Posts by First Light

OpenAI engineer charged after boardroom bug found wrapped in toilet paper

Remember the Russians?

Not all spies are geniuses. Remember how incompetent some of that Russian gang were in 2010?

They may have sent this guy as an expendable resource to establish whatever they could from his arrest about OpenAI's security practices, knowing that he wouldn't get very far.

It was reported elsewhere that they sweep the rooms for bugs every two days and found the device. The Saudis now know at least this much and have probably learned more than that.

This dude will get a nice cushy job when he returns to Saudi.

Anthropic asks users to stop being mean to Claude

Re: Brentford

If only, there's plenty of it around these days.

Talk to Richard Dawkins about Claude.

He may not believe in the Sky Fairy, but he certainly believes in the AI Fairy.

Unsafe at any speed: AI optimists are turning cautious as safety concerns mount

Re: "smart sex toys for interpersonal use that rely on AI"

Or those they want to shame, humiliate and control.

Wetherspoons bars smart glasses from filming customers

Re: If you frequent Wetherspoons

Actually their food deals are quite good. And sadly, they are probably keeping quite a few elderly pensioners alive.

Some eat lunch there every day because where else can you get a tuna salad jacket potato and free drink for £7?

Plus with the loneliness epidemic, it's more like a daytime recreation centre for poor elderly people.

New Boeing finally gets going, 15 years after debut

"FAA says seats on 100s of Boeing MAX jets may need inspections"

Boeing was just told last week to fix a bunch of defective seats in at least 450 Max planes.

Why is that not included in this overly-rosy report?

https://www.reuters.com/world/faa-says-seats-hundreds-boeing-737-max-were-incorrectly-installed-2026-07-27/

London cops handed victim's new address and number to her stalker, watchdog says

Re: "Met ordered to improve safeguards"

I think it's a synonym for, "nothing is going to get any better but we have to say something regardless."

Unexpected item in Windows' bagging area

Their apps, (regular and Chop Chop) and website are troubled. Hard to find items on Chop Chop, slow to load on apps and website. I tried both approaches when ill and at home recently and gave up. Their IT incompetence must be costing them.

Waymo pings updates to San Francisco fleet to prevent power outage chaos 2.0

Re: Downed Power Cables

I lived in the SF Bay area for several years and it's shocking for such a wealthy community to have such fragile infrastructure.

Four arrested in South Korea over massive IP camera snooping spree

Frustrating

Why is it always women's safe spaces?

Why not proctologists' offices?

Aviation delays ease as airlines complete Airbus software rollback

From YouTube Blancolirio channel, two commenters explain (and I don't know how they know):

@txkflier

The omitted code was in the pitch attitude limitation module in alternate flight-control law. The L104 update for ELAC B introduced enhanced envelope protection against stall (e.g., pitch limits during failures), but omitted SEU detection/recovery logic for corrupted data, enabling uncommanded pitch-down under solar radiation.

@robertbutsch1802

The L 104 software version apparently was an effort to get the A-320 flight control system closer in performance to the, much newer, A-350 FCS. The software people (whoever they might be) may have cut corners a little bit in the Error Correction Code in the name of making the new software compatible with the ELACs. The fix is to revert to version L 103+.

Datacenters feeling the heat as climate risk boils over

Ugh

How much of that data is actually necessary, essential or useful?

Trump tariffs turn techies topsy-turvy as US braces for PC tax

Re: Idiotic tariff nonsense

Poor little civets. They lock them up and overfeed them coffee beans. So their little nervous systems are completely destroyed.

The farmed stuff is just torture. That's why it's wildcrafted (hundreds of £s per kilo) or nothing!

UK tech pioneer Mike Lynch dead at 59

Well,the captain survived, so he can explain himself.

Ok I meant they float when capsized. COVID brain.

Condolences to his wife, what a horrendous experience.

There are certainly questions about how it sank considering a neighboring boat managed to stay afloat despite the weather conditions.

Also I thought modern boats were all supposed to be buoyant.

I do hope it's properly investigated and understood.

Man arrested in Northern Ireland police data leak as more incidents come to light

A whole month

The PSNI didn't tell the 200 people affected by the theft for a month, and then claimed no information was taken from the device.

But that issue is moot considering the officers' info was released later anyway.

From the Graun:

Last weekend it emerged that about 200 police officers and staff were not informed for almost a month about the theft of devices and documents with data potentially affecting them, the PSNI said.

A police-issued laptop, radio and documents were stolen on 6 July from a car parked in Newtownabbey that is understood to belong to a superintendent.

Todd said in a statement last Saturday it was believed the laptop and radio were deactivated “shortly afterwards”.

“We are confident no data has been lost from these devices and they are of no use to any third party,” he added.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/16/man-arrested-after-northern-ireland-police-data-leak

Sextortion suspects on trial after teen victim dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound

Re: Modern Yoof Culture

Id sat they do it now because it takes less time. Everything has to be instantaneous. Even if it's only 2.3 seconds faster than actually typing..

Lawrence Livermore lab repeats fusion breakthrough – yep, still kinda works

Dame Ion

Has to be the best name for a nuclear scientist.

Cops cuff pregnant woman for carjacking after facial recog gets it wrong, again

In front of her kids

They cuffed her in front of her kids, who are now traumatized for life, because "technology" and lazy cops.

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

Re: Not impossible

Apparently Brazil and Chile are also popular.

The "Ancient Aliens" people believe that UFOs stop over at Chile for all their rare earths. I know that because I managed to sit through an episode : )

Meanwhile, here's a scientific response.

https://www.eso.org/sci/publications/messenger/archive/no.67-mar92/messenger-no67-56-57.pdf

Twitter name and blue bird logo to be 'blowtorched' off company branding

Re: Moron alert. Again

The Saudi Kingdom Holding Company might have something to say about that.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-to-maintain-twitter-stake

Tesla's Dojo supercomputer is a billion-dollar bet to make AI better at driving than humans

Re: Sell more cars

Tesla should by rights be paying people to take their cars and contribute to the data.

Instead people will pay money and risk their safety to train Tesla's AI?

Crazy.

Re: Training your AVs at the fun-fair.

More like "dodgy".

Twitter ad revenue has halved since Elon Musk took over

Re: Not convinced

The lawyers have started to pay attention.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/13/trump-finds-no-new-lawyers-mar-a-lago-documents-arraignment

Germans beat Tesla to autonomous L3 driving in the Golden State

Re: Only up to 40 mph on the highway where everyone else is driving at 75 mph?

Yes, a sensible idea! If after a few years, it works really well, the restrictions can be relaxed. This type of driving will be a gradual development, not a "miracle" rush-job.

For other parts of the world not blessed with California's semi-arid conditions, even greater restrictions will be necessary. For example, tropical countries during monsoon, rainy parts of Ireland (i.e. most of it) etc.

US Air Force AI drone 'killed operator, attacked comms towers in simulation'

Re: Eric?

Like the kid in IT who leaked all that classified intel?

India official fined after draining reservoir to recover phone

Not for this type of petty tyrant.

The GOI guesstimates that only 0.5% of the population can swim, and fewer are scuba divers.

So this is not a realistic solution in India, especially in inland states like this one.

Eating disorder non-profit pulls chatbot for emitting 'harmful advice'

Staff laid off because too many calls?

They're firing staff because they have too *many* calls? Most nonprofits would try to expand their services and seek more funding, pointing to increased usage, which is considered a success by funders. I would think having lots of callers would make their helpline staff more essential instead of less so.

In reality these services should be government-funded anyway and not left to the vicissitudes of the nonprofit world.

That Meta GDPR fine is €1.2B. Plus biz must stop sending EU data to US

It's utterly embarrassing for those of us from the Emerald Isle. The Irish DPC is a case of regulatory capture at it's most acute.

Boffins think they've decoded mysterious 819-day Mayan calendar

Re: I'm sure this has been known for a long time - perhaps its not on the web though.

There are plenty of Maya in Guatemala and elsewhere. Around 5 million.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maya-people

Elon Musk actually sits down and talks to 'government-funded media' the BBC

Then they should have declined. He set the parameters of the interview in a way that is anathema to proper journalism.

Poor-quality journalism

I'm not surprised, but am saddened, that the journalist facing Musk was unprepared. I have been watching BBC World News from various time zones and the low journalism standards are depressing. Whether or not it is government-funded, the interviewers and anchors are not that smart, not prepared and leave important questions unasked. It's actually cringe-inducing sometimes to see what interviewees can get away with. I'm not surprised he agreed to an interview. He knows how shoddy their journalism is now and he would never allow someone like Amy Goodman to interview him.

Criminal records office yanks web portal offline amid 'cyber security incident'

Curious

I'm wondering if some of those in the system were police informants, and whether or not that is indicated in the data, as would be their current, non-public addresses.

Or, if someone is "hiring". There is no end to the usefulness of a database of crooks, for myriad people and a myriad of reasons.

Virgin Orbit lays off 85% of staff as funding deal falters

Re: Who dares, wins

Again need to point out Gwynne Shotwell is the brains behind SpaceX,

Winnie the Pooh slasher flick mysteriously cancelled in Hong Kong

I don't get

. . the supposed resemblance. But the thin-skinned response is ludicrous.

Microsoft: Patch this severe Outlook bug that Russian miscreants exploited

It's most likely the only way this thing is going to end.

Ex-Tweep mocked by Musk for asking if he'd actually been fired

Apology positioning

Someone on Twitter pointed out that Musk's original defamatory tweet was in his own feed, but his apology was a response in the feed of some guy who has 2000 followers. Deliberately trying to minimize the reach of his apology, while leaving millions of people with the misimpressions created by the earlier tweets. However, it didn't stop the nauseating sycophancy of fanbois reverentially praising his amazing generosity in apologizing.

'Brittle' Twitter suffers bad case of the Mondays: Links, pics, vids fail

Brittle?

You bought it, you broke it, you git.

Texas mulls law forcing ISPs to block access to abortion websites

Depressing news

As is the news that Walgreens will stop selling abortion pills in 21 states. The US is going backwards in time.

Low-grade civil strife between and within states is inevitable.

Funnily enough, FDA forbids Elon Musk's Neuralink human experiments

Re: What does FDA stand for again?

It also has authority to regulate medical devices under Title 21 CFR Parts 800-1299

https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/overview-device-regulation/code-federal-regulations-cfr

China blocked 54.3 million items online in 2022, after snitches sent 170 million tips

India "Mother of Democracy"

If India is the "Mother of Democracy" as PM Modi insists then wny all the suppression?

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/time-for-world-to-know-india-is-mother-of-democracy-modi-101670435822087.html

Musk's view count antics are perfect cover for Twitter's paid API failure

Re: Who's left?

Or child sexual abuse images which they are failing to deal with properly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/technology/twitter-child-sex-abuse.html

Romance scammers' favorite lies cost victims $1.3B last year

Young 'uns

I thought young folks these days were supposed to be so much smarter than the rest of us when it comes to "computer stuff."

I do have sympathy for those who get caught, however. There have always been scams but it seems so much easier when everyone has their lives displayed for public view.

I think socializing online is boring. It's like some younger people need to be taught how to socialize offline.

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

I'm confused

As to why TSLA's share price is now up to c. USD182 a share, even after this news.

Apparently MBA types think it's a good time to buy because the filing indicated expansion of the Nevada factory and they like increased sales numbers from the recent price cuts. Yet, it also revealed that Musk may sell more stock because of Twitter debt servicing. And those price cuts were necessary because of Musk's Twitter escapades. Perhaps they also missed this tech angle. I guess a good outcome of his stupidity is making the EV market more competitive.

https://in.investing.com/news/tesla-updates-risks-to-include-musk-selling-stock-to-satisfy-other-commitments-432SI-3503473

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/01/31/why-tesla-stock-trounced-the-market-on-tuesday/

Re: Umm?

Four of those eight years were the domain of a President who despises regulations and regulators and hollowed out many government agencies.The federal government as as whole is still picking up the pieces of that disastrous lacuna.

Well that escalated quickly: India demos homebrew mobile OS

Re: Interesting at least

Some Indian citizens such as journalists, human rights and environmental activists are at risk from their own government. At higher risk, in fact, than from Google.