Posts by vtcodger

Go ahead, forget that password. Use a passkey instead, says Google

Re: Oh boy here we go

I'm sure that somewhere on line you can buy a cured and stuffed finger. Just use that and hang said finger on your keychain. Problem solved.

Python still has the strongest grip on developers

Re: Languages

"if you look at it from 10km above, Python and Ruby and Perl are exactly the same language". Guido Van Rossum

Python and Perl really are quite similar. Perl may be marginally easier to code, For some people anyway. But I think that most of us -- me for sure -- find Python a lot easier to read than Perl. I actually did learn Perl and used it for a while before I switched to Python.

I think Python's real strength is that it seems to be the easiest full strength coding language for non programmers and beginning programmers to learn. So it tends to be what folks are taught when they start off. And unless they drift off into some specialized field, they never see much reason to change, Not that Python is perfect. Far from it. But it seems to be the least awful way to talk to a computer here in the early 21st century.

Apple pushes first-ever 'rapid' patch – and rapidly screws up

Re: This is the reason "you turn off this default setting..."

"Automatic updates - while good in theory - are rarely as good in application."

As someone who did a lot of software system testing and a lot of development, let me say that testing is by far the more difficult of the two worlds. It's no surprise to me that updates often don't work right. Lots of reasons, but one big one is that it is often quite impractical to test patches against all the possible user configurations. So yeah, sometimes "they" didn't really test against your use case. The other big one is that developers and testers often don't actually know what users are using their software to do or exactly how it is being used. In my experience users are astonishingly good at finding ways to use software that may be quite different than the developers have in mind. When that happens it's really easy to break the user's workflow. Users generally don't like that.

Two opposing world views: "What could possibly go wrong (WCPGW) with this simple fix?" on one hand. "Whatever can go wrong will" (WCGWW) on the other.

WCPGW folks tend to feel that updates are out there for a reason and that failing to install them promptly is incredibly risky. WCGWW folk on the other hand feel that blindly installing updates is asking for trouble. Not a lot of middle ground there.

I tend toward WCGWW myself.

Eco warriors sue FAA over Starship fallout, claim watchdog is lost in space

False expectations

Jeezum. Here El Twit Supemo moved his undertaking from California to Texas in order to get away from regulation. And the environmentalists turn up with a battalion of lawyers just because of dumping a bit of dust and a few itsy chunks of concrete on a few birds and aquatic reptiles. Obviously Texas is not the answer. I suspect we can look forward to Musk moving on to friendlier climes -- maybe Wyoming or Paraguay.

Here's how the data we feed AI determines the results

Is there any way?

I have no problem with using AI to generate ideas, or look for unexpected correlations in data. Of course the lying and just making things up is likely to by a problem. But that's hopefully going to be mostly a problem for the AI user not the rest of us.

And, of course, there is the potential of AIs screwing up almost all forms of testing and certification.

And, I imagine we will have to deal with all sorts of dysfunctional tools that will try to separate AIs from real humans. Think CAPTCHAs on steroids. And probably even more erratic and buggy if that's possible. (Actually, I think AIs might be rather better than real humans at solving CAPTCHAs.)

Also I'd like to know if there is any way to prevent companies from replacing their already obtuse and more or less useless "customer service" folks with cheaper and even more obtuse/useless AI agents? If nothing is done, this will happen. I guarantee it.

Amazon, Bing, Wikipedia make EU's list of 'Very Large' platforms

A challenge?

Four months to come up with plain language Terms and Conditions? One suspects that's going to be no small challenge to many of these operations.

Chinese city of Changshu to issue salaries in digital yuan

Chinese Money

For whatever reason, this article and moreso the comments seemed to me not to be fully reality based. For one thing, the Chinese seem quite sophisticated about money, and a blockchain based digital currency using current technolkogy would seem likely to be quite unwieldy, slow to process transactions, and vulnerable to system failures. So I did some quick fact checking. Lots of facts out there. Maybe some more reality based than others. Anyway, what I came up with was.

1. Yes china has a Central Bank Digital Currency

2. No, it's not blockchained. Blockchaining is a separate effort that will perhaps be incorporated later. (Maybe ... Someday ...) (Shortly before or after Hell freezes over would be my guess as to the likely timeframe).

3. The eCNY sounds to me pretty much like a digital debit card issued by and backed by the central government.

4. The advantages to the user? It's a credit card (sort of). Sometimes credit cards are more convenient than cash. And, If anyone steals your digital wallet and tries to spend your eCNY, they are committing a federal crime not just a local one? And in theory (but not in practice?) merchants HAVE to accept CNY if one offers it in payment.

5. The advantage to the government. Long term, it can potentially be used to control dissent by limiting the ability of those who hold unpopular views to travel and buy stuff. On the other hand it can also potentially be used to detect and control some forms of corruption -- a substantial problem in China I'm told.

6. In theory, small transactions can be anonymous. (Sort of like the US -- many payments over $10000 are reported to the feds?)

7. Is the eCNY popular? Not especially.

See https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-launches-digital-yuan-app-what-you-need-to-know/#:~:text=No.,not%20operate%20on%20the%20blockchain. Google or any other search engine will turn up tons of other references.

Let's take a closer look at these claims of anti-ransomware SSDs

Re: Hope there is an off switch

Downvoted because the OP clearly thinks there is virtually no chance of this thing being anything other than an additional problem in a domain that already has more problems than any of us can cope with. I agree with him. At best, it'll probably be an obtuse storage device that resists reformatting or repartitioning, won't work properly with many OSes and is prone to mysterious hangs. At worse, it'll do something truly horrible.

At very best it probably doesn't need AI. Just some routine logic. And a LOT of OS/driver support because the operator needs to be able to talk to it and find out why it is balking or that it's OK to overwrite everything (because sometimes it is).

This gizmo sounds to me like an ideal device for those who believe in the powers of magic. For the rest of us? Probably not so much

Operative principle: If it sounds too good to be true it is probably too good to be true.

Google's AI chatbot Bard catches up to generating code

Chatbots are the future?

Let me see if I have this straight. Chatbots generate code that compiles and they do so cheaply. They speak excellent English (or any other language they have been trained in?), do not test their work product very well (if at all), and lie a lot.

I'm not sure what makes using them different from hiring an offshore programmer.

Or an onshore programmer for that matter.

Seems to me like we can tell purchasing to find us a chatbot. Then tell HR to fire the programming staff.

Then we'll train the chatbot a bit then fire HR and purchasing.

It's almost like we've automated Elon Musk... or most any other tech CEO for that matter. We can fire them too?

This looks to be more entertaining than Devops or Cryptocurrency. I love technology. It's way more fun to watch than football. Or wrestling. Pass me another beer.

What does an ex-Pharma Bro do next? If it's Shkreli, it's an AI Dr bot

Re: Theranos II

Of course it'll be a fraud. Fraud is what Shkrelli does. What I don't see is how he's going to make an obscene amount of money off AI. But I imagine he'll find a way.

Microsoft nopes out after Twitter starts charging $$$ for API access

Parental

"If Musk really wants to go all in on playing a twelve year old child, somebody needs to step up and act like his parent."

Does anyone really think that Elon you're grounded!!! Go to your room. And stay there. And no internet until you apologize!!! is likely to improve matters?

India gives itself a mission to develop a 1000-qubit quantum computer in just eight years

Re: Waste of money

Upvoted because the post seems to agree with my VERY vague notions of quantum computing. Not that I understand quantum. I most certainly do not. But to the extent that I do, I'm developing a slowly growing feeling that once the smoke and mirrors are dispersed, there's nothing there. The magician, cape, hat, rabbits, doves, and gorgeous assistant are gone. The stage as well. Don't exist. Very likely never did.

US changes rules on tax credits for electric cars to cover American-made only

Re: I’d want a discount too

,,, a level of fit and finish that no other manufacturer in the world matches.

Unmatched? Not while the workers at Lada can still push an occasional vehicle out of the factory doors.

Python head hisses at looming Euro cybersecurity rules

It wouldn't hurt law makers to say what they mean

That's probably a good idea. If memory serves one of our US legislators actually proposed a few decades ago that new laws should be accompanied by a short essay describing legislative intent. And I think that was even done a few times. Needless to say, the idea did not catch on.

With ICMP magic, you can snoop on vulnerable HiSilicon, Qualcomm-powered Wi-Fi

A caution

Network folks may be tempted to solve problems like this by turning ICMP off completely. I mean who cares all that much about whether ping works? Unfortunately, there's a drawback. Something called Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) depends on ICMP in both IPv4 and IPv6. Break PMTUD, and you may end up with something called Blackhole Routing. That sounds bad. And it is. What happens is that small message packets fly through to their destination. Large packets simply disappear. But the symptom people see is that some programs work fine. Others don't. Or maybe some options of some program work fine but others don't. This is not easy to diagnose and is harder to fix since the problem may be on someone else's computer. It's not even all that easy to figure out whose.

And yes, it really does happen. Back in my working days, I encountered it several times.

So, if you are tempted to improve your security profile by turning ICMP off, it might be a good idea to read and understand the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_MTU_Discovery Maybe it's OK to live without ICMP ... and maybe it isn't

CAN do attitude: How thieves steal cars using network bus

Hmmmm

I got to thinking and realized that I haven't replaced a light bulb in any of our cars for maybe two decades. It's not that I don't check the lights. I do a walk around on all of them once a month. And it's not that they are problem free. I've recrimped/resoldered a few corroded connections over the years. But the bulbs? They seem pretty durable nowadays. I have a container in the garage with a few spares for common bulbs -- 921, 1156, 1157 and something smaller with no part number. It's pretty dusty.

Maybe I've just been incredibly lucky.

Re: Why

It may shock you, but modern cars are fairly more complicated than your 1939 plymouth.

Indeed they are. And some of those complications are genuine improvements. Let me list some of those.

1. Seat Belts (Although even in 1939 the Plymouth could have had seat belts had anyone thought to put them in cars)

2. Modern electronic ignition which truly is a substantial advance over carburetors (not that there were ever more than a dozen entities in the known universe who actually understood carburetors)

3. Materials. Just about everything on the cars -- tires, paint, brakes, working fluids, etc, etc, etc is better now. More durable, does its job better. Much is it a lot better.

4. Automatic transmissions -- I don't much care having, of necessity, mastered using a clutch in my youth. But a huge boon to those learning to drive

5. Anti-lock brakes. They work well on dry or wet roads which is where most people drive. And they work after a fashion on unpaved roads. They do not work worth a damn in snow and ice and actually make it harder to stop where one wants to stop pointed in the direction one wants to be pointed on icy roads.

6. Emission controls. Something of a PITA for most of us, but a real benefit to residents of some urban areas -- notably the Los Angeles basin.

7. Rear view cameras

OTOH not every improvement is actually an improvement or works all that well.

Case to point. Something called Electronic Stability Control. It's principle function seems to be to prevent the ascension of hills in Winter although I believe that it will also tell me if the car is upside down -- something many, I think most, drivers can likely figure out without help. It's complicated, adds expense and really looks to be kind of dumb. My mechanic agrees with me for what that's worth.

I'd also point out that it took a long time to get some of those things -- electronic ignitions, emission controls, automatic transmissions working right. Many decades in some cases.

My point -- not every idea is a good one. And doing stuff just because you can usually is not a very good idea. Cars nowadays often last 20 years or more. People need to be able to fix them. I don't think you need, or should want, complex electronics to replace something that is simple, straightforward, and works well -- headlights. OTOH the stuff on the back of the car -- taillights, licence plate lights, blinkers, backup lights, brake lights, rear view camera, proximity sensors -- is sufficiently diverse that installing a simple digital device and control via the CAN bus may be reasonable.

Why

Headlights should be on a different bus than the powertrain.

I'm having a bit of trouble groking why the headlights are on ANY bus. I learned to drive on a 1939 plymouth sedan. It had headlights. Two. Right and left. They had two settings. High and Low. High/low was controlled by a switch on the floor. Don't remember where that switch was exactly. Maybe high up to the right of the brake pedal? Needed three wires(power to the two filaments and ground, a fuse and two switches (lights on and lights-high/low) Every car I've owned since has had pretty much the same system except they moved the high/low switch from the floor to a stalk on the steering column in the 1970s or 1980s and some cars added an automatic switch for Daytime Running Lights in the 1990s (not all DRLs use the headlight low beam filament and the US doesn't require DRLs so low end models may not have them).

I really don't see the any significant cost savings from or need for "smart" (i.e. the intellectual peer of a mildly retarded cocker spaniel) headlights. All I see is gratuitous complexity that will add to the cost of vehicle maintenance and repair .. and might get your car stolen ... not that the latter is all that great a feat.

Cardboard drones running open source flight software take off in Ukraine and beyond

Re: The last thing the world needs

Interesting, But real cruise missiles often fly slow (to increase range by decreasing drag) and low (to avoid radar). Not that these drones are likely to have much of a radar profile. High and fast sounds more like a ballistic missile.

The last thing the world needs

100km range. Flies a predetermined course. 3kg payload. All that's missing is a terminal guidance system and there's probably something on Amazon or eBay that can handle that.

Sounds to me like everyman's cruise missile.

You young folks sure will be living in exciting times.

Pentagon advised to get agile if it wants to keep up with evolving threats

Supeiority

Agile has always struck me as the systems version of the Double Fudge Sunday diet. Just eat your normal meals and supplement them with a double fudge sundae every afternoon and the pounds will just melt away.

Anyway, my experience with military systems was that design, implementation, and test was extraordinarily difficult and complex and that the associated logistics, training, and support was really, really hard. Further, for many systems, getting things wrong was bad. Perhaps very bad.

For a brief vision of what can go wrong, try Arthur C Clarke's short story Superiority. https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1439133476/1439133476___5.htm

In the battle between Microsoft and Google, LLM is the weapon too deadly to use

Re: Pandora's Box, again

Pandora's box has been opened ,,,

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Pandora opened that box inside a currently pretty well sealed vault.

As I understand it, today these AI technologies require truly massive computing resources. Resources that are currently only available to a handful of entities worldwide. There's no clear need to make the technologies immediately available to every computer and cell phone user on the planet via the internet.

I think what critics are suggesting is not a permanent ban on the technologies, but a temporary hold on general availability and a well organized research program to find at least some of problems they might hold. Perhaps they have a point. A mysterious black box that is making grinding noises has appeared on your doorstep. Is sticking your hand into each and every orifice, the optimum way to determine its capabilities?

Of course, in a decade or three, computers capable of doing AI on their own may well be commonplace. So a permanent ban likely wouldn't work. But temporary limits on public access might well provide a bit of time to study the technology.

Re: Futile

the problem is in blindly trusting the results ...

That's certainly a possibility. But really the problem, if there is one, is likely more that we don't know what the problem(s) are. It might be a good idea to find out before widely deploying this stuff. Yes, that'll delay innovation. So what? It seems to me that the world suffers from way too much innovation (which is fun) and way too little good judgement and quality control (which aren't).

Will it really do any harm to take a few years and find out a bit more about the true nature of this new toy before giving it to one and all to play with?

Microsoft breaks geolocation, locking users out of Azure and M365

Advantages of the cloud

Someone remind me. What are the advantages of using the cloud?

Many fewer stressful hours per year doing actual work?

We've got plenty of AI now but who asked for it? El Reg's vultures chime in

Re: AI is a Tool. It creates nothing.

Happily, it appears that the lemmings, by and large, looked upon the Zuck's Metaverse and said, "what the hell is THAT?"

One can hope that AI will prove to be the same ... But probably we're going to be cursed with it. Lots of it.

Perhaps it'll turn out to be good for something or other.

Microsoft freaks out users with Windows 11 warning: 'LSA protection is off'

Re: You would think

@aerogems Are you suggesting that there is an alternate version of Windows that is given to Fortune 500 customers and which gets updates that have been tested and actually work? I suppose all things are possible. But that does seem a bit unlikely.

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

Re: But physical keys can be hacked

FWIW, one physical key working in multiple, otherwise unrelated, cars is a well-known situation.

... pause while internet is consulted ... ah yes, here it is.

In fact, major car manufacturers such as Honda, Toyota, and Ford use approximately 3500 distinct key combinations. Therefore, the odds are reasonably good that someone else out there may have the same keys you do.... Locksmithhttps://www.txpremierlocksmith.com › twin-car-keys-key-..

That reflects the physical limitations of practical physical keys -- the number of tumbler positions and levels at each position that will work reliably even after years of wear. One might think that electronic locks could have enough bits for every key to be unique, but apparently not.

Silicon Valley Bank seized by officials after imploding: How this happened and why

Re: I'm affected - no pay today

Challenge it seems will be getting access to it now the bank's been seized

A reasonable assumption. But the bank employees except for a few high level suits that will have been replaced by state bureaucrats still have a job (this week anyway). And the $250,000 comes from a real insurance operation -- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that has some experience dealing with this sort of thing. The problem will be when the $250,000 per account has been burned through. That's a probably matter hours for larger operations, days for medium sized. A few of the smallest and newest might last a few weeks or even months.

And the bank still has considerable assets albeit apparently not enough to cover its obligations. Apparently, some of that cash will be available "soon".

Still, this is surely a very bad thing. It may save the public from having to deal with a lot of awful AI products that are even more erratic and less dependable than Elon Musk since AI seems to be the fad d'jour. And maybe it'll finally drive a stake through the (virtual) heart of cryptocurrency. But this is not a good way to do those things.

Might be a good time to read over that plastic card of In case of emergency ... instructions in the seat back of the seat in front of you. The one you've been ignoring for years. ... Now then, where is this life vest they are going on about? And how does it work again?

Musk said Twitter would open source its algorithm – then fired the people who could

It sill has a steering wheel

The car still has a steering wheel. It's just not connected to the steering anymore, thereby preventing the fault prone human driver from interfering with electronics. This is a major technical improvement. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit an emergency vehicle if the dude in the "driver's seat" is allowed to continually interfere with the autopilot?

Tesla's self-driving code may ignore stop signs, act unsafe. Patch coming ... soon

OTA updates of safety related software?

Am I the only person who thinks Over The Air updates of safety related software is a really dubious idea? Microsoft is a shining example of how hard it is to get updates right. Does any sensible person think Musk's quality control will be any better? If Tesla QC is so good how did software that doesn't stop for stop signs get shipped in the first place? At the very least, one suspects third party testing and certification of safety related changes including OTA patches probably should be required.

GitHub claims source code search engine is a game changer

Re: Why?

It's not just patent trolls. Take malware authors for example. Assume they've found an exploitable flaw in some library. But does anyone actually use said library? GitHub code search to the rescue!!! I'm sure many other equally beneficial uses will surface.

Australian government doxxed citizens who criticized illegal 'Robodebt' scheme

Re: The "weather" balloon

I don't know why people are downvoting you. Your point seems entirely right. It's very hard to steer a balloon with any precision except maybe at low altitudes using propellers. That would seem to severely constrain what the intelligence mission (if any) might be. On top of which, the Chinese have a bunch of surveillance satellites which are surely far better suited to photographic and communications gathering than a balloon. Then there's the fact that the US spooks are more likely or not going to end up with the payload sitting on a table wherever they take foreign electronic gear to dismantle and analyze it. So the Chinese probably can't put any technology on the balloon that they'd like to keep secret. If this thing wasn't simply an errant weather balloon, it'd be interesting to know what it was doing. But I doubt we'll be told for fifty years or so.

Microsoft boffins contemplate equipping Excel with AI

Re: Hello, I'm Clippy.

CLIPPY plus AUTOCORRECT -- What could possibly go wrong?

Guy accused of wrecking crypto exchange now hauled into court

Re: Crypto is crud. Bur that's not the issue.

"How is this cheating ...?"

Apparently he's being charged under commodity trading law which makes overt attempts to manipulate commodity prices a criminal offense. Is crypto a commodity? Damned if I know. Kinda looks like one though, no?

I'm not (and wouldn't want to be) a lawyer. But here's a link to an article that seems to suggest he's in a heap of trouble if it is. https://www.robinskaplan.com/-/media/pdfs/beyond-supply-demand-manipulation-in-the-commodities-markets.pdf

Crypto is crud. Bur that's not the issue.

I think the message from the SEC doesn't have anything to do with the merits, if any, of crypto. It's more along the line of "Speculation (i.e. Gambling) is permitted. Cheating isn't."

Bankruptcy probe: Celsius cheated investors 'from the start'

AST

"Holders of newly-minted ASTs could sell them on the open market ..."

Sell? To whom?

Tesla admits it was asked to hand over Autopilot, Full Self-Driving docs to investigators

Re: Documents?

My reaction as well. Tesla documents its software? You're kidding. Right?

James Webb Space Telescope suffers another hitch: Instrument down

Re: Software or Hardware

I think perhaps we IT folks have become so accustomed to working around hardware/software problems in production that we've lost track of alternatives. In the case of satellites they are often built with backup for critical parts of system hardware. My impression is that satellite operations folk tend to think long and hard before activating a backup system. What if it not only doesn't work, but makes things worse? What if it screws up communications? Will they be able to turn it off? But they will turn it on once they are sure they've looked at all the possibilities. That may be what's going on here.

Twitter stiffed us on $2m bill, claim consultants in lawsuit

Those whom the Gods Would Destroy

Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first put in charge of a Social Media company?"

Twitter tweaks third-party app rules to ban third-party apps

Re: No surprise there then

Ahem ... why would an overpriced vehicle whose operation is subject to the whims of a raving lunatic have been on your list in the first place? Nothing against EVs. If you live in a mild climate, don't drive long distances, have reasonably priced electricity and expensive fossil fuels, and have a place to charge the thing, an EV might be a good choice for your next car. Just probably not a muskmobile.

FTX audit finds $415m in crypto mysteriously vanished

Easy come,Easy Go

Have these folks considered the possibility that the $415M simply returned to the nothingness from which it was summoned? Stuff like that apparently happens all the time in the domain of quantum mechanics. Perhaps they need a physicist rather than more/better accountants.

Artificial pancreas successful in type 2 diabetes tests

Re: Metformin

As I understand it, Metformin doesn't cause kidney damage, but if one's kidneys are damaged, they may fail to metabolize Metformin. Metformin then builds up in the blood and eventually causes lactic acidosis which can be a life threatening problem. But I'm depending on the Internet for information here. Could be really wrong.

Re: Exciting news

FWIW, I've been monitoring my blood glucose daily for over a decade, and my conclusion is that blood glucose level is far more complicated than just diet and exercise. Far more complicated than most medical folk think -- which means that consulting "experts" won't necessarily get those of us with abnormal blood glucose metabolism good or even useful advice.

I'm fortunate in that my blood glucose levels are currently adequately controlled by diet and Metformin. I was on insulin for a few years and let me tell you, that stuff is scary. One mistake or bad guess or just a day when the body decides to behave abnormally and you're on your way to the emergency room ... or the funeral home.

The good news is that with modern Continuous Glucose Monitoring technology, I think diagnosis and treatment of glucose metabolism abnormalities will become much more sophisticated and nuanced. The bad news? It'll probably take a few decades to sort it all out.

Flaming USB battery halts flight from Taiwan to Singapore

Re: And this is why Teslas and possibly other EVs ..

"Following that risk model LPG vehicles should have been fine too, but they're not allowed."

As I understand it, Propane is banned in some tunnels and some other underground facilities not because it is flammable, but because it is heavier than air, doesn't go away on its own, and may not be removed by the ventilation system. If a tunnel dips thru a low area as tunnels under rivers or bays are prone to do, how would one get a propane spill out?

Up to 18,000 Amazon workers in firing line as it chops cost

OMG -- They're firing Alexa

Amazon responded that it was as committed as ever to Echo and Alexa would "continue to invest heavily in them."

Let me translate that into English for you. Alexa better get her resume up to date 'cause she's got no future at Amazon.

OK with me. People talking to disembodied, imaginary, entities has always seemed a bit creepy to me.

When and where will the going away party be?

Miniature nuclear reactors could be the answer to sustainable datacenter growth

Unlikely to happen

As Threlkeld points out above "Any plant you haven't built is more efficient than the one you actually build." (Rickover-1957).

I'd strongly urge anyone who buys into this SMR fantasy uncritically to read the Wikipedia article on Nuclear_marine_propulsion article from Wkipedia. There's a lot there. Including the fact that commercial demonstration projects using marine SMRs **ALL** failed ultimately due to high operating costs. In at least one case, the reactors were removed and replaced with diesel.

Data point. Way back in the 1960s, the US Navy was concerned about the amount of resource that was required to supply McMurdo station in Antarctica with diesel. The fuel -- copious amounts as one might expect -- had to be hauled in during a rather short period each year when shipping could safely approach the base. So they installed a very small nuclear reactor. After a couple of years of fighting with the thing, they yanked it out and went back to hauling diesel in. Diesel was less aggravation.

=========

Why am I skeptical about SMRs?

1. While shipboard reactors have a reasonable safety record, they are also operated by highly trained crews. Do I believe that the MBAs running AWS, Google, etc are going to pay for appropriately trained personnel to run a bunch of boxes that (most of the time) run themselves? Not if they can avoid the expense, they won't. And I imagine they can find a way.

2. If you think siting and permitting SMRs is going to be one whit easier or faster that siting and permitting a full size power plant, you need to share whatever you are smoking. I'm pretty sure that in either case you'll be able to count on most of a decade supporting ravenous packs of lawyers before the papers that will actually allow you to break ground are in your hands. Is it better to do that once for a 1200MW installation or 20 times for twenty 60MW SMRs?

3. And, BTW, do you seriously think those 20 SMRs are each 20 times safer than the single 1200MW plant? Because they probably need to be. If your reactor containment fails, I doubt it makes much difference what the nominal power output of the plant is. Speaking of containment, do SMRs have any?

4. Who is going to fuel the SMR and haul off the waste? Amazon? I didn't check, but I doubt Amazon is currently peddling enriched Uranium.

5. And then there's waste. A lot of it apparently. As far as I can tell, any realistic hope of rationally dealing with nuclear waste in the US died with the demise of the Yucca Mountain repository. Am I wrong about that? I hope so. If so, feel free to educate me.

6. Who is going to insure these SMRs? My guess, No one.

7 ... And we haven't even got to issues like nuclear proliferation.

Re: Realism from Rickover

There's also the minor point that nuclear reactors in a submarine replace diesel engines that are very far from problem free ... in a submarine. Either require trained operators. Similar crew count, different training. Plus the diesels compete with the crew and payload for space (no massive fuel tanks for the reactor) and resources including oxygen to breath.

Re: Wastes...

The Wikipedia article on Nuclear_marine_propulsion indicates a few liquid-Sodium cooled reactors were used on ships, but that most are pressurized water. This may be at least in part a consequence of the rather peculiar limitations of the military marine environment which include stuff like minimizing pump noise (that can be monitored by an enemy for tracking purposes) rather than technology limitations. Still though, the designers went with pressurized water for what seemed to them good reasons. Could be that pressurized water could turn out to be the best of a rum lot even for civilian SMRs. Or not.

Lawyer mom barred from Rockettes show by facial recognition tech

Re: Because?

It's a setup

Could be. And a quite successful one come to that. Madison Square Garden comes off looking really bad. And that's when their iffy technology actually worked as intended.

It's probably not a good idea to gratuitously annoy lawyers. Especially not here in the US where ravenous packs of the creatures roam the streets looking for prey. Probably not anywhere on Earth really.

Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action

I've been wondering when Elon would give us another shot at Musk-bashing. Musk doesn't disappoint.

it's perfectly reasonable for Elon to be pissed off. Crazies jumping around on the hood of your car is a bit much. Not quite in the same class as breaking into the US capital and trying to lynch to vice-president. But way beyond reasonable expression of divergent viewpoints and something he shouldn't have to put up with.

But Musk's response ... Wildly inappropriate.

What an ordinary person or even an unstable genius would likely do is to get the stalker's license plate number and file a complaint with the local police. Then, if the jerk continued to harass, get one of the legal staff to request a restraining order requiring the dude to stay about three kilometers distant from Musk's location as tracked on Twitter. No, nothing that conventional. Instead we'll just make a random attack on the wrong guy.

This guy REALLY needs adult supervision.