Posts by HereAndGone

Cerebras CEO puts Nvidia on blast for 'arming' China with top-tier GPUs

Competition

When a new competitor arrives on the scene there are two fundamental responses, try harder or undermine. One is easier than the other, at least in the short term.

Three quarters of software engineers face retaliation for whistleblowing

Dangerous Questions

Of the many things I learned over the years, the simplest and in retrospect the most obvious (I was/am a bit in the autistic spectrum and slow on social uptake), was don't ever attend a high level meeting and ask:

"Is this legal?"

Net privacy wars will be with us always. Let's set some rules

Unintended Fake Security

A few years back (okay more than a few years - I'm old) I looked at our corporate security system that implemented essentially the same thing via mandatory certs to access the corporate gateway. It used "Bluecoat" as I recall. One interesting feature was that I could go to an untrusted self signed web site (my own ... which should never be trusted) and the corporate MiTM would helpfully intercept the encrypted communication before forwarding the connection onward, in the process telling my browser the connection was certified secure, because it was as far as the corporate gateway.

I'm sure this has been fixed by now ... yeah I'm sure ... pretty sure ... too obvious not to have been fixed ... optimistic ... ?

Japan cruises ahead with drive-thru EV charging trial

Re: The problem you don't see

You are assuming maximum home charging, but that's mostly unnecessary.

Based upon the typical daily drive in the U.S., 3kW is generous, 1.5kW would meet the majority of needs.

I suspect the typical daily drive in Japan is probably even less, plus you schedule your charge off peak so you're not competing with cooking. We're talking toaster oven power levels.

Re: Vehicle ID based charging

"Electric vehicles are impractical. They don't have the power, speed or acceleration that I want."

Just press lightly on the accelerator and you can have the same performance as an ICE vehicle.

Re: Vehicle ID based charging

Wow, that's amazing!

That will show Tesla who's at the forefront of innovation.

Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad

Irony

That was entirely the point!

I didn't think I needed to overtly explain the irony of the article in light of events proving it wrong.

Sigh ....

A brief look back

What NASA Risks By Betting On Elon Musk's SpaceX

Loren Thompson

Senior Contributor May 23, 2011

https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/23/what-nasa-risks-by-betting-on-elon-musks-spacex/?sh=695f927c6eb2

"Even a cursory review of SpaceX programs and plans reveals reasons for doubt. The questions begin with a business strategy that isn't just disruptive, but downright incredible. Mr. Musk says that he can offer launch prices far below those quoted by any traditional provider -- including the Chinese -- by running a lean, vertically integrated enterprise with minimal government oversight that achieves sizable economies of scale. The economies of scale are possible, he contends, because there is huge pent-up demand for space travel in the marketplace that cannot be met within the prevailing pricing structure. By dropping prices substantially, this latent demand can then be unlocked, greatly increasing the rate of rocket production and launches. When combined with other features of the SpaceX business model, the increased pace of production and launches results in revolutionary price reductions.

There isn't much serious research to demonstrate that the pent-up demand Musk postulates really exists, nor that the price reductions he foresees are feasible. He has suggested in some interviews that launch costs could decline to a small fraction of current levels if all the assumptions in his business plan come true, and he has posted a commentary on his web-site explaining how SpaceX is already able to offer the lowest prices in the business."

"So far, SpaceX's track record is decidedly mixed, with three launch failures in seven attempts, sizable schedule delays, and some fairly substantial price increases above what were originally proposed. With regard to launch failures, the company did not succeed in launching its initial Falcon 1 vehicle until the fourth try, about five years after it originally proposed to demonstrate the system."

The alternative to stopping climate change is untested carbon capture tech

Re: Climate Change Denial

Jellied Eel said, "...but then neither does man-made CO2 given it's a teeny fraction of the natural CO2 sources and sinks..."

For the eleventy-billionth time, XKCD explains it succinctly:

Earth Temperature Timeline>

Be sure to scroll to the bottom for 20-21 century effects.

Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

There is something wrong with those numbers.

Assuming a base vehicle gets 35 miles/gallon, or 9 miles per litre.

A decent EV should get around 4 miles/KwH.

So 9 miles is £1.50 for petrol

Home charging at your stated rate of 14p/kwH * 2.25 KwH is 32p. Even at your stated daytime rate of 40p/KwH, 2.25 KwH is 90p. Still well under the petrol rate of £1.50.

Tesla hedges Dojo supercomputer bet with 10K Nvidia H100 GPU cluster

Re: 10k GPu's?

They don't go in the car! It's a system to generate AI training from raw data. The resultant training data is what goes in the cars, not the hardware.

Although an OTA update of hardware would be more than a little impressive.

There's a good chance your VPN is vulnerable to privacy-menacing TunnelCrack attack

Re: Network routing working as intended

Came to say the samething!

IBM to build biometrics system for UK cops and immigration services

Fortunately it's Big Blue

"Big Blue's deal is to provide ..."

Based upon a long history, especially in the U.K., odds are that after several emergency WalletEctomies, the patient will probably expire.

First of Tesla's 'bulletproof' Cybertrucks clunks off production line

VW Beetle

Over the years, starting with the first Beetle production run, VW sold over 18 million Beetles. Cherry picking the end as somehow indicative of product success makes no sense, but this is the internet.

Ariane 5 to take final flight, leaving Europe without its own heavy-lift rocket

This was your take away?

Your only options are do it wastefully or give up?

I was going to say there's something in-between, but there isn't. Both of these are at the same extreme side.

But but ...

But but ... Elon bad?

Now Apple takes a bite out of encryption-bypassing 'spy clause' in UK internet law

some of the dumbest politicians in any Western democracy

As an American currently residing in a bottom ranked state (yeah yeah I know), I feel obligated to challenge your claim. My current representative is truly astoundingly stupid. Every time I think, "No one could be that stupid," he proves me wrong and doubles down.

Sigh!

Wrong time to weaken encryption, UK IT chartered institute tells government

Re: Whose Encryption Might Be "Weakened"?

.".....because (obviously) when the spooks decrypt Signal or WhatsApp.....all they find is our privately encrypted messages (see above!).

We can't see a problem. Perhaps someone out there can explain."

SPOOKS:

There is a high entropy data data block in this message, probably unapproved encryption. Send out the Black Helicopters.

Vodafone tests waters with 5G Raspberry Pi base station

IMSI Catcher or Stingray on a Budget

This would effectively be a cheap IMSI Catcher or Stingray (see: https://www.eff.org/pages/cell-site-simulatorsimsi-catchers)

I like it! What could possibly go wrong?

SpaceX threatened with $175,000 fine for Starlink crash risk paperwork blunder

Re: Patriot Missile

Just a reminder, the missing FAA paperwork was for a launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

There were other adults in the room.

Re: Safety Regulation?

While that certainly seems likely, are you suggesting that had the document been present it would have been analyzed and challenged for error in less than 7 days? I would have thought it's complete absence could have been readily analyzed and challenged even quicker. Given that didn't happen, my confidence in actually evaluating such a document in time to be of any use is somewhere very close to zero.

Safety Regulation?

The document is required to be submitted ***7 days*** prior to launch so the FAA can evaluate it for safety and the ommission was discovered ***6 months*** later.

Really?

Biden: I want standard EV chargers made in America by 2024 – get on it

Re: Why Does it Need an App

"A credit card is even easier -- FTFY"

No, it's not. Broken and compromised credit card readers are a major problem, so too your individual card becoming worn and unreliable to read. On top of that is the possible need to provide particular vehicle charging characteristics. Touch pad/panels are another major reliability issue for chargers. An App avoids all those issues.

"... You do not want to give the car your credit card details ..."

That's not how things work. The credit card or billing information is not in the car, it's in a back end server somewhere. When you hire a car (a Tesla in this case), all of the fueling (charging) costs go the the hire company account and you pay it when you return the car. You don't have to remove your card from the car, it never had it in the first place.

Re: Good

"Automatic billing is such an obvious miss - you only need to have the VIN or registration as an ID, and billing can happen easily based on that ..."

Tesla already does that, the car automatically supples the VIN to the charger.

Re: Why Does it Need an App

This seems to be a point of confusion.

Tesla's don't! Pull up, plugin, done. No App, no credit card reader with security and failure issues, no smart phone required. It just works. Tesla vehicles comunicate with the charger and automatically handle accounting and charge characteristics, you don't have to do anything.

The App issue comes about only with NON-Teslas. If the vehicle is incapable of communicating with the charger then an alternate mechanism has to be established to handle "Billing" and "Vehicle Charge Characteristics". An App is the easiest way to handle that for half-wit vehicles.

3-Phase?

Superchargers are DC, there are no phases

FOSS could be an unintended victim of EU crusade to make software more secure

Deja Vu All Over Again

Variants of government mandated computer security restrictions have been done many times in the past, always with disastrous results.

Superficially it's an attractive concept that boils down to "No Bad Allowed". Who could possibly object?

In the 80's and early 90's, U.S. military product development was restricted to U.S. sourced chips and vetted U.S. developers. This worked very well for awhile, ignoring the laughably insecure code produced as compared to modern standards, because at that time the U.S. was the pinnacle of technological products and the systems were highly isolated. The chip restrictions were lifted later when TPTB (The Powers That Be) could no longer ignore that the rest of the world had caught up and in many cases passed U.S. suppliers.

Nevertheless, high security organizations (use your imagination) continued to insist on using special vetted Operating Systems instead of Commercially available products. This looked really impressive in Org Charts and Departmental measurement posturing for groups to claim how special and secure they were. It didn't take long before these special OS products slipped farther and farther behind their commercial counterparts. The career enhancing aroma of working on these special systems very quickly became the putrid reek of irrelevancy.

For non-developers, the market selection of government vetted products automatically meant you were restricted to a small choice of products at least two years out of date due to the time and expense required to obtain the government stamp of approval. For a number of years this was considered an acceptable trade-off, particularly for military systems.

In today's world of internet time, years out of date is a non-starter for commercial activity. Government and military software markets are no longer the dominant customer and few companies are willing to spend time, money, and effort on this relatively small market in order to get the security version of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Even when they do, it's often a customized spin-off that will be poorly maintained.

Check Boxes for Everyone!

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

It's Difficult to Determine Reality Among Marketing Pretending to be News

"Mercedes self driving has been certified to level 3 while Tesla is still a mere level 2."

Case in point. Mercedes has certification for level 3 in Nevada, which has zero standards or regulations for assisted driving.

The Mercedes system is only for a small subset, as in less than 2%, of highways pre-mapped with high precision GPS.

It can only be used on these limited highways at speeds below 40 mph.

It can't be used on banked turns or substantial curves.

It can only be used if you are following another lead car at less than 100 meters.

Last but not least it's not actually available yet and is projected to be offered later this year only on a very high end car.

Be still my heart, I can't wait. NOT!

Three billion objects, 10TB+ of data – yup, it's the largest-yet survey of our galaxy

A lot of things have come a long way

Not to diminish the work, I was just struck by "10TB+ of Data". There was a time not that long ago when that would have been a WOW amount of data. I have portable drives that large now.

TikTok confirms it tracked journalists' locations as part of leak investigation

OMG, Phones Can Be Tracked?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!

Sky Blue, water wet, phones can be tracked, IP addresses are not private.

Now about that Santa Clause thing ...

Shocker: EV charging infrastructure is seriously insecure

Government Specified Commercial Security? No, just no!

Classically complete government specifications are released and mandated against obsolete technology.

John Brown said: "... The obvious example (in the UK) being BTs abysmally slow roll out of DSL because they wanted to keep sweating the ISDN assets. Same with ADSL.

DSL? OMG, I thought the UK was a first world country. I can just see official security specifying exactly how to use DSL.

The problem is not generic EV charging infrastructure, it's individual vendors poorly implementing devices (in one case at least as a direct result of court ordered recompense for fraud). As long as the damage, financial or otherwise, is limited to the poor vendors the problem will solve itself without government hindrance.

All the suggestions about reliability, ubiquity, automatic car recognition, and power have already been solved and implemented by "He who shall not be named".

Tesla reportedly faces criminal probe into self-driving hype

Re: Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

"Engine Sound"?

"Gear you're in"?

I remember those from the old days, but my car doesn't have any of that.

NASA scrubs Artemis SLS Moon rocket launch

Fun with Children

It would be most entertaining for you to challenge teens, or even 20 somethings, to make a call on that phone.

Video the entertainment and post it.

(Note: You probably will need a newer phone that the 1950's model to do the video)

Re: 200% trust in congress

Funny how minor phrasing can imply very different things. A more honest version would be:

SLS (Block 1) is supposed to be able to lift 95t to LEO *In the Future* whereas Falcon Heavey {sic} can *and already does* lift 63.8t.

NASA selects 'full force' for probe into UFOs

Re: a panel of 15 to 17 experts

The real world doesn't work like that.

U.S. government regulations require billing personnel time against the specific contract line item. It's illegal to pay for travel, hotels, or meals unless the person is also billing hourly against the contract line item.

$100K is one person, no support, for maybe 6 months after 15% contract overhead is scraped off.

17 experts in a meeting with average billing rate of $300/hr each (and No I'm not exaggerating) is $5K/hr.

Assume $1K travel cost per person ($17K)

A one day meeting of 8 hours at $5K/hr (($40K)

That's $57K of your available $85K. You can't even afford a two day meeting, and I left off food and lodging.

Been there, Done that, Have a closet full of T-shirts!

Thunderbird 102 gets a major facelift, Matrix chat support

Thunderbird PGP is NOT Enigmail

Thunderbird's efforts to make PGP easy to use introduces severe security issues.

Normally (as in Enigmail and all sane uses of PGP) your Private Key Passphrases resides only in your head and then briefly in memory while used, never to disk.

The new Thunderbird requires your private passphrase upon import of your private key. It then removes your private passphrase and replaces it with it's own generated password. If you have multiple private keys, it replaces all of them with the same generated password. Of course now you no longer know your own new password so Thunderbird saves it to it's database on disk so that it can automatically use it for you.

The saved single private key password is protected by your Thunderbird password. If you're not using a Thunderbird password, it's saved in the clear! If you are using a Thunderbird password, your new all purpose private key password is encrypted on disk with your Thunderbird password as the key to the key.

Then there's the question of the encryption Thunderbird uses to save this master private key? I believe, but Thunderbird Devs refuse to respond, that the encryption used is the obsolete 3DES.

I stopped using Thunderbird when the new development team made it better.

Tesla Autopilot accounts for 70% of driver assist crashes, says US traffic safety body

Mathematically Challenged

On pure numbers alone, any comparison needs to be based upon *Miles Driven* not per vehicle. A vehicle that's seldom driven with an ADAS system is not comparable to one that is driven long distances under varying conditions.

Only Tesla has automatic reporting of crash data, for everyone else it's voluntary and annocdotal.

An analysis of data is a good thing and should be done, I applaud that.

A bad analysis with faulty data is nothing more than a hit piece.

Feds raid dark web market selling data on 24 million Americans

Dark Web?

While there is no true definition of what constitutes "The Dark Web", its use here implies capabilities not in evidence. Just look at the four domains listed on the FBI seizure graphic: ssndob.ws, ssndob.vip, ssndob.club, blackjob.biz.

These are not hidden servers on Tor. No amazing sleuthing was performed. To call this "Dark Web" stretches even a vague definition.

Dems propose privacy-respecting digital dollar

It's a fantasy by bureaucrats with no technical understanding of what's required.

I have no doubt some knowledgeable person told them why what they are asking for can't be done, and I'm just as confident all they heard was, "Blah ... blah ... technical ... blah ... blah".

Arm's $66bn sale to Nvidia is off: Deal collapses after world's competition regulators raise concerns

A Deal for Nvidia

If Softbank is going to take ARM public, Nvidia will find it much cheaper simply to acquire controlling interest of ARM stock vice having to buy the company outright.

Looks like a Duck,

Walks like a Duck,

But cheaper than a Duck while ducking regulatory issues.

This plan is not quacked up to solve what it pretends to solve and will likely prove most fowl.

Tesla Full Self-Driving videos prompt California's DMV to rethink policy on accidents

No Such Product Exists - It's FSD-BETA

The press insists on calling this Full Self Driving, it's not. It's a BETA that requires human monitoring.

They often imply that all Teslas are self driving, they are not. The BETA is only available to a relatively small number of testers.

They often claim countless FSD crashes. Well they are countless, because to date there are zero such crashes.

The Phantom Braking issue with enhanced cruise control (which Tesla confusingly calls "Auto Pilot") is indeed a significant issue on two lane roads.

Tesla disables in-car gaming feature that allowed play while MuskMobiles were in motion

Safety Issue Fixed in Days - World Complains

"The investigation [PDF], which was opened on Tuesday..."

An OTA update fixed the issue for all cars days later.

Yes it was an error. Tesla obviously agreed it was an error. The issue was fixed in record time.

Next will be a demand for a RECALL over the now already fixed issue.

Amazon hasn't launched one internet satellite yet, but it's now planning a fleet of 7,774

Who will provide Launch Services?

There are a very limited number of Launch Services, who will launch the Amazon satellites?

NASA?

Hmmm, NASA doesn't actually have much in the way of launch capability, they sub all their heavy lifting to Space-X.

Blue Origin?

So far they can't orbit anything.

Space-X?

I can just imagine that negotiation.

Microsoft tells Biden administration to adopt Australia’s pay-for-news plan

The Very Premise is Bogus

This is couched in terms that suggest Google is stealing from news organizations. To those whose knowledge of internet technology ends at "Push the Magic Button", it may seem this way but MS and others are simply pandering to ignorance.

Google is providing traffic "TO" the news sites that they would likely never receive otherwise. If any site feels that they are being somehow cheated, they can simply put a No Google Bot Tag on their page. Google honors these tags and will not index and link if requested not to by the tag.

What's happening is the news organizations love the traffic provided by Google Links, so they don't tag Google out because they want the traffic. Now they turn around and want Google to pay them for providing traffic services they want for free.

Imagine what would happen to the very foundation of the internet if everyone had to cross pay everyone for linking!

To any news site complaining, add a Google Bot Blocking Tag and go about your business. Trying to force Google (or anyone) to pay you for providing services you want is insane!

Hmmm ...... maybe the news sites should pay me for reading their site. That's the ticket, click bait payment, what could possibly go wrong!

Dev creeped out after he fired up Ubuntu VM on Azure, was immediately approached by Canonical sales rep

Ubuntu Phone's Home

I enjoy ragging on MS as much as the next person but this is likely pure Ubuntu.

When I did an analysis of Ubuntu years back, I found that the default installation sent information back to Canonical everytime Ubuntu powered Up or Down.

Not on your Zoom, not on Teams, not Google Meet, not BlueJeans. WebEx, Skype and Houseparty make us itch. No, not FaceTime, not even Twitch

Virtual Camera

Don't forget, it's your camera on your machine under your control.

Do a quick search for "Virtual Camera".

By running virtual camera software, you now have a Video Man In The Middle.

You can feed through the live camera when needed.

You can replace the image with a static photo.

You can run some other video.

You can even run pre-recorded video loops like the Hollywood movies.

Stop complaining about a chronic technical problem. Leverage a technical solution!

It's fun, it's easy. Annoy your friends!

A tale of mainframes and students being too clever by far

Re: Ray-tracing on a Vax

You expected to compare a floating point result for EQUALITY?

That wasn't a computer problem, that was a programmer problem!