way to add this code to the site through a tag (most people who particularly care about privacy online will have this blocked by default anyway) as changing source code directly on site is a much higher barrier to implementation than adding to a container tag.

This will probably be fixed sometime relatively soon - as much as I don't like Apple, I think they're generally pretty good at sorting this kind of thing so it's unlikely that any of the big players will put a lot of resources into making this a cross-site tracking vector. That being said, this might a fundamental issue of how Apple are forced to act under EU law so will be forced to remain a vector long-term at which point it will be worth it for the big tracking providers to set up tracking here.

To answer your questions, specifically about cross-site tracking:

1. Potentially at risk if the 3rd party app store wants to monetize this cross-site tracking avenue.

2. Potentially at risk if the 3rd party app store wants to monetize this cross-site tracking avenue.

3. Potentially at risk if the 3rd party app store wants to monetize this cross-site tracking avenue.

4. (Navigates to any website that points to a 3rd party app store that wants to monetize this cross-site tracking avenue) -> At risk

Fundamentally, if Google add a call to a "third party marketplace" that they own in their Google Analytics tag, then they will have functionally full cross-site tracking on anybody not blocking Google Tags.