Posts by CountCadaver

Metropolitan Police hails facial recognition tech after record year for arrests

Re: Just asking for a “friend” …

Back to gaudy makeup?

How does this square with those who wear face masks for medical reasons - i.e. live infection / immunosuppressed?

Or those who wear facial coverings for religious reasons?

Cross referenced with the passport/DVLA/biometric photo databases and notes made about anyone who is under the purview of the DWP, Probation service etc.

Likely public transport be next (with link your face to make paying seamless and make delays a thing of the past, no cash or card only facepay) then NHS hospitals and schools (to get people at a young age where they can't refuse a face scan.)

With DWP access to bank accounts it's very soon going to be that you won't be able to fart without some apparatchik knowing about it

(Editor - are we still allowed to use words like Apparatchik or words like that also now forbidden? Honest query)

Re: Just waiting for an excuse ..

When the knife man on the train was A) white and B) from the early reports apparently undergoing a psychotic episode (likely due insufficient support from NHS mental health services (as they are ALWAYS the first to be slashed) and now the media will stereotype anyone with mental illness as a threat (vs reality that anyone with mental illness is more likely to be a victim of crime than commit one - due to societal prejudice and stigma)

But why would politicians miss a chance to build a totalitarian authoritarian dystopia? This is something that the Stasi / NKVD would have been proud to operate, ditto any similar agencies in right wing dystopias.....

over 65s most supportive ?

Because those arrested were no one they knew and the papers they read support the concept as getting "wrong uns" off the streets

Also it wouldn't surprise me to find a large swathe of ex coppers (because "I wish we had had this when I was in the force) and exbnp supporters (because well the BNP was an openly racist party with links to openly neo nazi groups i.e. combat18) in that survey group alongside those of an authoritarian bent who are foaming at the mouth at the chance to "deal" with those they class as undesirable.

The trendline doesn’t look good for hard disk drives

Re: There is a lot of "non-active" data out there

I went through a BAD batch of seagate external drives that all started click of death just outside the warranty period. Haven't bought seagate since and was previously a frequent seagate buyer....

NHS left with sick PCs as suppliers resist Windows 11 treatment

Re: Question is

You'd probably be surprised just how prevalent various flavours of windows are "behind the scenes"

The problem often is that the hospital doesn't want to spend vast sums supporting some bespoke system, so manufacturers produce something that will interface with the hospital windows network and so the software runs on windows, now it *may* run on windows 11 but given it's medically related then the manufacturer has to certify it as compatible with windows 11.

It would be no different if it ran on Linux, bsd etc and a new version / kernel came out and the manufacturer refused/failed to update compatibility to the new version and instead told you to "buy a new scanner" etc at x hundred thousand or X million - you could say "it'll work fine" but legal are going to tell you no way in hell due to how exposed you will leave the hospital, the insurers will deny coverage as there will be a clause covering operation of devices out with manufacturers approval

This is another example of capitalism gone rogue and generating vast amounts of waste because the drive is to sell new rathrt than maintain existing

The flaw in the NHS

The govt should have years ago called GP and dentists bluff - if necessary used their majority to revoke their licence to practice unless they agreed to what would have been sensible terms of direct employment.

Instead we have a pile of wasteful empires, reliant on dodgy statistics and swinging wildly every time a new study comes along, which undermines public trust in clinicians.

Where surgeons are not being held to best practice but instead "improving their current ways of working"

Where patients are being injured, disabled and killed by bad care, where it isn't reported and dealt with due to rigid hierarchies which enforce a "don't betray your fellow medical brothers and sisters' and "don't question your superiors" where hospital depts act like disconnected independent businesses in one building rather than a cohesive and holistic care system, where a patient with multiple health issues could and should be treated for them in one admission but instead they are admitted, treated or diagnosed with one thing, discharged, sent home if untreated to get worse, readmitted etc etc causing vast amounts of disruption to their lives, worse health outcomes, vastly increased cost to the health service.

When what should happen is that if a patient is admitted for something like an MRI - then instead of doing a tiny area - instead also look at high risk areas or the whole body.

Leverage technology to do basic processing to highlight any potential harmful signs and flag these to a radiologist(weighted where the system will flag something rather than not), fund extra training places and look at the training programs for radiologists (so you don't have lengthy courses filled with irrelevant nonsense because "oh it's related to medicine so they need to do large amounts.of the medicine course" - in other words to strangle the numbers of new radiologists, stymie attempts to cut waiting times in order to "keep some work for tomorrow, next week, next month", fight any changes to working methods.

If software on my slr is able to recognise various animals and focus on them then it surely is possible to build a more powerful IT system that could scan through large amounts of MRI data, flag anything immediately dangerous, flag things possibly dangerous, flag anything that isn't dangerous yet but matches a precursor and then recalls the patient for another scan at an appropriate interval. Therefore you would then cut the workload for clinicians, allow admin staff to focus on organising critical appointments and dealing with patients (particularly those who need extra support) while the system handles the basic stuff - patient at a familial risk, scan is clear, recall in a decade for example.

However the attitude is that empires MUST be protected and ranks closed to protect the organisation / trust even when patients are put at risk, denied care due to "lack of funds", where this lack is caused by waste and frankly stupid outdated attitudes, which are bad for patients, bad for hospital efficiency and bad for the public finances.

Also the right wing media (basically all of the UK media).would SCREAM about any rises to taxes, the BMA would litter the media with scare stories while glossing over just how many people are killed, disabled or otherwise harmed by their members every single year through incompetence, arrogance, wilful malfeasance etc.

Tech industry grad hiring crashes 46% as bots do junior work

Re: Useless

It's a piece of piss, they just fake up grievances, whispers of unacceptable conduct, bully you, have a ream of willing volunteers to accuse you of whatever just to get themselves a leg up or at worse just "manage" you out of the business...

so the world of Future track 5 then?

Where the protagonist busts his ass studying and writing doctoral level papers to qualify as the chief systems analyst's .......tea boy (literally brewing up tea and taking it to the CSA..)

I swear it's the world we are rapidly headed into.....Lobo farm can't be far off....

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

Re: Why not simply.

And starlink makes me think of the emp firing satellites from escape from LA (Spoiler Snake does a switcheroo with the actual controller and then punches in the world code without any further narrowing - destroying everything electronic on the planet)

We're all going to be paying AI's Godzilla-sized power bills

Re: Cheer up.

I've often thought that we should follow the Dutch example and build a dementia village, where there is a higher staffing level, that people can roam around the site freely and in safety, that they can take stuff from stores and not face any hassle.

The perfect site for a trial version would have been the (mothballed and now sold for housing ) former open prison HMP Noranside - quiet country location, close to a main trunk though for family visitors, similar in design to a holiday camp from decades past, take down the cell doors and remove the bars from the windows, even put the staff in coloured jackets and the patients would quite likely believe they were at a holiday camp, put on period compliant entertainment, give them a gardening space and flat level nature walks with benches and many would be calmer and likely need less or no medication, thus making them far more lucid and give them better health outcomes.

create a fake gate well before the actual boundary and have the staff tell them that the buses/trains etc have broken down/on strike etc and we apologise for the inconvenience but this lady / gentleman will take you to get a meal/tea/coffee and cake on us while you wait.

Instead lets turn sites like that into more overpriced and under built "luxury developments" and medicate people into zombies

Re: Cheer up.

Heck you could probably put the old folks home atop a nuclear reactor or the sun itself and there would still be complaints about it being freezing cold and turn the heating up further still ...

Re: Energy

All I can think of red dwarf....

https://youtu.be/dkF7Bj5cxJU?si=NR9H_9Hi1zWMiJrO

Company that made power systems for servers didn’t know why its own machines ran out of juice

Re: How could they not figure out the timing?

Actually you can easily do it by killing power, drilling the copper bus bar and bolting on lugs and fusing down the new supply outwith the junction box to feed the lights

Sounds like aerospace, defence, mining or oil and gas related - someone was asking on Reddit what people's "authorised maximum spend" was in their industry, everything from £50 to "what do you mean maximum spend?" Where various people then commented that person had to work in one of those sectors, which was confirmed and then then others chipped in with their accounts of working in those sectors and being told if they REALLY needed a max spend to call it X million but don't stick to that if it's an emergency and don't bother the boss below that amount or wrecking X hundred thousand worth of materials and the boss just shrugging their shoulders as if it was just a few bucks worth. Different world apparently.....

UK calls up Armed Forces veterans for digital ID soft launch

Re: Nasty tactic

NHS Scotland has salaried dentists on payroll, the problem is of course decades of post thatcher neo liberal economics that throws a ragefit at the concept of govt building well.....anything really.

Why shouldn't dentists be salaried and in the case I gave be issued assignments post qualification ala military personnel?

Same logic - free tuition and paid while studying

(sidenote easiest way to qualify as a nuclear watch keeper is to join the RN submarine service as a marine engineering officer, the rn send you to university for 7 years to study nuclear engineering (on the govt, while paying a salary), you do your minimum term of service and walk out into a hefty 6 figure plus salary role in the civilian world )

Re: Nasty tactic

We already have forces discount card and blue light card (both run by the same company)and offer a wide range of discounts, albeit nowhere near what is offered in the USA .....

Re: Nasty tactic

As Rudyard Kipling put it

I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";

But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,

But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";

But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide

The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,

O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.

An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes," when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, fall be'ind,"

But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:

We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!"

But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;

An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

— Tommy

Re: Nasty tactic

The UK has NEVER cared about ex forces, even dating back to Wellington's "new model army"

Re: Nasty tactic

Actually - a court wouldn't find that legal, council would rapidly end up in court facing an action from the property owner AND central govt could and would "call it in" and they can overrule the local council (as central govt overrides all.subordinate agencies as the supreme court have held)

The UK isn't the USA and local councils don't have "states rights"

Re: Nasty tactic

If govt heavily incentivised creation of jobs across the UK and closer to new housing developments, then it would cut the number commuting long distances and slash the pollution caused by commuting, restore some vitality to places outwith the big cities and put more money into the pockets of local authorities through increased business rates.

Alternatively that business rates are shared with the authorities covering the areas that staff are resident in.

Re: Nasty tactic

The govt could of course offer free tuition to all dental students and an above minimum wage stipend while studying to all students who agree to work solely as NHS salaried dentists for 10-15 years post qualification

It then gets around dentists being private contractors and ensures a continuous supply of NHS dentists coming on stream and being retained for 10-15 years, thus tackling the treatment backlog and ensuring that everyone has access to NHS care promptly.

Would also then mean that dentists could offer more frequent checkups and more in-depth checkups, focusing more heavily on prevention of dental issues in the first place.

What do we want? Windows 10 support! When do we want it? Until 2030!

Re: [Shrug]

One word WINTEL

Re: Awareness Of Linux Is Still A UK Media Problem

Also a human interest story about one man driving forward a project used on everything from computers, mobile phones, your car to *surprising* things like microwave ovens and TVs.

Would also work for a *tailored to the audience* this morning type piece - where the stuck at home and recently retired (either skint or done with corporations fucking with them / looking for something to fill the hours between meals ) might have their interest piqued - "Now have you seen these messages on your computer screen recently? Would you rather not buy a new pc but you don't want to be left with an insecure computer? Well stay tuned for our next segment after the break and we have a solution for you "

Talk about distros like brands of tea or washing powder and people will get the meaning as it's in their frame of reference but ONLY mention distros that are a doddle to install (Ubuntu, mint etc)

Shove a YouTube video on the this morning channel or a downloadable /printable fact sheet or how to guide.....job done

Re: Awareness Of Linux Is Still A UK Media Problem

Something like proton where using their calendar is just a matter of clear and very simple hand held steps to pull in Google/iCalendar etc.

Their password manager is also pretty simple also.

Mail client also makes pulling in your mail from elsewhere a doddle also and proton does all the hard work for you in the background.

The only problem is that so many people refuse to READ what's on the screen in front of them and just click buttons at random and then yell about it being overly complicated nonsense and why can't we just keep it the way it is

Re: Awareness Of Linux Is Still A UK Media Problem

The BBCs output of late is horrifically simplified and badly badly written with a standard of grammar that will have many secondary school English teachers of not many years prior virtually pulling their hair out at.

When you look at France24 or Deutsche Welt the difference is glaring, the BBC's output is written at a primary school level where as the other 2 have clear and professional writing (even after translation from the original German or french).

Though the rest of the UK media is as bad or worse frankly, speaks volumes about the low level of literacy in the UK and the dive to output aimed at the lowest denominator

Techies tossed appliance that had no power cord, but turned out to power their company

Re: Sounds like they were reckless

Whoever invented the doorbell CLEARLY was NOT a dog owner....

UK Home Office opens wallet for £60M automated number plate project

Fix the fucking potholes PROPERLY would be nice rather than patches on patches on patches

Windows 95 was too fat to install itself so needed help from the slimmer 3.1

Re: Nothing ever changes

Actually there are increasing calls especially in the EU to ban tall flat fronted vehicles such as north American pickup trucks due to the risks they pose to pedestrians and particularly kids, where euro model cars they would interface with a much lower deformable bonnet

Re: Nothing ever changes

Japanese cars for a long long time had the indicator stalk on the right (even my 1996 corolla was built like that)

Re: "how much they hate the latest version of Windows."

XP was a buggy mess at first, annoyingly so after upgrading from 2k which had been utterly rock solid

Took until sp2 or sp3 for it to finally iron out most of the gremlins

UK government says digital ID won't be compulsory – honest

Re: Or as will happen

Iirc the correct German term is "Ausweis Bitte"

Irony alert: UK.gov Work dept hires IBM to aid AI projects

Automating Delay, Deny, Defend

So basically the UK transitions further to Airstrip 1 via American Medical insurer Delay, Deny, Defend model, Stasi like surveillance and Chinese Social Credit Scoring

Seems the DWP runs the govt - DWP is too big, too powerful, too biased, too institutionally defensive and downright top bigoted.

Likely they will abuse the regs that allow them access to claimant's bank accounts to instead let their AI scan everyone's bank accounts (exempting of course senior politicians, captains of industry, large amount donors, heads of friendly think tanks etc...) to "establish a base line profile so as to have the data on hand in case a claim is filed so we can expedite the claims process and preemptively prevent fraud" and of course this won't come out for years on end and only after the DWP file for and get a super injunction to prevent publication, along leaning on as many politicians as possible to quell the chance of parliamentary privilege being used (or lobbying for that to be abolished on "national security" grounds)

The DWP needs broken up and replaced with it's predecessors - ministry of social security, ministry for labour/work, ministry for pensions - kept siloed as putting them under one umbrella leads to this.....

Intern had no idea what not to do, so nearly mangled a mainframe

Re: Expensive Lessons

Aka what schema therapy calls a "punitive schema"

AI models just love escalating conflict to all-out nuclear war

anyone who wants a headsup as to where this ends

Check out the following

1).Horizon : Zero Dawn (for those who don't game...a film is in the works and if they don't tone down the backstory....well threads will have a rival for horrific scenes - stuff that make the events of the Terminator look fit for a kids movie....)

2) Any of the Terminator series

3) Threads (given the military will demand the one with the greatest "warrior ethos")

In other words we are fucked, the UK is about to become some unholy composite of East Germany/North Korea (how long until exit permits become required??)

USA could well ignite into full blown nuclear armed civil war

and it just keeps going from there

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

Problem is that the UK has already become the USA in that respect where people are already working multiple jobs to get by....

The White House could end UK's decade-long fight to bust encryption

Re: Not the Only Overreach

Surprised plod didn't come looking for a grow op

Re: Thanks Donald.

No US President has tolerated American business interests being hemmed in by legislation - the mighty dollar is their only care as the pennywise song lyric put it....

UK toughens Online Safety Act with ban on self-harm content

Re: The new way.

Coming soon - Britnet "safe smut-free surfing for sensible people" (someone pass me the sick bucket...quick)

- you can REALLY tell what all those "fact finding" and "trade delegations" to China during the 90s were REALLY all about - how to build a controlling surveillance state.

Though the UK govt has form for this - from the obscene publications act of 1959, passed just as society was becoming more liberal and tolerant and which served to curtail material freely available elsewhere to Virginia bottomely in the 90s "I will NOT have British TV become like America, there WILL be standards" to RIPA, snoopers charter and now this pile of dung known as the OSA...

No no no - the latest (USA Christian right origin) narrative thats VERY popular in parliament is that mental health issues are massively over egged - that people need tough love to help them cope with "the normal trials and tribulations of life", that ADHD, Autism and other neurodivergent conditions either don't exist "everyone has a bit of that" or again need harsh and tough love as "people just want an excuse to get high on the public's expense" - ignoring that ADHD is caused by a difference in the structure of the brain and one of the common markers is a deficiency in dopamine levels which stimulant medications treat - improving focus, mood stability, reduction in risk taking and improvements in life outcomes and quality of life.

We have slid rapidly into an idiocracy of know nothing politics grads, ideologues, spiva, grifters, bigots, racists and theocrats (and often all of the above)

US cuffs 475 at Hyundai–LG battery plant – feds tout largest single-site raid

Re: Hmmmm, what day is Kristallnacht this year?

Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it

- see Gaza, see Ukraine, see the USA falling into fascism, see the moral panic over trans people in both the UK and the USA - no different to the 80s gay panic, nor any different to the panic over non whites and particularly black people "raping our white women" "stealing OUR jerbs", no different to the anti Jewish pogroms and mob fuelled violence based on false allegations and moral panics......

These are dark days and I am ASHAMED of the complete collapse of political moral courage and moral fibre, that opportunists like Streeting are revelling in pouring fuel on the fires of hatred, that the PM parrots and normalises fascist rhetoric with phrasing like "island of strangers" - likely written by his policy guru who is a protege of Maurice Glasman - who wanted to bring the BNP into labour......

Re: Hmmmm, what day is Kristallnacht this year?

Anyone like to to try and argue what the difference between the ww2 French Resistance and Hamas is?

Both see themselves as fighting against an invading oppressive occupying power which abuses and oppresses their people, both kill both military and civilians of the occupying power, both resort to bombings and worse, both were classed as terrorists by the occupying power - so where is the difference? (Well apart from one was mostly white, christian and affiliated with the USA and the UK,the other are non white and mostly muslim)

Re: Hmmmm, what day is Kristallnacht this year?

Jews were actually one of the later targets for the concentration camps - communists, socialists, trade unionists as well as gay, lesbian and trans/gender non confirming people were rounded up prior to this and were also brutalized and killed in the camps, but that's glossed over in favour of a narrative that only jews suffered and only Jews were held in the camps.

It's a dishonest narrative, Jews suffered extremely badly but they were not the only ones who were subjected to it and neither were they the first to face it (the wannsee conference was in 1942 - where the 'final solution' was discussed and implemented - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference ), trade unionists, communists and socialists as well as LGBTQ people were rounded up and detained in concentration camps for years prior to this.

Bot shots: US Army enlists AI startup to provide target-tracking

Try FaroBots.....

Robotic killing machines as part of a system that can build, repair, modify and improve its own output as well as process plants and other organic materials into fuel and raw materials.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is the origin

And I won't spoil the game narrative (as its really quite gripping and shocking at the same time) however I will say that musk is a real world analog for Ted Faro and that's the scary part honestly....

Supermarket giant Tesco sues VMware, warns lack of support could disrupt food supply

Re: [..] why Broadcom isn't automatically forced to honour the existing VMware contracts

Especially if it gets mis scanned as "I❤️ANAL"

Sainsbury's eyes up shoplifters with live facial recognition

how about security guards?

Oh wait those cost money and might look at the situation too sympathetically i.e. someone starving

Already cameras at self service tills in every store almost which says it all about their views on their clientele - less valued and more "prisoner 9846 stop loitering" "prisoner 65237 looks nervous - detain and search"

I just wish id gotten out and stayed out of the hellsphere formerly known as the UK and before it literally became Orwell's airstrip one

AI web crawlers are destroying websites in their never-ending hunger for any and all content

Re: Back in the day

I miss the web of the late 90s where you could talk to "real" people without bots (spam or otherwise), hand holding "ranking systems" Lycos did this to their chat service and kiddified it with cute cartoon graphics out of the blue for whatever marketing bs reason.

Shit take me back and let me stay there....please?

Re: A monetized internet might be the only way to solve this

I use qwant at the moment, swisscows was too limiting (child friendly meant all too much was verboten)

Re: A monetized internet might be the only way to solve this

And they are looking to abolish it as the public hate it with a passion and it's been used to line the pockets of various people while delivering nada

Re: A monetized internet might be the only way to solve this

Though like cold fusion and quantum computing the 2 year window is always 2 years away....

Until the next big fad comes along where it will be forgotten about for 10/20/30 years and then "rediscovered" in a slightly less extreme form (just like fashion)