Posts by The man with a spanner

Brit boffins boast of beating barriers to building fusion power

Re: Reality Check

Funnily enough, whilst sat in my garden I had noticed that the sun occasionaly goes away but when it has its hat on it distributes its power over a wide area.

Modern Solar panels get up to 25% efficient and this is improving.

The UK is approx 300 miles wide, so I am not sure why you would want to transport the power over 1000 miles on a regular basis. Also power loss doesn't care whether the source is a power station or a solar panel.

Moving power around is to be avoided. Covering the roof and car park of Tesco with panels which charge batteries that then sell the power to motorists keeps the power local. Duplicate in many other places...

Obviously this isnt the whole answer, but neither is a fusion power station, and one of these is an option now.

I agree that direct solar heating is a good idea and can be qyite effective.

Re: Reality Check

It seems to me that we have maybe got ourselves in a mental rut here. The scientific acheivement here is enormous, and the goal may be reached - though we have no idea when or even it it will be achieved, and if it will be safe.

The outcome of all this effort is extract useable and manageable energy to power our lives.

Currently we have access to a gigantic fusion reactor producing more power than we can forseeably need parked a safe distance away from earth. This distributes the energy in a difuse manner across the globe. We currently have technology to collect and distribute this energy, and whilst this is not perfect it is within our current technology development timescale to resolve the storage, distribulion and collection challanges. It strikes me that these problems are orders of magnitude smaller than inventing, controling safely, and extracting power in a controlable way from our own mini-suns.

Modular's Mojo programming language hits 1.0 milestone

Re: Does need to "dispel uncertainty"

" ...including the 'emerging' composable disaggregated heterogeneous systems...."

Sat in the garden I read that as "compostable"

Gym rat asks AI agent to book him a class, it hacks a waitlist API to bump him up the list

Re: New TV series...

Mr Saville was 100% synthetic.

Re: Remind me again...

"

Given a task, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it

"

Yes, but we are all told that winning is everything by the hyper competitive chaps that are at the top of society (and it is chaps for the most part).

Surely you dont want to be a loser - do you?

Tech leaders issue letter to train Uncle Sam about value of open weight AI

"In short, he's willfully ignorant"

I don't think that the Mafia Don is willfully ignorant - he is terminally stupid and fundamentally ignorant about the world, and is driven by petty slights fed through his rampant narcissistic personality disorder. He simply works by gut fealing and as he knows about everything he is, in his mind, the only one that can take decisions.

The Iran war being the latest example.

Flock cameras go up in flames as cops hunt suspected firebugs

Re: Good!

A little bit of solvent (petrol?) thining petroleum jelly. Pop it in a spray bottle and off you go.

Don't forget to approach the unit from behind as you don't want to be the last thing the camera records.

This has the advantage that you don't damage the camera.

Uncle Sam tells overseas cybercrooks their visas are canceled

" scammers defrauded US citizens of more than $10 billion "

How does this compare to Mafia Don's activities?

Capita is about to sail past deadline to fix civil service pensions scheme

Re: And what will the penalty be?

The penalty should be:

Recompence for those affected.

The contract only starting at the coint that capita delivers a system that meets contractual requirenents. Ie when the thing is fixed and is handed over then you start paying for it.

Re: Oh it can easily be fixed.

"....so fines won't hurt the shareholders."

They will if the company goes tits up.

Some companiies need to die, painful though that can be for the staff and customers. Its part of nature's cleansing process.

NHS patients can't opt out of Palantir's data platform – but their hospital can

Manchester appears to be running its own software which it believes is more effective that Palantir's. So no need for "the usual suspects'.

Peter Mandelson invited UK PM to meet Palantir's Thiel

Re: We've been swindelled!

Nominative determinism again!

Look out for corporate corp rucktion.

"Ever since Mr Blair took office, corruption in the UK has been running ever more deeply."

Mr John Silver is clearly blind Pew in disguise.

The cash for questions scandal occured before Blair's reign so lets avoid cheep partisan shots.

All societies have some corruption, but the better ones have some checks and balances in place. The sellect commitee seems to be working, albeit belatedly, as regards Palantir - more power to its elbow. The real question is what, practicaly, can we do about it.

Ultimatly in affluent societies couruption is fueled by greed.

Brit mathematician lets AI agent loose with credit card – cue password leaks, CAPTCHA chaos and more

Re: The question is

" it's also important to remember that this sequence of actions is an entirely probabilistic result based on what's most likely to be the next token."

I think that there are quite a few humans that think like this. It's quite worrying really.

60% of MD5 password hashes are crackable in under an hour

Re: Biometric verification

"Wait until companies start mandating biometric verification rotation every 30 days"

I've got 20 fingers and toes, so I am alright as long as I can reuse them every 20 months.

US clarifies mobile hotspots part of foreign router ban despite rarity of American made consumer kit

Re: iPhone?

All hot air. As expected the arse Trump.

France’s digital directorate dumping Windows desktops, adopting Linux instead

Re: Walking the hard path

... and we need a European adoption of Firefox, either a fork or an actual takeover of Mozilla.

Re: Viva la France!

"We'll return to being ruled over by faceless, unelected Brussels bureaucrats"

. . . When we could be ruled over by our own faceless bureaucrats who will be needlessly creating regulations just different enough to create unnecessary friction with our potential customers to the detriment of our manufactures and traders.

Trump wants to take a battle axe to CISA again and slash $707M from budget

I'm not sure Trump and intelligence can exist in the same sentence.

Researchers didn’t want to glamorize cybercrims. So they roasted them

Steaming pile,

Foul excrescence,

The vapid nonentity team,

The clueless etc

Voyager 2's close encounter with Uranus wasn't in the original plan

Re: Every Futurama fan knows…

I thought it was the pirate planet. They all speak Aaars.

Channeling a west country acent there.

Watchdog says US weather alerts are getting lost in translation

Re: Excellent waste of money!

"It's coming down like stair rods" perhaps?

Palantir CEO claims AI will mean western economies won't need immigration

Mr Karp plays the role of an outrider for the Orange Miasma convincingly.

EU considers whether there's Huawei of axing Chinese kit from networks within 3 years

I take the point that US kit is also suspect, however how much US stuff is used in critical places, and how much is Ericsson / Nokia?

Open source's new mission: Rebuild a continent's tech stack

Re: It's not just the software

The EU should be using open source desktops as should the various EU countrie's governments and they shoild be mandating the schools teaching using these tools.

By using the tools I mean that all documents published by and submitted to the governments would be whatever the defined open standard is. Companies and individuals would soon adapt if they wanted to comunicate.

Everything else would follow on after some initial chaos and 10 years later everone would wonder what the fuss was about.

Meta retreats from metaverse after virtual reality check

Re: "more than a bit Benny Hill"

I'm not sure I would put Dave Allen in the same category as the other two.

Experiment suggests AI chatbot would save insurance agents a whopping 3 minutes a day

Re: A Hammer Looking for a Nail…

Fantastic, this gives me time to get up, go to the coffee machine and get a cup of coffee.

Unfortiunatly I won't have enough time to drink it, and if I did I'd have to factor in an extra trip to the loo half an hour later.

Fast Pair, loose security: Bluetooth accessories open to silent hijack

Re: Couple Of Things To Think About.............

Were "The Wrong Trousers" Bluetooth enabled?

An old parking meter and a Pi make beautiful music together

Re: sabotage

So, park there and glue the macine up. - foolproof.

Google sends Dark Web Report to its dead services graveyard

What a useless idea.

Just because I frequently watch Paddington Bear doesn't mean that I am in the market for marmalade and flights to Peru.

AI-authored code contains worse bugs than software crafted by humans

Re: I've said it once

Quertion from the curious.

How useful is AI if used to quality criteque human produced code?

Trump gives state AI regulation the presidential middle finger

Re: One person

"But he was elected democratically.

I don't get it, do you not want a democracy ?"

DT was elected democratically and so were the representatives of the people in the houses of government.

The problem is that DT has, defacto, taken unto himself power that apears to overide the powers of the houses of government. This puts him in the position of being King/Dick Tata which is the anthithasis of democracy.

If the presidency was a symbolic position (irronicaly like the UKs king) with possibly a convening roll bringing states together in common cause, or maybe had limited powers granted temporaly, say in war time, you could have an effective and balanced democracy.

Giving one man or woman overeaching power is always a problem in the long run.

Trump says Nvidia can sell H200s to China – if Washington gets a 25 percent cut

How is Canada's aplication to join the EU going?

Porsche panic in Russia as pricey status symbols forget how to car

Re: /me looks at his thirty year old Fiat

I have an Idea.

(Not many other people do as they sold abismally in the UK)

Canadian data order risks blowing a hole in EU sovereignty

Re: Hang on

Is it not the case that

The Canadian court goes to OVHC and demands the data.

OVHC say, sorry mate that data is the property of someone else (OVHF) and we have no physical access to it - go and talk to them.

Canadian court goes to OVHF and demands the data, and OVHF point out that the data is in France under French law and that thay can only release it if ordered by a French court.

The court can get stroppy with OVHC but ultimatly a subsidiary has no leverage over the parent that resides in a completly seperate juristiction. You cannot hold someone in contempt of court when they have no responsibility and no way of implementing the request even if they wanted to. The only circumstance a sovereign countries court can impose its will in this context is if the country (Canadal) is going to back the court up and bully OVHF and France.

That sort of approach is more the perogative of the good ol' USA under the Donald (Duck) Dictatorship..... (Sound of angry duck noise on the right.)

Magician forgets password to his own hand after RFID chip implant

He needs to wait for palm Sunday for a handy miracle, and while he is waiting he can watch Jesus ride into town on his ass.

UK's Ajax fighting vehicle arrives – years late and still sending crew to hospital

Re: Typical MOD bid scenario

Speaking as someone who hasn't a clue..... What if you said to your potential suppliers - Guys you are the experts...we want a thingie that has these broad capabilities, that has a mtbf of x hours, is easy to maintain in the field etc. We wish to pay £ Z,000 per unit and we want #y units by (choose a date). What can you provide?

By the way the contract will be at a fixed price. You write the spec with our oversight.

Critical federal cybersecurity funding set to resume as government shutdown draws to a close - for now

Re: Not over yet

Its no way to run a fish stall !

Musk gets approval for bumper Tesla payout but, unlike his robot, there are strings attached

Re: When I read about these insane pay packages

If it is a pay packet how big would the paypacket be?

I guess that the unit of measure should be the Cyber Truck.

Re: The board has no choice

If we are optimistic it may be, though personally I doubt it, that Mr Musk may achieve many of the targets but fails to achieve the full enhancement of the share price. Competition isn't going away and that will likely depress profitability.

In that situation the shareholders will have diluted their shareholding without shares growing enough to compensate.

Also Musk is a gambler who likes to go "all in". Sooner or later lady luck will run out.

What happens if he has a medical emergency (prolific drug use is hard on the body)? The gamble the shareholders have taken on Musks rabbit and hat tricks will be up shit creek with no paddle.

There is too much to go wrong and reliance on an unreliable single point of weakness seems a not daft to me.

Microsoft will force its 'superintelligence' to be a 'humanist' and play nice with people

Let's assume and worship Microsoft's benevolent Omnipotents.

Who wants to know what a superintelegent AI would look like as created by Mr Musk?

You'll never guess what the most common passwords are. Oh, wait, yes you will

Re: Still harping over forum passwords

Good for a techy user.

What proportion of normal users would even think of this let alone implement it.

Wherever possible avoid giving the user the opportunity to screw up. They will, of course, still screw up, just less frequency.

Re: Password rules make for weaker passwords

I particularly like <MyPassword#>11 for this month.

What could possibly be wrong with this?!

In effect it is as strong as MyPassword# but if you are going to force me to change password every month, not allow me a password manager on my corporate system and not allow me to right it down then I have to have some strategy for remembering it, or I will frequently resetting the password.

Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

Re: Well done Norway !

Opps.... I did mean Musk

Re: Well done Norway !

Its a weird conundrum.

The markets see Trump as integral to the success of Tesla, and "tank" when there is a threat to his position as there is the view that he could up sticks and go elsewhere.

He is erratic (is this the ketamine talking) and may well do things that hurt his own position.

So, if he were to throw his toys out of his pram, as the biggest shareholder, he would be injuring himself.

I wouldn't put it past him, but it is good that the clear eyed Norwegians call his bluff. They are doing us all a favour.

International Criminal Court kicks Microsoft Office to the curb

However, Microsoft making this admission removes any possible doubt or ambiguity.

VodafoneThree to offshore UK network jobs to India

Re: Isnt this what people want?

The argument that there aren't people buying the product is a steaming pile of bullshit. Between Three and Vodaphone they have a huge proportion of UK customers.

EY exposes 4TB+ SQL database to open internet for who knows how long

Re: Ernst & Young

It should always be referred to as the ex twitter. Thus encapsulating the stupidity of the pointless name change.

Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

Re: Self-inflicted problem

She is deflated with all the work.

Re: Self-inflicted problem

My LaTeX wife did the corrections