Posts by Anomalous Custard 29 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jul 2019
in a previous job we made the mistake of trusting the aircon company to properly deal with a decommissioned ceiling vent, which happened to have a rack underneath it (there wasn't anywhere else in the room for it to go).
The Monday after this happened we came in to find the carpet around the rack soaked, and the one server in the rack full of water. Which led me to try to invoke our support agreement at HP (they would send us the parts we needed to recover from an emergency - in this case it was just disks needed). Which led to what seemed like hours of trying to get the support person to break out of their script - it was certainly long enough for me to end up putting them on loud speaker and random people wander in to listen. It went something like this:
Me: *explains problem, and that we need to invoke our agreement and need this many disks of this size*
Them: "What happens when you turn it on?"
Me: "It's full of water - that's not happening."
Them: "I understand. But what happens when you turn it on? Does it beep?"
Me: "It's full of water, I'm not turning it on"
Them: "I understand this. But if you turn it on, what happens?"
Me: "Electricity and water don't mix well. I'm not turning it on"
Them: "OK. I understand you don't want to risk turning it on, but what noise does it make when you turn it on?"
At around this point one of the people listening in muttered, I think just loud enough to be heard by the support person, "If you want to find out you come and turn it on"
Shortly after the support person did understand that I wasn't going to turn it on, I wasn't interested in trying to fix the server and that I just wanted disks to start the rebuild of the server on other hardware.
On the flip side: it generates more interdepartmental communications, ensures staff get up from their desk and move around for a bit (which should help them stay focused), and you can make tea the way you like it. It can also generate in-team good will if people take turns in getting all the drinks.
>After the tutorials, I wrote a multi-threaded chess queens solution. (You should know the problem, how many queens can you put on a board without them being able to attack each other
I've now got "One Night In Bangkok" stuck in my head
("I'd let you watch, I would invite you / But the queens we use would not excite you")
>"The inherent problem with job sharing and part time working from an employees point of view is that you also have to accept an effective pay cut."
That depends on the person's circumstances. Going from full-time to job sharing or part-time, yes. But if you're effectively blocked from the full time market because, for example, you have a young child then being able to work in your chosen field during school hours may well pay better than the alternatives (benefits, relying on partner's pay (if you have one), gig economy jobs etc). Or health issues that prevent you working full time. Or are semi retired. And so on.
>The knuckle-dragging Luddites always get in a froth when new technology is applied.
Seems an odd insult to lob at a tech audience, but whatever.
>* You have a personal tracing device in your pocket RIGHT NOW (your phone).
Actually it's on my desk ;) And I have as much of the tracking stuff as I can turned off most of the time
>* You have listening devices in your home RIGHT NOW (Smart TV, digital assistant, games console...)
Nope. The TV is dumb, I have a phobia about digital assistants, and I don't use or enable voice on my consoles
>* You have behaviour monitoring devices RIGHT NOW (activity tracker, internet connect fridge, home automation...)
My activity trackers are tracking the activity of the drawers they're languishing in. My fridge cannot connect to the internet (unless it's gained sentience and can now walk to a computer). I do have "smart" bulbs (not my idea) - which will tell anyone tracking that we turn the lights on when it gets dark and turn them off around the same point every night.
>* You are using facial recognition RIGHT NOW (Facebook, Windows, Apple...)
I have facial recognition on my Windows tablet. Which actually only seems to recognise one pair of glasses and not my actual face. Or any of my other glasses.
>* You are happy to be tracked RIGHT NOW (advertising)
My ad blocker etc usage would suggest otherwise.
My tracking bingo card tells me you forgot to mention travel cards such as Oyster, bank cards, loyalty cards and online shopping.
>If you are happy with all of those (and it seems you are given the up-take), then why are you getting >your gusset in such a twist of over the Met applying technology to public safety? Oh whoops, it's a >false positive. Big deal. 30 seconds out of your day to provide ID and carry on.
I don't live in a country where carrying ID is mandatory, and as I have no need to carry it on a regular basis I don't.
>If anything it will IMPROVE matters massively for those affected by the racist stop-and-search >policies as the AI system won't have the inherent biases of the prejudicial police officers.
Hahahahanope. As others have mentioned it has difficulties telling darker skinned faces apart(*) , and add to that the biases of those who will be training it, then it's really not going to make things better.
>The technology still needs to advance, but once it have it will be a MASSIVE BOON to society by >helping us to identify risk individuals before they have would have become known by traditional >means.
We've had incidents where people have been deemed to be at risk of causing violence by those closest to them, who have reported those people to the authorities, who've not taken action. This is people being reported by those who know them well, and who are in a good position to judge change in character, behaviours etc. What on earth makes you think facial recognition will improve this? How does "this face looks vaguely like this other face" improve on "this person has become more extreme in their views and I have reason to believe they will carry out their threats of violence"?
>More importantly, it will help prevent the police from wasting their time and innocent people
>who happen to be "the wrong colour".
Only if it improves enough to be able to detect differences in all skin tones equally. Only if accuracy improves so police aren't wasting their time chasing down people who look a bit like someone else. Only if you think the police fail to apprehend the "correct" people because they're wasting time chasing after innocent people. Only if you thing human biases won't affect how human police officers interpret the results of the AI.
>Get your heads out of your collective bum.
I think it's you has your head in yours.
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